Examples of extended cognition typically involve the use of technologically low-grade bio-external resources (e.g., the use of pen and paper to solve long multiplication problems). The present paper describes a putative case of extended cognizing based around a technologically advanced mixed reality device, namely, the Microsoft HoloLens. The case is evaluated from the standpoint of a mechanistic perspective. In particular, it is suggested that a combination of organismic (e.g., the human individual) and extra-organismic (e.g., the HoloLens) resources form (...) part of a common mechanism that realizes a bona fide cognitive routine. In addition to demonstrating how the theoretical resources of neo-mechanical philosophy might be used to evaluate extended cognitive systems, the present paper illustrates one of the ways in which mixed reality devices, virtual objects (i.e., holograms), and online (Internet-accessible) computational routines might be incorporated into human cognitive processes. This, it is suggested, speaks to the recent interest in mixed/virtual reality technologies across a number of disciplines. It also introduces us to issues that cross-cut disparate fields of philosophical research, such as the philosophy of science and the philosophy of technology. (shrink)

Augmented reality (AR) technologies function to ‘augment’ normal perception by superimposing virtual objects onto an agent’s visual field. The philosophy of augmented reality is a small but growing subfield within the philosophy of technology. Existing work in this subfield includes research on the phenomenology of augmented experiences, the metaphysics of virtual objects, and different ethical issues associated with AR systems, including (but not limited to) issues of privacy, property rights, ownership, trust, and informed consent. This paper addresses some (...) epistemological issues posed by AR systems. I focus on a near-future version of AR technology called the Real-World Web, which promises to radically transform the nature of our relationship to digital information by mixing the virtual with the physical. I argue that the Real-World Web (RWW) threatens to exacerbate three existing epistemic problems in the digital age: the problem of digital distraction, the problem of digital deception, and the problem of digital divergence. The RWW is poised to present new versions of these problems in the form of what I call the augmented attention economy, augmented skepticism, and the problem of other augmented minds. The paper draws on a range of empirical research on AR and offers a phenomenological analysis of virtual objects as perceptual affordances to help ground and guide the speculative nature of the discussion. It also considers a few policy-based and designed-based proposals to mitigate the epistemic threats posed by AR technology. (shrink)

In recent years the term ‘family language policy’ has begun to circulate in the international sociolinguistics literature (cf. Spolsky 2004, 2007, 2012, King et al. 2008; Caldas 2012; Schwartz & Verschik 2013)1. From a conceptual standpoint, however, the creation and/or use of this syntagma, applied directly to the language decisions taken by family members to speak to one another, can raise questions about whether one should apply what appears rather to be a framework that pertains to actions arising out of (...) institutionalisation, public debate, and formal decisions to a phenomenon produced ‘spontaneously’. ‘Language policy’, which is also commonly associated with the term ‘planning’, has traditionally evoked the study of actions taken by public authorities at the level of the institutional and social use of languages and of their process of decision-making, implementation and any effects on social language behaviours that may ensue. The expansion of this concept to the level of interpersonal uses in families, which corresponds to another sphere involving elements that are distinct from those of the political level or of a formally constituted organisation, can be misleading and conceal phenomena specific to this level of social reality. (shrink)

How does the integration of mixed reality devices into our cognitive practices impact the mind from a metaphysical and epistemological perspective? In his innovative and interdisciplinary article, “Minds in the Metaverse: Extended Cognition Meets Mixed Reality” (2022), Paul Smart addresses this underexplored question, arguing that the use of a hypothetical application of the Microsoft HoloLens called “the HoloFoldit” represents a technologically high-grade form of extended cognizing from the perspective of neo-mechanical philosophy. This short commentary aims to (...) (1) carve up the conceptual landscape of possible objections to Smart’s argument and (2) elaborate on the possibility of hologrammatically extended cognition, which is supposed to be one of the features of the HoloFoldit case that distinguishes it from more primitive forms of cognitive extension. In tackling (1), I do not mean to suggest that Smart does not consider or have sufficient answers to these objections. In addressing (2), the goal is not to argue for or against the possibility of hologrammatically extended cognition but to reveal some issues in the metaphysics of virtual reality upon which this possibility hinges. I construct an argument in favor of hologrammatically extended cognition based on the veracity of virtual realism (Chalmers, 2017) and an argument against it based on the veracity of virtual fctionalism (McDonnell and Wildman, 2019). (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic led to social restrictions that often prevented us from hugging the ones we love. This absence helped some realize just how important these interactions are to our sense of care and connection. Many turned to digitally mediated social interactions to address these absences, but often unsatisfactorily. Some theorists might blame this on the disembodied character of our digital spaces, e.g., that interpersonal touch is excluded from our lives online. However, others continued to find care and connection in (...) their digitally mediated interactions despite not being able to touch. Inspired by such contrasting cases, we ask if ‘digital hugs’ can work? We use the Mixed Reality Interaction Matrix to examine hugging as a social practice. This leads us to several claims about the nature of our embodied social interactions and their digital mediation: (1) all social interaction is mediated; (2) all virtual experiences are embodied; (3) technology has become richer and more supportive of embodiment; and (4) expertise plays a role. These claims help make the case that quality social connections online are substantially dependent upon the dynamic skilful resourcing of multiple mediating components, what we term digital tact. By introducing and developing this concept, we hope to contribute to a better understanding of our digital embodied sociality and the possibilities for caring connections online. (shrink)

The ontology of marketing, particularly the question of what products and brands are, is still largely unexplored. The ontological status of brands hinges on their relationship with products. Idealists about brands see perceptual or cognitive acts of consumers grouped under the heading ‘brand awareness’ or ‘brand image’ as constitutive for the existence of brands so that, in their view, tools of the marketing mix can influence relevant mental dispositions and attitudes. Brand realists, on the other hand, reject the view of (...) brands as mere marks or names and interpret them as emergent products with properties that afford branding in the sense of Gibson’s ecological psychology. Brand strength is a function of the degree to which brands occupy defensible niches in product space. Branding as a process involves changing external or internal boundaries of products. Several arguments are proposed in favor of brand realism. The fragments of an ontology of marketing are developed in a broadly Aristotelian framework. Brand realism has significant implications for a new understanding of issues ranging from the effects of advertising to financial brand valuation, the nature of trademarks, and marketing strategy in general. It permits one to treat brand equity as a real phenomenon not dependent on associations, attitudinal states such as brand loyalty, or spurious constructs such as brand character or personality. (shrink)

