Many of the most important social institutions—e.g., law and language—are thought to be normative in some sense. And philosophers have been puzzled by how this normativity can be explained in terms of the social, descriptive states of affairs that presumably constitute them. This paper attempts to solve this sort of puzzle by considering a simpler and less contentious normative social practice: table manners. Once we are clear on the exact sense in which a practice is normative, we see that some (...) practices can be normative in an interesting and non-trivial sense, but also explicable with merely descriptive resources. In addition to arguing that it is possible to explain normative practices with descriptive resources, this paper presents and defends just such an explanation—an account of the nature of table manners that appeals only to descriptive states of affairs. (shrink)

Luck (2009) argues that gamers face a dilemma when it comes to performing certain virtual acts. Most gamers regularly commit acts of virtual murder, and take these acts to be morally permissible. They are permissible because unlike real murder, no one is harmed in performing them; their only victims are computer-controlled characters, and such characters are not moral patients. What Luck points out is that this justification equally applies to virtual pedophelia, but gamers intuitively think that such acts are not (...) morally permissible. The result is a dilemma: either gamers must reject the intuition that virtual pedophelic acts are impermissible and so accept partaking in such acts, or they must reject the intuition that virtual murder acts are permissible, and so abstain from many (if not most) extant games. While the prevailing solution to this dilemma has been to try and find a morally relevant feature to distinguish the two cases, I argue that a different route should be pursued. It is neither the case that all acts of virtual murder are morally permissible, nor are all acts of virtual pedophelia impermissible. Our intuitions falter and produce this dilemma because they are not sensitive to the different contexts in which games present virtual acts. (shrink)

A natural starting point for theories of perceptual states is ordinary perception, in which a subject is successfully related to her mind-independent surroundings. Correspondingly, the simplest theory of perceptual states models all such states on perception. Typically, this simple, common-factor relational view of perceptual states has received a perfunctory dismissal on the grounds that hallucinations are nonperceptual. But I argue that the nonperceptual view of hallucinations has been accepted too quickly. I consider three observations thought to support the view, and (...) argue that all three are dealt with equally well by an alternative view, illusionism, on which hallucinations do involve perception. Since this is so, adopting a common-factor relational view of all perceptual states remains a tenable option. (shrink)

This paper presents the design and development of intelligent tutoring system for teaching Oracle. The Oracle Intelligent Tutoring System (OITS) examined the power of a new methodology to supporting students in Oracle programming. The system presents the topic of Introduction to Oracle with automatically generated problems for the students to solve. The system is dynamically adapted at run time to the student’s individual progress. An initial evaluation study was done to investigate the effect of using the intelligent tutoring system on (...) the performance of students. (shrink)

A widely held assumption is that hallucinations are not a type of perception. Coupled with the idea that hallucinations possess phenomenal character, this assumption raises a problem for naive realism, which maintains that phenomenal character is at least partly constituted by perceived worldly objects. Naive realists have typically responded by adopting a disjunctive view of phenomenal character. But in what follows, I argue that to resolve the conflict we should instead reject the idea that hallucinations are not a type of (...) perception. I argue that this idea is supported by six alleged differences between hallucination and perception, but these differences are all accommodated for in a particular type of perception, picture perception. Drawing on picture perception’s resources, I offer an account of hallucinations which construes them as a type of perception, and does so in a way that that preserves their idiosyncrasies and varieties, and in a way compatible with naive realism. (shrink)

In this paper I am concerned with an analysis of negative existential sentences that contain proper names only by using negative or neutral free logic. I will compare different versions of neutral free logic with the standard system of negative free logic (Burge, Sainsbury) and aim to defend my version of neutral free logic that I have labeled non-standard neutral free logic.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, the normativity of meaning was thought to be more-or-less 'incontestable.' But in the last 25 years, many philosophers of mind and language have contested it in several seemingly different ways. This, however, is somewhat illusory. There is an unappreciated commonality among most anti-normativist arguments, and this commonality, I argue, poses a problem for anti-normativism. The result, however, is not a wholesale rejection of anti-normativism. Rather, an insight from the anti-normativist position can be harnessed to (...) reveal an unappreciated position in the normativity of meaning debate. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to defend a first‐order non‐discriminating property view concerning existence. The version of this view that I prefer is based on negative (or a specific neutral) free logic that treats the existence predicate as first‐order logical predicate. I will provide reasons why such a view is more plausible than a second‐order discriminating property view concerning existence and I will also discuss four challenges for the proposed view and provide solutions to them.

