Philosophers often claim that studying philosophy helps people to become better thinkers. Thanks to a grant from the American Philosophical Association, we were able to test this claim empirically, using a large sample of students (N = 122,352) graduating from 369 colleges and universities across the United States between 2010 and 2019. We investigated whether philosophy majors show more growth than non-philosophy majors in intellectual traits like open-mindedness and a tendency to think carefully and thoroughly, as well as more personal (...) forms of growth that might be fostered by philosophical study (e.g., self-understanding). Additionally, although this was not our primary question, we sought to better understand what students who major in philosophy are like. Specifically, we examined the demographics of philosophy majors, the other subjects that they tend to study when they double major, and the patterns of adding and dropping of philosophy majors between freshman and senior year. (shrink)

We introduce a fairness criterion that we call Spanning. Spanning i) is implied by Calibration, ii) retains interesting properties of Calibration that some other ways of relaxing that criterion do not, and iii) unlike Calibration and other prominent ways of weakening it, is consistent with Equalized Odds outside of trivial cases.

Using relevant encyclicals issued over the last 100 years, the author extracts those principles that constitute the underpinnings of Catholic Social Teaching about the employment relationship and contemplates implications of their incorporation into human resource policy. Respect for worker dignity, for his or her family's economic security, and for the common good of society clearly emerge as the primary guidelines for responsible human resource management. Dovetailing these three Church mandates with the economic objectives of the firm could, in essence, alter (...) the firm's nature because profit motivations would be constrained by consideration for worker and societal welfare. Integration of Church teaching with current corporate goals should therefore impact greatly on a variety of human resource policies. (shrink)

Etic theorizing uses the theorist’s social notions to theorize about their subject. This theorist may claim that Genghis Khan was a war criminal even though his actions predate the enactment of the Geneva Conventions. Brian Epstein considers a modal etic theorist who claims that Genghis Khan would have been a war criminal even if the Geneva Conventions were never enacted. Epstein argues that this has metaphysical import: it requires postulating a novel metaphysical notion of “anchoring.” Drawing from some familiar issues (...) in modal actualism, I argue that modal etic theorizing does not support this postulate. But it does suggest a distinctive kind of modality at work in social reality. (shrink)

This paper examines two major challenges to epistemic theories of democracy: the “authority dilemma” and the “epistemic gamble.” The first is a conceptual challenge, suggesting that epistemic democracy is inherently self-undermining. The second is a normative challenge, asserting that the case for democracy should not rely on precarious epistemic grounds. I argue that both challenges fail, demonstrating that epistemic theories of democracy withstand these two prominent objections.

This paper discusses operationalization of open educational practices (OEP) using innovative, Internet-influenced pedagogies to expose dangers of post-truth narratives. The first part reviews interpretations of OEP (associated with open-access and tools, collaboration, problem-centered learning, and democratic pedagogy) and explores possibilities for creating educational initiatives where students learn to create problem-solving communities mirroring an informationally healthy society. The second part suggests our society has reached a post-truth crossroads. Post-truth was initially discussed in the 1990s—a reification of critical theorists’ pessimism of social (...) structures, controlling narratives and ways members react to critical events, whether through obedience to institutional authority or support for destructive adventurism, creating situations producing cybernetic double binds. The third part contextualizes OEP as ecologically grounded pedagogies through an open source educational processes framework focusing on productive many-to-many online communication and community formation, offering practical examples of open source educational processes curricula implemented in a higher education setting. (shrink)

People attribute purposes in both mundane and profound ways—such as when thinking about the purpose of a knife and the purpose of a life. In three studies (total N = 13,720 observations from N = 3,430 participants), we tested whether these seemingly very different forms of purpose attributions might actually involve the same cognitive processes. We examined the impacts of four factors on purpose attributions in six domains (artifacts, social institutions, animals, body parts, sacred objects, and human lives). Study 1 (...) manipulated what items in each domain were originally created for (original design) and how people currently use them (present practice). Study 2 manipulated whether items are good at achieving a goal (effectiveness) and whether the goal itself is good (morality). We found effects of each factor in every domain. However, whereas morality and effectiveness had remarkably similar effects across domains, the effects of original design and present practice differed substantially. Finally, Study 3 revealed that, within domains, the effects of original design and present practice depend on which entities design and use items. These results reveal striking similarities in purpose attributions across domains and suggest that certain entities are treated as authorities over the purposes of particular items. (shrink)