Dreaming is a communicative activity between the most sensitive archive of the enregistered experience of life on the earth, the brain, and the most plastic medium for the discovery and practice of meaning, the mind or culture. Both love and war have been made on the basis of dreams, not to mention scientific discoveries. In ancient Greece dreams were medicinal parts of curative sleeping or "incubation" rites in the temple of Aesculapius, and many psychoanalytic physicians today still consider dreams as (...) possessing therapeutic potential. The ethnographic literature gives ample testimony to the great significance accorded to dreams by all of the world cultures. Dreams form a rich store of ethnographic evidence, and their indigenous interpretations can often illuminate the central issues and conflicts of a people otherwise hidden from obvious view. Given these facts, plus the physiological facts that the dream process itself involves deeply-rooted material brain functions, and that rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep, which is the key indicator of human dreaming, is shared by all mammals, it remains strange how little attention is given to dreaming as a formative aspect of human evolution and culture. -/- This essay addresses dreaming as a formative aspect of human evolution and culture by viewing dreaming as a borderland between biology and culture, a thoroughly social, yet private experience. Dreaming not only highlights the "cultic" roots of culture—the spontaneous impulse to meaning—but also illustrates one of the ways in which the technics of the biosocial human body itself form the primary source of culture. I show why dreaming, although private, is a thoroughly cultural, biological, communicative activity. -/- Culture and biology are often treated by social scientists as though they were oil and water, not to be mixed. I should inform the culture theorist at the start that I am fully aware of the assumed nature-culture dichotomy, and that I reject it. I do so not because I am a sociobiologist, quite the contrary, rather because I am a semiotician, and my studies of signs have led me toward a critical reconstruction of the concepts of nature and culture. In what follows I beg the reader's patience, since I will draw from diverse materials and project some speculative hypotheses in places in order to make my argument. -/- . (shrink)

We look into the ontology of quantum theory as distinct from that of the classical theory in the sciences. Theories carry with them their own ontology while the metaphysics may remain the same in the background. We follow a broadly Kantian tradition, distinguishing between the noumenal and phenomenal realities where the former is independent of our perception while the latter is assembled from the former by means of fragmentary bits of interpretation. Theories do not tell us how the noumenal world (...) is constituted but are conceptual constructs applying to models generated in the phenomenal world within limited contexts. -/- The ontology of quantum theory principally rests on the view that entities in the world are pervasively correlated with one another not by means of probabilities as in the case of the classical theory, but by means of probability amplitudes involving finely tuned phases characterising the oscillatory behaviour of quantum mechanical states. -/- The amplitude-dependent correlations (quantum entanglement) exist over and above the classical ones expressed in terms of probabilities. While the classical correlations are essentially local in nature, quantum correlations are shared globally in the process of environment-induced decoherence. The decoherence is an effectively random process that removes local correlations in the course of global sharing of entanglement—the removal being especially manifest in the case of systems that appear as classical ones. It is this aspect of the decoherence process that makes the so-called measurement postulate (one relating to wave function collapse) cohere with the rest of the principles of quantum theory where the latter implies a Schrodinger type time evolution of quantum mechanical systems. -/- The mathematical basis of the quantum correlations consists of the description of pure states of a system in terms of vectors in a linear vector space (a mixed state appears as an admixture of pure states with some probability distribution associated with it) and, in addition, the description of (pure) states of composite systems as vectors in the product space arising from the component sub-systems. -/- The crucial aspect of the decoherence process, of significance in the context of the apparent incompatibility of the measurement postulate with the unitary Schrodinger evolution, relates to the fact that it is almost instantaneous in the case of a classical object (one that is nevertheless amenable to a quantum description). Indeed, the decoherence time is, in all likelihood, of the order of the Planck scale, being driven by field fluctuations in the Planck regime. This points to factors of an unknown nature determining the finest details of the decoherence process since Planck scale physics remains an obscure terrain. -/- In other words, quantum theory is, to all intents and purposes, in the need of a radical revision, in keeping with the fact that all theories are defeasible and need revision as our domains of experience expand and get realigned in a complex manner. The context within which quantum theory (and quantum field theory too) is defined is set precisely by the Planck scale, across which a novel theoretical framework is likely to emerge. However, as in the case of theory revisions in general, that emerging theory will stand in an asymmetric relation of incommensurability with the present-day quantum theory, where the concepts of the latter will be comprehensible in terms of those of the former, but the converse will not hold. (shrink)

The paper delineates a new approach to truth that falls under the category of “Pluralism within the bounds of correspondence”, and illustrates it with respect to mathematical truth. Mathematical truth, like all other truths, is based on correspondence, but the route of mathematical correspondence differs from other routes of correspondence in (i) connecting mathematical truths to a special aspect of reality, namely, its formal aspect, and (ii) doing so in a complex, indirect way, rather than in a simple and (...) direct way. The underlying idea is that an intricate mind is capable of creating intricate routes from language to reality, and this enables it to apply correspondence principles in areas for which correspondence is traditionally thought to be problematic. (shrink)

Materialization practices in the architecture and building industry have evolved with the advancement of manufacturing and information technologies. This evolution is evident across various design and production phases, with a pronounced impact on prototyping. Advances in design and fabrication tools have empowered prototypes, integral in any production cycle, to furnish a growing array of information and feedback for designers and manufacturers. In this context, prototypes have transformed from merely showcasing data-driven building solutions to presenting socio-environmentally conscious systems. Innovation in prototyping (...) connects the initial design and construction stages to the operational phase, creating a seamless transition throughout the project lifecycle. This chapter provides a range of definitions and prototypical case studies for smart prototyping by identifying practiced approaches in integrated design to production workflows. This chapter introduces three paradigms for smart prototyping: Digital prototyping focuses on data-driven design for mass customization, phygital prototyping involves mixed-reality-enabled design and assembly, and thirdly collaborative prototyping explores human-machine hybrid intelligence and co-production in architectural and urban contexts. The chosen case studies in this chapter and how they are categorized aim to provide a comprehensive overview of smart prototyping, covering projects conducted in both research and practice. This chapter concludes with potential future trends and the role of emerging and evolving mediums of prototyping for smart design and construction. (shrink)

In this paper I suggest that, over and above the need to explore and understand the technological newness of computer art works, there is a need to address the aesthetic significance of the changes and effects that such technological newness brings about, considering the whole environmental transaction pertaining to new media, including what they can or do offer and what users do or can do with such offerings, and how this whole package is integrated into our living spaces and activities. (...) I argue that, given the primacy of computer-based interaction in the new-media, the notion of ‘ornamentality’ indicates the ground-floor aesthetics of new-media environments. I locate ornamentality not only in the logically constitutive principles of the new-media (hypertextuality and interactivity) but also in their multiform cultural embodiments (decoration as cultural interface). I utilize Kendall Walton’s theory of ornamentality in order to construe a puzzle pertaining to the ornamental erosion of information in new-media environments. I argue that insofar as we consider new-media to be conduits of ‘real-life’, the excessive density of ornamental devices prevalent in certain new-media environments forces us to conduct our inquiries under conditions of neustic uncertainty, that is, uncertainty concerning the kind of relationship that we, the users, have to the propositional content mediated. I conclude that this puzzle calls our attention to a peculiar interrogatory complexity inherent in any game of knowledge-seeking conducted across the infosphere, which is not restricted to the simplest form of data retrieval, especially in mixed-reality environments and when the knowledge sought is embodied mimetically. (shrink)

