Since the 1990s, the science of memetics has existed outside of any discipline and freely available to all. It has remained clandestine, having failed to become established as a “normal” science, but its vitality has been unabated by the resistance of critics. Today, the accelerated reinvention of the world and its dense global networks have opened up new opportunities for the science of memetics to prove its worth to an intellectual community in dire need of interdisciplinary exchanges.

Marx says of alienated labor that it does not “belong” to the worker, that it issues in a product that does not belong to her, and that it is unfulfilling, unfree, egoistically motivated, and inhuman. He seems to think, moreover, that the first of these features grounds all the others. All of these features seem quite independent, however: they can come apart; they share no obvious common cause or explanation; and if they often occur together, this seems accidental. It is (...) not clear, then, how Marx’s concept of alienated labor could possess the strong unity that he takes it to have. This article defends a reinterpretation of the concept that explains this unity. The various features of alienated labor, the article argues, all follow from a single, hitherto underappreciated feature of its formal motivational structure: the fact that such labor is motivated not by its product but by an incentive. (shrink)

Since its origin, bioethics has attracted the collaboration of few social scientists, and social scientific methods of gathering empirical data have remained unfamiliar to ethicists. Recently, however, the clouded relations between the empirical and normative perspectives on bioethics appear to be changing. Three reasons explain why there was no easy and consistent input of empirical evidence into bioethics. Firstly, interdisciplinary dialogue runs the risk of communication problems and divergent objectives. Secondly, the social sciences were absent partners since the beginning of (...) bioethics. Thirdly, the meta‐ethical distinction between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ created a ‘natural’ border between the disciplines. Now, bioethics tends to accommodate more empirical research. Three hypotheses explain this emergence. Firstly, dissatisfaction with a foundationalist interpretation of applied ethics created a stimulus to incorporate empirical research in bioethics. Secondly, clinical ethicists became engaged in empirical research due to their strong integration in the medical setting. Thirdly, the rise of the evidence‐based paradigm had an influence on the practice of bioethics. However, a problematic relationship cannot simply and easily evolve into a perfect interaction. A new and positive climate for empirical approaches has arisen, but the original difficulties have not disappeared. (shrink)

Presents results of free‐recall experiments conducted in France, Gabon and Nepal, to test predictions of a cognitive model of religious concepts. The world over, these concepts include violations of conceptual expectations at the level of domain knowledge (e.g., about ‘animal’ or ‘artifact’ or ‘person’) rather than at the basic level. In five studies we used narratives to test the hypothesis that domain‐level violations are recalled better than other conceptual associations. These studies used material constructed in the same way as religious (...) concepts, but not used in religions familiar to the subjects. Experiments 1 and 2 confirmed a distinctiveness effect for such material. Experiment 3 shows that recall also depends on the possibility to generate inferences from violations of domain expectations. Replications in Gabon (Exp. 4) and Nepal (Exp. 5) showed that recall for domain‐level violations is better than for violations of basic‐level expectations. Overall sensitivity to violations is similar in different cultures and produces similar recall effects, despite differences in commitment to religious belief, in the range of local religious concepts or in their mode of transmission. However, differences between Gabon and Nepal results suggest that familiarity with some types of domain‐level violations may paradoxically make other types more salient. These results suggest that recall effects may account for the recurrent features found in religious concepts from different cultures. (shrink)

Normative accounts of the correctness of belief have often been misconstrued. The norm of truth for belief is a constitutive norm which regulates our beliefs through ideals of reason. I try to show that this kind of account can meet some of the main objections which have been raised against normativism about belief: that epistemic reasons enjoy no exclusivity, that the norm of truth does not guide, and that normativism cannot account for suspension of judgement.

