L’enjeu de cet article est de défendre l’internalisme de Bernard Williams à propos de la raison pratique, en adoptant un point de vue différent de ce qui se fait habituellement dans la littérature. Les expériences de pensée impliquant des « excentriques idéalement cohérents » sont généralement présentées dans ce débat comme un argument majeur contre l’internalisme. Je conteste ce point et montre que nos intuitions concernant de telles figures impliquent en réalité une compréhension internaliste de la notion (...) de raisons d’agir. À cette fin, je suggère d’étendre la conception de Williams par une conception internaliste orientée sur le locuteur relativement à la signification des ascriptions de raisons externes. (shrink)

SUPPORTERS of a coherentist standard of truth must be able to establish that this criterion is duly consonant with the definitional nature of truth, for there ought rightfully to be a continuity between our evidential criterion of acceptability-as-true and the "truth" as definitionally specified. Any satisfactory criterion must be such as to yield the real thing--at any rate in sufficiently favorable circumstances. Fortunately for coherentism, it is possible to demonstrate rigorously that truth is tantamount to ideal coherence--that a proposition's being (...) true is in fact equivalent with its being optimally coherent with an ideal data base. Given that the preceding continuity requirement is satisfied, the traditional view of truth as accord with fact is thus also available to coherentists. However, the element of idealization at issue means that we cannot claim that coherence provides us with unqualified truth in actual practice. The coherence-based inquiries we actually carry out, can go only so far as to afford our best available estimate of the real truth. (shrink)

Probabilistic coherence is not an absolute requirement of rationality; nevertheless, it is an ideal of rationality with substantive normative import. An idealized rational agent who avoided making implicit logical errors in forming his preferences would be coherent. In response to the challenge, recently made by epistemologists such as Foley and Plantinga, that appeals to ideal rationality render probabilism either irrelevant or implausible, I argue that idealized requirements can be normatively relevant even when the ideals are unattainable, so long as they (...) define a structure that links imperfect and perfect rationality in a way that enables us to make sense of the notion of better approximations to the ideal. I then analyze the notion of approximation to the ideal of coherence by developing a generalized theory of belief functions that allows for incoherence, and showing how such belief functions can be ordered with regard to greater or lesser coherence. (shrink)

Bayesians defend norms of ideal rationality such as probabilism, which they claim should be approximated by non-ideal thinkers. Yet, it is not often discussed exactly in what sense it is beneficial for an agent’s credence function to approximate probabilistic coherence. Some existing research indicates that approximating coherence leads to improvements in accuracy, whereas other research suggests that it decreases Dutch book vulnerability. Yet, the existing results don’t settle whether there is a way of approximating coherence that delivers both benefits at (...) once. We show that there is. (shrink)

In discussions surrounding epistemology and rationality, it is often useful to assume an agent is rational or ideally rational. Often, this ideal rationality assumption is spelled out along the following lines: -/- 1. The agent believes everything about a situation which the evidence entitles her to believe and nothing which it does not. -/- 2. The agent believes all the logical consequences of any of her beliefs. -/- 3. The agent knows her own mind: if she believes P, she believes (...) that she believes P; and if she doesn't believe P, she believes that she doesn't believe P. -/- 4. The agent believes nothing of the form 'P and it is not the case that P.' -/- 5. If an agent's background belief-set satisfies 1-4 and if rationality requires the agent to add P to her belief-set, then the resulting belief-set will also satisfy 1-4. -/- While individually plausible, there are cases in which holding on to 1-5 generates paradox. Some resolve such paradoxical cases by granting 1-5 but arguing while ideally rational agents can exist, they can't possibly ever find themselves in such a situation: such case descriptions are epistemically incoherent. Others allow that rational agents can coherently find themselves in such odd circumstances, and argue that it's more reasonable to weaken our concept of ideal rationality and give up premise (2) above. However, this strategy has also been rejected. My aim in this paper is to defend the utility of positing an ideally rational agent in such paradoxical circumstances. I argue in such cases we should give up (2), in particular the assumption that (necessarily) if an ideally rational agent believes both P and the conditional, if P then Q, then she believes Q.. What's important is to hold on to the goal of positing ideal rationality: to maximize the amount of true or probably true information a thinker can justifiably believe in a given circumstance. Normally that will mean holding on to (2), but these unusual paradoxical cases are best handled by giving up (2). (shrink)

A coherent story is a story that fits together well. This notion plays a central role in the coherence theory of justification and has been proposed as a criterion for scientific theory choice. Many attempts have been made to give a probabilistic account of this notion. A proper account of coherence must not start from some partial intuitions, but should pay attention to the role that this notion is supposed to play within a particular context. Coherence is a property of (...) an information set that boosts our confidence that its content is true ceteris paribus when we receive information from independent and partially reliable sources. We construct a measure cr that relies on hypothetical sources with certain idealized characteristics. A maximally coherent information set, i.e. a set with equivalent propositions, affords a maximal confidence boost. cr is the ratio of the actual confidence boost over the confidence boost that we would have received, had the information been presented in the form of maximally coherent information, ceteris paribus. This measure is functionally dependent on the degree of reliability r of the sources. We use cr to construct a coherence quasi-ordering over information sets S and S’: S is no less coherent than S’ just in case c_r is not smaller than c_r for any value of the reliability parameter. We show that, on our account, the coherence of the story about the world gives us a reason to believe that the story is true and that the coherence of a scientific theory, construed as a set of models, is a proper criterion for theory choice. (shrink)

