This letter addresses two issues in language research that are important to cognitive science: the comparability of word meanings across languages and the neglect of an integrated approach to writing systems. The first issue challenges generativist claims by emphasizing the importance of comparability of data, drawing on typologists’ findings about different languages. The second issue addresses the exclusion of diverse writing systems from linguistic investigation and argues for a more extensive study of their effects on language and cognition. We argue (...) for a refocusing of cognitive science research on linguistic diversity in all modalities to develop the most robust understanding of language and its role in human cognition more broadly. (shrink)

There is nothing like an overwhelming consensus of opinion to encourage a less than rigourous approach to analyzing complex ethical issues. Unfortunately, this is nowhere more apparent than in the discussion of human reproductive cloning contained in the federal House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs’ report on human cloning, released last August The report may well fulfil the first half of its project, namely the empirical task of adequately summarizing and categorizing the various submissions made to (...) the Committee. However, it is clearly inadequate as a discussion of the ethical and legal permissibility of human reproductive cloning. (shrink)

Konu din çalışmaları olunca objektiflik her zaman ana kriter olsa da içeriden/dışarıdan bireylerin bir dini ne kadar objektif olarak ele alabilecekleri ve konu olan dinin, o dine mensup içeridekilerin mi yoksa dışarıdakilerin mi en iyi şekilde çalışabileceği meselesi din incelemesinin başından günümüze kadar tartışmalı bir konu olagelmiştir. Bu konu, emik/etik anlatım, yakın/ uzak tecrübe ve düşünümsellik gibi üzerine düşünülmesi gereken olguları da beraberinde getirmektedir. Kim Knott, bu makalesinde bu kavramlar çerçevesinde tam katılımcı, katılımcı olarak gözlemci, gözlemci olarak katılımcı ve tam (...) gözlemci rollerini benimsemiş farklı araştırmacıların anlatılarını ele alarak içeriden ve dışarıdan sorununu incelemiştir. (shrink)

We are moral apes, a difference between humans and our relatives that has received significant recent attention in the evolutionary literature. Evolutionary accounts of morality have often been recruited in support of error theory: moral language is truth-apt, but substantive moral claims are never true. In this article, we: locate evolutionary error theory within the broader framework of the relationship between folk conceptions of a domain and our best scientific conception of that same domain; within that broader framework, argue that (...) error theory and vindication are two ends of a continuum, and that in the light of our best science, many folk conceptual structures are neither hopelessly wrong nor fully vindicated; and argue that while there is no full vindication of morality, no seamless reduction of normative facts to natural facts, nevertheless one important strand in the evolutionary history of moral thinking does support reductive naturalism—moral facts are facts about cooperation, and the conditions and practices that support or undermine it. In making our case for, we first respond to the important error theoretic argument that the appeal to moral facts is explanatorily redundant, and second, we make a positive case that true moral beliefs are a ‘fuel for success’, a map by which we steer, flexibly, in a variety of social interactions. The vindication, we stress, is at most partial: moral cognition is a complex mosaic, with a complex genealogy, and selection for truth-tracking is only one thread in that genealogy. (shrink)

This study proposes two identification cuing factors to understand how corporate social responsibility relates to employees’ identification with their firm. The results reveal that a firm’s CSR initiatives increase employee–company identification. E–C identification, in turn, influences employees’ commitment to their company. However, CSR associations do not directly influence employees’ identification with a firm, but rather influence their identification through perceived external prestige. Compared to CSR associations, CSR participation has a direct influence on E–C identification. On the basis of these findings, (...) it is argued that CSR performance can be an effective way for companies to maintain a positive relationship with their employees. (shrink)

