Definiciones de epistemología hay muchas, al igual que clases y estilos. Sin embargo, más allá de esta diversidad, es necesario contar con una definición básica que guíe nuestra comprensión del tema. Dos serán las preguntas que nos ayuden a ello en este artículo: a) ¿qué es la epistemología? y b) ¿para qué le sirve al científico?

Despite the fact that Norway is considered to be one of the most gender equal countries in the world, the proportion of women in philosophy is still low. In this article, we reflect on women's presence in Norwegian philosophy, partly based on interviews with Norwegian women philosophers from different universities. -/- We discuss the low proportion of women among students and staff in the field, investigate whether gender perspectives and feminist philosophy are present in the study of philosophy today. We (...) also identify some characteristics of the Norwegian postwar philosophy, such as diversity and openness, power struggles and gender blindness. Our material also shows that measures to improve gender balance in philosophy, has met fierce resistance. We discuss how the features of Norwegian postwar philosophy, together with direct and indirect stereotypes on gender, rationality and natural properties, has contributed to the fact that women still are a minority in Norwegian philosophy. -/- We also argue that the study of feminist philosophy and the integration of gender perspective is necessary in order to achieve gender equality in the discipline, to pave way for a new development in Norwegian philosophy, and to ensure the quality of higher education. (shrink)

This article presents and argues for love as part of philosophy of education, more specifically the pedagogical relationship. In light of the concept of an ethics of rhythm, inspired by Roland Barthes, it is argued that the concept of rhythms sheds critical light on the asymmetrical and oppressive potential of the pedagogical relationship, but also on the liberating one. Furthermore, this argument is put into a broader debate about the role of academia as hospitable, inviting and inclusive, which in turn (...) accentuate counter-forces originating from the pedagogical relationship. (shrink)

In the article foundations of evolutionary theory of a jesuit and a philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin are analysed as formed by the use of language. The theory as well as its main concepts are shortly presented as given in “The Phenomenon of Man”. The struggles of Teilhard de Chardin met in the attempt to describe the idea of the world’s evolutionary development are emphasized. It is shown that language itself is “against” the author’s attempts and that it creates it (...) own metaphysics. (shrink)

In the thesis a description of the other person as a phenomenon of icon in thinking of a contemporary French philosopher Jean-Luc Marion is researched. A question is raised how the icon (as Marion describes it) can be recognized in the face of the other. A notion of “iconic visibility” is accepted and employed to study how phenomenal “structure” of the first icon – Christ – repeats itself in the face of the other. Main features allowing to interpret the face (...) as the icon from the phenomenological and not theological point of view are displayed. “Subject” capable of recognizing the icon is researched in detail. It is argumented why the gifted should not be considered to be a passive object-like givee and why the other is not the only active subject-like pole of the phenomenon. Features of Marion’s conception of the icon which determine the initial lack of evidence of the phenomenon are disclosed. It is shown that the difficulty of recognition of the icon is inherent to the description of the phenomenon. The role of the phenomenon of love for the appearing of the icon is highlighted and Marion’s conception of love is discussed. A possibility to demonstrate the icon as a final and inevitable interpretation of the face of the other was not found. It is reasoned that the possibility of such demonstration is prohibited in the very definition of the phenomenon. In spite of that it was shown how such a phenomenon may appear, therefore, lack of proof does not deny the possibility of appearing. (shrink)

At the time of the French Revolution, Olympe de Gouges (1748-1793) campaigned for the rights of women, enslaved people and other politically marginalised and underprivileged groups. Conceptually, her reflection is located within the tradition of the social contract. However, she made a theoretical and practical break with this by abolishing the separation between the political and private spheres and universally expanding political participation and belonging.

This volume contains more than 60 original translations of papers written by the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). As well as contributing to Leibniz scholarship, it is intended to function as an introductory text for students.

This paper discusses two novels by contemporary writer Inga Iwasiów (b. 1963), Bambino (2008) and Ku słońcu [Towards the Sun] (2010), in the context of geopolitical, ideological, social and psycho-cultural transformations as they specifically affect different generations of inhabitants of the Polish city of Szczecin (pre-1945 German Stettin) from 1945 until the first decade of the 21st century. Bambino covers the years 1945–1981, but also contains flashbacks to pre-war memory of Stettin and to the suppressed experiences of the new (...) post-war inhabitants, as well as ‘flash-forwards’ to post-1989, post-communist reality; Ku słońcu covers 1981 to the first decade of 2000s. It shows how the novels portray these transformations through the experience primarily of women (but not only) — in Bambino, through the main protagonists: Ula (formerly Ulrike), Anna and Marysia, and through that of the hidden narrator Magda (Marysia’s daughter born in the same year as the author, Iwasiów, 1963); and in Ku słońcu, primarily through the experience of Magda herself, as well as through that of two generations of ‘feminist’ academics: Małgorzata and Sylwia (in which it is hard not to perceive the personal experience of the author, though she is at pains to emphasize elsewhere that her work is a collective biography of the city, not so much of herself). The analysis follows Katarzyna Chmielewska’s supposition that contemporary Polish fiction dealing with the past ‘constantly oscillates between memory and genealogy’, and that it raises raw issues not yet addressed by historians; it also derives inspiration from the new ‘postdependency’ studies proposed by Hanna Gosk and Ryszard Nycz. It also attempts to capture the specific nature of Iwasiów’s use of language, her style of feminism, her method of portraying place, and the connections in her prose between place and memory. (shrink)

