In cognitive science, there is a tacit norm that phenomena such as cultural variation or synaesthesia are worthy examples of cognitive diversity that contribute to a better understanding of cognition, but that other forms of cognitive diversity (e.g., autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder/ADHD, and dyslexia) are primarily interesting only as examples of deficit, dysfunction, or impairment. This status quo is dehumanizing and holds back much-needed research. In contrast, the neurodiversity paradigm argues that such experiences are not necessarily deficits but rather (...) are natural reflections of biodiversity. Here, we propose that neurodiversity is an important topic for future research in cognitive science. We discuss why cognitive science has thus far failed to engage with neurodiversity, why this gap presents both ethical and scientific challenges for the field, and, crucially, why cognitive science will produce better theories of human cognition if the field engages with neurodiversity in the same way that it values other forms of cognitive diversity. Doing so will not only empower marginalized researchers but will also present an opportunity for cognitive science to benefit from the unique contributions of neurodivergent researchers and communities. (shrink)

Proceedings of a conference held Dec. 4-5, 1998 at the Universit'at G'ottingen.

Building on our diverse research traditions in the study of reasoning, language and communication, the Polish School of Argumentation integrates various disciplines and institutions across Poland in which scholars are dedicated to understanding the phenomenon of the force of argument. Our primary goal is to craft a methodological programme and establish organisational infrastructure: this is the first key step in facilitating and fostering our research movement, which joins people with a common research focus, complementary skills and an enthusiasm to work (...) together. This statement—the Manifesto—lays the foundations for the research programme of the Polish School of Argumentation. (shrink)

An ideal vision model accounts for behavior and neurophysiology in both naturalistic conditions and designed lab experiments. Unlike psychological theories, artificial neural networks (ANNs) actually perform visual tasks and generate testable predictions for arbitrary inputs. These advantages enable ANNs to engage the entire spectrum of the evidence. Failures of particular models drive progress in a vibrant ANN research program of human vision.

The past three decades of policy process studies have seen the emergence of a clear intellectual lineage with regard to complexity. Implicitly or explicitly, scholars have employed complexity theory to examine the intricate dynamics of collective action in political contexts. However, the methodological counterparts to complexity theory, such as computational methods, are rarely used and, even if they are, they are often detached from established policy process theory. Building on a critical review of the application of complexity theory to policy (...) process studies, we present and implement a baseline model of policy processes using the logic of coevolving networks. Our model suggests that an actor’s influence depends on their environment and on exogenous events facilitating dialogue and consensus-building. Our results validate previous opinion dynamics models and generate novel patterns. Our discussion provides ground for further research and outlines the path for the field to achieve a computational turn. (shrink)

Numerous studies show that language can influence both perceptual judgments, as well as the mental categorization of objects in memory. Previous research showed that using diminutive names of objects resulted in being less satisfied with owning said objects and lowering their perceived value. In the present studies, to explore this phenomenon, we decided to investigate whether the influence of a diminutive on the reduction in the subjective value of an object is determined by the perceived size of the object, in (...) accordance with the „bigger is better” heuristic. In Study 1 participants estimated a banknote to be smaller when it was presented with a diminutive label “banknocik” than “banknot”. However, this was not related to the perceived subjective value of the banknote. In Study 2 participants declared that they could buy less with a coin labeled as “pieniążek” than “pieniądz”, but the effect was not linked to the perceived size of the coins. In Study 3 a candy bar labeled as “batonik” was evaluated worse than the same product labeled “baton”, however, once again this was not related to the evaluation of its size. Thus, we show that the effect of diminutives on the reduction in the subjective value of an object is independent of the evaluation of the size of the object and we consider other explanations for the occurrence of this phenomenon. (shrink)

Professional soldiers and academics have spent considerable effort trying to conclude when it is permissible to set aside the usual moral prohibition against killing in order to achieve the goals set before them. What has received much less attention, however, is when it is appropriate to set aside other moral considerations such as the prohibition against deception, theft and blackmail. This makes some sense, since if it is moral to kill someone, whether or not it is appropriate to deceive him (...) seems to be trivial in comparison. But members of the intelligence community, both military and non-military, must determine for times of peace as well as war when it is appropriate to set aside the usual prohibitions in order to achieve national objectives. The purpose of this article is to provide a framework for military and non-military intelligence professionals for answering and discussing these questions. By applying insights from Kantian and Lockean ethics, the authors seek to describe an ethic of the intelligence profession that permits a combination of ethical restraint and intelligence effectiveness. (shrink)

In this monograph, Colonel Tony Pfaff explores the ethical challenges facing the Army in an era of persistent conflict dominated by a variety of irregular ...

