In this paper, I defend Rudolf Carnap's Principle of Tolerance from an accusation, due to Michael Friedman, that it is self-defeating by prejudicing any debate towards the logically stronger theory. In particular, Friedman attempts to show that Carnap's reconstruction of the debate between classicists and intuitionists over the foundations of mathematics in his book The Logical Syntax of Language, is biased towards the classical standpoint since the metalanguage he constructs to adjudicate between the rival positions is fully classical. (...) I argue that this criticism is mistaken on two counts: (1) it fails to fully appreciate the freedom with regard to the construction of linguistic frameworks that Carnap intended his Principle to embody, and (2) Friedman's objection underestimates the extent to which the evaluation of a framework is task-relative. I conclude that Tolerance is not self-undermining in the way that Friedman claims it is. While this is a restricted conclusion -- and is not a vindication of Carnap's views on logic and mathematics tout court -- it nonetheless suggests that his tolerant perspective has been dismissed too quickly, even by his supporters. (shrink)

Recent research on the metaethical beliefs of ordinary people appears to show that they are metaethical pluralists that adopt different metaethical standards for different moral judgments. Yet the methods used to evaluate folk metaethical belief rely on the assumption that participants interpret what they are asked in metaethical terms. We argue that most participants do not interpret questions designed to elicit metaethical beliefs in metaethical terms, or at least not in the way researchers intend. As a result, existing methods are (...) not reliable measures of metaethical belief. We end by discussing the implications of our account for the philosophical and practical implications of research on the psychology of metaethics. (shrink)

Scientific disagreements are an important catalyst for scientific progress. But what happens when scientists disagree amidst times of crisis, when we need quick yet reliable policy guidance? In this paper we provide a normative account for how scientists facing disagreement in the context of ‘fast science’ should respond, and how policy makers should evaluate such disagreement. Starting from an argumentative, pragma-dialectic account of scientific controversies, we argue for the importance of ‘higher-order evidence’ (HOE) and we specify desiderata for scientifically relevant (...) HOE. We use our account to analyze the controversy about the aerosol transmission of COVID-19. (shrink)

This paper analyses the relationship between Public Administration, Knowledge Management and Service Delivery and to understand if improved Knowledge Management in the South African Government can improve public sector service delivery. This paper is a systematic analysis of 150 secondary literature sources. Even though not all the secondary literature sources analysed are used or cited in the paper, they nonetheless contributed to the identification of several key issues. The main finding of this paper is that improved Knowledge Management in the (...) South African Government would ultimately result in improved public sector service delivery. There is a dearth of empirical research on Knowledge Management in the South African Government, including whether the public sector's adoption of private-sector methods to better itself is effective. From a Public Administration standpoint, none of the literature analysed explains how to successfully integrate Knowledge Management in the "South African Government to improve service delivery." More research on this subject is necessary. Especially, to determine the impact of Knowledge Management on investor confidence, and the inflow of Foreign Direct Investment. The research will benefit governments of developing countries, particularly South Africa, Public Administration scholars, and Knowledge Management professionals. (shrink)

Although Knowledge Management was introduced as a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for all senior management in South Africa 15 years ago, its implementation has been slow and inconsistent. This paper aimed to identify the factors that contribute to or deter the implementation of Knowledge Management in the South African government. The issue was explored through a review of literature on Knowledge Management, as well as results of an interview and questionnaire completed by government officials doing Knowledge Management practitioner work in (...) the South African government. The quantitative data was analysed using DATAtab. The findings identified two key factors that deter the implementation of Knowledge Management in the South African government: most departments in the South African government do not value Knowledge Management, and public officials responsible for implementing Knowledge Management in their departments lack implementation skills. A lack of research on Knowledge Management in developmental governments exists. More research on this subject is necessary. The research will benefit Knowledge Management and Public Administration practitioners alike. (shrink)

In the replies to my critics that follow I offer a more detailed account of the specific papers that they discuss or examine. The papers that they are especially concerned with are: “The Material World and Natural Religion in Hume’s Treatise” (Ryan) [Essay 3], “Hume’s Skepticism and the Problem of Atheism” (Fosl) [Essay 12], and “Hume’s Philosophy of Irreligion and the Myth of British Empiricism (Gautier) [Essay 16].

This paper defends the Intention Account of Inquiry. On this account, inquiry is best understood by appeal to a ‘question-directed intention’ (QDI), an intention to answer a question broadly construed. This account’s core commitments help meet recent challenges plaguing extant approaches to characterizing inquiry. First, QDIs are the type of mental state central to inquiry, not attitudes like curiosity or wonder. Second, holding a QDI towards a question and acting in service of it constitutes the start of inquiry. Third, controversial (...) norms which mandate a rational inquirer's ignorance towards the answer to her question can be reformulated and defended by appeal to rational constraints on intention. Fourth, instrumental pressures inquirers face are the standard pressures of plan-rationality. In defending these theses, I show that the Intention Account provides compelling explanations to standing challenges, in ways competitors cannot. It does so by advancing understanding of how our epistemic and practical agency are intertwined. (shrink)

Recasting Hume and Early Modern Philosophy is a collection of essays that are all concerned with major figures and topics in the early modern philosophy. Most of the essays are concerned, more specifically, with the philosophy of David Hume (1711-1776). The sixteen essays included in this collection are divided into five parts. These parts are arranged under the headings of: (1) Metaphysics and Epistemology; (2) Free Will and Moral Luck; (3) Ethics, Virtue and Optimism; (4) Skepticism, Religion and Atheism; and (...) (5) Irreligion and the Unity of Hume’s Thought. A particularly important theme running through many of these essays is the subject of Hume’s irreligious aims and intentions. The fifth and final part of the collection is devoted to an articulation and defence of this specific understanding of Hume’s philosophical thought. (shrink)

