Across two studies, one of which was pre-registered, we find that a simple questionnaire that measures intellectual virtue and vice predicts how many fake news articles and conspiracy theories participants accept. This effect holds even when controlling for multiple demographic predictors, including age, household income, sex, education, ethnicity, political affiliation, religion, and news consumption. These results indicate that self-report is an adequate way to measure intellectual virtue and vice, which suggests that they are not fully immune to introspective awareness or (...) “stealthy” in the sense that Cassam (2015) argues. This is an important methodological result and may pave the way for future research on intellectual virtue and vice. (shrink)

Enactivists frequently argue their account heralds a revolution in cognitive science: enactivism will unseat cognitivism as the dominant paradigm. We examine the lines of reasoning enactivists employ in stirring revolt, but show that none of these prove compelling reasons for cognitivism to be replaced by enactivism. First, we examine the hard sell of enactivism: enactivism reveals a critical explanatory gap at the heart of cognitivism. We show that enactivism does not meet the requirements to incite a paradigm shift in the (...) Kuhnian sense—there is no internal crisis in cognitivism. Nor does it provide inherently better explanations of cognition as some have claimed. Second, we consider the soft sell of enactivism: enactivism provides a more attractive, parsimonious, or clear-eyed lens on cognition. This move proves to boil down to a misunderstanding of how theories are selected in science. Instead we lend support to a broader and more desirable way to conceive of enactivism, the recent proposal that enactivism is a philosophy of nature. We explain how a philosophy of nature does more than support a single research paradigm by integrating scientific questions into a cohesive picture. (shrink)

Mechanistic explanations are often said to explain because they reveal the causal structure of the world. Conversely, dynamical models supposedly lack explanatory power because they do not describe causal structure. The only way for dynamical models to produce causal explanations is via the 3M criterion: the model must be mapped onto a mechanism. This framing of the situation has become the received view around the viability of dynamical explanation. In this paper, I argue against this position and show that dynamical (...) models can themselves reveal causal structure and consequently produce nonmechanistic, dynamical explanations. Taking the example of cell fates from systems biology, I show how dynamical models, and specifically the attractor landscapes they describe, identify the causes of cell differentiation and explain why cells select particular fates. These dynamical features of the system better fit Woodward’s (2010, 2018) criteria of specificity and proportionality and make them the best candidate causes of cell fates than mechanisms. I also show how these causes are irreducible and inaccessible to mechanistic models, making 3M unworkable and counterproductive in this case. Dynamical models can reveal dynamical causes and thereby provide causal explanations. (shrink)

Emile Borel regards the Banach-Tarski Paradox as a reductio ad absurdum of the Axiom of Choice. Peter Forrest instead blames the assumption that physical space has a similar structure as the real numbers. This paper argues that Banach and Tarski's result is not paradoxical and that it merely illustrates a surprising feature of the continuum: dividing a spatial region into disjoint pieces need not preserve volume.

Claudia Card did not live long enough to complete her work on surviving evils. Yet she left us an invaluable body of work on this topic. This essay surveys Card's views about the nature of evils and the ethical quandaries of surviving them. It then develops an account of survival agency that is based on Card's insights and in keeping with the agentic capacities exercised by Yezidi women and girls who have escaped from ISIS's obscene program of trafficking in women (...) and sexual violence. Card holds that true survival requires not only staying alive and as healthy as possible but also preserving your good moral character. The essay maintains that while exercising agency to elude evil and protect yourself often depends on your own skills and personality traits, exercising agency to restore or develop your moral character often depends on social support. (shrink)

The enchanting cover of “Wild Wise Weird: The Kingfisher Story Collection” immediately drew me in, the vivid image of the kingfisher beckoning me into a world filled with rich stories. And rich they truly are. Author Quan-Hoang Vuong has masterfully crafted a collection of captivating fables, each with its own unique charm and moral lesson. -/- Like ancient tales passed down through generations, Vuong’s stories evoke a sense of wonder and connection to our collective cultural heritage. They utilize symbolism, humor, (...) and cleverly crafted animal characters to deliver timeless truths in ways that resonate deeply, no matter your age. While some might see the genre as outdated, the power of these fables lies in their ability to hold a mirror to human behavior and explore universal themes that transcend time and culture. (shrink)

