We apply spatialized game theory and multi-agent computational modeling as philosophical tools: (1) for assessing the primary social psychological hypothesis regarding prejudice reduction, and (2) for pursuing a deeper understanding of the basic mechanisms of prejudice reduction.

Commentators almost universally agree that Locke denies the possibility of thinking matter in Book IV Chapter 10 of the Essay. Further, they argue that Locke must do this in order for his proof of God’s existence in the chapter to be successful. This paper disputes these claims and develops an interpretation according to which Locke allows for the possibility that a system of matter could think (even prior to any act of superaddition on God’s part). In addition, the paper argues (...) that this does not destroy Locke’s argument in the chapter, instead it helps to illuminate the nature of it. The paper proceeds in two main stages. First, Locke denies that matter can produce thought. A distinction between two senses of “production” shows that this claim is compatible with the existence of thinking matter. Second, Locke denies that God could be a system of randomly moving particles. Most commentators take this to mean that such a system could not think. But Locke is better interpreted as denying that such a system could have the wisdom and knowledge of God. (shrink)

This chapter revisits three key disagreements between Locke and Berkeley. The disagreements relate to abstraction, the idea of substance, and the status of the primary/secondary quality distinction. The goal of the chapter is to show that these disagreements are rooted in a more fundamental disagreement over the nature of ideas. For Berkeley, ideas are tied very closely to perceptual content. Locke adopts a less restrictive account of the nature of ideas. On his view, ideas are responsible for both perceptual content (...) and non-perceptual mental content. Recognizing this allows for the following analysis of their disputes. Berkeley often appeals to introspection to suggest that we do not have some particular idea. But Locke’s arguments that we have a particular idea often appeal to the functional role the idea has in our cognitive economy rather than to facts about our immediate phenomenology. (shrink)

Previous research has extensively analysed teachers' and students' Facebook use for instructional engagement, writing, research dissemination and e-learning. However, Facebook as a data collection mechanism for research has scarcely been the subject of previous studies. The current study addressed these gaps by analysing students' awareness, willingness, and utilisation of Facebook for research data collection [RDC]. This study aimed to predict students’ Facebook use for research data collection based on their awareness and willingness and to determine age and gender differences in (...) such predictions. A sample of 11,562 students of tertiary institutions participated in an online survey. The researchers designed and validated the online survey. Exploratory Factor Analysis was used for dimensionality. Average Variance Extracted [AVE] was used for convergent validity, whilst the Fornel-Larcker criterion and Heterotrait-Monotrait ratio were used for discriminant validity. Composite reliability indices of .97, .94 and .90 proved the instrument’s three sub-scales usable. One sample t-test and multigroup analysis were conducted using SPSS 27 and Smart PLS 3. The study found high awareness but low usage of Facebook for RDC among Nigerian university students. Younger and male students showed higher willingness and actual use of Facebook for RDC. Awareness directly impacted by awareness, and acted as Facebook usage for RDC, with stronger impacts for males and students aged 19 to 28. Willingness was positively impacted and acted as a negative mediator between awareness and usage for some age groups and genders. These findings provide important insights into using Facebook for RDC among students in Nigerian universities and highlight the need to consider the impact of demographic factors such as age and. (shrink)

Purpose: This study evaluates staff Training and Development Programmes (TDPs) in secondary schools based on the views of administrators and teachers. The research was implemented in public secondary schools in Cross River State, Nigeria. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study adopted the survey research design with 5408 participants (administrators = 542; teachers = 4595). Four research questions guided the study. The Staff Training and Development Programmes Questionnaire (STDPQ) was used for data collection. Findings revealed essential areas of staff training and development. Findings: Various (...) methods are employed for staff training and development. The results further showed various constraints that impeded staff TDPs in secondary schools. Conclusion: Based on the findings, it was concluded that staff in secondary schools have different training and development needs adjudged by both the principals and teachers as crucial for job enhancement. Various staff training and development methods can serve as valuable programmes to improve the current methods adopted. Research Limitations and Implications: There are various limitations in this study such as the small scope which may affect the extent to which generalizations can be made. It is suggested that future studies focus on expanding the scope to other regions and nations. Practical Implications: Despite the limitations, the study has made some advances to human capital and self-determination theories by providing findings. The findings of this study may direct the attention of curriculum planners, the government and school management to offer training and development opportunities based on the needs of teachers. Contribution to Literature: The study has contributed to the literature on staff training and development which can constitute a basis for further research in related areas. (shrink)

Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI; S. O. Lilienfeld, 1990; S. O. Lilienfeld & B. P. Andrews, 1996) with a community sample has suggested that the PPI subscales may comprise 2 higher order factors (S. D. Benning, C. J. Patrick, B. M. Hicks, D. M. Blonigen, & R. F. Krueger, 2003). However, substantive and structural evidence raises concerns about the viability of this 2-factor model, particularly in offender populations. The authors attempted to replicate the S. (...) D. Benning et al. 2-factor solution using a large (N= 1,224) incarcerated male sample. Confirmatory factor analysis of this model resulted in poor model fit. Similarly, using the same EFA procedures as did S. D. Benning et al., the authors found little evidence for a 2-factor model. When they followed the recommendations of J.-W. van Prooijen and W. A. van der Kloot (2001) for recovering EFA solutions, model fit results provided some evidence that a 3-factor EFA solution could be recovered via confirmatory factor analysis. (shrink)

In this paper, I introduce a problem to the philosophy of religion – the problem of divine moral standing – and explain how this problem is distinct from (albeit related to) the more familiar problem of evil (with which it is often conflated). In short, the problem is this: in virtue of how God would be (or, on some given conception, is) “involved in” our actions, how is it that God has the moral standing to blame us for performing those (...) very actions? In light of the recent literature on “moral standing”, I consider God’s moral standing to blame on two models of “divine providence”: open theism, and theological determinism. I contend that God may have standing on open theism, and – perhaps surprisingly – may also have standing, even on theological determinism, given the truth of compatibilism. Thus, if you think that God could not justly both determine and blame, then you will have to abandon compatibilism. The topic of this paper thus sheds considerable light on the traditional philosophical debate about the conditions of moral responsibility. (shrink)

Suppose you have recently gained a disposition for recognizing a high-level kind property, like the property of being a wren. Wrens might look different to you now. According to the Phenomenal Contrast Argument, such cases of perceptual learning show that the contents of perception can include high-level kind properties such as the property of being a wren. I detail an alternative explanation for the different look of the wren: a shift in one’s attentional pattern onto other low-level properties. Philosophers have (...) alluded to this alternative before, but I provide a comprehensive account of the view, show how my account significantly differs from past claims, and offer a novel argument for the view. Finally, I show that my account puts us in a position to provide a new objection to the Phenomenal Contrast Argument. (shrink)

Suppose that you are at a live jazz show. The drummer begins a solo. You see the cymbal jolt and you hear the clang. But in addition seeing the cymbal jolt and hearing the clang, you are also aware that the jolt and the clang are part of the same event. Casey O’Callaghan (forthcoming) calls this awareness “intermodal feature binding awareness.” Psychologists have long assumed that multimodal perceptions such as this one are the result of a subpersonal feature binding mechanism (...) (see Vatakis and Spence, 2007, Kubovy and Schutz, 2010, Pourtois et al., 2000, and Navarra et al., 2012). I present new evidence against this. I argue that there is no automatic feature binding mechanism that couples features like the jolt and the clang together. Instead, when you experience the jolt and the clang as part of the same event, this is the result of an associative learning process. The cymbal’s jolt and the clang are best understood as a single learned perceptual unit, rather than as automatically bound. I outline the specific learning process in perception called “unitization,” whereby we come to “chunk” the world into multimodal units. Unitization has never before been applied to multimodal cases. Yet I argue that this learning process can do the same work that intermodal binding would do, and that this issue has important philosophical implications. Specifically, whether we take multimodal cases to involve a binding mechanism or an associative process will have impact on philosophical issues from Molyneux’s question to the question of how active or passive we consider perception to be. (shrink)

