The basis of science is the hypothetico-deductive method and the recording of experiments in sufficient detail to enable reproducibility. We report the development of Robot Scientist "Adam," which advances the automation of both. Adam has autonomously generated functional genomics hypotheses about the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and experimentally tested these hypotheses by using laboratory automation. We have confirmed Adam's conclusions through manual experiments. To describe Adam's research, we have developed an ontology and logical language. The resulting formalization involves over 10,000 different (...) research units in a nested treelike structure, 10 levels deep, that relates the 6.6 million biomass measurements to their logical description. This formalization describes how a machine contributed to scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Grennan bases his evaluation of arguments on two criteria: logical adequacy and pragmatic adequacy. He asserts that the common formal logic systems, while logically sound, are not very useful for evaluating everyday inferences, which are almost all deductively invalid as stated. Turning to informal logic, he points out that while more recent informal logic and critical thinking texts are superior in that their authors recognize the need to evaluate everyday arguments inductively, they typically cover only inductive fallacies, ignoring the inductively (...) sound patterns frequently used in successful persuasion. To redress these problems, Grennan introduces a variety of additional inductive patterns. Concluding that informal logic texts do not encourage precision in evaluating arguments, Grennan proposes a new argument evaluation procedure that expresses judgments of inferential strength in terms of probabilities. Based on theories of Stephen Toulmin, Roderick Chisholm, and John Pollock, his proposed system allows for a more precise judgment of the persuasive force of arguments. (shrink)

The paper assesses Martin's recent logico-phenomenological account of judgment that is cast in the form of an eclectic history of judging, from Hume and Kant through the 19th century to Frege and Heidegger as well as current neuroscience. After a preliminary discussion of the complex unity and temporal modalities of judgment that draws on a reading of Titian's "Allegory of Prudence" , the remainder of the paper focuses on Martin's views on Kant's logic in general and his theory of singular (...) existential judgment in particular. The paper argues against Martin's key claims of the primacy of formal logic over transcendental logic and of the synthetic nature of judgment in Kant. It also takes issue with each of the four interpretations of singular existential judgment in Kant offered by Martin: existence as logical predicate, as copula, as thesis and as logical subject. (shrink)

The framework of plateaus, dips, and leaps shines light on periods when individuals may be inventing new methods of skilled performance. We begin with a review of the role performance plateaus have played in experimental psychology, human–computer interaction, and cognitive science. We then reanalyze two classic studies of individual performance to show plateaus and dips which resulted in performance leaps. For a third study, we show how the statistical methods of Changepoint Analysis plus a few simple heuristics may direct our (...) focus to periods of performance change for individuals. For the researcher, dips become the marker of exploration where performance suffers as new methods are invented and tested. Leaps mark the implementation of a successful new method and an incremental jump above the path plotted by smooth and steady log–log performance increments. The methods developed during these dips and leaps are the key to surpassing one's teachers and acquiring extreme expertise. (shrink)

This new interpretation of Fichte's Jena system focuses on the problem of the objectivity of consciousness.

Tasks, tools, and techniques that we perform, use, and acquire, define the elements of expertise which we value as the hallmarks of goal-driven behavior. Somehow, the creation of tools enables us to define new tasks, or is it that the envisioning of new tasks drives us to invent new tools? Or maybe it is that new tools engender new techniques which then result in new tasks? This jumble of issues will be explored and discussed in this diverse collection of papers. (...) Individually, few of the papers are related to each other by topic or by techniques of analysis. Collectively, all focus on tasks performed using tools and discuss the techniques of tool use which enable differences in performance and expertise across individuals, societies, and (even) species. -/- . (shrink)

