To complement theoretically driven work on argument, we present a datadriven description of published, written argument. We analyze political or philosophical treatises, articles in scholarly journals, and U.S. Supreme Court decisions. The description has emerged out of an inductive and a posteriori process based in grounded theory. The result is a suite of thirty-eight features that begins with conditions antecedent to writing and continues through to the consequences for the reader. We relate observational data to theories and practices from the (...) fields of rhetoric and applied linguistics, including pragmatics, to explain how the features work together as social and communicative acts in which the writer produces a text in order to affect or change the beliefs or actions of the reader. For our purposes, the whole text is the argument and is not reduced to its propositional content; it is a unified communicative act. In our description of argument, the writer, reader, and text are central categories. We describe these categories and their features using examples from a variety of types of written argument. (shrink)

This text provides a critique of the subjective Bayesian view of statistical inference, and proposes the author's own error-statistical approach as an alternative framework for the epistemology of experiment. It seeks to address the needs of researchers who work with statistical analysis.

The seventeenth century was a period of extraordinary invention, discovery and revolutions in scientific, social and political orders. It was a time of expansive automation, biological discovery, rapid advances in medical knowledge, of animal trials and a questioning of the boundaries between species, human and non-human, between social classes, and of the assumed naturalness of political inequality. This book gives a tour through those objects, ordinary and extraordinary, which captivated the philosophical imagination of the single most important French philosopher of (...) this period, Rene Descartes. Deborah J. Brown and Calvin G. Normore document Descartes' attempt to make sense of the complex, composite objects of human and divine invention, consistent with the fundamental tenets of his metaphysical system. Their central argument is that, far from reducing all the categories of ordinary experience to the two basic categories of substance, mind and body, Descartes' philosophy recognises irreducible composites that resist reduction, and require their own distinctive modes of explanation. (shrink)

Numerous philosophical theories of joint agency and its intentional structure have been developed in the past few decades. These theories have offered accounts of joint agency that appeal to higher-level states that are?shared? in some way. These accounts have enhanced our understanding of joint agency, yet there are a number of lower-level cognitive phenomena involved in joint action that philosophers rarely acknowledge. In particular, empirical research in cognitive science has revealed that when individuals engage in a joint activity such as (...) conversation or joint problem solving, they become aligned at multiple levels. We argue that this phenomenon of alignment is crucial to understanding joint actions and should be integrated with philosophical approaches. In this paper, we sketch a possible integration, and draw out its implications for understanding of joint agency and collective intentionality. The result is a process-based, dynamic account of joint action that integrates both low-level and high-level states, and seeks to capture the separate processes of how a joint action is initiated and sustained. (shrink)

Despite the widespread use of key concepts of the Neyman–Pearson (N–P) statistical paradigm—type I and II errors, significance levels, power, confidence levels—they have been the subject of philosophical controversy and debate for over 60 years. Both current and long-standing problems of N–P tests stem from unclarity and confusion, even among N–P adherents, as to how a test's (pre-data) error probabilities are to be used for (post-data) inductive inference as opposed to inductive behavior. We argue that the relevance of error probabilities (...) is to ensure that only statistical hypotheses that have passed severe or probative tests are inferred from the data. The severity criterion supplies a meta-statistical principle for evaluating proposed statistical inferences, avoiding classic fallacies from tests that are overly sensitive, as well as those not sensitive enough to particular errors and discrepancies. Introduction and overview 1.1 Behavioristic and inferential rationales for Neyman–Pearson (N–P) tests 1.2 Severity rationale: induction as severe testing 1.3 Severity as a meta-statistical concept: three required restrictions on the N–P paradigm Error statistical tests from the severity perspective 2.1 N–P test T(): type I, II error probabilities and power 2.2 Specifying test T() using p-values Neyman's post-data use of power 3.1 Neyman: does failure to reject H warrant confirming H? Severe testing as a basic concept for an adequate post-data inference 4.1 The severity interpretation of acceptance (SIA) for test T() 4.2 The fallacy of acceptance (i.e., an insignificant difference): Ms Rosy 4.3 Severity and power Fallacy of rejection: statistical vs. substantive significance 5.1 Taking a rejection of H0 as evidence for a substantive claim or theory 5.2 A statistically significant difference from H0 may fail to indicate a substantively important magnitude 5.3 Principle for the severity interpretation of a rejection (SIR) 5.4 Comparing significant results with different sample sizes in T(): large n problem 5.5 General testing rules for T(), using the severe testing concept The severe testing concept and confidence intervals 6.1 Dualities between one and two-sided intervals and tests 6.2 Avoiding shortcomings of confidence intervals Beyond the N–P paradigm: pure significance, and misspecification tests Concluding comments: have we shown severity to be a basic concept in a N–P philosophy of induction? (shrink)

