Conceptual engineering is the method for assessing and improving our concepts. However, little has been written about how best to conceive of concepts for the purposes of conceptual engineering. In this paper, I aim to fill this foundational gap, proceeding in three main steps: First, I propose a methodological framework for evaluating the conduciveness of a given concept of concept for conceptual engineering. Then, I develop a typology that contrasts two competing concepts of concept that can be (...) used in conceptual engineering — namely, the philosophical and psychological ones. Finally, I evaluate these two concepts of concept using the proposed methodological framework and I show that, when it comes to making conceptual engineering an actionable method, the psychological concept of concept outclasses its philosophical counterpart on all counts. This provides a baseline from which the concept of concept can be further improved for the purposes of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Two main theories of concepts have emerged in the recent psychological literature: the Prototype Theory (which considers concepts to be self-contained lists of features) and the Theory Theory (which conceives of them as being embedded within larger theoretical networks). Experiments supporting the first theory usually differ substantially from those supporting the second, which suggests that these the· ories may be operating at different levels of explanation and dealing with different entities. A convergence is proposed between the Theory Theory (...) and the intentional stance in the philosophy of language and mind. From this stance, concepts should not be thought of as concrete physical entities. (shrink)

A study of the psychology of demoralization affecting university faculty in the liberal arts. This form of demoralization is not adequately understood in terms of the concept of career burnout. Instead, demoralization that affects university faculty in the liberal arts requires a broadened understanding of the historical and psychological situation in which these professors find themselves today.

In this chapter I want to take up the specific question of the relationship between moral education and empirical findings in psychology. I will argue that moral education programmes are theoretically possible and would benefit in their practical application from empirical research already in existence in psychology. I will argue that situationism does not pose a threat for moral education, properly conceived, and that, in fact, educators can and should make use of situational factors. It strikes me that (...) much of the debate in this field is hampered by incomplete or partly inaccurate understandings of the main concepts, in addition to conflicting versions of what it is that we should be aiming for in the first place. (shrink)

Explicit knowledge is consciously accessible to the knower: the person can introspect what it is that they know and articulate it in the form of a statement (Dummett 1991, Davies 2015, Thompson 2023). If a person possesses some knowledge which they are unable to articulate to themselves or others, this knowledge is said to be implicit rather than explicit. Standard examples of implicit knowledge include a speaker’s knowledge of language, or practical knowledge such as how to ride a bike. The (...) concept of implicit knowledge, however, raises challenging philosophical questions. This piece explores some of the different ways in which cognitive psychology can attempt to explain implicit knowledge and considers how these scientific explanations relate to the more traditionally philosophical questions about the concept of implicit knowledge. (shrink)

The short exposition of the triplet model of concepts and some definitions connected with it are given. In this model any concept may be depicted as having three characteristics: a base, a representing part and the linkage between them. The paper introduces the fuzzification of concepts in terms of the triplet model.

Kant's radical criticism of the passions has a central but largely overlooked moral-psychological component: for Kant, the passions promote a kind of self-deception he calls ‘rationalizing’. In analysing the connection between passion and rationalizing self-deception, I identify and reconstruct two essential traits of Kant's conception of the passions. I argue (1) that rationalizing self-deception, according to Kant, contributes massively to the emergence and consolidation of passions. It aims to resolve a psychological conflict between passion and moral duty when in fact, (...) it does not resolve but perpetuates this conflict. I then argue (2) that rationalizing does not necessarily aim to devalue moral duty, as Kant seems to suggest in the Groundwork. It can also aim to revalue the ‘counterweight’. By analysing Kant's presentation of several individual passions in the Anthropology, I demonstrate that rationalizing here is concerned with elevating these passions and making them pass as morally (or at least prudentially) justified. (shrink)

In “Rethinking Norm Psychology,” Cecilia Heyes offers an insightful critique of nativist approaches to the psychology of norms and then proposes a plausible alternative model grounded in the theory of cognitive gadgets. We are broadly sympathetic to both the critique and to the cognitive-gadgets model, though our own pluralistic approach to the psychology of norms (Westra & Andrews, 2022) leads us to think that the range of psychological and ecological processes that contributes to our norm psychology (...) is even more diverse than what Heyes proposes. Here, though, we focus on Heyes’s conceptual critique of the nativist model and its explanatory target—namely, a system for representing and processing rules. Heyes’s criticism of this representational rule-based conception of the psychology of norms is quite sound. However, we will argue that Heyes’s alternative behavioral explanandum for the psychology of norms also fails to escape the gravitational pull of a rule-based approach. (shrink)

