Boarding school is a major educational option for many students (e.g., students living in remote areas, or whose parents are working interstate or overseas, etc.). This study explored the motivation, engagement, and achievement of boarding and day students who are educated in the same classrooms and receive the same syllabus and instruction from the same teachers (thus a powerful research design to enable unique comparisons). Among 2,803 students (boardingn= 481; dayn= 2,322) from 6 Australian high schools and controlling for background (...) attributes and personality, we found predominant parity between boarding and day students in their motivation, engagement, and achievement. We also found that classroom-average motivation, engagement, and achievement was not significantly affected by the number of boarders (relative to day students) in the classroom. In addition, the effects of boarding were generally not moderated by students’ background or personality attributes. We conclude that boarders have academic opportunities and outcomes that are comparable to their day student counterparts. Implications for students, teachers, and parents are discussed. (shrink)

In a recent BioEssays paper [W. F. Martin, BioEssays 2017, 39, 1700115], William Martin sharply criticizes evolutionary interpretations that involve lateral gene transfer into eukaryotic genomes. Most published examples of LGTs in eukaryotes, he suggests, are in fact contaminants, ancestral genes that have been lost from other extant lineages, or the result of artefactual phylogenetic inferences. Martin argues that, except for transfers that occurred from endosymbiotic organelles, eukaryote LGT is insignificant. Here, in reviewing this field, we seek to correct some (...) of the misconceptions presented therein with regard to the evidence for LGT in eukaryotes. A recent paper dismisses claims of lateral gene transfer into eukaryotic genomes. We counter the arguments made in that paper and discuss the extensive evidence for LGT in eukaryotes. (shrink)

In order to introduce protists to philosophers, we outline the diversity, classification, and evolutionary importance of these eukaryotic microorganisms. We argue that an evolutionary understanding of protists is crucial for understanding eukaryotes in general. More specifically, evolutionary protistology shows how the emphasis on understanding evolutionary phenomena through a phylogeny-based comparative approach constrains and underpins any more abstract account of why certain organismal features evolved in the early history of eukaryotes. We focus on three crucial episodes of this history: the origins (...) of multicellularity, the origin of sex, and the origin of the eukaryote cell. Despite ongoing uncertainty about where the root of the eukaryote tree lies, and residual questions about the precise endosymbioses that have produced a diversity of photosynthesizing eukaryotes, evolutionary protistology has illuminated with considerable clarity many aspects of protist evolution. Our main message in light of evolutionary protistology is that these ‘other eukaryotes’ are in fact the organisms through which the rest of the eukaryotes should be understood. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Keith Hutchison has advanced the thesis that the Mechanical Philosophy represents a shift towards supernaturalism in our conception of the physical world. This paper concentrates on one of the great problems of seventeenth-century biological theory — animal generation — to illustrate (and modify) Hutchison's thesis, thereby also serving to locate one role of the life sciences in the Scientific Revolution. This choice of focus enables us to draw heavily on Jacques Roger's seminal work on animal (...) generation to illuminate the change that occurs, within the Mechanical Philosophy, between Descartes and Malebranche. Once the necessary distinctions have been drawn, it is argued, it will be seen that (in one important sense) this is a shift from naturalism to supernaturalism, brought about largely by problems native to the life sciences. (shrink)

Depue & Collins's (D&C's) work relies on extrapolation from data obtained through studies in experimental animals, and needs support from studies of the role of dopamine (DA) neurotransmission in human behaviour. Here we review evidence from two sources: (1) studies of patients with Parkinson's disease and (2) positron emission tomography (PET) studies of DA neurotransmission, which we believe lend support to Depue & Collins's theory, and which can potentially form the basis for a true neurochemistry of personality.

