Food images are useful stimuli for the study of cognitive processes as well as eating behavior. To enhance rigor and reproducibility in task-based research, it is advantageous to have stimulus sets that are publicly available and well characterized. Food Folio by Columbia Center for Eating Disorders is a publicly available set of 138 images of Western food items. The set was developed for the study of eating disorders, particularly for use in tasks that capture eating behavior characteristic of these illnesses. (...) It contains foods that are typically eaten, as well as those typically avoided, by individuals with eating disorders. Each image has now been rated across 17 different attributes by a large general United States population sample via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Ratings included subjective attributes as well as estimates of nutrient content. Each participant rated a subset of stimulus set food items on all 17 dimensions. Additional description of the image set is provided in terms of physical image information and accurate nutritional information. Correlations between subjective ratings were calculated and an exploratory factor analysis and exploratory cluster analysis completed. Outcomes of the factor analysis suggested foods may be described along three latent factors of healthiness, tastiness, and umami taste; the cluster analysis highlighted five distinct clusters of foods varying on these same dimensions. Descriptive outcomes indicated that the stimulus set includes a range of foods that vary along multiple dimensions and thus is likely to be useful in addressing various research questions surrounding eating behavior and cognition in healthy populations, as well as in those with eating disorders. The provision of comprehensive descriptive information allows for stimulus selection that is optimized for a given research question and promotes strong inference. (shrink)

Harman and Lewis credit Kripke with having formulated a puzzle that seems to show that knowledge entails dogmatism. The puzzle is widely regarded as having been solved. In this paper we argue that this standard solution, in its various versions, addresses only a limited aspect of the puzzle and holds no promise of fully resolving it. Analyzing this failure and the proper rendering of the puzzle, it is suggested that it poses a significant challenge for the defense of epistemic closure.

The strong sensorimotor account of perception gives self-induced movements two constitutive roles in explaining visual consciousness. The first says that self-induced movements are vehicles of visual awareness, and for this reason consciousness ‘does not happen in the brain only’. The second says that the phenomenal nature of visual experiences is consists in the action-directing content of vision. In response I suggest, first, that the sense in which visual awareness is active should be explained by appeal to the role of attention (...) in visual consciousness, rather than self-induced movements; and second, that the sense in which perceptual consciousness does not happen in the brain only should be explained by appeal to the relational nature of perceptual consciousness, appeal to which also shows why links with action cannot exhaust phenomenal content. (shrink)

The U.S. scientific community has long led the world in research on such areas as public health, environmental science, and issues affecting quality of life. These scientists have produced landmark studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers. -/- Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and (...) scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. Remarkably, the same individuals surface repeatedly-some of the same figures who have claimed that the science of global warming is "not settled" denied the truth of studies linking smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole. "Doubt is our product," wrote one tobacco executive. These "experts" supplied it. -/- Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, historians of science, roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how ideology and corporate interests, aided by a too-compliant media, have skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era. (shrink)

According to an influential philosophical view I call “the relational properties view”, “perspectival” properties, such as the elliptical appearance of a tilted coin, are relational properties of external objects. Philosophers have assessed this view on the basis of phenomenological, epistemological or other purely philosophical considerations. My aim in this paper is to examine whether it is possible to evaluate RPV empirically. In the first, negative part of the paper I consider and reject a certain tempting way of doing so. In (...) the second, positive part of the paper I suggest a novel way of evaluating RPV empirically, relying on the influential object files framework. (shrink)

The paper argues that knowledge is not closed under logical inference. The argument proceeds from the openness of evidential support and the dependence of empirical knowledge on evidence, to the conclusion that knowledge is open. Without attempting to provide a full-fledged theory of evidence, we show that on the modest assumption that evidence cannot support both a proposition and its negation, or, alternatively, that information that reduces the probability of a proposition cannot constitute evidence for its truth, the relation of (...) evidential support is not closed under known entailment. Therefore the evidence-for relation is deductively open regardless of whether evidence is probabilistic or not. Given even a weak dependence of empirical knowledge on evidence, we argue that empirical knowledge is also open. On this basis, we also respond to the strongest argument in support of knowledge closure. Finally, we present a number of significant benefits of our position, namely, offering a unified explanation for a range of epistemological puzzles. (shrink)