We report a series of experiments examining whether people ascribe knowledge for true beliefs based on probabilistic evidence. Participants were less likely to ascribe knowledge for beliefs based on probabilistic evidence than for beliefs based on perceptual evidence or testimony providing causal information. Denial of knowledge for beliefs based on probabilistic evidence did not arise because participants viewed such beliefs as unjustified, nor because such beliefs leave open the possibility of error. These findings rule out traditional philosophical accounts for why (...) probabilistic evidence does not produce knowledge. The experiments instead suggest that people deny knowledge because they distrust drawing conclusions about an individual based on reasoning about the population to which it belongs, a tendency previously identified by “judgment and decision making” researchers. Consistent with this, participants were more willing to ascribe knowledge for beliefs based on probabilistic evidence that is specific to a particular case. 2016 APA, all rights reserved). (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)

In 1948, Claude Shannon introduced his version of a concept that was core to Norbert Wiener's cybernetics, namely, information theory. Shannon's formalisms include a physical framework, namely a general communication system having six unique elements. Under this framework, Shannon information theory offers two particularly useful statistics, channel capacity and information transmitted. Remarkably, hundreds of neuroscience laboratories subsequently reported such numbers. But how (and why) did neuroscientists adapt a communications-engineering framework? Surprisingly, the literature offers no clear answers. To therefore first answer (...) "how", 115 authoritative peer-reviewed papers, proceedings, books and book chapters were scrutinized for neuroscientists' characterizations of the elements of Shannon's general communication system. Evidently, many neuroscientists attempted no identification of the system's elements. Others identified only a few of Shannon's system's elements. Indeed, the available neuroscience interpretations show a stunning incoherence, both within and across studies. The interpretational gamut implies hundreds, perhaps thousands, of different possible neuronal versions of Shannon's general communication system. The obvious lack of a definitive, credible interpretation makes neuroscience calculations of channel capacity and information transmitted meaningless. To now answer why Shannon's system was ever adapted for neuroscience, three common features of the neuroscience literature were examined: ignorance of the role of the observer, the presumption of "decoding" of neuronal voltage-spike trains, and the pursuit of ingrained analogies such as information, computation, and machine. Each of these factors facilitated a plethora of interpretations of Shannon's system elements. Finally, let us not ignore the impact of these "informational misadventures" on society at large. It is the same impact as scientific fraud. (shrink)

This article examines public administration from 1890 to 2023 to see how it evolved and influenced practice and if good governance is a crucial component in this transformation. This paper presents an in-depth review of several different pieces of secondary literature sources. This paper produced several key findings. The most important finding of this literature study is that, between 1890 and 1980, the Public Administration transitioned from "Traditional Public Administration" to "New Public Management" due to the growing need for good (...) governance. The year 2000 saw the birth of a novel idea in public administration known as "New Public Governance," which has persisted in practice ever since. This paper will be useful to Public Administration practitioners worldwide. There has been little empirical research into how the evolution of Public Administration encourages governments to act more like private corporations. Consequently, more research on this subject is encouraged. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper argues for a version of sceptical invariantism about knowledge on which the acceptability of knowledge-attributing sentences varies with the context of assessment.

Discussion of new axioms for set theory has often focused on conceptions of maximality, and how these might relate to the iterative conception of set. This paper provides critical appraisal of how certain maximality axioms behave on different conceptions of ontology concerning the iterative conception. In particular, we argue that forms of multiversism (the view that any universe of a certain kind can be extended) and actualism (the view that there are universes that cannot be extended in particular ways) face (...) complementary problems. The latter view is unable to use maximality axioms that make use of extensions, where the former has to contend with the existence of extensions violating maximality axioms. An analysis of two kinds of multiversism, a Zermelian form and Skolemite form, leads to the conclusion that the kind of maximality captured by an axiom differs substantially according to background ontology. (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)

In 1947, Hardy, Wolff, and Goodell achieved a psychophysics milestone: they built a putative sensation-growth scale, for skin pain, from pain-difference limens. Limens were found using the “dolorimeter”, a device first made by Hardy & co. to evoke pain for pain-threshold measurements. Scant years later, though, H.K. Beecher (MD) discredited the pain scale – according to Paterson (2019), citing the historian Tousignant. Yet Hardy & co. receive approval in the literature. Intrigued, we scrutinized their methods, then Beecher’s critiques, and Tousignant’s (...) history of threshold dolorimetry. Beecher decried dolorimetry as irrelevant, favoring clinical trials of pain relief. But he failed to discredit dolorimetry. (shrink)

An ongoing mystery in sensory science is how sensation magnitude F(I), such as loudness, increases with increasing stimulus intensity I. No credible, direct experimental measures exist. Nonetheless, F(I) can be inferred algebraically. Differences in sensation have empirical (but non-quantifiable) minimum sizes called just-noticeable sensation differences, ∆F, which correspond to empirically-measurable just-noticeable intensity differences, ∆I. The ∆Is presumably cumulate from an empirical stimulus-detection threshold I_th up to the intensity of interest, I. Likewise, corresponding ∆Fs cumulate from the sensation at the stimulus-detection (...) threshold, F(I_th ), up to F(I). Regarding the ∆Is, however, it is unlikely that all of them will be known experimentally; the procedures are too lengthy. The customary approach, then, is to find ∆I at a few widely-spaced intensities, and then use those ∆Is to interpolate all ∆Is using some smooth continuous function. The most popular of those functions is Weber’s Law, ∆I⁄I=K. But that is often not even a credible approximation to the data. However, there are other equations for ∆I⁄I. Any such equation for ∆I⁄I can be combined with any equation for ∆F, through calculus, to altogether obtain F(I). Here, two assumptions for ∆F are considered: ∆F=B (Fechner’s Law) and (∆F⁄F)=g (Ekman’s Law). The respective integrals involve lower bounds I_th and F(I_th ). This stands in broad contrast to the literature, which heavily favors non-bounded integrals. We, hence, obtain 24 new, alternative equations for sensation magnitude F(I) (12 equations for (∆I⁄I) × 2 equations for ∆F). (shrink)