Formal epistemologists often claim that our credences should be representable by a probability function. Complete probabilistic coherence, however, is only possible for ideal agents, raising the question of how this requirement relates to our everyday judgments concerning rationality. One possible answer is that being rational is a contextual matter, that the standards for rationality change along with the situation. Just like who counts as tall changes depending on whether we are considering toddlers or basketball players, perhaps what counts as rational (...) shifts according to whether we are considering ideal agents or creatures more like ourselves. Even though a number of formal epistemologists have endorsed this type of solution, I will argue that there is no way to spell out this contextual account that can make sense of our everyday judgments about rationality. Those who defend probabilistic coherence requirements will need an alternative account of the relationship between real and ideal rationality. (shrink)

What is it to have and act on a personal ideal? Someone who aspires to be a philosopher might imaginatively think “I am a philosopher” by way of motivating herself to think hard about a philosophical question. But doing so seems to require her to act on an inaccurate self-description, given that she isn’t yet what she regards herself as being. J. David Velleman develops the thought that action-by-ideal involves a kind of fictional self-conception. My aim is to expand our (...) thinking about personal ideals by developing another way of understanding them. On this view action-by-ideal involves a kind of metaphorical self-conception. I investigate some salient differences between these views with the aim of understanding the different perspectives they take on the rationality of action-by-ideal. Where the fiction view runs into problems of literary coherence, the metaphor view exploits the richness of poetic invention. But action-by-ideal is a complex phenomenon about which there may be no tidy story to be told. This paper is an attempt to clarify and understand more of this messy terrain. (shrink)

What should we do when we won't do as we ought? Suppose it ought to be that the procrastinating professor accept the task of reviewing a book, and actually review the book. It seems clear that given he won't review it, he ought not to accept the task. That is a genuine moral obligation in light of less than perfect circumstances. I want to entertain the possibility that a set of such obligations form something like a 'practical morality'; that which (...) we ought to do given that we're unlikely or unwilling to do much of what ideal morality demands. If it is possible to give a coherent account of these kinds of obligations, then it is possible to entertain the idea that these obligations are in fact what morality demands. The conceptual truths about justice (good, right, fairness) that come from ideals are one thing; the actions that morality demands of people given their actual circumstances are quite another. In this paper I will ask about the kinds of facts that can be used to establish a more circumscribed set of obligations than we get from the orthodox view about moral obligation. (shrink)

We construct a probabilistic coherence measure for information sets which determines a partial coherence ordering. This measure is applied in constructing a criterion for expanding our beliefs in the face of new information. A number of idealizations are being made which can be relaxed by an appeal to Bayesian Networks.

The author introduces a normative conception of coherence, derived from a pragmatic interpretation of the application of norms to concrete cases. A distinction is made between the justification of a norm and its application. In the case of moral norms, justification and application can be analysed as two different discursive procedures which give rise to different aspects of the principle of impartiality. Impartial justification requires a procedure by which all interests concerned are taken into account whereas impartial application requires a (...) procedure where all features of a situation are considered. The complete description of a concrete case makes necessary a coherent interpretation of all the valid norms which are prima facie applicable. This requirement of an ideal coherent system of norms is restricted to interpretive “paradigms” in the case of legal norms, because it is necessary to produce singular judgments under the restrictive conditions of scarce time and incomplete knowledge. (shrink)

A number of social theorists have contended that the essence of historical analysis is the employment of ideal types to comprehend past goings-on. But, while acknowledging that the study of history through ideal types can yield genuine insight, we may still ask if it represents the full emancipation of historical understanding from other modes of conceiving the past. This paper follows Michael Oakeshott's work on the philosophy of history in arguing that explaining the historical past by means of ideal types, (...) even though offering a coherent and fruitful enterprise, nevertheless falls short of fully embodying the characteristics that differentiate historical understanding. -/- This dispute involves fundamental issues regarding the nature of the social sciences. Furthermore, I suggest that it is of more than purely theoretical interest, in that social theorists who have accepted the Weberian view of historical inquiry will tend to be unaware of the defects inherent in all attempts to capture the nature of past events in a net of generalizations, and thus may be lead to ignore the inherent partiality of the understanding of historical happenings provided by ideal typification. (shrink)

I present evidence for a systematic complexity-coherence tradeoff in cognition. I show how feasible strategies for increasing cognitive complexity along three dimensions come at the expense of a heightened vulnerability to incoherence. I discuss two normative implications of the complexity-coherence tradeoff: a novel challenge to coherence-based theories of bounded rationality and a new strategy for vindicating the rationality of seemingly irrational cognitions. I also discuss how the complexity-coherence tradeoff sharpens recent descriptive challenges to dual process theories of cognition.

There is some audacity in adding to the formidable list of articles onPythian2, which raise the questions of the structure or thematic coherence of the ode, of its specific occasion and of its relation to Pindar's biography. In this paper my aim is the circumscribed one of showing how a correct analysis of the final section of the poem can lead us to a better understanding of the nature of Pindar's poetry, and of the way in which he adapts his (...) laudatory stance to the circumstances and status of the addressee. (shrink)

