In lecture III of Naming and Necessity, Kripke extends his claim that names are non-descriptive to natural kind terms, and in so doing includes a brief supporting discussion of terms for natural phenomena, in particular the terms ‘light’ and ‘heat’. Whilst natural kind terms continue to feature centrally in the recent literature, natural phenomenon terms have barely figured. The purpose of the present paper is to show how the apparent similarities between natural kind terms and the natural phenomenon terms on (...) which Kripke focuses are outweighed by more significant differences. Thus, rather than providing additional support for non-descriptivism, natural phenomenon terms turn out to challenge that thesis. (shrink)

Touch is standardly taken to be a proximal sense, principally constituted by capacities to detect proximal pressure and thermal stimulation, and contrasted with the distal senses of vision and audition. It has, however, recently been argued that the scope of touch extends beyond proximal perception; touch can connect us to distal objects. Hence touch generally should be thought of as a connection sense. In this paper, I argue that whereas pressure perception is a connection sense, thermal perception is not. Thermal (...) perception is a proximal sense distinct from touch. One significant consequence of this is that it motivates an alternative explanation of how we detect the thermal properties of the things we touch and what they are. (shrink)

Tracking representationalism explains the negative affective character of pain, and its capacity to motivate action, by reference to the representation of the badness for us of bodily damage. I argue that there is a more fitting instantiation of the tracking relation – the badness for us of extremely intense stimuli – and use this to motivate a non-reductive approach to the negative affective character of pain. The view of pain proposed here is supported by consideration of three related topics: the (...) pain caused when the body is damaged, reparative pain, and the messenger-shooting objection to tracking representationalism. (shrink)

Fodor claims that cognitive modules can be thought of as constituting a psychological natural kind in virtue of their possession of most or all of nine specified properties. The challenge to this considered here comes from synaesthesia. Synaesthesia is a type of cross-modal association: input to one sensory modality reliably generates an additional sensory output that is usually generated by the input to a distinct sensory modality. The most common form of synaesthesia manifests Fodor's nine specified properties of modularity, and (...) hence, according to Segal (1997), it should be understood as involving an extra module. Many psychologists believe that synaesthesia involves a breakdown in modularity. After outlining how both theories can explain the manifestation of the nine alleged properties of modularity in synaesthesia, I discuss the two concepts of function which initially motivate the respective theories. I argue that only a teleological concept of function is properly able to adjudicate between the two theories. The upshot is a further application of so-called externalist considerations to mental phenomena. (shrink)

According to Tye's PANIC theory of consciousness, perceptual states of creatures which are related to a disjunction of external contents will fail to represent sensorily, and thereby fail to be conscious states. In this paper I argue that heat perception, a form of perception neglected in the recent literature, serves as a counterexample to Tye's radical externalist claim. Having laid out Tye's absent qualia scenario, the PANIC theory from which it derives and the case of heat perception as a counterexample, (...) I defend the putative counterexample against three possible responses: (1) that heat perception represents general (i.e. non-disjunctive) intrinsic properties of objects, (2) that heat perception represents the non-specific heat energy that is transferred between a subject's body and another body and (3) that heat perception exclusively represents heat properties of the subjects own body. (shrink)

Tasks, tools, and techniques that we perform, use, and acquire, define the elements of expertise which we value as the hallmarks of goal-driven behavior. Somehow, the creation of tools enables us to define new tasks, or is it that the envisioning of new tasks drives us to invent new tools? Or maybe it is that new tools engender new techniques which then result in new tasks? This jumble of issues will be explored and discussed in this diverse collection of papers. (...) Individually, few of the papers are related to each other by topic or by techniques of analysis. Collectively, all focus on tasks performed using tools and discuss the techniques of tool use which enable differences in performance and expertise across individuals, societies, and (even) species. -/- . (shrink)

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

_La Peste_, originally published in 1947 by the Nobel Prize-winning writer Albert Camus, chronicles the progression of deadly bubonic plague as it spreads through the quarantined Algerian city of Oran. While most discussions of fictional examples within aesthetics are either historical or hypothetical, Camus offers an example of "pestilence fiction." Camus chose fiction to convey facts--about plagues in the past, his own bout with tuberculosis at age seventeen, living under quarantine away from home for several years, and forced separation from (...) his wife who remained in Algiers while he was abroad in Nazi-occupied France. His own lived experiences undergird an imaginative account of shared human realities with which we can identify: vulnerability to the disease, isolation, fear, and finally humanitarianism. _The Plague_ teaches us to neither covet nor expect what we so casually took for granted. This collection of original essays on philosophical themes in _The Plague_ is of special relevance during and in the aftermath of Covid-19 but also provides reflections that will be of lasting value to those interested in this classic work of literature. The novel explores questions of enduring importance. Do we collectively meet the threshold of ethical behavior posed by Camus who wrote, "What's true of all the evils in the world is true of plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves"? Or does the absurd undermine the compassionate? Do "heroes" dutifully fight a plague with "common decency," or does human nature resign itself to the normalization of uncontrollable suffering and death? There are myriad ways to approach the novel and this volume encourages readers to ponder human dilemmas in fictional Oran informed by our current pandemic. Series editor forward by Richard Eldridge. List of Contributors includes Steven G. Kellman, Jane E. Schultz, Andrew Edgar, Kathleen Higgins, Edward B. Weiser, Cynthia A. Freeland, and Margaret E. Gray; see "Introduction" by Peg Brand Weiser below. (shrink)

In this chapter, we analyze the relationships between the Internet and its users in terms of situated cognition theory. We first argue that the Internet is a new kind of cognitive ecology, providing almost constant access to a vast amount of digital information that is increasingly more integrated into our cognitive routines. We then briefly introduce situated cognition theory and its species of embedded, embodied, extended, distributed and collective cognition. Having thus set the stage, we begin by taking an embedded (...) cognition view and analyze how the Internet aids certain cognitive tasks. After that, we conceptualize how the Internet enables new kinds of embodied interaction, extends certain aspects of our embodiment, and examine how wearable technologies that monitor physiological, behavioral and contextual states transform the embodied self. On the basis of the degree of cognitive integration between a user and Internet resource, we then look at how and when the Internet extends our cognitive processes. We end this chapter with a discussion of distributed and collective cognition as facilitated by the Internet. (shrink)

