Written by one of today's most creative and innovative philosophers, Ruth Garrett Millikan, this book examines basic empirical concepts; how they are acquired, how they function, and how they have been misrepresented in the traditional philosophical literature. Millikan places cognitive psychology in an evolutionary context where human cognition is assumed to be an outgrowth of primitive forms of mentality, and assumed to have 'functions' in the biological sense. Of particular interest are her discussions of the nature of abilities as (...) different from dispositions, her detailed analysis of the psychological act of reidentifying substances, and her critique of the language of thought for mental representation. In a radical departure from current philosophical and psychological theories of concepts, this book provides the first in-depth discussion on the psychological act of reidentification. (shrink)

The mythical1 hungry ass, facing two identical bundles of hay equidistant from him, has engendered two related questions. Can he choose one of the bundles, there seemingly being nothing to incline him one way or the other? If he can, the second puzzle — pertaining to rational choice — arises. It seems the ass cannot rationally choose one of the bundles, because there is no sufficient reason for any choice.2In what follows, I will argue that choice is possible even when (...) there is no option which is better than the others (section II), and that it is perfectly reasonable to choose an option even when there is no sufficient reason for it (section III). I will then (section IV) point to another puzzling feature of the .. (shrink)

Some have thought that the plausibility of teleosemantics requires that it yield a determinate answer to the question of what the semantic “content” is of the “representation” triggered in the optic nerve of a frog that spots a fly. An outsize literature has resulted in which, unfortunately, a number of serious confusions and omissions that concern the way teleosemantics would have to work have appeared and been passed on uncorrected leaving a distorted and simplistic picture of the teleosemantic position. I (...) will speak to a half dozen of the worst of these misunderstandings and then say just a word about the frog question itself. (shrink)

In this article, we investigate the relationship between loneliness and misogyny amongst the online movement of “involuntary celibates” (incels) that has become widely known through several violent attacks. While loneliness plays a prominent role in the incels’ self-descriptions, we lack a comprehensive analysis of their experience of loneliness and its role in their radicalization. Our article offers such an analysis. We analyze how loneliness is felt, described, and implicitly understood by incels, investigate the normative presumptions underlying their experiences, and critically (...) reflect on the political function of their discourse of loneliness. We claim that it is the affective mechanism of ressentiment that transforms loneliness into antagonistic emotions and show how loneliness is exacerbated rather than alleviated through the incel community. Finally, we point to the relevance of our analysis for contemporary philosophical and feminist loneliness studies. (shrink)

This Element offers the first detailed study of Catharine Trotter Cockburn's philosophy and covers her contributions to philosophical debates in epistemology, metaphysics, moral philosophy, and philosophy of religion. It examines not only Cockburn's view that sensation and reflection are the sources of knowledge, but also how she draws attention to the limitations of human understanding and how she approaches metaphysical debates through this lens. In the area of moral philosophy, this Element argues that it is helpful to take seriously Cockburn's (...) distinction between questions concerning the metaphysical foundation of morality and questions concerning the practice of morality. Moreover, this Element examines Cockburn's religious views and considers her understanding of the relation between morality and religion and her religious views concerning the resurrection and the afterlife. (shrink)

This paper begins with a response to Josh Gert’s challenge that ‘on a par with’ is not a sui generis fourth value relation beyond ‘better than’, ‘worse than’, and ‘equally good’. It then explores two further questions: can parity be modeled by an interval representation of value? And what should one rationally do when faced with items on a par? I argue that an interval representation of value is incompatible with the possibility that items are on a par (a mathematical (...) proof is given in the appendix). I also suggest that there are three senses of ‘rationally permissible’ which, once distinguished, show that parity does distinctive practical work that cannot be done by the usual trichotomy of relations or by incomparability. In this way, we have an additional argument for parity from the workings of practical reason. (shrink)

For Sartre, shame is not an ethical but an ontological experience. With this in mind, the article examines the philosophical connection between shame and ambiguity through analysis of the experiences of abortion and the Nazi Occupation. The article demonstrates how Beauvoir develops Sartre's ontological notion of shame into an ethical philosophy of ambiguity as a result of wartime experiences. It demonstrates how encounters with shame, abortion, ambiguity and Occupation life in Beauvoir's 1945 novel Le sang des autres elucidate and are (...) developed by Sartre and Beauvoir's philosophies of shame and ambiguity. The paper proposes that Sartre's and Beauvoir's thought was shaped by living through the Nazi Occupation and reveals how the memory of wartime shame is activated in contemporary ethical dilemmas in later literary works of both writers. (shrink)

Suppose lightning strikes a dead tree in a swamp; I am standing nearby. My body is reduced to its elements, while entirely by coincidence (and out of different molecules) the tree is turned into my physical replica. My replica, The Swampman.....moves into my house and seems to write articles on radical interpretation. No one can tell the difference.