Keith DeRose has argued that the two main problems facing subject-sensitive invariantism come from the appropriateness of certain third-person denials of knowledge and the inappropriateness of now you know it, now you don't claims. I argue that proponents of SSI can adequately address both problems. First, I argue that the debate between contextualism and SSI has failed to account for an important pragmatic feature of third-person denials of knowledge. Appealing to these pragmatic features, I show that straightforward third-person denials are (...) inappropriate in the relevant cases. And while there are certain denials that are appropriate, they pose no problems for SSI. Next, I offer an explanation, compatible with SSI, of the oddity of now you know it, now you don't claims. To conclude, I discuss the intuitiveness of purism, whose rejection is the source of many problems for SSI. I propose to explain away the intuitiveness of purism as a side-effect of the narrow focus of previous epistemological inquiries. (shrink)

In this paper I argue, first, that human lifeways depend on cognitive capital that has typically been built over many generations. This process of gradual accumulation produces an adaptive fit between human agents and their environments; an adaptive fit that is the result of hidden‐hand, evolutionary mechanisms. To explain distinctive features of human life, we need to understand how cultures evolve. Second, I distinguish a range of different evolutionary models of culture. Third, I argue that none of meme‐based models, dual (...) inheritance models, nor Boyd and Richerson's models fully succeed in explaining this adaptive fit between agent and the world. I then briefly develop an alternative. Finally, I explore (in a preliminary way) constraints on cultural adaptation. The processes of cultural evolution sometimes built a fit between agents and their environment, but they do not always do so. Why is folk medicine, for example, so much less reliable than folk natural history? (shrink)

In the last few years, nativist, modular views of moral cognition have been influential. This paper shares the view that normative cognition develops robustly, and is probably an adaptation. But it develops an alternative view of the developmental basis of moral cognition, based on the idea that adults scaffold moral development by organising the learning environment of the next generation. In addition, I argue that the modular nativist picture has no plausible account of the role of explicit moral judgement, and (...) that no persuasive version of the ‘poverty of the stimulus' applies to moral cognition. (shrink)

This study reports the results of a study of Swedish psychiatrists’ responses to moral statements related to decision making in the psychiatric context. Use was made of the Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire, a modified instrument previously constructed from a theory of moral sensitivity. This Likert-type scale contains 30 items constructed from the following categories: interpersonal orientation, structuring moral meaning, benevolence, modifying autonomy, experiencing moral conflict, and trust in medical knowledge and principles of care. The purpose was to identify possible differences in (...) responses rather than to evaluate right or wrong responses. The analysis is based on 754 completed questionnaires. The results of the study showed some significant differences in the item and category levels; for example, male psychiatrists experienced more conflicts than female psychiatrists and agreed to a greater extent that medical knowledge was most important in deciding what was best for the patient. The results also showed that more female than male psychiatrists thought that the relationship with the patient was most important in psychiatric practice. (shrink)

This study explores the relationship between Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and public relations practitioners’ perceptions of corporate social respon- sibility in South Korea. The survey on Korean public relations practitioners revealed that, although Hofstede’s dimensions significantly affect public relations practitioners’ perceptions of CSR, social traditionalism values had more explanatory power than cultural dimensions in explaining CSR attitudes. The results suggest that practitioners’ fundamental ideas about the corporation’s role in society seem to be more important than their cultural values to understand public (...) relations practitioners’ CSR attitudes in Korea. (shrink)

Most management researchers pause at the threshold of objective right and wrong. Their hesitation is understandable. Values imply a “subjective,” personal dimension, one that can invite religious and moral interference in research. The dominant epistemological camps of positivism and subjectivism in management stumble over the notion of moral objectivity. Empirical research can study values in human behavior, but hard-headed scientists should not assume that one value can be objectively better than another. In this article, we invite management researchers to rethink (...) this presumption. We show how accepting at least a limited form of moral objectivity, namely, an epistemic orientation that seeks objective moral reasons, can benefit management research by 1. guiding research practice; 2. using patterns of moral objectivity as clues for formulating empirical hypotheses for psychological explanations; and 3. adding prescriptive power to empirical theories. (shrink)

