In Ethics 4, Spinoza argues that “A free man thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is a meditation on life, not on death” (E4p67). Spinoza’s argument for this claim depends on his view of imagination, reason, and scientia intuitiva and on his notion of conatus. I explicate Spinoza’s view of life in terms of power (potentia) and show that Spinozan death amounts to reconfiguration rather than absolute annihilation. I then show that E4p67 reflects Spinoza’s well-known account (...) of the three kinds of knowing. Thinking of death is quintessentially imaginative and passive. The free person of E4p67 is in contrast a rational person. To reason, and as becomes especially clear E5, to experience scientia intuitiva, moreover is to think of things “without any relation to time, but [rather] sub specie aeternatitis”(E2p44c2) and to experience activity To the extent, then, that we are rational, free, and active, death is a non-issue. Indeed, to the extent that we are able to meditate on life sub specie aeternitatis, we actually experience joy, love (E5p20s, p32c), eternity (Sp23s), and “the greatest satisfaction of the Mind” (E5p27). (shrink)

Holly Smith has done more than anyone to explore and defend the importance of usability for moral theories. In Making Morality Work, she develops a moral theory that is almost universally usable. But not quite. In this article, I argue that no moral theory is universally usable, in the sense that is most immediately relevant to action, even by agents who know all the normative facts. There is no moral theory knowledge of which suffices to settle deliberation about what to (...) do. However, this is unsurprising if the question of what to do is not a question of fact. One upshot of the discussion is that the search for a universally usable moral theory is misconceived. Another is that, contra Smith (341), agents who are radically uncertain need not lack autonomy. (shrink)

I point out a sign mistake in the GHZ variant of Bell's theorem, invalidating the GHZ's claim that the premisses of the EPR argument are inconsistent for systems of more than two particles in entangled quantum states.

Some interesting exceptions notwithstanding, the traditional logic of economic efficiency has long favored hierarchical forms of organization and disfavored democracy in business. What does the balance of arguments look like, however, when values besides efficient revenue production are brought into the picture? The question is not hypothetical: In recent years, an ever increasing number of corporations have developed and adopted socially responsible behaviors, thereby hybridizing aspects of corporate businesses and social organizations. We argue that the joint pursuit of financial and (...) social objectives warrants significant rethinking of organizational democracy’s merits compared both to hierarchy and to non-democratic alternatives to hierarchy. In making this argument, we draw on an extensive literature review to document the relative lack of substantive discussion of organizational democracy since 1960. And we draw lessons from political theory, suggesting that the success of political democracy in integrating diverse values offers some grounds for asserting parallel virtues in the business case. (shrink)

Bell inequalities are usually derived by assuming locality and realism, and therefore violations of the Bell-CHSH inequality are usually taken to imply violations of either locality or realism, or both. But, after reviewing an oversight by Bell, in the Corollary below we derive the Bell-CHSH inequality by assuming only that Bob can measure along vectors b and b' simultaneously while Alice measures along either a or a', and likewise Alice can measure along vectors a and a' simultaneously while Bob measures (...) along either b or b', without assuming locality. The violations of the Bell-CHSH inequality therefore only mean impossibility of measuring along b and b' simultaneously. (shrink)

Today, a major challenge for climate science is to overcome what is called the “usability gap” between the projections derived from climate models and the needs of the end-users. Regional Climate Models (RCMs) are expected to provide usable information concerning a variety of impacts and for a wide range of end-users. It is often assumed that the development of more accurate, more complex RCMs with higher spatial resolution should bring process understanding and better local projections, thus overcoming the usability gap. (...) In this paper, I rather assume that the credibility of climate information should be pursued together with two other criteria of usability, which are salience and legitimacy. Based on the Swiss climate change scenarios, I study the attempts at meeting the needs of end-users and outline the trade-off modellers and users have to face with respect to the cascade of uncertainty. A conclusion of this paper is that the trade-off between salience and credibility sets the conditions under which RCMs can be deemed adequate for the purposes of addressing the needs of end-users and gearing the communication of the projections toward direct use and action. (shrink)

Assessments of an action done intentionally, as we might expect, influence judgments of moral responsibility. What we don't expect is the converse--judgments of moral responsibility influencing assessments of whether an action was done intentionally. Yet this is precisely how people decide, according to Knobe (2003, 2004) and Mendlow (2004) and Nadelhoffer (2004a). I evaluate whether the studies actually support this biasing effect. I argue that the studies are at best inconclusive and that even if they demonstrated that people fall under (...) the biasing effect, such tendencies ought to have no bearing upon philosophical analyses of the concept of intentional action. (shrink)

