The main purpose of this book is to investigate, from the philosophical point of view, the concept of mind in some quickly developing fields of contemporary science, from physics and cosmology to biology and cognitive science. New scientific investigations have brought many empirical results that help to explain natural phenomena from quantum states to human thinking, yet the question of the nature of the mind itself is still open. In this book, the authors discuss several philosophical problems raised or reformulated (...) by recent scientific discoveries. The authors use an interdisciplinary and holistic approach that bridges the gap between scientific and humanistic pictures of the mind. (shrink)

Effective and specifically targeted social and therapeutic responses for antisocial personality disorders and psychopathy are scarce. Some authors maintain that this scarcity should be overcome by revising current syndrome - based classifications of these conditions and devising better biocognitive classifications of antisocial individuals. The inspiration for the latter classifications has been embedded in the Research domain criteria approach (RDoC). RDoC - type approaches to psychiatric research aim at transforming diagnosis, provide valid measures of disorders, aid clinical practice, and improve health (...) outcomes by integrating the data on the genetic, neural, cognitive, and affective systems underlying psychiatric conditions. In the first part of the paper, we discuss the benefits of such approaches in comparison to the dominant syndrome-based ones and review recent attempts at building biocognitive classifications of antisocial individuals. Other researchers, how ever, have objected that biocognitive approaches in psychiatry are committed to an untenable form of explanatory. (shrink)

The articles in this volume offer a fresh perspective on the important role of the concept of law (lex) in the moral and political philosophy of the 'School of Salamanca'.

MIRJAM HORN, POSTMODERN PLAGIARISMS: CULTURAL AGENDA AND AESTHETIC STRATEGIES OF APPROPRIATION IN US-AMERICAN LITERATURE, WALTER DE GRUYTER, BERLIN/BOSTON, 2015.Marko Bogunović.

In this new book, Marko Zlomislić argues that Slavoj Žižek's work does not contain any sort of radical emancipatory project, especially as it passes through the ideology of communism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. The evidence for the failure of communism is vast and includes the more than six hundred mass graves recently located in Žižek's homeland of Slovenia. Zlomislić demonstrates that the way out of the capitalist dilemma is not a repetition of communism but a return to the late medieval (...) notion of haecceity or "individual thisness" that was rejected by modernity. Haecceity, or the indescribable and indefinite here and now of the person, shows that the late medieval Franciscans were already "postmodernists." It is no wonder that the totalitarianism of the modernist Hegel is embraced by thinkers such as Žižek, Badiou, Hardt, Negri, and Laclau and was already rejected by Leibnitz, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Levinas, Deleuze, and Derrida. This important book shows that Žižek's work must be rejected because it does not uphold the dignity, worth, and uniqueness of the person. (shrink)

The role of intuition in understanding in general and in scientific understanding in particular is still very much a subject of a lively philosophical discussion. The role of intuition in thought experimenting is much disputed in its own right, and the arguments range from those that deny any substantial role of intuition in the final inference that the thought experiment is meant to illustrate (eg. Norton or Williamson) to the pivotal role some form of intuition might play (eg. Brown or (...) Miščević). So far, mostly Platonists were defenders of intuition, but in his recent book, Miščević takes on a formidable task to mount a defense of intuition as seen from a naturalist-evolutionist point of view and within his mental modelling approach to thought experiments. I will, while acclaiming certain – and considerable – merits of his approach, nevertheless, insist that certain aspects of intuitive comprehending as it is meant to be going on in the process of thought experimenting remains inexplicable in the naturalist scheme such as Miščević’s. The more mysterious (not to say Platonist) aspects of intuition will, hopefully, be revealed through the analyses of the two very famous thought experiments of Einstein which also figure quite importantly in his scientific opus. I will also have something to say about a few related problems as addressed by Miščević in his book regarding the description of thought experiment and more general imaginative enactments in thought, as well as on whether there is an essential difference between scientific (primarily physical) and metaphysical thought experiments and other thought experiments or related modes of thinking. (shrink)

Motivated by the analogy which holds within the context of discovery between mathematics and physics, we aim to show that there is a connection between two fields within the context of justification too. Based on the careful analysis of examples from science (especially within the domain of physics) we suggest that the logic of scientific research, which might appear as enumerative induction, is deduction, and we propose it to be universal generalization inference rule. Our main argument closely follows the analysis (...) of the structure of physical theory proposed by theoretical physicist Eugene P. Wigner. (shrink)

This paper discusses how an understanding of Jung's psychological types is important for the relevance of Gilbert's multi-modal argumentation theory. Moreover, it highlights how the types have been confirmed by contemporary neuroscience and cognitive psychology. Based on Gilbert's approach, I extend multi-modal argumentation to the area of legal argumentation. It seems that when we leave behind the traditional fortress of “logical” legal argumentation, we "discover" alternate modes that have always been present, concealed in the theoretically underestimated rhetorical skills of arguers.

