With English as a universal language and a central player in a globalized digital world, the need for an acceptable level of teacher ICT application skills, competence among teachers of English is necessary. The Government of Kenya (GoK) has put in concerted efforts to propel Kenya towards vision 2030 by investing in ICT integration in curriculum implementation, to equip a professional teacher with ICT skills for quality classroom practices and satisfactory learner performance in national examinations. Despite the efforts by the (...) GoK to equip teachers with ICT skills for good results in English, Kenya National Examinations Council (2022) contends, overall performance in English for the past 5 years falls short of the average mean of 50% and relentless effort from teachers is still required. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of teacher level of ICT application skills on implementation of English curriculum in public secondary schools in Kakamega North Sub-County, Kenya. The study used descriptive research design. A sample of 44 principals, 88 teachers of English and 345 form three students across the 50 public secondary schools in Kakamega North Sub-County, Kenya, were targeted. A questionnaire, interview schedule, classroom practice observation schedule, and focus group discussion guide were used to collect data. Qualitative data was analyzed thematically whereas quantitative data was presented through tables, percentages and frequencies. Chi-square test was performed to test hypothesis. Response rate was 79.5%. The findings indicated that there were teachers who neither participated in ICT workshops (67.1%) nor attended conferences on choice of teaching and learning materials (47.1%), a gap pointing on teachers. Interviews and FGD results show, teacher level of ICT application skills is crucial if quality results are to be realized. The study found a significant association between teacher level of ICT application skills and implementation of English curriculum in school. The study concluded, teacher level of ICT skills in teaching of English is a major concern. (shrink)

The Government of Kenya (GoK) touts teacher-preparedness as a critical factor that shows the equipping of a professional teacher for quality performance and satisfactory learner performance in national examinations. Despite the efforts by the GoK, there is a worrying trend of students completing school with reading and writing difficulties. The Kenya National Examinations Council (2020) contends students’ poor performance in English for the past 5 years, falling short of the average mean of 50%. Descriptive research design was used. A sample (...) of 44 principals, 88 teachers and 345 form three students across 50 public secondary schools in Kakamega North, were targeted. A questionnaire, interview schedule, classroom practice observation schedule, and focus group discussion guide were used to collect data. Qualitative data was analyzed thematically whereas quantitative data was presented through tables, percentages and frequencies. Chi-square test was performed to test hypothesis. Response rate was 79.5%. The findings indicated that majority (97.1%) of the teachers participated in coursebooks and other revision textbook in-service courses as per the changing trends in teaching of English whereas ICT workshops had low percentages, a gap pointing on teacher level of preparedness. The findings from principals indicated, teachers of English sometimes declined to take up ICT in-service trainings for fear of additional responsibilities in school. Findings from FGDs show, teachers were rated average by most students in terms of preparedness in material use in classrooms. On determining the extent to which teacher level of preparedness influence implementation of English curriculum in school, teachers’ opinions had a Mean of 4.0000; Standard deviation of 3.08338; and Skewness of .397, indicating teacher level of preparedness has a high and strong positive influence on implementation of English curriculum in school if well checked and applied. The study established a significant relationship between teacher level of preparedness and implementation of English curriculum (p=0.007<0.05). Findings concur with KNEC (2020), contending students’ poor performance in English as unsatisfying. (shrink)