This paper underscores the significance of home management in suicidal mediation especially among undergraduates in the three universities that offer Home Management in the Southeastern geopolitical zone in Nigeria. The Universities include, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, and Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki. The study adopts a descriptive survey design. The population comprises 173 respondents. This is made up of 126 students and 47 lecturers chosen from the universities. The entire populations were used as the sample (...) of the study because of the manageable size. A 27-item questionnaire entitled, Questionnaire on Home Management Suicidal Mediation (QHMSM) was deployed to elicit data from the respondents. The instrument was validated by three experts. The instrument was subjected to Cronbach’s Alpha reliability method to determine the internal consistency which yielded a coefficient of 0.91. Data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer research questions. The study revealed that provision of a stable environment through active Home Management for a child enables him experience a childhood filled with both love and bond which help to reduce suicidal mediation amongst undergraduates. The study recommends that parents should provide the basic needs of children, as these will boost their morale and prevent instability. Children should be engaged in positive habits and activities so as to reduce incidence of drug abuse and other social vices. (shrink)

We show that the respective oversights in the von Neumann's general theorem against all hidden variable theories and Bell's theorem against their local-realistic counterparts are homologous. When latter oversight is rectified, the bounds on the CHSH correlator work out to be ±2√2 instead of ±2.

In this chapter, we identify and present predominant debates at the intersection of ethics and imagination. We begin by examining issues on whether our imagination can be constrained by ethical considerations, such as the moral evaluation of imagination, the potential for morality’s constraining our imaginative abilities, and the possibility of moral norms’ governing our imaginings. Then, we present accounts that posit imagination’s integral role in cultivating ethical lives, both through engagements with narrative artworks and in reality. Our final topic of (...) consideration focuses on the possibility of imagination constituting or constructing new ethical or political frameworks. (shrink)

I demonstrate that Bell's theorem is based on circular reasoning and thus a fundamentally flawed argument. It unjustifiably assumes the additivity of expectation values for dispersion-free states of contextual hidden variable theories for non-commuting observables involved in Bell-test experiments, which is tautologous to assuming the bounds of ±2 on the Bell-CHSH sum of expectation values. Its premises thus assume in a different guise the bounds of ±2 it sets out to prove. Once this oversight is ameliorated from Bell's argument by (...) identifying the impediment that leads to it and local realism is implemented correctly, the bounds on the Bell-CHSH sum of expectation values work out to be ±2√2 instead of ±2, thereby mitigating the conclusion of Bell's theorem. Consequently, what is ruled out by any of the Bell-test experiments is not local realism but the linear additivity of expectation values, which does not hold for non-commuting observables in any hidden variable theories to begin with. I also identify similar oversight in the GHZ variant of Bell's theorem, invalidating its claim of having found an inconsistency in the premisses of the argument by EPR for completing quantum mechanics. Conceptually, the oversight in both Bell's theorem and its GHZ variant traces back to the oversight in von Neumann's theorem against hidden variable theories identified by Grete Hermann in the 1930s. (shrink)

Non-epistemic values pervade climate modelling, as is now well documented and widely discussed in the philosophy of climate science. Recently, Parker and Winsberg have drawn attention to what can be termed “epistemic inequality”: this is the risk that climate models might more accurately represent the future climates of the geographical regions prioritised by the values of the modellers. In this paper, we promote value management as a way of overcoming epistemic inequality. We argue that value management can be seriously considered (...) as soon as the value-free ideal and inductive risk arguments commonly used to frame the discussions of value influence in climate science are replaced by alternative social accounts of objectivity. We consider objectivity in Longino's sense as well as strong objectivity in Harding's sense to be relevant options here, because they offer concrete proposals that can guide scientific practice in evaluating and designing so-called multi-model ensembles and, in fine, improve their capacity to quantify and express uncertainty in climate projections. (shrink)

In a letter to William Molyneux John Locke states that in reviewing his chapter 'Of Power' for the second edition of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding he noticed that he had made one mistake which, now corrected, has put him "into a new view of things" which will clarify his account of human freedom. Locke says the mistake was putting “things for actions” on p.123 of the first edition, a page on which the word 'things' does not appear (The Correspondence (...) of John Locke. E.S. de Beer, ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976), Vol.4, no.1643, 15 July, 1693.) It is the aim of this paper to (1) elucidate where the correction occurs, (2) give an analysis of why the correction is needed, and (3) give an explanation of why Locke believed replacing 'things' with 'actions' was an important change. (shrink)

