Prepublication peer review should be abolished. We consider the effects that such a change will have on the social structure of science, paying particular attention to the changed incentive structure and the likely effects on the behaviour of individual scientists. We evaluate these changes from the perspective of epistemic consequentialism. We find that where the effects of abolishing prepublication peer review can be evaluated with a reasonable level of confidence based on presently available evidence, they are either positive or neutral. (...) We conclude that on present evidence abolishing peer review weakly dominates the status quo. (shrink)

In developing nations particularly in Africa, innovative administrative strategies are essential for educational leaders to navigate inherent challenges in education. This study aims to explore how educational leaders in higher education can be equipped with innovative administrative strategies to cause a positive change in education delivery. A systematic literature review was conducted to achieve this aim, drawing on the transformational leadership model as its theoretical underpinning. The search encompassed scholarly publications from major repositories like Scopus, Web of Science, and International (...) Bibliography of the Social Sciences and Textbooks from 1967 to 2023. The search process went a series of exclusive and inclusive processes and yielded 43 research articles. The synthesized findings were analyzed using a thematic approach. The findings indicate that transformational leadership has the potential to incorporate innovation into higher educational administrative practices. It was also found that innovative administrative practices in higher education can be achieved through staff motivation, technology integration, adoption of agile methodologies, collaborative research, interdisciplinary collaboration, seminars, workshops, and positive organizational culture. Based on the findings, professional development programs for managers and administrators in higher education were highly recommended. These programs would help enhance the knowledge and skills of employees in educational administration. (shrink)

I analyse the political, economic, and cultural circumstances that have given rise to persistent political disputes about race (known colloquially as “the culture war”) among a subset of Americans. I argue that they point to a deep tension between widely held normative aspirations and pervasive and readily observable material facts about our society. The characterological pathologies this gives rise to are discussed, and a normatively preferable path forward for an individual attempting to reconcile themselves to the current social order is (...) suggested. (shrink)

We argue that the main results of scientific papers may appropriately be published even if they are false, unjustified, and not believed to be true or justified by their author. To defend this claim we draw upon the literature studying the norms of assertion, and consider how they would apply if one attempted to hold claims made in scientific papers to their strictures, as assertions and discovery claims in scientific papers seem naturally analogous. We first use a case study of (...) William H. Bragg’s early 20th century work in physics to demonstrate that successful science has in fact violated these norms. We then argue that features of the social epistemic arrangement of science which are necessary for its long run success require that we do not hold claims of scientific results to their standards. We end by making a suggestion about the norms that it would be appropriate to hold scientific claims to, along with an explanation of why the social epistemology of science—considered as an instance of collective inquiry—would require such apparently lax norms for claims to be put forward. (shrink)

Critical race theorists and standpoint epistemologists argue that agents who are members of dominant social groups are often in a state of ignorance about the extent of their social dominance, where this ignorance is explained by these agents' membership in a socially dominant group (e.g., Mills 2007). To illustrate this claim bluntly, it is argued: 1) that many white men do not know the extent of their social dominance, 2) that they remain ignorant as to the extent of their dominant (...) social position even where this information is freely attainable, and 3) that this ignorance is due in part to the fact that they are white men. We argue that on Buchak's (2010, 2013) model of risk averse instrumental rationality, ignorance of one's privileges can be rational. This argument yields a new account of elite-group ignorance, why it may occur, and how it might be alleviated. (shrink)

Social scientists use many different methods, and there are often substantial disagreements about which method is appropriate for a given research question. In response to this uncertainty about the relative merits of different methods, W. E. B. Du Bois advocated for and applied “methodological triangulation”. This is to use multiple methods simultaneously in the belief that, where one is uncertain about the reliability of any given method, if multiple methods yield the same answer that answer is confirmed more strongly than (...) it could have been by any single method. Against this, methodological purists believe that one should choose a single appropriate method and stick with it. Using tools from voting theory, we show Du Boisian methodological triangulation to be more likely to yield the correct answer than purism, assuming the scientist is subject to some degree of diffidence about the relative merits of the various methods. This holds even when in fact only one of the methods is appropriate for the given research question. (shrink)

What differentiates scientific research from non-scientific inquiry? Philosophers addressing this question have typically been inspired by the exalted social place and intellectual achievements of science. They have hence tended to point to some epistemic virtue or methodological feature of science that sets it apart. Our discussion on the other hand is motivated by the case of commercial research, which we argue is distinct from (and often epistemically inferior to) academic research. We consider a deflationary view in which science refers to (...) whatever is regarded as epistemically successful, but find that this does not leave room for the important notion of scientific error and fails to capture distinctive social elements of science. This leads us to the view that a demarcation criterion should be a widely upheld social norm without immediate epistemic connotations. Our tentative answer is the communist norm, which calls on scientists to share their work widely for public scrutiny and evaluation. (shrink)

This paper addresses the problem of judgment aggregation in science. How should scientists decide which propositions to assert in a collaborative document? We distinguish the question of what to write in a collaborative document from the question of collective belief. We argue that recent objections to the application of the formal literature on judgment aggregation to the problem of judgment aggregation in science apply to the latter, not the former question. The formal literature has introduced various desiderata for an aggregation (...) procedure. Proposition-wise majority voting emerges as a procedure that satisfies all desiderata which represent norms of science. An interesting consequence is that not all collaborating scientists need to endorse every proposition asserted in a collaborative document. (shrink)

I discuss the peculiar optimism present in an influential strand of analytic philosophy, and compare it with the more morose philosophical anthropology one might naturally pick up from other fields.