The Well-Ordered Universe argues that Cavendish's natural philosophy, social and political philosophy, and medical theory share an underlying concern with order. This reveals interesting connections among Cavendish's natural philosophy and her views on gender, animals and the environment, and human health, and explains her commitment to monarchy and social hierarchy.

Philosophers of language are increasingly engaging with derogatory terms or slurs. Only few theorists take such language as a starting point for addressing puzzles in philosophy of language with little connection to our real-world problems. This paper aims to show that the political nature of derogatory language use calls for non-ideal theorising as we find it in the work of feminist and critical race scholars. Most contemporary theories of slurs, so I argue, fall short on some desiderata associated with a (...) non-ideal approach. They neglect crucial linguistic or political aspects of morally and politically significant meaning. I argue that a two-stage project is necessary to understand the perniciousness of slurs: accounting for the derogatory content of derogatory terms in general and, additionally, explaining the communicative function of slurs more specifically. I end by showing how inferentialism is well-suited to account for the content of derogatory terms whilst allowing for further explanations of the communicative functions of slurs. (shrink)

This book examines a widespread, and often misunderstood, doctrine within the medieval Aristotelian tradition, namely the inclusion of Aristotle's Rhetoric and Poetics within the scope of the Organon. It studies this doctrine, as presented by the Islamic philosophers Al- Fārābī, Avicenna, and Averroes, from a purely philosophical perspective, and argues that the logical construal of the arts of rhetoric and poetics is both interesting and illuminating. The book begins by examining some prevalent misconceptions regarding the logical interpretation of the Rhetoric (...) and Poetics. Chapter two considers the Greek background of the doctrine, first through an examination of the Aristotelian divisions of the sciences, and then through an examination of the beginnings of the logical classification of the Rhetoric and Poetics among the Greek commentators from the school of Alexandria. The remainder of the work is devoted to a detailed consideration of the Arabic philosophers' development of the doctrine, both their understanding of its general epistemological and logical underpinnings, and their elaboration of the specific logical structures upon which poetical and rhetorical discourse is based. Consideration is also given to the relationship between contemporary philosophical views of rhetoric and poetics, and the views of these medieval authors. (shrink)

In recent discussions on the meaning of derogatory terms, most theorists base their investigations on the assumption that slurring terms could in principle have some neutral, i.e. purely descriptive, counterpart. Lauren Ashwell has recently shown that this assumption does not generalize to gendered slurs. This paper aims to challenge the point and benefit of approaching the meaning of derogatory terms in contrast to their allegedly purely descriptive counterparts. I argue that different discursive practices among different communities of practice sometimes change (...) the semantics of a term. By the example of the term ‘black,’ I show in what ways these different practices may amount to semantic contestations which complicate the assessment of whether a specific politically significant term is purely descriptive. My discussion of politically significant terms provides insights into further phenomena such as the appropriation of derogatory terms by the target group or meaning change more generally. Moreover, it not only accounts for the political aspects of a linguistic phenomenon, but equally highlights and explains the oft-neglected but crucial role that language plays in social and political struggles. It thus contributes to ongoing discussions both in philosophy of language and in social and political philosophy. (shrink)

The key problem in the controversy over group selection is that of defining a criterion of group selection that identifies a distinct causal process that is irreducible to the causal process of individual selection. We aim to clarify this problem and to formulate an adequate model of irreducible group selection. We distinguish two types of group selection models, labeling them type I and type II models. Type I models are invoked to explain differences among groups in their respective rates of (...) production of contained individuals. Type II models are invoked to explain differences among groups in their respective rates of production of distinct new groups. Taking Elliott Sober's model as an exemplar, we argue that although type I models have some biological importance--they force biologists to consider the role of group properties in influencing the fitness of organisms--they fail to identify a distinct group-level causal selection process. Type II models if properly framed, however, do identify a group-level causal selection process that is not reducible to individual selection. We propose such a type II model and apply it to some of the major candidates for group selection. (shrink)