According to the orthodox treatment of risk preferences in decision theory, they are to be explained in terms of the agent's desires about concrete outcomes. The orthodoxy has been criticised both for conflating two types of attitudes and for committing agents to attitudes that do not seem rationally required. To avoid these problems, it has been suggested that an agent's attitudes to risk should be captured by a risk function that is independent of her utility and probability functions. The main (...) problem with that approach is that it suggests that attitudes to risk are wholly distinct from people's (non-instrumental) desires. To overcome this problem, we develop a framework where an agent's utility function is defined over chance propositions (i.e., propositions describing objective probability distributions) as well as ordinary (non-chance) ones, and argue that one should explain different risk attitudes in terms of different forms of the utility function over such propositions. (shrink)

By definition, pain is a sensory and emotional experience that is felt in a particular part of the body. The precise relationship between somatic events at the site where pain is experienced, and central processing giving rise to the mental experience of pain remains the subject of debate, but there is little disagreement in scholarly circles that both aspects of pain are critical to its experience. Recent experimental work, however, suggests a public view that is at odds with this conceptualisation. (...) By demonstrating that the public does not necessarily endorse central tenets of the “mental” view of pain (subjectivity, privacy, and incorrigibility), experimental philosophers have argued that the public holds a more “body-centric” view than most clinicians and scholars. Such a discrepancy would have important implications for how the public interacts with pain science and clinical care. In response, we tested the hypothesis that the public is capable of a more “mind-centric” view of pain. Using a series of vignettes, we demonstrate that in situations which highlight mental aspects of pain the public can, and does, recognize pain as a mental phenomenon. We also demonstrate that the public view is subject to context effects, by showing that the public’s view is modified when situations emphasizing mental and somatic aspects of pain are presented together. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to assess the relationship between anti-physicalist arguments in the philosophy of mind and anti-naturalist arguments in metaethics, and to show how the literature on the mind-body problem can inform metaethics. Among the questions we will consider are: (1) whether a moral parallel of the knowledge argument can be constructed to create trouble for naturalists, (2) the relationship between such a "Moral Knowledge Argument" and the familiar Open Question Argument, and (3) how naturalists can respond (...) to the Moral Twin Earth argument. We will give particular attention to recent arguments in the philosophy of mind that aim to show that anti-physicalist arguments can be defused by acknowledging a distinctive kind of conceptual dualism between the phenomenal and the physical. This tactic for evading anti-physicalist arguments has come to be known as the Phenomenal Concept Strategy. We will propose a metaethical version of this strategy, which we shall call the `Moral Concept Strategy'. We suggest that the Moral Concept Strategy offers the most promising way out of these anti-naturalist arguments, though significant challenges remain. (shrink)

This paper discusses the nature of, problems for, and benefits delivered by fictionalist strategies in metaphysics.

Hofweber (Ontology and the ambitions of metaphysics, Oxford University Press, 2016) argues for a thesis he calls “internalism” with respect to natural number discourse: no expressions purporting to refer to natural numbers in fact refer, and no apparent quantification over natural numbers actually involves quantification over natural numbers as objects. He argues that while internalism leaves open the question of whether other kinds of abstracta exist, it precludes the existence of natural numbers, thus establishing what he calls “restricted nominalism” about (...) natural numbers. We argue that Hofweber’s internalism fails to establish restricted nominalism. Not only is his primary argument for restricted nominalism invalid, the analysis of quantification proposed threatens to collapse internalism into either a traditional form of error theory or realism. (shrink)

This article explores the Nuffield Council on Bioethics’ recent report about non-invasive prenatal testing. Given that such testing is likely to become the norm, it is important to question whether there should be some ethical parameters regarding its use. The article engages with the viewpoints of Jeff McMahan, Julian Savulescu, Stephen Wilkinson and other commentators on prenatal ethics. The authors argue that there are a variety of moral considerations that legitimately play a significant role with regard to (prospective) parental decision-making (...) in the context of NIPT, for example, views on the morality of abortion and understandings of the impact of disability on quality of life. The variable nature of such considerations, both singularly and combined, suggests that any approach to NIPT should be sensitive to and understanding of similarly variable parental assessments and decisions. The implications of the approach developed for current and future policies in this area are explored, along with the impact of such arguments on ideas about procreative beneficence. (shrink)

We designed an experiment to explore the learning effectiveness of three different ways of practicing dance movements. To our surprise we found that partial modeling, called marking in the dance world, is a better method than practicing the complete phrase, called practicing full-out; and both marking and full-out are better methods than practicing by repeated mental simulation. We suggest that marking is a form of practicing a dance phrase aspect-by-aspect. Our results also suggest that prior work on learning by observation (...) and learning by mental practice may not scale up to complex movements. (shrink)

Higher-order theories of consciousness typically account for introspection in terms of one's higher-order thoughts being conscious, which would require a third-order thought — i.e.a thought about a thought about a mental state. In this work, we offer an alternative account of introspection that builds on the recent HigherOrder Representation of a Representation (HOROR) theory of phenomenal consciousness. According to HOROR theory, phenomenal consciousness consists in having the right kind of higher-order representation. We claim that this theory can be extended to (...) introspection by recognizing that there is a distinctive kind of consciousness — i.e. introspective consciousness — which can be accounted for as the theory does for phenomenal consciousness generally. We call this novel view: Higher-Order Representation Intentionally For Introspective Consciousness (HORIFIC). We argue that there are independent reasons for thinking that introspective consciousness can be either 'stimuli-induced' or 'self-triggered' and that one of the benefits of the view we develop is that it can embrace a pluralist approach. Our view also accounts for what specific mental state is represented by a particular higher-order representation, and for the way in which we are aware of changes, transitions, and boundaries between mental states in specific cases of introspective consciousness. (shrink)