Peer review is often taken to be the main form of quality control on academic research. Usually journals carry this out. However, parts of maths and physics appear to have a parallel, crowd-sourced model of peer review, where papers are posted on the arXiv to be publicly discussed. In this paper we argue that crowd-sourced peer review is likely to do better than journal-solicited peer review at sorting papers by quality. Our argument rests on two key claims. First, crowd-sourced peer (...) review will lead on average to more reviewers per paper than journal-solicited peer review. Second, due to the wisdom of the crowds, more reviewers will tend to make better judgments than fewer. We make the second claim precise by looking at the Condorcet Jury Theorem as well as two related jury theorems developed specifically to apply to peer review. (shrink)

In 2020, an international team of intercultural philosophers and African linguists created a multilinguistic game named Adinkra. This name refers to a medieval rooted symbolic language in Ghana that is actively used by the Akan and especially the Asante among them to communicate indirectly. The Akan is both the meta-ethnic name of the largest Ghanaian cultural-linguistic group of which the Asante is an Akan cultural subgroup and of a Central Tano language of which Asante-Twi is a dialect. The Adinkra symbols, (...) which have permeated Akan life and the arts, can be found e.g. on Asante royal staffs and gold weights. They are also loosely connected to Akan proverbs. The game Adinkra aims to enhance its players’ intercultural communicative, and moral philosophical understanding by matching Adinkra symbols with Akan proverbs. It was created for educational and therapeutical purposes. This article focusses on the rules, the making of Adinkra, its aims and objectives. The objective of this article is twofold. First, it focusses on the game itself. It elaborates on what its rules are and the content of the game. It also focusses on how playing the multilinguistic game, Adinkra can enhance intercultural understanding and communication. It, furthermore, concentrates on the results of a pilot reception study of this game in the Netherlands among intercultural groups of players. This study has proven that the Adinkra game stimulates creative thinking, engagement in dialogue and reflective ethical thinking. For this reason, the authors believe that it has a lot to contribute to intercultural educational programs with a focus on intercultural communication, philosophy and arts in both Africa and the global North. Finally, a section is devoted to the question of how the Adinkra game was developed and methodologically grounded in Gadamer’s playful hermeneutics, and the theories of the Wheel of the Intercultural Art of living and (African) Indigenous Religions. Secondly, the article focusses on the game’s oral-literary storytelling context and Akan moral ideas. It then throws the searchlight on the creative, therapeutic value and its potential to serve as a ‘cultural detox’. The authors and game makers think that being introduced to an African communitarian ethos hidden in the Adinkra symbols and Akan proverbs can help its players to develop a critical eye for the highly individualistic ethos of Western culture that, among others, is promoted by neoliberal thinking and praxis. The word praxis is used by the authors in the meaning found in educational contexts. Adinkra’s players are stimulated to reflect upon a different moral idea, which can change their mindset and put them into action to contribute to social awareness and societal change. (shrink)

Psychiatric and neurological disorders have historically provided key insights into the structure-function rela- tionships that subserve human social cognition and behavior, informing the concept of the ‘social brain’. In this review, we take stock of the current status of this concept, retaining a focus on disorders that impact social behavior. We discuss how the social brain, social cognition, and social behavior are interdependent, and emphasize the important role of development and com- pensation. We suggest that the social brain, and its (...) dysfunction and recovery, must be understood not in terms of specific structures, but rather in terms of their interaction in large-scale networks. (shrink)

A sketch of my ethical views, or secular moral philosophy. Emphasis is on stating how it all hangs together.

Suicide is a complex act whose meanings, while sometimes tragic, vary widely. This chapter surveys the ethical landscape surrounding algorithmic methods of suicide prevention especially as it pertains to social media activity and to the moderation of online suicide communities. We begin with a typology of suicide, distinguishing between varied goals in which suicide may factor as a means. Suicides should be understood as an act with varied eliciting desires, meanings, consequences, and ethics. Further,while many suicides may be grounded on (...) irrational desire, we argue that a desire to suicide may nonetheless be rational in some cases. We then offer a survey of the attempts by social media corporations to create suicide prediction algorithms and launch interventions aimed at preventing suicide as well as an overview of the current ethical debate. We argue that the values embedded within algorithmic suicide prevention nudges are “thick” in a substantive sense and deserving of scrutiny. Given that debates about the rationality, meaning, and permissibility of suicide are common and subject to intracultural and cross-cultural differences, we maintain that the task of suicide prediction is ill-suited to algorithmic approaches. Despite an algorithm’s ability to quantify a complex phenomenon like suicide risk and its appearance of objectivity, any suicide prediction algorithm is thoroughly subjective and involves moral judgments all the way down. Any such algorithm would necessarily impose a normative stance on suicide onto its user base that is subject to reasonable intra and cross-cultural disagreement. (shrink)