Existing analyses of disinformation tend to embrace the view that disinformation is intended or otherwise functions to mislead its audience, that is, to produce false beliefs. I argue that this view is doubly mistaken. First, while paradigmatic disinformation campaigns aim to produce false beliefs in an audience, disinformation may in some cases be intended only to prevent its audience from forming true beliefs. Second, purveyors of disinformation need not intend to have any effect at all on their audience’s beliefs, aiming (...) instead to manipulate an audience’s behavior through alteration of sub-doxastic states. Ultimately, I argue that attention to such non-paradigmatic forms of disinformation is essential to understanding the threat disinformation poses and why this threat is so difficult to counter. (shrink)

The world has surpassed three million deaths from COVID-19, and faces potentially catastrophic tipping points in the global climate system. Despite the urgency, governments have struggled to address either problem. In this paper, we argue that COVID-19 and anthropogenic climate change (ACC) are critical examples of an emerging type of governance challenge: severe collective action problems that require significant individual behavior change under conditions of hyper- partisanship and scientific misinformation. Building on foundational political science work demonstrating the potential for norms (...) (or informal rules of behavior) to solve collective action problems, we analyze more recent work on norms from neighboring disciplines to offer novel recommendations for more difficult challenges like COVID-19 and ACC. Key insights include more attention to (1) norm-based messaging strategies that appeal to individuals across the ideological spectrum or that reframe collective action as consistent with resistant subgroups’ pre-existing values, (2) messages that emphasize both the prevalence and the social desirability of individual behaviors required to address these challenges, (3) careful use of public policies and incentives that make individual behavior change easier without threatening norm internalization, and (4) greater attention to epistemic norms governing trust in different information sources. We conclude by pointing out that COVID-19 and climate change are likely harbingers of other polarized collective action problems that governments will face in the future. By connecting work on norms and political governance with a broader, interdisciplinary literature on norm psychology, motivation, and behavior change, we aim to improve the ability of political scientists and policy makers to respond to these and future collective action challenges. (shrink)

Deepfakes pose a multi-faceted threat to the acquisition of knowledge. It is widely hoped that technological solutions—in the form of artificially intelligent systems for detecting deepfakes—will help to address this threat. I argue that the prospects for purely technological solutions to the problem of deepfakes are dim. Especially given the evolving nature of the threat, technological solutions cannot be expected to prevent deception at the hands of deepfakes, or to preserve the authority of video footage. Moreover, the success of such (...) technologies depends on institutional trust that is in short supply. Finally, outsourcing the discrimination between the real and the fake to automated, largely opaque systems runs the risk of undermining epistemic autonomy. (shrink)

Layunin ng pag-aaral na ito na tuklasin ang kontribusyon ng wikang Filipino sa live selling upang mapabuti ang estratehiya ng negosyo. Sa gitna ng paglago ng live selling bilang e-commerce na estratehiya, may kakulangan ng pananaliksik sa paggamit ng lokal na wika. Nilalayon ng pag-aaral na tuklasin kung paano nakatutulong ang wikang Filipino sa pagpapalakas ng koneksyon sa mga mamimili at pagpapataas ng customer engagement—mga susi sa tagumpay ng live selling. Ginamit ang narrative research approach at semi-structured interviews sa 15 (...) informants mula sa isang lungsod sa Bulacan gamit ang snowball sampling. Ang thematic analysis ang ginamit sa pagsusuri ng datos, kung saan ang open, axial, at selective coding ay nagbigay-daan upang matukoy ang mga temang may kaugnayan sa papel ng wikang Filipino sa live selling. Lumabas sa pag-aaral na ang paggamit ng wikang Filipino ay nagdudulot ng mas malalim na koneksyon sa mga mamimili. Ang lokal na wika ay nagpapataas ng tiwala, pamilyaridad, at kasiyahan ng mga mamimili, na nagreresulta sa mas mataas na customer engagement, loyalty, at conversion rates. Natukoy din na mas nauunawaan ng mga mamimili ang impormasyon tungkol sa produkto dahil sa paggamit ng Filipino, habang ang real-time na komunikasyon ay nagiging mas epektibo. Ang mga negosyong gumagamit ng wikang Filipino ay mas nagiging malapit sa komunidad, na nakatutulong sa pagpapataas ng benta. Gayunpaman, may ilang hamon tulad ng limitadong kaalaman ng ilang sellers sa teknikal na aspeto ng live selling at ang matinding kompetisyon sa merkado. Pinatutunayan ng pag-aaral na ang paggamit ng wikang Filipino ay isang epektibong estratehiya sa live selling na hindi lamang nagpapataas ng benta, kundi nagpapalalim din ng koneksyon sa mga mamimili. Bagaman may mga hamon, ang estratehiyang nakatuon sa lokal na wika at kultura ay nagdudulot ng malawak na oportunidad para sa mga negosyanteng nais magtagumpay sa e-commerce. (shrink)