St. Thomas Aquinas preaches in his sermon Puer Iesus, "Just as your father begot you bodily, your teacher begot you spiritually." St. Thomas himself has been blessed with prodigious fecundity through the centuries for his teaching in the Holy Spirit. Always, he leads us to think of the Blessed Trinity and all things from God's own view. With new insights into St. Thomas's spiritual teaching in its sources, context, breadth, wisdom, and influences, Thomas Aquinas as Spiritual Teacher presents chapters inspired (...) by an international conference cosponsored by the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal at Ave Maria University and the Thomistic Institute of the Dominican House of Studies. The volume, like its conference, honors Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, OP, adjunct secretary of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, for his dedication to the spiritual teaching of St. Thomas in several decades of service to the Church and the academy. Luis F. Cardinal Ladaria, SJ, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, contributed the volume's foreword. Contributors to this book include: Serge-Thomas Bonino, OP; Romanus Cessario, OP; Therese Scarpelli Cory; Michael A. Dauphinais; Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, OP; Bishop Daniel E. Flores; Wojciech Giertych, OP; Andrew Hofer, OP; Luis F. Cardinal Ladaria, SJ; Dominic Legge, OP; Steven A. Long; Roger W. Nutt; Michael Root; Daria Spezzano; Thomas Weinandy, OFM, Cap.; and Thomas Joseph White, OP-- Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Expert skill in music performance involves an apparent paradox. On stage, expert musicians are required accurately to retrieve information that has been encoded over hours of practice. Yet they must also remain open to the demands of the ever-changing situational contingencies with which they are faced during performance. To further explore this apparent paradox and the way in which it is negotiated by expert musicians, this article profiles theories presented by Roger Chaffin, Hubert Dreyfus and Tony and Helga Noice. (...) For Chaffin, expert skill in music performance relies solely upon overarching mental representations, while, for Dreyfus, such representations are needed only by novices, while experts rely on a more embodied form of coping. Between Chaffin and Dreyfus sit the Noices, who argue that both overarching cognitive structures and embodied processes underlie expert skill. We then present the Applying Intelligence to the Reflexes (AIR) approach?a differently nuanced model of expert skill aligned with the integrative spirit of the Noices? research. The AIR approach suggests that musicians negotiate the apparent paradox of expert skill via a mindedness that allows flexibility of attention during music performance. We offer data from recent doctoral research conducted by the first author of this article to demonstrate at a practical level the usefulness of the AIR approach when attempting to understand the complexities of expert skill in music performance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:LUBLIN THOMISM 1 THE TEXTS of the philosophers associated with the Catholic University of Lublin, thanks to the tireless work and energy of an editorial board under bhe direction and support of Marie Lescoe, are at last appearing in English.2 'Dhe Lublin school is Thomist in inspiration and avowed adherence. It is Thomist, however, in a manner which makes liberal use of the works of Continental philosophers in the (...) phenomenological and "existentialist" traditions: hence the label, "existential personaiism." 3 A supplementary label of this sort is needed if we are to include within the Lublin school the work of one of its most iIIustrious members, Karol Wojtyia, whose writings employ the phenomenological method, eschew scholastic argument, and acknowledge a chief indebtedness to Max Scheler. Even the more recognizably scholastic Lublin philosophers, such as Mieczylaw Krapiec, O.P., President -Rector of the University, whose I-Man is the first complete book to be translated and printed in English, quote Roman Ingarden generously, speak familiarly about man as Being-towards-death, and discuss religion and culture in terms of intentionality. 1 Mieczylaw A. Krapiec, O.P., I-Man (New Britain: Mariel Press, 1983); (an abridged, student edition of I-11.fon-Mariel Press, 1985-is now available also); Karol Wojtyla, The Acting Person, (Boston: D. Reidel, 1979); Edmund Morawiec, "L'Objet et La Tache de la Philosophie Chretienne" in J. N. Zycinski, ed., The Human Person and Philosophy in the Contemporary World (Krakow: The Pontifical Faculty of Theology, 1980). 2 It may interest readers to know that a Chinese translation of I-Man is in preparation. The project is coordinated by Dr. Audrey Donnithorne involving the collaboration of Louis Chow and Matthias Lu. s Of. Andrew Woznicki, A Christian Humanism; Karol Wojtyla's Existential Personalism, and Ronald F. Lawler, The Christian Personalism of John Paul II (Fransciscan Herald Press, 1981). 307 308 ROGER DUNCAN Just because of their deep indebtedness to and immersion in Continental philosophy, it is important to begin by stating what the Lublin philosophers are not. They are not, first of all, phenomenologists or existentialists in the strict sense, by which I mean they do not hold the sceptical epistemological premises usually associated with these labels. Existentialists deny the classical doctrine of truth according to which truth is the adaequatio ad rern of the intellect. Instead they maintain that when I look at, say, an egg, and say to myself, " Here I am, one being among others like this egg here ", I am being naive because I have not yet seen that the distinction between myself and the egg arises within t:he phenomenal field and therefore cannot be uncritically assumed in an account of knowing. The subject-object distinction, they say, is not one more distinction between objects, like that between the egg and the chicken it came from; it cannot be understood as an intellectual grasp of one individual substance by another individual substance. For this reason, according to the existentialists, we must not think of knowledge as an overcoming of the isolation of self-consciousness, but rather as the origination of a distinction, a negative act identical with that of selfconsciousness in its self-transcendence. Awareness of the egg is not a grasp of the egg in itself so much as a self-conscious mitosis which incidentally constitutes the egg as object.4 The realist answer, as Chesterton said, is that eggs are eggs. The fact that the distinction between the egg and the chicken appears within consciousness, and that the subject can see a similarity with the distinction btween himself and the egg,.provides no argument for the unreality of either distinction unless you assume from the start that intentional objectification falsifies or fails to reach being " in itself". But this is a decision, not an a.rgument. Of course once you make it all kinds of curious and very deep condusions follow, conclusions which the Lublin Thomists deny. 4 Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology (New York: Philosophical Library, 1956), p. 174; Karl Rahner, Spirit in the World (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), p. 75. LUBLIN THOMISM 309 Nevertheless, it does not seem advisable to have to... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Thomas Aquinas and the Crisis of Christology ed. by Michael A. Dauphinais, Andrew Hofer, O.P., and Roger W. NuttJ. David MoserThomas Aquinas and the Crisis of Christology edited by Michael A. Dauphinais, Andrew Hofer, O.P., and Roger W. Nutt (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2021), ix + 422 pp.This volume is a collection of papers presented at the "Thomas Aquinas and the Crisis of (...) Christology" conference at the Aquinas Center of Ave Maria University in Ave Maria, Florida, in February 2020. Dozens of papers were presented at the conference; this volume contains many of the plenary papers and the two keynote addresses given by Bruce Marshall and Thomas Joseph White, O.P.The title, especially the term "crisis," has multiple meanings in the essays. On the one hand, some of them address the crisis in contemporary Christology. For example, Michael Dauphinais draws on Aquinas's theology of participation to pose what he sees as a better alternative to Richard Rohr's The Universal Christ. As Dauphinais shows, Rohr's popular Christology conflates Incarnation and creation as one and the same reality. Through careful exegesis of Aquinas's Commentary on John, Dauphinais argues that the Incarnation must be distinct as a unique act of God, and thus decidedly not the same as creation (253). On the other hand, as J. Augustine DiNoia observes in his foreword, the term "crisis" comes from the Greek krisis, or "judgment" (ix). Christ's judgment of all human beings emerges as a persistent theme in the volume. So Andrew Hofer's introduction explores Aquinas's teaching on Christ's judgment of teachers of the faith, noting the implications for theologians who hold the office of teacher. Marshall's and Daria Spezzano's essays are powerful accounts of Christ's role as judge. Both diagnose contemporary crises of faith over which we will be judged and remind us that the Lord Jesus judges to save those who love him. These essays read almost like sermons, and they deserve careful attention when [End Page 1435] Christ's judgment seems irrelevant in an age when God can only be thought to be winsome and nice.Some of the essays contribute to ongoing Thomistic scholarly debates. The vexed question of how to understand the esse secundarium in article 4 of Aquinas's De unione verbi incarnati receives two essays: one by Roger Nutt and the other by Steven A. Long. Nutt argues that Aquinas did not reverse his teaching on the single esse of Christ in the De unione. He observes that Aquinas uses the terms principale and secundarium to manifest "the ultimate unity of composite realities," and thus secundarium esse is not "second esse" in the order of being (87). Like Nutt, Long argues that Aquinas is consistent in his position on Christ's singular esse. He invokes a wide array of interpretive and metaphysical arguments in a mere nine pages. Though they do not resolve the problem (at least in my view: how could an esse distinct from another esse be numerically the same esse, as they would have to be for Christ to have one esse?), they are useful contributions to the ongoing interpretation of Aquinas on this point.Similarly, Christ's human knowledge in Aquinas's theology and Catholic doctrine gets two essays. White expands on prior work on this topic and argues that Christ maintained consciousness of his filial identity prior to the resurrection. As usual, he does careful work deploying the insights of Catholic doctrine in conversation with biblical studies. Simon Francis Gaine expands on his argument in Did the Saviour See the Father? Christ, Salvation and the Vision of God by arguing that a divine person does not need to have the beatific vision to be incarnate. He contrasts metaphysical necessity with soteriological necessity; Christ needed to have the beatific vision to give it to us, but he did not need it as a necessary consequence of being incarnate. It would be interesting to see Gaine and other Thomists interact with John Duns Scotus's argument that Christ could be incarnate without the beatific vision, or highest possible grace (Ordinatio III, d. 13). Scotus, in my... (shrink)