A common strategy for simplifying complex systems involves partitioning them into subsystems whose behaviors are roughly independent of one another at shorter timescales. Dynamic causal models clarify how doing so reveals a system’s nonequilibrium causal relationships. Here I use these models to elucidate the idealizations and abstractions involved in representing a system at a timescale. The models reveal that key features of causal representations—such as which variables are exogenous—may vary with the timescale at which a system is considered. This (...) has implications for debates regarding which systems can be represented causally. (shrink)

This article argues that a person’s well-being at a time and the goodness of her life are two distinct values. It is commonly accepted as platitudinous that well-being is what makes a life good for the person who lives it. Even philosophers who distinguish between well-being at a time and the goodness of a life still typically assume that increasing a person’s well-being at some particular moment, all else equal, necessarily improves her life on the whole. I develop a precise (...) statement of this standard assumption, and then show that it is subject to counterexamples. The possibility of such counterexamples depends only on premises similar to those sometimes invoked to argue that a person’s well-being over a long period is not simply the aggregate well-being of the shorter periods that compose the long period. The refutation of the standard assumption linking well-being and life-goodness entails that these are distinct and sometimes divergent values. As an alternative to the standard assumption, it is proposed that well-being is best understood as an ingredient in a good life. (shrink)

Relative blindsight is said to occur when different levels of subjective awareness are obtained at equality of objective performance. Using metacontrast masking, Lau and Passingham reported relative blindsight in normal observers at the shorter of two stimulus-onset asynchronies between target and mask. Experiment 1 replicated the critical asymmetry in subjective awareness at equality of objective performance. We argue that this asymmetry cannot be regarded as evidence for relative blindsight because the observers’ responses were based on different attributes of the (...) stimuli at the two SOAs. With an invariant criterion content , there was no asymmetry in subjective awareness across the two SOAs even though objective performance was the same. Experiment 3 examined the effect of criterion level on estimates of relative blindsight. Collectively, the present results question whether metacontrast masking is a suitable paradigm for establishing relative blindsight. Implications for theories of consciousness are discussed. (shrink)

When I act on something, three kinds of idea (or representation) come into play. First, I have a non-visual representation of my goals. Second, I have a visual description of the kind of thing that I must act upon in order to satisfy my goals. Finally, I have an egocentric position locator that enables my body to interact with the object. It is argued here that these ideas are distinct. It is also argued that the egocentric position locator functions in (...) the same way as a demonstrative, and that the involvement of such demonstratives in visual content negates naive realism. (This is a nearly final draft of a paper that is to be published in Raftopoulos and Machamer (eds), Perception, Realism, and the Problem of Reference (forthcoming from Cambridge UP. It is a shorter revised version of "Visual Reference", posted earlier.). (shrink)

Personites are like continuant people but shorter-lived. Johnston argues that personites do not exist since otherwise personites would have the same moral status as persons, which is untenable. I argue that Johnston’s arguments fail. To do that I propose an alternative way to understand intrinsicness and I clarify the meaning of reductionism about persons. I also argue that a plausible ethical theory is possible even if personites have the same moral status as persons. My arguments draw on Johnston’s earlier (...) debate with Parfit about personal identity and the place of ordinary concerns in a naturalistic world. I also describe an important but metaphysics-free problem that arises from Johnston’s discussion. (shrink)

Legal theorists have characterized physical evidence of brain dysfunction as a double-edged sword, wherein the very quality that reduces the defendant’s responsibility for his transgression could simultaneously increase motivations to punish him by virtue of his apparently increased dangerousness. However, empirical evidence of this pattern has been elusive, perhaps owing to a heavy reliance on singular measures that fail to distinguish between plural, often competing internal motivations for punishment. The present study employed a test of the theorized double-edge pattern using (...) a novel approach designed to separate such motivations. We asked a large sample of participants (N = 330) to render criminal sentencing judgments under varying conditions of the defendant’s mental health status (Healthy, Neurobiological Disorder, Psychological Disorder) and the disorder’s treatability (Treatable, Untreatable). As predicted, neurobiological evidence simultaneously elicited shorter prison sentences (i.e., mitigating) and longer terms of involuntary hospitalization (i.e., aggravating) than equivalent psychological evidence. However, these effects were not well explained by motivations to restore treatable defendants to health or to protect society from dangerous persons but instead by deontological motivations pertaining to the defendant’s level of deservingness and possible obligation to provide medical care. This is the first study of its kind to quantitatively demonstrate the paradoxical effect of neuroscientific trial evidence and raises implications for how such evidence is presented and evaluated. (shrink)

Although symmetry has been discussed in terms of a major law of perceptual organization since the early conceptual efforts of the Gestalt school (Wertheimer, Metzger, Koffka and others), the first quantitative measurements testing for effects of symmetry on processes of Gestalt formation have seen the day only recently. In this study, a psychophysical rating study and a “foreground”-“background” choice response time experiment were run with human observers to test for effects of bilateral symmetry on the perceived strength of figure-ground in (...) triangular Kanizsa configurations. Displays with and without bilateral symmetry, identical physically-specified-to-total contour ratio, and constant local contrast intensity within and across conditions, but variable local contrast polarity and variable orientation in the plane, were presented in a random order to human observers. Configurations with bilateral symmetry produced significantly stronger figure-ground percepts reflected by greater subjective magnitudes and consistently higher percentages of “foreground” judgments accompanied by significantly shorter response times. These effects of symmetry depend neither on the orientation of the axis of symmetry, nor on the contrast polarity of the physical inducers. It is concluded that bilateral symmetry, irrespective of orientation, significantly contributes to the, largely sign-invariant, visual mechanisms of figure-ground segregation that determine the salience of figure-ground in perceptually ambiguous configurations. (shrink)

