concepts are defined as concepts that cannot be experienced directly through the sensorimotor modalities. Explaining our understanding of such concepts poses a challenge to neurocognitive models of knowledge. One account of how these concepts come to be represented is that sensorimotor representations of grounded experiences are reactivated in a way that is constitutive of the abstract concept. In the present experiment, we investigated how sensorimotor information might constitute GOD-related concepts, and whether a person’s self-reported religiosity modulated this grounding. To do (...) so, we manipulated both the state of the body and the state of stimuli in two tasks that required conceptual categorization of abstract words. Linear Mixed Effects model fitting procedures were used to determine which manipulated factors best predicted response latency and accuracy in both tasks. We successfully replicated previous research demonstrating faster categorization of GOD-related words when they were presented at the top of the screen. Importantly, results demonstrated that the kneeling posture manipulation enhanced this effect, as did religiosity, as participants who scored higher in religiosity showed a greater effect of the posture manipulation on the speed with which word categorization occurred when those words were presented in the higher visuospatial presentation condition. Overall, we interpreted our findings to suggest that directly manipulating sensorimotor information can facilitate the categorization of abstract concepts, supporting the notion that this information in part constitutes the representation of abstract concepts. (shrink)

In three experiments, subjects attempted to track multiple items as they moved independently and unpredictably about a display. Performance was not impaired when the items were briefly (but completely) occluded at various times during their motion, suggesting that occlusion is taken into account when computing enduring perceptual objecthood. Unimpaired performance required the presence of accretion and deletion cues along fixed contours at the occluding boundaries. Performance was impaired when items were present on the visual field at the same times and (...) to the same degrees as in the occlusion conditions, but disappeared and reappeared in ways which did not implicate the presence of occluding surfaces (e.g. by imploding and exploding into and out of existence, instead of accreting and deleting along a fixed contour). Unimpaired performance did not require visible occluders (i.e. Michotte’s tunnel effect) or globally consistent occluder positions. We discuss implications of these results for theories of objecthood in visual attention. (shrink)

Development and targeting efforts by academic organizations to effectively promote research integrity can be enhanced if they are able to collect reliable data to benchmark baseline conditions, to assess areas needing improvement, and to subsequently assess the impact of specific initiatives. To date, no standardized and validated tool has existed to serve this need. A web- and mail-based survey was administered in the second half of 2009 to 2,837 randomly selected biomedical and social science faculty and postdoctoral fellows at 40 (...) academic health centers in top-tier research universities in the United States. Measures included the Survey of Organizational Research Climate (SORC) as well as measures of perceptions of organizational justice. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses yielded seven subscales of organizational research climate, all of which demonstrated acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach’s α ranging from 0.81 to 0.87) and adequate test–retest reliability (Pearson r ranging from 0.72 to 0.83). A broad range of correlations between the seven subscales and five measures of organizational justice (unadjusted regression coefficients ranging from 0.13 to 0.95) document both construct and discriminant validity of the instrument. The SORC demonstrates good internal (alpha) and external reliability (test–retest) as well as both construct and discriminant validity. (shrink)

After first noting that I seek to broaden the definition of science fiction to a little more loosely defined speculative fiction, this essay explores four different ways in which fiction can work together with both the sciences and the philosophy of perception. This cooperation is needed because there is much about the sensory worlds of humans and non-human animals of which we continue to be ignorant. First, speculative fiction can be a source of hypotheses about the nature of the senses. (...) Second, it can help us understand the inner worlds of beings different from us. Third, speculative fiction often pushes us to investigate the ethical and social dimensions of sensory difference. Finally, speculative fiction can play an important role in reconciling our scientific understanding of the senses with a more commonsense understanding of same. (shrink)

Originally published 1967, this title reveals how the missionaries, so often misguided and short-sighted, were in fact pioneers of modernization, science and freedom. The structure of the book allows for comparative analysis and the volume illustrates how some of the social consequences of action through the schools could be foreseen. In addition light is thrown on the results of Imperial rule during the nineteenth century and on the nature of the impact of Western education in Asia and Africa.

The charge that anthropomorphizing nonhuman animals is a fallacy is itself largely misguided and mythic. Anthropomorphism in the study of animal behavior is placed in its original, theological context. Having set the historical stage, I then discuss its relationship to a number of other, related issues: the role of anecdotal evidence, the taxonomy of related anthropomorphic claims, its relationship to the attribution of psychological states in general, and the nature of the charge of anthropomorphism as a categorical claim. I then (...) argue that the categorical reading of anthropomorphism cannot work and that it misrepresents what is being claimed when one claims that traits are shared between humans and nonhumans. We should think of such claims not as anthropomorphic per se– because that implies the trait is intrinsically human and only derivatively nonhuman. Instead, traits shared with mammals are mammalomorphic, for example, or primatomorphic when shared by primates. (shrink)

Emerging technologies are, by definition, full of surprises: developments that we cannot fully anticipate and that might have some bad outcomes as well as good ones. This presents a challenge for anyone trying to make forward‐looking policy decisions, including those who apply benefit‐cost analysis. BCA is now widely known and used, but it is also widely misunderstood—by many of its advocates as well as its detractors. In this essay, I will begin by examining some of the strengths and weaknesses of (...) BCA as a normative science. Yes, “normative science” is an oxymoron, and the incongruity it speaks to is a source of much of the controversy; BCA is an imperfect answer, but often the best available answer, to the question of how a society should go about making collective but not unanimous choices.I also want to take a hard look at the question of what we are evaluating. BCA is designed to weigh government actions, to see whether they are in the public interest; it is not designed to evaluate private actions. But if the government action is to approve a private action that otherwise would be prohibited, then the BCA inevitably must evaluate the latter. From the perspective of a government regulator, it is very tempting to shift the burden of proof onto private innovators—to obligate them to seek permission to proceed, and to demonstrate that their proposed actions have acceptable risks and will produce a net social benefit. But such burden‐shifting is not merely an administrative convenience; it has serious economic consequences that need to be examined. (shrink)

