The present study aims to examine the relationship between the cortical midline structures (CMS), which have been regarded to be associated with selfhood, and moral decision making processes at the neural level. Traditional moral psychological studies have suggested the role of moral self as the moderator of moral cognition, so activity of moral self would present at the neural level. The present study examined the interaction between the CMS and other moral-related regions by conducting psycho-physiological interaction analysis of functional images (...) acquired while 16 subjects were solving moral dilemmas. Furthermore, we performed Granger causality analysis to demonstrate the direction of influences between activities in the regions in moral decision-making. We first demonstrate there are significant positive interactions between two central CMS seed regions—i.e., the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)—and brain regions associated with moral functioning including the cerebellum, brainstem, midbrain, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex and anterior insula (AI); on the other hand, the posterior insula (PI) showed significant negative interaction with the seed regions. Second, several significant Granger causality was found from CMS to insula regions particularly under the moral-personal condition. Furthermore, significant dominant influence from the AI to PI was reported. Moral psychological implications of these findings are discussed. The present study demonstrated the significant interaction and influence between the CMS and morality-related regions while subject were solving moral dilemmas. Given that, activity in the CMS is significantly involved in human moral functioning. (shrink)

Aims: The Research Diagnostic Criteria for Temporomandi¬bular Disorders (RDC/TMD) Axis I diagnostic algorithms were demonstrated to be reliable but below target sensitivity and specificity. Empirical data supported Axis I algorithm revisions that were valid. Axis II instruments were shown to be both reliable and valid. An international consensus workshop was convened to obtain recommendations and finalization of new Axis I diagnostic algorithms and new Axis II instruments. Methods: A comprehensive search of published TMD diagnostic literature was followed by review and (...) consensus via a formal structured process by a panel of experts for revision of the RDC/TMD. Results: The recommended Diagnostic Criteria for TMD (DC/TMD) Axis I protocol includes both a valid screener for pain diagnoses and valid criteria for the most common pain-related TMDs and for one intra-articular disorder. The Axis II protocol retains selected RDC/TMD screening instruments augmented with new instruments to better assess the interactions between pain and psychosocial functioning. A comprehensive classification system is also presented. Conclusion: The recommended evidence-based DC/TMD protocol is appropriate for use in both the clinical and research settings. Simple Axis I and II screening tests augmented by validated Axis I and Axis II instruments allow for identification of simple to complex TMD patients. (shrink)

Gary Comstock considers whether it is ethically justified to pursue genetically modified (GM) crops and foods. He first considers intrinsic objections to GM crops that allege that the process of making GMOs is objectionable in itself. He argues that there is no justifiable basis for the objections — i.e. GM crops are not intrinsically ethically problematic. He then considers extrinsic objections to GM crops, including objections based on the precautionary principle, which focus on the potential harms that may result (...) from the adoption of GM organisms. He argues that these concerns have some merit. However, they do not justify giving up GM crops altogether. Instead, they require that GM crops be developed carefully and with appropriate oversight. Comstock then presents the positive case for GM crops that he endorses. It is based on three considerations: (i) the right of people to choose to adopt GM technology; (ii) the balance of likely benefits over harms to consumers and the environment from GM technology; and (iii) the wisdom of encouraging discovery, innovation, and careful regulation of GM technology. (shrink)

In this chapter, Gary Comstock considers whether it is ethically justified to pursue genetically modified ( GM) crops and foods. He first considers intrinsic objections to GM crops that allege that the process of making GMOs is objectionable in itself. He argues that there is no justifiable basis for the objections- i.e. GM crops are not intrinsically ethically problematic. He then considers extrinsic objections to GM crops, including objections based on the precautionary principle, which focus on the potential harms (...) that may result from the adoption of GM organisms. He argues that these concerns have some merit. However, they do not justify giving up GM crops altogether. Instead, they require that GM crops be developed carefully and with appropriate oversight. Comstock then presents the positive case for GM crops that he endorses. It is based on three considerations: (i) the right of people to choose to adopt GM technology; (ii) the balance of likely benefits over harms to consumers and the environment from GM technology; and (iii) the wisdom of encouraging discovery, innovation, and careful regulation of GM technology. (shrink)

The argument for vegetarianism from overlapping species goes like this. Every individual who is the subject of a life has a right to life. Some humans—e.g., the severely congenitally cognitively limited—lack language, rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness, and yet they are subjects of a life. Severely congenitally cognitively limited humans have a right to life. Some animals—e.g., all mammals—lack language, rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness, and yet they are subjects of a life. We ought to treat like cases alike. The cases of (...) some humans are like the cases of some animals. Therefore, some animals have a right to life. -/- The argument seems not to have moved many people to change their diets. The reason, I suggest, is not because the argument is unsound but because our ability to change our dietary practices is difficult and we lack the imaginative resources to see the world from a nonhuman perspective. -/- I suggest that creative artists are of great value here, and I provide an example by referring to the work of the American novelist, Cormac McCarthy. (shrink)

Psychology considered as a natural science began as Aristotelian "physics" or "natural philosophy" of the soul. C. Wolff placed psychology under metaphysics, coordinate with cosmology. Scottish thinkers placed it within moral philosophy, but distinguished its "physical" laws from properly moral laws (for guiding conduct). Several Germans sought to establish an autonomous empirical psychology as a branch of natural science. British and French visual theorists developed mathematically precise theories of size and distance perception; they created instruments to test these theories and (...) to measure visual phenomena such as the duration of visual impressions. These investigators typically were dualists who included mental phenomena within nature. (shrink)

Throughout his career, Wundt recognized Völkerpsychologie (VP) as (at first) ancillary to experimental psychology or (later) as its required complement. New scholarship from around 1979 highlighted this fact while claiming to correct a picture of Wundt as a pure associationist, attributed to Boring’s History of Experimental Psychology, by instead emphasizing apperception in Wundt’s scheme (sec. 2). The criticisms of Boring, summarized by Blumenthal in 1980, overshot the mark. Boring’s Wundt was no pure associationist. Both Boring and the seventy-niner historians emphasized (...) psychic activity in Wundt. Section 3 considers Wundt’s endorsements of mental chemistry, elements, association, and psychological explanation via combinations of elements. Section 4 follows Wundt’s changing conceptions of VP; looks into the relations between VP and experiment, especially as regards “higher” mental processes; examines the (sometimes cooperative) interactions between individual (including experimental) psychology and VP; and considers how method, not type of mental process, distinguishes the two branches of psychology. Finally, section 5 acknowledges Wundt’s unification of VP and individual psychology and concludes that although he objected to the Würzburgers’ experimental methods in treating higher mental processes, he did not generally exclude the latter from experimental investigation, contrary to the seventy-niner narrative, which has been widely adopted. (shrink)