Constraints and dependencies among the elements of embodied cognition form patterns or microstrategies of interactive behavior. Hard constraints determine which microstrategies are possible. Soft constraints determine which of the possible microstrategies are most likely to be selected. When selection is non-deliberate or automatic the least effort microstrategy is chosen. In calculating the effort required to execute a microstrategy each of the three types of operations, memory retrieval, perception, and action, are given equal weight; that is, perceptual-motor activity does not have (...) a privileged status with respect to memory. Soft constraints can work contrary to the designer's intentions by making the access of perfect knowledge in-the-world more effortful than the access of imperfect knowledge in-the-head. These implications of soft constraints are tested in two experiments. In experiment 1 we varied the perceptual-motor effort of accessing knowledge in-the-world as well as the effort of retrieving items from memory. In experiment 2 we replicated one of the experiment 1 conditions to collect eye movement data. The results suggest that milliseconds matter. Soft constraints lead to a reliance on knowledge in-the-head even when the absolute difference in perceptual-motor versus memory retrieval effort is small, and even when relying on memory leads to a higher error rate and lower performance. We discuss the implications of soft constraints for routine interactive behavior, accounts of embodied cognition, and tool and interface design. (shrink)

Fichte’s early review of C. A. L. Creuzer’s neglected and idiosyncratic skeptical book on free will posed a serious challenge to what at the time was emerging as a consensus Kantian position on the role of free choice in the generation of imputable action. Fichte’s review was directed as much against Reinhold’s important letter on freedom of the will as it was against Creuzer himself. In the course of his brief review, Fichte suggests an important recasting of the strategy of (...) the Kantian postulates of rational faith; he poses a dilemma for the Reinholdian understanding of the relationship among an autonomous practical will, a free power of choice, and the actions of natural human organisms; and he hints at a radical reappropriation of the rationalist doctrine of pre-established harmony in re-orienting the search for a defensible reconstruction of a broadly Kantian position on the problem of free will. (shrink)

Identifying the missing or unstated premisses of arguments is important, because their logical quality depends on them. Textbook authors regard enthymematic syllogisms (e.g., "Elvis is a man, so Elvis is mortal") as having an unstated premiss - the major premiss (e.g., "All men are mortal"). They are said to be such because these syllogisms become formally valid when the major premiss is added (i.e., it is a gap-filler). I argue that unstated major premises are not gap-fillers: they support a part (...) of the argument that is already given implicitly - the inference claim ("If the premisses are true then the conclusion is true"). As such, their logical status is the same as that of an unstated proposition that supports the minor premiss, which is not part of the argument. Therefore, the so-called "major premiss" is not an unstated premiss of the enthymeme. (shrink)

The United Nations human rights system has in recent years been divided on the question as to whether coercive care interventions, including coercive psychiatric care, can ever be justified under UN human rights standards. Some within the UN human rights community hold that coercive care can comply with human rights standards, provided that the coercive intervention is a necessary and proportionate means to achieve certain approved aims, and that appropriate legal safeguards are in place. Others have held that coercive care (...) is never justified. Disagreement over this issue has produced an impasse in the UN human rights system. We survey the impasse with particular attention to the legal arguments that inform the divergent positions. In doing so we introduce a distinction among a variety of different ‘abolitionist’ positions regarding coercive care, and draw a distinction between ‘non-consensual’ and ‘coercive’ treatment. We conclude with three proposals for moving beyond the current impasse. (shrink)

This book emphasizes the compatibility of Aristotelianism, Austrian economics, and Ayn Rand's Objectivism, arguing that particular ideas from these areas can be integrated as a potential paradigm of human flourishing and happiness in a free society. It constructs an understanding from various disciplines into a clear, consistent, and systematic whole.