Why does #RepealedThe8th matter for feminist legal studies? The answers seem obvious in one sense. Feminism has long constituted itself through the struggle for sexual and reproductive justice, and Irish feminism has contributed a significant ‘legal win’ with the landslide vote of approval for lifting abortion restrictions in the referendum on the 25th May 2018. That win comes at a global moment when populist legal engagement is doing significant damage in countries that regard themselves as world leaders, and beyond. #RepealedThe8th (...) offers Ireland, and the world, the actuality that the popular vote, and everything that contributes to it, could be something else. Repeal shows how legal tools like the vote may be made into an expression of care for reproductive lives. This expression is important in recognizing pregnant people as knowing agents who are best placed to decide, and in seeking to do justice to those who contribute to everyday reproductive life. But repeal, like the many who brought it into being, has multiple meanings. #RepealedThe8th matters because it is a moving process of socio-legal translation, which draws on a collective energy, ‘repeal energy’, to turn the travesty that was the Eighth Amendment and all it represents into a search for the rest of reproductive life. In opening up the meaning of the vote, much like feminists elsewhere have opened up the meaning of the strike, Irish feminists have turned public mourning over past mistreatment into a series of reproductive connections. This is not a strategy that can be rolled out. Figuring out #RepealedThe8th will take many tellings. Rather we need to give repeal, and repealers, room to breathe and rest. We need to feel our way through repeal’s production of legal change so that this success is not reduced to some generic transferable set of legal instructions. I begin by reflecting on repeal as a process of feminist socio-legal translation, which shows us how legal change comes about through the motivation of collective joy, the mourning of damaged and lost lives, the sharing of legal knowledge, and the claiming of the rest of reproductive life. (shrink)

ABSTRACTComparative effectiveness studies, referred to here as “usual-care” trials, seek to compare current medical practices for the same medical condition. Such studies are presumed to be safe and involve only minimal risks. However, that presumption may be flawed if the trial design contains “unusual” care, resulting in potential risks to subjects and inaccurately informed consent. Three case studies described here did not rely on clinical evidence to ascertain contemporaneous practice. As a result, the investigators drew inaccurate conclusions, misinformed research participants, (...) and subjects’ safety was compromised. Before approving usual-care protocols, IRBs and scientific review committees should evaluate the quality and completeness of information documenting usual-care practices. Guidance from governmental oversight agencies regarding evidence-based documentation of current clinical practice could prevent similar occurrences in future usual-care trials. Accurate information is necessary to ensure that trials comply with government regulations that require minimizing research risks to subjects and accurate informed consent documents. (shrink)

According to conciliatory views about peer disagreement, both peers must accord their disagreeing peer some weight, and move towards him. Non‐conciliatory views allow one peer, the one who responded correctly to the evidence, to remain steadfast. In this paper, I consider the suggestion that it may be rational for both disagreeing peers to hold steadfastly to their opinion. To this end, I contend with arguments adduced against the permissiveness the supposition involves, and identify some ways in which different responses for (...) different agents to the evidence might be reasonable. (shrink)

The positions of Brandom and Millikan are compared with respect to their common origins in the works of Wilfrid Sellars and Wittgenstein. Millikan takes more seriously the “picturing” themes from Sellars and Wittgenstein. Brandom follows Sellars more closely in deriving the normativity of language from social practice, although there are also hints of a possible derivation from evolutionary theory in Sellars. An important claim common to Brandom and Millikan is that there are no representations without function or “attitude”.

