This project continues our interdisciplinary research into computational and cognitive aspects of narrative comprehension. Our ultimate goal is the development of a computational theory of how humans understand narrative texts. The theory will be informed by joint research from the viewpoints of linguistics, cognitive psychology, the study of language acquisition, literary theory, geography, philosophy, and artificial intelligence. The linguists, literary theorists, and geographers in our group are developing theories of narrative language and spatial understanding that are being tested by the (...) cognitive psychologists and language researchers in our group, and a computational model of a reader of narrative text is being developed by the AI researchers, based in part on these theories and results and in part on research on knowledge representation and reasoning. This proposal describes the knowledge-representation and natural-language-processing issues involved in the computational implementation of the theory; discusses a contrast between communicative and narrative uses of language and of the relation of the narrative text to the story world it describes; investigates linguistic, literary, and hermeneutic dimensions of our research; presents a computational investigation of subjective sentences and reference in narrative; studies children’s acquisition of the ability to take third-person perspective in their own storytelling; describes the psychological validation of various linguistic devices; and examines how readers develop an understanding of the geographical space of a story. This report is a longer version of a project description submitted to NSF. This document, produced in May 2007, is a L ATEX version of Technical Report 89-07 (Buffalo: SUNY Buffalo Department of Computer Science, August 1989), with slightly.. (shrink)

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

David Lewis' objection to a generic theory of modality which he calls ‘magical ersatzism’ is that its linchpin, a relation he calls ‘selection’, must be either an internal or an external relation, and that this is unintelligible either way. But the problem he points out with classifying selection as internal is really just an instance of the general problem of how we manage to grasp underdetermined predicates, is not peculiar to magical ersatzism, and is amenable to some familiar solutions. (...) He provides no compelling grounds for thinking that classifying selection as external is unintelligible, and his argument has a false presupposition. I conclude that magical ersatzism is still a viable option in the metaphysics of modality. (shrink)

Abstract (for the combined three Parts) This paper presents the simplest known theory of processes involved in a person’s unconscious and conscious achievements such as intending, perceiving, reacting and thinking. The basic principle is that an individual has mental states which possess quantitative causal powers and are susceptible to influences from other mental states. Mental performance discriminates the present level of a situational feature from its level in an individually acquired, multiple featured norm (exemplar, template, standard). The effect on output (...) of a moderate disparity between input and norm is scaled in a universal unit of discrimination (Weber’s fraction), with the norm’s level being zero. When one process converts separate sources of input into an output, their discriminative distances from norm are summated. Distinct processes converging on an output combine their discriminations from norm orthogonally. An output may be influenced by the constructs of other outputs as well as by inputs. Descriptive performance is the influence of one category of input on a verbal output. Reasoning is minimally the effect of one verbal process on another. In deeper mental processing, the influence on a response comes from a response construct modulating a description: this process gives the meaning to an emotion or a motive. Descriptive modulation of stimulation corresponds to a bodily sensation or other conceptualized percept. When an output is explained solely by sources of input, that response to the stimulation may be mediated unconsciously. Development of a person within physical and communal environments embodies such mental causation within material causation and acculturates that mind to social causation. (shrink)

In the literature on multiple realizability and the identity theory, cases of neural plasticity have enjoyed a very limited role. The present article attempts to remedy this small influence by arguing that clinical and experimental evidence of quite extensive neural reorganization offers compelling support for the claim that psychological kinds are multiply realized in neurological kinds, thus undermining the identity theory. In particular, cases are presented where subjects with no measurable psychological deficits also have vast, though gradually received, neurological damage. (...) Common objections and concerns are also discussed and rejected. 1 Introduction2 The GRP, Serial Lesion Effect, and Multiple Realizability2.1 A case study of the serial lesion effect2.2 Evaluating the case study’s evidence for multiple realizability3 The GRP More Generally4 Objections to the GRP as Evidence for Multiple Realizability4.1 Small plastic effects and neurological taxonomies4.2 But do neural regions and locations even matter at all?4.3 But are there not other options besides location?5 Conclusion. (shrink)