Recently, there has been growing interest in methodological issues of non-ideal theoretical philosophy. While some explicitly commit to non-ideal theorising, others doubt that there is anything useful about the ideal/non-ideal distinction in theoretical philosophy. The aim of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, I propose a way of doing non-ideal theoretical philosophy, once we realise how limited certain idealised projects are. Since there is a big overlap between projects that are called non-ideal and applied, the second aim is (...) to distinguish between these categories in order to show that applied theoretical philosophy is only worth pursuing if it operates in a non-ideal framework. I argue that we should be pluralistic about possible non-ideal theories and view the ideal/non-ideal differences as a matter of degree, rather than kind. As an example, I show how my version of non-ideal theory is useful to a concrete debate in philosophy of language. My proposal allows us to identify already existing non-ideal approaches to linguistic meaning and encourages us to further engage in the debate on non-ideal theoretical philosophy. (shrink)

It has long been a truism of the history of philosophy that intentionality is an invention of the medieval period, and within this standard narrative, the central place of Arabic philosophy has always been acknowledged. Yet there are many misconceptions surrounding the theories of intentionality advanced by the two main Arabic thinkers whose works were available to the West, Avicenna and Averroes. In the first part of this paper I offer an overview of the general accounts of intentionality and intentional (...) being found in the linguistic, psychological, and metaphysical writings of Avicenna and Averroes, and I trace the terminology of “intentions” to a neglected passage from Avicenna’s logic. In the second part of the paper I examine the way that Avicenna and Averroes apply their general theories of intentionality to the realm of sense perception. I offer an explanation of why Avicenna might have chosen to denominate the objects of the internal sense faculty of estimation as “intentions”, and I explore the implications of Averroes’s decision to attribute intentionality to the external senses and the media of perception. (shrink)

The status of independent statements is the main problem in the philosophy of set theory. We address this problem by presenting the perspective of a practising set theorist. We thus give an authentic insight in the current state of thinking in set-theoretic practice, which is to a large extent determined by independence results. During several meetings, the second author asked the first author about the development of forcing, the use of new axioms and set-theoretic intuition on independence. Parts of these (...) conversations are directly presented in this article. They are supplemented by important mathematical results as well as discussion sections. Finally, we present three hypotheses about set-theoretic practice: First, that most set theorists were surprised by the introduction of the forcing method. Second, that most set theorists think that forcing is a natural part of contemporary set theory. Third, that most set theorists prefer an answer to a problem with the help of a new axiom of lowest possible consistency strength, and that for most set theorists, a difference in consistency strength weighs much more than the difference between Forcing Axiom and Large Cardinal Axiom. (shrink)

The concept of ‘‘certitude” is central in Arabic discussions of the theory of demonstration advanced by Aristotle in the Posterior Analytics. In the Arabic tradition it is ‘‘certitude,” rather than ‘‘knowledge”, that is usually identified as the end sought by demonstrations. Al-Fārābī himself devotes a short treatise, known as the Conditions of Certitude, to determining the criteria according to which a subject can claim to have absolute certitude of any proposition. In this article the author traces the roots of the (...) concept of certitude to the Arabic translation of the Posterior Analytics. She then offers a close reading of the text of al-Fārābī's Conditions and its parallels in his Epitome of the Posterior Analytics. She argues that the identification of certitude as a cognitive state distinct from knowledge enabled al-Fārābī to introduce a number of interesting and sometimes problematic innovations into Arabic epistemology. Foremost amongst his positive innovations is the recognition that contingent as well as necessary propositions allow for an attenuated form of certitude, and the introduction of reliabilism into the justification of claims to certitude. But al-Fārābī is also one of the first philosophers to articulate explicitly the idea that certitude must include an element of ‘‘knowing that one knows,” a controversial principle that tends to undermine both al-Fārābī’s reliabilism and his efforts to loosen some of the strictures in traditional Aristotelian epistemology. (shrink)

Inferentialism seems to be an unpopular theory where derogatory terms are concerned. Contrary to most theorists in the debate on the meaning of derogatory terms, I think that inferentialism constitutes a promising theory to account for a broad range of aspects of derogatory language use. In order to make good on that promise, however, inferentialism must overcome four main objections that are usually raised against Michael Dummett's and Robert Brandom's inferentialist explanations of derogatory terms. This paper aims at debunking these (...) objections and thereby further developing the inferentialist interpretation of derogatory terms. I shall first discuss and reject three of the objections by pointing to the core assumptions of Brandomian inferentialism. Overcoming the fourth objection requires adjusting Dummett's and Brandom's explanation of the meaning of derogatory terms. In order to do so, I shall elaborate on the role that the explication of implicit material inferences plays with regard to different kinds of derogatory terms. The inferentialist account I am proposing fares better in terms of its explanatory power and broadness of application than Dummett's and Brandom's sketchy and oft-criticised views. (shrink)