Rhodes seeks to defend her ‘conclusion that everyday ethics and medical ethics [are] incompatible’.1 She challenges ‘views that medical ethics is nothing more than common morality applied to clinical matters’ (Rhodes, p2).1 Beauchamp and Childress explicate the term ‘common morality’ at length.2 Nowhere do they claim that medical ethics is ‘nothing more than common morality applied to clinical matters’. Here is what they do say: “The origin of the norms of the common morality is no different in principle from the (...) origin of the norms of a particular morality for a medical or other profession … The primary difference is that the common morality has authority in all communities, whereas particular moralities are authoritative only for specific groups” (Beauchamp and Childress, p8).2 This critique discusses the seven examples Rhodes uses to illustrate her main point: that common morality and medical ethics are radically different. I contend that common morality accounts for the purported differences she cites. In ordinary life, people can simply mind their own business, whereas physicians have a duty to act in their professional setting. On this view, common morality cannot explain the moral obligation people have to prevent easily avoidable harm to others. A bystander …. (shrink)

Ruth Abbey presents a close study of Nietzsche's works, Human, All Too Human, Daybreak, and The Gay Science. Although these middle period works tend to be neglected in commentaries on Nietzsche, they repay careful attention. Abbey's commentary brings to light important differences across Nietzsche's oeuvre that have gone unnoticed, filling a serious gap in the literature.

This Article addresses the general question of "why citizenship?" through the lens of children’s citizenship. It unpacks the different elements of substantive citizenship and considers what they mean for children: membership and participation; rights; responsibilities; and equality of status, respect and recognition. It then discusses the lessons that may be learned from feminist critiques of mainstream constructions of citizenship, paying particular attention to the question of capacity for citizenship. It concludes by suggesting that much of the literature that is making (...) the case for recognition of children as citizens is not so much arguing for the wholesale extension of adult rights and obligations of citizenship to children but recognition that children’s citizenship practices constitute them as de facto, even if not complete de jure, citizens. More broadly, the Article argues that this position points towards an understanding of citizenship which embraces but goes beyond that of a bundle of rights. (shrink)

Locke often writes that our knowledge is the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas. For example, he refers to “our Knowledge consisting in the perception of the Agreement, or Disagreement of any two Ideas” in the second chapter of the Essay's book on knowledge. Similarly, at the beginning of this book he characterizes knowledge as “the perception of the connexion and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our Ideas”. Since commentators remark on this formula so frequently, (...) one would expect that major questions about its interpretation would have been settled long ago. But not so. Controversy still prevails about Locke's intent, and especially about his assumption that the knowledge of the existence of real things counts as an instance of the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas.Scholars have put forward two sorts of problems about the attempted assimilation of knowledge of real existence to Locke's formula. (shrink)

Citizenship and its education is again gaining importance in many countries. This paper uses England as its primary example to develop a Habermasian perspective on this issue. The statutory requirements for citizenship education in England imply that significant attention be given to the moral and social development of the learner over time, to the active engagement of the learner in community and to the knowledge skills and understanding necessary for political action. This paper sets out a theoretical framework that offers (...) a perspective on learning suitable for these far-reaching aims. We argue that schools need to shift from the currently dominant discourse of accountability to incorporate a discourse of care in order to make room for an effective and appropriate pedagogy for citizenship. Habermas’s social theory gives us a theoretical framework that properly locates schools within the lifeworld as part of civil society. Schools should therefore attend to hermeneutical and emancipatory concerns, not only to strategic interests. We put these in the context of Habermas’s social theory to paint an alternative vision learning for citizenship education which is based in developing the dispositions, values and attitudes necessary for lifelong learning with a view to developing ongoing communicative action. (shrink)

How we experience space by listening: the concepts of aural architecture, with examples ranging from Gothic cathedrals to surround sound home theater. We experience spaces not only by seeing but also by listening. We can navigate a room in the dark, and "hear" the emptiness of a house without furniture. Our experience of music in a concert hall depends on whether we sit in the front row or under the balcony. The unique acoustics of religious spaces acquire symbolic meaning. Social (...) relationships are strongly influenced by the way that space changes sound. In Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?, Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter examine auditory spatial awareness: experiencing space by attentive listening. Every environment has an aural architecture.The audible attributes of physical space have always contributed to the fabric of human culture, as demonstrated by prehistoric multimedia cave paintings, classical Greek open-air theaters, Gothic cathedrals, acoustic geography of French villages, modern music reproduction, and virtual spaces in home theaters. Auditory spatial awareness is a prism that reveals a culture's attitudes toward hearing and space. Some listeners can learn to "see" objects with their ears, but even without training, we can all hear spatial geometry such as an open door or low ceiling. Integrating contributions from a wide range of disciplines—including architecture, music, acoustics, evolution, anthropology, cognitive psychology, audio engineering, and many others—Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? establishes the concepts and language of aural architecture. These concepts provide an interdisciplinary guide for anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of how space enhances our well-being. Aural architecture is not the exclusive domain of specialists. Accidentally or intentionally, we all function as aural architects. (shrink)