In the history of philosophy, the concept of self has been perennially elusive. The philosophical quest to understand the self is rife with phenomenological and metaphysical analyses, often overlooking other kinds of selves present in the biological realm. To systematically explore this question of non-human selves, I categorize the literature on philosophical and biological notions of self into the biogenic, the zoogenic, and the anthropogenic approaches to self. This article attempts to chart the genesis, the continuum, and the lowest bound (...) of the self. Further, I enumerate challenges in developing a biogenic approach to self or taking the concept of self all the way down in the phylogenetic tree. (shrink)

For most people using an advertising slogan as the title for a philosophical paper is going to seem, at best, provocative, and at worst, simply cynical. However, this kind of cynical provocation is precisely what I want to address. That is, Marks and Spencer's tagline 'exclusively for everyone' is an affront to rational thought, but this is also the motive for its effectiveness. Rather than simply stating what's on offer, it plays to our dreams; rather than simply offering to match (...) our expectations, it promises to exceed them. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to determine how Locke understands suspension and the role it plays in his view of human liberty. To this end I, 1) discuss the deficiencies of the first edition version of ‘Of Power’ and why Locke needed to include the ability to suspend in the second edition, then 2) analyze Locke’s definitions of the power to suspend with a focus on his use of the terms ‘source’, ‘hinge’, and ‘inlet’ to describe the power. I (...) determine from these descriptions that the ability to suspend is a passive power and is a necessary condition for the rational deliberation that Locke takes to be necessary for acting as a free agent. In 3) I connect Locke’s view of the power to suspend to his discussion in the sections that precede ‘Of Power.’ I argue that the kind of judgment that Locke endorses in his discussion of the Molyneux problem is also at work in acts of suspension. In 4) I apply my interpretation to Locke’s description of the connection between the power to suspend and liberty. In 5) I conclude with a discussion of a passage from the fifth edition of the Essay. Locke adds this passage to address worries raised by Limborch over the course of their correspondence. According to Chappell, it lends evidence to the view that Locke takes suspensions to be caused by undetermined volitions. (shrink)

This article is the preface to a completed book manuscript, United Nations Human Rights Ethics. Based on the indivisibility of human rights, the Four Freedoms Speech, and the Preamble of the Universal Declaration, the book takes freedom of expression as the one human right. Other rights are modes of this one. For example, one exercises freedom of expression (speech) by exercising the right to life, access to courts, etc.. The book argues that human rights are primarily an ethical concept (introduced (...) by Rousseau) rather than a concept of international law. (shrink)

Senior high school is known to be part of the newly implemented K-12 program in the Philippines' educational system. Hence, this program added two years to the academic learning program of students, which mainly focuses on different theoretical and vocational strands that aim to prepare and fully furnish the students for education and employment in the future. Due to adjustments to new online learning amidst the pandemic, students begin to experience various challenges, primarily social support and mental well-being. Hence, this (...) study investigates the relationship between social support and anxiety with 160 respondents from private schools. The findings revealed that social support and anxiety have a significant relationship (r=0.126). (shrink)

In most discussions of moral responsibility, an agent’s moral responsibility for harming or failing to aid is equated with the agent’s being blameworthy for having done wrong. In this paper, I will argue that one can be morally responsible for one’s action even if the action was not wrong, not blameworthy, and not the result of blameworthy deliberation or bad motivation. This makes a difference to how we should relate to each other and ourselves in the aftermath. Some people have (...) blown off their responsibility when they shouldn't have, and others have held themselves responsible – or second and third parties have held them responsible – as if they were wrongdoers and blameworthy when neither is the case. (shrink)

Some recent exchanges (Gebharter 2017a,2017b; Baumgartner and Cassini, 2023) concern whether composition can have conditional independence properties analogous to causal relations. If so, composition might sometimes be detectable by the application of causal search algorithms. The discussion has focused on a particular algorithm, PC (Spirtes and Glymour, 1991). PC is but one, and in many circumstances not the best, of a host of causal search algorithms that are candidates for methods of discovering composition provided appropriate statistical relations obtain. The discussion (...) raises two issues: 1. Does the structure of the composition relation entail probability relations such that PC and like algorithms cannot discover composition from frequency data about kinds; and 2. what can be discovered—and how—about the composition of systems by PC or related causal search algorithms that exploit conditional independence relations. Baumgartner and Cassini answer the first question positively: constitution entails probability relations incompatible with discovery by PC. They do not engage the second question, but we will. (shrink)

I argue for the usefulness of the evolutionary kind of biological individual.

