Research integrity is core to the mission of higher education. In undergraduate student samples, self-reported rates of data fabrication have been troublingly high. Despite this, no research has investigated undergraduate data fabrication in a more systematic manner. We applied duplication screening techniques to 18 data sets submitted by psychology honors students for assessment. Although we did not identify any completely duplicated cases, there were numerous partial duplicates. Rather than indicating fabrication, however, these partial duplicates are likely a consequence of poor (...) measure selection, insufficient data screening, and/or participant characteristics. Implications for the teaching and supervision of honors students are discussed. (shrink)

The “A-not-B” error is consistent with an old memory principle, Jost's Law. Quantitative properties of the effect can be explained by a dynamic model for habituation that is also consistent with Jost. Piaget was well aware of the resemblance between adult memory errors and the “A-not-B” effect and, contrary to their assertions, Thelen et al.'s analysis of the object concept is much the same as his, though couched in different language.

Accumulating evidence suggests that different magnitudes (e.g., number, size, and duration) are spatialized in the mind according to a common left–right metric, consistent with a generalized system for representing magnitude. A previous study conducted by two of us (Holmes & Lourenco, ) provided evidence that this metric extends to the processing of emotional magnitude, or the intensity of emotion expressed in faces. Recently, however, Pitt and Casasanto () showed that the earlier effects may have been driven by a left–right mapping (...) of mouth size rather than emotional magnitude, and they found no evidence for an emotional magnitude mapping when using words as stimuli. Here, we report two new experiments that further examine these conclusions. In Experiment 1, using face stimuli with mouths occluded, we replicate the original finding: Less emotional faces were associated with the left and more emotional faces with the right. However, we also find that people can reliably infer the sizes of the occluded mouths, and that these inferred mouth sizes can explain the observed left–right mapping. In Experiment 2, we show that comparative judgments of emotional words yield a left–right mapping of emotional magnitude not attributable to stimulus confounds. Based on these findings, we concur with Pitt and Casasanto that faces pose challenges for isolating the forces driving spatialization, but we suggest that emotional magnitude, when assessed using unconfounded stimuli in a sufficiently sensitive task, may indeed be spatialized as originally proposed. Suggestions for further research on the spatialization of emotional magnitude are discussed. (shrink)

O presente artigo apresenta argumentos em defesa da hipótese de que nomes próprios gerais são impossíveis no contexto da filosofia geral de Stuart Mill. Minha tese é contrária à posição de John Skorupski sobre esta questão. Ofereço dois argumentos que representam, respectivamente, duas diferentes perspectivas: pragmático e sistemático. No primeiro, analiso o problema dos nomes próprios gerais no contexto da linguagem natural. No segundo, discuto o problema no contexto interno do Sistema de Lógica de Mill.

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion.

Lockdowns, or modern quarantines, involve the use of novel restrictive non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to suppress the transmission of COVID-19. In this paper, I aim to critically analyze the emerging history and philosophy of lockdowns, with an emphasis on the communication of health evidence and risk for informing policy decisions. I draw a distinction between evidence-based and modeling-based decision-making. I argue that using the normative framework of evidence-based medicine would have recommended against the use of lockdowns. I first review the World (...) Health Organization’s evidence-based pandemic preparedness plans for respiratory viruses. I then provide a very brief history of COVID-19 modeling, which was cited as justification for the use of lockdowns in the U.K., the U.S., and much of the world. I focus on the so-called Imperial College model designed by Neil Ferguson et al. as well as the so-called Oxford model designed by José Lourenço et al. I analyze the evidence-based pandemic response known as ‘mitigation’, and I compare it with Ferguson et al.’s experimental strategy known as ‘suppression’. I summarize the strengths and weaknesses of these strategies based on their diametric aims and each model’s parametric assumptions. Based on my critical analysis of the suppression strategy, I attempt to expose what has been called the ‘logic of lockdowns’, which Sunetra Gupta of the Oxford model group has suggested is flawed. Finally, I consider Trisha Greenhalgh’s objection to evidence-based policy based on the precautionary principle, and I attempt to offer a response. I conclude with a brief narrative review of the emerging randomized evidence on restrictive NPIs, which seems to support my claim that mitigation was the strategy that would have been recommended by evidence-based medicine. If this is true, then COVID-19 modeling may serve as an important reminder of the enduring lesson of evidence-based medicine: that one should always ‘Trust the Evidence!’ for better health policy. (shrink)

How do thought and language manage to be 'about' aspects of the world? J. Robert G. Williams investigates how representation arises out of a fundamentally non-representational world, showing the explanatory relations between the representational properties of language, of thought, and of perception and intention.

What are physical quantities, and in particular, what makes them quantitative? This book presents an original answer to this question through the novel position of substantival structuralism, arguing that quantitativeness is an irreducible feature of attributes, and quantitative attributes are best understood as substantival structured spaces.

J.L. Schellenberg offers a path to a new kind of religious outlook. Reflection on our early stage in the evolutionary process leads to skepticism about religion, but also offers a new answer to the problem of faith and reason, and the possibility of a new, evolutionary form of religion.