A central task of schooling is to cultivate reasonableness in students. In this chapter we show how the teaching of reasonableness can be practiced successfully in secondary schools, using materials from the Western Australian curriculum. The discussion proceeds in four stages. We first defend the claim that the teaching of reasonable is a key aim of schooling. Here we offer an account of reasonableness, which we take to be both a skill and a disposition. Students learn reasonableness through the practice (...) of specific skills such as open and curious questioning, clarifying, and categorizing, and evaluating the merits of each contribution toward the problem or question under consideration. Reasonableness comes about as a joint commitment between the individual and the group to be honest in their views, to take care of those views, and for everyone to recognize that each member is a partial bearer of truth. Secondly, we discuss the pedagogies that cultivate reasonableness. The Philosophical Community of Inquiry is a natural pedagogy for this purpose. This can be supplemented with the thinking tools approach of Cam’s Twenty Thinking Tools or Harvard Project Zero’s Thinking Routines. In addition, we introduce our own two skill-building exercises, the Reasoning Game and the Argument Game. Thirdly, we show how this approach can be applied not just in Philosophy classes, but in the Humanities and Social Sciences. We argue that our approach brings these subjects to life, it develops understanding and reasonableness, and it bumps up student engagement. Fourthly, we discuss the assessment of reasonableness. In this type of learning environment, the way students perform in the philosophical community of inquiry is the focus of assessment. The desirable qualities of being reasonable become the assessment criteria for an on-balanced judgment about the student. (shrink)

This paper describes the ways in which trolls and bots impede the acquisition of knowledge online. I distinguish between three ways in which trolls and bots can impede knowledge acquisition, namely, by deceiving, by encouraging misplaced skepticism, and by interfering with the acquisition of warrant concerning persons and content encountered online. I argue that these threats are difficult to resist simultaneously. I argue, further, that the threat that trolls and bots pose to knowledge acquisition goes beyond the mere threat of (...) online misinformation, or the more familiar threat posed by liars offline. Trolls and bots are, in effect, fake persons. Consequently, trolls and bots can systemically interfere with knowledge acquisition by manipulating the signals whereby individuals acquire knowledge from one another online. I conclude with a brief discussion of some possible remedies for the problem of fake persons. (shrink)

Some thoughts on our moral experience and moral phenomenology, asking whether it can be justified or whether it is misleading.

Philosophers who study conspiracy theories have increasingly addressed the questions of where conspiracy theories come from, what such theories do, and what to do about them. This essay serves as a commentary on the answers to these questions offered by contributors to this special issue.

Deepfakes and other forms of synthetic media are widely regarded as serious threats to our knowledge of the world. Various technological responses to these threats have been proposed. The reactive approach proposes to use artificial intelligence to identify synthetic media. The proactive approach proposes to use blockchain and related technologies to create immutable records of verified media content. I argue that both approaches, but especially the reactive approach, are vulnerable to a problem analogous to the ancient problem of the criterion—a (...) line of argument with skeptical implications. I argue that, while the proactive approach is relatively resistant to this objection, it faces its own serious challenges. In short, the proactive approach would place a heavy burden on users to verify their own content, a burden that is exacerbated by and is likely to exacerbate existing inequalities. (shrink)

Quassim Cassam has argued that psychological and epistemological analyses of conspiracy theories threaten to overlook the political nature of such theories. According to Cassam, conspiracy theories are a form of political propaganda. I develop a limited critique of Cassam's analysis.This paper advances two core theses. First, acceptance of conspiracy theories requires a rejection of epistemic authority that renders conspiracy theorists susceptible to co-option by certain political programs while insulating such programs from criticism. I argue that the contrarian nature of conspiracy (...) theories partially accounts for the prominence of such theories in populist movements.Second, the contrarian nature of conspiracy theories partially accounts for their attractiveness, especially among those to whom populism already appeals. I argue that for those who resent what appears from their perspective as the shaping of the epistemic landscape by alien perspectives, conspiracy theorizing may facilitate the reassertion of epistemic autonomy. (shrink)

