In this article it is defended that the notion known as “The mark of the cognitive” is better characterized as a process that performs the function of generating intelligent behavior, in a flexible and adaptive way, capable of adapting to circumstances, given it is a context sensitive process. For that, some relevant definitions of cognition are examined. In the end, it is pointed out that the definition of the mark of cognition as a context-sensitive process takes into account several factors (...) that were added as constitutive parts of cognitive phenomena over the years, especially the 4E Cognition, which cannot be satisfactorily accommodated alongside the preceding notions of cognition. Accordingly, this essay shouldn’t be mistaken merely as an exercise in intellectual history, but as a brief and accessible attempt to advance the debate. (shrink)

Based on questions about herself, the character Motoko, in the film Ghost in the Shell, wonders about her continuity over time and her human condition and as a person. Similarly, it is possible to entertain some scenarios in which the addition of elements external to the body produces a similar tension with respect to human persons. One of these scenarios is that of natural cyborgs, as understood by Andy Clark. Based on the notion of natural cyborgs, through the coupling of (...) elements external to the body, not as artificial implants, but within a systemic whole for the realization of cognitive processes and mental states, it is possible to question the maintenance of personal identity and status as a person, as these external elements are increasingly dependent. This is especially true with Alzheimer’s patients. In this work, some notions are minimally clarified, such as extended mind, natural cyborgs and personal identity, which support the further discussion on the possibility of maintaining the personal identity and the status as a person for Alzheimer’s patients, along the progressive process of cognitive deterioration, through the understanding that they are natural cyborgs. (shrink)

The issue of how to incorporate the individual's first‐hand experience of illness into broader medical understanding is a major question in medical theory and practice. In a philosophical context, phenomenology, with its emphasis on the subject's perception of phenomena as the basis for knowledge and its questioning of naturalism, seems an obvious candidate for addressing these issues. This is a review of current phenomenological approaches to medicine, looking at what has motivated this philosophical approach, the main problems it faces and (...) suggesting how it might become a useful philosophical tool within medicine, with its own individual, but interrelated, contribution to make to current medical debates. After the general background, there is a brief summary of phenomenological ideas and their current usage in a medical context. Next is a critique of four key claims within current phenomenological medical works, concerning both the role phenomenology plays and the supposedly clear divide between phenomenology and other approaches. There are significant problems within these claims, largely because they overlook the complexity of the questions they consider. Finally, there is some more in‐depth examination of phenomenology itself and the true complexity of phenomenological debate concerning subjectivity. The aim is to show that it will be both more productive and truer to phenomenology itself, if we use phenomenology as a philosophical method for explicating and gaining deeper understanding of complex and fundamental problems, which are central to medicine, rather than as providing simple, but flawed solutions. (shrink)

Summary Background Self-binding directives instruct clinicians to overrule treatment refusal during future severe episodes of illness. These directives are promoted as having potential to increase autonomy for individuals with severe episodic mental illness. Although lived experience is central to their creation, service users’ views on self-binding directives have not been investigated substantially. This study aimed to explore whether reasons for endorsement, ambivalence, or rejection given by service users with bipolar disorder can address concerns regarding self-binding directives, decision-making capacity, and human (...) rights. Methods This study used qualitative data from an internet-based survey distributed to the mailing list of the UK charity Bipolar UK, which contained multiple closed and open questions on advance decision-making in bipolar disorder. Quantitative analysis of a closed question about self-binding directives had already demonstrated endorsement amongst a very high proportion of participants with bipolar disorder who completed the survey. We conducted thematic analysis of responses from those participants who answered a subsequent open question about reasons for their view. Research was co-produced within a multi-disciplinary team, with clinical, legal, and ethical expertise, and lived experience of bipolar disorder. Ideas and methodologies associated with all these areas of expertise were used in the analysis of these reasons and to gain insight into the thoughts of individuals with bipolar disorder about self-binding directives and associated issues. Findings Between Oct 23 and Dec 5, 2017, 932 individuals with a self-reported clinical diagnosis of bipolar disorder completed the internet survey, with 565 (154 men; 400 women; 11 transgender or other) providing free text answers to the open question. A large majority of respondents endorsed self-binding directives, nearly all describing a determinate shift to types of distorted thinking and decision-making when unwell as their key justification. Responses indicating ambivalence were dominated by logistical concerns about the drafting and implementation of self-binding directives, while those who rejected self-binding directives also cited logistical concerns, validity of their thinking when unwell, and potential contravention of human rights. Interpretation This study is, to our knowledge, the first large study of reasons why mental health service users might endorse or reject the use of self-binding directives. The findings provide empirical support for introducing self-binding directives into mental health advance decision-making practice and policy and may help to address enduring ethical concerns surrounding possible implementation of the directive while a person retains decision-making capacity. The opinions expressed here in responses given by multiple service users with bipolar disorder challenge a prominent view within international disability rights debates that involuntary treatment and recognition of impaired mental capacity constitute inherent human rights violations. Funding The Wellcome Trust . (shrink)