Aristotle and the sea battle, by G. E. M. Anscombe.--Aristotle's different possibilities, by K. J. J. Hintikka.--On Aristotle's square of opposition, by M. Thompson.--Categories in Aristotle and in Kant, by J. C. Wilson.--Aristotle's Categories, chapters I-V: translation and notes, by J. L. Ackrill--Aristotle's theory of categories, by J. M. E. Moravcsik.--Essence and accident, by I. M. Copi.--Tithenai ta phainomena, by G. E. L. Owen.--Matter and predication in Aristotle, by J. Owens.--Problems in Metaphysics Z, chapter 13, by M. J. Woods.--The meaning (...) of agathon in the Ethics of Aristotle, by H. A. Prichard.--Agathon and eudaimonia in the Ethics of Aristotle, by J. L. Austin.--The final good in Aristotle's Ethics, by W. F. R. Hardie.--Aristotle on pleasure, by J. O. Urmson.--Bibliography (p. 335-41). (shrink)

Misconceptions about energy conservation abound due to the gap between physics and secondary school chemistry. This paper surveys this difference and its relevance to the 1690s–2010s Leibnizian argument that mind-body interaction is impossible due to conservation laws. Justifications for energy conservation are partly empirical, such as Joule’s paddle wheel experiment, and partly theoretical, such as Lagrange’s statement in 1811 that energy is conserved if the potential energy does not depend on time. In 1918 Noether generalized results like Lagrange’s and proved (...) a converse: symmetries imply conservation laws and vice versa. Conservation holds if and only if nature is uniform. The rise of field physics during the 1860s–1920s implied that energy is located in particular places and conservation is primordially local: energy cannot disappear in Cambridge and reappear in Lincoln instantaneously or later; neither can it simply disappear in Cambridge or simply appear in Lincoln. A global conservation law can be inferred in some circumstances. Einstein’s General Relativity, which stimulated Noether’s work, is another source of difficulty for conservation laws. As is too rarely realized, the theory admits conserved quantities due to symmetries of the Lagrangian, like other theories. Indeed General Relativity has more symmetries and hence more conserved energies. An argument akin to Leibniz’s finally gets some force. While the mathematics is too advanced for secondary school, the ideas that conservation is tied to uniformities of nature and that energy is in particular places, are accessible. Improved science teaching would serve the truth and enhance the social credibility of science. (shrink)

In focusing on the story of Darwin's religious doubts, scholars too often overlook Darwin's positive contribution to the study of religion. J. David Pleins traces Darwin's journey in five steps. He begins with Darwin's global voyage, where his encounter with religious and cultural diversity transformed his understanding of religion. Surprisingly, Darwin wrestles with serious theological questions even as he uncovers the evolutionary layers of religion from savage roots. Next, we follow Darwin as his doubts about traditional biblical religion take root, (...) affecting his career choice and marriage to Emma Wedgwood. Pleins then examines Darwin's secret notebooks as he searches for a materialist theory of religion. Again, other surprises loom as Darwin's reading of Comte's three stages of religion's development actually predate his reading of Malthus. Pleins explores how Darwin applied his discovery to the realm of ethics by formulating an evolutionary view of the "Golden Rule" in his Descent of Man. Finally, he considers Darwin's later reflections on the religion question, as he wrestled with whether his views led to atheism, agnosticism, or a new kind of theism. The Evolving God concludes by looking at some of the current religious debates surrounding Darwin and suggests the need for a deeper appreciation for Darwin as a religious thinker. Though he grew skeptical of traditional Christian dogma, Darwin made key discoveries concerning the role and function of religion as a natural evolutionary phenomenon. (shrink)

This book takes on two main tasks. The first is to argue that anti-hedonism lies at the center of Plato's critical project in both ethics and politics. Plato sees pleasure and pain as our sole sources of empirical evidence about good and bad. But as sources of evidence they are highly fallible; contrast effects with pain intensify certain pleasures, including most pleasures related to the body and social standing. This leads us to believe that the causes of such pleasures (e.g. (...) food, drink, sex, status) are greater goods than they are, and greater goods than other, more important goods (e.g. virtue, knowledge). As a result, hedonic error produces the belief that vice, including injustice, can be prudent. Hedonic error leads to other misconceptions of virtue as well, such as that wisdom is weak and can be ruled by the passions. These cognitive distortions can only be corrected by reference to some non-hedonic standard, so hedonists reliably fall prey to them. This entire system of attitudes—hedonism and its associated misconceptions of virtue—is widely held and constitutes popular morality. Popular morality's basic source is hedonic error, but it is also transmitted and sustained in society through shame and fear of punishment. However, avoiding shame and punishment requires a sort of double-think: adherents of popular morality must accept certain views that they cannot acknowledge too clearly or too publicly. For example, they must hold that injustice can be prudent and must be willing to wrong out-groups (e.g. another city), but openly acknowledging this same view threatens in-groups (one's own city) by implying willingness to wrong some in the city to benefit a closer in-group (e.g. one's class, clique, or family). // -/- The book's second task is to tackle a seeming outlier to Plato's anti-hedonism: the _Protagoras_, where Socrates appears to defend hedonism. I argue that the _Protagoras_ actually perfectly illustrates Plato's anti-hedonism, as explained above. Protagoras and other sophists think they shape public opinion, but in fact they have internalized popular morality through shame and fear. As a result, Protagoras accepts but refuses to openly endorse three parts of popular morality: that injustice can be prudent (333c), that pleasure is the good (351c-d), and that wisdom is weak and can be ruled by the passions (352c-d). Each time, his concealed view is (aptly!) attributed to "the many". So, when Socrates appears to endorse hedonism in the _Protagoras_, he actually introduces and develops the view as part of his examination of Protagoras' covert ethical commitments. (shrink)