Philip Kitcher’s The Ethical Project trios to vindicates ethics through an analysis of its evolutionary and cultural history, a history which in turn, he thinks, supports a particular conception of the role of moral thinking and normative practices in human social life. As Kitcher sees it, that role could hardly be more central: most of what makes human life human, and preferable to the fraught and impoverished societies of the great apes, depends on moral cognition. Prom this view of the (...) role of the ethical project as a social technology, Kitcher derives an account of moral progress and even moral truth: a normative analogue of the idea that truth is the convergence of rational enquiry. To Kitcher’s history, I present an anti-history. Most of what is good about human social life depends on the expansion of our social emotions, not on our capacities to articulate and internalise explicit norms. Indeed, since the Holocene and the origins of complex society, normative thought and normative institutions have been more prominent as tools of exploitation and oppression than as mechanisms of a social peace that balances individual desire with collective co-operation. I argue that the vindication project fails in its own terms: even given Kitcher’s distinctive pragmatic concept of vindication, history debunks rather than vindicates moral cognition. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for a view largely favorable to the Thirder view: when Sleeping Beauty wakes up on Monday, her credence in the coin’s landing heads is less than 1/2. Let’s call this “the Lesser view.” For my argument, I (i) criticize Strict Conditionalization as the rule for changing de se credences; (ii) develop a new rule; and (iii) defend it by Gaifman’s Expert Principle. Finally, I defend the Lesser view by making use of this new rule.

This anthology, intended to accompany _A Companion to Metaphysics_, brings together over 60 selections which represent the best and most important works in metaphysics during this century. The selections are grouped under ten major metaphysical problems and each section is preceded by an introduction by the editors.

Despite growing interest in examining the role of religion in business ethics, there is little consensus concerning the basis or standards of “good” or ethical behavior and the reasons behind them. This limits our ability to enhance ethical behavior in the workplace. We address this issue by examining worldviews as it relates to ethics research and practice. Our worldview forms the context within which we organize and build our understanding of reality. Given that much of our academic work as well (...) as business practice operate from a modern worldview, we examine how modernism shapes our beliefs and approaches to ethics in business and academia. We identify important limitations of modernism in addressing moral issues and religion. We then introduce the Christian worldview as an alternative approach to examining ethical issues in business. (shrink)

This book begins with a survey of various readings of Locke as a materialist, as a substance dualist, and as a property dualist, and demonstrates that these inconsistent interpretations result from a general failure of modern commentators to notice the significance of Locke’s ‘mind-body nominalism’. By illuminating this largely overlooked aspect of Locke’s philosophy, this book reveals a common mistake of previous interpretations: that of treating what Locke conceives to be ‘nominal’ as real. The nominal symmetry that Locke posits between (...) mind and body is distinct from any form of metaphysical dualism, whether substance dualism or property dualism. It is a brand of naturalism, but does not insist that the material is ontologically more basic than the mental or that the former determines the latter. On this view, the material and the mental both relate solely to a certain set of functional roles, rather than to an intrinsic property that plays these roles. The term ‘matter’ is thus rendered vague, and materialism is conceived as a precariously grounded ontological doctrine. Elaborating on this interpretation of Locke’s Essay, this book examines the insightful readings of Locke developed by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thinkers such as Richard Burthogge, William Carroll, and Joseph Priestley. This book also seeks to clarify what Locke’s position would look like in a modern setting by noting some significant parallels with the ideas of leading contemporary philosophers such as Donald Davidson, David Lewis, and Colin McGinn. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to introduce scholars to recent discussions of early Confucian ethics that intersect with contemporary moral psychology. Given the early Confucian tradition's intense focus on the cultivation of virtue, there are a number of ways in which early Confucian thinkers – as represented in the texts of the Analects, the Mencius, and the Xunzi – fruitfully engaged in a range of topics that are closely connected to live issues in moral psychology. Not only did they (...) anticipate some contemporary debates but explored them from a distinctively Confucian normative worldview, attending especially to the role of the family and ritual practice. This essay seeks to demonstrate that early Confucianism, by integrating a normative vision with empirically grounded observations of human behavior, offers resources for constructively exploring a number of ongoing questions in moral psychology. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper presents a view of quantities as ‘adverbial’ entities of a certain kind—more specifically, determinate ways, or modes, of having length, mass, speed, and the like. In doing so, it will be argued that quantities as such should be distinguished from quantitative properties or relations, and are not universals but are particulars, although they are not objects, either. A main advantage of the adverbial view over its rivals will be found in its superior explanatory power with respect to both (...) certain fundamental principles of quantity and ordinary quantitative reasoning involving quantitative relations like three times as long as and 2 metres longer than. (shrink)

