Previous research has suggested that bodily signals from internal organs are associated with diverse cortical and subcortical processes involved in sensory-motor functions, beyond homeostatic reflexes. For instance, a recent study demonstrated that the preparation and execution of voluntary actions, as well as its underlying neural activity, are coupled with the breathing cycle. In the current study, we investigated whether such breathing-action coupling is limited to voluntary motor action or whether it is also present for mental actions not involving any overt (...) bodily movement. To answer this question, we recorded electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography (EMG), and respiratory signals while participants were conducting a voluntary action paradigm including self-initiated motor execution (ME), motor imagery (MI), and visual imagery (VI) tasks. We observed that the voluntary initiation of ME, MI, and VI are similarly coupled with the respiration phase. In addition, EEG analysis revealed the existence of readiness potential (RP) waveforms in all three tasks (i.e., ME, MI, VI), as well as a coupling between the RP amplitude and the respiratory phase. Our findings show that the voluntary initiation of both imagined and overt action is coupled with respiration, and further suggest that the breathing system is involved in preparatory processes of voluntary action by contributing to the temporal decision of when to initiate the action plan, regardless of whether this culminates in overt movements. -/- . (shrink)

Moral education requires interdisciplinary engagement across philosophy, psychology, and education. Positive psychologists regularly acknowledge the breadth and depth of wisdom regarding the cultivation of virtues present in philosophical and religious texts and consult such writings when creating constructs, but they are less prone to integrate scientific findings with historical texts as inquiry proceeds. Thus, we provide a comparative analysis of the advice given in Lorenzo Scupoli’s The Spiritual Combat, from traditional Christian moral wisdom literature and the research findings from positive (...) psychology on the cultivation of the virtue of patience. Points of convergence relate to the utility of engaging activities that include cognitive reappraisal, habit formation through daily practice, activating positive motivation, prayer, mantra/transcendental meditation, and cultivating elevation through meditation on moral exemplars. Areas of divergence include the advisability of suppression, the role of motivation, and necessity of spiritual intervention, which suggest areas for future inquiry in moral education. (shrink)

Neural activity varies continually from moment to moment. Such temporal variability (TV) has been highlighted as a functionally specific brain property playing a fundamental role in cognition. We sought to investigate the mechanisms involved in TV changes between two basic behavioral states, namely having the eyes open (EO) or eyes closed (EC) in vivo in humans. To these ends we acquired BOLD fMRI, ASL, and [18F]-fluoro-deoxyglucose PET in a group of healthy participants (n = 15), along with BOLD fMRI and (...) [18F]-flumazenil PET in a separate group (n = 19). Focusing on an EO- vs EC-sensitive region in the occipital cortex (identified in an independent sample), we show that TV is constrained in the EO condition compared to EC. This reduction is correlated with an increase in energy consumption and with regional GABAA receptor density. This suggests that the modulation of TV by behavioral state involves an increase in overall neural activity that is related to an increased effect from GABAergic inhibition in addition to any excitatory changes. These findings contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying activity variability in the human brain and its control. (shrink)

Neurovascular coupling (NVC), the transient regional hyperemia following the evoked neuronal responses, is the basis of blood oxygenation level-dependent techniques and is generally adopted across physiological conditions, including the intrinsic resting state. However, the possibility of neurovascular dissociations across physiological alterations is indicated in the literature. To examine the NVC stability across sleep–wake states, we used electroencephalography (EEG) as the index of neural activity and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as the measure of cerebrovascular response. Eight healthy adults were recruited (...) for simultaneous EEG-fMRI recordings in nocturnal sleep. We compared the cross-modality (EEG vs. fMRI) consistency of functional indices (spectral amplitude and functional connectivity) among five states of wakefulness and sleep (state effect). We also segregated the brain into three main partitions (anterior, middle and posterior) for spatial assessments (regional effect). Significant state effects were found on δ, α and fMRI indices and regional effects on the α and fMRI indices. However, the cross-state EEG changes in spectral amplitude and functional connectivity did not consistently match the changes in the fMRI indices across sleep–wake states. In spectral amplitude, the δ band peaked at the N3 stage for all brain regions, while the fMRI fluctuation amplitude peaked at the N2 stage in the central and posterior regions. In regional connectivity, the inter-hemispheric connectivity of the δ band peaked at the N3 stage for all regions, but the bilateral fMRI connectivity showed the state changes in the anterior and central regions. The cross-modality inconsistencies across sleep–wake states provided preliminary evidence that the neurovascular relationship may not change in a linear consistency during NREM sleep. Thus, caution shall be exercised when applying the NVC presumption to investigating sleep/wake transitions, even among healthy young adults. (shrink)