Recent history makes clear that the quantum leaps being made in technology are the leading edge of a groundswell of paradigm shifts taking place in science, politics, economics, social institutions, and the expression of cultural values. Indeed it is the simultaneity and interdependence of these changes occurring in every dimension of human experience and endeavor that makes the present so historically distinctive. The essays gathered here give voice to perspectives on the always improvised relationship between technology and cultural values from (...) Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Pacific. Contributors: Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas, Roger T. Ames,Yoko Arisaka, Carl Becker, Francesca Bray, James Buchanan, Arindam Chakrabarti, Frank W. Derringh, Rolf Elberfeld, Charles Ess, Andrew Feenberg, Susantha Goonatilake, H. Jiuan Heng, Peter Hershock, Thomas P. Kasulis, George Khushf, David Farrell Krell, Joel J. Kupperman, William R. LaFleur, Lois Ann Lorentzen, David Loy, Joseph Margolis, Hans-Georg Möller, Robert Cummings Neville, Peimin Ni, Monica Atieno Opole, Kuruvilla Pandikattu SJ, Helen Petrovsky, Ramon Sentmartí, Kristin Shrader-Frechette, Vasanthi Srinivasan, Marietta Stepaniants, Vyacheslav S. Stiopin, Henk ten Have, Paul B.Thompson, Mary Tiles, David B.Wong. (shrink)