Psychological and philosophical studies have extended J. J. Gibson’s notion of affordances. Affordances are possibilities for bodily action presented to us by the objects of our perception. Recent work has argued that we should extend the actions afforded by perception to mental action. I argue that we can extend the notion of affordance itself. What I call ‘Introspective Affordances’ are possibilities for mental action presented to us by introspectively accessible states. While there are some prima facie worries concerning the non-perceptual (...) nature of introspection, I will argue that our internal mental lives share enough commonalities with experiences in our environment to warrant this extension. I will demonstrate the value of introspective affordances by showing how they allow us to explain an underexplored aspect of thought insertion. (shrink)

唯物論、還元主義、行動論、機能主義、動的システム理論、計算論は一般的な見解であるが、ヴィトゲンシュタインは支離滅裂であると示した。行動の研究は人間の生活のすべてを包含するが、行動は主に自動で無意識であ り、主に言語で表現される意識的な部分(ウィトゲンシュタインは心と同一視する)でさえも、知覚的ではないので、サールが合理性の論理構造(LSR)と呼ぶ枠組みを持つことは重要であり、私は高次思考の記述心理学 (DPHOT)と呼ぶ。ヴィトゲンシュタインとサールが働いた枠組みを要約した後、現代の推論研究によって拡張されたように、私は現代の行動科学を含む行動のほとんどの議論に浸透するカーサーの見解の不十分さを示 します,。私は、彼の本は2冊の本のアマルガムであり、1つは認知心理学の要約であり、もう1つは新しい専門用語を追加して心の標準的な哲学的混乱の要約であることを維持しています。私は、後者は支離滅裂または人 生の漫画の見解とみなされるべきであり、彼の言葉でヴィトゲンシュタインを取ることは、私たちは言語/身体の問題として心/体の問題を考慮することによって成功した自己療法を実践できることを示唆しています。 現代の2つのシス・エムスの見解から人間の行動のための包括的な最新の枠組みを望む人は、私の著書「ルートヴィヒ・ヴィトゲンシュタインとジョン・サールの第2回(2019)における哲学、心理学、ミンと言語の論 理的構造」を参照することができます。私の著作の多くにご興味がある人は、運命の惑星における「話す猿--哲学、心理学、科学、宗教、政治―記事とレビュー2006-2019 第3回(2019)」と21世紀4日(2019年)の自殺ユートピア妄想st Century 4th ed (2019)などを見ることができます。 .