We lead off this issue of Childhood and Philosophy with a collection of testimonies, homages, and brief memoirs offered from around the world in response to the death of the founder of Philosophy for Children, Matthew Lipman on December 26, 2010, at the age of 87. To characterize Lipman as “founder” is completely accurate, but barely evokes the role he played in conceiving, giving birth to, and nurturing this curriculum cum pedagogy that became a movement, and which has taken root (...) in over 40 countries, from Iceland to Nigeria to Taiwan to Chile and everywhere in between. The movement itself is broader than the program, which has in fact experienced multiple transformations in multiple contexts over its half-century of life. In fact, as many of the testimonies below either state outright or imply, the movement is an emancipatory one and thus implicitly political, infused with all the long-suffering hope for our species inspired in us by the fact of natality, and by our own intuitive faith in the transformative power of reason—or as Lipman came to call it, “reasonableness.” For those seized by its educational possibilities, it presents a sudden influx of sunlight and fresh air into an institution long stultified by its own rigid habitus, and promises the reconstruction of schooling in the image of authentic democratic practice that recognizes and honors the unique capacities of children. As Philosophy in the Classroom—Lipman’s first and now classic statement of educational philosophy--puts it, the movement promises a re-orientation of the goal of education from information (or “learning”) to meaning, and inaugurates the dialogue with childhood and children that follows from that. Lipman was not just founder of this movement but creator, inventor, developer, convener, organizer, faithful soldier, ambassador, apologist, polemicist, propagandist, and, finally, undying optimist. (shrink)

Chater & Loewenstein argue that i-frame research has been coopted by private interests opposed to system-level reform, leading to ineffective interventions. They recommend that behavioural scientists refocus on system-level interventions. We suggest that the influence of private interests on research is problematic for wider normative and epistemic reasons. A system-level intervention to shield research from private influence is needed.

At the very least, even though Chinese schools do not look very different from those in the West, China offers an opportunity for Philosophy for Children to question its basis, its methodology, its aims. It seems to be expressing a different cultural voice, and to be disposed to the kind of dialogue we are more used to claiming than practicing. Both Kunming and Shanghai provide, in their own ways, formidable contexts: the deep, strong and disciplined educators of Railway Station School (...) of Kunming and the scholarly, sophisticated and committed members of the Shanghai institute for Research in the Human Sciences seem determined to take Philosophy for Children, not just beyond their own limits as Chinese, but beyond the limits Philosophy for Children has already established for itself in the West. Philosophy for Children in China, then, looks like a wonderful opportunity to think ourselves--what we are as educators engaged in the practice of philosophy--again. An invitation to think ourselves again. Is this not what dialogue and philosophy are about? It’s up to us to accept the invitation. (shrink)

I wrote an essay about why I do philosophy. It would probably not be publishable anywhere, but I think it might be of some interest to others as we reflect on why we do what we do. For those who know me from online I hope in this to provide illustrations of the categories "Sexy Murder Poet" and "Basically Pleasant Bureaucrat", since it so happens that the two tendencies within me can be sorted by these. In any case, I hope (...) the essay helps people think about what they hope to get from philosophy, and whether the tools they adopt are adequate to the tasks they thus set themselves. (shrink)

The present volume collects presented at a symposium on The History of Logic held in Helsinki in June 11–13, 2000 hosted by the University of Helsinki, Finland. They bear on issues in the history of logic and foundations of mathematics and are contributions by some of the most renown scholars in the field.

We argue that deliberative decision-making that is inclusive, transparent and accountable can contribute to more trustworthy and legitimate decisions on difficult ethical questions and political trade-offs during the pandemic and beyond.

Indiscipline in schools has attracted the attention of many people and has eventually become the focus of discussions on many platforms. The purpose of the study was to find out the perceptions of teachers and students at the Abuakwa South Municipality of Ghana on student indiscipline behaviours. The study employed the descriptive survey and the approach was concurrent mixed method, involving bothquantitative and qualitative paradigms. Purposive and simple random sampling methods were used to obtaina sample size of five hundred and (...) thirty (530) respondents. The main instruments used for the study were questionnaire and a semi-structured interview guide. Data was analysed using inferential statistics and content analysis. Findings from the study revealed that; there was no perceptual difference between students and teachers views on acts that constitute disciplinary behaviours. Additional, there were differences in thestudents and teachers perceptions of the influences of peer pressure on students’ disciplinary behaviours. Itwas recommended among others that peer counselling sessions should be organized periodically among students for them to be aware of acceptable behaviours in the school system and how they can maintain desirable behaviours. (shrink)

This dissertation aims to look at the moral justification for war in a critical way so that we can better understand both the justice and morality of war. In contrast to natural disasters, war has historically been viewed as an extreme manifestation of human social failure. The vast majority of theorists who address the morality of war do so within the moral framework established by Just War Theory; a normative account of war that dates all the way back to the (...) Western Philosophical Tradition over 1500 years. Recent events in the conduct of wars around the world, however, have called into question the just war theory's relevance and applicability to contemporary wars. For instance, morality and virtue have had no place in society during recent wars. This work will examine several major theorists in the history of Western Just War Theory (St Thomas Aquinas and Augustine), demonstrating that the forefathers of Just War Theory did regard moral virtues and ethical principles as central to the morality of war. I will critically examine the concept of a just war through a discussion of various formulations of the realist and pacifist positions and argue that, while the just war tradition offers a reasonable alternative to either of these extremes, its glaring shortcomings (the theory's inability to address the rise of non-state actors such as al-Qaeda, the increasing availability of weapons of mass destruction, etc) should not be overlooked. Finally, I will argue that the theory of just war is obsolete, impractical, unrealistic, and flawed in the modern era, particularly if one wishes to maintain a moral constraint on war. (shrink)