In this paper I am concerned with the semantic analysis of sentences of the form 'It is true that p'. I will compare different proposals that have been made to analyse such sentences and will defend a view that treats this sentences as a mere sytactic variation of sentences of the form 'That p is true'.

Drawing from empirical literature on ecological psychology, affective neuroscience, and philosophy of mind, this article describes a model of affect-as-motivation in the intentional bond between organism and environment. An epistemological justification for the motivating role of emotions is provided through articulating the perceptual context of emotions as embodied, situated, and functional, and positing perceptual salience as a biasing signal in an affordance competition model. The motivational role of affect is pragmatically integrated into discussions of action selection in the neurosciences.

Tracing the leading role of emotions in the evolution of the mind, a philosopher and a psychologist pair up to reveal how thought and culture owe less to our faculty for reason than to our capacity to feel. Many accounts of the human mind concentrate on the brain’s computational power. Yet, in evolutionary terms, rational cognition emerged only the day before yesterday. For nearly 200 million years before humans developed a capacity to reason, the emotional centers of the brain were (...) hard at work. If we want to properly understand the evolution of the mind, we must explore this more primal capability that we share with other animals: the power to feel. Emotions saturate every thought and perception with the weight of feelings. The Emotional Mind reveals that many of the distinctive behaviors and social structures of our species are best discerned through the lens of emotions. Even the roots of so much that makes us uniquely human—art, mythology, religion—can be traced to feelings of caring, longing, fear, loneliness, awe, rage, lust, playfulness, and more. From prehistoric cave art to the songs of Hank Williams, Stephen T. Asma and Rami Gabriel explore how the evolution of the emotional mind stimulated our species’ cultural expression in all its rich variety. Bringing together insights and data from philosophy, biology, anthropology, neuroscience, and psychology, The Emotional Mind offers a new paradigm for understanding what it is that makes us so unique. (shrink)

The most discussed theory of law of the twentieth century – HLA Hart’s theory from _The Concept of Law_ – is fundamentally _psychological_. It explains the existence of legal systems in terms of an attitude taken by legal officials: the internal point of view. Though much has been said about this attitude (what statements _express_ it, what it is _not_, how Hart _ought_ to have conceived of it, etc.), we nonetheless lack an adequate account of the attitude itself. This paper (...) presents and defends an account of the internal point of view and shows how, when understood as the account suggests, this attitude can play the several roles that Hartian positivists need it to play. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to present the main components of my non-standard interpretation of Frege’s views on existence to the English-speaking public. First, I will outline the standard interpretation and show how to a great but not full extent the standard interpretation can be justified on the basis of Frege’s writings. Second, I show that the main error of the standard interpretation consists in the assimilation of the contents of the ordinary language expressions “exist” and “there is” according to (...) Frege. Third, I evaluate possible sources for this unfounded assimilation. After that, I outline my alternative interpretation that distinguishes in opposition to other non-standard interpretations between a substantive and a deflationary part of Frege’s complete conception of existence in analogy to Frege’s analysis of truth and negation. Fifthly, I justify my interpretation by the reconstruction of a so far overlooked master argument of Frege against the above-mentioned assimilation. In the last section, I introduce and discuss five objections against my interpretation that came to my attention. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes three concepts of "race": bio-genomic cluster/race, biological race, and social race. We map out realism, antirealism, and conventionalism about each of these, in three important historical episodes: Frank Livingstone and Theodosius Dobzhansky in 1962, A.W.F. Edwards' 2003 response to Lewontin (1972), and contemporary discourse. Semantics is especially crucial to the first episode, while normativity is central to the second. Upon inspection, each episode also reveals a variety of commitments to the metaphysics of race. We conclude by interrogating (...) the relevance of these scientific discussions for political positions and a post-racial future. (shrink)

