The relationship between philosophy and science in contemporary times is closer than ever. From the methodology perspective, scientific and philosophical research has a clear sequential relationship. It is highlighted in the following aspects: 1. the methodology of scientific research, including theoretical assumptions and data modeling, parallels with apparent similarities in conceptual analysis and logical deduction in philosophy;2. consistency of analytical argumentation methods in scientific research and philosophical research;3. naturalism is currently a research approach that both scientific and philosophical research adopt. (...) There has been a significant dispute over the relationship between philosophy and science among contemporary philosophers. This dispute focuses on the impact of scientific development on philosophy research. Nowadays, no one would deny the existence of this impact, but there is no consensus on the impact's nature, scope, and role. Wittgenstein's conception of certainty can provide valuable insights to understand the relationship between philosophy and science. In addition, we conclude the pragmatic turn in cognitive science because we misinterpret the cognitive scientists' emphasis on action as a practical claim and interpret the cognitive scientists' views with pragmatism. The theoretical analysis and research suggestions philosophers provide are becoming essential focuses in contemporary artificial intelligence research, including the interpretability of computer technology, the ethical norms of artificial intelligence technology, and the possible conception of human beings in the future. The interdisciplinary study of science and philosophy will achieve more significant development. In sum, understanding the nature of philosophy can be given a new explanation from a future perspective. The future outlook here refers to the starting point from possible world scenarios that can be conceived and traced back to all the facts happening in the present world, thereby giving an appropriate explanation to the real world. (shrink)

The relationship between philosophy and science in contemporary times is closer than ever. From the methodology perspective, scientific and philosophical research has a clear sequential relationship. It is highlighted in the following aspects: 1. the methodology of scientific research, including theoretical assumptions and data modeling, parallels with apparent similarities in conceptual analysis and logical deduction in philosophy;2. consistency of analytical argumentation methods in scientific research and philosophical research;3. naturalism is currently a research approach that both scientific and philosophical research adopt. (...) There has been a significant dispute over the relationship between philosophy and science among contemporary philosophers. This dispute focuses on the impact of scientific development on philosophy research. Nowadays, no one would deny the existence of this impact, but there is no consensus on the impact's nature, scope, and role. Wittgenstein's conception of certainty can provide valuable insights to understand the relationship between philosophy and science. In addition, we conclude the pragmatic turn in cognitive science because we misinterpret the cognitive scientists' emphasis on action as a practical claim and interpret the cognitive scientists' views with pragmatism. The theoretical analysis and research suggestions philosophers provide are becoming essential focuses in contemporary artificial intelligence research, including the interpretability of computer technology, the ethical norms of artificial intelligence technology, and the possible conception of human beings in the future. The interdisciplinary study of science and philosophy will achieve more significant development. In sum, understanding the nature of philosophy can be given a new explanation from a future perspective. The future outlook here refers to the starting point from possible world scenarios that can be conceived and traced back to all the facts happening in the present world, thereby giving an appropriate explanation to the real world. (shrink)

Here I respond to Anthony Brueckner and John Martin Fischer’s “The Evil of Death: A Reply to Yi.” They developed an influential strategy in defense of the deprivation account of death’s badness against the Lucretian symmetry problem. The core of their argument consists in the claim that it is rational for us to welcome future intrinsic goods while being indifferent to past intrinsic goods. Previously, I argued that their approach is compatible with the evil of late birth insofar as an (...) earlier birth would have generated more goods in the future. In reply, Brueckner and Fischer argue that my critique fails to appreciate an important aspect of their thought experiment, which aims only to show that the deprivation of past goods per se is not bad for us. Thus, purportedly, my critique poses no threat to their view. Here I argue that since the deprivation account explains the evil of death with recourse to how one’s life would have fared had one lived longer, it ought to respond to the symmetry problem with reference to how one’s life would have fared had one been born earlier. However, it is not generally true that the life one would have had with an earlier birth is not preferable to one’s actual life, because in many cases such a life would contain more future goods. (shrink)

In this essay, I develop the concept of episodic value, which describes a form of value connected to a particular object or individual expressed and delivered through a narrative. Narrative can bestow special kinds of value on objects, as exemplified by auction articles or museum collections. To clarify the nature of episodic value, I show how the notion of episodic value fundamentally differs from the traditional axiological picture. I extend my discussion of episodic value to argue that the notion of (...) episodic value readily incorporates the role of narratives into the construction of identity in personal and social contexts. My main contentions are twofold. First, events or experiences from our personal narratives are episodically valuable insofar as they contribute to shaping our narrative identities. Second, when engaged in a collective action, we write a joint narrative with other participants that confers special meanings on the actions of each participant. (shrink)

