The present research was designed to test whether the subjective experience of more effort related to more reward valuation as measured by a neural response. This prediction was derived from the theory of cognitive dissonance and its effort justification paradigm. Young adult participants (n = 82) engaged in multiple trails of a low or high effort task that resulted in a loss or reward on each trial. Neural responses to the reward (loss) cue were measured using EEG, so that the (...) event-related potential known as the Reward Positivity (RewP) could be assessed. Results revealed no significant differences between low and high effort conditions on the RewP. However, within the high effort condition, a more subjective experience of effort was associated with a larger RewP. This research extends past research on the effort justification paradigm of cognitive dissonance theory by suggesting that effort justification is associated with an implicit measure of reward valuation. It therefore challenges recent perspectives on dissonance processes that posit that these evaluative changes should only occur on explicit but not implicit measures. (shrink)

Introduzione Il modello della mente estesa (mme) afferma che esistono processi cognitivi distribuiti nell’ambiente e veicolati da strumenti esterni di elaborazione dell’informazione. In questo scritto metto in rilievo una serie di difficoltà che affliggono mme in relazione alla nozione di soggetto degli stati mentali — ovvero alla questione di chi sia il titolare degli stati e dei processi cognitivi che si estenderebbero nell’ambiente. La tesi che viene sostenuta è che, sebbene sia possibile...

Nel 1726 lo scozzese Walter Bowman intrattenne una corrispondenza con Samuel Clarke su «the power of self-motion», un argomento che Clarke aveva trattato nella sua Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God. Le due lettere inedite di Clarke, qui presentate, sono parte di quella vasta corrispondenza che il teologo ebbe con filosofi e uomini di lettere dopo la pubblicazione della Demonstration. In questo saggio si ricostruiscono gli argomenti di Clarke, in primo luogo quelli relativi alla dimostrazione dell’esistenza di (...) Dio, evidenziando le influenze di Cartesio, Locke e Newton. I commenti di Bowman, raccolti insieme alle lettere nella sua opera Fugitive Manuscripts, ci aiutano a vedere come Clarke elabori una teoria meccanicistica dell’azione e, come emerge dalle lettere, debba successivamente precisarla ricorrendo a due principi: «Pain is to be avoided and Novelties are to be attended with a sort of curiosity». (shrink)

Il concetto di legittimità è al tempo stesso definito e indefinito, chiaro e sfuggente. Da un lato, esso evoca immediatamente e spontaneamente un sentimento di approvazione, perché chiaramente collegato nel linguaggio comune a un giudizio valutativo positivo. Dall’altro lato, se analizzato da vicino, il suo contenuto appare sfuggente, polisemico, controverso. Questo ne fa una categoria potente dal punto di vista politico ed estremamente affascinante da un punto di vista scientifico. Nelle pagine seguenti verranno analizzate le teorie di tre autori che (...) si sono confrontati con questo concetto indagando uno degli ambiti in cui la dicotomia sopra presentata è più evidente: quello internazionale. Si tratta della teoria di Ian Clark sulla legittimità nella società internazionale, della prospettiva interciviltà sul diritto internazionale proposta da Onuma Yasuaki e della riflessione di Antony Anghie sullo sviluppo dei principi fondamentali del diritto internazionale e il loro rapporto con il colonialismo. Come vedremo, si tratta di indagini tra loro fortemente eterogenee, e che non sempre fanno del concetto di legittimità internazionale l’oggetto principale o esplicito delle proprie ricerche. Nel confronto tra queste teorie che proporrò nelle mie pagine, il concetto di legittimità internazionale mostrerà tutta la sua complessità e tutto il suo ambiguo rapporto con elementi valutativi. (shrink)

A Photcopy of Thinking Things Through, Princeton Univeresity Press, 1980.

We show that a popular class of connectionist models (which we label 'first order connectionism') looks unlikely to provide the kind of resources required by the hypothesis. We examine some alternative hybrid models that seem more promising. Finally, we raise a more purely philosophical issue concerning the conditions under which a being can count as a genuine believer or cognizer.".