A major question in sensory science is how a sensation of magnitude F (such as loudness) depends upon a sensory stimulus of physical intensity I (such as a sound-pressure-wave of root-mean-square sound-pressure-level). An empirical just-noticeable sensation difference (∆F)_j at F_j specifies a just-noticeable intensity difference (∆I)_j at I_j. Classically, intensity differences accumulate from a stimulus-detection threshold I_th up to a desired intensity I. The corresponding sensation differences likewise accumulate up to F(I) from F(I_th ), the non-zero sensation (as suggested by (...) hearing studies) at I_th. Consequently, sensation growth F(I) can be obtained through classic Fechnerian integration, in which some empirically-based relation for the Weber Fraction, ∆I⁄I, is combined with either Fechner’s Law ∆F=B or Ekman’s Law (∆F⁄F)=g. The number of steps in I is equated to the number of steps in F; an infinite series ensues, whose higher-order terms are traditionally ignored (Fechnerian integration). But also, remarkably, so are the integration bounds I_th and F(I_th ). Here, we depart from orthodoxy by including those bounds. Bounded Fechnerian integration is first used to derive hypothetical sensation-growth equations for which the differential ∆F(I)=F(I+∆I)-F(I) does indeed return either Fechner’s Law or Ekman’s Law respectively. One relation emerges: linear growth of sensation F with intensity I. Subsequently, 24 sensation-growth equations F(I) that the author had derived using bounded Fechnerian integration (12 equations for the Weber Fraction (∆I⁄I), each combined with either Fechner’s Law or with Ekman’s Law) are scrutinized for whether their differentials F(I+∆I)-F(I) return the respective Fechner’s Law or Ekman’s Law, particularly in the previously-unexamined limits (∆I⁄I)≪1 and (∆I⁄I)→0. Classic claims made by Luce and Edwards (1958) are then examined, viz., that three popular forms of the Weber Fraction, when combined with Fechner’s Law, produce sensation-magnitude equations that subsequently return the selfsame Fechner’s Law. When sensation-growth equations are derived here using bounded Fechnerian integration, Luce and Edwards (1958) prove to be wrong. (shrink)

This paper considers ethical concerns with regard to replacing human relations with humanoid robots. Many have written about the impact that certain types of relations with robots may have on us, and why we should be concerned about robots replacing human relations. There has, however, been no consideration of this issue from an African philosophical perspective. Ubuntu philosophy provides a novel perspective on how relations with robots may impact our own moral character and moral development. This paper first discusses what (...) humanoid robots are, why and how humans tend to anthropomorphise them, and what the literature says about robots crowding out human relations. It then explains the ideal of becoming “fully human”, which pertains to being particularly moral in character. In ubuntu philosophy, we are not only biologically human, but must strive to become better, more moral versions of ourselves, to become fully human. We can become fully human by having other regarding traits or characteristics within the context of interdependent, or humane, relationships (such as by exhibiting human equality, reciprocity, or solidarity). This concept of becoming fully human is important in ubuntu philosophy. Having explained that idea, the main argument of the paper is then put forward: that treating humanoid robots as if they are human is morally concerning if they crowd out human relations, because such relations prevent us from becoming fully human. This is because we cannot experience human equality, solidarity, and reciprocity with robots, which can be seen to characterise interdependent, or humane, relations with human beings. (shrink)

This paper is based on the premise that public officials in developing countries lack the necessary skills to implement Knowledge Management (KM) successfully, so a framework is required to facilitate this process. South Africa is the case study. It is therefore necessary to develop a Knowledge Management Implementation Framework (KMIF). Consequently, one of the objectives of this paper is to validate this need and then outline a KMIF that can help government departments in developing countries implement KM and foster a (...) KM culture. A mixed methodology approach was used, combining qualitative and quantitative data collection. Based on the Taro Yamane formula, 139 people were selected from a target population of 221 officials involved in KM in the South African government. DATAtab, a web-based statistics application, was used to analyze the responses. A comprehensive review of several secondary literature sources was carried out. For the literature review, relevant peer-reviewed articles were downloaded from Google Scholar, ResearchGate, Scopus, and Phil Papers. The study posits that officials charged with KM implementation in the South African government lack the necessary implementation skillset, that a need for a KMIF exists, and subsequently outlines a three-stage KMIF to facilitate their efforts. This study recommends that the proposed three-stage KMIF be adopted since it will provide the government (i) a simplified and structured way of realizing KM; (ii) it will be an effective tool that officials can use to guide them on how to implement KM, and (iii) it will cultivate a KM culture within the government. Even though the study is original to the South African government, the findings, however, may be applied to other emerging governments in Africa and beyond. Despite its theoretical nature, the paper lacks empirical validation, leaving it open to further investigation. (shrink)

The appearance of consciousness in the universe remains one of the major mysteries unsolved by science or philosophy. Absent an agreed-upon definition of consciousness or even a convenient system to test theories of consciousness, a confusing heterogeneity of theories proliferate. In pursuit of clarifying this complicated discourse, we here interpret various frameworks for the scientific and philosophical study of consciousness through the lens of social insect evolutionary biology. To do so, we first discuss the notion of a forward test versus (...) a reverse test, analogous to the normal and revolutionary phases of the scientific process. Contemporary theories of consciousness are forward tests for consciousness, in that they strive to become a means to classify the level of consciousness of arbitrary states and systems. Yet no such theory of consciousness has earned sufficient confidence such that it might be actually used as a forward test in ambiguous settings. What is needed now is thus a legitimate reverse test for theories of consciousness, to provide internal and external calibration of different frameworks. A reverse test for consciousness would ideally look like a method for referencing theories of consciousness to a tractable model system. We introduce the Ant Colony Test as a rigorous reverse test for consciousness. We show that social insect colonies, though disaggregated collectives, fulfill many of the prerequisites for conscious awareness met by humans and honey bee workers. A long lineage of philosophically-neutral neurobehavioral, evolutionary, and ecological studies on social insect colonies can thus be redeployed for the study of consciousness in general. We suggest that the ACT can provide insight into the nature of consciousness, and highlight the ant colony as a model system for ethically performing clarifying experiments about consciousness. (shrink)

All contributions included in the present issue were originally prepared for an “Author Meets Critics” session organized by Carl Sachs for the Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association in Savannah, Georgia, on 5th January, 2018.

