BackgroundInaccurate citations are erroneous quotations or instances of paraphrasing of previously published material that mislead readers about the claims of the cited source. They are often unaddressed due to underreporting, the inability of peer reviewers and editors to detect them, and editors’ reluctance to publish corrections about them. In this paper, we propose a new tool that could be used to tackle their circulation.MethodsWe provide a review of available data about inaccurate citations and analytically explore current ways of reporting and (...) dealing with these inaccuracies. Consequently, we make a distinction between publication and circulation of inaccurate citations. Sloppy reading of published items, literature ambiguity and insufficient quality control in the editorial process are identified as factors that contribute to the publication of inaccurate citations. However, reiteration or copy-pasting without checking the validity of citations, paralleled with lack of resources/motivation to report/correct inaccurate citations contribute to their circulation.Results and discussionWe propose the development of an online annotation tool called “MyCites” as means with which to mark and map inaccurate citations. This tool allows ORCID users to annotate citations and alert authors and also editors of journals where inaccurate citations are published. Each marked citation would travel with the digital version of the document and be visible on websites that host peer-reviewed articles. In the future development of MyCites, challenges such as the conditions of correct/incorrect-ness and parties that should adjudicate that, and, the issue of dealing with incorrect reports need to be addressed. (shrink)

I consider David Efird and Tom Stoneham's recent version of the subtraction argument for metaphysical nihilism, the view that there could have been no concrete objects at all. I argue that the two premises of their argument are only jointly acceptable if the quantifiers in one range over a different set of objects from those which the quantifiers in the other range over, in which case the argument is invalid. So either the argument is invalid or we should not accept (...) both its premises. (shrink)

Carruthers argues that an integrated faculty of metarepresentation evolved for mindreading and was later exapted for metacognition. A more consistent application of his approach would regard metarepresentation in mindreading with the same skeptical rigor, concluding that the “faculty” may have been entirely exapted. Given this result, the usefulness of Carruthers’ line-drawing exercise is called into question.

“Resolute” readings of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus maintain that the book is divided into two parts: an intelligible “frame” and an unintelligible “body.” This article questions the validity of the “frame/body distinction” and, by extension, the resolute reading itself. It first establishes the tenability of the resolute programme as entirely dependent upon such a frame/body distinction. It then explores three possible ways the claim that the Tractatus contains such a distinction might be grounded, arguing in each case why it cannot do (...) so. It therefore concludes that the frame/body distinction is unjustified, and the resolute reading untenable. (shrink)

Ross P. Cameron argues that the flow of time is a genuine feature of reality. He suggests that the best version of the A-Theory is a version of the Moving Spotlight view, according to which past and future beings are real, but there is nonetheless an objectively privileged present. Cameron argues that the Moving Spotlight theory should be viewed as having more in common with Presentism than with the B-Theory. Furthermore, it provides the best account of truthmakers for (...) claims about what was or will be the case. Cameron goes on to defend an account of the open future, and argues that this is a better account than that available to the Growing Block theory. (shrink)

It is clear throughout Cognitive Gadgets Heyes believes the development of cognitive capacities results from the interaction of genes and experience. However, she opposes cognitive instincts theorists to her own view that uniquely human capacities are cognitive gadgets. Instinct theorists believe that cognitive capacities are substantially produced by selection, with the environment playing a triggering role. Heyes’s position is that humans have similar general learning capacities to those present across taxa, and that sophisticated human cognition is substantially created by our (...) socioculturally transmitted environment. It is a core strategy of Heyes to provide evidence of learning altering a cognitive capacity to conclude that a capacity is a cognitive gadget and not an instinct. We draw on recent work on the evolution of learning preparedness to examine the adequacy of this strategy. In particular, we analyse experimental evolution work showing how selection affects cognition within the laboratory. First, this work reveals that change due to learning can still be retained under genetic assimilation. This suggests that domain-specific adaptation can coexist with learning, moderate nativism, an option missed by the instinct versus gadget distinction. Second, we describe the conditions that select for increased preparedness in learning: certainty, reliability, and particular costs. We consider how these conditions can be used when conducting evolutionary reasoning about cognition, applying them to the important capacity for imitation. We find that the conditions lend theoretical support to moderate nativism about the capacity to imitate, which is supported by psychological evidence. (shrink)