Social norms are commonly understood as rules that dictate which behaviors are appropriate, permissible, or obligatory in different situations for members of a given community. Many researchers have sought to explain the ubiquity of social norms in human life in terms of the psychological mechanisms underlying their acquisition, conformity, and enforcement. Existing theories of the psychology of social norms appeal to a variety of constructs, from prediction-error minimization, to reinforcement learning, to shared intentionality, to domain-specific adaptations for norm acquisition. (...) In this paper, we propose a novel methodological and conceptual framework for the cognitive science of social norms that we call normative pluralism. We begin with an analysis of the explanatory aims of the cognitive science of social norms. From this analysis, we derive a recommendation for a reformed conception of its explanandum: a minimally psychological construct that we call normative regularities. Our central empirical proposal is that the psychological underpinnings of social norms are most likely realized by a heterogeneous set of cognitive, motivational, and ecological mechanisms that vary between norms and between individuals, rather than by a single type of process or distinctive norm system. This pluralistic approach, we suggest, offers a methodologically sound point of departure for a fruitful and rigorous science of social norms. (shrink)

William James was one of the most controversial philosophers of the early part of the 20 century, and his apparent skepticism about logic and any robust conception of truth was often simply attributed to his endorsing mysticism and irrationality out of an overwhelming desire to make room for religion in his world-view. However, it will be argued here that James’s pessimism about logic and even truth (or at least ‘absolute’ truth), while most prominent in his later views, stem from the (...) naturalistic conception of concepts developed much earlier in The Principles of Psychology (1890), and it is his commitment to naturalism about our conceptual powers, rather than to any sort of mysticism or irrationalism, that motivates his skepticism about the scope and power of logic, and ultimately about the objectivity of truth itself. (shrink)

In this thesis I argue that the psychological study of concepts and categorisation, and the philosophical study of reference are deeply intertwined. I propose that semantic intuitions are a variety of categorisation judgements, determined by concepts, and that because of this, concepts determine reference. I defend a dual theory of natural kind concepts, according to which natural kind concepts have distinct semantic cores and non-semantic identification procedures. Drawing on psychological essentialism, I suggest that the cores (...) consist of externalistic placeholder essence beliefs. The identification procedures, in turn, consist of prototypes, sets of exemplars, or possibly also theory-structured beliefs. I argue that the dual theory is motivated both by experimental data and theoretical considerations. The thesis consists of three interrelated articles. Article I examines philosophical causal and description theories of natural kind term reference, and argues that they involve, or need to involve, certain psychological elements. I propose a unified theory of natural kind term reference, built on the psychology of concepts. Article II presents two semantic adaptations of psychological essentialism, one of which is a strict externalistic Kripkean-Putnamian theory, while the other is a hybrid account, according to which natural kind terms are ambiguous between internalistic and externalistic senses. We present two experiments, the results of which support the strict externalistic theory. Article III examines Fodor’s influential atomistic theory of concepts, according to which no psychological capacities associated with concepts constitute them, or are necessary for reference. I argue, contra Fodor, that the psychological mechanisms are necessary for reference. (shrink)

The paper discusses the role of the concepts of conatus, potentia, vis in Spinoza's project of a new science of the Galilean kind of the passions of the mind and of men’s way of living. I argue that he tries to work out a dynamic – as contrasted with kinematic – approach to psychology.

Sometimes it happens that the same concept is discussed independently but, at the same time, in different disciplinary fields. The recent dominance of neuroscientific research has reintroduced into the experimental realm the importance of the experimental subject’s self-evaluation to be correlated to detectable changes into brain activity. For example, the experimental subjects are instructed to press a button or move a finger when they perceive or feel something, or they fill questionnaires supposed to measure their experience; all these “data” are (...) then statistically correlated to measures of brain functioning. (shrink)

This article explores the development of the concept of Phenomenological Psychology in the work of the philosopher Edmund Husserl and, more specifically, in the work "Phenomenological Psychology" that corresponds to vol. IX of the complete works of the philosopher, denominated Husserliana. We present the husserlian through the formation of the concept of Phenomenological Psychology and how its understanding makes possible answers to questions about psychology scientificity, which has been present since its foundation as a modern science, (...) at the end of the XIX century. We conclude that it is necessary to construct an intermediate field between Phenomenology and scientific studies in Psychology, through the rediscovery of Husserl's theory over the possibility of a Scientific Psychology of eidetic-transcendental bases and the usage of the phenomenological method, as well as the intersubjective character of human psyque as the basis of this possibility. (shrink)

Mostly philosophers cause trouble. I know because on alternate Thursdays I am one -- and I live in a philosophy department where I watch all of them cause trouble. Everyone in artificial intelligence knows how much trouble philosophers can cause (and in particular, we know how much trouble one philosopher -- John Searle -- has caused). And, we know where they tend to cause it: in knowledge representation and the semantics of data structures. This essay is about a recent case (...) of this sort of thing. One of the take-home messages will be that AI ought to redouble its efforts t o understand concepts. (shrink)

The emotion theory of concepts maintains that concepts may be in part constituted by sentiments and emotions. Very few works in the contemporary concepts literature discuss this possibility that concepts may be sentiments and emotions, and those that do discuss this possibility ultimately fail to establish the viability of this view. However, by in part relying on experimental evidence from psychology and neuroscience, I contend that some concrete and abstract concepts are in part constituted (...) by sentiments and emotions. (shrink)

