This paper is devoted to an examination of the topic of cognitive dynamics as introduced by David Kaplan in his essay ‘Demonstratives’. I discuss two approaches to cognitive dynamics: the directly referential approach, which I take as best represented in Kaplan’s views, and the neo-Fregean approach, which I take as best represented in Gareth Evans’s views. The upshot of my discussion is twofold. On the one hand, I argue that both Kaplan’s account and Evans’s account are on the whole defective (...) - even though there are features of each of those views which seem to be along the right lines. On the other hand, I claim that a broadly Fregean account is still to be preferred since by positing semantically efficacious modes of presentation it is clearly better equipped to deal with thephenomena in the area. In particular, I argue that the notion of a memory-based mode of presentation of an object turns out to be indispensable for the purpose of accounting for the persistence of intentional mental states over time. (shrink)

We present a modal logic called (logic of intention and attempt) in which we can reason about intention dynamics and intentional action execution. By exploiting the expressive power of , we provide a formal analysis of the relation between intention and action and highlight the pivotal role of attempt in action execution. Besides, we deal with the problems of instrumental reasoning and intention persistence.

This unique study reads a single Tibetan Buddhist ritual system through the movements of Tibetan history, revealing the social and material dimensions of a seemingly timeless tradition. By subjecting tantric practice to historical analysis, the book offers new insight into the origins of Tibetan Buddhism, the formation of its canon, the emergence of new lineages and ritual traditions, and efforts to revitalize the religion by returning to its mythic origins. The ritual system explored in this volume is based on the (...) _Gathering of Intentions Sutra_, the fundamental "root tantra" of the Anuyoga class of teachings belonging to the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. Proceeding chronologically from the ninth century to the present, each chapter features a Tibetan author negotiating a perceived gap between the original root text--the _Gathering of Intention_s--and the lived religious or political concerns of his day. This ongoing tension underscores the entanglement between Tibetan culture and its elaborate esoteric ritual systems, which have persisted for centuries, evolving in response to historical conditions. Rather than overlooking practice in favor of abstract philosophical concerns, this volume prioritizes Tibetan Buddhism's ritual systems for a richer portrait of the tradition's identity. (shrink)

In contemporary discussions of the concept of intention, the assumption is made that an intention results from a person's decision, or resolution, or plan, or the like. And the intention persists, generally, until the appropriate action is carried out. However, intentions cannot be said to have temporal duration, or beginnings, or endings. And it is not necessary for a person who is intending to do something to have made a decision to do it, or a resolution, or (...) anything else. It may be that a person acquires an intention because of the circumstances that he finds himself in. If one sees that a tricycle is in front of his car, he will move it. No decision is necessary, obviously, because running over it would be contrary to common sense. Or one may gradually come to realise that he is obliged to do something and thereupon acquires the intention to do it. By focusing on one kind of intention, the “desire‐belief” theories have failed to realise that intentions originate in various ways, and for various reasons. (shrink)

In his article “The Ontology of Musical Versions: Introducing the Hypothesis of Nested Types,” Nemesio Puy raises a hypothesis that continuity of the purpose is both a necessary and a sufficient condition for musical work’s identity. Puy’s hypothesis is relevant to two topics in cognitive psychology and experimental philosophy. The first topic is the prevalence of teleological reasoning about various objects and its influence on persistence and categorization judgments. The second one is the importance of an artist’s intention (...) in the categorization of artworks. We tested the teleological hypothesis across three studies. Vignettes in these three studies describe a musical work being changed in some of these aspects: purpose either changed or retained; score either changed or retained; change is made either by the same or a different composer. The results suggest that teleological considerations impact judgments on the persistence of musical works, but this impact appears to be relatively weak. The results also suggest that persistence judgments strongly depend on whether acoustical properties were changed, while whether the change was made by the original composer seems to be relatively unimportant. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 104, Issue 3, Page 747-763, May 2022.

An important recent debate in the philosophy of action has focused on whether there is a persistence requirement on intention and, if there is, what its proper formulation should be. At one extreme, Bratman has defended what I call Strong Persistence, according to which it’s irrational to abandon an intention except for an alternative that is better supported by one’s reasons. At the other extreme, Tenenbaum has argued that there isn’t a persistence requirement on (...) class='Hi'>intention at all. In the middle, philosophers like Broome, Ferrero, and Paul have defended persistence requirements with varying degrees of stringency while agreeing that Bratman’s proposed requirement is too strong. In this paper I side with Bratman in defending Strong Persistence. I argue, however, that Bratman’s own argument in favor of it is defective and an easy prey to the multiple objections that have been leveled against it. I thus offer in its place a “first-personally addressed constitutivist argument” whose aim is to show to the minimally reflective agent the kind of commitment involved in deciding and forming an intention in situations of incomparability—which are taken to be the litmus test for persistence requirements—and the persistence rational requirement governing it. Along the way I respond to the objections against Strong Persistence and explain why my argument represents an improvement over Bratman’s. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Marxist studies of schools have overlooked the power of intentional explanations to explain schooling practices and policies. This oversight is at least in part due to many radical analyses failing to distinguish between explaining the acquisition and persistence of beliefs and determining the social consequences that follow from acting on beliefs. I further contend that radical researchers examining schooling practices must develop a more rigorous and refined conception of capitalist class interests.

