Only in recent years have developmental psychologists begun advocating and exploring dual-process theories and their applicability to cognitive development. In this paper, a dual-process model of developments in two processing systems—an “analytic” and an “experiential” system—is discussed. We emphasise the importance of “metacognitive intercession” and developments in this ability to override experiential processing. In each of two studies of sunk cost decisions, age-related developments in normative decisions were observed, as were declines in the use of a “waste not” heuristic. In (...) the second study, children and adolescents were presented with arguments for normative and non-normative sunk cost decisions. Following argument evaluation, participants were re-presented the original problems and a set of novel, transfer problems. Results indicated that post-argument improvements were most apparent during adolescence. Age-related improvements were most noticeable on the transfer problems. In general, the findings suggest that the ability to metacognitively intercede (i.e., reflect on arguments; inhibit experientially produced responses) emerges towards middle adolescence. However, even by the end of adolescence, in the absence of significant contextual cues and motivation, this ability is infrequently utilised. (shrink)

Rhodopsin, upon activation by light, transduces the photon signal by activation of the G‐protein, transducin. The well‐studied rhodopsin/transducin system serves as a model for the understanding of signal transduction by the large class of G‐protein‐coupled receptors. The interactive form of rhodopsin, R*, is conformationally similar or identical to rhodopsin's photolysis intermediate Metarhodopsin II (MII). Formation of MII requires deprotonation of rhodopsin's protonated Schiff base which appears to facilitate some opening of the rhodopsin structure. This allows a change in conformation at (...) rhodopsin's cytoplasmic surface that provides binding sites for transducin. Rhodopsin's 2nd, 3rd and putative 4th cytoplasmic loops bind transducin at sites including transducin's 5 kDa carboxyl‐terminal region. Site‐specific mutagenesis of rhodopsin is being used to distinguish sites on rhodopsin's surface that are important in binding transducin from those that function in activating transducin. These observations are consistent with and extend studies on the action of other G‐protein‐coupled receptors and their interactions with their respective G proteins. (shrink)

These essays examine the ways in which the consideration of ethical questions is shaped by the structures of knowledge and communication at work in clinical ...

According to a very natural picture of rational belief, we aim to believe only what is true. However, as Bernard Williams used to say, the world does not just inscribe itself onto our minds. Rather, we have to try to figure out what is true from the evidence available to us. To do this, we rely on a set of epistemic rules that tell us in some general way what it would be most rational to believe under various epistemic circumstances. (...) We reason about what to believe; and we do so by relying on a set of rules.... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.2 (2001) 233-244 [Access article in PDF] Joseph Butler on Forgiveness: A Presupposed Theory of Emotion Paul A. Newberry "I forgive him as far as humanity can forgive. I would do him no injury." Mrs. Dale in Anthony Trollope's The Last Chronicle of Barset, 1867. In the recent philosophical literature on forgiveness, a topic of great concern is the proper characterization of (...) forgiveness or, said in another way, the proper definition of forgiveness. Forgiveness has been defined in a multitude of ways: among others, as the overcoming of resentment, the overcoming of moral hatred, as a speech act, and as forbearance. Of these definitions the one that enjoys anything close to a kind of consensus is that forgiveness is the overcoming of resentment. This position, with various qualifications and stipulations, is held by numerous philosophers, among them R. S. Downie, Kathleen Dean Moore, A. C. Ewing, Martin Hughes, and Jeffrie Murphy. 1 The progenitor of this view is widely acknowledged to be Joseph Butler, who wrote sermons on both resentment and forgiveness nearly three hundred years ago. 2In this paper I will demonstrate that the attribution of this definition of forgiveness to Butler is in error: he did not define forgiveness as the overcoming of resentment but rather as the checking of revenge, or forbearance. Aside from the goal of setting the historical record straight, I have a broader and more important purpose in this essay. One sees that such an interpretation of Butler must provoke two questions. First, why did Butler define forgiveness only in terms of how one is to act, therefore paying no attention, apparently, to how one feels? Second, how do Murphy and the others incorrectly attribute this view to Butler? [End Page 233] I contend that these answers can be addressed if we take a close look at the role of emotions and theories of emotion in the definitions offered by Butler and Murphy (as representative of the group). I will attempt to establish that Butler's definition of forgiveness as the checking of revenge presupposes a feeling theory of emotions which is distinct from and in conflict with--in many ways pertinent to forgiveness--the cognitive theory of emotions presupposed by Murphy's definition. If I am successful in showing this claim to be plausible, then I will also have demonstrated that more attention needs to be paid to theories of emotion underlying work on forgiveness. But since the misinterpretation of Butler is widespread among contemporary writers on forgiveness and not peculiar to Murphy, my claim is a gesture toward what I take to be a problem greater than mere misinterpretation. Given the fact that a feeling theory of emotions was the predominant theory among philosophers in Butler's day until the end of the nineteenth century and that cognitive theory is currently a dominant philosophical theory, I fear that what has happened is that modern commentators on Butler are unaware that they are imposing their own presupposed theories of emotion onto a text from an earlier historical period.The plan of the paper is first to show by careful exegesis how Butler characterizes forgiveness and then, after a brief sketch of the difference between feeling theory and cognitive theory, to demonstrate how Butler's definition presupposes the former and Murphy's the latter. I will conclude with a few remarks about the import of these findings.Joseph Butler's treatment of forgiveness is found in a collection of his sermons first published as Fifteen Sermons in 1726. 3 Included in this collection are two sermons of primary importance to the topic of forgiveness: a sermon on resentment (Sermon VIII) and a subsequent sermon on forgiveness (Sermon IX). An understanding of Butler's definition of forgiveness properly begins with his sermon on resentment in which he distinguishes between two different kinds of resentment. One kind he calls "hasty and sudden" resentment, the other "settled and deliberate" resentment. 4 Hasty and sudden resentment is generally (and naturally) the result of sudden hurt or violence. 5... (shrink)