In seeking to address the problems or pathologies of blame that manifest in the world and our experience, one option is to develop theories about the nature of blame and the normative conditions. Much like our processes for ethical theories, these systems and conditions seem intended to help us be ethical—in particular, to blame correctly (i.e. only those who are blameworthy and in the right amounts, and so forth). Within this work I seek to unpack what this might look like (...) in detail and then to show that theories of blame are not sufficient to overcome pathological manifestations and also that there is an additional problem that needs to be addressed: theorized blame, which is a particular way of seeing or being in the encounter (as distinct from the content of the theory). The purpose then is to attempt to uncover aspects of how pathological blame manifests in the world and reorient how we go about addressing these instances. The “Prelude,” begins with some literary sketches which seek to begin illustrating ways of seeing the “world,” or ways of seeing others in our blaming encounters. Following this I will briefly overview some of the relevant terms for the following discussion and attempt to lay the groundwork for the second chapter. Chapter two, “Encounters,” is an in-depth analysis of the structures of what I am calling “theories of blame” and “theorized blame.” Here, I will try to lay out some notions of “accounts” and “theories,” generally, as well as detail what might be involved in developing an account of theory of blame. By theorized blame, I mean a way of seeing another which is theoretical in orientation; this term and others will be unpacked and clarified. The third chapter is titled “Interlude,” and consists primarily of a further development of the character analyses of Rorschach and Ozymandias with particular attention to connecting the analyses to the concerns unpacked within “Encounters.” The following chapter, “Pathologies,” consists of an exploration of the nature of pathological instances of blame. Here, I am concerned to address the types of normative considerations that typically surround blame encounters, and then to connect this notion of pathological blame to the concerns of theories of blame and theorized blame which I have been developing. Chapter five, “Manifestations,” is a continuation of the previous concerns which seeks to take the developments from “Encounters” and “Pathologies,” and to make them more concrete. Given the concerns of theorized blame which I am seeking to develop, some aspects of the pathological instances with which I am concerned may become more apparent in being shown rather than only told. Finally, this work concludes with the “Postlude,” in which I seek only to point to the possibility of non-theorized blame; that is, assuming that the concerns of pathology and blame that I have laid out are moving in the right direction of assessing the problem, my examples in the “Postlude” are intended to present the possibility of an alternative. The purpose of this thesis is to draw attention to the significance of the moment of encounter in blaming situations and, in these moments, to indicate that theories of blame alone are insufficient for revealing or equipping us to avoid pathological instances of blame. (shrink)

Motivated by recent political trends surrounding the legality of abortion, and noting the apparent difficulty with which partisan agreement can be found when engaging with arguments from foetal personhood, this paper revisits a classic axiological argument for the legalisation of abortion which relies on a commitment to the moral relevancy of consequences and the empirically sound nature of said consequences. Academically known as the Argument from Back-Street Abortion, agreement with the argument's premises entails the legalisation of abortion is morally obligatory, (...) and agreement to said argument's premises are possible regardless of one's position regarding a foetus' right-to-life. As such, this oft-overlooked argument deserves revisiting due to its potential for bipartisan reconciliation in service of the establishment of ethical abortion policy. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Consequentialism represents a kind of ethical theory that is the most plausible to serve as a basis for a machine ethic. First, I outline the concept of an artificial moral agent and the essential properties of Consequentialism. Then, I present a scenario involving autonomous vehicles to illustrate how the features of Consequentialism inform agent action. Thirdly, an alternative Deontological approach will be evaluated and the problem of moral conflict discussed. Finally, two bottom-up approaches to (...) the development of machine ethics are presented and briefly challenged. (shrink)

Modern philosophy is, for what appear to be good reasons, uniformly hostile to sui generis final causes. And motivated to develop philosophically and scientifically plausible interpretations, scholars have increasingly offered reductivist and eliminitivist accounts of Aristotle's teleological commitment. This trend in contemporary scholarship is misguided. We have strong grounds to believe Aristotle accepted unreduced sui generis teleology, and reductivist and eliminitivist accounts face insurmountable textual and philosophical difficulties. We offer Aristotelians cold comfort by replacing his apparent view with failed accounts. (...) And so we ought to admit Aristotle’s prima facie commitments and deal with — if not accept — the consequences. (shrink)

The life of a teacher is not as smooth as many may assume, as reports underscore the myriad challenges faced by educators both locally and internationally. This study aims to delve into the coping strategies employed by teachers within their profession. Utilizing a qualitative case study approach, this research engaged ten (10) junior high school teachers from the Department of Education (DepEd) as participants. Thematic analysis revealed eight (8) key themes encapsulating teachers' coping mechanisms within DepEd, including active coping, positive (...) coping, flexible coping, support group systems, acceptance, avoidant coping, commitment to personal growth, and emotional drivers and motivators. These themes shed light on the diverse array of coping strategies utilized by teachers over time. Categorized into two overarching meta-themes, constructive and non-constructive coping strategies emerged, with the former, encompassing active coping, positive coping, flexible coping, support group systems, acceptance, commitment to personal growth, and emotional drivers and motivators, being the predominant coping mechanisms fostering long-term improvement. Conversely, the latter, represented by avoidant coping, offers short-term relief but may lead to counterproductive outcomes. This study advocates for the development and implementation of a psychosocial training program aimed at enhancing teachers' well-being and resilience within their profession. (shrink)

