Proposals for how health care ought to be allocated and delivered in the United States have been debated for at least the last 80 years. The last major effort at expanding health-care coverage in the US was the Affordable Care Act, which went into law in 2010. The ACA increased the number of Americans who have medical insurance, but it has nonetheless fallen short of providing universal coverage, and as of 2017, 8.8% of Americans, or 28.5 million, were uninsured. So (...) far, Republican efforts to fully repeal the ACA have failed, but Republican lawmakers have whittled away at crucial elements of the Act (including, importantly, the individual mandate that compels individuals to obtain insurance or... (shrink)

The notion of an object file figures prominently in recent work in philosophy and cognitive science. Object files play a role in theories of singular reference, object individuation, perceptual memory, and the development of cognitive capacities. However, the philosophical literature lacks a detailed, empirically informed theory of object files. In this paper, we articulate and defend the multiple-slots view, which specifies both the format and architecture of object files. We argue that object files represent in a non-iconic, propositional format that (...) incorporates discrete symbols for separate features. Moreover, we argue that features of separate categories are stored in separate memory slots within an object file. We supplement this view with a computational framework that characterizes how information about objects is stored and retrieved. (shrink)

The ability to perceive the shapes of things as enduring through changes in how they stimulate our sense organs is vital to our sense of stability in the world. But what sort of capacity is shape constancy, and how is it reflected in perceptual experience? This paper defends a pluralist account of shape constancy: There are multiple kinds of shape constancy centered on geometrical properties at various levels of abstraction, and properties at these various levels feature in the content of (...) perceptual experience, governing patterns of apparent shape similarity. I propose that the varieties of shape constancy are subserved by the syntactic complexity of perceptual shape representations. By assigning discrete constituents to various abstract shape parameters, these representations attune us to the preservation of certain abstract shape properties through changes in more determinate shape properties. Finally, I draw broader lessons concerning the nature and function of perceptual constancy. (shrink)

Many of the objects that we perceive have an important characteristic: When they move, they change shape. For instance, when you watch a person walk across a room, her body constantly deforms. I suggest that we exercise a type of perceptual constancy in response to changes of this sort, which I call structure constancy. In this paper I offer an account of structure constancy. I introduce the notion of compositional structure, and propose that structure constancy involves perceptually representing an object (...) as retaining its compositional structure over time. I argue that compositional structure is represented in visual phenomenology, and I also assemble empirical evidence in support of the claim that compositional structure is recovered by the visual system. Finally, I draw out consequences of this account. I argue that structure constancy has implications for the predictive capacities of perception, and that the phenomenon places important constraints on viable accounts of both the format and reference frame of visual experience. (shrink)

Evolutionary systems biology (ESB) aims to integrate methods from systems biology and evolutionary biology to go beyond the current limitations in both fields. This article clarifies some conceptual difficulties of this integration project, and shows how they can be overcome. The main challenge we consider involves the integration of evolutionary biology with developmental dynamics, illustrated with two examples. First, we examine historical tensions between efforts to define general evolutionary principles and articulation of detailed mechanistic explanations of specific traits. Next, these (...) tensions are further clarified by considering a recent case from another field focused on developmental dynamics: stem cell biology. In the stem cell case, incompatible explanatory aims block integration. Experimental approaches aim at mechanistic explanation while dynamical system models offer explanation in terms of general principles. We then discuss an ESB case in which integration succeeds: search for general attractors using a dynamical systems framework synergizes with the experimental search for detailed mechanisms. Contrasts between the positive and negative cases suggest general lessons for achieving an integrated understanding of developmental and evolutionary dynamics. The key integrative move is to acknowledge two complementary aims, both relevant to explanation: identifying the space of possible dynamic states and trajectories, and mechanistic understanding of causal interactions underlying a specific phenomenon of interest. These two aims can support one another in a joint project characterizing dynamic aspects of evolving lineages. This more inclusive project can lead to insights that cannot be reached by either approach in isolation. (shrink)

