The essay discusses Donald Davidson’s concept of anomalous monism in the framework of Husserlian phenomenology. It develops in four stages. Section 1 is devoted to a critical presentation of the argument for anomalous monism. Section 2 succinctly examines those Husserlian notions that best provide the ground for a discussion parallel to Davidson’s. In Sect. 3, the aporetic status of “mental causation” is analyzed by providing a genetic-phenomenological account of efficient causation. Section 4 draws some general conclusions concerning the kind of (...) efficaciousness that must be attributed to consciousness and discusses the sense in which anomalous monism can be defended in a phenomenological framework, but not in a naturalistic one. (shrink)

Masked priming experiments occasionally revealed surprising effects: Participants responded slower for congruent compared to incongruent primes. This negative congruency effect was ascribed to inhibition of prime-induced activation [Eimer, M., & Schlaghecken, F. . Response faciliation and inhibition in subliminal priming. Biological Psychology, 64, 7–26.] that sets in if the prime activation is sufficiently strong. The current study tests this assumption by implementing manipulations designed to vary the amount of prime-induced activation in three experiments. In Experiments 1 and 3, NCEs were (...) observed despite reduced prime-induced activation. Experiment 2 revealed no NCE with at least similar prime strength. Thus, the amount of prime activation did not predict whether or not NCEs occurred. The findings are discussed with regard to the inhibition account and the recently proposed account of mask-induced activation [cf. Lleras, A., & Enns, J. T. . Negative compatibility or object updating? A cautionary tale of mask-dependent priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133, 475–493; Verleger, R., Jaskowski, P., Aydemir, A., van der Lubbe, R. H. J., & Groen, M. . Qualitative differences between conscious and nonconscious processing? On inverse priming induced by masked arrows. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133, 494–515]. (shrink)

This book addresses two related questions that have first arisen in Toulmin’s seminal book on the uses of argument. The first question is the one of the relationship between the semantic analysis of modality and the structure of arguments. The second question is the one of the distinctive place, or role, of modality in the fundamental structure of arguments. These two questions concern how modality, as a semantic category, relates to the fundamental structure of arguments. The book addresses modality and (...) argumentation also according to another perspective by looking at how different linguistic modal expressions may be taken as argumentative indicators. It explores the role of modal expressions as argumentative indicators by using the Italian modal system as a case study. At the same time, it uses predictions/forecasts in the business-financial daily press to investigate the relation between modality and the context of argumentation. (shrink)

Harrigan and Spekkens provided a categorization of quantum ontological models classifying them as \-ontic or \-epistemic if the quantum state \ describes respectively either a physical reality or mere observers’ knowledge. Moreover, they claimed that Einstein—who was a supporter of the statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics—endorsed an epistemic view of \ In this essay we critically assess such a classification and some of its consequences by proposing a twofold argumentation. Firstly, we show that Harrigan and Spekkens’ categorization implicitly assumes that (...) a complete description of a quantum system ) only concerns single, individual systems instantiating absolute, intrinsic properties. Secondly, we argue that such assumptions conflict with some current interpretations of quantum mechanics, which employ different ontic states as a complete description of quantum systems. In particular, we will show that, since in the statistical interpretation ontic states describe ensembles rather than individuals, such a view cannot be considered \-epistemic. As a consequence, the authors misinterpreted Einstein’s view concerning the nature of the quantum state. Next, we will focus on relational quantum mechanics and perspectival quantum mechanics, which in virtue of their relational and perspectival metaphysics employ ontic states \ dealing with relational properties. We conclude that Harrigan and Spekkens’ categorization is too narrow and entails an inadequate classification of the mentioned interpretations of quantum theory. Hence, any satisfactory classification of quantum ontological models ought to take into account the variations of \ across different interpretations of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Concretism is the ontological thesis according to which possibilia are concrete entities. The paper first outlines concretism, arguing that its sole founding thesis is that individuals across possible worlds are individuated by similitude. Among other things, this means that there is no need to postulate that there is no overlap among worlds. The main virtues and vices of concretism are then reviewed, and a novel vice is put forward: a failure in the reduction of modality due to the modal character (...) of intrinsicness. (shrink)

Can genetic testing and manipulation be done ethically? -- Is the use of human embryos in stem cell research ethical? -- Chapter 3:is assisted reproductive technology ethical?