Objective Manic and depressive phases of bipolar disorder (BD) show opposite psychomotor symptoms. Neuronally, these may depend on altered relationships between sensorimotor network (SMN) and subcortical structures. The study aimed to investigate the functional relationships of SMN with substantia nigra (SN) and raphe nuclei (RN) via subcortical-cortical loops, and their alteration in bipolar mania and depression, as characterized by psychomotor excitation and inhibition. -/- Method In this resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study on healthy (n = 67) and BD (...) patients (n = 100), (1) functional connectivity (FC) between thalamus and SMN was calculated and correlated with FC from SN or RN to basal ganglia (BG)/thalamus in healthy; (2) using an a-priori-driven approach, thalamus-SMN FC, SN-BG/thalamus FC, and RN-BG/thalamus FC were compared between healthy and BD, focusing on manic (n = 34) and inhibited depressed (n = 21) patients. -/- Results (1) In healthy, the thalamus-SMN FC showed a quadratic correlation with SN-BG/thalamus FC and a linear negative correlation with RN-BG/thalamus FC. Accordingly, the SN-related FC appears to enable the thalamus-SMN coupling, while the RN-related FC affects it favoring anti-correlation. (2) In BD, mania showed an increase in thalamus-SMN FC toward positive values (ie, thalamus-SMN abnormal coupling) paralleled by reduction of RN-BG/thalamus FC. By contrast, inhibited depression showed a decrease in thalamus-SMN FC toward around-zero values (ie, thalamus-SMN disconnection) paralleled by reduction of SN-BG/thalamus FC (and RN-BG/thalamus FC). The results were replicated in independent HC and BD datasets. -/- Conclusions These findings suggest an abnormal relationship of SMN with neurotransmitters-related areas via subcortical-cortical loops in mania and inhibited depression, finally resulting in psychomotor alterations. (shrink)

The neurotransmitters GABA and glutamate have been suggested to play a role in Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) through an imbalance between cortical inhibition and excitation. This effect has been highlighted in higher brain areas, such as the prefrontal cortex, but has also been posited in basic sensory cortices. Based on this, magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) was used to investigate potential changes to GABA+ and glutamate+glutamine (Glx) concentrations within the occipital cortex in MDD patients (n = 25) and healthy controls (n (...) = 25). No difference in occipital GABA+ or Glx concentrations, nor in the GABA+/Glx ratio, was found between groups. An analysis of an extended MDD patient and unmatched control dataset (n = 90) found no correlation between metabolite concentrations and depressive symptoms. These results were integrated with prior studies through metabolite-specific meta-analyses, revealing no difference in occipital GABA and Glx concentrations between patients and controls. An effect of publication year on GABA group differences was found, suggesting that previously reported results may have been artifacts of measurement accuracy. Taken together, our results suggest that, contrary to some prior reports, MRS measurements of occipital GABA and Glx do not differ between MDD patients and controls. (shrink)

In this paper, I seek to diagnose the sources of our dissatisfaction with answers to the question of the meaning of life. I contend that some of these have to do with the question (its polyvalence and persistent vagueness) and some have to do with life and meaningfulness themselves. By showing how dissatisfaction arises and the extent to which it is in-eliminable even by God, I hope to show that we should be satisfied with our dissatisfaction.

Background: Rumination, a tendency to focus on negative self-related thoughts, is a central symptom of depression. Studying the self-related aspect of such symptoms is challenging because of the need to distinguish self effects from the emotional content of task stimuli. This study employed an emotionally neutral self-related paradigm to investigate possible altered self-processing in depression and its link to rumination. Methods: People with major depressive disorder (n = 25) and controls (n = 25) underwent task-based electro-encephalogram recording. We studied late (...) event-related potentials, along with low-frequency oscillatory power. We compared electroencephalogram metrics between groups and correlated them with depressive symptoms and reported rumination. Results: Participants with major depressive disorder displayed a difference in late positive potentials across frontocentral electrodes between self-related and non-self-related conditions. We found no such difference in controls. The magnitude of this difference was positively correlated with depressive symptoms and reported rumination. Participants with major depressive disorder also had elevated theta oscillation power at central electrodes in self-related conditions, a finding that we did not see in controls. Limitations: Patients with major depressive disorder were medicated at the time of the study. The group studied was primarily female, so the observed effects may have been sex-specific. Conclusion: Rumination appears to be linked to altered self-related processing in depression, independent of stimuli-related emotional confounds. This connection between self-related processing and depression may point to a self disorder as a core component of depression. (shrink)

We explore new connections between the epistemologies of mental rehearsal and suppositional reasoning to offer a novel perspective on skilled behavior and its relationship to practical knowledge. We argue that practical knowledge is "easy" in the sense that, by manifesting one's skills, one has a priori propositional justification for certain beliefs about what one is doing as one does it. This proposal has wider consequences for debates about intentional action and knowledge: first, because agents sometimes act intentionally in epistemically hazardous (...) environments, these justified beliefs do not always rise to the level of (practical) knowledge. Second, practical knowledge is more intimately related to basic knowledge than has been appreciated. Third, an attractive "middle way" opens between the Anscombian tradition of defending a necessary connection between intentional action and practical knowledge and the more recent tradition of explaining away substantive epistemic conditions on intentional action. (shrink)

