A common presupposition in the concepts literature is that concepts constitute a sin- gular natural kind. If, on the contrary, concepts split into more than one kind, this literature needs to be recast in terms of other kinds of mental representation. We offer two new arguments that concepts, in fact, divide into different kinds: (a) concepts split because different kinds of mental representation, processed independently, must be posited to explain different sets of relevant phenomena; (b) concepts split because different kinds (...) of mental representation, processed independently, must be posited to explain responses to different kinds of category. Whether these arguments are sound remains an open empirical question, to be resolved by future empirical and theoretical work. (shrink)

Does the visual system adapt to number? For more than fifteen years, most have assumed that the answer is an unambiguous “yes”. Against this prevailing orthodoxy, we recently took a critical look at the phenomenon, questioning its existence on both empirical and theoretical grounds, and providing an alternative explanation for extant results (the old news hypothesis). We subsequently received two critical responses. Burr, Anobile, and Arrighi rejected our critiques wholesale, arguing that the evidence for number adaptation remains overwhelming. Durgin questioned (...) our old news hypothesis — preferring instead a theory about density adaptation he has championed for decades — but also highlighted several ways in which our arguments do pose serious challenges for proponents of number adaptation. Here, we reply to both. We first clarify our position regarding number adaptation. Then, we respond to our critics’ concerns, highlighting seven reasons why we remain skeptical about number adaptation. We conclude with some thoughts about where the debate may head from here. (shrink)

As our data will show, negative existential sentences containing socalled empty names evoke the same strong semantic intuitions in ordinary speakers and philosophers alike.Santa Claus does not exist.Superman does not exist.Clark Kent does not exist.Uttering the sentences in (1) seems to say something truth-evaluable, to say something true, and to say something different for each sentence. A semantic theory ought to explain these semantic intuitions.The intuitions elicited by (1) are in apparent conflict with the Millian view of proper names. According (...) to Millianism, the meaning (or 'semantic value') of a proper name is just its referent. But empty names, such as 'Santa Claus' and 'Superman', appear to lack a .. (shrink)

Why and under what conditions are individuals altruistic to family and friends in their social networks? Evolutionary psychology suggests that such behaviour is primarily the product of adaptations for kin- and reciprocal altruism, dependent on the degree of genetic relatedness and exchange of benefits, respectively. For this reason, individuals are expected to be more altruistic to family members than to friends: whereas family members can be the recipients of kin and reciprocal altruism, friends can be the recipients of reciprocal altruism (...) only. However, there is a question about how the effect of kinship is implemented at the proximate psychological level. One possibility is that kinship contributes to some general measure of relationship quality (such as ‘emotional closeness’), which in turn explains altruism. Another possibility is that the effect of kinship is independent of relationship quality. The present study tests between these two possibilities. Participants (N= 111) completed a self-report questionnaire about their willingness to be altruistic, and their emotional closeness, to 12 family members and friends at different positions in their extended social networks. As expected, altruism was greater for family than friends, and greater for more central layers of the network. Crucially, the results showed that kinship made a significant unique contribution to altruism, even when controlling for the effects of emotional closeness. Thus, participants were more altruistic towards kin than would be expected if altruism was dependent on emotional closeness alone – a phenomenon we label a ‘kinship premium’. These results have implications for the ongoing debate about the extent to which kin relations and friendships are distinct kinds of social relationships, and how to measure the ‘strength of ties’ in social networks. (shrink)

Although the neoconservative movement has come to dominate American conservatism, this movement has its origins in the old Marxist Left. Communists in their younger days, as the founders of neoconservatism, inverted Marxist doctrine by arguing that moral values and not economic forces were the primary movers of history. Yet the neoconservative critique of biotechnology still borrows heavily from Karl Marx and owes more to the German philosopher Martin Heidegger than to the Scottish philosopher and political economist Adam Smith. Loath to (...) identify these sources - or perhaps unaware of them - neoconservatives do not acknowledge these intellectual underpinnings or their implications. Thus, in the final analysis, their critique is incoherent and even internally inconsistent. By not acknowledging and embracing their intellectual roots, neoconservatives are left with a deeply ambivalent and often confused view of biotechnology and the society that gives rise to it. (shrink)

In his paper [6], Greg Restall conjectured that a logic supports a naïve comprehension scheme if and only if it is robustly contraction free, that is, if and only if no contracting connective is definable in terms of the primitive connectives of the logic. In this paper, we present infinitely many counterexamples to Restall''s conjecture, in the form of purely implicational logics which are robustly contraction free, but which trivialize naïve comprehension.