Citizen science models of public participation in scientific research represent a growing area of opportunity for health and biomedical research, as well as new impetus for more collaborative forms of engagement in large-scale research. However, this also surfaces a variety of ethical issues that both fall outside of and build upon the standard human subjects concerns in bioethics. This article provides background on citizen science, examples of current projects in the field, and discussion of established and emerging ethical issues for (...) citizen science in health and biomedical research. (shrink)

As Dieter Lohmar (Citation2002; Citation2012) has shown, in the Logical Investigation Husserl sketches a peculiar type of reduction, the so-called “Reduktion auf den reellen Bestand.” Husserl does not explicitly put this kind of reduction forward, though, and he does definitely not clarify how it works, and what its elements properly are. Lohmar proposes to understand it as a kind of empiricist reduction to mere sense-data. On the contrary, I believe that it should be considered as entailing also the apprehensional forms (...) of sense-data, though not the so-called apprehensional senses. In this article, I will offer some arguments and textual evidence in favour of this claim, and I will conclude by proposing that, despite Husserl’s unclarity on the issue, the reduction to the real components of experience, rather than being simply an ancestor of the transcendental-phenomenological reduction, should be seen as the regulative model of all later forms of reduction. (shrink)

Logical form has always been a prime concern for philosophers belonging to the analytic tradition. For at least one century, the study of logical form has been widely adopted as a method of investigation, relying on its capacity to reveal the structure of thoughts or the constitution of facts. This book focuses on the very idea of logical form, which is directly relevant to any principled reflection on that method. Its central thesis is that there is no such thing as (...) a correct answer to the question of what is logical form: two significantly different notions of logical form are needed to fulfil two major theoretical roles that pertain respectively to logic and to semantics. This thesis has a negative and a positive side. The negative side is that a deeply rooted presumption about logical form turns out to be overly optimistic: there is no unique notion of logical form that can play both roles. The positive side is that the distinction between two notions of logical form, once properly spelled out, sheds light on some fundamental issues concerning the relation between logic and language. (shrink)

Gestational surrogacy is ethically complex, generating very different responses in law and policy worldwide. This paper argues that contemporary surrogacy law and policy, across many jurisdictions, fail to give sufficient attention to the significance of the relationship between the child and the gestational surrogate. This failure risks repeating the mistakes of historical, discredited approaches to adoption and donor‐assisted conception. This paper argues that proper recognition of the significance of gestation must be an organising principle in surrogacy law and policy. The (...) paper begins by pointing to examples of surrogacy law and practice where the role of the gestator is unacceptably minimised, most notably the framing of the surrogate as a mere ‘carrier’. It goes on to examine the nature of gestation, including consideration of contemporary scholarship on the metaphysics of pregnancy and emerging work in epigenetics, and argues that current evidence supports the view that the gestational relationship must be taken more seriously than it currently is. The paper then draws analogies with parenthood in donor‐assisted conception and adoption to argue that approaches to parental status in novel family formations that fail to promote transparency and seek to deny the truth of familial relationships are doomed to fail. The paper concludes by suggesting some implications for law and policy that flow from placing sufficient emphasis on the gestational role. The overarching thesis of this paper is that gestational surrogacy is ethically permissible when these fundamental requirements are adhered to, and that surrogacy law should proceed on this basis. (shrink)

This article, divided into two parts, traces and discusses two pairs of analogies invoked in Sanskrit literature to articulate the paradox of God’s oneness and multiplicity vis-à-vis the souls and the manifest world, reflecting the philosophical positions of pariṇāmavāda and vivartavāda. These are, respectively, the analogies of fire in wood and dairy products in milk, and moon/sun in pools of water and space in pots. Having introduced prevalent ideas about the status of the supreme principle vis-à-vis the souls and creation (...) in Śaivism, Sāṅkhya, and Vedānta, and having investigated instances of the first pair of analogies in multiple textual genres in Part I, here I turn to the discussion of the second set of analogies. Having proposed that the first set reflects the influence of pariṇāma-Vedānta on an early strand of the Śaiva textual corpus, I argue that the second set, attested prevalently in relatively late sources, betrays a Śaṅkarian origin, thereby suggesting a vivartavāda-Advaita Vedānta influence on the Śaiva corpus after the 9th or 10th century. (shrink)