Virtual heritage has been explained as virtual reality applied to cultural heritage, but this definition only scratches the surface of the fascinating applications, tools and challenges of this fast-changing interdisciplinary field. This book provides an accessible but concise edited coverage of the main topics, tools and issues in virtual heritage. -/- Leading international scholars have provided chapters to explain current issues in accuracy and precision; challenges in adopting advanced animation techniques; shows how archaeological learning can be developed in Minecraft; (...) they propose mixed reality is conceptual rather than just technical; they explore how useful Linked Open Data can be for art history; explain how accessible photogrammetry can be but also ethical and practical issues for applying at scale; provide insight into how to provide interaction in museums involving the wider public; and describe issues in evaluating virtual heritage projects not often addressed even in scholarly papers. -/- The book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in museum studies, digital archaeology, heritage studies, architectural history and modelling, virtual environments. (shrink)

In this paper, we assess the impact of extended reality technologies as they relate to sexual forms of harassment. We begin with a brief history of the nature of sexual harassment itself. We then offer an account of extended reality technologies focusing specifically on psychological and hardware elements most likely to comprise what has been referred to as “the metaverse”. Although different forms of virtual spaces exist (i.e., private, semi-private, and public), we focus on public social metaverse spaces. (...) We do this to better explain how the concept of sexual harassment must be adjusted to such spaces and how approaches aimed at mitigating harassment must be sensitive to the type of metaverse spaces users utilize. We then offer a typology of sexual harassment for the metaverse focusing on three distinct forms of sexual harassment: (1) invariant (2) mixed variance or modified and (3) unique or metaverse specific. Although existing normative and legal frameworks may function well with respect to the first and, possibly, second forms of harassment, we argue such frameworks will not helpfully address metaverse-specific harassment. Ultimately, the changing nature of privately owned public spaces (POPS) which metaverses are likely to represent pose distinct ethical and regulatory challenges. (shrink)

The Gestalt psychologists adopted a set of positions on mind-body issues that seem like an odd mix. They sought to combine a version of naturalism and physiological reductionism with an insistence on the reality of the phenomenal and the attribution of meanings to objects as natural characteristics. After reviewing basic positions in contemporary philosophy of mind, we examine the Gestalt position, characterizing it m terms of phenomenal realism and programmatic reductionism. We then distinguish Gestalt philosophy of mind from instrumentalism (...) and computational functionalism, and examine Gestalt attributions of meaning and value to perceived objects. Finally, we consider a metatheoretical moral from Gestalt theory, which commends the search for commensurate description of mental phenomena and their physiological counterparts. (shrink)

A mixed bag dominated by H & D's reductionist nonsense. This is a follow-up to Hofstadter´s famous (or infamous as I would now say, considering its unrelenting nonsense) Godel, Escher, Bach (1980). Like its predecessor, it is concerned largely with the foundations of artificial intelligence, but it is composed mostly of stories, essays and extracts from a wide range of people, with a few essays by DH and DD and comments to all of the contributions by one or the (...) other of them. For my views on the attempts of D and H to understand behavior see my review of Hofstadter's ‘I am a Strange Loop’ and other writings. -/- Much of it is very reductionistic in tone (i.e., " explains " everything in terms of physics/math and denies " reality " of psychology) but as Hofstadter notes, the quantum field equations of a water molecule are too complex to solve (and so is a vacuum)and nobody has a clue about how to explain the way properties emerge (e.g., water properties from H2 and 02) as you go up the scale from the vacuum to the brain, so reductionism, like holism, requires a great deal of faith and in fact is incoherent as one cannot even frame it's arguments without presupposing the coherence of higher order thought. Additional problems for reductionism are the uncertainty principle, chaos (e.g., no way to predict how a pile of sand will fall), the logically necessary incompleteness of math (and all thought) and the impossibility of matching higher order behaviors (e.g., language) with lower order phenomena (e.g., biochemistry), i.e., the combinatorial explosion or underdetermination. In sum, though there are many interesting comments, like nearly all writing on behavior, this work lacks any coherent account of the logical structure of rationality, which I try to give in my writings. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019) and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)

the purpose of this paper is to o er a logico‐philosophical critical overview of the theory of multiple realities (tWr). the paper is divided into three sections. In the rst section I present a brief history of the development of some ideas, which combined together form the conceptual amework of the theory in question, whose main thesis is that there is more than one reality. In the second part I present (and try to address) some interpretations of tWr, which (...) can be described as: ontological; epistemological; esthetical; logical ad mixed interpretations. When do‐ ing so, a special emphasis is laid on the presentation of an explication of tWr based on theory of models, an explication authored by teresa Kostyrko. this explication rests on a conditional recognition of the particular ‘realities’ of Chwistek’s theory as proper models (i.e. those, which ful ll the condition of the identity of meaning of theory’s fundamental notions) of the theories of reality, with the provision that such models are indeed constructible. In the last section of my paper I propose a preliminary appraisal of the tWr as well as a way to reengineer this theory in order to avoid some of its di culties. By appealing to Kostyrko’s idea on one hand and the spirit Quinean ontological relativism on the other, I wish to argue as follows: ‘reality’ is the name of the set comprising all meanings of the term ‘reality’; under particular conditions these meanings can be arranged in a theory, which posseses a proper model (scienti c discourse, some forms of the common talk); model proper designate by de nition classes of objects, which we regard as existent on the grounds of a given theory. the above set of theses forms the core of a concept, which I propose to call the ‘manifold reality’ in order to di erentiate it om tWr, the development of which theory it is, as well as its modi cation towards a new kind of ontology. (shrink)

A reality for many information technology (IT) organizations is the need to hire IT talent from other cities or countries to supplement their employee staff. As organizations extend their software development work to remote locations, however, a distinct productivity gap can emerge between co-located and distributed teams. The problem this study addresses is the reduced productivity levels for teams practicing the Agile methodology when team members are distributed by location or time zone. Specifically, it was unknown if there are (...) organizational factors which can improve the productivity of these distributed development teams. The purpose of this study was to determine whether any amount of separation of team members impacts productivity, or if various degrees of time zone overlap allows for sufficient synchronous communication to overcome the communication lag inherit with having distributed teams. Productivity was measured by the number of story points per cycle day completed by the team. Two additional variables were collected to study the impact of sourcing and task complexity on distributed team productivity. A quantitative data analysis was conducted on a large, globally distributed technology organization practicing the Agile methodology across the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Teams were classified in the study based on the amount of time zone overlap of the team members. The results of the study found that teams which were co-located or had any amount of time zone overlap performed at similar levels of productivity, while teams with no overlapping business day experienced significantly lower levels of productivity (p < .05). Conversely, sourcing of the resources either as contractors or employees did not demonstrate a significant difference in team productivity. The data analysis on task complexity showed mixed results; there was a different level of productivity when some teams were working tasks of different complexity, but the data was further nuanced by team member location. This study indicates the importance of resource location as a key factor in team productivity. Further study on organizational design could be beneficial to better understand how organizations should select locations to optimize productivity. (shrink)