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

The continued development of General Circulation Models (GCMs) towards increasing resolution and complexity is a predominantly chosen strategy to advance climate science, resulting in channelling of research and funding to meet this aspiration. Yet many other modelling strategies have also been developed and can be used to understand past and present climates, to project future climates and ultimately to support decision-making. We argue that a plurality of climate modelling strategies and an equitable distribution of funding among them would be an (...) improvement on the current predominant strategy for informing policy making. To support our claim, we use a philosophy of science approach to compare increasing resolution and complexity of General Circulation Models with three alternate examples: the use of machine learning techniques, the physical climate storyline approach, and Earth System Models of Intermediate Complexity. We show that each of these strategies prioritises a particular set of methodological aims, among which are empirical agreement, realism, comprehensiveness, diversity of process representations, inclusion of the human dimension, reduction of computational expense, and intelligibility. Thus, each strategy may provide adequate information to support different specific kinds of research and decision questions. We conclude that, because climate decision-making consists of different kinds of questions, many modelling strategies are all potentially useful, and can be used in a complementary way. (shrink)

This paper is a study about Philadelphia’s comprehensive user engagement sites (CUESs) as the authors address and examine issues related to the upcoming implementation of a CUES while seeking solutions for its disputed questions and plans. Beginning with the federal drug schedules, the authors visit some of the medical and public health issues vis-à-vis safe injection facilities (SIFs). Insite, a successful Canadian SIF, has been thoroughly researched as it represents a paradigm for which a Philadelphia CUES can expand upon. Also, (...) the existing criticisms against SIFs are revisited while critically unpackaged and responded to in favor of the establishment. In the main section, the authors propose the layout and services of the upcoming CUES, much of which would be in congruent to Vancouver’s Insite. On the other hand, the CUES would be distinct from Insite, as the authors emphasize, in that it will offer an information center run by individuals in recovery and place additional emphasis on early education for young healthcare professionals by providing them a platform to work at the site. The paper will also briefly investigate the implementation of a CUES site under an ethical scope of the Harm Reduction Theory. Lastly, the authors recommend some strategic plans that the Philadelphia City government may consider employing at this crucial stage. (shrink)

Non-reductive physicalism is committed to two theses: first, that mental properties are ontologically autonomous, and second, that physicalism is true. Jaegwon Kim has argued that this view is unstable – to honor one thesis, one must abandon the other. In this paper, I present an account of property realization that addresses Kim’s criticism and that explains how the two theses are indeed comfortably compatible.

Davidson has been instrumental in dampening the prospect of reductively explaining the mind. The core of his arguments turn upon his insistence that contentful mental states, the bread and butter of folk psychology, have a “normative element.” In spite of its pivotal role, as well as its intrinsic interest, the concept is very poorly developed and understood. This paper attempts to discern four different strands of the normativity of intentionality and to spark a long overdue systematic examination of a fascinating (...) and significant thesis. (shrink)

This paper rereads David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion as dramatising a distinctive, naturalistic account of toleration. I have two purposes in mind: first, to complete and ground Hume's fragmentary explicit discussion of toleration; second, to unearth a potentially attractive alternative to more recent, Rawlsian approaches to toleration. To make my case, I connect Dialogues and the problem of toleration to the wider themes of naturalism, scepticism and their relation in Hume's thought, before developing a new interpretation of Dialogues part (...) 12 as political drama. Finally, I develop the Humean theory of toleration I have discovered by comparison between Rawls's and Hume's strategies for justification of a tolerant political regime. (shrink)