The term “value of life” can refer to life’s intrinsic dignity: something nonincremental and time-unaffected in contrast to the fluctuating, incremental “value” of our lives, as they are longer or shorter and more or less flourishing. Human beings are equal in their basic moral importance: the moral indignities we condemn in the treatment of e.g. those with dementia reflect the ongoing human dignity that is being violated. Indignities licensed by the person in advance remain indignities, as when people might (...) volunteer their living, unconscious bodies for surrogacy or training in amputation techniques. Respect for someone’s dignity is significantly impacted by a failure to value that person’s very existence, whatever genuine respect and good will is shown by wanting the person’s life to go well. Valuing and respecting life is not, however, vitalism: there can be good and compelling reasons for eschewing some means of prolonging life. (shrink)

This paper has two components. The first, longer component (sec. 1-6) is a critical exposition of Armstrong’s views about the metaphysics of mathematics, as they are presented in Truth and Truthmakers and Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics. In particular, I discuss Armstrong’s views about the nature of the cardinal numbers, and his account of how modal truths are made true. In the second component of the paper (sec. 7), which is shorter and more tentative, I sketch an alternative account (...) of the metaphysics of mathematics. I suggest we insist that mathematical truths have physical truthmakers, without insisting that mathematical objects themselves are part of the physical world. (shrink)

We evaluated the reliability, validity, and differential item functioning (DIF) of a shorter version of the Defining Issues Test-1 (DIT-1), the behavioral DIT (bDIT), measuring the development of moral reasoning. 353 college students (81 males, 271 females, 1 not reported; age M = 18.64 years, SD = 1.20 years) who were taking introductory psychology classes at a public University in a suburb area in the Southern United States participated in the present study. First, we examined the reliability of the (...) bDIT using Cronbach’s α and its concurrent validity with the original DIT-1 using disattenuated correlation. Second, we compared the test duration between the two measures. Third, we tested the DIF of each question between males and females. Findings reported that first, the bDIT showed acceptable reliability and good concurrent validity. Second, the test duration could be significantly shortened by employing the bDIT. Third, DIF results indicated that the bDIT items did not favour any gender. Practical implications of the present study based on the reported findings are discussed. (shrink)

In “Diversifying Effective Altruism’s Longshots in Animal Advocacy”, Matthew C. Halteman acknowledges the value of aspects of the EA method but considers two potential critical concerns. First, it isn’t always clear that effective altruism succeeds in doing the most good, especially where long-shots like foiling misaligned AI or producing meat without animals are concerned. Second, one might worry that investing large sums of money in long-shots like these, even if they do succeed, has the opportunity cost of failing adequately to (...) combat systemic injustice in the shorter term. This chapter explains each of these reservations and goes on to suggest some exciting new initiatives—institution-building in Black veganism, higher education, and religious communities—that could mitigate these reservations, energize and diversify the movement, and remain true to the EA method of supporting underexploited but potentially high-impact causes that produce non-fungible goods otherwise unlikely to be funded. (shrink)

Perception of time is susceptible to distortions; among other factors, it has been suggested that the perceived duration of a stimulus is affected by the observer’s expectations. It has been hypothesized that the duration of an oddball stimulus is overestimated because it is unexpected, whereas repeated stimuli have a shorter perceived duration because they are expected. However, recent findings suggest instead that fulfilled expectations about a stimulus elicit an increase in perceived duration, and that the oddball effect occurs because (...) the oddball is a target stimulus, not because it is unexpected. Therefore, it has been suggested that top-down attention is sometimes sufficient to explain this effect, and sometimes only necessary, with an additional contribution from saliency. However, how the expectedness of a target stimulus and its salient features affect its perceived duration is still an open question. In the present study, participants’ expectations about and the saliency of target stimuli were orthogonally manipulated with stimuli presented on a short (Experiment 1) or long (Experiment 2) temporal scale. Four repetitive standard stimuli preceded each target stimulus in a task in which participants judged whether the target was longer or shorter in duration than the standards. Engagement of top-down attention to target stimuli increased their perceived duration to the same extent irrespective of their expectedness. A small but significant additional contribution to this effect from the saliency of target stimuli was dependent on the temporal scale of stimulus presentation. In Experiment 1, saliency only significantly increased perceived duration in the case of expected target stimuli. In contrast, in Experiment 2, saliency exerted a significant effect on the overestimation elicited by unexpected target stimuli, but the contribution of this variable was eliminated in the case of expected target stimuli. These findings point to top-down attention as the primary cognitive mechanism underlying the perceptual extraction and processing of task-relevant information, which may be strongly correlated with perceived duration. Furthermore, the scalar properties of timing were observed, favoring the pacemaker-accumulator model of timing as the underlying timing mechanism. (shrink)

This paper challenges (in a shorter version than the also listed 2002 LSE discussion paper) the first Gettier counterexample to the tripartite account of knowledge. Noting that 'the man who will get the job' is a description and invoking Donnellan's distinction between their 'referential' and 'attributive' uses, I argue that Smith does not actually believe that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Smith's ignorance about who will get the job shows that the (...) belief cannot be understood referentially, his ignorance of the coins in his pocket shows that it cannot be understood attributively. An explanation for why Smith appeared to have justified true belief is given by distinguishing between 'belief' and 'belief in truth'. Smith believes the sentence 'the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket' to be true (he mistakenly believes that Jones will get the job, of whom he knows that he has ten coins in his pocket) (hence his 'belief'), the sentence is true (hence 'truth'), and he has sufficient reason to assent to it (hence his 'justification'). But he does not believe the proposition expressed. Hence he does not know it either. (shrink)

This is a draft for a revised edition of Mark Sharlow's book "From Brain to Cosmos." It includes most of the material from the first edition, two shorter pieces pertaining to the book, and a detailed new introduction.