A book chapter exploring the potential consquences and ethical ramifications of using coercive measures within community mental healthcare. We argue that, althogh the move towards 'care in the community' may have had liberalising motivations, the subsequent reduction in inpatient or other supported residential provision, means that there has been an increasing move towards coercive measures outside of formal inpatient detention. We consider measures such as Community Treatment Orders, inducements, and other forms of leverage, explaining the underlying concepts, aims, and exploring (...) adverse consequences and ethical difficulties. (shrink)

Deepfake technology uses machine learning to fabricate video and audio recordings that represent people doing and saying things they've never done. In coming years, malicious actors will likely use this technology in attempts to manipulate public discourse. This paper prepares for that danger by explicating the unappreciated way in which recordings have so far provided an epistemic backstop to our testimonial practices. Our reasonable trust in the testimony of others depends, to a surprising extent, on the regulative effects of the (...) ever-present possibility of recordings of the events they testify about. As deepfakes erode the epistemic value of recordings, we may then face an even more consequential challenge to the reliability of our testimonial practices themselves. (shrink)

For people with Bipolar Affective Disorder, a self-binding (advance) directive (SBD), by which they commit themselves to treatment during future episodes of mania, even if unwilling, can seem the most rational way to deal with an imperfect predicament. Knowing that mania will almost certainly cause enormous damage to themselves, their preferred solution may well be to allow trusted others to enforce treatment and constraint, traumatic though this may be. No adequate provision exists for drafting a truly effective SBD and efforts (...) to establish such provision are hampered by very valid, but also paralysing ethical, clinical and legal concerns. Effectively, the autonomy and rights of people with bipolar are being 'protected' through being denied an opportunity to protect themselves. From a standpoint firmly rooted in the clinical context and experience of mania, this article argues that an SBD, based on a patient-centred evaluation of capacity to make treatment decisions (DMC-T) and grounded within the clinician-patient relationship, could represent a legitimate and ethically coherent form of self-determination. After setting out background information on fluctuating capacity, mania and advance directives, this article proposes a framework for constructing such an SBD, and considers common objections, possible solutions and suggestions for future research. (shrink)

Challenges to psychiatric stigma fall between a rock and a hard place. Decreasing one prejudice may inadvertently increase another. Emphasising similarities between mental illness and ‘ordinary’ experience to escape the fear-related prejudices associated with the imagined ‘otherness’ of persons with mental illness risks conclusions that mental illness indicates moral weakness and the loss of any benefits of a medical model. An emphasis on illness and difference from normal experience risks a response of fear of the alien. Thus, a ‘likeness-based’ and (...) ‘unlikeness-based’ conception of psychiatric stigma can lead to prejudices stemming from paradoxically opposing assumptions about mental illness. This may create a troubling impasse for anti-stigma campaigns. (shrink)

Deepfakes are algorithmically modified video and audio recordings that project one person’s appearance on to that of another, creating an apparent recording of an event that never took place. Many scholars and journalists have begun attending to the political risks of deepfake deception. Here we investigate other ways in which deepfakes have the potential to cause deeper harms than have been appreciated. First, we consider a form of objectification that occurs in deepfaked ‘frankenporn’ that digitally fuses the parts of different (...) women to create pliable characters incapable of giving consent to their depiction. Next, we develop the idea of ‘illocutionary wronging’, in which an individual is forced to engage in speech acts they would prefer to avoid in order to deny or correct the misleading evidence of a publicized deepfake. Finally, we consider the risk that deepfakes may facilitate campaigns of ‘panoptic gaslighting’, where many systematically altered recordings of a single person's life undermine their memory, eroding their sense of self and ability to engage with others. Taken together, these harms illustrate the roles that social epistemology and technological vulnerabilities play in human ethical life. (shrink)

Charland's article suggests that we need to think more about whether decision-making capacity is impaired in severe addiction, working from the idea that drug dealers rely on this understanding of addiction to draw in their clients. Charland argues that it is possible to make a choice without being in control (to make decisions without having decision-making capacity). I argue in support of Charland's ideas by examining the reasons supporting a medical model of addiction and its importance. (For Charland's article and (...) the full set of commentaries, please see the Research Gate link). (shrink)