We take welfarism in moral theory to be the claim that the well-being of individuals matters and is the only consideration that fundamentally matters, from a moral point of view. We argue that criticisms of welfarism due to G.E. Moore, Donald Regan, Charles Taylor and Amartya Sen all fail. The final section of our paper is a critical survey of the problems which remain for welfarists in moral theory.

A series of essays on the development of medicine in the century of the Enlightenment, illustrating the decline in the role of religion in medical thinking, and the increased use of reason.

Tumour‐associated genetic changes frequently involve DNA translocation or deletion. Many of these events will have arisen from initial genomic damage, induced by either the activity of endogenous metabolic processes or from exposure to environmental genotoxic agents. Although initial genomic damage will have been widely distributed, tumorigenic events are confined to certain DNA target sites. Furthermore, within these target sites there appear to be regions of preferential DNA rearrangement, and examination of these sites implies that the location and extent of such (...) rearrangement may be influenced by DNA primary and secondary structure rather than simply by the point of damage. We selectively review evidence relating to DNA structures that may predispose certain regions of the genome to damage‐induced rearrangement, and discuss the possible role of interstitial, inverted telomere‐like sequence arrays in promoting chromosomal events of a type known to be associated with some human and animal tumours. (shrink)

Combinatory logic and lambda-conversion were originally devised in the 1920s for investigating the foundations of mathematics using the basic concept of 'operation' instead of 'set'. They have now developed into linguistic tools, useful in several branches of logic and computer science, especially in the study of programming languages. These notes form a simple introduction to the two topics, suitable for a reader who has no previous knowledge of combinatory logic, but has taken an undergraduate course in predicate calculus and recursive (...) functions. The key ideas and basic results are presented, as well as a number of more specialised topics, and man), exercises are included to provide manipulative practice. (shrink)

We investigated, experimentally, the contention that the folk view, or naïve theory, of time, amongst the population we investigated is dynamical. We found that amongst that population, ~ 70% have an extant theory of time that is more similar to a dynamical than a non-dynamical theory, and ~ 70% of those who deploy a naïve theory of time deploy a naïve theory that is more similar to a dynamical than a non-dynamical theory. Interestingly, while we found stable results across our (...) two experiments regarding the percentage of participants that have a dynamical or non-dynamical extant theory of time, we did not find such stability regarding which particular dynamical or non-dynamical theory of time they take to be most similar to our world. This suggests that there might be two extant theories in the population—a broadly dynamical one and a broadly non-dynamical one—but that those theories are sufficiently incomplete that participants do not stably choose the same dynamical theory as being most similar to our world. This suggests that while appeals to the ordinary view of time may do some work in the context of adjudicating disputes between dynamists and non-dynamists, they likely cannot do any such work adjudicating disputes between particular brands of dynamism. (shrink)

Introduction Combinatory logic deals with a class of formal systems designed for studying certain primitive ways in which functions can be combined to form ...

Some postcolonial theorists argue that the idea of a single system of belief known as "Hinduism" is a creation of nineteenth-century British imperialists. Andrew J. Nicholson introduces another perspective: although a unified Hindu identity is not as ancient as some Hindus claim, it has its roots in innovations within South Asian philosophy from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. During this time, thinkers treated the philosophies of Vedanta, Samkhya, and Yoga, along with the worshippers of Visnu, Siva, and Sakti, as (...) belonging to a single system of belief and practice. Instead of seeing such groups as separate and contradictory, they re-envisioned them as separate rivers leading to the ocean of Brahman, the ultimate reality. Drawing on the writings of philosophers from late medieval and early modern traditions, including Vijnanabhiksu, Madhava, and Madhusudana Sarasvati, Nicholson shows how influential thinkers portrayed Vedanta philosophy as the ultimate unifier of diverse belief systems. This project paved the way for the work of later Hindu reformers, such as Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan, and Gandhi, whose teachings promoted the notion that all world religions belong to a single spiritual unity. In his study, Nicholson also critiques the way in which Eurocentric concepts—like monism and dualism, idealism and realism, theism and atheism, and orthodoxy and heterodoxy—have come to dominate modern discourses on Indian philosophy. (shrink)