この巻は少し古いが、殺人の心理学を特に扱う最近の人気のある本はほとんどなく、数ドルで利用可能な簡単な概要なので、それでも努力する価値があります。それは包括的な試みを行うおらず、読者は彼の他の多くの本と 暴力に関する膨大な文献から空白を埋めることが期待されている場所でやや表面的です。更新については、例えば、バス、進化心理学のハンドブック第2位 v1 (2016) p 265、 266, 270-282, 388-389, 545-546, 547, 566, 進化心理学第5回,(2015年) p 26, 96-97,223, 293-4, 300, 309-312, 410 およびシャックフォードハンセンと進化 200444 暴力.彼は数十年にわたりトップの進化心理学者の一人であり、彼の作品の中で幅広い行動をカバーしていますが、ここでは、個々の人々が殺害を引き起こす心理的メカニズムとEEA(進化適応の環境、すなわち過去10 0万年ほどの間のアフリカの平原)におけるその可能な進化機能にほぼ完全に集中しています。 バスは、他の行動と同様に、精神病理学、嫉妬、社会環境、集団圧力、薬物、アルコールなどの「代替」説明は、なぜこれらの殺人的衝動を生み出すのかという疑問がまだ残っているので、彼らは近位の原因であり、究極の 進化(遺伝的)ものであるわけではないことを知ることによって始まります。いつものように、それは必然的に包括的なフィットネス(親族の選択)に煮詰まるので、すべての生物のすべての行動のための究極の説明である 仲間やリソースへのアクセスのための闘争に。社会学的データ(および常識)は、若い貧しい男性が殺す可能性が最も高いことを明らかにしています。彼は、先進国からの殺人データ、部族文化、動物における特異な殺害、 考古学、FBIデータ、そして通常の人々の殺人ファンタジーに関する彼自身の研究を提示します。多くの考古学的証拠は、先史時代に、グループ全体、または若い女性を差し引いたグループを含む殺人の蓄積を続けていま す。 Bussのコメントを調査した後、私は私の他の多くの記事や本で広く取り上げられている意図的心理学(合理性の論理的構造)の非常に簡単な要約を提示します。 進化的な観点から殺人的暴力の詳細な歴史を望む多くの時間を持つ人は、スティーブン・ピンカーの「なぜ暴力が衰退したのか私たちの自然のより良い天使たち」(2012)に相談し、私のレビューはネットと私の最近の 本の2冊で簡単に入手できます。簡単に言えば、ピンカーは、殺人は飼育者として私たちの時代から約30倍の着実かつ劇的に減少していると指摘しています。だから、銃は今では誰もが殺すことを非常に簡単にしているに もかかわらず、殺人ははるかに一般的ではありません。ピンカーは、これは私たちの「より良い天使」を引き出す様々な社会的メカニズムによるものだと考えていますが、主に私たちの惑星の無慈悲な強姦からの資源の一時 的な豊富さ、警察の存在の増加と相まって、それが罰せられる可能性がはるかに高い通信と監視と法制度によるものだと思います。これは、警察の短い、地元の不在さえあるたびに明らかになります。 現代の2つのシス・エムスの見解から人間の行動のための包括的な最新の枠組みを望む人は、私の著書「ルートヴィヒ・ヴィトゲンシュタインとジョン・サールの第2回(2019)における哲学、心理学、ミンと言語の論 理的構造」を参照することができます。私の著作の多くにご興味がある人は、運命の惑星における「話す猿--哲学、心理学、科学、宗教、政治―記事とレビュー2006-2019 第3回(2019)」と21世紀5日(2019年)の自殺ユートピア妄想st Century 5th ed (2019)などを見ることができます。 バスは、他の行動と同様に、精神病理学、嫉妬、社会環境、集団圧力、薬物、アルコールなどの「代替」説明は、なぜこれらの殺人的衝動を生み出すのかという疑問がまだ残っているので、彼らは近位の原因であり、究極の 進化(遺伝的)ものであるわけではないことを知ることによって始まります。いつものように、それは必然的に包括的なフィットネス(親族の選択)に煮詰まるので、すべての生物のすべての行動のための究極の説明である 仲間やリソースへのアクセスのための闘争に。社会学的データ(および常識)は、若い貧しい男性が殺す可能性が最も高いことを明らかにしています。彼は、先進国からの殺人データ、部族文化、動物における特異な殺害、 考古学、FBIデータ、そして通常の人々の殺人ファンタジーに関する彼自身の研究を提示します。多くの考古学的証拠は、先史時代に、グループ全体、または若い女性を差し引いたグループを含む殺人の蓄積を続けていま す。 p 12で、彼は、資源をめぐる各個人と世界中の戦争は、概念、母親の食べ物を奪い、彼女の体を強調することによって成長し始め、そして彼女のシステムが概念のために頻繁に致命的な結果で反撃するとき、概念から始まる と指摘しています。彼は、自発的中絶の推定値がすべての概念の約30%の範囲にあることを教えておらず、年間8000万人もの人が死亡し、母親が妊娠していることを知らないほど早く、おそらく彼女の生理は少し遅れ ています。これは、私たちが敗北に成功していない自然の優生学の一部です。 文明の全体的な異形成効果は続いており、毎日生まれた約30万人は、世界人口が20万人増加し、地球を破壊するためにこれまで以上に大きな「不適当な」人口を持つ約10万人よりも、平均して肉体的にわずかにフィッ トしていない。 p13では、OJシンプソンが有罪であったことははっきりとは分からないと言いますが、裁判に関係なく、彼の奇妙な行動を含む事件の事実の唯一の合理的な解釈なので、私たちは彼が知っていると言うでしょう。また、 数百万ドルの弁護人が司法を覆すために出席していなかったその後の民事裁判では、彼はすぐに有罪判決を受け、資産の添付につながり、武装強盗の有罪判決と投獄につながった。 彼はp20に関して、過去100年間に世界中で約1億件の既知の殺人事件があり、報告されていないすべての殺人が含まれていれば、おそらく3億件もの殺人があったと指摘している。彼は中国共産党(約100万人では ない)によって約4000万を数えるとは思わない。飢えた6000万人、スターリンの1000万人。 tenまた、ほとんどの犠牲者の犠牲者を救う世界クラスの医療システムにより、アメリカの殺人率は約75%減少することを念頭に置いておく必要があります。私は、メキシコは約20倍の米国とホンジュラスの殺人率を 約5倍持っており、あなたの子孫は確かにアメリカの多様性の致命的な抱擁のために、その方向に移動する私たちのレートを楽しみにすることができると付け加えます。「アディオス・アメリカ」(2015年)のアン・コ ールターは、ヒスパニックが過去数十年間にここで約23,000件の殺人を犯したと指摘しています。今のところ、何も行われず、国境が解散し続け、環境崩壊と倒産に近づくにつれて、ここでの犯罪は経済を解消するに つれて、メキシコのレベルに達するでしょう。2014年だけでも、100人の米国市民が殺害され、130人以上が誘拐され、他の人が失踪し、他の外国人やメキシコ人を加えれば数千人に及ぶ。詳細については、私の「 民主主義による自殺」2 nd ed(2019年)を参照してください。 .

私は哲学者(心理学者)ルートヴィヒ・ヴィトゲンシュタインの有名なコメントから始めますが、ピンカーはほとんどの人と共有しています(進化した先天心理学のデフォルト設定のために)心の機能に関,する特定の偏見 、そしてウィトゲンシュタインは言語、思想、現実の働きに対するユニークで深遠な洞察を提供しています(彼は多かれ少なかれ同じ範囲と見なされています)。reはre、彼が言語の最も華麗で元のアナリストだったこ とを考えると最も残念であるこの巻のヴィトゲンシュタインへの言及だけです。 最後の章では、プラトンの洞窟の有名な比喩を使用して、彼は美しく心(言語、思考、意図的心理学)の概要と本を要約します - 盲目の利己主義の産物は、私たちの遺伝子のコピーを運ぶ近親者のための自動利他主義によってわずかにモデレートされます(包括的なフィットネス)-自動的に動作しますが、それにもかかわらず、私たちがその広大な能 力を利用して世界を生きるために私たちに大きな能力を採用できることを願って、アップビートノートで終わらせようとします。 ピンカーは確かに認識していますが、私たちの心理学についてはるかに多くが含まれているよりも取り残されているという事実についてはほとんど言いません。取り残されたり、最小限の注意を払われたりする人間性への窓 の中には、数学と幾何学、音楽と音、画像、出来事、因果関係、オントロジー(物事のクラスまたは私たちが知っていること), )、認識論(私たちが知っている方法)、性質(信じる、 思考、判断、意図など)と行動の意図的な心理学の残りの部分、神経伝達物質およびエンテオゲン、精神的な状態(例えば、サトリと啓蒙、脳刺激と記録、脳損傷および行動の赤字と障害、ゲームとスポーツ、決定理論(ゲ ーム理論と行動経済学を含む)、動物行動(非常に言語が、共有遺伝学の10億年)。これらの各分野の意図的心理学について、多くの本が書かれています。この本のデータは説明であり、なぜ私たちの脳がこのようにそれ を行うのか、どのように行われるのかを示す説明ではありません。文章をさまざまな方法で使用する方法(つまり、すべての意味を知っている)をどのように知っていますか?これは、ヴィトゲンシュタインが最も活発なレ ベルである、より基本的なレベルで動作する進化心理学です。そして、言葉がthe 使われる文脈=ヴィトゲンシュタインが開拓したアリーナに注目が集まっています。 それにもかかわらず、これは古典的な作品であり、これらの注意を払って、まだ読む価値があります。 現代の2つのシス・エムスの見解から人間の行動のための包括的な最新の枠組みを望む人は、私の著書「ルートヴィヒ・ヴィトゲンシュタインとジョン・サールの第2回(2019)における哲学、心理学、ミンと言語の論 理的構造」を参照することができます。私の著作の多くにご興味がある人は、運命の惑星における「話す猿--哲学、心理学、科学、宗教、政治―記事とレビュー2006-2019 第3回(2019)」と21世紀4日(2019年)の自殺ユートピア妄想st Century 4th ed (2019)などを見ることができます。 .

