It has been claimed that ceteris paribus laws, rather than strict laws are the proper aim of the special sciences. This is so because the causal regularities found in these domains are exception-ridden, being contingent on the presence of the appropriate conditions and the absence of interfering factors. I argue that the ceteris paribus strategy obscures rather than illuminates the important similarities and differences between representations of causal regularities in the exact and inexact sciences. In particular, a detailed account of (...) the types and degrees of contingency found in the domain of biology permits a more adequate understanding of the relations among the sciences. (shrink)

In this paper, I hope to solve a problem that’s as old as the hills: the problem of contingency for religious belief. Paradigmatic examples of this argument begin with a counterfactual premise: had we been born at a different time or in a difference place, we easily could have held different beliefs on religious topics. Ultimately, and perhaps by additional steps, we’re meant to reach the skeptical conclusion that very many of our religious beliefs do not amount to knowledge. (...) I survey some historical examples of this argument, and I try to fill the gap between the counterfactual premise and the skeptical conclusion as forcefully as possible. I consider the following possibilities: there are no additional steps in the argument; or there are and they concern the alleged safety condition on knowledge, or the alleged non-accidentality condition on knowledge, or the unclarity produced by disagreement. On every possibility, the argument from the counterfactual premise to the conclusion of widespread skepticism is invalid. It seems, then, that there is no serious problem of contingency for religious belief. (shrink)

The literature on antecedents of corporate social responsibility strategies of firms has been predominately content driven. Informed by the managerial sense-making process perspective, we develop a contingency theoretical framework explaining how political ideology of managers affects the choice of CSR strategy for their firms through their CSR mindset. We also explain to what extent the outcome of this process is shaped by the firm’s internal institutional arrangements and external factors impacting on the firm. We develop and test several hypotheses (...) using data collected from 129 Chinese managers. The results show that managers with a stronger socialist ideology are likely to develop a mindset favouring CSR, which induces the adoption of a proactive CSR strategy. The CSR mindset mediates the link between socialist ideology and CSR strategy. The strength of the relationship between the CSR mindset and the choice of CSR strategy is moderated by customer response to CSR, industry competition, the role of government, and CSR-related managerial incentives. (shrink)

Much philosophical progress has been made in elucidating the idea of evolutionary contingency in a recent re-burgeoning of the debate. However, additional progress has been impaired on three fronts. The first relates to its characterisation: the under-specification of various contingency claims has made it difficult to conceptually pinpoint the scope to which ‘contingency’ allegedly extends, as well as which biological forms are in contention. That is—there appears to be no systematic means with which to fully specify (...) class='Hi'>contingency claims which has led to a tendency for authors to talk past each other. Secondly, on the matter of evidence, recent research has focused on the evidential import of convergent evolution which is taken to disconfirm the evolutionary contingency thesis. However, there has been a neglect of convergent evolution’s converse: ‘evolutionary idiosyncrasies’ or the singular evolution of certain forms, which I argue is evidentially supportive of evolutionary contingency. Thirdly, evolutionary contingency has often been claimed to vary in degrees and that the debate, itself, is a matter of ‘relative significance’. However, there has been no formal method of evaluating the strength of contingency and its relative significance in a particular domain. In this paper, I address all three issues by proposing a systematic means of fully specifying contingency theses with the concept of the modal range. Secondly, I propose an account of evolutionary idiosyncrasies, investigate the explanations for their occurrences, and, subsequently, spell out their significance with respect to the evolutionary contingency thesis. Finally, having been equipped with the evidential counterpart to convergent evolution, I shall sketch a likelihood framework for evaluating, precisely on the basis of a sequence of opposing data, the strength and relative significance of evolutionary contingency in a particular domain. With this in hand, the relative observations of idiosyncrasies and convergences can be informative of the strength and relative significance of contingency in any particular domain. (shrink)

‘Gouldian arguments’ appeal to the contingency of a scientific domain to establish that domain’s autonomy from some body of theory. For instance, pointing to evolutionary contingency, Stephen Jay Gould suggested that natural selection alone is insufficient to explain life on the macroevolutionary scale. In analysing contingency, philosophers have provided source-independent accounts, understanding how events and processes structure history without attending to the nature of those events and processes. But Gouldian Arguments require source-dependent notions of contingency. An (...) account of contingency is source-dependent when it is indexed to some pattern and some process. Positions like Gould’s do not turn on the mere fact of life’s contingency—that life’s shape could have been different due to its sensitivity to initial conditions, path-dependence or stochasticity. Rather, Gouldian arguments require that the contingency is due to particular kinds of processes: in this case, those which microevolutionary theory cannot account for. This source-dependent perspective clarifies both debates about the nature and importance of contingency, and empirical routes for testing Gould’s thesis. (shrink)