Summary This article seeks to address the question how the Tetrarchic system of four rulers could be presented as legitimate in a society that had never seen this political constellation before. What were the different modes of presenting Tetrarchic rule and how did they help in making the new system acceptable? The article argues that new power structures needed to be formulated in familiar terms, not only for the rulers to legitimate their position, but also for the ruled to understand (...) such new systems. As a result, imperial messages during the Tetrarchic period were strongly influenced by traditional modes of representation from earlier periods. Traditions which were inherent in specific media and locations were determining factors for the way in which a new political system could be presented. The result was a much less coherent ideological Tetrarchic message than is often assumed. The image of group identity was regularly lost in a more complex and messy mode of formulating power. The new and innovative aspects of a collegiate rule by four emperors was less important than linking the power of those rulers to what was traditionally expected of the portrayal of Roman emperorship. (shrink)

Thinking with Spinoza about education involves thinking with and beyond his authored texts, situating his work within the tradition of Western thought, and exploring his contribution to the philoso...

This paper explores how metaphorical thinking might contribute to an aetiology of florid delusions in psychosis. We argue that this approach helps to account for the path from experience to the delusional assertion, which, though relatively straightforward for monothematic delusions like the Capgras delusion, has always been difficult to account for in florid delusions in psychosis. Our account also helps to account for double book-keeping and the relative agential inertia of the belief.

Many people are concerned about the legitimacy of digital technology companies like Meta. In this paper we show that two existing models for characterizing power – sovereign power and structural power – are inadequate when it comes to digital technology companies. This is because they fail to accommodate something crucial: the uniquely empowering nature of digital power. Companies like Meta empower users to interact by providing them with versatile systems defined by minimalist permission structures. Drawing on Searle’s theory of institutions (...) and Hart’s theory of law, we show how these permission structures facilitate the creation of new powers, as well as new institutions, through the emergence and recognition of new social norms. This means we must ask how entities that provide us with such versatile – and thus unsteerable – means of empowerment can come to be legitimate. We argue that a custodial framework for digital legitimacy can assign responsibility for the patterns of empowerment that are sustained by companies like Meta. (shrink)

Recent studies suggest that meta-learning may provide an original solution to an enduring puzzle about whether neural networks can explain compositionality – in particular, by raising the prospect that compositionality can be understood as an emergent property of an inner-loop learning algorithm. We elaborate on this hypothesis and consider its empirical predictions regarding the neural mechanisms and development of human compositionality.

We prove the first unconditional consistency result for superpolynomial circuit lower bounds with a relatively strong theory of bounded arithmetic. Namely, we show that the theory [Formula: see text] is consistent with the conjecture that [Formula: see text], i.e. some problem that is solvable in non-deterministic exponential time does not have polynomial size circuits. We suggest this is the best currently available evidence for the truth of the conjecture. The same techniques establish the same results with [Formula: see text] replaced (...) by the class of problems decidable in non-deterministic barely superpolynomial time such as [Formula: see text]. Additionally, we establish a magnification result on the hardness of proving circuit lower bounds. (shrink)