Theorizing Black Feminisms outlines some of the crucial debates going on among Black feminists today. In doing so it brings together a collection of some of the most exciting work by Black women scholars. The book encompasses a wide range of diverse subjects and refuses to be limited by notions of disciplinary boundaries or divisions between theory and practice. Theorizing Black Feminisms combines essays on literature, sociology, history, political science, anthropology, and art. As such it will be vital reading for (...) anyone--activist, student, artist or scholar--interested in exploring the multidisciplinary possibilities for Black feminism. Most importantly, each essay in the volume begins with the assumption that Black women are not simply victims of various oppressions. Rather, they are visionary and pragmatic agents of change. Contributors: Evelyn Barbee, University of Wisconsin; Rose Brewer, University of Minnesota; Cheryl Clarke, Rutgers University; Johnnetta Cole, Spelman College; Cindy Courville, Occidental College; Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Spelman College; Marilyn Little, University of Wisconsin; Nellie McKay, University of Wisconsin; O'molara Ogundipe, Rutgers University; Christine Obbo, Wayne State University; Loretta Ross, Center for Democratic Renewal, Atlanta. (shrink)

Catharine Trotter Cockburn (1679- 1749) fu poetessa, drammaturga e filosofa. La vivacità intellettuale e la forte determinazione le permisero di aggirare il pregiudizio di genere e di sottrarsi alle dinamiche di marginalizzazione femminile tipiche dell’età moderna. Pur celandosi dietro l’anonimato, Cockburn prese parte attiva al dibattito filosofico del tempo, intervenendo soprattutto in materia di morale. Le sue opere filosofiche, scritte in difesa di Locke o di Clarke, custodiscono, nonostante il dichiarato intento apologetico, tratti di originalità e indipendenza, particolarmente evidenti (...) nella teoria dell’obbligo morale, nell’interpretazione modale della dottrina lockeana d’identità personale, nell’ipotesi di una natura ontologica dello spazio. (shrink)

Clark Glymour, Richard Scheines, Peter Spirtes and Kevin Kelly. Discovering Causal Structure: Artifical Intelligence, Philosophy of Science and Statistical Modeling.

Charles Clark; Why Teachers Need Philosophy, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 23, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 241–252, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-.

In June 2001, the American Medical Association (AMA) issued a revised and expanded version of the Principles of Medical Ethics (last published in 1980). In light of the new and more comprehensive document, the present essay is geared to consideration of a longstanding tension between physician's autonomy rights and societal obligations in the AMA Code. In particular, it will be argued that a duty to treat overrides AMA autonomy rights in social emergencies, even in cases that involve personal risk to (...) physicians (e.g., bioterrorist attack, HIV infection, SARS). The argument will be made by way of the logic and language of the AMA Code through its history, commentaries, and precedents. It also will be shown that there are substantial reasons to believe that the logic of the Code is sound in morally relevant ways. The essay will conclude with some philosophical proposals suggesting a framework for the duty to render aid and the extension of those duties to physicians facing personal risks. (shrink)

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of J STOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. J STOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non—commercial use.

We applied TETRAD II, a causal discovery program developed in Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Philosophy, to a database containing information on 204 U.S. colleges, collected by the US News and World Report magazine for the purpose of college ranking. Our analysis focuses on possible causes of low freshmen retention in U.S. colleges. TETRAD II finds a set of causal structures that are compatible with the data.

Human Rights Ethics makes an important contribution to contemporary philosophical and political debates concerning the advancement of global justice and human rights. Butler's book also lays claim to a significant place in both normative ethics and human rights studies in as much as it seeks to vindicate a universalistic, rational approach to human rights ethics. Butler's innovative approach is not based on murky claims to "natural rights" that supposedly hold wherever human beings exist; nor does it succumb to the traditional (...) problems of justification associated with utilitarianism, Kantianism, and other procedural approaches to human rights studies. Instead, Butler proposes "a dialectical justification of human rights by indirect proof" that claims not to be question begging. Very much in the spirit of Hegel and Habermas, Butler proposes to vindicate a "totally rational account of human rights," but one that depends concretely and historically on a dialectically constructed "right to freedom of thought in its universal modes.". (shrink)

Elämme historian vaihetta, jossa uuden poliittisen visioinnin tarve on tulossa polttavan kiireelliseksi. Tyytymättömyys perinteisiä poliittisia vaihtoehtoja kohtaan ja uskon puute muodollista demokratiaa kohtaan kasvavat teollistuneissa länsimaissa. Tyytymättömyys on toistaiseksi näkynyt ennen kaikkea epäpolitisoitumisena, johon on sisältynyt dramaattinen luottamuksen menetys suhteessa poliittisiin puolueisiin sekä laajamittaista äänestämättä jättämistä. Idässä marxilaista oikeaoppisuutta haastaa toisinajattelun liikehdintä, joka ilmenee usein hiljaisena uskollisuuden ja yhteistyön hylkäämisenä, toisinaan taas dramaattisina aika ajoin toistuvina kapinoina. Lisäksi niin idässä kuin lännessäkin on kulttuurista vastarintaa, joka heikosti – mutta kenties profeetallisesti (...) – osoittaa tarpeen uudelle, erilaisia ääniä yhdistävälle visiolle. (shrink)

A fictional consideration of the hazards life might hold if certain theories of mind were true. Originally given as an after dinner talk at the University of North Carolina Conference.

