Mental representations remain the central posits of psychology after many decades of scrutiny. However, there is no consensus about the representational format(s) of biological cognition. This paper provides a survey of evidence from computational cognitive psychology, perceptual psychology, developmental psychology, comparative psychology, and social psychology, and concludes that one type of format that routinely crops up is the language-of-thought (LoT). We outline six core properties of LoTs: (i) discrete constituents; (ii) role-filler independence; (iii) predicate–argument structure; (iv) logical operators; (v) inferential (...) promiscuity; and (vi) abstract content. These properties cluster together throughout cognitive science. Bayesian computational modeling, compositional features of object perception, complex infant and animal reasoning, and automatic, intuitive cognition in adults all implicate LoT-like structures. Instead of regarding LoT as a relic of the previous century, researchers in cognitive science and philosophy-of-mind must take seriously the explanatory breadth of LoT-based architectures. We grant that the mind may harbor many formats and architectures, including iconic and associative structures as well as deep-neural-network-like architectures. However, as computational/representational approaches to the mind continue to advance, classical compositional symbolic structures – that is, LoTs – only prove more flexible and well-supported over time. (shrink)

Perceptual systems respond to proximal stimuli by forming mental representations of distal stimuli. A central goal for the philosophy of perception is to characterize the representations delivered by perceptual systems. It may be that all perceptual representations are in some way proprietarily perceptual and differ from the representational format of thought (Dretske 1981; Carey 2009; Burge 2010; Block ms.). Or it may instead be that perception and cognition always trade in the same code (Prinz 2002; Pylyshyn 2003). This paper rejects (...) both approaches in favor of perceptual pluralism, the thesis that perception delivers a multiplicity of representational formats, some proprietary and some shared with cognition. The argument for perceptual pluralism marshals a wide array of empirical evidence in favor of iconic (i.e., image-like, analog) representations in perception as well as discursive (i.e., language-like, digital) perceptual object representations. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper provides a naturalistic account of inference. We posit that the core of inference is constituted by bare inferential transitions, transitions between discursive mental representations guided by rules built into the architecture of cognitive systems. In further developing the concept of BITs, we provide an account of what Boghossian [2014] calls ‘taking’—that is, the appreciation of the rule that guides an inferential transition. We argue that BITs are sufficient for implicit taking, and then, to analyse explicit taking, we posit (...) rich inferential transitions, which are transitions that the subject is disposed to endorse. (shrink)

Short‐term memory in vision is typically thought to divide into at least two memory stores: a short, fragile, high‐capacity store known as iconic memory, and a longer, durable, capacity‐limited store known as visual working memory (VWM). This paper argues that iconic memory stores icons, i.e., image‐like perceptual representations. The iconicity of iconic memory has significant consequences for understanding consciousness, nonconceptual content, and the perception–cognition border. Steven Gross and Jonathan Flombaum have recently challenged the division between iconic memory and VWM by (...) arguing against the idea of capacity limits in favor of a flexible resource‐based model of short‐term memory. I argue that, while VWM capacity is probably governed by flexible resources rather than a sharp limit, the two memory stores should still be distinguished by their representational formats. Iconic memory stores icons, while VWM stores discursive (i.e., language‐like) representations. I conclude by arguing that this format‐based distinction between memory stores entails that prominent views about consciousness and the perception–cognition border will likely have to be revised. (shrink)

Philosophical Issues, Volume 30, Issue 1, Page 273-292, October 2020.

Perceptual representations pick out individuals and attribute properties to them. This paper considers the role of perceptual attribution in determining or guiding perceptual reference to objects. We consider three extant models of the relation between perceptual attribution and perceptual reference–all attribution guides reference, no attribution guides reference, or a privileged subset of attributions guides reference–and argue that empirical evidence undermines all three. We then defend a flexible-attributives model, on which the range of perceptual attributives used to guide reference shifts adaptively (...) with context. This model underscores the remarkable and dynamic intelligence of our perceptual capacities. We elucidate implications of the model for the boundary between perception and propositional thought. (shrink)