Recent empirical work appears to suggest that the moral intuitions of professional philosophers are just as vulnerable to distorting psychological factors as are those of ordinary people. This paper assesses these recent tests of the ‘expertise defense’ of philosophical intuition. I argue that the use of familiar cases and principles constitutes a methodological problem. Since these items are familiar to philosophers, but not ordinary people, the two subject groups do not confront identical cognitive tasks. Reflection on this point shows that (...) these findings do not threaten philosophical expertise—though we can draw lessons for more effective empirical tests. (shrink)

Consider the following two (hypothetical) generic causal claims: “Living in a neighborhood with many families with children increases purchases of bicycles” and “living in an affluent neighborhood with many families with children increases purchases of bicycles.” These claims not only differ in what they suggest about how bicycle ownership is distributed across different neighborhoods (i.e., “the data”), but also have the potential to communicate something about the speakers’ values: namely, the prominence they accord to affluence in representing and making decisions (...) about the social world. Here, we examine the relationship between the level of granularity with which a cause is described in a generic causal claim (e.g., neighborhood vs. affluent neighborhood) and the value of the information contained in the causal model that generates that claim. We argue that listeners who know any two of the following can make reliable inferences about the third: 1) the level of granularity at which a speaker makes a generic causal claim, 2) the speaker’s values, and 3) the data available to the speaker. We present results of four experiments (N=1,323) in the domain of social categories that provide evidence in keeping with these predictions. (shrink)

The notion of belief appears frequently in cognitive science. Yet it has resisted definition of the sort that could clarify inquiry. How then might a cognitive science of belief proceed? Here we propose a form of pluralism about believing. According to this view, there are importantly different ways to "believe" an idea. These distinct psychological kinds occur within a multi-dimensional property space, with different property clusters within that space constituting distinct varieties of believing. We propose that discovering such property clusters (...) is empirically tractable, and that this approach can help sidestep merely verbal disputes about what constitutes “belief.”. (shrink)

Les recherches scientifiques sur la COVID-19 sont à la fois menées et diffusées à une cadence effrénée. Bien qu’il soit inspirant de voir la communauté de la recherche répondre avec autant de vigueur à la crise causée par la pandémie, toute cette activité a par ailleurs engendré un chaos de mauvaises données, de résultats contradictoires et de manchettes exagérées. Alors que la polarisation, la déformation et la médiatisation des résultats scientifiques s’intensifient chaque jour, les inquiétudes se font de plus en (...) plus sentir quant à la perspective que la science pertinente soit présentée au public d’une manière qui puisse causer de la confusion, créer de fausses attentes et éroder la confiance du public. Dans cette note, nous explorons les principaux enjeux associés à la présentation de la science dans le contexte de la pandémie de la COVID-19. Plusieurs de ces enjeux ne sont pas nouveaux. Mais la pandémie de la COVID-19 a braqué les projecteurs sur le processus de la recherche biomédicale et a amplifié les ramifications néfastes des problèmes de communication publique. Nous devons faire mieux. À ce titre, nous conclurons ce rapport en formulant dix recommandations qui s’adressent aux acteurs clés qui interviennent dans la communication de la science sur la COVID-19, notamment les gouvernements, les bailleurs de fonds, les universités, les éditeurs, les médias et les communautés de recherche. (shrink)

COVID science is being both done and circulated at a furious pace. While it is inspiring to see the research community responding so vigorously to the pandemic crisis, all this activity has also created a churning sea of bad data, conflicting results, and exaggerated headlines. With representations of science becoming increasingly polarized, twisted and hyped, there is growing concern that the relevant science is being represented to the public in a manner that may cause confusion, inappropriate expectations, and the erosion (...) of public trust. Here we explore some of the key issues associated with the representations of science in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of these issues are not new. But the COVID-19 pandemic has placed a spotlight on the biomedical research process and amplified the adverse ramifications of poor public communication. We need to do better. As such, we conclude with ten recommendations aimed at key actors involved in the communication of COVID-19 science, including government, funders, universities, publishers, media and the research communities. (shrink)

The evidential value of moral intuitions has been challenged by psychological work showing that the intuitions of ordinary people are affected by distorting factors. One reply to this challenge, the expertise defence, claims that training in philosophical thinking confers enhanced reliability on the intuitions of professional philosophers. This defence is often expressed through analogy: since we do not allow doubts about folk judgments in domains like mathematics or physics to undermine the plausibility of judgments by experts in these domains, we (...) also should not do so in philosophy. In this paper I clarify the logic of the analogy strategy, and defend it against recent challenges by Jesper Ryberg. The discussion exposes an interesting divide: while Ryberg’s challenges may weaken analogies between morality and domains like mathematics, they do not affect analogies to other domains, such as physics. I conclude that the expertise defence can be supported by analogical means, though care is required in selecting an appropriate analog. I discuss implications of this conclusion for the expertise defence debate and for study of the moral domain itself. (shrink)

Despite extensive evidence for its effectiveness, ECT remains the subject of fierce opposition from those contesting its benefits and claiming extreme harms. Alongside some reflections on my experiences of this treatment, I examine the case against ECT, and find that it appears to rest primarily on unsubstantiated claims about major ethical violations, rather than clinical factors such as effectiveness and risk.