Item response theory (IRT) is a modern psychometric framework for estimating respondents’ latent traits (e.g., ability, attitude, and personality) based on their responses to a set of questions in psychological tests. The current study adopted an item response tree (IRTree) method, which combines the tree model with IRT models for handling the sequential process of responding to a test item, to score individual moral inclination for the CNI test—a broadly adopted model for examining humans’ moral decision-making with three parameters generated: (...) sensitivity to moral norms, sensitivity to consequences, and inaction preference. Compared to previous models for the CNI test, the resulting EIRTree-CNI Model is able to generate individual scores without increasing the number of items (thus, less subject fatigue or compromised response quality) or employing a post hoc approach that is deemed statistically suboptimal. The model fits the data well, and the subsequent test also supported the concurrent validity and the predictive validity of the model. Limitations are discussed further. (shrink)

In analyzing oppressive systems like racism, social theorists have articulated accounts of the dynamic interaction and mutual dependence between psychological components, such as individuals’ patterns of thought and action, and social components, such as formal institutions and informal interactions. We argue for the further inclusion of physical components, such as material artifacts and spatial environments. Drawing on socially situated and ecologically embedded approaches in the cognitive sciences, we argue that physical components of racism are not only shaped by, but also (...) shape psychological and social components of racism. Indeed, while our initial focus is on racism and racist things, we contend that our framework is also applicable to other oppressive systems, including sexism, classism, and ableism. This is because racist things are part of a broader class of oppressive things, which are material artifacts and spatial environments that are in congruence with an oppressive system. (shrink)

The central claim of the Parfitian psychological approach to personal identity is that the fact about personal identity is underpinned by a non-branching psychological continuity relation. Hence, for the advocates of the Parfitian view, it is important to understand what it is for a relation to take or not take a branching form. Nonetheless, very few attempts have been made in the literature of personal identity to define the non-branching clause. This paper undertakes this task. Drawing upon a recent debate (...) between Anthony Brueckner and Harold Noonan on the issue, I present three candidates for the non-branching clause. (shrink)

Consider a specific type of fission where psychological continuity takes a branching form, and one of the offshoots comes into being later than the other offshoot. Let us say that the earlier offshoot comes into being in the left branch at t, and the later offshoot comes into being in the right branch at t+1. With regard to the question how many persons are involved in this case, three answers are worth considering: (i) The original subject persists up to t; (...) a distinct person comes into being immediately after t and continues to exist in the left branch; and the third person comes into being in the right branch at t+1. (ii) The original subject persists up to the moment immediately before t+1; a distinct person comes into being at t+1 and continues to exist in the left branch; and the third person comes into being in the right branch at t+1. (iii) The original subject continues to exist in the left branch; a distinct person comes into being in the right branch at t+1. For those who hold that personal identity consists in psychological continuity of some sort, the aforementioned three options exhaust the sensible ways of understanding how one persists in delayed fission. However, I argue that complications arise for each answer. Hence, delayed fission poses a challenge for the psychological approach to personal identity. (shrink)

As more and more scholars deepened the study of the Dunhuang version of The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, many significant research questions were raised. The questions such as when the book was completed, who actually wrote the book, and the historical authenticity of Huineng’s story, especially his identity of the Sixth Patriarch, were extensively discussed and questioned by many scholars. This essay attempts to conduct a more profound analysis and thinking based on the current academic studies with respect (...) to this historical book, and seeks to critically and profoundly rethink the methods of contemporary criticism concerning religious studies. (shrink)

Xunzi's philosophy provides a rich resource for understanding how ethical relationships between humans and nature can be articulated in terms of harmony. In this paper, I build on his ideas to develop the concept of reciprocal harmony, which requires us to reciprocate those who make our lives liveable. In the context of the environment, I argue that reciprocal harmony generates moral obligations towards nature, in return for the existential debt that humanity owes towards heaven and earth. This can be used (...) as a normative basis for an environmental ethic that enables humanity and nature to flourish together. (shrink)

Huw Price and Ken Wharton claimed recently in their paper published in The Conversation that quantum mechanics shows that the future can influence the past. According to their paper, many scientists are convinced about it. However, there is still something mystical for philosophers. The first is about the definition of retrocausality and its philosophical relation to causality. Second, it is concerned with understanding the relationship between cause and effect, not only scientifically but also logically. In this talk, I will answer (...) the two questions by analyzing the concept of temporality and by examining the counterfactual and overdetermination. I found a tension in understanding the concept of necessity in the physical and logical sense. Finally, I will argue that the time reversal asymmetry does not imply retrocausality, and the phenomenon of retrocausality does not exist in reality but only in logic. (shrink)

Our goal in this paper is to articulate a novel account of the ordinary concept ART. At the core of our account is the idea that a puzzle surrounding our thought and talk about art is best understood as just one instance of a far broader phenomenon. In particular, we claim that one can make progress on this puzzle by drawing on research from cognitive science on dual character concepts. Thus, we suggest that the very same sort of phenomenon that (...) is associated with ART can also be found in a broad class of other dual character concepts, including SCIENTIST, CHRISTIAN, GANGSTER, and many others. Instead of focusing narrowly on the case of ART, we try to offer a more general account of these concepts and the puzzles to which they give rise. Then, drawing on the general theory, we introduce a series of hypotheses about art concepts, and put those hypotheses to the test in three experimental studies. (shrink)