This article examines some selected ethical issues in human space missions including human missions to Mars, particularly the idea of a space refuge, the scientific value of space exploration, and the possibility of human gene editing for deep-space travel. Each of these issues may be used either to support or to criticize human space missions. We conclude that while these issues are complex and context-dependent, there appear to be no overwhelming obstacles such as cost effectiveness, threats to human life or (...) protection of pristine space objects, to sending humans to space and to colonize space. The article argues for the rationality of the idea of a space refuge and the defensibility of the idea of human enhancement applied to future deep-space astronauts. (shrink)

This paper aims to elucidate a kind of ignorance that is more fundamental than a momentary lack of information, but also not a kind of ignorance that is built into the subject’s cognitive apparatus such that the subject can’t do anything about it. The paper sets forth the notion of cognitive confinement, which is a contingent, yet relatively stable state of being structurally or systematically unable to gain information from an environment, determined by patterns of interaction between the subject and (...) the world. In order to unpack the idea of cognitive confinement the paper discusses niche construction theory, and then, in greater detail, the notion of cognitive niche once proposed by John Tooby and Irven DeVore. Cognitive confinement is here imagined as a pathologized form of cognitive niche. This posit is substantiated by referring to a case that has come to the fore in recent years and raised debate around the world: the rise of so-called filter bubbles. They turn out to be instantiations of a more general phenomenon of cognitive confinement. (shrink)

Marc-Wogau, K. Mina filosofiska fördomar.--Gustafsson, L. Om klassifikation.--Kanger, S. Några synpunkter på begreppet inflytande.--Torstendahl, R. Minikrav, optimumnormer och paradigm i historisk vetenskap.--Lagerberg, D. Punktkommentarer till dialektiken.--Nordenfeldt, L. Om olika former av interaktion.--Puterman, Z. An indeterminist interpretation of Marx's historical determinism.--Carls, R. Kunskap och frihet.--Andersson, J. S. Some notions of pragmatic implication.--Tönisson, I. A preliminary study of interpreting K[subscript x]ø¹.--Bergström, L. Vilken handlingsutilitarism är den riktiga?--Alfredsson, T. Kärlekskoefficienter.--Segerberg, K. The assignment problem as a problem of social choice.--Åqvist, L. En tidslogisk variant (...) av Morgenstjärneparadoxen. (shrink)

Part of The US Army Large-Scale Combat Operations Series, Maintaining the High Ground combines discussions and historical case studies from the past seventy-five years to address ethical challenges for the Army Profession. With today's all-volunteer Army, maintaining public trust is critical, and large-scale combat operations require a professional class of leaders and soldiers with strong ethics and the ability to adapt and even shape their own future.

The paper discusses the concept of the cognitive niche and distinguishes the latter from the metabolic niche. By using these posits I unpack certain ideas that are crucial for the enactivist movement, especially for its original formulation proposed by Varela, Thompson and Rosh. Drawing on the ontology of location, boundaries, and parthood, I argue that enacting the world can be seen as the process of cognitive niche construction. Moreover, it turns out that enactivism—as seen through the lens of the conceptual (...) framework proposed in the paper—considers cognition as a kind of connection between the subject and the world. This post is pointed to as the key idea laid down in enactivism. (shrink)

Hugely controversial on publication, this is an insightful and characteristically entertaining survey of animal behaviour and the evolution of aggression throughout the animal world.