It has been argued that a biomarker-informed classification system for antisocial individuals has the potential to overcome many obstacles in current conceptualizations of forensic and psychiatric constructs and promises better targeted treatments. However, some have expressed ethical worries about the social impact of the use of biological information for classification. Many have discussed the ethical and legal issues related to possibilities of using biomarkers for predicting antisocial behaviour. We argue that prediction should not raise the most pressing ethical worries. Instead, (...) issues connected with ‘biologisation’, such as stigmatization and negative effects on self-image, need more consideration. However, we conclude that also in this respect there are no principled ethical objections against the use of biomarkers to guide classification and treatment of adult antisocial individuals. (shrink)

Aristotle was the founder not only of logic but also of modal logic. In the Prior Analytics he developed a complex system of modal syllogistic which, while influential, has been disputed since antiquity--and is today widely regarded as incoherent. Combining analytic rigor with keen sensitivity to historical context, Marko Malink makes clear that the modal syllogistic forms a consistent, integrated system of logic, one that is closely related to other areas of Aristotle's philosophy. Aristotle's modal syllogistic differs significantly from (...) modern modal logic. Malink considers the key to understanding the Aristotelian version to be the notion of predication discussed in the Topics--specifically, its theory of predicables and the ten categories. The predicables introduce a distinction between essential and nonessential predication. In contrast, the categories distinguish between substantial and nonsubstantial predication. Malink builds on these insights in developing a semantics for Aristotle's modal propositions, one that verifies the ancient philosopher's claims of the validity and invalidity of modal inferences. While it acknowledges some limitations of this reconstruction, Aristotle's Modal Syllogistic brims with bold ideas, richly supported by close readings of the Greek texts. (shrink)

Discussions of Ryle’s regress argument against the “intellectualist legend” have largely focused on whether it is effective against a certain view about knowledge how, namely, the view that knowledge how is a species of propositional knowledge. This is understandable, as this is how Ryle himself framed the issue. Nevertheless, this focus has tended to obscure some different concerns which are no less pressing—either for Ryle or for us today. More specifically, I argue that a version of Ryle’s regress confronts any (...) view according to which the intelligence manifested in action must be inherited from purely inner mental causes. I recommend an alternative account of the metaphysics of intelligent action, which avoids this commitment. (shrink)

This daily diary study examined the within-person coupling between four emotion regulation strategies and both subjective well-being and perceived stress in daily life of geriatric nurses. Participants ( N = 89) described how they regulated their emotions in terms of cognitive reappraisal and suppression. They also indicated their subjective well-being and level of perceived stress each day over 3 weeks. At the within-person level, cognitive reappraisal intended to increase positive emotions was positively associated with higher subjective well-being and negatively associated (...) with perceived stress. Suppression of the expression of positive emotions was negatively associated with subjective well-being and positively associated with perceived stress. However, cognitive reappraisal intended to down-regulate negative emotions and suppression as a strategy to inhibit the expression of negative emotions were not associated with daily well-being or perceived stress. Off-days were rated as days with higher subjective well-being and lower perceived stress in contrast to working days. At the between-person level, individuals who reported more daily negative affect reported increased suppression of positive emotions, corroborating the within-person findings. Moreover, findings indicated that nurses with more years of experience in the job reported higher subjective well-being and less perceived stress. These results provide insights into important daily emotional processes of geriatric nurses, both at workdays and in their leisure time. (shrink)

In their paper “Is psychopathy a mental disease?”, Thomas Nadelhoffer and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argue that according to any plausible account of mental disorder, neural and psychological abnormalities correlated with psychopathy should be regarded as signs of a mental disorder. I oppose this conclusion by arguing that at least on a naturalistically grounded account, such as Wakefield’s ‘Harmful Dysfunction’ view, currently available empirical data and evolutionary considerations indicate that psychopathy is not a mental disorder.

Regress arguments have convinced many that reasoning cannot require beliefs about what follows from what. In this paper I argue that this is a mistake. Regress arguments rest on dubious (although deeply entrenched) assumptions about the nature of reasoning — most prominently, the assumption that believing p by reasoning is simply a matter of having a belief in p with the right causal ancestry. I propose an alternative account, according to which beliefs about what follows from what play a constitutive (...) role in reasoning. (shrink)

In this paper I examine nonreductive materialism (physicalism). This is a position that Terry Horgan favors in his papers and is probably the most widely accepted position in the philosophy of mind in recent decades. In contrast to this, I will argue that nonreductive materialism is an unstable position and will suggest that we can show this using Horgan's own work on the concept of superdupervenience.

