The Challenge from Cognitive Diversity (CCD) states that demography-specific intuitions are unsuited to play evidential roles in philosophy. The CCD attracted much attention in recent years, in great part due to the launch of an international research effort to test for demographic variation in philosophical intuitions. In the wake of these international studies, the CCD may prove revolutionary. For, if these studies uncover demographic differences in intuitions, then, in line with the CCD, there would be good reason to (...) challenge philosophical views that rely on those intuitions for evidential support. I argue that philosophical views that rely on demography-specific intuitions for evidential support need not be threatened by such findings. I first provide a detailed analysis of the epistemological principles driving the CCD and distinguish three formulations of this challenge. I then show that there are good reasons to reject all such formulations of the CCD. (shrink)

Selection against embryos that are predisposed to develop disabilities is one of the less controversial uses of embryo selection technologies. Many bio-conservatives argue that while the use of ESTs to select for non-disease-related traits, such as height and eye-colour, should be banned, their use to avoid disease and disability should be permitted. Nevertheless, there remains significant opposition, particularly from the disability rights movement, to the use of ESTs to select against disability. In this article we examine whether and why the (...) state could be justified in restricting the use of ESTs to select against disability. We first outline the challenge posed by proponents of ‘liberal eugenics’. Liberal eugenicists challenge those who defend restrictions on the use of ESTs to show why the use of these technologies would create a harm of the type and magnitude required to justify coercive measures. We argue that this challenge could be met by adverting to the risk of harms to future persons that would result from a loss of certain forms of cognitive diversity. We suggest that this risk establishes a pro tanto case for restricting selection against some disabilities, including dyslexia and Asperger's syndrome. (shrink)

The challenges facing us today require practical wisdom to allow us to react appropriately. In this paper, we argue that at a group level, we will make better decisions if we respect and take into account the moral judgment of agents with diverse styles of cognition and moral reasoning. We show this by focusing on the example of autism, highlighting different strengths and weaknesses of moral reasoning found in autistic and non-autistic persons respectively.

In their landmark 2010 paper, “The weirdest people in the world?”, Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan outlined a serious methodological problem for the psychological and behavioural sciences. Most of the studies produced in the field use people from Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) societies, yet inferences are often drawn to the species as a whole. In drawing such inferences, researchers implicitly assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that WEIRD populations are generally representative of the (...) species. Yet neither of these assumptions is justified. In many psychological and behavioural domains, cultural variation begets cognitive variation, and WEIRD samples are recurrently shown to be outliers. In the years since the article was published, attention has focused on the implications this has for research on extant human populations. Here we extend those implications to the study of ancient _H. sapiens_, their hominin forebears, and cousin lineages. We assess a range of characteristic arguments and key studies in the cognitive archaeology literature, identifying issues stemming from the problem of sample diversity. We then look at how worrying the problem is, and consider some conditions under which inferences to ancient populations via cognitive models might be provisionally justified. (shrink)

Cognitive flexibility, the adaptation of representations and responses to new task demands, improves dramatically in early childhood. It is unclear, however, whether flexibility is a coherent, unitary cognitive trait, or is an emergent dimension of task-specific performance that varies across populations with divergent experiences. Three-to 5-year-old English-speaking U.S. children and Tswana-speaking South African children completed two distinct language-processing cognitive flexibility tests: the FIM-Animates, a word-learning test, and the 3DCCS, a rule-switching test. U.S. and South African children did (...) not differ in word-learning flexibility but showed similar age-related increases. In contrast, U.S. preschoolers showed an age-related increase in rule-switching flexibility but South African children did not. Verbal recall explained additional variance in both tests but did not modulate the interaction between population sample (i.e., country) and task. We hypothesize that rule-switching flexibility might be more dependent upon particular kinds of cultural experiences, whereas word-learning flexibility is less cross-culturally variable. (shrink)

The development of modern science has depended strongly on specific features of the cultures involved; however, its results are widely and trans-culturally accepted and applied. The science and technology of electricity provides a particularly interesting example. It emerged as a specific product of post-Renaissance Europe, rooted in the Greek philosophical tradition that encourages explanations of nature in theoretical terms. It did not evolve in China presumably because such encouragement was missing. The trans-cultural acceptance of modern science and technology is postulated (...) to be due, in part, to the common biological dispositions underlying human cognition, with generalizable capabilities of abstract, symbolic and strategic thought. These faculties of the human mind are main prerequisites for dynamic cultural development and differentiation. They appear to have evolved up to a stage of hunters and gatherers perhaps some 100 000 years ago. However, the extent of the correspondence between some constructions of the human mind and the order of nature, as revealed by science, is a late insight of the last centuries. Quantum physics and relativity are particularly impressive examples. (shrink)

In “Epistemology Naturalized” Quine famously suggests that epistemology, properly understood, “simply falls into place as a chapter of psychology and hence of natural science” (1969, 82). Since the appearance of Quine’s seminal article, virtually every epistemologist, including the later Quine (1986, 664), has repudiated the idea that a normative discipline like epistemology could be reduced to a purely descriptive discipline like psychology. Working epistemologists no longer take Quine’s vision in “Epistemology Naturalized” seriously. In this paper, I will explain why I (...) think this is a mistake. (shrink)

