The Parmenides is arguably the pivotal text for understanding the Platonic corpus as a whole. I offer a critical analysis that takes as its key the closely constructed dramatic context and mimetic irony of the dialogue. Read with these in view, the contradictory characterizations of the "one" in the hypotheses dissolve and reform as stages in a systematic response to the objections that Parmenides earlier posed to the young Socrates' notions of forms and participation, potentially liberating Socrates from his dependence (...) on sensible simile and yielding a distinctively conceptual articulation of the difference and relation of forms and their sensible participants. The dialogue as a whole thereby functions as the means for the "conversion" of the soul to eidetic being for which Plato has the elder Socrates call in Republic VII. (shrink)

Conclusion: The present results support adequate psychometric properties in terms of factorial validity, reliability, convergent validity, and measurement invariance for the PHQ-4 in young adults in Hong Kong. The PHQ-4 demonstrated a substantial mediating role in the relationship between meaning in life and SI in the distress group. These findings support clinical relevance for using the PHQ-4 as a brief and valid measure of psychological distress in the Chinese context.

An effort to track the movement of thought in the proem of the poem in order to discover in it the context for the disclosure of the "is" in fr. s 2 and 8. Close attention to symbolic imagery and historical allusions, and to the philosophical power of the unthinkable "nothing". (For a renewed and expanded effort, see the author's "Ambiguity and Transport: Reflections on the Proem to Parmenides' Poem," Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy xxx [2006], 1-47.).

In both the Treatise on Human Nature and the Enquiry Concerning Human Understand-ing David Hume defends the thesis that we are responsible for actions only insofar as those ac-tions reflect our character. In this paper I argue that this “character thesis” is untenable, and is incompatible with the naturalism that underlies his overall philosophy. His argument for the character thesis depends crucially on his account of the causation of human actio¬n. This is in contrast to Alisdair MacIntyre, who defends a (...) similar thesis in On Virtue on the basis of his view about the intelligibility of human actions. But if we examine the connection between Hume’s character ethic and his account of causation, we find that it conflicts with his claim that one cannot derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is.’ This is no more than MacIntyre says is neces-sary for any virtue ethic. So what if we simply drop the ‘no ought from is’ thesis? This thesis is crucial to Hume’s naturalism, which is itself appealing to moral philosophers because it promises to avoi¬d picturing human thought as a sort of supernatural occurrence. As a result, we can conclude that if, in attempting to save H’s virtue ethic, we must give up his naturalism, we must also give up one the main reasons for being attracted to H’s worldview. We may also have to give up the very basis for Hume’s account of causation, and thus for his virtue ethic. Finally, there is a potential problem in that Hume’s causation thesis may not be as different from MacIntyre’s intelligibility thesis as they at first appear, and thus the incoherence of Hume’s view threatens MacIntyre’s virtue ethic as well. (shrink)

Investigation of neural and cognitive processes underlying individual variation in moral preferences is underway, with notable similarities emerging between moral- and risk-based decision-making. Here we specifically assessed moral distributive justice preferences and non-moral financial gambling preferences in the same individuals, and report an association between these seemingly disparate forms of decision-making. Moreover, we find this association between distributive justice and risky decision-making exists primarily when the latter is assessed with the Iowa Gambling Task. These findings are consistent with neuroimaging studies (...) of brain function during moral and risky decision-making. This research also constitutes the first replication of a novel experimental measure of distributive justice decision-making, for which individual variation in performance was found. Further examination of decision-making processes across different contexts may lead to an improved understanding of the factors affecting moral behaviour. (shrink)

Initial responses to questionnaires used to assess participants' understanding of informed consent for malaria vaccine trials conducted in the United States and Mali were tallied. Total scores were analyzed by age, sex, literacy (if known), and location. Ninety-two percent (92%) of answers by United States participants and 85% of answers by Malian participants were correct. Questions more likely to be answered incorrectly in Mali related to risk, and to the type of vaccine. For adult participants, independent predictors of higher scores (...) were younger age and female sex in the United States, and male sex in Mali. Scores in the United States were higher than in Mali (P = 0.005). Despite this difference participants at both sites were well informed overall. Although interpretation must be qualified because questionnaires were not intended as research tools and were not standardized among sites, these results do not support concerns about systematic low understanding among research participants in developing versus developed countries. (shrink)

Hoerl & McCormack posit two systems – the temporal updating system and the temporal reasoning system – and suggest that they explain an inherent contradiction in people's naïve theory of time. We suggest there is no contradiction. Something does, however, require explanation: the tension between certain sophisticated beliefs about time, and certain phenomenological states or beliefs about those phenomenological states. The temporal updating mechanism posited by H&M may contribute to this tension.

A chapter in an edited volume discussing philosophy and Ted Chiang's short stories. In this chapter, I show how philosophical debates about imaginative resistance and what can/can't be fictionally true influence our interpretation of "Division by Zero.".