The purpose of this chapter is to describe what we see as several important new directions for philosophy of medicine. This recent work (i) takes existing discussions in important and promising new directions, (ii) identifies areas that have not received sufficient and deserved attention to date, and/or (iii) brings together philosophy of medicine with other areas of philosophy (including bioethics, philosophy of psychiatry, and social epistemology). To this end, the next part focuses on what we call the “epistemological turn” in (...) recent work in the philosophy of medicine; the third part addresses new developments in medical research that raise interesting questions for philosophy of medicine; the fourth part is a discussion of philosophical issues within the practice of diagnosis; the fifth part focuses on the recent developments in psychiatric classification and scientific and ethical issues therein, and the final part focuses on the objectivity of medical research. (shrink)

Since its introduction just over two decades ago, evidence-based medicine (EBM) has come to dominate medical practice, teaching, and policy. There are a growing number of textbooks, journals, and websites dedicated to EBM research, teaching, and evidence dissemination. EBM was most recently defined as a method that integrates best research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values and circumstances in the treatment of patients. There have been debates throughout the early 21st century about what counts as good research evidence between (...) EBM proponents and philosophical critics and even within the EBM community itself. Similar controversy arises about the relative worth of patient values and clinical expertise (and how these can be integrated). EBM has also evolved in ways that have come under scrutiny. Specifically, policymakers have used EBM research methodology to increase the relative importance of clinical guidelines that some clinicians have argued are tyrannical. Philosophers have addressed all of these controversies, and with very few exceptions have been critical of EBM. In addition most philosophical attention has been on the epistemic role of Randomization and evidence hierarchies, with relatively little attention being paid to the role of Diagnosis, expertise, patient values, and Systematic Reviews within EBM. (shrink)

Scientific information plays an important role in shaping policies and recommendations for behaviors that are meant to improve the overall health and well-being of the public. However, a subset of the population does not trust information from scientific authorities, and even for those that do trust it, information alone is often not enough to motivate action. Feelings of shame can be motivational, and thus some recent public policies have attempted to leverage shame to motivate the public to act in accordance (...) with science-based recommendations. We argue that because these shame policies are employed in non-communal contexts, they are both practically ineffective and morally problematic: shame is unlikely to be effective at motivating the public to behave in accordance with science-based policy, and shaming citizens is an unethical way to get them to comply. We argue that shame-based policies are likely to contribute to further distrust in scientific authority. (shrink)

In his famous 1982 paper, Allen Newell [22, 23] introduced the notion of knowledge level to indicate a level of analysis, and prediction, of the rational behavior of a cognitive arti cial agent. This analysis concerns the investigation about the availability of the agent knowledge, in order to pursue its own goals, and is based on the so-called Rationality Principle (an assumption according to which "an agent will use the knowledge it has of its environment to achieve its goals" [22, (...) p. 17]. By using the Newell's own words: "To treat a system at the knowledge level is to treat it as having some knowledge, some goals, and believing it will do whatever is within its power to attain its goals, in so far as its knowledge indicates" [22, p. 13]. In the last decades, the importance of the knowledge level has been historically and system- atically downsized by the research area in cognitive architectures (CAs), whose interests have been mainly focused on the analysis and the development of mechanisms and the processes governing human and (arti cial) cognition. The knowledge level in CAs, however, represents a crucial level of analysis for the development of such arti cial general systems and therefore deserves greater research attention [17]. In the following, we will discuss areas of broad agree- ment and outline the main problematic aspects that should be faced within a Common Model of Cognition [12]. Such aspects, departing from an analysis at the knowledge level, also clearly impact both lower (e.g. representational) and higher (e.g. social) levels. (shrink)

Broadening access to both computational and educational resources is crit- ical to diffusing machine learning (ML) innovation. However, today, most ML resources and experts are siloed in a few countries and organizations. In this article, we describe our pedagogical approach to increasing access to applied ML through a massive open online course (MOOC) on Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML). We suggest that TinyML, applied ML on resource-constrained embedded devices, is an attractive means to widen access because TinyML leverages low-cost and globally (...) accessible hardware and encourages the development of complete, self-contained applications, from data collection to deployment. To this end, a collaboration between academia and industry produced a four part MOOC that provides application-oriented instruction on how to develop solutions using TinyML. The series is openly available on the edX MOOC platform, has no prerequisites beyond basic programming, and is designed for global learners from a variety of backgrounds. It introduces real-world applications, ML algorithms, data-set engineering, and the ethi- cal considerations of these technologies through hands-on programming and deployment of TinyML applications in both the cloud and on their own microcontrollers. To facili- tate continued learning, community building, and collaboration beyond the courses, we launched a standalone website, a forum, a chat, and an optional course-project com- petition. We also open-sourced the course materials, hoping they will inspire the next generation of ML practitioners and educators and further broaden access to cutting-edge ML technologies. (shrink)