In this essay I propose to examine Hegel’s account of necessity and contingency in the Science of Logic. Anyone who dares to take Hegel’s Logic seriously in public risks being accused by legions of formal logicians of “elementary logical fallacies”. Nevertheless, John Burbidge, Dieter Henrich, and others have demonstrated that it is possible to discuss the Logic with clarity and intelligibility, and I shall endeavor to emulate their example as best as I can. One should take heed, however; even (...) Hegel admits that “the concept of necessity is very difficult,” and rendering the concept of necessity intelligible will not eliminate that difficulty. All I can hope to do, therefore, is take us from the point at which we are not even sure what the difficulty is supposed to be to the point at which the nature of the difficulty itself becomes clear. (shrink)

Can we explain why some propositions are necessary? Blackburn (Fact, science, and value. Blackwell, Oxford, 1987) has presented a dilemma aimed at showing that the necessity of a proposition cannot be explained either in the case where the explanans is another necessary proposition (necessity horn) or in the case where the explanans is a contingent proposition (contingency horn). Blackburn’s dilemma is intended to show that necessary truth is an explanatorily irreducible kind of truth: there is nothing that explains why (...) propositions are necessary, nothing that makes necessary necessary truths. In this paper, I criticize the contingency horn of Blackburn’s dilemma. On the one hand, I show that the official reconstruction of the horn uses a principle that is incompatible with the notion of explanation plausibly needed to explain why propositions are necessary; on the other, I show that a simpler formulation of the horn, which does not make use of such a controversial principle, makes essential use of principles that are incompatible with the idea that possibilities can have explanatory roles. I then defend the view that possibilities can have explanatory roles, and that the explanatory role of possibilities is best represented, within possible worlds, as the existence of trans-world relations of explanation. (shrink)

In this paper, we review two seemingly unrelated debates. In business ethics, the argument is about values: are they universal or emergent? In entrepreneurship, it is about opportunities – are they discovered or constructed? In reality, these debates are similar as they both overlook contingency. We draw insight from pragmatism to define contingency as possibility without necessity. We analyze real-life narratives and show how entrepreneurship and ethics emerge from our discussion as parallel streams of thought.

With Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity Richard Rorty tries to persuade us that a case for liberalism is better served by historical narrative than by philosophical theory. The liberal ironist is the complex protagonist of Rorty’s anti-foundationalist story. Why does Rorty think irony serves—rather than undermines—commitments to liberal democracy? I distinguish political from existential dimensions of irony, consider criticisms of Rorty’s ironist, and then draw on recent work by Lear to argue that Rorty’s ironist character nevertheless can be recast as (...) an image useful to the self-understanding of contemporary liberal democrats. (shrink)

This paper addresses debates in German idealism that arise in response to the modal shift in logic, proposed by Kant, from a logic of thinking to a logic of experience. With the Kantian logic of experience arises a problem of radical contingency or 'rhapsodic determination' for logic. While Fichte and Hegel attempt to resolve the problem of contingency by constructing rational systems aimed at established the grounds for logic, I show how Schelling brings into view, in a proto-existentialist (...) movement, the way in which the indeterminacy of the will undergirds rational system construction and, thereby, presents a limiting problem for the question of the value of system-building itself. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Leibniz’s conception of modality and its application to the issue of natural laws. The core of Leibniz’s investigation of the modality of natural laws lays in the distinction between necessary, geometrical laws on the one hand, and contingent, physical laws of nature on the other. For Leibniz, the contingency of physical laws entailed the assumption of the existence of an additional form of causality beyond mechanical or efficient ones. While geometrical truths, being necessary, do not (...) require the use of the principle of sufficient reason, physical laws are not strictly determined by geometry and therefore are logically distinct from geometrical laws. As a consequence, the set of laws that regulate the physical laws could have been created otherwise by God. However, in addition to this, the contingency of natural laws does not consist only in the fact that God has chosen them over other possible ones. On the contrary, Leibniz understood the status of natural laws as arising from the action internal to physical substances. Hence the actuality of physical laws results from a causal power that is inherent to substances rather than being the mere consequence of the way God arranged the relations between physical objects. Focusing on three instances of Leibniz’s treatment of contingency in physics, this paper argues that, in order to account for the contingency of physical laws, Leibniz maintained that final causes, in addition to efficient and mechanical ones, must operate in physical processes and operations. (shrink)