What we call “the evidential argument from evil” is not one argument but a family of them, originating (perhaps) in the 1979 formulation of William Rowe. Wykstra’s early versions of skeptical theism emerged in response to Rowe’s evidential arguments. But what sufficed as a response to Rowe may not suffice against later more sophisticated versions of the problem of evil—in particular, those along the lines pioneered by Paul Draper. Our chief aim here is to make an earlier version of skeptical (...) theism more responsive to the type abductive atheology pioneered by Draper. In particular, we suggest a moderate form of skeptical theism may be able to resist Draper’s abductive atheology. (shrink)

Some skeptical theists use Wykstra’s CORNEA constraint to undercut Rowe-style inductive arguments from evil. Many critics of skeptical theism accept CORNEA, but argue that Rowe-style arguments meet its constraint. But Justin McBrayer argues that CORNEA is itself mistaken. It is, he claims, akin to “sensitivity” or “truth-tracking” constraints like those of Robert Nozick; but counterexamples show that inductive evidence is often insensitive. We here defend CORNEA against McBrayer’s chief counterexample. We first clarify CORNEA, distinguishing it from a deeper underlying principle (...) that we dub “CORE.” We then give both principles a probabilistic construal, and show how, on this construal, the counterexample fails. (shrink)

An action-oriented perspective changes the role of an individual from a passive observer to an actively engaged agent interacting in a closed loop with the world as well as with others. Cognition exists to serve action within a landscape that contains both. This chapter surveys this landscape and addresses the status of the pragmatic turn. Its potential influence on science and the study of cognition are considered (including perception, social cognition, social interaction, sensorimotor entrainment, and language acquisition) and its impact (...) on how neuroscience is studied is also investigated (with the notion that brains do not passively build models, but instead support the guidance of action). A review of its implications in robotics and engineering includes a discussion of the application of enactive control principles to couple action and perception in robotics as well as the conceptualization of system design in a more holistic, less modular manner. Practical applications that can impact the human condition are reviewed (e.g., educational applications, treatment possibilities for developmental and psychopathological disorders, the development of neural prostheses). All of this foreshadows the potential societal implications of the pragmatic turn. The chapter concludes that an action-oriented approach emphasizes a continuum of interaction between technical aspects of cognitive systems and robotics, biology, psychology, the social sciences, and the humanities, where the individual is part of a grounded cultural system. (shrink)

I develop an account of moral perception which is able to deal well with familiar naturalistic non-realist complaints about ontological extravagance and ‘queerness’. I show how this account can also ground a cogent response to familiar objections presented by Simon Blackburn and J.L. Mackie. The familiar realist's problem about relativism, however, remains.

According to a common view, animals have moral status. Further, a standard defense of this view is the Argument from Consciousness: animals have moral status because they are conscious and can experience pain and it would be bad were they to experience pain. In a series of papers :277–291, 2015a, J Agric Environ Ethics 28:11270–1138, 2015b, J Agric Environ Ethics 30:37–54, 2017), Timothy Hsiao claims that animals do not have moral status and criticizes the Argument from Consciousness. This short (...) paper defends the Argument from Consciousness by providing two simple responses to Hsiao’s criticism. (shrink)

THERE IS WIDESPREAD AGREEMENT among historians that the writings of Robert Boyle (1697-1691) constitute a valuable archive for understanding the concerns of seventeenth-century British natural philosophers. His writings have often been seen as representing, in one fashion or another, all of the leading intellectual currents of his day. ~ There is somewhat less consensus, however, on the proper historiographic method for interpreting these writings, as well as on the specific details of the beliefs expressed in them. Studies seeking to explicate (...) Boyle's thought have been, roughly speaking, of two general sorts. On the one hand there are those studies of a broadly "intellectualist" orientation which situate his natural philosophy within the intellectual context provided by metaphysics, religion, and early modern science. In this connection his corpuscularianism has been shown to be motivated by specific epistemological, theological, as well as empirical concerns. One of the central aims of such studies has been to show that apparently discordant elements in his scientific thought are rendered coherent by referring them to such "non-scientific" commitments. Among studies of this sort might be mentioned the works of John Hedley Brooke, E. A. Burtt, Gary B. Deason, J. E. McGuire, R. Hooykaas, Robert H. Kargon, Eugene M. Klaaren, P. M. Rattansi, and Richard S. Westfall. (shrink)

Invited Commentary On: Graziano, M. S. A., Guterstam, A., Bio, B. J., Wilterson, A. I. (2019). Toward a standard model of consciousness: Reconciling the attention schema, global workspace, higher order thought, and illusionist theories. Cognitive Neuropsychology.

