On the problems of epistemology as depicted in the Jaina canonical literature; a study.

Festschrift in honor of Damodhar Mahapatra Shastri, 1890-1975, Sanskritist; comprises research articles on Vedic literature, religion, and Sanskrit grammar.

Philosophers routinely invoke self‐control in their theorizing, but major questions remain about what exactly self‐control is. I propose a componential account in which an exercise of self‐control is built out of something more fundamental: basic intrapsychic actions called cognitive control actions. Cognitive control regulates simple, brief states called response pulses that operate across diverse psychological systems (think of one's attention being grabbed by a salient object or one's mind being pulled to think about a certain topic). Self‐control ostensibly seems quite (...) different because it regulates complex, temporally extended states such as emotions and cravings. But critically, these complex states also exhibit important componential structure: They rely on response pulses as a key means by which they bring about action. The overall picture is that self‐control consists of skilled sequences of cognitive control directed against extended streams of response pulses that arise from states such as emotions and cravings, thus preventing these states from being effective in action. The account clarifies the “atoms” of self‐control—the elemental units that get combined in complex ways to produce different kinds of self‐control actions. Surprisingly, the account, which is derived from research in cognitive science, aligns nicely with the commonsense conception of self‐control. (shrink)

Although the connectionist approach has lead to elegant solutions to a number of problems in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, its suitability for dealing with problems in knowledge representation and inference has often been questioned. This paper partly answers this criticism by demonstrating that effective solutions to certain problems in knowledge representation and limited inference can be found by adopting a connectionist approach. The paper presents a connectionist realization of semantic networks, that is, it describes how knowledge about concepts, their (...) properties, and the hierarchical relationship between them may be encoded as an interpreter‐free massively parallel network of simple processing elements that can solve an interesting class of inheritance and recognition problems extremely fast—in time proportional to the depth of the conceptual hierarchy. The connectionist realization is based on an evidential formulation that leads to principled solutions to the problems of exceptions and conflicting multiple inheritance situations during inheritance, and the best‐match or partial‐match computation during recognition. The paper also identifies constraints that must be satisfied by the conceptual structure in order to arrive at an efficient parallel realization. (shrink)

Human agents draw a variety of inferences effortlessly, spontaneously, and with remarkable efficiency – as though these inferences were a reflexive response of their cognitive apparatus. Furthermore, these inferences are drawn with reference to a large body of background knowledge. This remarkable human ability seems paradoxical given the complexity of reasoning reported by researchers in artificial intelligence. It also poses a challenge for cognitive science and computational neuroscience: How can a system of simple and slow neuronlike elements represent a large (...) body of systemic knowledge and perform a range of inferences with such speed? We describe a computational model that takes a step toward addressing the cognitive science challenge and resolving the artificial intelligence paradox. We show how a connectionist network can encode millions of facts and rules involving n-ary predicates and variables and perform a class of inferences in a few hundred milliseconds. Efficient reasoning requires the rapid representation and propagation of dynamic bindings. Our model (which we refer to as SHRUTI) achieves this by representing (1) dynamic bindings as the synchronous firing of appropriate nodes, (2) rules as interconnection patterns that direct the propagation of rhythmic activity, and (3) long-term facts as temporal pattern-matching subnetworks. The model is consistent with recent neurophysiological evidence that synchronous activity occurs in the brain and may play a representational role in neural information processing. The model also makes specific psychologically significant predictions about the nature of reflexive reasoning. It identifies constraints on the form of rules that may participate in such reasoning and relates the capacity of the working memory underlying reflexive reasoning to biological parameters such as the lowest frequency at which nodes can sustain synchronous oscillations and the coarseness of synchronization. (shrink)

According to Dewey, we are responsible for our conduct because it is “ourselves objectified in action”. This idea lies at the heart of an increasingly influential deep self approach to moral responsibility. Existing formulations of deep self views have two major problems: They are often underspecified, and they tend to understand the nature of the deep self in excessively rationalistic terms. Here I propose a new deep self theory of moral responsibility called the Self-Expression account that addresses these issues. The (...) account is composed of two parts. The first part answers the question, What is a deep self? Theorists have tended to favor cognitive views that understand the deep self in terms of rationally formed evaluative judgment. I propose instead a conative view that says one’s deep self consists of a distinctive kind of pro-attitude, cares, and I provide an account of cares in terms of their distinctive psychological functional role. The second part answers the question, When does an action express one’s deep self? I criticize the agentially demanding conditions set out in existing views and propose a more minimalist alternative. I show that the Self-Expression account handles issues that bedeviled traditional deep self views, including how to explain moral responsibility for spontaneous, out of character, and weak-willed actions. (shrink)