In this essay, I take up the question of why so many of the movies made by Hollywood are endless sequels, “prequels,” and remakes of prior blockbuster hits and so many are based on comic books (X-men, Superman, Batman, and so on). I tie the explanation in part to the aforementioned 1950 Supreme Court ruling prohibiting production companies, and in part to broader cultural changes. In particular, I argue that precisely because film producers can no longer make money from the (...) concessions (i.e., the purchases within the theater), but only of the ticket sales, the producers keep producing remakes of known popular movies, rather than make deeply original movies. (shrink)

Behaviorism was a peculiarly American phenomenon. As a school of psychology it was founded by John B. Watson (1878-1958) and grew into the neobehaviorisms of the 1920s, 30s and 40s. Philosophers were involved from the start, prefiguring the movement and endeavoring to define or redefine its tenets. Behaviorism expressed the naturalistic bent in American thought, which came in response to the prevailing philosophical idealism and was inspired by developments in natural science itself. There were several versions of naturalism in American (...) philosophy, and also several behaviorisms. Most behaviorists paid homage to Darwinian functionalism; all forswore introspection and made learned changes in behavior the primary subject matter and explanatory domain of psychology. They differed in their descriptions of behavior, modes of explanation, and attitudes toward mentalistic concepts. Watson was a strict materialist who wanted to eliminate all mentalistic talk from psychology. Edward Chace Tolman (1886-1959) regarded mind as a biological function of the organism. He permitted mentalistic terms such as 'purpose' in behavioral description, and posited intervening processes that included 'representations' of the environment, while requiring such processes be studied only as expressed in behavior. Clark L. Hull (1884-1952) developed a hypothetical-deductive version of behaviorism, akin to Tolman's functionalism in positing intervening variables but without his cognitivist constructs. B. F. Skinner (1904-90) rejected intervening variables and developed his own account of the behavior of the whole organism, based on the laws of operant conditioning. The naturalism in American philosophy of the early twentieth century showed respect for the natural sciences, especially biology and psychology. John Dewey (1896, 1911), George Santayana (1905, 1920), and F. J. E. Woodbridge (1909, 1913) expressed this attitude. It animated the neorealism of E. B. Holt and Ralph Barton Perry, who gave special attention to psychology, and the evolutionary naturalism and critical realism of Roy Wood Sellars. This naturalism differed from Watson's in regarding mind as part of nature from a Darwinian and functionalist perspective, and treating behavior as the product of the mental functioning. It fed Tolman's version of behaviorism. It was not materialistic or physical-reductionist. Only later, with Quine and logical empiricism, was behaviorism seen as essentially physicalistic. (shrink)

More than a century ago, G. E. Moore famously attempted to refute ethical naturalism by offering the so-called open question argument (OQA), also charging that all varieties of ethical naturalism commit the naturalistic fallacy. Although there is consensus that OQA and the naturalistic-fallacy charge both fail, OQA is sometimes vindicated, but only as an argument against naturalistic semantic analyses. The naturalistic-fallacy charge, by contrast, usually finds no takers at all. This paper provides new grounds for an OQA thus restricted. But (...) it aims chiefly at vindicating a version of the naturalistic fallacy, „the semantic-naturalist fallacy‟ (SNF), that we think defensible. We first argue that the openness of the question OQA raises against such analyses hinges on self-ascriptive, comparative judgments of content, which may be considered a priori warranted. We then provide independent reasons for the claim that the sort of mistake committed by naturalistic analyses in fact amounts to a pragmatic fallacy of a kind familiar in petitio principii and other forms of viciously circular inference. Of interest here are naturalistic analyses of ethical terms or concepts, not of properties. Our OQA (OQA*) raises an objection to the former. For no such semantic analyses can get off the ground unless moral terms are content-equivalent to purely descriptive terms, which amounts to saying that they must instantiate the same semantic types. Suppose „good‟ is the analysandum and „pleasure maximizing‟ the analysans (whichever purely descriptive term or terms would turn out to be the correct descriptive analysis of the target analysandum) of a certain semantic analysis. The claim that such terms are content-equivalent appears to be open to doubt on a priori grounds. After 1 all, whether one‟s own tokens of „good‟ and „pleasure maximizing‟ have/don‟t have the same content is a first-person, comparative judgment of content. Evaluating the proposed analysis requires, then, a self-ascriptive, comparative judgment of content.1 Judgments of this sort are thought to have a special epistemic status, since they seem grounded in neither evidence nor inference.. (shrink)

A review of Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition: Situating Animals in Hare’s Two-Level Utilitarianism, by Gary E. Varner. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. xv + 336. H/b £40.23. and The Philosophy of Animal Minds, edited by Robert W. Lurz. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. 320. P/b £20.21.

While Strawsonians have focused on the way in which our “reactive attitudes”—the emotions through which we hold one another responsible for manifestations of morally significant quality of regard—express moral demands, serious doubt has been cast on the idea that non-blaming reactive attitudes direct moral demands to their targets. Building on Gary Watson’s proposal that the reactive attitudes are ‘forms of moral address’, this paper advances a communicative view of praise according to which the form of moral address distinctive of (...) the praise-manifesting reactive attitudes (approbation, gratitude) is moral invitation. Like moral demand, moral invitation is a species of directive address presupposing its target’s possession of distinctive agential capacities and, when valid, provides its addressee with reason to give the addressor’s directive discursive uptake. While blame’s demands issue imperatival reasons for compliance (e.g. to acknowledge wrongdoing, apologize, etc.), praise’s invitations provide discretionary reasons to accept credit in jointly valuing the significance of the act for the praiser. In addition to its phenomenological plausibility and contribution to the already fecund Watsonian-cum-Strawsonian program, the invitational view helps render intelligible the power of our praise practices to facilitate the formation and enrichment of our interpersonal relationships. (shrink)

Many important theorists – e.g., Gary Watson and Stephen Darwall – characterize blame as a communicative entity and argue that this entails that morally responsible agency requires not just rational but moral competence. In this paper, I defend this argument from communication against three objections found in the literature. The first two reject the argument’s characterization of the reactive attitudes. The third urges that the argument is committed to a false claim.