All of Derrida’s texts on Joyce together under one cover in fresh, new translations, along with key essays covering the range of Derrida’s engagement with Joyce’s works. -/- Bringing together all of Jacques Derrida’s writings on James Joyce, this volume includes the first complete translation of his book Ulysses Gramophone: Two Words for Joyce as well as the first translation of the essay “The Night Watch.” In Ulysses Gramophone, Derrida provides some of his most thorough reflections on affirmation and the (...) “yes,” the signature, and the role of technological mediation in all of these areas. In “The Night Watch,” Derrida pursues his ruminations on writing in an explicitly feminist direction, offering profound observations on the connection between writing and matricide. Accompanying these texts are nine essays by leading scholars from across the humanities addressing Derrida’s treatments of Joyce throughout his work, and two remembrances of lectures devoted to Joyce that Derrida gave in 1982 and 1984. The volume concludes with photographs of Derrida from these two events. (shrink)

The debates about human free will are traditionally the concern of metaphysics but neuroscientists have recently entered the field arguing that acts of the will are determined by brain events themselves causal products of other events. We examine that claim through the example of free or voluntary switch of perception in relation to the Necker cube. When I am asked to see the cube in one way, I decide whether I will follow the command (or do as I am asked) (...) using skills that reason and language give to me and change my brain states accordingly. The voluntary shift of perspective in seeing the Necker cube this way or that exemplifies the top-down control exercised by a human being on the basis of the role of language and meaning in their activity. It also indicates the lived story that is at the centre of each human consciousness. In the third part of this essay, three arguments are used to undermine metaphysical objections to the very idea of top-down self control. (shrink)

The first three sections of this lecture address the need for better historical-materialist theorisations of capitalist competition, capitalist classes and capitalist states, and in particular the institutional dimensions of these – which is fundamental for understanding why and how capitalism has survived into the twenty-first century. The fourth section addresses historical materialism’s under-theorisation of the institutional dimensions of working-class formation, and how this figures in explaining why, despite the expectations of the founders of historical materialism, the working classes have not, (...) at least yet, become capitalism’s gravediggers. While recognising that a better historical materialism along these lines will not necessarily provide us with a gps route to a socialist world beyond capitalism, it does suggest a number of guidelines for socialist strategy, with which the lecture concludes. This includes the need for building new institutions capable of defining, mobilising and representing the working class broadly, as well as recognising that the types of parties that can transform working classes into leading agents of social transformation have yet to be invented. A strategic priority must be to start anew at creating the kinds of working-class political institutions which can rekindle the socialist imagination, and develop the socialist capacities to get there. (shrink)

The scope of social policy today is extensive. With the changing global scenario, there is a rediscovery of “social” in it. Indubitably, there is a gender perspective on social policy globally. The world Economic Forum states that there are only six countries in the world (Belgium, Denmark, France, Latvia, Luxembourg and Sweden) where women have equal work rights to men. It is noted that the situation in different countries varies when it comes to the working benefits of different genders whether (...) for native or expatriate workers in those places. Though there are rooms to enjoy attractive income and favourable working conditions such as job security, generous retirement plan, and other welfare benefits, there are still various factors that might lead to gender-based differences or gender discrimination in the unique labour market context of the GCC countries. The scenario is distinct in many Scandinavian nations like Sweden. Those countries are often considered the role model for gender equal work allowances. When it comes to India there is still disparity and difference in many areas despite the social security system the country offers in its policies. This paper aims at a descriptive and qualitative study on the causes, consequences and conclusion of the gender disparity in employee allowances in these nations. The study would imply a simple random method of interrogation to examine gender differences empirically within the labour market of the mentioned nations. The economic benefits of a gender-equal nation in the framing of social policy will be emphasized and focused on. (shrink)