According to a classic but nowadays discarded philosophical theory, perceptual experience is a complex of nonconceptual sensory states and full-blown propositional beliefs. This classical dual-component theory of experience is often taken to be obsolete. In particular, there seem to be cases in which perceptual experience and belief conflict: cases of known illusions, wherein subjects have beliefs contrary to the contents of their experiences. Modern dual-component theories reject the belief requirement and instead hold that perceptual experience is a complex of nonconceptual (...) sensory states and some other sort of conceptual state. The most popular modern dual-component theory appeals to sui generis propositional attitudes called ‘perceptual seemings’. This article argues that the classical dual-component theory has the resources to explain known illusions without giving up the claim that the conceptual components of experience are beliefs. The classical dual-component view, though often viewed as outdated and implausible, should be regarded as a serious contender in contemporary debates about the nature of perceptual experience. (shrink)

This commentary critically examines the view of the relationship between perception and memory in Ned Block's *The Border Between Seeing and Thinking*. It argues that visual working memory often stores the outputs of perception without altering their formats, allowing online visual perception to access these memory representations in computations that unfold over longer timescales and across eye movements. Since Block concedes that visual working memory representations are not iconic, we should not think of perceptual representations as exclusively iconic either.

The target article attempted to draw connections between broad swaths of evidence by noticing a common thread: Abstract, symbolic, compositional codes, that is, language-of-thoughts (LoTs). Commentators raised concerns about the evidence and offered fascinating extensions to areas we overlooked. Here we respond and highlight the many specific empirical questions to be answered in the next decade and beyond.

Many contemporary epistemologists take rational inference to be a conscious action performed by the thinker (Boghossian 2014; 2018; Valaris 2014; Malmgren 2018). It is tempting to think that rational evaluability requires responsibility, which in turn requires conscious action. In that case, unconscious cognition involves merely associative or otherwise arational processing. This paper argues instead for deep rationalism: unconscious inference often exhibits the same rational status and richly structured logical character as conscious inference. The central case study is rationalization, in which (...) people shift their attitudes in logically structured, reason-responsive ways in response to evidence of their own incompetence or immorality. These attitude shifts are irrational in a way that reflects on the thinker. Thus rationally evaluable inference extends downward into the unconscious. Many take the sole aim of belief to be truth (Velleman 2000) or knowledge (Williamson 2000), but the prevalence of rationalization suggests that belief updating often aims instead at preserving our positive conceptions of ourselves—that is, belief updating is part of a psychological immune system (Gilbert 2006; Mandelbaum 2019). This paper argues that the psychological immune system comprises a suite of distinct cognitive mechanisms, some (ir)rational and some arational, which are united by a common function of avoiding the maladaptive predomination of negative affect and maintaining stable motivation. Other aspects of the psychological immune system include (i) a domain-general positive bias in evaluative attitudes and (ii) “terror management,” i.e., the systematic strengthening of meaning-conferring beliefs to avoid death anxiety. The multiplicity of processes underlying the psychological immune system point toward an irrational but adaptive function of cognition to keep us motivated in a world rife with negativity and death. (shrink)

The capacity for feature binding is typically explained in terms of the attribution model: a perceptual state selects an individual and attributes properties to it (Kahneman & Treisman 1984; Clark 2004; Burge 2010). Thus features are bound together in virtue of being attributed to the same individual. While the attribution model successfully explains some cases of binding in perception, not all binding need be understood as property attribution. This chapter argues that some forms of binding—those involving holistic iconic representations, which (...) bind features outside the limits of attention and object files—don’t fit the attribution model. The chapter then sketches an alternative coordination model of binding that construes icons as complex analog representations. (shrink)

A cause is proportional to its effect when, roughly speaking, it is at the right level of detail. There is a lively debate about whether proportionality is a necessary condition for causation. One of the main arguments against a proportionality constraint on causation is that many ordinary and seemingly perfectly acceptable causal claims cite causes that are not proportional to their effects. In this paper, I suggest that proponents of a proportionality constraint can respond to this objection by developing an (...) idea that is present in Yablo’s early work on proportionality, but which has strangely been ignored by both Yablo and others in the subsequent debate. My suggestion is that proportionality—and, indeed, causation itself—is relative to a domain of events. At the metaphysical level, this means that the causal relation has an extra relatum—namely, a domain of events. At the level of language, it introduces a new way in which causal claims are context-sensitive: what is expressed by a causal claim depends on the contextually relevant domain of events. As I argue, this suggestion allows us to accommodate the truth of ordinary causal claims while extending the explanatory benefits of a proportionality constraint. (shrink)