Many authors have posited an “object file” system, which underlies perceptual selection and tracking of objects. Several have proposed that this system internalizes principles specifying what counts as an object and relies on them during tracking. Here I consider a popular view on which the object file system is tuned to entities that satisfy principles of three-dimensionality, cohesion, and boundedness. I argue that the evidence gathered in support of this view is consistent with a more permissive view on which object (...) files select and track according to well-known perceptual organization criteria. Further evidence supplies positive support for the permissive view. (shrink)

Abstract: One oft-cited feature of speech acts is their expressive character: Assertion expresses belief, apology regret, promise intention. Yet expression, or at least sincere expression, is as I argue a form of showing: A sincere expression shows whatever is the state that is the sincerity condition of the expressive act. How, then, can a speech act show a speaker's state of thought or feeling? To answer this question I consider three varieties of showing, and argue that only one of them (...) is suited to help us answer our question. I also argue that concepts from the evolutionary biology of communication provide one source of insight into how speech acts enable one to show, and thereby express, a psychological state. (shrink)

Some philosophers have suggested that certain shifts in perceptual organization are counterexamples to representationalism about phenomenal character. Representationalism about phenomenal character is, roughly, the view that there can be no difference in the phenomenal character of experience without a difference in the representational content of experience. In this paper, I examine three of these alleged counterexamples: the dot array (Peacocke 1983), the intersecting lines (Speaks 2010), and the 3 X 3 grid (Nickel 2007). I identify the two features of their (...) phenomenology that call for explanation: grouping and prominence. I then argue that representationalists can adequately account for both of these features. I also critique some previous treatments of grouping and prominence. (shrink)

A prominent view holds that perception and memory are distinguished at least partly by their temporal orientation: Perception functions to represent the present, while memory functions to represent the past. Call this view perceptual presentism. This chapter critically examines perceptual presentism in light of contemporary perception science. I adduce evidence for three forms of perceptual sensitivity to the past: (i) shaping perception by past stimulus exposure, (ii) recruitment of mnemonic representations in perceptual processing, and (iii) perceptual representation of present objects (...) as possessing past properties. I argue that forms (i) and (ii) are consistent with perceptual presentism, while form (iii) poses a genuine threat to the view. While the empirical case for form (iii) remains inconclusive, I suggest that the most serious challenges to perceptual presentism derive from representations that integrate mnemonic and present-tensed elements in the performance of canonical perceptual functions, such as perceiving object continuity over time. (shrink)

The epistemic relevance of forgiveness has been neglected by both the discussion of forgiveness in moral psychology and by social epistemology generally. Moral psychology fails to account for the forgiveness of epistemic wrongs and for the way that wrongs in general have epistemic implications. Social epistemology, for its part, neglects the way that epistemic trust is not only conferred but repaired. In this essay, I show that the repair of epistemic trust through forgiveness is necessary to the economy of knowledge (...) for fallible persons like us. Despite the fact that forgiveness is never included on lists of important intellectual virtues or epistemic activities, it is vital to our lives as social knowers. Likewise, an account of forgiveness that neglects its epistemic dimension is importantly incomplete. (shrink)

It is widely thought that there are limits to how things can perceptually appear to us. For instance, nothing can appear both square and circular, or both pure red and pure blue. Adam Pautz has dubbed such constraints “laws of appearance.” But if the laws of appearance obtain, then what explains them? Here I examine the prospects for an empirical explanation of the laws of appearance. First, I challenge extant empirical explanations that appeal purely to the format of perceptual representation. (...) I then develop a hybrid approach, on which the laws are explained not merely by format, but by two further factors: ecological constraints imposed by our environments, and computational constraints embodied by our perceptual systems. While the hybrid approach implies that the laws of appearance are contingent, I argue that this implication is empirically defensible, since even some of the most intuitively compelling laws have real-world counterexamples. (shrink)

This is the first book to take a comprehensive look at white collar criminal offenses from the perspective of moral and legal theory. Focussing on the way in which key white collar crimes such as fraud, perjury, false statements, obstruction of justice, bribery, extortion, blackmail, insider trading, tax evasion, and regulatory and intellectual property offenses are shaped and informed by a range of familiar, but nevertheless powerful, moral norms.