The present article discusses the measurement of social class in the social psychology of education research. It was evident that social class experiences are conflated with the socioeconomic status indicators and the subjective measure of the class context was underrepresented. However, this was discussed in Rubin et al about the intersectional nature of social class taking into account both objective and subjective indicators. The derivation of the social class experience from the objective and subjective measures were critically discussed. An (...) effort was made to understand whether these translations are category mistake or not. Three trajectories will be utilized to address the category mistake, that is, 1) subjectivity and objectivity debate in the measurement of social class in social psychology of education, 2) debates encircling around the position of social psychology and its underutilized concept such as social class as scientifically objective facets in social sciences and 3) operationalism of social class and category mistake. (shrink)

One of the standard examples in contemporary moral psychology originates in the works of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He treats people's responses to the story of Julie and Mark, two siblings who decide to have casual, consensual, protected sex, as facts of human morality, providing evidence for his social intuitionist approach to moral judgements. We argue that Haidt's description of the facts of the story and the reactions of the respondents as ‘morally dumbfounded’ presupposes a view about moral reasoning (...) that is more substantial than he acknowledges. Drawing on the philosophical work by Iris Murdoch and Cora Diamond, we explore how different descriptions of human morality, sexuality, and family relations engage us in evaluations about distinctive features of human life and language that go deeper than Haidt envisages. Thus, we show the need to attend to the concepts used to describe the facts of human moral psychology and the pictures of morality these concepts reveal about the researcher's own understanding of moral experience. This points to the particular responsibility any researcher into human moral psychology has for ensuring that the descriptions they offer are attuned to the complexities of the lives of those they form theories about and that these do not appear conceptually confounding. (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)

The paper aims to define the concept of “felt sense”, introduced in psychology and psychotherapy by E. T. Gendlin, in order to clarify its relation to bodily sensations and its difference from emotions. Gendlin’s own definition, according to which the felt sense is a conceptually vague bodily feeling with implicit meaning, is too general for this task. Gendlin’s definition is specified by pointing out, first, the different layers of awareness of bodily feelings and, second, the difference between bodily readiness (...) for action and motivation for action. According to the more precise definition, the felt sense is the awareness of readiness to act carried by the configuration of bodily sensations. The felt sense differs from emotions because it is not able to motivate the action for which it makes us ready. The article also discusses the intuition that led to the founding of Gendlin’s psychotherapeutic technique and compares it with the psychoanalytic concept of working through resistance during therapy. (shrink)

Why are there so many controversies in evolutionary psychology? Using a couple of concepts from philosophy of science, this paper argues that evolutionary psychology has not reached the stage of mature, normal science, since it does not currently have a unifying research program that guides individual scientists working in the discipline. The argument goes against claims made by certain proponents and opponents of evolutionary psychology, and it is supported by discussion of several examples. The paper notes (...) that just because evolutionary psychology has not reached the stage of normal science, the discipline is nevertheless a source of many progressive theoretical developments and interesting empirical discoveries. (shrink)

When empirical psychology mostly focuses on physiological processes and external behavior that have their own concepts, the meaning of psychological concepts becomes obscure. If there are only physical processes and external behavior, then why are psychological concepts needed in the empirical sciences? Since the late 19th century, empirical psychologists and cognitive scientists have argued that introspective information about normal psychological processes is not reliable. Furthermore, many philosophers consider that the physicalist theory of mind is true, which (...) would imply that psychological concepts are only words without explanatory power. However, without introspection, we would not be able to form concepts about other minds and psychological phenomena and understand the psychological states of other people or animals. The meaning of a psychological concept is neither its use for external behavior nor language use in context. (shrink)

The human mind is capable of entertaining an astounding range of thoughts. These thoughts are composed of concepts or ideas, which are the building blocks of thoughts. This book is about where all of these concepts come from and the psychological structures that ultimately account for their acquisition. We argue that the debate over the origins of concepts, known as the rationalism-empiricism debate, has been widely misunderstood—not just by its critics but also by researchers who have been (...) active participants in the debate. Part I fundamentally rethinks the foundations of the debate. Part II defends a rationalist view of the origins of concepts according to which many concepts across many conceptual domains are either innate or acquired via rationalist learning mechanisms. Our case is built around seven distinct arguments, which together form a large-scale inference to the best explanation argument for our account. Part III then defends this account against the most important empiricist objections and alternatives. Finally, Part IV argues against an extreme but highly influential rationalist view—Jerry Fodor’s infamous view that it is impossible to learn new concepts and his related radical concept nativism, which holds that essentially all lexical concepts are innate. Throughout the book, our discussion blends philosophical and theoretical reflection with consideration of a broad range of empirical work drawn from many different disciplines studying the mind, providing a thorough update to the rationalism-empiricism debate in philosophy and cognitive science and a major new rationalist account of the origins of concepts. [An open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence]. (shrink)