The problem considered in this chapter emerges from the tension we find when looking at the design and architecture of chatbots on the one hand and their conversational aptitude on the other. In the way that LLM chatbots are designed and built, we have good reason to suppose they don't possess second-order capacities such as intention, belief or knowledge. Yet theories of conversation make great use of second-order capacities of speakers and their audiences to explain how aspects of interaction succeed. (...) As we can all bear witness to now though, at the point of use chatbots appear capable of performing language tasks at a level close to that of humans. This creates a tension when we consider something like, for example, the classic Gricean theory of implicature. On a broad summary of this type of account, to utter p and implicate q requires the reflexive occurrence of an audience supposing a speaker believes that q, and the speaker believing that their audience can determine they believe it when they utter p. So taken at face value, if a chatbot doesn’t have the capacity for belief, then either in their role as speaker or audience, they would not seem capable of either generating or comprehending implicatures. Yet on the surface it does seem that chatbots are capable of dealing with (some) implicatures, and as such it raises questions about how we should then correlate this with what we think occurs in cases of implicature with chatbots. (shrink)

When a user integrates a sensory substitution device into her life, the process involves perceptual learning, that is, ‘relatively long-lasting changes to an organism’s perceptual system that improve its ability to respond to its environment’ (Goldstone 1998: 585). In this paper, I explore ways in which the extensive literature on perceptual learning can be applied to help improve sensory substitution devices. I then use these findings to answer a philosophical question. Much of the philosophical debate surrounding sensory substitution devices concerns (...) what happens after perceptual learning occurs. In particular, should the resultant perceptual experience be classified in the substituted modality (as vision), in the substituting modality (as auditory or tactile), or in a new sense modality? I propose a novel empirical test to help resolve this philosophical debate. (shrink)

This is an excerpt of a report that highlights and explores five questions that arose from the Network for Sensory Research workshop on perceptual learning and perceptual recognition at the University of York in March, 2012. This portion of the report explores the question: What is perceptual learning?

This chapter takes the form of a discussion between the editors of this volume and Joseph Agassi, regarding the relationship between methodological individualism and institutional individualism. The focus is on Agassi’s interpretation of traditional methodological individualism in terms of psychologism; the role of institutions and structural factors in social explanation; Popper’s theory of World 3; the application of Weber’s interpretative approach—Verstehen—to typical ways of thinking and acting; and the Austrian School of economics.

Schwenkler (2012) criticizes a 2011 experiment by R. Held and colleagues purporting to answer Molyneux’s question. Schwenkler proposes two ways to re-run the original experiment: either by allowing subjects to move around the stimuli, or by simplifying the stimuli to planar objects rather than three-dimensional ones. In Schwenkler (2013) he expands on and defends the former. I argue that this way of re-running the experiment is flawed, since it relies on a questionable assumption that newly sighted subjects will be able (...) to appreciate depth cues. I then argue that the second way of re-running the experiment is successful both in avoiding the flaw of original Held experiment, and in avoiding the problem with the first way of re-running the experiment. (shrink)

In the case of ventriloquism, seeing the movement of the ventriloquist dummy’s mouth changes your experience of the auditory location of the vocals. Some have argued that cases like ventriloquism provide evidence for the view that at least some of the content of perception is fundamentally multimodal. In the ventriloquism case, this would mean your experience has constitutively audio-visual content (not just a conjunction of an audio content and visual content). In this paper, I argue that cases like ventriloquism do (...) not in fact warrant that conclusion. I then try to make sense of crossmodal cases without appealing to fundamentally multimodal content. (shrink)