This article is not an attempt to explain consciousness in terms basically of quantum physics or neuro-biology. Instead I should like to place the term "Consciousness" on a broader footing. I shall therefore proceed from everyday reality, precisely where we experience ourselves as conscious beings. I shall use the term in such a general way as to resolve the question whether only a human being enjoys consciousness, or even a thermostat. Whilst the difference is considerable, it is not fundamental. (...) Every effect exists in the perception of a consciousness. I elaborate on its freedom of choice, in my view the most important source of creativity, in a similarly general way. The problems associated with a really conscious decision do not disappear by mixing determination with a touch of coincidence. Both must enter into a higher unity. In so doing it will emerge that a certain degree of freedom of choice is just as omnipresent as consciousness - an inherent part of reality itself. (shrink)

My aim in this chapter is to extend the Realist account of the foundations of linguistics offered by Postal, Katz and others. I first argue against the idea that naive Platonism can capture the necessary requirements on what I call a ‘mixed realist’ view of linguistics, which takes aspects of Platonism, Nominalism and Mentalism into consideration. I then advocate three desiderata for an appropriate ‘mixed realist’ account of linguistic ontology and foundations, namely (1) linguistic creativity and infinity, (2) (...) linguistics as a theory of types (and not tokens) and (3) independence but structural respect between language and the linguistic competence thereof. My own brand of mixed realism, what I call ante rem realism, is defended along the lines of an ante rem or non-eliminative structuralism, the likes of which has been offered for mathematics by Resnik (1997) and Shapiro (1997). In other words, grammars describe a mind-independent (but not necessarily unconnected) linguistic reality in terms of linguistic patterns or structures also known as natural languages. I further amend this picture to allow for the possibility of a naturalistic account of language acquisition and evolution by arguing against a particular view of the type-token distinction. (shrink)

This article explores critical theory's relations to German idealism by clarifying how Adorno's thought relates to Hegel's. Adorno's apparently mixed responses to Hegel centre on the dialectic and actually form a coherent whole. In his Logic, Hegel outlines the dialectical process by which categories – fundamental forms of thought and reality – necessarily follow one another in three stages: abstraction, dialectic proper, and the speculative . Adorno's allegiance to Hegel's dialectic emerges when he traces the dialectical process whereby (...) enlightenment reverts to myth and human domination over nature reverts into our domination by nature. However, Adorno criticizes Hegel's dialectic as the ultimate form of ‘identity thinking’, subsuming unique, material objects under universal concepts by using dialectical reason to expand those concepts to cover objects utterly. These two responses cohere because Adorno shares Hegel's view that dialectical contradict.. (shrink)

Present world is the victim of conflicts on the basis of misunderstanding of religious dogmas of different religions, irrationality, ignorance and intolerance. People are moving away from knowledge, truth and reason. Indeed people accept false beliefs, hallucinations and myths. The role of religious plurality in philosophy is not to integrate and harmonize religions, especially religions cannot, and rather it is the business of religious pluralism to learn, think and acquire knowledge about the variety of religious beliefs, statements and injunctions. This (...) paper determines the function of intelligence/intellect to understand religious pluralism. How and where we make mistake in the plurality of religions. In this paper there is no issue to describe the conflict between faith and reason however reason is only to think and clear the ambiguities which we are using either to integrate one religion with another or to refute the religious dogmas of other religions. That is why authority places a significant part which teaches humans how to use their reason to bring peace, tranquility and acceptance in the plurality of religions. Mostly the scholar who practicing their religions and without having the authority and knowledge of other religions they are vehemently criticizing other religions. This paper shows that what is authority and where to use it. Who are authoritative persons? If authority in one religion is transferred to another what would happen. What would happen if authority is misrepresented? This paper further illuminates the concept of rational outlook to modify and learn from different religious; furthermore we can discuss the nature of consciousness or awareness in exploring religious pluralism. Is it necessary for a person who believes in one religion to learn another religion in order to resolve the controversies and evils in different religions conditional to authority? The more we mixing up religions into each other, the more religious conflicts arise. Therefore this paper tries to furnish people's mind with consciousness about religions realities and state of affair, inculcate world with rational outlook to ponder, analyze, understand and evaluate as well tolerate and accept the truth and authenticity in the domain of religions. This study analyzes and stress on the exertion of relative vision in accordance and intimation with reason, authority and moral consciousness to resolve the conflicts, diversities and issues in the field of religious pluralism. (shrink)

Taking perceptual experience to consist in a relation of acquaintance with the sensible qualities, I argue that the state of being acquainted with a sensible quality is intrinsically a form of knowledge, and not merely a means to more familiar kinds of knowledge, such as propositional or dispositional knowledge. We should accept the epistemic claim for its explanatory power and theoretical usefulness. That acquaintance is knowledge best explains the intuitive epistemic appeal of ‘Edenic’ counterfactuals involving unmediated perceptual contact with (...) class='Hi'>reality (cf. Chalmers, in: Gendler, Hawthorne (eds) Perceptual experience, Oxford University Press, 2006). It explains the elusiveness of knowledge gained through new acquaintances. It coheres with the knowledge-like functional role of acquaintance in the special context of evaluative beliefs and evaluative reasoning, where the objects of acquaintance serve as evidence and inferential basis. And, finally, taking acquaintance to be knowledge is theoretically fruitful: it helps vindicate claims about the relationship between knowledge and concern for others we already find intuitive or outright accept. After developing a novel case for the epistemic claim, I respond to two familiar objections against it: namely, (1) that there are no pre-propositional, pre-conceptual cases of perceptual experience that remain epistemically relevant (Sellars in Empiricism and the philosophy of mind, Routledge, 1968, McDowell, in: Lindgard (ed) John McDowell: Experience, norm, and nature, Blackwell, 2008); and (2) that the category of knowledge appears gerrymandered once we add ‘object’ knowledge to the epistemological mix (Farkas, in: Knowles, Raleigh (eds), Acquaintance: new essays, Oxford University Press, 2019). (shrink)

This paper argues (i) that the possibility of experiencing at once pleasures and unpleasures does not threaten the contrariety of pleasure and unpleasure. (ii) That the hedonic balance calculated by adding all pleasures and displeasures of a subject at a time yields an abstract result that does not correspond to any new psychological reality. There are no resultant feelings. (iii) That there are nevertheless, in some cases, sentimental fusions: when the co-occurent pleasures and unpleasures do not have any bodily (...) location, and that their intentional object vanishes, they truly fuse with each other, giving rise to sentimental mixtures in which the initial pleasures and unpleasures are no longer discernible. (shrink)

Nobody doubts that culture plays a decisive role in understanding human forms of life. But it is unclear how this decisive role should be integrated into a comprehensive explanatory model of human behaviour that brings together naturalistic and social-scientific perspectives. Cultural difference, cultural learning, cultural determination do not mix well with the factors that are normally given full explanatory value in the more naturalistic approaches to the study of human behaviour. My purpose in this paper is to alert to some (...) of the theoretical vulnerabilities or concerns that the cross-cultural study of mind and behaviour might entail. I classify these theoretical concerns into three, loosely defined, categories: epistemological, ontological and ethical. The first have to do with what in anthropology was once labelled as ‘butterfly collecting’. What kind of supplementary, or additional, general theoretical knowledge do we produce when we add to the research different, particularistic, culturally determined, ways of knowing? Ontological concerns refer to the underlying reality that those ways of knowing are meant to disclose. If there are so many ways of knowing the world, where is the reality to be known? Ethical concerns are those entailed in the forms of ‘othering’ that unqualified cross-cultural research is likely to produce in research participants. (shrink)