Table of Contents Foreword .................................................................................................... ......................................... xiv Preface .................................................................................................... .............................................. xv Acknowledgment .................................................................................................... .......................... xxiii Section 1 On the Cusp: Critical Appraisals of a Growing Dependency on Intelligent Machines Chapter 1 Algorithms versus Hive Minds and the Fate of Democracy ................................................................... 1 Rick Searle, IEET, USA Chapter 2 We Can Make Anything: Should We? .................................................................................................. 15 Chris Bateman, University of Bolton, UK Chapter 3 Grounding Machine Ethics within the Natural System ........................................................................ 30 Jared Gassen, JMG Advising, USA Nak Young Seong, Independent Scholar, (...) South Korea Section 2 From the Outside In: Intelligent Machine Technologies as a Window on Human Morality both as Evolved and as Evident in Internet Discourse, Today Chapter 4 The Emergence of Arti cial Autonomy: A View from the Foothills of a Challenging Climb ............. 51 Fernando da Costa Cardoso, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal Luís Moniz Pereira, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal Chapter 5 Semantic Analysis of Bloggers Experiences as a Knowledge Source of Average Human Morality .... 73 Rafal Rzepka, Hokkaido University, Japan Kenji Araki, Hokkaido University, Japan Section 3 From the Inside Out: The Ethics of Human Enhancement from Moral Perception to Competition in the Workplace Chapter 6 Machine Ethics Interfaces: An Ethics of Perception of Nanocognition ............................................... 97 Melanie Swan, Kingston University, UK Chapter 7 Ethical Concerns in Human Enhancement: Advantages in Corporate/Organizational Settings ......... 124 Ben Tran, Alliant International University, USA Section 4 From Far to Near and Near to Far: The Ethics of Distancing Technologies in Education and Warfare Chapter 8 Responsibility and War Machines: Toward a Forward-Looking and Functional Account ................. 152 Jai Galliott, Macquarie University, Australia Chapter 9 Ethical Responsibilities of Preserving Academicians in an Age of Mechanized Learning: Balancing the Demands of Educating at Capacity and Preserving Human Interactivity ................... 166 James E. Willis III, Indiana University, USA Viktoria Alane Strunk, Independent Scholar, USA Section 5 Wrapping Things Up, then Unwrapping Them Again: Integral Visions of Morality in a Technological World, Over Evolutionary Time, with Revolutionary Means, and with Open Questions about the Final Purpose of It All Chapter 10 Bridging Two Realms of Machine Ethics ........................................................................................... 197 Luís Moniz Pereira, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal Ari Saptawijaya, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal & Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia Chapter 11 Robots in Warfare and the Occultation of the Existential Nature of Violence ................................... 225 Rick Searle, IEET, USA Chapter 12 Self-Referential Complex Systems and Aristotle’s Four Causes ........................................................ 239 Aleksandar Malecic, University of Nis, Serbia Related References .................................................................................................... ........................ 261 Compilation of References .................................................................................................... ........... 292 About the Contributors .................................................................................................... ................ 325 Index .................................................................................................... ............................................... 329 . (shrink)

THERE IS WIDESPREAD AGREEMENT among historians that the writings of Robert Boyle (1697-1691) constitute a valuable archive for understanding the concerns of seventeenth-century British natural philosophers. His writings have often been seen as representing, in one fashion or another, all of the leading intellectual currents of his day. ~ There is somewhat less consensus, however, on the proper historiographic method for interpreting these writings, as well as on the specific details of the beliefs expressed in them. Studies seeking to explicate (...) Boyle's thought have been, roughly speaking, of two general sorts. On the one hand there are those studies of a broadly "intellectualist" orientation which situate his natural philosophy within the intellectual context provided by metaphysics, religion, and early modern science. In this connection his corpuscularianism has been shown to be motivated by specific epistemological, theological, as well as empirical concerns. One of the central aims of such studies has been to show that apparently discordant elements in his scientific thought are rendered coherent by referring them to such "non-scientific" commitments. Among studies of this sort might be mentioned the works of John Hedley Brooke, E. A. Burtt, Gary B. Deason, J. E. McGuire, R. Hooykaas, Robert H. Kargon, Eugene M. Klaaren, P. M. Rattansi, and Richard S. Westfall. (shrink)

In New Essays on Human Understanding, book II, chapter xxi Leibniz presents an interesting picture of the human mind as not only populated by perceptions, volitions and appetitions, but also by endeavours. The endeavours in question can be divided to entelechy and effort; Leibniz calls entelechy as primitive active forces and efforts as derivative forces. The entelechy, understood as primitive active force is to be equated with a substantial form, as Leibniz says: “When an entelechy – i.e. a primary or (...) substantial endeavour – is accompanied by perception, it is a soul” (NE II, xxi, §1; RB, 170). What about efforts, then? One is certainly the will. In NE, II, xxi, §5 Leibniz argues that volition is the effort (conatus) to move towards what one finds good and away from what one finds bad and that this endeavor arises from the perceptions we are aware of. As an endeavour results in action unless it is prevented, from will (which is always directed to the good) and power together follows action. However, this is not so simple. Leibniz argues that there is also a second class of efforts: “There are other efforts, arising from insensible perceptions, which we are not aware of; I prefer to call these ‘appetitions’ rather than volitions” (NE II, xxi, §5; RB, 173). Although there are appetitions of which one can be aware, usually these appetitions arise from the insensible petite perceptions and are consequently affecting us subconsciously. Now, although all minute perceptions are confused perceptions, they are always related to pleasure and displeasure and also to perfection and imperfection. From this follows that there can be different efforts present in the soul at the same time: the will which is directed to apperceived good and several separate appetitions which lead to different goals, both to those which bring about perfection and pleasure of the mind (joy) and those which bring about displeasure and imperfection (sorrow). These efforts are not only in conflict with each other but may also be in conflict with entelechy. A typical case is perceiving a sensual pleasure. Our entelechy which is always directed to final causes (perfection) may be in conflict with several different appetitions which are related in different ways to the sensual pleasure in question. If our understanding is developed enough, our will resists the temptation posed by the pleasure (agreeing with entelechy), but if the temptation is too strong, the appetitions outweigh the will and the resulting action bring about imperfection and sorrow as it is related to imperfection. In this paper I will argue that deliberation in the human soul is a battle of different endeavors described above: the entelechy in the soul strives according to its law-of-the-series towards its telos (perfection) and the will accompanies it by being automatically directed to the good. This thrust towards the apparent good is aided or hindered by the appetitions which can be thought as derivative forces in the Leibnizian dynamics. Depending on whether the predominant appetitions are related to good or bad desires, the deliberation succeeds or fails in achieving the real good which is the goal of human deliberation. The successs can be facilitated beforehand by developing our understanding so that we are less easily swept away by the derivative forces (NE II, xxi, §19). A central role in this task is played by strong willing. As Martha Bolton has noted in her recent paper, an essential feature of the basic, standing endeavors is that they are continuous – although the power balance in the soul changes from moment to moment, something lingers from our previous volitions. That is why Leibniz argues that we pave way for the future deliberations by our previous voluntary actions (NE II, xxi, §23). In contrast, the appetitions are temporary, fliegende Gedanken as Leibniz says in NE II, xxi, §12. Therefore there is a constant, always changing power balance between two kinds of endeavors in the soul: primitive active force versus derivative forces. I will argue that the behavior of the forces in the soul can be understood with a vectorial model which is related to Leibniz’s early ideas of calculus of variations and which was anticipated by Arnauld and Nicole’s Port-Royal Logic. The central idea in the model is that the options are in tension towards each other and the ratio between them at each moment determines the consequent outcome. The proper relationship between the endeavors is not a simple balance, two options which exhaust each other, but a case where different efforts complement each other: “Since the final result is determined by how things weigh against one another, I should think it could happen that he most pressing disquiet did not prevail; for even If it prevailed over each of the contrary endeavours taken singly, it may be outweighed by all of them together.” Leibniz continues : “Everything which then impinges on us weighs in the balance and contributes to determining a resultant direction, almost as in mechanics” (NE II, xxi, §40; RB, 193). The different endeavors can be understood as vectors leading to different directions and the end result is a certain direction that deliberation takes. The dynamical tension between the different endeavors presents a situation where everything affects everything and the following direction, the resulting volition follows more or less automatically. In Theodicy, §325 Leibniz describes the deliberation as follows: “One might, instead of the balance, compare the soul with a force that puts forth an effort on various sides simultaneously, but which acts only at the spot where action is easiest or there is least resistance” (Huggard, 322) This kind of dynamical tension can be understood in terms of the calculus of variations where there are several possible variations available but where the dynamics of the situation results in the decision taking the “easiest” route which is more or less objectively good depending on the level of the deliberator’s understanding. In his comments to Bayle’s note L of “Rorarius” Leibniz says: “The soul, even though it has no parts, has within it, because of the multitude of representations of external things, or rather because of the representation of the universe lodged within it by the creator, a great number, or rather an infinite number, of variations (Woolhouse & Francks (ed.), ‘New System’ and Associated Texts, 101). This kind of deliberation is comparable to God’s choice of the best world with the difference that God’s understanding is infinite which again results in the fact that the choice is the best possible. Whereas in nature the easiest route taken is always optimal as nature is God’s creation, in men the goodness or badness of men’s actions is dependent on their state of wisdom, that is, how developed their understanding is. The more wise men are, the more metaphysical goodness or perfection follows from their actions. (shrink)