Should we make significant sacrifices to ever-so-slightly lower the chance of extremely bad outcomes, or to ever-so-slightly raise the chance of extremely good outcomes? *Fanaticism* says yes: for every bad outcome, there is a tiny chance of extreme disaster that is even worse, and for every good outcome, there is a tiny chance of an enormous good that is even better. I consider two related recent arguments for Fanaticism: Beckstead and Thomas's argument from *strange dependence on space and time*, and (...) Wilkinson's *Indology* argument. While both arguments are instructive, neither is persuasive. In fact, the general principles that underwrite the arguments (a *separability* principle in the first case, and a *reflection* principle in the second) are *inconsistent* with Fanaticism. In both cases, though, it is possible to rehabilitate arguments for Fanaticism based on restricted versions of those principles. The situation is unstable: plausible general principles tell *against* Fanaticism, but restrictions of those same principles (with strengthened auxiliary assumptions) *support* Fanaticism. All of the consistent views that emerge are very strange. (shrink)

In general, visual experiences represent determinately. And visual experiences, generally, represent properties of distal objects like their colour, shape, and size, but they do not, generally, represent properties of proximal states like that of incoming light or the retina. By making perceptual constancies central to perceptual representation, Peter Schulte extends Karen Neander’s Causal-Informational Teleosemantic theory in order to accommodate these facts. However, by appealing to the psychophysics and chemistry of how light-related properties interact to produce stimulation to the visual system (...) and how the visual system processes such input to produce experiences, I argue that Schulte’s theory fails to accommodate the facts of distality and determinacy. (shrink)

By a `denoting phrase' I mean a phrase such as any one of the following: a man, some man, any man, every man, all men, the present King of England, the present King of France, the center of mass of the solar system at the first instant of the twentieth century, the revolution of the earth round the sun, the revolution of the sun round the earth. Thus a phrase is denoting solely in virtue of its form. We may distinguish (...) three cases: (1) A phrase may be denoting, and yet not denote anything; e.g., `the present King of France'. (2) A phrase may denote one definite object; e.g., `the present King of England' denotes a certain man. (3) A phrase may denote ambiguously; e.g. `a man' denotes not many men, but an ambiguous man. The interpretation of such phrases is a matter of considerably difficulty; indeed, it is very hard to frame any theory not susceptible of formal refutation. All the difficulties with which I am acquainted are met, so far as I can discover, by the theory which I am about to explain. (shrink)

There has been a call for a potentially revolutionary change to our existing understanding of the psychological concept of personal identity. Apparently, people can psychologically represent people, including themselves, as multiple individuals at the same time. Here we ask whether the intransitive judgments found in these studies truly reflect the operation of an intransitive concept of personal identity. We manipulate several factors that arbitrate between transitivity and intransitivity and find most support for transitivity: in contrast to prior work, most participants (...) do not make intransitive judgments when there is any reason to favor one individual over another. People change which single individual they personally identify with, depending on which individual competes more strongly or weakly for identity, rather than identifying with both individuals. Even when two individuals are identical and therefore both entitled to be the same person, we find that people make more transitive judgments once they understand the practical commitments of their responses (Experiment 4), and report not being able to actually imagine two perspectives simultaneously when reasoning about the scenario (Experiment 5). In short, we suggest that while people may make intransitive judgments, these do not reflect that they psychologically represent identity in an intransitive manner. (shrink)

A discussion of L.A. Paul's 'Transformative Experience' from an Author Meets Critics session at the 2015 Pacific APA.

People with the kind of preferences that give rise to the St. Petersburg paradox are problematic---but not because there is anything wrong with infinite utilities. Rather, such people cannot assign the St. Petersburg gamble any value that any kind of outcome could possibly have. Their preferences also violate an infinitary generalization of Savage's Sure Thing Principle, which we call the *Countable Sure Thing Principle*, as well as an infinitary generalization of von Neumann and Morgenstern's Independence axiom, which we call *Countable (...) Independence*. In violating these principles, they display foibles like those of people who deviate from standard expected utility theory in more mundane cases: they choose dominated strategies, pay to avoid information, and reject expert advice. We precisely characterize the preference relations that satisfy Countable Independence in several equivalent ways: a structural constraint on preferences, a representation theorem, and the principle we began with, that every prospect has a value that some outcome could have. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to ask whether a first-order-cybernetics concept, Shannon’s Information Theory, actually allows a far-reaching mathematics of perception allegedly derived from it, Norwich et al.’s “Entropy Theory of Perception”. Design/methodology/approach – All of The Entropy Theory, 35 years of publications, was scrutinized for its characterization of what underlies Shannon Information Theory: Shannon’s “general communication system”. There, “events” are passed by a “source” to a “transmitter”, thence through a “noisy channel” to a “receiver”, that passes (...) “outcomes” (received events) to a “destination”. Findings – In the entropy theory, “events” were sometimes interactions with the stimulus, but could be microscopic stimulus conditions. “Outcomes” often went unnamed; sometimes, the stimulus, or the interaction with it, or the resulting sensation, were “outcomes”. A “source” was often implied to be a “transmitter”, which frequently was a primary afferent neuron; elsewhere, the stimulus was the “transmitter” and perhaps also the “source”. “Channel” was rarely named; once, it was the whole eye; once, the incident photons; elsewhere, the primary or secondary afferent. “Receiver” was usually the sensory receptor, but could be an afferent. “Destination” went unmentioned. In sum, the entropy theory’s idea of Shannon’s “general communication system” was entirely ambiguous. Research limitations/implications – The ambiguities indicate that, contrary to claim, the entropy theory cannot be an “information theoretical description of the process of perception”. Originality/value – Scrutiny of the entropy theory’s use of information theory was overdue and reveals incompatibilities that force a reconsideration of information theory’s possible role in perception models. A second-order-cybernetics approach is suggested. (shrink)

Iris Murdoch offers a distinctive conception of moral psychology. She suggests that to develop a moral psychology is to develop what she calls a soul-picture; different philosophical moral psychologies are, as she puts it, “rival soul-pictures.” In this paper I clarify Murdoch’s generic notion of “soul-picture,” the genus of which, for example, Aristotle’s, Kant’s, Nietzsche’s, and Murdoch’s constitute rival species. Are all philosophical moral psychologies soul-pictures? If not, what are the criteria that a moral psychology must meet in order to (...) qualify as a soul-picture? I propose five key dimensions. A soul-picture provides a picture of the soul or self that is 1) holistic, 2) value-rich and psychologically realistic (for Murdoch these are intertwined), 3) reflexive, 4) therapeutic and 5) the articulation of which makes use of imaginative language. (shrink)

