Two perspectives from which memories can be retrieved have been distinguished: field resembles the view from the first-person vantage point of original experience, whereas observer resembles the view from the third-person vantage point of a spectator. There is evidence that the incidences of the two types of perspective differ between at least two different cultural groups. It is hypothesised here that this is a special case of a more general relation between memory perspective and cultural individualism, such that field and (...) observer perspectives are more prevalent among people from, respectively, relatively individualist and relatively collectivist societies. Memory perspectives adopted by participants from a range of different countries were recorded, and were found to vary in the predicted manner. Regression analysis showed that the potential effects of three other cultural variables – uncertainty avoidance, masculinity and, to a lesser extent, power distance – were eclipsed by the influence of individualism, and the implications are discussed. (shrink)

Can we understand brain lateralization in humans by analysis in terms of an evolutionarily stable strategy? The attempt to demonstrate a link between lateralization in humans and that in, for example, fish appears to hinge critically on whether the isomorphism is viewed as a matter of homology or homoplasy. Consideration of human handedness presents a number of challenges to the proposed framework.

I begin by distinguishing two notions of model, the notion of a truth-making structure and the notion of a mathematical model (in one specific sense). I then argue that although the models of the semantic view have often been taken to be both truth-making structures and mathematical models, this is in part due to a failure to distinguish between two ways of truth-making; in fact, the talk of truth-making is best excised from the view altogether. The result is a version (...) of the semantic view which is better supported by the direct evidence offered for it, better equipped to achieve its avowed aims, and, I think, closer to the intentions of the original proponents of the view in many ways, despite some of their own declarations to the contrary. (shrink)

Call a bit of scientific discourse a description of a missing system when (i) it has the surface appearance of an accurate description of an actual, concrete system (or kind of system) from the domain of inquiry, but (ii) there are no actual, concrete systems in the world around us fitting the description it contains, and (iii) that fact is recognised from the outset by competent practitioners of the scientific discipline in question. Scientific textbooks, classroom lectures, and journal articles abound (...) with such passages; and there is a widespread practice of talking and thinking as though there are systems which fit the descriptions they contain perfectly, despite the recognition that no actual, concrete systems do so—call this the face value practice. There are, furthermore, many instances in which philosophers engage in the face value practice whilst offering answers to epistemological and methodological questions about the sciences. Three questions, then: (1) How should we interpret descriptions of missing systems? (2) How should we make sense of the face value practice? (3) Is there a set of plausible answers to (1) and (2) which legitimates reliance on the face value practice in our philosophical work, and can support the weight of the accounts which are entangled with that practice? In this paper I address these questions by considering three answers to the first: that descriptions of missing systems are straightforward descriptions of abstract objects, that they are indirect descriptions of “property-containing” abstracta, and that they are (in a different way) indirect descriptions of mathematical structures. All three proposals are present in the literature, but I find them wanting. The result is to highlight the importance of developing a satisfactory understanding of descriptions of missing systems and the face value practice, to put pressure on philosophical accounts which rely on the practice, and to help us assess the viability of certain approaches to thinking about models, theory structure, and scientific representation. (shrink)

Introduction : deterritorializing Deleuze -- Spectacle I : attraction-image -- History : Deleuze after dictatorship -- Space : geopolitics and the action-image -- Spectacle II : Masala-image -- Conclusion : the continuing adventures of Deleuze and world cinemas.

Introduction -- The end of history and the Kantian moment -- The progressive mind and the Islamist challenge -- The incoherence of the philosophers -- The language of progress and the closure of the European mind -- The networked global order -- All roads lead to China -- Maxims or axioms? -- The revenge of politics and the search for order -- Conclusion -- Afterword : the study of international relations and the erosion of acdemic integrity.

Peter Brunette _The Films of Michelangelo Antonioni_ Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998 ISBN 0-521-38992-5 186 pp.

The principal task of the book series Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities is to promote those developments in philosophy that respect the tradition of great philosophical ideas, on the one hand, and the manner of philosophical thinking introduced by analytical philosophy, on the other. The aim is to contribute to practicing philosophy as deep as Marxism and as caring about justification as positivism.

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 89, Issue 3, Page 567-570, September 2011.

Inquiries into the nature of scientific modeling have tended to focus their attention on mathematical models and, relatedly, to think of nonconcrete models as mathematical structures. The arguments of this article are arguments for rethinking both tendencies. Nonmathematical models play an important role in the sciences, and our account of scientific modeling must accommodate that fact. One key to making such accommodations, moreover, is to recognize that one kind of thing we use the term ‘model’ to refer to is a (...) collection of propositions. (shrink)

Francesco Guala has developed some novel and radical ideas on the problem of external validity, a topic that has not received much attention in the experimental economics literature. In this paper I argue that his views on external validity are not justified and the conclusions which he draws from these views, if widely adopted, could substantially undermine the experimental economics enterprise. In rejecting the justification of these views, the paper reaffirms the importance of experiments in economics.