Artists have been one of the occupational categories that has suffered the most from the economic crisis due to COVID-19. Artists’ “portfolio careers”, generally based on freelancing and self-employment not protected by regulations and welfare, are one of the main reasons of this financial emergency. Their odd forms of employment are rooted – among other things – in a peculiar understanding of artistic work, which I call artistic work exceptionalism (AWE). AWE sees artistic work as essentially different from regular jobs. (...) It finds its conceptual source in Western philosophical aesthetics, which presents the making of art in contrast with regular jobs. In this paper, I take issue with AWE and show its limits and negative implications. By placing emphasis on the heretofore neglected relationship between art and work, I argue that, in principle, creating art is (or should be regarded as) in continuity with other forms of employment, and therefore there is much to be learned from other professions at the level of artistic labor reforms. I call this view artistic work normalism (AWN). In defending AWN, my goal is not to desecrate artists’ occupation. Quite the contrary, my theoretical framework stems from a desire to recognize the social value of the arts. I propose two different approaches to the economics of art promoting artists’ well-being and the exercise of creativity: strengthened public art funding and the financialization of art. (shrink)

In this interview the philosopher Luce Irigaray discusses her book Through Vegetal Being. In response to questions, she distinguishes the human relationship to the environment and to other human beings. She describes how we must change our manner of relating to nature, beginning with our own: to learning how to coexist as a natural being among others instead of dominating the natural world. We must cultivate our instincts, free ourselves from traditions and elaborate a new education and sociocultural order and (...) it is then that we will perceive that we cannot share with plants and animals all that we can share with another human being. (shrink)

This paper examines how behavioral integration of top management teams may contribute to our understanding of how stakeholder initiatives become a part of a firm’s strategy. Multiple case design was used by conducting a series of interviews with the executive teams at three firms in the U.S. telecommunications industry.

Sons of Anarchy offers a weekly spectacle of arson, gun‐running, murder, kidnapping, drugs, blackmail, porn, prostitution, and sundry other violent activities, but it's the relationships that really drive the show. Sons of Anarchy exposes the bloody, misshapen core of the human condition. Applying a little Freudian philosophy to these Shakespearean characters can provide insight into some of the core questions raised by this epic television show, such as those on the defiant attitude of protagonists, their engagement in subversive criminal activities, (...) and chain‐smoking. To understand the inner dynamics of Jax's fixation for his mom, we first need to consider the three parts of the human psyche posited by Freud: the Id, Superego, and Ego. While SAMCRO works as an illustration of the Id conflicts among various protagonists manifest the struggle among the three elements of Freud's model of the psyche. (shrink)

Intellectual knowledge is omnipresent in human lives and decisions. We are constantly trying to make good and correct decisions. However, responsible decision-making is characterised by rather difficult epistemic conditions. It applies all the more during the pandemic when decisions require not only specialised knowledge in a number of disciplines, scientific consensus, and participants from different fields, but also responsibility and respect for moral principles in order to ensure that the human rights of all groups are observed. Pandemic measures are created (...) by politicians, healthcare policy-makers, and epidemiologists. However, what is the role of ethics as a moral philosophy and experts in ethics? Experts in ethics and philosophy are carefully scrutinising political decisions. Levy and Savulescu have claimed that Ethicists and philosophers are not epistemically arrogant if they question policy responses. They played an important role in the creation of a reliable consensus. This study analyses epistemic and moral responsibility, their similarities, analogies, and differences. Are they interconnected? What is their relationship and how can they be filled with actual content during the pandemic? (shrink)