Studies on mind-wandering frequently use reading as an experimental task. In these studies, reading is conceived as a cognitive process that potentially offers a contrast to mind-wandering, because it seems to be task-related, goal-directed and stimulus-dependent. More recent work attempts to avoid the dichotomy of successful cognitive processes and processes of mind-wandering found in earlier studies. We approach the issue from the perspective that texts provoke modes of cognitive involvement different from the information processing and recall account that underlies many (...) early mind-wandering studies. After all, reading itself is an umbrella term for activities that are characterized by a variety of phenomenological and functional signatures. We conceptualize reading and mind-wandering in relation to each other through the framework of enculturated predictive processing, which is informed by research in literary studies. Earlier accounts think of reading predominantly in terms of the construction of situation models that organize textual information. By contrast, enculturated predictive processing foregrounds shifting stances readers can take in relation to the text. Characters featuring in literary texts might be mind-wandering themselves, or passages in literary style might make the construction of a clearly defined situational model impossible. Furthermore, we take into account that texts often elicit mind-wandering through the construction of task-relevant and attention-driven virtual scenarios in readers' minds. This more complex account of reading can enrich recent attempts to understand mind-wandering as a complex, multi-dimensional phenomenon. The study of mind-wandering can benefit, we argue, from a closer attention to the process of reading and to the texts it deploys as stimuli. The emerging perspective from enculturated predictive processing and literary studies makes distinctions in reading that in turn enable research on mind-wandering to ask more precise questions about (1) different kinds of mind-wandering, (2) different modes of reading, and (3) how and where they interconnect across time. (shrink)

Since at least 2016, many have worried that social media enables authoritarians to meddle in democratic politics. The concern is that trolls and bots amplify deceptive content. In this chapter I argue that these tactics have a more insidious anti-democratic purpose. Lies implanted in democratic discourse by authoritarians are often intended to be caught. Their primary goal is not to successfully deceive, but rather to undermine the democratic value of testimony. In well-functioning democracies, our mutual reliance on testimony also generates (...) a distinctively democratic value: decentralized testimonial networks evade control by the state or powerful actors. The deliberate exposure of deception in democratic testimonial networks undermines this value by implicating citizens in their own epistemic corruption, weakening the resilience of democratic society against authoritarian pressure. In this chapter I illustrate that danger through a close reading of recent Russian social media interference operations, showing both their epistemic underpinnings and their ongoing political threat. (shrink)

In the visual representation of ontologies, in particular of part-whole relationships, it is customary to use graph theory as the representational background. We claim here that the standard graph-based approach has a number of limitations, and we propose instead a new representation of part-whole structures for ontologies, and describe the results of experiments designed to show the effectiveness of this new proposal especially as concerns reduction of visual complexity. The proposal is developed to serve visualization of ontologies conformant to the (...) Basic Formal Ontology. But it can be used also for more general applications, particularly in the biomedical domain. (shrink)

In the graphical representation of ontologies, it is customary to use graph theory as the representational background. We claim here that the standard graph-based approach has a number of limitations. We focus here on a problem in the graph-based representation of ontologies in complex domains such as biomedical, engineering and manufacturing: lack of mereotopological representation. Based on such limitation, we proposed a diagrammatic way to represent an entity’s structure and various forms of mereotopological relationships between the entities.

The study dealt with the present socio-economic status, perceptions and opportunities of maximizing the benefits of ecotourism to the local community. Responses from the local community, officials of the local government unit, and visitors using quantitative and qualitative method, particularly the inductive approach through survey, observation and interview was used. Local community involvement in tourism activity is limited to tour guiding, particularly the children, while the rest of the population are into farming, fishing and harvesting forest products. The park was (...) categorized as “Protected Landscape” under Republic Act 7586, now gaining its popularity and one of the fastest growing ecotourism sites in the Philippines is under the supervision of a private company. Visitor satisfaction and potential risk on environmental degradation were observed due to lack of regulation on the observance of carrying capacity. Tourism Action Plan for the destination was prepared but allocation for project for the local community that would contribute to their present socio-economic status was not evident. The geographical unit of the destination, its breath-taking view, the presence of various distinct flora and fauna made it to be labelled as the “Hidden Paradise and Mystical Eco-tourism in Nueva Ecija”. Sustainability in ecotourism, involves the participation of the communities that protect and manage the natural resources, cultural and indigenous knowledge and practices, environmental education and ethics. Community involvement equipped with proper education and conservation awareness, training, and employment opportunities may sustain the destination and enhance visitor satisfaction. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Giubilini and Minerva argue for the moral permissibility of what they call ‘after-birth abortion’, or infanticide. Here I suggest that they actually employ a confusion of two distinct arguments: one relying on the purportedly identical moral status of a fetus and a newborn, and the second giving an independent argument for the denial of moral personhood to infants (independent of whatever one might say about fetuses). After distinguishing these arguments, I suggest that neither one is capable (...) of supporting Giubilini and Minerva's conclusion. The first argument is at best neutral between permitting infanticide and prohibiting abortion, and may in fact more strongly support the latter. The second argument, I suggest, contains an ambiguity in its key premise, and can be shown to fail on either resolution of that ambiguity. Hence, I conclude that Giubilini and Minerva have not demonstrated the permissibility of infanticide, or even great moral similarity between abortion and infanticide. (shrink)