We present an analysis of counterfactuals in terms of stories and combine it with an account similar to Walton’s account of truth in fiction to yield truth conditions for counterfactuals. We discuss unusual features of this account, and compare it to other main approaches. In particular, we argue that our analysis succeeds in accounting for counterpossibles and counterfactuals with true antecedents while the other two main approaches fail, and we give reasons for thinking that it is important to have an (...) adequate account of these two areas. (shrink)

Measuring Chinese character recognition ability is essential in research on character learning among learners of Chinese as a second language. Three methods are typically used to evaluate character recognition competence by investigating the following properties of a given character: pronunciation, meaning, and pronunciation and meaning. However, no study has explored the similar or dissimilar outcomes that these three measurements might yield. The current study examined this issue by testing 162 CSL learners with various L1 backgrounds and Chinese proficiency levels. Participants' (...) performance in character recognition measured using a phonological method, a semantic method, and a PS method was compared, which led to two major findings. In terms of similarity, participants' performance in character recognition and the influence of L1 background and Chinese proficiency level on character recognition was similar across the three methods. As for differences, the semantic method could yield a character recognition test with better quality than the other two methods, and the three methods yielded different best fitting models and showed different predictions for Chinese proficiency across different L1 groups. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are proposed. (shrink)

It is shown that the jet mechanism derivable from the Lorentz deformation picture leads to a nearly constant average jet transverse momentum. It is pointed out that this is consistent with the high-energy experimental data. It is pointed out further that this result strengthens the physical basis for the minimal time-energy uncertainty combined covariantly with Heisenberg's space-momentum uncertainty relation.

L’examen de certains manuscrits inédits du Fonds Foucault déposé par Daniel Defert à la BnF, en 2013, montre que le Descartes de Foucault est une variante simplifiée de celui de Heidegger. Foucault reprend en effet à la lecture heideggérienne de Descartes la liaison que le philosophe allemand met en place entre la mathesis universalis et le cogito, qui ne se trouve assurément pas chez Descartes. C’est de cette manière que ces deux auteurs critiquent ce qu’ils mettent eux-mêmes au jour chez (...) Descartes – le sujet de la certitude – et qu’ils font de l’inquiétude l’affect historique propre à la pensée. La présente étude reconstruit le lien entre la mathesis et le cogito et la critique de la vérité comme certitude, tel qu’il est élaboré dans les cours de Heidegger sur Descartes, Augustin et Aristote, au début des années 20. La manière dont Heidegger établit ce lien suit l’évolution de la pensée de Heidegger, mais nous prenons le parti de mettre l’accent sur le cours sur Descartes de 1922-1923 (Introduction à la recherche phénoménologique), car dans les années 20, Heidegger fait de l’inquiétude la figure de l’ipséité. Nous reconstruisons en parallèle la manière dont Foucault intègre la lecture heideggérienne de Descartes à la sienne et comment il en déplace la signification, en évoquant certains textes connus de l’Histoire de la folie, mais aussi en analysant des manuscrits inédits de Foucault. Car le rapprochement que nous proposons entre les deux auteurs, tout comme la mise en relief de ce qui les distingue, se fait à la faveur de l’occasion historique que constitue la mise à disposition de textes qui étaient auparavant inédits. Et, en effet, les cours de Heidegger que nous analysons ont été publiés dans la Gesamtausgabe après la mort de Foucault, et leur traduction en français est toute récente. En procédant ainsi, nous voulons montrer comment la redéfinition contemporaine de la subjectivité s’est élaborée, au XXe siècle, à partir de la notion d’inquiétude, et plus spécifiquement de l’inquiétude historique. (shrink)