After some general remarks about the interrelation between philosophical and statistical thinking, the discussion centres largely on significance tests. These are defined as the calculation of p-values rather than as formal procedures for ‘acceptance‘ and ‘rejection‘. A number of types of null hypothesis are described and a principle for evidential interpretation set out governing the implications of p- values in the specific circumstances of each application, as contrasted with a long-run interpretation. A number of more complicated situ- ations are discussed (...) in which modification of the simple p-value may be essential. (shrink)

Our everyday practices are meaningful in several ways. In addition to the linguistic meanings of our terms and sentences, we attach social meanings to actions and statuses. Philosophy of language and public debates often focus on contesting morally and politically pernicious linguistic practices. My aim is to show that this is too little: even if we are only interested in morally and politically problematic terms, we must counteract a pernicious linguistic practice on many levels, especially on the level of its (...) underlying social meanings. Otherwise, the critique of specific words as the most salient fruits of this practice will be futile. I trace out two paths through which pernicious social meanings feed into linguistic meanings and make the case for constructive contestations of social meanings as an alternative to criticising the use of a few highly pernicious terms in which these social meanings are manifest. My investigation into how social structures shape both social and linguistic meanings sheds further light on the ways in which social meanings enter linguistic exchanges. Moreover, it reveals that what is said in specific situations is more closely connected to our non-verbal actions than the current literature on semantics and the social sciences allows. (shrink)

An important theme to have emerged from the new experimentalist movement is that much of actual scientific practice deals not with appraising full-blown theories but with the manifold local tasks required to arrive at data, distinguish fact from artifact, and estimate backgrounds. Still, no program for working out a philosophy of experiment based on this recognition has been demarcated. I suggest why the new experimentalism has come up short, and propose a remedy appealing to the practice of standard error statistics. (...) I illustrate a portion of my proposal using Galison's experimental narrative on neutral currents. (shrink)

Since the advent of the women's movement, women have made unprecedented gains in almost every field, from politics to the professions. Paradoxically, doctors and mental health professionals have also seen a staggering increase in the numbers of young women suffering from an epidemic of depression, eating disorders, and other physical and psychological problems. In The Cost of Competence, authors Brett Silverstein and Deborah Perlick argue that rather than simply labeling individual women as, say, anorexic or depressed, it is time (...) to look harder at the widespread prejudices within our society and child-rearing practices that lead thousands of young women to equate thinness with competence and success, and femininity with failure. They argue that continuing to treat depression, anxiety, anorexia and bulimia as separate disorders in young women can, in many cases, be a misguided approach since they are really part of a single syndrome. Furthermore, their fascinating research into the lives of forty prominent women from Elizabeth I to Eleanor Roosevelt show that these symptoms have been disrupting the lives of bright, ambitious women not for decades, but for centuries. Drawing on all the latest findings, rare historical research, cross-cultural comparisons, and their own study of over 2,000 contemporary women attending high schools and colleges, the authors present powerful new evidence to support the existence of a syndrome they call anxious somatic depression. Their investigation shows that the first symptoms usually surface in adolescence, most often in young women who aspire to excel academically and professionally. Many of the affected women grew up feeling that their parents valued sons over daughters. They identified intellectually with their successful fathers, not with their traditional homemaker mothers. Disordered eating is one way of rejecting the feminine bodies they perceive as barriers to achievement and recognition. Silverstein and Perlick uncover medical descriptions matching their diagnosis in Hippocratic texts from the fourth century B.C., in anthropological studies of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and in case studies of many noted psychologists and psychiatrists, including the "hysteric" patients Freud used to develop his theories on psychoanalysis. They have also discovered that statistics on disordered eating, depression, and a host of other symptoms soared in eras in which women's opportunities grew--particularly the 1920s, when record numbers of women entered college and the workforce, the boyish silhouette of the flapper became the feminine ideal, and anorexia became epidemic, and again from the 1970s to the present day. The authors show that identifying this devastating syndrome is a first step toward its prevention and cure. The Cost of Competence presents an urgent message to parents, educators, policymakers, and the medical community on the crucial importance of providing young women with equal opportunity, and equal respect. (shrink)