This article investigates the semantics of sentences that express numerical averages, focusing initially on cases such as 'The average American has 2.3 children'. Such sentences have been used both by linguists and philosophers to argue for a disjuncture between semantics and ontology. For example, Noam Chomsky and Norbert Hornstein have used them to provide evidence against the hypothesis that natural language semantics includes a reference relation holding between words and objects in the world, whereas metaphysicians such as Joseph Melia and (...) Stephen Yablo have used them to provide evidence that apparent singular reference need not be taken as ontologically committing. We develop a fully general and independently justified compositional semantics in which such constructions are assigned truth conditions that are not ontologically problematic, and show that our analysis is superior to all extant rivals. Our analysis provides evidence that a good semantics yields a sensible ontology. It also reveals that natural language contains genuine singular terms that refer to numbers. (shrink)

The integration of Internet Protocol and Embedded Systems can enhance the communication platform. This paper describes the emerging smart technologies based on Internet of Things (IOT) and internet protocols along with embedded systems for monitoring and controlling smart devices with the help of WiFi technology and web applications. The internet protocol (IP) address has been assigned to the things to control and operate the devices via remote network that facilitates the interoperability and end-to-end communication among various devices c,onnected over a (...) network. The HTTP POST and HTTP GET command that supports the RESTful service have been used to ensure the transmission and reception of packets between the IOT Gateway and Cloud Database. The emerging smart technologies based on the Internet of Things (IoT) facilitated features like automation, controllability, interconnectivity, reliability which in turn turn paved the way for a wide range of acceptance amongst the masses. The Internet of Things (IoT) has brought in many new emerging technologies into varoius field like our daily lives, industry, agricultural sector, and many more. The world is experiencing the explosive growth with the advent of Internet of Things (IoT) these years. The potential growth of IoT is enoromous which is evidenced by all the human beings in our day to day life. (shrink)

While artificial womb technology is currently being studied for the purpose of improving neonatal care, I contend that this technology ought to be pursued as a means to address the unprecedented rate of unintended pregnancies. But ectogenesis, alongside other emerging reproductive technologies, is problematic insofar as it threatens to disrupt the natural link between procreation and parenthood that is normally thought to generate rights and responsibilities for biological parents. I argue that there remains only one potentially viable account of parenthood: (...) the voluntarist account, which construes parental rights as robust moral obligations that must be voluntarily undertaken. The problem is that this account mistakenly presumes a patriarchal divide between procreation and parenthood. I propose a reframing of procreation and parenthood from a feminist perspective that recognises gestational motherhood as involving robust moral obligations that ought to be voluntarily undertaken. If this were the case, all gestational mothers would be, by definition, willing mothers. To make this happen I argue that ectogenesis technology must be a widely available reproductive option. (shrink)

This paper works out the scheme of “institutional competences” that underlies the famous Hart and Sacks Legal Process Materials first distributed in final mimeographed form in1958. The Materials were not published during the life times of their authors but were nonetheless a major influence on American legal thought from their first distribution as course materials at Harvard Law School until their abrupt fall from prominence in the early 1970s. The Materials offer the scheme as a solution to the apparent anomaly (...) in a democracy of the law making power in both public and private law of unelected judges serving long terms. The paper critiques the Hart and Sacks solution, called law making through “reasoned elaboration,” which they claimed was sharply distinct from legislative law making or administrative fiat. The paper argues that in both public and private law the materials the judge is to elaborate are characterized by contradictory internal logics. The judge has to choose between them without a meta-criterion. In cases with high stakes, extra-juristic normative orientations, whether moral theories or political ideologies, will come into play, regardless of the judge’s commitment to excluding them. The second part of the paper places Hart and Sacks in a larger historical and comparative context of efforts to solve the problem of social order by way of legal rationality. These two parts were preceded in the original paper by a long discussion, now lost but never very satisfying to me, of the Hart and Sacks theory of “private ordering” in relation to state regulatory power. I wrote the paper for extra credit in the spring of 1970 as a third year student at the Yale Law School. I’ve corrected a few typos but haven’t changed it in any other way. I never published it but it was circulated to a limited extent among Legal Process devotees. Eskridge and Frickey, editors of the Materials as published finally in 1994, credit it, along with another unpublished student paper by Roberto Unger, with hastening the demise of the Materials as a master text. The first part of this version of the paper was recently published in Droit et Philosophie, no. 13, p. 97-117 (2021). (shrink)

Mark Colyvan formulates a puzzle about belief in inconsistent entities. As a scientific realist, Colyvan refers to salient instances of inconsistencies in our best science and demonstrates how an indispensability argument may justify belief in an inconsistent entity. Colyvan’s indispensability argument presents a two-horned dilemma: either scientific realists are committed to the possibility of warranted belief in inconsistent objects, or we have a reductio ad absurdum, bringing realism into a crisis. Firstly, this paper follows Graham Priest by opposing the received (...) characterisation of inconsistent belief as a kind of epistemic hell. Secondly, I challenge the Quinean naturalism that underpins Colyvan’s indispensability argument. Then, I reformulate Colyvan’s argument with a fallible naturalism, better equipped to account for certain problem candidates for inconsistent entities. Finally, I contend that—even if indispensable—an inconsistent entity poses no problem for the scientific realist, who can have justified belief in inconsistent entities. (shrink)