A multiple analogy is a structured comparison in which several sources are likened to a target. In "Multiple analogies in science and philosophy," Shelley provides a thorough account of the cognitive representations and processes that participate in multiple analogy formation. Through analysis of real examples taken from the fields of evolutionary biology, archaeology, and Plato's "Republic," Shelley argues that multiple analogies are not simply concatenated single analogies but are instead the general form of analogical inference, of which single analogies are (...) a special case. The result is a truly general cognitive model of analogical inference.Shelley also shows how a cognitive account of multiple analogies addresses important philosophical issues such as the confidence that one may have in an analogical explanation, and the role of analogy in science and philosophy.This book lucidly demonstrates that important questions regarding analogical inference cannot be answered adequately by consideration of single analogies alone. (shrink)

Research suggests that the reaching hand automatically deviates toward a target that changes location during the reach. In the current study, we investigated whether movement intention can influence the target jump’s impact on the hand. We compared the degree of trajectory deviation to a jumped target under three instruction conditions: GO, in which participants were told to go to the target if it jumped, STOP, in which participants were told to immediately stop their movement if the target jumped, and IGNORE, (...) in which participants were told to ignore the target if it jumped and to continue to its initial location. We observed a reduced response to the jump in the IGNORE condition relative to the other conditions, suggesting that the response to the jump is contingent on the jump being a task-relevant event. (shrink)

This book examines the theological methodology of Dutch theologian, Herman Bavinck (1854-1921). The focus of the book is on the influence of the German historicist movement on his theological method and uses Bavinck's doctrine of the Trinity as a way to test the argument that while not embracing all of the relativising implications of the movement, the role of history as a force that both shapes the present and allows for development into the future has a demonstrable influence on his (...) theological methodology. To make this argument the book considers Bavinck's larger nineteenth century context. It traces the development of both history and theology being understood as sciences in the university and how this required a reimagining of both disciplines. It could be said that the theology is thoroughly historicised in the nineteenth century. The book then considers the three principia of Bavinck's theological methodology: Revelation, Confession, and Christian Consciousness, demonstrating how Bavinck both appropriates and adapts historicist assumptions. (shrink)

This paper provides a critical overview of recent work on epistemic blame. The paper identifies key features of the concept of epistemic blame and discusses two ways of motivating the importance of this concept. Four different approaches to the nature of epistemic blame are examined. Central issues surrounding the ethics and value of epistemic blame are identified and briefly explored. In addition to providing an overview of the state of the art of this growing but controversial field, the paper highlights (...) areas where future work is needed. (shrink)

This is the first modern, annotated and scholarly edition of Jean-Baptiste Du Bos’ _Critical Reflections on Poetry and Painting_, one of the seminal works of modern aesthetics in any language.

One challenge in developing an account of the nature of epistemic blame is to explain what differentiates epistemic blame from mere negative epistemic evaluation. The challenge is to explain the difference, without invoking practices or behaviors that seem out of place in the epistemic domain. In this paper, I examine whether the most sophisticated recent account of the nature of epistemic blame—due to Jessica Brown—is up for the challenge. I argue that the account ultimately falls short, but does so in (...) an instructive way. Drawing on the lessons learned, I put forward an alternative approach to the nature of epistemic blame. My account understands epistemic blame in terms of modifications to the intentions and expectations that comprise our “epistemic relationships” with one another. This approach has a number of attractions shared by Brown’s account, but it can also explain the significance of epistemic blame. (shrink)

Situational irony concerns what it is about a situation that causes people to describe it as ironic. Although situational irony is as complex and commonplace as verbal and literary irony, it has received nowhere near the same attention from cognitive scientists and other scholars. This paper presents the bicoherence theory of situational irony, based on the theory of conceptual coherence (Kunda & Thagard, 1996; Thagard & Verbeurgt, 1998). On this theory, a situation counts as ironic when it is conceived as (...) having a bicoherent conceptual structure, adequate cognitive salience, and evokes an appropriate configuration of emotions. The theory is applied to a corpus of 250 examples of situational ironies gathered automatically from electronic news sources. A useful taxonomy of situational ironies is produced, new predictions and insights into situational irony are discussed, and extensions of the theory to other forms of irony are examined. (shrink)

Humanity will face water scarcity as this century progresses. Water use grew twice as fast as the global human population last century, and an increasing number of regions around the world are facing, or will face, freshwater scarcity. Four billion people face water scarcity at least one month out of the year. Scarcity makes water valuable for privatizers and commodifiers as an investment vehicle; it emboldens the currency of commodification. I will argue for water justice as socioenvironmental justice. The injustices (...) that can and do attach to water are not reducible to merely distributional wrongs or injustices, they are moral and political harms as markers of a failing democracy; water injustice, then, is a structural harm. I build on the literature of power dynamics from Iris Marion Young and David Schlosberg and argue that water injustice is structural and involves mis- and malrecognition and participation; moreover, I introduce the argument that water justice is participatory, a method of development that walks in lockstep with reflexive and discursive democracy. (shrink)