The abstract basis of modern computation is the formal description of a finite state machine, the Universal Turing Machine, based on manipulation of integers and logic symbols. In this contribution to the discourse on the computer-brain analogy, we discuss the extent to which analog computing, as performed by the mammalian brain, is like and unlike the digital computing of Universal Turing Machines. We begin with ordinary reality being a permanent dialog between continuous and discontinuous worlds. So it is with (...) computing, which can be analog or digital, and is often mixed. The theory behind computers is essentially digital, but efficient simulations of phenomena can be performed by analog devices; indeed, any physical calculation requires implementation in the physical world and is therefore analog to some extent, despite being based on abstract logic and arithmetic. The mammalian brain, comprised of neuronal networks, functions as an analog device and has given rise to artificial neural networks that are implemented as digital algorithms but function as analog models would. Analog constructs compute with the implementation of a variety of feedback and feedforward loops. In contrast, digital algorithms allow the implementation of recursive processes that enable them to generate unparalleled emergent properties. We briefly illustrate how the cortical organization of neurons can integrate signals and make predictions analogically. While we conclude that brains are not digital computers, we speculate on the recent implementation of human writing in the brain as a possible digital path that slowly evolves the brain into a genuine (slow) Turing machine. (shrink)

Fictionalism in ontology is a mixed bag. Here I focus on three main variants—which I label after the names of Pascal, Berkeley, and Hume—and consider their relative strengths and weaknesses. The first variant is just a version of the epistemic Wager, applied across the board. The second variant builds instead on the fact that ordinary language is not ontologically transparent; we speak with the vulgar, but deep down we think with the learned. Finally, on the Humean variant it’s the (...) structure of the ontological inventory, not its content, that may turn out to involve fictional elements. That is, for the Humean the fiction lies, not in the reality of common-sense ontology, but in the laws—of unity, identity, causation, etc.—in terms of which we articulate our experience of that reality. In the end, this is the kind of fictionalism that I find most interesting, sensible, and tenable. And I argue that it is even compatible with the sort of “naive” realism we have all come to appreciate in the work of Paolo Bozzi, to whom the paper is dedicated. (shrink)

ArgumentIn 1895 when the Lumière brothers unveiled their cinematographic camera, many scientists were elated. Scientists hoped that the machine would fulfill a desire that had driven research for nearly half a century: that of capturing the world in its own image. But their elation was surprisingly short-lived, and many researchers quickly distanced themselves from the new medium. The cinematographic camera was soon split into two machines, one for recording and one for projecting, enabling it to further escape from the laboratory. (...) The philosopher Henri Bergson joined scientists, such as Etienne-Jules Marey, who found problems with the new cinematographic order. Those who had worked to make the dream come true found that their efforts had been subverted. This essay focuses on the desire to build a cinematographic camera, with the purpose of elucidating how dreams and reality mix in the development of science and technology. It is about desired machines and their often unexpected results. The interplay between what “is” (the technical), what “ought” (the ethical), and what “could” be (the fantastical) drives scientific research. (shrink)

This article explicates the views on both race and ethnicity of these three prominent Latinx philosophers, compares them (somewhat), and offers some criticisms. Corlett jettisons race as a categorization of groups, but accepts a form of racialization somewhat at odds with this jettisoning. Gracia adopts as a general principle that an account of both ethnicity and race should help us see aspects of reality that would otherwise be obscured; but this is at odds with his regarding the Latin American (...) view of race as more rational than the U.S. version with its “one-drop rule.” The latter has structured the reality of race in the U.S. for African Americans. Alcoff is much more concerned with the phenomenology of race and ethnicity than the other two, and she clearly adds “pan-ethnicity” to the mix of concepts required to understand Latino/a Americans. I argue that she fails to see the agentic and political aspect of black identity in the U.S., and in a sense shares with Gracia a misplaced sense that the mixedness of Latin American racial identity is somehow to be preferred to the more binary U.S. form. (shrink)

Public discussions of science are often marred by two pernicious phenomena: a widespread rejection of scientific findings (e.g., the reality of anthropogenic climate change, the conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism, or the validity of evolutionary theory), coupled with an equally common acceptance of pseudoscientific notions (e.g., homeopathy, psychic readings, telepathy, tall tales about alien abductions, and so forth). The typical reaction by scientists and science educators is to decry the sorry state of science literacy among the general (...) public, and to call for more science education as the answer to both problems. But the empirical evidence concerning the relationship between science literacy, rejection of science and acceptance of pseudoscience is mixed at best. In this chapter I argue that—while certainly important—efforts at increasing public knowledge of science (science education) need to be complemented by attention to common logical fallacies (philosophy), cognitive biases and dissonance (psychology), and the role of ideological commitments (sociology). Even this complex, multi-disciplinary approach to science education will likely only yield measurable results in the very long term. Meanwhile science remains, as Carl Sagan famously put it, a candle in the dark, delicate and in need of much nurturing. (shrink)

In this chapter from a collection on the Stoici tradition, I explore Boethius’s works chronologically in order to elucidate his overall evaluation of Stoicism as a philosophy. It turns out that Boethius offers a "mixed review"' of Stoicism. Beginning with references to the Stoics in his logical works and then turning to the 'Consolation', I delineate the intelligible contours of Stoicism as Boethius sees it, including the positive impetus Stoicism provides toward a philosophical apprehension of reality as well (...) as its innate inadequacy for attaining the full measure of wisdom available to us through philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

The subject of this essay-based dissertation is Hume’s natural philosophy. The dissertation consists of four separate essays and an introduction. These essays do not only treat Hume’s views on the topic of natural philosophy, but his views are placed into a broader context of history of philosophy and science, physics in particular. The introductory section outlines the historical context, shows how the individual essays are connected, expounds what kind of research methodology has been used, and encapsulates the research contributions of (...) the essays. The first essay treats Newton’s experimentalist methodology in gravity research and its relation to Hume’s causal philosophy. It is argued that Hume does not see the relation of cause and effect as being founded on a priori reasoning, similar to the way in which Newton criticized non-empirical hypotheses about the causal properties of gravity. Contrary to Hume’s rules of causation, the universal law does not include a reference either to contiguity or succession, but Hume accepts it in interpreting the force and the law of gravity instrumentally. The second article considers Newtonian and non-Newtonian elements in Hume more broadly. He is sympathetic to many prominently Newtonian themes in natural philosophy, such as experimentalism, critique of hypotheses, inductive proof, and the critique of Leibnizian principles of sufficient reason and intelligibility. However, Hume is not a Newtonian philosopher in many respects: his conceptions regarding space and time, the vacuum, the specifics of causation, the status of mechanism, and the reality of forces differ markedly from Newton’s related conceptions. The third article focuses on Hume’s Fork and the proper epistemic status of propositions of mixed mathematics. It is shown that the epistemic status of propositions of mixed mathematics, such as those concerning laws of nature, is that of matters of fact. The reason for this is that the propositions of mixed mathematics are dependent on the Uniformity Principle. The fourth article analyzes Einstein’s acknowledgement of Hume regarding special relativity. The views of the scientist and the philosopher are juxtaposed, and it is argued that there are two common points to be found in their writings, namely an empiricist theory of ideas and concepts and a relationist ontology regarding space and time. (shrink)