This article reflects on the assumption underlying the argument of Little et al. that "contested understandings" in the clinic are susceptible to reconciliation within a liberal framework described as "pragmatic pluralism". It is argued that no such reconciliation is possible or desirable because it is of the nature of the clinic that it provides a forum for multiple voices, ethical and cultural perspectives, and conceptual frameworks, and this is the source of its fecundity and creativity. Medicine itself cannot be represented (...) by a single discourse, precisely because it is itself an unruly collection of practices that, despite their heterogeneity, are able to engage in productive dialogues with each other. The heteroglossia of the clinic, therefore, is not a problem to be overcome. Rather, it is a rich resource to be mobilized in accordance with its multiple inherent purposes. (shrink)

This volume presents a series of influential essays by Paul Boghossian on the theory of content and on its relation to the phenomenon of a priori knowledge. The essays are organized under four headings: the nature of content; content and self-knowledge; knowledge, content, and the a priori; and colour concepts.

Reply to Schiffer's comment on Externalism and Inference.

Three theories contend as explanations of perpetrator behavior in the Holocaust as well as other cases of genocide: structural, intentional, and situational. Structural explanations emphasize the sense in which no single individual or choice accounts for the course of events. In opposition, intentional/cutltural accounts insist upon the genocides as intended outcomes, for how can one explain situations in which people ‘step up’ and repeatedly kill defenseless others in large numbers over sustained periods of time as anything other than a choice? (...) Situational explanations offer a type of behavioral account; this is how people act in certain environments. Critical to the situational account as I discuss it is the ‘Asch paradigm’, i.e. experimentally attested conditions for eliciting conformityof behavior regardlesss of available evidence of prior beliefs. In what follows, I defend what I term above a version of situational explanations of perpetrator behavior. Moreover, I maintain that the factors that explain provide an understanding as well. While not committed to the complete irrelevance or exclusion of cultural or structural factors, nonetheless situational analyses can account both for what happened and why. A cardinal virtue of this version of situational explanations consists in showing how shallow the problem of understanding turns out to be for such cases. (shrink)

The question whether we can have a priori knowledge, and if so to what extent, has lain at the center of philosophy practically since the beginning. For many philosophers, including Plato, Leibniz, Kant, Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein and most of the Logical Positivists, to name just a few, it seems to have been the problem around which everything else was made to turn. It's an interesting question why philosophers have been so obsessed with this problem and why they have been inclined (...) to assign it so much importance. One reason, no doubt, has to do with its relation to the possibility of philosophy itself. Although it has become fashionable in some circles to pretend otherwise, I don't really see that anyone out there has much idea how analytic philosophy is to be done, if not a priori; in particular, I don't really see that anyone has much idea how it is to be done without a hefty helping of a priori conceptual analysis.... (shrink)

The focus of discussion about the ethical issues associated with the COVID-19 pandemic has been on the great suffering to which it has given rise. However, there may be some unexpected positive outcomes that also emerge from the global disaster. The rupturing of entrenched systems and processes, the challenging of certainties that seemed beyond question, and the disruption of the assumed consensus of modernity may contribute to a rediscovery of the challenges that compose an ethical life. Elements of such a (...) process are evident in the surge of community support and mutual caring, of spontaneous acts of joyous solidarity, of suspension of past conflicts, and exploration of new forms of reconciliation. The experiences are tentative and the outcomes uncertain, but at least for a moment the hope of a new way forward has been raised. (shrink)

This article briefly review the fundamentals of structural equation modeling for readers unfamiliar with the technique then goes on to offer a review of the Martin and Cullen paper. In summary, a number of fit indices reported by the authors reveal that the data do not fit their theoretical model and thus the conclusion of the authors that the model was “promising” are unwarranted.

