The development of personal technologies has recently shifted from devices that seek to capture user attention to those that aim to improve user well-being. Digital wellness technologies use the same attractive qualities of other persuasive apps to motivate users towards behaviors that are personally and socially valuable, such as exercise, wealth-management, and meaningful communication. While these aims are certainly an improvement over the market-driven motivations of earlier technologies, they retain their predecessors’ focus on influencing user behavior as a primary metric (...) of success. Digital wellness technologies are still persuasive technologies, and they do not evade concerns over whether their influence on users is ethically justified. In this paper, we describe several ethical frameworks with which to assess the justification of digital wellness technologies’ influence on users. We propose that while some technologies help users to complete tasks and satisfy immediate preferences, other technologies encourage users to reflect on the values underlying their habits and teach them to evaluate their lives’ competing demands. While the former approach to digital wellness technology is not unethical, we propose that the latter approach is more likely to lead to skillful user engagement with technology. (shrink)

In 'On the nature of truth and falsehood' Russell offers both a multiple relation theory of judgment and a correspondence theory of truth. It has been a prevailing understanding of the Tractatus that Wittgenstein rejects Russell’s multiple relation idea but endorses the correspondence theory. Ramsey took the opposite view. In his 'Facts and Propositions', Ramsey endorses Russell’s multiple relation idea, rejects the correspondence theory, and then asserts that these moves are both due to Wittgenstein. This chapter will argue that Ramsey’s (...) ascriptions are both correct. The extent of the agreement between Ramsey and Wittgenstein will be argued, moreover, to count definitively against standard understandings of Ramsey as a redundancy theorist of truth. Wittgenstein is no correspondence theorist and Ramsey is no redundancy theorist; rather, both philosophers offer identity theories of truth. (shrink)

In this volume, leading philosophers of psychiatry examine psychiatric classification systems, including the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, asking whether current systems are sufficient for effective diagnosis, treatment, and research. Doing so, they take up the question of whether mental disorders are natural kinds, grounded in something in the outside world. Psychiatric categories based on natural kinds should group phenomena in such a way that they are subject to the same type of causal explanations and respond similarly to (...) the same type of causal interventions. When these categories do not evince such groupings, there is reason to revise existing classifications. The contributors all question current psychiatric classifications systems and the assumptions on which they are based. They differ, however, as to why and to what extent the categories are inadequate and how to address the problem. Topics discussed include taxometric methods for identifying natural kinds, the error and bias inherent in DSM categories, and the complexities involved in classifying such specific mental disorders as "oppositional defiance disorder" and pathological gambling. -/- Contributors George Graham, Nick Haslam, Allan Horwitz, Harold Kincaid, Dominic Murphy, Jeffrey Poland, Nancy Nyquist Potter, Don Ross, Dan Stein, Jacqueline Sullivan, Serife Tekin, Peter Zachar. (shrink)

Do neurobiologists aim to discover natural kinds? I address this question in this chapter via a critical analysis of classification practices operative across the 43-year history of research on long-term potentiation (LTP). I argue that this 43-year history supports the idea that the structure of scientific practice surrounding LTP research has remained an obstacle to the discovery of natural kinds.

[A. W. Moore] Criteria of ineffability are presented which, it is claimed, preclude the possibility of truths that are ineffable, but not the possibility of other things that are ineffable—not even the possibility of other things that are non-trivially ineffable. Specifically, they do not preclude the possibility of states of understanding that are ineffable. This, it is argued, allows for a reappraisal of the dispute between those who adopt a traditional reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and those who adopt the new (...) reading recently championed by Cora Diamond, James Conant, and others. By maintaining that what the nonsense in the Tractatus is supposed to convey is ineffable understanding, rather than ineffable truth, we can do considerable justice to each of these readings. We can also do considerable justice to the Tractatus. /// [Peter Sullivan] Moore proposes to cut between 'traditional' and 'new' approaches to the Tractatus, suggesting that Wittgenstein's intention is to convey, through the knowing use of nonsense, ineffable understanding. I argue, first, that there is indeed room for a proposal of Moore's general kind. Secondly, though, I question whether Moore's actual proposal is not more in tune with Wittgenstein's later thought than with the attitude of the Tractatus. (shrink)

This special issue of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy is dedicated to Timothy Williamson's work on modality. It consists of a new paper by Williamson followed by papers on Williamson's work on modality, with each followed by a reply by Williamson. -/- Contributors: Andrew Bacon, Kit Fine, Peter Fritz, Jeremy Goodman, John Hawthorne, Øystein Linnebo, Ted Sider, Robert Stalnaker, Meghan Sullivan, Gabriel Uzquiano, Barbara Vetter, Timothy Williamson, Juhani Yli-Vakkuri.