Grice's Quantity maxims have been widely misinterpreted as enjoining a speaker to make the strongest claim that she can, while respecting the other conversational maxims. Although many writers on the topic of conversational implicature interpret the Quantity maxims as enjoining such volubility, so construed the Quantity maxims are unreasonable norms for conversation. Appreciating this calls for attending more closely to the notion of what a conversation requires. When we do so, we see that eschewing an injunction to maximal informativeness need (...) not deprive us of any ability to predict or explain genuine cases of implicature. Crucial to this explanation is an appreciation of how what a conversation, or a given stage of a conversation, requires, depends upon what kind of conversation is taking place. I close with an outline of this dependence relation that distinguishes among three importantly distinct types of conversation. (shrink)

When does benefiting from others’ wrongdoing effectively make one a moral accomplice in their evil deeds? If stem cell research lives up to its therapeutic promise, this question (which has previously cropped up in debates over fetal tissue research or the use of Nazi research data) is likely to become a central one for opponents of embryo destruction. I argue that benefiting from wrongdoing is prima facie morally wrong under any of three conditions: (1) when the wrongdoer is one’s agent; (...) (2) when acceptance of benefit directly encourages the repetition of the wrongful deed (even though no agency relationship is involved); and (3) when acceptance of a benefit legitimates a wrongful practice. I conclude by showing that, because of the ways in which most embryonic stem cell lines come into being, people who oppose embryo destruction may use human embryonic stem cells without incurring moral blame. (shrink)

Many have held that when a person visually attends to an object, her visual system deploys a representation that designates the object. Call the referential link between such representations and the objects they designate attentive visual reference. In this article I offer an account of attentive visual reference. I argue that the object representations deployed in visual attention—which I call attentive visual object representations —refer directly, and are akin to indexicals. Then I turn to the issue of how the reference (...) of an AVOR is determined relative to a context. After raising problems for existing accounts, I propose a mechanism of reference determination that is both causal and descriptive: For an AVOR to refer to a particular object, the object must appropriately cause the deployment of the AVOR, and the AVOR must be associated with descriptive information about some of the object's geometrical and mereological properties. (shrink)

Companies do have ethical responsibility and are not protected by limited liability from the consequences of their actions. A company's record and the preception of its ethics affect its reputation and ensure long term success or failure.The financial community has a history of placing moral considerations above legal or opportunistic expedients. But we are often exposed to moral dangers and the dangers of contamination are increasing. Deregulation and the technological revolution are sharpening ethical conflicts.

In a recent monograph, Sandy Goldberg argues that epistemology should be renovated so as to accommodate the way in which human beings are dependent on others for what they know. He argues that the way to accomplish this is to consider the cognition of others to be part of the belief-forming process for the purposes of epistemic assessment when radical dependence on others is in evidence. In this paper, I argue that, contrary to what one may expect, a credit theory (...) of knowledge is well positioned to make the sort of anti-individualistic move that Goldberg advocates. Furthermore, unlike Goldberg's extended process reliabilism, an extended credit theory has a theoretically motivated way of restricting the domain of epistemic evaluation to the cognitive. Finally, I argue that, although adopting the extended cognition hypothesis would help Goldberg's position, an extended credit theory would still have the advantage. (shrink)

The Christian intellectual tradition consistently affirms that God is present in and continues to speak through Scripture. These functions of the Christian Scriptures have been underexamined in contemporary philosophy of religion and philosophical theology. Careful attention to the phenomenon of shared attention is instructive for providing an account of these matters, and the shared attention account developed here provides a useful conceptual framework within which to situate recent work on Scripture by scholars such as Kevin Vanhoozer, Nicholas Wolterstorff, and Michael (...) Rea. (shrink)