John Paul IIs prescriptions for humanizing the world economy are not likely to have the impact of Leo XIIIs Rerum Novarum because the reception accorded reform proposals depends on opportunity and circumstances as well as the ethical soundness and the logic of the principles advanced. Because of historical circumstances, Thomas Mores critique of the emerging agricultural capitalism of his time was ignored while Catholic Social Teaching inspired by Kettelers work, endorsed and publicized by Leo, strongly impacted the industrializing world of (...) a century ago. Whereas More defended a church seen as an impediment to economic progress by leading-edge Protestant entrepreneurs, Catholic Social Teaching was propagated at a time when Catholicism was enmeshed in the spread of industrialization. In our current world economy, increasingly dominated by non-Catholic regions of the East and a resurgent liberalism in the West, John Pauls recommendations currently seem more likely to meet the fate of Mores critique than of Leos. Implications for stakeholder theory are also discussed. (shrink)

I argue that Kant acknowledges two models of spontaneous self-determination that rational beings are capable of. The first model involves absolute unconditional necessity and excludes any form of contingency. The second model involves (albeit not as a matter of definition) a form of contingency which entails alternative possibilities for determining oneself. The first model would be exhibited by a divine being; the second model is exhibited by human beings. Human beings do, however, partake in the divine model up (...) to an extent, namely, as far as the legislative spontaneity of their law-giving faculties are concerned. I conclude by suggesting that for Kant, the mechanistic principle that we are exclusively determined by natural causes poses a twofold threat for human agency. In one respect (in relation to the second model), it threatens us with the obliteration of contingency, or with the universality of hypothetical necessity. But in another respect (in relation to the first model), it threatens us (and our putative "laws") with the obliteration of absolute necessity, or with the universality of contingency. (shrink)

Kripke argued for the existence of necessary a posteriori truths and offered different accounts of why certain necessary truths seem to be contingent. One of these accounts was used by Kripke in an argument against the psychophysical identity thesis. I defend the claim that the explanatory force of Kripke's standard account of the appearance of contingency relies on the explanatory force of one of the more general accounts he also offers. But the more general account cannot be used to (...) undermine the psychophysical identity thesis. Specifically, a crucial feature in Kripke's standard account, which is needed to argue for dualism, is explanatorily superfluous. Alternative accounts that are similar to Kripke's original one but lack that trait would also explain the phenomenon. Consequently, the Kripkean dualist argument is blocked. /// Kripke ha argumentado que existen verdades necesarias a posteriori, y ha ofrecido diferentes explicaciones de por qué ciertas verdades necesarias parecen contingentes. Una de esas explicaciones se usaba en un argumento con el que Kripke criticaba la tesis de la identidad psicofísica. En este trabajo sostengo que la fuerza explicativa de la explicacion kripkeana estándar de la apariencia de contingencia depende de la fuerza explicativa de una de las otras explicaciones que Kripke también propone. Pero esa otra explicación, más general, no sirve para rechazar la identidad psicofísica. Con-cretamente, un rasgo crucial de la explicación kripkeana estandar resulta explicativamente superfluo. Explicaciones alternativas, similares a la de Kripke pero que carezcan de ese rasgo, explicarían también el fenómeno. Como consecuencia, el argumento dualista kripkeano queda bloqueado. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn three experiments we investigated whether memory-independent evaluative conditioning and other memory-independent contingency learning effects occur in the valence contingency...