Comment en arrive-t-on à proposer comme oeuvre d’art une relation sexuelle tarifée avec un collectionneur? En 2003, l’artiste en art conceptuel et performeuse américaine, Andrea Fraser, commettra l’impensable de « coucher » avec un collectionneur afin de critiquer le milieu et surtout le marché de l’art contemporain. L’article qui suit propose une analyse thématique de l’aspect sexuel et éthique de cette oeuvre intitulée Untitled. Il sera d’abord question des significations possibles de cette performance et ses questionnements artistiques plus autoréférentiels. Je (...) compte ensuite aborder plus précisément la position trouble de la subjectivité de l’artiste qui oscille entre une posture d’objet sexuel et d’artiste. De même, le texte fera état de la position novatrice que l’oeuvre présente sur les enjeux éthiques du travail du sexe en déconstruisant les arguments paternalistes généralement invoqués pour criminaliser le travail du sexe. Et finalement, j’aborderai la question de savoir comment la nature sexuelle de l’oeuvre vient désacraliser à la fois l’art et la sexualité, et par le fait même critiquer l’idée que la sexualité soit le siège de la subjectivité. En désacralisant ainsi la sexualité, je postule qu’Untitled offre la possibilité de concevoir le travail du sexe de manière plus neutre.How can a sexual act in exchange of money with an art collector be offered as a work of art? In 2003, performer and conceptual artist Andrea Fraser committed the unthinkable of sleeping with an art collector in order to critique the contemporary art milieu and market. The following article proposes a thematic analysis of sexual and ethical components of this work of art entitled Untitled. I will first discuss possible meanings of such a performance and its artistic considerations. I will then address more precisely the troubled position of the artist’s subjectivity, which vacillates between a sexual object and an artist. Moreover, the article will highlight the innovative position presented by this work of art on ethical issues regarding sex work by deconstructing paternalistic claims generally used to support the criminalization of sex work. Finally, I will discuss how the sexual nature of this work of art comes to desecrate art, along with sexuality, thereby criticizing the idea that sexuality is the main site of subjectivity. Through this desecration of sexuality, I argue that Untitled offers the possibility to apprehend sex work in a more neutral way. (shrink)

This is an overview of Davidson's theory of anomalous monism. Objections and replies are also detailed.

When it comes to the notion of creativity, both R. Dawkins and D. Dennett argue that creativity is a matter of random mutation, in the same way that genes randomly mutate. Neither Dennett nor Dawkins see anything else in the mimetic theory of creativity than a process of Darwinian evolution. However, this complete reliance upon the extension of evolution for understanding creativity needs to be supplemented by combining it with other ideas such as those of "schema theory," because creativity always (...) occurs within a structured context and is not simply a matter of random mutation of ideas. Schema theory comes largely from the works of E.H Gombrich, who argued that "schemas" play a crucial role in how it is that we are able to be creative. He defines schemas as structure and traditions in society that help to convey the meaning of our creative efforts. Just as semantics needs syntax within language in order to formulate and convey meaning, so by analogy memes need schemas for the creation and expression of new ideas. Rather than being the antithesis of creativity, existing forms of expression and traditions are important for the creation of new ideas. This needs to be factored into any theory of creativity in order to account for the effect of the social context on creative endeavours in addition to a Darwinian account of memes. The unconscious processes at work within the brain that are involved in the generation of ideas and other creative products can be understood using the notion of a "generator", as originally conceived by D. Dennett. This notion goes beyond mere concrete Skinnerian behavioural trial and error. Within this generator, there appear to be at work processes such as those of bisociation and association, as discussed by A. Koestler, as well as processes such as the role of language, memory, generate-and-test and intentionality that must be acknowledged in addition to the syntactic operations of schemas and the replicating contents of memes. The operation of all of these ingredients within the generator, when understood together, can be seen as responsible for our ability to be creative. (shrink)

On a now orthodox view, humans and many other animals possess a “number sense,” or approximate number system, that represents number. Recently, this orthodox view has been subject to numerous critiques that question whether the ANS genuinely represents number. We distinguish three lines of critique – the arguments from congruency, confounds, and imprecision – and show that none succeed. We then provide positive reasons to think that the ANS genuinely represents numbers, and not just non-numerical confounds or exotic substitutes for (...) number, such as “numerosities” or “quanticals,” as critics propose. In so doing, we raise a neglected question: numbers of what kind? Proponents of the orthodox view have been remarkably coy on this issue. But this is unsatisfactory since the predictions of the orthodox view, including the situations in which the ANS is expected to succeed or fail, turn on the kind of number being represented. In response, we propose that the ANS represents not only natural numbers, but also non-natural rational numbers. It does not represent irrational numbers, however, and thereby fails to represent the real numbers more generally. This distances our proposal from existing conjectures, refines our understanding of the ANS, and paves the way for future research. (shrink)