Proponents of ecological restoration view the practice as a means of both repairing damage done to ecosystems by humans and creating an avenue to re-establish respectful and cooperative human-environment relationships. One debate affecting ecological restoration focuses on the place of 'exotic' species in restored ecosystems. Though popular, campaigns against exotics have been criticized for their troubling rhetorical parallels with nativism aimed at human immigrants. I point to some of the reasons why this critique of nativism persists, despite protests that no (...) xenophobic intent is evident, emphasizing the intimacy between social metaphors and claims about exotic nature. Language is but one facet of an entanglement of nature and society that ecological restoration strives to take seriously; however, restoration practice remains ambivalent toward this dichotomy permitting a longing for lost community purity that is embraced in nativism. Regarding defenses of nativism, I point out limitations of attempts to reframe the issue from a reactionary rejection of the foreign Other toward an argument for protecting communities from a process akin to 'cultural imperialism'. (shrink)

In a recent special supplement to the Hastings Center Report entitled “Improving End-of-Life Care—Why Has It Been So Difficult?” Robert Burt wrote the following in an essay ominously entitled “The End of Autonomy”: No one should be socially authorized to engage in conduct that directly, purposefully, and unambiguously inflicts death, whether on another person or on oneself. Decisions that indirectly lead to death should be acted upon only after a consensus is reached among many people. No single individual should be (...) socially authorized to exercise exclusive control over decisions that might lead to death, whether that individual is the dying person, the attending physician, or a family member acting as health care proxy. (shrink)

Al is nearly finished sweeping his kitchen floor when he notices, on a counter, a corkscrew that should be put in a drawer. He intends to put the corkscrew away as soon as he is finished with the floor; but by the time he returns the broom and dustpan to the closet, he has forgotten what he intended to do. Al knows (or has a true belief) that there is something he intended to do now in the kitchen. He gazes (...) around the room and tries to recall what it was. Within a minute or so, without seeing the corkscrew, Al recalls. He puts the corkscrew away. Did Al have an intention to put the corkscrew away that persisted from the time he acquired the intention until he put the corkscrew away? That is one of my guiding questions in this article. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to an examination of issues concerning the persistence and linguistic re-expression of indexical singular belief. I discuss two approaches to the topic: the directly referential approach, which I take as best represented in Kaplan's views, and the neo-Fregean approach, which I take as best represented in Gareth Evans's views. The upshot of my discussion is twofold. On the one hand, I argue that both Kaplan's account and Evans's account are on the whole defective. On the (...) other, I claim that a broadly Fregean account is still to be preferred, since by positing semantically efficacious modes of presentation it is clearly better equipped to deal with the phenomena in the area. In particular, I argue that the notion of a memory-based mode of presentation of an object (a spatio-temporal particular, a region in space, a period of time, etc.), as introduced by Christopher Peacocke, turns out to be indispensable to account for the persistence and re-expression of intentional mental states over time. (shrink)

The concept of truth is at the core of science, journalism, law, and many other pillars of modern society. Yet, given the imprecision of natural language, deciding what information should count as true is no easy task, even with access to the ground truth. How do people decide whether a given claim of fact qualifies as true or false? Across two studies (N = 1181; 16,248 observations), participants saw claims of fact alongside the ground truth about those claims. Participants classified (...) each claim as true or false. Although participants knew precisely how accurate the claims were, participants classified claims as false more often when they judged the information source to be intending to deceive (versus inform) their audience, and classified claims as true more often when they judged the information source to be intending to provide an approximate (versus precise) account. These results suggest that, even if people have access to the same set of facts, they might disagree about the truth of claims if they attribute discrepant intentions to information sources. Such findings may shed light on the robust and persistent disagreements over claims of fact that have arisen in the “post-truth era”. (shrink)

The benefits of belonging for academic performance and persistence have been examined primarily in terms of subjective perceptions of social belonging, but feeling ability belonging, or fit with one’s peers intellectually, is likely also important for academic success. This may particularly be the case in male-dominated fields, where inherent genius and natural talent are viewed as prerequisites for success. We tested the hypothesis that social and ability belonging each explain intentions to persist in physical science, technology, engineering, and math (...) (pSTEM). We further explore whether women experience lower social and ability belonging than men on average in pSTEM and whether belonging more strongly relates to intentions to persist for women. At three time points throughout a semester, we assessed undergraduate pSTEM majors enrolled in a foundational calculus or physics course. Women reported lower pSTEM ability belonging and self-efficacy than men but higher identification with pSTEM. End-of-semester social belonging, ability belonging, and identification predicted intentions to persist in pSTEM, with a stronger relationship between social belonging and intentions to persist in pSTEM for women than men. These findings held after controlling for prior and current academic performance, as well as two conventional psychological predictors of academic success. (shrink)

Several methods have been reported for extracting sperm from a man after he dies or enters a persistent vegetative state. Although such sperm retrieval could be performed for nonprocreative purposes, such as research, in this paper I focus on cases involving procreative intent. Since 1980, more than ninety cases have occurred in which family members requested sperm retrieval from patients who died or were irreversibly unconscious, with the intent that a wife, girlfriend, or other woman would be inseminated. Recently, the (...) first report of pregnancy and birth following postmortem sperm retrieval appeared in the media.In these cases, death or PVS typically is caused by anoxic injuries, trauma, or rapidly progressing infections. (shrink)