Wolfgang Spohn's theory of ranking functions is an elegant and powerful theory of the structure and dynamics of doxastic states. In two recent papers, Spohn has applied it to the analysis of conditionals, claiming to have presented a unified account of indicative and subjunctive (counterfactual) conditionals. I argue that his analysis fails to account for counterfactuals that refer to indirect causes. The strategy of taking the transitive closure that Spohn employs in the theory of causation is not available for counterfactuals. (...) I have a close look at Spohn's treatment of the famous Oswald-Kennedy case in order to illustrate my points. I sketch an alternative view that seems to avoid the problems. (shrink)

Pensar es trabajar en transformar el pensamiento, escribía Meschonnic. La crítica es, ante todo, eso: reflexionar precisamente sobre lo que nuestros saberes nos impiden saber. Un gesto que transforma a partir de la interrogación misma. En diálogo con el Profesor Duncan Kennedy, el presente trabajo pretende repensar la relación entre enseñanza, crítica y acción en el campo jurídico, insistiendo en la necesidad de reinscribir la crítica no como develamiento de una “verdad esencial” oculta sino como una praxis que transforme (...) a partir de los propios límites que el orden simbólico instituye. Asimismo el artículo aborda la pregunta por la interpretación judicial sugiriendo la necesidad de desplazar el significante “trabajo jurídico” hacia la órbita de la “acción” en sentido arendtiano. El trabajo o la fabricación a diferencia de la acción se produce en aislamiento. La acción, en cambio, necesita de otros. Es por ello que se ofrece como cambio y sobre todo: ausencia de cálculo. (shrink)

There has been a movement aiming to teach agents about their privilege by making the information about their privilege as costless as possible. However, some argue that in risk-sensitive frameworks, such as Lara Buchak’s (2013), it can be rational for privileged agents to shield themselves from learning about their privilege, even if the information is costless and relevant. This threatens the efficacy of these information-access efforts in alleviating the problem of elite-group ignorance. In response, I show that even within the (...) same framework, in this case David Kinney and Liam Kofi Bright’s (2021), the rationality of this information avoidance rests on shaky ground in practice. In this framework, whether an agent should avoid information depends on the precise details of (1) how relevant they expect the information to be, (2) their priors about the value of various options, and (3) their risk attitudes. The model suggests that the rationality of elite-group ignorance is a function of structural factors that are pervasive but nonetheless not insurmountable, thus offering a way out of pessimism about elite group education. (shrink)

Wenn Präsident Kennedy nicht erschossen worden wäre, hätte er dann Nordvietnam bombardiert? Das weiß Gott allein. Oder doch nicht? Weiß wenigstens Er, was Kennedy getan hätte? ... Die Jesuiten behaupteten unter anderem, daß viele menschliche Handlungen in dem Sinne frei seien, daß die Ausführenden nicht logisch oder kausal gezwungen seien, sie auszuführen. („Frei“ wird im vorliegenden Aufsatz stets in diesem Sinne verwendet werden.) Wie behält Gott dann die Kontrolle über die menschliche Geschichte? Nicht dadurch, daß Er menschliche Handlungen (...) kausal determiniert, wie die Dominikaner geglaubt zu haben scheinen , sondern indem Er Umstände herbeiführt, von denen Er weiß, daß wir in ihnen freiwillig Seinen Plänen entsprechend handeln werden. (shrink)

Shortly after the bus and subway bombings in London on July 7, 2005, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan called upon world leaders to reach consensus on a definition of terrorism, one that would facilitate 'moral clarity' and underwrite the United Nations convention against terrorism. The Secretary General's plea to world leaders help to highlight the practical significance and urgency of having a workable definition of terrorism. For the task of defining terrorism is not only theoretically or academically important; (...) it is important for far-reaching practical, moral, and political purposes as well. For without at least some semblance of a workable definition of terrorism, it is impossible to identify and collect data on acts of terrorism throughout the world; to understand and address the root causes of terrorism; and to reach international agreement and undertake collective action in addressing terrorism. And yet in spite of practical and moral urgency of the task at hand, consensus on an acceptable definition of terrorism has been notoriously elusive. (shrink)

Given that conspiracies exist, can we be justified in dismissing conspiracy theories without concerning ourselves with specific details? I answer this question by focusing on contrarian conspiracy theories, theories about conspiracies that conflict with testimony from reliable sources of information. For example, theories that say the CIA masterminded the assassination of John F. Kennedy, 9/11 was an inside job, or the Freemasons are secretly running the world are contrarian conspiracy theories. When someone argues for a contrarian conspiracy theory, their (...) options are to appeal to eyewitness testimony, incriminating documents, photographs, audio recordings, video recordings, allegedly scientific evidence, anomalies, or considerations of cui bono (who benefits). Most laypeople don’t know how to adequately respond to arguments for contrarian conspiracy theories, but this doesn’t mean that it’s dogmatic to reject them. I argue that many laypeople are defeasibly justified in rejecting a variety of contrarian conspiracy theories based on testimony and this justification is rarely defeated by arguments for contrarian conspiracy theories even if we don’t know how to respond to these arguments. (shrink)

A plausible principle about the felicitous use of indicative conditionals says that there is something strange about asserting an indicative conditional when you know whether its antecedent is true. But in most contexts there is nothing strange at all about asserting indicative conditionals like ‘If Oswald didn’t shoot Kennedy, then someone else did’. This paper argues that the only compelling explanation of these facts requires the resources of contextualism about knowledge.