Monothematic delusions are bizarre beliefs which are often accompanied by highly anomalous experiences. For philosophers and psychologists attracted to the exploration of mental phenomena in an evolutionary framework, these beliefs represent—notwithstanding their rarity—a puzzle. A natural idea concerning the biology of belief is that our beliefs, in concert with relevant desires, help us to navigate our environments, and so, in broad terms, an evolutionary story of human belief formation will likely insist on a function of truth (true beliefs tend to (...) lead to successful action). Monothematic delusions are systematically false and often harmful to the proper functioning of the agent and the navigation of their environment. So what are we to say? A compelling thought is that delusions are _malfunctioning_ beliefs. Compelling though it may be, I argue against this view on the grounds that it does not pay due attention to the circumstances in which monothematic delusions are formed, and fails to establish _doxastic_ malfunction. I argue instead that monothematic delusions are _misfunctioning_ beliefs, that is, the result of mechanisms of belief formation operating in historically abnormal conditions. Monothematic delusions may take their place alongside a host of other strange beliefs formed in difficult epistemic conditions, but for which no underlying doxastic malfunction is in play. (shrink)

Under what conditions does machine learning (ML) model opacity inhibit the possibility of explaining and understanding phenomena? In this article, I argue that nonepistemic values give shape to the ML opacity problem even if we keep researcher interests fixed. Treating ML models as an instance of doing model-based science to explain and understand phenomena reveals that there is (i) an external opacity problem, where the presence of inductive risk imposes higher standards on externally validating models, and (ii) an internal opacity (...) problem, where greater inductive risk demands a higher level of transparency regarding the inferences the model makes. (shrink)

Simple idealized models seem to provide more understanding than opaque, complex, and hyper-realistic models. However, an increasing number of scientists are going in the opposite direction by utilizing opaque machine learning models to make predictions and draw inferences, suggesting that scientists are opting for models that have less potential for understanding. Are scientists trading understanding for some other epistemic or pragmatic good when they choose a machine learning model? Or are the assumptions behind why minimal models provide understanding misguided? In (...) this paper, using the case of deep neural networks, I argue that it is not the complexity or black box nature of a model that limits how much understanding the model provides. Instead, it is a lack of scientific and empirical evidence supporting the link that connects a model to the target phenomenon that primarily prohibits understanding. (shrink)

Dōgen has been described as a social reformer based on his more “enlightened” attitude towards women, inviting women students into his sangha and advocating for more egalitarian views of gender (Eido Frances Carney, Receiving the Marrow: Teachings on Dōgen by Soto Zen Women Priests (2012), p. xi). In this chapter, I describe how contemporary Western Zen women and their allies have understood Dōgen’s texts as a tool of personal and social transformation through examination of work by Zen practitioners such as (...) Greenwood’s Bow First (2018), Carney’s Receiving the Marrow (2012), Schireson’s Zen Women (2009), and Glassman and Fields’ Instructions to the Cook (1996). In particular, I posit that Zen women have expressed the practical nature of Dōgen’s philosophy for contemporary non-monastics, showing how to de-center oneself through full participation in the activity of the world. This is in contrast to self-centered preoccupation with individual enlightenment or spiritual attainment. Paradoxically, it is the fact that women have often been confined to social roles that prevent their separation from the minutiae of everyday life that allows them to embody Dōgen’s dictum to “forget the self and be actualized by myriad things.”. (shrink)

Social epistemologists should be well-equipped to explain and evaluate the growing vulnerabilities associated with filter bubbles, echo chambers, and group polarization in social media. However, almost all social epistemology has been built for social contexts that involve merely a speaker-hearer dyad. Filter bubbles, echo chambers, and group polarization all presuppose much larger and more complex network structures. In this paper, we lay the groundwork for a properly social epistemology that gives the role and structure of networks their due. In particular, (...) we formally define epistemic constructs that quantify the structural epistemic position of each node within an interconnected network. We argue for the epistemic value of a structure that we call the (m,k)-observer. We then present empirical evidence that (m,k)-observers are rare in social media discussions of controversial topics, which suggests that people suffer from serious problems of epistemic vulnerability. We conclude by arguing that social epistemologists and computer scientists should work together to develop minimal interventions that improve the structure of epistemic networks. (shrink)

I argue that ML models used in science function as highly idealized toy models. If we treat ML models as a type of highly idealized toy model, then we can deploy standard representational and epistemic strategies from the toy model literature to explain why ML models can still provide epistemic success despite their lack of similarity to their targets.