In this essay, I discuss the role that vocation plays in assessing the proportion of burdens to benefits in end-of-life options. I then look at the case of patients in a persistent vegetative state. What vocational considerations are relevant for persons considering what care to accept should they ever be in a PVS or for those caring for patients in such a state? Ultimately, I argue that the vocational shape of a patient’s life ought not to be a consideration for (...) a caregiver in favor of removing artificial nutrition and hydration. (shrink)

It is common among metaphysicians to talk about objects _having_ persistence conditions or, equivalently, about the persistence conditions _of_ objects. However, as frequent as these statements are, as rare are the attempts to clarify their meaning in a systematic manner. In the present paper, I try to provide such an explanation by considering in detail the question of what it is for an object to have persistence conditions. The central results are the following. _First_: that an object (...) has (in contrast to merely fulfil) certain conditions of Fness means that it lies in the essence of this object that these conditions hold—that is, that it is part of this object’s essence that it is F, if it is F, in virtue of the fulfilment of these very conditions. _Second_: persistence is the staying in existence of an already existing object, which is why an object’s persistence conditions are just that: conditions of the staying in existence of this very object. On the emerging view, the persistence conditions of objects exhibit an interesting parallel to the conditions of satisfaction of intentional states or entities. As the latter, they are imposed upon the world by entities existing in the world, viz. objects. (shrink)

I suggest that intentions for the future become intentions in action when the time for acting comes. The image of intentions as a kind of continuant helpfully accommodates progress in an action; a persisting intention in action changes its shape in respect of how much of what is intended lies behind it and how much is still in prospect. Specific motor intentions in the course of, for instance, crossing a street are shapes successively taken by a persisting intention (...) in action. I argue against the idea that an intention in action relates de re to the action it is in. Finally, adapting Brian O’Shaughnessy’s dual aspect conception of the will, I propose that when one intentionally engages in bodily action, the action’s intentional character is an aspect of something that is also bodily through and through. The result stands in contrast with familiar philosophical pictures of the relation between mind and body. (shrink)

I have argued elsewhere that the psychological aspects of Nietzsche’s later works are best understood from a psychodynamic point of view. Nietzsche holds a view I dubbed the tenacity of the intentional (T): when an intentional state loses its object, a new object replaces the original; the state does not disappear entirely. In this essay I amend and clarify (T) to (T``): When an intentional state with a sub-propositional object loses its object, the affective component of the state persists without (...) a corresponding object, and that affect will generally be redeployed in a state with a distinct object. I then trace the development of the tenacity thesis through Nietzsche’s early and middle works. Along the way, I discuss a number of related topics, including the scope of the tenacity thesis (does it apply to all intentional states?), the reflexive turn one often finds in Nietzsche’s examples (why does he so often say the new object is oneself?), and the relations among will to power, drives, and the tenacity of the intentional. (shrink)

The theories of reasoned action and planned behaviour have fundamentally changed the view that attitudes directly translate into behaviour by introducing intentions as a crucial intervening stage. Much research across numerous ethical contexts has drawn on these theories to offer a better understanding of how consumers form intentions to act in an ethical way. Persistently, researchers have suggested and discussed the existence of an intention–behaviour gap in ethical consumption. Yet, the factors that influence the extent of this gap and (...) its magnitude have not been systematically examined. We, therefore, contribute to the debate on the intention–behaviour gap by reviewing the empirical TRA/tpb studies that have assessed both intention and behaviour in ethical contexts. The findings from our review show that few studies assessed the intention–behaviour relationship and as a result, there is limited empirical evidence to date to quantify more accurately the intention–behaviour gap in ethical consumption. Our second contribution aims to provide an empirical case study which assesses the magnitude of the intention–behaviour gap in the context of avoidance of sweatshop clothing and to assess the roles of planning and actual behavioural control in potentially reducing the intention–behaviour gap. The findings of our case study suggest that there is indeed a large gap between intention and behaviour, and we conclude by calling for more empirical longitudinal studies to assess the complex nature of the relationship between intention and behaviour. (shrink)

Whistleblowers have significantly shaped the state of contemporary society; in this context, this research sheds light on a persistently neglected research area: what are the key determinants of whistleblowing within government agencies? Taking a unique methodological approach, we combine evidence from two pieces of fieldwork, conducted using both primary and secondary data from the US and Indonesia. In Study 1, we use a large-scale survey conducted by the US Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). Additional tests are conducted in Study 1, (...) making comparisons between those who have and those who do not have whistleblowing experience. In Study 2, we replicate the survey conducted by the MSPB, using empirical data collected in Indonesia. We find a mixture of corroboration of previous results and unexpected findings between the two samples (US and Indonesia). The most relevant result is that perceived organizational protection has a significant positive effect on whistleblowing intention in the US sample, but a similar result was not found in the Indonesian sample. We argue that this difference is potentially due to the weakness of whistleblowing protection in Indonesia, which opens avenues for further understanding the role of societal cultures in protecting whistleblowers around the globe. (shrink)