Various government efforts to address the exploitation of street beggars have yet to be fully effective, especially in Medan City. This research aims to explore and understand how the practice of street begging exploitation and its social and economic impacts. The method used is qualitative research with a case study approach. The data was collected through in-depth interviews, observations, and focus group discussions involving the Medan City government, non-governmental organizations, and other stakeholders, especially street child beggars. The results showed that (...) the exploitation of street children in Medan City continues to increase, which reflects the problems of poverty and poor child protection. The characteristics of street child beggars in Medan are diverse, with different modes of begging. On the other hand, the Medan City Government has enacted Regional Regulation No. 6 Year 2003 to address this issue, but its implementation could have been more optimal. As the responsible party, the Social Affairs Office of Medan City has made various efforts, such as coaching and rehabilitation, but the number of street children is increasing. This research concludes that a more integrated approach and cooperation with related parties is needed to address the problem of street beggars' exploitation effectively. (shrink)

According to a standard picture of agency, a person’s actions always reflect what they most desire, and many theorists extend this model to mental illness. In this chapter, I pin down exactly where this “volitional” view goes wrong. The key is to recognize that human motivational architecture involves a regulatory control structure: we have both spontaneous states (e.g., automatically-elicited thoughts and action tendencies, etc.) as well as regulatory mechanisms that allow us to suppress or modulate these spontaneous states. Our regulatory (...) abilities, however, are bounded. Mental illnesses, I argue, arise precisely where these bounds are reached, thus allowing inappropriate spontaneous states to regularly manifest in thought and action. I conclude that the volitional view of mental illness is wrong: when a person with mental illness reaches the limits of control, what they do often does not reflect what they most prefer. (shrink)

Humans are unique in the animal world in the extent to which their day-to-day behavior is governed by a complex set of rules and principles commonly called norms. Norms delimit the bounds of proper behavior in a host of domains, providing an invisible web of normative structure embracing virtually all aspects of social life. People also find many norms to be deeply meaningful. Norms give rise to powerful subjective feelings that, in the view of many, are an important part of (...) what it is to be a human agent. Despite the vital role of norms in human lives and human behavior, and the central role they play in explanations in the social sciences, there has been very little systematic attention devoted to norms in cognitive science. Much existing research is partial and piecemeal, making it difficult to know how individual findings cohere into a comprehensive picture. Our goal in this essay is to offer an account of the psychological mechanisms and processes underlying norms that integrates what is known and can serve as a framework for future research. (shrink)

There is an ongoing debate about loss of control in addiction: Some theorists say at least some addicts’ drug-directed desires are irresistible, while others insist that pursuing drugs is a choice. The debate is long-standing and has essentially reached a stalemate. This essay suggests a way forward. I propose an alternative model of loss of control in addiction, one based not on irresistibility, but rather fallibility. According to the model, on every occasion of use, self-control processes exhibit a low, but (...) non-zero, rate of failure due to error. When these processes confront highly recurrent drug-directed desires, the cumulative probability of a self-control lapse steadily grows. The model shows why the following statement—which has an air of paradox—can in fact be true: Each drug-directed desire the addict faces is fully resistible, but the addict nonetheless has significantly diminished control over eventually giving in. (shrink)

Incompatibilists and compatibilists (mostly) agree that there is a strong intuition that a manipulated agent, i.e., an agent who is the victim of methods such as indoctrination or brainwashing, is unfree. They differ however on why exactly this intuition arises. Incompatibilists claim our intuitions in these cases are sensitive to the manipulated agent’s lack of ultimate control over her actions, while many compatibilists argue that our intuitions respond to damage inflicted by manipulation on the agent’s psychological and volitional capacities. Much (...) hangs on this issue because manipulation-based arguments are among the most important for defending incompatibilist views of free will. In this paper, I investigate this issue from a experimental perspective, using a set of statistical methods well suited for identifying the features of hypothetical cases people’s intuitions are responding to. Results strongly support the compatibilist view—subjects’ tendency to judge that a manipulated agent is unfree was found to depend on their judgments that the agent suffers impairments to certain psychological/volitional capacities that compatibilists say are the basis for free will. I discuss the significance of these results for the use of manipulation cases in the philosophical debate about free will. (shrink)