While reviewing relevant recent research, it becomes apparent that cognitive approaches have been rejected and excluded from Critical Discourse Analysis by many scholars out of often unjustified reasons. This article argues, in contrast, that studies in CDA would gain significantly through integrating insights from socio-cognitive theories into their framework. Examples from my own research into the comprehension and comprehensibility of news broadcasts, Internet discussion boards as well as into discourse and discrimination illustrate this position. However, I also argue that there (...) are salient limits to cognitive theories which have to be taken into account, specifically when proposing social change via rational/cognitive insights. Examples from recent political debates on immigration and from the election campaign in the US in 2004 serve to emphasize these arguments. (shrink)

This paper takes a sideways look at the controversial topic of educational assessment, raising the question: what place should the success/failure distinction have in an effective and humane educational system? Though the experience of failure may undermine the self-esteem that is conducive to learning, its possibility is clearly important educationally. Instead of asking whether teachers should be truthful about children’s achievements or dishonestly promote their self-esteem, we need to recognise a certain logical indeterminacy about what young children can do. Given (...) this, it is reasonable to presume in favour of many of their capacities rather than against them, for this is how children develop the confidence to act. This includes the confidence to fail as well as the confidence to succeed. It is argued that both are crucial for learning. (shrink)

In Children, Religion and the Ethics of Influence, John Tillson sets out a clear and convincing case for the view that children ought not to be initiated into religious faith by their parents or others with the relevant ‘extra-parental responsibilities’. However, by predicating his thesis on an understanding of illegitimate religious influence that largely equates initiation into faith with the inculcation of a distinctive type of propositional content, I contend that Tillson misses some of the potential harms such initiation may (...) engender. Here I briefly explain why this is a problem before suggesting three ways he might respond to the criticism. (shrink)

Recent discussions of genomics and international justice have adopted the concept of ‘global public goods’ to support both the view of genomics as a benefit and the sharing of genomics knowledge across nations. Such discussion relies on a particular interpretation of the global public goods argument, facilitated by the ambiguity of the concept itself. Our aim in this article is to demonstrate this by a close examination of the concept of global public goods with particular reference to its use in (...) the context of genomic databases. We contend that the argument for construing genomics as a global public good depends on seeing it as a natural good by focusing on features intrinsic to genomics knowledge. We shall argue that social and political arrangements are relevant and that recognising this opens the door to construing the use of global public goods language as a strategic one. (shrink)

The authors discuss the political, moral, cultural, and legal aspects of the United States' response to the attacks of September 11.

In _The History of the Race Idea: From Ray to Carus,_ Eric Voegelin places the rise of the race idea in the context of the development of modern philosophy. The history of the race idea, according to Voegelin, begins with the postChristian orientation toward a natural system of living forms. In the late seventeenth century, philosophy set about a new task--to oppose the devaluation of man's physical nature. By the middle of the eighteenth century the effort of philosophy was to (...) place man, with his variety of physical manifestations throughout the world, within a systemic order of nature. Voegelin perceives the problem of race as the epitome of the difficulties presented by this new theoretical approach. Part I covers the development of race theories from the English naturalist John Ray to Blumenbach and Kant. Voegelin, anticipating fairly recent genetic insights, explains that human beings must be seen as one speciesdifferent races must not be interpreted as emerging from separate species. In Part II, Voegelin discusses the evolution of the concepts of the body, the organism, and the person. The finite image of the person as a body-mind unit in which body is equal to mind in value provides the basis for Carl Gustav Carus' theory of race, the first significant racial ideology, in Voegelin's estimation. Voegelin's complex analysis levels a scathing critique at Nazi pretensions. He writes: "Compared to its classical form, the current condition of race theory is one of decay.... [T]hese men, with no eyes for the brilliance of the German spirit, want to interfere in human relations and ultimately presume to explicate the German nation to us and to the world--an undertaking with evil consequences.... [The] great thinkers of the past would have been orrified at somebody finding in himself all the traits of the Nordic race with the help of a book on anthropology and then imagining himself to be somebody special who does not have to do anything else. "Let us now take a look at contemporary race theory--we will see an image of destruction.... It is a nightmare to think that we should recognize the people whom we follow and whom we allow to come near us not by their looks, their words, and their gestures, but by their cranial index." Ultimately, Voegelin dismisses any attempt to reduce the human being--his existence, appearance, or actionsto a lower level: "Man as mind-body and historical substance cannot be 1explained' by an element that is less than man himself.". (shrink)