Argues that like more conservative feminist writers, Gabrielle Suchon and Mary Astell, writing earlier in the Eighteenth Century, Macaulay's concept of liberty is closely tied to virtue and involves free self government according to reason. Unlike these earlier writers from this concept of liberty she deduces the rationality of democratic republican government. Thus the grounds on which she builds her republicanism involve a very different concept of rational self interest to that usually assumed to ground social contract theory. For virtue (...) and the genuine self interest of rational beings are taken to coincide. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Literature, Fiction, and Truth Literary Cognitivism Thought Experiments Genres Learning by Supposing De se Suppositions.

Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

The goal of the current study was to examine novice researchers’ views about online ethics education and to identify the instructional design components that may foster ethical practice. Applying the mixed methods approach, data were collected via a survey and semi-structured interviews among M.Sc. and Ph.D. students in science and engineering. The findings point to the need for rethinking the way conventional online ethics courses are developed and delivered; encouraging students to build confidence in learning from distance, engaging them in (...) online active and interactive experiences, and providing them with personalized support and adaptive guidance. The novice researchers identified the synergistic integration of collaborative, case-based, and contextual learning, as the instructional design components that may foster not only ethical knowledge but also ethical practice in a fully online course. (shrink)

Various argumentation analysis tools permit the analyst to represent functional components of an argument (e.g., data, claim, warrant, backing), how arguments are composed of subarguments and defenses against potential counterarguments, and argumentation schemes. In order to facilitate a study of argument presentation in a biomedical corpus, we have developed a hybrid scheme that enables an analyst to encode argumentation analysis within the framework of Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST), which can be used to represent the discourse structure of a text. This (...) paper describes the hybrid representation scheme and illustrates its use for investigation of contexts that license omission of elements of an argument. The analyses given in the paper involve reconstruction of enthymemes. Defeasible argumentation schemes serve as a constraint on reconstruction. In addition, the examples illustrate several other types of contextual constraints on reconstruction of enthymemes. (shrink)

Molyneux’s question asks whether a person born blind who has learned to identify shapes by touch could, if suddenly granted sight, immediately identify shapes visually. This question has often been used to structure discussions of whether there is a “rational connection” between sight and touch—whether it is possible to rationally doubt whether the same shape properties are both seen and felt. I distinguish two questions under this general heading. The first concerns, roughly, whether the visual and haptic perception of shape (...) is rationally connected in normally sighted perceivers. The second concerns, roughly, whether the visual and haptic perception of shape is rationally connected in all possible perceivers. I argue that real-world implementations of Molyneux’s question are irrelevant to the first question, but potentially relevant to the second. However, I also argue that the second question does not have the philosophical significance it is sometimes claimed to have. In particular, it cannot be used to adjudicate debates about whether the phenomenal character of perceptual experience is primarily determined “externally” by the worldly properties we perceive, or “internally” by physiological or functional properties of our brains. (shrink)

This discussion is a critical assessment of the methods employed by some leading writers in the field of bioethics. The author agrees with those in the field who regard its primary or essential method as moral philosophy, but he nevertheless finds a prevalent tendency among bioethical writers merely to apply received moral principles to issues and to avoid penetrating theoretical analysis, even when such analysis is unavoidably required. He explains these deficiencies in terms of the exigencies of interdisciplinary work and (...) the affinity of much early bioethics with policy- or legislatively-oriented "public ethics". The discussion ends with a call for increased theoretical sophistication in this field. Keywords: bioethics, ethics, medical ethics, method CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Three Forms of Showing Showing How and Knowing How Perceiving Aspects and Affects Expressiveness and Showing How Congruence of Sensation and Affect Empathy and Epistemology Art and Skill.