In this paper Michael Vazquez and Dustin Webster consider the practice of deliberating about ethical case studies as a means to contribute to the professional development of educators. An ongoing debate is whether or not the study of ethical theory should be included in this practice. Vazquez and Webster argue that a popular strategy, known as the Phronetic Approach, is vulnerable to what they call “epistemic blinders” that arise in the absence of the scaffolding provided by theory. They then (...) sketch an alternative approach to case-based reasoning inspired by Barbara Herman's notion of middle theory. The middle theory approach naturally suggests a balanced method for using case studies in teacher professional development: expose educators to some theory, but only to the degree and at the level appropriate for the specific audience and in light of how frequent interactions with that audience will be. (shrink)

Since Case and Deaton (2015) coined the term ‘deaths of despair,’ there has been significant empirical work and public interest in the topic. Yet social scientists studying this topic lament the absence of a clear theory of despair. Philosophical inquiry into the nature and value of hope has begun to fill this gap, with despair often cited as the opposite of hope. The assumption that hope and despair are opposites has helped to motivate two central tasks in the literature: how (...) a theory of hope can make sense of the difference between hope and despair, and how hope might prevent people from falling into despair. Yet the focus of inquiry has been principally on hope. This paper builds on the existing literature to offer a theory of despair. We argue that despair is a mode of sadness whereby one experiences the loss of reasons to take seriously that which one desires. Our account of despair captures a set of desiderata that any theory of despair should explain, and it offers useful conceptual resources to social scientists studying deaths of despair. (shrink)

An Essay on Mathematical Instrumentalism M. Detlefsen. THE PHILOSOPHICAL FUNDAMENTALS OF HILBERT'S PROGRAM 1. INTRODUCTION In this chapter I shall attempt to set out Hilbert's Program in a way that is more revealing than ...

According to many philosophers, "the meaning of life" refers to our cosmic purpose, the activity that we were created by God or a purposive universe to perform. If there is no God or teleology, there is no such thing as the meaning of life. But this need not be the last word on the matter. In this paper, I ask what the benefits provided by a cosmic purpose are, and go on to argue that thinking of our lives in a (...) particular way—in terms of a unified life narrative—can supply us with many of those benefits. We might lose little if there is no such thing as the meaning of life, since there is still something that can provide much of what is valuable about it. (shrink)

This study explores the relationship between perceptions of catastrophic events and beliefs about climate change. Using data from the 2023 Life in Transition Survey, the study finds that contrary to conventional wisdom, more accurate knowledge about past catastrophes is associated with lower concern about climate change. The paper proposes that heightened threat sensitivity may underlie both the tendency to overestimate disaster impacts and increased concern about climate change. The findings challenge the assumption that a more informed citizenry necessarily leads to (...) better climate policy decisions. Instead, they suggest that psychological factors, like anxiety and risk perception, play crucial roles in shaping climate attitudes. Illuminating these dynamics can help societies to foster a more nuanced and constructive public dialogue about the urgent challenges facing our planet and our species. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between romantic love and polyamory. Our central question is whether traditional norms of monogamy can be excised from romantic love so as to harmonize with polyamory’s ethical dimensions (as we construe them). How one answers this question bears on another: whether ‘polyamory’ should principally be understood in terms of romantic love or instead some alternative conception(s). Our efforts to address these questions begin by briefly motivating our favored approach to romantic love, a “narratival” one inspired (...) by 1930s cultural theorist Denis de Rougemont, wherein such love is exclusive, supernatural or promising transcendence, painful, impeded, and, ultimately, fatal. We maintain that, even once exclusivity is removed as an official component, tensions with polyamory’s ethical dimensions remain: romantic love’s other elements rationalize acting and feeling in ways that privilege a singular beloved above others. A tempting solution is to further revise romantic love. However, we are skeptical that this leaves space for distinctively romantic love. Our tentative proposal, then, is that polyamory’s ethical dimensions favor rejecting romantic love as ultimately desirable. (shrink)