This paper analyses the hidden use of new axioms in set-theoretic practice with a focus on large cardinal axioms and presents a general overview of set-theoretic practices using large cardinal axioms. The hidden use of a new axiom provides extrinsic reasons in support of this axiom via the idea of verifiable consequences, which is especially relevant for set-theoretic practitioners with an absolutist view. Besides that, the hidden use has pragmatic significance for further important sub-groups of the set-theoretic community---set-theoretic practitioners with (...) a pluralist view and set-theoretic practitioners who aim for ZFC-proofs. By describing this, the paper gives a more complete picture of new axioms in set-theoretic practice. These observations, for instance, show that set-theoretic practitioners interested in ZFC-proofs use tools that go beyond ZFC. The analysis is based on empirical data that was collected in an extensive interview study with set-theoretic practitioners. (shrink)

While orthodox (Neyman-Pearson) statistical tests enjoy widespread use in science, the philosophical controversy over their appropriateness for obtaining scientific knowledge remains unresolved. I shall suggest an explanation and a resolution of this controversy. The source of the controversy, I argue, is that orthodox tests are typically interpreted as rules for making optimal decisions as to how to behave--where optimality is measured by the frequency of errors the test would commit in a long series of trials. Most philosophers of statistics, however, (...) view the task of statistical methods as providing appropriate measures of the evidential-strength that data affords hypotheses. Since tests appropriate for the behavioral-decision task fail to provide measures of evidential-strength, philosophers of statistics claim the use of orthodox tests in science is misleading and unjustified. What critics of orthodox tests overlook, I argue, is that the primary function of statistical tests in science is neither to decide how to behave nor to assign measures of evidential strength to hypotheses. Rather, tests provide a tool for using incomplete data to learn about the process that generated it. This they do, I show, by providing a standard for distinguishing differences (between observed and hypothesized results) due to accidental or trivial errors from those due to systematic or substantively important discrepancies. I propose a reinterpretation of a commonly used orthodox test to make this learning model of tests explicit. (shrink)

Many philosophers have recently defended the epistemic value of imagination. In this paper, we expand these discussions into the realm of virtue epistemology by proposing and defending a virtue-theoretic conception of imagination. On this account, the intellectual virtue of imagination is a character trait consisting of dispositions to engage skilfully in activities characteristic of imagining, with good judgement and from appropriate epistemic motivations. We argue that this approach helps to explain important connections between related, but distinct, intellectual virtues, including creativity (...) and empathy, and reveals avenues for future work on how best to develop intellectually virtuous imagination. (shrink)

Biological kin share up to half of their genetic material, including predisposition to disease. Thus, variants of clinical significance identified in each individual’s genome can implicate an exponential number of relatives at potential risk. This has renewed the dilemma over family access to research participant’s genetic results, since prevailing US practices treat these as private, controlled by the individual. These individual-based ethics contrast with the family-based ethics – in which genetic information, privacy, and autonomy are considered to be familial – (...) endorsed in UK genomic medicine and by participants in a multi-method study of US research participants presented here. The dilemma reflects a conflict between US legal and ethical frameworks that privilege “the individual” and exclude “the family” versus actual human genetics that are simultaneously individual and familial. Can human genetics succeed in challenging bioethics’ hegemonic individualism to recognize and place the family at the center of the room where bioethics happens? (shrink)