UNRWA’s Mediation Process is a key element in the organization’s efforts to strengthen its internal justice system. The research aims to study the reality of mediator competencies, emotional intelligence and case characteristics variables, (UNRWA) Gaza. The research also aims at identifying the differences between respondents as attributed to their professional and personal traits of age, gender, educational level, distribution of department, dispute resolution experience and representation party. The researchers adopted mixed data collection methods; quantitative and qualitative. For qualitative, (...) a semi-structured interview was conducted with (9) officials including management, staff unions and expert external mediators. (63) Questionnaires were distributed to a systematic random sample population; (56) were received, with a response rate 88.9%. The results proved that there are no significant differences among respondents attributed to personal and professional traits of age, academic background, gender, department, years’ of experience, educational degree and representation party. The research has presented some recommendations concerning the factors affecting the mediation outcomes of workplace disputes resolution. The recommendations include: UNRWA should adopt mediation as a method to resolve disputes at workplace instead of following litigation before the courts, as many organizations today increasingly started to adopt mediation as a method to resolve disputes at workplace. This will help decreasing the high cost, non-flexibility, and threatening features of disputes and conflicts resolution before courts, as well as enhance the relationship between disputant parties. Mediators are essentially recommended to attend regular training such as guiding negotiation processes, employing group sessions properly, overcoming obstacles, summarizing & analytical skills and selecting emotional words and phrases, it is also important to encourage the mediation experts' training workshops and meetings. Regular training sessions will not only improve skills and abilities, but will also imply variety and flexibility. This leads to having competent qualified mediators who are able to resolve organization’s workplace disputes in a way, which satisfies the need of disputants. (shrink)

Development has been themain strategy in addressing the problemof sustainability since at least the mid-1980s. The results of this strategy have been mixed, if not disappointing. In their objections to this approach, critics frequently invoke constraints imposed by physical reality of which the most important one is entropy production. They question the belief that technological innovations are capable of solving the problem of sustainability. Is development the right response to this problem and is the current course capable of (...) attaining sustainability? The article examines closely and critiques the principal theoretical objection to sustainable development that emphasizes physical constraints, and more specifically entropy production. It also offers a critique of the current approach to sustainable development. The article advocates a systems approach as a way to anchor a broad consensus in the ongoing sustainability debates. (shrink)

This collection of articles was written over the last 10 years and the most important and longest within the last year. Also I have edited them to bring them up to date (2016). The copyright page has the date of this first edition and new editions will be noted there as I edit old articles or add new ones. All the articles are about human behavior (as are all articles by anyone about anything), and so about the limitations of having (...) a recent monkey ancestry (8 million years or much less depending on viewpoint) and manifest words and deeds within the framework of our innate psychology as presented in the table of intentionality. As famous evolutionist Richard Leakey says, it is critical to keep in mind not that we evolved from apes, but that in every important way, we are apes. If everyone was given a real understanding of this (i.e., human ecology and psychology) in school, maybe civilization would have a chance. -/- In my view these articles and reviews have many novel and highly useful elements, in that they use my own version of the recently (ca. 1980’s) developed dual systems view of our brain and behavior to lay out a logical system of rationality (personality, psychology, mind, language, behavior, thought, reasoning, reality etc.) that is sorely lacking in the behavioral sciences (psychology, philosophy, literature, politics, anthropology, history, economics, sociology etc.). The philosophy centers around the two writers I have found the most important, Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle, whose ideas I combine and extend within the dual system (two systems of thought) framework that has proven so useful in recent thinking and reasoning research. As I note, there is in my view essentially complete overlap between philosophy, in the strict sense of the enduring questions that concern the academic discipline, and the descriptive psychology of higher order thought (behavior). Once one has grasped Wittgenstein’s insight that there is only the issue of how the language game is to be played, one determines the Conditions of Satisfaction (what makes a statement true or satisfied etc.) and that is the end of the discussion. -/- Now that I think I understand how the games work I have mostly lost interest in philosophy, which of course is how Wittgenstein said it should be. But since they are the result of our innate psychology, or as Wittgenstein put, it due to the lack of perspicuity of language, the problems run throughout all human discourse, so there is endless need for philosophical analysis, not only in the ‘human sciences’ of philosophy, sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, history, literature, religion, etc., but in the ‘hard sciences’ of physics, mathematics, and biology. It is universal to mix the language game questions with the real scientific ones as to what the empirical facts are. Scientism is ever present and the master has laid it before us long ago, i.e., Wittgenstein (hereafter W) beginning principally with the Blue and Brown Books in the early 1930’s. -/- "Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics and leads the philosopher into complete darkness." (BBB p18) -/- Nevertheless, a real understanding of Wittgenstein’s work, and hence of how our psychology functions, is only beginning to spread in the second decade of the 21st century, due especially to P.M.S. Hacker (hereafter H) and Daniele Moyal-Sharrock (hereafter DMS),but also to many others, some of the more prominent of whom I mention in the articles. -/- When I read ‘On Certainty’ a few years ago I characterized it in an Amazon review as the Foundation Stone of Philosophy and Psychology and the most basic document for understanding behavior, and about the same time DMS was writing articles noting that it had solved the millennia old epistemological problem of how we can know anything for certain. I realized that W was the first one to grasp what is now characterized as the two systems or dual systems of thought, and I generated a dual systems (S1 and S2) terminology which I found to be very powerful in describing behavior. I took the small table that John Searle (hereafter S) had been using, expanded it greatly, and found later that it integrated perfectly with the framework being used by various current workers in thinking and reasoning research. -/- Since they were published individually, I have tried to make the book reviews and articles stand by themselves, insofar as possible, and this accounts for the repetition of various sections, notably the table and its explanation. I start with a short article that presents the table of intentionality and briefly describes its terminology and background. Next, is by far the longest article, which attempts a survey of the work of W and S as it relates to the table and so to an understanding or description (not explanation as W insisted) of behavior. -/- The key to everything about us is biology, and it is obliviousness to it that leads millions of smart educated people like Obama, Chomsky, Clinton and the Pope to espouse suicidal utopian ideals that inexorably lead straight to Hell On Earth. As W noted, it is what is always before our eyes that is the hardest to see. We live in the world of conscious deliberative linguistic System 2, but it is unconscious, automatic reflexive System 1 that rules. This is Searle’s The Phenomenological Illusion (TPI), Pinker’s Blank Slate and Tooby and Cosmides Standard Social Science Model. Democracy and equality are wonderful ideals, but without strict controls, selfishness and stupidity gain the upper hand and soon destroy any nation and any world that adopts them. The monkey mind steeply discounts the future, and so we sell our children’s heritage for temporary comforts. -/- The astute may wonder why we cannot see System 1 at work, but it is clearly counterproductive for an animal to be thinking about or second guessing every action, and in any case there is no time for the slow, massively integrated System 2 to be involved in the constant stream of split second ‘decisions’ we must make. As W noted, our ‘thoughts’ (T1 or the thoughts of System 1) must lead directly to actions. It is my contention that the table of intentionality (rationality, mind, thought, language, personality etc.) that features prominently here describes more or less accurately, or at least serves an heuristic for how we think and behave, and so it encompasses not merely philosophy and psychology but everything else (history, literature, mathematics, politics etc.). Note especially that intentionality and rationality as I (along with Searle, Wittgenstein and others) view it,includes both conscious deliberative System 2 and unconscious automated System 1 actions or reflexes. -/- Thus all the articles, like all behavior, are intimately connected if one knows how to look at them. As I note, The Phenomenological Illusion (oblivion to our automated System 1) is universal and extends not merely throughout philosophy but throughout life. I am sure that Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg and the Pope would be incredulous if told that they suffer from the same problem as Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger, but it’s clearly true. While the phenomenologists only wasted a lot of people’s time, they are wasting the earth. -/- My writings are available in updated versions as paperbacks and Kindles on Amazon. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) ASIN B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) ASIN B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) 2nd printing with corrections (Feb 2018) ASIN B0711R5LGX -/- Suicide by Democracy: an Obituary for America and the World (2018) ASIN B07CQVWV9C . (shrink)

