"How can human beings, who are liable to error, possess knowledge, since the grounds on which we believe do not rule out that we are wrong? Andrea Kern argues that we can disarm this skeptical doubt by conceiving knowledge as an act of a rational capacity. In this book, she develops a metaphysics of the mind as existing through knowledge of itself."--Provided by publisher.

Though researchers working on congenital aphantasia (henceforth “aphantasia”) agree that this condition involves an impairment in the ability to voluntarily generate visual imagery, disagreement looms large as to which other impairments are exhibited by aphantasic subjects. This article offers the first extensive review of studies on aphantasia, and proposes that aphantasic subjects exhibit a cluster of impairments. It puts forward a novel cognitive theory of aphantasia, building on the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis of memory and imagination. It argues that aphantasia (...) is best explained as a malfunction of processes in the episodic system, and is therefore an episodic system condition. (shrink)

– The paper defends a naturalistic version of modal actualism according to which what is metaphysically possible is determined by dispositions found in the actual world. We argue that there is just one world—this one—and that all genuine possibilities are anchored by the dispositions exemplified in this world. This is the case regardless of whether or not those dispositions are manifested. As long as the possibility is one that would obtain were the relevant disposition manifested, it is a genuine possibility. (...) Furthermore, by starting from actual dispositional properties and branching out, we are able to include possibilities that are quite far removed from any state of affairs that happens to obtain, while still providing a natural and actual grounding of possibility. Stressing the importance of ontological considerations in any theory of possibility, it is argued that the account of possibility in terms of dispositional properties provides a more palatable ontology than those of its competitors. Coming at it from the other direction, the dispositional account of possibility also provides motivation for taking an ontology of dispositions more seriously. As well as the relevant dispositional notions required to lay out the view, the paper discusses the dispositional realism needed as the basis for the account of possibility. (shrink)

In this paper I present and assess a controversy between Edmund Husserl and Heinrich Rickert on the nature of judgment, in order to bring to light the originality of Husserl's proposal concerning this important issue. In the first section I provide some context for Rickert's theory of judgment by sketching a reconstruction of nineteenth century logical theory and then proceed to introduce Rickert's view. I suggest that nineteenth century logic is characterized by a criticism of the traditional view that sees (...) categorial judgment as the essential form of judgment and the uniting and separating of ideas as sufficient for the constitution of a judgment. Hume inaugurates this criticism, but it finds its most mature expression in the work of Lotze, Brentano, and Rickert. Rickert, in particular, sees simple affirmation and negation of the transcendent value of truth as the essence of judgment. In the second section I present Husserl's criticism of Rickert. Husserl's criticism revolves around the distinction between simple judgments and the higher-order affirmative or negative stance we can adopt with respect to previously articulated simple judgments. Simple judgments register the mereological relation holding among something and one of its properties, and they do not entail an affirmative or negative stance. Their function is to constitute states of affairs drawing on concrete perceptual situations. Higher-order affirmation or negation occurs when we set out to revisit a foregoing simple judgment in order to confirm or disconfirm the veridicality of its proposed state of affairs. In the third part I suggest a diagnosis of the origin of the mistake in earlier theories. Simple judgments are easy to conflate with non-simple, higher-order judgmental stances because they have the same logical value and they cannot be seen without the aid of genuinely phenomenological reflection. In conclusion, I suggest that Husserl's analysis amounts to a vindication of categorial judgment in its traditional form ‘S is P’, which continues to maintain a phenomenological legitimacy even in the wake of Frege's canonical dismissal of subject and predicate. (shrink)

A growing number of small fashion entrepreneurs seek to offer an alternative to the mainstream fashion industry, which, in its obsession with novelty and growth, often ignores the costs to society and the environment. There is a need to develop a deeper understanding of how these fashion entrepreneurs may be agents for change in their industry. Using rich data from an in-depth study of 27 UK-based entrepreneurs, we offer such analysis, drawing on a novel framework that combines MacIntyre’s virtue ethics (...) scheme and Jonas’s responsibility imperative. We identify key virtues—passionate commitment, authenticity, humility, sharing and empowering, and temperance—which shape the entrepreneurs’ practices in line with their accepted and perceived responsibility for sustainability. These virtues shape the entrepreneurial processes that seek an active negotiation and harmonisation of sustainability and the demands of business. In particular, we pay attention to the different ways in which fashion entrepreneurs take responsibility for sustainability which ranges from a ‘growth for impact’ strategy to staying small and seeking impact through influence and replication. Conclusions are drawn on conceptualising the varieties of ‘postgrowth entrepreneurship’ that aligns the virtues of a deep-rooted sense of responsibility with business goals. This shows what can be possible and prefigures an alternative fashion industry. (shrink)

