-
425223.849886
This paper argues for the individuation of cognitive abilities within cognitive sciences based on the same phylogenetic framework that underlies the individuation of parts and traits at multiple levels of biological organization in comparative biology. When our scientific interests directly involve cross-species comparisons, this is the operative framework. When they do not, the units we are interested in, as explananda or explanantia, presuppose this comparative framework.
-
425270.849998
How could the initial, drastic decisions to implement “lockdowns” to control the spread of Covid-19 infections be justifiable, when they were made on the basis of such uncertain evidence? We defend the imposition of lockdowns in some countries by, first, looking at the evidence that undergirded the decision (focusing particularly on the decision-making process in the United Kingdom); second, arguing that this provided sufficient grounds to restrict liberty, given the circumstances; and third, defending the use of poorly empirically constrained epidemiological models as tools that can legitimately guide public policy.
-
474695.850028
Supererogatory acts are good deeds beyond the call of duty, ranging from friendly favors to saintly sacrifices to risky rescues. As any reader of this handbook will have noticed, philosophers disagree deeply about what supererogation is, and whether it is even possible. To some extent, this is a verbal dispute. “Supererogation” is not ordinary language, like “good” or “wrong.” It is a “quasi-technical term” (Heyd 1982), whose meaning is somewhat up for grabs. If you say that supererogation must spring from a noble motive, whereas we say that only needs to be a good thing to do, there’s no point in shouting at each other about the true essence of supererogation. We are better off admitting that we just prefer different definitions.
-
486559.850053
According to orthodoxy, our best physical theories strongly support Eternalism over Presentism. Our goal is to argue against this consensus, by arguing that a certain overlooked aspect of our best physical theories strongly supports Presentism over Eternalism.
-
522060.850077
In this chapter we summarize results obtained in five studies (n = 1027) using an open format self-report procedure aimed at collecting naturally occurring inner speech in young adults. We look at existing inner speech measures as well as their respective strengths and limitations, emphasizing the appropriateness of an open format self-report method for our purpose. We describe the coding scheme used to organize inner speech instances produced by our participants. We present results in terms of the most frequently self-reported inner speech topics, which sheds light on the typical perceived content and functions of inner speech use. Some of these are: negative emotions, problem solving/thinking, planning/time management, self-motivating speech, emotional control, and self-reflection. These results are consistent with the self-regulatory and self-reflective functions of inner speech discussed in the literature, as well as with what several existing questionnaires aim to measure. However, our results also show that young adults in our samples talk to themselves about various topics and for multiple functions not captured by current research on inner speech. We conclude with a brief discussion regarding the relevance of our results for education.
-
540678.8501
What is the ontology of a realist quantum theory such as Bohmian mechanics? This has been an important but debated issue in the foundations of quantum mechanics. In this paper, I present a new result which may help examine the ontology of a realist physical theory and make it more complete. It is that when different values of a physical quantity lead to different evolution of the assumed ontic state of an isolated system in a theory, this physical quantity also represents something in the ontology of the theory. Moreover, I use this result to analyze the ontologies of several realist quantum theories. It is argued that in Bohmian mechanics and collapse theories such as GRWm and GRWf, the wave function should be included in the ontology of the theory. In addition, when admitting the reality of the wave function, mass, charge and spin should also be taken as the properties of a quantum system.
-
540851.850154
Brouwer’s intuitionistic program was an intriguing attempt to reform the foundations of mathematics that eventually did not prevail. The current paper offers a new perspective on the scientific community’s lack of reception to Brouwer’s intuitionism by considering it in light of Michael Friedman’s model of parallel transitions in philosophy and science, specifically focusing on Friedman’s story of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Such a juxtaposition raises onto the surface the differences between Brouwer’s and Einstein’s stories and suggests that contrary to Einstein’s story, the philosophical roots of Brouwer’s intuitionism cannot be traced to any previously established philosophical traditions. The paper concludes by showing how the intuitionistic inclinations of Hermann Weyl and Abraham Fraenkel serve as telling cases of how individuals are involved in setting in motion, adopting, and resisting framework transitions during periods of disagreement within a discipline.
-
553941.850183
I've been teaching Classical Rhetoric this semester, and I have become convinced of something I have long believed. Not just convinced, but really discovered that for anyone who studies this stuff, it seems to be an obvious truth (so obvious in the literature, I almost decided not to write this post). …
-
561302.850207
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, people have been eager to learn what factors, and especially what public health policies, cause infection rates to wax and wane. But figuring out conclusively what causes what is difficult in complex systems with nonlinear dynamics, such as pandemics. We review some of the challenges that scientists have faced in answering quantitative causal questions during the Covid-19 pandemic, and suggest that these challenges are a reason to augment the moral dimension of conversations about causal inference. We take a lesson from Martha Nussbaum—who cautions us not to think we have just one question on our hands when we have at least two—and apply it to modeling for causal inference in the context of cost-benefit analysis.