A recent debate in Kant scholarship concerns the role of concepts in Kant's theory of perception. Roughly, proponents of a conceptualist interpretation argue that for Kant, the possession of concepts is a prior condition for perception, while nonconceptualist interpreters deny this. The debate has two parts. One part concerns whether possessing empirical concepts is a prior condition for having empirical intuitions. A second part concerns whether Kant allows empirical intuitions without a priori concepts. Outside of Kant interpretation, the contemporary debate (...) about conceptualism concerns whether perception requires empirical concepts. But, as I argue, the debate about whether Kant allows intuitions without empirical concepts does not show whether Kant is a conceptualist. Even if Kant allows intuitions without empirical concepts, it could still be that a priori concepts are required. While the debate could show that Kant is a conceptualist, I argue it does not. Finally, I sketch a novel way that the conceptualist interpreter might win the debate—roughly, by arguing that possessing a priori concepts is a prior condition for having appearances. (shrink)

As well as disagreeing about how much one should donate to charity, moral theories also disagree about where one should donate. In light of this disagreement, how should the morally uncertain philanthropist allocate her donations? In many cases, one intuitively attractive option is for the philanthropist to split her donations across all of the charities that are recommended by moral views in which she has positive credence, with each charity’s share being proportional to her credence in the moral theories that (...) recommend that particular charity. Despite the fact that something like this approach is already being used by real-world philanthropists to distribute billions of dollars of donations, it is not supported by any of the approaches to moral uncertainty that have been proposed thus-far in the philosophical literature. In this paper, we will develop a bargaining-based approach to moral uncertainty that honors the proportionality intuition in favor of splitting one’s donations. We also show how this bargaining-based approach has several further advantages over the best alternative proposals. (shrink)

This is an excerpt from a report on the workshop on multisensory integration at the University of Toronto, on May 9th and 10th, 2014, written by Kevin Connolly, Aaron Henry, Zoe Jenkin, and Andrew MacGregor, and available at: http://networksensoryresearch.utoronto.ca/Events_%26_Discussion.html This excerpt explores the question: What is multisensory integration?

This is an excerpt from a report on the workshop on multisensory integration at the University of Toronto, on May 9th and 10th, 2014, written by Kevin Connolly, Aaron Henry, Zoe Jenkin, and Andrew MacGregor, and available at: http://networksensoryresearch.utoronto.ca/Events_%26_Discussion.html This excerpt explores the question: Do multisensory percepts involve emergent features?

This is an excerpt from a report on the workshop on multisensory integration at the University of Toronto, on May 9th and 10th, 2014, written by Kevin Connolly, Aaron Henry, Zoe Jenkin, and Andrew MacGregor, and available at: http://networksensoryresearch.utoronto.ca/Events_%26_Discussion.html This excerpt explores the question: What can multisensory processing tell us about multisensory awareness?

This is an excerpt from a report on the workshop on multisensory integration at the University of Toronto, on May 9th and 10th, 2014, written by Kevin Connolly, Aaron Henry, Zoe Jenkin, and Andrew MacGregor, and available at: http://networksensoryresearch.utoronto.ca/Events_%26_Discussion.html This excerpt explores the question: What is the purpose of multisensory integration?

This is an excerpt from a report on the workshop on multisensory integration at the University of Toronto, on May 9th and 10th, 2014, written by Kevin Connolly, Aaron Henry, Zoe Jenkin, and Andrew MacGregor, and available at: http://networksensoryresearch.utoronto.ca/Events_%26_Discussion.html This excerpt explores the question: Is language processing a special kind of multisensory integration?

Conspiracy theories are rather a popular topic these days, and a lot has been written on things like the meaning of _conspiracy theory_, whether it’s ever rational to believe conspiracy theories, and on the psychology and demographics of people who believe conspiracy theories. But very little has been said about why people might be led to posit conspiracy theories in the first place. This paper aims to fill this lacuna. In particular, I shall argue that, in open democratic societies, citizens (...) justifiably presuppose that the epistemic authorities—journalists, academics, scientists, and so on—are engaged in a good faith pursuit of the truth. This presupposition generates certain normative expectations on the behaviors of the epistemic authorities—they ought to be open to new evidence, possess a healthy degree of skepticism, be willing to engage with opponents, and so on. So, when an epistemic authority is presented with some putatively anomalous data or an alternative hypothesis for some event or phenomena, people expect the epistemic authority to respond in a way that is consonant with these norms. In some instances, however, the epistemic authorities do not respond in this way and instead are dogmatic, dismissive, and engage in _ad hominem_. From the point of view of the citizen, there’s a tension here between how the epistemic authorities ought to behave and how they have, in fact, behaved which is best resolved either by taking the epistemic authorities less seriously or by positing a conspiracy theory. Put another way, the failure of the epistemic authorities to adhere to the norms by which we take them to be governed when presented with apparent anomalies or alternative hypotheses is one reason for which one might initially posit a conspiracy theory. (shrink)