Edouard Machery has argued that the notion of concept should be eliminated from scientific theorising about cognition on the grounds that what psychologists call concepts do not form a natural kind and that keeping this notion would encumber scientific progress. His view is that the class of concepts really divides into three distinct yet co-referential kinds of bodies of knowledge typically used in distinct cognitive processes. The main purpose of this paper is to challenge Machery’s eliminativist conclusion on (...) the grounds that his alternative to concepts fails to be combined with any prominent account of content determination. As a case of philosophical scrutiny of a psychological proposal, the paper also intends to show how philosophical and psychological interests in concepts can be brought together. (shrink)

One particularly successful approach to modeling within cognitive science is computational psychology. Computational psychology explores psychological processes by building and testing computational models with human data. In this paper, it is argued that a specific approach to understanding computation, what is called the ‘narrow conception’, has problematically limited the kinds of models, theories, and explanations that are offered within computational psychology. After raising two problems for the narrow conception, an alternative, ‘wide approach’ to computational psychology is (...) proposed. (shrink)

The renewed interest in concepts and their role in psychological theorizing is partially motivated by Machery’s claim that concepts are so heterogeneous that they have no explanatory role. Against this, pluralism argues that there is multiplicity of different concepts for any given category, while hybridism argues that a concept is constituted by a rich common representation. This article aims to advance the understanding of the hybrid view of concepts. First, we examine the main arguments against hybrid (...) concepts and conclude that, even if not successful, they challenge hybridism to find a robust criterion for concept individuation and to show an explanatory advantage for hybrid concepts. Then we propose such a criterion of individuation, which we will call ‘functional stable coactivation’. Finally, we examine the prospects of hybridism to understand what is involved in recent approaches to categorization and meaning extraction. 1 The Heterogeneity of Conceptual Representations2 Two Challenges for Hybrid Concepts: Individuation and Explanation2.1 The coordination criterion2.2 Concepts as constituents of thoughts3 Individuating Hybrids: Functional Stable Coactivation4 The Explanatory Power of Hybrid Concepts4.1 Categorization4.2 Meaning extraction4.2.1 Linguistic comprehension and rich lexical entries4.2.2 Polysemy and hybrid concepts5 Conclusion. (shrink)

Prior work on weakness of will has assumed that it is a thoroughly psychological phenomenon. At least, it has assumed that ordinary attributions of weakness of will are purely psychological attributions, keyed to the violation of practical commitments by the weak-willed agent. Debate has recently focused on which sort of practical commitment, intention or normative judgment, is more central to the ordinary concept of weakness of will. We report five experiments that significantly advance our understanding of weakness of will attributions (...) by showing that the ordinary concept of weakness of will is less thoroughly psychological than the philosophical debate has assumed. We begin by showing that a sizable minority of people attribute weakness of will even in the absence of a violated commitment (Experiment 1). We then show that weakness of will attributions are sensitive to two important non-psychological factors. First, for actions stereotypically associated with weakness of will, the absence of certain commitments often triggers weakness of will attributions (Experiments 2–4). Second, the quality of an action’s outcome affects the extent to which an agent is viewed as weak-willed: actions with bad consequences are more likely to be viewed as weak-willed (Experiment 5). Our most important finding is that the ordinary concept of weakness of will is sensitive to two non-psychological factors and is thus much broader than philosophers have thus far imagined. We conclude by suggesting a two-tier model that unites our findings with traditional philosophical theorizing about weakness of will. (shrink)

Despite the current surge of interest in loneliness, its health consequences, and possible remedies, the concept itself remains poorly understood. This paper seeks to contribute to a more fully worked out account of what loneliness consists in. It does this by stressing that loneliness always has an experiential component and by introducing a simple psychological structure to analyze the experience. On this basis, it suggests that we can distinguish between three ways of thinking about the phenomenal dimension of loneliness. There (...) are objectivist views that seek to understand loneliness by a description of its intentional object, subjectivist views that consider its holistic relation to other aspects of the sufferer's psyche, and embodied and enacted views that focus on the relation between the lonely person's mental life and her social environment. The aim is not to adjudicate between these views or to suggest that they are mutually exclusive. Rather, this paper recommends a pluralistic framework on which all three approaches have something to contribute to a fuller understanding of the condition and may be of use in devising measures aimed at improving sufferers' health. (shrink)

There are many views about the structure of concepts, a plausible one of which is the theory-theory. Though this view is plausible for concrete concepts, it is unclear that it would work for abstract concepts, and then for moral concepts. The goal of this paper is to provide a plausible theory-theory account for moral concepts and show that it is supported by results in the moral psychology literature. Such studies in moral psychology do (...) not explicitly contend for the theory-theory of moral concepts, but I demonstrate that they actually do provide evidence for the use of theory knowledge at times in moral categorization and decision-making. In philosophy of cognitive science, I newly show that there is evidence that the theory-theory does apply to some moral concepts. (shrink)

How feasible are conceptual engineering projects of social concepts that aim for the engineered concept to be widely adopted in ordinary everyday life? Predominant frameworks on the psychology of concepts that shape work on stereotyping, bias, and machine learning have grim implications for the prospects of conceptual engineers: conceptual engineering efforts are ineffective in promoting certain social-conceptual changes. Specifically, since conceptual components that give rise to problematic social stereotypes are sensitive to statistical structures of the environment, purely (...) conceptual change won’t be possible without corresponding world change. This tradition, however, tends to ignore that concepts don’t only encode statistical, but also causal information. Paying attention to this feature of concepts, I argue, shows that conceptual engineering is not only possible. There is an imperative to conceptually-engineer. (shrink)