We provide a novel Bayesian justification of inference to the best explanation. More specifically, we present conditions under which explanatory considerations can provide a significant confirmatory boost for hypotheses that provide the best explanation of the relevant evidence. Furthermore, we show that the proposed Bayesian model of IBE is able to deal naturally with the best known criticisms of IBE such as van Fraassen?s?bad lot? argument.

Abstract.Evolutionary psychology and behavioural genomics are both approaches to explain human behaviour from a genetic point of view. Nonetheless, thus far the development of these disciplines is anything but interdependent. This paper examines the question whether evolutionary psychology can contribute to behavioural genomics. Firstly, a possible inconsistency between the two approaches is reviewed, viz. that evolutionary psychology focuses on the universal human nature and disregards the genetic variation studied by behavioural genomics. Secondly, we will discuss the structure of biological explanations. (...) Some philosophers rightly acknowledge that explanations do not involve laws which are exceptionless and universal. Instead, generalisations that are invariant suffice for successful explanation as long as two other stipulations are recognised: the domain within which the generalisation has no exceptions as well as the distribution of the mechanism described by the generalisation should both be specified. It is argued that evolutionary psychology can contribute to behavioural genomic explanations by accounting for these two specifications. (shrink)

Neste artigo, examinaremos a noção de juízo sensível, isto é, o aspecto judicativo que se pode encontrar nos atos da sensação, aspecto esse irredutível ao juízo intelectual. Usaremos como fio condutor uma comparação e contraste entre esse aspecto judicativo e aquele que se encontra na segunda operação do intelecto. Mostraremos que o sentido julga na medida em que reflete parcialmente sobre si mesmo, de modo proporcional àquele em que ocorre uma reflexão completa no complexo predicativo. Esses diferentes tipos de reflexão (...) determinam as diferentes maneiras pelas quais se diz que o intelecto é verdadeiro e que os sentidos são verdadeiros. Com isso, verificaremos que o juízo sensível é indissociável da apreensão sensível na medida em que é constitutivo da própria natureza cognitiva dos sentidos, pois é a fonte do que se pode chamar uma certa consciência sensível. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Going Beyond Theory: Constructivism and Empirical Phenomenology” by Urban Kordeš. Upshot: The naturalistic paradigm, which relies on the third-person perspective and the exclusion of the observer, cannot accommodate human experience in its scientific enterprise. I present a critical overview of Kordeš’s proposal to merge the constructivist epistemological framework and empirical phenomenology. I doubt whether constructivism actually requires empirical grounding, but I do see constructivism with instrumentalism as a possible framework in which researchers will be (...) able to make sense of the phenomenal data. (shrink)

Derrida has been interpreted as a nihilist and relativist. This study demonstrates that he has an ethics and a concern for religion that goes beyond the structures of the philosophical tradition.

Which epistemic value is the standard according to which we ought to compare, assess and design institutional arrangements in terms of their epistemic properties? Two main options are agent development and attainment of truth. The options are presented through two authoritative contemporary accounts-agent development by Robert Talisse’s understanding in Democracy and Moral Conflict and attainment of truth by David Estlund’s treatment, most prominently in Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework. Both options are shown to be unsatisfactory because they are subject to (...) problematic risk of suboptimal epistemic state lock-in. The ability of the social epistemic system to revise suboptimal epistemic states is argued to be the best option for a comparative standard in institutional epistemology. (shrink)

The philosophical literature on reasoning is dominated by the assumption that reasoning is essentially a matter of following rules. This paper challenges this view, by arguing that it misrepresents the nature of reasoning as a personal level activity. Reasoning must reflect the reasoner’s take on her evidence. The rule-following model seems ill-suited to accommodate this fact. Accordingly, this paper suggests replacing the rule-following model with a different, semantic approach to reasoning.

According to the so-called ‘Taking Condition’ (a label due to Boghossian 2014) on inference, for a response R in circumstances C to count as an instance of reasoning or inferring, it must be the case that the agent’s taking it that R is warranted or justified in C plays (the right sort of) explanatory role in her R-ing. The Taking Condition has come under much criticism in the theory of reasoning. While I believe that these criticisms can be answered, my (...) aim in this paper is to build a positive case for the Taking Condition. More specifically, I argue that views based on the Taking Condition do a much better job accounting for crucial features of reasoning—especially once we recognize the pervasiveness and significance of defeasibility in our reasoning. (shrink)

This article aims to show that it is impossible to put Cicero’s testimonies regarding The Fabius Argument in a consistent inferential order. Either we must suppose that additional premises are tacitly assumed in the text or we must com-pare it with other sources, which leads to inconsistencies in the proof’s reconstruction. Cicero’s reconstruction of the progression of the argument has formal shortcomings, and the paper draws attention to some of these deficiencies. He interpreted sources in a revised and intentionally simplified (...) way, with the aim of undermining the views of his opponents, casting them as inconsistent and similar to views held by Diodorus. Rather than being a consistently interpreted argument faithfully transcribed from the Stoic sources, Cicero’s Fabius Argument is ultimately anti-Stoic. (shrink)

