We propose that the crucial difference between human cognition and that of other species is the ability to participate with others in collaborative activities with shared goals and intentions: shared intentionality. Participation in such activities requires not only especially powerful forms of intention reading and cultural learning, but also a unique motivation to share psychological states with others and unique forms of cognitive representation for doing so. The result of participating in these activities is species-unique forms of cultural cognition and (...) evolution, enabling everything from the creation and use of linguistic symbols to the construction of social norms and individual beliefs to the establishment of social institutions. In support of this proposal we argue and present evidence that great apes understand the basics of intentional action, but they still do not participate in activities involving joint intentions and attention. Human children's skills of shared intentionality develop gradually during the first 14 months of life as two ontogenetic pathways intertwine: the general ape line of understanding others as animate, goal-directed, and intentional agents; and a species-unique motivation to share emotions, experience, and activities with other persons. The developmental outcome is children's ability to construct dialogic cognitive representations, which enable them to participate in earnest in the collectivity that is human cognition. Key Words: collaboration; cooperation; cultural learning; culture; evolutionary psychology; intentions; shared intentionality; social cognition; social learning; theory of mind; joint attention. (shrink)

Alan Turing advocated a kind of functionalism: A machine M is a thinker provided that it responds in certain ways to certain inputs. Davidson argues that Turing’s functionalism is inconsistent with a cer-tain kind of epistemic externalism, and is therefore false. In Davidson’s view, concepts consist of causal liasons of a certain kind between subject and object. Turing’s machine doesn’t have the right kinds of causal li-asons to its environment. Therefore it doesn’t have concepts. Therefore it doesn’t think. I argue (...) that this reasoning is entirely fallacious. It is true that, in some cases, a causal liason between subject and object is part of one’s concept of that object. Consequently, to grasp certain propositions, one must have certain kids of causal ties to one’s environment. But this means that we must rethink some old views on what rationality is. It does not mean, pace Davidson, that a precondition for being rational is being causally embedded in one’s environment in a certain way. If Tur-ing’s machine isn’t capable of thinking (I leave it open whether it is or is not), that has nothing to do with its lacking certain kinds of causal con-nections to the environment. The larger significance of our discussion is this: rationality consists either in one’s ability to see the bearing of purely existential propositions on one another or rationality is simply not to be understood as the ability see the bearing that propositions have on one another. (shrink)

Instead of writing a book or article, which contains at most one paragraph’s worth of actual content, why not just write that one paragraph?

It is shown that institutions are fractals, meaning that are structurally the same as their parts, and that for this reason liberal institutions are quicker than conservative institutions to decay into a condition of abject psychopathy.

Doing is about having ideals. Merely reacting isn't. Therefore people who lack integrity can react but cannot act.

The sciences are typically divided into the physical and the psychological—or, what comes to the same thing, the natural and the social. This is not the right way to divide the class of sciences. The right division is between the sciences that study entropic systems and the sciences that study counter-entropic systems. Biology and psychology study counter-entropic systems. Physics studies entropic systems. The concept of a function—not in the mathematical, but in the purpose-related sense---is completely alien to the logic of (...) the entropic sciences, but it is central to the logic of the counter-entropic sciences. (shrink)

A therapist turns very damaged people into moderately damaged people. I turn moderately strong people into very strong people. I am an analyst, not a therapist.

The modern age has not given rise to any new psychopathologies. But modern social configurations have withdrawn some of the constraints that in times past inhibited the development of latent psychopathology.

Does the conceit in question expand awareness or narrow it? If it narrows it, then it is pathological. It if expands it, it is non-pathological.

Double-think is more of a threat to psychical integrity than repression.

We may dislike or disapprove of criminals who are genuine doers, as opposed to drifters; but we do not hold them in contempt. We hold them in contempt when, and only when, they are drifters. And in almost cases, that is precisely what they are.

The theorems of the propositional calculus and the predicate calculus are stated, and the analogous principles of Boolean Algebra are identified. Also, the primary principles of modal logic are stated, and a procedure is described for identifying their Boolean analogues.

An analysis of Gibbon's five signs of civilizational decay.

Obsessions are internalized compulsions, and compulsions are externalized obsessions.

The behavior of individuals who compose an institution tends to mirror the behavior of that institution as a whole. This short work illustrates this principle.