Jody Azzouni argues that we involuntarily experience certain physical items, certain products of human actions, and certain human actions themselves as having meaning-properties. We understand these items as possessing meaning or as having truth values. For example, a sign on a door reading "Drinks Inside" strikes native English speakers as referring to liquids in the room behind the door. The sign has a truth value--if no drinks are found in the room, the sign is misleading. Someone pointing in a direction (...) has the same effect: we experience her gesture as significant. Azzouni does not suggest that we don't recognize the expectations or intentions of speakers ; we do recognize that the person pointing in a certain direction intends for us to understand her gesture's significance. Nevertheless, Azzouni asserts that we experience that gesture as having significance independent of her intentions. The gesture is meaningful on its own. The same is true of language, both spoken and written. We experience the meanings of language artifacts as independent of their makers' intentions in the same way that we experience an object's shape as a property independent of the object's color. There is a distinctive phenomenology to the experience of understanding language, and Semantic Perception shows how this phenomenology can be brought to bear as evidence for and against competing theories of language. (shrink)

The grammatical manipulation and production of language is a great deceiver. We have become habituated to accept the use of well-constructed language to indicate intelligence, understanding and, consequently, intention, whether conscious or unconscious. But we are not always right to do so, and certainly not in the case of large language models (LLMs) like ChapGPT, GPT-4, LLaMA, and Google Bard. This is a perennial problem, but when one understands why it occurs, it ceases to be surprising that it so (...) stubbornly persists. This paper will have three main sections. In the Introduction I will say a little about language, its aetiology, and useful sub-divisions into natural and cultural. In the second section I will explain the current situation with regard to large language models and fill in the background debates which set the problem up as one of increased complexity rather than one of a qualitatively different kind from narrow or specific AI. In the third section I will present the case for the missing phenomenological background and why it is necessary for the co-creation of shared meaning in both natural and cultural language, and I will conclude this section by presenting a rationale for why this situation arises and will continue to arise. Before we do any of this, I need to clarify one point: I do not wish to challenge the ascription of artificial general intelligence (AGI) to LLMs, indeed I think agnosticism is best in this respect, but I do challenge the more serious, and erroneous, ascription of understanding, intention, reason, and consciousness to them. And so, I am making two points: an epistemological one about why we fall into error in our ascription of a mental life to LLMs, and an ontological one about the impossibility of LLMs being or becoming conscious. (shrink)

The power to exercise control is a crucial feature of agency. Necessarily, if S cannot exercise some degree of control over anything - any state of affairs, event, process, object, or whatever - S is not an agent. If S is not an agent, S cannot act intentionally, responsibly, or rationally, nor can S possess or exercise free will. In my dissertation I reflect on the nature of control, and on the roles consciousness plays in its exercise. I first consider (...) the fragmented state of philosophical and empirical work on control. I argue that a mature philosophy of agency stands in need of a detailed personal-level account of control, and I begin by explicating a notion I call intentional control. On this explication, an agent J exercises intentional control in service of an intention X to the degree that behavior of J's for which X plays a (non-deviant) causal role approximates the representational content of X. With this explication in hand, I offer analyses of theoretically salient points along a degreed spectrum (covering, e.g., the exercise of minimal, successful, and perfect intentional control). Next, I develop an account of the degrees of intentional control's possession. This involves elucidation of ingredients of intentional control, i.e. those features of agents and environments that constitute an agent's causal potency and skill. It turns out that an agent's possession of control regarding an intention is intimately tied to her ability to repeatedly execute that intention across some specified (hypothetical) set of scenarios. Finally, I discuss a number of potentially fruitful applications of the account. In chapter three I confront a strong intuition, persistent in both philosophy and cognitive science, that consciousness is somehow intimately involved in the exercise of control. In this connection recent empirical work indicates the causal powers of consciousness remain poorly understood. I argue that Functional Agnosticism - the view that any claim regarding a function of consciousness for behavior is currently underdetermined by the data - is the wisest position on the causal powers of consciousness. Recognition of this unsatisfying state of affairs motivates reflection on what might enable progress beyond it. I argue that establishing a causal function for consciousness is facilitated by clarity on several issues. First, what is the sense of consciousness at issue? I isolate state consciousness, discuss the potential relevance of various types of conscious states, and distinguish between ambitious and modest approaches to the causal powers of state consciousness. In short, ambitious approaches seek to understand the causal contributions of a conscious mental state in virtue of the fact that the state is conscious; modest approaches seek to understand the causal contributions of conscious mental states, full stop. I argue that for various theoretical purposes, both approaches can be useful. Second, what is the sense of control at issue? I argue that for many important theoretical purposes, intentional control is the relevant sense. Finally, I illustrate the usefulness of clarity on these issues by examining recent work on the roles of conscious and unconscious vision for action. This work suggests that some important subset of our overt action is controlled by non-conscious processes. I apply insights developed earlier, noting common mistakes made in this literature, and highlighting important empirical possibilities these mistakes obscure. In later chapters I develop a novel account of conscious control. In chapter four I develop a central part of the account, which involves a view on the intentional structure of conscious trying. The leading view entails that conscious trying possesses a descriptive (or thetic) structure. Based on relevant empirical work concerning deafferented and paralyzed patients, I argue for the view that conscious trying is (at least) partially constituted by directive (or telic) structure. Finally, I argue that the exercise of conscious control is best understood as an exercise of intentional control for which the experience of trying plays a constitutive role. After presenting arguments for this view and defending the view against objections, I discuss the importance of conscious control for a mature philosophy of mind and agency. (shrink)