In New Essays on Human Understanding, book II, chapter xxi Leibniz presents an interesting picture of the human mind as not only populated by perceptions, volitions and appetitions, but also by endeavours. The endeavours in question can be divided to entelechy and effort; Leibniz calls entelechy as primitive active forces and efforts as derivative forces. The entelechy, understood as primitive active force is to be equated with a substantial form, as Leibniz says: “When an entelechy – i.e. a primary or (...) substantial endeavour – is accompanied by perception, it is a soul” (NE II, xxi, §1; RB, 170). What about efforts, then? One is certainly the will. In NE, II, xxi, §5 Leibniz argues that volition is the effort (conatus) to move towards what one finds good and away from what one finds bad and that this endeavor arises from the perceptions we are aware of. As an endeavour results in action unless it is prevented, from will (which is always directed to the good) and power together follows action. However, this is not so simple. Leibniz argues that there is also a second class of efforts: “There are other efforts, arising from insensible perceptions, which we are not aware of; I prefer to call these ‘appetitions’ rather than volitions” (NE II, xxi, §5; RB, 173). Although there are appetitions of which one can be aware, usually these appetitions arise from the insensible petite perceptions and are consequently affecting us subconsciously. Now, although all minute perceptions are confused perceptions, they are always related to pleasure and displeasure and also to perfection and imperfection. From this follows that there can be different efforts present in the soul at the same time: the will which is directed to apperceived good and several separate appetitions which lead to different goals, both to those which bring about perfection and pleasure of the mind (joy) and those which bring about displeasure and imperfection (sorrow). These efforts are not only in conflict with each other but may also be in conflict with entelechy. A typical case is perceiving a sensual pleasure. Our entelechy which is always directed to final causes (perfection) may be in conflict with several different appetitions which are related in different ways to the sensual pleasure in question. If our understanding is developed enough, our will resists the temptation posed by the pleasure (agreeing with entelechy), but if the temptation is too strong, the appetitions outweigh the will and the resulting action bring about imperfection and sorrow as it is related to imperfection. In this paper I will argue that deliberation in the human soul is a battle of different endeavors described above: the entelechy in the soul strives according to its law-of-the-series towards its telos (perfection) and the will accompanies it by being automatically directed to the good. This thrust towards the apparent good is aided or hindered by the appetitions which can be thought as derivative forces in the Leibnizian dynamics. Depending on whether the predominant appetitions are related to good or bad desires, the deliberation succeeds or fails in achieving the real good which is the goal of human deliberation. The successs can be facilitated beforehand by developing our understanding so that we are less easily swept away by the derivative forces (NE II, xxi, §19). A central role in this task is played by strong willing. As Martha Bolton has noted in her recent paper, an essential feature of the basic, standing endeavors is that they are continuous – although the power balance in the soul changes from moment to moment, something lingers from our previous volitions. That is why Leibniz argues that we pave way for the future deliberations by our previous voluntary actions (NE II, xxi, §23). In contrast, the appetitions are temporary, fliegende Gedanken as Leibniz says in NE II, xxi, §12. Therefore there is a constant, always changing power balance between two kinds of endeavors in the soul: primitive active force versus derivative forces. I will argue that the behavior of the forces in the soul can be understood with a vectorial model which is related to Leibniz’s early ideas of calculus of variations and which was anticipated by Arnauld and Nicole’s Port-Royal Logic. The central idea in the model is that the options are in tension towards each other and the ratio between them at each moment determines the consequent outcome. The proper relationship between the endeavors is not a simple balance, two options which exhaust each other, but a case where different efforts complement each other: “Since the final result is determined by how things weigh against one another, I should think it could happen that he most pressing disquiet did not prevail; for even If it prevailed over each of the contrary endeavours taken singly, it may be outweighed by all of them together.” Leibniz continues : “Everything which then impinges on us weighs in the balance and contributes to determining a resultant direction, almost as in mechanics” (NE II, xxi, §40; RB, 193). The different endeavors can be understood as vectors leading to different directions and the end result is a certain direction that deliberation takes. The dynamical tension between the different endeavors presents a situation where everything affects everything and the following direction, the resulting volition follows more or less automatically. In Theodicy, §325 Leibniz describes the deliberation as follows: “One might, instead of the balance, compare the soul with a force that puts forth an effort on various sides simultaneously, but which acts only at the spot where action is easiest or there is least resistance” (Huggard, 322) This kind of dynamical tension can be understood in terms of the calculus of variations where there are several possible variations available but where the dynamics of the situation results in the decision taking the “easiest” route which is more or less objectively good depending on the level of the deliberator’s understanding. In his comments to Bayle’s note L of “Rorarius” Leibniz says: “The soul, even though it has no parts, has within it, because of the multitude of representations of external things, or rather because of the representation of the universe lodged within it by the creator, a great number, or rather an infinite number, of variations (Woolhouse & Francks (ed.), ‘New System’ and Associated Texts, 101). This kind of deliberation is comparable to God’s choice of the best world with the difference that God’s understanding is infinite which again results in the fact that the choice is the best possible. Whereas in nature the easiest route taken is always optimal as nature is God’s creation, in men the goodness or badness of men’s actions is dependent on their state of wisdom, that is, how developed their understanding is. The more wise men are, the more metaphysical goodness or perfection follows from their actions. (shrink)