Belief is not a unified phenomenon. In this paper I argue, as a number of other riters argue, that one should distinguish a variety of belief-like attitudes: believing proper - a dispositional state which can have degrees - holding true - which can occur without understanding what one believes - and accepting - a practical and contextual attitude that has a role in deliberation and in practical reasoning. Acceptance itself is not a unified attitude. I explore the various relationships and (...) differences between these doxastic attitudes, and claim that although acceptance is distinct from belief, it rests upon it, and is therefore a species of belief. (shrink)

Ritualized behavior, intuitively recognizable by its stereotypy, rigidity, repetition, and apparent lack of rational motivation, is found in a variety of life conditions, customs, and everyday practices: in cultural rituals, whether religious or non-religious; in many children's complicated routines; in the pathology of obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD); in normal adults around certain stages of the life-cycle, birthing in particular. Combining evidence from evolutionary anthropology, neuropsychology and neuroimaging, we propose an explanation of ritualized behavior in terms of an evolved Precaution System geared (...) to the detection of and reaction to inferred threats to fitness. This system, distinct from fear-systems geared to respond to manifest danger, includes a repertoire of clues for potential danger as well as a repertoire of species-typical precautions. In OCD pathology, this system does not supply a negative feedback to the appraisal of potential threats, resulting in doubts about the proper performance of precautions, and repetition of action. Also, anxiety levels focus the attention on low-level gestural units of behavior rather than on the goal-related higher-level units normally used in parsing the action-flow. Normally automatized actions are submitted to cognitive control. This “swamps” working memory, an effect of which is a temporary relief from intrusions but also their long-term strengthening. Normal activation of this Precaution System explains intrusions and ritual behaviors in normal adults. Gradual calibration of the system occurs through childhood rituals. Cultural mimicry of this system's normal input makes cultural rituals attention-grabbing and compelling. A number of empirical predictions follow from this synthetic model. (Published Online February 8 2007) Key Words: childhood ritual; compulsion; event boundaries; evolutionary psychology; obsessive-compulsive disorder; ritual; thought intrusion. (shrink)

The thesis that mental content is normative is ambiguous and has many forms. This article deals only with the thesis that normativity is connected to our mental attitudes rather than with the content of the attitudes, and more specifically with the view that it is connected to belief. A number of writers have proposed various versions of a ‘norm of truth’ attached to belief. I examine various versions of this claim, and defend it against recent criticisms according to which this (...) norm lacks normative force, that it violates the principle that ‘ought implies can,’ and that it is viciously circular. I defend the view that we should distinguish the statement of the objective norm and the way it is regulated, and that this distinction can answer most of the criticisms of the norm of truth for belief. (shrink)

This field study investigated the relationship between strategic human resource management, internal environmental concern, organizational citizenship behavior for the environment, and environmental performance. The originality of the present research was to link human resource management and environmental management in the Chinese context. Data consisted of 151 matched questionnaires from top management team members, chief executive officers, and frontline workers. The main results indicate that organizational citizenship behavior for the environment fully mediates the relationship between strategic human resource management and environmental (...) performance, and that internal environmental concern moderates the effect of strategic human resource management on organizational citizenship behavior for the environment. (shrink)

This article discusses the arguments against associating epistemic responsibility with the ordinary notion of agency. I examine the various 'Kantian' views which lead to a distinctive conception of epistemic agency and epistemic responsibility. I try to explain why we can be held responsible for our beliefs in the sense of obeying norms which regulate them without being epistemic agents.

The identity theory of truth, according to which true thoughts are identical with facts, is very hard to formulate. It oscillates between substantive versions, which are implausible, and a merely truistic version, which is difficult to distinguish from deflationism about truth. This tension is present in the form of identity theory that one can attribute to McDowell from his views on perception, and in the conception defended by Hornsby under that name.

Sosa takes epistemic normativity to be kind of performance normativity: a belief is correct because a believer sets a positive value to truth as an aim and performs aptly and adroitly. I object to this teleological picture that beliefs are not performances, and that epistemic reasons or beliefs cannot be balanced against practical reasons. Although the picture fits the nature of inquiry, it does not fit the normative nature of believing, which has to be conceived along distinct lines.

I discuss Ruth Marcus' conception of beliefs as dispositional states related to possible states of affaires. While I agree with Marcus that this conception accounts for the necessary distinction between belief and linguistic assent, I argue that the relationship between dispositional beliefs and our assent attitudes is more complex, and should include other mental states, such as acceptances, which, although they contain voluntary elements, are further layers of dispositional doxastic attitudes.