It is generally agreed that Edmund Husserl’s theory of depiction describes a three-fold experience of seeing something in pictures, whereas Richard Wollheim’s theory is a two-fold experience of seeingin. The aim of this article is to show that Wollheim’s theory can be interpreted as a three-fold experience of seeing-in. I will first give an overview of Wollheim and Husserl’s theories of seeing-in, and will then show how the concept of figuration in Wollheim’s theory is analogous to the concept of the (...) image subject as the depicted object in Husserl’s theory. I will claim that our experience of non-figurative pictures is a two-fold seeing-in, while that of figurative pictures is a three-fold seeing-in. (shrink)

Scientists, philosophers, and policymakers disagree about how to define microaggression. Here, we offer a taxonomy of existing definitions, clustering around (a) the psychological motives of perpetrators, (b) the experience of victims, and (c) the functional role of microaggression in oppressive social structures. We consider conceptual and epistemic challenges to each and suggest that progress may come from developing novel hybrid accounts of microaggression, combining empirically tractable features with sensitivity to the testimony of victims.

The aim of this article is to examine Edmund Husserl’s theory of aesthetic consciousness and the possibility to apply it to site-specific art. The central focus will be on the idea of the limited synthetic unity of the aesthetic object that is introduced by Husserl in order to differentiate positional and aesthetic attitude towards the object. I claim that strongly site-specific art, which is a work of art about a place and in the place, challenges the view that the synthetic (...) unity of the aesthetic object is limited. Moreover, following Husserl’s theory, it becomes questionable whether strongly site-specific art is art at all. I try to answer these objections by explaining how the artist prescribes the appearances and boundaries of a strongly site-specific object of art, thereby satisfying the demand for the limitedness of the synthetic unity of the aesthetic object. (shrink)

This short piece draws on political philosophy to show how social media interference operations can be used by hostile states to weaken the apparent legitimacy of democratic governments. Democratic societies are particularly vulnerable to this form of attack because democratic governments depend for their legitimacy on citizens' trust in one another. But when citizen see one another as complicit in the distribution of deceptive content, they lose confidence in the epistemic preconditions for democracy. The piece concludes with policy recommendations for (...) how democratic governments should protect themselves. (shrink)

This study analyses behavioral psychological facilitators and barriers to using different carsharing business models. It identifies the most preferable carsharing business models for different trip purposes as well as the main motivators for using it. Users of carsharing services (N=1,121) in German cities completed a questionnaire distributed by five operators representing three different business models: freefloating (FF), round-trip station-based (RTSB), and peer-to-peer (P2P). All analyses are performed from a Bayesian perspective and further discussion of the statistical analyses is included. The (...) main results indicate that there are different preferences for carsharing business models depending on the trip purpose, with a trade-off between free-floating and round-trip station-based business models. The peer-to-peer business model stood out for short holiday trips. Age, educational level, and income affected the probability of selecting different carsharing operators. Users of FF and RTSB differ regarding driving habits and trust in the services. (shrink)

Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT were trained on human conversation, but in the future they will also train us. As chatbots speak from our smartphones and customer service helplines, they will become a part of everyday life and a growing share of all the conversations we ever have. It’s hard to doubt this will have some effect on us. Here I explore a specific concern about the impact of artificial conversation on our capacity to deliberate and hold ourselves accountable (...) to reason – that is, to be autonomous, in Kant’s sense of the term. I develop ideas from psychologist Jean Piaget to show how chatbots are autonomy traps: their deference to our commands tempts us into venting authoritarian whims, ultimately weakening our own self-control. I argue that the Kantian tradition, including Piaget and sociologist Emile Durkheim, offers powerful conceptual resources for resisting this slide. But it will require us to do something that may seem bizarre: we will need to treat mindless chatbots as if they are autonomous persons too. (shrink)