The purpose of the paper is to draw attention to a kind of rational persuasion which has received little attention in argument studies even though its existence is acknowledged in other fields. I start with a brief analysis of the debates conducted in the comments on a philosophical blog. The posts are addressed to a non-academic audience, always end with a problem, and the reader is invited to offer a solution. In the comments we hardly ever find arguments in the (...) usual sense, i.e. in the sense that an argument consists of a set of premises providing justification for a conclusion. It is not that the arguments are laid out carelessly and require a good deal of reconstruction: typically, there is no argument to reconstruct. The author simply states his view, then goes on to sketch a larger picture of which his view is a part. In the responses to the comments we find the same: identification of the point of disagreement, no argument, elaboration of the preferred view in some detail. One might say that this is just a failure of rational discussion; in pragmadialectical terms, the discussion gets stuck in the opening stage. But there is another way of looking at the matter. Since the participants do not have sufficiently rich common background knowledge to take premises from, they cannot offer arguments proper and must resort to a different sort of rational persuasion. They try to show that their view can be extended into a larger, coherent picture. This makes good sense from an epistemological point of view. If a view is false, in trying to work out its details we sooner or later run into problems, so allowing coherent elaboration provides some degree of justification. One might say that the participants argue in the broad sense of trying to persuade by rational means, but they do that without adducing arguments proper. The claim that there is a way of rational persuasion which does not proceed by arguments proper can be further substantiated by noting that there debates whose status as rational discussion, as opposed to the comments on the philosophical blog, is not controversial. In discussing the work of some outstanding contemporary philosophers Gary Gutting argues that even though they do offer arguments, it is not by their arguments that they have convinced others of the viability of their approach, but by what he calls „persuasive elaboration”. We may also think of Kuhn’s account of the debates surrounding changes in paradigms: the arguments fail to persuade because their premises are not shared, but showing that the new paradigm can be extended to a vast variety of phenomena eventually succeeds. I finish by listing some questions this kind of rational persuasion may raise for argument studies. (shrink)

With his 1998 book, In Nature’s Interests? Gary Varner proved to be one of our most original and trenchant of environmental ethicists. Here, in the first of a promised two volume set, he makes his mark on another field, animal ethics, leaving an even deeper imprint. Thoroughly grounded in the relevant philosophical and scientific literatures, Varner is as precise in analysis as he is wide-ranging in scope. His writing is clear and rigorous, and he explains philosophical nuances with extraordinary (...) economy of expression. Never one to add an unnecessary clause to a sentence, Varner nonetheless constructs a formidable edifice while always dealing fairly with the authors he criticizes. His explication of the properties and moral status of what he calls near-persons is a crucial addition to the discussion of personhood initiated by Parfit in Reasons and Persons and subsequently applied to animals by McMahan in The Ethics of Killing. The comparison to McMahan is intentional for, to my mind, Varner vies with him as the most important animal ethicist since Singer and Regan. (shrink)

I respond to Ned Block’s claim that it is ridiculous to suppose that consciousness is a cultural construction based on language and learned in childhood. Block is wrong to dismiss social constructivist theories of consciousness on account of it being ludicrous that conscious experience is anything but a biological feature of our animal heritage, characterized by sensory experience, evolved over millions of years. By defending social constructivism in terms of both Julian Jaynes’ behaviorism and J.J. Gibson’s ecological psychology, I draw (...) a distinction between the experience or what-it-is-like of nonhuman animals engaging with the environment and the secret theater of speechless monologue that is familiar to a linguistically competent human adult. This distinction grounds the argument that consciousness proper should be seen as learned rather than innate and shared with nonhuman animals. Upon establishing this claim, I defend the Jaynesian definition of consciousness as a social–linguistic construct learned in childhood, structured in terms of lexical metaphors and narrative practice. Finally, I employ the Jaynesian distinction between cognition and consciousness to bridge the explanatory gap and deflate the supposed hard problem of consciousness. (shrink)

I argue for the moral relevance of a category of individuals I characterize as far-persons. Following Gary Varner, I distinguish near-persons, animals with a " robust autonoetic consciousness " but lacking an adult human's " biographical sense of self, " from the merely sentient, those animals living "entirely in the present." I note the possibility of a third class. Far-persons lack a biographical sense of self, possess a weak autonoetic consciousness, and are able to travel mentally through time a (...) distance that exceeds the capacities of the merely sentient. Far-persons are conscious of and exercise control over short-term cognitive states, states limited by their temporal duration. The animals in question, human and nonhuman, consciously choose among various strategies available to them to achieve their ends, making them subjects of what I call "lyrical experience:" brief and potentially intense pleasures and pains. But their ends expire minute-by-minute, not stretching beyond, I say metaphorically, the present hour. I conclude by discussing the moral status of far-persons. (shrink)

A properly programmed artificially intelligent agent may eventually have one duty, the duty to satisfice expected welfare. We explain this claim and defend it against objections.

Does Carnap’s treatment of philosophical questions about existence, such as “Are there numbers?” and “Are there physical objects?”, depend on his analytic–synthetic distinction? If so, in what way? I answer these questions by clarifying, defending, and developing the reading of Carnap’s paper “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology” that W. V. Quine proposes, with little justification or explanation, in his paper “On Carnap’s Views on Ontology”. The primary methodological value of studying Quine’s reading of “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology” is that it prompts (...) us to look for, and helps us to see the significance of, passages by Carnap that reveal the logical foundations of his views on ontology. Guided in this way by Quine’s reading, I show that (1) in “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology” Carnap’s preferred treatment of philosophical questions relies on paraphrasing them so that their answers are immediately obvious elementary logical truths, and are therefore, by his standards, trivially analytic; and (2) in its most general form, Carnap’s treatment of philosophical questions about existence depends on his controversial view that the analytic truths of a language L may include sentences that are not elementary logical truths, but that are nevertheless, by Carnap’s standards, analytic-in-L simply because we have stipulated that they are to be among the “meaning postulates” of L. (shrink)

According to the reading offered here, Descartes' use of the meditative mode of writing was not a mere rhetorical device to win an audience accustomed to the spiritual retreat. His choice of the literary form of the spiritual exercise was consonant with, if not determined by, his theory of the mind and of the basis of human knowledge. Since Descartes' conception of knowledge implied the priority of the intellect over the senses, and indeed the priority of an intellect operating independently (...) of the senses, and since, in Descartes' view, the untutored individual was likely to be nearly wholly immersed in the senses, a procedure was needed for freeing the intellect from sensory domination so that the truth might be seen. Hence, the cognitive exercises of the Meditations, modeled not on the sense- and imagination-based exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, but on the Augustinian procedure of turning away from the senses and imagination to perceive the unpicturable with the fleshless eye of the mind. In accordance with this reading, the function of Descartes' skeptical arguments is not to introduce skepticism so that it can be defeated but to aid the meditator in withdrawing the mind from the senses in order to attend to truths of the pure intellect. These truths then offer the basis for a new natural philosophy, including a new theory of the senses. (shrink)