This book launches a sustained defense of a radical interpretation of the doctrine of the open future. Patrick Todd argues that all claims about undetermined aspects of the future are simply false.

We seem perfectly able to perceive fine-grained shades of colour even without possessing precise concepts for them. The same might be said of shapes. I argue that this is in fact not the case. A subject can perceive a colour or shape only if she possesses a concept of that type of colour or shape. I provide new justification for this thesis, and do not rely on demonstrative concepts such as THIS SHADE or THAT SHAPE, a move first suggested by (...) John McDowell, but rejected by Christopher Peacocke and Richard Heck among others.1. (shrink)

The ethics of betel nut use in Taiwan are examined in this article. It first presents scientific facts about the betel quid, its consumption and negative health consequences and then analyses the cultural background and economic factors contributing to its popularity in Asia. Governmental and institutional attempts to curb betel nut cultivation, distribution and sales are also described. Finally, the bioethical implications of this often ignored subject are considered.

At least since Aristotle's famous discussion of the sea-battle tomorrow in On Interpretation 9, philosophers have been fascinated by a rich set of interconnecte.

This is an excerpt of a report that highlights and explores five questions which arose from The Unity of Consciousness and Sensory Integration conference at Brown University in November of 2011. This portion of the report explores the question: Is the mechanism of sensory integration spatio-temporal?

Does artificial intelligence (AI) pose existential risks to humanity? Some critics feel this question is getting too much attention, and want to push it aside in favour of conversations about the immediate risks of AI. These critics now include the journal Nature, where a recent editorial urges us to 'stop talking about tomorrow's AI doomsday when AI poses risks today.' We argue that this is a serious failure of judgement, on Nature's part. In science, as in everyday life, we expect (...) influential actors to consider the consequences of error. As the world's leading scientific journal, Nature is certainly an influential actor, especially so in the absence of robust global regulation of AI. Yet it has manifestly failed to consider the cost of error in this case. (shrink)

This is an excerpt of a report that highlights and explores five questions which arose from The Unity of Consciousness and Sensory Integration conference at Brown University in November of 2011. This portion of the report explores the question: How should we model the unity of consciousness?

This report highlights and explores four questions that arose from the workshop on temporal experience at the University of Toronto, May 20th and 21st, 2013.

This is an excerpt from a report on the Sensory Substitution and Augmentation Conference at the British Academy in March of 2013. This portion of the report explores the question: Can normal non-sensory feelings be generated through sensory substitution?

This is an excerpt from a report on the Temporal Experience Workshop at the University of Toronto in May of 2013. This portion of the report explores the question: What can we learn about the nature of time from the nature of ordinary experience?

This is an excerpt from a report on the Sensory Substitution and Augmentation Conference at the British Academy in March of 2013. This portion of the report explores the question: How does sensory substitution interact with the brain’s architecture?

This report highlights and explores five questions that arose from the multisensory integration workshop at the University of Toronto on May 9th and 10th, 2014: 1. What Is Multisensory Integration? 2. Do Multisensory Percepts Involve Emergent Features? 3. What Can Multisensory Processing Tell Us about Multisensory Awareness? 4. Is Language Processing a Special Kind of Multisensory Integration? 5. What Is the Purpose of Multisensory Integration?

These are my materials (a short precis, and replies to Alan Rhoda and Daniel Rubio) for an invited symposium on my book _The Open Future: Why Future Contingents are All False_ (OUP, 2021) in IJPR. [The commentaries from Rhoda/Rubio are available on their respective PhilPapers profiles.].