Scholars often argue that Charles Sanders Peirce was responsible for Josiah Royce's semiotic turn in _The Problem of Christianity_ of 1913. Thus scholars tend to assume that a _Roycean_ approach to semiotics was a later development and derives almost entirely from Peirce's semiotics. Far from a later development, Royce probably read Peirce much earlier. Indeed, even before Royce had read Peirce, the kernel of a Rocyean approach to semiotics is found in the dissertation of 1878. Thus the present essay (...) will prove that a Roycean approach to semiotics did not have a basis in Peirce's semiotics, whether early or later, but rather grew out of Royce's earliest writings. The first part will reconstruct the early pragmatism in the dissertation of 1878 and find that the kernal of a Roycean approach to semiotics was the idea of a _mediating third_. The second part will show how the disseration's pragmatism develops into a phenomenology of time that contains Royce's earliest semiosic insights. The third part will explain how the early pragmatism and phenomenology come together in the argument on the possibility of error from Royce's _The Religious Aspect of Philosophy_ of 1885. The possibility of error is Royce's original argument for absolute idealism, so the essay will conclude that a Roycean approach to semiotics entails a semiotics of the absolute. (shrink)

Josiah Parsons Cooke established chemistry education at Harvard University, initiated an atomic weight research program, and broadly impacted American chemical education through his students, the introduction of laboratory instruction, textbooks, and influence on Harvard's admissions requirements. The devoutly Unitarian Cooke also articulated and defended a biogeochemical natural theology, which he defended by arguing for commonalities between the epistemologies of science and religion. Cooke's pre-Mendeleev classification scheme for the elements and atomic weight research were motivated by his interest in numerical (...) order in nature, which reflected his belief in a divine lawgiver. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper, I present data involving the use of the Romanian slur ‘țigan’, consideration of which leads to the postulation of a sui-generis, irreducible type of use of slurs. This type of use is potentially problematic for extant theories of slurs. In addition, together with other well-established uses, it shows that there is more variation in the use of slurs than previously acknowledged. I explain this variation by construing slurs as polysemous. To implement this idea, I appeal to (...) a rich-lexicon account of polysemy. I show how such a theory can be applied to slurs and discuss several important issues that arise. (shrink)

A one-boxer, Erica, and a two-boxer, Chloe, engage in a familiar debate. The debate begins with Erica asking Chloe: ‘If you’re so smart, then why ain’cha rich?’. As the debate progresses, Chloe is led to endorse a novel causalist theory of rational choice. This new theory allows Chloe to forge a connection between rational choice and long-run riches. In brief: Chloe concludes that it is not long-run wealth but rather long-run wealth creation which is symptomatic of rationality.

Can we consciously see more items at once than can be held in visual working memory? This question has elud- ed resolution because the ultimate evidence is subjects’ reports in which phenomenal consciousness is filtered through working memory. However, a new technique makes use of the fact that unattended ‘ensemble prop- erties’ can be detected ‘for free’ without decreasing working memory capacity.

Siegel and Byrne debate whether perceptual experiences present rich properties or exclusively thin properties.

Richness theory offers a promising axiology. In this paper, I discuss how to translate it into a deontology. To do so, I recruit the concept of moral distance from a recently developed epistemology, and construe it in terms of causal power. Finally, I apply the resulting decision-theoretic framework to the question of how best to avert ecological disaster over the next 36 years and achieve ecological harmony over the next 986.