This research explores the experiences of UK NHS healthcare professionals working with asylum applicants housed in contingency accommodation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a critical understanding of the concept of moral resilience as a theoretical framework, we explore how the difficult circumstances in which they worked were navigated, and the extent to which moral suffering led to moral transformation. Ten staff from a general practice participated in semistructured interviews. Encountering the harms endured by people seeking asylum prior to arrival (...) in the UK and through the UK’s ‘Hostile Environment’ caused healthcare staff moral suffering. They responded to this in several ways, including: (1) feeling grateful for their own fortunes; (2) defining the limitations of their professional obligations; (3) focusing on the rewards of work and (4) going above and beyond usual care. Although moral resilience is reflected in much of the data, some participants described how the work caused ideological transformations and motivated challenges to systems of oppression. We show how current moral resilience theory fails to capture these transformative political and social responses, warning of how, instead, it might encourage healthcare staff to maintain the status quo. We caution against the widespread endorsement of current formulations of moral resilience in contemporary social and political climates, where the hostile and austere systems causing suffering are the result of ideological political decisions. Future work should instead focus on enabling working conditions to support, and developing theory to capture, collective resistance. (shrink)

A key issue in the philosophy of biology is evolutionary contingency, the degree to which evolutionary outcomes could have been different. Contingency is typically contrasted with evolutionary convergence, where different evolutionary pathways result in the same or similar outcomes. Convergences are given as evidence against the hypothesis that evolutionary outcomes are highly contingent. But the best available treatments of contingency do not, when read closely, produce the desired contrast with convergence. Rather, they produce a picture in which (...) any degree of contingency is compatible with any degree of convergence. This is because convergence is the repeated production of a given outcome from different starting points, and contingency has been defined without reference to the size of the space of possible outcomes. In small spaces of possibilities, the production of repeated outcomes is almost assured. This paper presents a definition of contingency which includes this modal dimension in a way that does not reduce it to the binary notion of contingency found in standard modal logic. The result is a conception of contingency which properly contrasts with convergence, given some domain of possibilities and a measure defined over it. We should therefore not ask whether evolution is contingent or convergent simpliciter, but rather about the degree to which it is contingent or convergent in various domains, as measured in various ways. (shrink)

This book is an English version of a book published in 1984 in French, the aim of which was to give a reconstruction of Diodorus Cronus's Master Argument, together with a historical analysis of some of the central modal notions on which it draws. In preparing the English text, Vuillemin has made some changes to the logic of his reconstruction of Diodorus's Argument and added an epilogue. The Master Argument consisted of three premises: Every past truth is necessary, The impossible (...) does not follow from the possible, and Something is possible which neither is nor will be true. Diodorus claimed that these premises are inconsistent, and purported to derive the negation of the third premise, which is plausibly to be identified with the principle of plenitude, from the first two premises. (shrink)

This article argues that the freedom of voluntary action can be grounded in the contingency of the laws of nature. That is, the possibility of doing otherwise is equivalent to the possibility of the laws being otherwise. This equivalence can be understood in terms of an agent drawing a boundary between self and not-self in the domains of both matter and laws, defining the extent of the body and of voluntary behaviour. In particular, the article proposes that we can (...) think of `will' as naming the component of the laws of nature delimited by this boundary. (shrink)

The concept of contingency is very much debated. In this paper, I’ll offer a novel interpretation of it in Dharmakīrti’s ontology, focusing on his treatment and understanding of vināśa which is, according to Dharmakīrti, not contingent and thus occurs necessarily to everything. I will do so by clarifying some important terms, motivating and explaining Dharmakīrti’s position, and analyzing firsthand some Dharmakīrtian debate excerpts with Nyāya and/or Vaiśeṣika philosophers as the main opponents. In the course of this, I will show (...) that basically, for Dharmakīrti, contingency is tantamount to dependency, whereas Nyāya and/or Vaiśeṣika authors, e.g., Śrīdhara and Bhāsarvajña, claim that something can be dependent on something else and still be necessary. (shrink)

This chapter analyses how natural contingency refers both to the planning and the execution aspects of divine providence. For doing so, Silva contrasts the perspectives of some current trends within science and religion circles to find natural causal gaps in the created order to allow for God’s providence, with a typically Thomist approach within classical theistic circles. Silva suggests that classical theism offers a better understanding of the relation between natural contingency and divine providence than those who search (...) for scientific spaces for God to guide creation towards its goals. In regards to the planning, Silva argues that God’s providence includes in its planning the achieving of the divine goals even by means of created, contingent in their action, natural things causing indeterministically. God’s goals include those contingent effects because they are ordered to new good things in creation. This is the Thomist idea to express that God, through not intended effects (be it contingent or even evil events), can bring about new good things to creation. In regards to the execution of that planning, Silva argues first that, contrary to some positions that see God acting in the a-causal indeterministic spaces provided by contemporary science, a causal understanding of indeterminism that distinguishes between causation and determinism, allows for truly contingent happenings within the created natural world. Then Silva shows how, by complementing these ideas with the doctrine of primary and secondary causation, at least as understood by Thomas Aquinas, one may offer an explanation of how God’s providence is involved in the whole of creation. Thus, even by means of created, indeterministic natural causes (that can be described as deficient instruments), God achieves his goals and intentions by causing them to cause indeterministically. (shrink)