‘Soul’, ‘self’, ‘substance’ and ‘person’ are just four of the terms often used to refer to the human individual. Cutting across metaphysics, ethics, and religion the nature of personal identity is a fundamental and long-standing puzzle in philosophy. Personal Identity and Applied Ethics introduces and examines different conceptions of the self, our nature, and personal identity and considers the implications of these for applied ethics. A key feature of the book is that it considers a range of different approaches to (...) personal identity; philosophical, religious, and cross-cultural, including perspectives from non-Western traditions. Within this comparative framework, Andrea Sauchelli examines the following topics: -Early views of the soul in Plato, Christianity, and Descartes -The Buddhist ‘no-self’ views and the self as a fiction -Confucian ideas of our nature and the importance of self-cultivation as constitutive of the self -Locke’s theory of personal identity as continuity of consciousness and memory and objections to Locke’s argument by Butler and Reid as well as contemporary critics -The theory of ‘animalism’ and arguments concerning embodied concepts of personal identity -Practical and narrative theories of personal identity and moral agency -Personal identity and issues in applied ethics, including abortion, organ transplantation, and the idea of life after death -Implications of life-extending technologies for personal identity. Throughout the book Sauchelli also considers the views of important recent philosophers of personal identity such as Sydney Shoemaker, Bernard Williams, Derek Parfit, Marya Schechtman, and Christine Korsgaard, placing these in helpful historical context. Chapter summaries, a glossary of key terms, and suggestions for further reading make this a refreshing, approachable introduction to personal identity and applied ethics. It is an ideal text for courses on personal identity that consider both Western and non-Western approaches and that apply theories of personal identity to ethical problems. It will also be of interest to those in related subjects such as religious studies and history of ideas. (shrink)

Philosophical cognitivists have argued for more than four decades that emotions are special types of judgments. Anti-cognitivists have provided a series of counterexamples aiming to show that identifying emotions with judgments overintellectualizes the emotions. I provide a novel counterexample that makes the overintellectualization charge especially vivid. I discuss neurophysiological evidence to the effect that the fear system can be activated by stimuli the subject is unaware of seeing. To emphasize the analogy with blind sight , I call this phenomenon blind (...) fright . Cognitivists may reply that blindfright is nothing but an unconscious judgment subcortically elicited. This reply is in line with the strategy commonly employed by cognitivists against their critics. I call it the Elastic Strategy, because it consists of ‘stretching’ the notion of judgment in order to accommodate counterexamples. This strategy, I argue, turns cognitivism into a theory that is at worst unfalsifiable and at best trivially true. The final portion of my article aims to rescue cognitivism from the damage done by the Elastic Strategy. I distinguish three varieties of cognitivism, one concerned with what emotions essentially are (Constitutive Cognitivism), one concerned with what causes emotions (Etiological Cognitivism) and one concerned with what emotions represent (Representational Cognitivism). I conclude that what cognitivism has to offer to emotion theory are primarily insights concerning the causes and representational content of emotions. The constitutive identification of emotions with judgments, on the other hand, does more harm than good. (shrink)

Andrea Sangiacomo offers a new understanding of Spinoza's moral philosophy, how his views significantly evolved over time, and how he himself struggled during his career to develop a theory that could speak to human beings as they actually are--imperfect, passionate, and often not very rational.

How did the relations between philosophy and science evolve during the 17th and the 18th century? This book analyzes this issue by considering the history of Cartesianism in Dutch universities, as well as its legacy in the 18th century. It takes into account the ways in which the disciplines of logic and metaphysics became functional to the justification and reflection on the conceptual premises and the methods of natural philosophy, changing their traditional roles as art of reasoning and as science (...) of being. This transformation took place as a result of two factors. First, logic and metaphysics were used to grant the status of indubitable knowledge of natural philosophy. Second, the debates internal to Cartesianism, as well as the emergence of alternative philosophical world-views progressively deprived such disciplines of their foundational function, and they started to become forms of reflection over given scientific practices, either Cartesian, experimental, or Newtonian. (shrink)