This book argues that misinformation poses a multi-faceted threat to knowledge, while arguing that some forms of content moderation risk exacerbating these threats. It proposes alternative forms of content moderation that aim to address this complexity while enhancing human epistemic agency. The proliferation of fake news, false conspiracy theories, and other forms of misinformation on the internet and especially social media is widely recognized as a threat to individual knowledge and, consequently, to collective deliberation and democracy itself. This book argues (...) that misinformation presents a three-pronged threat to knowledge. While researchers often focus on the role of misinformation in causing false beliefs, this deceptive potential of misinformation exists alongside the potential to suppress trust and to distort the perception of evidence. Recognizing the multi-faceted nature of this threat is essential to the development of effective measures to mitigate the harms associated with misinformation. The book weaves together work in analytic epistemology with emerging empirical work in other disciplines to offer novel insights into the threats posed by misinformation. Additionally, it breaks new ground by systematically assessing different forms of content moderation from the perspective of epistemology. Misinformation, Content Moderation, and Epistemology will appeal to philosophers working in applied and social epistemology, as well as scholars and advanced students in disciplines such as communication studies, political science, and social psychology who are researching misinformation. (shrink)

The issue of leadership styles used by school heads and the academic performance of students has recently attracted the attention of the general public and people are exerting energies into research to find its courses and effects. Nkoranza-North district is selected as a result of the fact that the researcher works there and the districts also have two senior high schools for the study. Primarily, the study was to find out the courses and impact of leadership styles on teaching and (...) learning outcomes in the Nkoranza-North district. The study covered a sample size of sixty (60) people comprises of Headmasters, selected teachers and selected students of the two. The researcher employed the descriptive method, while interview schedule and questionnaire were used to gather the information. Frequency and percentage were used to analyse the data. The study also looks at the various leadership styles employed by leaders some of which are Autocratic, Democratic and Laissez-faire. The findings of the study are discussed, conclusion draw and recommendations made. (shrink)

Active materials are self-propelled non-living entities which, in some circumstances, exhibit a number of cognitively interesting behaviors such as gradient-following, avoiding obstacles, signaling and group coordination. This has led to scientific and philosophical discussion of whether this may make them useful as minimal models of cognition (Hanczyc, 2014; McGivern, 2019). Batterman and Rice (2014) have argued that what makes a minimal model explanatory is that the model is ultimately in the same universality class as the target system, which underpins why (...) it exhibits the same macrobehavior. We appeal to recent research in basal cognition (Lyon et al., 2021) to establish appropriate target systems and essential features of cognition as a target of modeling. Looking at self-propelled oil droplets, a type of active material, we do not find that organization alone indicates that these systems exhibit the essential features of cognition. We then examine the specific behaviors of oil droplets but also fail to find that these demonstrate the essential features of cognition. Without a universality class, Batterman & Rice’s account of the explanatory power of minimal models simply does not apply to cognition. However, we also want to stress that it is not intended to; cognition is not the same type of behavioral phenomena as those found in physics. We then look to the minimal cognition methodology of Beer (1996, 2020a, b) to show how active materials can be explanatorily valuable regardless of their cognitive status because they engage in specific behaviors that have traditionally been expected to involve internal representational dynamics, revealing misconceptions about the cognitive underpinnings of certain, specific behaviors in target systems where such behaviors are cognitive. Further, Beer’s models can also be genuinely explanatory by providing dynamical explanations. (shrink)

Particularists maintain that conspiracy theories are to be assessed individually, while generalists hold that conspiracy theories may be assessed as a class. This paper seeks to clarify the nature and importance of the debate between particularism and generalism, while offering an argument for a version of generalism. I begin by considering three approaches to the definition of conspiracy theory, and offer reason to prefer an approach that defines conspiracy theories in opposition to the claims of epistemic authorities. I argue that (...) particularists rely on an untenably broad definition of conspiracy theory. Then, I argue that particularism and its counterpart are best understood as constellations of theses, rather than a pair of incompatible theses. While some particularist theses are highly plausible, I argue that one important particularist thesis is false. The argument for this conclusion draws on the history of false conspiracy theories. I then defend this conclusion against a pair of potential objections. (shrink)

Some thoughts on moral relativism, and its relation to moral phenomenology and truth.