Purpose – In the last half-century, individual sensory neurons have been bestowed with characteristics of the whole human being, such as behavior and its oft-presumed precursor, consciousness. This anthropomorphization is pervasive in the literature. It is also absurd, given what we know about neurons, and it needs to be abolished. This study aims to first understand how it happened, and hence why it persists. Design/methodology/approach – The peer-reviewed sensory-neurophysiology literature extends to hundreds (perhaps thousands) of papers. Here, more than 90 (...) mainstream papers were scrutinized. Findings – Anthropomorphization arose because single neurons were cast as “observers” who “identify”, “categorize”, “recognize”, “distinguish” or “discriminate” the stimuli, using math-based algorithms that reduce (“decode”) the stimulus-evoked spike trains to the particular stimuli inferred to elicit them. Without “decoding”, there is supposedly no perception. However, “decoding” is both unnecessary and unconfirmed. The neuronal “observer” in fact consists of the laboratory staff and the greater society that supports them. In anthropomorphization, the neuron becomes the collective. Research limitations/implications – Anthropomorphization underlies the widespread application to neurons Information Theory and Signal Detection Theory, making both approaches incorrect. Practical implications – A great deal of time, money and effort has been wasted on anthropomorphic Reductionist approaches to understanding perception and consciousness. Those resources should be diverted into more-fruitful approaches. Originality/value – A long-overdue scrutiny of sensory-neuroscience literature reveals that anthropomorphization, a form of Reductionism that involves the presumption of single-neuron consciousness, has run amok in neuroscience. Consciousness is more likely to be an emergent property of the brain. (shrink)

Boyer proposes that ownership intuitions depend on tracking cues predictive of agents’ motivations to compete for resources. However, the account may mis-predict people's intuitions about ownership, and it may also be too cognitively costly to be feasible. Even so, alternative accounts could benefit by taking inspiration from how the account handles thorny issues in the psychology of ownership.

In this panel, we explore the future of value sensitive design (VSD). The stakes are high. Many in public and private sectors and in civil society are gradually realizing that taking our values seriously implies that we have to ensure that values effectively inform the design of technology which, in turn, shapes people’s lives. Value sensitive design offers a highly developed set of theory, tools, and methods to systematically do so.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the popular “information transmitted” interpretation of absolute judgments, and to provide an alternative interpretation if one is needed. Design/methodology/approach – The psychologists Garner and Hake and their successors used Shannon’s Information Theory to quantify information transmitted in absolute judgments of sensory stimuli. Here, information theory is briefly reviewed, followed by a description of the absolute judgment experiment, and its information theory analysis. Empirical channel capacities are scrutinized. A remarkable coincidence, the (...) similarity of maximum information transmitted to human memory capacity, is described. Over 60 representative psychology papers on “information transmitted” are inspected for evidence of memory involvement in absolute judgment. Finally, memory is conceptually integrated into absolute judgment through a novel qualitative model that correctly predicts how judgments change with increase in the number of judged stimuli. Findings – Garner and Hake gave conflicting accounts of how absolute judgments represent information transmission. Further, “channel capacity” is an illusion caused by sampling bias and wishful thinking; information transmitted actually peaks and then declines, the peak coinciding with memory capacity. Absolute judgments themselves have numerous idiosyncracies that are incompatible with a Shannon general communication system but which clearly imply memory dependence. Research limitations/implications – Memory capacity limits the correctness of absolute judgments. Memory capacity is already well measured by other means, making redundant the informational analysis of absolute judgments. Originality/value – This paper presents a long-overdue comprehensive critical review of the established interpretation of absolute judgments in terms of “information transmitted”. An inevitable conclusion is reached: that published measurements of information transmitted actually measure memory capacity. A new, qualitative model is offered for the role of memory in absolute judgments. The model is well supported by recently revealed empirical properties of absolute judgments. (shrink)

Shannon’s information theory has been a popular component of first-order cybernetics. It quantifies information transmitted in terms of the number of times a sent symbol is received as itself, or as another possible symbol. Sent symbols were events and received symbols were outcomes. Garner and Hake reinterpreted Shannon, describing events and outcomes as categories of a stimulus attribute, so as to quantify the information transmitted in the psychologist’s category (or absolute judgment) experiment. There, categories are represented by specific stimuli, and (...) the human subject must assign those stimuli, singly and in random order, to the categories that they represent. Hundreds of computations ensued of information transmitted and its alleged asymptote, the sensory channel capacity. The present paper critically re-examines those estimates. It also reviews estimates of memory capacity from memory experiments. It concludes that absolute judgment is memory-limited and that channel capacities are actually memory capacities. In particular, there are factors that affect absolute judgment that are not explainable within Shannon’s theory, factors such as feedback, practice, motivation, and stimulus range, as well as the anchor effect, sequential dependences, the rise in information transmitted with the increase in number of stimulus dimensions, and the phenomena of masking and stimulus duration dependence. It is recommended that absolute judgments be abandoned, because there are already many direct estimates of memory capacity. (shrink)

The target article proposes that people perceive social robots as depictions rather than as genuine social agents. We suggest that people might instead view social robots as social agents, albeit agents with more restricted capacities and moral rights than humans. We discuss why social robots, unlike other kinds of depictions, present a special challenge for testing the depiction hypothesis.