Previous simulation models have found positive effects of cognitive diversity on group performance, but have not explored effects of diversity in demographics (e.g., gender, ethnicity). In this paper, we present an agent-based model that captures two empirically supported hypotheses about how demographic diversity can improve group performance. The results of our simulations suggest that, even when social identities are not associated with distinctive task-related cognitive resources, demographic diversity can, in certain circumstances, benefit collective performance (...) by counteracting two types of conformity that can arise in homogeneous groups: those relating to group-based trust and those connected to normative expectations towards in-groups. (shrink)

This paper offers a new angle on the common idea that the process of science does not support epistemic diversity. Under minimal assumptions on the nature of journal editing, we prove that editorial procedures, even when impartial in themselves, disadvantage less prominent research programs. This purely statistical bias in article selection further skews existing differences in the success rate and hence attractiveness of research programs, and exacerbates the reputation difference between the programs. After a discussion of the modeling assumptions, (...) the paper ends with a number of recommendations that may help promote scientific diversity through editorial decision making. (shrink)

Discussions of diversity tend to paint a mixed picture of the practical and epistemic value of diversity. While there are expansive and detailed accounts of the value of cognitive diversity, explorations of identity diversity typically focus on its value as a source or cause of cognitive diversity. The resulting picture on which identity diversity only possesses a derivative practical and epistemic value is unsatisfactory and fails to account for some of its central (...) epistemic benefits. In response, I propose that collective virtue epistemology offers theoretical models that can further our understanding of the benefits of diversity. And I offer a case study to illustrate how this approach could be used to explore the logic of the identity diversity bonus. (shrink)

Ethnobiology has become increasingly concerned with applied and normative questions about biocultural diversity and the livelihoods of local communities. While this development has created new opportunities for connecting ethnobiological research with ecological and social sciences, it also raises questions about the role of cognitive perspectives in current ethnobiology. In fact, there are clear signs of institutional separation as research on folkbiological cognition has increasingly found its home in the cognitive science community, weakening its ties to institutionalized ethnobiology. (...) Rather than accepting this separation as inevitable disciplinary specialization, this short perspective article argues for a systemic perspective that addresses mutual influences and causal entanglement of cognitive and non-cognitive factors in socio-ecological dynamics. Such an integrative perspective requires a new conversation about cognition in ethnobiology beyond traditional polarization around issues of cognitive universals and cultural relativity. (shrink)

As the pluralization in the title of MITECS suggests, and as many reviewers have noted, the stance that we adopted as general editors for this project was ecumenical. We were particularly concerned to generate a volume whose range of topics and perspectives indicated that “cognitive science” was different things to different groups of researchers, and that many even fundamental questions remain open after at least four decades of various interdisciplinary ventures. Implicit in this view is a wariness of any (...) putative magic key to understanding the complexities of cognition in all of its diversity, and the hope that by providing a forum in which this range of work could be reviewed by anyone with time and inclination, the field as a whole would be better positioned to reflect on its future directions. Readers of the preceding reviews might be interested in a few words about the development of the project. Contracted in the early summer of 1995, MITECS began as a volume projected at half of its eventual size, but with roughly the same scope it has in published form. The general editors, Frank Keil and myself, had been thinking about a volume of this sort independently over the preceding year or so, and so much of the structure of the volume was already outlined by mid-1995. Thus, we were able to move relatively quickly in the second half of 1995 to assemble a team of 9 advisory editors for the six sections that constitute the organization of the volume; as reviewers have noted, the presence of these sections in the print version is manifest primarily by the six overview essays that occupy the first 100 or so pages in MITECS. (shrink)

Demographic diversity might often be present in a group without group members noticing it. What are the epistemic effects if they do? Several philosophers and social scientists have recently argued that when individuals detect demographic diversity in their group, this can result in epistemic benefits even if that diversity doesn’t involve cognitive differences. Here I critically discuss research advocating this proposal, introduce a distinction between two types of detection of demographic diversity, and apply this distinction (...) to the theorizing on diversity in science. Focusing on ‘invisible’ diversity, I argue that in one common kind of group in science, if group members have full insight into their group’s diversity, this is likely to create epistemic costs. These costs can be avoided and epistemic benefits gained if group members only partly detect their group’s diversity. There is thus an epistemic reason for context-dependent limitations on scientists’ insight into the diversity of their group. (shrink)

Examining imagination, 4E cognition and the arts together expands our understanding of them all. 4E cognition is a framework that comprises the theories separately known as embodied, enactive, embedded, and extended cognition. This paper draws on research in cognitive science (including 4E and recent predictive processing approaches), ideas in phenomenology, and artworks from The Extended Mind exhibition (2019–20). The artworks offer diverse reflections on 4E cognition, as well as revealing personal, political and ethical benefits and issues predicated on a (...) 4E cognition perspective. This approach further provides a way of defending the epistemic value of the imagination and of unpacking the four key puzzles associated with its relationship with the arts regarding its production of emotional response, imaginative resistance, and moral persuasion, and the paradox of our attraction towards horror and tragedy. The arts are a valuable mode of inquiry into the nature of cognition and neglect of their relevance negatively impacts understandings of the mind. (shrink)