The book examines the evolution and current state of corporate social responsibility (CSR), using a five-stage maturity model: defensive, charitable, promotional, strategic and transformative CSR. The first four stages are dubbed CSR 1.0 and characterise most current CSR practice, while the fifth stage is named CSR 2.0 (also transformative or systemic CSR) and describes emergent and future CSR practices. Reasons are given why CSR 1.0 approaches have failed to have any significant impact on the most serious global social, environmental and (...) ethical challenges. The emergent CSR 2.0 will then be explored in detail by elaborating on five principles underlying the new approach, including: creativity, scalability, responsiveness, glocality and circularity. A four-part DNA Model is also introduced, covering value creation, good governance, societal contribution and ecological integrity, which provides the basis for defining and measuring CSR 2.0. Finally, a 70-question CSR 2.0 self-assessment diagnostic tool developed by the author is presented, with sample data to show how the tool can be used for future research and practitioner application. (shrink)

ABSTRACTTime-consciousness has long been a focus of research in phenomenology and phenomenological psychology. We advance and extend this tradition of research by focusing on the character of temporal experience under conditions of mania. Symptom scales and diagnostic criteria for mania are peppered with temporally inflected language: increased rate of speech, racing thoughts, flight-of-ideas, hyperactivity. But what is the underlying structure of temporal experience in manic episodes? We tackle this question using a strategically hybrid approach. We recover and reconstruct three hypotheses (...) regarding manic temporality that were advanced and modeled by two pioneers of clinical phenomenology: Eugène Minkowski and Ludwig Binswanger. We then test, critique, and refine these hypotheses using heterophenomenological methods in an interview-based study of persons with a history of bipolar and a current diagnosis of acute mania. Our conclusions support a central hypothesis due to Minkowski... (shrink)

Hegel's very first acknowledged publication was, among other things, an attack on Fichte. In 1801, Hegel was still laboring in almost complete obscurity, while Fichte was an international sensation, though already somewhat past the peak of his meteoric career. In the 1801 Differenzschrift, Hegel cut his teeth by criticizing Fichte's already widelycriticised Wissenschaftslehre, and by demonstrating that Schelling's philosophical system was not simply to be equated with it. Fichte himself never bothered to respond to Hegel's criticisms; indeed he never publicly (...) acknowledged their existence. This was not because he was unconcerned with criticisms of his views; quite the contrary. But at the time he had bigger fish to fry. He responded to Jacobi's criticisms, and to Schelling's; he replied in great detail to critical questions raised by Reinhold, and with vituperative intensity to objections raised by skeptics and purportedly loyal Kantians. But Hegel's Differenzschrift was left without a Fichtean rebuttal. This is a pity, both because of the missed opportunity to illuminate by controversy central issues at stake in the post-Kantian period, but also because it made it easier for Hegel simply to reiterate his youthful criticism as if it were the last word. And reiterate it he did: in one form or another Hegel's early criticisms of Fichte reappear at every subsequent stage of his career: in the Phenomenology, in the Science of Logic, in the Encyclopaedia, as the final chapter in Hegel's History of Philosophy, and in countless other minor works and documents from the Nachlass and correspondence. (shrink)

Abstract MacFarlane distinguishes “context sensitivity” from “indexicality,” and argues that “nonindexical contextualism” has significant advantages over the standard indexical form. MacFarlane’s substantive thesis is that the extension of an expression may depend on an epistemic standard variable even though its content does not. Focusing on ‘knows,’ I will argue against the possibility of extension dependence without content dependence when factors such as meaning, time, and world are held constant, and show that MacFarlane’s nonindexical contextualism provides no advantages over indexical contextualism. (...) The discussion will shed light on the definition of indexicals as well as the meaning of ‘knows,’ and highlight important constraints on the way meaning can be represented in semantics. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-14 DOI 10.1007/s11098-011-9831-1 Authors Wayne A. Davis, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116. (shrink)

This article draws on Hannah Arendt’s analysis of authority in education, along with her insights into the workings of the imagination and the thinking process, to argue that participation in education should be conceived as an invitation to become towards the world. The potential of this invitation, the article argues, is located in the educator’s imaginative and thoughtful responsibility to receive the young as they are and as they are becoming on the one hand, and to represent the world to (...) them, on the other hand. The ways in which this potential can be negated are examined in relation to Arendt’s accounts of non-thinking and wilfulness. The article advances to the conclusion that participation in an education is possible only where young persons are received by educators who are persistently awake to their responsibility to receive the young people they educate anew. (shrink)

