This paper shows that strict evidentialism about normative reasons for belief is inconsistent with taking truth to be the source of normative reasons for belief. It does so by showing that there are circumstances in which one can know what truth requires one to believe, yet still lack evidence for the contents of that belief.

In this paper I introduce an objection to normative evidentialism about reasons for belief. The objection arises from difficulties that evidentialism has with explaining our reasons for belief in unstable belief contexts with a single fixed point. I consider what other kinds of reasons for belief are relevant in such cases.

In this paper it is argued that the buck-passing analysis (BPA) of final value is not a plausible analysis of value and should be abandoned. While considering the influential wrong kind of reason problem and other more recent technical objections, this paper contends that there are broader reasons for giving up on buck-passing. It is argued that the BPA, even if it can respond to the various technical objections, is not an attractive analysis of final value. It is not attractive (...) for two reasons: the first being that the BPA lacks the features typical of successful conceptual analyses and the second being that it is unable to deliver on the advantages that its proponents claim for it. While not offering a knock-down technical refutation of the BPA, this paper aims to show that there is little reason to think that the BPA is correct, and that it should therefore be given up as an analysis of final value. (shrink)

In this paper I argue against the stronger of the two views concerning the right and wrong kind of reasons for belief, i.e. the view that the only genuine normative reasons for belief are evidential. The project in this paper is primarily negative, but with an ultimately positive aim. That aim is to leave room for the possibility that there are genuine pragmatic reasons for belief. Work is required to make room for this view, because evidentialism of a strict variety (...) remains the default view in much of the debate concerning normative reasons for belief. Strict versions of evidentialism are inconsistent with the view that there are genuine pragmatic reasons for belief. (shrink)

This entry discusses the notion of a unit of normativity. This notion may be understood in two distinct ways. One way to understand a unit of normativity is as some particular type of assignment of normative status, e.g., a requirement, an ought, a reason, or a permission. A second way to understand a unit of normativity is as a measure of a quantity of normativity, perhaps associated with the numerical assignment given to the strength of reasons. This entry outlines some (...) basic differences among units of normativity in the first sense, noting that they vary slightly depending on whether one is talking about normativity in a more general or more robust sense. This entry also discusses in more detail the question of whether there might be a unit of normativity in the second sense. It discusses the relevant metaphysical questions. It also provides an explanation of why reasons can be assigned numerical strengths, even if there are no units of normativity in the sense of measurements of quantities of normativity. (shrink)

This chapter sets out a theory of how to weigh alethic and pragmatic (non-alethic) reasons for belief, or more precisely, to say how alethic and non-alethic considerations jointly determine what one ought to believe. It replaces my earlier (2008) weighing account. It is part of _The true and the good: a new theory of theoretical reason_, which develops a view, welfarist pluralism, which comprises central two theses. One is that there are both irreducibly alethic or epistemic reasons for belief and (...) irreducibly pragmatic (and non-alethic) reasons for belief. The other is that despite this, the source of all normativity is pragmatic in a particular way, i.e. that all reasons are reasons in virtue of their being conducive to wellbeing. The pluralist theory of reasons emerges from the irreducibly plural nature of the components of wellbeing, on of which is being in a positively-valenced epistemic state. This view also offers some insight into outstanding problems concerning the scope, chronicity, and normativity of the requirements of theoretical rationality as well. (Updated 10 May 2022). (shrink)

People’s concept of free will is often assumed to be incompatible with the deterministic, scientific model of the universe. Indeed, many scholars treat the folk concept of free will as assuming a special form of nondeterministic causation, possibly the notion of uncaused causes. However, little work to date has directly probed individuals’ beliefs about what it means to have free will. The present studies sought to reconstruct this folk concept of free will by asking people to define the concept (Study (...) 1) and by confronting them with a neuroscientific claim that free will is an illusion (Study 2), which invited them to either reconcile or contrast free will with determinism. The results suggest that the core of people’s concept of free will is a choice that fulfills one’s desires and is free from internal or external constraints. No evidence was found for metaphysical assumptions about dualism or indeterminism. (shrink)