In his pioneering sociological theory, which makes phenomenological concepts fruitful for the social sciences, Alfred Schütz has laid foundations for a characterization of an manifold of distinct domains of experience. My aim here is to further develop this pluralist theory of experience by buttressing and extending the elements of diversity that it includes, and by eliminating or minimizing lingering imbalances among the domains of experience. After a critical discussion of the criterion-catalogue Schütz develops for the purpose of characterizing different (...) cognitive styles, I move on to examine its application to one special style, the lifeworld. I appeal, on the one hand, to Husserl's characterization of the lifeworld as a world of perception, and on the other hand to the layer-model of the lifeworld developed by Schütz and Thomas Luckmann. A consequence of this approach is that the lifeworld appears as a socially definable context that is detached from other experiences but on an equal footing with them with respect to their claim of validity. The term "lifeworld" does not denote a category that encompasses culture or nature but refers to a delimited action-space. Finally, I draw upon Schütz' s criterion-catalogue to characterize two domains of experience outside of the lifeworld, which play a central role for the process of differentiation of experience in modernity and for the phenomenological analysis of types of experience: experimental science and subjectivity. (shrink)

Innate cognitive capacities are widely posited in cognitive science, yet both philosophers and scientists have criticized the concept of innateness as being hopelessly confused. Despite a number of recent attempts to define or characterize innateness, critics have charged that it is associated with a diverse set of properties and encourages unwarranted inferences among properties that are frequently unrelated. This criticism can be countered by showing that the properties associated with innateness cluster together in reliable ways, at least in (...) the context of the study of cognition. Even though the causal connections between these cognitive properties are not always strict, they are robust enough to warrant considering innateness to be a natural kind as used in contemporary cognitive science. (shrink)

In his oft-cited book Descartes' Error, Antonio Damasio claims that Descartes is responsible for having stifled the development of modern neurobiological science, in particular as regards the objective study of the physical and physiological bases for emotive and socially-conditioned cognition. Most of Damasio’s book would stand without reference to Descartes, so it is intriguing to ask why he launched this attack. What seems to fuel such claims is a desire for a more holistic understanding of the mind, the brain and (...) the self. For Descartes however, here allowed to answer back, the question of accounting for the whole diversity of human potential experiences was what could not be left out of sight. Concerning the question of his neglect of the mind said to be "abysmally" detached from the body, it is claimed here that, in the light of Descartes' move which was to break with the scholastic practice of putting more and more things under the control of the soul, the program of using the reality of embodiment to understand the mind was one he actually started. An answer is also suggested to counter the charge that Descartes failed to account for the interaction of the two substances, the mind and the material body, by showing why and how Descartes actually believed in the substantial union of mind and body. Yet, he kept in the picture an ingenium, a faculty of pure understanding overarching a cybernetic model of the body-mind, of which we also here seek to appreciate the significance. This project of accounting for the mind-body interaction ended-up in a study the "passions," as emotions were then called. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to address a longstanding concern about the linguistic ‘relativ- ity’ of ontological categories, and resulting limitations in the scope of ontological theo- ries. Given recent evidence on the influence of language on cognitive dispositions, do we have empirical reasons to doubt that there are ontological categories that have uni- versal scope across languages? I argue that this is the case, at least if we retain the stan- dard ‘inferential’ approach within analytical ontology, i.e., (...) if we evaluate ontological interpretations of L-sentences relative to certain material inferences in L. Research in linguistic typology suggests that types of entities postulated for the domain of Indo- European languages cannot capture the ontological commitments of the (much larger group of) non-Indo-European languages. Ontological category theory thus seems to have three options. The first option is to abandon the standard ‘inferential’ approach to ontological category theory. Alternatively, if we stay with the inferential approach, we face the following choice. Either ontology must let go of its ambitions to provide general domain descriptions for any language and settle for the more modest project of reconstructing the ontological commitments of a group of natural languages. Or else analytical ontologists should turn to linguistic typology in order to accommodate the diversity of inferential structures embedded in natural languages. I recommend and ex- plore this third option, illustrating a strategy for how to construct a domain theory that can be used across languages. In a first step I show how linguistic research on the se- mantics of verbs and nouns (studies on so-called “Aktionsarten” and “Seinsarten”) can be used to identify the inferential patterns of ten basic concepts of modes of existence in time and space. In a second step I show how these inferential data can be inter- preted ontologically within General Process Theory, an ontological framework based on nonparticular individuals (“dynamics”). -/- . (shrink)

Human behavior and thought often exhibit a familiar pattern of within group similarity and between group difference. Many of these patterns are attributed to cultural differences. For much of the history of its investigation into behavior and thought, however, cognitive science has been disproportionately focused on uncovering and explaining the more universal features of human minds—or the universal features of minds in general. -/- This entry charts out the ways in which this has changed over recent decades. It sketches (...) the motivation behind the cultural turn in cognitive science, and situates some of its central findings with respect to the questions that animate it and the debates that it has inspired. Woven throughout the entry are examples of how the cognitive science of culture, and especially its elevated concern with different forms of diversity and variation, continues to influence and be influenced by philosophers. -/- One cluster of philosophical work falls within the traditional subject matter of philosophy of science, in this case of the cognitive and social sciences. Philosophers have analyzed and assessed the methods and evidence central to the scientific study of cognition and culture, and have offered conceptual scrutiny, clarification, and synthesis. Research in a second vein sees philosophers themselves contributing more directly to cognitive scientific projects, (co)constructing theories, helping build computational models, even gathering empirical data. A third kind of work is naturalistic philosophy or philosophy of nature, wherein philosophers seek to use results from the cognitive science of culture to inform or transform debates over long-standing philosophical questions, including questions about the nature of philosophy and philosophical methodology itself. (shrink)