Two interlocutors, Philip Pettit and a student, are exchanging views on liberal political and economic philosophy during lunch at Prospect House, the faculty club of Princeton. The dialogue begins with clarifications of the notion of liberty, and, against objections of the student, Pettit introduces and defends his own conception of freedom as non-domination rather than as non-interference. It proceeds with an exchange of arguments regarding the different kinds of institutional settings that entrench liberty and all the other things valued by (...) humans. The interlocutors reach a preliminary consensus that in order to substantiate the republican ideal of freedom as non-domination in concrete institutional realities, two things are required: the establishment of a mixed constitution – so that no single, unconstrained body can exercise lawmaking and other government functions – as well as eternal vigilance on the part of the citizens. The second part of the dialogue deals with a major challenge to the republican political philosophy expressed by the student: the issue of non-domination in markets, which is diagnosed as an important lacuna in republican thought. (shrink)

I defend what may loosely be called an eliminativist account of causation by showing how several of the main features of causation, namely asymmetry, transitivity, and necessitation, arise from the combination of fundamental dynamical laws and a special constraint on the macroscopic structure of matter in the past. At the microscopic level, the causal features of necessitation and transitivity are grounded, but not the asymmetry. At the coarse-grained level of the macroscopic physics, the causal asymmetry is grounded, but not the (...) necessitation or transitivity. Thus, at no single level of description does the physics justify the conditions that are taken to be constitutive of causation. Nevertheless, if we mix our reasoning about the microscopic and macroscopic descriptions, the structure provided by the dynamics and special initial conditions can justify the folk concept of causation to a significant extent. I explain why our causal concept works so well even though at bottom it is comprised of a patchwork of principles that don't mesh well. (shrink)

Around 1970, both Keith Donnellan and Saul Kripke produced powerful arguments against description theories of proper names. They also offered sketches of positive accounts of proper name reference, highlighting the crucial role played by historical facts that might be unknown to the speaker. Building on these sketches, in the following years Michael Devitt elaborated his well-known causal theory of proper names. As I have argued elsewhere, however, contrary to what is commonly assumed, Donnellan’s and Kripke’s sketches point in two rather (...) different directions, by appealing to historical or causal facts of different sorts. In this paper, I shall discuss and criticize Devitt’s causal theory, which confuses things, I shall argue, by mixing, so to speak, Donnellan’s and Kripke’s sketches. (shrink)

This paper introduces and evaluates a possible truthmaking argument for a robust conception of aboutness commitment. According to the argument, the pure aboutness-based account of truthmaking and the thesis of Truthmaker Commitment entails that a truthbearer is ontologically committed to what it is about in an appropriate sense of “aboutness”. However, this argument encounters challenges, notably an inherent explanatory circularity within the robust conception of aboutness commitment, and a radical inconsistency between its two premises in terms of their underlying motivations. (...) To address these issues, this paper proposes a more moderate conception of aboutness commitment, drawing inspiration from B. Smith’s mixed aboutness-based account of truthmaking. According to this moderate proposal, the representationalist notion of intended aboutness, or the anti-representationalist notion of general aboutness, constrains, but does not determine, the notion of ontological commitment, which in turn contributes to a stronger notion of genuine or satisfied aboutness. This modified moderate conception not only sidesteps the explanatory circularity, but also aligns more closely with the objective of providing a fundamental ontology. Therefore, it is recommended as a fitting approach to engaging in the relation between aboutness and ontological commitment. (shrink)

The term 'covert mixed quotation' describes cases in which linguistic material is interpreted in the manner of mixed quotation — that is, used in addition to being mentioned — despite the superficial absence of any commonly recognized conventional devices indicating quotation. After developing a novel theory of mixed quotation, I show that positing covert mixed quotation allows us to give simple and unified treatments of a number of puzzling semantic phenomena, including the projective behavior of conventional (...) implicature items embedded in indirect speech reports and propositional attitude ascriptions, so-called 'c-monsters,' metalinguistic negation, metalinguistic negotiation, and 'in a sense' constructions. (shrink)

This study’s objective was to understand Colombian adolescents’ experiences and preferences regarding access to sexual and reproductive health services (SRHS), either alone or accompanied. A mixed-method approach was used, involving a survey of 812 participants aged eleven to twenty-four years old and forty-five semi-structured interviews with participants aged fourteen to twenty-three. Previous research shows that adolescents prefer privacy when accessing SRHS and often do not want their parents involved. Such findings align with the longstanding tendency to frame the ethical (...) principle of autonomy as based on independence in decision-making. However, the present study shows that such a conceptualization and application of autonomy does not adequately explain Colombian adolescent participants’ preferences regarding access to SRHS. Participants shared a variety of preferences to access SRHS, with the majority of participants attaching great importance to having their parents involved, to varying degrees. What emerges is a more complex and non-homogenous conceptualization of autonomy that is not inherently grounded in independence from parental involvement in access to care. We thus argue that when developing policies involving adolescents, policymakers and health professionals should adopt a nuanced “relational autonomy” approach to better respect the myriad of preferences that Colombian (and other) adolescents may have regarding their access to SRHS. (shrink)