In this review, we describe some of the central philosophical issues facing origins-of-life research and provide a targeted history of the developments that have led to the multidisciplinary field of origins-of-life studies. We outline these issues and developments to guide researchers and students from all fields. With respect to philosophy, we provide brief summaries of debates with respect to (1) definitions (or theories) of life, what life is and how research should be conducted in the absence of an accepted theory (...) of life, (2) the distinctions between synthetic, historical, and universal projects in origins-of-life studies, issues with strategies for inferring the origins of life, such as (3) the nature of the first living entities (the “bottom up” approach) and (4) how to infer the nature of the last universal common ancestor (the “top down” approach), and (5) the status of origins of life as a science. Each of these debates influences the others. Although there are clusters of researchers that agree on some answers to these issues, each of these debates is still open. With respect to history, we outline several independent paths that have led to some of the approaches now prevalent in origins-of-life studies. These include one path from early views of life through the scientific revolutions brought about by Linnaeus (von Linn.), Wöhler, Miller, and others. In this approach, new theories, tools, and evidence guide new thoughts about the nature of life and its origin.We also describe another family of paths motivated by a” circularity” approach to life, which is guided by such thinkers as Maturana & Varela, Gánti, Rosen, and others. These views echo ideas developed by Kant and Aristotle, though they do so using modern science in ways that produce exciting avenues of investigation. By exploring the history of these ideas, we can see how many of the issues that currently interest us have been guided by the contexts in which the ideas were developed. The disciplinary backgrounds of each of these scholars has influenced the questions they sought to answer, the experiments they envisioned, and the kinds of data they collected. We conclude by encouraging scientists and scholars in the humanities and social sciences to explore ways in which they can interact to provide a deeper understanding of the conceptual assumptions, structure, and history of origins-of-life research. This may be useful to help frame future research agendas and bring awareness to the multifaceted issues facing this challenging scientific question. (shrink)

What happens to the inner light of consciousness with the death of the individual body and brain? Reductive materialism assumes it simply fades to black. Others think of consciousness as indicating a continuation of self, a transformation, an awakening or even alternatives based on the quality of life experience. In this issue, speculation drawn from theoretic research are presented. -/- Table of Contents Epigraph: From “The Immortal”, Jorge Luis Borges iii Editor’s Introduction: I Killed a Squirrel the Other Day, Gregory (...) M. Nixon iv-xi Research Essays The Tilde Fallacy and Reincarnation: Variations on a "Skeptical" Argument Teed Rockwell 862-881 Death, Consciousness, and Phenomenology, Steve Bindeman 882-899 The Idealist View of Consciousness After Death, Bernardo Kastrup 900-909 Consciousness, a Cosmic Phenomenon—A Hypothesis, Eva Déli 910-930 The Theory of a Natural Afterlife: A Newfound, Real Possibility for What Awaits Us at Death, Bryon K. Ehlmann 931-950 Near-Death Cases Desegregating Non-Locality/Disembodiment via Quantum Mediated Consciousness: An Extended Version of the Cell-Soul Pathway, Contzen Pereira & J Shashi Kiran Reddy 951-968 On the Possible Existence of Quantum Consciousness After Brain Death, Massimo Pregnolato & Alfredo Pereira Jr. 969-991 Science and Postmortem Survival, Edward F. Kelly 992-1011 Explorations ISS Theory: Cosmic Consciousness, Self, and Life Beyond Death in a Hyperdimensional Physics, Chris H. Hardy 1012-1035 Does the Consciousness End, Remain Awake, or Transform After Death? Radivoj Stankovich (with Micho Durdevich) 1036-1050 Big Bang Spirituality, Life, and Death, Ken Bausch 1051-1063 Death, Consciousness and the Quantum Paradigm, Ronald Peter Glasberg 1064-1077 Living With Limits: The Continuum of Consciousness, Donald Brackett 1078-1098 Mysticism, Consciousness, Death, Mike Sosteric 1099-1118 What Dies? Eternalism and the Afterlife in William James, Jonathan Bricklin 1119-1140 Theories of Consciousness and Death: Does Consciousness End, Continue, Awaken, or Transform When the Body Dies? Roger Cook 1141-1153 It’s the Other Way Around: Matter is a Form of Consciousness and Death is the End of the Illusion of Life in the World, James P. Kowall & Pradeep B. Deshpande 1154-1208 Statements A Feminine Vision for the World Consciousness, & a New Outrageous Ontology, Lorna Green 1209-1217 The Mask of Eternity: The Quest for Immortality and the Afterlife, Iona Miller 1218-1228 Are We Really “such stuff as dreams are made on”? Chris Nunn 1229-1225 Is the Afterlife a Non-Question? (Let's Hope Not), Deepak Chopra 1226-1230 Life After Death? An Improbable Essay, Stuart Kauffman 1231-1236. (shrink)