Examining imagination, 4E cognition and the arts together expands our understanding of them all. 4E cognition is a framework that comprises the theories separately known as embodied, enactive, embedded, and extended cognition. This paper draws on research in cognitive science (including 4E and recent predictive processing approaches), ideas in phenomenology, and artworks from The Extended Mind exhibition (2019–20). The artworks offer diverse reflections on 4E cognition, as well as revealing personal, political and ethical benefits and issues predicated on a (...) 4E cognition perspective. This approach further provides a way of defending the epistemic value of the imagination and of unpacking the four key puzzles associated with its relationship with the arts regarding its production of emotional response, imaginative resistance, and moral persuasion, and the paradox of our attraction towards horror and tragedy. The arts are a valuable mode of inquiry into the nature of cognition and neglect of their relevance negatively impacts understandings of the mind. (shrink)

The challenge from religious diversity is widely thought to be one of the most important challenges facing religious belief. Despite this consensus, however, many epistemologists think that standard versions of the challenge fail because they threaten to implicate many seemingly reasonable yet highly controversial non-religious beliefs. In light of this we develop an alternative, less discussed, diversity challenge that does not generalize. This challenge concerns why so much religious diversity exists in the first place given common religious, (...) and in particular theistic, views. Although there are some interesting scientific explanations of such diversity, satisfying theistic explanations of its existence are still required. (shrink)

This paper is the product of an interdisciplinary, interreligious dialogue aiming to outline some of the possibilities and rational limits of supernatural religious belief, in the light of a critique of David Hume’s familiar sceptical arguments -- including a rejection of his famous Maxim on miracles -- combined with a range of striking recent empirical research. The Humean nexus leads us to the formulation of a new ”Common-Core/Diversity Dilemma’, which suggests that the contradictions between different religious belief systems, in (...) conjunction with new understandings of the cognitive forces that shape their common features, persuasively challenge the rationality of most kinds of supernatural belief. In support of this conclusion, we survey empirical research concerning intercessory prayer, religious experience, near-death experience, and various cognitive biases. But we then go on to consider evidence that supernaturalism -- even when rationally unwarranted -- has significant beneficial individual and social effects, despite others that are far less desirable. This prompts the formulation of a ”Normal/Objective Dilemma’, identifying important trade-offs to be found in the choice between our humanly evolved ”normal’ outlook on the world, and one that is more rational and ”objective’. Can we retain the pragmatic benefits of supernatural belief while avoiding irrationality and intergroup conflict? It may well seem that rationality is incompatible with any wilful sacrifice of objectivity. But in a situation of uncertainty, an attractive compromise may be available by moving from the competing factions and mutual contradictions of ”first-order’ supernaturalism to a more abstract and tolerant ”second-order’ view, which itself can be given some distinctive intellectual support through the increasingly popular Fine Tuning Argument. We end by proposing a ”Maxim of the Moon’ to express the undogmatic spirit of this second-order religiosity, providing a cautionary metaphor to counter the pervasive bias endemic to the human condition, and offering a more cooperation- and humility-enhancing understanding of religious diversity in a tense and precarious globalised age. (shrink)

This brief commentary has three goals. The first is to argue that ‘‘framework debate’’ in cognitive science is unresolvable. The idea that one theory or framework can singly account for the vast complexity and variety of cognitive processes seems unlikely if not impossible. The second goal is a consequence of this: We should consider how the various theories on offer work together in diverse contexts of investigation. A final goal is to supply a brief review for readers who (...) are compelled by these points to explore existing literature on the topic. Despite this literature, pluralism has garnered very little attention from broader cognitive science. We end by briefly considering what it might mean for theoretical cognitive science. (shrink)

Extended cognition brings with it a particular phenomenology. It has been argued that when an artifact is integrated into an agent’s cognitive system, it becomes transparent in use to the cognizing subject. In this paper, I challenge some of the assumptions underlying how the transparency of artifacts is described in extended cognition theory. To this end, I offer two arguments. First, I make room for some forms of conscious thought and attention within extended cognitive routines, and I question (...) the close association drawn between attention and effort. Second, I vindicate the importance of paying careful attention to individual differences and the diverse ways in which bodies and technologies can be experienced. I end by offering some hints toward an alternative, and more accurate, account of the phenomenology of extended cognition. (shrink)