The lack of knowledge—as Timothy Williamson (2000) famously maintains—is ignorance. Radical sceptical arguments, at least in the tradition of Descartes, threaten universal ignorance. They do so by attempting to establish that we lack any knowledge, even if we can retain other kinds of epistemic standings, like epistemically justified belief. If understanding is a species of knowledge, then radical sceptical arguments threaten to rob us categorically of knowledge and understanding in one fell swoop by implying universal ignorance. If, however, understanding (...) is not a species of knowledge, then three questions arise: (i) is ignorance the lack of understanding, even if understanding is not a species of knowledge? (ii) If not, what kind of state of intellectual impoverishment best describes a lack of understanding? (iii) What would a radical sceptical argument look like that threatened that kind of intellectual impoverishment, even if not threatening ignorance? This paper answers each of these questions in turn. I conclude by showing how the answers developed to (i-iii) interface in an interesting way with Virtue Perspectivism as an anti-sceptical strategy. (shrink)

It is wholly uncontroversial that measurements-or, more properly, propositions that are measurement reports-are often paradigmatically good cases of propositions that serve the function of evidence. In normal cases it is also obvious that stating such a report is an utterly pedestrian case of successful assertion. So, for example, there is nothing controversial about the following claims: (1) that a proposition to the effect that a particular thermometer reads 104C when properly used to determine the temperature of a particular patient is (...) evidence that the patient in question has a fever and (2) that there is nothing wrong with asserting the proposition that a particular thermometer reads 104C for appropriate reasons of communication, etc. when the thermometer has been properly used to determine the temperature of a particular patient. Here it will be shown that Timothy Williamson’s commitments to a number of principles about knowledge and assertion imply that a whole class of utterly ordinary statements like these that are used as evidence are not really evidence because they are not knowledge and so are (perversely) unassertable according to his principled commitments. This paper deals primarily with the second of these two problems and an alternative account of the norms of assertion is introduced which allows for the assertability of such measurement reports. (shrink)

As noted in 1962 by Timothy Smiley, if Aristotle’s logic is faithfully translated into modern symbolic logic, the fit is exact. If categorical sentences are translated into many-sorted logic MSL according to Smiley’s method or the two other methods presented here, an argument with arbitrarily many premises is valid according to Aristotle’s system if and only if its translation is valid according to modern standard many-sorted logic. As William Parry observed in 1973, this result can be proved using my (...) 1972 proof of the completeness of Aristotle’s syllogistic. (shrink)

This paper critically explores Timothy Williamson’s view of evidence, and it does so in light of the problem of epistemic luck. Williamson’s view of evidence is, of course, a crucially important aspect of his novel and influential “knowledge-first” epistemological project. Notoriously, one crucial thesis of this project is that one’s evidence is equivalent to what one knows. This has come to be known as the E = K thesis. This paper specifically addresses Williamson’s knowledge-first epistemology and the E = (...) K thesis in the context of anti-luck epistemology and the idea that knowledge is factive. Williamson’s views on these matters are worth investigating in some detail because he subscribes to a well-worked out anti-luck view of knowledge that incorporates what is perhaps the most common anti-luck condition. But this paper is also of more general importance because the critique of Williamson’s views on these matters reveals some important things about the nature of evidence and evidence is one of the most fundamental concepts in epistemology. (shrink)

Anti-realism is plagued by Fitch’s paradox: the remarkable result that if one accepts that all truths are knowable, minimal assumptions about the nature of knowledge entail that every truth is known. Dorothy Edgington suggests to address this problem by understanding p is knowable to be a counterfactual claim, but her proposal must contend with a forceful objection by Timothy Williamson. I revisit Edgington’s basic idea and find that Williamson’s objection is obviated by a refined understanding of counterfactual knowability that (...) is grounded in possible courses of inquiry. I arrive at a precise definition of knowability that is not just a technical avoidance of paradox, but is metaphysically sound and does justice to the anti-realist idea. (shrink)

In this paper Timothy Williamson’s argument that the knowledge norm of assertion is the best explanation of the unassertability of Morrean sentences is challenged and an alternative account of the norm of assertion is defended.

Recently Timothy Williamson (2007) has argued that characterizations of the standard (i.e. intuition-based) philosophical practice of philosophical analysis are misguided because of the erroneous manner in which this practice has been understood. In doing so he implies that experimental critiques of the reliability of intuition are based on this misunderstanding of philosophical methodology and so have little or no bearing on actual philosophical practice or results. His main point is that the orthodox understanding of philosophical methodology is incorrect in (...) that it treats philosophical thought experiments in such a way that they can be “filled in” in various ways that undermines their use as counter-examples and that intuition plays no substantial role in philosophical practice when we properly understand that methodology as a result of the possibility of such filling in. In this paper Williamson’s claim that philosophical thought experiments cases can be legitimately filled in this way will be challenged and it will be shown that the experimental critique of the intuition-based methods involved a serious issue. (shrink)