Trust is a core feature of the physician-patient relationship, and risk is central to trust. Patients take risks when they trust their providers to care for them effectively and appropriately. Not all patients take these risks: some medical relationships are marked by mistrust and suspicion. Empirical evidence suggests that some patients and families of color in the United States may be more likely to mistrust their providers and to be suspicious of specific medical practices and institutions. Given both historical and (...) ongoing oppression and injustice in American medical institutions, such mistrust can be apt. Yet it can also frustrate patient care, leading to family and provider distress. In this paper, I propose one way that providers might work to reestablish trust by taking risks in signaling their own trustworthiness. This interpersonal step is not meant to replace efforts to remedy systemic injustice, but is an immediate measure for addressing mistrust in occurrent cases. (shrink)

Descriptive accounts of the nature of explanation in neuroscience and the global goals of such explanation have recently proliferated in the philosophy of neuroscience and with them new understandings of the experimental practices of neuroscientists have emerged. In this paper, I consider two models of such practices; one that takes them to be reductive; another that takes them to be integrative. I investigate those areas of the neuroscience of learning and memory from which the examples used to substantiate these models (...) are culled, and argue that the multiplicity of experimental protocols used in these research areas presents specific challenges for both models. In my view, these challenges have been overlooked largely because philosophers have hitherto failed to pay sufficient attention to fundamental features of experimental practice. I demonstrate that when we do pay attention to such features, evidence for reduction and integrative unity in neuroscience is simply not borne out. I end by suggesting some new directions for the philosophy of neuroscience that pertain to taking a closer look at the nature of neuroscientific experiments. (shrink)

Recent studies have explored the effectiveness of open-label placebos for a variety of conditions, including chronic pain, cancer-related fatigue and irritable bowel syndrome. OLPs are thought to sidestep traditional ethical worries about placebos because they do not involve deception: with an OLP, patients or subjects are told outright that they are not given an active substance. As deception is framed as the primary hurdle to ethical placebo use, the door is ostensibly opened to ethical studies of OLPs. In this article, (...) I suggest that even though OLPs seemingly do not involve deception, there are other ethical considerations in their clinical investigation and subsequent use. Research ethics often focusses on informed consent—of which, deception and honesty are a piece—as a means to justify research practices with human subjects. Yet, it is but one of the ethical considerations that should be taken into account. With research into placebo effects in particular, I argue that the history of clinical placebo use grounds special considerations for OLP research that go beyond respect for the autonomy of individual patients through informed consent and encompass structural concerns about the type of patient for whom a placebo has historically been thought appropriate. (shrink)

We argue that the trend toward providing users with feasible and actionable explanations of AI decisions—known as recourse explanations—comes with ethical downsides. Specifically, we argue that recourse explanations face several conceptual pitfalls and can lead to problematic explanation hacking, which undermines their ethical status. As an alternative, we advocate that explanations of AI decisions should aim at understanding.

Explainable AI (xAI) methods are important for establishing trust in using black-box models. However, recent criticism has mounted against current xAI methods that they disagree, are necessarily false, and can be manipulated, which has started to undermine the deployment of black-box models. Rudin (2019) goes so far as to say that we should stop using black-box models altogether in high-stakes cases because xAI explanations ‘must be wrong’. However, strict fidelity to the truth is historically not a desideratum in science. Idealizations (...) – the intentional distortions introduced to scientific theories and models – are commonplace in the natural sciences and are seen as a successful scientific tool. Thus, it is not falsehood qua falsehood that is the issue. In this paper, I outline the need for xAI research to engage in idealization evaluation. Drawing on the use of idealizations in the natural sciences and philosophy of science, I introduce a novel framework for evaluating whether xAI methods engage in successful idealizations or deceptive explanations (SIDEs). SIDEs evaluates whether the limitations of xAI methods, and the distortions that they introduce, can be part of a successful idealization or are indeed deceptive distortions as critics suggest. I discuss the role that existing research can play in idealization evaluation and where innovation is necessary. Through a qualitative analysis we find that leading feature importance methods and counterfactual explanations are subject to idealization failure and suggest remedies for ameliorating idealization failure. (shrink)

Recently, many have argued that there are certain kinds of abstract mathematical explanations that are noncausal. In particular, the irrelevancy approach suggests that abstracting away irrelevant causal details can leave us with a noncausal explanation. In this paper, I argue that the common example of Renormalization Group explanations of universality used to motivate the irrelevancy approach deserves more critical attention. I argue that the reasons given by those who hold up RG as noncausal do not stand up to critical scrutiny. (...) As a result, the irrelevancy approach and the line between casual and noncausal explanation deserves more scrutiny. (shrink)

The past decade has witnessed a growing awareness of conceptual and methodological hurdles within psychology and neuroscience that must be addressed for taxonomic and explanatory progress in understanding psychological functions to be possible. In this paper, I evaluate several recent knowledge-building initiatives aimed at overcoming these obstacles. I argue that while each initiative offers important insights about how to facilitate taxonomic and explanatory progress in psychology and neuroscience, only a “coordinated pluralism” that incorporates positive aspects of each initiative will have (...) the potential for success. (shrink)

In this chapter I investigate the kinds of changes that psychiatric kinds undergo when they become explanatory targets of areas of sciences that are not “mature” and are in the early stages of discovering mechanisms. The two areas of science that are the targets of my analysis are cognitive neuroscience and cognitive neurobiology.