According to previous research, threatening people’s belief in free will may undermine moral judgments and behavior. Four studies tested this claim. Study 1 used a Velten technique to threaten people’s belief in free will and found no effects on moral behavior, judgments of blame, and punishment decisions. Study 2 used six different threats to free will and failed to find effects on judgments of blame and wrongness. Study 3 found no effects on moral judgment when manipulating general free will beliefs (...) but found strong effects when manipulating the perceived choice capacity of the judged agent. Study 4 used pretested narratives that varied agents’ apparent free will and found that perceived choice capacity mediated the relationship between free will and blame. These results suggest that people’s general beliefs about whether free will exists have no impact on moral judgments but specific judgments about the agent’s choice capacity do. (shrink)

Source [1] Andrew E. P. Mitchell, Federica Galli, Sondra Butterworth. (2023). Editorial: Equality, diversity and inclusive research for diverse rare disease communities. Front. Psychol., vol. 14. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1285774. "It is also important to recognize that certain mental health disorders are classified as rare conditions and have their own cultural concepts of distress, as defined in the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013)" and require “equal attention and support for individuals and their families, both physically and emotionally”. [1].

Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin have emerged as figures of great importance in the current debates about modernity. The central and privileged place of the philosophical problem of modernity has been threatened by the possibility advanced by Jean-François Lyotard that modernity as a project is over and the new concern is the postmodern. The work of Adorno and Benjamin is the background against which the problems of modernity and postmodernity are addressed in this volume. This collection brings together some of (...) the most innovative academics working in the area of European radical philosophy. Issues covered range from art, literature and music to feminism and Judaism. (shrink)

Hershberger is the winner of a 2015 Insight Award from theSociety for Photographic Education for his work on this book andfor his overall contributions to the field! Photographic Theory: An Historical Anthology presents acompendium of readings spanning ancient times to the digital agethat are related to the history, nature, and current status ofdebates in photographic theory. Offers an authoritative and academically up-to-date compendiumof the history of photographic theory Represents the only collection to include ancient, Renaissance,and 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century writings (...) related to thesubject Stresses the drama of historical and contemporary debateswithin theoretical circles Features comprehensive coverage of recent trends in digitalphotography Fills a much-needed gap in the existing literature. (shrink)

"Mindfulness is suggested to be made up of four attributes: (1) the ability to regulate attention, (2) an orientation to present or immediate experience, (3) awareness of experience, and (4) an attitude of acceptance or nonjudgment towards experience." [Mitchell, 2021] p1475 based on the assessment scale 'Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale‐Revised (CAMS-R)' [Feldman, et al 2006].

Misleading information pervades marketing communications, and is a long-standing issue in business ethics. Regulators place a heavy burden on consumers to detect misleading information, and a number of studies have shown training can improve their ability to do so. However, the possible side effects have largely gone unexamined. We provide evidence for one such side-effect, whereby training consumers to detect a specific tactic (illegitimate endorsers), leaves them more vulnerable to a second tactic included in the same ad (a restrictive qualifying (...) footnote), relative to untrained controls. We update standard notions of persuasion knowledge using a goal systems approach that allows for multiple vigilance goals to explain such side-effects in terms of goal shielding, which is a generally adaptive process by which activation and/or fulfillment of a low-level goal inhibits alternative detection goals. Furthermore, the same goal systems logic is used to develop a more general form of training that activates a higher-level goal (general skepticism). This more general training improved detection of a broader set of tactics without the negative goal shielding side effect. (shrink)

This collection explores, in Adorno's description, `philosophy directed against philosophy'. The essays cover all aspects of Benjamin's writings, from his early work in the philosophy of art and language, through to the concept of history. The experience of time and the destruction of false continuity are identified as the key themes in Benjamin's understanding of history.

Walter Benjamin's Politics of 'bad tasteMichael Mac Modernity as an unfinished Project: Benjamin and Political RomanticismRobert Sinnerbrink Violence, ...

Architectural Philosophy is the first book to outline a philosophical account of architecture and to establish the singularity of architectural practice and ...