According to J=K, only beliefs that qualify as knowledge are epistemically justified. Traditionalists about justification have objected to this view that it predicts that radically deceived subjects do not have justified beliefs, which they take to be counter-intuitive. In response, proponents of J=K have argued that traditionalists mistake being justified with being excused in the relevant cases. To make this response work, Timothy Williamson has offered a dispositional account of excuse which has recently been challenged by Jessica Brown. She (...) has presented cases in which Williamson’s account excuses subjects believing things in an epistemically reckless fashion. To steer clear of Brown’s counterexamples, I argue for a modification of Williamson’s account that employs a more fine-grained notion of the dispositions involved. (shrink)

"Understanding Scientific Progress constitutes a potentially enormous and revolutionary advancement in philosophy of science. It deserves to be read and studied by everyone with any interest in or connection with physics or the theory of science. Maxwell cites the work of Hume, Kant, J.S. Mill, Ludwig Bolzmann, Pierre Duhem, Einstein, Henri Poincaré, C.S. Peirce, Whitehead, Russell, Carnap, A.J. Ayer, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend, Nelson Goodman, Bas van Fraassen, and numerous others. He lauds Popper for advancing beyond (...) verificationism and Hume’s problem of induction, but faults both Kuhn and Popper for being unable to show that and how their work could lead nearer to the truth." —Dr. LLOYD EBY teaches philosophy at The George Washington University and The Catholic University of America, in Washington, DC "Maxwell's aim-oriented empiricism is in my opinion a very significant contribution to the philosophy of science. I hope that it will be widely discussed and debated." – ALAN SOKAL, Professor of Physics, New York University "Maxwell takes up the philosophical challenge of how natural science makes progress and provides a superb treatment of the problem in terms of the contrast between traditional conceptions and his own scientifically-informed theory—aim-oriented empiricism. This clear and rigorously-argued work deserves the attention of scientists and philosophers alike, especially those who believe that it is the accumulation of knowledge and technology that answers the question."—LEEMON McHENRY, California State University, Northridge "Maxwell has distilled the finest essence of the scientific enterprise. Science is about making the world a better place. Sometimes science loses its way. The future depends on scientists doing the right things for the right reasons. Maxwell's Aim-Oriented Empiricism is a map to put science back on the right track."—TIMOTHY McGETTIGAN, Professor of Sociology, Colorado State University - Pueblo "Maxwell has a great deal to offer with these important ideas, and deserves to be much more widely recognised than he is. Readers with a background in philosophy of science will appreciate the rigour and thoroughness of his argument, while more general readers will find his aim-oriented rationality a promising way forward in terms of a future sustainable and wise social order."—David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer, 2017/2 "This is a book about the very core problems of the philosophy of science. The idea of replacing Standard Empiricism with Aim-Oriented Empiricism is understood by Maxwell as the key to the solution of these central problems. Maxwell handles his main tool masterfully, producing a fascinating and important reading to his colleagues in the field. However, Nicholas Maxwell is much more than just a philosopher of science. In the closing part of the book he lets the reader know about his deep concern and possible solutions of the biggest problems humanity is facing."—Professor PEETER MŰŰREPP, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia “For many years, Maxwell has been arguing that fundamental philosophical problems about scientific progress, especially the problem of induction, cannot be solved granted standard empiricism (SE), a doctrine which, he thinks, most scientists and philosophers of science take for granted. A key tenet of SE is that no permanent thesis about the world can be accepted as a part of scientific knowledge independent of evidence. For a number of reasons, Maxwell argues, we need to adopt a rather different conception of science which he calls aim-oriented empiricism (AOE). This holds that we need to construe physics as accepting, as a part of theoretical scientific knowledge, a hierarchy of metaphysical theses about the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, which become increasingly insubstantial as we go up the hierarchy. In his book “Understanding Scientific Progress: Aim-Oriented Empiricism”, Maxwell gives a concise and excellent illustration of this view and the arguments supporting it… Maxwell’s book is a potentially important contribution to our understanding of scientific progress and philosophy of science more generally. Maybe it is the time for scientists and philosophers to acknowledge that science has to make metaphysical assumptions concerning the knowability and comprehensibility of the universe. Fundamental philosophical problems about scientific progress, which cannot be solved granted SE, may be solved granted AOE.” Professor SHAN GAO, Shanxi University, China . (shrink)