A global target of stabilizing greenhouse-gas concentrations at between 450 and 550 parts per million carbon-dioxide equivalent has proven robust to recent developments in the science and economics of climate change. Retrospective analysis of the Stern Review suggests that the risks were underestimated, indicating a stabilization target closer to 450 ppm CO2e. Climate policy at the international level is now moving rapidly towards agreeing an emissions pathway, and distributing responsibilities between countries. A feasible framework can be constructed in which each (...) country takes on its own responsibilities and targets, based on a shared understanding of the risks and the need for action and collaboration on climate change. The global deal should contain six key features: a pathway to achieve the world target of 50 per cent reductions by 2050, where rich countries contribute at least 75 per cent of the reductions; global emissions trading to reduce costs; reform of the clean development mechanism to scale up emission reductions on a sectoral or benchmark level; scaling up of R&D funding for low-carbon energy; an agreement on deforestation; and adaptation finance. (shrink)

In Christ Meets Me Everywhere, Michael Cameron argues that Augustine wanted to train readers of Scripture to transpose themselves into the texts in the same way he did, by the same process of figuration that he found at its core. Tracking Augustine's developing practice of self-transposition into the figures of the biblical texts over the course of his entire career, Cameron shows that this practice is the key to Augustine's hermeneutics.

As Jonathan Dancy points out, if we are tempted to think morality is a rational enterprise, we would expect moral judgments to be constrained by requirements of consistency. If our judgments and choices use general moral principles as guides or standards -- like the laws that feature in the explicit calculations of Immanuel Kant’s moral agent – we can be somewhat confident we respond to moral salience with consistency and, perhaps, rationally. For Kant, explicit reason ensures consistency because the explicit (...) application of maxims is autonomous from volatile external factors. Contemporary empirical studies in moral psychology show that when we respond morally we seemingly do so from emotion or intuition, not reason. For Kant, emotions and intuitions fluctuate with respect to volatile external factors. They are not the sort of things upon which we ought to base judgment and decision. If we hold the Kantian model true, we must assume that we fail to participate rationally in the moral enterprise. I argue against the Kantian model of moral cognition and turn to Aristotle to develop an account of moral cognition that allows us to retain our standing as rational moral agents. First, I argue for a particularist conception of moral reasons: I deny that the consistency required of a picture of morality as a rational enterprise requires our thought utilizes general moral rules. Next, I develop a particularist account of moral knowledge – a demand from their generalist opponents – by providing an account of moral perception. I subsequently argue that the deliverances of moral perception can constitute knowledge by providing a McDowellian account of perceptual justification. Lastly, I return to examine how the empirical work motivating the idea that we don’t participate in morality rationally. I show how none of these studies threatens the Aristotelian model as a viable alternative to the Kantian model. (shrink)

Much has been written about the offshoring phenomenon from an economic efficiency perspective. Most authors have attempted to measure the net economic effects of the strategy and many purport to show that “in the long run” that benefits will outweigh the costs. There is also a relatively large literature on implementation which describes the best way to manage the offshoring process. But what is the morality of offshoring? What is its “rightness” or “wrongness?” Little analysis of the ethics of offshoring (...) has been completed thus far. This paper develops a preliminary framework for analyzing the ethics of offshoring and then applies this framework to basic case study of offshoring in the U.S. The paper following discusses the definition of offshoring; shifts to the basic philosophical grounding of the ethical concepts; develops a template for conducting an ethics analysis of offshoring; applies this template using basic data for offshoring in the United States; and conducts a preliminary ethical analysis of the phenomenon in that country, using a form of utilitarianism as an analytical baseline. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research. (shrink)

Systems thinking has emerged as a means of conceptualizing and addressing complex public health problems, thereby challenging more commonplace understanding of problems and corresponding solutions as straightforward explanations of cause and effect. Systems thinking tries to address the complexity of problems through qualitative and quantitative modeling based on a variety of systems theories, each with their own assumptions and, more importantly, implicit and unexamined values. To date, however, there has been little engagement between systems scientists and those working in bioethics (...) and public health ethics. The goal of this paper is to begin to consider what it might mean to combine systems thinking with public health ethics to solve public health challenges. We argue that there is a role for ethics in systems thinking in public health as a means of elucidating implicit assumptions and facilitating ethics debate and dialogue with key stakeholders. (shrink)

Quine said that the ontological question can be asked in three words, ‘What is there?’, and answered in one, ‘everything’. He was wrong. We need an extra word to ask the ontological question: it is ‘What is there, really?’; and it cannot be answered truthfully with ‘everything’ because there are some things that exist but which don’t really exist (and maybe even some things that really exist but which don’t exist).