It has proved challenging to account for the dual role that a directly quoted part of a 'that'-clause plays in so-called mixed quotation. The Davidsonian account, elaborated by Cappelen and Lepore, handles many cases well; but it fails to accommodate a crucial feature of mixed quotation: that the part enclosed in quotation marks is used to specify not what the quoter says when she utters it, but what the quoted speaker says when she utters it. Here I show (...) how the Davidsonian can do better. The proposal rests on the idea that mixed quotation involves deferred demonstration: a mixed quotati on specifies what the subject says partly by demonstrating the quoter's utterance of the unquoted part and partly by deferred-demonstrating the subject's utterance of the quotation-marked part. (shrink)

Notwithstanding diverse opinions and debates about mixing methods, mixed methods research (MMR) is increasingly being used in sport and exercise psychology. In this paper, we describe MMR trends within leading sport and exercise psychology journals and explore critical realism as a possible underpinning framework for conducting MMR. Our meta-study of recent empirical mixed methods studies published in 2017–2019 indicates that eight (36%) of the 22 MMR studies explicitly stated a paradigmatic position (five drew on pragmatism, two switched paradigms (...) between qualitative and quantitative elements of the study, and one was situated in relativist-interpretivism). The remaining 14 (64%) studies did not report their underpinning research philosophical assumptions. Evaluating the merits and limitations of these positions against critical realist assumptions suggests that several paradigmatic disagreements are potentially reconcilable. These include (a) maintaining that ontological and epistemological concerns are important for methodological integrity of a mixed methods study; (b) switching between paradigms in the same study is problematic; and (c) refuting the qualitative-quantitative incommensurability thesis, therefore allowing mixed methods research without compromising philosophical coherence. From a critical realist position, we suggest that both quantitative and qualitative designs are justifiable in a mixed methods study because (1) they help corroborate, refine, or refute plausible explanations of phenomena (epistemological), but (2) with different methodologies utilised to perform different tasks in the same research design related to different psycho-social system features (ontological). We call for a collaborative engagement by researchers across paradigmatic positions to work towards the advancement of methodological pluralism in our research community. (shrink)

This paper provides a critical review of the debate over the philosophical foundations of mixed methods research and examines the notion of philosophical foundations. It distinguishes axiology-oriented from ontology-oriented philosophical foundations. It also identifies three different senses of philosophical foundations of mixed methods research. The weak sense of philosophical foundations (e.g., pragmatism) merely allows the possibility of the integration of both quantitative and qualitative methods/data/designs. The moderate sense of philosophical foundations (e.g., transformativism) provide a good reason to use (...) mixed methods in (at least some) social scientific research. The strong sense of philosophical foundations (e.g., dialectical pluralism) justifies a normative thesis that mixed methods research should be encouraged in (at least some) social scientific research. (shrink)

One of the key challenges of social policy in Poland in the early 21st century is to adapt its management to the requirements of a service economy. Essential conditions for the mixed economy of welfare have been already created after adjustments of the subsystems of national social policy during the first years of membership in the European Union since 2004. Labour market policies already include the relationships between providers from the public sector, the commercial sector, and the non-governmental sector. (...) However, the tasks and services of individual entities and institutions still lack coordination and integration. This paper focus on the examples of possibilities for their development by combining the activation policy with concepts of the governance and welfare mix. The paper presents the results of the author’s research on the implementation of welfare mix solutions in the field of professional activation of the unemployed people in Poland. Two case studies are included the implementation of outplacement programs that are based on the cooperation between different entities; and the cooperation between the public employment services and non-governmental employment agencies in the activation of people with disabilities in the labour market. Moreover, basic concepts of ongoing reforms of active labour market policies in Poland were discussed. The summary contains the practical recommendations and possible directions for further research in the field of integration of employment services. (shrink)

I defend Pascal's Wager from a particular way of evading it, the mixed strategy approach. The mixed strategies approach suggests that Pascal's Wager does not obligate one to believe in God, because one can get the same infinite expected utility from other strategies besides the strategy of believing in God. I will show that while there's nothing technically wrong with the mixed strategy approach, rationality requires it to be applied in such a way that Pascal's Wager doesn't (...) lose any force. (shrink)

This paper was written for and presented at a symposium on Multiple Realizability at the Central Division of the APA in 2022. It's in somewhat rough shape, especially the later parts. I hope to be in a position soon to post a revised and more carefully worked out version. The basic argument of the first half is this: Realization of the interesting sort (and thus MR of the interesting sort) requires tidy separation of levels (with realizers being at a lower (...) level than that which they realize). The success of mixed-scale, mixed-resource (i.e., multi-grain) modeling strongly suggests that such a tidy separation of levels is not in the cards. Thus, MR is (likely) not a widespread phenomenon in our universe. The second half of the paper develops a relation of "multiple explainability" that is meant to play the role, in many contexts, of MR, while being metaphysically and methodologically messier than MR. (shrink)

This essay outlines a hierarchical framework of Reality that allows for degrees of Reality. I use Reality (with a capital “R”) to designate reality in a primitive, metaphysical sense. Reality, grounding, and essence are the key elements of the framework presented here. I assume that Reality must have a fundamental level and all fundamental phenomena must be Real. Moreover, I postulate that everything non-fundamental is ultimately grounded in the fundamental Real. But what about the (...) Reality of the non-fundamental? I argue that it is possible for non-fundamental phenomena to be Real, Unreal, or Semi-Real. The framework developed here accommodates these possibilities and illuminates them using the notion of essence. I argue that the essential nature of a phenomenon determines its degree of Reality. The framework does not assume that Reality must have degrees but only that it may have degrees. Its theoretical attractiveness consists in its ability to accommodate many diverse intuitions about grounding, help us better understand and classify theories about grounding, and illuminate Reality and its possible degrees. (shrink)

Pascal’s Wager holds that one has pragmatic reason to believe in God, since that course of action has infinite expected utility. The mixed strategy objection holds that one could just as well follow a course of action that has infinite expected utility but is unlikely to end with one believing in God. Monton (2011. Mixed strategies can’t evade Pascal’s Wager. Analysis 71: 642–45.) has argued that mixed strategies can’t evade Pascal’s Wager, while Robertson (2012. Some mixed (...) strategies can evade Pascal’s Wager: a reply to Monton. Analysis 72: 295–98.) has argued that Monton is mistaken. We show that Monton is correct, highlight the crucial assumptions that he relies on, and shed some light on the role of mixed strategies in decision theory. (shrink)

The history of humankind is full of examples that indicate a constant desire to make human beings more moral. Nowadays, technological breakthroughs might have a significant impact on our moral character and abilities. This is the case of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies. The aim of this paper is to consider the ethical aspects of the use of VR in enhancing empathy. First, we will offer an introduction to VR, explaining its fundamental features, devices and concepts. Then, we will approach (...) the characterization of VR as an “empathy machine,” showing why this medium has aroused so much interest and why, nevertheless, we do not believe it is the ideal way to enhance empathy. As an alternative, we will consider fostering empathy-related abilities through virtual embodiment in avatars. In the conclusion, however, we will, we will examine some of the serious concerns related to the ethical relevance of empathy and will defend the philosophical case for a reason-guided empathy, also suggesting specific guidelines for possible future developments of empathy enhancement projects through VR embodied experiences. (shrink)