Are science and religion compatible when it comes to understanding cosmology (the origin of the universe), biology (the origin of life and of the human species), ethics, and the human mind (minds, brains, souls, and free will)? Do science and religion occupy non-overlapping magisteria? Is Intelligent Design a scientific theory? How do the various faith traditions view the relationship between science and religion? What, if any, are the limits of scientific explanation? What are the most important open questions, problems, or (...) challenges confronting the relationship between science and religion, and what are the prospects for progress? These and other questions are explored in Science and Religion: 5 Questions--a collection of thirty-three interviews based on 5 questions presented to some of the world's most influential and prominent philosophers, scientists, theologians, apologists, and atheists. Contributions by Simon Blackburn, Susan Blackmore, Sean Carroll, William Lane Craig, William Dembski, Daniel C. Dennett, George F.R. Ellis, Owen Flanagan, Owen Gingerich, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, John F. Haught, Muzaffar Iqbal, Lawrence Krauss, Colin McGinn, Alister McGrath, Mary Midgley, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Timothy O'Connor, Massimo Pigliucci, John Polkinghorne, James Randi, Alex Rosenberg, Michael Ruse, Robert John Russell, John Searle, Michael Shermer, Victor J. Stenger, Robert Thurman, Michael Tooley, Charles Townes, Peter van Inwagen, Keith Ward, Rabbi David Wolpe. (shrink)

"Why are there 'transsexuals' but not 'transracials'?" "Why is there an accepted way to change sex, but not to change race?" I have repeatedly heard these questions from theorists puzzled by the phenomenon of transsexuality. Feminist thinkers, in particular, often seem taken aback that in the case of category switching the possibilities appear to be so different. Behind the question is sometimes an implicit concern: Does not the (hypothetical or real) example of individual “transracialism” seem politically troubling? And, if it (...) is, does not the case of transsexuality merit equivalent critique? Or, conversely, if one accepts transsexuals as people with legitimate demands (e.g., on medical resources or single-sex spaces), then would one not also be committed to accepting the putative transracial in analogous ways? Understanding the ontological constraints and possibilities with regard to transforming one’s identity is, I suggest, a project that should accompany ethical evaluation of those transformations. Under what circumstances is it (un)ethical to leave behind a gender or racial group with which one has once been affiliated? This question is, again, especially pressing for radical thinkers who endorse the claims that race and gender taxonomies are internally hierarchical and constituted through relations of oppression, domination, and normalization. Changing one’s identity under these circumstances will surely always be linked, however tenuously, to consideration of the larger political and cultural milieu in which such changes are advantageous or disadvantageous, complicit with oppressive norms and/or resistant to them. To illuminate these larger questions, in this paper, I first provide three examples of the analogy thesis in feminist thinking about race and sex change, each of which draws ethical conclusions about individual motivation, political strategy, or public policy, premised on the assumption that race and sex change are equivalent phenomena. None of these accounts consider the genealogy of each category as significant to contemporary possibilities. I next offer a descriptive analysis that highlights different norms at play in contemporary North American understandings: Sex–gender, I argue, is essentialized as a property of the individual’s body, while race is essentialized with reference to both the body and ancestry. This analysis, I conclude, shows politically significant disanalogies between the categories, and reveals the importance of genealogical accounts of race and sex in thinking ethically about changing ourselves. (shrink)

Here we focus on two questions: What is the proper semantics for deontic modal expressions in English? And what is the connection between true deontic modal statements and normative reasons? Our contribution towards thinking about the first, which makes up the bulk of our paper, considers a representative sample of recent challenges to a Kratzer-style formal semantics for modal expressions, as well as the rival views—Fabrizio Cariani’s contrastivism, John MacFarlane’s relativism, and Mark Schroeder’s ambiguity theory—those challenges are thought to motivate. (...) These include the Professor Procrastinate challenge to Inheritance (the principle that ‘If ought p and p entails q, then ought q), as well as Parfit’s miners puzzle regarding information-sensitive deontic modals. Here we argue that a Kratzer-style view is able to meet all of the challenges we’ll consider. In addition, we’ll identify challenges for each of those rival views. Our overall conclusion is that a Kratzer-style semantics remains the one to beat. With this assumption in place, we then ask how we should understand the relationship between true deontic modal statements and normative reasons. Should, for example, we hold that the truth of such a statement entails the existence of a normative reason for some agent to comply? Here we argue that, in many cases, acceptance of Kratzer’s semantics for deontic modals leaves open for substantive normative theorizing the question of whether an agent has a normative reason to comply with what she ought to do. (shrink)

There are two versions of the language-of-thought hypothesis (LOT): Representational LOT (roughly, structured representation), introduced by Ockham, and computational LOT (roughly, symbolic computation) introduced by Fodor. Like many others, I oppose the latter but not the former. Quilty-Dunn et al. defend representational LOT, but they do not defend the strong computational LOT thesis central to the classical-connectionist debate.

The first aim of the paper is to show that under certain conditions generative syntax can be made suitable for Montague semantics, based on his type logic. One of the conditions is to make branching in the so-called X-bar syntax strictly binary, This makes it possible to provide an adequate semantics for Noun Phrases by taking them as referring to sets of collections of sets of entities ( type <ett,t>) rather than to sets of sets of entities (ett).