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

One of the driving questions in philosophy of mind is whether a person can be understood in purely physical terms. In this presentation, I wish to continue the project initiated by Donald Davidson, whose subtle position on this question has left many more perplexed than enlightened. The main reason for this perplexity is Davidson’s rather obscure pronouncements about the normativity of intentionality and its role in supporting psychophysical anomalism – the claim that there are no laws bridging our intentional states (...) with states of our brain. Insofar as Davidson’s thesis is an ontological one – about the existence of laws or otherwise modally significant connections between the mental and the physical – I think his critics are correct: Davidson has not provided us with a successful argument for psychophysical anomalism. There is, however, a different argument, also based upon considerations about the normativity of intentionality that lead to an equally important conclusion. The conclusion is not ontological but rather epistemic: if thoughts do indeed display normativity, it is hard to understand how they would arise out of mere mechanical occurrences in the brain. To borrow a well-worn phrase, there is an “explanatory gap” between the mental and the physical. Originally coined to capture the epistemic darkness we confront in our attempt to understand phenomenal experiences in purely physical terms, the idea has yet to be explored in the area of contentful mental states or intentionality in general. My argument shall be this: considerations about the normativity of intentionality demonstrate that there is an explanatory gap between the intentional and the physical. In fact, if there were laws of the kind Davidson denies, then the world be more mysterious than if no such laws existed. The presence of an explanatory gap explains why this is so. (shrink)

1. The Situation in Cognition 2. Situated Cognition: A Potted Recent History 3. Extensions in Biology, Computation, and Cognition 4. Articulating the Idea of Cognitive Extension 5. Are Some Resources Intrinsically Non-Cognitive? 6. Is Cognition Extended or Only Embedded? 7. Letting Nature Take Its Course.

Consistent materialists are almost bound to suggest that , if it exists at all, is no more than epiphenomenal. A correct understanding of the real requires that everything we do and say is no more than a product of whatever processes are best described by physics, without any privileged place, person, time or scale of action. Consciousness is a myth, or at least a figment. Plotinus was no materialist: for him, it is Soul and Intellect that are more real than (...) the phenomena we misdescribe as material. Nor does he suppose that consciousness depends on language (as Stoics and modern materialists have sometimes said): wordless experience is actually superior. And much of what counts towards our present consciousness is to be discarded. It is better not to remember most of what now seems more significant to us; better to discard images; better that the intellect be than , losing any sense of separation between subject and object. The goal of the Plotinian intellectual is to join , but it is a mark of the good dancer that she is not conscious of what she does. There is therefore a strange confluence between Plotinus and modern materialists: our experience at least is transitory, deceitful, epiphenomenal, and is to be encountered when we have shed our illusions. (shrink)

The approximate number system (ANS) enables organisms to represent the approximate number of items in an observed collection, quickly and independently of natural language. Recently, it has been proposed that the ANS goes beyond representing natural numbers by extracting and representing rational numbers (Clarke & Beck, 2021a). Prior work demonstrates that adults and children discriminate ratios in an approximate and ratio-dependent manner, consistent with the hallmarks of the ANS. Here, we use a well-known “connectedness illusion” to provide evidence that (...) these ratio-dependent ratio discriminations are (a) based on the perceived number of items in seen displays (and not just non-numerical confounds), (b) are not dependent on verbal working memory, or explicit counting routines, and (c) involve representations with a part-whole (or subset-superset) format, like a fraction, rather than a part-part format, like a ratio. These results vindicate key predictions of the hypothesis that the ANS represents rational numbers. (shrink)

It is often assumed that adaptation — a temporary change in sensitivity to a perceptual dimension following exposure to that dimension — is a litmus test for what is and is not a “primary visual attribute”. Thus, papers purporting to find evidence of number adaptation motivate a claim of great philosophical significance: That number is something that can be seen in much the way that canonical visual features, like color, contrast, size, and speed, can. Fifteen years after its reported discovery, (...) number adaptation’s existence seems to be nearly undisputed, with dozens of papers documenting support for the phenomenon. The aim of this paper is to offer a counterweight — to critically assess the evidence for and against number adaptation. After surveying the many reasons for thinking that number adaptation exists, we introduce several lesser-known reasons to be skeptical. We then advance an alternative account — the old news hypothesis — which can accommodate previously published findings while explaining various (otherwise unexplained) anomalies in the existing literature. Next, we describe the results of eight pre-registered experiments which pit our novel old news hypothesis against the received number adaptation hypothesis. Collectively, the results of these experiments undermine the number adaptation hypothesis on several fronts, whilst consistently supporting the old news hypothesis. More broadly our work raises questions about the status of adaptation itself as a means of discerning what is and is not a visual attribute. (shrink)