In addressing the Lucretian symmetry problem, the content-based approach attends to the difference between the contents of the actual life and those of relevant possible lives of a person. According to this approach, the contents of a life with an earlier beginning would substantially differ from, and thus be discontinuous with, the contents of the actual life, whereas the contents of a life with the same beginning but a later death would be continuous with the contents of the actual life. (...) In this paper, I examine two versions of the content-based approach: the identity account and the preference account. The identity account holds that, in the sense of identity which is relevant to the evil of nonexistence, the subject of the actual life, though identical to the person in the life with a later death, is distinct from the subject of the life with an earlier beginning. The preference account maintains that, given one’s attachments to actual particulars, a life with an earlier beginning is not rationally preferable to one’s actual life, whereas a life with a later death is. I argue that each version of the content-based approach is implausible, while discussing some of the complications that face each of them. (shrink)

Various writings by the later Wittgenstein on the philosophy of psychology, published posthumously, express his basic critical attitude toward certain concepts and issues in the philosophy of psychology. His attitude towards folk psychology is negative in principle, leaving him opposed to the foundation of current psychological research. This critique of folk psychology and of the philosophy of psychology in general is in accord with the general method of his later philosophy, that is, dealing with philosophical problems by dissolving them. However, (...) his critical attitude towards folk psychology has been less influential in the development of contemporary philosophy, and is in opposition to the philosophy of psychology and folk psychology as practiced today. In this paper I will analyze Wittgenstein's understanding of the concept of psychology, offering a different interpretation from that of other scholars, and explain why and how contemporary philosophers of psychology misunderstand Wittgenstein. (shrink)

This poem metaphorically depicts how a person overcomes his fear and anxiety by inwardly and faithfully relating oneself to the One. The person was seriously scared of water, which is symbolic of his fear of the storm such as failure, death, or perhaps COVID-19.

The Purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of cloud mobile learning and creative environment on college student’s creativity performance. A nonequivalent pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was used in this research. The objects were two freshman classes selected from a public university and randomly assigned to the experimental group and the control group. A learning activity named Amphibious Mechanical Beast was conducted in this teaching experiment. The experimental was taught using cloud mobile learning, while the control group was taught (...) using the traditional (usual) way. Participant student’s design performances before and after the experiment were evaluated. Creative Environment Scale was used to collect data of student’s perception of creative environment. Additionally, an open ended questionnaire was used to realize student’s learning processes. The one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and the two-way analysis of covariance were performed in this research. After data coding, relative concepts, themes, and theories were integrated and developed. Finally, the findings were proposed according to result of qualitative data analysis. Those main results of this research were: 1.Cloud mobile learning had a positive effect on student’s creative process. Most participant students thought cloud mobile device using convenient and prompt while learning. Cloud mobile learning improved student active participation, and was student-centered rather than teacher-centered. Participant student’s high order thinking abilities could be improved by receiving information and discussing anytime and anywhere. Those high order thinking included problem solving, critical thinking, and creative thinking. Nevertheless, minor participant students’ learning was influenced by past learning habits and insufficient devices. 2. Cloud mobile learning had positive effects on newness, elaborateness, and total aspect of creative products. 3. Perceptions of creative environment had positive effects on preparation stage and reaction stage of creative process. 4. Perceptions of creative environment which were above a certain level had positive effects on creative products. 5. Cloud mobile learning had positive effects on preparation stage of students’ creative process who had lower perceptions of creative environment. 6. Cloud mobile learning had positive effects on value of students’ creative products who had lower perceptions of creative environment. 7. Cloud mobile learning had positive effects on total aspect of students’ creative products who had higher perceptions of creative environment. Finally, recommendations and suggestions were addressed for implementation of cloud mobile learning and future studies based on results of this research. (shrink)

Peirce’s pragmatic maxim is closely related to his conception of abduction. The acquisition of the actual effect required by the method of scientific reasoning expressed by Peirce’s maxim must be accomplished by resorting to abductive logic. Abductive logic starts from a surprising fact, derives a hypothetical explanation about that fact, and finally arrives at the possibility that the hypothesis is true. This is the process of abductive reasoning, as provided by Peirce, which is distinct from induction and deduction and generates (...) explanatory views. Peirce opposed a unified and unchangeable concept of causality. He used different interpretations of causality to illustrate the considerable differences in people’s understanding of cause and effect in different periods. The concept of pragmatism, as developed from the pragmatic maxim to abduction and then to scientific inference to the best explanation, is precisely what Peirce initially proposed, and inference to the best explanation is the starting point and the final result of the pragmatic maxim. (shrink)