Efforts by governments, firms, and patients to deliver pioneering drugs for critical health needs face a challenge of diminishing efficiency in developing those medicines. While multi-sectoral collaborations involving firms, researchers, patients, and policymakers are widely recognized as crucial for countering this decline, existing incentives to engage in drug development predominantly target drug manufacturers and thereby do little to stimulate collaborative innovation. In this mini review, we consider the unexplored potential within pharmaceutical regulations to create novel incentives to encourage a diverse (...) set of actors from the public and private spheres to engage in the kind of collaborative knowledge exchange requisite for fostering enhanced innovation in early drug development. (shrink)

The Morris water maze has been put forward in the philosophy of neuroscience as an example of an experimental arrangement that may be used to delineate the cognitive faculty of spatial memory (e.g., Craver and Darden, Theory and method in the neurosciences, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 2001; Craver, Explaining the brain: Mechanisms and the mosaic unity of neuroscience, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007). However, in the experimental and review literature on the water maze throughout the history of its use, (...) we encounter numerous responses to the question of “what” phenomenon it circumscribes ranging from cognitive functions (e.g., “spatial learning”, “spatial navigation”), to representational changes (e.g., “cognitive map formation”) to terms that appear to refer exclusively to observable changes in behavior (e.g., “water maze performance”). To date philosophical analyses of the water maze have not been directed at sorting out what phenomenon the device delineates nor the sources of the different answers to the question of what. I undertake both of these tasks in this paper. I begin with an analysis of Morris’s first published research study using the water maze and demonstrate that he emerged from it with an experimental learning paradigm that at best circumscribed a discrete set of observable changes in behavior. However, it delineated neither a discrete set of representational changes nor a discrete cognitive function. I cite this in combination with a reductionist-oriented research agenda in cellular and molecular neurobiology dating back to the 1980s as two sources of the lack of consistency across the history of the experimental and review literature as to what is under study in the water maze. (shrink)

This paper offers a critique of an account of explanatory integration that claims that explanations of cognitive capacities by functional analyses and mechanistic explanations can be seamlessly integrated. It is shown that achieving such explanatory integration requires that the terms designating cognitive capacities in the two forms of explanation are stable but that experimental practice in the mind-brain sciences currently is not directed at achieving such stability. A positive proposal for changing experimental practice so as to promote such stability is (...) put forward and its implications for explanatory integration are briefly considered. (shrink)

Nearly all success is due to some mix of ability and luck. But some successes we attribute to the agent’s ability, whereas others we attribute to luck. To better understand the criteria distinguishing credit from luck, we conducted a series of four studies on knowledge attributions. Knowledge is an achievement that involves reaching the truth. But many factors affecting the truth are beyond our control and reaching the truth is often partly due to luck. Which sorts of luck are compatible (...) with knowledge? We find that knowledge attributions are highly sensitive to lucky events that change the explanation for why a belief is true. By contrast, knowledge attributions are surprisingly insensitive to lucky events that threaten but ultimately fail to change the explanation for why a belief is true. These results shed light on our concept of knowledge, help explain apparent inconsistencies in prior work on knowledge attributions, and constitute progress toward a general understanding of the relation between success and luck. (shrink)

It is widely thought that functionalism and the qualia theory are better positioned to accommodate the ‘affective’ aspect of pain phenomenology than representationalism. In this paper, we attempt to overturn this opinion by raising problems for both functionalism and the qualia theory on this score. With regard to functionalism, we argue that it gets the order of explanation wrong: pain experience gives rise to the effects it does because it hurts, and not the other way around. With regard to the (...) qualia theory, we argue that it fails to capture the sense in which pain 's affective phenomenology rationalises various bodily-directed beliefs, desires, and behaviours. Representationalism, in contrast, escapes both of these problems: it gets the order of explanation right and it explains how pain 's affective phenomenology can rationalise bodily-directed beliefs, desires, and behaviours. For this reason, we argue that representationalism has a significant advantage in the debates about pain 's affective phenomenology. We end the paper by examining objections, including the question of what representationalists should say about so-called ‘disassociation cases’, such as pain asymbolia. (shrink)