It has recently been suggested that politically motivated cognition leads progressive individuals to form beliefs that underestimate real differences between social groups and to process information selectively to support these beliefs and an egalitarian outlook. I contend that this tendency, which I shall call ‘egalitarian confirmation bias’, is often ‘Mandevillian’ in nature. That is, while it is epistemically problematic in one’s own cognition, it often has effects that significantly improve other people’s truth tracking, especially that of stigmatized individuals in academia. (...) Due to its Mandevillian character, egalitarian confirmation bias isn’t only epistemically but also ethically beneficial, as it helps decrease social injustice. Moreover, since egalitarian confirmation bias has Mandevillian effects especially in academia, and since progressives are particularly likely to display the bias, there is an epistemic reason for maintaining the often-noted political majority of progressives in academia. That is, while many researchers hold that diversity in academia is epistemically beneficial because it helps reduce bias, I argue that precisely because political diversity would help reduce egalitarian confirmation bias, it would in fact in one important sense be epistemically costly. (shrink)

In his contribution to the first issue of Memory Studies, Jeffrey Olick notes that despite “the mutual affirmations of psychologists who want more emphasis on the social and sociologists who want more emphasis on the cognitive”, in fact “actual crossdisciplinary research … has been much rarer than affirmations about its necessity and desirability” (2008: 27). The peculiar, contingent disciplinary divisions which structure our academic institutions create and enable many powerful intellectual cultures: but memory researchers are unusually aware that uneasy (...) faultlines and glaring gulfs lie in the uncertain zones between them. The processes of memory are simultaneously natural and cultural. But our difficulties in imagining even fragments of a genuinely integrated framework for understanding diverse memory-related phenomena do not arise from a simple ‘two-cultures’ problem: it’s not as if there are substantially unified visions of memory within either ‘the sciences’ or ‘the humanities’. (shrink)

After introducing the new field of cultural evolution, we review a growing body of empirical evidence suggesting that culture shapes what people attend to, perceive and remember as well as how they think, feel and reason. Focusing on perception, spatial navigation, mentalizing, thinking styles, reasoning (epistemic norms) and language, we discuss not only important variation in these domains, but emphasize that most researchers (including philosophers) and research participants are psychologically peculiar within a global and historical context. This rising tide of (...) evidence recommends caution in relying on one’s intuitions or even in generalizing from reliable psychological findings to the species, Homo sapiens. Our evolutionary approach suggests that humans have evolved a suite of reliably developing cognitive abilities that adapt our minds, information-processing abilities and emotions ontogenetically to the diverse culturally-constructed worlds we confront. (shrink)

The lack of ideological diversity in social research, paired with the lack of engagement with citizens and policymakers who come from other places on the ideological spectrum, poses an existential risk to the continued credibility, utility and even viability of social research. The need for reform is urgent.

This article describes various ways actors in Kashmiri carpet weaving practice deploy a range of artifacts, from symbolic, to material, to hybrid, in order to achieve diverse cognitive accomplishments in their particular task domains: information representation, inter and intra-domain communication, distribution of cognitive labor across people and time, coordination of team activities, and carrying of cultural heritage. In this repertoire, some artifacts position themselves as naïve tools in the actors’ environment to the point of being ignored; however, their (...) usage-in-context unfolds their cognitive involvement in the tasks. These usages-in-context are shown through artifact analysis of their routine, improvised, and opportunistic uses, where cognitive artifacts like talim—the central artifact of this practice—are shown to play not only multifunctional roles beyond representation, but are also complemented by trade-specific skills bearing strong cognitive implications in a task. (shrink)

The original book chapter does not have an abstract. However, I have written an abstract for this repository: Religious life encompasses a wide diversity of situations for which the emotional tone is on a continuum from extreme euphoria to extreme dysphoria. In this book chapter, we propose the novel hypothesis that euphoria and dysphoria have distinctly separate functional consequences for religious evolution and survivability. This is due to the differential cognitive states that are created in euphoric and dysphoric (...) situations. Based on readings from religious studies and cognitive psychology, we propose that euphoria in religion is conducive to social bonding and situations needing lateral thinking and creativity; whereas dysphoria in religion is conducive to situations where precision and analogical reasoning are necessary. (shrink)

If humans have an evolved moral psychology, then we should not expect it to function in an identical way between individuals. Instead, we should expect a diversity in the function of our moral psychology between individuals that varies along genetic lines, and a corresponding diversity of moral attitudes and moral judgements that emerge from it. This is because there was no one psychological type that would reliably produce adaptive social behaviour in the highly heterogeneous environments in which our (...) minds evolved. As such, there was no single psychological type towards which evolution could gravitate. Instead we evolved a stable polymorphism of psychological types, maintained by frequency-dependent selection, each predisposed towards particular social and moral attitudes and behaviours. This can help explain the existence of moral diversity, particularly intra-cultural moral diversity, and seemingly intractable moral disagreement. (shrink)

Contemporary studies in unconscious cognition are essentially founded on dissociation, i.e., on how it dissociates with respect to conscious mental processes and representations. This is claimed to be in so many and diverse ways that one is often lost in dissociation. In order to reduce this state of confusion we here carry out two major tasks: based on the central distinction between cognitive processes and representations, we identify and isolate the main dissociation paradigms; we then critically analyze their key (...) tenets and reported findings. (shrink)