According to Conceptual Role Semantics, the meaning of a representation is the role of that representation in the cognitive life of the agent, e.g. in perception, thought and decision-making. It is an extension of the well known "use" theory of meaning, according to which the meaning of a word is its use in communication and more generally, in social interaction. CRS supplements external use by including the role of a symbol inside a computer or a brain. The uses appealed to (...) are not just actual, but also counterfactual: not only what effects a thought does have, but what effects it would have had if stimuli or other states had differed. The view has arisen separately in philosophy and in cognitive science. The source of the view is Wittgenstein and Sellars, but the source in contemporary philosophy is a series of papers by Harman and Field. Other proponents in philosophy have included Block, Horwich, Loar, McGinn and Peacocke. In cognitive science, they include Woods and Miller and Johnson-Laird. (shrink)

Benjamin Libet's celebrated experiments concerning freedom elicited numerous attempts of _philosophical_ repudiation. Ten years ago, however, Judy Trevena and Jeff Miller published a _technical_ objection; they claim to have detected a,,smearing artifact" in Libet's calculations. This rests on a misunderstanding of Libet's methodology. In my reconstruction of Libet's argument, he draws an abductive inference to the best explanation. Now, Trevena's and Miller's objection does indeed lead to alternative explanations of Libet's measurements. These alternatives are _ad hoc_ and extremely (...) improbable. They constitute worse explanations than the explanation offered by Libet. _German_ Benjamin Libets bahnbrechende Experimente zur Willensfreiheit aus den Achtziger Jahren des vorigen Jahrhunderts gehören längst zu den Klassikern der Experimentalkunst. Aus _philosophischer_ Perspektive sind sie oft kritisiert worden; unabhängig davon ist zu Beginn des neuen Jahrtausends ein _technischer_ Einwand gegen Libet prominent geworden, der von Freiheitsfreunden gerne zitiert wird. Er geht auf Judy Trevena und Jeff Miller zurück und besteht in dem Vorwurf, dass Libet mit seiner Berechnung der _gemittelten_ Bereitschaftspotential-Kurven die wahren Verhältnisse verschmiere und dabei aus mathematischen Gründen den Anstiegs-Zeitpunkt des Bereitschaftspotentials künstlich nach vorne verschiebe – das ist der Vorwurf des sog. Verschmierungsartefakts. Ich zeige, dass der Vorwurf nicht sticht. Er beruht auf einem Missverständnis der Schlussmethode Libets. Laut meiner wissenschaftstheoretischen Rekonstruktion zieht Libet weder deduktive noch induktive Schlüsse aus seinen Einzelbeobachtungen; er schließt abduktiv, d.h. er schließt auf die beste Erklärung seiner Einzelbeobachtungen. Wie eine genaue arithmetische Analyse zeigt, bieten die Alternativ-Erklärungen, unter denen sich das Verschmierungsartefakt bewahrheiten würde, schlechtere Erklärungen als Libets Erklärung – sie sind an den Haaren herbeigezogen und extrem unwahrscheinlich. (shrink)

Lately in the past couple of years, there are an increasing in the normal rate of playing computer games or video games compared to the E-learning content that are introduced for the safety of our children, and the impact of the video game addictiveness that ranges from (Musculoskeletal issues, Vision problems and Obesity). Furthermore, this paper introduce an intelligent tutoring system for both parent and their children for enhancement the experience of gaming and tell us about the health problems and (...) how we can solve them, with an easy user interface that way can our children be happy and excited about the information and their health. (shrink)

We introduce here evoText, a new tool for automated analysis of the literature in the biological sciences. evoText contains a database of hundreds of thousands of journal articles and an array of analysis tools for generating quantitative data on the nature and history of life science, especially ecology and evolutionary biology. This article describes the features of evoText, presents a variety of examples of the kinds of analyses that evoText can run, and offers a brief tutorial describing how to use (...) it. (shrink)

I spell out and update the individuality thesis, that species are individuals, and not classes, sets, or kinds. I offer three complementary presentations of this thesis. First, as a way of resolving an inconsistent triad about natural kinds; second, as a phylogenetic systematics theoretical perspective; and, finally, as a novel recursive account of an evolved character. These approaches do different sorts of work, serving different interests. Presenting them together produces a taxonomy of the debates over the thesis, and isolates ways (...) it has been productive. This goes to the larger point of this paper: a defense of the individuality thesis in terms of its utility, and an update of it in light of recent theoretical developments and empirical work in biology. (shrink)

Evidentialism is one of the most sensible claims of recent philosophy. Yet it is often joined with other theses about the structure of justification and the nature of experience that are dubious. In this paper, I argue that experience is not a basic source of evidence. I contend that for an experience to justify a belief, it must be independently plausible that the experience is reliable based on background information. The paper develops an account of plausibility and examines cases, including (...) differences in expertise, clairvoyance, and social perceptions, to illustrate how background knowledge is necessary for the justification of experiential beliefs. I consider challenges from Bergmann's distinction between learned and unlearned doxastic responses and Lyons's inferential reliabilism. I conclude that these challenges do not succeed; perceptual evidence requires a broader perspective that supports the reliability of the experiential evidence. (shrink)