This paper argues that a class of popular views of collective intention, which I call “quasi-psychologism”, faces a problem explaining common intuitions about collective action. Views in this class hold that collective intentions are realized in or constituted by individual, mental, participatory intentions. I argue that this metaphysical commitment entails persistence conditions that are in tension with a purported obligation to notify co-actors before leaving a collective action attested to by participants in experimental research about the interpersonal normativity (...) of collective action. I then explore the possibilities open to quasi-psychologists for responding to this research. (shrink)

Intentions and emotions arise together, and emotions compel us to pursue goals. However, it is not clear when emotions become objects of awareness, how emotional awareness changes with goal pursuit, or how psychological and neural processes mediate such change. We first review a psychological model of emotional episodes and propose that goal obstruction extends the duration of these episodes while increasing cognitive complexity and emotional intensity. We suggest that attention is initially focused on action plans and their obstruction, and only (...) when this obstruction persists does focal attention come to include emotional states themselves. We then model the self-organization of neural activities that hypothetically underlie the evolution of an emotional episode. Phases of emotional awareness are argued to parallel phases of synchronization across neural systems. We suggest that prefrontal activities greatly extend intentional states while focal attention integrates emotional awareness and goal pursuit in a comprehensive sense of the self in the world. (shrink)

"Best interests" is widely accepted as the appropriate foundation principle for medico-legal decisions concerning treatment withdrawal from patients in persistent vegetative state (PVS). Its application appears to progress logically from earlier use regarding legally incompetent patients. This author argues, however, that such confidence in the relevance of the principle of best interests to PVS is misplaced, and that current construction in this context is questionable on four specific grounds. Furthermore, it is argued that the resulting legal inconsistency is distorting both (...) the principle itself and, more particularly, individual patient interests. (shrink)

The Deese/Roediger–McDermott paradigm has been used extensively to examine false memory. During the study session, participants learn lists of semantically related items, referred to as targets. Critical lures are items which are also associated with the lists but are intentionally omitted from study. At test, when asked to remember targets, participants often report false memories for critical lures. Findings from experiments using the DRM show the ease with which false memories develop in the absence of suggestion or misinformation. Given this, (...) it is important to examine factors which influence the generalizability of the findings. One important factor is the persistence of false memory, or how long false memories last. Therefore, we conducted a systemic review to answer this research question: What is the persistence of false memory for specific items in the DRM paradigm? To help answer this question our review had two research objectives: to examine the trajectory of target memory and false memory for critical lures and to examine whether memory for targets exceeded false memory for critical lures. We included empirical articles which tested memory for the same DRM lists with at least two testing sessions. We discuss the results with respect to single-session delays, long-term memory recall and recognition, remember and know judgments for memory, and the effect of development, valence, warning, and connectivity on the trajectory of memory. Overall, the trajectory of targets showed a relatively consistent pattern of decrease across delay. The trajectory of critical lures was inconsistent. The proportion of targets versus critical lures across delay was also inconsistent. Despite the inconsistencies, we conclude that targets and critical lures have a dissimilar trajectory across delay and that critical lures are more persistent than targets. The findings with respect to long-term recall and recognition are consistent with both Fuzzy Trace Theory and Associative-Activation Theory of the DRM effect. The generation of false memory with brief delays is better explained by Associative-Activation Theory. Examining the connectivity between target items, and critical lures, and the effect that has during study and retrieval, can provide insight into the persistence of false memory for critical lures. (shrink)

Educators across the nation are engaged in well-meaning efforts to address diversity in schools given the current context of NCLB, Race to the Top, and the associated pressures of standardization and accountability. Through rich ethnographic accounts of teachers in two demographically different secondary schools in the same urban district, Angelina E. Castagno investigates how whiteness operates in ways that thwart even the best intentions and common sense—thus resulting in educational policies and practices that reinforce the status quo and protect whiteness (...) rather than working toward greater equity. Whereas most discussions of the education of diverse students focus on the students and families themselves, _Educated in Whiteness_ highlights the structural and ideological mechanisms of whiteness. In schools, whiteness remains dominant by strengthening and justifying the status quo while simultaneously preserving a veneer of neutrality, equality, and compassion. Framed by critical race theory and whiteness studies, this book employs concepts like interest convergence, a critique of liberalism, and the possessive investment in whiteness to better understand diversity-related educational policy and practice. Although in theory most diversity-related educational policies and practices are intended to bring about greater equity, too often in practice they actually maintain, legitimate, and so perpetuate whiteness. Castagno not only sheds light on this disconnect between the promises and practices of diversity-related initiatives but also provides insight into _why_ the disconnect persists. (shrink)

The dropout rate among Spanish university students is very high compared to the European mean, creating a pressing need for the introduction of policies and programmes aimed at increasing rates of persistence. In this article, we study this problem by combining students? perceived learning outcomes with their dropout intentions, and we propose a research model that considers subjective factors that might impact this decision. The model is estimated for two degree courses: Business Administration and Nursing. The estimation method uses (...) structural equations based on the partial least squares algorithm. This allows the construction of indices for the variables of interest, enabling us to make comparisons between courses and over time. To reduce dropout intentions, efforts need to be focused on obtaining better cognitive outcomes, as well as on achieving a higher level of student satisfaction with their university experience. (shrink)