This paper aims at reconstructing the ethical issues raised by Spinoza's earlyTreatise on the Emendation of the Intellect. Specifically, I argue that Spinoza takes issue with Descartes’ epistemology in order to support a form of “ethical intellectualism” in which knowledge is envisaged as both necessary and sufficient to reach the supreme good. First, I reconstruct how Descartes exploits the distinction between truth and certainty in hisDiscourse on the Method. On the one hand, this distinction acts as the basis for Descartes’ (...) epistemological rules while, on the other hand, it implies a “morale par provision” in which adequate knowledge is not strictly necessary to practice virtue. Second, I show that Spinoza rejects the distinction between truth and certainty and thus the methodological doubt. This move leads Spinoza to substitute the Cartesian Cogito with the idea of God as the only adequate standard of knowledge, through which the mind can attain the rules to reach the supreme good. Third, I demonstrate that in theShort TreatiseSpinoza develops this view by equating intellect and will and thus maintaining that only adequate knowledge can help to contrast affects. However, I also insist that Spinoza's early epistemology is unable to explain why human beings drop conceive of the idea of God inadequately. Thus, I suggest that in his later writings Spinoza accounts for the insufficiency of adequate knowledge in opposing the power of the imagination and passions by reconnecting the nature of ideas with the mind's conatus. (shrink)

Abstract: According to the Veridicality Thesis, information requires truth. On this view, smoke carries information about there being a fire only if there is a fire, the proposition that the earth has two moons carries information about the earth having two moons only if the earth has two moons, and so on. We reject this Veridicality Thesis. We argue that the main notions of information used in cognitive science and computer science allow A to have information about the obtaining of (...) p even when p is false. (shrink)

A recent article (Núñez et al., 2019) claims that cognitive science, while starting off as a multidisciplinary enterprise, has “failed to transition to a mature inter‐disciplinary coherent field.” Two indicators reported in support of this claim target one of the two journals of the Cognitive Science Society, Cognitive Science, depicting cognitive science as an increasingly monodisciplinary subfield which is dominated by psychology. With a focus on the society's other journal, Topics in Cognitive Science, the present commentary reveals a greater degree (...) of interdisciplinarity and discusses the relative values of diversity and integration for the field. (shrink)

By virtue of what do alarm calls and facial expressions carry natural information? The answer I defend in this paper is that they carry natural information by virtue of changing the probabilities of various states of affairs, relative to background data. The Probabilistic Difference Maker Theory of natural information that I introduce here is inspired by Dretske's [1981] seminal analysis of natural information, but parts ways with it by eschewing the requirements that information transmission must be nomically underwritten, mind-independent, and (...) knowledge-yielding. PDMT includes both a qualitative account of information transmission and a measure of natural information in keeping with the basic principles of Shannon's communication theory and Bayesian confirmation theory. It also includes a new account of the informational content of a signal, understood as the combination of the incremental and overall support that the signal provides for all states of affairs at the source. Finally, I compare and.. (shrink)

International Relations scholars have been reluctant to engage with questions of friendship in the international system. This may be a consequence of the predominance of (neo)realism in IR and its implications – to view the international arena as an anarchic, self‐help system, where states are trapped in the security dilemma. However, over the last six decades, some regions have overcome the security dilemma and states have constructed peaceful relationships based on mutual trust and confidence, resembling friendship at the interstate level. (...) Building upon securitization theory, this essay distinguishes between different perceptions that states may have of their own security, and links them with different types of regional peace. It proposes a two‐phase process whereby relationships may move from negative to positive peace, suggesting different mechanisms for each phase. It illustrates this model by examining the Argentine–Brazilian détente of the late 1970s and the determination to build a zone of positive peace in Latin America’s Southern Cone. (shrink)

Until is a notoriously difficult temporal operator as it is both existential and universal at the same time: A∪B holds at the current time instant w iff either B holds at w or there exists a time instant w' in the future at which B holds and such that A holds in all the time instants between the current one and ẃ. This “ambivalent” nature poses a significant challenge when attempting to give deduction rules for until. In this paper, in (...) contrast, we make explicit this duality of until by introducing a new temporal operator ∇ that allows us to formalize the “history” of until, i.e., the “internal” universal quantification over the time instants between the current one and ẃ. This approach provides the basis for formalizing deduction systems for temporal logics endowed with the until operator. For concreteness, we give here a labeled natural deduction system N(LTL∇) for a linear-time logic LTL∇ endowed with the new history operator. We show that LTL∇ is equivalent to the linear temporal logic LTL with until, which follows by formalizing back and forth translations between the two logics. We also define an indirect translation from LTL∇ into LTL via temporal logics with past operators; such a result provides an upper bound to the problem of satisfiability for LTL∇ formulas. (shrink)