BackgroundHealth data-driven activities have become central in diverse fields (research, AI development, wearables, etc.), and new ethical challenges have arisen with regards to privacy, integrity, and appropriateness of use. To ensure the protection of individuals’ fundamental rights and freedoms in a changing environment, including their right to the protection of personal data, we aim to identify the ethical approaches adopted by scientists during intensive data exploitation when collecting, using, or sharing peoples’ health data.MethodsTwelve scientists who were collecting, using, or sharing (...) health data in different contexts in Sweden, were interviewed. We used systematic expert interviews to access these scientists’ specialist knowledge, and analysed the interviews with thematic analysis. Phrases, sentences, or paragraphs through which ethical values and norms were expressed, were identified and coded. Codes that reflected similar concepts were grouped, subcategories were formulated, and categories were connected to traditional ethical approaches.ResultsThrough several examples, the respondents expressed four different ethical approaches, which formed the main conceptual categories: consideration of consequences, respect for rights, procedural compliance, and being professional.ConclusionsTo a large extent, the scientists’ ethical approaches were consistent with ethical and legal principles. Data sharing was considered important and worth pursuing, even though it is difficult. An awareness of the complex issues involved in data sharing was reflected from different perspectives, and the respondents commonly perceived a general lack of practical procedures that would by default ensure ethical and legally compliant data collection and sharing. We suggest that it is an opportune time to move on from policy discussions to practical technological ethics-by-design solutions that integrate these principles into practice. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe conclusion of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission launched a new chapter in Indigenous-state relationships in Canada. Despite many resulting ‘reconciliation initiatives’, there remains considerable discussion as to what form reconciliation should take and for what end. Reconciliation processes must involve Indigenous peoples from the outset and should be founded on Indigenous intellectual and legal traditions. Indigenous peoples’ conceptions of reconciliation differ markedly from state-sponsored views, particularly the view that reconciliation must be achieved among all beings of Creation, including all (...) living things and entities that broader society does not consider to be alive. Indigenous concepts of reconciliation extend discussions beyond human dimensions to encompass reconciliation with the natural world as a path forward to achieve justice. As such, reconciliation must also include discussion of Indigenous environmental justice, as both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples need to heal their damaged relationships with each other and to the land. The Anishinaabe concept of Mino-bimaatisiwin the ‘good life’, or ‘living well’) offers guidance for ensuring that balanced relationships among all beings of Creation are maintained. Concepts such as these could provide significant guidance as we work towards achieving a more sustainable and just society through reconciliation efforts. (shrink)

I document some of the main evidence showing that E. S. Pearson rejected the key features of the behavioral-decision philosophy that became associated with the Neyman-Pearson Theory of statistics (NPT). I argue that NPT principles arose not out of behavioral aims, where the concern is solely with behaving correctly sufficiently often in some long run, but out of the epistemological aim of learning about causes of experimental results (e.g., distinguishing genuine from spurious effects). The view Pearson did hold gives a (...) deeper understanding of NPT tests than their typical formulation as accept-reject routines, against which criticisms of NPT are really directed. The Pearsonian view that emerges suggests how NPT tests may avoid these criticisms while still retaining what is central to these methods: the control of error probabilities. (shrink)

The error statistical account of testing uses statistical considerations, not to provide a measure of probability of hypotheses, but to model patterns of irregularity that are useful for controlling, distinguishing, and learning from errors. The aim of this paper is (1) to explain the main points of contrast between the error statistical and the subjective Bayesian approach and (2) to elucidate the key errors that underlie the central objection raised by Colin Howson at our PSA 96 Symposium.

In Philosophical Problems of Statistical Inference, Seidenfeld argues that the Neyman-Pearson (NP) theory of confidence intervals is inadequate for a theory of inductive inference because, for a given situation, the 'best' NP confidence interval, [CIλ], sometimes yields intervals which are trivial (i.e., tautologous). I argue that (1) Seidenfeld's criticism of trivial intervals is based upon illegitimately interpreting confidence levels as measures of final precision; (2) for the situation which Seidenfeld considers, the 'best' NP confidence interval is not [CIλ] as Seidenfeld (...) suggests, but rather a one-sided interval [CI0]; and since [CI0] never yields trivial intervals, NP theory escapes Seidenfeld's criticism entirely; (3) Seidenfeld's criterion of non-triviality is inadequate, for it leads him to judge an alternative confidence interval, [CI alt. ], superior to [CIλ] although [CI alt. ] results in counterintuitive inferences. I conclude that Seidenfeld has not shown that the NP theory of confidence intervals is inadequate for a theory of inductive inference. (shrink)