There is a complex interplay between the models in dark matter detection experiments that have led to a difficulty in interpreting the results of the experiments and ascertain whether we have detected the particle or not. The aim of this paper is to categorise and explore the different models used in said experiments, by emphasizing the distinctions and dependencies among different types of models used in this field. With a background theory, models are categorised into four distinct types: background theory, (...) theoretical, phenomenological, experimental and data. This taxonomy highlights how each model serves a unique purpose and operates under varying degrees of independence from their respective frameworks. A key focus is on the experimental model, which is shown to rely on constraints from both data and phenomenological ones. The article argues that while theoretical models provide a backdrop for understanding the nature of dark matter, the experimental models must stand independently, particularly in their methodological approaches. This is done via a discussion of the inherent challenges in dark matter detection, such as inconsistent results and difficulties in cross-comparison, stemming from the diverse modelling approaches. (shrink)

This is a story about three of my favorite philosophers—Donnellan, Russell, and Frege—about how Donnellan’s concept of having in mind relates to ideas of the others, and especially about an aspect of Donnellan’s concept that has been insufficiently discussed: how this epistemic state can be transmitted from one person to another.

This paper describes some epistemic cultural considerations which shape the uses of psychology. I argue the study of mind is bound by the metaphysical background of the given locale and era in which it is practiced. The epistemic setting in which psychology takes place will shape what is worth observing, how it is to be studied, how the data is to be interpreted, and the nature of the ultimate explanatory units. To demonstrate conceptual epistemic constraints, I discuss metaphor use in (...) psychology. In addition, epistemic constraints shape the praxes that arise from structural study of the mind. In order to illustrate this cultural constraint, I discuss Soviet Psychology and provide a contrast between practical uses of psychoanalysis in India, Egypt, and rural Ghana. In response to these conceptual and practical epistemic limitations, psychology could adapt methods drawn from history and anthropology. (shrink)

The normativity of meaning—introduced by Kripke in 1982, and the subject of active debate since the early 1990s—has been exclusively understood in terms of duty-imposing norms. But there are norms of another type, well-known within the philosophy of law: authority-conferring norms. Philosophers thinking and writing about the normativity of meaning—normativists, anti-normativists, and even Kripke himself—seem to have failed to consider the possibility that semantic norms are authority-conferring. I argue that semantic norms should be understood as having an authority-conferring structure, and (...) show how this allows normativism about meaning to escape the two most popular arguments against it. (shrink)

The science of logic has occupied an important role in Islamic history. Especially when al-Gazali 505-1111 has come and claimed that who learned Islamic sciences, without learning the Logic we cannot trust in his knowledge. From this time The science of logic has been flourished and quietly began to include in many sciences even Tefsir and Fiqh. After that, Al-razzi 606/1210 has established a big school in Islamic philosophy in general and in logic in particular. al-Khonaji 646/1248 one of his (...) important students. Who moved from Iran to Egypt and became Qadi al-Qudat (Chief Islamic justice). He has improved The science of logic by his books; like Keshf al-Asrar. In the sixth/twelfth one of his books has been spread in Muslim world and became the first step for who wanted to learn Logic. Beside that we have a lot of scholars has made commentaries on this book. In this article we focused on (Metn al-Jumal) by al-Konaji with his spreading in the Sixth. Seventh h.centuries. (shrink)

This paper argues that various phenomenological considerations support a non-representational causal account of visual experience. This position claims that visual experiences serve as a non-representational causally efficacious medium for the production of beliefs concerning the external world. The arguments are centered on defending a non-representational causal account’s understanding of the cognitive significance of visual experience. Among other things, such an account can easily explain the inextricable role that background beliefs and conceptual capacities play in perceptually-based external world belief-formation processes, the (...) fact that visual mental states constrain beliefs because of their presentational phenomenology, and the phenomenon known as the transparency of visual experience. (shrink)

I argue that conscious visual experience is essentially a non-representational demonstration of a skill. The explication and defense of this position depends on both phenomenological and empirical considerations. The central phenomenological claim is this: as a matter of human psychology, it is impossible to produce a conscious visual experience of a mind-independent object that is sufficiently like typical cases, without including concomitant proprioceptive sensations of the sort of extra-neural behavior that allows us to there and then competently detect such objects. (...) I then argue that this view, which is a version of enactivism, best explains the temporality of conscious experience—what is often called the specious present. (shrink)