Acquiring expertise in a task is often thought of as an automatic process that follows inevitably with practice according to the log‐log law (aka: power law) of learning. However, as Ericsson, Chase, and Faloon (1980) showed, this is not true for digit‐span experts and, as we show, it is certainly not true for Tetris players at any level of expertise. Although some people may simply “twitch” faster than others, the limit to Tetris expertise is not raw keypress time but the (...) techniques acquired by players that allow them to use the tools provided by the hardware and software to compensate for the game's relentlessly increasing drop speed. Unfortunately, these increases in drop speed between Tetris levels make performance plateaus very short and quickly followed by game death. Hence, a player's success at discovering, exploring, and practicing new techniques for the tasks of board preparation, board maintenance, optimal placement discovery, zoid rotation, lateral movement of zoids, and other tasks important to expertise in Tetris is limited. In this paper, we analyze data collected from 492 Tetris players to reveal the challenges they confronted while constructing expertise via the discovery of new techniques for gameplay at increasingly difficult levels of Tetris. (shrink)

Why games? How could anyone consider action games an experimental paradigm for Cognitive Science? In 1973, as one of three strategies he proposed for advancing Cognitive Science, Allen Newell exhorted us to “accept a single complex task and do all of it.” More specifically, he told us that rather than taking an “experimental psychology as usual approach,” we should “focus on a series of experimental and theoretical studies around a single complex task” so as to demonstrate that our theories of (...) human cognition were powerful enough to explain “a genuine slab of human behavior” with the studies fitting into a detailed theoretical picture. Action games represent the type of experimental paradigm that Newell was advocating and the current state of programming expertise and laboratory equipment, along with the emergence of Big Data and naturally occurring datasets, provide the technologies and data needed to realize his vision. Action games enable us to escape from our field's regrettable focus on novice performance to develop theories that account for the full range of expertise through a twin focus on expertise sampling and longitudinal studies of simple and complex tasks. (shrink)

It is customary to identify transcendental philosophy as the distinctive and original invention of Immanuel Kant. Certainly this was a view that Kant himself did much to encourage. But this chapter argues that traces of the transcendental strategy can be found already among the ancients. One such ancient precedent is associated with the Stoic doctrine of oikeiosis. It is argued that oikeiosis is best understood as a form of normative orientation associated with 'being at home (oikos)' in one's body and (...) environment, and that it involves a distinctive form of ontological self-consciousness. This chapter assesses the merits of Stoic claims that oikeiosis figures as a condition on the possibility of desire (Cicero), pleasure (Diogenes), and even perception (Hierocles), and the chapter considers the case for describing these arguments as examples of transcendental investigation. (shrink)

Understanding the nature of errors in a simple, rule‐based task—programming a VCR—required analyzing the interactions among human cognition, the artifact, and the task. This analysis was guided by least‐effort principles and yielded a control structure that combined a rule hierarchy task‐to‐device with display‐based difference‐reduction. A model based on this analysis was used to trace action protocols collected from participants as they programmed a simulated VCR. Trials that ended without success (the show was not correctly programmed) were interrogated to yield insights (...) regarding problems in acquiring the control structure. For successful trials (the show was correctly programmed), steps that the model would make were categorized as matches to the model; steps that the model would not make were violations of the model. The model was able to trace the vast majority of correct keystrokes and yielded a business‐as‐usual account of the detection and correction of errors. Violations of the model fell into one of two fundamental categories. The model provided insights into certain subcategories of errors; whereas, regularities within other subcategories of error suggested limitations to the model. Although errors were rare when compared to the total number of correct actions, they were important. Errors were made on 4% of the keypresses that, if not detected, would have prevented two‐thirds of the shows from being successfully recorded. A misprogrammed show is a minor annoyance to the user. However, devices with the approximate complexity of a VCR are ubiquitous and have found their way into emergency rooms, airplane cockpits, power plants, and so on. Errors of ignorance may be reduced by training; however, errors in the routine performance of skilled users can only be reduced by design. (shrink)