The idea that knowledge can be extended by inference from what is known seems highly plausible. Yet, as shown by familiar preface paradox and lottery-type cases, the possibility of aggregating uncertainty casts doubt on its tenability. We show that these considerations go much further than previously recognized and significantly restrict the kinds of closure ordinary theories of knowledge can endorse. Meeting the challenge of uncertainty aggregation requires either the restriction of knowledge-extending inferences to single premises, or eliminating epistemic uncertainty in (...) known premises. The first strategy, while effective, retains little of the original idea—conclusions even of modus ponens inferences from known premises are not always known. We then look at the second strategy, inspecting the most elaborate and promising attempt to secure the epistemic role of basic inferences, namely Timothy Williamson’s safety theory of knowledge. We argue that while it indeed has the merit of allowing basic inferences such as modus ponens to extend knowledge, Williamson’s theory faces formidable difficulties. These difficulties, moreover, arise from the very feature responsible for its virtue- the infallibilism of knowledge. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

According to the thesis of transparency, subjects can attend only to the representational content of perceptual experience, never to the intrinsic properties of experience that carry this representational content, i.e., to “mental paint.” So far, arguments for and against transparency were conducted from the armchair, relying mainly on introspective observations. In this paper, we argue in favor of transparency, relying on the cognitive neuroscience of attention. We present a trilemma to those who hold that attention can be directed to mental (...) paint. Such attention is either first-order sensory, higher-order cognitive, or higher-order sensory attention. We argue that the notion of first-order sensory attention to mental paint is incompatible with the neuroscience of sensory attention; that higher-order cognitive attention to mental paint is irrelevant to transparency; and that the notion of higher-order sensory attention to mental paint has an apparently incoherent prediction. Via elimination, these considerations support the thesis of transparency. (shrink)

This paper proposes and develops the feelings of goals hypothesis (FGH). It has two aims: first, to describe the evolutionary function of emotional feelings (EFs), and second, to describe the content and the format of EFs. According to FGH, the evolutionary function of EFs is to enable motoric flexibility. Specifically, EFs are a component of a psychological mechanism that permits differential motoric reactions to the same stimulus. Further, according to FGH, EF is a special type of mental representation with the (...) content of an action goal, and with a non-motoric, non-conceptual format. This paper thoroughly clarifies the assumptions underlying FGH and discusses its theoretical implications and empirical predictions. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson has famously argued that the principle should be rejected. We analyze Williamson's argument and show that its key premise is ambiguous, and that when it is properly stated this premise no longer supports the argument against. After canvassing possible objections to our argument, we reflect upon some conclusions that suggest significant epistemological ramifications pertaining to the acquisition of knowledge from prior knowledge by deduction.

Verification and validation of numerical models of natural systems is impossible. This is because natural systems are never closed and because model results are always nonunique. Models can be confirmed by the demonstration of agreement between observation and prediction, but confirmation is inherently partial. Complete confirmation is logically precluded by the fallacy of affirming the consequent and by incomplete access to natural phenomena. Models can only be evaluated in relative terms, and their predictive value is always open to question. The (...) primary value of models is heuristic. (shrink)

There are few indulgences academics can crave more than to have their work considered and addressed by leading researchers in their field. We have been fortunate to have two outstanding philosophers from whose work we have learned a great deal give ours their thoughtful attention. Grappling with Stephen Yablo’s, and Juan Comesaña’s comments and criticisms has helped us gain a better understanding of our ideas as well as their shortcomings. We are extremely grateful to them for the attentiveness and seriousness (...) with which they have considered our arguments and to philosophical studies for giving us this opportunity. Given the substantive difference between the two response papers, there is not much beyond sincere gratitude that we can covey to them jointly. We will therefore address them in turn. (shrink)

What if you woke up one morning and found you'd acquired another self--a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you'd devoted your life to fighting against? Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience--she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and (...) public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who. Destabilized, she lost her bearings, until she began to understand the experience as one manifestation of a strangeness many of us have come to know but struggle to define: AI-generated text is blurring the line between genuine and spurious communication; New Age wellness entrepreneurs turned anti-vaxxers are scrambling familiar political allegiances of left and right; and liberal democracies are teetering on the edge of absurdist authoritarianism, even as the oceans rise. Under such conditions, reality itself seems to have become unmoored. Is there a cure for our moment of collective vertigo? Naomi Klein is one of our most trenchant and influential social critics, an essential analyst of what branding, austerity, and climate profiteering have done to our societies and souls. Here she turns her gaze inward to our psychic landscapes, and outward to the possibilities for building hope amid intersecting economic, medical, and political crises. With the assistance of Sigmund Freud, Jordan Peele, Alfred Hitchcock, and bell hooks, among other accomplices, Klein uses wry humor and a keen sense of the ridiculous to face the strange doubles that haunt us--and that have come to feel as intimate and proximate as a warped reflection in the mirror. Combining comic memoir with chilling reportage and cobweb-clearing analysis, Klein seeks to smash that mirror and chart a path beyond despair. Doppelganger asks: What do we neglect as we polish and perfect our digital reflections? Is it possible to dispose of our doubles and overcome the pathologies of a culture of multiplication? Can we create a politics of collective care and undertake a true reckoning with historical crimes? The result is a revelatory treatment of the way many of us think and feel now--and an intellectual adventure story for our times. (shrink)

We study the behaviour of stable types in rosy theories. The main technical result is that a non-þ-forking extension of an unstable type is unstable. We apply this to show that a rosy group with a þ-generic stable type is stable. In the context of super-rosy theories of finite rank we conclude that non-trivial stable types of U þ -rank 1 must arise from definable stable sets.