Though scholars of Chinese Theology have expanded the inter-religious dialogue between Christian theology and traditional Chinese philosophy and culture from Neo-Confucianism to other fields such as Taoism, the dialogue with Chinese Buddhism, especially Chan Buddhism, has not been carried out yet. This article mainly reflects on the starting point of Leung In-sing’s Chinese Theology through the perspective of Dharma as Nonduality in Chan. Firstly, it briefly outlines the background and basic ideas of Chinese Theology formulated by Leung In- sing, focusing (...) on discussing the two fundamental theological categories: “Relationship” and “Rapport.” Then, it annotates and analyzes Huineng’s“Dharma as Nonduality.”Finally, from the perspective of Huineng, it rethinks the starting point of Chinese Theology itself and proposes further research questions. (shrink)

Issues of pretense and imagination are of central interest to philosophers, psychologists, and researchers in allied fields. In this entry, we provide a roadmap of some of the central themes around which discussion has been focused. We begin with an overview of pretense, imagination, and the relationship between them. We then shift our attention to the four specific topics where the disciplines' research programs have intersected or where additional interactions could prove mutually beneficial: the psychological underpinnings of performing pretense and (...) of recognizing pretense, the cognitive capacities involved in imaginative engagement with fictions, and the real-world impact of make-believe. In the final section, we discuss more briefly a number of other mental activities that arguably involve imagining, including counterfactual reasoning, delusions, and dreaming. (shrink)

A plurality or plural object is a single object that is also many, and pluralitism is the thesis that there is such an object. This paper argues that pluralitism and closely related theses (e.g., the many-one identity thesis and the composition as identity thesis) violate logic. To do so, it formulates an approach to the logic and semantics of plural constructions that results in plural logic and relates treatments of plural constructions to accounts of natural number. And it gives a (...) critical examination of Frege’s views of numbers and plural constructions, and sketches the view of plural constructions as devices for talking about the many (as such), and an account of natural numbers as properties of a special kind, plural properties. (shrink)

One aim of this essay is to contribute to understanding aesthetic communication—the process by which agents aim to convey thoughts and transmit knowledge about aesthetic matters to others. Our focus will be on the use of aesthetic adjectives in aesthetic communication. Although theorists working on the semantics of adjectives have developed sophisticated theories about gradable adjectives, they have tended to avoid studying aesthetic adjectives—the class of adjectives that play a central role in expressing aesthetic evaluations. And despite the wealth of (...) attention paid to aesthetic adjectives by philosophical aestheticians, they have paid little attention to contemporary linguistic theories of adjectives. We take our work to be a first step in remedying these lacunae. In this paper, we present four experiments that examine one aspect of how aesthetic adjectives ordinarily function: the context-sensitivity of their application standards. Our results present a prima facie empirical challenge to a common distinction between relative and absolute gradable adjectives because aesthetic adjectives are found to behave differently from both. Our results thus also constitute a prima facie vindication of some philosophical aestheticians’ contention that aesthetic adjectives constitute a particularly interesting segment of natural language, even if the boundaries of this segment might turn out to be different from what they had in mind. (shrink)

The goal of this short paper is to show that esthetic adjectives—exemplified by “beautiful” and “elegant”—do not pattern stably on a range of linguistic diagnostics that have been used to taxonomize the gradability properties of adjectives. We argue that a plausible explanation for this puzzling data involves distinguishing two properties of gradable adjectives that have been frequently conflated: whether an adjective’s applicability is sensitive to a comparison class, and whether an adjective’s applicability is context-dependent.

Imaginative resistance refers to a phenomenon in which people resist engaging in particular prompted imaginative activities. On one influential diagnosis of imaginative resistance, the systematic difficulties are due to these particular propositions’ discordance with real-world norms. This essay argues that this influential diagnosis is too simple. While imagination is indeed by default constrained by real-world norms during narrative engagement, it can be freed with the power of genre conventions and expectations.

It has been widely reported that women are underrepresented in academic philosophy as faculty and students. This article investigates whether this representation may also occur in the domain of journal article publishing. Our study looked at whether women authors were underrepresented as authors in elite ethics journals — Ethics, Philosophy & Public Affairs, the Journal of Political Philosophy, and the Journal of Moral Philosophy — between 2004-2014, relative to the proportion of women employed in academic ethics (broadly construed). We found (...) that women are indeed underrepresented overall in prestigious ethics journal publishing. Though this is not our focus, we discuss possible causes for this finding, such as top ethics journals’ tendency not to publish much feminist philosophy; the impact of women’s lesser professional status or rank within philosophy on their prospects for, and success in, journal publishing; and the review process itself, which may disadvantage or discourage women authors — perhaps especially when their gender, rank, and affiliation are known to the editor or reviewer, or if their work is explicitly feminist. We discuss possible avenues for future research on the "woman problem" in philosophy, noting how our study relates to existing research on this issue. (shrink)

Whenever philosophers try to include a “diverse” — in the sense of not currently recognised as canon — philosophy x into their teaching and their research, they inevitably get asked: “What is x philosophy?” and “Is x philosophy really philosophy?”. -/- These metaphilosophical questions do not only arise with attempts to include “diverse” intellectual traditions, but also with attempts to include “diverse” thinkers, works, topics, and methods. First, they are asked to prove that x exists. Second, they are asked to (...) prove that x is really philosophy. To refer to the pattern of debates that these questions engender, call it conversational dynamics of diversity. (shrink)