That the maximization of quality-adjusted life years violates concerns for fairness is well known. One approach to face this issue is to elicit fairness preferences of the public empirically and to incorporate the corresponding equity weights into cost-utility analysis (CUA). It is thereby sought to encounter the objections by means of an axiological modification while leaving the value-maximizing framework of CUA intact. Based on the work of Lübbe (2005, 2009a, 2009b, 2010, forthcoming), this paper questions this strategy and scrutinizes the (...) concomitant assumptions concerning the nature of prioritization decisions. Empirical studies indicate that these premises are in fact unwarranted. People chose a certain resource allocation because they perceive it as a fair way to treat the persons concerned, not because it maximizes something valuable, and it is questionable if prioritization decision can be represented as value-maximizing choices at all. This reflection on the fundamental distinction between deontological and consequentialist reasoning bears general implications for the scope of ‘economic imperialism.’. (shrink)

Several attempts have been made previously to provide a biological grounding for cognitive architectures by relating their components to the computations of specific brain circuits. Often, the architecture's action selection system is identified with the basal ganglia. However, this identification overlooks one of the most important features of the basal ganglia—the existence of a direct and an indirect pathway that compete against each other. This characteristic has important consequences in decision-making tasks, which are brought to light by Parkinson's disease as (...) well as genetic differences in dopamine receptors. This paper shows that a standard model of action selection in a cognitive architecture cannot replicate any of these findings, details an alternative solution that reconciles action selection in the architecture with the physiology of the basal ganglia, and extends the domain of application of cognitive architectures. The implication of this solution for other architectures and existing models are discussed. (shrink)

This paper reviews the uneven history of the relationship between Anthropology and Cognitive Science over the past 30 years, from its promising beginnings, followed by a period of disaffection, on up to the current context, which may lay the groundwork for reconsidering what Anthropology and (the rest of) Cognitive Science have to offer each other. We think that this history has important lessons to teach and has implications for contemporary efforts to restore Anthropology to its proper place within Cognitive Science. (...) The recent upsurge of interest in the ways that thought may shape and be shaped by action, gesture, cultural experience, and language sets the stage for, but so far has not fully accomplished, the inclusion of Anthropology as an equal partner. (shrink)

Drawing on a pluralist approach to mindreading, I explore Direct Social Perception with respect to perceiving the emotional states of people that we are close to, such as spouses, friends, and family. I argue that in general, emotions are embodied and can be perceived directly. I further claim that perceptual content includes concepts. That is, I argue against a non-conceptual view of emotion recognition, claiming instead that we learn emotional concepts by attending to certain expressive patterns of emotions. This view (...) implicates that we can directly perceive both basic and non-basic emotions of people we are close to. (shrink)

Human genetic research databases cast a new light on the controversial issue of which uses of the human body are morally permissible. More specifically, banking human tissue raises issues relating to the ownership of the samples that the participants have donated, to the ownership of the data that are derived through processing the donated samples, and to the management arrangements that better balance the interest of genetic research with the protection of participants' rights. Winickoff & Winickoff suggest that the charitable-trust (...) model is a superior legal arrangement for biobanking compared with private biobanking. This paper critically assesses Winickoff & Winickoff's claim by highlighting some areas of implementation where such a model could be problematic. The charitable trust is certainly an advantageous arrangement because (1) it favors the separation between control and use of the samples, (2) it provides a procedural mechanism that facilitates the participation donor groups in the biobank management and (3) it mediates the different interests that are affected. On the other hand, the charitable-trust model leaves unresolved several issues--among them the ownership of the sample, the right of withdrawal, access and funding mechanism. I conclude that further theoretical and empirical analysis is required in the area. (shrink)