Remhof contends that Nietzsche is a metaphysician. According to his Meta-Metaphysical Argument, Nietzsche’s texts satisfy the criteria for an adequate conception of metaphysics. According to his Constructivist Argument, Nietzsche adopts a metaphysical position on which concepts’ application conditions constitute the identity conditions of their objects. This article critically appraises these arguments. I maintain that the criteria advanced in the Meta-Metaphysical Argument are collectively insufficient for delineating metaphysics as a distinct field of inquiry and that the Constructivist Argument attributes a (...) position to Nietzsche that remains vulnerable to his evaluative and psychological indictments of two-world metaphysics. I conclude by discussing how these objections might help non-metaphysical readers of Nietzsche resist Remhof’s interpretation. (shrink)

Time has multiple aspects and is difficult to define as one unique entity, which therefore led to multiple interpretations in physics and philosophy. However, if the perception of time is considered as a composite time concept, it can be decomposed into basic invariable components for the perception of progressive and support-fixed time and into secondary components with possible association to unit-defined time or tense. Progressive time corresponds to Bergson’s definition of duration without boundaries, which cannot be divided for measurements. Time (...) periods are already lying in the past and fixed on different kinds of support. The human memory is the first automatic support, but any other support suitable for time registration can also be considered. The true reproduction of original time from any support requires conditions identical to the initial conditions, if not time reproduction becomes artificially modified as can be seen with a film. Time reproduction can be artificially accelerated, slowed down, extended or diminished, and also inverted from the present to the past, which only depends on the manipulation of the support, to which time is firmly linked. Tense associated to progressive and support fixed time is a psychological property directly dependent on an observer, who judges his present as immediate, his past as finished and his future as uncertain. Events can be secondarily associated to the tenses of an observer. Unit-defined time is essential for physics and normal live and is obtained by comparison of support-fixed time to systems with regular motions, like clocks. The association of time perception to time units can also be broken. Einstein’s time units became relative, in quantum mechanics, some physicist eliminated time units, others maintained them. Nevertheless, even the complete elimination of time units is not identical to timelessness, since the psychological perception of progressive and support-fixed time still remains and cannot be ignored. It is not seizable by physical methods, but experienced by everybody in everyday life. Contemporary physics can only abandon the association of time units or tenses to the basic components in perceived time. (shrink)

A long tradition of psychological research has explored the distinction between characteristics that are part of the self and those that lie outside of it. Recently, a surge of research has begun examining a further distinction. Even among characteristics that are internal to the self, people pick out a subset as belonging to the true self. These factors are judged as making people who they really are, deep down. In this paper, we introduce the concept of the true self and (...) identify features that distinguish people’s understanding of the true self from their understanding of the self more generally. In particular, we consider recent findings that the true self is perceived as positive and moral, and that this tendency is actor-observer invariant and cross-culturally stable. We then explore possible explanations for these findings and discuss their implications for a variety of issues in psychology. (shrink)

The contributions that the Frankfurt School offers to Psychology are varied. Specifically, its most eloquent problem was that of being able to discern the characteristics that make indivi-duals authoritarian and violent people. The concern of the Frankfurt writers centers on their own historical situations: the advent of totalitarian governments in Europe causes members to migrate to various countries. Max Horkheimer migrates to the United States where he begins to work on a second stage of his thinking, substantially aimed at (...) reviewing categories used during the 1930s as well as investigating the problem of social violence. His essay writing often hinders theoretical apprehension as a unit, but a search for his transversal concepts allows us to unders-tand his critical conception of society.I propose to outline the fundamental categories of analysis on what I call his Political Social Psychology in order to arrive at a general vision of what Psychology should be for him and what its role should be within Critical Theory. (shrink)

Psychological well-being is a major global concern receiving more scholarly attention following the 2008 Great Recession, and it becomes even more relevant in the context of COVID-19 outbreak. In this study, we investigated the impact of economic uncertainty resulting from natural disasters, epidemics, and financial crisis on individuals' mental health. As unemployment rate exponentially increases, individuals are faced with health and economic concerns. Not all society members are affected to the same extent, and marginalized groups, such as those suffering from (...) chronic mental illnesses or low-income families cannot afford the downsizing, mass lay-offs and lack of access to public health services. Psychiatric profession is familiarized with the phenomenon of intolerance of uncertainty (IU), and we examine how this concept is associated with job uncertainty and social identity disturbance. Several studies have formally investigated the effects of IU, but to our knowledge, this is the first research integrating the psychological well-being, job uncertainty and identity disturbance caused by economic breakdown. Literature points to many reported cases of PTSD, anxiety, depression and suicidal tendencies following major social disasters. Yet, we have undertaken to analyze the subjective experiences underlying the self-harming behaviors in an attempt to fill the methodological gap by drawing insights from prominent psychological, sociological and economic theories. We find economic uncertainty to have a positive relation to job uncertainty and identity disturbance, and a negative relationship with psychological well-being. Psychological well-being depends on coherency between both abstract subjective and concrete objective identity, and when these perceptions are inconsistent, cognitive dissonance arises resulting in identity disturbance. We argue that stability is not associated with monetary advantage only, but also with a wide range of other benefits that are crucial for individuals' growth, satisfaction and sense of identity. Therefore, we propose the implementation of social support and public welfare policies to mitigate health risks during the turbulent socio-economic changes. (shrink)