In this paper, we explain and showcase the promising methodology of testimonial network analysis and visualization for experimental epistemology, arguing that it can be used to gain insights and answer philosophical questions in social epistemology. Our use case is the epistemic community that discusses vaccine safety primarily in English on Twitter. In two studies, we show, using both statistical analysis and exploratory data visualization, that there is almost no neutral or ambivalent discussion of vaccine safety on Twitter. Roughly half the (...) accounts engaging with this topic are pro-vaccine, while the other half are con-vaccine. We also show that these two camps rarely engage with one another, and that the con-vaccine camp has greater epistemic reach and receptivity than the pro-vaccine camp. In light of these findings, we question whether testimonial networks as they are currently constituted on popular fora such as Twitter are living up to their promise of delivering the wisdom of crowds. We conclude by pointing to directions for further research in digital social epistemology. (shrink)

The creation of guidelines has long been a popular means of conveying normative requirements in scientific and medical research. The recent case of He Jiankui, whose research flouted both widely accepted ethical standards and a set of field-specific guidelines he co-authored, raises the question of whether guidelines are an effective means of preventing misconduct. This paper advances the theory that guidelines can facilitate moral rationalization, a form of motivated reasoning. Moral rationalization in research occurs when individuals justify their actions with (...) plausible reasons that cohere with their moral standards. This allows them to act as they want while believing in their own goodness. If guidelines facilitate moral rationalization, this has implications for research ethics training and for the work of applied ethicists. Research ethics training ought to incorporate reflection on conative features of reasoning, including incentives to commit misconduct, and applied ethicists ought to be circumspect about their use of ethics guidelines. Otherwise, they are feeding the fire of rationalization with the cognitive material practitioners need to accomplish their desired ends. (shrink)

Optogenetic techniques are described as “revolutionary” for the unprecedented causal control they allow neuroscientists to exert over neural activity in awake behaving animals. In this paper, I demonstrate by means of a case study that optogenetic techniques will only illuminate causal links between the brain and behavior to the extent that their error characteristics are known and, further, that determining these error characteristics requires comparison of optogenetic techniques with techniques having well known error characteristics and consideration of the broader neural (...) and behavioral context in which the targets of optogenetic interventions are situated. (shrink)

Ethical analyses of the effects of neural interventions commonly focus on changes to personality and behavior, interpreting these changes in terms of authenticity and identity. These phenomena have led to debate among ethicists about the meaning of these terms for ethical analysis of such interventions. While these theoretical approaches have different criteria for ethical significance, they agree that patients’ reports are concerning because a sense of self is valuable. In this paper, I question this assumption. I propose that the Buddhist (...) theory of no‐self offers a novel approach to making ethical sense of patients’ claims following deep brain stimulation. This alternative approach is based on the value of insight into patterns of cause and effect among mental states and actions. (shrink)

Epistemologists have addressed a variety of modal epistemic standings, such as sensitivity, safety, risk, and epistemic virtue. These concepts mark out the ways that beliefs can fail to track the truth, articulate the conditions needed for knowledge, and indicate ways to become a better epistemic agent. However, it is our contention that current ways of carving up epistemic modality ignore the complexities that emerge when individuals are embedded within a community and listening to a variety of sources, some of whom (...) are intentionally engaged in deception or bullshit. In this context we want our beliefs to be secure. In this paper we translate the epistemic modal standing of safety into a framework appropriate for social epistemology and argue for the importance of epistemic network-security and belief-security to be added to this framework. We discuss the virtues that are salient for promoting network-security and the vices that undermine it. In particular, we highlight monitoring, adjusting, and restructuring virtues and vices. Importantly, each of these vices can be other-regarding or self-regarding. For example, one tempting way of dealing with insecurity within a network is to completely cut oneself off from biased sources. However, we argue that this is a self-regarding restructuring vice because it closes oneself off from opportunities for epistemic growth. By contrast, an other-regarding restructuring vice would be to cut off others from hearing from sources of information that would make their network more secure. (shrink)

In this article, I explain why stabilizing constructs is important to the success of the Research Domain Criteria Project and identify one measure for facilitating such stability.