Currently much debate surrounds the significance of cross-cultural variation in mother-infant attachment. Is only one form of attachment “healthy,” or are different types of attachment adaptations to local socioecological conditions? Juvenile mortality rates have been promoted as important features of local environments that shape attachment, which in turn affects later reproductive strategies. To this we add fertility. Fertility changes the environment of a child by influencing the number of potential caregivers and competitors for care, and the cultural ethos regarding the (...) rights of children. Different combinations of fertility and mortality will likely give rise to different attachment forms, and only under one regime (low fertility and mortality) do we expect exclusivity in attachment. (shrink)

Several attempts have been made previously to provide a biological grounding for cognitive architectures by relating their components to the computations of specific brain circuits. Often, the architecture's action selection system is identified with the basal ganglia. However, this identification overlooks one of the most important features of the basal ganglia—the existence of a direct and an indirect pathway that compete against each other. This characteristic has important consequences in decision-making tasks, which are brought to light by Parkinson's disease as (...) well as genetic differences in dopamine receptors. This paper shows that a standard model of action selection in a cognitive architecture cannot replicate any of these findings, details an alternative solution that reconciles action selection in the architecture with the physiology of the basal ganglia, and extends the domain of application of cognitive architectures. The implication of this solution for other architectures and existing models are discussed. (shrink)

Political theorists aiming to articulate normative standards for the EU have almost entirely focused on whether or not the EU suffers from a ‘democratic deficit'. Almost nothing has been written, by contrast, on one of the central values underpinning European integration since at least the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), namely solidarity. What kinds of principles, policies, and ideals should an affirmation of solidarity commit us to? Put another way: what norms of socioeconomic justice ought to apply to the (...) EU? This is not an empirical or narrowly legal question. We are not trying to gauge the degree of attachment there currently is in the EU by, for example, citing the latest Eurobarometer poll. We are also not attempting to state the implicit rationale followed by the Court of Justice in its recent ‘solidarity’ jurisprudence, let alone trying to fix what the Commission might mean by it. In this article, I ask the more fundamental question underlying both the legal and the empirical questions: What principles of social solidarity ought to apply between states and citizens of the emerging European polity? This question has rarely been asked or answered by political theorists in an EU context, so we are entering largely uncharted territory. The article develops a tripartite model of EU solidarity in Section 2, and then applies it to the case of free movement of persons in Section 3. (shrink)

How do teenage girls articulate sexism in an era where gender injustice has been constructed as a thing of the past? Our article addresses this question by qualitatively exploring Canadian girls’ experiences of being caught between the postfeminist belief that gender equality has been achieved and the realities of their lives in school, which include incidents of sexism in their classrooms, their social worlds, and their projected futures. This analysis takes place in relation to two celebratory postfeminist narratives: Girl Power, (...) where girls are told they can do, be, and have anything they want, and Successful Girls, where girls are told they are surpassing boys in schools and workplaces. We argue that these postfeminist narratives have made naming sexism in schools difficult for girls because they are now seen to “have it all.” Utilizing Foucault’s law of the tactical polyvalence of discourse, this article analyzes girls’ contradictory engagement with postfeminism in order to both show its importance in girls’ lives, and its instability as a narrative that can adequately explain gender injustice. (shrink)

In recent works, Kind has argued that imagination is a skill, since it possesses the two hallmarks of skill: improvability by practice, and control. I agree with Kind that and are indeed hallmarks of skill, and I also endorse her claim that imagination is a skill in virtue of possessing these two features. However, in this paper, I argue that Kind’s case for imagination’s being a skill is unsatisfactory, since it lacks robust empirical evidence. Here, I will provide evidence for (...) by considering data from mental rotation experiments and for by considering data from developmental experiments. I conclude that imagination is a skill, but there is a further pressing question of how the cognitive architecture of imagination has to be structured to make this possible. I begin by considering how can be implemented sub-personally. I argue that this can be accounted for by positing a selection mechanism which selects content from memory representations to be recombined into imaginings, using Bayesian generation. I then show that such an account can also explain. On this basis, I hold that not only is imagination a skill, but that it is also plausibly implemented sub-personally by a Bayesian selection mechanism. (shrink)