Coffee and tea are two beverages commonly-consumed around the world. Therefore, there is much research regarding their physiological effects. However, less is known about their psychological meanings. Derived from a predicted lay association between coffee and arousal, we posit that exposure to coffee-related cues should increase arousal, even in the absence of actual ingestion, relative to exposure to tea-related cues. We further suggest that higher arousal levels should facilitate a concrete level of mental construal as conceptualized by Construal Level Theory. (...) In four experiments, we find that coffee cues prompted participants to see temporal distances as shorter and to think in more concrete, precise terms. Both subjective and physiological arousal explain the effects. We situate our work in the literature that connects food and beverage to cognition or decision-making. We also discuss the applied relevance of our results as coffee and tea are among the most prevalent beverages globally. (shrink)

Microscopy allows us to observe objects we cannot see with our eyes alone. With a light microscope, we can distinguish objects at the scale of the wavelengths of visible light just under a micrometer. Around 1870 Ernst Abbe, who laid the foundation of modern optics, suggested that the resolution of a microscope would improve by using some yet-unknown radiation with shorter wavelengths than visible light, that is, below 390 nanometers (1 nm = 10−9 m). Electrons can have wavelengths near (...) 1 picometer (1 pm = 10−12 m) and should therefore allow atoms to be distinguished since they are typically at least a few hundred pm apart. In this oversimplified view, further decreasing the wavelength of the radiation should allow us to increase the resolution of electron microscopy even more. However, this can only be done by increasing the energy of the radiation, which would ultimately destroy the samples. Other factors also affect the resolution of electron microscopes, among them non-ideal imaging properties of electromagnetic lenses, which result in false images. It took more than half a century to understand and control these aberrations and separate objects less than 1 Ångstrom (1 Å = 10−10 m) apart. (shrink)

It is a truism that there are erroneous convictions in criminal trials. Recent legal findings show that 3.3% to 5%of all convictions in capital rape-murder cases in the U.S. in the 1980s were erroneous convictions. Given this fact, what normative conclusions can be drawn? First, the article argues that a moderately revised version of Scanlon’ s contractualism offers an attractive moral vision that is different from utilitarianism or other consequentialist theories, or from purely deontological theories. It then brings this version (...) of Scanlonian contractualism to bear on the question of whether the death penalty, life imprisonment, long sentences, or shorter sentences can be justified, given that there is a non-negligible rate of erroneous conviction. Contractualism holds that a permissible act must be justifiable to everyone affected by it. Yet, given the non-negligible rate of erroneous conviction, it is unjustifiable to mete out the death penalty, because such a punishment is not justifiable to innocent murder convicts. It is further argued that life imprisonment will probably not be justified (unless lowering the sentence to a long sentence will drastically increase the murder rate). However, whether this line of argument could be further extended would depend on the impact of lowering sentences on communal security. (shrink)

The perception of brightness differences in Ehrenstein figures and of illusory contours in phase-shifted line gratings was investigated as a function of the contrast polarity of the inducing elements. We presented either continuous lines or line-like arrangements composed of aligned dashes or dots whose spacing was varied. A yes/no procedure was used in which naive observers had to decide whether or not they perceived a brightness difference in a given Ehrenstein figure or an illusory contour in a phase-shifted line grating. (...) The results show that brightness differences are perceived to some extent in Ehrenstein figures with inducers of opposite polarity of contrast; however, the percentage of yes response was systematically lower and response times were longer than for figures with inducers of the same polarity. Phase-shifted line gratings with lines of opposite polarity of contrast yielded stronger illusory contours and shorter response times than those with lines of the same polarity. When the sign of contrast was not the same within a given line of induction, neither differences in brightness nor illusory contours were perceived. The results suggest that the mechanisms that lead to apparent differences in brightness are more sensitive to input of the same contrast polarity, the mechanisms generating illusory contours more sensitive to input of opposite polarity. The data are discussed in the light of a multistage approach to illusory form perception and some implications for cortical models of illusory contour integration are discussed. (shrink)

Strategies for effectively communicating scientific findings to the public are an important and growing area of study. Recognizing that some complex subjects require recipients of information to take a more active role in constructing an understanding, we sought to determine whether it was possible to increase subjects’ intellectual effort via “priming” methodologies. In particular, we asked whether subconsciously priming “intellectual virtues”, such as curiosity, perseverance, patience, and diligence might improve participants’ effort and performance on various cognitive tasks. In the first (...) experiment, we found no significant differences in either effort or understanding between IV-primed and neutrally-primed individuals across two different priming techniques. The second experiment measured the effect of IV-priming on intellectual effort in simpler, shorter-duration puzzles and exploration activities; here, we observed an effect, but given its low strength and short duration, we do not believe that priming of IVs is a promising strategy for science communication. (shrink)

Increasing behavioural evidence suggests that expert video game players (VGPs) show enhanced visual attention and visuospatial abilities, but what underlies these enhancements remains unclear. We administered the Poffenberger paradigm with concurrent electroencephalogram (EEG) recording to assess occipital N1 latencies and interhemispheric transfer time (IHTT) in expert VGPs. Participants comprised 15 right-handed male expert VGPs and 16 non-VGP controls matched for age, handedness, IQ and years of education. Expert VGPs began playing before age 10, had a minimum 8 years experience, and (...) maintained playtime of at least 20 hours per week over the last 6 months. Non-VGPs had little-to-no game play experience (maximum 1.5 years). Participants responded to checkerboard stimuli presented to the left and right visual fields while 128-channel EEG was recorded. Expert VGPs responded significantly more quickly than non-VGPs. Expert VGPs also had significantly earlier occipital N1s in direct visual pathways (the hemisphere contralateral to the visual field in which the stimulus was presented). IHTT was calculated by comparing the latencies of occipital N1 components between hemispheres. No significant between-group differences in electrophysiological estimates of IHTT were found. Shorter N1 latencies may enable expert VGPs to discriminate attended visual stimuli significantly earlier than non-VGPs and contribute to faster responding in visual tasks. As successful video-game play requires precise, time pressured, bimanual motor movements in response to complex visual stimuli, which in this sample began during early childhood, these differences may reflect the experience and training involved during the development of video-game expertise, but training studies are needed to test this prediction. (shrink)