Financial products and options are frequently complex and difficult for consumers to understand, which, alongside positively oriented sales pitches and predatory practices, may lead to uninformed and hazardous financial decisions. While several legal reforms have been implemented to improve consumers’ understanding of financial products, these modifications have only achieved mixed results. An ongoing challenge is the passive nature of such modifications, giving rise to confirmation bias—noticing the information which confirms one’s belief about a product, while ignoring or not paying enough (...) attention to the potential risks. The aim of this study was to test an implementable form of public policy to help older adults successfully navigate these financial decisions. We tested whether a self-evaluation worksheet, involving an active manipulation of financial content, would significantly impact older adult participants’ responses in an experimental reverse mortgage scenario. Forty community-dwelling, healthy older adults were randomized to one of two conditions: Control Condition and Manipulation Condition. In addition to completing a comprehensive neuropsychological examination, participants were administered the Reverse Mortgage Task. Results indicated that a simple yet active manipulation—imparting accurate and understandable information regarding a complex financial product that must be further manipulated—led to the following among participants in the Manipulation Condition: declines in mood; superior understanding of the financial product; and reduced intention of purchasing the financial product. In order for older adults to be well informed about reverse mortgages, policies must be put in place to ensure that adequate and accurate information has been not only provided but also actively processed by the individual. (shrink)

Three decades after their political independence, Black-African republics still search for stability. One-party states and military regimes have failed, but while both systems seem to retreat, presidentialism, the third branch of Negro-African governmentality, is likely to become a permanent phenomenon within post-colonial Central-African politics. Constitutionally rooted in presidential institutions, the single executive disposes of many instruments to establish presidentialist practices. Presidentialism itself refers to such historical precedents as the rule of traditional kings, colonial governors and nationalist leaders. lts legitimacy leans (...) on the need for comprehensible government, political stability, economic development and effective direction. Different kinds of presidentialism exist, but their classification depends on numerous criteria which are aften incompatible, and many characteristics of presidentialism can be indicated, of which the most important are patriarchy, wealth, charisma, sacralisation and historicity. Although presidentialism appears as an important aspect of the contemporary African political systems, few research has been done to explain the emergence and persistence of this phenomenon. (shrink)

Legal expert systems are computer applications that can mimic the consultation process of a legal expert to provide advice specific to a given scenario. The core of these systems is the experts’ knowledge captured in a sophisticated and often complex logic or rule base. Such complex systems rely on both knowledge engineers or system programmers and domain experts to maintain and update in response to changes in law or circumstances. This paper describes a pragmatic approach using process modelling techniques that (...) enables a complex legal expert system to be maintained and updated dynamically by a domain expert such as a legal practitioner with little computing knowledge. The approach is illustrated using a case study on the design of an online expert system that allows a user to navigate through complex legal options in the domain of International Family Law. (shrink)

Hardt and Negri's Empire is a welcome and often inspiring antidote to the defeatism that has infected so much of the left. Their analysis includes a number of important insights, such as the capacity of American forms of power to penetrate other states. But their political economy is crude, and the promising discussions they open drift towards an empire without any material center. At the same time, their revolutionary commitments to transformation from below refuses to engage the complexities of agency (...) and organization. In the end we are, disappointingly, left with a virtual empire confronting a virtual proletariat. (shrink)

While Eastern and Western cultures agree that life is sacred, and that morality demands its protection, they differ sharply as to how the term life is to be interpreted, and therefore what prohibitions against killing should entail. l examine some of these conflicting perspectives, explore life as an ambiguous term, and suggest are interpretation of the concept, which permits moral ruIes against killing to be applied more rationally.

Think of a number, any number, or properties like fragility and humanity. These and other abstract entities are radically different from concrete entities like electrons and elbows. While concrete entities are located in space and time, have causes and effects, and are known through empirical means, abstract entities like meanings and possibilities are remarkably different. They seem to be immutable and imperceptible and to exist "outside" of space and time. This book provides a comprehensive critical assessment of the problems raised (...) by abstract entities and the debates about existence, truth, and knowledge that surround them. It sets out the key issues that inform the metaphysical disagreement between platonists who accept abstract entities and nominalists who deny abstract entities exist. Beginning with the essentials of the platonist–nominalist debate, it explores the key arguments and issues informing the contemporary debate over abstract reality: arguments for platonism and their connections to semantics, science, and metaphysical explanation the abstract–concrete distinction and views about the nature of abstract reality epistemological puzzles surrounding our knowledge of mathematical entities and other abstract entities. arguments for nominalism premised upon concerns about paradox, parsimony, infinite regresses, underdetermination, and causal isolation nominalist options that seek to dispense with abstract entities. Including chapter summaries, annotated further reading, and a glossary, _Entities_ is essential reading for anyone seeking a clear and authoritative introduction to the problems raised by abstract entities. (shrink)