This paper articulates a way to ground a relatively high prior probability for grand explanatory theories apart from an appeal to simplicity. I explore the possibility of enumerating the space of plausible grand theories of the universe by using the explanatory properties of possible views to limit the number of plausible theories. I motivate this alternative grounding by showing that Swinburne’s appeal to simplicity is problematic along several dimensions. I then argue that there are three plausible grand views—theism, atheism, and (...) axiarchism—which satisfy explanatory requirements for plausibility. Other possible views lack the explanatory virtue of these three theories. Consequently, this explanatory grounding provides a way of securing a nontrivial prior probability for theism, atheism, and axiarchism. An important upshot of my approach is that a modest amount of empirical evidence can bear significantly on the posterior probability of grand theories of the universe. (shrink)

It is a widespread intuition that the coherence of independent reports provides a powerful reason to believe that the reports are true. Formal results by Huemer, M. 1997. “Probability and Coherence Justification.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 35: 463–72, Olsson, E. 2002. “What is the Problem of Coherence and Truth?” Journal of Philosophy XCIX : 246–72, Olsson, E. 2005. Against Coherence: Truth, Probability, and Justification. Oxford University Press., Bovens, L., and S. Hartmann. 2003. Bayesian Epistemology. Oxford University Press, prove that, under (...) certain conditions, coherence cannot increase the probability of the target claim. These formal results, known as ‘the impossibility theorems’ have been widely discussed in the literature. They are taken to have significant epistemic upshot. In particular, they are taken to show that reports must first individually confirm the target claim before the coherence of multiple reports offers any positive confirmation. In this paper, I dispute this epistemic interpretation. The impossibility theorems are consistent with the idea that the coherence of independent reports provides a powerful reason to believe that the reports are true even if the reports do not individually confirm prior to coherence. Once we see that the formal discoveries do not have this implication, we can recover a model of coherence justification consistent with Bayesianism and these results. This paper, thus, seeks to turn the tide of the negative findings for coherence reasoning by defending coherence as a unique source of confirmation. (shrink)

Metaphors for describing the introduction, impacts, and management of non-native species are numerous and often quite outspoken. Policy-makers have adopted increasingly disputed metaphorical terms from scientific discourse. We performed a critical analysis of the use of strong metaphors in reporting scientific findings to policy-makers. Our analysis shows that perceptions of harm, invasiveness or nativeness are dynamic and inevitably display multiple narratives in science, policy or management. Improving our awareness of multiple expert and stakeholder narratives that exist in the context of (...) non-native species management, as well as metaphorical alternatives, is critical. (shrink)

A close reading of Socrates’ arguments against the proposed definition of knowledge as true opinion together with a logos (“account”). I examine the orienting implications of his apparently destructive dilemma defeating the so-called dream theory and of his apparently decisive arguments rejecting the notions of “account” as verbalization, as working through the parts of the whole of the definiendum, and as identifying what differentiates the definiendum from all else. Whereas the dilemma implies of the object of knowledge that it must (...) be both simple and complex, the last two notions of “account” point to the kinds of discursive analysis that can do justice to its complexity; together the refutations suggest the relation between noesis, that is, eidetic intuition of the object in its simplicity, and discursive analysis of the object in its complexity that knowledge requires. (shrink)

From Kant’s point of view, the puzzle about judgments of taste is that they claim to normativity—in Kant’s terms, to intersubjective validity or communicability—but nevertheless have only a subjective basis or “determining ground (Bestimmungsgrund).” The task of §9 of the Critique of Judgment in particular is to delineate an account of aesthetic response that accommodates Kant’s solution to this puzzle. If the aesthetic pleasure “precedes” the judgment—in other words, if the judgment is about the pleasure—then the judgment of taste would (...) be merely private, like other judgments about things that cause us pleasure. So the judgment must precede the pleasure. But “nothing… can be universally communicated except cognition, and representation so far as it belongs to cognition. (V:217) Therefore, the determining ground of the judgment of taste must be “the mental state encountered in the relation of the mental powers of representation to each other insofar as they relate a given cognition to cognition in general.” (V:217) A bit later, he calls this state of mind a “feeling of the free play of the powers of representation in a given representation for a given representation for a cognition in general.” The appeal to ‘cognition in general’ can do what Kant needs it to do only if it conveys the normativity of cognition simpliciter but not its conceptual determinacy. I want to propose that we take ‘cognition in general’ to mean ‘integration into a unified system of empirical cognition.’ If I am successful, it will have the consequence that the basis for the normativity of taste— that is, the expectation that others ought to agree with our judgments-- is the same as the basis for the normativity of cognitive judgments. (shrink)

The coherence of independent reports provides a strong reason to believe that the reports are true. This plausible claim has come under attack from recent work in Bayesian epistemology. This work shows that, under certain probabilistic conditions, coherence cannot increase the probability of the target claim. These theorems are taken to demonstrate that epistemic coherentism is untenable. To date no one has investigated how these results bear on different conceptions of coherence. I investigate this situation using Thagard’s ECHO model of (...) explanatory coherence. Thagard’s ECHO model provides a natural representation of the evidential significance of multiple independent reports. (shrink)