If Australasian philosophers constitute the kind of group to which a collective identity or broadly shared self-image can plausibly be ascribed, the celebrated history of Australian materialism rightly lies close to its heart. Jack Smart’s chapter in this volume, along with an outstanding series of briefer essays in A Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand (Forrest 2010; Gold 2010; Koksvik 2010; Lycan 2010; Matthews 2010; Nagasawa 2010; Opie 2010; Stoljar 2010a), effectively describe the naturalistic realism of Australian philosophy (...) of mind. In occasional semi-serious psychogeographic speculation, this long-standing and strongly-felt intellectual attitude has been traced back to the influences of our light, land, or lifestyle (Devitt 1996, x; compare comments by Chalmers and O’Brien in Mitchell, 2006). Australasian work in philosophy of mind and cognition has become more diverse in the last 40 years, but is almost all still marked, in one way or another, by the history of these debates on materialism. (shrink)

Одной из особенностей прагматизма является, как известно, трактовка познания, свободная от апелляции к корреспондентной теории истины и постулирования независимой (от человека) реальности. Все прагматисты, к каким бы воззрениям по частным вопросам они ни склонялись, придерживаются операциональной концепции познания. Согласно этой концепции, достаточным основанием знания является его применимость на практике. Данный аспект неоднократно затрагивался в ходе дискуссий о сходствах и различиях марксизма и прагматизма. Несмотря на существенное расхождение между прагматизмом и марксизмом в понимании природы знания, многие исследователи пытались провести параллели между (...) этими двумя интеллектуальными традициями. В частности, Бертран Рассел указывал на близость философии Дьюи «доктрине другого экс-гегельянца, Карла Маркса, как она была сформулирована в его “Тезисах о Фейербахе”». По мнению Рассела, если не придавать слишком большого значения терминологическим нюансам, Марксова теория деятельности, или праксиса, в главных моментах «едва отличима от инструментализма». Этот взгляд получил распространение даже среди прагматистов, а также американских марксистов (точнее, троцкистов), которые в конце 40-х годов прошлого века трактовали прагматизм Дьюи как прямое продолжение и развитие марксизма. Дж. Новак, к примеру, утверждал, что «самым выдающимся современным мыслителем, впитавшим в себя все лучшее, что было у Маркса, является Дьюи». В. Ленина — как практика, а не теоретика — Новак считал, в свою очередь, «скрытым последователем» Дьюи. Согласно бывшему марксисту С. Хуку, прагматизм — это философия «экспериментального натурализма», т. е. теория, «развивающая наиболее здравые и продуктивные идеи Маркса о мире». В статье (с опорой главным образом на аргументацию советских марксистов) критически пересматривается философский диалог между марксизмом и прагматизмом. Основное внимание уделяется понятию деятельности, или праксиса, а также взаимосвязи субъекта и объекта в познании. // It is well-known that pragmatism advocates an approach on cognition without appealing to man-independent reality and truth as correspondence with reality. Instead, pragmatists, notwithstanding the diversity of their particular views, hold an operational conception of knowledge, according to which all that is needed is knowledge to have a suitable kind of correspondence with practice. This point has been scrutinized in the long standing discussion about the convergences and deviations between Marxism and pragmatism. The profound divergence between Marxism and pragmatism with regard to the aforementioned issues was not enough to prevent philosophers from attempting to trace affinities between these two distinct intellectual trends. For example, Bertrand Russell pointed out the “close similarity” of Dewey’s doctrine to “that of another exHegelian, Karl Marx, as it is delineated in his Theses on Feuerbach.” Russell thinks that Marx’s concept of activity or praxis is in spite of differences in terminology “essentially indistinguishable from instrumentalism.” This line of reasoning seems to be quite influential, even among pragmatists. Notably, some American Marxists (especially Trotskyists, to be exact) at the late 40’s overemphasized the affinity between Dewey’s pragmatism and Marxism, and even understood Dewey’s pragmatism as a continuation of Marxism. For example, G. Novack comments that “[t]he most outstanding figure in the world today in whom the best elements of Marx’s thought are present is John Dewey,” and presents Lenin as “an unavowed disciple of Dewey in practice.” According to S. Hook, a former Marxist who turned to pragmatism and became one of the most influential philosophers who discussed the relation between Marxism and pragmatism, the latter is “the philosophy of experimental naturalism” which can be regarded “as a continuation of what is soundest and most fruitful in Marx’s philosophical outlook upon the world.” In this paper, I intend to critically reassess this philosophical dialogue between Marxism and pragmatism, by further deploying the argumentation provided mainly by Soviet Marxists with regard to the aforementioned issues, focusing especially on two of them: the concept of activity (or praxis) and the interrelation of subject and object in cognition. (shrink)