-
561308.850231
Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are valued in healthcare evaluation for bringing patient perspectives forward, and enabling patient-centered care. The range of evidence permitted by PROMs to measure patients’ quality of life narrowly denies subjective experience. This neglect is rooted in the epistemic assumptions that ground PROMs, and the tension between the standardization (the task of measurement) and the individual and unique circumstances of patients. To counter the resulting methodological shortcomings, this article proposes a hermeutical approach and interpretive phenomenology instead of generic qualitative research methods.
-
561311.850255
For many, dementia disrupts basic ideas about what it means to be human, raising profound philosophical and theological questions on the nature of personhood. In this article I ask what dementia might reveal about personhood in a “secular age.” I suggest that the ill-fitting relationship between Western bioethics, with its emphasis on autonomy, and dementia throws into relief the boundaries of a secular self, and I tease out the ethical implications of the limits of those boundaries by highlighting a biopolitics of secularism. Lastly, I offer a theological account of dementia that situates dependence as a central feature of the human condition, and enriches a secular biomedical understanding of this neurocognitive disorder.
-
561317.850278
According to Mercier and Sperber (2009, 2011, 2017), people have an immediate and intuitive feeling about the strength of an argument. These intuitive evaluations are not captured by current evaluation methods of argument strength, yet they could be important to predict the extent to which people accept the claim supported by the argument. In an exploratory study, therefore, a newly developed intuitive evaluation method to assess argument strength was compared to an explicit argument strength evaluation method (the PAS scale; Zhao et al., 2011), on their ability to predict claim acceptance (predictive validity) and on their sensitivity to differences in the manipulated quality of arguments (construct validity). An experimental study showed that the explicit argument strength evaluation performed well on the two validity measures. The intuitive evaluation measure, on the other hand, was not found to be valid. Suggestions for other ways of constructing and testing intuitive evaluation measures are presented.
-
561338.850301
The effects of repression on dissent are debated widely. We contribute to the debate by developing an agent-based model grounded in ethnographic interviews with dissidents. Building on new psychology research, the model integrates emotions as a dynamic context of dissent. The model moreover differentiates between four repression types: violence, street blockages, curfews and Facebook cuts. The simulations identify short-term dampening effects of each repression type, with a maximum effect related to non-violent forms of repression. The simulations also show long-term spurring effects, which are most strongly associated with state violence. In addition, the simulations identify nonlinear short-term spurring effects of state violence on early stage dissent. Such effects are not observed for the remaining repressive measures. Contrasting with arguments that violence deters dissent, this suggests that violence may fuel dissent, while non-violent repression might suppress it.
-
561357.85034
This paper examines and contrasts two closely related evolutionary explanations in human behaviour: signalling theory, and the theory of Credibility Enhancing Displays (CREDs). Both have been proposed to explain costly, dangerous, or otherwise ‘extravagant’ social behaviours, especially in the context of religious belief and practice, and each have spawned significant lines of empirical research. However, the relationship between these two theoretical frameworks is unclear, and research which engages both of them (especially in systematic comparison) is largely absent. In this paper we seek to address this gap at the theoretical level, examining the core differences between the two approaches and prospects and conditions for future empirical testing. We clarify the dynamical and mechanistic bases of signalling and CREDs as explanatory models and contrast the previous uses to which they have been put in the human sciences.
-
574327.850365
Here’s an accuracy-theoretic argument for probabilism (the thesis
that only probabilities are rationally admissible credences) on finite
spaces that does not make any continuity assumptions on the scoring
rule. …
-
598588.850389
Peirce’s diagrammatic system of Existential Graphs (EGα) is a logical proof system corresponding to the Propositional Calculus (P L). Most known proofs of soundness and completeness for EGα depend upon a translation of Peirce’s diagrammatic syntax into that of a suitable Frege-style system. In this paper, drawing upon standard results but using the native diagrammatic notational framework of the graphs, we present a purely syntactic proof of soundness, and hence consistency, for EGα, along with two separate completeness proofs that are constructive in the sense that we provide an algorithm in each case to construct an EGα formal proof starting from the empty Sheet of Assertion, given any expression that is in fact a tautology according to the standard semantics of the system.