Unlike authoritarians of old, the current crop of authoritarian demagogues does not explicitly reject the democratic framework. Instead, they undermine it from within. Rather than engage their opponents on the issues, demagogues delegitimize them. As ancient Greeks had observed, turning political rivals into enemies is highly effective because it answers a need. Demagogy is driven by demand. This poses a distinct challenge to the ideals of free speech and freedom of the press, which are justified and understood in terms of (...) market competition or ‘the marketplace of ideas’. (shrink)

The history of productivity of the κ-chain condition in partial orders, topological spaces, or Boolean algebras is surveyed, and its connection to the set-theoretic notion of a weakly compact cardinal is highlighted. Then, it is proved that for every regular cardinal κ > א1, the principle □ is equivalent to the existence of a certain strong coloring c : [κ]2 → κ for which the family of fibers T is a nonspecial κ-Aronszajn tree. The theorem follows from an analysis of (...) a new characteristic function for walks on ordinals, and implies in particular that if the κ-chain condition is productive for a given regular cardinal κ > א1, then κ is weakly compact in some inner model of ZFC. This provides a partial converse to the fact that if κ is a weakly compact cardinal, then the κ-chain condition is productive. (shrink)

Perception can’t have disjunctive content. Whereas you can think that a box is blue or red, you can’t see a box as being blue or red. Based on this fact, I develop a new problem for the ambitious predictive processing theory, on which the brain is a machine for minimizing prediction error, which approximately implements Bayesian inference. I describe a simple case of updating a disjunctive belief given perceptual experience of one of the disjuncts, in which Bayesian inference and predictive (...) coding pull in opposite directions, with the former implying that one’s confidence in the belief should increase, and the latter implying that it should decrease. Thus, predictive coding fails to approximately implement Bayesian inference across the interface between belief and perception. (shrink)

We construct a strongly minimal set which is not a finite cover of one with DMP. We also show that for a strongly minimal theory T, generic automorphisms exist iff T has DMP, thus proving a conjecture of Kikyo and Pillay.

Are doctors right when they tell us vaccines are safe? Should we take climate experts at their word when they warn us about the perils of global warming? Why should we trust science when so many of our political leaders don't? Naomi Oreskes offers a bold and compelling defense of science, revealing why the social character of scientific knowledge is its greatest strength--and the greatest reason we can trust it. Tracing the history and philosophy of science from the late (...) nineteenth century to today, this timely and provocative book features a new preface by Oreskes and critical responses by climate experts Ottmar Edenhofer and Martin Kowarsch, political scientist Jon Krosnick, philosopher of science Marc Lange, and science historian Susan Lindee, as well as a foreword by political theorist Stephen Macedo. (shrink)

This article presents the framework Capability Sensitive Design (CSD), which consists of merging the design methodology Value Sensitive Design (VSD) with Martha Nussbaum's capability theory. CSD aims to normatively assess technology design in general, and technology design for health and wellbeing in particular. Unique to CSD is its ability to account for human diversity and to counter (structural) injustices that manifest in technology design. The basic framework of CSD is demonstrated by applying it to the hypothetical design case of a (...) therapy chatbot for mental health. By applying CSD to a design case, the merits of this new framework over the standard VSD approach become apparent. Also, the application demonstrates what a technology design would look like when attention is paid to capabilities right from the start of the design process. (shrink)

Let λ denote a singular cardinal. Zeman, improving a previous result of Shelah, proved that $\square _{\lambda}^{\ast}$ together with 2 λ = λ⁺ implies $\lozenge _{S}$ for every S ⊆ λ⁺ that reflects stationarily often. In this paper, for a set S ⊆ λ⁺, a normal subideal of the weak approachability ideal is introduced, and denoted by I[S; λ]. We say that the ideal is fat if it contains a stationary set. It is proved: 1. if I[S; λ] is fat, (...) then $\text{NS}_{\lambda ^{+}}$ ↾ S is non-saturated; 2. if I[S; λ] is fat and 2 λ = λ⁺, then $\lozenge _{S}$ holds; 3. $\square _{\lambda}^{\ast}$ implies that I[S; λ] is fat for every S ⊆ λ⁺ that reflects stationarily often; 4. it is relatively consistent with the existence of a supercompact cardinal that $\square _{\lambda}^{\ast}$ fails, while I[S; λ] is fat for every stationary S ⊆ λ⁺ that reflects stationarily often. The stronger principle $\lozenge _{\lambda ^{+}}^{\ast}$ is studied as well. (shrink)