In one of his many metaphorical turns of phrase – a leitmotif in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity — Jürgen Habermas speaks of the path not taken by modern philosophers, a path that might have led them towards his own intersubjective notion of communicative reason. Habermas is especially critical of his predecessors, Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, because, he believes, they repudiated the rational potential in the culture of modernity. Whenever Adorno and Horkheimer heard the word ‘culture’, they apparently (...) reached for their revolvers. By the 1940s, their confidence in modern culture had allegedly succumbed to bitter disillusionment. Indeed, on Habermas's view, the confidence of these early critical theorists had been shaken so badly by the emergence of Nazism and Stalinism that their scepticism finally embraced reason itself, ‘whose standards ideology critique had found already given in bourgeois ideals’. Consequently, Adorno and Horkheimer were forced to call into question their own immanent critique of modernity: ideology critique itself came ‘under suspicion of not producing truths’. These philosophers supposedly had little choice but to render their now suspect critique ‘independent even in relation to its own foundations’. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore the role of emotion in the interpretation and memory of sexual encounters. We consider situations likely to generate negative emotions during sex, and the mechanisms through which the experience of negative emotions can lead to false memories of coercion and mislabeling of an encounter as sexual assault. Specifically, we consider the role of emotion in directing attention during a sexual encounter and the effects of emotion as context for interpretation at the time of the encounter, (...) and for retrieval and interpretation when the encounter is later recalled and reported. Our intent is to provide a greater understanding of the processes of interpretation and memory through which false claims of sexual assault might arise, if and when they do arise. (shrink)

We argue that while the proposed memory model by Bastin et al. can explain familiarity-based memory judgements through the interaction of a core representation system and an attribution system, recollection-based memory judgements are not based on non-mnemonic signals being attributed to memory.

Se realizó un análisis del proyecto "Acciones intersectoriales en la estimulación temprana del desarrollo del lenguaje" con el objetivo propiciar un estudio social sobre la gestión del conocimiento y la innovación tecnológica en la dirección de programas para la estimulación del desarrollo de menores en edad preescolar, desde la visión de ciencia, tecnología y sociedad. Se muestran conceptos afines al tema, necesarios en la comprensión de la idea de reorganización de los servicios vinculados a la estimulación y atención temprana del (...) desarrollo del lenguaje desde la comunidad, con la participación de profesionales de diferentes instituciones, y se demuestra la necesidad de comprender los estudios de Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad como un campo de acción en la actualidad en Cuba. An analysis of the project Intersectorial actions in early stimulation of the language was carried out with the purpose of favoring a social study of knowledge negotiation and technological innovation in the direction of programs to stimulate the development of children in preschool age at the vision of science, technology and society. Concepts related with the topic and necessary to comprehend the idea of reorganizing the services related with the stimulation and early attention of the language development starting in the community and with the participation of professionals from different institutions are shown. The need of comprehend the studies of science, technology and society as a field of action nowadays in Cuba is also demonstrated. (shrink)

Por mucho tiempo, las teorías del mestizaje han sido utilizadas para analizar e interpretar la hibridez de las identidades y culturas latinoamericanas, pero el mestizaje –al igual que sus críticas– no es un concepto adecuado en el caso de los espacios sociales, culturales y políticos que ocupan en los Estados Unidos las comunidades latinas y sus producciones musicales. A través del análisis de las profundas líneas de falla que existen en la intersección de los conceptos latinoamericanos de mestizaje y los (...) conceptos bipolares estadounidenses sobre raza e identidad racial, este ensayo dilucida el impacto concreto y material que estas discrepancias conceptuales tienen en las comunidades latinas estadounidenses y en sus prácticas musicales. (shrink)

In this paper, we pay attention to the impact on staff of what was a new place, Ko Awatea, within a large New Zealand hospital. The place became a space from within which a particular mood arose. This paper seeks to capture that mood and its impact. Using a Heideggerian hermeneutic approach, the study reported on drew on data from interviews with 20 staff. Philosophical notions about the nature and mood of place/space are explored. As staff claimed this space, the (...) mood that emerged was of liveliness, buzz and comfort. It became a space where people wanted to be, where they met others, where conversations unfolded, where thinking happened in new ways. Staff places tend to be sacrificed or poorly resourced in resource-tight environments. We argue that creating a space that feels home-like, where staff come, linger and engage in community is a priority for generating the mood and thinking of an organization. Such spaces do not happen by chance; it takes forethought and intentionality. The gift of such space is the thinking that is sparked and grown. (shrink)

I argue that although the judgments required to reach statistical risk assessments may reflect policy values, it does not follow that the task of evaluating whether a given risk assessment is warranted by the evidence need also be imbued with policy values. What has led many to conclude otherwise, I claim, stems from misuses of the statistical testing methods involved. I set out rules for interpreting what specific test results do and do not say about the extent of a given (...) risk. By providing a more objective understanding of the evidence, such rules help in adjudicating conflicting risk assessments. To illustrate, I consider the risk assessment conflict at the EPA concerning the carcinogenicity of formaldehyde. (shrink)