The target of our paper is to articulate the grounds that legitimize the foundation of an African Traditional Religion as a distinct religious enterprise with its own philosophical fundamentals as well as its own tenets and framework. In this paper, we engage the relevant concepts that are crucial to the success to any paper that attempts to demonstrate the reality of African Traditional Religion (henceforth, ATR): specifically, we will engage the questions of the existence of a Supreme Being, the problem (...) of evil, and the structure of a properly ATR theodicy. (shrink)

Humanity has begun to move from the natural world intothe cyber world. Issues surrounding this mentalmigration are debated in philosophical dialogue. Thelead character is Becket Geist, a romantic philosopherwith views tempered by 20th century science. He openswith a monologue in which he argues that loss of theworld in exchange for the cyber world is dark andinevitable. His chief adversary is Fortran McCyborg,a cyborg with leanings toward Scottish philosophy. The moderating force is Nonette Naturski who championsnaturalism, conservation of humanist ideals, andprudent (...) conclusions. The ensuing dialogue examineseight counter-arguments to Geist''s vision. Thearguments and Geist''s replies lead to unanticipatedchanges in position that cascade to a chillingclose. (shrink)

The question of whether the term ”art,” or art as an array of objects, can be defined depends upon the sense of “art” and its extension. The generic sense of “art” is its broadest meaning having its widest extension. I argue that the term is very much like the generic term “science.” Uses of both terms don’t depend upon rigorous definition. Rather, the terms organize an enormous number of varied and sometimes incompatible sub-categories. Most informative topics in art and science (...) are under these sub-categories. As dynamic areas of activity, art and science continue to evolve without an efficacious generic sense. We can dispense with it for these purposes. (shrink)

This paper identifies and elucidates the underappreciated phenomenon of epistemic domination. Epistemic domination is the nonmutual capacity of one party to control the evidence available to another. Where this capacity is exercised, especially by parties that are ill-intentioned or ill-informed, the dominated party may have difficulty attaining epistemically valuable states. I begin with a discussion of epistemic domination and how it is possible. I then highlight three negative consequences that may result from epistemic domination.

Alternative currencies are means of payment that circulate alongside—as an alternative or complement to—official currencies. While these currencies have existed for a long time, both society and academia have shown a renewed interest in their potential to decentralize the governance of monetary affairs and to bring people and organizations together in more ethical or sustainable ways. This article is a review of the ethical and philosophical implications of these alternative monetary projects. We first discuss various classifications of these currencies before (...) analyzing the ethical challenges linked to the way they tackle social and environmental issues. We also examine the incentive-based and coercive mechanisms used by these currencies from an ethical perspective and debate the promises and perils of monetary decentralization and democracy. We conclude by identifying an agenda for future research. (shrink)

This research paper assesses the possible relationship between motivation and academic performance of student athletes and utilized a descriptive design as it investigated the association between two constructs (variables) of student athletes, namely their motivation and academic performance. The research is descriptive correlational research with sixty (60) student athlete respondents coming from the various varsity teams in a selected university in the city of Manila. The descriptive nature and design of the study would require that descriptive statistics and measures of (...) association be utilized to analyze the relationship between the two constructs of the study – motivation and academic performance. The (SAMSAQ) was chosen as the research instrument to collate the necessary descriptive data, upon which a correlation analysis through the Pearson was administered. After the statistical analysis, the following were the conclusion of the study: (1) That there was a perfect positive relationship between responses of the student – athletes in the thirty (30) SAMSAQ items and their GPA’s; (2) That the relationship between motivation and academic performance of respondents, as represented by their mean scores of responses and GPA’s respectively are not of the same strength and significance for negatively and positively – structured queries of the SAMSAQ; (3) That the mean scores of responses in negative and positive impact queries of respondents and its relationship with their GPA’s, representatives of the measures of motivation and academic performance are incomparable as the Likert scale is inverted for the negatively structured queries, where behavior adverse to academic performance is sought. (shrink)

Who deserves credit for epistemic successes, and who is to blame for epistemic failures? Extreme views, which would place responsibility either solely on the individual or solely on the individual’s surrounding environment, are not plausible. Recently, progress has been made toward articulating virtue epistemology as a suitable middle ground. A socio-environmentally oriented virtue epistemology can recognize that an individual’s traits play an important role in shaping what that individual believes, while also recognizing that some of the most efficacious individual traits (...) have to do with how individuals structure their epistemic environments and how they respond to information received within these environments. I contribute to the development of such an epistemology by introducing and elucidating the virtue of epistemic exactingness, which is characterized by a motivation to regulate the epistemically significant conduct of others. (shrink)

This research determined the correlation between the mindfulness, mental toughness, and motivation of 770 first year and second year college students and their sports involvement in one of the oldest private higher education institutions in the City of Manila. A researcher-made questionnaire was validated and pilot-tested prior to the conduct of the study. The results revealed that most of the respondents were 17 to 19 years old (75.06%) and they described their mindfulness in terms of attention and awareness as “Very (...) High”; their mental toughness in terms of rebound ability, ability to handle pressure, concentration and confidence as “Very High”; their intrinsic motivation as “Very High”; their extrinsic motivation as “High”; their sports involvement in terms of power and performance as ”High”; and their sports involvement in terms of pleasure and participation as ”Very High.”. (shrink)