It is illegitimate to read any ontology about "race" off of biological theory or data. Indeed, the technical meaning of "genetic variation" is fluid, and there is no single theoretical agreed-upon criterion for defining and distinguishing populations (or groups or clusters) given a particular set of genetic variation data. Thus, by analyzing three formal senses of "genetic variation"—diversity, differentiation, and heterozygosity—we argue that the use of biological theory for making epistemic claims about "race" can only seem plausible when it relies (...) on the user’s own assumptions about race; the move from biological measures to claims about “race” inevitably amounts to a pernicious reification. We also excavate assumptions in the history of the technical discourse over the concept of "race" (e.g., Livingstone's and Dobzhansky's 1962 exchange, Edwards' 2003 response to Lewontin 1972, as well as contemporary discussions of cladistic "race", and "races" as clusters). We show that claims about the existence (or non-existence) of "race" are underdetermined by biological facts, methods, and theories. Biological theory does not force the concept of "race" upon us; our social discourse, social ontology, and social expectations do. We become prisoners of our abstractions at our own hands, and at our own expense. (shrink)

Though legal positivism remains popular, HLA Hart’s version has fallen somewhat by the wayside. This is because, according to many, the central task of a theory of law is to explain the so-called ‘normativity of law’. Hart’s theory, it is thought, is not up to the task. Some have suggested modifying the theory accordingly. This paper argues that both Hart’s theory and the normativity of law have been misunderstood. First, a popular modification of Hart’s theory is considered and rejected. It (...) stems from a misunderstanding of Hart and his project. Second, a new understanding of the mysterious but often-mentioned ‘normativity of law’ is presented. Once we have dispelled some misunderstandings of Hart’s view and clarified the sense in which law is supposed to be normative, we see that Hart’s view, unmodified, is well suited to the task of explaining law’s normativity. (shrink)

Expressivism in logic is the view that logical vocabulary plays a primarily expressive role: that is, that logical vocabulary makes perspicuous in the object language structural features of inference and incompatibility (Brandom, 1994, 2008). I present a precise, technical criterion of expressivity for a logic (§2). I next present a logic that meets that criterion (§3). I further explore some interesting features of that logic: first, a representation theorem for capturing other logics (§3.1), and next some novel logical vocabulary for (...) expressing structural features of inference (§4). (shrink)

Objective: This study aims to provide an in-depth knowledge of the perspectives of young adults on gender roles. There is a lack of literature in the appropriate age classes. -/- Methods: The study is descriptive in nature and includes 473 students. This research was conducted using a questionnaire and the Social Gender Perception Scale (SGPS) to collect data. -/- Results: It was determined that 52.4% of the study participants were female and 47.6% were male. 63% of the participants were affiliated (...) with the Faculty of Health Sciences, while the remainder were students from other faculties. The average SGPS score of the participants was 95.62±18.17, but this score varied based on socio-demographic variables. Specifically, being female, possessing an undergraduate degree or higher, studying in a health sciences faculty, and having a mother who completed primary school or higher were all linked to higher SGPS mean scores. Furthermore, statistical analysis revealed a significant difference between these groups (p<0.05). -/- Conclusion: It is imperative that parents are provided with educational programs aimed at fostering knowledge of social gender roles and cultivating egalitarian attitudes and viewpoints. It is important to strategically design and execute research endeavours aimed at ascertaining the perspectives and attitudes of parents of young individuals with respect to societal gender roles. (shrink)

This paper presents a series of arguments aimed at showing that, for an important subclass of social rules—non‐summary rules—no adequate metaphysical account has been given, and it tentatively suggests that no such account can be given. The category of non‐summary rules is an important one, as it includes the rules of etiquette, fashion, chess, basketball, California state law, descriptive English grammar, and so on. This paper begins with behavioristic accounts of the conditions for the existence of such rules, and proceeds (...) through progressively more complex accounts, all the way to what are labeled ‘normative attitude accounts,’ which are prima facie plausible and particularly popular. In each case it is argued that the type of account under consideration cannot explain the existence of the relevant type of social rule. (shrink)