Is there a distinctively epistemic kind of blame? It has become commonplace for epistemologists to talk about epistemic blame, and to rely on this notion for theoretical purposes. But not everyone is convinced. Some of the most compelling reasons for skepticism about epistemic blame focus on disanologies, or asymmetries, between the moral and epistemic domains. In this paper, I defend the idea that there is a distinctively epistemic kind of blame. I do so primarily by developing an account of the (...) nature of epistemic blame. My account draws on a prominent line of theorizing in moral philosophy that ties blame to our relationships with one another. I argue that with my account of epistemic blame on hand, the most compelling worries about epistemic blame can be deflated. There is a distinctively epistemic kind of blame. (shrink)

The so-called March of Progress depicts human evolution as a linear progression from mohkey to man. Shelley (1996) analyzed this image as a visual argument proceeding through "rhetorical" and "demonstrative" modes of visual logic. In this paper, I confirm and extend this view of visual logic by examining variations of the original March image. These variations show that each mode of visual logic can be altered or isolated in support of new conclusions. Furthermore, the March can be included in a (...) visual "frame" to produce new arguments, much as a verbal argument can be made a component of a new and larger argument. (shrink)

Non-well-founded set theories allow set-theoretic exotica that standard ZFC will not allow, such as a set that has itself as its sole member. We can distinguish plenitudinous non-well-founded set theories, such as Boffa set theory, that allow infinitely many such sets, from restrictive theories, such as Finsler-Aczel or AFA, that allow exactly one. Plenitudinous non-well-founded set theories face a puzzle: nothing seems to explain the identity or distinctness of various of the sets they countenance. In this paper I aim to (...) sharpen this puzzle, make clear who it does and does not apply to and, ultimately, to argue in favor of a plenitudinous theory like Boffa. (shrink)

Volume 24, Issue 8, August 2024, Page 34-36.

Is the world internally connected by a web of necessary connections or is everything loose and independent? Followers of David Hume accept the latter by upholding Hume’s Dictum, according to which there are no necessary connections between distinct existences. Roughly put, anything can coexist with anything else, and anything can fail to coexist with anything else. Hume put it like this: “There is no object which implies the existence of any other if we consider these objects in themselves.” Since Hume’s (...) day, Hume’s Dictum has played a major role in philosophy, especially in contemporary metaphysics. In ruling out necessary connections, Hume’s Dictum implies that causal relations and the laws of nature are contingent. It makes other demands on our metaphysics of science as well; for example, it places restrictions on our metaphysics of counterfactuals, dispositions, and explanation. The principle has applications in other areas too. Hume’s Dictum places constraints on our theories of abstract objects and moral properties. For example, Hume’s Dictum rules out the view that moral properties are distinct from, but necessarily connected to, non-moral properties. While Hume’s Dictum is a prominent principle in metaphysics, few Humeans have defended the principle at length. It is assumed more often than it is argued for. As a result, Hume’s Dictum no longer enjoys the reputation it once did. It’s common to hear complaints about the lack of arguments in support of Hume’s Dictum. Moreover, philosophers are increasingly willing to defend views that are at odds with Hume’s Dictum. A striking example of this is the recent explosion of interest in views that take causal relations and the laws of nature to be necessary. Humeans can no longer afford to be complacent. An extended defense of Hume’s Dictum is called for, and that’s what this dissertation aims to offer. This dissertation has three parts. In the first part, I lay out some preliminaries and offer a precise formulation of Hume’s Dictum. In the second part, I develop three arguments in favor of Hume’s Dictum. In the final part, I defend Hume’s Dictum against objections. (shrink)