Both common sense and dominant traditions in art criticism and philosophical aesthetics have it that aesthetic features or properties are perceived. However, there is a cast of reasons to be sceptical of the thesis. This paper defends the thesis—that aesthetic properties are sometimes represented in perceptual experience—against one of those sceptical opponents. That opponent maintains that perception represents only low-level properties, and since all theorists agree that aesthetic properties are not low-level properties, perception does not represent aesthetic properties. I offer (...) a novel argument—what I call the argument from seeing-as—against that sceptic which moves from consideration of ambiguous figures to consideration of visual art. It concludes that aesthetic properties are sometimes perceived and delivers a general lesson for philosophy of perception. Contrary to extant theories of rich perceptual content, aesthetic properties are far better candidates for high-level perceptual contents than standardly theorized rich contents like natural kinds. (shrink)

Gaetano commented on the problems that exist in diagnosing schizophrenia and argues that more effort should be devoted to understanding relevant subjective experiences. I am not convinced that this is necessarily so. I have argued previously that diagnosis of clinical disorders is unlikely to work well in the absence of a theory on which the diagnostic system can be based. At present, there is very little theory concerning schizophrenic disorders, or at least very little theory that elicits wide agreement and (...) has definitive empirical support. (shrink)

Conscious states—state that there is something it is like to be in—seem both rich or full of detail and ineffable or hard to fully describe or recall. The problem of ineffability, in particular, is a longstanding issue in philosophy that partly motivates the explanatory gap: the belief that consciousness cannot be reduced to underlying physical processes. Here, we provide an information theoretic dynamical systems perspective on the richness and ineffability of consciousness. In our framework, the richness of conscious experience (...) corresponds to the amount of information in a conscious state and ineffability corresponds to the amount of information lost at different stages of processing. We describe how attractor dynamics in working memory would induce impoverished recollections of our original experiences, how the discrete symbolic nature of language is insufficient for describing the rich and high-dimensional structure of experiences, and how similarity in the cognitive function of two individuals relates to improved communicability of their experiences to each other. While our model may not settle all questions relating to the explanatory gap, it makes progress toward a fully physicalist explanation of the richness and ineffability of conscious experience—two important aspects that seem to be part of what makes qualitative character so puzzling. (shrink)

The literature on algorithmic fairness has examined exogenous sources of biases such as shortcomings in the data and structural injustices in society. It has also examined internal sources of bias as evidenced by a number of impossibility theorems showing that no algorithm can concurrently satisfy multiple criteria of fairness. This paper contributes to the literature stemming from the impossibility theorems by examining how informational richness affects the accuracy and fairness of predictive algorithms. With the aid of a computer simulation, we (...) show that informational richness is the engine that drives improvements in the performance of a predictive algorithm, in terms of both accuracy and fairness. The centrality of informational richness suggests that classification parity, a popular criterion of algorithmic fairness, should be given relatively little weight. But we caution that the centrality of informational richness should be taken with a grain of salt in light of practical limitations, in particular, the so-called bias-variance trade off. (shrink)

Illusionists claim that phenomenal consciousness does not exist, but merely seems to exist. Most debates concerning illusionism focus on whether or not it is true—whether phenomenal consciousness really is an illusion. Here I want to tackle a different question: assuming illusionism is true, what kind of illusion is the illusion of phenomenality? Is it a “rich” illusion—the cognitively impenetrable activation of an incorrect representation—or a “sparse” illusion—the cognitively impenetrable activation of an incomplete representation, which leads to drawing incorrect judgments? (...) I present this distinction and I classify the most influential illusionist theories along this line of divide. I then offer an argument against the accounts of the illusion of phenomenality in terms of sparse illusion. (shrink)

We outline a novel theory of natural language meaning, Rich Situated Semantics [RSS], on which the content of sentential utterances is semantically rich and informationally situated. In virtue of its situatedness, an utterance’s rich situated content varies with the informational situation of the cognitive agent interpreting the utterance. In virtue of its richness, this content contains information beyond the utterance’s lexically encoded information. The agent-dependence of rich situated content solves a number of problems in semantics and (...) the philosophy of language (cf. [14, 20, 25]). In particular, since RSS varies the granularity of utterance contents with the interpreting agent’s informational situation, it solves the problem of finding suitably fine- or coarse-grained objects for the content of propositional attitudes. In virtue of this variation, a layman will reason with more propositions than an expert. (shrink)