SUMMARYIn this essay, inspired by J.G.A. Pocock's appropriation of Machiavelli's theory of political contingency, and building upon my previous engagements with Pocock's ‘republican existentialism’, I focus on the role played by ‘accidents’ in Machiavelli's analysis of war and foreign affairs within The Prince and the Discourses. In so doing, I consider the following issues: the ways through which a potential imperial hegemon might consolidate control over nearby lesser powers—and, conversely, how such less powerful polities might resist imperial encroachments on (...) their autonomy; the contrasting military modes and orders characteristic of ancient and modern republics; and the extent to which Machiavelli actually thought that accidents in foreign affairs were ever truly ‘accidental’ in light of his determinations concerning well- versus badly ordered domestic institutions. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 190-192.

In this paper I argue, using two case studies of episodes from recent physics against the contingency view advocated by social constructionists. In this view, physics, or science in general, is, in Ian Hacking’s words, not determined by anything. Much of the previous discussion has centered on examples of scientific success. In this paper I argue that experimental evidence and reasoned and critical discussion played the crucial role in the refutation of a previously strongly believed hypothesis, and in the (...) decision that a proposed new elementary particle did not exist, leaving no reasonable doubt. I suggest that the argument against contingency does not require the absence of all possible doubt, but rather the absence of reasonable doubt.Keywords: Contingency; Refutation; 17-keV neutrino; Parity nonconservation. (shrink)

We have been researching the distinctive ethical issues raised by what we have called “the reset period,” when non-Covid services resumed alongside the continuing pandemic in the UK. In this commen...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 38.4 (2000) 479-502 [Access article in PDF] Possible Worlds in the Tahâfut al-Falâsifa Al-Ghazâlî on Creation and Contingency Taneli Kukkonen University of Helsinki 1. This article is the second half in an inquiry into the debate between al-Ghazâlî (1058-1111) and Averroes (1126-1198) on the metaphysical basis of modalities. The first article focused on Averroes' exposition of the Arabic Aristotelian position on the (...) eternity of the world and the modalities, as found in the Tahâfut al-tahâfut, the "Incoherence of the Incoherence [of the Philosophers]" from ca. 1180.1 In this paper I propose to sketch the outlines to a very different conception suggested by al-Ghazâlî in the Tahâfut al-falâsifa (1095) and quoted verbatim and commented upon by Averroes in the Tahâfut al-tahâfut.2 In contrast to the naturalistic model of modalities propounded by [End Page 479] Averroes, al-Ghazâlî develops an interpretation of possibility in which conceivability and co-assertability are central. In several key respects al-Ghazâlî's approach mirrors that of John Duns Scotus in the fourteenth century: it makes possible, for instance, a distinction between conceptual and natural possibilities in a manner reminiscent of later Latin medieval theory, and, reflecting this, a distinction between the (non-temporal) moments of conception and causation in the divine mind. The parallels between al-Ghazâlî's and Augustine's basic conceptions, meanwhile, highlight the theological motives lying at the heart of the new thinking.As in the previous article, the dialectical form of Averroes' later Tahâfut al-tahâfut is used for critical insight. Averroes' criticism of al-Ghazâlî's modal theoretical innovations gives rise to an important question about the lengths to which al-Ghazâlî's proposals could be taken. The issue is to an extent unresolveable; one would do well to note why. Whereas Averroes' formulations in the Tahâfut al-tahâfut are made readily understandable against the backdrop of his Aristotelian commentaries and wider systematic teaching, it is less easy to determine how far al-Ghazâlî is willing to develop his own ideas. The materials given in the Tahâfut al-falâsifa leave the impression of being inconclusive and open-ended—perhaps deliberately so—and the ambiguities are mirrored in al-Ghazâlî's other texts.3Taken as they stand, al-Ghazâlî's formulations retain a substantial Avicennian residue, for better or for worse. This makes for a curious mixture of old and new in his overall scheme, a feature which Averroes can exploit by criticizing al-Ghazâlî from a strict Aristotelian viewpoint (just as he criticized Avicenna), while all the time maintaining that his adversary's proposals do not add up to a coherent and full-bodied alternative to that venerable tradition. But Averroes' criticisms do not touch on the way al-Ghazâlî's suggestions, vague as they may be, do represent a genuine breakthrough. Al-Ghazâlî's interpretation of the modal terms bypasses the connection traditionally made between true possibility and temporal instantiation. This allows for a freer handling of counterfactual possibilities, an important feature in any refiguring of the limits of possibility. 2. Al-Ghazâlî's innovations have their root in the idea of God freely choosing (arbitrating) between alternatives equal to him. This simple kernel of an idea, seated in the kalâm conception of possibility, allows for a recognition of the genuineness of synchronic alternatives: a seemingly small shift, but all-important [End Page 480] to the ensuing debate. Al-Ghazâlî has defended the notion of God's genuine choice earlier,4 but in refuting "the third proof of the philosophers for the world's eternity," he begins to make systematic use of the notion of possibility. A brief recapitulation of the philosophers' argument will serve to recall the reasoning from which al-Ghazâlî takes his cue. The philosophers, in al-Ghazâlî's words, had... (shrink)