A widely accepted view in the discussion of personal identity is that the notion of psychological continuity expresses a one--many or many--one relation. This belief is unfounded. A notion of psychological continuity expresses a one--many or many--one relation only if it includes, as a constituent, psychological properties whose relation with their bearers is one--many or many--one; but the relation between an indexical psychological state and its bearer when first tokened is not a one--many or many--one relation. It follows that not (...) all types of psychological continuity may take a one--many or many--one form. This conclusion casts doubt on the Lockean approach to the issue, by showing that the notion of psychological continuity Lockeans rely on may not be available. (shrink)

After 1945, when the Philosophical Investigations were largely finished, Wittgenstein spent his final years undertaking an intensive study of the grammar of our psychological concepts and the philosophical misinterpretations we often assign to them. In the article at hand I do not claim to fathom the full range of Wittgenstein’s thoughts on the philosophy of psychology even in the most general way. Rather it is my intention to shed some light on a diagnosis which he made for the (...) psychology of his time. In Section 2 of this paper I would like to provide a brief sketch of what Wittgenstein considered to be the conceptual confusion prevalent in psychology and to suggest why he did not expect the methods of an experimental science to be successful in solving the problems that concern us in psychology. In Section 3 I’ll attempt to analyze how psychological concepts, according to Wittgenstein, might be construed in order to avoid any type of conceptual confusion. (shrink)

In this chapter we argue that our concept of time is a functional concept. We argue that our concept of time is such that time is whatever it is that plays the time role, and we spell out what we take the time role to consist in. We evaluate this proposal against a number of other analyses of our concept of time, and argue that it better explains various features of our dispositions as speakers and our practices as agents.

Concept representation is still an open problem in the field of ontology engineering and, more generally, of knowledge representation. In particular, the issue of representing “non classical” concepts, i.e. concepts that cannot be defined in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, remains unresolved. In this paper we review empirical evidence from cognitive psychology, according to which concept representation is not a unitary phenomenon. On this basis, we sketch some proposals for concept representation, taking into account suggestions from (...) psychological research. In particular, it seems that human beings employ both prototype-based and exemplar-based representations in order to represent non classical concepts. We suggest that a similar, hybrid prototype-exemplar based approach could also prove useful in the field of knowledge representation technology. Finally, we propose conceptual spaces as a suitable framework for developing some aspects of this proposal. (shrink)

Objective. Study of the Covid-19 related quarantine concept as an emerging category of linguistic consciousness of Ukrainians. -/- Materials & Methods. The strategy of the study is based on the logical and methodological concept of inductivism. Respondents were asked to write down their own understanding of the quarantine, formulate an appropriate definition and describe the situation, which in their opinion is the exact opposite to quarantine. Respondents also assessed how much their psychological well-being, their daily lifestyle during quarantine had changed, (...) and ranked their preferences for the quarantine strategies proposed to them. A discursive analysis was applied to the obtained texts, as a result of which nine discourses were identified. These data, along with some socio-demographic characteristics were subjected to multidimensional mathematical and statistical processing. -/- Results. Covid-19 related quarantine is represented in the linguistic consciousness of Russian-speaking Ukrainians by a discursive field, which includes at least nine recognizable, semantically autonomous discourses. Empirically discovered such phenomenon as – inter-discourse semantic dissociation. Its essence is a statistically significant reduction in the probability of some discourses appearing in the texts when others are being actualized there. This feature is associated with the innate negativity of the language and determines the semantic biasing of the quarantine concept. Inter-discourse semantic dissociation, as well as the influence of non-discursive factors constitute the discursive formation of the quarantine concept, which is qualitatively characterized by the hierarchical relationship of its components. At the same time, it was revealed that part of the discourses interacting “horizontally” are indirectly associated “vertically”, which forms the stable semantic core of the quarantine concept. Partial empirical confirmation has been found of the previously put forward assumptions about: a) the existence of such a relationship between discourses and psychological defense mechanisms (as character-forming factors) that contributes to the hierarchical structure construction of discursive formations; b) the differential nature of discourses and mechanisms of psychological defenses interaction, which makes it possible to single out the discursive aspect in a characterological profile and consider a discourse as an operator of characterological semantics. -/- Conclusions. An empirical study made it possible to form a primary idea of the substantive and structural semantic features of the quarantine concept, as an emerging category of linguistic consciousness of Ukrainians. The results obtained have a potentially useful application perspective. Thus, when implementing anti-epidemiological measures, it is important to consider the studied features of the discursive formation hierarchical structure of the quarantine concept, since discursive semantics are associated with cognitive focusing, which, in turn, affects the behavior direction and its upshots. (shrink)