Empirical work has lately confirmed what many philosophers have taken to be true: people are ‘biased toward the future’. All else being equal, we usually prefer to have positive experiences in the future, and negative experiences in the past. According to one hypothesis, the temporal metaphysics hypothesis, future-bias is explained either by our beliefs about temporal metaphysics—the temporal belief hypothesis—or alternatively by our temporal phenomenology—the temporal phenomenology hypothesis. We empirically investigate a particular version of the temporal belief hypothesis according to (...) which future-bias is explained by the belief that time robustly passes. Our results do not match the apparent predictions of this hypothesis, and so provide evidence against it. But we also find that people give more future-biased responses when asked to simulate a belief in robust passage. We take this to suggest that the phenomenology that attends simulation of that belief may be partially responsible for future-bias, and we examine the implications of these results for debates about the rationality of future-bias. (shrink)

Empirical evidence shows that people have multiple time-biases. One is near-bias; another is future-bias. Philosophical theorising about these biases often proceeds on two assumptions. First, that the two biases are _independent_: that they are explained by different factors (the independence assumption). Second, that there is a normative asymmetry between the two biases: one is rationally impermissible (near-bias) and the other rationally permissible (future-bias). The former assumption at least partly feeds into the latter: if the two biases were not explained by (...) different factors, then it would be less plausible that their normative statuses differ. This paper investigates the independence assumption and finds it unwarranted. In light of this, we argue, there is reason to question the normative asymmetry assumption. (shrink)

This paper empirically investigates one aspect of the folk concept of time by testing how the presence or absence of directedness impacts judgements about whether there is time in a world. Experiment 1 found that dynamists, showed significantly higher levels of agreement that there is time in dynamically directed worlds than in non-dynamical non-directed worlds. Comparing our results to those we describe in Latham et al., we report that while ~ 70% of dynamists say there is time in B-theory worlds, (...) only ~ 45% say there is time in C-theory worlds. Thus, while the presence of directedness makes dynamists more inclined to say there is time in a world, a substantial subpopulation of dynamists judge that there is time in non-directed worlds. By contrast, a majority of non-dynamists judged that there was time in both growing block worlds and C-theory worlds, with no significant differences between the means. Experiment 2 found that when participants are only presented with non-dynamical worlds—namely, a directed world and a non-directed world—they report significantly higher levels of agreement that there is time in B-theory worlds. However, the majority of participants still judge that there is time in C-theory worlds. We conclude that while the presence of directedness bolsters judgements that there is time, most people do not judge it to be necessary for time. (shrink)

Heidegger's later thought is a thinking of things, so argues Andrew J. Mitchell in The Fourfold. Heidegger understands these things in terms of what he names "the fourfold"--a convergence of relationships bringing together the earth, the sky, divinities, and mortals--and Mitchell's book is the first detailed exegesis of this neglected aspect of Heidegger's later thought. As such it provides entré to the full landscape of Heidegger's postwar thinking, offering striking new interpretations of the atomic bomb, technology, plants, animals, weather, (...) time, language, the holy, mortality, dwelling, and more. What results is a conception of things as ecstatic, relational, singular, and, most provocatively, as intrinsically tied to their own technological commodification. A major new work that resonates beyond the confines of Heidegger scholarship, The Fourfold proposes nothing less than a new phenomenological thinking of relationality and mediation for understanding the things around us. (shrink)

There are two kinds of time-bias: near-bias and future-bias. While philosophers typically hold that near-bias is rationally impermissible, many hold that future-bias is rationally permissible. Call this normative hybridism. According to arbitrariness objections, certain patterns of preference are rationally impermissible because they are arbitrary. While arbitrariness objections have been levelled against both near-bias and future-bias, the kind of arbitrariness in question has been different. In this paper we investigate whether there are forms of arbitrariness that are common to both kinds (...) of preferences, and hence whether there are versions of the arbitrariness objection that are objections both to near-bias and future-bias. If there are, then this might go some way towards undermining normative hybridism and to defending a thorough-going time-neutralism. (shrink)

It has widely been assumed, by philosophers, that most people unambiguously have a phenomenology as of time passing, and that this is a datum that philosophical theories must accommodate. Moreover, it has been assumed that the greater the extent to which people have said phenomenology, the more likely they are to endorse a dynamical theory of time. This paper is the first to empirically test these assumptions. Surprisingly, our results do not support either assumption. One experiment instead found the reverse (...) correlation: people were more likely to report having passage phenomenology if they endorsed a non-dynamical theory of time. Given that people do not have an unambiguous phenomenology as of time passing, we conclude that this is suggestive evidence in favor of veridical non-dynamism—the view that our phenomenology is veridical, and that it does not unambiguously represent that time passes. Instead, our phenomenology veridically has some quite different content. (shrink)