This article examines how facial recognition technology reshapes the philosophical debate over the ethics of video surveillance. When video surveillance is augmented with facial recognition, the data collected is no longer anonymous, and the data can be aggregated to produce detailed psychological profiles. I argue that – as this non-anonymous data of people’s mundane activities is collected – unjust risks of harm are imposed upon individuals. In addition, this technology can be used to catalogue all who publicly participate in political, (...) religious, and socially stigmatised activities, and I argue that this would undermine central interests of liberal democracies. I examine the degree to which the interests of individuals and the societal interests of liberal democracies to maintain people’s obscurity while in public coincide with privacy interests, as popularly understood, and conclude that there is a practical need to articulate a novel right to obscurity to protect the interests of liberal democratic societies. (shrink)

The recent discussion of fictional models has focused on imagination, implicitly considering fictions as something nonconcrete. We present two cases from synthetic biology that can be viewed as concrete fictions. Both minimal cells and alternative genetic systems are modal in nature: they, as well as their abstract cousins, can be used to study unactualized possibilia. We approach these synthetic constructs through Vaihinger’s notion of a semi-fiction and Goodman’s notion of semifactuality. Our study highlights the relative existence of such concrete fictions. (...) Before their realizations neither minimal cells nor alternative genetic systems were any well-defined objects, and the subsequent experimental work has given more content to these originally schematic imaginings. But it is as yet unclear whether individual members of these heterogeneous groups of somewhat functional synthetic constructs will eventually turn out to be fully realizable, remain only partially realizable, or prove outright impossible. (shrink)

This paper presents the design and development of intelligent tutoring system for teaching Oracle. The Oracle Intelligent Tutoring System (OITS) examined the power of a new methodology to supporting students in Oracle programming. The system presents the topic of Introduction to Oracle with automatically generated problems for the students to solve. The system is dynamically adapted at run time to the student’s individual progress. An initial evaluation study was done to investigate the effect of using the intelligent tutoring system on (...) the performance of students. (shrink)

We attempt to improve the understanding of the notion of agene being `for a phenotypic trait or traits. Considering theimplicit functional ascription of one thing being `for another,we submit a more restrictive version of `gene for talk.Accordingly, genes are only to be thought of as being forphenotypic traits when good evidence is available that thepresence or prevalence of the gene in a population is the resultof natural selection on that particular trait, and that theassociation between that trait and the gene (...) in question isdemonstrably causal. It is therefore necessary to gatherstatistical, biochemical, historical, as well as ecologicalinformation before properly claiming that a gene is for aphenotypic trait. Instead of hampering practical use of the `genefor talk, our approach aims at stimulating much needed researchinto the functional ecology and comparative evolutionary biologyof gene action. (shrink)

The cultural project is a therapeutic melding of emotion, symbols, and knowledge. In this paper, I describe how spiritual emotions engendered through encounters in imaginative culture enable fixation of metaphysical beliefs. Evolved affective systems are domesticated through the social practices of imaginative culture so as to adapt people to live in culturally defined cooperative groups. Conditioning, as well as tertiary-level cognitive capacities such as symbols and language are enlisted to bond groups through the imaginative formats of myth and participatory ritual. (...) These cultural materializations can be shared by communities both synchronically and diachronically in works of art. Art is thus a form of self-knowledge that equips us with a motivated understanding of ourselves in the world. In the sacred state produced through the arts and in religious acts, the sense of meaning becomes noetically distinct because affect infuses the experience of immanence, and one's memory of it, with salience. The quality imbued thereby makes humans attentive to subtle signs and broad “truths.” Saturated by emotions and the experience of alterity in the immanent encounter of imaginative culture, information made salient in the sacred experience can become the basis for belief fixation. Using examples drawn from mimetic arts and arts of immanence, I put forward a theory about how sensible affective knowledge is mediated through affective systems, direct perception, and the imagination. (shrink)