W.V.O. tried to prove that no statement is necessarily true. In this work, Quine's argument is stated, analyzed, and shown to be a broken argument for a false conclusion. It is shown that necessary truths are as important as empirical truths to the empirical sciences, the reason being that, without necessary truths, there is no way to organize or interpret data. It comes to light that, in addition to being false, every form of extreme empiricism (e.g. Dewey's pragmatism, Wittgenstein's verificationism, (...) Comte's positivism) is so incoherent that it cannot be clearly stated without thereby being refuted. (shrink)

According to one point of view, emotions are recognitions of truths of a certain kind -- most probably valuative truths (truths to the effect that something is good or bad). After giving the standard arguments for this view, and also providing a new argument of my own for it, I set forth two arguments against it. First, this position makes all emotions be epistemically right or wrong. But this view is hard to sustain where certain emotions (especially desire) are concerned. (...) Second, this position is guilty of presupposing what it is meant to explain; for it makes emotions be a pre-requisite for the very value judgments with which emotions are supposed, according to that theory, to be identical. (shrink)

Nach David Hume ist das Konzept der Kausalität und Wahrscheinlichkeit in Begriffen von Ähnlichkeit und Wiederholung zu verstehen. In diesem Buch wird gezeigt, dass Sie in Bezug auf das Konzept der Kontinuität zu verstehen sind. Eine logische Folge ist, dass es keine legitime Grundlage für Skepsis hinsichtlich der Legitimität der induktiven Folgerung gibt. Ein weiterer ist, dass Anti-Realismus über theoretische Entitäten ist undenkbar.

It is concisely explained what Borderline Personality Disorder is and how it differs from psychopathy.

Este trabajo da claras respuestas rigurosas a las cuestiones fundamentales de la epistemología, siendo estas: -/- * ¿Qué es el conocimiento? * ¿Cómo difiere el conocimiento declarativo del conocimiento procedimental? * ¿Cómo se diferencia el conocimiento intuitivo forma ¿conocimiento discursivo? * ¿Cómo difiere el conocimiento científico de los conocimientos no científicos? * ¿Cuál es la diferencia entre el descubrimiento y la justificación? * ¿Cuál es la naturaleza de nuestro conocimiento del pasado, del futuro, de lo meramente posible, y del presente (...) pero no perceptible? * ¿Cómo es el conocimiento conceptual diferente del conocimiento empírico? * ¿todo el conocimiento es inferencial? * ¿todo el conocimiento es teórico? * ¿todo el conocimiento inferencial es teórico? * ¿es la mente transparente para sí misma? * ¿es coherente el concepto de ideación inconsciente? * ¿Cuál es el problema de Gettier y cuál es la solución al problema de Gettier? -/- Este libro es apropiado para principiantes y también para los investigadores. (shrink)

In this work, Descartes' metaphysics and epistemology are clearly stated and assiduously analyzed. It is shown that Descartes' epistemic foundationalism is tenable, and that his mind-body dualism is correct if taken to concern the relationship of mentalistic (mind-related) data to physicalistic data, even though it is incorrect if taken to concern the relationship of mind per se to body per se. Descartes' analysis of causation is shown to be correct, notwithstanding the copious criticism to which centuries have subjected it. Descartes (...) arguments for God's existence are clearly stated and, thereby, shown to be masterpieces of dialectical ingenuity. (shrink)

When bad people try to be good, their supposed goodness turns out to be a mere extension of their badness and in fact compounds their badness by giving it a sheen of legitimacy.

It is proved that time travel is not possible.

Unless one has beliefs before having all of the data that would justify those beliefs, one will fail to acquire that data and, moreover, one will be a bureaucratic cripple, who cannot act because he is in a perpetual state of skepticism-induced decision-paralysis.

A fictitious dialogue in which an answer is given to the question: Why are the rates of psychosis and psychopathy in the United States so high?

Freud divided people in three libidinal types: narcissist (doer), obsessional (thinker), and libidinal (lover). Kirk (narcissist), Spock (obsessional) and McCoy (libidinal) complemented each other, giving the show depth and balance.

Sometimes, when a given person and/or his scholarly work are boring, it is intentional: that person is deliberately being boring so that nobody bothers to scrutinize, or therefore discover, the emptiness of either him or his work.

Dishonesty with oneself makes one unable to act. Honesty with oneself makes one able to act.

It is said what it is to persist in time, and on that basis it is shown that time-travel, teleportation, and other mainstays of science fiction are impossible.

The most basic laws and principles of the Predicate Calculus, also known as Quantification Theory, are stated, as clearly and concisely as possible.

Paranoia is obsessive fear, and obsessive fear is unconscious desire.

The most important laws of the propositional calculus are clearly and succinctly stated.

In this paper, it is shown that an event E can be the cause of an event E* even if there is a less than 100% likelihood that, given an arbitrary E-similar event, an E*-similar event will ensue.