The precise nature of the relation between cognition and aesthetic judgment is clearly central to an understanding of Kant’s theory of taste in the “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment.” The Critique of Judgment itself is necessary, Kant says, because judgment constitutes a cognitive power in its own right, and its critique is therefore necessarily a part of the overall critique of pure reason. More particularly, however, the connection between cognition and aesthetic judgment plays a crucial role in Kant’s deduction of judgments (...) of taste: That deduction is intended to vindicate the claim to intersubjective validity implicit in the judgment of taste. This claim can only be justified, Kant thinks, if the judgment of taste has as its “determining ground” some form or aspect of cognition, for “[n]othing... can be communicated universally except cognition, as well as presentation insofar as it pertains to cognition.” The “purposiveness without purpose” exhibited by the beautiful object must therefore be purposiveness for “cognition in gener¬al.”[Erkenntnis überhaupt, V:217] But this use of cognition to establish the intersubjective validity of judgments of taste is also the source of the most serious problem with Kant’s theory. Kant clearly holds the view that to judge an object to be beautiful is to judge that it is in some sense suited for cognition. The theory of knowledge presented in the Critique of Pure Reason, however, concludes that all objects of experience are cognizable in the sense of being susceptible of subsumption under pure concepts of the understanding. If to say that an object is beautiful is to say that it is cognizable, and all objects are cognizable, then Kant’s theory has the consequence that all objects are beautiful. Furthermore, this connection between beauty and cognition threatens to make beauty a determinate concept, like the concepts of ‘cause’ or ‘chair.’ The result is that dealing with what I will call the problem of ugliness has become, in the words of one commentator, the “pre-eminent task” of interpretation of the third Critique. I will argue that this problem is best solved if we recognize a connection between Kant’s need in both the first and third Critiques for a defense of reason, and his claim, at the end of the “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment” that “beauty is the symbol of the morally good.”[V:353] The latter claim is the culmination of the “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment,” the argument of which is intended by Kant to show that every rational being must view at least some objects in nature as being suited for inclusion in a philosophical system organized around ideas of pure reason. In this system moral reason and theoretical understanding are related in a harmonious whole, with moral reason taking the leading role. The cognizability which is claimed for the object in the judgment of taste does not consist in the object’s being susceptible of subsumption under a concept. Rather, to say that an object is suited for “cognition in general” is to attribute to it the more specific property of being subsumable under a concept which can in turn be included in a unified philosophical system. At the same time, the relation between beauty and morality is only “indirect,” which is why beauty is the symbol but not the schema of the morally good. A key aspect of this reading will be the claim that from an epistemological standpoint the relation between natural beauty and the idea of the morally good is just the same as that between appearances and ideas of pure reason if the systematization of cognition is to be possible– the existence of beauty in nature serves to “establish the reality” of these ideas. Adopting this reading of the argument of the “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment” not only allows us to avoid saddling Kant with the view that all objects are beautiful, but also makes clear the hitherto less than clear relation between the published Introduction to the Critique of Judgment, in which Kant is primarily concerned with the concept of a philosophical system, and the “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment,” which centers on the seemingly unrelated notion of beauty as “purposiveness without purpose.”. (shrink)

Prerequisite to memory is a past distinct from present. Because wave evolution is both continuous and time-reversible, the undisturbed quantum system lacks a distinct past and therefore the possibility of memory. With the quantum transition, a reversibly evolving superposition of values yields to an irreversible emergence of definite values in a distinct and transient moment of time. The succession of such moments generates an irretrievable past and thus the possibility of memory. Bohm’s notion of implicate and explicate order provides a (...) conceptual basis for memory as a general feature of nature akin to gravity and electromagnetism. I propose that natural memory is an outcome of the continuity of implicate time in the context of discontinuous explicate time. Among the ramifications of natural memory are that laws of nature can propagate through time much like habits and that personal memory does not require neural information storage. (shrink)

The problem of biological memory led Russell to propose the existence of mnemic causation, a mechanism by which past experience influences current thought directly, that is, without the need for a material intermediary in the form of a neural "memory trace." Russell appears to have been inspired by German biologist Richard Semon's concept of mnemic homophony, which conveys memory to consciousness on the basis of similarity between current and past circumstances. Semon, however, in no way denied a role for stable (...) neural structures or "engrams" in the memory process. In contrast to Russell, contemporary biologist Rupert Sheldrake provides a viable theory of memory by remaining true to Semon's original idea and expanding it beyond personal memory to the collective memory of species, encompassing not only mental but developmental memory. (shrink)

The central dilemma motivating the Antinomy of Taste in the “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment” centers on two seemingly incompatible but generally accepted propositions: On the one hand, we demand (Kant thinks) that others agree with our judgments of taste, which would be nonsensical if we did not suppose that beauty were in some sense a property of objects; on the other hand, disputes about taste cannot be settled through argument or proof in the manner of theoretical or moral disputes, which (...) suggests that we do not think of beauty as an objective property. Kant’s solution to this antinomy is to claim that judgments of taste indeed make use of a concept, but an indeterminate concept. I argue that judgments of taste are about objects [Gegenstände], and that the indeterminate concept of beauty differs from determinate ones in the manner of evidence that can be given for claims making use of it-- they can be supported only by the appeal to the subjective feeling of the harmony of the faculties. (shrink)