This paper explores the form of persistence distinctive of intentional actions. Unlike entities whose progression through time is typically continuous, our actions often have parts separated in time by a gap in our own activity. The way in which their coherence is understood thus affects their attribution to us. I present a theory of agency at the gaps that accounts for such phenomena and passes two touchstones. It solves the puzzle of the time of a killing in a new (...) way and provides a support to the assessment of moral agency. (shrink)

The brain–computer interface (BCI) has made remarkable progress in the bridging the divide between the brain and the external environment to assist persons with severe disabilities caused by brain impairments. There is also continuing philosophical interest in BCIs which emerges from thoughtful reflection on computers, machines, and artificial intelligence. This article seeks to apply BCI perspectives to examine, challenge, and work towards a possible resolution to a persistent problem in the mind–body relationship, namely dualism. The original humanitarian goals of BCIs (...) and the technological inventiveness result in BCIs being surprisingly useful. We begin from the neurologically impaired person, the problems encountered, and some pioneering responses from computers and machines. Secondly, the interface of mind and brain is explored via two points of clarification: direct and indirect BCIs, and the nature of thoughts. Thirdly, dualism is beset by mind–body interaction difficulties and is further questioned by the phenomena of intentions, interactions, and technology. Fourthly, animal minds and robots are explored in BCI settings again with relevance for dualism. After a brief look at other BCIs, we conclude by outlining a future BCI philosophy of brain and mind, which might appear ominous and could be possible. (shrink)

Vaccine hesitancy persists despite vaccination’s important role in global health. As many vaccines provide social benefits through herd immunity, vaccination decisions can raise moral concerns. Two studies explored the role of moral convictions in vaccination decisions. Study 1 (N = 485) revealed higher vaccination intentions when individuals thought about vaccination in moral terms. Emotions and moral piggybacking positively predicted moral convictions. In Study 2 (N = 1,111), we evaluated the effects of emotional, moral, and scientific pro-vaccination arguments on moral convictions, (...) support for mandatory vaccination, and tolerance of dissenting views. While no group differences were observed, moral convictions were correlated with increased support for mandatory vaccination but also with a reduced tolerance of dissenting opinions. Overall, moral convictions play a small but significant role in vaccination-related decisions. While moral convictions have beneficial effects on compliance, it is crucial not to overlook the adverse consequences, which may lead to a growing societal divide. (shrink)

When a person decides to do something in the future, she forms an intention and her intention persists. Philosophers have thought about the rational requirement that an agent’s intention persists until its execution. But philosophers have neglected to think about the causal memory mechanisms that could enable this kind of persistence and its role in rational long-term agency. Our aim of this paper is to fill this gap by arguing that memory for intention is a (...) specific kind of memory. We do this by evaluating and rejecting standard declarative accounts of memory for intention and arguing for the plausibility of an alternative model of memory for intention. We argue for the alternative by spelling out a number of computational principles that could enable retaining and retrieving intentions from long-term memory. These principles could explain a number of core features of intentions. (shrink)

Academic integrity violations on college campuses continue to be a significant concern that draws public attention. Even though AI has been the subject of numerous studies offering explanations and recommendations, academic dishonesty persists. Consequently, this has rekindled interest in understanding AI behavior and its influencers. This paper focuses on the AI violations of plagiarism and sharing homework for freshman business students, examining the factors that influence a student’s intention to plagiarize or share homework with others. Using a sample of (...) more than 1300 freshman business students over 2 years, we modeled intent to plagiarize and intent to share homework using factors in the Theory of Planned Behavior in addition to past violation behavior and moral obligation. Based on the results of this study, attitude, perceived behavioral control, subjective norm, and in addition past behavior and moral obligation, were found to significantly influence an individual’s intention to violate academic integrity, explaining 33 and 35 % of the variance in intention to commit an AI violation for sharing homework and plagiarism, respectively. These results contribute to a better understanding of individuals’ motivations for plagiarizing and sharing homework, which is a necessary step toward reducing academic integrity violations. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to make two general points. First, I claim that the discussions in Repetti (2017) assume different, sometimes conflicting, notions of free will, so the guiding question of the book is not as clear as it could be. Second, according to Buddhist tradition, the path to enlightenment requires rejecting the delusional belief in the existence of a persisting self. I claim that if there is no persisting self, there are no intentional actions; and, if there are (...) no intentional actions, there is no hope for Buddhist enlightenment. Thus, rejecting the allegedly delusional belief in a persisting self has disastrous consequences, both for the existence of intentional action and for Buddhist soteriology. (shrink)

On 29 March 2017, the United Kingdom Government notified the European Council of its intention to withdraw from the European Union legal order. On 31 January 2020, the UK entered a transition period, during which it remains bound to the EU Treaty Framework. This review essay examines the near three-year period of the UK’s attempted cessation from the EU. It argues that what is most striking about the Brexit case is that it reveals the extent to which EU member (...) states remain bound by ideologies and tropes developed during the era of European colonisation—even in their relationship with each other. The review essay draws upon Brenna Bhandar’s Colonial lives of property: Law, Land and racial regimes of ownership, Danny Dorling and Sally Tomlinson’s Rule Britannia: Brexit and the end of empire, and Eva Mackey’s Unsettled expectations: Uncertainty, land and settler decolonization to show how Brexit bears upon themes that have long preoccupied postcolonial scholars working in a variety of contexts and geographical locations. From the Brexit example, the review article highlights the persistence of colonial projects of invention and the appropriative techniques and tropes that attend these and, above all, it highlights the necessity of decolonial violence. (shrink)