Two studies demonstrate that a dispositional proneness to disgust (“disgust sensitivity”) is associated with intuitive disapproval of gay people. Study 1 was based on previous research showing that people are more likely to describe a behavior as intentional when they see it as morally wrong (see Knobe, 2006, for a review). As predicted, the more disgust sensitive participants were, the more likely they were to describe an agent whose behavior had the side effect of causing gay men to kiss in (...) public as having intentionally encouraged gay men to kiss publicly— even though most participants did not explicitly think it wrong to encourage gay men to kiss in public. No such effect occurred when subjects were asked about heterosexual kissing. Study 2 used the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Nosek, Banaji, & Greenwald, 2006) as a dependent measure. The more disgust sensitive participants were, the more they showed.. (shrink)

This article explores Marx’s contention that the achievement of full personhood and, not just consequently, but simultaneously, of genuine intersubjectivity depends upon the attainment of recognition for one’s place in the social division of labour, recognition which is systematically denied to some individuals and groups of individuals through the capitalist organization of production and exchange. This reading is then employed in a critique of Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition which, it is argued, cannot account for the systematic obstacles faced by (...) some struggles for recognition. (shrink)

The best arguments for possible worlds as states of affairs furnish us with equally good arguments for impossible worlds of the same sort. I argue for a theory of impossible worlds on which the impossible worlds correspond to maximal inconsistent classes of propositions. Three objections are rejected. In the final part of the paper, I present a menu of impossible worlds and explore some of their interesting formal properties.

In temporal binding, the temporal interval between one event and another, occurring some time later, is subjectively compressed. We discuss two ways in which temporal binding has been conceptualized. In studies showing temporal binding between a voluntary action and its causal consequences, such binding is typically interpreted as providing a measure of an implicit or pre-reflective “sense of agency”. However, temporal binding has also been observed in contexts not involving voluntary action, but only the passive observation of a cause-effect sequence. (...) In those contexts, it has been interpreted as a top-down effect on perception reflecting a belief in causality. These two views need not be in conflict with one another, if one thinks of them as concerning two separate mechanisms through which temporal binding can occur. In this paper, we explore an alternative possibility: that there is a unitary way of explaining temporal binding both within and outside the context of voluntary action as a top-down effect on perception reflecting a belief in causality. Any such explanation needs to account for ways in which agency, and factors connected with agency, have been shown to affect the strength of temporal binding. We show that principles of causal inference and causal selection already familiar from the literature on causal learning have the potential to explain why the strength of people’s causal beliefs can be affected by the extent to which they are themselves actively involved in bringing about events, thus in turn affecting binding. (shrink)

How Heidegger criticizes and "locates" science, and some problems with what he is trying to do.

Although most agree that St. Anselm’s ontological argument is problematic, there is no consensus as to what, exactly, is the flaw in the argument. In this essay, I propose what I take to be a novel criticism of the argument. Specifically, I claim that Anselm is guilty of an equivocation in his use of the word “God,” using it sometimes to refer to a being and sometimes to refer to a concept. Any attempt to remove this equivocation, I show, is (...) doomed to failure; it is impossible to render the argument (or some version thereof) sound. (shrink)

Suboptimality of decision making needs no explanation. High level accounts of suboptimality in diverse tasks cannot add up to a mechanistic theory of perceptual decision making. Mental processes operate on the contents of information brought by the experimenter and the participant to the task, not on the amount of information in the stimuli without regard to physical and social context.

Jopling highlights three theories of philosophical psychology.

A comparison of the ways in which Hegel and Heidegger critique modernity.

This article addresses the question of the coherence of enactivism as a research perspective by making a case study of enactivism in mathematics education research. Main theoretical directions in mathematics education are reviewed and the history of adoption of concepts from enactivism is described. It is concluded that enactivism offers a ‘grand theory’ that can be brought to bear on most of the phenomena of interest in mathematics education research, and so it provides a sufficient theoretical framework. It has particular (...) strength in describing interactions between cognitive systems, including human beings, human conversations and larger human social systems. Some apparent incoherencies of enactivism in mathematics education and in other fields come from the adoption of parts of enactivism that are then grafted onto incompatible theories. However, another significant source of incoherence is the inadequacy of Maturana’s definition of a social system and the lack of a generally agreed upon alternative. (shrink)

It is tough to relate visual perception or other achievements to physiological processing in the central nervous system. The diagrammatic, algebraic, and verbal pictures of how sights seem to Lehar do not advance understanding of how we manage to see what is in the world. There are well-known conceptual reasons why no such purely introspective approach can be productive.