Deflationists hold that it does not seem to us, in experience, as though time robustly passes. There is some recent empirical evidence that appears to support this contention. Equally, empirical evidence suggests that we naïvely represent time as dynamical. Thus deflationists are faced with an explanatory burden. If, as they maintain, the world seems to us in experience as though it is non-dynamical, then why do we represent time as dynamical? This paper takes up the challenge of investigating, on the (...) part of the deflationist, one candidate explanation. We hypothesise that people’s belief that the future is what we call deliberatively open partly explains why they represent time as dynamical. In a series of two experiments we test this hypothesis. We find no evidence that beliefs about deliberative openness explain why people represent time as dynamical. Hence there remains an explanatory burden for the deflationist to discharge. (shrink)

In this paper I will introduce a new compatibilist account of free action: indirect conscious control compatibilism, or just indirect compatibilism for short. On this account, actions are free either when they are caused by compatibilist‐friendly conscious psychological processes, or else by sub‐personal level processes influenced in particular ways by compatibilist‐friendly conscious psychological processes. This view is motivated by a problem faced by a certain family of compatibilist views, which I call conscious control views. These views hold that we act (...) freely when we act in a way that is caused by certain conscious psychological processes. One problem for such views is that current neuroscience suggests that most of our actions are not caused by such processes. Instead, many of the actions we typically suppose are free are caused by sub‐personal level processes and hence would count as not free according to contemporary conscious control views. I argue, contra these views, that many actions caused by these sub‐personal level processes are indirectly free. Further, most of the actions we ordinarily judge to be free are free in this indirect manner. (shrink)

Recent research (Latham, Miller and Norton, forthcoming) reveals that a majority of people represent actual time as dynamical. But do they, as suggested by McTaggart and Gödel, represent time as essentially dynamical? This paper distinguishes three interrelated questions. We ask (a) whether the folk representation of time is sensitive or insensitive: i.e., does what satisfies the folk representation of time in counterfactual worlds depend on what satisfies it actually—sensitive—or does is not depend on what satisfies it actually—insensitive, and (b) do (...) those who represent actual time as dynamical, represent time in all possible worlds as dynamical—what we call insensitive dynamism—or do they represent time in all possible worlds as dynamical only conditional on the actual world in fact being dynamical—what we call sensitive dynamism and (c) do dynamists and non-dynamists deploy two different representations of time, or deploy the same representation, but disagree about what actually satisfies that representation? We found no evidence that the folk representation of time is sensitive, or that the folk representation of time is essentially dynamical in either sense, though we did find evidence of a shared representation, on which dynamical features are sufficient, but not necessary, for time. (shrink)

People are ‘biased toward the future’: all else being equal, we typically prefer to have positive experiences in the future, and negative experiences in the past. Several explanations have been suggested for this pattern of preferences. Adjudicating among these explanations can, among other things, shed light on the rationality of future-bias: For instance, if our preferences are explained by unjustified beliefs or an illusory phenomenology, we might conclude that they are irrational. This paper investigates one hypothesis, according to which future-bias (...) is explained by our having a phenomenology that we describe, or conceive of, as being as of time robustly passing. We empirically tested this hypothesis and found no evidence in its favour. Our results present a puzzle, however, when compared with the results of an earlier study. We conclude that although robust passage phenomenology on its own probably does not explain future-bias, having this phenomenology and taking it to be veridical may contribute to future-bias. (shrink)

Philosophers have long noted, and empirical psychology has lately confirmed, that most people are “biased toward the future”: we prefer to have positive experiences in the future, and negative experiences in the past. At least two explanations have been offered for this bias: belief in temporal passage and the practical irrelevance of the past resulting from our inability to influence past events. We set out to test the latter explanation. In a large survey, we find that participants exhibit significantly less (...) future bias when asked to consider scenarios where they can affect their own past experiences. This supports the “practical irrelevance” explanation of future bias. It also suggests that future bias is not an inflexible preference hardwired by evolution, but results from a more general disposition to “accept the things we cannot change”. However, participants still exhibited substantial future bias in scenarios in which they could affect the past, leaving room for complementary explanations. Beyond the main finding, our results also indicate that future bias is stake-sensitive and that participants endorse the normative correctness of their future-biased preferences and choices. In combination, these results shed light on philosophical debates over the rationality of future bias, suggesting that it may be a rational response to empirical realities rather than a brute, arational disposition. (shrink)