ユニークなアメリカの神秘的なアディ・ダ(フランクリン・ジョーンズ)の人生と精神的な自伝の簡単なレビュー。いくつかの版の表紙のステッカーは、「すべての時間の中で最も深遠な精神的な自伝」と言って、これはよ く真実かもしれません。私は70歳で、スピリチュアルな教師やスピリチュアリティに関する多くの本を読みましたが、これは最も偉大な本の一つです。確かに、それは私が今まで見た悟りのプロセスの完全かつ明確な説明 です。人間の心理的プロセスの中で最も魅力的なプロセスに全く興味を持っていない場合でも、それは宗教、ヨガ、人間の心理学について多くを明らかにし、人間の可能性の深さと限界を探る素晴らしい文書です。私はそれ をいくつかの詳細に記述し、現代インドの神秘的なOshoの教授と比較します。 現代の2つのシス・エムスの見解から人間の行動のための包括的な最新の枠組みを望む人は、私の著書「ルートヴィヒ・ヴィトゲンシュタインとジョン・サールの第2回(2019)における哲学、心理学、ミンと言語の論 理的構造」を参照することができます。私の著作の多くにご興味がある人は、運命の惑星における「話す猿--哲学、心理学、科学、宗教、政治―記事とレビュー2006-2019 第3回(2019)」と21世紀4日(2019年)の自殺ユートピア妄想st 世紀 4th ed (2019)などを見ることができます。 .

In this chapter I shall examine some of Johann Georg Hamann’s claims about how philosophers misuse, misunderstand, and are misled by language. I will then examine how he anticipates things that Friedrich Nietzsche and Ludwig Wittgenstein say on this topic.

Veritism says that the fundamental source of epistemic value for a doxastic state is the extent to which it represents the world correctly: that is, its fundamental epistemic value is deter...

Russellians, Relationists, and Fregeans disagree about the nature of propositional-attitude content. We articulate a framework to characterize and evaluate this disagreement. The framework involves two claims: i) that we should individuate attitude content in whatever way fits best with the explanations that characteristically appeal to it, and ii) that we can understand those explanations by analogy with other ‘higher-level’ explanations. Using the framework, we argue for an under-appreciated form of Russellianism. Along the way we demonstrate that being more explicit about (...) the framework in which debates about attitude content take place allows us to more precisely characterize the space of possible positions and the dialectic between them. (shrink)

What we value, like, endorse, want, and prefer changes over the course of our lives. Richard Pettigrew presents a theory of rational decision making for agents who recognise that their values will change over time and whose decisions will affect those future times.

This paper is about how to interpret and evaluate purported evidence for predicativism about proper names. I aim to point out some underappreciated thorny issues and to offer both predicativists and non-predicativists some advice about how best to pursue their respective projects. I hope to establish three related claims: that non-predicativists have to posit relatively exotic, though not entirely implausible, polysemic mechanisms to capture the range of data that predicativists have introduced ; that neither referentialism nor extant versions of predicativism (...) can offer a very plausible account of the interpretive possibilities for singular unmodified definite descriptions containing names ; and that the most plausible version of predicativism would treat bare names as non-anaphoric definite descriptions. (shrink)

This article looks at some of the metaphysical properties of cognitive artefacts. It first identifies and demarcates the target domain by conceptualizing this class of artefacts as a functional kind. Building on the work of Beth Preston, a pluralist notion of functional kind is developed, one that includes artefacts with proper functions and system functions. Those with proper functions have a history of cultural selection, whereas those with system functions are improvised uses of initially non-cognitive artefacts. Having identified the target (...) domain, it then briefly looks at the multiple usability of physical structures and the multiple realizability of cognitive function. Further developing insights from the “dual nature of artefacts thesis”, the article ends with conceptualizing the structure–function relations of cognitive artefacts. More specifically, it unpacks the relation between physical structure, representational structure, information, and cognitive function. (shrink)

Among the virtues of relationist approaches to Frege’s puzzle is that they put us in a position to outline structural features of the puzzle that were only implicit in earlier work. In particular, they allow us to frame questions about the relation between the explanatory roles of sense and sameness of sense. In this paper, I distinguish a number of positions about that relation which have not been clearly distinguished. This has a few pay-offs. It allows us to shed light (...) on recent controversies about the ‘essential indexical’, and it also allows us to see what’s at stake between relationists and their opponents. When we see what’s at stake, we can see that we have reason to adopt an account of cognitive significance that incorporates elements of both relationist and Fregean approaches. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to develop a systematic taxonomy of cognitive artifacts, i.e., human-made, physical objects that functionally contribute to performing a cognitive task. First, I identify the target domain by conceptualizing the category of cognitive artifacts as a functional kind: a kind of artifact that is defined purely by its function. Next, on the basis of their informational properties, I develop a set of related subcategories in which cognitive artifacts with similar properties can be grouped. In this (...) taxonomy, I distinguish between three taxa, those of family, genus, and species. The family includes all cognitive artifacts without further specifying their informational properties. Two genera are then distinguished: representational and non-representational (or ecological) cognitive artifacts. These genera are further divided into species. In case of representational artifacts, these species are iconic, indexical, or symbolic. In case of ecological artifacts, these species are spatial or structural. Within species, token artifacts are identified. The proposed taxonomy is an important first step towards a better understanding of the range and variety of cognitive artifacts and is a helpful point of departure, both for conceptualizing how different artifacts augment or impair cognitive performance and how they transform and are integrated into our cognitive system and practices. (shrink)