The object of research: The study revolves around KM and service delivery. It ascertains whether KM is a plausible solution to public service delivery challenges. Although the paper is aimed at governments worldwide, it is focusing on South Africa. Investigated problem: While the public service in South Africa has been significantly transformed since apartheid’s end in 1994, the government is now under enormous pressure to deliver and save the public service from further collapse. Recent years have seen an increase in (...) service delivery demonstrations and marches. Many believe the public service delivery mechanisms introduced to circumvent public service delivery challenges have been ineffective. The main scientific results: Despite knowing what must be done, officials have trouble putting their plans, strategies, and policies into action. This is even though service delivery mechanisms were implemented to help them improve service delivery. In fact, only half of the respondents (50.7 %, n=33) were aware of service delivery mechanisms, though 95.4 % (n=62) concurred that KM is a viable solution to improve service delivery. Area of practical use of the research results: Very little research has been conducted on KM as a potential solution to South Africa’s service delivery problems. As a result, this research provides new insights into improving public sector service delivery using KM. Overall, the findings will benefit KM and Public Administration practitioners. (shrink)

This paper concerns the Black Box. It is not the engineer’s black box that can be opened to reveal its mechanism, but rather one whose operations are inferred through input from (and output to) a companion observer. We are observers ourselves, and we attempt to understand minds through interactions with their host organisms. To this end, Ranulph Glanville followed W. Ross Ashby in elaborating the Black Box. The Black Box and its observer together form a system having different properties than (...) either component alone, making it a greater Black Box to any further-external observer. How far into this greater box can a further-external observer probe? The answer is crucial to understanding Black Boxes, and so an answer is offered here. It employs von Foerster’s machines, abstract entities having mechano-electrical bases, just like putative Black Boxes. Von Foerster follows Turing, Ashby, E. F. Moore, and G. H. Mealy in recognizing archetype machines that he calls trivial (predictable) and non-trivial (non-predictable). It is argued here that non-trivial machines are the only true Black Boxes. But non-trivial machines can be concatenated from trivial machines. Hence, the utter core of any greater Black Box (a non-trivial machine) may involve two (or more) White Boxes (trivial machines). This is how an unpredictable thing emerges from predictable parts. Interactions of White Boxes—of trivial machines—may be the ultimate source of the mind. Keywords: . (shrink)

Purpose – A key cybernetics concept, information transmitted in a system, was quantified by Shannon. It quickly gained prominence, inspiring a version by Harvard psychologists Garner and Hake for “absolute identification” experiments. There, human subjects “categorize” sensory stimuli, affording “information transmitted” in perception. The Garner-Hake formulation has been in continuous use for 62 years, exerting enormous influence. But some experienced theorists and reviewers have criticized it as uninformative. They could not explain why, and were ignored. Here, the “why” is answered. (...) The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – A key Shannon data-organizing tool is the confusion matrix. Its columns and rows are, respectively, labeled by “symbol sent” (event) and “symbol received” (outcome), such that matrix entries represent how often outcomes actually corresponded to events. Garner and Hake made their own version of the matrix, which deserves scrutiny, and is minutely examined here. Findings – The Garner-Hake confusion-matrix columns represent “stimulus categories”, ranges of some physical stimulus attribute (usually intensity), and its rows represent “response categories” of the subject’s identification of the attribute. The matrix entries thus show how often an identification empirically corresponds to an intensity, such that “outcomes” and “events” differ in kind (unlike Shannon’s). Obtaining a true “information transmitted” therefore requires stimulus categorizations to be converted to hypothetical evoking stimuli, achievable (in principle) by relating categorization to sensation to intensity. But those relations are actually unknown, perhaps unknowable. Originality/value – The author achieves an important understanding: why “absolute identification” experiments do not illuminate sensory processes. (shrink)

Purpose – For half a century, neuroscientists have used Shannon Information Theory to calculate “information transmitted,” a hypothetical measure of how well neurons “discriminate” amongst stimuli. Neuroscientists’ computations, however, fail to meet even the technical requirements for credibility. Ultimately, the reasons must be conceptual. That conclusion is confirmed here, with crucial implications for neuroscience. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Shannon Information Theory depends upon a physical model, Shannon’s “general communication system.” Neuroscientists’ interpretation of that model is (...) scrutinized here. Findings – In Shannon’s system, a recipient receives a message composed of symbols. The symbols received, the symbols sent, and their hypothetical occurrence probabilities altogether allow calculation of “information transmitted.” Significantly, Shannon’s system’s “reception” (decoding) side physically mirrors its “transmission” (encoding) side. However, neurons lack the “reception” side; neuroscientists nonetheless insisted that decoding must happen. They turned to Homunculus, an internal humanoid who infers stimuli from neuronal firing. However, Homunculus must contain a Homunculus, and so on ad infinitum – unless it is super-human. But any need for Homunculi, as in “theories of consciousness,” is obviated if consciousness proves to be “emergent.” Research limitations/implications – Neuroscientists’ “information transmitted” indicates, at best, how well neuroscientists themselves can use neuronal firing to discriminate amongst the stimuli given to the research animal. Originality/value – A long-overdue examination unmasks a hidden element in neuroscientists’ use of Shannon Information Theory, namely, Homunculus. Almost 50 years’ worth of computations are recognized as irrelevant, mandating fresh approaches to understanding “discriminability.”. (shrink)

This is a contribution to a Book symposium on The Limits of Free Will: Selected Essays by Paul Russell. Russell provides replies to three critics of The Limits of Free Will. The first reply is to Robert Wallace and focuses on the question of whether there is a conflict between the core compatibilist and pessimist components of the "critical compatibilist" position that Russell has advanced. The second reply is to Angela Smith's discussion of the "narrow" interpretation of (...) moral responsibility responsibility (as defended by R. Jay Wallace) and how best to respond to it. The third and last reply is concerned with Christopher Bennett's criticism of Russell's views concerning "motivational scepticism" and the possibility of pure practical reasons. (shrink)

Kant's most sustained discussion of obscure representations can be found in the first book of his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. What is puzzling is that in the middle of the section devoted to the topic, Kant asserts that “because this field can only be perceived in his passive side as a play of sensations, the theory of obscure representations belongs only to physiological anthropology, and so it is properly disregarded here.” So, do obscure representations belong to pragmatic (...) anthropology or not? Kant's official position is that they do not, yet the textual evidence—we find discussions of obscure representations in 20 years of his work on pragmatic anthropology—suggests that they do, in fact, belong here. Most of the literature on obscure representations focuses on their contribution to cognition and none has clarified what it would mean to assume a “pragmatic point of view” on obscure representations, and to study them in the context of pragmatic anthropology. My aim in this paper is to provide such clarification, focusing on Kant's discussion of our propensity to “play with” obscure representations and what he calls our “art of obscuring.”. (shrink)