We typically judge that hasteners are causes of what they hasten, while delayers are not causes of what they delay. These judgements, I suggest, are sensitive to an underlying metaphysical distinction. To see this, we need to pay attention to a relation that I call positive security-dependence, where an event E security-depends positively on an earlier event C just in case E could more easily have failed to occur if C had not occurred. I suggest that we judge that an (...) event C is a cause of a later event E only if E security-depends positively on C. This explains our causal judgements in typical cases of hastening and delaying as well as in atypical cases, where we judge that hasteners are not causes of what they hasten or that delayers are causes of what they delay. (shrink)

Climate change and decarbonization raise complex justice questions that researchers and policymakers must address. The distributions of greenhouse gas emissions rights and mitigation efforts have dominated justice discourses within scenario research, an integrative element of the IPCC. However, the space of justice considerations is much larger. At present, there is no consistent approach to comprehensively incorporate and examine justice considerations. Here we propose a conceptual framework grounded in philosophical theory for this purpose. We apply this framework to climate mitigation scenarios (...) literature as proof of concept, enabling a more holistic and multidimensional investigation of justice. We identify areas of future research, including new metrics of service provisioning essential for human well-being. [Can be freely read by clicking the ReadCube link below.]. (shrink)

A central area of current philosophical debate in the foundations of mathematics concerns whether or not there is a single, maximal, universe of set theory. Universists maintain that there is such a universe, while Multiversists argue that there are many universes, no one of which is ontologically privileged. Often model-theoretic constructions that add sets to models are cited as evidence in favour of the latter. This paper informs this debate by developing a way for a Universist to interpret talk that (...) seems to necessitate the addition of sets to V. We argue that, despite the prima facie incoherence of such talk for the Universist, she nonetheless has reason to try and provide interpretation of this discourse. We present a method of interpreting extension-talk (V-logic), and show how it captures satisfaction in `ideal' outer models and relates to impredicative class theories. We provide some reasons to regard the technique as philosophically virtuous, and argue that it opens new doors to philosophical and mathematical discussions for the Universist. (shrink)

Unconscious logical inference seems to rely on the syntactic structures of mental representations (Quilty-Dunn & Mandelbaum 2018). Other transitions, such as transitions using iconic representations and associative transitions, are harder to assimilate to syntax-based theories. Here we tackle these difficulties head on in the interest of a fuller taxonomy of mental transitions. Along the way we discuss how icons can be compositional without having constituent structure, and expand and defend the “symmetry condition” on Associationism (the idea that associative links (...) and transitions are perfectly symmetric). In the end, we show how a BIT (“bare inferential transition”) theory can cohabitate with these other non-inferential mental transitions. (shrink)

It is often assumed that concepts from the formal sciences, such as mathematics and logic, have to be treated differently from concepts from non-formal sciences. This is especially relevant in cases of concept defectiveness, as in the empirical sciences defectiveness is an essential component of lager disruptive or transformative processes such as concept change or concept fragmentation. However, it is still unclear what role defectiveness plays for concepts in the formal sciences. On the one hand, a common view sees formal (...) concepts to be protected against defects because of their precise and stable nature. On the other, studies going back as far as Lakatos (1963) showcase the changeability of such concepts. -/- In this paper, I will investigate if and how defectiveness based on the occurrence of inconsistencies can appear with formal concepts. To make the case as strong as possible, I employ a strict notion of formal concept that assumes the concept to have a fixed and definite extension. I will show that there are indeed certain types of defectiveness that cannot occur with such concepts; but that there are other types of defectiveness that do occur. This means that while formal concepts have to be treated differently than non-formal concepts, questions about defectiveness---as raised in the conceptual engineering debate and philosophy of science---can still be applied to them. I will highlight this point by showing how formal sciences have special strategies available to them that allow them to resolve defectiveness of their concepts in a flexible and informative manner. (shrink)