The influential realist thesis that politics and morals are distinct and mutually exclusive spheres of interest is one that has been challenged within the tradition of analytic moral and political theory. Over the last 50 years, several notable liberal analytic philosophers, including Isaiah Berlin, Stuart Hampshire, and Thomas Nagel, have argued that not only is politics not separate from and inimical to ethics but that there exists such a thing as political morality. This article contends that while the notion of (...) political morality may make more sense of what is regarded as a central and troubling problem of politics, it also forces us to confront the more fundamental challenge of the radical contingency of our moral and political predicament. Whether analytic political theory is capable of producing a convincing response to the latter challenge remains precariously unclear. (shrink)

As shown in Fan, there are some similarities/resemblances between contingency and accident. Given this, one may naturally ask if we can unify the two operators to manifest all of their similarities/resemblances. In this article, instead of looking at the interactions between the two operators like in Fan, we turn our attention to the resemblances between the two operators. We extend the unification method in Fan to the current setting. The main results include some model-theoretical ones, such as expressivity, frame (...) definability, bisimulation, and some axiomatization ones. (shrink)

This article presents how the act of falling has been used as a metaphor for invention within avant-garde art and aesthetics. It takes Lars von Trier’s documentary The Five Obstacles (2003) as its point of departure and seeks to historically contextualize the figure of falling by discussing Charles Baudelaire’s essay ‘De l’essence du rire et généralement du comique dans les arts plastiques’/‘On the Essence of Laughter’ (1955 [1855–1857]). The article also discusses the fascination with falling in early cinema, stressing how (...) cinematic representations of the fall highlight the new medias potential for grasping general modern conditions like motion, speed and contingency. To think of art in terms of falling makes it possible to see a link between cinematic popular culture and so called high modernism. The article concludes with a discussion of the relationship between control and contingency within film aesthetics in the digital age. I will also discuss the aesthetics of Oulipo writers like George Perec and Raymond Queneau, and artists like Jackson Pollock and John Cage as exponents of what can be called an aesthetics of contingency. (shrink)

Stephen Jay Gould and others have argued that what we know about evolution implies that human beings are a 'cosmic accident'. In this paper I examine an argument for Gould's view and then attempt to show that it fails. Contrary to the claims of Gould, Daniel Dennett, and others, it is a mistake to think that what we have learned from evolutionary biology somehow shows that human beings are mere accidents of natural history. Nor does what we know about the (...) contingency of evolution give us good reason to reject the view that human beings came to be according to a divine providential plan. (shrink)

There are wide individual differences in the ability to detect a stimulus contingency embedded in a complex paradigm. The present study used a cognitive masking paradigm to better understand individual differences related to contingency learning. Participants were assessed on measures of electrodermal arousal and on working memory capacity before engaging in the contingency learning task. Contingency awareness was assessed both by trial-by-trial verbal reports obtained during the task and by a short post-task recognition questionnaire. Participants who (...) became aware had fewer non-specific skin conductance responses and tended to score higher on a digit span assessment. Skin conductance level was not significantly lower in the aware group than in the unaware group. These findings are consistent with studies showing that lower arousal and greater cognitive processing capacity facilitate conscious perception of a greater breadth of information within a scene or a task. (shrink)