Lewis’ neurodevelopmental model provides a plausible alternative to the brain disease model of addiction that is a dominant perspective in the USA. We disagree with Lewis’ claim that the BDMA is unchallenged within the addiction field but we agree that it provides unduly pessimistic prospects of recovery. We question the strength of evidence for the BDMA provided by animal models and human neuroimaging studies. We endorse Lewis’ framing of addiction as a developmental process underpinned by reversible forms of neuroplasticity. His (...) view is consistent with epidemiological evidence of addicted individuals ‘maturing out’ and recovering from addiction. We do however hold some reservations about Lewis’ model. We do not think that his analysis of the neurobiological evidence is clearly different from that of the BDMA or that his neurodevelopmental model provides a more rigorous interpretation of the evidence than the BDMA. We believe that our understanding of the neurobiology of drug use is too immature to warrant the major role given to it in the BDMA. Our social research finds very mixed support for the BDMA among addicted people and health professionals in Australia. Lewis’ account of addiction requires similar empirical evaluation of its real-world implications. (shrink)

Volume 25, Issue 1, January 2025, Page W8-W10.

The authors of this essay challenge the notion that “philosophy” is irredeemably Eurocentric by providing a series of personal, professional, and pedagogical reflections on their experience in a new graduate seminar on “Indigenous philosophy.” The authors—a graduate student, professor, and Indigenous course-facilitator—share in the fashion of “Indigenous storywork,” as outlined by Stó:lō pedagogue Jo-Ann Archibald. We begin with the instructor and how he was personally challenged to re-evaluate his roots and philosophical praxis in spite of his experience teaching over several (...) decades. The second section describes a student experience and how they measured the exigencies of decolonization against the esteem that their family holds for Canada’s brand of multiculturalism. Finally, we turn to the Indigenous seminar facilitator and his skepticism over whether the course truly constituted decolonized, or “landed,” pedagogy. Throughout, the authors ask about the demands of decolonization and how philosophical pedagogy may center Indigenous futurity. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Husserl's Cartesianism Heidegger's Ontological Critique References and Further Reading.

In 2014 the Essex Autonomy Project undertook a six month project, funded by the AHRC, to provide technical advice to the UK Ministry of Justice on the question of whether the Mental Capacity Act is compliant with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Over the course of the project, the EAP research team organised a series of public policy roundtables, hosted by the Ministry of Justice, and which brought together leading experts to discuss and debate (...) the issues. A one-day public conference was held at the Institute for Government in July. In September 2014, the EAP research team submitted its findings to the Ministry of Justice. (shrink)

We undertake to bring a phenomenological perspective to bear on a challenge of contemporary law and clinical practice. In a wide variety of contexts, legal and medical professionals are called upon to assess the competence or capacity of an individual to exercise her own judgement in making a decision for herself. We focus on decisions regarding consent to or refusal of medical treatment and contrast a widely recognised clinical instrument, the MacCAT-T, with a more phenomenologically informed approach. While the MacCAT-T (...) focuses attention on individual cognitive performance criteria, an approach oriented by second-person phenomenology brings into view the complex role of time, others and identity in constituting the capacity for individual autonomous judgement. Our phenomenological analysis has consequences both for the practice of capacity assessments and for further research in this arena. Good practice in capacity assessment must attend to decision communities, distributed capacity, and temporal competence, while research on mental capacity will miss the phenomenon if it trains its focus ‘between the ears.’ We illustrate our approach by considering two recent cases of contested capacity: one involving cognitive disability in a dysfunctional decision community, the second presenting the possibility of competent decision-making under conditions of paranoid schizophrenia. (shrink)