Deep learning is currently the most prominent and widely successful method in artificial intelligence. Despite having played an active role in earlier artificial intelligence and neural network research, philosophers have been largely silent on this technology so far. This is remarkable, given that deep learning neural networks have blown past predicted upper limits on artificial intelligence performance—recognizing complex objects in natural photographs and defeating world champions in strategy games as complex as Go and chess—yet there remains no universally accepted explanation (...) as to why they work so well. This article provides an introduction to these networks as well as an opinionated guidebook on the philosophical significance of their structure and achievements. It argues that deep learning neural networks differ importantly in their structure and mathematical properties from the shallower neural networks that were the subject of so much philosophical reflection in the 1980s and 1990s. The article then explores several different explanations for their success and ends by proposing three areas of inquiry that would benefit from future engagement by philosophers of mind and science. (shrink)

In artificial intelligence, recent research has demonstrated the remarkable potential of Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNNs), which seem to exceed state-of-the-art performance in new domains weekly, especially on the sorts of very difficult perceptual discrimination tasks that skeptics thought would remain beyond the reach of artificial intelligence. However, it has proven difficult to explain why DCNNs perform so well. In philosophy of mind, empiricists have long suggested that complex cognition is based on information derived from sensory experience, often appealing to (...) a faculty of abstraction. Rationalists have frequently complained, however, that empiricists never adequately explained how this faculty of abstraction actually works. In this paper, I tie these two questions together, to the mutual benefit of both disciplines. I argue that the architectural features that distinguish DCNNs from earlier neural networks allow them to implement a form of hierarchical processing that I call “transformational abstraction”. Transformational abstraction iteratively converts sensory-based representations of category exemplars into new formats that are increasingly tolerant to “nuisance variation” in input. Reflecting upon the way that DCNNs leverage a combination of linear and non-linear processing to efficiently accomplish this feat allows us to understand how the brain is capable of bi-directional travel between exemplars and abstractions, addressing longstanding problems in empiricist philosophy of mind. I end by considering the prospects for future research on DCNNs, arguing that rather than simply implementing 80s connectionism with more brute-force computation, transformational abstraction counts as a qualitatively distinct form of processing ripe with philosophical and psychological significance, because it is significantly better suited to depict the generic mechanism responsible for this important kind of psychological processing in the brain. (shrink)

The last 5 years have seen a series of remarkable achievements in deep-neural-network-based artificial intelligence research, and some modellers have argued that their performance compares favourably to human cognition. Critics, however, have argued that processing in deep neural networks is unlike human cognition for four reasons: they are (i) data-hungry, (ii) brittle, and (iii) inscrutable black boxes that merely (iv) reward-hack rather than learn real solutions to problems. This article rebuts these criticisms by exposing comparative bias within them, in the (...) process extracting some more general lessons that may also be useful for future debates. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.1 (2000) 1-17 [Access article in PDF] The Influence of Folk Meteorology in the Anaximander Fragment Cameron Shelley * Introduction No scholars doubt that the pre-Socratic philosophers, especially the Milesians, were concerned with meteorology. Their works abound with accounts of wind, rain, thunder, lightning, meteorites, waterspouts, whirlwinds, and so on. Through examination of the fragments of the pre-Socratics, we can trace this (...) interest in meteorology from each philosopher to his predecessors right back to Anaxi-mander. 1 Thales might at first seem to be the most obvious candidate as the man who introduced meteorology into philosophy, but Kirk et al. argue persuasively that Thales was more interested in near-eastern mythology. 2 Thus, we must take Anaximander, Thales's protégé, to be the philosopher who made meteorology a topic of philosophical interest.This situation leaves us with an obvious question: where did Anaximander come by his interest and ideas about meteorology if not from Thales? Modern scholarship unanimously points to the Greek mythological tradition of Anaxi-mander's time as recorded primarily by Homer and Hesiod. Gilbert confidently asserts that any inquiry into the origin of Greek meteorology must begin with the stories recorded by these poets, and modern scholars generally echo this opinion. 3 Kahn notes that in classical Athens the Milesian-style, non-mythological accounts of meteorology were treated as direct challenges to the Olympic religion, [End Page 1] as demonstrated by Aristophanes in The Clouds. 4 But to conclude on this basis that Anaximander himself saw his project as the construction of theories by the removal of deities from myths is to mistake the result for the cause. Kirk et al. simply point to Kahn's account and speculate that Anaximander was influenced by Greek legends about Phaethon and Deucalion. 5 None of these scholars consider alternative possible sources of Anaximander's meteorological ideas, so that support for mythology as the source derives largely from the lack of a rival. But there is an alternative, namely, folk meteorology.Folk meteorology may be described as the body of folk wisdom concerning the nature and prediction of weather patterns. It typically comes in the form of pithy statements or jingles such as "Red sky at night, shepherd's delight; red sky in morning, shepherd's warning." 6 Folk meteorology has been almost completely neglected even by folklore scholars, so it is not surprising that it has escaped the attention of philosophers and classical scholars as well. However, an examination of folk beliefs about meteorology reveals significant similarities with some of the philosophical beliefs attributed to Anaximander, most notably, and surprisingly, regarding the concept of justice (dikê) implicit in Anaximander's famous fragment.The purpose of this paper is to construct and defend a case for the influence of folk meteorology on Anaximander, particularly on the concept of justice in the Anaximander fragment. The case begins on familiar ground, with the fragment itself and arguments against attempts to trace influences on it to non-meteorological sources, and continues with some evidence of the universality of folk meteorology across cultures and the character of balance as a folk-meteorological concept, which is then applied to the Anaximander fragment as a means of explicating what Anaximander meant there by justice. The suitability of balance for this purpose is taken as evidence that Anaximander was influenced by folk meteorology. Thus, this inquiry identifies a plausible origin of one of Anaximander's central philosophical ideas, an origin which has so far remained completely unexplored by scholars of ancient Greek philosophy. The Fragment of Anaximander Anaximander is famous among Greek scholars for the central role he gave to the concept of justice (dikê) in his natural philosophy. The one fragment of his writings, quoted by Simplicius in his Commentary on Aristotle's Physics (24.18-21), records Anaximander's view on the effect of justice in the physical world: [End Page 2] The things that are perish into the things out of which they come to be, according to necessity, for they pay penalty and retribution... (shrink)

