The main goal of our study was to investigate the role of insight into one’s own biases in the process of hypothesis validation in accordance to the two fundamental social perception domains on the example of confirmation bias. The study was conducted on a group of 593 participants with the use of a confirmation bias procedure, a free recall procedure and the Metacognitive Self scale. We manipulated with the domain and the value of information given to the respondents. We suspected (...) that individuals with a high metacognitive self, in opposition to low metacognitive self ones, would not process the given information according to the two fundamental social perception domains. The results verified the existence of an interaction effect of the metacognitive self and the domain of the information given about a perceived person on the susceptibility to follow the confirmation bias. Contrary to the low metacognitive self individuals, who show a higher tendency for the confirmation bias within the competence than the community domain, persons with a high insight into their own biases express the same level of confirmation bias in no respect to the domain of the information. The value of the information has no significant influence. (shrink)

ABSTRACT One of the promises of the internet was its power to unite individual knowers with one another, democratizing knowledge and spurring our collective efforts toward truth. In what sense is our current epistemic life a collective effort? This article examines the idea of the epistemic community. I contrast epistemic community with a collection of individual epistemic agents aiming for truth. I propose that this latter conception of epistemic life permits neglecting our epistemic and moral duties. I argue that healthy (...) epistemic community requires joint commitments to truth and epistemic trust, and where epistemic trust requires conditions of mutual epistemic respect. (shrink)

I address here the question what sense to make of the idea that there can be thought prior to language. I begin by juxtaposing two familiar and influential philosophical views, one associated with the work of Paul Grice, the other associated with the work of Donald Davidson. Grice and Davidson share a broad, rationalist perspective on language and thought, but they endorse conflicting theses on the relation between them. Whereas, for Grice, thought of an especially complex sort is a precondition (...) of linguistic meaning, for Davidson, there can be no genuine thought without language. I argue that both views present us with unpalatable alternatives concerning our understanding of the natural origins of objective thought and meaningful language. Drawing on what I take to be key insights from Grice and Davidson, I then lay out some broad desiderata for an intermediate position. I finally turn to a certain form of nonlinguistic communication of the sort of which both prelinguistic children and languageless animals are capable, viz., expressive communication. I propose that a proper appreciation of the character and function of expressive communication can help us trace the outlines of the desired intermediate position. (shrink)

? We gratefully acknowledge the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona, Tucson, which provided a grant for the support of this work. E.T. is also supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the McDonnell Project in Philosophy and the Neurosciences. 1 See David Woodruff Smith.

I’ll raise a problem for Retributivism, the view that legal punishment is justified on the basis of desert. I’ll focus primarily on Mitchell Berman’s recent defense of the view. He gives one of the most sophisticated and careful statements of it. And his argument is representative, so the problem I’ll raise for it will apply to other versions of Retributivism. His insights about justification also help to make the problem particularly obvious. I’ll also show how the problem extends to non-retributive (...) justifications of punishment. I’ll argue that Berman’s argument makes a questionable assumption about the standard of justification that justifications of punishment must meet to be successful. If we think about what it takes to justify punishment and reflect on the intuitions that retributivists appeal to, it turns out that the intuitions aren’t obviously up to the task. (shrink)

Philosophers are often interested in explaining significant contrasts between ordinary descriptive discourses, on the one hand, and discourses – such as ethics, mathematics, or mentalistic discourse – that are thought to be more problematic in various ways. But certain strategies for ‘saving the differences’ can make it too difficult to preserve notable similarities across discourses. My own preference is for strategies that ‘save the differences’ without sacrificing logico-semantic continuities or committing to deflationism about truth, but also without embracing either truth-pluralism (...) or global expressivism.I motivate my preference by examining, as a test case, mentalistic discourse. I begin by reconstructing three philosophical puzzles that have led philosophers to think of mentalistic discourse as problematic (Section 2). These puzzles concern the semantic, epistemological, and metaphysical status of contrasts between first-person present-tense attributions – ‘avowals’ – and all other ordinary contingent attributions. I then briefly present my own,neo-expressiviststrategy for addressing the puzzles (Section 3). Unlike traditional ‘simple expressivism’ (which is the analogue in the mentalistic realm of ethical emotivism), neo-expressivism is not committed to avowals’ being non-truth-apt or having non-propositional meanings. And yet it does not require embracing either deflationism about truth or global expressivism. It preserves continuities between mentalistic and other discourses while allowing us to capture discontinuities. Moreover, it is possible to apply the neo-expressivist framework in other areas where the notion of expression is deemed explanatorily useful, as illustrated by consideringethical neo-expressivism(Section 4). In the final section (5), I make more general comments on truth and meaning and tease out some of the commitments of the approach I advocate. (shrink)