Recent epistemology of modality has seen a growing trend towards metaphysics-first approaches. Contrastingly, this paper offers a more philosophically modest account of justifying modal claims, focusing on the practices of scientific modal inferences. Two ways of making such inferences are identified and analyzed: actualist-manipulationist modality and relative modality. In AM, what is observed to be or not to be the case in actuality or under manipulations, allows us to make modal inferences. AM-based inferences are fallible, but the same holds for (...) practically all empirical inquiry. In RM, modal inferences are evaluated relative to what is kept fixed in a system, like a theory or a model. RM-based inferences are more certain but framework-dependent. While elements from both AM and RM can be found in some existing accounts of modality, it is worth highlighting them in their own right and isolating their features for closer scrutiny. This helps to establish their relevant epistemologies that are free from some strong philosophical assumptions often attached to them in the literature. We close by showing how combining these two routes amounts to a view that accounts for a rich variety of modal inferences in science. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the ethics of nonviolent protest when a violent response is either foreseen or intended. One central concern is whether protesters, who foresee a violent response but persist, are provoking the violence and whether they are culpable for any eventual harms. A second concern is whether it is permissible to publicize the violent response for political advantage. I begin by distinguishing between two senses of the term provoke: a normative sense where a provocateur knowingly imposes an (...) unjustified risk of a violent response, and a descriptive sense where the respondent feels provoked. I argue that, when the risk of a violent response is justified, the protesters are not provocateurs but akin to nonculpable, entrapping agents who create an opportunity for the regime to respond with disproportionate violence. The regime’s response can disclose its brutality or criminality and this can be fairly publicized for political advantage. When nonviolent protesters create an unjustified risk of violence either because the injustice they oppose is insufficient to justify the risk of a violent response or because the risked harms are disproportionate with the likely political advantages derived from the protest, they are partially culpable provocateurs. However, I argue these partially culpable provocateurs can still permissibly publicize the disproportionate violence of the regime so as to shape public opinion. (shrink)

In this paper I want to show that two proposals to determine Frege’s notion of a mark (Merkmal) of concepts that are made in the relevant literature face some serious interpretative and systematic problems. The main problem of both conceptions is that they cannot be properly applied to those explicit examples of complex concepts that are given in Frege’s works. The first of these conceptions interprets marks as analytic components of a concept, the second as defining parts of a concept. (...) I will show that only the second conception can be modified in a meaningful way such that we get a conception of marks as result that fits with Frege’s general characterizations and examples. (shrink)

Lewis et al. (2011) attempted to restore the reputation of Samuel George Morton, a 19th century physician who reported on the skull sizes of different folk-races. Whereas Gould (1978) claimed that Morton's conclusions were invalid because they reflected unconscious bias, Lewis et al. alleged that Morton's findings were, in fact, supported, and Gould's analysis biased. We take strong exception to Lewis et al.’s thesis that Morton was “right.” We maintain that Gould was right to reject Morton's analysis as inappropriate and (...) misleading, but wrong to believe that a more appropriate analysis was available. Lewis et al. fail to recognize that there is, given the dataset available, no appropriate way to answer any of the plausibly interesting questions about the “populations” in question (which in many cases are not populations in any biologically meaningful sense). We challenge the premise shared by both Gould and Lewis et al. that Morton's confused data can be used to draw any meaningful conclusions. This, we argue, reveals the importance of properly focusing on the questions asked, rather than more narrowly on the data gathered. (shrink)

Abstract: The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into educational technology has revolutionized learning through Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS). These systems harness AI to deliver personalized, adaptive instruction that caters to individual student needs, thereby enhancing learning outcomes and engagement. This paper explores the evolution and impact of ITS, highlighting key AI technologies such as machine learning, natural language processing, and adaptive algorithms that underpin their functionality. By examining various case studies and applications, the paper illustrates how ITS have transformed traditional (...) educational practices and identifies the challenges and limitations associated with their implementation, including data privacy concerns and system biases. The discussion also extends to future directions in ITS development, emphasizing emerging trends and potential advancements. Ultimately, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of how ITS leverage AI to enhance educational experiences and propose pathways for future research in this dynamic field. (shrink)

Stroud has argued for many years that skepticism is conditionally correct. We cannot, he claims, both undergo a Cartesian-style examination of the extent of our knowledge as well as avoid skepticism. One reason Stroud's position appears quite plausible is the so-called "totality condition" imposed for this kind of examination: as inquiring philosophers we are called upon to assess all of our knowledge, all at once. However, in this paper I argue that Stroud's apparent understanding of the totality condition is mistaken. (...) Evidently, Stroud thinks that honoring the totality condition amounts to imposing the strong requirement that we initially assume that we don't know anything about external reality. However, there is a weaker requirement available: that we initially not assume that we know anything about external reality. I argue i) that the weaker conception of the totality condition is most suitable for the kind of philosophical examination that Stroud seems to have in mind; and ii) that according to this same conception skepticism is not conditionally correct. (shrink)

Ratio Juris, Volume 34, Issue 4, Page 331-355, December 2021.