König, Larson and Yoshinobu initiated the study of principles for guessing generalized clubs, and introduced a construction of a higher Souslin tree from the strong guessing principle.Complementary to the author’s work on the validity of diamond and non-saturation at the successor of singulars, we deal here with a successor of regulars. It is established that even the non-strong guessing principle entails non-saturation, and that, assuming the necessary cardinal arithmetic configuration, entails a diamond-type principle which suffices for the construction of a (...) higher Souslin tree.We also establish the consistency of GCH with the failure of the weakest form of generalized club guessing. This, in particular, settles a question from the original paper. (shrink)

Naomi Scheman argues that the concerns of philosophy emerge not from the universal human condition but from conditions of privilege. Her books represents a powerful challenge to the notion that gender makes no difference in the construction of philosophical reasoning. At the same time, it criticizes the narrow focus of most feminist theorizing and calls for a more inclusive form of inquiry.

Peopling the donor world -- The meaning of family in a changing world -- Creating families -- Creating communities across families -- The laws of the donor world: parents and children -- Law, adoption, and family secrets: disclosure and incest -- Reasons to regulate -- Regulating for connection -- Regulating for health and safety: setting limits in the gamete world -- Why not to regulate -- Conclusion: challenging and creating kinship.

According to the influential thesis of attentional transparency, in having or reflecting on an ordinary visual experience, we can attend only outwards, to qualities the experience represents, never to intrinsic qualities of the experience itself, i.e., to “mental paint.” According to the competing view, attentional semitransparency, although we usually attend outwards, to qualities the experience represents, we can also attend inwards, to mental paint. So far, philosophers have debated this topic in strictly armchair means, especially phenomenological reflection. My aim in (...) this paper is to show how to design an experiment, using the change detection paradigm for studying visual working memory that, if yielding positive results, would support AS. The structure of the argument is as follows. In standard change detection tasks, which involve attention to qualities the experience represents, there exists a known object integration effect (Luck and Vogel in Nature 390(6657):279–281, 1997). I formulate a hypothesis I call “the turn-off hypothesis,” according to which this effect does not exist in change detection tasks where subjects are instructed to attend to mental paint. I argue that, given AS, we have some reason to expect the turn-off hypothesis to be true, but given AT, we do not. Consequently, the truth of the turn-off hypothesis would support AS. I further argue that one can straightforwardly test the turn-off hypothesis, taking the standard change detection paradigm and instructing participants to attend inwards. (shrink)

Antirealism about metaphysical explanation is relatively underexplored. This paper maps out the territory for the antirealist, explaining what it would take to be an antirealist given various different conceptions of metaphysical explanation, and of the relationship between metaphysical explanation and grounding.

It is commonly assumed that grounding relations are asymmetric. Here I develop and argue for a theory of metaphysical structure that takes grounding to be nonsymmetric rather than asymmetric. Even without infinite descending chains of dependence, it might be that every entity is grounded in some other entity. Having first addressed an immediate objection to the position under discussion, I introduce two examples of symmetric grounding. I give three arguments for the view that grounding is nonsymmetric (I call this view (...) ‘metaphysical interdependence’). These arguments are: (i) that metaphysical interdependence is the only theory able to reconcile competing intuitions about grounding; (ii) that it is the only theory consistent with both ‘gunk’ and ‘junk’; and (iii) that offers a satisfactory solution to the problem concerning whether or not grounding is itself grounded. (shrink)

This article examines whether a functionalist approach to emotion classification is a research program that can feasibly be implemented in an experimental environment. I suggest that this is a promise perhaps impossible to keep. The crux of the argument is that if functional taxonomy is to go the full distance and shape experimental conditions to the new boundaries, then stimuli/experimental manipulations must be selected based on functional principles. But this seems implausible or even impossible. I conclude that emotion taxonomy, and (...) thus the metastructure of emotion theory, is both constrained and determined by human emotional feelings, and suggest that feelings have a special epistemological status in emotion research. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of metaphysical explanation according to which metaphysical explanations are answers to what-makes-it-the-case-that questions. On this view, metaphysical explanations are not to be considered entirely objective, but are subject to epistemic constraints imposed by the context in which a relevant question is asked. The resultant account of metaphysical explanation is developed independently of any particular views about grounding. Toward the end of the paper an application of the view is proposed that takes metaphysical explanations conceived in (...) this way to characterize reality's structure. According to this proposal, reality's structure is partly constituted by a projection of our explanatory practices onto reality. (shrink)

It is relatively consistent with the existence of two supercompact cardinals that a special Aronszajn tree of height ${\aleph_{\omega_1+1}}$ is introduced by a cofinality-preserving forcing of size ${\aleph_3}$.