Frege's puzzle is a fundamental challenge for accounts of mental and linguistic representation. This piece surveys a family of recent approaches to the puzzle that posit representational relations. I identify the central commitments of relational approaches and present several arguments for them. I also distinguish two kinds of relationism—semantic relationism and formal relationism—corresponding to two conceptions of representational relations. I briefly discuss the consequences of relational approaches for foundational questions about propositional attitudes, intentional explanation, and compositionality.

Does Anne Conway (1631–79) hold that the created world consists of a single underlying substance? Some have argued that she does; others have argued that she is a priority monist and so holds that there are many created substances, but the whole created world is ontologically prior to each particular creature. Against both of these proposals, this article makes the case for a substance pluralist interpretation of Conway: individual creatures are distinct substances, and the whole created world is not ontologically (...) prior to the individual creatures that compose it. The basic argument for such a view draws on Conway's claims about the freedom and moral responsibility of individual creatures. The pluralist reading is straightforwardly compatible with these claims, while the monistic readings are not. (shrink)

The account of natural kinds as stable property clusters is premised on the possibility of separating the epistemic value of natural kinds from their underlying metaphysics. On that account, the co-instantiation of any sub-cluster of the properties associated with a given natural kind raises the probability of the co-instantiation of the rest, and this clustering of property instantiation is invariant under all relevant counterfactual perturbations. We argue that it is not possible to evaluate the stability of a cluster of properties (...) without taking stock of the metaphysical picture used to account for that stability. Thus, even on the stable property cluster account, the epistemic value of natural kinds remains partly grounded in their metaphysical status. (shrink)

This paper has two distinct but related goals: (1) to identify some of the potential consequences of the Internet for our cognitive abilities and (2) to suggest an approach to evaluate these consequences. I begin by outlining the Google effect, which (allegedly) shows that when we know information is available online, we put less effort into storing that information in the brain. Some argue that this strategy is adaptive because it frees up internal resources which can then be used for (...) other cognitive tasks, whereas others argue that this is maladaptive because it makes us less knowledgeable. I argue that the currently available empirical evidence in cognitive psychology does not support strong conclusions about the negative effects of the Internet on memory. Before we can make value-judgements about the cognitive effects of the Internet, we need more robust and ecologically-valid evidence. Having sketched a more nuanced picture of the Google effect, I then argue that the value of our cognitive abilities is in part intrinsic and in part instrumental, that is, they are both valuable in themselves and determined by the socio-cultural context in which these cognitive abilities are utilised. Focussing on instrumental value, I argue that, in an information society such as ours, having the skills to efficiently navigate, evaluate, compare, and synthesize online information are (under most circumstances) more valuable than having a lot of facts stored in biological memory. This is so, partly because using the Internet as an external memory system has overall benefits for education, navigation, journalism, and academic scholarship. (shrink)

In this brief article I argue that liberalism is the political form most consistent with theism.

In an earlier paper, "Non-conceptual Content and the 'Space of Reasons'", I distinguished two forms of the view that perceptual content is non-conceptual, which I called the 'state view' and the 'content view'. On the latter, but not the former, perceptual states have a different kind of content than do cognitive states. Many have found it puzzling why anyone would want to make this claim and, indeed, what it might mean. This paper attempts to address these questions.

The desirability of what actually occurs is often influenced by what could have been. Preferences based on such value dependencies between actual and counterfactual outcomes generate a class of problems for orthodox decision theory, the best-known perhaps being the so-called Allais Paradox. In this paper we solve these problems by extending Richard Jeffrey's decision theory to counterfactual prospects, using a multidimensional possible-world semantics for conditionals, and showing that preferences that are sensitive to counterfactual considerations can still be desirability maximising. (...) We end the paper by investigating the conditions necessary and sufficient for a desirability function to be an expected utility. It turns out that the additional conditions imply highly implausible epistemic principles. (shrink)

Fregeanism and Relationism are competing families of solutions to Frege’s Puzzle, and by extension, competing theories of propositional representation. My aim is to clarify what is at stake between them by characterizing and evaluating a Relationist argument. Relationists claim that it is cognitively possible for distinct token propositional attitudes to be, in a sense, qualitatively indistinguishable: to differ in no intrinsic representational features. The idea of an ‘intrinsic representational feature’ is not, however, made especially clear in the argument. I clarify (...) it here and, having done so, offer reason to doubt the argument. This will put us in a position to draw some lessons about the relation between object-directed and representation-internal aspects of cognitive significance. (shrink)

Predicativists hold that proper names have predicate-type semantic values. They face an obvious challenge: in many languages names normally occur as, what appear to be, grammatical arguments. The standard version of predicativism answers this challenge by positing an unpronounced determiner in bare occurrences. I argue that this is a mistake. Predicativists should draw a distinction between two kinds of semantic type—underived semantic type and derived semantic type. The predicativist thesis concerns the underived semantic type of proper names and underdetermines a (...) view about the semantic type of bare occurrences. I’ll argue that predicativists should hold that bare names are derived individual-denoting expressions. I end by considering what this result means for the relationship between predicativism and other metalinguistic theories of names. (shrink)