-
716137.850412
The paper investigates from a proof-theoretic perspective various noncontractive logical systems circumventing logical and semantic paradoxes. Until recently, such systems only displayed additive quantifiers (Grišin, Cantini). Systems with multiplicative quantifers have also been proposed in the 2010s (Zardini), but they turned out to be inconsistent with the naive rules for truth or comprehension. We start by presenting a first-order system for disquotational truth with additive quantifiers and we compare it with Grišin set theory. We then analyze the reasons behind the inconsistency phenomenon affecting multiplicative quantifers: after interpreting the exponentials in affine logic as vacuous quantifiers, we show how such a logic can be simulated within a truth-free fragment of a system with multiplicative quantifiers. Finally, we prove that the logic of these multiplicative quantifiers (but without disquotational truth) is consistent, by showing that an infinitary version of the cut rule can be eliminated. This paves the way to a syntactic approach to the proof theory of infinitary logic with infinite sequents.
-
717475.85044
This paper attempts to reconstruct the views of the Stoic Posidonius on the emotions, especially as presented by Galen’s On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato. This is a well-studied area, and many views have been developed over the last few decades. It is also significant that the reliability of Galen’s account is openly at issue. Yet it is not clear that the interpretative possibilities have been fully demarcated. Here I develop Galen’s claim that Posidonius accepted a persistent, non-rational aspect of the soul that he connects with the merely animal part of humans. The aim is to begin from this testimony in answering two questions: (1) How might the possession of a non-rational element of the soul operate alongside the hêgemonikon (leading-part of the soul) as a source of impulse for Posidonius. (2) How does this persistent animal aspect conform to the Stoic ontological classification found in their scala naturae? I shall argue in response to these that (a) Posidonius distinguished the merely cognitive aspects of the soul from those that are rational, and (b) that the hêgemonikon itself is not to be identified with what is rational. Accepting a persistent non-rational source of emotional impulses allows Posidonius a richer framework for explaining human affective responses and behaviours. I also briefly address Galen’s motivation for the account he offers. It is in view of Posidonius’ approach to Plato’s Timaeus that Galen’s discussion finds its most plausible interpretation.
-
732957.850463
We present completeness results for inference in Bayesian networks with respect to two different parameterizations, namely the number of variables and the topological vertex separation number. For this we introduce the parameterized complexity classes W[1]PP and XLPP, which relate to W[1] and XNLP respectively as PP does to NP. The second parameter is intended as a natural translation of the notion of pathwidth to the case of directed acyclic graphs, and as such it is a stronger parameter than the more commonly considered treewidth. Based on a recent conjecture, the completeness results for this parameter suggest that deterministic algorithms for inference require exponential space in terms of pathwidth and by extension treewidth. These results are intended to contribute towards a more precise understanding of the parameterized complexity of Bayesian inference and thus of its required computational resources in terms of both time and space. Keywords: Bayesian networks; inference; parameterized complexity theory.
-
762899.850487
In these pages, I offer an account of the value of human beings, and therewith, the ground of what is owed to human beings. The account is steeped in the Kantian tradition even as it looks to transcend it. It is steeped in the Kantian tradition insofar as it takes people to be bearers of a value that properly constrains our actions involving others and ourselves. It departs from the Kantian tradition insofar as it proposes that the value of human beings is not absolute but relational. The value of human beings is held to be relational in the specific sense that it turns on a propensity to be good for something or someone, where good for is synonymous with beneficial. I take the view that things owe their value to the fact that they are or stand to be good for someone, and that the value of human beings is no exception. More particularly, I develop the rather surprising proposal that the value of human beings lies in our capacity to be good for ourselves. As valuers, which is to say, as beings who have final ends that give meaning and point to what we do, we are able to lead flourishing lives in the way it is given to human beings to lead them, where the value of a flourishing life is most basically its value for the person whose life it is. In a phrase, we are of value because we can contribute in very particular ways to our flourishing, and we should relate to others and ourselves as such centers of a good life. Even as I respond to likely objections, I will not here defend this as the only or the best approach to the value of humanity. Instead, I devote myself to making a constructive, positive proposal.
-
762941.850515
I once opened a fortune cookie containing the message, ‘All happiness is in the mind;’ it is still affixed to my refrigerator. I did not put it there to signal assent so much as ripeness for further investigation. As befits the genre, it is a wise-sounding pronouncement. If we think of ‘happiness’ as a state of mind, as we moderns do almost reflexively, then the pronouncement would be trivial. But presumably it is intended to be substantive. To understand it we need to know what substitutions are permitted for ‘happiness.’ The well-lived life? What is naturally sought, perhaps ultimately? Well-being? We also need to probe the phrase ‘in the mind.’ For students of philosophy, it could be tempting to read ‘mind’ as soul or even self—familiar translations of the Greek psuche. In that case, we are being told that what we human beings seek, perhaps ultimately, turns on the condition of our soul. I could potentially get on board with this, but a lot depends. Are we talking about an absence of sin? Psychological health? Facility with rational powers?