Attempts to elucidate grounding are often made by connecting grounding to metaphysical explanation, but the notion of metaphysical explanation is itself opaque, and has received little attention in the literature. We can appeal to theories of explanation in the philosophy of science to give us a characterization of metaphysical explanation, but this reveals a tension between three theses: that grounding relations are objective and mind-independent; that there are pragmatic elements to metaphysical explanation; and that grounding and metaphysical explanation share a (...) close connection. Holding fixed the mind-independence of grounding, I show that neither horn of the resultant dilemma can be blunted. Consequently, we should reject the assumption that grounding relations are mind-independent. (shrink)

Spatial Representation presents original, specially written essays by leading psychologists and philosophers on a fascinating set of topics at the intersection of these two disciplines. They address such questions as these: Do the extraordinary navigational abilities of birds mean that these birds have the same kind of grip on the idea of a spatial world as we do? Is there a difference between the way sighted and blind subjects represent the world 'out there'? Does the study of brain-injured subjects, such (...) as 'blind seers', tell us anything about the working of normal spatial consciousness? -/- The essays are arranged into five sections, each of which reflects a central area of research into spatial cognition, and opens with a short introduction by the editors, designed to facilitate cross-disciplinary reading. The volume as a whole offers a rich and compelling expression of the view that to advance our understanding of the way we represent the external world it is necessary to draw on both philosophical and psychological approaches. (shrink)

Grounding talk has become increasingly familiar in contemporary philosophical discussion. Most discussants of grounding think that grounding talk is useful, intelligible, and accurately describes metaphysical reality. Call themrealistsabout grounding. Some dissenters reject grounding talk on the grounds that it is unintelligible, or unmotivated. They would prefer to eliminate grounding talk from philosophy, so we can call themeliminitivistsabout grounding. This paper outlines a new position in the debate about grounding, defending the view that grounding talk is (or at least can be) (...) intelligible and useful. Grounding talk does not, however, provide a literal and veridical description of mind-independent metaphysical reality. This (non-eliminative)irrealismabout grounding treads a path between realism and eliminativism. (shrink)

Persuasive technologies for health‐related behaviour change give rise to ethical concerns. As of yet, no study has explicitly attended to ethical concerns arising with the design and use of these technologies for vulnerable people. This is striking because these technologies are designed to help people change their attitudes or behaviours, which is particularly valuable for vulnerable people. Vulnerability is a complex concept that is both an ontological condition of our humanity and highly context‐specific. Using the Mackenzie, Rogers and Dodds’ taxonomy (...) of vulnerability, this paper identifies (a) the wrongs or harms to which a person is vulnerable, (b) the source of this vulnerability, and (c) the safeguards needed in response. Two ethical concerns with the design of persuasive technology for vulnerable people are discussed: the concerns of taking into account users' interests and their autonomy. (shrink)

Author note: Naomi Zack is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Albany. She herself is of mixed race: Jewish, African American, and Native American.

In Part I of this series [A. Poveda, A. Rinot and D. Sinapova, Sigma-Prikry forcing I: The axioms, Canad. J. Math. 73(5) (2021) 1205–1238], we introduced a class of notions of forcing which we call [Formula: see text]-Prikry, and showed that many of the known Prikry-type notions of forcing that center around singular cardinals of countable cofinality are [Formula: see text]-Prikry. We showed that given a [Formula: see text]-Prikry poset [Formula: see text] and a [Formula: see text]-name for a non-reflecting (...) stationary set [Formula: see text], there exists a corresponding [Formula: see text]-Prikry poset that projects to [Formula: see text] and kills the stationarity of [Formula: see text]. In this paper, we develop a general scheme for iterating [Formula: see text]-Prikry posets and, as an application, we blow up the power of a countable limit of Laver-indestructible supercompact cardinals, and then iteratively kill all non-reflecting stationary subsets of its successor. This yields a model in which the singular cardinal hypothesis fails and simultaneous reflection of finite families of stationary sets holds. (shrink)