There are very few philosophical issues which are so intimately associated with one single philosopher as is the problem of induction with Hume. This paper argues against this received opinion. It shows that Hume was neither the first to think induction problematic, nor the originator of the argument he adduced in support of the (sceptical) position. It then explains his (more modest) contribution. Its primary concern, however, is not historical. By considering Hume’s contribution to the problem of induction, it is (...) argued, we can come to a better understanding of this recalcitrant problem. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Defense of Fundamental Principles and Human Rights: A Reply to Robert Baker *Ruth Macklin (bio)AbstractThis article seeks to rebut Robert Baker’s contention that attempts to ground international bioethics in fundamental principles cannot withstand the challenges posed by multiculturalism and postmodernism. First, several corrections are provided of Baker’s account of the conclusions reached by the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. Second, a rebuttal is offered to Baker’s (...) claim that an unbridgeable moral gap exists between Western individualism and non-Western communalism. In conclusion, this article argues that Baker’s “nonnegotiable primary goods” cannot do the work of “classical human rights” and that the latter framework is preferable from both a practical and a theoretical standpoint.Robert baker has written two interesting and thoughtful essays in support of his theory of international bioethics (Baker 1998a & b). Both essays are rich in content and comprehensive in scope. In the first of the two, “Multiculturalism, Postmodernism, and the Bankruptcy of Fundamentalism”—hereafter, “Multiculturalism”—Baker argues that attempts to ground international bioethics in fundamental principles cannot withstand the challenges posed by multiculturalism and postmodernism. As one of the bioethicists whose writings are the object of Baker’s critique, I undertake in this reply first, to elaborate my own position and to comment on related aspects of Baker’s thesis. 1 Next, I offer some corrections of Baker’s account of the conclusions reached by the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, of which I was a member. Finally, I compare Baker’s “nonnegotiable [End Page 403] primary goods” with “classical human rights” and conclude that the latter framework is preferable from both a practical and a theoretical standpoint.In his second essay, “The Negotiable and the Non-Negotiable”—hereafter, “The Negotiable”—Baker puts forth a positive theory designed to meet the challenges of multiculturalism and postmodernism and, at the same time, to justify transcultural and transhistorical moral judgments. Baker (1998a, p. 203) describes his theoretical model as an effort “to validate the conception of international bioethics as a continually renegotiated moral order.” Although I find Baker’s proposal intriguing, I believe his rejection of fundamental principles can result in an unacceptable ethical relativism. To abandon “classical human rights,” along with the fundamental moral principles from which they derive, opens the door to all forms of cultural oppression in the name of “the most fundamental of all human rights, the right to define primacy for oneself” (Baker 1998b, p. 246). Alternatively, one can view Baker’s “nonnegotiable primary goods” as virtually equivalent to classical human rights, but much more difficult to identify, both theoretically and practically.Moral FundamentalismThe difference between my defense of universal moral principles and Baker’s critique rests, at least in part, on an interpretation of what is meant by “moral fundamentalism.” (I must confess to a distaste for the ‘ism’ because of the connotations and consequences of fundamentalism in other spheres.) Baker (1998a, p. 203) defines “moral fundamentalism” as the position “that certain basic or fundamental moral principles are accepted in all eras and cultures and thus are universally applicable to agents and actions in any era or culture.” A central feature of this definition is the requirement that all eras and cultures accept these fundamental moral principles. By this definition, the position I embrace does not count as “moral fundamentalism,” because I maintain that certain fundamental moral principles ought to be binding on all cultures or societies even if those cultures or societies do not accept them. 2 Universal acceptance is not a necessary condition for universal applicability.Part of the problem with Baker’s (and probably also my own) analysis is that it shifts constantly and imperceptibly back and forth between a variety of concepts: “moral principles,” “ethical standards,” “morality,” and “moral judgments.” In one instance, Baker (1998a, p. 209) notes my citation of a remark of Ruth Benedict (1934) that “morality differs in [End Page 404] every society.” That is what Ruth Benedict wrote; but nowhere did she specify that she had moral principles in mind. Indeed, her complete sentence reads as follows: “Morality differs in every society and is a convenient term for socially approved habits” (Benedict 1934, emphasis added... (shrink)