In this work, it is made clear: -/- (1) What it is to rationalize and how rationalization is possible; (2) What it is to repress and how repression is possible; (3) How internal conflict is possible, how it is related to anxiety and other affective states, and how internal conflict causes blindness; (4) Why it is that conceptualized self-awareness is repression-resistant (though not repression-proof) and non-conceptualized self-awareness is not repression-resistant; (5) How rationalization is necessary for repression and vice versa; (6) (...) Why rationalization is not in and of itself pathological and why, in addition, rationalization is within limits a biological necessity; (7) Where exactly the cut-off line is between morbid and healthy rationalization; (8) How compartmentalization and repression depend on each other, how they are similar, and how they are different; (9) Why even though mental events are presumably mediated by physical (physiological, neural) events, psychology is not low-resolution physiology; (10) Why, by virtue of being the one discipline whose data are themselves data, the logical structure of the discipline of psychology is unique; (11) Why notwithstanding the last point two points, Dilthey's 'empathy-based' approach to psychology is wrong and why Hempel's narrowly positivistic analysis of psychological explanation is no less wrong, (12) What is involved in reducing one discipline to another; (13) What the differences are between 'access-conscious' (Freud's 'topographical' unconscious) and 'access-unconscious' (Freud's 'dynamic', i.e. repression-based, unconscious); (14) How rationalization is involved in character-remodeling and character-degradation; (15) What it is to sociopathize; (16) What the differences are between the psychopath, the sociopath, and criminal; (17) How criminosis may safeguard (while, it is true, causing some degradation of) one's personality-architecture against forces that would otherwise lead to sociopathogenesis; (18) How Nietzsche's ethical egoism is an oblique way of saying, correctly, that unless one is true to oneself, one's morality is sham-morality and how this prima facie ethical claim is a demonstrably (and demonstrably correct) non-normative, psychological claim; (19) What the relationship is between psychological integrity and moral integrity; (20) Why those lacking psychological integrity can be anything more than 'reflex machines', to use Checkley’s term; (21) What intentions are, why intentions are not identical with desires; (22) Why Davidson's 'interpretivism' is spurious and why the same is true of all forms of functionalism; (23) Why the Computational Theory of Mind is spurious; (24) Why many a psychopath is regarded as a person of merit; (25) Why some alleged solutions to the mind-body problem are non-solutions and what the merits and demerits are of Descartes' conceivability-argument for mind-body dualism. (shrink)

A rigorous examination of the assumptions underlying empirical inquiry, with special attention being paid to: -/- *Causation *The relationship between the causal order and the spatiotemporal order *Probability (specifically, the distinction between statistical probability and explanatory probability) *Causation in relation to determinism *Different kinds of determinism *Causation in relation to prediction *Factors limiting the scope and accuracy of prediction *Data-modeling vs. truth-identification (the convergence of the two in psychology, the divergence of the two in the physical sciences) *Interdisciplinary reduction *The (...) distinctive nature of psychology *Substantive but under-examined empirical questions within the discipline of psychology relating to the different kinds of psychopathy and to the distinction between psychopathy and non-psychopathic (in some cases counter-psychopathic) criminality *The concept of a datum *The distinction between data and truths and, more generally, between non-propositional and propositional content *The linguistic basis of discursive thought and scientific procedure -/- The last chapter of the present work contains definitions of every philosophy-specific term occurring in the book, along with an analysis of the corresponding concept. (shrink)

There are two kinds of bureaucracies: those that serve some non-bureaucratic purpose, albeit in a bureaucratic way, and those whose only purpose is to create more bureaucracy.

How a person is on the inside replicates how he is on the outside—so he is a fractal in that sense. And how he is in little matters replicates how he is in big ones—so he is a fractal in that sense as well. And so it is that a person’s identity has a doubly fractal structure.

Wittgenstein believed linguistic competence to be the very essence of cognitive competence. This is shown to be false and the main fallacy in Wittgenstein's argument is identified.

For intellectuals, and probably others, one form of escapism is a kind of constricted and shallow hyper-realism—the hyper-realism of having a dead-end job, even though one has a PhD or an IQ of 170. And that sort of hyper-realism is pseudo-realism, because realism is not about having a bad life; it is having the courage to have a good life, which the intellectual with the dead end job does not have.

Chomsky's arguments for the existence of pre-experiential knowledge, and for the existence of sub-personal cognition, are clearly stated and shown to be cogent.

Vegans self-identify as animals. So for them, consuming animal products is cannibalism, and that is why don't consume such products.