The abilities to read, to write, and to compute are of crucial importance. Students who cannot read, write, or compute are in deep trouble. But important though these skills are, they do not encompass all of what people know or the ways in which what they know. An innovative literacy/theater project implemented in two sixth-grade classrooms of a high-poverty, urban, western Pennsylvania middle school was designed to help urban teachers address aliteracy by engaging their students in the discovery of three (...) young adult novels.1 The project was built on a partnership with a semiprofessional theater company that produced adaptations of the literature and designed instructional support materials to meet .. (shrink)

Le but de Pierre Hadot en développant la notion de philosophie ancienne comme « exercice spirituel » était de fournir une solution de rechange à la religion. Dans cette perspective, Hadot rend le triomphe de la chrétienté et de la scolastique médiévale, exemplifié par Thomas d’Aquin, responsable de la « perte de la philosophie comme manière de vivre ». Le jugement qu’il porte sur Thomas d’Aquin s’applique également au néoplatonisme ancien. Or, de fait, pour les deux il n’y a rien (...) d’abstrait dans la théorie de la philosophie comme ascension vers Dieu : la philosophie est une manière de vivre qui nous transforme et nous tourne vers le divin. Comme son prédécesseur néoplatonicien, l’Université médiévale considérait la philosophie comme un « exercice spirituel » dans le cadre d’une spiritualité chrétienne qui préparait aussi les intellectuels à une félicité surnaturelle. (shrink)

In his 2004 article “Hannah Arendt and Jean Baudrillard: Pedagogy in the Consumer Society,” Trevor Norris bemoans the degree to which contemporary education’s focus can increasingly be described as primarily nurturing “consumers in training.” He goes on to add that the consequences of such “mindless” consumerism is that it “erodes democratic life, reduces education to the reproduction of private accumulation, prevents social resistance from expressing itself as anything other than political apathy, and transforms all human relations into commercial transactions of (...) calculated exchange.” This, then, is the challenge of the age: to articulate the sort of education that might prompt our youngsters to imagine a genuine alternative to this consumer madness—a challenge that the authors of this paper attempt to tackle. (shrink)

In the Spring and Summer of 2014, a group of experts convened a series of meetings at the Westminster headquarters of the UK Ministry of Justice in order to determine whether the Mental Capacity Act 2005 complies with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The meetings were organised by the research team of the Essex Autonomy Project, a research and public policy initiative funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and based at the University (...) of Essex. The working group included civil servants from the MoJ, the Office of the Public Guardian, and the Department of Health, as well as the Official Solicitor, a senior judge of the Court of Protection, leading academic experts from psychiatry, law and ethics, and representatives of user-group organisations. In September 2014, the EAP research team reported to the MoJ on its findings. This article summarises some of the key arguments and conclusions of that report. Both the report itself and this article represent the views of their respective authors; they should not be taken to represent the views of the MoJ, the AHRC, or the other participants in these consultations. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: A Very Brief Primer on Dutch Still‐Life Painting Bubbles and Skulls: Pieter Claesz and the Transformation of a Visual Theme The Temporality of Self‐Consciousness in a Late Painting of David Bailly A Concluding Word about Two Portraits.

I set out to trace the history of a distinctive conception of self-consciousness -- from its first formulation in the 3rd century BC, through its reception among Roman philosophers around the 1st century AD, and finally to its fate in Enlightenment thought of the 18th century. I use this history to clarify and defend an idea that figured centrally in the history of philosophy, but which has recently come under sustained attack: the idea that human beings are in some very (...) fundamental way self- conscious beings, and that our self-consciousness serves as a kind of foundation or transcendental condition for our other cognitive capacities. Obviously, given the scale of these ambitions, the presentation here should be considered at best a sketch. It is intended not to settle any matters, but at least to bring back into view a line of argument that has been covered over by more recent developments. (shrink)