This paper targets the concept of enactment as a genuinely metaphysical idea. Its goals are two-fold. First, a reappraisal of enactment in its proper historical context, as well as an articulation of the core innovations enactment brings to traditional metaphysics. Here the idea of 'productive' cognition, as I provisionally term it, comes to the fore. The second goal is a reinterpretation of certain themes from traditional metaphysics, including the key question of why there is something rather than nothing, so as (...) to make it more open to insights originating from enactivism. For that, the concept of 'situated metaphysics' is introduced and elaborated upon. (shrink)

Military ethics seeks to provide practical guidance for the resolution of real ethical problems associated with the conduct of military operations. In doing so, it must reflect how actual persons give and take-up reasons when deliberating what actions to take. The Just War Tradition, for example, provides deontological and consequentialist considerations soldiers should take up when considering how to conduct operations. Sometimes, unfortunately, soldiers may find themselves in tragic situations where principles and consequences provide no clear guidance. To fill that (...) gap, a full account of military ethics requires an account of virtue, which focuses more on the agent than the act and can provide resources necessary to avoid, or failing that, resolve, otherwise unresolvable ethical dilemmas that can arise during military operations. This point does not mean virtue ethics supersedes or assimilates other ethical approaches. Rather it means that in the context of a process aimed at establishing reflective equilibrium, it provides important beliefs, judgments, and ways of thinking about applied ethics that are critical not just to building a robust, maximally coherent equilibrium but also to maintain it. These resources are especially critical when one is faced with the kind of tragic situations soldiers confront in war. (shrink)

Die Diskussion uber die rechtliche Ausgestaltung der Sterbehilfe wird kontrovers gefuhrt. Ein zentraler Streitpunkt ist die Frage des assistierten Suizids und seiner Vereinbarkeit mit dem arztlichen Standesethos. Dabei werden grundlegende Fragen beruhrt: Gibt es uberhaupt authentische, selbstbestimmte Wunsche zum assistierten Suizid und wie sind diese zu verstehen? Welche Bedeutung hat die Rede vom Leben als Gabe Gottes? Welcher Stellenwert kommt der Gewissensentscheidung der Betroffenen zu? Die Beitrage des Bandes sensibilisieren fur das weite Feld der theologisch-ethischen Herausforderungen und entwickeln Perspektiven fur (...) eine differenzierte Rede von christlicher Verantwortung. Mit Beitragen von Reinhard Bottcher, Reinhard Haubenthaler, Konrad Hilpert, Veronika Hoffmann, Adrian Holderegger, Hartmut Kress, Norbert Kuhn-Flammensfeld, Jochen Sautermeister, Hanspeter Schmitt, Josef Schuster SJ, Nina Streeck, Knut Wenzel und Markus Zimmermann. (shrink)

The Chinese parallel to the Pali-Kutadantasutta marks one of the major turning points in Old Indian history of ideas: the transition from magic to ethics. In this sermon, the Buddha rejects the Vedic animal sacrifice and re-interprets it according to Buddhist ethics. He preaches sacrifices in a new sense of the word: the sacrifice of giving alms to Buddhist monks, or, even better, of building monasteries, of converting to Buddhism as a Buddhist layman, of obeying the five Buddhist rules for (...) laymen, or - finally and most meritorious - becoming a Buddhist monk. In Beginnings of Buddhist Ethics, Konrad Meisig translates the Buddhist Chinese text for the first time and contrasts it in synopsis with the Pali. The text is given in the original characters along with the Pinyin transcription. The text-critical introduction deals with the variae lectiones both of the Chinese and the Pali; the final analysis focuses on the literary stratification and criticism of forms, thus reconstructing the archetypical nucleus of the Kutadantasutta."--Publisher's description. (shrink)

A succinct, neurobiological explanation of the pathways that 'wake up the brain' from deep anesthesia, sleep and brain injury.