An experiment is reported which tests for positive confirmation bias in a setting in which individuals choose what information to buy, prior to making a decision. The design – an adaptation of Wason's selection task – reveals the use that subjects make of information after buying it. Strong evidence of positive confirmation bias, in both information acquisition and information use, is found; and this bias is found to be robust to experience. It is suggested that the bias results from a (...) pattern of reasoning which, although producing sub-optimal decisions, is internally coherent and which is self-reinforcing. (shrink)

Reichenbach worked in an era when philosophers were hopeful about the unity of science, and particularly about unity of method. He looked for universal tests of causal connectedness that could be applied across disciplines and independently of specific modeling assumptions. The hunt for quantum causes reminds us that his hopes were too optimistic. The mark method is not even a starter in testing for causal links between outcomes in E.P.R., because our background hypotheses about these links are too thin to (...) supply the kind of information we need to put the method into play. When we turn to conventional statistical methods, we have seen that one test proposed — robustness of the conditional probabilities — can be conclusive only when we know that there are no other causal factors at work. In the particular case of E.P.R., it has often been assumed that this antecedent question can be settled by applying Reichenbach's conjunctive fork condition. But that application is in no way free of further modeling assumptions. Cartwright (1989) has shown that the conjunctive fork is only a necessary condition on a common cause under very limiting restrictions (restrictions that take one far from the case of maximal commonality); and she has argued that these special conditions are not satisfied in E.P.R.Finally, even given the assumption that there are no other causes at work, the significance of robustness for E.P.R. is unclear. We need a model which tells us how one outcome would influence the other; without that, there is no way of interpreting the results of the robustness test so that it is decisive. In each of the approaches we discussed, Reichenbach provided the crucial guiding ideas that underlay our construction of a causality test; but the articulation of a specific criterion depends on the other details of the model. What is a criterion for a specific kind of link in one model need not be in another. We have illustrated with robustness and E.P.R., but we take the point to be perfectly general: there are no tests of causality outside of models which already have significant causal structure built in. (shrink)

Popular Indian cinema provides a test case for examining the limitations of Gilles Deleuze's categories of movement-image and time-image. Due to the context-specific aesthetic and cultural traditions that inform popular Indian cinema, although it appears at times to be both movement- and time-image, it actually creates a different type of image. Analysis of Toofani Tarzan (1936) and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) demonstrates how, alternating between a movement of world typical of the time-image, and a sensory-motor movement of character typical (...) of the movement-image, popular Indian cinema explores the potential fluxing of identities that emerge during moments of historical complexity. (shrink)

The Morality of Happiness By Julia Annas, Oxford University Press, 1993. Pp. x + 502. ISBN 0–19–507999‐X. £45.00 (hbk), £13.99 (pbk).Dimensions of Creativity By Margaret A. Boden (ed.) MIT Press, 1994. Pp. 242. ISBN 0–262–02368–7. £24.95.Thomas Hobbes and the Science of Moral Virtue By David Boonin‐Vail, Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pp. 219. ISBN 0–521–46209–6. £37.50.Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes By Quentin Skinner, Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. 477. ISBN 0–521–55436–5. £35.00.Being and the Between By William Desmond, State (...) University of New York Press, 1995. Pp. 557. ISBN 0–7914–2271–2. $19.95.Perplexity and Ultimacy By William Desmond, State University of New York Press, 1995. Pp. 263. ISBN 0–7914–2387–5. $19.95.Evidence and Inquiry: Towards Reconstruction in Epistemology By Susan Haack, Blackwell Publishers, 1994. Pp. x + 259. ISBN 0–631–19679‐X/£14.99 (pbk).Kant's Intuitionalism: A Commentary on the Transcendental Aesthetic By Lorne Falkenstein, University of Toronto Press, 1996. Pp. xvii + 465. ISBN 0–8020–2973–6. $70.00.The Metaphysics of Free Will By John Martin Fischer, Blackwell, 1995. Pp. ix + 273. ISBN 1–55786–8573. £14.99.Identification Papers By Diana Fuss, Routledge, 1995. Pp. 179. ISBN 0–415–90886–8. $16.95.Rorty and Pragmatism: The Philosopher Responds to his Critics Edited by Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr., Vanderbilt University Press, 1995. ISBN 0–8265–1263–1 $24.95.Nietzsche's French Legacy: a Genealogy of Poststructuralism By Alan D. Schrift, Routledge, 1995. Pp. xviii + 198. ISBN 0–415–91146‐X. £40.00.Causal Cognition ‐ A Multidisciplinary Debate Edited by Dan Sperber, David Premack, and Ann James Premack, Clarendon Press, 1995. Pp. 670. ISBN 0–19–852314–9. £00.00. (shrink)