Numbers are concepts whose content, structure, and organization are influenced by the material forms used to represent and manipulate them. Indeed, as argued here, it is the inclusion of multiple forms (distributed objects, fingers, single- and two-dimensional forms like pebbles and abaci, and written notations) that is the mechanism of numerical elaboration. Further, variety in employed forms explains at least part of the synchronic and diachronic variability that exists between and within cultural number systems. Material forms also impart characteristics (...) like linearity that may persist in the form of knowledge and behaviors, ultimately yielding numerical concepts that are irreducible to and functionally independent of any particular form. Material devices used to represent and manipulate numbers also interact with language in ways that reinforce or contrast different aspects of numerical cognition. Not only does this interaction potentially explain some of the unique aspects of numerical language, it suggests that the two are complementary but ultimately distinct means of accessing numerical intuitions and insights. The potential inclusion of materiality in contemporary research in numerical cognition is advocated, both for its explanatory power, as well as its influence on psychological, behavioral, and linguistic aspects of numerical cognition. (shrink)

Understanding the role of (human) Free Will is a necessary premise and substantial process for the appropriate application of any healing art, starting with psychotherapeutic approached focused on the amelioration and improvement of emotional, cognitive, and behavioral elements in the suffering person, and more generally in the path toward healing and truth every person embarks on. This article examines the three interconnected areas of philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience to explore what the existence and activation of Free Will represents in (...) the life of human beings, from its clinical-medical-therapeutic outcomes to its implications to identity, community, and society. (shrink)

Abstract: There has recently been controversy over the existence of 'multiple realization' in addition to some confusion between different conceptions of its nature. To resolve these problems, we focus on concrete examples from the sciences to provide precise accounts of the scientific concepts of 'realization' and 'multiple realization' that have played key roles in recent debates in the philosophy of science and philosophy of psychology. We illustrate the advantages of our view over a prominent rival account ( Shapiro, (...) 2000 and 2004 ) and use our work to rebut recent objections to the long-standing claim that psychological properties are multiply realized. For we use scientific evidence, in combination with our more precise theoretical framework, to show that we have strong reason to believe that psychological properties are indeed multiply realized both at the biochemical and neuronal levels. (shrink)

In the prospectus for his later work pronounced in 1952, Merleau-Ponty announced that his move beyond the phenomenological to the ontological level of analysis is motivated by issues of sociality, notably communication with others.' I propose to interrogate this priority attributed by the author to this interpersonal bond in his reflections on corporeality in general, marking a departure from The Structure of Behavior and The Phenomenology of Perception, which privileged the starting point of consciousness and the body proper. My interest (...) lies particularly in exposing the psychological sources of Merleau-Ponty's thinking about the primacy of sociality. Referring to his lectures on Child Psychology and Pedagogy, which he delivered as Professor at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1949-52,2 I will develop the contention that the developmental psychology of child sociality significantly informed his understanding of relations between self and other laid out in the later texts, and henceforth informed also his conception of the flesh. Specifically, the psychological hypotheses about the anonymous and fusional form initially taken by human sociality appears to play a determining role in his conception of interpersonal life formulated on the ontological plane. I will then point to the internal tensions involved in the theory of sociality based on the thesis of anonymity and disclose an alternative theoretical account, which has the merit of preserving the advantages of the anonymity thesis while avoiding its drawbacks; it also facilitates continued dialogue between Merleau-Ponty's philosophy and recent developmental psychology. (shrink)

For a long time philosophers have struggled to reach a definition of knowledge that is fully satisfactory from an intuitive standard. However, what could be so fuzzy about the concept of knowledge that it makes our intuitions to not obviously support a single analysis? One particular approach from a naturalistic perspective treats this question from the point of view of the psychology of concepts. According to it, this failure is explained by the structure of our folk concept of (...) knowledge, which organizes its constitutive information in a much looser way than we assume when we rely on intuitive knowledge ascriptions. I will adopt the same starting point here, but argue against the proposed answer and defend the view that this difficulty is explained not by something related to the specific structure of our concept of knowledge but, on the contrary, by its lack of structure. I claim that our folk concept of knowledge should be understood as a primitive mental state concept. (shrink)

A new model of the development of temporal concepts is described that assumes that there are substantial changes in how children think about time in the early years. It is argued that there is a shift from understanding time in an event-dependent way to an event-independent understanding of time. Early in development, very young children are unable to think about locations in time independently of the events that occur at those locations. It is only with development that children begin (...) to have a proper grasp of the distinction between past, present, and future, and represent time as linear and unidirectional. The model assumes that although children aged 2 to 3 years may categorize events differently depending on whether they lie in the past or the future, they may not be able to understand that whether an event is in the past or future is something that changes as time passes and varies with temporal perspective. Around 4 to 5 years, children understand how causality operates in time, and can grasp the systematic relations that obtain between different locations in time, which provides the basis for acquiring the conventional clock and calendar system. (shrink)