Satisficing Consequentialism is often rejected as hopeless. Perhaps its greatest problem is that it risks condoning the gratuitous prevention of goodness above the baseline of what qualifies as "good enough". I propose a radical new willpower-based version of the view that avoids this problem, and that better fits with the motivation of avoiding an excessively demanding conception of morality. I further demonstrate how, by drawing on the resources of an independent theory of blameworthiness, we may obtain a principled specification of (...) what counts as "good enough". (shrink)

So-called 'Frege cases' pose a challenge for anyone who would hope to treat the contents of beliefs (and similar mental states) as Russellian propositions: It is then impossible to explain people's behavior in Frege cases without invoking non-intentional features of their mental states, and doing that seems to undermine the intentionality of psychological explanation. In the present paper, I develop this sort of objection in what seems to me to be its strongest form, but then offer a response to it. (...) I grant that psychological explanation must invoke non-intentional features of mental states, but it is of crucial importance which such features must be referenced. -/- It emerges from a careful reading of Frege's own view that we need only invoke what I call 'formal' relations between mental states. I then claim that referencing such 'formal' relations within psychological explanation does not undermine its intentionality in the way that invoking, say, neurological features would. The central worry about this view is that either (a) 'formal' relations bring narrow content in through back door or (b) 'formal' relations end up doing all the explanatory work. Various forms of each worry are discussed. The crucial point, ultimately, is that the present strategy for responding to Frege cases is not available either to the 'psycho-Fregean', who would identify the content of a belief with its truth-value, nor even to someone who would identify the content of a belief with a set of possible worlds. It requires the sort of rich semantic structure that is distinctive of Russellian propositions. There is therefore no reason to suppose that the invocation of 'formal' relations threatens to deprive content of any work to do. (shrink)

There has recently been emphasis put on providing two-factor accounts of monothematic delusions. Such accounts would explain (1) whether a delusional hypothesis (e.g. someone else is inserting thoughts into my mind) can be understood as a prima facie reasonable response to an experience and (2) why such a delusional hypothesis is believed and maintained given its implausibility and evidence against it. I argue that if we are to avoid obfuscating the cognitive mechanisms involved in monothematic delusion formation we should split (...) the first factor (1 above) into two factors: how abnormal experience can give rise to a delusional ‘proto-hypothesis’ and how a ‘proto-hypothesis’ in consort with normal experiences and background information, can be developed into a delusional hypothesis. In particular I will argue that a schizophrenic is faced with the unusual requirement of having to identify an introspectively accessible thought as one's own, and that this requirement of identification is the central experiential abnormality of thought insertion, auditory verbal hallucination, and alien control (i.e. passivity symptoms). Additionally, I will consider non-experiential factors which are required for the formation of a delusional hypothesis. (shrink)

Sejak Gintis adalah ekonom senior dan saya telah membaca beberapa buku sebelumnya dengan bunga, saya mengharapkan beberapa wawasan lebih ke dalam perilaku. Sayangnya, ia membuat tangan yang mati seleksi kelompok dan fenomenologi ke dalam inti dari teori perilaku, dan ini sebagian besar membatalkan pekerjaan. Lebih buruk lagi, karena ia menunjukkan penilaian buruk seperti di sini, itu mempertanyakan semua pekerjaan sebelumnya. Upaya untuk membangkitkan kembali kelompok seleksi oleh teman-temannya di Harvard, Nowak dan Wilson, beberapa tahun yang lalu adalah salah satu skandal (...) utama dalam biologi dalam dekade terakhir, dan aku telah menceritakan kisah sedih dalam artikel ' altruisme, Yesus dan akhir dunia-bagaimana Yayasan Templeton membeli Profesor Harvard dan menyerang Evolution, rasionalitas dan peradaban--sebuah review dari E.O. Wilson ' The sosial penaklukan bumi ' (2012) dan Nowak dan Highfield ' Supercooperator ' (2012). Tidak seperti Nowak, Gintis tampaknya tidak termotivasi oleh agama fanatisme, tetapi oleh keinginan yang kuat untuk menghasilkan alternatif untuk realitas suram sifat manusia, dibuat mudah oleh (dekat Universal) kurangnya pemahaman tentang Biologi manusia dasar dan slateism kosong dari perilaku ilmuwan, akademisi lain, dan masyarakat umum. -/- Gintis benar serangan (seperti yang telah berkali-kali sebelumnya) ekonom, sosiolog dan ilmuwan perilaku lain karena tidak memiliki kerangka yang koheren untuk menggambarkan perilaku. Tentu saja, kerangka yang diperlukan untuk memahami perilaku adalah evolusi satu. Sayangnya, ia gagal untuk menyediakan satu dirinya sendiri (menurut banyak kritikus dan saya setuju), dan upaya untuk mengentalkan mayat busuk kelompok seleksi ke apa pun teori ekonomi dan psikologis ia telah menghasilkan dalam dekade kerja, hanya membatalkan seluruh proyek. -/- Meskipun Gintis membuat upaya gagah berani untuk memahami dan menjelaskan genetika, seperti Wilson dan Nowak, ia jauh dari seorang ahli, dan seperti mereka, matematika hanya membutakan dia ke ketidakmungkinan biologis dan tentu saja ini adalah norma dalam ilmu pengetahuan. Seperti yang terkenal Wittgenstein dicatat pada halaman pertama budaya dan nilai "tidak ada denominasi agama di mana penyalahgunaan ekspresi metafisik telah bertanggung jawab atas begitu banyak dosa seperti dalam matematika." -/- Itu selalu jelas bahwa gen yang menyebabkan perilaku yang menurunkan frekuensi sendiri tidak bisa bertahan, tapi ini adalah inti dari gagasan pemilihan kelompok. Selain itu, telah terkenal dan sering menunjukkan bahwa kelompok seleksi hanya mengurangi kebugaran inklusif (pilihan kerabat), yang, seperti yang telah dicatat Dawkins, hanyalah nama lain untuk evolusi oleh seleksi alam. Seperti Wilson, Gintis telah bekerja di arena ini selama sekitar 50 tahun dan masih belum menggenggam itu, tapi setelah skandal pecah, aku butuh waktu hanya 3 hari untuk menemukan, membaca dan memahami pekerjaan profesional yang paling relevan, seperti yang dijelaskan dalam artikel saya. Adalah pikiran membingungkan untuk menyadari bahwa Gintis dan Wilson tidak mampu untuk mencapai hal ini dalam hampir setengah abad. -/- Saya membahas kesalahan seleksi kelompok dan fenomenologi yang merupakan norma dalam akademisi sebagai kasus khusus dari kegagalan Universal dekat untuk memahami sifat manusia yang menghancurkan Amerika dan dunia. -/- Mereka yang ingin komprehensif up to date kerangka perilaku manusia dari dua systems tampilan modern dapat berkonsultasi buku saya 'struktur Logis filsafat, psikologi, mind dan bahasa dalam Ludwig wittgenstein dan John Searle ' 2nd Ed (2019). Mereka yang tertarik pada tulisan saya lebih mungkin melihat 'berbicara monyet--filsafat, psikologi, ilmu, agama dan politik di planet yang ditakdirkan--artikel dan review 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019) dan bunuh diri utopian delusi di 21st Century 4th Ed (2019) -/- . (shrink)