Internalism about mental content holds that microphysical duplicates must be mental duplicates full-stop. Anyone particle-for-particle indiscernible from someone who believes that Aristotle was wise, for instance, must share that same belief. Externalism instead contends that many perfectly ordinary propositional attitudes can be had only in certain sorts of physical, sociolinguistic, or historical context. To have a belief about Aristotle, for instance, a person must have been causally impacted in the right way by Aristotle himself (e.g., by hearing about him, or (...) reading some of his works).An interesting third view, which I call. (shrink)

We suggest that there is confusion between why consciousness developed and what additional functions, through continued evolution, it has co-opted. Consider episodic memory. If we believe that episodic memory evolved solely to accurately represent past events, it seems like a terrible system—prone to forgetting and false memories. However, if we believe that episodic memory developed to flexibly and creatively combine and rearrange memories of prior events in order to plan for the future, then it is quite a good system. We (...) argue that consciousness originally developed as part of the episodic memory system—quite likely the part needed to accomplish that flexible recombining of information. We posit further that consciousness was subsequently co-opted to produce other functions that are not directly relevant to memory per se, such as problem-solving, abstract thinking, and language. We suggest that this theory is compatible with many phenomena, such as the slow speed and the after-the-fact order of consciousness, that cannot be explained well by other theories. We believe that our theory may have profound implications for understanding intentional action and consciousness in general. Moreover, we suggest that episodic memory and its associated memory systems of sensory, working, and semantic memory as a whole ought to be considered together as the conscious memory system in that they, together, give rise to the phenomenon of consciousness. Lastly, we suggest that the cerebral cortex is the part of the brain that makes consciousness possible, and that every cortical region contributes to this conscious memory system. (shrink)

"A new framework has been established across the United Kingdom with four key priorities. These priorities include helping patients receive a final diagnosis quickly, increasing rare disease awareness among healthcare professionals, better coordination of care, and improving access to specialist care, treatments, and drugs (DHSC, 2021).".

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate perceived stressors and coping behaviours in student nurses on a pre-registration programme of study. Stress in student nurses has been identified with decreased emotional well-being and poor academic achievement. The significance of stress and coping behaviours in students during training has implications for education and practice. Design/methodology/approach The present study recruited 87 pre-registration student nurses in a cross-sectional design. Bivariate and multivariate analyses assessed the differences in field and year of study (...) and the students’ perceived stress and coping behaviours. Findings The findings showed that stress is a significant issue in nurse training. Fifty-three per cent of the participants had levels higher than the mean. Interestingly, the present study found that high-perceived stress was associated with avoidance behaviours. The most common type of perceived stress and ranked by highest factor were from written assignments and a lack of professional skills and knowledge. Their peer group and everyday life activities were shown as potential ways of coping with stressors. Thus, it seems reasonable to focus support on decreasing avoidant and enhancing stress-reducing behaviours. Practical implications Psychological stress and coping behaviours must be considered together, as perceived stress is bound by the ability to ameliorate stress by managing helpful and unhelpful behaviours. Originality/value The findings may suggest that a potential benefit could come from the provision of helpful strategies such as peer group support and reduction of avoidant behaviours. Also, there seems to be a need for greater mental health literacy in dealing with stress during training. (shrink)

"Resilience in the academic setting has been named as academic resilience and been defined as an increased probability of academic success despite stressful events and conditions" [Mitchell, 2021] p1474 based on the Academic Resilience Scale (ARS‐30) [Cassidy, 2016].

Recent philosophy of psychology has seen the rise of so-called "dual-component" and "two-dimensional" theories of mental content as what I call a "Middle Way" between internalism (the view that contents of states like belief are "narrow") and externalism (the view that by and large, such contents are "wide"). On these Middle Way views, mental states are supposed to have two kinds of content: the "folk-psychological" kind, which we ordinarily talk about and which is wide; and some non-folk-psychological kind which is (...) narrow. Jerry Fodor is responsible for one of the most influential arguments that we need to believe in some such non-folk-psychological kind of content. In this paper I argue that the ideas behind Fodor's premises are mutually inconsistent - so it would be irrational to believe in a Middle Way theory of mental content no matter how many of Fodor's premises you find plausible. Common opinion notwithstanding, we have to choose between internalism and externalism, full-stop. (shrink)

Offers a sustained meditation on the role of interruption in modernity. This book departs from and elaborates an important but overlooked dimension of Walter Benjamin's discourse: the question of style as it bears upon temporality and spatiality. This work suggests that the time has come to revise existing paradigms.