Using a quantitative approach employing a descriptive survey research design, 150 Bachelor of Elementary Education (BEED) alumni of the Davao Oriental State University – Cateel Extension Campus (DORSU-CEC) from the classes of 2013-2021 were surveyed for to conduct this tracer study. Results revealed that most of graduates were females, single, employed regular or permanent basic education teachers within Davao Oriental under public or government organizations. Parents or relatives were very influential in their choice of program in college. Their main employer (...) was the Department of Education (DepEd), and they occupied professional, technical or supervisory job level positions in their first and present employment. Further, graduates acquired their first job within 1 to 6 months after graduating in college, and earned a monthly income of almost ₱27,500 in their first and present employment. Moreover, graduates perceived that the curriculum offered to them in college was relevant in their first and present employment. They believed that communication skills and discipline that they learned in college are the most useful competency and core values on their employment. Additionally, the courses in the campus can be strengthened further if the library and laboratory are provided with more resources, equipment, and facilities that can aid the students in their studies, and if the campus offers more number of optional subjects. (shrink)

This paper’s aim is to provide overview of the punishment of war crimes. It considers first the rationale of the law of war, the identification and scope of war crimes, and proceeds to consider the justification of punishing war crimes, arguing for a consequentialist view with side-constraints. It then considers the alternative of reconciliation.

Since the mid-1990s, there has been a rise in the number of deaths of undocumented Mexican migrants crossing the U.S./Mexican border. Who is responsible for these deaths? This article examines the culpability of (1) migrants, (2) humanitarian volunteers, (3) the Mexican government, (4) the U.S. government, and (5) U.S. businesses. A significant portion of the blame is assigned to U.S. free trade policies and U.S. businesses employing undocumented immigrants.

In our target article, we argued that the number sense represents natural and rational numbers. Here, we respond to the 26 commentaries we received, highlighting new directions for empirical and theoretical research. We discuss two background assumptions, arguments against the number sense, whether the approximate number system represents numbers or numerosities, and why the ANS represents rational numbers.

This paper proceeds in two parts. In the first part, I set out Fodor’s concerns about abduction in his recent books, The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way and In Critical Condition. In the second part, I attempt to meet these concerns by suggesting how - within the framework of the Massive Modularity Hypothesis - abduction functions, specifically in the context of means-end reasoning to connect Input Modules and Output Modules. My suggestion will be that natural selection is the Mother of (...) Abductive Inference and that it is evidenced in all sorts of sub-doxastic Means-End Reasoning contexts and for a variety of species. I will eventually discuss two representative cases to illustrate this suggestion: namely, dead reckoning and spatial reorientation. (shrink)

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, procrastination has become commonplace due to changes in teaching and learning, which trigger students' academic burnout. As a result, it has increased the intensity of procrastination among students who are enrolled in online learning programs. As a result, students have difficulty as a result of the rapid change from in-person learning to online learning. The study investigates the relationship between academic burnout and procrastination among 150 grade 12 senior high school students. Hence, this study employed (...) a correlational design. Based on the inferential analysis, the r coefficient of 0.71 indicates a high positive correlation between the variables. The p-value of 0.00, which is less than 0.05, leads to the decision to reject the null hypothesis. Hence, a significant relationship exists between academic burnout and academic procrastination among grade 12 senior high school students. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Berger and Nanay consider, and reject, three ways of addressing the phenomenon of unconscious perception within a naïve realist framework. Since these three approaches seem to exhaust the options open to naïve realists, and since there is said to be excellent evidence that perception of the same fundamental kind can occur, both consciously and unconsciously, this is seen to present a problem for the view. We take this opportunity to show that all three approaches considered remain (...) perfectly plausible ways of addressing unconscious perception within a naïve realist framework. So far from undermining the credibility of naïve realism, Berger and Nanay simply draw our attention to an important question to be considered by naïve realists in future work. Namely, which of the approaches considered is most likely to provide an accurate account of unconscious perception in each of its purported incarnations? (shrink)