Two major philosophical movements have sought to fundamentally rethink the relationship between humans and their environment(s): environmental ethics and enactivism. Surprisingly, they virtually never refer to or seek inspiration from each other. The goal of this analysis is to bridge the gap. Our main purpose, then, is to address, from the enactivist angle, the conceptual backbone of environmental ethics, namely the concept of intrinsic value. We argue that intrinsic value does indeed exist, yet its "intrinsicality" does not boil down to (...) being independent of the interests and needs of humans. Rather, it is brought forth by what we callshared enactionof an axiological domain. The latter is built upon such core posits of enactivism as autonomy, enaction, participatory sense-making as well as the most recent concept of loving as knowing proposed by Hanne De Jaegher. (shrink)

Space philosophy offers rich insights in the future and is already well‐developed new branch of philosophy. However, space philosophers still do not pay much attention to a number of bioethical issues that may occur in space. This paper aims to introduce space bioethics, as a new branch in space philosophy, space ethics and space policy, to the philosophical and bioethical discourse. The basic issues discussed in space bioethics include—but are not limited to—human reproduction in space and human enhancement for space. (...) This paper concludes that the new space bioethics should be a feminist new bioethics that is free from many of the historical biases associated with a male‐centred perspective in philosophy and bioethics. Bioethical issues in space have also impact on future political decisions related to objectives and nature of space missions. (shrink)

The paper develops the idea that institutions are enablers. However, they do not only enable individuals and collectives to achieve their goals; first and foremost, they enable individuals and collectives to have a goal, to select and recognize certain possible states of affairs as targets of action, and as a result, to have a demand – especially a demand for further institutions. I make the case that properly functioning institutions are dedicated to making these states of affairs epistemically acquaintable. What (...) I will stress in particular is that acquaintance is first realized in the form of questions, which are linguistic expressions of acts of problematization. However, I will discuss less what an individual subject questions, but rather what the social dynamic of questioning is. This dynamic will be conceptualized in terms of epistemic dependence, and it will be singled out as the dynamic that gives rise to institutions. (shrink)

This unique and pioneering book critically appraises current work from both the cognitive science of religion and the evolutionary study of religion. It addresses the question: Why does the believer possess supernatural or religious beliefs in the combined context of his cognitive biases, their adaptive usefulness measured in terms of survival and reproduction, and the impact of social learning and cultural traits? The authors outlines a pluralistic approach to the study of religion that does not treat religion as an accidental (...) by-product but an adaptation selected by natural selection. Chapters discuss the role of religious components for the evolution of cooperation and altruism, and explore the development of atheism and secular ideas, in cognitive and evolutionary terms. Topics such as the usefulness of religion, the transmission of religious beliefs, and a Darwinian approach to religion are among those addressed. Contrary to standard views, religious biases are regarded as shaped by cultural influences and not merely by natural dispositions. This monograph will particularly appeal to researchers who are looking for a scientific explanation of religion and religious beliefs but who do not stop at the level of narrow cognitive and evolutionary accounts. The work will also be of interest to students of philosophy, sociology, religious studies, theology, or anthropology who seek to explain such fascinating, complex, and unequivocal phenomena as religion and religious components. (shrink)

Religious beliefs can be explained in two different ways, cognitive and adaptationist. Each of them is another kind of explanation, one is proximate and the other ultimate. Each of them provides the other with a specific status for religious beliefs, such as by-product or adaptation. However, there is no clarity of how cognition itself could be religiously biased and how the religious/theistic approach could work as a default cognitive mode, as Cognitive Science of Religion suggests. I would like to criticize (...) cognitive assumptions in the study of religion and show how adaptationist accounts are preferable. I specifically focus on the functional context of religious components, the social and psychological applications. I suggest how discussing about a cognitive basis does not matter in these fields and the cognitive account cannot explain the ubiquity of religious components that lie in their function, rather than the alleged connection with cognition. (shrink)

A manned mission to Mars is faced with challenges and topics that may not be obvious but of great importance and challenging for such a mission. This is the first book that collects contributions from scholars in various fields, from astronomy and medicine, to theology and philosophy, addressing such topics. The discussion goes beyond medical and technological challenges of such a deep-space mission. The focus is on human nature, human emotions and biases in such a new environment. The primary audience (...) for this book are all researchers interested in the human factor in a space mission including philosophers, social scientists, astronomers, and others. This volume will also be of high interest for a much wider audience like the non-academic world, or for students. (shrink)