Some experts have argued that patients facing certain types of choices should not be told whether their risk is above or below average, because this information may trigger a bias (Fagerlin et al. 2007). But careful consideration shows that the comparative risk heuristic can usefully guide decisions and improve their quality or rationality. Building on an earlier paper of mine (Schwartz 2009), I will argue here that doctors and decision aids should provide comparative risk information to patients, even while further (...) research is conducted. (shrink)

Kristie Miller and James Norton present a new account of metaphysical explanation, not as a philosophical technicality but as a feature of everyday life. This is the notion that we all use in ordinary contexts when we give explanations of a certain sort: Miller and Norton build their account on investigation of these explanatory practices.

The Deaf culture in the United States is a unique culture that is not widely understood. To members of the Deaf community in the United States, deafness is not viewed as a disease or pathology to be treated or cured; instead it is seen as a difference in human experience. Members of this community do not hide their deafness; instead they take great pride in their Deaf identity. The Deaf culture in the United States is very communitarian not individualistic. Mary (...) Beth and Dominic are a married couple in their late 20s who are genetically deaf. They are active members in the Deaf community and work as advocates for individuals who are deaf, family members of Deaf people and sign language interpreters who identify with the Deaf culture. Mary Beth and Dominic approach the fertility clinic with a request that they only want a child with the genetic gene for deafness. They would want the embryos that do not have the gene to be destroyed. This would entail creating a child who would have the gene for deafness. Medically and ethically, should the fertility clinic agree to the couple’s request? The authors argue that the couple's request should be denied and provide reasons for it from the perspectives of foundational and clinical ethics. (shrink)

Since the millennium, first person accounts of experience have been accepted as philosophically valid, potentially useful sources of information about the nature of mind and self. Several Vedic sciences rely on such first person accounts to discuss experience and consciousness. This paper shows that their insights define the information structure of experience in agreement with a scientific theory of mind fulfilling all presently known philosophical and scientific conditions. Experience has two separate components, its information content, and a separate ‘witness aspect’, (...) which can reflect on all forms of experience, and with training be strengthened until its power of reflection identifies it as the innermost aspect of ‘self’. The Vedic sciences, Sankhya, Yoga and Vedanta develop these themes. Sankhya identifies the different aspects of experience, outer and inner; Yoga practices lead the mind to inner states without information content (samadhi) in which the experience of the witness (sakshi) is strengthened and deepened. Vedanta states the nature of the ‘self’ is to know itself directly without intermediary. All this requires the witness to have a singular loop structure. The information structure of experience therefore has two aspects, information content plus a singular loop endowing it with a subjective sense of ‘Self’. (shrink)

The natural name theory, recently discussed by Johnson (2018), is proposed as an explanation of pure quotation where the quoted term(s) refers to a linguistic object such as in the sentence ‘In the above, ‘bank’ is ambiguous’. After outlining the theory, I raise a problem for the natural name theory. I argue that positing a resemblance relation between the name and the linguistic object it names does not allow us to rule out cases where the natural name fails to resemble (...) the linguistic object it names. I argue that to avoid this problem, we can combine the natural name theory with a type-realist metaphysics of language, and hold that the name is natural because the name is an instance of the kind that it names. I conclude by reflecting on the importance of the metaphysics of language for questions in the philosophy of language. (shrink)

Bas van Fraassen has argued that explanatory reasoning does not provide confirmation for explanatory hypotheses because explanatory reasoning increases information and increasing information does not provide confirmation. We compare this argument with a skeptical argument that one should never add any beliefs because adding beliefs increases information and increasing information does not provide confirmation. We discuss the similarities between these two arguments and identify several problems with van Fraassen’s argument.

The paper attempts to set a guideline to contemporary common morality debate. The author points out what he sees as two common problems that occur in the field of comparative cultural studies related to a common morality debate. The first problem is that the advocates and opponents of common morality, consciously or unconsciously, define the moral terms in question in a way that their respective meanings would naturally lead to the outcomes that each party desires. The second problem is that (...) the examples each party chooses as the empirical evidences may not be as simple and clear-cut as the researchers think they are, mainly because the situational contexts where the examples are located between two different cultures vastly differ. To prevent these mistakes, the author emphasizes that we should pay attention to a subtle distinction between "thick" and "thin" construed from the levels of "theoretical status" and of "material content". With the conceptual distinctions in mind, the author shows how different cultures (i.e., Western individualist society and East Asian neo-Confucian society) see the moral principles like autonomy and beneficence in different lexical orders. (shrink)

In this paper I defend two closely related claims. The first claim, to which the first section of the paper is devoted, is that for Kant taste is a sort of cognition, that is, a form of awareness of reality for which questions of justification are appropriate. Nevertheless, In our appreciation of natural beauty we are aware of the suitability of appearances for inclusion in a rational system, albeit in a way that is subject to important limitations in comparison with (...) scientific cognition. In the second section of the paper, I will use this reading of Kant’s theory of taste to throw new light on Kant’s account of genius later in the “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment.”. (shrink)

Johann Georg Hamann's "Metakritik über den Purismum der Vernunft" begins with an allusion to Hume's endorsement of Berkeley's rejection of abstract ideas. On the basis of a close examination of the text of the Metakritik, I show that Hamann's overall point is that Kant cannot, or anyway does not, justify the relation of his own linguistic framework to natural language. Thus the Critique cannot meet its own standard for critical self-examination.