A pervasive thought in contemporary philosophy of mathematics is that in order to justify reflection principles, one must hold universism: the view that there is a single universe of pure sets. I challenge this kind of reasoning by contrasting universism with a Zermelian form of multiversism. I argue that if extant justifications of reflection principles using notions of richness are acceptable for the universist, then the Zermelian can use similar justifications. However, I note that for some forms of richness argument, (...) the status of reflection principles as axioms is left open for the Zermelian. (shrink)

One very important question about poverty is what rich people like us should do to fight it. In this article, I argue that we can, at little cost to ourselves, give tithes of our money and live within our so-called ‘ecological footprint’. At the end of the article, it is argued that we should, morally, do these things.

This paper introduces the notion of a “psychologically rich life”: a life characterized by complexity, in which people experience a variety of interesting things, and feel and appreciate a variety of deep emotions via firsthand experiences or vicarious experiences. A psychologically rich life can be contrasted with a boring and monotonous life, in which one feels a singular emotion or feels that their lives are defined by routines that just aren’t that interesting. Our discussion considers how it is (...) that the psychologically rich life compares to other leading theories of the good life discussed within both philosophy and psychology, and it argues that a psychologically rich life ought to be recognized as a distinct and compelling form of the good life. (shrink)

The intuitions at the core of environmental ethics and of other neglected value realms put pressure on traditional anthropocentric ethics based on monistic value theories. Such pressure is so severe that it has led many to give up on the idea of monistic value theories altogether. I argue that value monism is still preferable to value pluralism and that, indeed, these new challenges are opportunities to vastly improve impoverished traditional theories. I suggest an alternative monistic theory, Richness Theory, and show (...) how it provides an opportunity to capture the needs of both environmental ethics and of our traditional ethics. (shrink)

The biblical passage from Luke 16, 19-31 is one of the most cited and discussed in the New Testament. However, when analyzed based on the relationships engendered following the narrated facts, a series of presupposed narrative programs contributes to the elucidation of the meaning of this text. This research, therefore, will analyze the aforementioned passage from the perspective of Greimasian semiotics. The method aims to reveal the generative path of meaning and highlight the intratextual elements, which make up the path (...) of construction of the meaning of the passage. It allows you to analyze your superficial and deep structures: it goes from the simple to the complex, from the most abstract to the most concrete. It can thus highlight the semantic oppositions from which the meaning of the text and its fundamental semantic category are constituted. The method has the potential to represent the relational organization between the social conditions of the subjects of the narrative. Furthermore, it provides neutral methodological support that avoids a priori conclusions and bias. The analysis of intertextuality completes the process started with Greimasian semiotics. This is because a careful reading of Lc 16,19-31 will not ignore its immediate and broader context: Luke and Acts read sequentially. By placing the parable in this broader narrative, Luke's readers could perceive connective elements, linking the story told by Jesus to what was happening in the early church. Thus, in Jesus' mouth the story of the rich man and the beggar was told as a criticism of avarice, but in Luke's editorial plan it was used to challenge believers to get involved in caring for the poor. (shrink)

The paper investigates the role played by pre-scientific experience in the philosophy of Josiah Royce and Edmund Husserl. Such a notion, generally associated with Husserl’s conception of the life-world (Lebenswelt) in the Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (1936), finds an equivalent and historical antecedent in Royce’s distinction between a world of description and a world of appreciation. The final goal is to show how, despite their different philosophical frameworks, Royce and Husserl agree on the idea that, through (...) the rejection of the world given through mere perception (Lebenswelt/world of appreciation), European sciences have somehow failed their task of universality. As it will be shown, this idea is also due to methodological affinities among the two thinkers. The experience of interconnectedness among individual minds, while precluded in the mere scientific explanation of the world, it becomes possible through the enactment of the Lebenswelt or, as in Royce’s case, through a return to the experience of the world of appreciation. (shrink)

The rich have two defining capabilities: independence from and command over others. These make being wealthy very pleasant indeed, but they are also toxic to democracy. First, I analyse the mechanisms by which the presence of very wealthy individuals undermines the two pillars of liberal democracy, equality of citizenship and legitimate social choice. Second, I make a radical proposal. If we value the preservation of democracy we must limit the amount of wealth any individual can have and still be (...) a citizen of our polity. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to explicate the diversity of Indian Symbolism and to show the changing patterns of symbols. The first part is mostly descriptive and interpretative and tries to bring out the different forms of Indian Symbolism. The second part tries to bring out the different kinds of changes that are possible with regard to symbols.