Scientific literacy is built on critical thinking. The postbaccalaureate workforce enhances our economies and societies by contributing a wealth of knowledge and skill sets to local communities, respective industries, and beyond as our world becomes increasingly interconnected. Education in scientific literacy should teach students how to learn about science and how to cultivate and communicate a positive attitude about science. Learners in a 200-level nonmajors biotechnology course engaged with a series of ethical dilemmas after mastering the basic elements of argument (...) structure and advanced tools in argument evaluation. To introduce collaboration as a constructive process in undergraduate education, student interactions with peers require guidance, flexibility, and compassion to learn from each other. Students gain critical thinking mastery from two modules addressing how we argue and evaluate claims. Students apply these critical thinking skills to various ethical arguments involving responsible conduct of research training. Using our structured and interdisciplinary approach, new scholars learn through practice how to read, analyze, and evaluate research scenarios and respond to potential ethical situations. This strategy allows students to develop important scholarly skills, including a systematic approach to evaluating credibility and applying generosity to theirs and others' understanding of their circumstances. (shrink)

‘Epistemic exploitation occurs when privileged persons compel marginalised knowers to educate them [and others] about the nature of their oppression’ (Berenstain, 2016, p. 569). This paper scrutinizes some of the purported wrongs underpinning this practice, so that educators might be better equipped to understand and avoid or mitigate harms which may result from such interventions. First, building on the work of Berenstain and Davis (2016), we argue that when privileged persons (in this context, educators) repeatedly compel marginalised or oppressed knowers, (...) to not only to educate them, but indeed others, about the nature of their oppression, they risk subjecting them to further epistemic-moral harms. This is due to the likelihood that at least some of their audience will assign them less/more credibility than they deserve based on pre-existing identity-based prejudices. Second, though some of these requests to ‘educate’ or ‘learn more’ masquerade as seemingly virtuous or innocuous epistemic inquiries, privileged persons underestimate or remain ignorant of secondary harms which stem from internalized epistemic obligations, oppressive double-binds (Hirji, 2021), and attendant emotional burdens oppressed knowers carry in relation to the ever-present possibility of ameliorating oppressor mindsets. After surveying each context-specific harm briefly, we then turn to an applied reading of how these exploitative practices sometimes culminate in something we refer to as ‘ontic burnout’, a form of interminable explanatory fatigue brought on by repeated requests to educate the privileged about what it means to be oppressed. (shrink)

Ong, Caroline In February 2014, the Belgian parliament passed an amendment to the Belgian Act on Euthanasia of May 28th, 2002 removing the age limit of those requesting euthanasia provided that they have discerning capabilities and their parents approve. After mentioning briefly the arguments against legalising euthanasia, this article questions the ethical validity of removing the age limit, as well as the presumption that ending lives prematurely allows people to die with dignity. Caring for people who are vulnerable in (...) their suffering is the proper goal of the healing professions, not terminating lives. (shrink)

Ong, Caroline Whilst the reason and purpose of suffering may never be fully understood, there are ways of enduring, transcending and growing resilience to how it affects us. Our experience of suffering lies in the web of perceptions that involve our physical, spiritual and cosmological beliefs. Referencing Pain Seeking Understanding: Suffering, Medicine and Faith, edited by Margaret E. Mohrmann and Mark J. Hanson, this article gives a brief exploration of some propositions as to why an all-powerful, good God would (...) allow suffering to exist. From these various perspectives and using examples cited in the book, the article proposes that the healing art of medicine, honed through years of experience, knowledge and wisdom, can help individual patients endure and transcend suffering, and be whole once again. (shrink)

Ong, Caroline As health systems become more complex, moral distress is increasingly being recognised as a significant phenomenon amongst health professionals. It can be described as the state of being distressed when one is unable to act according to what one believes to be morally right. It may compromise patient care, the health professional involved and the organisation. Cumulative experiences of incompletely resolved moral distress - a phenomenon which is called moral residue - may leave us susceptible to more (...) frequent and more severe moral distress. Clear open communication, respect, inclusivity, openness to differences, compassion, support, education and the capacity to grow in self-awareness are key aspects in minimising moral distress. Early recognition of its symptoms and addressing both personal and external constraints of actions can also minimise moral residue and build resilience to further distress. (shrink)

Ong, Caroline In the debate about euthanasia, it is important that we consider all views, including those which might not at first seem attractive to us. Whether we believe in God or not, the views of the Catholic Church make a significant contribution to this debate. The Church does not support the deliberate killing either of oneself or another person. It also emphasises our moral obligation to respect life and to uphold the dignity of each person.

Ong, Caroline There was once a strong belief amongst global HIV/AIDS organisations that the key to the prevention of the sexual transmission of HIV was condom use. Other measures such as abstinence and being loyal to one partner were seen as beneficial, but secondary. Thirty years later, the evidence is mounting that behavioural change is much more effective in halting the spread of HIV than condoms.