This is an excerpt from a report on the workshop on mind and attention in Indian philosophy at Harvard University, on September 21st and 22nd, 2013, written by Kevin Connolly, Jennifer Corns, Nilanjan Das, Zachary Irving, and Lu Teng, and available at http://networksensoryresearch.utoronto.ca/Events_%26_Discussion.html This portion of the report explores the question: What can Indian philosophy tell us about how we perceive the world?

This is an excerpt from a report on the workshop on mind and attention in Indian philosophy at Harvard University, on September 21st and 22nd, 2013, written by Kevin Connolly, Jennifer Corns, Nilanjan Das, Zachary Irving, and Lu Teng, and available at http://networksensoryresearch.utoronto.ca/Events_%26_Discussion.html This portion of the report explores the question: Can meditation give us moral knowledge?

This is an excerpt from a report on the workshop on mind and attention in Indian philosophy at Harvard University, on September 21st and 22nd, 2013, written by Kevin Connolly, Jennifer Corns, Nilanjan Das, Zachary Irving, and Lu Teng, and available at http://networksensoryresearch.utoronto.ca/Events_%26_Discussion.html This portion of the report explores the question: How can we train our attention, and what are the benefits of doing so?

The Hong and Page ‘diversity trumps ability’ result has been used to argue for the more general claim that a diverse set of agents is epistemically superior to a comparable group of experts. Here we extend Hong and Page’s model to landscapes of different degrees of randomness and demonstrate the sensitivity of the ‘diversity trumps ability’ result. This analysis offers a more nuanced picture of how diversity, ability, and expertise may relate. Although models of this sort can indeed be suggestive (...) for diversity policies, we advise against interpreting such results overly broadly. (shrink)

This is an excerpt from a report on the workshop on mind and attention in Indian philosophy at Harvard University, on September 21st and 22nd, 2013, written by Kevin Connolly, Jennifer Corns, Nilanjan Das, Zachary Irving, and Lu Teng, and available at http://networksensoryresearch.utoronto.ca/Events_%26_Discussion.html This part of the report explores the question: How does the understanding of attention in Indian philosophy bear on contemporary western debates?

This is an excerpt from a report on the workshop on mind and attention in Indian philosophy at Harvard University, on September 21st and 22nd, 2013, written by Kevin Connolly, Jennifer Corns, Nilanjan Das, Zachary Irving, and Lu Teng, and available at http://networksensoryresearch.utoronto.ca/Events_%26_Discussion.html This portion of the report explores the question: Are there cross-cultural philosophical themes?

It is widely accepted that there is what has been called a non-hypocrisy norm on the appropriateness of moral blame; roughly, one has standing to blame only if one is not guilty of the very offence one seeks to criticize. Our acceptance of this norm is embodied in the common retort to criticism, “Who are you to blame me?”. But there is a paradox lurking behind this commonplace norm. If it is always inappropriate for x to blame y for a (...) wrong that x has committed, then all cases in which x blames x (i.e. cases of self-blame) are rendered inappropriate. But it seems to be ethical common-sense that we are often, sadly, in position (indeed, excellent, privileged position) to blame ourselves for our own moral failings. And thus we have a paradox: a conflict between the inappropriateness of hypocritical blame, and the appropriateness of self-blame. We consider several ways of resolving the paradox, and contend none is as defensible as a position that simply accepts it: we should never blame ourselves. In defending this startling position, we defend a crucial distinction between self-blame and guilt. (shrink)