Perceptualism is a prominent theory analyzing emotions as perceptual experiences of value. A longstanding challenge to perceptualism says that emotions cannot be perceptual because they are subject to normative assessments in terms of reasons and rationality while perceptual experiences are not. I defend perceptualism from this charge. My argument begins by distinguishing two forms of normative assessment: fundamental and non-fundamental. Perceptualism is compatible with the latter (i.e., non-fundamental reasons and rationality); even sensory experiences are so assessable. I next argue that (...) emotions are only non-fundamentally assessable. Following this argument, I outline a perceptualist-friendly theory of emotions as non-fundamentally normatively assessable. (shrink)

Moral disagreement is often thought to be of great metaethical significance for moral realists. I explore what remains of that significance when we look at moral disagreement through the lens of a combination of two influential and independently plausible hypotheses about moral language. The Morality-As-Cooperation (MAC) hypothesis says that our capacity for and use of moral language is an adaptation to increase mutualistic cooperation. The Concepts-As-Tools (CAT) hypothesis says that we often engage in disputes about language use and that many (...) apparent moral disagreements are linguistic disagreements in disguise. The combined MAC-CAT view that I explore suggests that we frequently engage in linguistic disputes to find optimal means for mutualistic cooperation. I show that this perspective weakens sceptical claims based on moral disagreements, that is offers a novel way for moral realists to explain the apparent genuineness of moral disagreements without the need to accept theses borrowed from non-cognitivism. (shrink)

In 2021, the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies (hereafter, BICS) sponsored an essay competition (hereafter, the Contest) designed to solicit the best evidence for the hypothesis that human consciousness survives bodily death, and more specifically, evidence that would prove this hypothesis beyond a reasonable doubt. The summer 2022 issue of the Journal of Scientific Exploration featured a special subsection on the BICS contest and its winning essays. Robert Bigelow and Colm Kelleher outlined the motivation, design, and judging criteria for the (...) competition. Keith Augustine provided an extensive critical commentary on the contest design and eight of its prominent winning essays. Stephen Braude and several coauthors responded to Augustine’s criticisms, and Augustine provided a reply to Braude and his collaborators. Finally, the subsection concluded with a collaborative paper in which Etienne LeBel, Adam Rock, and Augustine proposed a more rigorous experimental design for testing the survival hypothesis. Augustine presented important criticisms of the Contest and several of its prominent winning essays. Moreover, many of his criticisms apply to survival literature in general and so are instructive for the wider survival debate. And Braude, one of the most important contributors to the survival debate since C.D. Broad and C.J. Ducasse, was at the helm of the reply to Augustine. Although the response to Augustine raised important concerns about skeptical assessments of the evidence for survival, it was hamstrung with several defects. 1. Preliminaries 2. Problematic Aspects of the Reply to Augustine 3. What is the Question? Honing in on the Actual Disagreement 4. Inference to Best Explanation 5. Confirmation Approaches to Evidential Support -- 5.1 Evidential Justification -- 5.2 When Does an Observation Favor One Hypothesis Over Another Hypothesis? The Law of Likelihood -- 5.3 When Should We Up Our Confidence in a Hypothesis? Incremental Confirmation -- 5.4 How Can We Determine the Net Plausibility of a Hypothesis? Bayes’ Theorem and Posterior Probabilities -- 5.5 Which of Two Hypotheses is More Probable than the Other? Principle of Contrastive Posterior Probabilities -- 5.6 When Does Evidence Justify Believing a Hypothesis? Principle of Absolute Confirmation -- 5.7 Survivalist Confusions about Bayesian Analyses -- 5.8 The Washing Out of Priors -- 5.9 The Subjectivism Objection -- 5.10 Summing Up Insights from Confirmation Theory -- 6. Back to Braude 7. Varieties of Skepticism 8. Neurophysiological Evidence and the Survival Hypothesis 9. The Data from Mediumship 10. The Alleged Improbability of Fraud and Other Counterexplanations 11. Mediumship and the Logic of Confirmation 12. The Significance of Failed Tests 13. Survivalist Rescues and Contrastive Confirmation 14. Evidential Support without Predictions -- 15. The Testability Problem -- Concluding Remarks. (shrink)

Although computation and the science of physical systems would appear to be unrelated, there are a number of ways in which computational and physical concepts can be brought together in ways that illuminate both. This volume examines fundamental questions which connect scholars from both disciplines: is the universe a computer? Can a universal computing machine simulate every physical process? What is the source of the computational power of quantum computers? Are computational approaches to solving physical problems and paradoxes always fruitful? (...) Contributors from multiple perspectives reflecting the diversity of thought regarding these interconnections address many of the most important developments and debates within this exciting area of research. Both a reference to the state of the art and a valuable and accessible entry to interdisciplinary work, the volume will interest researchers and students working in physics, computer science, and philosophy of science and mathematics. (shrink)