Ruth Jonathan; Bibliography, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 31, Issue 1, 16 December 2002, Pages 217–220, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.00050.

The new reproductive technologies force us to rethink the concepts ‘mother,’ ‘father,’ ‘family.’ As we draw analogies to traditional patterns, we must distinguish between ethical and conceptual questions.

A seemingly plausible application of Bayesian decision-theoretic reasoning to determine one's rational degrees of belief yields a paradoxical conclusion: one ought to jettison one's intermediate credences in favour of more extreme (opinionated) ones. I discuss various attempts to solve the paradox, those involving the acceptance of the paradoxical conclusion, and those which attempt to block its derivation.

This essay reviews David Halpin's Hope and Education, which aims to bring theories of hope and utopia to bear on the practical processes of schooling in contemporary Britain, and which sees education as an intrinsically hopeful and future-oriented process. It argues that the properly utopian character of Halpin's project is subverted by his espousal of a currently fashionable pragmatism, represented by Richard Rorty and Anthony Giddens, which insists that ‘good’ utopias must be realistic and practical. Utopian hope for a better (...) world, in which a transformed educational process will be central, is ambushed by this pragmatism and reduced to managerialism. (shrink)

The role of government in assuring population access to affordable and appropriate health care represents a central question for any nation. Of particular concern is access to prescription drug coverage, not only because of the vital role played by drugs in modern medicine, but also because of their high costs. This article examines the sharply contrasting prescription drug coverage and payment policies found in Australia and the U.S. – strong political allies and international trading partners – and describes how key (...) U.S. interests have sought, through an aggressive trade agenda, to expand markets for U.S. goods and services, even when market expansions clash with other nations’ contrasting emphasis on social equity and fairness. Indeed, the nation’s bilateral free trade negotiations have brought the contours of this policy schism into sharp relief. (shrink)

It is always gratifying when another scholar endorses one's own publicly stated position on a controversial matter. It was therefore with distinct appreciation that I read John Banja's article crit...

Reading the complete works of Sigmund Freud would take more time than most of us have to spare. Freud - the Key Ideas condenses all the information you need about the life and work of the great man into one book. With clear explanations and examples drawn from Freud's own cases you will soon have a solid understanding of the main concepts, from psychosexual development to dream analysis.

What, exactly, is so hard about hard choices? I suggest that what is distinctively hard about hard choices is that they present us with the volitional difficulty of putting ourselves behind an alternative and thereby making it true of ourselves that we have most reason to do one thing rather than another. Making it true through your commitments that, for instance, you have most reason to be a philosopher rather than a lawyer makes the choice between the careers hard. This (...) answer is in contrast to that of Sergio Tenenbaum, who understands the hardness of a hard choice as a deliberative difficulty in specifying our alternatives and ends in ways that conform with certain proposed constraints of rationality. For Tenenbaum, the hardness of hard choices is not distinctive to such choices but is a general difficulty rational agents face when they need to further specify their alternatives and ends, even if the choice is easy. (shrink)

Common sense explanations of human action are often framed in terms of an agent's beliefs and desires. Recent widely received views also take believing and desiring as attitudes of an agent to linguistic or quasi‐linguistic entities. It is here claimed that such a narrow view of cognitive attitudes is not supportable, since even among lingual non‐verbal responses are often overriding evidence for belief and desire, even where they run counter to sincere verbal assents. The view is also curiously non naturalistic (...) in that it disallows ascribing beliefs and desires altogether to non‐lingual and pre‐lingual. In the present paper a “common sense” explanation of action in accordance with the triad Desire, Belief, Action, is seen as a useful phenomenological “theory” provided that language centrality is not taken as essential. (shrink)