Many interpreters have supposed that the root of contingency in Leibniz's thought is that it is contingent rather than necessary that God chooses to create the best possible world. It is far from clear, however, that Leibniz believed this. This chapter argues that Leibniz did believe two theories of contingency: one based on the notion of a thing's being possible in itself whether or not a perfectly wise and good God could choose it, and one based on an (...) identification of necessity with provability, where an infinite analysis does not count as a proof. It emerges that Leibniz's conception of possible worlds is not exactly the same as that now used in possible worlds semantics. (shrink)

With dying increasingly becoming a medicalised experience in old age, we are witnessing a shift from concern over death itself to an interest in dying ‘well’. Fierce discussions about end-of-life decision making and the permissibility of medical intervention in dying, discursively structured around the notion of a ‘good’ death, are evidence of this shift. This article focuses on ‘autonomy’ and ‘dignity’ as key signifiers in these discussions. Rather than being fully fixed and stable, both signifiers are contingent and carry a (...) variety of meanings within different discursive projects. The article aims to distinguish the varieties of these signifiers by elaborating existing theoretical perspectives on autonomy and dignity, and also, starting from a perspective on mass media as sites of meaning production and contestation, to study the contingency of autonomy and dignity in Belgian newspaper coverage of four prominent euthanasia cases. By means of a discourse-theoretical textual analysis, this study exposes a dominant—yet contested—articulation of rational-personal autonomy and of dignity in external terms as something that can be obtained, retained or lost, rather than in terms of intrinsic human integrity. These logics of representation reflect a more general late modern dominance of liberal autonomy and of dignity as being closely connected to self-identity, but at the same time result in limited visibility of alternative ways of experiencing an autonomous and dignified death. (shrink)

In three experiments, each of a set colour-unrelated distracting words was presented most often in a particular target print colour . In Experiment 1, half of the participants were told the word-colour contingencies in advance and half were not . The instructed group showed a larger learning effect. This instruction effect was fully explained by increases in subjective awareness with instruction. In Experiment 2, contingency instructions were again given, but no contingencies were actually present. Although many participants claimed to (...) be aware of these contingencies, they did not produce an instructed contingency effect. In Experiment 3, half of the participants were given contingency instructions that did not correspond to the correct contingencies. Participants with these false instructions learned the actual contingencies worse than controls. Collectively, our results suggest that conscious contingency knowledge might play a moderating role in the strength of implicit learning. (shrink)

Much of the sustained attention on pandemic preparedness has focused on the ethical justification for plans for the “crisis” phase of a surge when, despite augmentation efforts, the demand for life...

This article examines Richard Rorty’s much criticized figure of the ironist, and the role that it plays in liberal society. It argues that, against Rorty’s own presentation, irony might have positive social consequences. It does so by examining Rorty’s description of the ironist, arguing that it contains different ideas which emerge at different points in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. It takes up William Curtis’ claim that irony is a civic virtue, one closely associated with liberal ideas such as tolerance (...) and pluralism. Curtis is insightful in identifying this aspect of irony, but I argue that it might also play a further role. The ironist is concerned with self-creation, something which Rorty takes to be a private activity, but I argue that the selves ironists create might potentially benefit liberal society, with the ironist’s redescriptions calling into question received wisdom and alerting us to unnoticed forms of cruelty. (shrink)

This paper has a twofold purpose. First, it aims at highlighting one difference in how counterfactuals work in general history, on the one hand, and in history of the natural sciences, on the other hand. As we show, both in general history and in history of science good counterfactual narratives need to be plausible, where plausibility is construed as appropriate continuity of both the antecedent and the consequent of the counterfactual with what we know about the world. However, in general (...) history it is often possible to imagine a consequent dramatically different from the actual historical development, and yet plausible; in history of science, due to plausibility concerns, imagining a consequent far removed from the results of actual science seems more complicated. The second aim of the paper is to assess whether and to what degree counterfactual histories of science can advance the cause of the so-called “contingency thesis,” namely, the claim that history of science might have followed a path leading to alternative, non-equivalent theories, as successful as the ones that we currently embrace. We distinguish various versions of the contingency thesis and argue that counterfactual histories of science support weak versions of the thesis. (shrink)