Driven by a sharp increase in claims for reparations, reparative justice has become a topic of academic debate. To some extent this debate has been marred by a failure to realize the complexity of reparative justice. In this essay we try to amend this shortcoming. We do this by developing a taxonomy of different kinds of wrongs that can underwrite claims to reparations. We identify four kinds of wrongs: entitlement violations, unjust exclusions from an otherwise acceptable system of entitlements, and (...) two kinds where a social practice systematically fails to embody an acceptable system of entitlements. In deliberation about what is required to repair a historical injustice the weight of backward- and forward-looking considerations is a function of the distinctive features of the injustice in question. Hence, the first step in adjudicating claims for reparation is to identify what kind of wrong the claim arises from. From the taxonomy of wrongs we are thus able to construct what we call the Field of Reparative Justice, which illustrates how the structure of deliberation for reparative justice tracks the distinctive features of different kinds of wrongs. (shrink)

The book, providing a broad analysis of trade liberalization initiatives from the inception of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to 2013, is essential reading for trade lawyers, researchers, and students alike who are interested in getting a glimpse of the future directions for trade liberalization. The book attempts to ask and answer the following key question: What are the alternatives to trade liberalization in the WTO system?

Should a principle of charity be applied to the interpretation of the colour concepts exercised in visual experience? We think not. We shall argue, for one thing, that the grounds for applying a principle of charity are lacking in the case of colour concepts. More importantly, we shall argue that attempts at giving the experience of colour a charitable interpretation either fail to respect obvious features of that experience or fail to interpret it charitably, after all. Charity to visual experience (...) is therefore no motive for resisting the natural, Galilean response to a scientific understanding of light and vision. The best interpretation of colour experience ends up convicting it of widespread and systematic error. (shrink)

According to Richard Gelwick, one of the fundamental implications of Polanyi’s epistemology is that all intellectual disciplines are inherently heuristic. This article draws out the implications of a heuristic vision of theology latent in Polanyi’s thought by placing contemporary theologian David Brown’s dynamic understanding of tradition, imagination, and revelation in the context of a Polanyian-inspired vision of reality. Consequently, such a theology will follow the example of science, reimagining its task as one of discovery rather than mere reflection on (...) a timeless body of divine revelation. The ongoing development of a theological tradition thus involves the attempt to bring one’s understanding of the question of God to bear on the whole of the human experience. The pursuit of theology as a heuristic endeavor is a bold attempt to construct an integrated vision of nothing less than the entirety of all that is, without absolutizing one’s vision, and without giving up on the question of truth. (shrink)

When do probability distribution functions (PDFs) about future climate misrepresent uncertainty? How can we recognise when such misrepresentation occurs and thus avoid it in reasoning about or communicating our uncertainty? And when we should not use a PDF, what should we do instead? In this paper we address these three questions. We start by providing a classification of types of uncertainty and using this classification to illustrate when PDFs misrepresent our uncertainty in a way that may adversely affect decisions. We (...) then discuss when it is reasonable and appropriate to use a PDF to reason about or communicate uncertainty about climate. We consider two perspectives on this issue. On one, which we argue is preferable, available theory and evidence in climate science basically excludes using PDFs to represent our uncertainty. On the other, PDFs can legitimately be provided when resting on appropriate expert judgement and recognition of associated risks. Once we have specified the border between appropriate and inappropriate uses of PDFs, we explore alternatives to their use. We briefly describe two formal alternatives, namely imprecise probabilities and possibilistic distribution functions, as well as informal possibilistic alternatives. We suggest that the possibilistic alternatives are preferable. -/- . (shrink)