First published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

We argue that the wild release of genetically modified organisms can be justified as a way of preserving species and ecosystems. We look at the case of a genetically modified American chestnut that is currently undergoing regulatory review. Because American chestnuts are functionally extinct, a genetically modified replacement has significant conservation value. In addition, many of the arguments used against GMOs, especially GMO crops, do not hold for American chestnut trees. Finally, we show how GMOs such as the American chestnut (...) support a reorientation of conservation values away from restoration as it has historically been interpreted, and toward an alternative framework known as rewilding. (shrink)

Let us say that any (Turing) degree d > 0 satisfies the minimal complementation property (MCP) if for every degree 0 < a < d there exists a minimal degree b < d such that a ∨ b = d (and therefore a ∧ b = 0). We show that every degree d ≥ 0′ satisfies MCP. (© 2005 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim).

It is important to note that certain mental health disorders are classified as rare conditions, and they have their own ‘cultural concepts of distress’ as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM 5). Cultural concepts of distress are a recent attempt to understand psychological distress influenced by culture, separate from biomedical diagnoses that require equal attention and support for individuals and their families, both physically and emotionally. [1].

The volume shows how both the distinction and connection between literature and poetry is staged within Heidegger's thought. It offers Heidegger's perspective on a range of key themes, topics, poets, and writers, including Friedrich Hölderlin, Thomas Mann, Paul Celan, Euripides and Sophocles.

We say that A≤LRB if every B-random set is A-random with respect to Martin–Löf randomness. We study this relation and its interactions with Turing reducibility, classes, hyperimmunity and other recursion theoretic notions.

The work of Jean-Francois Lyotard signals the return of judgement to the centre of philosophical concerns. This collection of papers is the first devoted to his work and provides an estimation and critique of his writings, and included Lyotard's important essay on _Sensus Communis_.

Reviews the book 'William James and the Metaphysics of Experience,' by David C. Lamberth.

This book provides a highly original approach to the writings of the twentieth-century German philosopher Walter Benjamin by one of his most distinguished readers. It develops the idea of "working with" Benjamin, seeking both to read his corpus and to put it to work - to show how a reading ofBenjamin can open up issues that may not themselves be immediately at stake in his texts.The defining elements in Benjamin's writings that Andrew Benjamin isolates - history, experience, translation, technical (...) reproducibility and politics - are put to work; that is, their utility is established in engaging the works of others. The question is how utility is understood. As AndrewBenjamin argues, utility involves demonstrating the different ways in which Benjamin is a central thinker within the project of understanding the nature of modernity. This is best achieved by noting connections and points of differentiation between his work and the writings of Adorno and Heidegger.However, the more demanding project is that "working with" Benjamin necessitates deploying the implicit assumptions within his writings as well as demanding of his formulations more than is provided by their initial presentation. What is at stake is not the application of Benjamin's thought. Ratherwhat counts is its use.Working with Benjamin engages with the themes central to Benjamin's work with deftness, daring and critical insight while at the same time situating those themes within current academic and cultural debates. (shrink)

In a time when we as a society are in the process of deciding what our basic rights to health care are, it is critically important for us to have a full and complete understanding of what constitutes health. We argue for an analysis of health according to which certain states are healthy not in themselves but because they allow an individual to reach actual goals. Recognizing that the goals of an individual considered from the point of view of biology (...) and the goals of the same individual considered as an agent in the world might be different, we introduce a distinction between the health of an individual qua organism and the health of an individual qua person. We then argue that this distinction characterizes the evaluations made by patients and healthcare providers better than the widely discussed distinction between disease and illness. (shrink)

The strong weak truth table (sw) reducibility was suggested by Downey, Hirschfeldt, and LaForte as a measure of relative randomness, alternative to the Solovay reducibility. It also occurs naturally in proofs in classical computability theory as well as in the recent work of Soare, Nabutovsky, and Weinberger on applications of computability to differential geometry. We study the sw-degrees of c.e. reals and construct a c.e. real which has no random c.e. real (i.e., Ω number) sw-above it.

We show that in the c.e. weak truth table degrees if b < c then there is an a which contains no hypersimple set and b < a < c. We also show that for every w < c in the c.e. wtt degrees such that w is hypersimple, there is a hypersimple a such that w < a < c. On the other hand, we know that there are intervals which contain no hypersimple set.

We prove a number of results in effective randomness, using methods in which Π⁰₁ classes play an essential role. The results proved include the fact that every PA Turing degree is the join of two random Turing degrees, and the existence of a minimal pair of LR degrees below the LR degree of the halting problem.