This chapter explores the interaction between the moral value and aesthetic value of food, in part by connecting it to existing discussions of the interaction between moral and aesthetic values of art. Along the way, this chapter considers food as art, the aesthetic value of food, and the role of expertise in uncovering aesthetic value. Ultimately this chapter argues against both food autonomism (the view that food's moral value is unconnected to its aesthetic value) and Carolyn Korsmeyer's food moralism (the (...) view that moral flaws can only make food aesthetically worse). Instead, it argues for the position of food immoralism: sometimes a moral flaw can make an item of food aesthetically better. This chapter concludes by drawing out broader implications of this position for discussions on the ethics of food and discussions on the interaction between the moral and aesthetic values of art. (shrink)

A primary argument against the badness of death (known as the Symmetry Argument) appeals to an alleged symmetry between prenatal and posthumous nonexistence. The Symmetry Argument has posed a serious threat to those who hold that death is bad because it deprives us of life’s goods that would have been available had we died later. Anthony Brueckner and John Martin Fischer develop an influential strategy to cope with the Symmetry Argument. In their attempt to break the symmetry, they claim that (...) due to our preference of future experiential goods over past ones, posthumous nonexistence is bad for us, whereas prenatal nonexistence is not. Granting their presumption about our preference, however, it is questionable that prenatal nonexistence is not bad. This consideration does not necessarily indicate their defeat against the Symmetry Argument. I present a better response to the Symmetry Argument: the symmetry is broken, not because posthumous nonexistence is bad while prenatal nonexistence is not, but because (regardless as to whether prenatal nonexistence is bad) posthumous nonexistence is even worse. (shrink)

We apply a familiar distinction from philosophy of language to a class of material artifacts that are sometimes said to “speak”: statues. By distinguishing how statues speak at the locutionary level versus at the illocutionary level, or what they say versus what they do, we obtain the resource for addressing two topics. First, we can explain what makes statues distinct from street art. Second, we can explain why it is mistaken to criticize—or to defend—the continuing presence of statues based only (...) on what they represent. Both explanations are driven by the same core idea: the significance of statues arises primarily from what they do, and not what they say. (shrink)

The primary aim of this chapter is to outline the consensuses that have emerged in recent philosophical works tackling normative questions about responding to immoral artist’s art. While disagreement amongst philosophers is unavoidable, there is actually much agreement on the ethics of media consumption. How should we evaluate immoral artist’s art? Philosophers generally agree that we should not always separate the artist from the art. How should we engage with immoral artist’s art? Philosophers generally agree that we should not always (...) reflexively turn away from them. In turn, these responses reveal that moral value is not autonomous from aesthetic value, and neither dominates the other. The secondary aim of this chapter is to explore the ramifications of this revelation. I argue that, in addition to an ethics of media consumption, we need an aesthetics of media consumption that is fundamentally social rather than solitary. (shrink)

Experimental philosophy offers an alternative mode of engagement for public philosophy, in which the public can play a participatory role. We organized two public events on the aesthetics of coffee that explored this alternative mode of engagement. The first event focuses on issues surrounding the communication of taste. The second event focuses on issues concerning ethical influences on taste. -/- In this paper, we report back on these two events which explored the possibility of doing experimental philosophical aesthetics as public (...) philosophy. We set the stage by considering the significance and current state of efforts in public philosophy, and by introducing the emerging sub-discipline of experimental philosophical aesthetics. Then, we discuss the research and outreach aspects of the two events on the aesthetics of coffee. Finally, we conclude by reflecting on the prospects and potential pitfalls of experimental philosophy as public philosophy. (shrink)

Where is imagination in imaginative resistance? We seek to answer this question by connecting two ongoing lines of inquiry in different subfields of philosophy. In philosophy of mind, philosophers have been trying to understand imaginative attitudes’ place in cognitive architecture. In aesthetics, philosophers have been trying to understand the phenomenon of imaginative resistance. By connecting these two lines of inquiry, we hope to find mutual illumination of an attitude (or cluster of attitudes) and a phenomenon that have vexed philosophers. Our (...) strategy is to reorient the imaginative resistance literature from the perspective of cognitive architecture. Whereas existing taxonomies of positions in the imaginative resistance literature have focused on disagreements over the source and scope of the phenomenon, our taxonomy focuses on the psychological components necessary for explaining imaginative resistance. (shrink)