Graduates' employability indicates the excellent education and relevant preparation they obtained from their respective degrees. Tracer studies have enabled higher education institutions to profile their graduates while also reflecting on the quality of education they provide. With the foregoing, a tracer study determined the demographic and academic profile of teacher education graduates from 2017 to 2020 in a state university in the West Philippines. It also ascertained the advanced studies they attended after college, their employment data, the relevance of college (...) preparation with their current employment, difficulties they encountered while securing employment and in their present job, and recommendations to strengthen the teacher education program. The study utilized a descriptive survey research design with 80 non-random samples chosen based on availability. The survey was based on the Philippine Commission on Higher Education with modifications elucidated from previous studies. Results showed that graduates took the teacher education program with a strong passion for the teaching profession. More graduates received honors and awards, passed the licensure examinations for teachers, attended advanced studies for professional development, and are employable. Besides, the graduates’ college preparation is relevant to their current employment. Further, difficulties and problems encountered and recommendations to strengthen the teacher education program were noted. These findings may serve as a baseline for curriculum review and give suggestions for future tracer studies. (shrink)

One sometimes believes a proposition without grasping it. For example, a complete achromat might believe that ripe tomatoes are red without grasping this proposition. My aim in this paper is to shed light on the difference between merely believing a proposition and grasping it. I focus on two possible theories of grasping: the inferential theory, which explains grasping in terms of inferential role, and the phenomenal theory, which explains grasping in terms of phenomenal consciousness. I argue that the phenomenal theory (...) is more plausible than the inferential theory. (shrink)

In this Introduction, we aim to introduce the reader to the basic topic of this book. As part of this, we explain why we are using two different expressions (‘conceptual engineering’ and ‘conceptual ethics’) to describe the topics in the book. We then turn to some of the central foundational issues that arise for conceptual engineering and conceptual ethics, and finally we outline various views one might have about their role in philosophy and inquiry more generally.

Available reports provide an account of academic staff’s poor job performance in higher education institutions and universities in particular. Consequently, a growing body of research has been attracted to this area, including those seeking ways to understand the problem and others aimed at proffering solutions. This study contributes to the literature by investigating the influence of occupational stress on the job performance of academic staff in universities. Three null hypotheses directed the study in line with the quantitative ex-post facto research (...) design. A sample of 150 respondents was obtained using the systematic random sampling technique from a population of 400 lecturers in the Faculty of Education from two public universities in Nigeria. A 31-item questionnaire was used for data collection. The null hypotheses were tested at the .05 alpha level using simple linear regression analysis. It was revealed that remuneration is a significant positive predictor of academic staff job performance. The prediction of workload was negatively non-significant on the job performance of academics. The provision of institutional amenities has a positive but non-significant prediction on academic staff job performance in the two public universities. It was concluded that occupational stress significantly influences the job performance of lecturers in universities. The study recommended that the government constantly pay lecturers’ salaries as and when due. Institutional managers should reward lecturers with outstanding performance to boost their morale for effective service delivery. (shrink)

What does it mean to know how to do something? This book develops a comprehensive account of know-how, a crucial epistemic goal for all who care about getting things right, not only with respect to the facts, but also with respect to practice. It proposes a novel interpretation of the seminal work of Gilbert Ryle, according to which know-how is a competence, a complex ability to do well in an activity in virtue of guidance by an understanding of what it (...) takes to do so. This idea is developed into a full-fledged account, Rylean responsibilism, which understands know-how in terms of the normative guidance and responsible control of one's acts. Within the complex current debate about know-how, this view occupies a middle ground position between the intellectualist claim that know-how just is propositional or objectual knowledge and the anti-intellectualist claim that know-how just is ability. In genuine know-how, practical ability and guiding intellect are both necessary, but essentially intertwined. (shrink)

The revival of Aristotelian virtue ethics can be seen as a response to the modern problem of disenchantment, that is, the perceived loss of meaning in modernity. However, in Virtue and Meaning, David McPherson contends that the dominant approach still embraces an overly disenchanted view. In a wide-ranging discussion, McPherson argues for a more fully re-enchanted perspective that gives better recognition to the meanings by which we live and after which we seek, and to the fact that human beings (...) are the meaning-seeking animal. In doing so, he defends distinctive accounts of the relationship between virtue and happiness, other-regarding demands, and the significance of linking neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics with a view of the meaning of life and a spiritual life where contemplation has a central role. This book will be valuable for philosophers and other readers who are interested in virtue ethics and the perennial question of the meaning of life. (shrink)