The cognitive phenomenology thesis has it that conscious cognitive states essentially exhibit a phenomenal character. Defenders of ‘conservatism’ about cognitive phenomenology think that the phenomenology of thought is reducible to sensory phenomenology. In contrast, proponents of ‘liberalism’ hold that there is a proprietary, sui generis cognitive phenomenology. Horgan develops a morph-sequence argument to argue for liberalism. The argument is based on the conceivability of a cognitive phenomenology zombie, i.e. a man who does not understand Chinese (...) but shares the behavior and sensory phenomenology with his twin who does understand Chinese. I argue that the conceivability of a cognitive phenomenology-zombie fails to settle the debate between conservatives and liberals. The roots of the ineffectiveness of the argument lie in the diverse readings of sensory phenomenology which flesh out the relation between sensory phenomenology and concepts differently but explain the conceivability of the scenario equally well. The lesson to learn is that to adjudicate the debate about cognitive phenomenology, we first have to clarify the notion of sensory phenomenology. (shrink)

dolce, the first top-level ontology to be axiomatized, has remained stable for twenty years and today is broadly used in a variety of domains. dolce is inspired by cognitive and linguistic considerations and aims to model a commonsense view of reality, like the one human beings exploit in everyday life in areas as diverse as socio-technical systems, manufacturing, financial transactions and cultural heritage. dolce clearly lists the ontological choices it is based upon, relies on philosophical principles, is richly formalized, (...) and is built according to well-established ontological methodologies, e.g. OntoClean. Because of these features, it has inspired most of the existing top-level ontologies and has been used to develop or improve standards and public domain resources. Being a foundational ontology, dolce is not directly concerned with domain knowledge. Its purpose is to provide the general categories and relations needed to give a coherent view of reality, to integrate domain knowledge, and to mediate across domains. In these 20 years dolce has shown that applied ontologies can be stable and that interoperability across reference and domain ontologies is a reality. This paper briefly introduces the ontology and shows how to use it on a few modeling cases. (shrink)

This article examines two questions about scientists’ search for knowledge. First, which search strategies generate discoveries effectively? Second, is it advantageous to diversify search strategies? We argue pace Weisberg and Muldoon, “Epistemic Landscapes and the Division of Cognitive Labor”, that, on the first question, a search strategy that deliberately seeks novel research approaches need not be optimal. On the second question, we argue they have not shown epistemic reasons exist for the division of cognitive labor, identifying the errors (...) that led to their conclusions. Furthermore, we generalize the epistemic landscape model, showing that one should be skeptical about the benefits of social learning in epistemically complex environments. (shrink)

Social scientists often draw on a variety of evidence for their causal inferences. There is also a call to use a greater variety of evidence in social science research. This topical collection examines the philosophical foundations and implications of evidential diversity in the social sciences. It assesses the application of Evidential Pluralism in the context of the social sciences, especially its application to economics and political science. It also discusses the concept of causation in cognitive science and the (...) implications of evidential diversity for the social sciences. (shrink)

B eginning with the problem of integrating diverse disciplinary perspectives on moral cognition, we argue that the various disciplines have an interest in developing a common conceptual framework for moral cognition research. We discuss issues arising in the other chapters in this volume that might serve as focal points for future investigation and as the basis for the eventual development of such a framework. These include the role of theory in binding together diverse phenomena and the role of philosophy in (...) the construction of moral theory. We discuss the problem of distinguishing descriptive and normative issues and the importance of systematic normative analysis for empirical research. We argue that theories of cognitive architecture should play an important role as a backdrop for investigation into specific aspects of moral cognition, and we consider some of the taxonomic issues that will arise for moral cognition research, including types of moral agents, forms of moral cognition, and the nature of morality itself. Finally, we discuss some key issues in moral development, including the importance of.. (shrink)

We propose a way to explain the diversification of branches of mathematics, distinguishing the different approaches by which mathematical objects can be studied. In our philosophy of mathematics, there is a base object, which is the abstract multiplicity that comes from our empirical experience. However, due to our human condition, the analysis of such multiplicity is covered by other empirical cognitive attitudes (approaches), diversifying the ways in which it can be conceived, and consequently giving rise to different mathematical disciplines. (...) This diversity of approaches is founded on the manifold categories that we find in physical reality. We also propose, grounded on this idea, the use of Aristotelian categories as a first model for this division, generating from it a classification of mathematical branches. Finally we make a history review to show that there is consistency between our classification, and the historical appearance of the different branches of mathematics. (shrink)

Psychopathic individuals display a callous-coldhearted approach to interpersonal and affective situations and engage in impulsive and antisocial behaviors. Despite early conceptualizations suggesting that psychopathy is related to enhanced cognitive functioning, research examining executive functioning (EF) in psychopathy has yielded few such findings. It is possible that some psychopathic trait dimensions are more related to EF than others. Research using a 2-factor or 4-facet model of psychopathy highlights some dimension-specific differences in EF, but this research is limited in scope. Another (...) complicating factor in teasing apart the EF–psychopathy relationship is the tendency to use different psychopathy assessments for incarcerated versus community samples. In this study, an EF battery and multiple measures of psychopathic dimensions were administered to a sample of male prisoners (N. (shrink)