This article examines Keith Lehrer's distinction between belief and acceptance and how it differs from other accounts of belief and of the family of doxastic attitudes. I sketch a different taxonomy of doxastic attitudes. Lehrer's notion of acceptance is mostly epistemic and at the service of his account of the "loop of reason", whereas for other writers acceptance is mostly a pragmatic attitude. I argue, however, that his account of acceptance underdetermines the role that the attitude of trust plays in (...) his analysis of reason. (shrink)

Religions “in the wild” are the varied set of religious activities that occurred before the emergence of organized religions with doctrines, or that persist at the margins of those organized traditions. These religious activities mostly focus on misfortune; on how to remedy specific cases of illness, accidents, failures; and on how to prevent them. I present a general model to account for the cross-cultural recurrence of these particular themes. The model is based on features of human psychology—namely, epistemic vigilance, the (...) set of systems whereby we evaluate the quality of information and of sources of information, and threat-detection psychology, the set of evolved systems geared at detecting potential danger in the environment. Given these two sets of systems, the dynamics of communication will favor particular types of messages about misfortune. This makes it possible to predict recurrent features of religious systems, such as the focus on nonphysical agents, the focus on particular cases rather than general aspects of misfortune, and the emergence of specialists. The model could illuminate not just why such representations are culturally successful, but also why people are motivated to formulate them in the first place. (shrink)

Cognitive developmental evidence is sometimes conscripted to support ''naturalized epistemology'' arguments to the effect that a general epistemic stance leads children to build theory-like accounts of underlying properties of kinds. A review of the evidence suggests that what prompts conceptual acquisition is not a general epistemic stance but a series of category-specific intuitive principles that constitute an evolved ''natural metaphysics''. This consists in a system of categories and category-specific inferential processes founded on definite biases in prototype formation. Evidence for this (...) system provides a better understanding of the limited ''plasticity'' of ontological commitments as well as a computationally plausible account of their initial state, avoiding ambiguities about innateness. This may provide a starting point for a ''naturalized epistemology'' that takes into account evolved properties of human conceptual structures. (shrink)

I argue that the normative dimension in mental content does not figure in the content as a direct feature of this content. But I do not take is as an extrinsic feature due to the properties of our ascriptions either. I suggest that the normativity has to do with the possibility of self attribution of mental states. The views of Robert Brandom are examined in this respect.

The diversity of interpretations of Aristotle’s treatment of chance and luck springs from an apparent contradiction between the claims that “chance events are for the sake of something” and that “chance events are not for the sake of their outcome.” Chance seems to entail the denial of an end. Yet Aristotle systematically refers it to what is for the sake of an end. This paper suggests that, in order to give an account of chance, a reference to “per accidens causes” (...) is not sufficient. Chance occurs as a parody of teleology; it is a“for-no-purpose” that looks like a purpose. The notion of “irony” is suggested as a way of accounting for a situation that keeps an ambiguity open. The fact that chance is thought of in relation to teleology does not mean that it is “reappropriated” by teleology. Rather,chance reveals a hiatus that betrays the limitation of a language concerned with substances to account for events. (shrink)

This essay is concerned with two interrelated questions. First, a broad question: in what sense is Skepticism a philosophy− or in what sense is it “philosophy” (as we will see, these are not identical questions)? Second, a narrow one: how should we understand the process whereby ataraxia (freedom from disturbance) emerges out of epochē (suspension of judgment)? The first question arises because Skepticism is often portrayed as anti-philosophy. This depiction, I contend, surreptitiously turns a Skeptical method into a so-called Skeptical (...) doctrine which is then either condemned for being self-refuting or salvaged as a plausible (albeit odd) epistemological theory. Instead, philosophy, for the Skeptics, is a matter of practice. Skepticism is not so much a philosophy that has a worldview to proclaim as it is a philosophy that invites us to perform something. (shrink)

Dans cet article, je défends la position évidentialiste à propos des croyances religieuses, à la suite de la fameuse maxime de Clifford et contre l'interprétation pragmatiste de l'éthique des croyances. Je défends, en suivant Shah que le test de transparence est mieux expliqué par l'existence d'une norme de correction de la croyance. Les croyances religieuses, si elles sont des croyances, doivent obéir à cette norme. Si elles n'y obéissent pas, ce ne sont pas des croyances. Et la non croyance est (...) une attitude parfaitement légitime. (shrink)