A natural view of testimony holds that a source's statements provide one with evidence about what the source believes, which in turn provides one with evidence about what is true. But some theorists have gone further and developed a broadly analogous view of memory. According to this view, which this essay calls the “diary model,” one's memory ordinarily serves as a means for one's present self to gain evidence about one's past judgments, and in turn about the truth. This essay (...) rejects the diary model's analogy between memory and testimony from one's former self, arguing first that memory and a diary differ with respect to their psychological roles, and second that this psychological difference underwrites important downstream epistemic differences. The resulting view stands opposed to prominent discussions of memory and testimony, which either, like the diary model, treat memory by analogy to what we naively wish to say about testimony, or which instead attempt to extend to testimony the epistemically preservative role of memory. (shrink)

According to dispositionalism about modality, a proposition <p> is possible just in case something has, or some things have, a power or disposition for its truth; and <p> is necessary just in case nothing has a power for its falsity. But are there enough powers to go around? In Yates (2015) I argued that in the case of mathematical truths such as <2+2=4>, nothing has the power to bring about their falsity or their truth, which means they come out both (...) necessary and not possible. Combining this with axiom (T), it is easy to derive a contradiction. I suggested that dispositionalists ought to retreat a little and say that <p> is possible just in case either p, or there is a power to bring it about that p, grounding the possibility of mathematical propositions in their truth rather than in powers. Vetter’s (2015) has the resources to provide a response to my argument, and in her (2018) she explicitly addresses it by arguing for a plenitude of powers, based on the idea that dispositions come in degrees, with necessary properties a limiting case of dispositionality. On this view there is a power for <2+2=4>, without there being a power to bring about its truth. In this paper I argue that Vetter’s case for plenitude does not work. However, I suggest, if we are prepared to accept metaphysical causation, a case can be made that there is indeed a power for <2+2=4>. (shrink)

This article outlines a program of ethnoontology that brings together empirical research in the ethnosciences with ontological debates in philosophy. First, we survey empirical evidence from heterogeneous cultural contexts and disciplines. Second, we propose a model of cross‐cultural relations between ontologies beyond a simple divide between universalist and relativist models. Third, we argue for an integrative model of ontology building that synthesizes insights from different fields such as biological taxonomy, cognitive science, cultural anthropology, and political ecology. We conclude by arguing (...) that a program of ethnoontology provides philosophers both with insights about traditional issues such as debates about natural kinds and with novel strategies for connecting philosophy with pressing global issues such as the conservation of local environments and the self‐determination of Indigenous communities. (shrink)

We are quickly passing through the historical moment when people work in front of a single computer, dominated by a small CRT and focused on tasks involving only local information. Networked computers are becoming ubiquitous and are playing increasingly significant roles in our lives and in the basic infrastructure of science, business, and social interaction. For human-computer interaction o advance in the new millennium we need to better understand the emerging dynamic of interaction in which the focus task is no (...) longer confined to the desktop but reaches into a complex networked world of information and computer-mediated interactions. We think the theory of distributed cognition has a special role to play in understanding interactions between people and technologies, for its focus has always been on whole environments: what we really do in them and how we coordinate our activity in them. Distributed cognition provides a radical reorientation of how to think about designing and supporting human-computer interaction. As a theory it is specifically tailored to understanding interactions among people and technologies. In this article we propose distributed cognition as a new foundation for human-computer interaction, sketch an integrated research framework, and use selections from our earlier work to suggest how this framework can provide new opportunities in the design of digital work materials. (shrink)

Our evidence can be about different subject matters. In fact, necessarily equivalent pieces of evidence can be about different subject matters. Does the hyperintensionality of ‘aboutness’ engender any hyperintensionality at the level of rational credence? In this paper, I present a case which seems to suggest that the answer is ‘yes’. In particular, I argue that our intuitive notions of independent evidence and inadmissible evidence are sensitive to aboutness in a hyperintensional way. We are thus left with a paradox. While (...) there is strong reason to think that rational credence cannot make such hyperintensional distinctions, our intuitive judgements about certain cases seem to demand that it does. (shrink)