A Wittgensteinian Way with Paradoxes examines how some of the classic philosophical paradoxes that have so puzzled philosophers over the centuries can be dissolved. Read argues that paradoxes such as the Sorites, Russell’s Paradox and the paradoxes of time travel do not, in fact, need to be solved. Rather, using a resolute Wittgensteinian ‘therapeutic’ method, the book explores how virtually all apparent philosophical paradoxes can be diagnosed and dissolved through examining their conditions of arising; to loosen their grip and therapeutically (...) liberate those philosophers suffering from them (including oneself). The book contrasts such paradoxes with real, ‘lived paradoxes’: paradoxes that are genuinely experienced outside of the philosopher’s study, in everyday life. Thus Read explores instances of lived paradox (such as paradoxes of self-hatred and of denial of other humans’ humanity) and the harm they can cause, psychically, morally or politically. These lived paradoxes, he argues, sometimes cannot be dissolved using a Wittgensteinian treatment. Moreover, in some cases they do not need to be: for some, such as the paradoxical practices of Zen Buddhism (and indeed of Wittgenstein himself), can in fact be beneficial. The book shows how, once philosophers’ paradoxes have been exorcized, real lived paradoxes can be given their due. (shrink)

Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Leslie White, Allen Johnson and Timothy Earle, and Stephen Sanderson all produced some of the more interesting theories of history, social change and cultural evolution but their theories have a common deficiency. None of them provide an ultimate explanation for social, cultural and historical change. This failure was rectified by J. S. Mill who suggested increasing human knowledge was the ultimate cause of social, cultural and historical change. However even Mill did not ask what caused (...) the increasing human knowledge and why the knowledge had to be acquired in a particular order and how this could affect human history. (shrink)

Does the capacity to think require the capacity to sense? A lively debate on this topic runs throughout the history of philosophy and now animates discussions of artificial intelligence. Many have argued that AI systems such as large language models cannot think and understand if they lack sensory grounding. I argue that thought does not require sensory grounding: there can be pure thinkers who can think without any sensory capacities. As a result, the absence of sensory grounding does not entail (...) that large language models cannot think or understand. I also consider to what extent quasi-sensory grounding can at least boost the performance of a language model. (shrink)

A key question in the philosophy of logic is how we have epistemic justification for claims about logical entailment (assuming we have such justification at all). Justification holism asserts that claims of logical entailment can only be justified in the context of an entire logical theory, e.g., classical, intuitionistic, paraconsistent, paracomplete etc. According to holism, claims of logical entailment cannot be atomistically justified as isolated statements, independently of theory choice. At present there is a developing interest in—and endorsement of—justification holism (...) due to the revival of an abductivist approach to the epistemology of logic. This paper presents an argument against holism by establishing a foundational entailment-sentence of deduction which is justified independently of theory choice and outside the context of a whole logical theory. (shrink)

Much problem solving and learning research in math and science has focused on formal representations. Recently researchers have documented the use of unschooled strategies for solving daily problems -- informal strategies which can be as effective, and sometimes as sophisticated, as school-taught formalisms. Our research focuses on how formal and informal strategies interact in the process of doing and learning mathematics. We found that combining informal and formal strategies is more effective than single strategies. We provide a theoretical account of (...) this multiple strategy effect and have begun to formulate this theory in an ACT-R computer model. We show why students may reach common impasses in the use of written algebra, and how subsequent or concurrent use of informal strategies leads to better problem-solving performance. Formal strategies facilitate computation because of their abstract and syntactic nature; however, abstraction can lead to nonsensical interpretations and conceptual errors. Reapplying the formal strategy will not repair such errors; switching to an informal one may. We explain the multiple strategy effect as a complementary relationship between the computational efficiency of formal strategies and the sense-making function of informal strategies. (shrink)

Although there is no consensus about the exact span of time that corresponds to the American Enlightenment, it is safe to say that it occurred during the eighteenth century among thinkers in British North America and the early United States and was inspired by the ideas of the British and French Enlightenments. Based on the metaphor of bringing light to the Dark Age, the Age of the Enlightenment (Siècle des lumières in French and Aufklärung in German) shifted allegiances away from (...) absolute authority, whether religious or political, to more skeptical and optimistic attitudes about human nature, religion and politics. In the American context, thinkers such as Thomas Paine, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin invented and adopted revolutionary ideas about scientific rationality, religious toleration and experimental political organization—ideas that would have far-reaching effects on the development of the fledgling nation. Some coupled science and religion in the notion of deism; others asserted the natural rights of man in the anti-authoritarian doctrine of liberalism; and still others touted the importance of cultivating virtue, enlightened leadership and community in early forms of republican thinking. At least six ideas came to punctuate American Enlightenment thinking: deism, liberalism, republicanism, conservatism, toleration and scientific progress. Many of these were shared with European Enlightenment thinkers, but in some instances took a uniquely American form. (shrink)