We survey recent developments in the theory of class forcing for- malized in the second-order set-theoretic setting.

One recurring criticism of the best interests standard concerns its vagueness, and thus the inadequate guidance it offers to care providers. The lack of an agreed definition of ‘best interests’, together with the fact that several suggested considerations adopted in legislation or professional guidelines for doctors do not obviously apply across different groups of persons, result in decisions being made in murky waters. In response, bioethicists have attempted to specify the best interests standard, to reduce the indeterminacy surrounding medical decisions. (...) In this paper, we discuss the bioethicists’ response in relation to the state's possible role in clarifying the best interests standard. We identify and characterise two clarificatory strategies employed by bioethicists —elaborative and enumerative—and argue that the state should adopt the latter. Beyond the practical difficulties of the former strategy, a state adoption of it would inevitably be prejudicial in a pluralistic society. Given the gravity of best interests decisions, and the delicate task of respecting citizens with different understandings of best interests, only the enumerative strategy is viable. We argue that this does not commit the state to silence in providing guidance to and supporting healthcare providers, nor does it facilitate the abuse of the vulnerable. Finally, we address two methodological worries about adopting this approach at the state level. The adoption of the enumerative strategy is not defeatist in attitude, nor does it eventually collapse into (a form of) the elaborative strategy. (shrink)

This paper sets out to accomplish two goals. First, drawing on the Irish perspective, it reconceptualises one of the enduring legacy-based harms of epistemic colonisation, in this case, ‘linguicism’, in terms of ‘hermeneutical injustice’. Second, it argues that otherwise well-meaning attempts to combat epistemic colonisation through the inclusion of marginalised testimony can, in certain circumstances, lead to cases of ‘epistemic exploitation’, which, in turn, can result in ‘ontic burnout’. Both linguicism and epistemic exploitation, this paper theorizes, have the potential to (...) bring about ontic burnout. Here is the plan: to set the scene, section I briefly surveys some key arguments supporting the call for higher education institutions (HEIs) to engage in epistemic decolonising, focusing on the importance of striking a balance between two extremes: (i) abandoning all forms of Eurocentric/colonial knowledge through the elimination of inherited thinking and conceptual schemes which result from colonization, in particular, those which remain in our thinking “owing to inertia rather than to our own reflective choices” (Wiredu 2002, p.56); (ii) the other—pursuing a more positive project where we seek to, “exploit as much as is judicious the resources of indigenous conceptual schemes” (Wiredu 1996: p.136). From here, it moves to consider harms associated with a subset of ‘epistemicide’, that is, ‘linguicism’—a phenomenon where the language and culture of the colonizer become part of the ‘civilising project’ and, in more extreme cases of linguicide, forcibly replaces indigenous languages. Section II then explores the subtleties of harmful by-products deriving from ‘inclusion’, namely that which scholars refer to as ‘epistemic exploitation’. Situations where marginalised scholars are finally ‘at the table but still on the menu’ arise when privileged persons, compel marginalised knowers to educate them [and others] about the nature of their oppression (Berenstain, 2016). Habitual requests to turn themselves inside out for emancipatory principles give rise to a phenomenon known as ontic burnout (Dunne and Kotsonis, 2022, p.9)—“a form of dissociative explanatory fatigue culminating in oppressed persons engaging in a conscious or unconscious decoupling from their socially constructed identity, from the burdens and injustices associated with being a member of a certain social kind”. This harm is, I argue, rarely discussed in the literature and worthy of further analysis. (shrink)

It is widely held that our beliefs can be epistemically faultless despite being morally flawed. Theories of moral encroachment challenge this, holding that moral considerations bear on the epistemic status of our attitudes. According to attitude-based theories of moral encroachment, morality encroaches upon the epistemic standing of our attitudes on the grounds that we can morally injure others with our epistemic practices. In this paper, I aim to show that current attitude-based theories have asymmetric mechanisms: moral features only make it (...) harder for attitudes to secure epistemic merits. I argue that, if attitudes can incur moral injury, failure to form attitudes can too. To make sense of this, I contend, attitude-based accounts require symmetric mechanisms, allowing that moral considerations make it both harder and easier for attitudes to attain epistemic merits. I maintain that, once we recognize this, attitude-based encroachment views must soon concede that they sometimes demand we believe against the evidence. (shrink)