Angelica Nuzzo offers a comprehensive reconstruction of Kant's theory of sensibility in his three Critiques. By introducing the notion of "transcendental embodiment," Nuzzo proposes a new understanding of Kant's views on science, nature, morality, and art. She shows that the issue of human embodiment is coherently addressed and key to comprehending vexing issues in Kant's work as a whole. In this penetrating book, Nuzzo enters new terrain and takes on questions Kant struggled with: How does a body that feels pleasure (...) and pain, desire, anger, and fear understand and experience reason and strive toward knowledge? What grounds the body's experience of art and beauty? What kind of feeling is the feeling of being alive? As she comes to grips with answers, Nuzzo goes beyond Kant to revise our view of embodiment and the essential conditions that make human experience possible. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Idealizing Hume Alan Hausman and David Hausman Hume's explanation of our belief in the continuing existence of unperceived bodies is notoriously elusive.1 Stroud, for example, despairs that it is difficult to see how Hume's elaborate discussion of the constancy and coherence of perceptions explains the origin of the idea of continuing existence, let alone our belief that there are continually existing things.2 Yet Stroud, careful as he is, does (...) not spot the key to the problem. It is not merely that constancy and coherence, the mainstays ofHume's four-part system, are obscure; rather, there is, we shall argue, a hidden assumption in the discussion which necessitates the construction of the system that embodies that obscurity. This hidden assumption is Hume's implicit idealism. That idealism,we shall show,fashionstheentirediscussionin"Ofscepticism with regard to the senses," as well as key passages in his discussion of the derivation of the idea of the self. Its main influence is on Hume's claims concerning the place of causal reasoning in forming our belief in continued existence. Once that influence is understood, Hume's theory ofcausation can itselfbe seen in a new light. Early in the Treatise, it does not seem as ifthere will be a problem in explaining beliefin the continuing existence ofindependent, thatis, unperceived, bodies. We readily suppose an object may continue individually the same, tho' severaltimesabsentfrom andpresenttothe senses; andascribe to itOn identity, notwithstanding the interruption of the perception, whenever we conclude, that if we had kept our eye or hand constantly upon it, it wou'd have convey^ an invariable and uninterrupted perception. But this conclusion beyond the impressions ofour senses can be founded only on the connexion ofcause and effect; nor can we otherwise have any security, that the object is not chang"d upon us, however much the new object may resemble that which was formerly present to the senses. Whenever we discover such a perfect resemblance, we consider, whether it be common in that species of objects; whether possibly or probably any cause cou'd operate in producing the change and resemblance; and according as we determine concerning these causes and effects, we form our judgment concerning the identity of the object. Volume XVIII Number 2 209 ALAN HAUSMAN AND DAVID HAUSMAN Here then it appears, that ofthose three relations, which depend not upon the mere ideas, the only one, that can be trac'd beyond our senses, and informs us of existences and objects, which we do not see or feel, is causation. (T 74) What is Hume committing himself to here? It certainly seems to be that,ifthereiscausal reasoninggoingonviathe principle ofassociation ofcausation in the cases he cites, itis done upon the observation ofthe constant conjunctions of physical objects and events. Furthermore, if we considercausation as aphilosophical relation, wehave here genuine constant conjunctions which would justify the belief that physical objects exist unperceived.3 Granted that sometimes we associate causally on the basis of*bad' constant conjunctions, there is no prima facie reason to think that this case is one of them. Given these implications, the knowledgeable reader of Hume must be taken somewhat aback; this does not sound like the arch sceptic of all time talking. Yet there are no qualifying passages around the onejust cited. Hume now embarks on his long analysis ofthe causal relation. He then turns, in the section "Ofscepticism with regard to the senses," to a detailed explanation of our belief in the continuing existence of unperceived bodies. He uses as one illustration a fire that one observes, after leaving one's chamber then returning, to have changed in the interim. Since we are accustomed in other instances to seeing the fire burn down, we here reason from what he calls the coherence of the change to the beliefthat the fire existed when we were not in the room. We have in the past observed five log fires burn down to four log fires and then to three log fires. We light a five log fire, leave the room, and return to a three log fire. Using coherence as our guide, we reason that there was a four log fire in the interim. What sort of reasoning... (shrink)

A number of formal epistemologists have argued that perfect rationality requires probabilistic coherence, a requirement that they often claim applies only to ideal agents. However, in “Rationality as an Absolute Concept,” Roy Sorensen contends that ‘rational’ is an absolute term. Just as Peter Unger argued that being flat requires that a surface be completely free of bumps and blemishes, Sorensen claims that being rational requires being perfectly rational. When we combine these two views, though, they lead to counterintuitive results. If (...) being rational requires being perfectly rational, and only the probabilistically coherent are perfectly rational, then this indicts all ordinary agents as irrational. In this paper, I will attempt to resolve this conflict by arguing that Sorensen is only partly correct. One important sense of ‘rational’, the sanctioning sense of ‘rational’, is an absolute term, but another important sense of ‘rational’, the sense in which someone can have rational capacities, is not. I will, then, show that this distinction has important consequences for theorizing about ideal rationality, developing an account of the relationship between ordinary and ideal rationality. Because the sanctioning sense of ‘rational’ is absolute, it is rationally required to adopt the most rational attitude available, but which attitude is most rational can change depending on whether we are dealing with ideal agents or people more like ourselves. (shrink)

... View (i) The Thesis of Essential Contestedness The view that freedom and other ideals such as justice are essentially contested is important, ...

In the methodology of theory construction, the concept of "intuitions" is commonly assigned a central role. This is especially true of philosophical and social scientific theories or rational human agency. An equally important trait of such accounts is the theorist's employment of "ideal models" or rational agency. It is frequently supposed that the concept of intuitions and the concept of ideal models link in such a way as to give rise to a coherent and load-bearing notion of "objective normativity." This (...) paper shows, with reference to a wide range of contemporary theories, that the employment of ideal models is otiose, and that the supposedly related concept of objective normativity is groundless. (shrink)

Foraging for coherence is a pragmatist philosophy of the brain. It is a philosophy anchored to objects and instrumental in understanding the brain. Our age is dominated by neuroscience. A critical common sense underlies inquiry including that of neuroscience. Thus a pragmatist orientation to neuroscience is about foraging for coherence; not overselling neuroscience. Foraging for coherence is the search for adaptation – diverse epistemic orientation tied ideally to learning about oneself, one’s nature, and one’s history in the context of learning (...) about the brain. Neuroscience is about us: Our desires, habits, styles of reason, human vulnerability, and abuse. The language of the neuron, or the gene, or the systems does not replace the discussion about us as the person, in the social and historical context. (shrink)