Paul Ricœur made a lot to introduce analytic philosophy in France during the 70s and 80s, and he engaged in a dialogue with a number of authors from this tradition, such as Austin, Strawson, Davidson or Parfit. This dialogue, though, was one-sided, since there was no discussion of his views by analytic philosophers. Moreover, Ricœur often misunderstood or misprepresented the analytic views that he was discussing. So in many ways the Ricœur’s encounter with analytic philosophy was unsuccessful, which does not (...) mean that Ricœur’s discussions where unfruitful for his own work. Résumé Paul Ricœur a fait beaucoup pour introduire la philosophie analytique en France pendant les années 1970 et 1980, et il a entrepris un dialogue avec les auteurs de cette tradition, comme Austin, Strawson, Davidson ou Parfit. Mais ce dialogue est cependant resté unilatéral, car il n’y a pas eu de discussion des thèses de Ricœur au sein de la tradition analytique. De plus Ricœur a souvent mécompris les vues analytiques qu’il discutait. En ce sens il n’y a pas eu de rencontre entre Ricœur et les philosophes analytiques, ce qui ne veut pas dire que les discussions par Ricœur des philosophes anaytiques n’aient pas été fructueuses pour son œuvre propre. (shrink)

A commonplace in contemporary philosophy is that mental content has normative properties. A number of writers associate this view to the idea that the normativity of content is essentially connected to its social character. I agree with the first thesis, but disagree with the second. The paper examines three kinds of views according to which the norms of thought and content are social: Wittgenstein’s rule following considerations, Davidson’s triangulation argument, and Brandom’s inferential pragmatics, and criticises each. It is argued that (...) there are objective conceptual norms constitutive of mental content, but that these are not essentially social. (shrink)

Ageing brings together biological, personal, and social horizons. Attempts to reduce it or to privilege one of these dimensions over the others fail to fully capture the phenomenon. The temporality of ageing presents an irreducible complexity. It is the inextricable intertwinement of three temporalities, three rhythms on different scales: biological time, personal-narrative time, and historical time. In all these dimensions something is of crucial concern: time and temporality. Yet, many philosophers who have thought about time (even those who take seriously (...) the lived experience of temporality) have paid little attention to ageing. Drawing from Heidegger, Scheler, and Schutz, this paper argues that ageing is an irreducible complex of different temporalities where one encounters the historicity of the world through a process of losing touch with it. (shrink)

How do people detect mental dysfunction? What is the influence of cultural models of dysfunction on this detection process? The detection process as such is not usually researched as it falls between the domains of cross-cultural psychiatry and anthropological ethno-psychiatry . I provide a general model for this “missing link” between behavior and cultural models, grounded in empirical evidence for intuitive psychology. Normal adult minds entertain specific intuitive expectations about mental function and behavior, and by implication they infer that specific (...) kinds of behavior are the result of underlying dysfunction. This suggests that there is a “catalogue” of possible behaviors that trigger that intuition, hence a limited catalogue of possible symptoms that feed into culturally specific folk-understandings of mental disorder. It also suggests that some mental dysfunctions, as they do not clearly violate principles of intuitive psychology, are “invisible” to folk-understandings. This perspective allows us to understand the cultural stability and spread of particular views of madness. It also suggests why certain types of mental disorder are invisible to folk-understandings. (shrink)

What is the difference between analytic and Continental philosophy? That the former has not withdrawn norms of justification and truth, whereas the latter has bred suspicion about them.