The problem of philosophical skepticism relates to the difficulty involved in underwriting the claim that we know anything of spatio-temporal reality. It is often claimed, in fact, that proper philosophical scrutiny reveals quite the opposite from what common sense suggests. Knowledge of external reality is thought to be even quite obviously denied to us as a result of the alleged fact that we all fail to know that certain skeptical scenarios do not obtain. A skeptical scenario is one in which (...) we have neurological occurrences just like any normal situation in which we actually perceive spatio-temporal objects, but where we are deceived in some sense as a result of the manipulation of our brains from some outside source. In this work I attempt to address the problem of philosophical skepticism by claiming that most of us are able to come to know plenty about external reality, since we can come to realize that a certain philosophical theory of perception is correct. The theory I have in mind is what I call a non-cognitive theory of perception. According to this view, perceptual experience is defined by continuous, sensitive behavioral interaction with spatio-temporal objects of the appropriate size, shape, hardness, speed, etc. Knowing that this theory of perception is correct is equivalent to knowing that we know plenty about external reality. This is ultimately because by knowing that a non-cognitive theory of perception is true, we know that any skeptical scenario must fail to obtain. The structure of the work proceeds by first discussing the significance of the problem of philosophical skepticism in some detail. Chapter 1 lays out how the problem does indeed forcefully arise if it is conceded that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain. Chapter 2 develops the sort of view of our epistemological situation that falls out of accepting without qualification that the problem exists. Chapter 3 examines and criticizes certain popular responses to the skeptical problem. The main goal of these first three preliminary chapters is to indicate that once it is admitted that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain, the problem of philosophical skepticism forcefully presents itself. Chapter 4, however, attacks the idea that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain. In this chapter I argue that this idea is wedded to the position that a certain theory of perception is correct. The theory in question is what I call a conjunctive theory of veridical experience. According to this view, normal experience of spatio-temporal objects occurs when a subject has a certain perceptual experience, and that experience also happens to match up with and/or be satisfied by what is really the case. Only when a theory of this sort is assumed, I argue, is the claim that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain found to be obvious. In chapter 5 I argue that, in fact, a non-cognitive theory, rather than a conjunctive theory, is the correct view to maintain. In the final chapter 6 I develop the epistemological position that falls out of accepting a non-cognitive theory. (shrink)

Objective: Long-term C-arm fluoroscopy exposes medical personnel to substantial radiation doses. Preventing this exposure requires protective equipment and radiation safety. This study examined anesthesia students' using fluoroscopy and preventive knowledge. -/- Methods: This descriptive and cross-sectional study included 139 Vocational High School Anesthesia students. The "Healthcare Professional Knowledge of Radiation Protection" scale and a 13-question survey collected data. The scale was designed with a Likert scale and three sub-factors. If the total and sub-dimension item average score of the scale is (...) below 5, it indicates that the level of knowledge of radiation protection among medical personnel is low, and if it is above 5, it indicates that the level of knowledge is high. -/- Results: More than half of the students (59.8%) heard the radiation from the fluoroscopy device, the vast majority (82.7%) did not receive radiation protection training, 58.3% stayed away from the device while it was operating, and 70.5% stated that it is crucial to stay away from the device while it was operating. It was determined that there was a statistically significant difference (p<0.05) in the "Radiation Physics, Biology, and Radiation Usage Principles" sub-dimension of students who were male, in their second year of education, received radiation protection training, and offered reliable answers to a number of questions measuring their level of radiation knowledge. In addition, the research revealed a positive and highly significant correlation between the scale and its subdimensions. -/- Conclusion: Although the scale scores of the students who received radiation protection training and had a high level of radiation knowledge were substantially higher than those of the other students, the average score of the students was less than 5. This indicates that students have an inadequate understanding of radiation protection. To prevent the negative biological effects of radiation on the human body, it is necessary to conduct epidemiological research, educate health care professionals and anesthesiology students about the effects and processes of this radiation on human cells, and provide frequent training. Radiation, radiation's biological effects, and radiation protection should be included in health students' curricula. (shrink)