There is some audacity in adding to the formidable list of articles on Pythian 2, which raise the questions of the structure or thematic coherence of the ode, of its specific occasion and of its relation to Pindar's biography. In this paper my aim is the circumscribed one of showing how a correct analysis of the final section of the poem can lead us to a better understanding of the nature of Pindar's poetry, and of the way in which he (...) adapts his laudatory stance to the circumstances and status of the addressee. (shrink)

This paper deals with the questions of whether the law should be coherent and what this coherence would amount to. In this connection so‐called “integrated coherentism” is introduced. According to integrated coherentism, an acceptance set is coherent if and only if it contains everything that should rationally be accepted according to what else one accepts and does not contain anything that should rationally be rejected according to what else one accepts. Such an acceptance set is ideally a theory of everything, (...) including amongst others standards for rational aceptance. On the assumption that the law, as a social phenomenon, is what the best theory about the law says it is, the law must be coherent, because the best theory of the law is part of an integratedly coherent theory of everything. This view is compatible with Raz's view that the law stems from different sources that need not be coherent in the sense that they consistently elaborate the same underlying principles or policies. Raz's view is not a consequence of integrated coherentism, however. (shrink)

This paper contains a novel and coherent reading of Weberian ideal type construction, based on recent philosophical approaches to conceptual engineering. This reading makes transparent the dialectics of Weber's approach, resulting in a more nuanced interpretation of his methodological work. It will become apparent that Weber, when introducing his notion of an ideal type, did not merely summarize his views on methodology in the social sciences, but, rather, presented a two-step argument in favor of these views. The reconstruction will directly (...) bear on issues in the methodology of the social sciences. Weber not only presented a methodology that is, at some level of abstraction, strikingly similar to Carnapian explication (the canonical point of reference in the contemporary debate on conceptual engineering). He also diagnosed, in a systematic fashion, types of problems we face when dealing with ordinary and scientific concepts that play a key role in the description of social reality, and he foreshadowed what is today sometimes described as “debunking” projects. From a philosophy of science perspective, I propose Weber's view (on the reconstruction proposed here) as a serious candidate for an adequate theory of concept replacement in the social sciences. (shrink)

Central to the legal positivism of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century was the dogma of the Ideal Legislator. Legal materials were to be interpreted as the work of an omniscient, coherent, consistent legislator. We argue that this dogma persists in the different guise of the competent speaker model, on which legal materials are the work of a competent speaker, who follows all the pertinent semantic and pragmatic rules. We will first lay out the Ideal Legislator (...) dogma as applied in legal interpretation, arguing that this dogma does not limit interpretive discretion but rather amplifies it by hiding it under the veil of an inexistent, purely instrumental rationality. We will then turn to the competent speaker model, showing that, despite its apparent neutrality, it proves to be a reincarnation of the Ideal Legislator dogma, for it, too, amplifies interpretive discretion, only it hides it under the veil of an inexistent, purely linguistic rationality. Finally, we will inquire into the different types of rationality and their relations, arguing that there is always a choice and value judgment involved in ascribing rationality to legislators, and that these choices and judgments need to be carefully inspected and normatively justified. (shrink)

This article reports on research that examines newly qualified UK nurses’ experiences of implementing their ideals and values in contemporary nursing practice. Findings are presented from questionnaire and interview data from a longitudinal interpretive study of nurses’ trajectories over time. On qualification nurses emerged with a coherent and strong set of espoused ideals around delivering high quality, patient‐centred, holistic and evidence‐based care. These were consistent with the current UK nursing mandate and had been transmitted and reinforced throughout their ‘prequalification’ programmes. (...) The existence of professional and organisational constraints influenced their ability to implement these ideals and values once in practice. Data analysis revealed that within 2 years in practice the newly qualified nurses could be categorised as sustained idealists, compromised idealists, or crushed idealists. The majority experienced frustration and some level of ‘burnout’ as a consequence of their ideals and values being thwarted. This led to disillusionment, ‘job‐hopping’ and, in some cases, a decision to leave the profession. These data are explored and discussed to inform the question of whether the current nursing mandate is sustainable. (shrink)

Central to the legal positivism of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century was the dogma of the Ideal Legislator. Legal materials were to be interpreted as the work of an omniscient, coherent, consistent legislator. We argue that this dogma persists in the different guise of the competent speaker model, on which legal materials are the work of a competent speaker, who follows all the pertinent semantic and pragmatic rules. We will first lay out the Ideal Legislator (...) dogma as applied in legal interpretation, arguing that this dogma does not limit interpretive discretion but rather amplifies it by hiding it under the veil of an inexistent, purely instrumental rationality. We will then turn to the competent speaker model, showing that, despite its apparent neutrality, it proves to be a reincarnation of the Ideal Legislator dogma, for it, too, amplifies interpretive discretion, only it hides it under the veil of an inexistent, purely linguistic rationality. Finally, we will inquire into the different types of rationality and their relations, arguing that there is always a choice and value judgment involved in ascribing rationality to legislators, and that these choices and judgments need to be carefully inspected and normatively justified. (shrink)