Presumption is often discussed in law, less often in epistemology. Is it an attitude? If so where can we locate it within the taxonomy of epistemic attitudes? Is it a kind of belief, a judgment, an assumption or a supposition? Or is it a species of inference? There are two basic models of presumption: judgmental, as a kind of judgment, and legal, taken from the use of presumptions in law. The legal model suggests that presumption is a practical inference, whereas (...) the judgmental model suggests that presumption is an epistemic attitude. I argue that presumption is neither a practical inference nor a merely epistemic attitude: it involves both, within the category of what we may call the inquiring attitudes. (shrink)

Simon Blackburn has shown that there is an analogy between the problem of moral motivation in ethics (how can moral reasons move us?) and the problem of what we might call the power of logical reasons (how can logical reasons move us, what is the force of the 'logical must?'). In this paper, I explore further the parallel between the internalism problem in ethics and the problem of the power of logical reasons, and defend a version of psychologism about reasons, (...) although not one of the Humean form. I discuss two forms of cognitivism: (i) a pure cognitivism and 'hard' realism modelled after Dancy's parallel conception in ethics: when we grasp logical reasons we grasp facts, which are directly known to us; (ii) a Kantian form of cognitivism, based on the idea that compulsion by reason goes with the capacity of reflection. I argue that (i) is implausible, and that (ii) fails to meet the internalist requirement. One would then seem to be left with what Dancy calls, about practical reasoning, psychologism about reasons. I sketch what might be such a psychologism. But it fails to account for the objectivity of logical reasons. I argue that the relevant state here is a form of dispositional knowledge of logical reasons. (shrink)

«Neither with you nor without you»Francois Truffaut, La femme d’à coté No one can deny that there is a problem between Wittgenstein and analytic philosophers. To put it mildly, there are tensions between Wittgenstein’s and Wittgensteinian styled reflections and the views and practice of a lot of contemporary analytic philosophers, such that they often seem to be strange bedfellows, when they are bedfellows at all. Of course we know that Wittgenstein did not get along very well with Russell, t...

Among recent theories of the nature of self-knowledge, the rationalistic view, according to which self-knowledge is not a cognitive achievement—perceptual or inferential—has been prominent. Upon this kind of view, however, self-knowledge becomes a bit of a mystery. Although the rationalistic conception is defended in this article, it is argued that it has to be supplemented by an account of the transparency of belief: the question whether to believe that P is settled when one asks oneself whether P.

The author recalls some of the reasons why analytical philosophy has been foreign to contemporary fre philosophical tradition. Presenting some recent work by contemporary fre philosophers influenced by analytic philosophy, He shows that most of them share the view that philosophy is a kind of transcendental inquiry on the nature and limits of language, And that recent trends in analytical philosophy, Such as scientific realism and "naturalised epistemology" are not well represented in france.

In reply to commentary on our target article, we supply further evidence and hypotheses in the description of ritualized behaviors in humans. Reactions to indirect fitness threats probably activate specialized precaution systems rather than a unified form of danger-avoidance or causal reasoning. Impairment of precaution systems may be present in pathologies other than obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), autism in particular. Ritualized behavior is attention-grabbing enough to be culturally transmitted whether or not it is associated with group identity, cohesion, or with any (...) other social aspect of collective ceremonies. (Published Online February 8 2007). (shrink)

Il arrive souvent, quand on discute de questions portant sur la théorie de la connaissance, que l’on utilise des concepts qui ont une consonance éthique. On se demande ce qui distingue une bonne hypothèse d’une mauvaise, ou si nous devrions croire ceci ou cela sur la base des données..

(2005). The unimportance of being modest: a footnote to McDowell’s note. International Journal of Philosophical Studies: Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 89-93. doi: 10.1080/0967255042000324362.

the article suggests understanding(including) better the professionalization of the formative activities and the professional activities by an approach which articulates three levels of analysis: macro (historic construction and social construction of the knowledges of the activity), méso (institutional devices (plans) of training (formation) and work) and microphone(microcomputing) (lived on the subjects, the individual dynamics). This reflection leans on the presentation (display) of various processes of professionalization stemming from empirical searches (researches) realized by the author. l’article propose de mieux comprendre la (...) professionnalisation des activités formatives et des activités professionnelles par une approche qui articule trois niveaux d’analyse: macro (construction historique et construction sociale des savoirs de l’activité), méso (dispositifs institutionnels de formation et de travail) et micro (vécu des sujets, dynamiques individuelles). Cette réflexion s’appuie sur la présentation de différents processus de professionnalisation issus de recherches empiriques réalisées par l’auteur. (shrink)