-
769940.850546
I picked up a copy of A New History of Greek Mathematics by Reviel Netz in the CUP Bookshop a couple of weeks ago — an impulse buy, encouraged by the rave endorsements on the back cover.This is the most irritating book I’ve read (well, not read to the bitter end) for a long time. …
-
771638.85057
When it comes to finding whether a firm has violated antitrust law, economists are often called upon as expert witnesses by the parties involved in litigation. This paper focuses on a challenge that economists may face when appearing as expert witnesses in US federal courts, namely to comply with the so-called Daubert standard of admissibility of expert testimony. I propose a new framework for analysing the interplay between model applicability and admissibility standard in courtrooms. The framework distinguishes between weak applicability claims, stating that a model’s critical assumptions are shared by the target, and strong applicability claims, connecting empirical models and specific market features. I use this distinction to examine a recent antitrust case where an expert testimony based on economic models has been assessed following the Daubert standard.
-
774439.850594
In a series of stimulating writings, C. Thi Nguyen has made novel connections between the theory of art and the theory of games. In ‘Autonomy and Aesthetic Engagement’ (Nguyen 2019), he argues that we should see the aesthetic judgement of works of art as in important ways like playing a game. And in Games: Agency as Art, he makes the converse argument: that a central feature of game-play, and the source of much of its value, is that it offers aesthetic experiences, in particular of one’s own agency. Playing a game, he claims, is like engaging with art.
-
796484.850617
I set out a Kantian account of the value of nature. My proposal is motivated by Kant’s teleological conception of nature. In the «Critique of Teleological Judgement», Kant shows that our conception of nature is fundamentally informed by an analogy with reason. I argue that our practical relationship with nature must be guided by the same analogy: we must regard nature as if it had value as an end in itself, and we must regard ourselves as if we were obligated towards it. On my Kantian account, the value of nature is thus independent of its usefulness for human beings and yet essentially tied to the value of reason. I take my account to be based on ideas Kant is explicitly committed to, even though it is not fully developed by Kant himself.
-
817768.850641
This paper examines attempts to rehabilitate fanaticism by drawing on its supposed contribution to combatting injustices like slavery. Radical campaigners against slavery called themselves ‘fanatics’, but in the pejorative tradition fanaticism almost invariably has a negative connotation. On the account given here, the supposed virtues of fanaticism are the actual virtues of something with which it is easily confused: radicalism. The abolitionists were not fanatics but radicals. Nevertheless, philosophical apologists for fanaticism are right to raise questions about the merits of moderation. After a critical examination of some arguments for the view that moderation is the quintessential political virtue it is concluded that, depending on the circumstances, both moderation and radicalism can play the role of corrective virtues.
-
829437.850665
This paper will argue that there is no such thing as miscomputation, contrary to the received view in philosophy of computation. There are just hardware problems on the one hand and design errors on the other, neither of which qualify as a distinct kind of computational errors. The main upshot of this argument is that philosophical accounts of physical computation should not be assessed on whether they can accommodate miscomputation, but rather on whether they can make sense of the range of different phenomenona that are commonly (and misleadingly) described as miscomputations.
-
833055.850692
A de minimis risk is defined as a risk that is so small that it may be legitimately ignored when making a decision. While ignoring small risks is common in our day-to-day decision making, attempts to introduce the notion of a de minimis risk into the framework of decision theory have run up against a series of well-known difficulties. In this paper, I will develop an enriched decision theoretic framework that is capable of overcoming two major obstacles to the modelling of de minimis risk. The key move is to introduce, into decision theory, a non-probabilistic conception of risk known as normic risk.
-
833089.850736
Many philosophers have suggested that claims of need play a special normative role in ethical thought and talk. But what do such claims mean? What does this special role amount to? Progress on these questions can be made by attending to a puzzle concerning some linguistic differences between two types of ‘need’ sentence: one where ‘need’ occurs as a verb, and where it occurs as a noun. I argue that the resources developed to solve the puzzle advance our understanding of the metaphysics of need, the meaning of ‘need’ sentences, and the function of claims of need in ethical discourse.
-
833128.850764
The cumulative impact of enhancement technologies may alter the human species in the very long‐term future. In this article, I will start showing how radical genetic enhancements may accelerate the conversion into a novel species. I will also clarify the concepts of ‘biological species’, ‘transhuman’ and ‘posthuman’. Then, I will summarize some ethical arguments for creating a transhuman or posthuman species with a substantially higher level of well‐being than the human one. In particular, I will present what I shall call the Principle of the Best Interests of Posthumanity, which states that the enhancement of the human and transhuman species must be directed towards the creation of a posthuman existence that is substantially more valuable than its predecessors. I suggest that human extinction may be considered, within that principle, as one of the best interests of posthumanity. Finally, I will develop three objections that make that principle unattractive and that show that pursuing a full‐blown programme of posthuman evolution is ethically flawed.