The paper deals with the methodological clash between idealism and anti-idealism in political philosophy, and highlights its importance for public reason (PR) and public justification (PJ) theorising. Upon reviewing the broader context which harks back to Rawls’s notion of a realistic utopia, we focus on two major recent contributions to the debate in the work of David Estlund (the prototypical utopian) and Gerald Gaus (the cautious anti-utopian). While Estlund presents a powerful case on behalf of ideal theorising, claiming that motivational (...) incapacity and other non-ideal features of “human nature” – the so-called bad facts – do not normally refute the desirability of highly utopian theories of justice, we show that Gaus is correct in stressing the importance of feasibility considerations, including empirical knowledge about human societies. Because moral disagreement is to be expected even among cognitively and morally excellent reasoners, we argue that Estlund’s search for Truth about justice must idealise away normative diversity as just another bad fact. This methodological dispute has important ramifications for current debates about PR and PJ as the grounds of liberal legitimacy. Because consensual approaches rely on strong idealisation which results in exclusion of numerous comprehensive doctrines from consideration, we conclude that convergence-based liberal political theory has distinct advantage as regards exploiting normative diversity to the advantage of everyone. (shrink)

Three special issues of Entropy journal have been dedicated to the topics of “InformationProcessing and Embodied, Embedded, Enactive Cognition”. They addressed morphological computing, cognitive agency, and the evolution of cognition. The contributions show the diversity of views present in the research community on the topic of computation and its relation to cognition. This paper is an attempt to elucidate current debates on computation that are central to cognitive science. It is written in the form of a dialog (...) between two authors representing two opposed positions regarding the issue of what computation is and could be, and how it can be related to cognition. Given the different backgrounds of the two researchers, which span physics, philosophy of computing and information, cognitive science, and philosophy, we found the discussions in the form of Socratic dialogue appropriate for this multidisciplinary/cross-disciplinary conceptual analysis. We proceed as follows. First, the proponent (GDC) introduces the info-computational framework as a naturalistic model of embodied, embedded, and enacted cognition. Next, objections are raised by the critic (MM) from the point of view of the new mechanistic approach to explanation. Subsequently, the proponent and the critic provide their replies. The conclusion is that there is a fundamental role for computation, understood as information processing, in the understanding of embodied cognition. (shrink)

Attention to the conversational role of alethic terms seems to dominate, and even sometimes exhaust, many contemporary analyses of the nature of truth. Yet, because truth plays a role in judgment and assertion regardless of whether alethic terms are expressly used, such analyses cannot be comprehensive or fully adequate. A more general analysis of the nature of truth is therefore required – one which continues to explain the significance of truth independently of the role alethic terms play in discourse. We (...) undertake such an analysis in this paper; in particular, we start with certain elements from Kant and Frege, and develop a construct of truth as a normative modality of cognitive acts (e.g., thought, judgment, assertion). Using the various biconditional T-schemas to sanction the general passage from assertions to (equivalent) assertions of truth, we then suggest that an illocutionary analysis of truth can contribute to its locutionary analysis as well, including the analysis of diverse constructions involving alethic terms that have been largely overlooked in the philosophical literature. Finally, we briefly indicate the importance of distinguishing between alethic and epistemic modalities. (shrink)

The normative and metanormative pluralism that figures among core self-descriptions of democratic theory, which seems incompatible with democratic theorists’ practical ambitions, may stem from the internal logic of research traditions in the social sciences and humanities and in the conceptual structure of political theory itself. One way to deal productively with intradisciplinary diversity is to appeal to the idea of a meta-consensus; another is to appeal to the argument from cognitive diversity that fuels recent debates on epistemic (...) democracy. For different reasons, both strategies fail, such that a metatheoretical step aside may be desirable, one that entails modeling democratic theory after the public justification approach. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a logical-cognitive approach to argumentation and advocate an idea that argumentation presupposes that intelligent agents engaged in it are cognitively diverse. My approach to argumentation allows drawing distinctions between justification, conviction and persuasion as its different kinds. In justification agents seek to verify weak or strong coherency of an agent’s position in a dialogue. In conviction they argue to modify their partner’s position by means of demonstrating weak or strong cogency of their positions before (...) a ‘rational judge’. My approach to argumentation employs a ‘light’ version of Dung’s abstract argumentative frameworks. It is based on Stich’s idea of agents’ cognitive diversity the epistemic aspect of which is argued to be close to Pavilionis’s conception of meaning continuum. To illustrate my contributions I use an example based on the Kitchen Debate (1959) between Khrushchev and Nixon. (shrink)

There have been recent calls to expand contemporary analytic philosophy of religion beyond the oft implicitly assumed Christian tradition. Instead of exploring moral reasons to expand the discipline, I argue that there are strong epistemic reasons to favour diversifying the philosophy of religion. Increasing diversity is likely to increase disagreement, and there are epistemic benefits to be gained from the existence of disagreement. I argue that such considerations quite clearly apply to the philosophy of religion, and as such that (...) there are epistemic reasons to diversify the field. I conclude by offering a number of practical steps we can take towards achieving this end which are relatively easy to implement. (shrink)

Epistemic agents interact with evidence in different ways. This can cause trouble for mutual understanding and for our ability to rationally engage with others. Indeed, it can compromise democratic practices of deliberation. This paper explains these differences by appeal to a new notion: epistemic styles. Epistemic styles are ways of interacting with evidence that express unified sets of epistemic values, preferences, goals, and interests. The paper introduces the notion of epistemic styles and develops a systematic account of their nature. It (...) then discusses the implications of epistemic styles for central questions in epistemology, in particular, for issues surrounding rational engagement and for the debate between virtue epistemologists and epistemic situationists. (shrink)