Many manipulation arguments against compatibilism rely on the claim that manipulation is relevantly similar to determinism. But we argue that manipulation is nothing like determinism in one relevant respect. Determinism is a "universal" phenomenon: its scope includes every feature of the universe. But manipulation arguments feature cases where an agent is the only manipulated individual in her universe. Call manipulation whose scope includes at least one but not all agents "existential manipulation." Our responsibility practices are impacted in different ways by (...) universal and existential phenomena. And this is a relevant difference, especially on Strawsonian approaches to moral responsibility, which take facts about our responsibility practices to be deeply connected to the nature of responsibility itself. We argue that Strawsonian accounts of moral responsibility are immune to manipulation arguments, and no attempt to modify the scope of manipulation or determinism featured in these arguments will help incompatibilists secure their desired conclusion. (shrink)

Many philosophers hold that ‘one-instant worlds’—worlds that contain a single instant—fail to contain time. We experimentally investigate whether these worlds satisfy the folk concept of time. We found that ~50% of participants hold that there is time in such worlds. We argue that this suggests one of two possibilities. First, the population disagree about whether at least one of the A-, B-, or C-series is necessary for time, with there being a substantial sub-population for whom the presence of neither an (...) A-, B-, nor C-series, is necessary for time, and hence those folk have a radically more minimal concept of time than has been attributed to them by philosophers. Or, second, the population do not disagree about whether at least one of the A-, B-, or C-series is necessary for time, but disagree about what it takes for a world to fail to contain even a C-series. (shrink)

This book brings together an international group of scholars to discuss the ramifications of Heidegger's Black Notebooks for philosophy and the humanities. In contrast to both those who seek to exonerate Heidegger and those who simply condemn him, they urge careful reading and rereading of his work to turn Heideggerian thought against itself.

This paper empirically investigates the contention that the folk concept of time is a functional concept: a concept according to which time is whatever plays a certain functional role or roles. This hypothesis could explain why, in previous research, surprisingly large percentages of participants judge that there is time at worlds that contain no one-dimensional substructure of ordered instants. If it seems to participants that even in those worlds the relevant functional role is played, then this could explain why they (...) judge that there is time in those worlds. While our experiment supported the finding that participants are reticent to judge that there is no time, actually, we found no evidence that this is because they deploy a functionalist concept, at least of the kind proposed in recent research. Our findings are, however, consistent with the folk deploying a much more minimal functionalist concept according to which time is just whatever it is—regardless of its nature—that plays the role of grounding our temporal phenomenology. (shrink)

There are two kinds of time bias: near bias and future bias. While philosophers typically hold that near bias is rationally impermissible, many hold that future bias is rationally permissible. Call this normative hybridism. According to arbitrariness objections, certain patterns of preference are rationally impermissible because they are arbitrary. While arbitrariness objections have been leveled against both near bias and future bias, the kind of arbitrariness in question has been different. In this article we investigate whether there are forms of (...) arbitrariness that are common to both kinds of preferences and, hence, whether there are versions of the arbitrariness objection that are objections to both near bias and future bias. If there are, then this might go some way toward undermining normative hybridism and to defending thoroughgoing time-neutralism. (shrink)

Four experiments supported the hypothesis that ordinary people understand free will as meaning unconstrained choice, not having a soul. People consistently rated free will as being high unless reduced by internal constraints (i.e., things that impaired people’s mental abilities to make choices) or external constraints (i.e., situations that hampered people’s abilities to choose and act as they desired). Scientific paradigms that have been argued to disprove free will were seen as reducing, but usually not eliminating free will, and the reductions (...) were because of constrained conscious choice. We replicated findings that a minority of people think lacking a soul reduces free will. These reductions in perceived free will were fully explained by reductions in people’s perceived abilities to make conscious decisions. Thus, some people do think you need a soul to have free will—but it is because they think you need a soul to make conscious decisions. (shrink)

This paper argues for a view of free will that I will call the conceptual impossibility of the truth of free will error theory - the conceptual impossibility thesis. I will argue that given the concept of free will we in fact deploy, it is impossible for our free will judgements - judgements regarding whether some action is free or not - to be systematically false. Since we do judge many of our actions to be free, it follows from the (...) conceptual impossibility thesis that many of our actions are in fact free. Hence it follows that free will error theory - the view that no judgement of the form ‘action A was performed freely’ - is false. I will show taking seriously the conceptual impossibility thesis helps makes good sense of some seemingly inconsistent results in recent experimental philosophy work on determinism and our concept of free will. Further, I will present some reasons why we should expect to find similar results for every other factor we might have thought was important for free will. (shrink)