When central authority fails in socially crucial tasks, mutual aid, solidarity, and grassroots organization frequently arise as people take up slack on the basis of informal networks and civil society organizations. We can learn something important about the possibility of horizontal organization by studying such experiments. In this paper we focus on the rationality, care, and effectiveness of grassroots measures to respond to the pandemic and show how they illustrate core elements of anarchist thought. We do not argue for the (...) correctness of any version of anarchist politics, nor claim that the bulk of this grassroots work was done with anarchist ideas explicitly in mind. Nonetheless, the current pandemic, like many social crises before it, serves as a sort experiment in political implementation. -/- Two things have been striking in the US response to the COVID-19 pandemic: the chaos, incompetence, irrationality, and often cruel misguidedness of the centralized government response; and the rationality, care, and effectiveness of grassroots measures in many parts of the country. In this paper we focus on the latter—especially the case of Washington, DC—to illustrate core features of anarchist politics. We do not argue for the correctness of any version of anarchist politics here, but merely illustrate guiding ideas that have been a part of anarchist theory and practice for well over a century. We also do not claim that the bulk of this grassroots work was done with anarchist ideas in mind, or explicitly out of a commitment to anarchist politics. Some was, and some arises out of related ideological commitments, but most simply functions out of no more than a desire to support one another. -/- The current pandemic, like many social crises before it, rather than providing a stand-alone argument or functioning as an implementation of any political theory, serves as a sort of laboratory experiment. When central authority fails in socially crucial tasks, mutual aid, solidarity, and grassroots organization frequently arise as people take up slack on the basis of informal networks and civil society organizations. We can learn something important about the possibility of horizontal organization by studying such experiments, including how it arises through spontaneous action. If political thought is best illustrated through its implementation in practice, the functioning of grassroots individuals and organizations in a time of crisis is one way to understand the political mechanisms core to anarchist thought. (shrink)

Information flow in a system is a core cybernetics concept. It has been used frequently in Sensory Psychology since 1951. There, Shannon Information Theory was used to calculate "information transmitted" in "absolute identification" experiments involving human subjects. Originally, in Shannon's "system", any symbol received ("outcome") is among the symbols sent ("events"). Not all symbols are received as transmitted, hence an indirect noise measure is calculated, "information transmitted", which requires knowing the confusion matrix, its columns labeled by "event" and its rows (...) labeled by "outcome". Each matrix entry is dependent upon the frequency with which a particular outcome corresponds to a particular event. However, for the sensory psychologist, stimulus intensities are "events"; the experimenter partitions the intensity continuum into ranges called "stimulus categories" and "response categories", such that each confusion-matrix entry represents the frequency with which a stimulus from a stimulus category falls within a particular response category. Of course, a stimulus evokes a sensation, and the subject's immediate memory of it is compared to the memories of sensations learned during practice, to make a categorization. Categorizing thus introduces "false noise", which is only removed if categorizations can be converted back to their hypothetical evoking stimuli. But sensations and categorizations are both statistically distributed, and the stimulus that corresponds to a given mean categorization cannot be known from only the latter; the relation of intensity to mean sensation, and of mean sensation to mean categorization, are needed. Neither, however, are presently knowable. This is a quandary, which arose because sensory psychologists ignored an ubiquitous component of Shannon's "system", the uninvolved observer, who calculates "information transmitted". Human sensory systems, however, are within de facto observers, making "false noise" inevitable. (shrink)

A ‘Black Box’ cannot be opened to reveal its mechanism. Rather, its operations are inferred through input from (and output to) an ‘observer’. All of us are observers, who attempt to understand the Black Boxes that are Minds. The Black Box and its observer constitute a system, differing from either component alone: a ‘greater’ Black Box to any further-external-observer. To Glanville (1982), the further-external-observer probes the greater-Black-Box by interacting directly with its core Black Box, ignoring that Box’s immediate observer. In (...) later accounts, however, Glanville’s greater-Black-Box inexplicably becomes unitary. Why the discrepancy? To resolve it, we start with von Foerster’s archetype ‘machines’, that are of two kinds: ‘Trivial’ (predictable) and ‘Non-Trivial’ (non-predictable). Early-on, Glanville treated the core Black Box and its observer as Trivial Machines, that gradually ‘whiten’ (reveal) each other though input and output, becoming ‘white boxes’. Later, however, Black Box and observer became Non-Trivial Machines, never fully ‘whitenable’. But Non-Trivial Machines can be concatenated from Trivial Machines, and are the only true Black Boxes; any greater-Black-Box (Non-Trivial Machine) may (within its core Black Box) involve white boxes (that are Trivial Machines). White boxes, therefore, could be the ultimate source of the greatest Black Box of all: the Mind. (shrink)

Free Will & The Tragic Predicament : Making Sense of Williams -/- The discussion in this paper aims to make better sense of free will and moral responsibility by way of making sense of Bernard Williams’ significant and substantial contribution to this subject. Williams’ fundamental objective is to vindicate moral responsibility by way of freeing it from the distortions and misrepresentations imposed on it by “the morality system”. What Williams rejects, in particular, are the efforts of “morality” to further “deepen” (...) or “refine” the notion of the voluntary, with a view to securing “ultimate justice”. It is these aims and aspirations, he argues, that take us to the precipice of scepticism. In Shame and Necessity (1993) Williams advances a vindicatory genealogy that unmasks the “illusions” and “fantasies” of our current ethical ideas as they relate to agency and responsibility. What we are then left with is the task of “recasting our ethical conceptions” . It is here that Williams is especially insistent on the importance and value of historical consciousness and reflection. The role of our reflections about the Greeks and tragedy is precisely to show that in order to move forward, into the future, we need to first look back at where we have come from. The value of these “untimely” observations is that they provide us with alternatives and options that we might otherwise lack. What we discover, when we consider the Greeks, is their commitment to a “pessimism of strength” that rests on rejecting scepticism. It is this two-sided perspective on our ethical predicament that delivers a more truthful account of our human situation, one that will help us discard those illusions and fantasies of "morality" that we are “better off” without. An account of this kind refuses to accept an optimism that insists that any form of responsible ethical life must be one that is immune to the influence of luck and fate. This is the fundamental lesson that we can learn from the ancient Greeks and that Williams seeks to “recover” for us. (shrink)