Vigorous debate over the moral propriety of cognitive enhancement exists, but the views of the public have been largely absent from the discussion. To address this gap in our knowledge, four experiments were carried out with contrastive vignettes in order to obtain quantitative data on public attitudes towards cognitive enhancement. The data collected suggest that the public is sensitive to and capable of understanding the four cardinal concerns identified by neuroethicists, and tend to cautiously accept cognitive enhancement even as they (...) recognize its potential perils. The public is biopolitically moderate, endorses both meritocratic principles and the intrinsic value of hard work, and appears to be sensitive to the salient moral issues raised in the debate. Taken together, these data suggest that public attitudes toward enhancement are sufficiently sophisticated to merit inclusion in policy deliberations, especially if we seek to align public sentiment and policy. (shrink)

Crime is a serious social problem, but its causes are not exclusively social. There is growing consensus that explaining and preventing it requires interdisciplinary research efforts. Indeed, the landscape of contemporary criminology includes a variety of theoretical models that incorporate psychological, biological and sociological factors. These multi-disciplinary approaches, however, have yet to radically advance scientific understandings of crime and shed light on how to manage it. In this paper, using conceptual tools on offer in the philosophy of science in combination (...) with theoretical work represented in this special volume of Psychology, Crime and Law, I provide some perspective on why explanatory progress in criminology has remained elusive and evaluate some positive proposals for attaining it. -/- . (shrink)

How should we respond to extremist views that we know are false? This paper proposes that we should be intellectually humble, but not open-minded. We should own our intellectual limitations, but be unwilling to revise our beliefs in the falsity of the extremist views. The opening section makes a case for distinguishing the concept of intellectual humility from the concept of open-mindedness, arguing that open-mindedness requires both a willingness to revise extant beliefs and other-oriented engagement, whereas intellectual humility requires neither. (...) Building on virtue-consequentialism, the second section makes a start on arguing that intellectually virtuous people of a particular sort—people with ‘effects-virtues’—would be intellectually humble, but not open-minded, in responding to extremist views they knew were false. We suggest that while intellectual humility and open-mindedness often travel together, this is a place where they come apart. (shrink)

In 2007, ten world-renowned neuroscientists proposed “A Decade of the Mind Initiative.” The contention was that, despite the successes of the Decade of the Brain, “a fundamental understanding of how the brain gives rise to the mind [was] still lacking” (2007, 1321). The primary aims of the decade of the mind were “to build on the progress of the recent Decade of the Brain (1990-99)” by focusing on “four broad but intertwined areas” of research, including: healing and protecting, understanding, enriching, (...) and modeling the mind. These four aims were to be the result of “transdisciplinary and multiagency” research spanning “across disparate fields, such as cognitive science, medicine, neuroscience, psychology, mathematics, engineering, and computer science.” The proposal for a decade of the mind prompted many questions (See Spitzer 2008). In this chapter, I address three of them: (1) How do proponents of this new decade conceive of the mind? (2) Why should a decade be devoted to understanding it? (3) What should this decade look like? (shrink)

Neuroscience is a laboratory-based science that spans multiple levels of analysis from molecular genetics to behavior. At every level of analysis experiments are designed in order to answer empirical questions about phenomena of interest. Understanding the nature and structure of experimentation in neuroscience is fundamental for assessing the quality of the evidence produced by such experiments and the kinds of claims that are warranted by the data. This article provides a general conceptual framework for thinking about evidence and experimentation in (...) neuroscience with a particular focus on two research areas: cognitive neuroscience and cognitive neurobiology. (shrink)

Recent discussions in the history of analytic philosophy have targeted questions about the concept of ‘Analytic Philosophy’ itself. Scholars, such as Glock (2008) and Preston (2004), have argued that ‘Analytic Philosophy’ cannot plausibly be characterised in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions and that other, more pragmatic, approaches must be taken instead. In this paper, we argue that similar questions that have recently emerged about the status of ‘Western Philosophy’ can be informed by these debates in the history of analytic (...) philosophy. Some recent scholars, most notably Platzky Miller (2023) and Cantor (2022), have argued that the concept of ‘Western philosophy’ should be abandoned altogether, due to its incoherence and the role it plays in upholding and perpetuating various exclusionary mechanisms and politically dubious aims. The aim of this paper is to apply the lessons learnt from similar discussions about ‘Analytic Philosophy’ and to build on Platzky Miller’s and Cantor’s innovative proposals. We argue that the term should not be abandoned altogether and that continuing to use it is required for combating exclusions in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

To develop rehabilitative treatment programs for persons who have committed crimes, correctional psychologists build theoretical structures that weld theoretical ideas about the causes of criminal behavior, theoretical perspectives about appropriate targets for correctional intervention and normative assumptions about crime and the aims of correctional intervention. To differentiate the tri-partite theoretical structure with which correctional program designers' work, Ward and Durrant (2021) introduce the metatheoretical concept of “practice frameworks”. In this paper, I describe and evaluate this concept, situating my analysis within (...) the broader contexts of philosophical work on scientific theories and models and metatheoretical work on the structure of explanatory and intervention theories in correctional psychology. (shrink)