This article seeks the origin, in the theories of Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), Descartes, and Berkeley, of two-stage theories of spatial perception, which hold that visual perception involves both an immediate representation of the proximal stimulus in a two-dimensional ‘‘sensory core’’ and also a subsequent perception of the three dimensional world. The works of Ibn al-Haytham, Descartes, and Berkeley already frame the major theoretical options that guided visual theory into the twentieth century. The field of visual perception was the first area (...) of what we now call psychology to apply mathematics, through geometrical models as used by Euclid, Ptolemy, Ibn al-Haytham, and Descartes (among others). The article shows that Kepler’s discovery of the retinal image, which revolutionized visual anatomy and entailed fundamental changes in visual physiology, did not alter the basic structure of theories of spatial vision. These changes in visual physiology are advanced especially in Descartes' Dioptrics and his L'Homme. Berkeley develops a radically empirist theory vision, according to which visual perception of depth is learned through associative processes that rely on the sense of touch. But Descartes and Berkeley share the assertion that there is a two-dimensional sensory core that is in principle available to consciousness. They also share the observation that we don't usually perceived this core, but find depth and distance to be phenomenally immediate, a point they struggle to accommodate theoretically. If our interpretation is correct, it was not a change in the theory of the psychology of vision that engendered the idea of a sensory core, but rather the introduction of the theory into a new metaphysical context. (shrink)

Given certain standard assumptions-that particular sentences are meaningful, for example, and do genuinely self-attribute their own falsity-the paradoxes appear to show intriguing patterns of generally unstable semantic behavior. In what follows we want to concentrate on those patterns themselves: the pattern of the Liar, for example, which if assumed either true or false appears to oscillate endlessly between truth and falsehood.

In this essay we take the view that too much reality has been afforded to the notion of ‘particles’ and to ‘flow of supercurrent,’ in the superconducting state. Instead we take the original point of view of Josephson that “ It is clear that intuition is of no great help in understanding the supercurrent as a flow of Cooper pairs “ which is more akin to, and in line with, a “telegraphing of amplitudes” approach. With this conception in mind, we (...) examine the results of Jillie et al and Smith et al. of two Josephson junctions connected in series by a superconducting join. We argue that their results can best be understood in terms of the entanglement of current elements via the interfering of amplitudes. We sketch an approach to calculating the current spanning two entangled Josephson junctions, which reduces to the relation for a single junction when the current is set zero in either of the pair, or the entanglement ceases. We speculate that if this interfering of amplitudes was found to persist, after the separation of the junctions in space, there still remaining a connection in their common past, then this would furnish, at least the possibility, of a new means of signalling without wires. Experiments are suggested. (shrink)

During the seventeenth century the major cognitive faculties--sense, imagination, memory, and understanding or intellect--became the central focus of argument in metaphysics and epistemology to an extent not seen before. The theory of the intellect, long an important auxiliary to metaphysics, became the focus of metaphysical dispute, especially over the scope and powers of the intellect and the existence of a `pure' intellect. Rationalist metaphysicians such as Descartes, Spinoza, and Malebranche claimed that intellectual knowledge, gained independently of the senses, provides the (...) framework for constructing a new theory of nature. Other writers, including Hobbes and the early Gassendi, denied the existence of a distinct intellectual faculty, and so challenged the metaphysicians' abilities directly to perceive the essences of substances. The theory of the senses, which had long been a part of philosophical discussion, took on a new urgency, for adherents of the new corpuscularian philosophy needed to replace the dominant Aristotelian theory of real sensory qualities and sensible species. The revival of skepticism and a renewed interest in method also brought the faculties into prominence, for skeptical challenges typically were directed toward the faculties of sense and understanding, and the theory of method was conceived as providing instructions for the proper use of one's cognitive equipment. The theory of the faculties, then, is an important key to theories of knowledge in the seventeenth century. Indeed, rather than speaking of seventeenth century epistemology, it would be less anachronistic and more informative to speak of theories of cognition. The familiar (and over-stated) point that epistemology became fundamental to metaphysics during that century can then be restated as the point that the theory of faculties became central in metaphysical dispute. (shrink)

In this essay, I want to explore one of the most ironic episodes in the history of propaganda, the attempt by various federal agencies to moderate American WWII anti-Japanese propaganda films. My texts will be four films, two produced by the military, and two by Hollywood: December 7th (1943), directed by Gregg Toland and revised by John Ford; Air Force (1943), directed Howard Hawks; Know Your Enemy: Japan (1945), directed by Frank Capra; and Betrayal for the East (1945), directed by (...) William Berke. As all of these films are readily available on YouTube, I will be brief in my description of them. Instead, I will focus on how they served to intensify racial hatred of Japanese in general and Japanese-Americans in particular, and how the federal government tried to control that propaganda—but was limited by its own policies regarding Japanese-Americans. (shrink)

The first two sections of the paper characterize the nineteenth century respect for the phenomenal by considering Helmholtz’s position and James’ and Russell’s move to neutral monism. The third section displays a moment’s sympathy with those who recoiled from the latter view -- but only a moment’s. The recoil overshot what was a reasonable response, and denied the reality of the phenomenal, largely in the name of the physical or the material. The final two sections of the paper develop a (...) third way, which retains a healthy respect for the mental and for the mind–body relation, does not attempt to equate objects with congeries of sensations, and does not attempt to deny the reality of the phenomenal. In fact, I will claim that on some conceptions (and not merely idealist-phenomenalist conceptions), the phenomenal is a fact of nature, and hence a part of the natural world. Some aspects of this third way are familiar in the various representational and critical realisms of the twentieth-century. But the realization -- or, more neutrally, the conception -- that the natural might include the phenomenal is less familiar. Yet this position has its predecessors too, not only among the physicists and psychologists of the nineteenth century, but among major physicists (as opposed to physicalist philosophers) and psychologists of the twentieth. [A re-edited version of this paper appears in Gary Hatfield, Perception and Cognition: Essays in the Philosophy of Psychology, Clarendon Press, 2009.]. (shrink)