This volume provides discussions of both the concept of responsibility and of punishment, and of both individual and collective responsibility. It provides in-depth Socratic and Kantian bases for a new version of retributivism, and defends that version against the main criticisms that have been raised against retributivism in general. It includes chapters on criminal recidivism and capital punishment, as well as one on forgiveness, apology and punishment that is congruent with the basic precepts of the new retributivism defended therein. Finally, (...) chapters on corporate responsibility and punishment are included, with a closing chapter on holding the U.S. accountable for its most recent invasion and occupation of Iraq. The book is well-focused but also presents the widest ranging set of topics of any book of its kind as it demonstrates how the concepts of responsibility and punishment apply to some of the most important problems of our time. “This is one of the best books on punishment, and the Fourth Edition continues its tradition of excellence. The book connects punishment importantly to moral responsibility and desert, and it is comprehensive in its scope, both addressing abstract, theoretical issues and applied issues as well. The topics treated include collective responsibility, apology, forgiveness, capital punishment, and war crimes. Highly recommended.”—John Martin Fischer, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Riverside. (shrink)

The widely accepted supposition that Newton’s De gravitatione was written in 1684/5 just before composing the Principia is examined. The basis for this determination has serious difficulties starting with the failure to examine the numerical estimates for the resistance of aether. The estimated range is not nearly nil as claimed but comparable with air at or near the earth’s surface. Moreover, the evidence provided most likely stems from experiments by Boyle, Hooke, and others in the 1660s and does not use (...) evidence available in the late 1684. The document supports Newton’s contention that the aether medium incorporates very large voids thereby proving that body and space differ but does by no means completely reject its corporeal nature or eliminate its resistance. Newton’s use of the term inertia provides no conclusive evidence for a late date as often claimed and his definition of gravitas is difficult to reconcile with a late one. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the question of quantitativeness – of identifying the feature that makes quantitative properties quantitative. The chapter begins with two traditional attempts at capturing what makes a property quantitative – being numerical and being determinable – and argues that neither is satisfactory. The chapter then turns to influential recent proposals which, inspired by the Representational Theory of Measurement, attempt to identify particular relations as characteristic of quantitative properties. These attempts fare better than the traditional ones, but have (...) their own limitations. It concludes with a discussion of a new recent criterion for quantitativeness, which builds on a more abstract understanding of the representational theory of measurement. (shrink)

An explanatory gap exists between physics and experience, raising the hard problem of consciousness: why are certain physical systems associated with an experience of an external world from an internal perspective? The living mirror theory holds that consciousness can be understood as arising from the computational interaction between a living system and its environment that is required for the organism's existence and survival. Maintaining a boundary that protects the system against destructive forces requires an interaction between the organism and its (...) outside world that can be cast in terms of Bayesian inference. The living mirror theory holds that this computational interaction results in statistical properties of the material world that are, in the absence of life, only implicit, becoming explicit in informational terms. This is held to give rise to the beliefs in qualities that constitute consciousness. Consciousness is therefore a necessary feature of all living systems as, in a world governed by the second law of thermodynamics, survival depends on the construction of beliefs regarding the potentially destructive forces in the outside world. From this perspective, consciousness is shown to be not a property of the brain in particular but instead to be a necessary feature of the life process itself. (shrink)

Private-property anarchy is better than the state in the enhancement of liberty and welfare. Strictly speaking, market exchange is one aspect of private-property anarchy. But I here focus on market-anarchy as that is a main source of confusion and debate. Similarly, pluralism is another aspect of privateproperty anarchy. I focus on pluralism as an example of a currently popular topic where private-property anarchy is misunderstood. ‘Pluralism’ here means ‘(tolerating) different ways of life’. ‘The market’ means ‘voluntary exchange’. ‘Anarchy’ means ‘no (...) rule’. Both interpersonal liberty and private property are inherently anarchic: no one is ruled to the extent that these exist. They are also naturally pluralist. The state, by contrast, coercively imposes ultimate control and is thus inherently illiberal and naturally Procrustean. Democratic prejudice obscures these facts. (shrink)