This collection arose out of a conference on intuitions at the University of Notre Dame in April 1996. The papers in it mainly address two related questions: (a) How much evidential weight should be assigned to intuitions? and (b) Are concepts governed by necessary and sufficient conditions, or are they governed by ‘family resemblance’ conditions, as Wittgenstein suggested? The book includes four papers by psychologists relating and analyzing some empirical findings concerning intuitions and eleven papers by philosophers endorsing various (...) answers to these questions. (shrink)

The notion of information processing has dominated the study of the mind for over six decades. However, before the advent of cognitivism, one of the most prominent theoretical ideas was that of Habit. This is a concept with a rich and complex history, which is again starting to awaken interest, following recent embodied, enactive critiques of computationalist frameworks. We offer here a very brief history of the concept of habit in the form of a genealogical network-map. This serves to provide (...) an overview of the richness of this notion and as a guide for further re-appraisal. We identify 77 thinkers and their influences, and group them into seven schools of thought. Two major trends can be distinguished. One is the associationist trend, starting with the work of Locke and Hume, developed by Hartley, Bain, and Mill to be later absorbed into behaviorism through pioneering animal psychologists (Morgan and Thorndike). This tradition conceived of habits atomistically and as automatisms (a conception later debunked by cognitivism). Another historical trend we have called organicism inherits the legacy of Aristotle and develops along German idealism, French spiritualism, pragmatism, and phenomenology. It feeds into the work of continental psychologists in the early 20th century, influencing important figures such as Merleau-Ponty, Piaget, and Gibson. But it has not yet been taken up by mainstream cognitive neuroscience and psychology. Habits, in this tradition, are seen as ecological, self-organizing structures that relate to a web of predispositions and plastic dependencies both in the agent and in the environment. In addition, they are not conceptualized in opposition to rational, volitional processes, but as transversing a continuum from reflective to embodied intentionality. These are properties that make habit a particularly attractive idea for embodied, enactive perspectives, which can now re-evaluate it in light of dynamical systems theory and complexity research. (shrink)

Social psychologists often describe “implicit” racial biases as entirely unconscious, and as mere associations between groups and traits, which lack intentional content, e.g., we associate “black” and “athletic” in much the same way we associate “salt” and “pepper.” However, recent empirical evidence consistently suggests that individuals are aware of their implicit biases, albeit in partial, inarticulate, or even distorted ways. Moreover, evidence suggests that implicit biases are not “dumb” semantic associations, but instead reflect our skillful, norm-sensitive, and embodied engagement with (...) social reality. This essay draws on phenomenological and hermeneutic methods and concepts to better understand what social-psychological research has begun to reveal about the conscious access individuals have to their own racial attitudes, as well as the intentional contents of the attitudes themselves. -/- First, I argue that implicit racial biases form part of the “background” of social experience. That is, while they exert a pervasive influence on our perceptions, judgments, and actions, they are frequently felt but not noticed, or noticed but misinterpreted. Second, I argue that our unreflective racial attitudes are neither mere associations nor fully articulated, propositionally structured beliefs or emotions. Their intentional contents are fundamentally indeterminate. For example, when a white person experiences a “gut feeling” of discomfort during an interaction with a black person, there is a question about the meaning or nature of that discomfort. Is it a fear of black people? Is it anxiety about appearing racist? There is, I argue, no general, determinate answer to such questions. The contents of our unreflective racial attitudes are fundamentally vague and open-ended, although I explain how they nevertheless take on particular shapes and implications—that is, their content can become determinate—depending on context, social meaning, and structural power relations. (If, for example, a perceived authority figure, such as a politician, parent, or scientist, encourages you to believe that your uncomfortable gut feeling is a justified fear of other social groups, then that is what your gut feeling is likely to become.). (shrink)

What is it to share the same concept? The question is an important one since sharing the same concept explains our ability to non-accidentally coordinate on the same topic over time and between individuals. Moreover, concept identity grounds key logical relations among thought contents such as samesaying, contradiction, validity, and entailment. Finally, an account of concept identity is crucial to explaining and justifying epistemic efforts to better understand the precise contents of our thoughts. The key question, then, is what psychological (...) and social facts could play these roles? Elsewhere, we have argued for a specific relational model of concept identity, the connectedness model (e.g. Schroeter 2012, Schroeter and Schroeter 2014, 2015). Our aim in this chapter is to further explain the motivations behind that account, to address worries about transitivity and vagueness, and to contrast our approach with closely related accounts of concept identity developed by François Recanati and Simon Prosser. -/- What’s distinctive of our approach is that we seek to vindicate the first-person epistemic perspective of concept users. Concepts, on our account, play a crucial normative role in setting regulative ideals for the representational practices in which individual subjects participate. This focus on the normative role of concepts – as opposed to a purely causal explanatory role – motivates our approach to concept identity and our toleration of vagueness and borderline cases. (shrink)