Proprioception, a sense of bodily position and movement, is rarely the focus of conscious experience. If we are ordinarily conscious of proprioception, we seem only peripherally so. Thus, evidence that proprioception is present in the periphery of at least some conscious experiences seems to be good evidence that conscious experience is fairly rich. Anosognosia for paralysis is a denial of paralysis of one's limbs, usually in the wake of brain damage from stroke. Because anosognosic patients overlook their paralysis, anosognosia (...) seems be a counter-example to the claim that proprioception exists in the periphery of conscious experience. However, careful consideration of the data shows that anosognosia makes a poor counterexample to a rich theory of consciousness. Thus, we retain reason to believe that proprioception exists in the periphery of conscious experience, and so to conclude that conscious experience is relatively rich. (shrink)

This is a response to Macleod 2012's argument that the history of unjust property acquisitions requires rich libertarians to give away everything in excess of equality. At first, problematic questions are raised. How much property is usually inherited or illegitimate? Why should legitimate inheritance be affected? What of the burden of proof and court cases? A counterfactual problem is addressed. Three important cases are considered: great earned wealth; American slavery; land usurpation. All are argued to be problematic for Macleod (...) 2012's thesis. Various problems are explained concerning using the Nozickian argument to decide the alleged excess that rich libertarians own. The essay's main error is the presupposition that free markets do not help the worst-off. The majority of unjust holdings today are not the result of historical injustices but arise through continuing transfers enabled by taxation and state-regulation. More study of libertarian contributions to the social sciences and philosophy would appear to be desirable "personal behavior" among socialists. (shrink)

In a recent special issue dedicated to Dani Rodrik’s (2015) influential monograph Economics Rules, Grüne-Yanoff and Marchionni (2018) raise a potentially damning problem for Rodrik’s suggestion that progress in economics should be understood and measured laterally, by a continuous expansion of new models. They argue that this could lead to an “embarrassment of riches”, i.e. the rapid expansion of our model library to such an extent that we become unable to choose between the available models, and thus needs to be (...) solved to make ‘model pluralism’ viable. Drawing on Veit’s (2019a) ‘model pluralism’ account, this paper argues that model pluralism as a thesis about the relationship between science and nature undermines the very idea of a general model selection framework for policy making. (shrink)

The question of whether conscious experience is restricted by cognitive access and exhausted by report, or whether it overflows it—comprising more information than can be reported—is hotly debated. Recently, we provided evidence in favor of Overflow, showing that observers discriminated the color‐diversity (CD) of letters in an array, while their working‐memory and attention were dedicated to encoding and reporting a set of cued letters. An alternative interpretation is that CD‐discriminations do not entail conscious experience of the underlying colors. Here we (...) argue, based on conceptual considerations and consistency with neuroscience and phenomenology, in favor of the Overflow interpretation. (shrink)

Hume describes his own “open, social, and cheerful humour” as “a turn of mind which it is more happy to possess, than to be born to an estate of ten thousand a year.” Why does he value a cheerful character so highly? I argue that, for Hume, cheerfulness has two aspects—one manifests as mirth in social situations, and the other as steadfastness against life’s misfortunes. This second aspect is of special interest to Hume in that it safeguards the other virtues. (...) And its connection with the first aspect helps explain how it differs from Stoic tranquility. For Hume, I argue, philosophy has a modest role in promoting human happiness by preserving cheerfulness. (shrink)

A common argument for favouring Evidential Decision Theory (EDT) over Causal Decision Theory (CDT) is that EDT has predictably higher expected returns in Newcomb Problems. But this doesn’t show much. For almost any pair of theories you can come up with cases where one does, on average, better than the other. Here I describe a case involving dynamic choice where EDT predictably does worse than CDT.