For years, experimental philosophers have attempted to discern whether laypeople find free will compatible with a scientifically deterministic understanding of the universe, yet no consensus has emerged. The present work provides one potential explanation for these discrepant findings: People are strongly motivated to preserve free will and moral responsibility, and thus do not have stable, logically rigorous notions of free will. Seven studies support this hypothesis by demonstrating that a variety of logically irrelevant (but motivationally relevant) features influence compatibilist judgments. (...) In Study 1, participants who were asked to consider the possibility that our universe is deterministic were more compatibilist than those not asked to consider this possibility, suggesting that determinism poses a threat to moral responsibility, which increases compatibilist responding (thus reducing the threat). In Study 2, participants who considered concrete instances of moral behavior found compatibilist free will more sufficient for moral responsibility than participants who were asked about moral responsibility more generally. In Study 3a, the order in which participants read free will and determinism descriptions influenced their compatibilist judgments—and only when the descriptions had moral significance: Participants were more likely to report that determinism was compatible with free will than that free will was compatible with determinism. In Study 3b, participants who read the free will description first (the more compatibilist group) were particularly likely to confess that their beliefs in free will and moral responsibility and their disbelief in determinism influenced their conclusion. In Study 4, participants reduced their compatibilist beliefs after reading a passage that argued that moral responsibility could be preserved even in the absence of free will. Participants also reported that immaterial souls were compatible with scientific determinism, most strongly among immaterial soul believers (Study 5), and evaluated information about the capacities of primates in a biased manner favoring the existence of human free will (Study 6). These results suggest that people do not have one intuition about whether free will is compatible with determinism. Instead, people report that free will is compatible with determinism when desiring to uphold moral responsibility. Recommendations for future work are discussed. (shrink)

The selected texts for this discussion were two recent pieces by Dennett (.

Argues i) that part of what it is to understand what is being asked, when we ask whether something is good, is being able to distinguish stopping points in a series of "Why?" questions, and ii) that this ability explains how we can reason from observable facts to conclusions about value.

Immortality is a subject which has long been explored and imagined by science fiction writers. In his intriguing new study, Stephen R.L.Clark argues that the genre of science fiction writing allows investigation of philosophical questions about immortality without the constraints of academic philosophy. He reveals how fantasy accounts of issues such as resurrection, disembodied survival, reincarnation and devices or drugs for preserving life can be used as an important resource for philosophical inquiry and examines how a society of immortals (...) might function through a reading of the vampire myth. _How to Live Forever_ is a compelling study which introduces students and professional philosophers to the possibilities of using science fiction in their work. It includes extensive suggestions for further reading, both fictional and philosophical, and examines the work of such major science fiction authors as _Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert, Larry Niven, William Gibson_, and _Colin Wilson_. (shrink)

We argue that current discussions of criteria for actual causation are ill-posed in several respects. (1) The methodology of current discussions is by induction from intuitions about an infinitesimal fraction of the possible examples and counterexamples; (2) cases with larger numbers of causes generate novel puzzles; (3) “neuron” and causal Bayes net diagrams are, as deployed in discussions of actual causation, almost always ambiguous; (4) actual causation is (intuitively) relative to an initial system state since state changes are relevant, but (...) most current accounts ignore state changes through time; (5) more generally, there is no reason to think that philosophical judgements about these sorts of cases are normative; but (6) there is a dearth of relevant psychological research that bears on whether various philosophical accounts are descriptive. Our skepticism is not directed towards the possibility of a correct account of actual causation; rather, we argue that standard methods will not lead to such an account. A different approach is required. Once upon a time a hungry wanderer came into a village. He filled an iron cauldron with water, built a fire under it, and dropped a stone into the water. “I do like a tasty stone soup” he announced. Soon a villager added a cabbage to the pot, another added some salt and others added potatoes, onions, carrots, mushrooms, and so on, until there was a meal for all. (shrink)

Ranging across both standard philosophical territory and the landscape of cutting-edge cognitive science, Mindware: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Cognitive Science, Second Edition, is a vivid and engaging introduction to key issues, research, and opportunities in the field.