Marx and heidegger agree that capitalism turns everything into a commodity for economic exploitation. Unlike marx, However, Heidegger regards both capitalism and communism as instances of human subjectivism: the attitude that man is the measure of all things, And that everything is an object to be dominated by the human subject. Capitalist man dominates nature (including man) individually; communist man does so collectively. Marx, Unfortunately, Was taken in by hegel's anthropocentric view of history, And had an unwavering faith in the (...) promise of industrialization for liberating mankind from its problems. Heidegger calls for a new way of understanding humanity: as an integral part of nature, Not its lord and master. Neither capitalism nor communism can comprehend this way of thinking. (shrink)

It is often assumed that neural representation, with content that is in principle detachable from the flow of natural-factive information, is necessary to perceptually experience an object. In this paper we present and discuss two cases challenging this assumption. We take them to show that it is possible to experience an object with which you are interacting through your sensory systems without those systems constructing a representation of the object. The first example is viewing nearby medium-sized groups of objects. The (...) second is hearing objects through misbound sounds. These cases bring out two different ways object representation can fail while object experience persists, suggesting that object experience requires only that the object be revealed through sensory information, not full-blown representation. Constructing object representations is one way sensory systems reveal objects, but it is not the only way. Object representation in neural sensory systems is relatively demanding, rare, and fragile; object experience is relatively easy, pervasive, and robust. We conclude that even minimal forms of neural phenomenal internalism are false. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungOb und inwieweit Menschenbilder in der Ethik eine Rolle spielen (sollen), ist hoch umstritten - auch deswegen, weil das Verhältnis zwischen Ethik und Menschenbild ziemlich unklar ist. Der vorliegende Beitrag versucht, dieses Verhältnis zu klären und darzulegen, dass die Rede vom Menschenbild in der Ethik an mehreren Stellen relevant und sinnvoll ist. Zu diesem Zweck wird erstens der Begriff des Menschenbildes definiert und einige verbreitete Missverständnisse ausgeräumt. Zweitens werden drei in der Ethik verbreitete Modelle der Beziehung zwischen Ethik und Menschenbild (...) vorgestellt und ihre Schwierigkeiten untersucht: das (traditionelle) Telos-Modell, das (neuzeitliche) Human-nature-Modell und das (moderne) reduzierte Vernunft- Modell. Anhand einer ausführlichen Kritik des dritten Modells, das modernen Ethikansätzen zugrunde liegt, zeigt der Beitrag drittens schließlich auf, dass eine Ethik dann, wenn sie konkrete Urteile und materiale Normen begründen will, nicht umhin kommt, explizit oder implizit von gehaltvollen Menschenbildern auszugehen. (shrink)

Renewed attention to integrating information ethics within graduate library and information science programs has forced LIS educators to ensure that future information professionals - and the users they interact with - participate appropriately and ethically in our contemporary information society. Along with focusing on graduate LIS curricula, information ethics must become infused in multiple and varied educational contexts, ranging from elementary and secondary education, technical degrees and undergraduate programs, public libraries, through popular media, and within the home.Teaching information ethics in (...) these diverse settings and contexts brings numerous challenges and requires new understandings and innovative approaches. In keeping with the 2011 Association for Library and Information Science Education conference theme of "Competitiveness and Innovation," a diverse panel of educators and researchers were convened to foster a discussion in how to best incorporate information ethics education across diverse contexts, and how to develop innovative educational methods to overcome the challenges these contexts inevitably present. This article reports on that panel discussion and offers recommendations towards achieving success in information ethics education. (shrink)

308 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 34:2 APRIL 1996 cal rereading: Kant's substantial rather than exclusively procedural conception of free- dom and autonomy; the constitutive rather than merely regulative function of pure practical reason; and the latter's cognitive-cum-conative nature. But this should not detract from Neiman's original and provocative work, which deserves widespread attention. GONTER ZOLLER University of Iowa Cyril O'Regan. The Heterodox Hegel. SUNY Series in Hegelian Studies. Albany: State University of New York Press, a994. Pp. xi + (...) 517 . Paper, $94-95. This astonishingly erudite and elegantly written book is a major intellectual achieve- ment. O'Regan's study seeks to defend Hegel's trinitarian onto-theology against its modern and postmodern detractors. In addition to an intimate knowledge of Hegel's own work and commentaries thereon, O'Regan reveals a profound grasp of Christian theology, ranging from patristic authors and.. (shrink)