This important book proposes a new account of the nature of language, founded upon an original interpretation of Wittgenstein. The authors deny the existence of a direct referential relationship between words and things. Rather, the link between language and world is a two-stage one, in which meaning is used and in which a natural language should be understood as fundamentally a collection of socially devised and maintained practices. Arguing against the philosophical mainstream descending from Frege and Russell to Quine, Davidson, (...) Dummett, McDowell, Evans, Putnam, Kripke and others, the authors demonstrate that discarding the notion of reference does not entail relativism or semantic nihilism. A provocative re-examination of the interrelations of language and social practice, this book will interest not only philosophers of language but also linguists, psycholinguists, students of communication and all those concerned with the nature and acquisition of human linguistic capacities. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the Sellarsian Myth of the Given does not apply to all forms of Non-Conceptualism; that Kant is in fact a non-conceptualist of the right-thinking kind and not a Conceptualist, as most Kant-interpreters think; and that an intelligible and defensible Kantian Non-Conceptualism can be developed which supports the thesis that true perceptual beliefs are non-inferentially justified and also normatively funded by direct, embodied, intentional interactions with the manifest world (a.k.a. the Grip of the Given).

We take a fresh look at the concerns about credit card pricing and empirically investigate whether the Credit CARD Act of 2009 has been successful in addressing those concerns. The rational choice theory of credit card pricing, which posits that issuers use back-end fees to adjust the price of credit to reflect new information about borrowers’ credit risk, predicts that issuers will respond to the Act by using alternative ways to price risk. In contrast, the behavioral economics theory, which posits (...) that issuers use back-end fees because they are not salient to consumers, predicts that issuers will respond by increasing unregulated non-salient prices. If the market is competitive, we argue that the CARD Act should also result in increases in some salient, up-front prices. But we show that if issuers have market power, reductions in non-salient fees may not result in concomitant increases in salient charges. We test these predictions using two datasets on credit card contract terms before and after the CARD Act rules went into effect. We find that the rules have substantially reduced the back-end fees directly regulated by the Act, including late fees and over-the-limit fees. However, unregulated contract terms, such as annual fees and purchase interest rates, have changed little. Post-CARD Act, consumers continue to face high long-term prices and low short-term prices, and imperfectly rational consumers still find it difficult to understand the cost of credit card borrowing. We thus consider potential improvements to the regulatory framework. We argue that improved disclosures that present to consumers the aggregate cost of credit under the contract, based on information about the borrower’s likely use of credit, would improve consumer outcomes. Furthermore, we suggest that regulators, rather than focusing on prices that are “too high,” should consider limiting the ability of issuers to charge introductory teaser interest rates that are in a sense “too low. (shrink)

Polycomb group proteins are evolutionary conserved chromatin‐modifying complexes, essential for the regulation of developmental and cell‐identity genes. Polycomb‐mediated transcriptional regulation is provided by two multi‐protein complexes known as Polycomb repressive complex 1 (PRC1) and 2 (PRC2). Recent studies positioned PRC1 as a foremost executer of Polycomb‐mediated transcriptional control. Mammalian PRC1 complexes can form multiple sub‐complexes that vary in their core and accessory subunit composition, leading to fascinating and diverse transcriptional regulatory mechanisms employed by PRC1 complexes. These mechanisms include PRC1‐catalytic activity (...) toward monoubiquitination of histone H2AK119, a well‐established hallmark of PRC1 complexes, whose importance has been long debated. In this review, the central roles that PRC1‐catalytic activity plays in transcriptional repression are emphasized and the recent evidence supporting a role for PRC1 complexes in gene activation is discussed. (shrink)