The revival of analytic metaphysics in the latter half of the twentieth century is typically understood as a consequence of the critiques of logical positivism, Quine’s naturalization of ontology, Kripke’s Naming and Necessity, clarifications of modal notions in logic, and the theoretical exploitation of possible worlds. However, this explanation overlooks the work of metaphysicians at the height of positivism and linguisticism that affected metaphysics of the late twentieth century. Donald C. Williams is one such philosopher. In this paper I explain (...) how Williams’s fundamental ontology and philosophy of time influenced in part the early formation of David Lewis’s metaphysics. Thus, Williams played an important role in the revival of analytic metaphysics. (shrink)

This essay attempts to provide and defend what may be the first actual argument in support of P. F. Strawson's merely stated vision of a response-dependent theory of moral responsibility. It does so by way of an extended analogy with the funny. In part 1, it makes the easier and less controversial case for response-dependence about the funny. In part 2, it shows the tight analogy between anger and amusement in developing the harder and more controversial case for response-dependence about (...) a kind of blameworthiness. It then defends the view from three serious skeptical challenges. (shrink)

Most of our best scientific descriptions of the world employ rates of change of some continuous quantity with respect to some other continuous quantity. For instance, in classical physics we arrive at a particle’s velocity by taking the time-derivative of its position, and we arrive at a particle’s acceleration by taking the time-derivative of its velocity. Because rates of change are defined in terms of other continuous quantities, most think that facts about some rate of change obtain in virtue of (...) facts about those other continuous quantities. For example, on this view facts about a particle’s velocity at a time obtain in virtue of facts about how that particle’s position is changing at that time. In this paper we raise a puzzle for this orthodox reductionist account of rate of change quantities and evaluate some possible replies. We don’t decisively come down in favour of one reply over the others, though we say some things to support taking our puzzle to cast doubt on the standard view that spacetime is continuous. (shrink)

The paper considers contemporary models of presumption in terms of their ability to contribute to a working theory of presumption for argumentation. Beginning with the Whatelian model, we consider its contemporary developments and alternatives, as proposed by Sidgwick, Kauffeld, Cronkhite, Rescher, Walton, Freeman, Ullmann-Margalit, and Hansen. Based on these accounts, we present a picture of presumptions characterized by their nature, function, foundation and force. On our account, presumption is a modal status that is attached to a claim and has the (...) effect of shifting, in a dialogue, a burden of proof set at a local level. Presumptions can be analysed and evaluated inferentially as components of rule-based structures. Presumptions are defeasible, and the force of a presumption is a function of its normative foundation. This picture seeks to provide a framework to guide the development of specific theories of presumption. (shrink)

This paper offers a probabilistic treatment of the conditions for argument cogency as endorsed in informal logic: acceptability, relevance, and sufficiency. Treating a natural language argument as a reason-claim-complex, our analysis identifies content features of defeasible argument on which the RSA conditions depend, namely: change in the commitment to the reason, the reason’s sensitivity and selectivity to the claim, one’s prior commitment to the claim, and the contextually determined thresholds of acceptability for reasons and for claims. Results contrast with, and (...) may indeed serve to correct, the informal understanding and applications of the RSA criteria concerning their conceptual dependence, their function as update-thresholds, and their status as obligatory rather than permissive norms, but also show how these formal and informal normative approachs can in fact align. (shrink)

The paper investigates what type of motivation can be given for adopting a knowledge-based decision theory. KBDT seems to have several advantages over competing theories of rationality. It is commonly argued that this theory would naturally fit with the intuitive idea that being rational is doing what we take to be best given what we know, an idea often supported by appeal to ordinary folk appraisals. Moreover, KBDT seems to strike a perfect balance between the problematic extremes of subjectivist and (...) objectivist decision theory. We argue that these alleged advantages do not stand up to a closer scrutiny: KBDT inherits the same kinds of problems as alternative decision theoretic frameworks but doesn’t retain any of the respective advantages. Moreover, differently from other knowledge-action principles advanced in the literature, KBDT cannot fully explain the intuitive connections between knowledge and rational action. We conclude that the most serious challenge for knowledge-based decision theorists is to provide a substantive rationale for the adoption of such a view. (shrink)

There is growing interest in the use of technology to enhance the tracking and quality of clinical information available for patients in disaster settings. This paper describes the design and evaluation of the Wireless Internet Information System for Medical Response in Disasters (WIISARD).