The main goal of this paper is to show that there are many phenomena that pertain to the construction of truth-conditional compounds that follow characteristic patterns, and whose explanation requires appealing to knowledge structures organized in specific ways. We review a number of phenomena, ranging from non-homogenous modification and privative modification to polysemy and co-predication that indicate that knowledge structures do play a role in obtaining truth-conditions. After that, we show that several extant accounts that invoke rich lexical meanings (...) to explain such phenomena face problems related to inflexibility and lack of predictive power. We review different ways in which one might react to such problems as regards lexical meanings: go richer, go moderately richer, go thinner, and go moderately thinner. On the face of it, it looks like moderate positions are unstable, given the apparent lack of a clear cutoff point between the semantic and the conceptual, but also that a very thin view and a very rich view may turn out to be indistinguishable in the long run. As far as we can see, the most pressing open questions concern this last issue: can there be a principled semantic/world knowledge distinction? Where could it be drawn: at some upper level (e.g. enriched qualia structures) or at some basic level (e.g. constraints)? How do parsimony considerations affect these two different approaches? A thin meanings approach postulates intermediate representations whose role is not clear in the interpretive process, while a rich meanings approach to lexical meaning seems to duplicate representations: the same representations that are stored in the lexicon would form part of conceptual representations. Both types of parsimony problems would be solved by assuming a direct relation between word forms and (parts of) conceptual or world knowledge, leading to a view that has been attributed to Chomsky (e.g. by Katz 1980) in which there is just syntax and encyclopedic knowledge. (shrink)

How about a different take on the rich and famous? First the obvious—the Harry Potter novels are primitive superstition that encourages children to believe in fantasy rather than take responsibility for the world-- the norm of course. JKR is just as clueless about herself and the world as all the other monkeys, but about 200 times as destructive as the average American and about 800 times more than the average Chinese. She has been responsible for the destruction of maybe (...) 30,000 hectares of forest to produce these trash novels and all the erosion ensuing (not trivial as its ca. 12 tons/year soil into the ocean for everyone on earth or maybe 100 tons per American, and so about 5000 tons/year for Rowling’s books and movies and her destructive brood of 3 children). Then there is the huge amount of fuel burned and waste made to make and distribute the books and films, plastic dolls etc. She shows her lack of social responsibility by producing children rather than using her millions to encourage family planning or buy up the rain forest, and by promoting the conventional liberal stupidity of 3rd world supremacy that is destroying Britain, America, the world and her descendant’s future. Of course, she's not that different from the other 7.7 billion clueless-just noisier and more destructive. -/- It is the no free lunch problem writ large. The mob just can’t see that there is no such thing as helping one person without harming others. Rights or privileges given to new entrants into an overcrowded world can only diminish those of others. In spite of the massive ecological disasters happening in front of them everywhere everyday, they can’t pin them to the unrestrained motherhood of “the diverse”, which accounts for most of the population increase of the last century and all of that in this one. They lack some combination of intelligence, education, experience and sanity required to extrapolate the daily assaults on the resources and functioning of society to the eventual collapse of industrial civilization. Each meal, each trip by car or bus, each pair of shoes is another nail in the earth’s coffin. -/- Not only the rich and famous, but nearly any public figure at all, including virtually all teachers, are pressured to be politically correct, which in the Western Democracies, now means social democratic (diluted communist) third world supremacists working for the destruction of their own societies and their own descendants. So, those whose lack of free speech (and basic common sense), which should prohibit them from making any public statements at all, totally dominate all the media, creating the impression that the intelligent and civilized must favor democracy, diversity and equality, while the truth is that these are the problems and not the solutions, and that they themselves are the prime enemies of civilization. -/- Those who want a broader framework may see my essay ‘Suicide by Democracy’ or my book ‘Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century- Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization-Articles and Reviews 2006-2017’. -/- All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711R5LGX . (shrink)

The legend of Robin Hood exemplifies a distinct concern of justice neglected by theorists: the distributive results of systemic injustices. Robin Hood’s redistributive activities are justified by the principle that the distributive results of systemic injustices are unjust and should be corrected. This principle has relevance beyond the legend: since current inequalities in the US are results of systemic injustices, the US has good reason to take from the rich and give to the poor.