Held on Monday 12th October 2009, 5.30 - 7.00 pm, University of St Andrews, Scotland. Participants Dr Robert Sinnerbrink (Philosophy, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia) Dr John Mullarkey (Philosophy, University of Dundee) Professor Berys Gaut (Philosophy, University of St Andrews) Dr David Martin-Jones (Film Studies, University of St Andrews) Dr William Brown (Film Studies, University of St Andrews)Over the course of at least the last hundred years the intellectual study of cinema has experienced a number of shifts towards and (...) away from theoretical or philosophical attempts to understand the moving image. The twenty-first century sees film-philosophy resurgent, in part due to the interest in cinema that has flourished recently in disciplines like philosophy, and in part due to the interdisciplinary nature of Film Studies. At a time when it is increasingly in vogue to return to theoretical questions previously pushed off the agenda by the dominance of historical approaches to cinema, such as the perennial "What is Cinema?", we are taking this opportunity to ask, "What is Film-Philosophy?" In a context that is witnessing the rise of digital cinema, the global dominance of multi-national media conglomerates, and the worldwide spread of "world cinemas", what role does theory or philosophy play in helping us understand cinema, and indeed, what role can cinema play in transforming philosophy? [The audio recording is of variable quality as we have had to remove a lot of background hiss and static. Please accept our apologies] Thanks to Rachel Brewster at Liverpool John Moores University for extracting the original audio. (shrink)

A subcategory of medical tourism, reproductive tourism has been the subject of much public and policy debate in recent years. Specific concerns include: the exploitation of individuals and communities, access to needed health care services, fair allocation of limited resources, and the quality and safety of services provided by private clinics. To date, the focus of attention has been on the thriving medical and reproductive tourism sectors in Asia and Eastern Europe; there has been much less consideration given to more (...) recent ‘players’ in Latin America, notably fertility clinics in Chile, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. In this paper, we examine the context-specific ethical and policy implications of private Argentinean fertility clinics that market reproductive services via the internet. Whether or not one agrees that reproductive services should be made available as consumer goods, the fact is that they are provided as such by private clinics around the world. We argue that basic national regulatory mechanisms are required in countries such as Argentina that are marketing fertility services to local and international publics. Specifically, regular oversight of all fertility clinics is essential to ensure that consumer information is accurate and that marketed services are safe and effective. It is in the best interests of consumers, health professionals and policy makers that the reproductive tourism industry adopts safe and responsible medical practices. (shrink)

Milton's status as a political thinker has endured something of a checkered career. Recent scholarship has attended both to the complexity of Milton's character and the classical ideals permeating his political thought. This essay seeks to clarify further Milton's defence of the commonwealth, by situating his polemical writings of 1649 to 1653 in the context of the Engagement debate about the character and extent of loyalty to the new free state. This sheds an interesting and neglected light both on that (...) debate, the presentation of the case of the commonwealth and Milton's distinctive use of casuistry in that presentation. (shrink)

Résumé Le problème de Duhem-Quine a été considéré comme un problème majeur de la philosophie des sciences et a donné lieu au déploiement de nombreux efforts pour tenter de le circonvenir ou d’affaiblir ses implications. Plus récemment, le problème est devenu une question majeure au sein de la méthodologie de l’économie expérimentale. Dans cet article, l’auteur soutient que la plupart de ces discussions soit sacrifient trop du pouvoir explicatif de la science, soit ne réussissent pas à traiter proprement du problème. (...) Dans le prolongement de discussions récentes en philosophie des sciences, on peut voir que le meilleur moyen de traiter du problème est de critiquer la conception même de la science développée par Quine. JEL Classification : B41. (shrink)

This article explores the usefulness of Latin American philosopher Enrique Dussel's work for film-philosophy, as the field increasingly engages with a world of cinemas. The piece concludes with an analysis of two films with an ecological focus, Trolljegeren/Troll Hunter (2010) and The Hunter (2011). They are indicative of a much broader emerging trend in ecocinema that explores the interaction between humanity and the environment in relation to world history, and which does so by staging encounters between people and those ‘nonhuman’ (...) aspects of the Earth excluded by coloniality/modernity (e.g. animals, animal-spirits, mythological creatures, shaman, the very Earth itself). The interdisciplinary concerns of this work place it at the intersection of the latest research into a world of cinemas (in particular the various moves to understand films beyond the national paradigm now increasingly labelled the ‘transnational turn’; alongside growing concerns with how cinema helps us engage with ecology); and the need to broaden our philosophical grasp of the world. This latter point requires engagement with thinkers from beyond the Eurocentric canon of Western thought that currently dominates philosophy, and equally shapes film-philosophy. Dussel's philosophy is shown to provide a perspective capable of illuminating the intertwined nature of human and planetary history evident in these films, in a manner that is extremely pertinent to our global situation. Thus it is shown to be more useful than approaches to similar groupings of films which draw on, for example, speculative realism, when it comes to providing a cine-ethics appropriate to the Anthropocene. (shrink)

Ever since Clifford Geertz urged the “blurring of genres” in the social sciences, many scholars have considered the crossing of disciplinary boundaries a healthy alternative to rigidly maintaining them. But what precisely does the metaphor of “blurring” imply? By unpacking the varieties of visual experiences that are normally grouped under this rubric, this essay seeks to provide some precision to our understanding of the implications of fuzziness. It extrapolates from the blurring caused by differential focal distances, velocities of objects in (...) the visual field, and competing perspectival vantage points to comparable effects in the intersection of different scholarly disciplines. Arguing against the holistic implications of Geertz's metaphor, as well as the even more totalizing concept of “consilience” introduced by E. O. Wilson, it suggests that blurring implies new types of complexity between or among those disciplines. (shrink)