L'étude de la communication peut offrir une perspective sur le contexte de la théologie, un examen de sa structure, et une reflexion sur son contenu. La communication est primordiale pour la société contemporaine, affectant la façon dont les gens utilisent leur temps, façonnant les informations qu'ils reçoivent, influençant la manière dont ils pensent , et les rendant plus soupçonneux vis à vis de l'autorité. L'histoire de la théologie montre les effets des formes de communication, reflétant la narration, la rhétorique, et (...) les structures polémiques des cultures orales, aussi bien que les instruments analytiques de l'écriture et l'imprimerie. Finalement, l'étude de la communication suggère une façon différente de considérer des sujets théologiques traditionnels. Le salut divin, par exemple, peut se concentrer sur la communication en interprètant l'histoire du salut comme une histoire de l'auto-communication de Dieu et la restauration de la communication humaine. (shrink)

Should a principle of charity be applied to the interpretation of the colour concepts exercised in visual experience? We think not. We shall argue, for one thing, that the grounds for applying a principle of charity are lacking in the case of colour concepts. More importantly, we shall argue that attempts at giving the experience of colour a charitable interpretation either fail to respect obvious features of that experience or fail to interpret it charitably, after all. Charity to visual experience (...) is therefore no motive for resisting the natural, Galilean response to a scientific understanding of light and vision. The best interpretation of colour experience ends up convicting it of widespread and systematic error. (shrink)

The fact that we can hear a particular passage of music as expressing a “tranquil gratitude” is a central aspect of the phenomenology of musical experience; without it we would be hard pressed to explain how purely instrumental music could move us in the way that it does. The trouble, here as so often elsewhere in philosophy, is that what seems necessary also seems impossible: for how could a mere series of nonlinguistic sounds, however lovely, express a state of mind? (...) One of the central tasks of the philosophy of music is to remove this mystery.... (shrink)

Research Articles Paul A. Rahe, Social Philosophy and Policy, FirstView Article.

This book offers an approach to Christian ethics. It does so first by organizing Christian ethics around the virtue of practical wisdom and suggesting what the guiding vision of a Christian practical wisdom should be. Second, it provides an account of practical wisdom that integrates literature drawn from the fields of philosophy, psychology, evolutionary theory, and the neurosciences. Reconceptualizing Christian ethics in this way can help us address-but not resolve once and for all-in a faithful way the challenges of our (...) divided age. (shrink)

Over the past thirty years, the doctrine of informed consent has become a focal point in discussions of medical ethics. The literature of informed consent explores the evolution of the principle of autonomy, purportedly emerging from the mists of 19th Century medical practice, and finding its earliest articulation in legal cases where wronged citizens asserted their rights against medical authority. A commonplace, if not obligatory, feature of that literature is a reference to the case of Mary Schloendorff and the opinion (...) written by Judge Benjamin Cardozo by which the case is remembered. Commentators today applaud the prescience of Cardozo for an early articulation of what eventually would become bioethical orthodoxy concerning informed consent and its place as a bulwark of patient autonomy. They inevitably quote Cardozo's famous statement, “Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body.”. (shrink)

This article explores and attempts to resolve some issues that arise when psychoanalytic explanations are construed as a type of historical or narrative explanation. The chief problem is this: If one rejects the claim of narratives to verisimilitude, this appears to divorce the notion of explanation from that of truth. The author examines, in particular, Donald Spence's attempt to deal with the relation of narrative explanations and truth. In his critique of Spence's distinction between narrative truth and historical truth, the (...) author develops some suggestions regarding the role of truth in narrative explanations. (shrink)

In this article, Whitehead's transition from a Philosophy of Evolution to a Philosophy of Organism is studied primarily on the basis of the evidence provided by the first two volumes of The Harvard Lectures of Alfred North Whitehead, especially the second volume that deals with the period 1925–1927 and that is subtitled General Metaphysical Problems of Science.

For the better part of the 20th century, expositions of issues regarding historical explanation followed a predictable format, one that took as given the nonequivalence of explanations in history and philosophical models of scientific explanation. Ironically, at the present time, the philosophical point of note concerns how the notion of science has itself changed. Debates about explanation in turn need to adapt to this. This prompts the question of whether anything now still makes plausible the thought that history must make (...) some forced choice with regard to the type of science it is and an associated explanatory form. The discussion that follows sketches the alternative forms of explanation between which historians were to pick, and indicates why each proves unsatisfactory. Examination of these issues allows identification of a conception of historical explanation that does not require the metaphysical and epistemological assumptions that engender previous dichotomous characterizations. (shrink)

The major stakeholder classes in education have three distinct ways by which they judge the quality of knowledge claims. At times this can cause considerable distraction or mis-communication among stakeholders.

This paper argues that Devitt’s arguments in "Transcendentalism About Content" don’t show how to answer the challenge I laid down in "Status Of Content". I proceed as follows. I begin by looking at why I didn’t formulate content eliminativism in the way that Devitt does, and why I did formulate it as the thesis of “content irrealism.” I then show in detail why his criticisms are off-target.