In his 21st-century explorer’s uniform, Nordiclooking Spencer Wells kneels alongside nearly naked, smaller, African hunters who sport bows and arrows. Featured on the National Geographic Web site, “Explorer-in-Residence” Wells hold a bachelor’s and doctorate degree in biology. He is also a filmmaker who both masterminded and hosted National Geographic’s 2002 documentary, The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey, which explains to non-scientists a molecular anthropology narrative of how humans left Africa 60,000 years ago to populate the rest of the globe.In (...) his latest exploratory adventure, Wells is the project leader and spokesperson for the recently announced “Genographic Project,” a “landmark study of the human journey.” In April 2005, National Geographic and IBM, with funding from the Waitt Family Foundation, launched the Genographic Project as a five-year “research partnership” that aims to “trace the migratory history of the human species” and “map how the Earth was populated.”. (shrink)

New and thoroughly updated, Epistemology: An Anthology continues to represent the most comprehensive and authoritative collection of canonical readings in the theory of knowledge. Concentrates on the central topics of the field, such as skepticism and the Pyrrhonian problematic, the definition of knowledge, and the structure of epistemic justification Offers coverage of more specific topics, such as foundationalism vs coherentism, and virtue epistemology Presents wholly new sections on 'Testimony, Memory, and Perception' and 'The Value of Knowledge' Features modified sections on (...) 'The Structure of Knowledge and Justification', 'The Non-Epistemic in Epistemology', and 'The Nature of the Epistemic' Includes many of the most important contributions made in recent decades by several outstanding authors. (shrink)

This paper examines Alfred Schutz’s insights on types and typification. Beginning with a brief overview of the history and meaning of typification in interpretive sociology, the paper further addresses both the ubiquity and the necessity of typification in social life and scientific method. Schutz’s contribution itself is lacking in empirical application and grounding, but examples are provided of ongoing empirical research which advances the understanding of types and typification. As is suggested by illustrations from scholarship in the social studies of (...) social science, studies of social identity associated with membership categorization analysis, and constructionist social problems theory, typification can be found to be central to social research whether it is taken up as a largely unacknowledged resource or whether it is addressed by different names. The overview and illustrations suggest the continuing, widespread, and indeed foundational relevance of Schutz’s insights into types and typification. (shrink)

This article responds to a common criticism of Aristotelian naturalism known as the Pollyanna Problem, the objection that Aristotelian naturalism, when combined with recent empirical research, generates morally unacceptable conclusions. In developing a reply to this objection, I draw upon the conception of human nature developed by the ancient Chinese philosopher Mencius, and build up an account of ethical naturalism that provides a satisfying response to the Pollyanna Problem while also preserving what is most attractive about Aristotelian naturalism.

Abstract of a paper presented in an APA symposium on Supervenience, December 29, 1985.

Disability, like questions of race, gender, and class, is one of the most provocative topics among theorists and philosophers today. This volume, situated at the intersection of feminist theory and disability studies, addresses questions about the nature of embodiment, the meaning of disability, the impact of public policy on those who have been labeled disabled, and how we define the norms of mental and physical ability. The essays here bridge the gap between theory and activism by illuminating structures of power (...) and showing how historical and cultural perceptions of the human body have been informed by and contributed to the oppression of women and disabled people. (shrink)