Our in-the-moment experience of the world can feel vivid and rich, even when we cannot describe our experience due to limitations of attention, memory or other cognitive processes. But the nature of visual awareness is quite sparse, as suggested by the phenomena of failures of awareness, such as change blindness and inattentional blindness. I will argue that once failures of memory or failures of comparison are ruled out as explanations for these phenomena, they present strong evidence against rich (...) awareness. To accommodate and explain these massive failures of awareness, any theory of phenomenal consciousness must downgrade phenomenology to a degree where it is functionless or, ironically, does not reflect what we experience. (shrink)

The best-known argument for Evidential Decision Theory (EDT) is the ‘Why ain’cha rich?’ challenge to rival Causal Decision Theory (CDT). The basis for this challenge is that in Newcomb-like situations, acts that conform to EDT may be known in advance to have the better return than acts that conform to CDT. Frank Arntzenius has recently proposed an ingenious counter argument, based on an example in which, he claims, it is predictable in advance that acts that conform to EDT will (...) do less well than acts that conform to CDT. We raise two objections to Arntzenius’s example. We argue, first, that the example is subtly incoherent, in a way that undermines its effectiveness against EDT; and, second, that the example relies on calculating the average return over an inappropriate population of acts. (shrink)

This article defends the conclusion that the soccer World Cup in Qatar should not be boycotted by rich countries from the Global North. This conclusion is underpinned by considerations about the economic background conditions in guest workers’ home countries. Three arguments are considered for the view that the World Cup should be boycotted. It is argued that each of these arguments is unsound. Section 7 contains a discussion of an argument for a boycott that centers on the process through (...) which Qatar was awarded the World Cup. This argument is rejected. The article lists several ways in which guest workers in Qatar are wronged, but this fact about how guest workers are treated does not justify a boycott by rich countries from the Global North. (shrink)

Does it matter whether we perceptually represent tomato-hood?

Engels explained his admiration for Balzac by pointing to an apparent discrepancy between Balzac’s literature and his politics. Despite his sympathies for the French nobility, Balzac’s realism “compelled” him to portray this class in unflattering terms. In this article, I challenge Engels’s reading, arguing that Marx’s scattered remarks on Balzac take us in a different direction. Specifically, I argue that in his remark on Balzac’s The Peasants Marx pinpointed the author’s preoccupation with the spread of bourgeois ideology into the nobility. (...) Building on this remark, I analyze several of Balzac’s works showing that insofar as Balzac lambasted the nobles, his critique was primarily directed towards nobles who had adopted bourgeois ways. In this light, and against Engels’s observation, Balzac’s critique of the nobles appears to stem from his sympathy to aristocratic values rather than conflicting with them. In showing that affinities between Balzac, Marx and Engels did not depend on Balzac expressing anti-noble sentiment, I argue that the admiration the fathers of communism had for the monarchist’s prose exemplifies a partial, yet typical convergence between socialists and conservatives in their critique of modern bourgeois society. (shrink)

This is a reply to and critique of Gregory Mankiw's recent paper "Defending the One Percent".

Freedom is first apprehended as the pursuit of an activity which implies the choice to defend a thesis among other possible ones. This translation of the problem of freedom in an articulate language presupposes a complex nervous system and sensory apparatuses which we take for granted. In this study, I try to explore the undergrounds of the problem of freedom along with the suggestion that the notion of coding could enable one to bridge nature and the mind. When organisms invent, (...) are they doing it in a spontaneous manner, inscribing in their hereditary and mnemonic instructions a stochastic contrivance of random accidents, or are they attempting to select among a limited number of schemes endowed with some optimality of functioning? If we consider them as submitted to physical forces, it is to the extent that we make them part of a strategy to extend the "laws" of a nature understood to respond passively. I suggest in this study that the epistemological understanding must regionalize itself and admit a hierarchy of dispositions in relation to the phenomenon of selection. I end by suggesting the pursuit of affirmation instead of negation, as this alone contains the requirement of integration to the knowing subject as well as the form in its act of understanding, without giving it a spontaneist position. (shrink)