Recently, philosophers have turned their attention to the question, not when a given agent is blameworthy for what she does, but when a further agent has the moral standing to blame her for what she does. Philosophers have proposed at least four conditions on having “moral standing”: -/- 1. One’s blame would not be “hypocritical”. 2. One is not oneself “involved in” the target agent’s wrongdoing. 3. One must be warranted in believing that the target is indeed blameworthy for the (...) wrongdoing. 4. The target’s wrongdoing must some of “one’s business”. -/- These conditions are often proposed as both conditions on one and the same thing, and as marking fundamentally different ways of “losing standing.” Here I call these claims into question. First, I claim that conditions (3) and (4) are simply conditions on different things than are conditions (1) and (2). Second, I argue that condition (2) reduces to condition (1): when “involvement” removes someone’s standing to blame, it does so only by indicating something further about that agent, viz., that he or she lacks commitment to the values that condemn the wrongdoer’s action. The result: after we clarify the nature of the non-hypocrisy condition, we will have a unified account of moral standing to blame. Issues also discussed: whether standing can ever be regained, the relationship between standing and our "moral fragility", the difference between mere inconsistency and hypocrisy, and whether a condition of standing might be derived from deeper facts about the "equality of persons". (shrink)

Incompatibilism about responsibility and determinism is sometimes directly construed as the thesis that if we found out that determinism is true, we would have to give up the reactive attitudes. Call this "the consequence". I argue that this is a mistake: the strict modal thesis does not entail the consequence. First, some incompatibilists (who are also libertarians) may be what we might call *resolute responsibility theorists* (or "flip-floppers"). On this view, if we found out that determinism is true, this would (...) not be to find out that no one is responsible; instead, what this would suggest is that incompatibilism is after all false. Second, some incompatibilists may instead deny the claim that if we found out that no one deserves the reactiveattitudes, we would have to give up the reactive attitudes. Call this position *innocent incompatibilism*. I explore several different reasons why the fact that no one deserves the reactive attitudes likely does not translate into a requirement for us to give up the reactive attitudes. The upshot: incompatibilism may be practically irrelevant, even if true. (shrink)

There is a familiar debate between Russell and Strawson concerning bivalence and ‘the present King of France’. According to the Strawsonian view, ‘The present King of France is bald’ is neither true nor false, whereas, on the Russellian view, that proposition is simply false. In this paper, I develop what I take to be a crucial connection between this debate and a different domain where bivalence has been at stake: future contingents. On the familiar ‘Aristotelian’ view, future contingent propositions are (...) neither true nor false. However, I argue that, just as there is a Russellian alternative to the Strawsonian view concerning ‘the present King of France’, according to which the relevant class of propositions all turn out false, so there is a Russellian alternative to the Aristotelian view, according to which future contingents all turn out false, not neither true nor false. The result: contrary to millennia of philosophical tradition, we can be open futurists without denying bivalence. (shrink)

An early, very preliminary edition of this book was circulated in 1962 under the title Set-theoretical Structures in Science. There are many reasons for maintaining that such structures play a role in the philosophy of science. Perhaps the best is that they provide the right setting for investigating problems of representation and invariance in any systematic part of science, past or present. Examples are easy to cite. Sophisticated analysis of the nature of representation in perception is to be found already (...) in Plato and Aristotle. One of the great intellectual triumphs of the nineteenth century was the mechanical explanation of such familiar concepts as temperature and pressure by their representation in terms of the motion of particles. A more disturbing change of viewpoint was the realization at the beginning of the twentieth century that the separate invariant properties of space and time must be replaced by the space-time invariants of Einstein's special relativity. Another example, the focus of the longest chapter in this book, is controversy extending over several centuries on the proper representation of probability. The six major positions on this question are critically examined. Topics covered in other chapters include an unusually detailed treatment of theoretical and experimental work on visual space, the two senses of invariance represented by weak and strong reversibility of causal processes, and the representation of hidden variables in quantum mechanics. The final chapter concentrates on different kinds of representations of language, concluding with some empirical results on brain-wave representations of words and sentences. (shrink)

This report highlights and explores five questions which arose from The Unity of Consciousness and Sensory Integration conference at Brown University in November of 2011: 1. What is the relationship between the unity of consciousness and sensory integration? 2. Are some of the basic units of consciousness multimodal? 3. How should we model the unity of consciousness? 4. Is the mechanism of sensory integration spatio-temporal? 5. How Should We Study Experience, Given Unity Relations?