This paper applies a virtue epistemology approach to using the Internet, as to improve our information-seeking behaviours. Virtue epistemology focusses on the cognitive character of agents and is less concerned with the nature of truth and epistemic justification as compared to traditional analytic epistemology. Due to this focus on cognitive character and agency, it is a fruitful but underexplored approach to using the Internet in an epistemically desirable way. Thus, the central question in this paper is: How to use the (...) Internet in an epistemically virtuous way? Using the work of Jason Baehr, it starts by outlining nine intellectual or epistemic virtues: curiosity, intellectual autonomy, intellectual humility, attentiveness, intellectual carefulness, intellectual thoroughness, open-mindedness, intellectual courage and intellectual tenacity. It then explores how we should deploy these virtues and avoid the corresponding vices when interacting with the Internet, particularly search engines. Whilst an epistemically virtuous use of the Internet will not guarantee that one will acquire true beliefs, understanding or even knowledge, it will strongly improve one’s information-seeking behaviours. The paper ends with arguing that teaching and assessing online intellectual virtues should be part of school and university curricula, perhaps embedded in critical thinking courses, or even better, as individual units. (shrink)

In this paper, we seek a reliabilist account of justified credence. Reliabilism about justified beliefs comes in two varieties: process reliabilism (Goldman, 1979, 2008) and indicator reliabilism (Alston, 1988, 2005). Existing accounts of reliabilism about justified credence comes in the same two varieties: Jeff Dunn (2015) proposes a version of process reliabilism, while Weng Hong Tang (2016) offers a version of indicator reliabilism. As we will see, both face the same objection. If they are right about what justification is, it (...) is mysterious why we care about justification, for neither of the accounts explains how justification is connected to anything of epistemic value. We will call this the Connection Problem. I begin by describing Dunn’s process reliabilism and Tang’s indicator reliabilism. I argue that, understood correctly, they are, in fact, extensionally equivalent. That is, Dunn and Tang reach the top of the same mountain, albeit by different routes. However, I argue that both face the Connection Problem. In response, I offer my own version of reliabilism, which is both process and indicator, and I argue that it solves that problem. Furthermore, I show that it is also extensionally equivalent to Dunn’s reliabilism and Tang’s. Thus, I reach the top of the same mountain as well. (shrink)

In the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (TTP), Spinoza argues that an individual’s natural right extends as far as their power. Subsequently, in the Tractatus Politicus (TP), he offers a revised argument for the same conclusion. Here I offer an account of the reasons for the revision. In both arguments, an individual’s natural right derives from God’s natural right. However, the TTP argument hinges on the claim that each individual is part of the whole of nature (totius naturae), and for this reason inherits (...) part of the natural right of that whole. Using several analogous cases from the Ethics, I show that this form of argument from division is not compatible with Spinoza’s considered metaphysical views. The revised argument, by contrast, avoids the pitfalls of his earlier efforts. It also better reveals the deep roots by which the monistic metaphysics of the Ethics feeds into Spinoza’s conception of natural right. (shrink)

Nicholas Agar, Jeff McMahan and Allen Buchanan have all expressed concerns about enhancing humans far outside the species-typical range. They argue radically enhanced beings will be entitled to greater and more beneficial treatment through an enhanced moral status, or a stronger claim to basic rights. I challenge these claims by first arguing that emerging technologies will likely give the enhanced direct control over their mental states. The lack of control we currently exhibit over our mental lives greatly contributes to our (...) sense of vulnerability. I then argue moral status should be viewed in terms of vulnerability. The enhanced will slowly gain the ability to command their mental states, reducing their vulnerability. These radically enhanced beings will have greater capacities, and possibly an inner life more valuable than our own. They will also be less vulnerable, and as a result, their moral status will be subordinate to our own. (shrink)

According to certain normative theories in epistemology, rationality requires us to be logically omniscient. Yet this prescription clashes with our ordinary judgments of rationality. How should we resolve this tension? In this paper, I focus particularly on the logical omniscience requirement in Bayesian epistemology. Building on a key insight by Hacking :311–325, 1967), I develop a version of Bayesianism that permits logical ignorance. This includes: an account of the synchronic norms that govern a logically ignorant individual at any given time; (...) an account of how we reduce our logical ignorance by learning logical facts and how we should update our credences in response to such evidence; and an account of when logical ignorance is irrational and when it isn’t. At the end, I explain why the requirement of logical omniscience remains true of ideal agents with no computational, processing, or storage limitations. (shrink)