This chapter considers philosophical problems concerning non-human (and sometimes human) animals, including their metaphysical, physical, and moral status, their origin, what makes them alive, their functional organization, and the basis of their sensitive and cognitive capacities. I proceed by assuming what most of Descartes’s followers and interpreters have held: that Descartes proposed that animals lack sentience, feeling, and genuinely cognitive representations of things. (Some scholars interpret Descartes differently, denying that he excluded sentience, feeling, and representation from animals, and I consider (...) the evidence for these interpretations as well.) Given that Descartes denied any sort of soul to animals, his other philosophical commitments entailed that he must explain the vital and sensitive powers of non-human animals through purely material causes. Indeed, he welcomed this task, for he was engaged in the larger project of providing purely mechanistic explanations for all natural phenomena of the material world. Animal bodies form functional unities that are adapted to environmental circumstances. In his new physics, Descartes sought to discover or hypothesize material mechanisms that would explain the physiological and behavioral capacities of animals, including how they maintain themselves by seeking food and drink, reproduce themselves, and modify their behavior to fit current circumstances. Metaphysically, his new perspective raised the problem of accounting for the functional unity of the animal body considered as a purely material construction, devoid of an active, organizing power such as the sensitive soul. Descartes’s project becomes even more challenging if we ask whence come such mechanisms that are capable of performing the functions of living things. Officially, Descartes endorsed the accepted theological orthodoxy, that God designed and created the bodily mechanisms of humans and animals. However, in his natural philosophy he set himself the task of explaining the origin of animals as part of the natural development of the universe out of an original chaotic soup of material particles. Within this naturalistic perspective, he must explain how, through purely material processes, the functionally organized bodies of living things (plants and animals) could be produced from non-living matter. Without a designing creator, how do animal bodies arise that are capable of digesting food, growing, reproducing, and performing the behaviors needed to preserve life and health? (shrink)

In preparation for examining the place of introspective evidence in scientific psychology, the chapter begins by clarifying what introspection has been supposed to show, and why some concluded that it couldn't deliver. This requires a brief excursus into the various uses to which introspection was supposed to have been put by philosophers and psychologists in the modern period, together with a summary of objections. It then reconstructs some actual uses of introspection (or related techniques, differently monikered) in the early days (...) of experimental psychology. It distinguishes broader and narrower conceptions of introspection and argues that recent critics have tended to misdescribe how introspection was supposed to work. Drawing upon the broader conception of introspection, it argues that introspective reports are ineliminable in perceptual psychology. It concludes with some examples of such ineliminable uses of introspective reports in both earlier and recent perceptual psychology. (shrink)

A new position in the philosophy of mind has recently appeared: the extended mind hypothesis (EMH). Some of its proponents think the EMH, which says that a subject's mental states can extend into the local environment, shows that internalism is false. I argue that this is wrong. The EMH does not refute internalism; in fact, it necessarily does not do so. The popular assumption that the EMH spells trouble for internalists is premised on a bad characterization of the internalist thesis—albeit (...) one that most internalists have adhered to. I show that internalism is entirely compatible with the EMH. This view should prompt us to reconsider the characterization of internalism, and in conclusion I make some brief remarks about how that project might proceed. (shrink)

While the claim that certain functional states are sufficient for conscious experience has received substantial critical attention, the claim that functional states are necessary is rarely addressed. Yet the latter claim is perhaps now more common than the former. I aim to revive and revise a neglected argument against the necessity claim, by Michael Antony. The argument involves manipulating a conscious subject's brain so as to cancel a disposition which is supposedly crucial to the realization of an experience that the (...) subject is having at the time. The key step in the argument is to show that, contrary to what the functional necessity claim implies, the experience can survive such a manipulation. I defend that key step in a new way, by arguing that since the manipulation cannot influence the subject's thoughts, emotions, or behavior, there is no reason to suppose that it alters his conscious experience. (shrink)

Psychology considered as a natural science began as Aristotelian "physics" or "natural philosophy" of the soul, conceived as an animating power that included vital, sensory, and rational functions. C. Wolff restricted the term " psychology " to sensory, cognitive, and volitional functions and placed the science under metaphysics, coordinate with cosmology. Near the middle of the eighteenth century, Krueger, Godart, and Bonnet proposed approaching the mind with the techniques of the new natural science. At nearly the same time, Scottish thinkers (...) placed psychology within moral philosophy, but distinguished its "physical" laws from properly moral laws. British and French visual theorists developed mathematically precise theories of size and distance perception; they created instruments to test these theories and to measure visual phenomena such as the duration of visual impressions. By the end of the century there was a flourishing discipline of empirical psychology in Germany, with a professorship, textbooks, and journals. The practitioners of empirical psychology at this time typically were dualists who included mental phenomena within nature. Accordingly, psychology as a natural scientific disciplines was not invented in the 18th and 19th centuries, but *remade* from the extant empirical psychology. (shrink)

Very plausibly, nothing can be a genuine computing system unless it meets an input-sensitivity requirement. Otherwise all sorts of objects, such as rocks or pails of water, can count as performing computations, even such as might suffice for mentality—thus threatening computationalism about the mind with panpsychism. Maudlin in J Philos 86:407–432, ( 1989 ) and Bishop ( 2002a , b ) have argued, however, that such a requirement creates difficulties for computationalism about conscious experience, putting it in conflict with the (...) very intuitive thesis that conscious experience supervenes on physical activity. Klein in Synthese 165:141–153, ( 2008 ) proposes a way for computationalists about experience to avoid panpsychism while still respecting the supervenience of experience on activity. I argue that his attempt to save computational theories of experience from Maudlin’s and Bishop’s critique fails. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Plantinga’s (1993, 2000, 2011) Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN). While there has been much discussion about Plantinga’s use of probabilities in the argument, I contend that insufficient attention has been paid to the question of how we are to interpret those probabilities. In this paper, I argue that views Plantinga defends elsewhere limit the range of interpretations available to him here. The upshot is that the EAAN is more limited in its applicability than Plantinga alleges.

In this paper I argue for the following six claims: 1) The problem is that some think metacognition and consciousness are dissociable. 2) The solution is not to revive associationist explanations; 3) …nor is the solution to identify metacognition with Carruthers’ gatekeeping mechanism. 4) The solution is to define conscious metacognition; 5) … devise an empirical test for it in humans; and 6) … apply it to animals.

Guardians of companion animals killed wrongfully in the U.S. historically receive compensatory judgments reflecting the animal’s economic value. As animals are property in torts law, this value typically is the animal’s fair market value—which is often zero. But this is only the animal’s value, as it were, to a stranger and, in light of the fact that many guardians value their animals at rates far in excess of fair market value, legislatures and courts have begun to recognize a second value, (...) the animal’s value to her guardian. What is this noneconomic value, and how should guardians be compensated for it? In Part 1, I propose a novel method to answer this question. My method includes a third, even more controversial, value: the animal’s value to herself. The idea that an animal could invest in herself faces many criticisms. In Part 2, I defend the claim by examining the mental capacities of dogs (Canis familiaris). I rebut the central objection—that dogs lack the psychological capacities required for self-investment—by showing that dogs are autonomous, think about their futures, and inhibit their desires in light of their goals. I close by suggesting that whereas the approach has conservative implications for the valuation of companion animals, it has radical implications for the valuation of agricultural animals. -/- Keywords: companion animals, animal law, legal theory, value theory, practical ethics, economic value, noneconomic value, intrinsic value, instrumental value, animal welfare, dogs, animal rights, capital value, self-investment value, autonomy, wrongful death, philosophy of animal law, animal minds, moral standing of animals, legal standing of animals, agency, prospection, canine neurobiology, bereavement, replaceability, non-ideal ethics . (shrink)