What role does the concept of representation play in the contexts of experimentation and explanation in cognitive neurobiology? In this article, a distinction is drawn between minimal and substantive roles for representation. It is argued by appeal to a case study that representation currently plays a role in cognitive neurobiology somewhere in between minimal and substantive and that this is problematic given the ultimate explanatory goals of cognitive neurobiological research. It is suggested that what is needed is for representation to (...) instead play a more substantive role. (shrink)

This paper argues that the concept of paternalism is currently overextended to include a variety of actions that, while resembling paternalistic actions, are importantly different. I use the example of Japanese physicians’ non-disclosures of cancer diagnoses directly to patients, arguing that the concept of maternalism better captures these actions. To act paternalistically is to substitute one's own judgement for that of another person and decide in place of that person for his/her best interest. By contrast, to act maternalistically is to (...) decide for another person based on a reasonable understanding of that person's own preferences. The concept of maternalism allows for a more thorough assessment of the moral justification of these types of actions. I conclude that it is possible, at least in principle, to justify Japanese physicians’ non-disclosures, and that this justification must be based on an understanding of these actions as maternalistic. (shrink)

One might be inclined to assume, given the mouse donning its cover, that the behavior of interest in Nicole Nelson's book Model Behavior (2018) is that of organisms like mice that are widely used as “stand-ins” for investigating the causes of human behavior. Instead, Nelson's ethnographic study focuses on the strategies adopted by a community of rodent behavioral researchers to identify and respond to epistemic challenges they face in using mice as models to understand the causes of disordered human behaviors (...) associated with mental illness. Although Nelson never explicitly describes the knowledge production activities in which her behavioral geneticist research subjects engage as “exemplary”, the question of whether or not these activities constitute “model behavior(s)”—generalizable norms for engaging in scientific research—is one of the many thought-provoking questions raised by her book. As a philosopher of science interested in this question, I take it up here. (shrink)

Inferentialism is the view that representational content is explained by lingual or mental states interacting according to inferential rules. Mendelovici and Bourget have argued against inferentialism that rules of inference do not sufficiently constrain content. This paper argues that their argument can be further strengthened such that its conclusion yields that content and inferential roles are strictly independent. It will then be argued that this conclusion is untenable and that the argument, rather than undermining inferentialism, corrodes the model theoretic foundations (...) of standard philosophical semantics. The paper concludes with some hints towards an alternative semantic paradigm. (shrink)

Sullivan surveys the philosophical problem-areas surrounding multiculturalism as an ideology of group-identity. While endorsing the claims of underrepresented minorities for recognition, the article sides with traditionalists in prioritizing the autonomy of the self-fashioning individual over ethnic or cultural affiliations. The multicultural challenge to Western logocentrism, its assertion of the implicit power structures embedded in truth claims, and the excesses of postmodern relativism are all subjected to measured criticism. Finally, the essay examines Habermas' role in postwar Germany's embrace of multiculturalism (...) as a national platform of reinvention, and as a means to negate the trauma of the monocultural chauvinism of the Nazi era. However, Sullivan argues, it has taken cosmopolitanism too far. While post-national strategies such as Habermas' Verfassungspatriotismus are well-intentioned, they are ultimately too sterile, universalist and abstract, to satisfy a deep human need for belonging, rooted in a common cultural heritage. -/- All rights reserved. For permission to reprint please contact Rowman & Littlefield. (shrink)

In this chapter, I argue that scientific practice in the neurosciences of cognition is not conducive to the discovery of natural kinds of cognitive capacities. The “neurosciences of cognition” include cognitive neuroscience and cognitive neurobiology, two research areas that aim to understand how the brain gives rise to cognition and behavior. Some philosophers of neuroscience have claimed that explanatory progress in these research areas ultimately will result in the discovery of the underlying mechanisms of cognitive capacities. Once such mechanistic understanding (...) is achieved, cognitive capacities purportedly will be relegated into natural kind categories that correspond to real divisions in the causal structure of the world. I provide reasons here, however, in support of the claim that the neurosciences of cognition currently are not on a trajectory for discovering natural kinds. As I explain, this has to do with how mechanistic explanations of cognitive capacities are developed. Mechanistic explanations and the kinds they explain are abstract representational byproducts of the conceptual, experimental and integrative practices of neuroscientists. If these practices are not coordinated towards developing mechanistic explanations that mirror the causal structure of the world, then natural kinds of cognitive capacities will not be discovered. I provide reasons to think that such coordination is currently lacking in the neurosciences of cognition and indicate where changes in these practices appropriate to the natural kinds ideal would be required if achieving this ideal is indeed the goal. However, I suggest that an evaluation of current practices in these research areas is suggestive that discovering natural kinds of cognitive capacities is not the goal. (shrink)