We propose a reformulation of the ideal $\mathcal {N}$ of Lebesgue measure zero sets of reals modulo an ideal J on $\omega $, which we denote by $\mathcal {N}_J$. In the same way, we reformulate the ideal $\mathcal {E}$ generated by $F_\sigma $ measure zero sets of reals modulo J, which we denote by $\mathcal {N}^*_J$. We show that these are $\sigma $ -ideals and that $\mathcal {N}_J=\mathcal {N}$ iff J has the Baire property, which in turn is equivalent to (...) $\mathcal {N}^*_J=\mathcal {E}$. Moreover, we prove that $\mathcal {N}_J$ does not contain co-meager sets and $\mathcal {N}^*_J$ contains non-meager sets when J does not have the Baire property. We also prove a deep connection between these ideals modulo J and the notion of nearly coherence of filters (or ideals). We also study the cardinal characteristics associated with $\mathcal {N}_J$ and $\mathcal {N}^*_J$. We show their position with respect to Cichoń’s diagram and prove consistency results in connection with other very classical cardinal characteristics of the continuum, leaving just very few open questions. To achieve this, we discovered a new characterization of $\mathrm {add}(\mathcal {N})$ and $\mathrm {cof}(\mathcal {N})$. We also show that, in Cohen model, we can obtain many different values to the cardinal characteristics associated with our new ideals. (shrink)

All of us have personal ideals. We are committed to being good (enough) friends, parents, neighbors, teachers, citizens, human beings, and more. In this paper, I examine the thick and thin aspects of these ideals: (i) their substance (to internalize an ideal is to endorse a particular way of being) and (ii) their accountability to reason (to internalize an ideal is to assume that this is really a good way to be). In considering how these two aspects interact in the (...) ideal of rational agency, I address two philosophical debates that are generally conducted in isolation of each other: (i) debates over the anti-ideal of normative “fetishism” and (ii) debates over whether acting for a reason is acting “under the guise of the good.” In the final two sections of the paper, I further explore the relations among the thick and the thin. I note the role that coherence constraints play in the process whereby our ideals gain determinacy. At the same time, I argue, our ideals constrain the possibility and desirability of coherence. This has implications for a third debate: the debate over the possibility of moral dilemmas. (shrink)

Orthodox Bayesianism is a highly idealized theory of how we ought to live our epistemic lives. One of the most widely discussed idealizations is that of logical omniscience: the assumption that an agent’s degrees of belief must be probabilistically coherent to be rational. It is widely agreed that this assumption is problematic if we want to reason about bounded rationality, logical learning, or other aspects of non-ideal epistemic agency. Yet, we still lack a satisfying way to avoid logical omniscience within (...) a Bayesian framework. Some proposals merely replace logical omniscience with a different logical idealization; others sacrifice all traits of logical competence on the altar of logical non-omniscience. We think a better strategy is available: by enriching the Bayesian framework with tools that allow us to capture what agents can and cannot infer given their limited cognitive resources, we can avoid logical omniscience while retaining the idea that rational degrees of belief are in an important way constrained by the laws of probability. In this paper, we offer a formal implementation of this strategy, show how the resulting framework solves the problem of logical omniscience, and compare it to orthodox Bayesianism as we know it. (shrink)

Visual working memory (VWM) refers to the temporary storage and manipulation of visual information. Although visually different, objects we view and remember can share the same higher-level category information, such as an apple, orange, and banana all being classified as fruit. We study the influence of category information on VWM, focusing on the question of whether stimulus category coherence (i.e., whether all to-be-remembered items belong to the same semantic category) influences VWM performance. This question is addressed in two behavioral experiments (...) using a change-detection paradigm and a rational analysis using an ideal observer based on a Bayesian model. Both experimental participants and the ideal observer often, but not always, performed numerically better on coherent trials (i.e., when all stimuli belonged to the same category). We hypothesize that the influence of category coherence information on VWM may be task-dependent and/or stimulus-dependent. In conditions when category coherence information is highly valuable for task performance, as indicated by the ideal observer, then participants tended to make use of it. However, when the ideal observer suggested this information was not crucial to performance, participants did not. In addition, both participants and the ideal observer showed a bias toward responding “same,” and often showed a stronger influence of category coherence on change trials. The consistencies between participant and ideal observer responses suggest participants often behaved as they did because these behaviors are optimal (or approximately so) for maximizing task performance. This may help explain conflicting results reported in the scientific literature. (shrink)

One of the central debates within contemporary Anglo-American political philosophy concerns how to formulate an egalitarian theory of distributive justice which gives coherent expression to egalitarian convictions and withstands the most powerful anti-egalitarian objections. This book brings together many of the key contributions to that debate by some of the world’s leading political philosophers: Richard Arneson, G.A. Cohen, Ronald Dworkin, Thomas Nagel, Derek Parfit, John Rawls, T.M. Scanlon, and Larry Temkin.

The hypothesis that there are connections between the „visibility of the ideal of truth” and the quality of scientific knowledge, is defended in this article. Deep and important scientific results are associated with „truth as manifestatio” and - on the other hand - trivial, inessential discoveries are associated with the coherence theory of truth.

Steve Biko is one of the most important liberation activists of his time. Yet, his theoretical contribution is not well understood or appreciated. This article reconstructs Biko’s political ideas and introduces a new integrated reading and interpretation of his writings, speeches, and recorded interviews. It argues that Biko’s Black consciousness ideal should not only be read as engaging an activist movement or programme but, also, as encompassing an original theoretical framework grounded in a communalist ethos of Biko’s own conceptual development. (...) It argues that Biko’s Black consciousness ideal sought to relate racialised oppression to a historically centred communalist solution framed by two interlocking structural elements—rightful power and free community. The article argues that only by a theoretical and normative consideration of these elements, on Biko’s own conceptual terms, do we get a coherent understanding of Biko’s distinctive view of free postcolonial society. (shrink)