According to some philosophers, a necessary condition of morally permissible punishment is that it communicates deserved censure for the offender’s wrongdoing. The author calls this the Communicative Condition of punishment. The chapter considers whether the use of mandatory crime-preventing neurointerventions is compatible with the Communicative Condition. The author argues that it is not. If we accept the Communicative Condition, it follows that it is impermissible to administer mandatory neurointerventions on offenders as punishment. The author then considers whether it is permissible (...) to offer an offender a neurointervention as a replacement for incarceration or in exchange for a shorter sentence. He notes that this could meet the Communicative Condition, although, somewhat oddly, only in cases where the neurointerventions have harmful effects. (shrink)

For more than one decade, Andy Clark has defended the now-famous extended mind thesis, the idea that cognitive processes leak into the world. In this paper I analyse Clark’s theoretical justification for the thesis: explanatory simplicity. I argue that his way of justifying the thesis leads into contradiction, either at the level of propositional attitude ascriptions or at the theoretical level. I evaluate three possible strategies of dealing with this issue, concluding that they are all likely to fail and that (...) therefore, as regards explanatory simplicity, the burden of proof is on Clark’s side. The paper divides into two main sections: in “Simplicity and Coherence”, I define the two concepts that are important in this context (simplicity and explanatory coherence). In “How to Cope with Coherence”, these two concepts are applied to the central thought experiment, the Inga/Otto case. It will be shown that justifying the extended mind thesis by reference to simplicity may cause trouble, because ‘extended’ behavioural descriptions are likely to yield rather complicated explanations. (shrink)

Recent advances in neuroimaging technologies have rendered multimodal analysis of operators’ cognitive processes in complex task settings and environments increasingly more practical. In this exploratory study, we utilized optical brain imaging and mobile eye tracking technologies to investigate the behavioral and neurophysiological differences among expert and novice operators while they operated a human-machine interface in normal and adverse conditions. In congruence with related work, we observed that experts tended to have lower prefrontal oxygenation and exhibit gaze patterns that are better (...) aligned with the optimal task sequence with shorter fixation durations as compared to novices. These trends reached statistical significance only in the adverse condition where the operators were prompted with an unexpected error message. Comparisons between hemodynamic and gaze measures before and after the error message indicated that experts’ neurophysiological response to the error involved a systematic increase in bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) activity accompanied with an increase in fixation durations, which suggests a shift in their attentional state, possibly from routine process execution to problem detection and resolution. The novices’ response was not as strong as that of experts, including a slight increase only in the left dlPFC with a decreasing trend in fixation durations, which is indicative of visual search behavior for possible cues to make sense of the unanticipated situation. A linear discriminant analysis model capitalizing on the covariance structure among hemodynamic and eye movement measures could distinguish experts from novices with 91% accuracy. Despite the small sample size, the performance of the linear discriminant analysis combining eye fixation and dorsolateral oxygenation measures before and after an unexpected event suggests that multimodal approaches may be fruitful for distinguishing novice and expert performance in similar neuroergonomic applications in the field. (shrink)

Recent advances in neuroimaging technologies have rendered multimodal analysis of operators’ cognitive processes in complex task settings and environments increasingly more practical. In this exploratory study, we utilized optical brain imaging and mobile eye tracking technologies to investigate the behavioral and neurophysiological differences among expert and novice operators while they operated a human-machine interface in normal and adverse conditions. In congruence with related work, we observed that experts tended to have lower prefrontal oxygenation and exhibit gaze patterns that are better (...) aligned with the optimal task sequence with shorter fixation durations as compared to novices. These trends reached statistical significance only in the adverse condition where the operators were prompted with an unexpected error message. Comparisons between hemodynamic and gaze measures before and after the error message indicated that experts’ neurophysiological response to the error involved a systematic increase in bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) activity accompanied with an increase in fixation durations, which suggests a shift in their attentional state, possibly from routine process execution to problem detection and resolution. The novices’ response was not as strong as that of experts, including a slight increase only in the left dlPFC with a decreasing trend in fixation durations, which is indicative of visual search behavior for possible cues to make sense of the unanticipated situation. A linear discriminant analysis model capitalizing on the covariance structure among hemodynamic and eye movement measures could distinguish experts from novices with 91% accuracy. Despite the small sample size, the performance of the linear discriminant analysis combining eye fixation and dorsolateral oxygenation measures before and after an unexpected event suggests that multimodal approaches may be fruitful for distinguishing novice and expert performance in similar neuroergonomic applications in the field. (shrink)

The influence of imagery on perception depends on the content of the mental image. Sixty-three students responded to the location of the 2 hands of a clock while visualizing the correct or an incorrect clock. Reaction time was shorter with valid cueing. Could this have resulted from visual acquisition strategies such as planning visual saccades or shifting covert attention? No. in this study, a crucial control condition made participants look at rather than visualize the cue. Acquisition strategies should have (...) affected equally both types of cueing, but we observed that the effect of the visual cue was smaller and limited to a particular subcase in which one expects visual acquisition strategies. Thus, what matters is the similarity of the content of the mental image with the visual scene. In addition, an interaction involving the hand used for responding supports the notion that composite imagery is lateralized. (shrink)