Temporal non-dynamists hold that there is no temporal passage, but concede that many of us judge that it seems as though time passes. Phenomenal Illusionists suppose that things do seem this way, even though things are not this way. They attempt to explain how it is that we are subject to a pervasive phenomenal illusion. More recently, Cognitive Error Theorists have argued that our experiences do not seem that way; rather, we are subject to an error that leads us mistakenly (...) to believe that our experiences seem that way. Cognitive Error Theory is a relatively new view and little has been said to explain why we make such an error, or where, in the cognitive architecture, such an error might creep in. In this paper we remedy this by offering a number of hypotheses about the source of error. In so doing we aim to show that Cognitive Error Theory is a plausible competitor to Phenomenal Illusion Theory. (shrink)

Suppositions can be introduced in either the indicative or subjunctive mood. The introduction of either type of supposition initiates judgments that may be either qualitative, binary judgments about whether a given proposition is acceptable or quantitative, numerical ones about how acceptable it is. As such, accounts of qualitative/quantitative judgment under indicative/subjunctive supposition have been developed in the literature. We explore these four different types of theories by systematically explicating the relationships canonical representatives of each. Our representative qualitative accounts of indicative (...) and subjunctive supposition are based on the belief change operations provided by AGM revision and KM update respectively; our representative quantitative ones are offered by conditionalization and imaging. This choice is motivated by the familiar approach of understanding supposition as `provisional belief revision' wherein one temporarily treats the supposition as true and forms judgments by making appropriate changes to their other opinions. To compare the numerical judgments recommended by the quantitative theories with the binary ones recommended by the qualitative accounts, we rely on a suitably adapted version of the Lockean thesis. Ultimately, we establish a number of new results that we interpret as vindicating the often-repeated claim that conditionalization is a probabilistic version of revision, while imaging is a probabilistic version of update. (shrink)

In this paper I outline and defend a new approach to personal-identity—personal-identity non-cognitivism—and argue that it has several advantages over its cognitivist rivals. On this view utterances of personal-identity sentences express a non-cognitive attitude towards relevant person-stages. The resulting view offers a pleasingly nuanced picture of what we are doing when we utter such sentences.

What are words? What makes two token words tokens of the same word-type? Are words abstract entities, or are they (merely) collections of tokens? The ontology of words tries to provide answers to these, and related questions. This article provides an overview of some of the most prominent views proposed in the literature, with a particular focus on the debate between type-realist, nominalist, and eliminativist ontologies of words.

What distinguishes causation from grounding? One suggestion is that causation, but not grounding, occurs over time. Recently, however, counterexamples to this simple temporal criterion have been offered. In this paper, we situate the temporal criterion within a broader framework that focuses on two aspects: locational overlapping in space and time and the presence of intermediaries in space and time. We consider, and reject, the idea that the difference between grounding and causation is that grounding can occur without intermediaries. We go (...) on to use the fact that grounding and causation both involve intermediaries to develop a better temporal criterion for distinguishing causation from grounding. The criterion is this: when a cause and effect are spatially disjoint, there is always a chain of causal intermediaries between the cause and the effect that are extended in time. By contrast, when the grounds and the grounded are spatially disjoint, there is always a chain of grounding intermediaries, but the chain need not be extended in time, it can be purely spatial. The difference between grounding and causation, then, is that causation requires time for chaining in a way that grounding does not. (shrink)

This study aims to identify the digital reputation at the University of Palestine: an analytical perspective of the employees ’point of view, where the researchers used the descriptive and analytical approach, through a questionnaire distributed to a sample of employees at the University of Palestine, where the size of the study population is (234) employees, and the size of The sample is (117) employees, of whom (90) employees responded. The study provided a theoretical framework for what the writers and researchers (...) presented about the study variables, as well as a practical analytical framework for the opinions of employees at the University of Palestine. The digital reputation was expressed as an independent variable through its four indicators (feeling about the organization (satisfaction), admiration and respect, and trust, and social responsibility). The study found a set of results, the most important of which are: the existence of a high degree of digital reputation at the University of Palestine from the viewpoint of employees, and the absence of differences in the opinions of the study sample about digital reputation according to demographic variables. The study presented a set of recommendations, the most important of which are: The need for universities to enhance their digital reputation and raise its level. (shrink)