This paper uses detailed art criticism to ground a distinctive take on debates about the interaction of moral and aesthetic value. Immoralists claim that moral flaws can make artworks aesthetically better than they would otherwise be. I argue that whether or not immoralism is true, immoralists have not provided compelling characterizations of strategies that might constitute this kind of “immoral artistry.” The main exception is found in the work of A. W. Eaton. I critique Eaton’s perspective by way of sustained (...) interpretive-philosophical discussion of The Wire and especially The Sopranos. The discussion has implications for value interaction debates, conceptualizations of the “rough hero” genre, theories of appropriate response to fictions, and more applied debates about the moral criticism of film and television. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of pluralities based on the following simple claim: some things are nothing over and above the individual things they comprise. For some, this may seem like a mysterious statement, perhaps even meaningless; for others, like a truism, trivial and inferentially inert. I show that neither reaction is correct: the claim is both tractable and has important consequences for a number of debates in philosophy.

What factors shape the movement of systems of thought from one historical‐cultural context to another? This paper provides a preliminary answer to this question by constructing an analytic framework drawn from the sociology of philosophy, and it uses this framework to consider the prospects for the contemporary transposition of Confucianism from China to America. The central, though still provisional, conclusion is that while global power dynamics matter, the particular conditions of the “philosophical fields” of both the original and the recipient (...) locations are of primary importance in determining the extent and significance of any particular case of philosophical transposition. Therefore, due to the dynamics of the philosophical fields in both countries, it is unlikely that Confucianism will gain greater intellectual and political influence in the United States. (shrink)

Now that the age-old dream, which never materialized, of a universal language has evaporated, we note that English is in the process of becoming if not the universal at least an omnipresent language. In many multilingual countries it has become the language of communication. Globally it is imposing itself as the language of business, aviation and scientific research. Is this a pure benefit for humanity, or does it conceal risks or even dangers? Is the spreading of English a secondary effect (...) of Americanization? Is linguistic diversity being sacrificed? Only if the countries affected submit to linguistic and cultural homogenization. The ideal - which remains within reach - would be to accept English as a practical tool of communication without ceasing to strive for the maintenance and strength of other languages in symbiosis with their own cultures. (shrink)

Inspiring teachers to teach with more spontaneity and creativity within a highly constrained educational environment, this text demonstrates through descriptive stories strategies for emergent teaching. The text is consistent with the theoretical understandings and research in the complexity sciences but takes a narrative approach, giving examples through stories, myths, and parables.

Our attitudes toward aging change in that “old” depends on where you are. When I was 16, and my sister Nancy was 29, I suddenly realized, to my horror, that one of us was about to be 30. I went around saying to everyone, “Poor Nancy, she's almost 40,” because to me at that time, 30 and 40 were about the same. Later, when Nancy was 40, she said she didn't mind because, according to me, she had been 40 for (...) a decade. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 44-45.

Offers a conciliatory solution to one of the central contemporary debates in the theory of rationality, the debate about the proper formulation of rational requirements. Introduces a novel conception of the “symmetry problem” for wide scope rational requirements, and sketches a theory of rational commitment as a response.

Predictive processing accounts of neural function view the brain as a kind of prediction machine that forms models of its environment in order to anticipate the upcoming stream of sensory stimulation. These models are then continuously updated in light of incoming error signals. Predictive processing has offered a powerful new perspective on cognition, action, and perception. In this chapter we apply the insights from predictive processing to the study of emotions. The upshot is a picture of emotion as inseparable from (...) perception and cognition, and a key feature of the embodied mind. (shrink)

In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that free will is an illusion but that this truth should not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom; indeed, this truth can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life.