Utterances of simple sentences containing taste predicates (e.g. "delicious", "fun", "frightening") typically imply that the speaker has had a particular sort of first-hand experience with the object of predication. For example, an utterance of "The carrot cake is delicious" would typically imply that the speaker had actually tasted the cake in question, and is not, for example, merely basing her judgment on the testimony of others. According to one approach, this acquaintance inference is essentially an implicature, one generated by the (...) Maxim of Quality together with a certain principle concerning the epistemology of taste (Ninan 2014). We first discuss some problems for this approach that arise in connection with disjunction and generalized quantifiers. Then, after stating a conjecture concerning which operators ‘obviate’ the acquaintance inference and which do not, we build on Anand & Korotkova (2018) and Willer & Kennedy (Forthcoming) by developing a theory that treats the acquaintance requirement as a presupposition, albeit one that can be obviated by certain operators. (shrink)

Counterfactual thinking—the capacity to reflect on what would, could, or should have been if events had transpired differently—is a pervasive, yet seemingly paradoxical human tendency. On the one hand, counterfactual thoughts can be comforting and inspiring (Carroll & Shepperd, Chapter 28), but on the other they can be anxiety provoking and depressing (Zeelenberg & Pieters, Chapter 27). Likewise, such thoughts can illuminate pathways toward better future outcomes (Wong, Galinsky, & Kray, Chapter 11), yet they can also promote confusion and lead (...) us astray (Sanna, Schwarz, & Kennedy, Chapter 13). The first part of this chapter focuses on work that supports the prevailing Zeitgeist in the counterfactual thinking literature: Counterfactual thinking is beneficial. The second part of the chapter, however, strikes a more cautionary tone by reviewing work that describes some deleterious consequences of counterfactual thinking. We conclude by offering a tentative reconciliation of these conflicting perspectives and suggesting directions for future research. (shrink)

In the context of animal cognitive research, anthropomorphism is defined as the attribution of uniquely human mental characteristics to animals. Those who worry about anthropomorphism in research, however, are immediately confronted with the question of which properties are uniquely human. One might think that researchers must first hypothesize the existence of a feature in an animal before they can, with warrant, claim that the property is uniquely human. But all too often, this isn't the approach. Rather, there is an a (...) priori argument against attributing some properties to animals. Which features are thought to be uniquely human on a priori grounds? The class can be quite large, including psychological states such as beliefs and desires, personality traits such as confidence or timidity, emotions such as happiness or anger, social organizational properties such as culture or friendship, moral behavior such as punishment or rape. For convenience, I will refer to the members of the class as "psychological properties". One critic includes feeling, purpose, intentionality, consciousness, and even cognition in his list of psychological properties that are incorrectly attributed to animals (Kennedy 1992). Among the critics, there is quite a bit of disagreement about what counts as an anthropomorphic attribution, and this alone should raise questions about the charge. We can identify two different questions about the practice of attributing psychological properties to animals within a scientific context. First we can ask whether it is scientifically respectable to examine questions about the mental, psychological, cultural, etc. states of animals. Those who bemoan anthropomorphism think that we ought not even ask such questions. I will look at the worries about asking the question, and argue that there is no special problem with it. The second question arises with an affirmative answer to the first. Given that it is scientifically respectable to examine whether an animal has a psychological property, there must be some scientifically respectable method for doing the examination.. (shrink)

This paper argues that unusual coincidences, particularly those involving historical events, can be viewed as design patterns, suggesting an intelligent influence over the course of events. A compelling case examined in detail using probability theory concerns the presidencies of Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) and John F. Kennedy (1917–1963). This and other coincidences involving historical figures disfavor the materialistic perspective and point to the presence of an intelligent agent acting on a global scale, beyond the arrow of time, influencing human lives (...) and the course of history. (shrink)

Philosophical reflection on racial profiling tends to take one of two forms. The first sees it as an example of ‘statistical discrimination,’ (SD), raising the question of when, if ever, probabilistic generalisations about group behaviour or characteristics can be used to judge particular individuals.(Applbaum 2014; Harcourt 2004; Hellman, 2014; Risse and Zeckhauser 2004; Risse 2007; Lippert-Rasmussen 2006; Lippert-Rasmussen 2007; Lippert-Rasmussen 2014) . This approach treats racial profiling as one example amongst many others of a general problem in egalitarian political philosophy, (...) occasioned by the fact that treating people as equals does not always require, or permit, us to treat them the same. The second form is concerned with how racial profiling illuminates the nature, justification, and reproduction of hierarchies of power and privilege based on skin colour and morphology. This form of reflection on racial profiling is therefore less about the justification for judging people based on the characteristics of the group to which they (appear to) belong, and more concerned with the specific ways in which the association of racialized minorities – and, in particular, black people – with crime, contributes to, and reflects, racial inequality, and oppression.(Kennedy 1998; Zack, 2015; Lever, 2005; Lever 2007). Both approaches to profiling have much to recommend them and, taken together, they form an essential component of the political philosophy of race. The statistical approach has the merits of linking racial profiling, as practice, to a body of other practices that generate and justify inequalities based on factors other than race, but it typically offers little by way of insight into the role of racial profiling itself in sustaining racial inequality and injustice. The racial construction approach, for obvious reasons, is rather better at the latter task, but its insights tend to come at the price of a broader understanding of the ways in which inequality is reproduced and justified, or of the ethical dilemmas raised by our competing claims to security. As we will see, insights from both approaches can be synthesized to clarify what, if anything, is wrong with racial profiling and what broader conclusions for equality and security follow from the study of profiling. (shrink)