Here is a puzzle about aesthetic education. In a variety of contexts, we commit significant time, energy, and resources to aesthetic education. We teach (and in many cases publicly subsidize) university courses and degrees that have aesthetic education as their primary aim; we also invest public resources into museums, including enrichment programs that are also designed to afford aesthetic education. It would seem that if our commitment to aesthetic education is rational, then aesthetic appreciation is something that can be done (...) better or worse. However, we also, in a variety of contexts (oddly enough, some of them being the same sorts of contexts that are designed to abet aesthetic education), act as if it is true that there is no disputing taste. We may try to persuade students to come around to particular judgments, but we do not penalize students for judging one way or another. The aim of this paper is to dissolve the apparent puzzle of aesthetic education by clarifying its aims and advancing a conception of it that deemphasizes the role of taste. I claim that, pace “the default view of aesthetic education” (as I shall call it), the primary purpose of aesthetic education is not to educate taste. It is, rather, to facilitate the development of certain perceptual-cognitive capacities so as to enhance aesthetic experience and improve aesthetic appreciation. Thus, I call the view of aesthetic education advanced here “a perceptual-cognitive model”. (shrink)

By deriving the Lorentz transformation from the absolute speed of light, Einstein demonstrated the relativistic variability of space and time, enabling him to explain length contraction and time dilation without recourse to a "luminiferous ether" or preferred frame of reference. He also showed that clocks synchronized at a distance via light signals are not synchronized in a frame of reference differing from that of the clocks. However, by mislabeling the relativity of synchrony the "relativity of simultaneity," Einstein implied that this (...) effect concerns an actual difference in times from one frame to another rather than merely a failure of clock synchronization across frames. As a theory of length contraction and time dilation on the basis of relative motion in the context of the absolute speed of light, special relativity is the definitive interpretation of the Lorentz transformation and the correct explanation of relativistic phenomena. The relativity of simultaneity, as I demonstrate, plays no role in this explanation but instead provides apparent justification for a view of time in which the present moment is frame-dependent. In contrast to its legitimate application, special relativity fails as a theory of time on the basis of the relativity of simultaneity. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The idea that two words can be instances of the same word is a central intuition in our conception of language. This fact underlies many of the claims that we make about how we communicate, and how we understand each other. Given this, irrespective of what we think words are, it is common to think that any putative ontology of words, must be able to explain this feature of language. That is, we need to provide criteria of identity for (...) word-types which allow us to individuate words such that it can be the case that two particular word-instances are instances of the same word-type. One solution, recently further developed by Irmak, holds that words are individuated by their history. In this paper, I argue that this view either fails to account for our intuitions about word identity, or is too vague to be a plausible answer to the problem of word individuation. (shrink)

It has been widely argued that words are analogous to species such that words, like species, are natural kinds. In this paper, I consider the metaphysics of word-kinds. After arguing against an essentialist approach, I argue that word-kinds are homeostatic property clusters, in line with the dominant approach to other biological and psychological kinds.

According to the Value-Neutrality Thesis, technology is morally and politically neutral, neither good nor bad. A knife may be put to bad use to murder an innocent person or to good use to peel an apple for a starving person, but the knife itself is a mere instrument, not a proper subject for moral or political evaluation. While contemporary philosophers of technology widely reject the VNT, it remains unclear whether claims about values in technology are just a figure of speech (...) or nontrivial empirical claims with genuine factual content and real-world implications. This paper provides the missing argument. I argue that by virtue of their material properties, technological artifacts are part of the normative order rather than external to it. I illustrate how values can be empirically identified in technology. The reason why value-talk is not trivial or metaphorical is that due to the endurance and longevity of technological artifacts, values embedded in them have long-term implications that surpass their designers and builders. I further argue that taking sides in this debate has real-world implications in the form of moral constraints on the development of technology. (shrink)

Miller analyzes the relationship between consent and autonomy by offering three pictures. For autonomy, Miller distinguishes between procedural, substantive, and weak substantive autonomy. The corresponding views of consent are what Miller has termed as consensual minimalism, consensual idealism, and consensual realism. The requirements of sexual consent under consensual minimalism are a voluntary informed agreement. However, feminist critiques reveal the inadequacies of this simple position. Consensual idealism, which corresponds with substantive autonomy, offers a robust picture where consent and (...) autonomy must be based on non-oppression. However, this view is considered too ideal and it ignores context. Weak substantive autonomy takes into account the context in the sexual domain. Correspondingly, consensual realism takes into account the context and still fulfills the requirements of consent. (shrink)

Temporal dynamists typically hold that it seems to us as though time robustly passes, and that its seeming so is explained by the fact that time does robustly pass. Temporal non-dynamists hold that time does not robustly pass. Some non-dynamists nevertheless hold that it seems as though it does: we have an illusory phenomenal state whose content represents robust passage. Call these phenomenal passage illusionists. Other non-dynamists argue that the phenomenal state in question is veridical, and represents something other than (...) robust passage. Call this the veridical passage-less view. This paper argues against in favour of the latter view over the former, by arguing that we should reject passage illusionism. (shrink)