Formalised public participation in project approval procedures is rarely addressed in technology assessment. Empirical data about public participation processes are taken into account even more rarely. This article explores the practice of public participation in infrastructure projects in the Federal Republic of Germany on the basis of empirical data from the period of 1990 to 2010. The author compares the empirical data about participation processes with the targets of the public participation and asks for the reasons for the lack of (...) participation in formalised approval procedures. Furthermore, the author contrasts participation formats used in technology assessment with formalised public participation. In his conclusions, he advocates for a stronger combination of formalised and informal public participation in technology assessment. (shrink)

The present study explored psychological predictors of response to a series of three 25 second inhalations of 20% carbon dioxide-enriched air in 60 nonclinical participants. Multiple regression analyses indicated that only anxiety sensitivity physical concerns predicted self-reported fear, whereas both physical anxiety sensitivity concerns and behavioural inhibition sensitivity independently predicted affective ratings of emotional arousal. In contrast, the psychological concerns anxiety sensitivity dimension predicted ratings of emotional displeasure (valence), and both psychological anxiety sensitivity concerns and behavioural inhibition sensitivity independently predicted (...) emotional dyscontrol. No variables significantly predicted heart rate. These data are in accord with current models of emotional reactivity that highlight the role of cognitive variables in the production of anxious and fearful responding to somatic perturbation, and help further clarify the particular predictors of anxiety-related responding to biological challenge. (shrink)

This chapter situates Kant’s rejection of Stoic eudaimonism within his overarching anti-eudaimonist agenda. I begin by emphasizing the importance of the Stoic tradition for Kant’s critical reception of ancient ethical theory. I then reconstruct the central commitments of ancient Stoic eudaimonism and of Christian Garve’s quasi-Stoic eudaimonism. Turning to Kant’s anti-Stoic argument in the Dialectic of the Second Critique, I argue that the primary target of Kant’s error of subreption (vitium subreptionis) is the Stoic Seneca, specifically his account of joy (...) (gaudium) as an accompaniment of one’s consciousness of virtuous activity. After reconstructing Kant’s argument in detail, I offer a new way to understand its anti-eudaimonist implications: practical illusion leads the Stoic to rationalize, and, ultimately, to disfigure the moral law. Even in their moral ardor—or rather, propelled by it—the Stoic commits an error of self-love. (shrink)

This participatory study, conducted in an introductory psychology class, recounts self-reflections of 22 undergraduate students and their instructor engaging in an GenAI-mediated storyboard generation process. It relies on Gordon Pask’s conversation theory, structuring out the nature of interactions between students, instructor, and GenAI, and then uses a qualitative narrative to describe these conversational feedback loops constituting the creation of draft and final storyboards. Results suggest students engaged in cyclical feedback driven processes to master their creations, used elements of photography related (...) to the relationships between objects in frame, image processing, and cultural objects/themes to generate narratives. Issues were faced with generating text on images, and the consistency and style of generated frames as they interacted with GenAI tools. This study provides guidelines to university teaching professionals to design effective activities mediated by text-to-image GenAI. (shrink)

Many Perdurantists have been drawn to the “Conventionalist” idea that our person-directed attitudes can determine whether or not we survive events such as teletransportation. In this paper, I suggest a novel “Contextualist Conventionalism” according to which Conventionalism is true with respect to some, but not all, contexts in which we ask “will I survive?”—instead in “reflexive” contexts, “I” reflexively refers to a thinker whose persistence conditions are mind-independent. Unlike one form of Conventionalism which implies that the reference of “I” is (...) never constrained to reflexively referring to the thinker, Contextualist Conventionalism instead implies that there are some important contexts where the “I” is so constrained. And unlike another form of Conventionalism that secures such reflexive reference by holding that the survival of the thinker is a mind-dependent matter, Contextualist Conventionalism secures reflexive reference while avoiding such a radical metaphysical commitment. (shrink)