A recent study dealing with Western European countries suggests a connection between vaccine skepticism and support for populist parties (Kennedy 2019). Of all countries in the study, Italy scored highest on both counts, with 44% of the electorate voting for populists in 2014 and 14% of the population not deeming vaccinations important. The study concludes that both phenomena have a common root in the distrust of elite and experts. While that seems plausible, this paper establishes that there is much (...) more to be said about the relation between populism and the anti-vaccination movement. Using the case study of the Italian anti-vaxxers, I spell out how populists have reinforced an echo chamber in an effort to mobilize it. I argue that besides the common root cause, in this instance there is also indication of a causal relation between populism and anti-vaccination. Moreover, I show that populism and echo chambers in general are conceptually linked through their dichotomous division of society and rejection of legitimate opposition. (shrink)

The articles included in this issue represent some of the most recent thinking in the area of critical thinking in higher education. While the emphasis is on work being done in the Australasian region, there are also papers from the USA and UK that demonstrate the international interest in advancing research in the area. -/- ‘Critical thinking’ in the guise of the study of logic and rhetoric has, of course, been around since the days of the ancient Greeks and the (...) early beginnings of universities. In a narrower sense, critical thinking has been central to higher education as a desirable attribute of graduates since at least the beginning of the twentieth century. The work of John Dewey, and others, emphasised the importance of ‘good habits of thinking’ as early as 1916. In 1945, the Harvard Committee placed emphasis on the importance of ‘thinking effectively’ as one of three desirable educational abilities in their General education in a free society. This was later endorsed in 1961 by the US-based Educational Policies Commission: ‘The purpose which runs through and strengthens all other educational purposes … is the development of the ability to think’ (Kennedy, Fisher, & Ennis, 1991, pp. 11–12). -/- In recent times, universities have made a point of emphasising the importance of critical thinking as a ‘generic skill’ that is central to most, if not all, subjects. There is not a university today (in Australia at least) that does not proudly proclaim that their graduates will – as a result of a degree program in their institution – learn to think critically. Further, there is rarely a subject taught that does not offer the opportunity to acquire skills in critical thinking. However, where is the evidence that we teach critical thinking in higher education? Disturbingly, despite our best intentions, it appears we may be teaching very little of it. (shrink)

It is a consequence of both Kennedy and McNally’s typology of the scale structures of gradable adjectives and Kennedy’s :1–45, 2007) economy principle that an object is clean just in case its degree of cleanness is maximal. So they jointly predict that the sentence ‘Both towels are clean, but the red one is cleaner than the blue one’ :259–288, 2004) is a contradiction. Surely, one can account for the sentence’s assertability by saying that the first instance of ‘clean’ (...) is used loosely: since ‘clean’ pragmatically conveys the property of being close to maximally clean rather than the property of being maximally clean, the sentence as a whole conveys a consistent proposition. I challenge this semantics–pragmatics package by considering the sentence ‘Mary believes that both towels are clean but that the red one is cleaner than the blue one’. We can certainly use this sentence to attribute a coherent belief to Mary: One of its readings says that she believes that the towels are clean by a contextually salient standard ; the other says that she believes that the towels are clean by her own standard. I argue that Kennedy’s semantics–pragmatics package can’t deliver those readings, and propose that we drop the economy principle and account for those readings semantically by assigning to the belief sentence two distinct truth conditions. I consider two ways to deliver those truth-conditions. The first one posits world-variables in the sentence’s logical form and analyzes those truth-conditions as resulting from two binding possibilities of those variables. The second one proposes that the threshold function introduced by the phonologically null morpheme pos is shiftable in belief contexts. (shrink)

My account of the causal role of consciousness in a physical world is modeled on Dretske’s celebrated explanation of the causal role of beliefs (something that Dretske himself never offered). First, behavior must be understood as a (broadly individuated) process that begins with some external stimulus causing some neurological event C, and ends with causing a bodily movement M (e.g., the Kennedy assassination is a process that begins with Oswald pulling the trigger at 12:30pm CST on November 23 in (...) 1963 in Dallas, Texas, but only ends half an hour later when Kennedy is pronounced dead at 1 pm CST). The internal neurological event C causes bodily movement M, but only by virtue of being recruited by natural selection to represent the instantiation of some external property F when properly stimulated under normal circumstances. But the reason why C causes M lies in the fact that C represents the instantiation of the external property F. I withdraw my hand from a hot surface because the activation of nociceptive specific neurons in my parietal lobe (together with the activation of neuronal patterns in my motor cortices) was recruited by natural selection to represent the tissue damage in my hand. The activation of nociceptive specific neurons causes my hand to withdraw but for the reason that it represents tissue data at the time that I felt pain in my hand. (shrink)