Chapter 1: "Reason for Hope " by Michael J. Murray Chapter 2: "Theistic Arguments" by William C. Davis Chapter 3: "A Scientific Argument for the Existence of God: The Fine- Tuning Design Argument" by Robin Collins Chapter 4: "God, Evil and Suffering" by Daniel Howard Snyder Chapter 5: "Arguments for Atheism" by John O'Leary Hawthorne Chapter 6: "Faith and Reason" by Caleb Miller Chapter 7: "Religious Pluralism" by Timothy O'Connor Chapter 8: "Eastern Religions" by Robin Collins Chapter 9: "Divine (...) Providence and Human Freedom" by Scott A. Davison Chapter 10: "The Incarnation and the Trinity" by Thomas D. Senor Chapter 11: "The Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting" by Trenton Merricks Chapter 12: "Heaven and Hell" by Michael J. Murray Chapter 13: "Religion and Science" by W. Christopher Stewart Chapter 14: "Miracles and Christian Theism" by J. A. Cover Chapter 15: "Christianity and Ethics" by Frances Howard-Snyder Chapter 16: "The Authority of Scripture" by Douglas Blount. (shrink)

The origin and development of consciousness is poorly understood. Although it is clearly a naturalistic phenomenon evolved through Darwinian evolution, explaining it in terms of physicochemical, neural, or symbolic mechanisms remains elusive. Here I propose that two steps had to be taken in its evolution. First, living systems evolved an intrinsic goal-directedness by internalizing Darwinian fitness as a self-estimated fitness. The self-estimated fitness participates in a feedback loop that effectively produces intrinsic meaning in the organism. Second, animals with advanced nervous (...) systems evolved a special form of communication that modifies the way each partner estimates fitness. The resulting change in intrinsic meaning is experienced subjectively as a primary form of consciousness. This primary form is subsequently used to generate, partly through internalized dialogue, more complex forms of consciousness, such as consciousness of the natural and social worlds, consciousness of the self, and language-dependent forms of consciousness. An updated version of the theory in this paper can be found as Chapter 12 ('Consciousness') in my book 'The estimator theory of life and mind: how agency and consciousness can emerge', see VANTET-8 at philpapers . (shrink)

Public reason liberals expect individuals to have justificatory reasons for their views of certain political issues. This paper considers how groups can, and whether they should, give collective public reasons for their political decisions. A problem is that aggregating individuals’ consistent judgments on reasons and a decision can produce inconsistent collective judgments. The group will then fail to give a reason for its decision. The paper considers various solutions to this problem and defends a deliberative procedure by showing how it (...) incentivizes information sharing and leads to outcomes most acceptable to the group members. (shrink)

This is an introduction to the volume The Epistemology of Group Disagreement (Routledge, forthcoming), (eds.) F. Broncano-Berrocal and J.A. Carter.

The harmonious free play of the imagination and understanding is at the heart of Kant’s account of beauty in the Critique of the Power of Judgement, but interpreters have long struggled to determine what Kant means when he claims the faculties are in a state of free play. In this article, I develop an interpretation of the free play of the faculties in terms of the freedom of attention. By appealing to the different way that we attend to objects in (...) aesthetic experience, we can explain how the faculties are free, even when the subject already possesses a concept of the object and is bound to the determinate form of the object in perception. (shrink)

Structural analogies connect Williamson’s epistemology and action theory: for example, action is the direction-of-fit mirror image of knowledge, and knowledge stands to belief as action stands to intention. These structural analogies, for Williamson, are meant to illuminate more generally how ‘mirrors’ reversing direction of fit should be understood as connecting the spectrum of our cognitive and practically oriented mental states. This paper has two central aims, one negative and the other positive. The negative aim is to highlight some intractable problems (...) with Williamson’s preferred analogical picture, which links the cognitive and the practical through the nexus of direction-of-fit mirroring. The positive aim of the paper is to propose a better alternative. In particular, we show that an achievement-theoretic proposal captures what is in common across the range of attitudes that exhibit the kind of structure that knowledge-belief, action-desire/intention do, while at the same time avoiding the problems shown to face Williamson’s proposed picture. Moreover, we draw attention to several key theoretical benefits of embracing our proposed achievement-theoretic picture, including some of the key benefits of the knowledge-first programme that Williamson’s own analogies were designed to secure. (shrink)

Can groups really be agents or is group agency just a fiction? Christian List and Philip Pettit argue influentially for group-agent realism by showing how certain groups form and act on attitudes in ways they take to be unexplainable at the level of the individual agents constituting them. Group agency is therefore considered not a fiction or a metaphor but a reality we must account for in explanations of certain social phenomena. In this paper, I challenge this defence of group-agent (...) realism by showing how it is undermined by individual-level analysis of how individuals interact within groups. While group agency can be a useful fiction, real agents are at the individual level, not the collective level. (shrink)