Desire theories of well-being claim that how well our life goes for us is solely determined by the fulfilment and frustration of our desires. Several writers have argued that these theories are incorrect because they fail to capture the harms of self-sacrifice and severe depression. In this paper, I argue that desire theories of well-being can account for the harm of both phenomena by rejecting proportionalism about desire and motivation. This is the view that desires always motivate proportionally to their (...) strength. If we reject this view, then we can explain the harm of many cases of self-sacrifice as arising when we act upon our weaker desires and thereby frustrate our stronger desires. Moreover, the harm of many cases of severe depression can be explained by its suppression of the motivational force of desires. This inevitably frustrates desires that we are left unmotivated to fulfil. I argue that this approach captures the experiential quality of self-sacrifice and severe depression better than rival views that seek to problematise these phenomena for desire theories of well-being. Moreover, these theories have sufficient conceptual resources to account for residual cases of self-sacrifice and severe depression that are less well explained by this approach. (shrink)

Introduction & Objectives: Norwich’s Entropy Theory of Perception (1975 [1] -present) stands alone. It explains many firing-rate behaviors and psychophysical laws from bare theory. To do so, it demands a unique sort of interaction between receptor and brain, one that Norwich never substantiated. Can it now be confirmed, given the accumulation of empirical sensory neuroscience? Background: Norwich conjoined sensation and a mathematical model of communication, Shannon’s Information Theory, as follows: “In the entropic view of sensation, magnitude of sensation is regarded (...) as a measure of the entropy or uncertainty of the stimulus signal” [2]. “To be uncertain about the outcome of an event, one must first be aware of a set of alternative outcomes” [3]. “The entropy-establishing process begins with the generation of a [internal] sensory signal by the stimulus generator. This is followed by receipt of the [external] stimulus by the sensory receptor, transmission of action potentials by the sensory neurons, and finally recapture of the [response to the internal] signal by the generator” [4]. The latter “recapture” differentiates external from internal stimuli. The hypothetical “stimulus generators” are internal emitters, that generate photons in vision, audible sounds in audition (to Norwich, the spontaneous otoacoustic emissions [SOAEs]), “temperatures in excess of local skin temperature” in skin temperature sensation [4], etc. Method (1): Several decades of empirical sensory physiology literature was scrutinized for internal “stimulus generators”. Results (1): Spontaneous photopigment isomerization (“dark light”) does not involve visible light. SOAEs are electromechanical basilar-membrane artefacts that rarely produce audible tones. The skin’s temperature sensors do not raise skin temperature, etc. Method (2): The putative action of the brain-and-sensory-receptor loop was carefully reexamined. Results (2): The sensory receptor allegedly “perceives”, experiences “awareness”, possesses “memory”, and has a “mind”. But those traits describe the whole human. The receptor, thus anthropomorphized, must therefore contain its own perceptual loop, containing a receptor, containing a perceptual loop, etc. Summary & Conclusions: The Entropy Theory demands sensory awareness of alternatives, through an imagined brain-and-sensory-receptor loop containing internal “stimulus generators”. But (1) no internal “stimulus generators” seem to exist and (2) the loop would be the outermost of an infinite nesting of identical loops. (shrink)

When Bernard Williams died in June 2003, the obituary in The Times said that “he will be remembered as the most brilliant and most important British moral philosopher of his time”. It goes on to make clear that Williams was far from the dry, awkward, detached academic philosopher of caricature. -/- Born in Essex in 1929, Williams had an extraordinary and, in some respects, glamorous life. He not only enjoyed a stellar academic career – holding a series of distinguished posts (...) at Oxford, UCL, Cambridge and Berkeley – but was also a public figure in British political and cultural life. He played, for example, a leading role in several high profile government committees and reports, and served for almost two decades on the board of the English National Opera. He had, moreover, an easy confidence and charm, a lucidity of expression, and a sharp and, at times, acerbic wit (which could alarm both friends and foes alike). -/- Although these achievements and qualities are impressive, what he will be remembered for chiefly is his significant contribution to philosophy, which spanned a wide spectrum of topics. It is in the field of ethics, in particular, that his contributions are of the most lasting importance. And yet there is a real sense in which he remains a rather enigmatic figure – and the interpretation of his work continues to be a matter of considerable debate.... (shrink)

Purpose – This study aims to examine the observer’s role in “infant psychophysics”. Infant psychophysics was developed because the diagnosis of perceptual deficits should be done as early in a patient’s life as possible, to provide efficacious treatment and thereby reduce potential long-term costs. Infants, however, cannot report their perceptions. Hence, the intensity of a stimulus at which the infant can detect it, the “threshold”, must be inferred from the infant’s behavior, as judged by observers (watchers). But whose abilities are (...) actually being inferred? The answer affects all behavior-based conclusions about infants’ perceptions, including the well-proselytized notion that auditory stimulus-detection thresholds improve rapidly during infancy. Design/methodology/approach – In total, 55 years of infant psychophysics is scrutinized, starting with seminal studies in infant vision, followed by the studies that they inspired in infant hearing. Findings – The inferred stimulus-detection thresholds are those of the infant-plus-watcher and, more broadly, the entire laboratory. The thresholds are therefore tenuous, because infants’ actions may differ with stimulus intensity; expressiveness may differ between infants; different watchers may judge infants differently; etc. Particularly, the watcher’s ability to “read” the infant may improve with the infant’s age, confounding any interpretation of perceptual maturation. Further, the infant’s gaze duration, an assumed cue to stimulus detection, may lengthen or shorten nonlinearly with infant age. Research limitations/implications – Infant psychophysics investigators have neglected the role of the observer, resulting in an accumulation of data that requires substantial re-interpretation. Altogether, infant psychophysics has proven far too resilient for its own good. Originality/value – Infant psychophysics is examined for the first time through second-order cybernetics. The approach reveals serious unresolved issues. (shrink)