Several scholars have recognized the limitations of theories of moral reasoning in explaining moral behavior. They have argued that moral behavior may also be influenced by moral identity, or how central morality is to one’s sense of self. This idea has been supported by findings that people who exemplify moral behavior tend to place more importance on moral traits when defining their self-concepts (Colby & Damon, 1995). This paper takes the next step of examining individual variation in a construct highly (...) associated with immoral behavior — psychopathy. In Study 1, we test the hypothesis that individuals with a greater degree of psychopathic traits have a weaker moral identity. Within a large online sample, we found that individuals who scored higher on a measure of psychopathic traits were less likely to base their self-concepts on moral traits. In Study 2, we test whether this reduced sense of moral identity can be attributed to differences in moral judgment, which is another factor that could influence immoral behavior. Our results indicated that the reduced sense of moral identity among more psychopathic individuals was independent of variation in moral judgment. These results suggest that individuals with psychopathic traits may display immoral behavior partially because they do not construe their personal identities in moral terms. (shrink)

Resumen: El objetivo de este artículo es estudiar la inducción analítica como método científico de investigación, es decir, como modo válido de hacer ciencia. En 1934, su creador, el filósofo y sociólogo Florian Znaniecki, afirmó que este era el método que debía ser adoptado en toda investigación sociológica. Su relevancia radica en que se propone encontrar explicaciones globales de los fenómenos sociales a partir de la utilización de técnicas cualitativas de investigación. Aquí adopto una perspectiva histórica que permite inscribir su (...) emergencia y evolución en un contexto mayor del desarrollo de metodologías cualitativas en sociología, para luego reflexionar sobre sus presupuestos epistemológicos y las críticas de las que fue objeto. Por último, realizo un balance de los aportes de esta metodología a la disciplina.: The aim of this article is to study analytic induction as a scientific research method, that is, as a valid way of making science. In 1934, the philosopher and sociologist Florian Znaniecki, its creator, referred to this methodology as the method that should be adopted by any sociological research. Its relevance lies on the fact that its goal is to find global explanations to social phenomena by using qualitative research techniques. I adopt a historical perspective to inscribe this method’s emergency and evolution in a larger context of the development of qualitative methods in sociology, and then reflect upon its epistemological basis and the criticisms made in relation to it. Finally, I evaluate this method’s contributions to the discipline. (shrink)

Dealing with the reform of the Transplantation Law, the first issue of the new rubric “Philosophie aktuell” met with strong and lively interest from our readers. Subsequent to this discussion a growing number of reports were published dealing with violations of mandatory rules of conduct in transplantation medicine. Therefore the topic is revisited here from the slightly different vantage point “organ transplantation II: elucidation and confidence”.

Our aim in this paper is to employ conceptual negotiation to inform a method of rethinking defective food concepts, that is concepts that fail to suitably represent a certain food-related domain or that offer representations that run counter to the interests of their users. We begin by sorting out four dimensions of a food concept: the data upon which it rests and the methodology by which those data are gathered; the ontology that sustains it; the social acts that serve to (...) negotiate and establish the concept; and the aims and values that it fosters. We then discuss the conditions that make a food concept defective, pointing out four types of defects—fragility, polarization, incoherence, and schizophrenia—which we illustrate by means of two specific examples: local food and healthy food. (shrink)

is accounted for, among other things, in terms of particular relations between events (or states1) and places or times. Roughly speaking, an event α is said to occur in a place p (or interval t) if the spatial (temporal) extension of α is located in p (or t). Let the predicate ‘Occ’ denote such a relation. From this point of view, part of the content of the above sentences can be associated, respectively, with formulas such as.

In der Tugendlehre Kants findet die allgemeine ethische Orientierung, wie sie der Kategorische Imperativ ausdrückt, Anwendung auf die Bedingungen der menschlichen Existenz. Die vorliegende Untersuchung rekonstruiert den Kantischen Ansatz vor dem Hintergrund der gegenwärtigen, vor allem aristotelischen Tugendethik und löst dabei den Kantischen Tugendbegriff kritisch von seinen zeitbedingten Prägungen. Auf so erneuerter Grundlage wird eine transzendentalphilosophische Ethikkonzeption entfaltet, die den methodischen und inhaltlichen Einsichten der jüngeren Theorieentwicklung Rechnung trägt. Zu den Ergebnissen zählt die Bestimmung einzelner Tugenden, deren ethische Orientierung an (...) konkreten Strukturen unserer alltäglichen Praxis demonstriert wird. (shrink)