Contemporary political philosophy is, to a certain degree, dominated by a family of theories that invoke hypothetical procedures as a method of normative justification. This article intends to analyze Axel Honneth’s critique of the so-called “proceduralism” in theories of justice, as well as to examine the author’s alternative proposal for a justification method, what he calls “normative reconstruction”. Honneth’s complaints are divided in three parts: critiques of the understanding of justice, the method of justification, and the scope of proceduralist theories (...) of justice are raised, each one receiving an alternative formulation by the author. After reading texts by Axel Honneth, John Rawls — author of "A theory of justice", in which he presents one of the most well-known proceduralist arguments — Jürgen Habermas and Nancy Fraser, who raise problems for Honneth’s normative reconstruction, we suspect that even though Honneth’s critique of proceduralism and his proposal of normative reconstruction seem initially plausible, they are only possible if we abandon the framework of political philosophy to do what is usually called “social philosophy”. (shrink)

En este trabajo, se propone una clasificación epistemológica teórica para el discurso astrológico a partir de evidencia empírica a fin de abordar el problema de cómo determinar específicamente qué es lo que lo hace ilegítimo. A partir de esta clasificación, se diseñó una intervención didáctica, enmarcada en el enfoque de Enseñanza de las Ciencias Naturales en Contexto (ECNC), con el objetivo de fomentar, en estudiantes de nivel secundario, la capacidad de distinguir enunciados cognoscitivamente ilegítimos -por infalsables o por falsos- respecto (...) de aquellos que pueden constituir genuino conocimiento científico. La secuencia didáctica se implementó con un grupo de 51 estudiantes de 14 a 17 años. Se evaluó su impacto por comparación entre un pretest y un postest. Los resultados mostraron que su capacidad de discernimiento entre enunciados falsables y no falsables se incrementó apreciablemente. (shrink)

People often answer why-questions with what we call experiential explanations: narratives or stories with temporal structure and concrete details. In contrast, on most theories of the epistemic function of explanation, explanations should be abstractive: structured by general relationships and lacking extraneous details. We suggest that abstractive and experiential explanations differ not only in level of abstraction, but also in structure, and that each form of explanation contributes to the epistemic goals of individual learners and of science. In particular, experiential explanations (...) support mental simulation and survive transitions across background theories; as a result, they support learning and help us translate between competing frameworks. Experiential explanations play an irreducible role in human cognition – and perhaps in science. (shrink)

How can we tell whether an incident counts as a microaggression? How do we draw the boundary between microaggressions and weightier forms of oppression, such as hate crimes? I address these questions by exploring the ontology and epistemology of microaggression, in particular the constitutive relationship between microaggression and systemic social oppression. I argue that we ought to define microaggression in terms of the ambiguous experience that its victims undergo, focusing attention on their perspectives while providing criteria for distinguishing microaggression.

My Ph.D. research is aimed at finding and analyzing the occurences of the word kinesis, and similar expressions, in Plotinus' Enneads. The employment of lexicographical method has allowed me to pick up a catalog of around eight hundred occurrences of the term kinesis. I have identified two tematic areas for the use of kinesis, one regarding the sensible reality, the other the intelligible reality. In the first part of my study I focus on kinesis occurrences with reference to the body (...) and to those souls related to the bodies; in the second part I analyze the construction of the intelligible reality in which movement is implicated as a gene. In the first part of my research I present the analysis of the treaties: 2 (IV, 7); 3 (III, 1); 8 (IV, 9); 26 (III, 6); 27 (IV, 3); 28 (IV, 4); 29 (IV, 5); 14 (II, 2); 40 (II, 1); 45 (III, 7); 53 (1, 1); in the second part I present the analysis of Plotinus' treaties dedicated to the “Genera of Being”, 42-44 (VI, 1-3). (shrink)

ABSTRACTTime-consciousness has long been a focus of research in phenomenology and phenomenological psychology. We advance and extend this tradition of research by focusing on the character of temporal experience under conditions of mania. Symptom scales and diagnostic criteria for mania are peppered with temporally inflected language: increased rate of speech, racing thoughts, flight-of-ideas, hyperactivity. But what is the underlying structure of temporal experience in manic episodes? We tackle this question using a strategically hybrid approach. We recover and reconstruct three hypotheses (...) regarding manic temporality that were advanced and modeled by two pioneers of clinical phenomenology: Eugène Minkowski and Ludwig Binswanger. We then test, critique, and refine these hypotheses using heterophenomenological methods in an interview-based study of persons with a history of bipolar and a current diagnosis of acute mania. Our conclusions support a central hypothesis due to Minkowski... (shrink)