This study investigated the difference in the sports involvement of the first year and second year college students in terms power and performance and pleasure and participation. In a sample of seven hundred seventy first year and second year college student students collected between the months of November to December 2019, in terms of power and performance during sports activities, first year respondents gave an average rating of 3.06 (Agree) while the second-year respondents gave an average rating of 3.07 (agree). (...) The results suggest that the student-respondents were not after winning when they were involved in sports. Furthermore, first year respondents gave the highest mean score of 3.79 (strongly agree) in the item “I want to have fun during sports activities” while the second-year respondents gave the highest mean score of 3.75 (strongly agree) in the item “I believe that even poorly skilled students deserve the right to play”. Moreover, using the t-test at 0.05 level of significance power and performance with a computed t-test value of 1.54 and pleasure and participation with a computed t-test value of 1.170 were both lower than the tabular t-test value of 1.971 with the degree of freedom of 768. Therefore, the null hypothesis was accepted. Thus, there was no significant difference between the first year and second year college students’ sports involvement in terms of power and performance and pleasure and participation. The results suggest that students may be provided with various sports programs for competition or for leisure to foster holistic student development. (shrink)

Precision medicine and molecular systems medicine (MSM) are highly utilized and successful approaches to improve understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of many diseases from bench-to-bedside. Especially in the COVID-19 pandemic, molecular techniques and biotechnological innovation have proven to be of utmost importance for rapid developments in disease diagnostics and treatment, including DNA and RNA sequencing technology, treatment with drugs and natural products and vaccine development. The COVID-19 crisis, however, has also demonstrated the need for systemic thinking and transdisciplinarity and the limits (...) of MSM: the neglect of the bio-psycho-social systemic nature of humans and their context as the object of individual therapeutic and population-oriented interventions. COVID-19 illustrates how a medical problem requires a transdisciplinary approach in epidemiology, pathology, internal medicine, public health, environmental medicine, and socio-economic modeling. Regarding the need for conceptual integration of these different kinds of knowledge we suggest the application of general system theory (GST). This approach endorses an organism-centered view on health and disease, which according to Ludwig von Bertalanffy who was the founder of GST, we call Organismal Systems Medicine (OSM). We argue that systems science offers wider applications in the field of pathology and can contribute to an integrative systems medicine by (i) integration of evidence across functional and structural differentially scaled subsystems, (ii) conceptualization of complex multilevel systems, and (iii) suggesting mechanisms and non-linear relationships underlying the observed phenomena. We underline these points with a proposal on multi-level systems pathology including neurophysiology, endocrinology, immune system, genetics, and general metabolism. An integration of these areas is necessary to understand excess mortality rates and polypharmacological treatments. In the pandemic era this multi-level systems pathology is most important to assess potential vaccines, their effectiveness, short-, and long-time adverse effects. We further argue that these conceptual frameworks are not only valid in the COVID-19 era but also important to be integrated in a medicinal curriculum. (shrink)

Social network structure has been argued to shape the structure of languages, as well as affect the spread of innovations and the formation of conventions in the community. Specifically, theoretical and computational models of language change predict that sparsely connected communities develop more systematic languages, while tightly knit communities can maintain high levels of linguistic complexity and variability. However, the role of social network structure in the cultural evolution of languages has never been tested experimentally. Here, we present results from (...) a behavioral group communication study, in which we examined the formation of new languages created in the lab by micro‐societies that varied in their network structure. We contrasted three types of social networks: fully connected, small‐world, and scale‐free. We examined the artificial languages created by these different networks with respect to their linguistic structure, communicative success, stability, and convergence. Results did not reveal any effect of network structure for any measure, with all languages becoming similarly more systematic, more accurate, more stable, and more shared over time. At the same time, small‐world networks showed the greatest variation in their convergence, stabilization, and emerging structure patterns, indicating that network structure can influence the community's susceptibility to random linguistic changes (i.e., drift). (shrink)