This paper compares the enactive approach to perception, which has recently emerged in cognitive science, with the phenomenological approach. Inspired by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, the enactive theorists Alva Noë and Evan Thompson take perception to be a result of the interaction between the brain, the body and the environment. Their argument turns mostly on the role of self-motion and sensorimotor knowledge in perceptual experience. It was said to be entirely consistent with phenomenology, indeed its revival. However, this issue is under (...) debate. To show this, I begin with analyzing the enactive conception as a physicalist attempt to overcome the challenge of dualism and representationalism. I then turn to Husserl’s transcendental method and argue that Noë’s solution, unlike Husserl’s, remains naturalistic, as it does not take the phenomenon of intersubjectivity and the constitution of the “cultural world” into account. Afterwards I turn to Merleau-Ponty and demonstrate that there is some certain common ground with Noë, but also major differences. I conclude that the enactive approach is not completely refuted by the phenomenological one, insofar as the latter partly contains the first. Yet the enactivists deal merely with the necessary physiological conditions of perception qua animal perception, not with the sufficient sociocultural conditions for the understanding of human perception, like the inquiry into the historical and linguistic circumstances under which the understanding of human mind is made possible. The reason why the recent transformation of phenomenology into neurophenomenology is perceived as a revival is virtually inherent to the specific scientific ethos of enactivism and reveals a certain oblivion of the objectives of philosophical phenomenology. (shrink)

In this essay, I apply the Kantian interpretation of enlightenment as radical enlightenment to the enterprise of philosophy within the context of our contemporary world-situation, and try to answer this very hard quest ion: “As radically enlightened Kantian philosophers confronted by the double-whammy consisting of what I call The Hyper-State, together with the 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic, what should we dare to think and do?” The very hard problem posed by this very har d question is what I’ll call The New (...) Conflict of the Faculties. By way of a direct answer to this very hard question and by way of an effective solution to this very hard problem, I provide seven recommendations. (shrink)

It is now conventional wisdom that conscious experience — or in Nagel’s canonical characterization, “what it is like to be” for an organism — is what makes the mind-body problem so intractable. By the same token, our current conceptions of the mind-body relation are inadequate and some conceptual development is urgently needed. Our overall aim in this paper is to make some progress towards that conceptual development. We first examine a currently neglected, yet fundamental aspect of consciousness. This aspect is (...) the spontaneity of consciousness, by which we mean its inner plasticity and inner purposiveness. We then sketch a “neurophenomenological” framework for thinking about the relationship between the spontaneity of consciousness and dynamic patterns of brain activity as studied in cognitive neuroscience. We conclude by proposing that the conscious mentality of sentient organisms or animals is active and dynamic, and that this “enactive” conception of consciousness can help us to move beyond the classical dichotomy between materialism and dualism. (shrink)

That there are analytic truths may challenge a principle of the homogeneity of truth. Unlike standard conceptions, in which analyticity is couched in terms of "truth in virtue of meanings", Frege's notions of analytic and a priori concern justification, respecting a principle of the homogeneity of truth. Where there is no justification these notions do not apply, Frege insists. Basic truths and axioms may be analytic (or a priori), though unprovable, which means there is a form of justification which is (...) not (deductive) proof. This is also required for regarding singular factual propositions as a posteriori. A Fregean direction for explicating this wider notion of justification is suggested in terms of his notion of sense (Sinn)—modes in which what the axioms are about are given—and its general epistemological significance is sketched. (shrink)

It is now conventional wisdom that conscious experience — or in Nagel’s canonical characterization, “what it is like to be” for an organism — is what makes the mind-body problem so intractable. By the same token, our current conceptions of the mind-body relation are inadequate and some conceptual development is urgently needed. Our overall aim in this paper is to make some progress towards that conceptual development. We first examine a currently neglected, yet fundamental aspect of consciousness. This aspect is (...) the spontaneity of consciousness, by which we mean its inner plasticity and inner purposiveness. We then sketch a “neurophenomenological” framework for thinking about the relationship between the spontaneity of consciousness and dynamic patterns of brain activity as studied in cognitive neuroscience. We conclude by proposing that the conscious mentality of sentient organisms or animals is active and dynamic, and that this “enactive” conception of consciousness can help us to move beyond the classical dichotomy between materialism and dualism. (shrink)

BARNOY S, OFRA L and BAR‐TAL Y. Nursing Inquiry 2012; 19: 128–133 [Epub ahead of print]What makes patients perceive their health care worker as an epistemic authority?Health care workers’ (HCW) perceived epistemic authority (EA) may have an effect on patient decision‐making and compliance. The present study investigated the hypotheses that higher EA is attributed to staff perceived to be experts; to physicians rather than nurses; to HCWs who recommend taking a test more than to the ones who make no recommendation. (...) The study was based on a factorial 2 × 2 × 2 within‐between subjects design. The questionnaire presented four scenarios, each illustrating a HCW presenting information on a devastating genetic disease. The three variables manipulated were: HCW expertise, HCW role, and making a recommendation or not. After each scenario participants were asked questions about the EA they attributed to the HCW in the scenario. The results show main effects for perceived expertise and recommendation/no recommendation on the level of EA attributed. Expert nurses were judged to have the same high EA as expert physicians. But expert physicians who recommended taking a test were judged as having significantly higher EA than expert physicians who made no recommendation. Among nurses who made no recommendation, expert nurses were evaluated as having significantly higher EA than novices. Since expert nurses were perceived to have equal expertise as expert physicians, it follows that information given by both nurses and physicians can reduce patient uncertainty. (shrink)