In the literature of philosophy and religious ethics, Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling has, with few exceptions, been read as a work focused on ethical questions concerning the norms governing human conduct. However, ethical readings of this book not only miss important features of the text, they render its argument internally incoherent. These problems disappear when Fear and Trembling is understood primarily as a discussion of Christian soteriology that symbolically uses the Abraham story to develop the classical Pauline -Lutheran doctrine of (...) justification through faith alone. (shrink)

Two years ago in two articles in a thematic issue of this journal the three of us engaged in a critique of principlism. In a subsequent issue, B. Andrew Lustig defended aspects of principlism we had criticized and argued against our own account of morality. Our reply to Lustig's critique is also in two parts, corresponding with his own. Our first part shows how Lustig's criticisms are seriously misdirected. Our second and philosophically more important part picks up on Lustig's challenge (...) to us to show that our account of morality is more adequate than principlism. In particular we show that recognition of morality as public and systematic enables us to provide a far better description of morality than does principlism. This explains why we adopt the label “Dartmouth Descriptivism.”. (shrink)

Christopher Hill's Perceptual experience is a must‐read for philosophers of mind and cognitive science. Here I consider Hill's representationalist account of spatial perception. I distinguish two theses defended in the book. The first is that perceptual experience does not represent the enduring, intrinsic properties of objects, such as intrinsic shape or size. The second is that perceptual experience does represent certain viewpoint‐dependent properties of objects—namely, Thouless properties. I argue that Hill's arguments do not establish the first thesis, and then I (...) raise questions about the Thouless‐property view and its role in Hill's defense of representationalism. (shrink)

This essay offers a constructive criticism of Part I of Davis’ Meaning, Expression and Thought. After a brief exposition, in Sect. 2, of the main points of the theory that will concern us, I raise a challenge in Sect. 3 for the characterization of expression that is so central to his program. I argue first of all that a sincere expression of a thought, feeling, or mood shows it. Yet attention to this fact reveals that it does not go without (...) saying how it is possible to show such things as thoughts, feelings or moods; we need an account of how this is possible, and I offer a partial such account in Sect. 4. Second, much of the attraction of Davis’ program depends on its ability to explain how linguistic meaning can be arrived at without covertly presupposing linguistic conventions. This in turn depends, in Davis’ hands, upon the claim that it is possible to express any of a wide range of ideas in the absence of conventions. I argue in Sect. 5 that the account of showing at which we will by then have arrived makes clear that Davis needs, and lacks, an explanation of how it is possible to do this. (shrink)

I reply to the main criticisms and suggestions for further clarification made by the contributors to this symposium on my book, Self-Expression . These replies are organized into the following sections: (1) What's in the name?, (2) Showing, expressing and indicating, (3) Expressing and signaling, (4) Perceiving emotions, (5) Voluntary/involuntary, (6) Expression and handicaps, (7) Expression and aesthetics, and (8) Looking ahead.

Concerns with the use of engineering approaches in biology have recently been raised. I examine two related challenges to biological research that I call the synchronic and diachronic underdetermination problem. The former refers to challenges associated with the inference of design principles underlying system capacities when the synchronic relations between lower-level processes and higher-level systems capacities are degenerate. The diachronic underdetermination problem regards the problem of reverse engineering a system where the non-linear relations between system capacities and lower-level mechanisms are (...) changing over time. Braun and Marom argue that recent insights to biological complexity leave the aim of reverse engineering hopeless - in principle as well as in practice. While I support their call for systemic approaches to capture the dynamic nature of living systems, I take issue with the conflation of reverse engineering with naïve reductionism. I clarify how the notion of design principles can be more broadly conceived and argue that reverse engineering is compatible with a dynamic view of organisms. It may even help to facilitate an integrated account that bridges the gap between mechanistic and systems approaches. (shrink)

This is a timely re-appraisal of feminist political thinkers and their male contemporaries, providing a re-evaluation of feminist humanism.

Philosophers frequently defend definitions by appealing to intuitions and contemporary folk classificatory norms. I raise methodological concerns that undermine some of these defenses. Focusing on Andrew Kania's recent definition of music, I argue that the way in which it has been developed leads to problems, and I show that a number of other definitions of interest to philosophers of art run into similar problems.