One of the deepest and longest-lasting debates in ethics concerns a version of the Euthyphro question: are choiceworthy things choiceworthy because agents have certain attitudes toward them or are they choiceworthy independent of any agents’ attitudes? Reasons internalists, such as Bernard Williams, Michael Smith, Mark Schroeder, Sharon Street, Kate Manne, Julia Markovits, and David Sobel answer in the first way. They think that all of an agent’s normative reasons for action are grounded in facts about that agent’s pro-attitudes (e.g., her (...) desires, valuing states, normative judgments). According to the most popular brand of internalism, idealizing internalism, an agent’s reasons are grounded, not in her actual pro-attitudes, but rather in what her pro-attitudes would be in suitably idealized conditions. Idealizing internalists presuppose that, for any agent with an irrational set of attitudes, there is one uniquely rational set that that agent would have if she were to undergo the relevant idealizing process. I argue that this assumption is false and that it raises two puzzles for idealizing internalism: one about the existence of practical reasons and another about their normative weight. I argue that idealizing internalists have an adequate solution to the first puzzle but not the second. Indeed, when they try to solve the second puzzle, they confront a dilemma. This second puzzle and the associated dilemma thus constitutes a powerful, but so far unnoticed, difficulty for idealizing internalism. (shrink)

:A qualified pluralism is defended that recognizes value in a variety of forms of political theory and resists arguments that purport to show that one particular approach should occupy a privileged position. Against realists, it is argued that abstract analyses of political values that bracket a wide range of facts about people and their circumstances can be both coherent and important, whereas against those who think “ideal theory” or the identification of ultimate principles should come first, it is argued that (...) the case for always giving priority to either one of these is weak. (shrink)

This chapter identifies the combination of radical ethical claims and psychological holism as a second distinctive feature of Stoic and Epicurean thought about the self. The main ethical claims are that all human beings can achieve happiness by rational reflection and virtue, that happiness involves time-independent perfection of character, and that only the wise are fully coherent ethically and psychologically. The chapter suggests that Stoic and Epicurean ethical ideals were both influenced by Socrates but in quite different ways. It argues (...) that Stoics and Epicureans combine these radical ethical claims with a holistic conception of psychology. This can be contrasted with the Platonic-Aristotelian division of the personality into distinct parts, such as reason and emotion or desire. It also discusses some examples of ‘quasi-dualism’ in Stoicism and Epicureanism, in which seemingly dualistic psychological language is employed for ethical purposes. (shrink)

RESUMO:A hipótese desenvolvida nos leva a confrontar três textos do corpusrousseauísta: o Segundo Discurso, Júlia ou A Nova Heloísa e o extrato do Primeiro Diálogo, em que há a ficção do mundo ideal, textos que, apesar do seu estatuto genérico diferente, estão em coerência e convergência teórica. Desejamos evidenciar um aspecto da unidade problemática do pensamento de Rousseau concernente à abordagem crítica da sociedade de seus contemporâneos e sua concepção do papel das Letras e dos Espetáculos. A preocupação do filósofo (...) é de refundar a natureza humana, a fim de lançar as bases de uma nova organização social. Nessa empreitada, a ficção desempenha um papel crucial, o prefácio do Segundo Discurso o comprova: para bem conhecer o homem atual, deve-se supor o que ele não é mais. O homem do estado de natureza, ser de ficção, cujas paixões são retas e naturais, é o modelo teórico que reativa a sociedade dos seres ideais de Júlia. Dessa forma, a ficção é chamada a desempenhar um papel referencial fundamental para o pensamento social e político de Rousseau, aparecendo como um poderoso meio de ação sobre o público. O romance pode reeducar os povos corrompidos, pois, assim como o teatro, como denuncia a Carta a d’Alembert, possui os meios para perverter uma sociedade tida como virtuosa. ABSTRACT:The hypothesis that we will develop leads us to confront three texts of Rousseau’s corpus: the Second Discourse, Julie, and the extract of the First Dialogue that speaks of the pedagogical fiction of the ideal world. These three texts, despite their different types, are theoretically coherent and convergent. We intend to highlight an aspect of the problematic unity of Rousseau’s thought, an aspect which concerns his contemporaries’ critical approach to society and Rousseau’s conception of the role of letters and spectacles. Rousseau’s concern is to refound human nature in order to lay the basis of a new social organization. In this effort, fiction plays a decisive role, as the preface to the Second Discourse affirms: in order to know modern man, we must consider a hypothesis about what he no longer is. Man in the state of nature, a fictional being whose passions are right and natural, is the theoretical model that reactivates the society of ideal beings in Julie. For Rousseau, fiction is called upon to play a fundamental referential role for social and political thought, and it appears as a powerful means of action on the public. The novel can reeducate depraved peoples, because, like the theater, it also has the means to pervert a so-called virtuous society. (shrink)

Examines four objections stemming from the clash of theory and intuition. It argues that the ‘detached school’ should, with minor modifications, continue to provide the basis for the liberal educational ideal. Section 3.1 addresses concerns about state tyranny, arguing that the detached school both counters the threat of parental tyranny and ensures a substantive pluralism among schools and within society. Section 3.2 shows that detached schools can promote effective parental involvement. Section 3.3 addresses the hidden curriculum of schools, while Section (...) 3.4 discusses the ability of the detached school to help children develop cultural coherence and a stable sense of identity as well as a capacity for choice. (shrink)