The National Library of France owns an uncommon illuminated manuscript of the Book of Job : the Parisinus graecus 135. Written in Greek in 1361/62, it is illustrated with a very large iconographic cycle , which combines Byzantine and gothic styles. The examination of the historical background allows us to bring forth the general meaning of the manuscript and to locate its origin with some probability in the Papal entourage and the Byzantine latinophile circles. The analysis of the iconographic cycle (...) of the manuscript shows that it is likely inspired by the theology developed in the literal commentary of Thomas of Aquinas on the Book of Job. Remarkably, this author is intensively translated in Greek in the middle of the fourteenth century in Byzantium under the aegis of the Emperor John VI Cantacuzenus. (shrink)

Agency can be approached from the human case (anthropogenically) or coming from life in general, with organisms like bacteria in mind (biogenically). Each perspective is biased: the former approach tends to set the bar for agency very high, while the latter invites very liberal attributions of agency. Such a polarisation is epistemically flawed. As a rectification, this paper calls for a hermeneutical back-and-forth between opposite approaches to agency – reducing excessive restrictiveness or permissiveness and combining the unique explanatory strengths of (...) both approaches. Five common research tasks are used to illustrate the merits of such flexibility and the risks of rigidly clinging to any single approach. After questioning the dichotomy between the two approaches to agency, the findings are summed up. (shrink)

Penelope Maddy’s Second Philosophy is one of the most well-known ap- proaches in recent philosophy of mathematics. She applies her second-philosophical method to analyze mathematical methodology by reconstructing historical cases in a setting of means-ends relations. However, outside of Maddy’s own work, this kind of methodological analysis has not yet been extensively used and analyzed. In the present work, we will make a first step in this direction. We develop a general framework that allows us to clarify the procedure and (...) aims of the Second Philosopher’s investigation into set-theoretic methodology; pro- vides a platform to analyze the Second Philosopher’s methods themselves; and can be applied to further questions in the philosophy of set theory. (shrink)

In the late 1940s and early 1950s Lorenzen developed his operative logic and mathematics, a form of constructive mathematics. Nowadays this is mostly seen as the precursor to the more well-known dialogical logic and one could assumed that the same philosophical motivations were present in both works. However we want to show that this is not always the case. In particular, we claim, that Lorenzen’s well-known rejection of the actual infinite as stated in Lorenzen (1957) was not a major motivation (...) for operative logic and mathematics. In this article, we claim that this is in fact not the case. Rather, we argue for a shift that happened in Lorenzen’s treatment of the infinite from the early to the late 1950s. His early motivation for the development of operativism is concerned with a critique of the Cantorian notion of set and related questions about the notion of countability and uncountability; only later, his motivation switches to focusing on the concept of infinity and the debate about actual and potential infinity. (shrink)

Individuals of many animal species are said to have a personality. It has been shown that some individuals are bolder than other individuals of the same species, or more sociable or more aggressive. In this paper, we analyse what it means to say that an animal has a personality. We clarify what an animal personality is, that is, its ontology, and how different personality concepts relate to each other, and we examine how personality traits are identified in biological practice. Our (...) analysis shows that biologists often study specific personality traits, such as boldness, sociability or aggressiveness, rather than personalities in general. We claim that personality traits are best understood as dispositions and that they are operationally defined in terms of certain sets of behaviours, which are studied in specific experimental set-ups. Furthermore, we develop an integrative philosophical account that specifies and formalises three criteria for identifying personality traits, which are used in biological practice. For an individual animal to have a personality trait it must, first, behave differently than others. Second, these behavioural differences must be stable over a certain time, and third, they must be consistent in different contexts. (shrink)

Since the fundamental challenge that I laid at the doorstep of the pluralists was to defend, with nonderivative models, a strong notion of genic cause, it is fatal that Waters has failed to meet that challenge. Waters agrees with me that there is only a single cause operating in these models, but he argues for a notion of causal ‘parsing’ to sustain the viability of some form of pluralism. Waters and his colleagues have some very interesting and important ideas about (...) the sciences, involving pluralism and parsing or partitioning causes, but they are ideas in search of an example. He thinks he has found an example in the case of hierarchical and genic selection. I think he has not. (shrink)