Do perceptual states necessarily constitute evidence epistemically supporting corresponding perceptual beliefs? Susanna Schellenberg thinks so. She argues that perceptual states, veridical or not, necessarily provide (or constitute) a kind of evidence (for the existence of the truth-maker) supporting corresponding perceptual beliefs. She uses “phenomenal evidence” as a label for this kind of evidence and calls her argument “The Phenomenal Evidence Argument.” Having introduced her project, we offer a reconstruction of Schellenberg’s argument. A key premise has it that, necessarily, for items (...) with a function, fulfillment of the function (the good case) is explanatorily and metaphysically prior to function failure (the bad case). We suggest that the etiological theory of functions renders this key premise plausible. However, Schellenberg rejects the etiological theory of functions and likewise the idea that the epistemic or warranting force of perceptual states is grounded in their being reliably linked to veridical perception. But then what supports the key premise? Schellenberg argues that accurate perception is a part of the nature of perceptual capacities because the nature of perceptual capacities is explained in terms of their function, and their function is to represent accurately. We suggest that Schellenberg is committed to an understanding of priority which doesn’t require any actual good cases—just possible ones. This reading, we argue, is too weak to support the key premise. Given Schellenberg’s commitments, it is not necessarily the case that perceptual states are evidence for a corresponding perceptual belief. Before concluding we discuss an overgeneralization objection. (shrink)

We take up the challenge of developing an international network with capacity to survey the world's scientists on an ongoing basis, providing rich datasets regarding the opinions of scientists and scientific sub-communities, both at a time and also over time. The novel methodology employed sees local coordinators, at each institution in the network, sending survey invitation emails internally to scientists at their home institution. The emails link to a ‘10 second survey’, where the participant is presented with a single statement (...) to consider, and a standard five point Likert scale. In June 2023, a group of 30 philosophers and social scientists invited 20,085 scientists across 30 institutions in 12 countries to participate, gathering 6,807 responses to the statement 'Science has put it beyond reasonable doubt that COVID-19 is caused by a virus'. The study demonstrates that it is possible to establish a global network to quickly ascertain scientific opinion on a large international scale, with high response rate, low opt-out rate, and in a way that allows for significant (perhaps indefinite) repeatability. Measuring scientific opinion in this new way would be a valuable complement to currently available approaches, potentially informing policy decisions and public understanding across diverse fields. (shrink)

Concerns about the risks of unmitigated greenhouse gas emissions are growing. At the same time, confidence that international policy agreements will succeed in considerably lowering anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is declining. Perhaps as a result, various geoengineering solutions are gaining attention and credibility as a way to manage climate change. Serious consideration is currently being given to proposals to cool the planet through solar-radiation management. Here we analyze how the unique and nontrivial risks of geoengineering strategies pose fundamental questions at (...) the interface between science and ethics. To illustrate the importance of integrated ethical and scientific analysis, we define key open questions and outline a coupled scientific-ethical research agenda to analyze solar-radiation management geoengineering proposals. We identify nine key fields of coupled research including whether solar-radiation management can be tested, how quickly learning could occur, normative decisions embedded in how different climate trajectories are valued, and justice issues regarding distribution of the harms and benefits of geoengineering. To ensure that ethical analyses are coupled with scientific analyses of this form of geoengineering, we advocate that funding agencies recognize the essential nature of this coupled research by establishing an Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications program for solar-radiation management. (shrink)

Ian Hacking instigated a revolution in 20th century philosophy of science by putting experiments (“interventions”) at the top of a philosophical agenda that historically had focused nearly exclusively on representations (“theories”). In this paper, I focus on a set of conceptual tools Hacking (1992) put forward to understand how laboratory sciences become stable and to explain what such stability meant for the prospects of unity of science and kind discovery in experimental science. I first use Hacking’s tools to understand sources (...) of instability and disunity in rodent behavioral neuroscience. I then use them to understand recent grass-roots collaborative open science initiatives aimed at establishing stability in this research area and tease out some implications for unity of science and kind creation and discovery in cognitive neuroscience. -/- . (shrink)

People have always shared information through chains and networks of testimony. It’s arguably part of what makes us human and enables us to live in cooperative communities with populations greater than the Dunbar number. The invention of the Internet and the rise of social media have turbo-charged our ability to share information. In this chapter, we develop a normative framework for sharing information online. This framework takes into account both ethical and epistemic considerations that are intertwined in typical cases of (...) online testimony. We argue that, while the current state of affairs is not entirely novel, recent technological developments call for a rethinking of the norms of testimony, as well as the articulation of a set of virtuous dispositions that people would do well to cultivate in the capacity as conduits (not just sources or receivers) of information. (shrink)