The career of John Jackson , Arian theologian and controversialist, provides a key to unlocking the early reception and quick collapse of a Newtonian natural apologetic originally developed by Samuel Clarke. The importance of friendship and discipleship in eighteenth-century intellectual enquiry is emphasised, and the links between Newton and his followers are traced alongside those of a group of Cambridge Lockeans, led by Jackson’s direct contemporary Daniel Waterland, who proved instrumental in the initial dismantling of Clarke’s brand of Newtonian apologetic. (...) The controversial context of this engagement is shown to have been largely provided by the religiously compromising rise of freethinking, and Tindal’s Christianity as old as the creation signalled the dangers to proponents of natural religion as an adjunct of Christian apologetic in such a heated atmosphere. Religious division of the sort that resulted paradoxically played into the hands of the freethinkers in the anticlerical atmosphere of the 1730s, and accusations were exchanged between Newtonians and Lockeans accordingly. The dynamic of England’s Enlightenment experience is, then, a complicated one, and, as the career and writings of Jackson and William Whiston demonstrate, it was one which absorbed as well as repudiated ‘enthusiasm’.Author Keywords: Newtonianism; Enlightenment; Enthusiasm; Natural religion; Arianism; John Jackson. (shrink)

This article examines the mobilization of resources for the Human Genome Mapping Project in the United Kingdom. The Project was established through an award of additional funds to the Medical Research Council at a time of financial stringency within publicly funded science, accompanied by relatively little of the debate that had surrounded the U.S. initiative. It is argued, following Fujimura and Star’s terminology, that the project was “packaged” and repackaged by its proponents so that it aligned the, otherwise disparate, agendas (...) of several “social worlds.” Furthermore, by bringing together certain social worlds and not others, some issues were also excluded from discussion. In this instance, the social and ethical issues surrounding genetic mapping were accorded a much lower profile than in other national programs. (shrink)

This contribution is part of the special series of Inaugural Articles by members of the National Academy of Sciences elected on April 27, 1999.

In “A Public Health Ethics Framework for Populations with Limited English Proficiency,” Chipman and colleagues present a valuable framework for addressing health disparities linked to limited Engli...

In a recent article, Adam Elga outlines a strategy for “Defeating Dr Evil with Self-Locating Belief”. The strategy relies on an indifference principle that is not up to the task. In general, there are two things to dislike about indifference principles: adopting one normally means confusing risk for uncertainty, and they tend to lead to incoherent views in some ‘paradoxical’ situations. I argue that both kinds of objection can be levelled against Elga’s indifference principle. There are also some difficulties with (...) the concept of evidence that Elga uses, and these create further difficulties for the principle. (shrink)

This is an attempt to rehabilitate W. K. Clifford’s long-rejected position that “it is [morally] wrong, always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything on insufficient evidence.” I supplement Clifford’s own argument with two others. They are all valid. I argue for the truth of their premises. The premises in the arguments I use to supplement Clifford’s own are that we cannot believe purely at will; that we must choose among Cliffordianism, some other rule, and doxastic amoralism; that all other (...) rules are self-subverting in that they can be used effectively at most once; and that a policy of doxastic amoralism has worse results overall than adherence to Cliffordianism. The upshot is that Cliffordianism is an irreducible analogue of rule utilitarianism. I look at some objections to Cliffordianism. I argue that none has merit. I point out that Cliffordianism provides something of a justification for legal freedom of conscience. (shrink)

"A CEVAM book." Bibliography: p. 259-265. Includes index.

This paper attempts to forge a dialogue between Machiavelli and Andrew Feenburg's Critical Theory of Technology. It makes some interesting points along the way, but I've re-thought a lot of what I say in here, and am not sure if I would still endorse it all.

A substantial part of Marion’s project in Being Given turns on a “triple epoché” wherein Marion brackets each part of the tripartite structure of the gift – the giver, the recipient and the given itself – to show that none of them is essential for thinking about the gift. In three separate variations, each element of the gift is bracketed individually, and in each of these instances the other two elements are specifically not bracketed. Indeed, Marion admits that the reduction (...) he proposes “demands, de jure, that one of the two [recipient or giver] remain in position of the transcendental I.” In this paper, I will argue that the rule is misleading and should be reformulated to indicate that a recipient is always required. I conclude with some suggestions for future work. (shrink)

This book explores Ngugi wa Thiong'o's epistemic journey from a communalist, communist, nationalist, post-colonial theorist, and ultimately an established decolonial spokesperson of the Global South. This book offers a fresh perspective for scholars and readers interested in decolonial theory and African philosophy.

In earlier work I argued that using ‘vague probabilities’ did not ground any argument for significantly adjusting Bayesian decision theory. In this note I show that my earlier arguments don’t carry across smoothly to game theory. Allowing agents to have vague probabilities over possible outcomes dramatically increases the range of possible Nash equilibria in certain games, and hence arguably (but only arguably) increases the range of possible rational action.