Classical Trinitarians claim that Jesus—the Son of God—is truly God and that there is only one God and the Father is God, the Spirit is God, and the Father, Son, and Spirit are distinct. However, if the identity statement that ‘the Son is God’ is understood in the sense of numerical identity, logical incoherence seems immanent. Yet, if the identity statement is understood according to an ‘is’ of predication then it lacks accuracy and permits polytheism. Therefore, we argue that there (...) is another sense of ‘is’ needed in trinitarian discourse that will allow the Christian to avoid logical incoherence while still fully affirming all that is meant to be affirmed in the confession ‘Jesus is God.’ We suggest a sense of ‘is’ that meets this need. (shrink)

Technologien haben schon lange Eingang in unseren Alltag gefunden und transformieren zahlreiche Lebensbereiche wie Politik, Wirtschaft, Bildung, Gesundheit und Pflege. Mittels Social Media pflegen wir zwischenmenschliche Beziehungen und kommunizieren miteinander, wir haben Apps zum Schlafen oder für die Ernährung und in der Medizin werden Technologien in den Körper implantiert oder zur Untersuchung des Körpers verwendet. Wearables, wie z. B. die Smart Watch, werden direkt am Körper getragen und müssen kaum noch abgenommen werden. Smart Watches messen den Puls und Herzschlag, zählen (...) unsere Schritte, melden sich, wenn man wieder aufstehen sollte und erfassen den Schlafrhythmus. Wir schlagen Wissen bei Wikipedia nach und lernen interaktiv über Smart Boards in der Schule. Über digitale Tools lässt sich das orts- und zeitunabhängige Zusammenarbeiten organisieren. Wie verändert sich das Menschsein in einer solchen technisierten Welt? Wie verändern sich die menschliche Lebenswelt, Handeln, Verantwortungsstrukturen und Identitätskonzepte? Puzio, Anna/Rutzmoser, Carolin/Endres, Eva-Maria: Menschsein in einer technisierten Welt – Einleitende Bemerkungen zu einer interdisziplinären Auseinandersetzung mit der digitalen Transformation. In: Endres, Eva-Maria/Puzio, Anna/Rutzmoser, Carolin (Hg.): Menschsein in einer technisierten Welt. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf den Menschen im Zeichen der digitalen Transformation. Wiesbaden 2022. (shrink)

Abstract:This article provides a novel interpretation of the so-called transition to self-consciousness in The Phenomenology of Spirit, where Hegel argues that the failure of the protagonist consciousness to formulate an understanding of the world in terms of forces and laws necessitates the shift to an investigation of its own self-conscious subjectivity. The author argues that we can make sense of the transition by attending to Hegel's account of the metaphysical structure of forces and laws, on the one hand, and the (...) structure of self-consciousness, on the other. Following this approach, she argues that the transition represents the realization by the protagonist consciousness that the object of phenomenological inquiry must be metaphysically self-determining (or "infinite," in Hegel's terminology). The standpoint of self-consciousness accordingly emerges because the protagonist consciousness takes itself qua subject to exhibit the requisite self-determining structure. In addition to making sense of the transition to self-consciousness, this line of argumentation illuminates Hegel's subsequent focus on the activity of "desire.". (shrink)

Critics have recently argued that reliabilists face trade-off problems, forcing them to condone intuitively unjustified beliefs when they generate lots of true belief further downstream. What these critics overlook is that reliabilism entails that there areside-constraintson belief-formation, on account of which there are some things you should not believe, even if doing so would have very good epistemic consequences. However, we argue that by embracing side-constraints the reliabilist faces a dilemma: she can either hold on to reliabilism, and with it (...) aforementioned side-constraints, but then needs to explain why we should allow the pursuit of justification to get in the way of the acquisition of true belief; or she can deny that there are side-constraints – and in effect give up on reliabilism. We'll suggest that anyone moved by the considerations that likely attract people to reliabilism in the first place – the idea the true belief is good, and as such should be promoted – should go for the second horn, and instead pursue a form ofepistemic utilitarianism. (shrink)