To what extent are factors that are extrinsic to the artwork relevant to judgments of artistic value? One might approach this question using traditional philosophical methods, but one can also approach it using empirical methods; that is, by doing experimental philosophical aesthetics. This paper provides an example of the latter approach. We report two empirical studies that examine the significance of three sorts of extrinsic factors for judgments of artistic value: the causal-historical factor of contagion, the ontological factor of uniqueness, (...) and the contextual factor of appreciative environment. We explore the context of appreciation by performing studies in a museum as well as the lab. We found that contagion made a difference to judgments of artistic value in both settings. These results are congruent with previous empirical research as well as recent philosophical work that defends the artistic significance of authenticity. However, uniqueness only made a difference in the lab setting, but not in the museum. This suggests that the context of appreciation may make a difference to judgments of artistic value. Of broader significance, these studies show the value of experimental philosophical aesthetics and the value of doing in situ empirical research on art. (shrink)

Nostalgia and food are intertwined universals in human experience. All of us have experienced nostalgia centered on food, and all of us have experienced food infused with nostalgia. To explore the links between nostalgia and food, I start with a rough taxonomy of nostalgic foods, and illustrate it with examples. Despite their diversity, I argue that there is a psychological commonality to experiencing nostalgic foods of all kinds: imagination. On my account, imagination is the key to understanding the cognitive, conative, (...) affective, and perceptual aspects of experiencing nostalgic foods. In turn, the recognition of imagination’s centrality in experiencing nostalgic foods reveals how food can produce aesthetic experiences comparable to those produced by literature and painting. (shrink)

It is well-known that racism is encoded into the social practices and institutions of medicine. Less well-known is that racism is encoded into the material artifacts of medicine. We argue that many medical devices are not merely biased, but materialize oppression. An oppressive device exhibits a harmful bias that reflects and perpetuates unjust power relations. Using pulse oximeters and spirometers as case studies, we show how medical devices can materialize oppression along various axes of social difference, including race, gender, class, (...) and ability. Our account uses political philosophy and cognitive science to give a theoretical basis for understanding materialized oppression, explaining how artifacts encode and carry oppressive ideas from the past to the present and future. Oppressive medical devices present a moral aggregation problem. To remedy this problem, we suggest redundantly layered solutions that are coordinated to disrupt reciprocal causal connections between the attitudes, practices, and artifacts of oppressive systems. (shrink)

In “Sideways Music”, Ned Markosian uses aesthetic intuitions about temporally-rotated music to argue that the metaphysics of time is different from the metaphysics of space. In response, I use aesthetic intuitions about spatially-rotated paintings to pose a dilemma for Markosian’s argument: either he accepts the intuitions about spatially-rotated paintings, in which case he must give up on some assumptions in his argument, or he rejects intuitions about spatially-rotated paintings, in which case an analogous response can be given regarding intuitions about (...) temporally-rotated music. That is, if Markosian wants to hold on to the assumptions that underwrite his argument, then he thereby offers his opponent the resources with which to resist his conclusion. As such, Markosian’s argument cannot offer a new independent consideration for adjudicating the metaphysical debate between the Dynamic Theorist and the Spacetime Theorist. [Unpublishable 2019]. (shrink)

The purpose of cultural competence education for medical professionals is to ensure respectful care and reduce health disparities. Yet as Berger and Miller (2021) show, the cultural competence framework is dated, confused, and self-defeating. They argue that the framework ignores the primary driver of health disparities—systemic racism—and is apt to exacerbate rather than mitigate bias and ethnocentrism. They propose replacing cultural competence with a framework that attends to two social aspects of structural inequality: health and social policy, and institutional-system activity; (...) and two psychological aspects of structural inequality: the clinical encounter, and the epistemic. -/- We agree with the structural approach. To that end, we think it would be fruitful to include attention to physical contributors to structural inequality, namely the material artifacts used in medicine. Devices, tools, and technologies can materialize biases, perpetuate oppression, and contribute to health disparities. Granted, not everything that interests philosophers can be squeezed into medical education. Nevertheless, there are compelling reasons for including the study of material artifacts in education designed to reduce health disparities. First, devices and tools often carry forward biases from the past, and keep biases hidden from plain sight. Second, by studying these artifacts, future clinicians can begin to see themselves as part of a larger sociotechnical system. Finally, as medicine becomes increasingly tech-laden, it’s important for clinicians to see how material artifacts (including algorithms) connect individuals to structures. This will help to undermine oversimplified narratives according to which objective tools and technologies can correct for the bias and subjectivity of flawed human beings. (shrink)

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)

Imaginative resistance refers to a phenomenon in which people resist engaging in particular prompted imaginative activities. Philosophers have primarily theorized about this phenomenon from the armchair. In this paper, we demonstrate the utility of empirical methods for investigating imaginative resistance. We present two studies that help to establish the psychological reality of imaginative resistance, and to uncover one factor that is significant for explaining this phenomenon but low in psychological salience: genre. Furthermore, our studies have the methodological upshot of showing (...) how empirical tools can complement the predominant armchair approach to philosophical aesthetics. (shrink)