For about 2500 years, from Plato’s time until the closing decades of the 20^th century, the dominant view was that the emotions are quite distinct from the processes of rational thinking and decision making, and are often a major impediment to those processes. But in recent years this orthodoxy has been challenged in a number of ways. Damasio (1994) has made a forceful case that the traditional view, which he has dubbed _Descartes’ Error_, is quite wrong, because emotions play a (...) fundamental role in rational decision making. When the systems underlying the emotions don’t function properly, Damasio maintains, rational decision-making breaks down. Other theorists, most notably Robert Frank (1988), have argued that if we view the emotions through the longer lens of evolutionary theory, we can see that much of what looked to be irrational in the emotions is actually part of an effective strategy for achieving agents’ goals and maximizing their reproductive success. In the wake of this and other recent work, the pendulum of received opinion has swung in the other direction. The emotions are now increasingly regarded as inherently rational, as Frank maintains, and as important components of other rational processes. (shrink)

Abstrak: Kekerasan dalam Alkitab boleh dikatakan merupakan sebuah topik alkitabiah yang unik dan abadi, baik dari sudut pandang akademis maupun spiritual. Orang tidak hanya perlu memahaminya untuk orang lain, tetapi juga untuk diri sendiri. Sejak Marcion di abad pertama sampai saat ini, meskipun sudah amat banyak tulisan dihasilkan, tidak pernah ada suatu solusi yang memuaskan semua pihak. Tulisan ini menawarkan sudut pandang yang jarang disentuh, yaitu sudut pandang Gereja Katolik. Membaca Alkitab sebagai orang Katolik berarti membaca dengan memperhatikan juga ajaran-ajaran (...) Gereja tentang (pokok-pokok tertentu dari) Alkitab sebagaimana terungkap dalam dokumen-dokumen resmi Gereja. Ajaran Gereja khususnya Dei Verbum artikel 11 dan 12 memuat paling tidak pemahaman akan tiga hal yang dapat membuka kemungkinan untuk memahami persoalan ini secara lebih utuh. Pokok-pokok yang dimaksud adalah soal inspirasi, paham tentang Alkitab, dan kesatuan seluruh Alkitab sebagai kunci penafsiran Alkitab dalam Gereja. Pembacaan Alkitab secara menyeluruh menunjukkan bahwa klim kekerasan dalam Alkitab adalah sebuah klim sepihak yang tidak memperhatikan keseluruhan Alkitab sebagaimana dipahami dan di terima Gereja sebagai buku iman. Kata-kata Kunci: Kekerasan dalam Alkitab, Ajaran Gereja, Dei Verbum, inspirasi, paham tentang Alkitab, kesatuan seluruh Alkitab, jenis sastra. Abstract: Violence in the Bible could be considered a unique eternal theme in the Bible, be it from academic or spiritual perspective. One needs to understand it not only for helping others, but also for himself. Since Marcion in the first century up to our time, there has been no solution which is acceptable and could satisfy everybody, notwithstanding the abundance literature on this topic. To read the Bible as Catholic means to read it employing the Church’s teachings on the Bible which are found in the official Church documents as the hermeneutical key. The teaching of the Church especially Dei Verbum 11 and 12 offers an understanding on three important points that could be useful for comprehending the topic in a more comprehensive way. Those three points are the notion of biblical inspiration, the Catholic understanding of the Bible and the unity of the Bible. They could be the key to a correct interpretation of the Bible within the Church. The holistic reading of the Bible shows that the claim of biblical violence is actually a one-sided claim that does not pay fair attention to the unity of the Bible as a whole as it is understood and accepted by the Church as the book of faith. Keywords: Violence in the Bible, Church’s official teaching, Dei Verbum, divine inspiration, notion of the Bible, the unity of the Bible, literary genre. (shrink)

Recently, a number of philosophers have advanced a surprising conclusion: people's judgments about whether an agent brought about an outcome intentionally are pervasively influenced by normative considerations. In this paper, we investigate the ‘Chairman case’, an influential case from this literature and disagree with this conclusion. Using a statistical method called structural path modeling, we show that people's attributions of intentional action to an agent are driven not by normative assessments, but rather by attributions of underlying values and characterological dispositions (...) to the agent. In a second study, we examined people's judgments about what they think drives asymmetric intuitions in the Chairman case and found that people are highly inaccurate in identifying which features of the case their intuitions track. In the final part of the paper, we discuss how the statistical methods used in this study can help philosophers with the critical features problem, the problem of figuring out which among the myriad features present in hypothetical cases are the critical ones that our intuitions are responsive to. We show how the methods used in this study have some advantages over both armchair methods used by traditional philosophers and survey methods used by experimental philosophers. (shrink)