Using a novel enumeration task, we examined the encoding of spatial information during subitizing. Observers were shown masked presentations of randomly-placed discs on a screen and were required to mark the perceived locations of these discs on a subsequent blank screen. This provided a measure of recall for object locations and an indirect measure of display numerosity. Observers were tested on three stimulus durations and eight numerosities. Enumeration performance was high for displays containing up to six discs—a higher subitizing range (...) than reported in previous studies. Error in the location data was measured as the distance between corresponding stimulus and response discs. Overall, location errors increased in magnitude with larger numerosities and shorter display durations. When errors were computed as disc distance from display centroid, results suggest a compressed representation by observers. Additionally, enumeration and localization accuracy increased with display regularity. (shrink)

With this book we want to illustrate the way we philosophers think that public argument and debate should be. Our goal is not to present a collection of academic texts. Although most of us are part of the academy, we want to present to the lay public shorter, more essay-like texts, originally published on an Internet page called Refutations. The page is not, of course, an academic journal; it is a digital magazine with opinion texts that share simplicity, rigor (...) and total accessibility to anyone not initiated to the philosophers' way of thinking. And although the magazine's columnists are friends, they actively disagree on the most diverse topics, such as politics, economics, ethics and art. The reader, therefore, has before him a book with the most varied opinions on some of the main contemporary themes. Naturally, we do not expect to have the last word on any matter. Our intention is much more modest, but also very important: to show that it is possible, even without putting an end to the debates, to think in a creative, clear and civilized way. / Com este livro queremos ilustrar a maneira como nós, filósofos, pensamos que a argumentação e o debate públicos devem ser. Nosso objetivo não é apresentar uma coletânea de textos acadêmicos. Embora a maioria de nós seja parte da academia, queremos apresentar ao público leigo textos mais curtos e ensaísticos, originalmente publicados em uma página na Internet chamada Refutações. A página não é, naturalmente, um periódico acadêmico; trata-se de uma revista digital com textos de opinião que compartilham a simplicidade, o rigor e a total acessibilidade a qualquer não iniciado ao modo de pensar dos filósofos. E, embora os colunistas da revista sejam amigos, eles discordam ativamente a respeito dos mais diversos temas, como política, economia, ética e arte. O leitor, portanto, tem diante de si um livro com as mais variadas opiniões a respeito de alguns dos principais temas contemporâneos. Naturalmente, não esperamos dar a última palavra a respeito de qualquer assunto. Nossa pretensão é bem mais modesta, mas também muito importante: mostrar que é possível, mesmo sem colocar pontos finais aos debates, pensar de forma criativa, clara e civilizada. (shrink)

Change is the fundamental idea of evolution. Explaining the extraordinary biological change we see written in the history of genomes and fossil beds is the primary occupation of the evolutionary biologist. Yet it is a surprising fact that for the majority of evolutionary research, we have rarely studied how evolution typically unfolds in nature, in changing ecological environments, over space and time. While ecology played a major role in the eventual acceptance of the population genetic viewpoint of evolution in the (...) synthetic era (circa 1918-1956), it held a lesser role in the development of evolutionary theory until the 1980s, when we began to systematically study the evolutionary dynamics of natural populations in space and time. As a result, early evolutionary theory was initially constructed in an abstract vacuum that was unrepresentative of evolution in nature. The subtle synthesis between ecology with evolutionary biology (eco-evo synthesis) over the past 40 years has progressed our knowledge of natural selection dynamics as they are found in nature, thus revealing how natural selection varies in strength, direction, form, and, more surprisingly, level of biological organization. Natural selection can no longer be reduced to lower levels of biological organization (i.e., individuals, selfish genes) over shorter timescales but should be expanded to include adaptation at higher levels and over longer timescales. Long-term and/or emergent evolutionary phenomena, such as multilevel selection or evolvability, have thus become tenable concepts within an evolutionary biology that embraces ecology and spatiotemporal change. Evolutionary biology is currently suspended at an intermediate stage of scientific progress that calls for the organization of all the recent knowledge revealed by the eco-evo synthesis into a coherent and unified theoretical framework. This is where philosophers of biology can be of particular use, acting as a bridge between the subdisciplines of biology and inventing new theoretical strategies to organize and accommodate the recent knowledge. Philosophers have recommended transitioning away from outdated philosophies that were originally derived from physics within the philosophical zeitgeist of logical positivism (i.e., monism, reductionism, and monocausation) and toward a distinct philosophy of biology that can capture the natural complexity of multifaceted biological systems within diverse ecosystems—one that embraces the emerging philosophies of pluralism, emergence, and multicausality. Therefore, I see recent advances in ecology, evolutionary biology, and the philosophy of biology as laying the groundwork for another major biological synthesis, what I refer to as the Second Synthesis because, in many respects, it is analogous to the aims and outcomes of the first major biological synthesis (but is notably distinct from the inorganic and contrived progressive movement known as the extended evolutionary synthesis). With the general development of a distinctive philosophy of science, biology has rightfully emerged as an autonomous science. Thus, while the first synthesis legitimized biology, the Second Synthesis autonomized biology and afforded biology its own philosophy, allowing biology to finally realize its full scientific potential. (shrink)