Ever since Freud pioneered the “talking cure,” psychologists of various stripes have explored how autobiographical narrative bears on self-understanding and psychic wellbeing. Recently, there has been a wave of philosophical speculation as to whether autobiographical narrative plays an essential or important role in the constitution of agentic selves. However, embodiment has received little attention from philosophers who defend some version of the narrative self. Catriona Mackenzie is an important exception to this pattern of neglect, and this paper explores Mackenzie’s work (...) on embodiment and self-narrative with the aim of better understanding the adequacy of autobiographical narrative as an account of the agentic self. I argue that Mackenzie’s narrative account of embodied subjectivity and agency is incomplete, for it over-estimates the reach of narrative and underestimates the cognitive and agentic powers of the lived body. (shrink)

Experts are sharply divided concerning the prevalence and influence of misinformation. Some have emphasized the severe epistemic and political threats posed by misinformation and have argued that some such threats have been realized in the real world. Others have argued that such concerns overstate the prevalence of misinformation and the gullibility of ordinary persons. Rather than taking a stand on this issue, I consider what would follow from the supposition that this latter perspective is correct. I argue that, if the (...) prevalence and influence of misinformation are indeed overstated, then many reports as to the prevalence and influence of misinformation constitute a kind of higher-order misinformation. I argue that higher-order misinformation presents its own challenges. In particular, higher-order misinformation, ironically, would lend credibility to the very misinformation whose influence it exaggerates. Additionally, higher-order misinformation would lead to underestimations of the reasons favoring opposing views. In short, higher-order misinformation constitutes misleading higher-order evidence concerning the quality of the evidence on which individuals form their beliefs. (shrink)

In this paper, we offer reasons to justify the explanatory credentials of dynamical modeling in the context of the metaplasticity thesis, located within a larger grouping of views known as 4E Cognition. Our focus is on showing that dynamicism is consistent with interventionism, and therefore with a difference-making account at the scale of system topologies that makes sui generis explanatory differences to the overall behavior of a cognitive system. In so doing, we provide a general overview of the interventionist approach. (...) We then argue that recent mechanistic attempts at reducing dynamical modeling to a merely descriptive enterprise fail given that the explanatory standard in dynamical modeling can be shown to rest on interventionism. We conclude that dynamical modeling captures features of nested and developmentally plastic cognitive systems that cannot be explained by appeal to underlying mechanisms alone. (shrink)

Social media misinformation is widely thought to pose a host of threats to the acquisition of knowledge. One response to these threats is to remove misleading information from social media and to de-platform those who spread it. While content moderation of this sort has been criticized on various grounds—including potential incompatibility with free expression—the epistemic case for the removal of misinformation from social media has received little scrutiny. Here, I provide an overview of some costs and benefits of the removal (...) of misinformation from social media. On the one hand, removing misinformation from social media can promote knowledge acquisition by removing misleading evidence from online social epistemic environments. On the other hand, such removals require the exercise of power over evidence by content moderators. As I argue, such exercises of power can encourage suspicions on the part of social media users and can compromise the force of the evidence possessed by such users. For these reasons, the removal of misinformation from social media poses its own threats to knowledge. (shrink)

Wilfrid Sellars’ distinctive scientific realism has lately been gaining ground, but a crucial issue is how it can or should theorize modality. We argue that many interesting questions in this area transcend the usual ‘first-order’ concerns: “Is there an objectivist modal ontology?” and “What modal entities should we posit”? Rather, Sellars invites us to take a fresh look at the relationship between logic and metaphysics through an investigation of ‘second-order’ philosophical categories. This investigation contrasts with both the first-order 'external' ontologising (...) of metaphysicians such as David Lewis and the 'easy' ontologising of metaphysicians such as Amie Thomasson. We argue that Sellars' approach stimulates a more conscious and fruitful examination of our role and methods as philosophers in the modal arena. Moreover, since the notion of metaphysics as a ‘second-order’ activity has recently gained attention in contemporary philosophy of science through the work of David Wallace, we explore both Sellars’ potential contribution to these discussions and the relationship between Sellars’ approach and contemporary ontic structural realist views regarding modal structure, thereby opening up fundamental questions concerning where and how the metaphysics of modality might be integrated with our current best physics. (shrink)

Philosophers who defend a person’s right, under certain circumstances, to end his own life or to have a physician end it for him typically appeal both to respect for patient autonomy and to considerations of beneficence. Neither autonomy alone nor beneficence alone can ground a persuasive case for euthanasia. I argue, however, that the standard argument for euthanasia is unsound. It is not possible to combine the principles of autonomy and beneficence in such a way as to justify euthanasia for (...) those who request it and are either incurably ill, in irremediable pain, or fearful of future incapacity, while excluding both involuntary euthanasia and assisted death for those who request it despite being neither incurably ill, in irremediable pain nor fearful of future incapacity. (shrink)