When we look back upon people in past societies, such as slaveholders and colonialists, we judge their actions to have been morally atrocious. Yet we should give some thought to how the future will judge us. Here I argue that future people are likely to regard our behavior as no better than that of the past. If these future people are to be believed, then we are morally hopeless; we have little chance of working out the moral truth for ourselves. (...) I argue that we ought to resist this conclusion, and that our best means for doing so it to reject moral objectivity and accept instead a form of time-linked moral relativism. (shrink)

To most of us – believers and non-believers alike – the possibility of a perfect God co-existing with the kinds of evil that we see calls out for explanation. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the belief that God must have justifying reasons for allowing all the evil that we see has been a perennial feature of theistic thought. Recently, however, a growing number of authors have argued that the existence of a perfect God is compatible with the existence of gratuitous (...) evil. Given powerful, millenia-long sensibilities about power and love and justice, it isn’t hard to find that suggestion simply incredible. Nonetheless, in this paper I will argue that the most prominent theistic alternatives to what has seemed incredible to most of us throughout most of history are themselves patently unacceptable for the theist as well. On any of the most widely accepted accounts of how God could have justifying reasons for permitting some evils, God’s existence means that we have justifying reasons for perpetrating and allowing every evil that we see. That's hard to swallow too. If I’m right about all of this, then two competing outcomes seem to present themselves as a possible result. On the one hand, for the theist, the apparently outrageous suggestion that the existence of a perfect God is compatible with gratuitous evil no longer looks like it faces a formidable, hard-to-resist alternative. On the other hand, some like me might think that my arguments go no distance at all towards dispelling the incredibility of the gratuitous evil nouvelle vague. On this line, theism may seem now to be between the rock and the hard place: it seems hard to make sense of the existence of a perfect God whether or not He has justifying reasons for allowing all the evil that we see. (shrink)

Este trabalho tem por objetivo a compreensão da ação em Aristóteles. Para este fim será utilizado o livro III da Ética a Nicômaco, passando antes por uma breve definição da virtude, tal como aparece no livro II, a qual, pode-se dizer ser o bem para a ação, na medida em que é aquilo que se deve alcançar com ela. No campo específico da ação será visto como ela pode ser distinguida entre voluntária, involuntária e não-voluntária. Neste espectro insere-se igualmente a (...) discussão sobre o que significa agir por e na ignorância. Além disso, se abordará também a questão relacionada à deliberação e à escolha.: This study aims to understand the action in Aristotle. For this purpose, we will use the book III of the Nicomachean Ethics, after doing a brief definition of virtue, as it appears in the Book II, which can be said to be the good for the action, as that is what should be reached by her. In the specific field of action, it will be seen how she can be distinguished between voluntary, involuntary and non-voluntary. This spectrum is also part of the discussion about what it means to act by and in the ignorance. In addition, the study will also address the issue related to deliberation and choice. Keywords: Deliberation, Choice, Action, Nicomachean Ethics. (shrink)

In The Transfiguration of the Commonplace (1981)1 Arthur Danto construes individual style as something “given” that belongs to the artist “essentially” and “inseparably.” By contrast, his theory of the end of art, set forth in After the End of Art (1997) and elsewhere,2 suggests the liberation of artists from any stylistic commitments. How do these two theories go together? Can there be individual styles after the end of art? Examining the compatibility between Danto’s end of art thesis and his essentialist (...) conception of individual style, this paper tries to approach an answer to these questions. (shrink)

Paul Silva has recently argued that doxastic justification does not have a basing requirement. An important part of his argument depends on the assumption that doxastic and moral permissibility have a parallel structure. I here reply to Silva's argument by challenging this assumption. I claim that moral permissibility is an agential notion, while doxastic permissibility is not. I then briefly explore the nature of these notions and briefly consider their implications for praise and blame.

Neste artigo discutimos alguns aspectos da lógica nos dias atuais. O propósito central é mostrar a evolução dessa disciplina. Começamos com uma breve introdução onde especificamos o que queremos dizer com o termo “lógica”. A seguir, exporemos e discutiremos o que consideramos ser algumas das principais áreas de investigação da lógica atual. Concluímos o artigo com algumas observações sobre lógicas não clássicas e seus impactos sobre a filosofia. Ao final do texto se encontram mais detalhes que apontam para um aprofundamento (...) e uma ampliação das questões aqui tratadas. (shrink)

Given plausible assumptions about the nature of evidence and undercutting defeat, many believe that the force of the evidential problem of evil depends on sceptical theism’s being false: if evil is...