Philosophers disagree about whether vagueness requires us to admit truth-value gaps, about whether there is a gap between the objects of which a given vague predicate is true and those of which it is false on an appropriately constructed sorites series for the predicate---a series involving small increments of change in a relevant respect between adjacent elements, but a large increment of change in that respect between the endpoints. There appears, however, to be widespread agreement that there is some sense (...) in which vague predicates are gappy which may be expressed neutrally by saying that on any appropriately constructed sorites series for a given vague predicate there will be a gap between the objects of which the predicate is denitely true and those of which it is denitely false. Taking as primitive the operator ‘it is denitely the case that’, abbreviated as ‘D’, we may stipulate that a predicate F is denitely true (or denitely false) of an object just in case ‘DF (a)’, where a is a name for the object, is true (or false) simpliciter.1 This yields the following conditional formulation of a ‘gap principle’: (D Φ (x) ∧ D¬ Φ (y)) → ¬R(x, y). Here ‘ Φ ’ is to be replaced with a vague predicate, while ‘R’ is to stand for a sorites relation for that predicate: a relation that can be used to construct a sorites series for the predicate---such as the relation of being just one millimetre shorter than for the predicate ‘is tall’. Disagreements about the sense in which it is correct to say that vague predicates are gappy can then be recast as disagreements about how to understand the denitely operator. One might give it, for example, a pragmatic construal such as ‘it would not be misleading to assert that’; or an epistemic construal such as ‘it is known that’ or ‘it is knowable that’; or a semantic construal such as ‘it is true that’. (shrink)

AI-powered records science is revolutionizing the way facts are analyzed and understood. It can significantly improve the exceptional of information evaluation and boost its speed. AI-powered facts technological know-how enables access to more extensive, extra complicated information sets, faster insights, faster trouble solving, and higher choice making. Using the use of AI-powered information technological know-how techniques and tools, organizations can provide more accurate outcomes with shorter times to choices. AI-powered facts technology also offers more correct predictions of activities and (...) developments and superior accuracy in sample reputation.Furthermore, AI-powered facts science techniques can help agencies discover anomalies in datasets, learn new patterns, and better understand the points. This paper discusses the advantages of AI-powered statistics science and how it may enhance data analysis. It additionally discusses a number of the challenges going through organizations in imposing AI-powered records science projects and gives excellent practices for deploying and coping with records technology projects. (shrink)

Waiting is a mundane yet inevitable customer experience. Surprisingly, little research has analyzed the effects of waiting on subsequent customer behavior. The current research explores a counterintuitive effect of waiting times on behavior during a shopping trip: Longer waits, compared with shorter waits, can lead to a larger number of purchases despite generating more negative emotional reactions. Results of a field study and three lab experiments demonstrate this effect in the context of waiting for hedonic products. Consistent with a (...) social-inference account, the experiments further show that the effect of waiting duration occurs when wait times are thought to depend on others’ preferences. This article explores the multifaceted effects of waiting duration on purchase behavior of hedonic products and sheds light on the social cognitions that underlie these effects. (shrink)

This is a much shorter version of our entry on the Epistemology of Perception, which will be published in the Oxford Handbook for the Philosophy of Perception in 2013. The longer version has far more references in it, whereas this version is pared down to the essentials.

The main aim of the French logician and philosopher Petrus Ramus was to provide a method of teaching the liberal arts enabling the completion of the undergraduate program of studies in 7 years. This method was based on a new logic, in which the complex structure of Aristotle’s Organon and of the Summulae logicales of Peter of Spain is reduced to two main doctrines: the invention of arguments, by which it is possible to find the notions for reasoning and disputing (...) in any discipline, and the disposition of arguments in judgment, i.e., in propositions and syllogisms. Since this logic applies both to demonstrative and to probable reasoning, Ramus and Rudolph Agricola, who first introduced it, labeled it as dialectic. Ramus completed this twofold dialectic with a method, according to which disciplines have to be taught by providing general definitions, to be explained by subsequent dichotomous divisions. According to Ramus, this method ensures a well-ordered hierarchy and division of disciplines, and an efficient means to teach them in a shorter time than in the pedagogical programs of Juan Luis Vivès, Johann Sturm, and Philipp Melanchthon. This method had its main diffusion in the pre-university institutions such as the German gymnasia and gymnasia illustria (e.g., of Herborn), while in Reformed and Catholic universities the acceptance of Ramism was hindered by the predominance of the Aristotelian curriculum. (shrink)

Starting with a few simple questions about living well and where movement originates from this essay turns into a vast map of intricate relations revolving around the notion of grace. By developing the argument from a historical perspective it quickly becomes clear that grace relies on the specific qualities of figuration and how the figure appears in what is termed “the gap between habit and inhabitation.” This article is a shorter version of the introductory chapter to my “Grace and (...) Gravity: Architectures of the Figure” (Bloomsbury, 2020). (shrink)

Verbal fluency tasks are often used in neuropsychological research and may have predictive and diagnostic utility in psychiatry and neurology. However, researchers using verbal fluency have uncritically assumed that there are no category-or phoneme-specific effects on verbal fluency performance. We recruited 16 healthy young adult subjects and administered two semantic (animals, trees) and phonemic (K, M) fluency tasks. Because of the small sample size, results should be regarded as preliminary and exploratory. On the animal compared to the tree task, subjects (...) produced significantly more legal words, had a significantly lower intrusion rate, significantly shorter first-response latencies and final silence periods, as well as significantly shorter between-cluster response latencies. These differences may be explained by differences in the category sizes, integrity of the categories’ borders, and efficiency of the functional connectivity between subcategories. On the K compared to the M task, subjects produced significantly more legal words and had significantly shorter between-cluster response times. Counterintuitively, a corpus analysis revealed there are more words starting with ⟨m⟩ compared to ⟨k⟩ in the experimental language. Our results potentially have important implications for research utilizing verbal fluency, including decreased reproducibility, questionable reliability of diagnostic and predictive tools based on verbal fluency, decreased knowledge accumulation, and increased number of publications with potentially misleading clinical interpretations. (shrink)