Recently it has been argued that certain neuropsychological findings on the decision-making, instrumental learning, and moral understanding in psychopathic offenders offer reasons to consider them not criminally responsible, due to certain epistemic and volitional impairments. We reply to this family of arguments, that collectively we call the irresponsibility of the psychopath argument. This type of argument has a premise that describes or prescribes the deficiencies that grant or should grant partial or complete criminal exculpation. The other premise contends that neuropsychological (...) evidence shows that psychopaths have incapacitates that are sufficient to ascribe complete or partially exculpatory deficiencies. The focus of our criticism is this latter premise. We argue that it requires that psychopathy should correlate significantly with certain rational incapacities that manifest across contexts. We show that the available neuropsychological data do not support the claim that psychopaths have such general exculpatory incapacities. (shrink)

In their 2010 paper, Dizadji-Bahmani, Frigg, and Hartmann argue that the generalized version of the Nagel–Schaffner model that they have developed is the right one for intertheoretic reduction, i.e. the kind of reduction that involves theories with largely overlapping domains of application. Drawing on the GNS, DFH presented a Bayesian analysis of the confirmatory relation between the reducing theory and the reduced theory and argued that, post-reduction, evidence confirming the reducing theory also confirms the reduced theory and evidence confirming the (...) reduced theory also confirms the reducing theory, which meets the expectations one has about theories with largely overlapping domains. In this paper, I argue that the Bayesian analysis presented by DFH faces difficulties. In particular, I argue that the conditional probabilities that DFH introduce to model the bridge law entail consequences that run against the GNS. However, I also argue that, given slight modifications of the analysis that are in agreement with the GNS, one is able to account for these difficulties and, moreover, one is able to more rigorously analyse the confirmatory relation between the reducing and the reduced theory. (shrink)

Recently there has been a trend of moving towards biological and neurocognitive based classifications of mental disorders that is motivated by a dissatisfaction with the syndrome-based classifications of mental disorders. The Research Domain Criteria (indicated with the acronym RDoC) represents a bold and systematic attempt to foster this advancement. However, RDoC faces theoretical and conceptual issues that need to be addressed. Some of these difficulties emerge when we reflect on the plausible reading of the slogan “mental disorders are brain disorders”, (...) that according to proponents of RDoC constitutes one of its main presuppositions. Some authors think that endorsing this idea commits RDoC to a form of biological reductionism. We offer empirical and theoretical considerations for concluding that the slogan above should not be read as a reductionist thesis. We argue, instead, that the slogan has a pragmatic function whose aim is to direct research in psychopathology. We show how this function might be captured in the framework of a Carnapian explication as a methodological tool for conceptual engineering. Thus, we argue that a charitable interpretation of the aims of the proponents of RDoC should be understood as an attempt at providing an explication of the concept of mental disorder in terms of brain disorder whose main goal is to provide a more precise and fruitful notion that is expected to have a beneficial impact on classification, research, and treatment of psychiatric conditions. (shrink)

In the paper, I examine the conditions that are necessary for the correct characterization of the phenomenon of self-deception. Deflationists believe that the phenomenon of self-deception can be characterized as a kind of motivationally biased belief-forming process. They face the selectivity problem according to which the presence of a desire for something to be the case is not enough to produce a self-deceptive belief. Intentionalists argue that the solution to the selectivity problem consists in invoking the notion of intention. According (...) to them, self-deception involves intentional distortion of one's own belief-forming process. In this paper, I defend the claim that intentionalists also face the problem of selectivity. Accordingly, I argue that this objection cannot be used to determine which theory of self-deception is superior. Furthermore, I argue that limiting folk-psychological explanations to reason-based explanations might be responsible for the resilience of the selectivity problem. In that context, as an additional explanatory factor, I emphasize personality traits that, along with motives, play an important role in the psychological explanation of human behavior. In the rest of the paper, I explore how such an expanded view of the folk-psychological explanation can be used to better capture individual cases of self-deception. (shrink)

Almost everything that we do, we do by doing other things. Even actions we perform without deliberation or conscious planning are composed of ‘smaller’, subsidiary actions. But how should we think of such subsidiary actions? Are they fully-fledged intentional actions (in the sense of things that we do for reasons) in their own right? In this paper I defend an affirmative answer to this question, against a recently influential form of scepticism. Drawing on a distinctive kind of ‘action-demonstrative’ representation, I (...) show that the sceptic's arguments do not go through. (shrink)

Psychopathy, executive functions, and neuropsychological data: a response to Sifferd and Hirstein.