Recent studies by experimental philosophers demonstrate puzzling asymmetries in people’s judgments about intentional action, leading many philosophers to propose that normative factors are inappropriately influencing intentionality judgments. In this paper, I present and defend the Deep Self Model of judgments about intentional action that provides a quite different explanation for these judgment asymmetries. The Deep Self Model is based on the idea that people make an intuitive distinction between two parts of an agent’s psychology, an Acting Self that contains the (...) desires, means-end beliefs, and intentions that are the immediate causal source of an agent’s actions, and a Deep Self, which contains an agent’s stable and central psychological attitudes, including the agent’s values, principles, life goals, and other more fundamental attitudes. The Deep Self Model proposes that when people are asked to make judgments about whether an agent brought about an outcome intentionally, in addition to standard criteria proposed in traditional models, people also assess an additional ‘Concordance Criterion’: Does the outcome concord with the psychological attitudes of the agent’s Deep Self? I show that the Deep Self Model can explain a very complex pattern of judgment asymmetries documented in the experimental philosophy literature, and does so in a way that has significant advantages over competing models. (shrink)

Harry Frankfurt’s Unwilling Addict and Willing Addict cases accomplish something fairly unique: they pull apart the predictions of control-based views of moral responsibility and competing self-expression views. The addicts both lack control over their actions but differ in terms of expression of their respective selves. Frankfurt’s own view is that—in line with the predictions of self-expression views—the unwilling addict is not morally responsible for his drug-directed actions while the willing addict is. But is Frankfurt right? In this essay, I put (...) together a systematic defence of Frankfurt’s position. (shrink)

According to Interest-Relative Invariantism, whether an agent knows that p, or possesses other sorts of epistemic properties or relations, is in part determined by the practical costs of being wrong about p. Recent studies in experimental philosophy have tested the claims of IRI. After critically discussing prior studies, we present the results of our own experiments that provide strong support for IRI. We discuss our results in light of complementary findings by other theorists, and address the challenge posed by a (...) leading intellectualist alternative to our view. (shrink)

This article takes direction from the transnational feminist lesbian encounter that took place between the Dutch collective Sister Outsider and Audre Lorde in the 1980s to reflect on the role of archives within transnational feminist research. Drawing on archival materials from the International Archive for the Women’s Movement (IAV) at Atria (Institute on Gender Equality and Women’s History) in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and the Audre Lorde Papers at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States, I consider how (...) fragmented archives offer stories on kinship, intimacy and loss. Taking into account the ‘absences’ and ‘presences’ (Lewis, 2017) produced in this archival research project, I propose an archival research methodology that is rooted in a practice of ‘orientation’ (Ahmed, 2006a, 2006b), ‘listening’ (Campt, 2017) and ‘intervention’ (Appadurai, 2003). (shrink)

Today, business corporations across the globe are moving beyond the short-term myopic goal of profit maximization to long-term sustainability goals involving environmental, social and corporate governance goals. This is due to the growing realization that ESG factors constitute a significant source of risk for the business and can affect their financial returns. Academic research has shown that improved ESG performance has lowered risk and enhanced financial performance but results seemed to vary widely across countries. Regrettably, this subject remains largely un-researched (...) in the context of emerging economies, including India. This paper attempts to fill this much needed gap in sustainability literature in one of the largest emerging market economies, India. It empirically examines the impact of environmental, social and corporate governance performance of companies on their financial performance, in India, using panel regression models. The findings of the study indicate that good corporate ESG performance enhances financial performance. The findings of this study have important implications for investors, corporate management as well as policymakers and regulators. (shrink)

In computational cognitive science, a valuationist picture of human agent architecture has become widespread. At the heart of valuationism is a simple and sweeping claim: Every time an agent acts, they do so on the basis of value representations, which are, roughly, representations of the expected value of one’s response options. In this essay, I do three things. First, I give a systematic, philosophically rich account of the valuationist picture of agency. I also highlight the generality of the model in (...) explaining diverse forms of person-level agency. Second, I discuss connections between the valuationist model and two traditional models in philosophy, the belief/desire model and the decision-theoretic model. Valuationism is related to both, but critical differences remain. Third, I canvas the wide-ranging implications of valuationism for philosophical inquiry. Among other things, valuationism illuminates the elusive boundary between activity and passivity; it flips the standard philosophical understanding of decision around, with decision being a source of, rather than a product of, one’s agency; it reconceptualizes motivation as, in part, a representational phenomenon; it challenges a philosophical dogma that control over action is more extensive than control over belief; and it offers an intriguing “accuracy-based” approach to the normative criticism of agency. (shrink)