This paper argues that since nonphysical souls lack a position in space, they cannot have the pairing relations that would allow them to interact with physical bodies. For example, if two rifles (A and B) are fired at the same time, and consequently Andy and Buddy are killed, we can only say that rifle A killed Andy while rifle B killed Buddy, rather than the other way around, if there are appropriate spatial relations (such as distance and orientation) that pair (...) Andy’s death to A’s firing, and Buddy’s death to B’s firing. But no such pairing relations are available to nonphysical minds that lack spatial positions altogether. And attributing spatial location to nonphysical souls raises more problems than it solves, such as how to find particular souls at particular locations, how souls taken to be geometric points in space could retain enough structure to have sufficient causal powers to influence bodies, and why spatial entities more robust than points shouldn’t simply be conceived of as exotic physical entities like astral bodies. -/- 1. The Problem -- 2. Descartes and Mental Causation -- 3. Causation and the “Pairing” Problem -- 4. Causation and Space -- 5. Can We Locate Souls in Space? (shrink)

Being robustly committed to state neutrality which does not permit the promotion of liberal-perfectionist ideals and denying that there is anything normatively relevant or ‘special’ about religion leaves liberal-egalitarians embroiled in a paradox. If religion is not special, how and why do liberal states afford it differential treatment (in comparison with non-religious analogues like secular doctrines or deeply-held beliefs of individual conscience)? This paper explores liberal-egalitarian strategies for resolving this paradox with predominant reference to the disaggregation strategy advanced by Cécile (...) Laborde. After discussing the novelty and advantages of disaggregation relative to other liberal-egalitarian strategies, the paper distinguishes between the coverage and the basis in justification of differential treatment to argue that disaggregation does not ultimately succeed in solving the latter. Despite this, reflecting on the clarifications achieved through disaggregation and the deeper issues of justification and justice emerging therefrom, the paper concludes by proposing the need to consider a lateral solution to the paradox and speculating on what this might look like. (shrink)

This article addresses the exclusivism–inclusivism debate about religious reasons in law within a justificatory liberal framework. The question of whether religious reasons have justificatory capacity for attaining public justification has increasingly been seen as a matter of how public justification is understood between two rival models: the consensus model being aligned with exclusivism, the convergence model with inclusivism. More recently, however, that alignment has been challenged with attempts to show that consensus can reach an equivalent degree of inclusivism as convergence. (...) Against this, I contend that the purported equivalence is misplaced. First, I identify a crucial ambiguity about public justification and two corresponding domains. Upon demonstrating these to be mutually independent and severable, I conclude that the moves to equalize the models are confined within the more narrow domain while, in the more fundamental domain, the choice of model continues to prove determinative as to the exclusivist or inclusivist valence of justificatory liberalism. (shrink)

The world is occupied by many and varied things. What constitutes their thingness? In the Essay, Locke addresses this question in Book II, Chapter xxiii, titled ‘Of our Complex Ideas of Substance’, wherein the much-contested definition of ‘substratum’ appears—‘a supposed but unknown support of the Qualities’. Most significant in this definition are the dual qualifiers that Locke uses: ‘supposed’ and ‘unknown’. This paper examines this two-qualifier definition, illuminating the historical and philosophical significance it may have. There have been two rival (...) readings. The first takes Locke’s substratum to be a bare substratum; and the second identifies it with what Locke terms as ‘real essence’—i.e. ‘a real Constitution of the insensible Parts’. Critically reviewing these two major interpretations, I attribute to Locke a type of functionalism, according to which the status of a substratum is determined by its functional role of ‘uniting’ a bundle of qualities into an individual substance. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 27 Heft: 2 Seiten: 289-297.

ABSTRACTThis study assessed the knowledge and perception of human biological materials and biorepositories among three study groups in South Korea. The relationship between the knowledge and the perception among different groups was also examined by using factor and regression analyses. In a self‐reporting survey of 440 respondents, the expert group was found more likely to be knowledgeable and positively perceived than the others. Four factors emerged: Sale and Consent, Flexible Use, Self‐Confidence, and Korean Bioethics and Biosafety Action restriction perception. The (...) results indicate that those who are well aware of the existence of biobanks were more positively inclined to receive the Sale and Consent perception. As a result of the need for high quality HBMs and the use of appropriate sampling procedures for every aspect of the collection and use process, the biorepository community should pay attention to ethical, legal, and policy issues. (shrink)