Lady Mary Shepherd holds that the relation of cause and effect consists of the combination of two objects to create a third object. She also holds that this account implies that causes are synchronous with their effects. There is a single instant in which the objects that are causes combine to create the object which is their effect. Hume argues that cause and effect cannot be synchronous because if they were then the entire chain of successive causes and effects would (...) all collapse into a single moment, and succession would not be possible. I argue that Shepherd has a ready, although implicit response, to Hume’s argument. Since causation is combination on Shepherd’s view, she is free to hold that there are times in between those instants in which combinations occur, during which times other, non-combinatory changes occur, which changes account for succession. (shrink)

Does the Ship of Theseus present a genuine puzzle about persistence due to conflicting intuitions based on “continuity of form” and “continuity of matter” pulling in opposite directions? Philosophers are divided. Some claim that it presents a genuine puzzle but disagree over whether there is a solution. Others claim that there is no puzzle at all since the case has an obvious solution. To assess these proposals, we conducted a cross-cultural study involving nearly 3,000 people across twenty-two countries, speaking eighteen (...) different languages. Our results speak against the proposal that there is no puzzle at all and against the proposal that there is a puzzle but one that has no solution. Our results suggest that there are two criteria—“continuity of form” and “continuity of matter”— that constitute our concept of persistence and these two criteria receive different weightings in settling matters concerning persistence. (shrink)

Cartesian arguments for global skepticism about the external world start from the premise that we cannot know that we are not in a Cartesian scenario such as an evil-demon scenario, and infer that because most of our empirical beliefs are false in such a scenario, these beliefs do not constitute knowledge. Veridicalist responses to global skepticism respond that arguments fail because in Cartesian scenarios, many or most of our empirical beliefs are true. Some veridicalist responses have been motivated using verificationism, (...) externalism, and coherentism. I argue that a more powerful veridicalist response to global skepticism can be motivated by structuralism, on which physical entities are understood as those that play a certain structural role. I develop the structuralist response and address objections. (shrink)

We propose a formal framework for interpretable machine learning. Combining elements from statistical learning, causal interventionism, and decision theory, we design an idealised explanation game in which players collaborate to find the best explanation for a given algorithmic prediction. Through an iterative procedure of questions and answers, the players establish a three-dimensional Pareto frontier that describes the optimal trade-offs between explanatory accuracy, simplicity, and relevance. Multiple rounds are played at different levels of abstraction, allowing the players to explore overlapping causal (...) patterns of variable granularity and scope. We characterise the conditions under which such a game is almost surely guaranteed to converge on a optimal explanation surface in polynomial time, and highlight obstacles that will tend to prevent the players from advancing beyond certain explanatory thresholds. The game serves a descriptive and a normative function, establishing a conceptual space in which to analyse and compare existing proposals, as well as design new and improved solutions. (shrink)

First published in 1990, _Existentialism_ is widely regarded as a classic introductory survey of the topic, and has helped to renew interest in existentialist philosophy. The author places existentialism within the great traditions of philosophy, and argues that it deserves as much attention from analytic philosophers as it has always received on the continent.

In this paper, we propose a framework for fostering argumentative skills in a systematic way in Philosophy and Ethics classes. We start with a review of curricula and teaching materials from the German-speaking world to show that there is an urgent need for standards for the teaching and learning of argumentation. Against this backdrop, we present a framework for such standards that is intended to tackle these difficulties. The spiral-curricular model of argumentative competences we sketch helps teachers introduce the relevant (...) concepts and skills to students early on in their school career. The focus is on secondary schools, but the proposal can also be of use for learning and teaching in universities, especially in introductory classes. (shrink)

Pharmaceutical paternalism is the normative stance upheld by pharmaceutical regulatory agencies like the US Food and Drug Administration. These agencies prevent patients from accessing treatments declared safe and ineffective for the patient’s good without their consent. Libertarian critics of the FDA have shown a number of significant flaws in regulatory paternalism. Against these objections, I will argue that, in order to make an informed decision about treatments, a libertarian patient should request full disclosure of the uncertainty about an experimental treatment. (...) But pharmaceutical markets, on their own, are not a reliable source of information about such uncertainty. And companies have the power to capture any independent expert who may assess it. Therefore, the libertarian is better off deferring on an independent regulatory body the assessment of the pharmaceutical risks, constraining access to treatments until tested. (shrink)