What can neuroscience tell us, if anything, about the capacities of cows to think about the future? The question is important if having the right to a future requires the ability to think about one’s future. To think about one’s future involves the mental state of prospection, in which we direct our attention to things yet to come. I distinguish several kinds of prospection, identify the behavioral markers of future thinking, and survey what is known about the neuroanatomy of future-directed (...) bovine beliefs and desires. I suggest, in conclusion, that instead of asking whether a cow’s prospection is conscious, ask whether it is like ours—with “ours” understood to include all human beings. (shrink)

Two stories have dominated the historiography of early modern philosophy: one in which a seventeenth century Age of Reason spawned the Enlightenment, and another in which a skeptical crisis cast a shadow over subsequent philosophy, resulting in ever narrower "limits to knowledge." I combine certain elements common to both into a third narrative, one that begins by taking seriously seventeenth-century conceptions of the topics and methods central to the rise of a "new" philosophy. In this revisionist story, differing approaches to (...) the central subject matter of early modern metaphysics--knowledge of substances through their essences and causal powers--arise as a result of disagreements about the powers of the human cognitive faculties. Methodological writings are seen as attempts to direct readers in the proper use of their cognitive faculties. The early modern rejection of the Aristotelian theory of cognition ranks equally in importance with rejection of Aristotelian doctrines about nature. Skepticism is more often than not a tool to be used in teaching the reader the proper use of the cognitive faculties, or indeed in convincing the reader of the existence or inexistence of certain cognitive faculties or powers. Instead of early modern "epistemology" or "theory of knowledge," one speaks, with seventeenth century writers, of theories of the cognitive faculties and their implications for the possibility of human knowledge. The early modern rejection of Aristotelian logic can then be seen as reflecting a negative assessment about the fit between syllogistic reasoning and logic as an art of reasoning or thinking which refines the use of the cognitive faculties. -/- Central to this new historiography is the story of the relation between the intellect and senses as cognitive faculties or powers. The development of philosophy from Descartes to Kant can be portrayed as a series of claims about the power of the intellect to know the essences of things, with resulting consequences for ontology and the foundations of natural philosophy. I illustrate this revised narrative by comparing three conceptions of the intellect in three philosophical settings, provided by several late scholastic Aristotelians, Descartes, and Locke. I have two aims: first, to exhibit the central role played by the conception of intellect or understanding in these authors, and, second, to locate their discussions of the cognitive faculties in relation to recent understandings of psychology, epistemology, logic, mind, and their relations. Early modern writings do not easily fit into the modern categories of epistemology and psychology; more generally, the early modern concern with the workings of mind does not coincide with recent conceptions of naturalism. These findings can help us to see problems with our current categories. (shrink)

In the voluminous literature on the subject of bovine growth hormone (bGH) we have yet to find an attempt to frame the issue in specifically moral terms or to address systematically its ethical implications. I argue that there are two moral objections to the technology: its treatment of animals, and its dislocating effects on farmers. There are agricultural biotechnologies that deserve funding and support. bGH is not one of them.

The contention discussed here, is that one might be able to get around the puzzle contained in the results of Kim and Chan:— That a quantity of inertial mass is effectively lost, (a so called non-classical-rotational inertia NCRI,) but that being a “supersolid” there is no path for the normal fraction to slip past the 1 – 2 % supersolid fraction, which (it is supposed) remains stationary within the annulus. As a solution we argue that the effective loss of inertial (...) mass might be a real loss of inertial mass– that it might be intrinsic to a supersolid or superfluid “pool,” (a portion which has gone supersolid or superfluid.) In this way the puzzle would be resolved because the normal part and the supersolid part do not need to slip past each other in order to produce the experimental results. (shrink)

The question of whether perception can be penetrated by cognition is in the limelight again. The reason this question keeps coming up is that there is so much at stake: Is it possible to have theory-neutral observation? Is it possible to study perception without recourse to expectations, context, and beliefs? What are the boundaries between perception, memory, and inference (and do they even exist)? Are findings from neuroscience that paint a picture of perception as an inherently bidirectional and interactive process (...) relevant for understanding the relationship between cognition and perception? We have assembled a group of philosophers and psychologists who have been considering the thesis of cognitive (im)penetrability in light of these questions (Abdel Rahman & Sommer, 2008; Goldstone, Landy, & Brunel, 2011; Lupyan, Thompson-Schill, & Swingley, 2010; Macpherson, 2012; Stokes, 2011). Rather than rehashing previous arguments which appear, in retrospect, to have been somewhat ill-posed (Pylyshyn, 1999), this symposium will present a thesis of cognitive (im)penetrability that is at once philosophically satisfying, empirically testable, and relevant to the questions that cognitive scientists find most interesting. (shrink)

Descartes was both metaphysician and natural philosopher. He used his metaphysics to ground portions of his physics. However, as should be a commonplace but is not, he did not think he could spin all of his physics out of his metaphysics a priori, and in fact he both emphasized the need for appeals to experience in his methodological remarks on philosophizing about nature and constantly appealed to experience in describing his own philosophy of nature. During the 1630s, he offered empirical (...) support for the basic principles of his natural philosophy, while also promising to provide a metaphysical justification. He offered the metaphysical justification in the Meditations and Principles. and claimed absolute certainty for it. At the same time, he recognized that the particular postulated mechanisms of his natural philosophy did not reach that standard of certainty. These mechanisms were supported by empirical testing or confirming of causes through observed effects. (shrink)

During the 1630s Descartes recognized that he could not expect all legitimate claims in natural science to meet the standard of absolute certainty. The realization resulted from a change in his physics, which itself arose not through methodological reflections, but through developments in his substantive metaphysical doctrines. Descartes discovered the metaphysical foundations of his physics in 1629-30; as a consequence, the style of explanation employed in his physical writings changed. His early methodological conceptions, as preserved in the Rules and sketched (...) in Part Two of the Discourse, pertained primarily to his early work in optics. By the early 1630s, Descartes was concerned with new methodological problems pertaining to the postulation of micro-mechanisms. Recognition of the need to employ a method of hypothesis led him to lower the standard of certainty required of particular explanations in his mature physics. (shrink)

A common view of nonhuman animals is that they lack rights because they lack conscious control over themselves. Two thoughts put pressure on this view. First, we recognize the rights of radically cognitively limited humans even though they lack conscious control over themselves. So it would seem mere prejudice to deny rights to nonhuman mammals on the grounds that animals lack autonomy. Tom Regan has been the most eloquent, powerful, and resolute defender of this thought. Second, evidence is growing that (...) healthy adults exercise non-conscious control over themselves most of the time. To deny rights to animals on the grounds that they can only exercise non-conscious control over themselves while affirming the rights of humans who similarly exercise non-conscious control over themselves most of the time also seems prejudicial. Notice that whereas the first thought compares animals to neurally diverse, cognitively challenged humans the second thought compares animals to typically developing, normal humans. In this paper I argue that accumulating empirical data lend increasing support to the second thought. (shrink)