Smartphone use plays an increasingly important role in our daily lives. Philosophical research that has used first wave or second wave theories of extended cognition in order to understand our engagement with digital technologies has focused on the contribution of these technologies to the completion of specific cognitive tasks (e.g., remembering, reasoning, problem-solving, navigation).However, in a considerable number of cases, everyday smartphone use is task-unrelated. In psychological research, these cases have been captured by notions such as absent-minded smart-phone use (Marty-Dugas (...) et al., 2018) or smartphone-related inattentiveness (Liebherr et al., 2020).Given the prevalence of these cases, we develop a conceptual framework that can accommodate the functional and phenomenological characteristics of task-unrelated smartphone use. To this end, we will integrate research on second wave extended cognition with mind-wandering research and introduce the concept of ‘extended mind-wandering’. Elaborating the family resemblances approach to mind-wandering (Seli, Kane, Smallwood, et al., 2018), we will argue that task-unrelated smartphone use shares many characteristics with mind-wandering. We will suggest that an empirically informed conceptual analysis of cases of extended mind-wandering can enrich current work on digitally extended cognition by specifying the influence of the attention economy on our cognitive dynamics. (shrink)

Marr’s seminal distinction between computational, algorithmic, and implementational levels of analysis has inspired research in cognitive science for more than 30 years. According to a widely-used paradigm, the modelling of cognitive processes should mainly operate on the computational level and be targeted at the idealised competence, rather than the actual performance of cognisers in a specific domain. In this paper, we explore how this paradigm can be adopted and revised to understand mathematical problem solving. The computational-level approach applies methods from (...) computational complexity theory and focuses on optimal strategies for completing cognitive tasks. However, human cognitive capacities in mathematical problem solving are essentially characterised by processes that are computationally sub-optimal, because they initially add to the computational complexity of the solutions. Yet, these solutions can be optimal for human cognisers given the acquisition and enactment of mathematical practices. Here we present diagrams and the spatial manipulation of symbols as two examples of problem solving strategies that can be computationally sub-optimal but humanly optimal. These aspects need to be taken into account when analysing competence in mathematical problem solving. Empirically informed considerations on enculturation can help identify, explore, and model the cognitive processes involved in problem solving tasks. The enculturation account of mathematical problem solving strongly suggests that computational-level analyses need to be complemented by considerations on the algorithmic and implementational levels. The emerging research strategy can help develop algorithms that model what we call enculturated cognitive optimality in an empirically plausible and ecologically valid way. (shrink)

Experts in Artificial Intelligence (AI) development predict that advances in the dvelopment of intelligent systems and agents will reshape vital areas in our society. Nevertheless, if such an advance isn't done with prudence, it can result in negative outcomes for humanity. For this reason, several researchers in the area are trying to develop a robust, beneficial, and safe concept of artificial intelligence. Currently, several of the open problems in the field of AI research arise from the difficulty of avoiding unwanted (...) behaviors of intelligent agents, and at the same time specifying what we want such systems to do. It is of utmost importance that artificial intelligent agents have their values aligned with human values, given the fact that we cannot expect an AI to develop our moral preferences simply because of its intelligence, as discussed in the Orthogonality Thesis. Perhaps this difficulty comes from the way we are addressing the problem of expressing objectives, values, and ends, using representational cognitive methods. A solution to this problem would be the dynamic cognitive approach proposed by Dreyfus, whose phenomenological philosophy defends that the human experience of being-in-the-world cannot be represented by the symbolic or connectionist cognitive methods. A possible approach to this problem would be to use theoretical models such as SED (situated embodied dynamics) to address the values learning problem in AI. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the philosophical relevance of empirical research on moral cognition. It distinguishes three central aims of normative ethical theory: understanding the nature of moral agency, identifying morally right actions, and determining the justification of moral beliefs. For each of these aims, the chapter considers and rejects arguments against employing cognitive scientific research in normative inquiry. It concludes by suggesting that, whichever of the central aims one begins from, normative ethics is improved by engaging with the science of moral (...) cognition. (shrink)

While seeking novel food sources to feed the increasing population of the globe, several alternatives have been discussed, including algae, fungi or in vitro meat. The increasingly propagated usage of farmed insects for human nutrition raises issues regarding food safety, consumer information and animal protection. In line with law, insects like any other animals must not be reared or manipulated in a way that inflicts unnecessary pain, distress or harm on them. Currently, there is a great need for research in (...) the area of insect welfare, especially regarding species-specific needs, health, farming systems and humane methods of killing. Recent results from neurophysiological, neuroanatomical and behavioral sciences prompt caution when denying consciousness and therefore the likelihood of presence of pain and suffering or something closely related to it to insects. From an animal protection point of view, these issues should be satisfyingly solved before propagating and establishing intensive husbandry systems for insects as a new type of mini-livestock factory farming. (shrink)