Psychological Sequentialism holds that no causal constraint is necessary for the preservation of what matters in survival; rather, it is sufficient for preservation if two groups of mental states are similar enough and temporally close enough. Suppose that one’s body is instantaneously dematerialized and subsequently, by an amazing coincidence, a collection of molecules is configured to form a qualitatively identical human body. According to Psychological Sequentialism, these events preserve what matters in survival. In this article, I examine some of the (...) main arguments for the view and argue that they fail to establish that no causal constraint is necessary. I also argue that Psychological Sequentialism yields implausible consequences that render it hard to accept the view. (shrink)

Children sometimes lose themselves in make-believe games. Actors sometimes lose themselves in their roles. Readers sometimes lose themselves in their books. From people's introspective self-reports and phenomenological experiences, these immersive experiences appear to differ from ordinary experiences of simply playing a game, simply acting out a role, and simply reading a book. What explains the difference? My answer: attention. -/- [Unpublishable 2007-2017. This paper was referenced in Liao and Doggett (2014).].

The present studies investigate morality’s influence on aesthetics and one potential moderator of that influence: genre. Study 1 finds that people’s moral evaluation positively influence their aesthetic evaluation of an artwork. Study 2 and 3 finds that this influence can be moderated by the contextual factor of genre. These results broaden our understanding of the relationship between morality and aesthetics, and suggest that models of art appreciation should take into account morality and its interaction with context. [Unpublishable 2010-2017.].

The poem is my image of the traditional Chinese understanding of “there is nothing new under the sun.” It was written originally in Chinese during a launch time at the South Hill School in Vancouver, where I was taking English Foundation courses in 2014. I only spent a few minutes completing the poem. The words came out of my mind naturally and smoothly. The moment for me was sacredly silent even though I was sitting in a noisy environment at Dairy (...) Queen; as if time suddenly stopped, as if I was not a part of this world, and as if I was not who I was. It has been said that everything has its season; a time to be born, and a time to die. If everything has its time and place in which I still have the ultimate freedom to choose, I will prefer to stay where I am, letting myself be out of the circle of birth, death and rebirth, not be obsessed with either the beauty of bygones or the hope of hereafter. (shrink)

Aim: This research determined the relationship between university teachers’ professional identity and their work performance. -/- Methodology: The design that was used in this study is a Descriptive Comparative- Correlational research design using the quantitative approach. Participants in this study were taken from the 967 university teachers at Guangdong Business and Technology University from the 14 colleges. They were chosen randomly. The researcher used the Qualtrics calculator at a 5% margin of error to arrive at 275 respondents. Data analyses include (...) frequency count and percentage, weighted mean, and descriptive equivalent. A five-point scale was used in this study as a guide to answer the questionnaire. -/- Results: Based on the result, the highest manifestation of teachers’ professional identity was found to be on their professional behavior tendency which was ranked first among the four indicators. It was followed by professional values and professional belonging, while role values tend to be the least manifested professional identity based on the self -assessment of the teachers. The over-all mean value of 3.52 reveals that professional identity was highly manifested among the teachers of Guangdong Business and Technology University. Teacher respondents have manifested an outstanding work performance particularly on work attitude as this was given the highest rating by the teachers themselves. Second in rank was the interpersonal promotion, followed by completion of teaching activities which also shows an outstanding work performance. On the other hand, teachers’ work performance on student achievement was given the lowest assessment by the teachers showing a very satisfactory performance. Generally, the result reveals that teachers exhibited an outstanding work performance as perceived by themselves. Based on the result, there were no significant differences in the assessment of teacher respondents when they are grouped according to gender. This is taken to mean that male and female teachers have relatively the same assessment as regards their work performance in terms of work attitude, interpersonal promotion, completion of teaching activities, and student achievement. Generally, the result reveals that there was a significant relationship between the teachers’ professional identity and their work performance. The result reveals that professional identity of teachers has positive impact on their work performance. -/- Conclusion: Respondents are dominated by female teachers who are mostly in their middle age. A good number of teachers who have earned master’s and doctoral degrees are also evident. They perceived themselves to have a high level of professional identity specifically on professional behavior tendency, professional values, and professional belonging. Teachers have relatively the same assessments on their professional identity regardless of their gender, age, educational attainment, and monthly income. They exhibit an outstanding work performance particularly on work attitude, interpersonal promotion, and completion of teaching activities. However, they feel that they had less contribution to student achievement. Teachers have relatively the same assessments on their work performance regardless of their gender, age, educational attainment, and monthly income. Professional identity of teachers can somehow influence their work performance in general. Specifically, professional values and professional belonging give positive effect to work attitude of teachers, and to their completion of teaching activities. (shrink)

Some philosophers have criticized experimental philosophy for being superfluous. Jackson implies that experimental philosophy studies are unnecessary. More recently, Dunaway, Edmunds, and Manley empirically demonstrate that experimental studies do not deliver surprising results, which is a pro tanto reason for foregoing conducting such studies. This paper gives theoretical and empirical considerations against the superfluity criticism. The questions concerning the surprisingness of experimental philosophy studies have not been properly disambiguated, and their metaphilosophical significance have not been properly assessed. Once the most (...) relevant question is identified, a re-analysis of Dunaway and colleagues’ data actually undermines the superfluity criticism. (shrink)