Our ethical obligations to another being depend at least in part on that being’s capacity for a mental life. Our usual approach to inferring the mental state of another is to reason by analogy: If another being behaves as I do in a circumstance that engenders a certain mental state in me, I conclude that it has engendered the same mental state in him or her. Unfortunately, as philosophers have long noted, this analogy is fallible because behavior and mental states (...) are only contingently related. If the other person is acting, for example, we could draw the wrong conclusion about his or her mental state. In this article I consider another type of analogy that can be drawn between oneself and another to infer the mental state of the other, substituting brain activity for behavior. According to most current views of the mind–body problem, mental states and brain states are non-contingently related, and hence inferences drawn with the new analogy are not susceptible to the alternative interpretations that plague the behavioral analogy. The implications of this approach are explored in two cases for which behavior is particularly unhelpful as a guide to mental status: severely brain–damaged patients who are incapable of intentional communicative behavior, and nonhuman animals whose behavioral repertoires are different from ours and who lack language. (shrink)

Autism provides a model for exploring the nature of self‐consciousness: self‐consciousness requires the ability to reflect on mental states, and autism is a disorder with a specific impairment in the neurocognitive mechanism underlying this ability. Experimental studies of normal and abnormal development suggest that the abilities to attribute mental states to self and to others are closely related. Thus inability to pass standard ‘theory of mind’ tests, which refer to others’ false beliefs, may imply lack of self‐consciousness. Individuals who persistently (...) fail these tests may, in the extreme, be unable to reflect on their intentions or to anticipate their own actions. In contrast, individuals with high‐functioning autism or Asperger syndrome often possess a late‐acquired, explicit theory of mind, which appears to be the result of effortful learning. An experimental study with three people with Asperger syndrome suggested that level of performance on standard theory of mind tasks was strongly related to the ability to engage in introspection. Qualitative differences in the introspections of high‐functioning people with autism are also reflected in autobiographical accounts which may give a glimpse of what it is like to be autistic. (shrink)

Minimal counterintuitiveness and its automatic processing has been suggested as the explanation of persistence and transmission of cultural ideas. This purported automatic processing remains relatively unexplored. We manipulated encoding strategy to assess the persistence of memory for different types of expectation violation. Participants viewed concepts including two types of expectation violation or no violation under three different encoding conditions: in the shallow condition participants focused on the perceptual attributes of the concepts, a deep condition probed their semantic meaning, (...) and intentional remembering condition. Participants’ recall was tested immediately as well as 2 weeks later. Our findings showed the greatest memory enhancement for schema-level violations regardless of the encoding condition, while the memory for domain-level violations improved over time. These results suggest two distinct memory patterns for different types of violations, and illustrate the importance of elaborative processes in memory consolidation especially for violations to our expectations. (shrink)

Much has been written on witchcraft by historians, theologians, philosophers, and anthropologists, but nothing by scientists. This book aims to reappraise witchcraft by applying to it the advances in cognitive sciences. The book is divided into four parts. Part One: Deep History deals with human emotions and drives to deepen the phenomenology of evil witchcraft agency and its female feature. Part Two: Historical Times focuses on the natural control of malefice that engendered rare state and church repressions. Surprisingly, Islamic lands (...) remained immune from stakes. Modern urbanizations are considered a blow to the persistence of rural civilizations that embedded witchcraft in their vision. Part Three: In the Laboratory applies neurosciences to specific case studies such as the personalization of misfortune, the millenary stereotype witch=woman, the reality of evil, and the contagious meme of treasure hunts. Part Four: Millennials wonders whether intentional malefic hatred is a closed chapter in the history of humanity. An Anatomy of Witchcraft is ideal reading for students and scholars. Given its interdisciplinary nature, the book will be of interest to scholars from many fields including evolutionary psychology, anthropology, women's history, and cognitive sciences. (shrink)

This paper elucidates and interrogates Schopenhauer’s notion of will and its relation to ideas about the unconscious, with the aim of addressing its significance as an exercise in philosophical psychology. Schopenhauer aims at a global metaphysics, a theory of the essence of the world as it is in itself. He calls this essence will (Wille), which, to put it briefly, he understands as a blind striving for existence, life, and reproduction. Human beings have the same essence as all other manifestations (...) of will in the world, and this has several consequences for Schopenhauer's conception of humanity. Neither rationality, nor intentional action, nor consciousness is primary or foundational in human beings. The true core of the personality is not the self-conscious ‘I’ or subject of knowledge, but rather the will, which is fundamentally blind and without knowledge, but which interacts with the intellect almost as an agent distinct from it. Schopenhauer makes a number of psychological observations about the interplay of intellect and will. These include the omnipresence of sexual desire in or beneath our experience; the persistence of desires and affects unknown to the self-conscious intellect; the will's capacity to prohibit representations in the intellect that are liable to arouse certain emotions; and the occurrence of madness when memories painful to the will are shielded from the intellect and arbitrary representations are substituted. (shrink)