This ambitious work reclassifies and restructures the history of ideas and the philosophy of culture through a wide-ranging and novel use of the idea of the organon. It does so by radically revising standard interpretations and theories of all branches of philosophy, and by providing an intellectual and philosophical foundation for the new organon of the cultural sciences. Furthermore, the seeded idea that saw its growth in the form of this book is the unshakable conviction that the only way by (...) which a new apparatus of philosophy, an organon, could be created is by harking back to the vast sources of imagination, inspiration and mimÄ"sis. This entire study is based on the notion that metaphysics, insofar as it is concerned with the world in its entirety and with human beingâ (TM)s existence and thought, should provide the foundation for the organon of cultural sciences, based on symbolic forms. Given that the colossal amount of information and knowledge of philosophy, arts, humanities, logic, mathematics, social sciences and natural sciences cannot be comprised, analyzed and comprehended per se, it is the organonâ (TM)s objective to extract the main principles, ideas, postulates, theorems and theories of the cultural sciences, and, subsequently, to shape and restructure them as symbolic forms. Since all these principles are grounded on Becomingâ "which is not a stable or fixed entity such as Being, substance or thingâ "the symbolic forms preserve and change, elevate and further the organon of the cultural sciences, via a critical-dialectical process. (shrink)

Volume 34, Issue 8, December 2020, Page 1690-1703.

Remarks on Sandra Lee Bartky's Femininity and Domination.

Tomasello strives to understand the underlying psychology behind the human sense of obligation, but he only addresses a specific kind of obligation: to other human beings. We argue that in order to account for the psychological underpinning of human behavior, one should also consider people's sense of commitment to non-human entities, such as ideals, values, and moral principles.

Philosophical discussions, especially in professional academic philosophy, all-too-often are, or anyhow quickly devolve into, nothing but essentially humanly irrelevant, esoteric, logic-chopping, t...

there be an objective modal distinction between the observable and the unobservable.’ My intent is to counter Ladyman's claim that the irreducibly modal character of empirical adequacy is something that is ‘really wrong with constructive empiricism’. I argue that disposition concepts refer to non-modal properties of types rather than to modal properties of tokens of those types. Solubility, for example, is an ‘occurrent’, though unobservable, property of a type of substance (involving the structure of associated atoms); and observability is, similarly, (...) an ‘occurrent’, though unobservable, property of a type of event (involving the structure of associated physical systems). Empirical adequacy, like truth, is an objective, semantic notion; the empirical adequacy of a theory depends upon all actual tokens of the relevant observable type, not just upon the tokens that have actually been observed. Introduction The typical character of disposition concepts Confirmational versus semantic empirical adequacy Conclusion. (shrink)

We show that it is possible to generalize the Ursell–Mayer cluster formalism so that it may cover also the statistics of Internet websites. Our starting point is the introduction of an extra variable that is assumed to take account, as will be explained, of the nature of the Internet statistics. We then show, following the arguments in Mayer, that one may obtain a phase transition-like phenomena.

Biomedical devices and biotechnological treatments are different types of health intervention. In general, biomedical devices, such as deep brain stimulators implanted for treatment of movement disorders, can help patients without imposing moral burdens. Biotechnological interventions, on the other hand, require the use of biological substances, which are often obtained by the destruction of human life or unusual tampering with it, as in embryonic stem cell research, cloning, and fetal tissue transplantation. Biotechnology imposes a moral burden on patients, who may not (...) fully understand what it involves and the effects its use might have on them later. This essay is a reflection on the serious losses patients experience before they consider biotechnological options and on their sense of moral burden after they have consented to their use. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 9.4 (Winter 2009): 671–679. (shrink)

At least Kant thinks it's a part of the concept that gold is to be a yellow metal. He thinks that we know this a priori, and that we could not discover it to be empirically false … Is Kant right about this? Gold [is] … a yellow malleable ductile high density metallic element resistant to chemical reaction. Nature considered materially is the totality of all objects of experience. Kant's joke. Kant wanted to prove in a way that would dumbfound (...) the common man that the common man was right: that was the secret joke of this soul. (shrink)