Recent discussions of cognitive enhancement often note that drugs and technologies that improve cognitive performance may do so at the risk of “cheapening” our resulting cognitive achievements Arguing about bioethics, Routledge, London, 2012; Harris in Bioethics 25:102–111, 2011). While there are several possible responses to this worry, we will highlight what we take to be one of the most promising—one which draws on a recent strand of thinking in social and virtue epistemology to construct an integrationist defence of cognitive enhancement.. (...) According to such a line, there is—despite initial appearances to the contrary—no genuine tension between using enhancements to attain our goals and achieving these goals in a valuable way provided the relevant enhancement is appropriately integrated into the agent’s cognitive architecture. In this paper, however, we show that the kind of integration recommended by such views will likely come at a high cost. More specifically, we highlight a dilemma for users of pharmacological cognitive enhancement: they can meet the conditions for cognitive integration at the significant risk of dangerous dependency, or remain free of such dependency while foregoing integration and the valuable achievements that such integration enables. After motivating and clarifying the import of this dilemma, we offer recommendations for how future cognitive enhancement research may offer potential routes for navigating past it. (shrink)

Libraries provide resources for knowledge acquisition, recreation, personal interests and inter-personal relationships for all categories of users. It enables the individual to obtain spiritual, inspirational, and recreational activities through reading, and therefore the opportunity of interacting with the society’s wealth and accumulated knowledge. This study examined the undergraduate students’ use of University library services and resources. It was affirmed the undergraduate utilized the University Libraries as learning centre. This was shown by the massive turn out to patronize the library services (...) and resources weekly. (shrink)

Edvard Munch (Løten, 1863 — Ekely, 1944), Antonin Artaud (Marseille 1896–Paris 1948): deux artistes bouleversés par des conditions de santé fragile et par des crises nerveuses. Une relation s’instaure entre eux. Chacun, de manière particulière, invite le spectateur à réviser son rapport avec la mort, la mélancolie et les forces de la nature. Tantôt cette relation s’exprime dans les écrits personnels d’Artaud ; tantôt elle apparaît dans le rapprochement que nous pouvons faire entre les oeuvres graphiques d’Artaud, qui mettent en (...) exergue l’influence qui a exercé le peintre norvégien dans sa démarche artistique. Plus tard, l’approximation d’Artaud à la peinture devient plus évidente. Lui-même, non seulement poète et homme de théâtre, est aussi dessinateur et, comme témoigne nombre de ses documents écrits, porte une grande appréciation par l’art d’El Greco, Bosch, Lucas de Leyde, Bruegel et Goya. Cette étude comparative vise analyser le processus d’intertextualité qui accompagne Artaud tout au long de sa vie et qui commence précocement, quand il observe et traduit les références recueillies d’après d’autres artistes. Avec ceux-ci, il est possible de tracer une correspondance, non seulement artistique, mais aussi biographique avec Artaud. Ce projet présente des contributions pour la critique littéraire d'Antonin Artaud. Même si d'autres études ont fait le rapport entre son œuvre et la peinture, et celle d’Edward Munch, il y n’existe aucune étude plus détaillé autour du sujet. (shrink)

L’une des activités de l’imagination, opération qui prend sa source dans l’imaginaire, consiste à faire des parcours dans l’espace et dans le temps du monde. Le flâneur parcoure des variations de paysages et d’horizons, comme une séquence imaginative. Il existe une liaison logique entre la marche, le récit, la peinture et le mythe : dans chacun de ces cas, l’imagination est fortement stimulée. Chacun d’entre eux est un moyen de cheminer selon des voies vers une Vérité supérieur. La marche est, (...) pour l’individu, une quête à plusieurs dimensions : quête de connaissances sur le monde, sur soi-même ; quête de sa véritable identité ou quête d’une Vérité supérieure (comme dans le cas des pèlerinages) ; le mythe, la religion, la peinture et l’écriture sont, de même, des expressions des cheminements vers telle ou telle Vérité. Le thème de la marche nous offre donc l’occasion de porter un regard particulier sur l’esprit hétéroclite du voyageur, collectionneur d’objets, de traces. Mais aussi, au contraire, du sujet qui s’évide, comme chez les taoïstes. Cet essai vise réfléchir sur le parcours du voyageur en insistant sur les liens multiples qui président au temps, à l’acte de marcher, et celui de la réflexion esthétique, en spécial, la peinture et la poésie. Cependant, si ces réflexions nous poussent vers une considération sur le temps et la durée, nous essayons ici de les conduire sur les liens entre l'Orient et l'Occident à cet égard. (shrink)