The phenomenon of shared intention has received much attention in the philosophy of mind and action. Margaret Gilbert (1989, 2000c, 2014b) argues that a shared intention to do A consists in a joint commitment to intend to do A. But we need to know more about the nature of joint commitments to know what exactly this implies. While the persistence of joint commitments has received much attention in the literature, their impersistence has received very little attention. In (...) this paper, we shed light on the impersistence of joint commitments by showing how joint commitments can be dissolved by unexpected events. (shrink)

Using a queer theory and disrupting heteronormativity framework, we applied a model lesson in the elementary methods course to understand preservice teachers’ experiences with LGBTQ individuals and families and their beliefs about utilizing children׳s literature portraying LGBTQ families in the elementary classroom. Participants reported a range of personal experiences with LGBTQ individuals and families and relatively positive responses to the family text set presented but wavered on LGBTQ themed books due to perceived conflict, religious beliefs, and ideas about what is (...) appropriate content for young learners. A discussion of the findings also includes preservice teachers’ intentions for future teaching related to LGBTQ topics. Implications for teacher education and social studies education are explored. (shrink)

One of Hans Christian Andersen's most beautiful tales is "The Emperor's Nightingale." Its message—an exceptionally sobering one in the present context—is that nature is altogether finer and more enduring than art. It tells how a Chinese emperor, beguiled by a precious imitation bird that had been given him, forsook a natural songster he had once favored. But when that glittering counterfeit broke down, its clockwork sound silenced, the now aged ruler found welcome solace in the real bird's return, in its (...) more reliable and spiritually healing song. . . . Despite the artist's foregone defeat in any contest with nature , over the ages artists have been irresistibly drawn to the challenge of imitating nature. The persistence of these claims upon their skills and the inventive flight that have been elicited in the process testify to the extraordinary hold that the desire to mirror nature, or better still, to capture something of its essence, can exert over artists and their public. Accounts of imitative prowess go back to the most ancient days, beyond the fabled skills of Zeuxis and Apelles. There is no need here to summarize the complicated but almost domestically familiar history of illusionism. Rather, it is my present intention to reflect upon some contradictions inherent in the conception of art as illusion and to review some of the more exaggerated forms in which efforts have been made to break down the boundaries between art and nature. Frank Anderson Trapp, William Rutherford Mead Professor of Fine Arts, chairman of the department of art, and director of the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College, is the author of The Attainment of Delacroix and a number of essays on the history of art. (shrink)

“Like much recent work on personal identity,” Carol Rovane writes in the opening sentence of The Bounds of Agency: An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics, “this effort takes its main cue from Locke”. The work also—as its title suggests—takes inspiration from Strawsonian neo-Kantianism. And although direct allusion to his writings is limited to a few passing references, Rovane’s essay is largely Davidsonian in spirit. Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to say that The Bounds of Agency answers a question about (...) personal identity by providing a transcendental analysis of the conditions for personhood whose analysans turns out to be a commitment to agency. In situating the work within such an intellectual context, I do not mean to cast aspersions on its originality; there is no question that Rovane offers a tremendously innovative and sophisticated account of personal identity. But it may be helpful for readers approaching the book on the basis of its title to realize at the outset that it is neither a work of analytic metaphysics, nor a work concerned with the internal structure of agency. Rather, The Bounds of Agency offers a sustained exploration of the preconditions and implications of taking seriously a particular conception of personhood that uniquely satisfies a cluster of methodological constraints that should be accepted by all parties in the debate concerning the nature of persons and the conditions that govern their identity over time. According to such a conception, what distinguishes persons from other sorts of beings is their capacity to engage in agency-regarding relations. What underpins that capacity is a commitment to rational agency, that is, a commitment to achieving overall rational unity. So, argues Rovane, what it is to be a person is to be committed to acting upon all-things-considered judgments in rationally optimal ways. And what it is for a person to persist over time is for certain sorts of rational relations to hold among certain sorts of intentional episodes, in ways that allow the commitments of the person at one time to govern the intentional actions of a person at another. (shrink)

How is it conceivable or even psychologically possible that rational agents sometimes appear to act against their own acknowledged self-interest? This issue, commonly known as “weakness of the will”, has contributed to much of our individual and collective failure to address pressing problems even if solutions are well-known and readily available. It has fascinated philosophers since ancient times. Recent advances in psychology, behavioural economics and neuroscience have allowed us to approach the phenomenon from a new perspective. A novel account that (...) draws on empirical research characterises weakness of will as a failure to persist in an intention in the face of temptation. However, contemporary work finds it difficult to determine whether this account should replace or supplement orthodox views. This is partially due to a larger problem: philosophers struggle to understand and conceptually connect the various independent strands of empirical research into self-control, willpower, delay of gratification, ego depletion, implementation intentions, delay discounting, etc. Targeting both issues, the present work advances current research into weakness of will in two ways: first, it raises a novel challenge specific for orthodox accounts in philosophy. More precisely, I argue that they yield absurd results in dilemmas, and I show that this puzzle has repercussions for decision theory and epistemology. Second, my thesis renders econometric and psychological research into delay discounting intelligible to a philosophical readership. More specifically, I explain why standard discounting models fail to capture core cases of weakness of will that are also the object of research in developmental psychology. I thereby rectify rampant myths about preference reversals and discount functions in the philosophical and scientific literature. In short, my dissertation connects empirical and philosophical work into weakness of will conceptually in order to tackle issues in current research and advance our joint understanding of a longstanding and problematic phenomenon. (shrink)