The policies of socioeconomic protection of older adults in most parts of the world are being redesigned in the scope of value-added targets, such as active ageing, successful ageing, or creative ageing. The main purpose here is, of course, enabling older adults self-sufficient and beneficial both for themselves and their social environment, instead of being simply the passive beneficiaries of the public support mechanisms. Turkey has a population which is still young but ageing very rapidly and will reach to the (...) same point as Europe today in a relatively much shorter time. However, the country still seems to be away from conducting systematic and holistic measures, except for a few ineffective strategy papers and legal regulations. Therefore, Turkey must immediately design a new policy agenda in conformity with its traditional and historical advantages. Revitalizing the intergenerational solidarity bonds, in this regard, may be the best cost-effective solution to complement formal measures in the provision of social protection and in the process of active ageing. However, this traditional protection net is under attack of increasingly transforming socioeconomic conditions. Consequently, as one of the most rapidly ageing countries in the world, Turkey should immediately stimulate studies and debates over a healthy, functional, and effective ageing period and caring issues. Otherwise, governments will be blindsided by the socioeconomic, psychological, cultural, and physiological problems related to the ageing process. In the light of these facts, the main purpose of this study is to discuss policy recommendations to create a self-sufficient ageing period for older adults in the context of Turkish case. (shrink)

In this review, I outline Lærke's interpretation of Spinoza's freedom of philosophizing as a rich, positive freedom, encompassing but extending far beyond mere legal permission for free expression. Lærke's book takes on the challenge to explain how such freedom is to be brought about. I suggest that Lærke's reconstruction overlooks a central plank of Spinoza's approach: the role of good institutional design in supporting freedom. The longer version is the original author submission; the shorter version was trimmed on the (...) journal's request. (shrink)

It is technically possible to clone a human being. The result of the procedure would be a human being in its own right. Given the current level of cloning technology concerning other animals there is every reason to believe that early human clones will have shorter-than-average life-spans, and will be unusually prone to disease. In addition, they would be unusually at risk of genetic defects, though they would still, probably, have lives worth living. But with experimentation and experience, seriously (...) unequal prospects between cloned and noncloned people should erode. We shall ignore arguments about cloning that focus on the potential for harm to the fetus or resultant human being, where harm is understood solely in terms of physical and mental health. Unless the resultant people would generally have lives worth living there is no positive case for cloning, or any other form of reproduction, for that matter. If the resultant beings will generally have lives worth living there is a prima facie case for allowing cloning. We imagine the case in which the resultant beings will have lives well worth living. (shrink)

The philosophical study of well-being concerns what makes lives good for their subjects. It is now standard among philosophers to distinguish between two kinds of well-being: - lifetime well-being, i.e., how good a person's life was for him or her considered as a whole, and - temporal well-being, i.e., how well off someone was, or how they fared, at a particular moment in time or over a period of time longer than a moment but shorter than a whole life, (...) say, a day, month, year, or chapter of a life. Many theories have been offered of each of these kinds of well-being. A common view is that lifetime well-being is in some way constructed out of temporal well-being. This book argues that much of this literature is premised on a mistake. Lifetime well-being cannot be constructed out of temporal well-being, because there is no such thing as temporal well-being. The only genuine kind of well-being is lifetime well-being. The Passing of Temporal Well-Being will prove essential reading for professional philosophers, especially in moral and political philosophy. It will also be of interest to welfare economists and policy-makers who appeal to well-being. (shrink)

The Handbook of Metaphysics and Ontology reflects the conviction that the history of metaphysics and current work in metaphysics and ontology can each throw valuable light on the other. Thus it is designed to serve both äs a means of making more widely accessible the results of recent scholarship in the history of philosophy, and also äs a unique work of reference in reladon to the metaphysical themes at the centre of much current debate in analyüc philosophy. The work contains (...) more man 450 shorter articies on specific themes and methods in metaphysics and ontology, together with biographical essays summarizing the thinking of the most important philosophers within the traditions dealt with. In addition, it contains about 20 longer survey arücles mapping out both historically and systemadcally the main areas of metaphysics and ontology. AU contributions have been speciaüy commissioned for this project from leading authorities in their respective fields. A special feature of the work is the pardcular attention that is paid to topics and issues of relevance to contemporary philosophical debates. The work includes also a series of arücles on the logical and mathematical tools of metaphysics and on the applications of metaphysical ideas within linguisdcs, psychology, cognitive science, and mathemadcs. (shrink)

It is necessary to understand how giraffes could have evolved. We came up with Darwin's theory, Lamarckism, And so forth. However, in a manuscript, I classified the species of Giraffa Camelopardalis in light of the heights as an Arbitrary principle. Nevertheless, I wrote a paper on classifying Giraffa Camelopardalis species using heights as the Reference point. It highlights the evolution of the giraffe posture in light of two characteristics of its postures, namely Ephemeral diversity and perpetual diversity. Our theory is (...) based on the concept of provisional height and perpetual height Groups of giraffes. Why do giraffes have a long neck? Why do not there be shorter ones? Could also be the question; Are There are many groups of giraffes? The origin of the initial height or perpetual height? In Lamarck's discussion of heredity, he gave an imaginary example of how a giraffe stretching its neck to browse leaves high in a tree gradually strengthens and Grows a longer neck as a consequence. The non-empirical approach of the theory manifests the following hypothetical testimony: Giraffe posture is a functional function of ephemeral and perpetual diversity. (shrink)

This is a brief essay on Whitney Davis's book. A shorter version, edited down by the College Art Association, is on their online book reviews site (protected by a paywall).