One debate surrounding Derk Pereboom’s (2001, 2014) four-case argument against compatibilism focuses on whether, and why, we judge manipulated agents to be neither free nor morally responsible. In this paper, we propose a novel explanation. The four-case argument features cases where an agent is the only individual in her universe who has been manipulated. Let us call manipulation whose scope includes at least one but not all agents existential manipulation. Contrast this with universal manipulation, which affects all agents within a (...) universe. We propose that we find agents in Pereboom’s manipulation cases less free and morally responsible in part because they are the target of existential manipulation. We empirically tested this hypothesis and found that people’s free will and moral responsibility judgments were sensitive to the scope of manipulation: people judged existentially manipulated agents significantly less free and responsible than universally manipulated agents. (shrink)

Forty years have passed since video-games were first made widely available to the public and subsequently playing games has become a favorite past-time for many. Players continuously engage with dynamic visual displays with success contingent on the time-pressured deployment, and flexible allocation, of attention as well as precise bimanual movements. Evidence to date suggests that both brief and extensive exposure to video-game play can result in a broad range of enhancements to various cognitive faculties that generalize beyond the original context. (...) Despite promise, video-game research is host to a number of methodological issues that require addressing before progress can be made in this area. Here an effort is made to consolidate the past 30 years of literature examining the effects of video-game play on cognitive faculties and, more recently, neural systems. Future work is required to identify the mechanism that allows the act of video-game play to generate such a broad range of generalized enhancements. (shrink)

Cerebral organoid models in-of-themselves are considered as an alternative to research animal models. But their developmental and biological limitations currently inhibit the probability that organoids can fully replace animal models. Furthermore, these organoid limitations have, somewhat ironically, brought researchers back to the animal model via xenotransplantation, thus creating hybrids and chimeras. In addition to attempting to study and overcome cerebral organoid limitations, transplanting cerebral organoids into animal models brings an opportunity to observe behavioral changes in the animal itself. Traditional animal (...) ethics frameworks, such as the well-known three Rs (reduce, refine, and replace), have previously addressed chimeras and xenotransplantation of tissue. But these frameworks have yet to completely assess the neural-chimeric possibilities. And while the three Rs framework was a historical landmark in animal ethics, there are identifiable gaps in the framework that require attention. The authors propose to utilize an expanded three Rs framework initially developed by David DeGrazia and Tom L. Beauchamp, known as the Six Principles (6Ps). This framework aims to expand upon the three Rs, fill in the gaps, and be a practical means for assessing animal ethical issues like that of neural-chimeras and cerebral organoid xenotransplantation. The scope of this 6Ps application will focus on two separate but recent studies, which were published in 2019 and 2020. First, they consider a study wherein cerebral organoids were grown from donors with Down syndrome and from neurotypical donors. After these organoids were grown and studied, they were then surgically implanted into mouse models to observe the physiological effects and any behavioral change in the chimera. Second, they consider a separate study wherein neurotypical human embryonic stem cell-derived cerebral organoids were grown and transplanted into mouse and macaque models. The aim was to observe if such a transplantation method would contribute to therapies for brain injury or stroke. The authors place both studies under the lens of the 6Ps framework, assess the relevant contexts of each case, and provide relevant normative conclusions. In this way, they demonstrate how the 6Ps could be applied in future cases of neural-chimeras and cerebral organoid xenotransplantation. (shrink)

One proposed explanation for a particular kind of temporal preference lies in a disparity between the emotional intensity of memory compared to anticipation. According to the memory/anticipation disparity explanation, the utility of anticipation of a particular event if that event is future, whether positive or negative, is greater than the utility of retrospection of that same event if it is past, whether positive or negative, and consequently, overall utility is maximised when we prefer negative events to be located in the (...) past rather than the future, and positive ones in the future rather than the past. To have this preference is to be (at least apparently) future biased. If this explanation is correct, it would tend to confer rational justification upon these preferences. This paper empirically investigates this explanation. Our results suggest that, at most, this explanation might be a partial one of some people’s preferences some of the time, rather than a general explanation of future bias. In turn, this lends some indirect support to a competing explanation that appeals to temporal asymmetries in emotion and attention. Since that explanation would arguably tend not to confer rational justification upon (apparently) future-biased preferences, we argue that our findings provide some reason to be sceptical that these preferences are, in general, rationally justified. (shrink)

Empirical investigation of the conditions under which people prefer, or disprefer, causal explanation, has suggested to many that our judgements about what causally explains what are context-sensitive in a number of ways. This has led many to suppose that whether or not a causal explanation obtains depends on contextual factors: that causal explanation is context-sensitive. Surprisingly, most accounts of metaphysical explanation, by contrast, suppose it to be context insensitive. Only recently have accounts been developed of metaphysical explanation on which it (...) is context-sensitive. To date, however, there is no empirical evidence about the context sensitivity of metaphysical explanation. In what follows we test the judgements of non-philosophers, and find that amongst non-philosophers, at least, metaphysical explanations are context-sensitive. We then consider the implications of this finding for theorising about metaphysical explanation. (shrink)