In addressing the Lucretian symmetry problem, the temporal bias approach claims that death is bad because it deprives us of something about which it is rational to care (e.g., future pleasures), whereas prenatal nonexistence is not bad because it only deprives us of something about which it is rational to remain indifferent (e.g., past pleasures). In a recent contribution to the debate on this approach, Miguel and Santos argue that a late beginning can deprive us of a future pleasure. Their (...) argument is based on the claim that for birth or death to deprive a person of any value in life, the historically closest counterfactual situation that contains the value is such that the person begins to exist earlier or dies later. This is what they call the Historical Condition. However, the Historical Condition is untenable for several reasons. First, this condition substantially weakens the explanatory capacity of the deprivation account because it implies that most ordinary sorts of pleasures are not deprived by death. In addition, the Historical Condition is vulnerable to counterexamples. In particular, what they offer as a standard case of the deprivation of future pleasure due to a late beginning (what they call Seeing The Beatles), or some of its variants, can be used to falsify this condition. Finally, the Historical Condition is theoretically indefensible because it is based on a faulty analysis of deprivation. (shrink)

This paper introduces the concept of AI-inclusive epistemology, suggesting that artificial intelligence (AI) may develop its own epistemological perspectives, function as an epistemic agent, and assume the role of a quasi-member of society. We explore the unique capabilities of advanced AI systems and their potential to provide distinct insights within knowledge systems traditionally dominated by human cognition. Additionally, the paper proposes a framework for a sustainable symbiotic society where AI and human intelligences collaborate to enhance the breadth and depth of (...) epistemological pursuits. Through this exploration, we aim to redefine conventional knowledge paradigms by integrating the AI perspective, thereby fostering a more comprehensive and dynamic epistemological landscape. (shrink)

As the scope of innovative technologies is expanding, their implications and applications are increasingly intersecting with various facets of society, including the deeply rooted traditions of religion. This paper embarks on an exploratory journey to bridge the perceived divide between advancements in technology and faith, aiming to catalyze a dialogue between the religious and scientific communities. The former often views technological progress through a lens of conflict rather than compatibility. By utilizing a technology-centric perspective, we draw metaphorical parallels between the (...) functionalities of new technologies and some theological concepts of Islam. The purpose is not to reinterpret religious concepts but to illustrate how these two domains can coexist harmoniously. This comparative analysis serves as a conversation starter with an intention to mitigate any apprehensions towards technology by highlighting its potential to align with religious concepts. By fostering an environment where technological innovations are seen as tools for enhancement rather than threats to tradition, we contribute to a more inclusive discourse that encourages the religious community to engage with and potentially embrace contemporary technological advancements. (shrink)

Critics across the political spectrum have worried that ordinary uses of words like 'racist', 'sexist', and 'homophobic' are becoming conceptually inflated, meaning that these expressions are getting used so widely that they lose their nuance and, thereby, their moral force. However, the charge of conceptual inflation, as well as responses to it, are standardly made without any systematic investigation of how 'racist' and other expressions condemning oppression are actually used in ordinary language. Once we examine large linguistic corpora to see (...) how these expressions are actually used, we find that English speakers have a rich linguistic repertoire for qualifying the degree to which and dimensions along which something is racist, sexist, homophobic, and so on. These facts about ordinary usage undermine the charge of conceptual inflation. Without awareness of facts about ordinary usage, theorists risk making linguistic prescriptions that are unnecessary or counterproductive. (shrink)

The counterfactual account of physical computation is simple and, for the most part, very attractive. However, it is usually thought to trivialize the notion of physical computation insofar as it implies ‘limited pancomputationalism’, this being the doctrine that every deterministic physical system computes some function. Should we bite the bullet and accept limited pancomputationalism, or reject the counterfactual account as untenable? Jack Copeland would have us do neither of the above. He attempts to thread a path between the two horns (...) of the dilemma by buttressing the counterfactual account with extra conditions intended to block certain classes of deterministic physical systems from qualifying as physical computers. His theory is called the ‘algorithm execution account’. Here we show that the algorithm execution account entails limited pancomputationalism, despite Copeland’s argument to the contrary. We suggest, partly on this basis, that the counterfactual account should be accepted as it stands, pancomputationalist warts and all. (shrink)

We apply Ken Wilber's Integral Theory to AI governance, demonstrating its ability to systematize diverse approaches in the current multifaceted AI governance landscape. By analyzing ethical considerations, technological standards, cultural narratives, and regulatory frameworks through Integral Theory's four quadrants, we offer a comprehensive perspective on governance needs. This approach aligns AI governance with human values, psychological well-being, cultural norms, and robust regulatory standards. Integral Theory’s emphasis on interconnected individual and collective experiences addresses the deeper aspects of AI-related issues. Additionally, we (...) propose using Integral Theory as a methodology for literature reviews to overcome the fragmented understanding often seen in traditional reviews of AI governance. (shrink)