Clark, Robert Victorian Attorney-General the Hon Robert Clark was guest speaker at the 2012 Annual General Meeting of the Caroline Chisholm Centre for Health Ethics. In this extract from his speech, he discusses the relationship between the law and ethics, and the reform of Victoria's laws on guardianship and powers of attorney. While some ethical obligations should not be made into legal duties, he argues that every legal duty is founded upon a moral obligation. The reform of Victoria's (...) laws on guardianship and powers of attorney seeks to make it easier for individuals and their families to provide for their current and future needs, while strengthening the last resort roles of the Office of the Public Advocate and the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to protect vulnerable people from neglect, abuse and exploitation. (shrink)

1. Clark’s book is a detailed study of the nature of sensory representation. It is highly informed by empirical results in the psychology of perception, and philosophically rich and significant. I admire the book and learned a great deal from reading it. As it covers a wide range of topics, and as I have no overarching critique to present, in this commentary I will briefly address three issues that come up in the book: Clark’s relational type-identity thesis for (...) sensory qualities, his theory that sensory representations involve proto-singular terms referring to spatio-temporal regions in the subject’s environment, and his interesting proposal concerning color to treat it as “difference coding”. Some of my remarks will be critical, but others will just explore some of the implications of his view. 2. Clark distinguishes “phenomenal properties” from “qualitative properties”, the former being appearance properties of things in the world (their colors, shapes, tastes, odors, etc.) and the latter being the properties of sensations by virtue of which they are sensations of their corresponding phenomenal properties. So when I see a red ball I am “directly” aware of the ball’s redness and roundness - it appears red and round to me. This awareness of the ball’s redness and roundness is accomplished, however, by my having a visual experience with certain qualitative properties; those that are of the sort one has when seeing something as red and round. It is these latter qualitative properties that are the subject of his relational type-identity thesis. Before addressing that thesis, however, I want to quickly note and respond to another point Clark makes concerning the qualitative properties of sensory states. He.. (shrink)

Kierkegaard verwendet den Salto mortale als Metapher für den Glauben. Aber was für eine Bewegung ist der Salto mortale genau? Diese Frage wird im ersten Teil anhand der Beschreibungen, die Arcangelo Tuccaro – selbst ein Akrobat, aber auch erster Akrobattheoretiker Europas – von dieser Bewegung gibt, beantwortet. Im zweiten und dritten Teil wird aufgezeigt, inwiefern die Metapher des Salto mortale und die konkurrierende Metapher des Augenblicks in den Texten Kierkegaards Sprachbilder für den Glauben sind, also: Welche Auffassung des Glaubens kann (...) diesen Bildern entnommen werden? Und wie verhalten sich die beiden Metaphern zueinander? Im vierten Teil wird der jacobischen Provenienz der Metapher des Salto mortale nachgegangen: Bereits Jacobi verwendet in einer sehr ähnlichen Weise wie Kierkegaard diese akrobatische Bewegung als Bild für den Glauben. Trotz dieser Nähe verspottet Kierkegaard Jacobi in seiner Nachschrift, indem er die jacobische Vorlage wiederverwendet und ironisch verzerrt. Der letzte Teil ist der Auseinandersetzung mit der Sekundärliteratur gewidmet und bettet diese Arbeit in die philosophische und theologische Kierkegaard-Forschung ein. (shrink)

Cheng Man-ch’ing (1901–1975) is as responsible as anyone for the wide popularity of taijiquan in the West. While his stature as a master and teacher of taijiquan is legendary, he is less well-known as a philosopher. Yet Cheng wrote a number of philosophical commentaries on Chinese classics that shed light on his understanding of taijiquan. In this paper I propose that a consideration of Cheng’s philosophical reflections shows him to be a twentieth century Neo-Confucian who saw taijiquan as a key (...) component of the overall aim of moral self-cultivation. In transmitting taijiquan to his fellow Chinese and to the West, Cheng was attempting to convey traditional Chinese thought and action as expressed in Neo-Confucian moral ideals. For Cheng, taijiquan was more than a martial art or physical exercise; it was a way of life. (shrink)

Reverse inference in cognitive neuropsychology has been characterized as inference to ‘psychological processes’ from ‘patterns of activation’ revealed by functional magnetic resonance or other scanning techniques. Several arguments have been provided against the possibility. Focusing on Machery’s presentation, we attempt to clarify the issues, rebut the impossibility arguments, and propose and illustrate a strategy for reverse inference. 1 The Problem of Reverse Inference in Cognitive Neuropsychology2 The Arguments2.1 The anti-Bayesian argument3 Patterns of Activation4 Reverse Inference Practiced5 Seek and Ye Shall (...) Find, Maybe6 Conclusion. (shrink)

This is a comparative analysis of the two great cities, London and Dublin, and their rise between the 16th and early 19th centuries.