When should we judge that a person is leading or has led a happy life? By what standard? What legitimate criticism can be brought to bear on individual ideals? ;I argue that we have three conceptions of longterm happiness: the contentment conception , the affirmation conception , and the justified affirmation conception . The relation between them is one of inclusion. All three have been proposed as ideals: as candidates for . Evaluative happiness is a comprehensive good, i.e., sufficient for (...) realizing the good life. ;The happy life is one in which a person is disposed to affirm his or her life justifiaby. So the best standard of justification, consistent with our concept of a person and affirmation, will provide the best account of evaluative happiness. ;To affirm one's life is to judge that it is good: that one's important desires are satisfied and successful , and to be satisfied as a consequence. The capacity for affirmation is necessary for personhood, i.e., every person holds some individual ideal. ;Contentment is possible without affirmation. So the contentment conception is inadequate as a conception of evaluative happiness. ;Coherence is a minimal requirement for any adequate standard of justification. Affirmation is consistent with incoherence. So the affirmation conception is not defensible. ;Rationality is necessary for realizing the good life. The subjectivist standard of justification is too strong and/or too weak . Subjectivism is thus discredited. ;I argue for an account of happiness as rational affirmation. This standard is neither subjective nor objective . There are some things one has reason to value if one values anything: the goods of rational affirmation. Every person holds some individual ideal. So every person has reason to value the goods of rational affirmation. ;'Radical objectivism' is incoherent: there could be no good objective standard of justification. What is important is what is important to persons. (shrink)

In Ideal Code, Real World, Brad Hooker attempts to breathe new life into rule-consequentialism, a view which, particularly in its utilitarian guise, was intensively explored in the 1950s and 1960s. But as Hooker points out, as the problems with the view compounded, it became generally thought of as a ‘tried and untrue’ approach to moral theory. It is commonly believed for instance that any coherent version of R-C, when fully fleshed out, will be extensionally equivalent to its act-consequentialist cousin, thus (...) not a distinctive view. Again, views featuring ideal codes are often criticized for being in some sense too ideal because, for example, they involve unrealistic assumptions about human cognition and motivation. Hooker’s book, based partly on some of his published articles, carefully develops a non-utilitarian version of R-C that responds to these and other objections thus making it a serious contender among normative moral theories now on offer. (shrink)

Nel Noddings is arguably one of the premier philosophers of moral education in the English‐speaking world today. Although she is outside the mainstream theory, research, and practice traditions of cognitive‐developmentalism (the Kohlberg legacy) and of character education (which is in public ascendancy), her body of work is unrivalled for originality of insight, comprehensiveness and coherence. Whilst Carol Gilligan's In a different voice (1982) introduced the ethic of caring into academic and public discourse, it is Noddings ‘who has done most to (...) outline a specific feminist position on moral education’ (McClellan, 1999, p. 104), and whose influence extends to educational practice. This essay explicates Noddings's vision in sufficient depth to make the foregoing claims credible. Thematic focus is given to her attention to the ethical self or ethical ideal. The paper also examines Noddings's perspective on character education and the need to incorporate a morality of evil into any serious educational philosophy or practice. It is less a critical appraisal of that vision and perspective than an invitation to others to more fully engage with Noddings's writings.1. (shrink)

This article examines some arguments in favor of taking peace as a political obligation that can be found in one of the most important founders of the pacifist movement, Jane Addams. The main focus is on her 1907 book Newer Ideals of Peace, which has often been read as idealistic and outdated, and above all, as more of an activist’s manifesto than a serious contribution to either political philosophy or political theory. I point out that this owes much to an (...) ambiguity of Addams’ criticisms of the traditional and Kantian cosmopolitan defense of peace as a political ideal, the ambiguity between practical-political and conceptual problems. However, Addam’s succeeds in identifying one profound problem for traditional, even enlightended institution-centered ideals of peace, the collapse of the very ideal in cases of breaches of explicit peace-agreements among nations, because breaches of agreements are tantamount to the loss of all commitment to the other nation’s rights. It reveals that the conditions imposed by such ideals are at most necessary, but not sufficient for peace, and hence that the concept based on them is not a complete concept of lasting peaceful conditions among humans. Once it is seen as dedicated to resolving the problems entailed by this fundamental problem, Addams’ work, and in particular her focus on resources of solidarity and right-granting practices beyond and outside explicit agreements between governments can be understood as the development of a more adequate, coherent and comprehensive, while also a more actionable conception of peace. In the course of this development, Addams can also be observed to make use of crucial epistemological and more technical philosophical tools that are most closely associated with classical pragmatism, but which partly appear (albeit largely obliquely in the course of their application to a particular case) for the first time Addams’ treatise. Addams’ work is therefore of more than merely political activist interest for philosophers. Nonetheless, the article also explains her status as an important contributor to proper conceptions of world peace and the understanding of certain phenomena in the organization of public will formation precisely by pointing out that without some of her future-oriented proposals, like the inseparability of peace-policies and development, or the need to institutionally protect and foster spontaneous solidary action, the best contemporary work on peace would not have been possible. (shrink)