Hallucination: Philosophy and Psychology is an edited MIT press collection that contributes to the philosophy of perception. This collection is a significant addition to the literature both for its excellent choice of texts, and its emphasis on the case of hallucinations. Dedicating a volume to hallucinatory phenomena may seem somewhat peculiar for those not entrenched in the analytic philosophy of perception, but it is easy enough to grasp their significance. Theories of perception aim to give a fundamental characterization of perceptual (...) experience, which are experiences with a sensory phenomenal character. Such perceptual experiences include cases of successfully perceiving something, but also some cases of merely seeming to perceive. This is because prima facie, some cases of seeming to perceive are more than merely thinking that one does ; they are cases of misperceiving. Hallucinations are .. (shrink)

My dissertation contributes to a central and ongoing debate in the philosophy of perception about the fundamental nature of perceptual states. Such states include cases like seeing, hearing, or tasting as well as cases of merely seeming to see, hear, or taste. A central question about perceptual states arises in light of misperceptual phenomena. A commonsensical view of perceptual states construes them as simply relating us to the external and mind independent objects. But some misperceptual cases suggest that these states (...) fall short of contact with the world. The result is that perceptual states are either thought to fundamentally consist in a highest common factor that falls short of perceptual contact with the world, or are thought to be disjunctive in nature, with some cases involving perceptual contact, and others receiving a different analysis. Contrary to these views, I argue that no misperceptual cases compromise perceptual contact with worldly objects, so perceptual states should be understood as relations to the external and mind-independent world. I call this view I defend Pure Relationalism, and the view of misperceptual cases that makes pure relationalism possible Illusionism. (shrink)

We review some of the major accounts in the current epistemology of modality and identify some shared issues that plague all of them. In order to provide insight into the nature of modal statements in science, philosophy, and beyond, a satisfactory epistemology of modality would need to be suitably applicable to practical and theoretical contexts by limited beings. However, many epistemologies of modality seem to work only when we have access to the kind of knowledge that is at least currently (...) beyond our reach. Or, in the extreme case, it is argued that even if we knew all the relevant information about the respective domain – or even the entire state of the world – there would still remain a special class of modal truths that would be left unaccounted for. Neither picture bodes well for practical applicability, nor for the philosophical justification of these epistemologies. This is especially the case as we hold that one of the main motivations for modal inquiry typically arises in cases of imperfect information and limited cognitive resources. We close by providing a partial remedy to the situation by suggesting an overall framework of relative modality (RM) that can be used to both unify some existing modal epistemologies and, at the same time, make them more metaphysically modest. (shrink)

Rachlin's thought-provoking analysis could be strengthened by greater openness to evolutionary interpretation and the use of the directed attention concept as a component of self-control. His contribution to the understanding of prosocial behavior would also benefit from abandoning the traditional (and excessively restrictive) definition of altruism.

Fiona Macpherson (2012) argues that various experimental results provide strong evidence in favor of the cognitive penetration of perceptual color experience. Moreover, she proposes a mechanism for how such cognitive penetration occurs. We argue, first, that the results on which Macpherson relies do not provide strong grounds for her claim of cognitive penetrability; and, second, that, if the results do reflect cognitive penetrability, then time-course considerations raise worries for her proposed mechanism. We base our arguments in part on several of (...) our own experiments, reported herein. (shrink)

Biological research on race has often been seen as motivated by or lending credence to underlying racist attitudes; in part for this reason, recently philosophers and biologists have gone through great pains to essentially deny the existence of biological human races. We argue that human races, in the biological sense of local populations adapted to particular environments, do in fact exist; such races are best understood through the common ecological concept of ecotypes. However, human ecotypic races do not in general (...) correspond with 'folk' racial categories, largely because many similar ecotypes have multiple independent origins. Consequently, while human natural races exist, they have little or nothing in common with 'folk' races. (shrink)

Twenty years have passed since Gould and Lewontin published their critique of ‘the adaptationist program’ – the tendency of some evolutionary biologists to assume, rather than demonstrate, the operation of natural selection. After the ‘Spandrels paper’, evolutionists were more careful about producing just-so stories based on selection, and paid more attention to a panoply of other processes. Then came reactions against the excesses of the anti-adaptationist movement, which ranged from a complete dismissal of Gould and Lewontin’s contribution to a positive (...) call to overcome the problems. We now have an excellent opportunity for finally affirming a more balanced and pluralistic approach to the study of evolutionary biology. (shrink)