Despite raising awareness and promoting knowledge and skills-development for education about climate change, efforts by the education sector to promote the development of climate change science literacy in schools is challenged by the nature of climate science. We illuminated the nature of climate science by analysing literature on the nature of science that foregrounds discussions in climate science, and found that climate science involves mostly complex systems and problems; the scope of climate science is vast and interdisciplinary; most issues and (...) problems in climate science are geographic in nature; climate science is characterised by uncertainty and disagreement; and, it is highly politicised. Unless education policymakers and curriculum designers consider these factors when formulating pedagogical intervention frameworks for a more effective and efficient climate change education; nurturing climate change science literacy in schools will be ever more elusive. (shrink)

We respond to Moseley and Wilkinson's defense of inner speech models of AVH.

Climate change increases the frequency and intensity of certain kinds of natural hazard events in alpine areas. This interdisciplinary study addresses the hypothetical possibility of relocating the residents of three alpine areas in Austria: the Sölk valleys, the Johnsbach valley, and the St. Lorenzen/Schwarzenbach valleys. Our particular focus is on these residents’ expectations about such relocations. We find that (1) many residents expect that in the next decades the state will provide them with a level of natural hazards protection, aid, (...) and relief that allows them to continue to live in these valleys; (2) this expectation receives some legal protection but only when it is associated with fundamental rights; and (3) the expectation is morally significant, i.e., it ought to be considered in assessing the moral rightness or justness of relocation policies. These results suggest legal changes and likely extend to many other (Austrian) alpine areas as well. (shrink)

This paper argues that Kwasi Wiredu’s consensual democracy is an inadequate alternative to liberal democracy in contemporary Africa because it neglects the beliefs in supernatural realities underpinning governance and political decisions in traditional societies on the continent. The paper holds that as evident in their worldviews and activities, traditional Africans do not depersonalise entities or segregate physical realities from spiritual ones. Deploying historical and conceptual analyses, the paper contends that, essentially, the deficiency of Wiredu’s argument lies in his declining to (...) acknowledge the roles oaths and covenants play in the sustenance of Africa’s traditional governance systems. The paper thus holds that Wiredu’s discountenancing of the role of beliefs in supernatural realities in African societies generally may have resulted in this gap in his understanding of indigenous African political thought and practice. (shrink)

My aim is to extend and complement the arguments that others have already made for the claim that women who are citizens of economically disadvantaged states and who have been trafficked into sex work in economically advantaged states should be considered candidates for asylum. Familiar arguments cite the sexual violence and forced labor that trafficked women are subjected to along with their well-founded fear of persecution if they’re repatriated. What hasn’t been considered is that reproductive rights are also at stake. (...) I explain how reproductive rights are implicated in sex trafficking. Moreover, I contend that sex traffickers’ abuse of women’s reproductive rights is persecutory and that that this persecutory abuse obliges destination states to offer asylum to transnational sex trafficking victims. I start by sketching reproductive human rights doctrine. I then examine studies of women who are in post-trafficking recovery programs in order to ascertain the impact of their past experience of forced sex work on their reproductive freedom and health. On the basis of these findings, I maintain that, among other outrages, sex trafficking systematically violates victims’ reproductive human rights. In view of this abuse, women trafficked into sex work might seem to be prime candidates for asylum in destination states. Yet, economically well-off destination states are not particularly receptive to this idea, and international law provides some justification for their chilliness. Preliminary to challenging them, I explicate four ways in which international anti-trafficking law and international refugee law interfere with viewing women trafficked into sex work as refugees and approving their applications for asylum. The second half of my paper aims to overcome those legal obstacles. In the interest of parsimony and because there are many continuities between U.S. refugee law and anti-trafficking law and the policies of similar destination states, I focus mainly on the U.S. in this part of the paper. To anchor my argument, I spotlight two precedents in refugee law for taking reproductive human rights seriously and several precedents for treating trafficked women as members of a distinct social group as required by refugee law. I then urge that a law enforcement gestalt has gained undue influence over U.S. legal practices where anti-trafficking law intersects with refugee protection law. A human rights gestalt is needed as a counterweight, for otherwise victims of sex trafficking and the reproductive abuse they’ve suffered are erased. Taking up a human rights perspective and mobilizing the precedents I’ve identified, I show that respecting the reproductive human rights of women who have been trafficked into sex work entails that affluent destination states must recognize their right to asylum. (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.