During the 1840s and the 1850s botanist Joseph Hooker developed distinct notions about the proper characteristics of a professional man of science. While he never articulated these ideas publicly as a coherent agenda, he did share his opinions openly in letters to family and colleagues; this private communication gives essential insight into his and his X-Club colleagues' public activities. The core aspiration of Hooker's professionalization was to consolidate men of science into a dutiful and centralized community dedicated to national well-being. (...) The nation in turn owed the scientific community for its ministration. When the government bestowed funds and status on men of science it was rewarding science -- not purchasing it. His proposed reforms were piecemeal, immediate, and above all practical. He harbored no taste for vast millenarian transformation, and rested his conception of scientific professionalism upon a respectable High Victorian foundation of patronage and pillars of duty, reciprocity, intimacy, and inequality. The process of professionalization he envisioned was as much shrewd compromise between existing interests as a vindication of principle. His power and prestige from the mid-1850s onward gave him considerable ability to carry out his reform program, although his general success did occasion some undesired consequences for the status of natural-history pursuits. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Deification through the Cross:Reflections from an Implied Ideal WorshiperAndrew J. SummersonKhaled Anatolios's most recent book, Deification through the Cross,1 develops a definition of salvation out of his experience of the Byzantine liturgy. This experience of worship offers an immersion in what he calls "doxological contrition." By this, Anatolios means that Christ saves us by offering us the ability to participate in the mutual glorification of the persons of the (...) Holy Trinity by vicariously repenting for our sins. For Anatolios, this objective content is subjectively appropriated in Byzantine Christian worship. To explore this theme, Anatolios develops a working account of "doxological contrition" through a synthetic discussion of the Lenten Triodion and Pentecostarion, books of liturgical hymnography that govern the Byzantine worship from Lent to Pentecost. Anatolios derives his approach from the adaption of reader response theory, which aims to expose the effect a text should have on the "implied ideal reader." As such, his account speaks from the perspective of the "implied ideal worshiper"—presumably a theologically educated congregant who can seize these themes that evaporate into the ether as quickly as incense swung throughout the church during the services.Let me say from the outset, I heartily recommend Anatolios's book. It is both an ambitious work and a rewarding read. Ambitious because Anatolios's approach makes otherwise fragmented theological disciplines—liturgical [End Page 1089] studies, Scripture, historical theology, and systematics—fruitful dialogue partners in his exposition of a working account of the Christian experience of salvation. Rewarding because the reader can explore in depth the touchstones of the Christian tradition through Anatolios's deep retrieval of a more coherent soteriology. Deification of the Cross demonstrates the perennial value of historical theology to correctly account for the "half-forgotten, half misunderstood" details of the Christian tradition in the face of caricatures that at best misrepresent and at worst present an idolatrous, counterfeit Christianity.Eastern Christian Liturgy and RevelationPerhaps I am not Anatolios's ideal audience; I may be too close to the source material and lack objectivity. That aside, the bulk of my reflections on this book comes from the perspective of an "implied ideal worshiper." I do share some of Anatolios starting points. Like Anatolios, I am a convert, scholar, and Eastern Catholic priest. Furthermore, I also share the discontent with which Anatolios begins his book, though perhaps for different reasons. He bemoans a loss of the experience of salvation. My own vocation as priest and scholar comes out of a frustrated wonder. As a college student, I set out to learn about this Church and its Tradition. I learned about the Sunday experience I was supposed be having. It was in university when I read for the first time John Paul II's 1995 apostolic letter Orientale Lumen, written to acquaint the wider Catholic Church with the riches of the Christian East. John Paul II dedicated much reflection to the "genius of Eastern liturgy," emphasizing its power to envelop all our human senses into the fullness of the mystery of God. It is worth quoting in full:Within this framework, liturgical prayer in the East shows a great aptitude for involving the human person in his or her totality: the mystery is sung in the loftiness of its content, but also in the warmth of the sentiments it awakens in the heart of redeemed humanity. In the sacred act, even bodiliness is summoned to praise, and beauty, which in the East is one of the best loved names expressing the divine harmony and the model of humanity transfigured, appears everywhere: in the shape of the church, in the sounds, in the colors, in the lights, in the scents. The lengthy duration of the celebrations, the repeated invocations, everything expresses gradual identification with the mystery celebrated with one's whole person. Thus the prayer of the Church already becomes participation in the heavenly liturgy, an anticipation of the final beatitude.(§11) [End Page 1090]The experience of this liturgy has been quite potent throughout history. It led to the baptism of the entire kingdom of Rus' in 988 AD. As the story goes, its ruler, Vladimir the Great, sent emissaries to find a... (shrink)

Accuracy-first epistemologists argue that rational agents have probabilistically coherent credences. But why should we care, given that we can’t help being incoherent? A common answer: probabilistic coherence is an ideal to be approximated as best one can. De Bona (in: Philos Sci 84(2), 189–213, 2017) and Staffel (in: Unsettled thoughts: a theory of degrees of rationality, Oxford University Press, 2019) show how accuracy-firsters can spell out this answer by adopting an appropriate notion of approximate coherence. In this essay, I argue (...) that De Bona and Staffel’s proposal is not entirely satisfactory, because it does not show whether, or why, it’s generally better to be more rather than less approximately coherent from an accuracy-first perspective. To address this point, I give a characterisation of their notion of approximate coherence in terms of accuracy. This shows that accuracy-firsters should maintain that more approximately coherent credences are better than less approximately coherent ones _if and only if_ they accept that it’s better to miss out on less rather than more guaranteed accuracy. (shrink)

Since the 1990s, there has been a growing tendency to interpret Diderot as a radical who first put into question absolutism in the Encyclopédie and then became a fierce opponent of any kind of ‘despotism’, even the ‘enlightened’ one, and a fervent partisan of democratic revolutions in the 1770s. It is argued here that the narrative that cuts Diderot’s life into different phases obscures continuities in his political thought, and misrepresents partly the political vision he had in the 1770s. Diderot’s (...) political thought may have been more coherent than usually acknowledged, and this coherence is to be found in his ideal of a paternalistic monarchy taking advice from its subjects and respecting their rights, that is the constitution of the realm. This idea is not to be mixed up with a democratic programme of government by the people, nor with the endorsement of political change via a revolution. Rather, when towards the end of his life Diderot lost hope that the constitutional order of the French monarchy would be respected, he both feared civil war and hoped that these tumults might bring about the regeneration of the French monarchy. This vision derived from a classical cyclic view of history. (shrink)

Professor Konvitz’s introduction to Emerson has not been recorded here, and this lecture appears incomplete. For Emerson, Professor Konvitz asserts, man’s mind is prior to the natural world and that world is as man perceives it. Nature, Emerson tells us, appears chaotic until the human mind begins to classify it, to understand its laws, and to provide coherence. As man understands and experience expands, the world expands for him.