This paper emphasizes that, contrary to the claims of ECT experts and the ECT industry, a majority, not "a small minority," of ECT recipients sustain permanent memory dysfunction each year as a result of ECT. The paper exposes the convulsion hypothesis, upon which ECT is allegedly based, as mythological. Finally, through hidden and comparative electrical parameters, it exposes the extreme destructive power of today's "new and improved" ECT devices.

This book by one of Italy's oldest and wisest intellectuals is a philosophical and personal meditation on ageing. The question of old age has preoccupied writers from Cicero to Amery, but in this volume Norberto Bobbio produces an account that is specific to our times. Born in 1909, Bobbio has lived through the major events of the past century, and his experiences of Fascism, Communism and the Cold War lend his reflections a melancholy that distinguishes them from earlier eulogies on (...) old age and death. Bobbio's conclusions are often sobering, yet his investigation into memory and mortality is written with both humour and emotion. In the opening chapter, Bobbio reassesses the notion of progress from the perspective of an old man. Arguing for an understanding of historical change as the transfer between generations, Bobbio explains how the elderly are increasingly marginalized in contemporary society. Referring to the traditional idea of old age as the 'age of wisdom', Bobbio argues that our ever-accelerating technological progress has dramatically shifted the power of knowledge from old to young. This discussion of old age as a social problem is accompanied by a reflection on old age as a personal predicament. In his elegant and lucid prose, Bobbio confronts the facts of decrepitude and death. In taking stock of his life, he argues once again for the importance of democracy and human rights. This is a beautifully written book that will be of great interest to the academic and general reader alike. Its intellectual content renders it of particular value to students in the fields of philosophy, politics and the social sciences. (shrink)

forthcoming in a collection of papers (from OUP, edited by Bob Hale) given at the Arché modality conference, St Andrews University, 7th-9th June 2006.

If you were Monica Lewinski's mother, how would you describe Linda Tripp? Remember that Linda Tripp is the woman who tapped her own phone conversations with Monica and then used them to incriminate President Clinton. Marcia Lewis, Monica's actual mother, chose the following expression: "She is like a meddlesome witch, a praying mantis." This expression conveys a multiple analogy, a comparison in which several sources are likened to a target. In this case, the first source tells us that Marcia thinks (...) of Linda as a disagreeable woman who entices youngsters into her confidence in order to ensnare them for her own purposes, much like the witch who trapped Hansel and Gretel. The second source tells us that Marcia thinks of Linda as a creature that ambushes others out of an inhuman lust for prey. ;This example shows the usefulness of multiple analogies in satisfying certain cognitive goals, such as constructing an adequate explanation of Linda Tripp and her behavior. Multiple analogies have also proven to be very useful in satisfying other kinds of cognitive goals, such as those of philosophers and scientists. However, no cognitive model of multiple analogies has yet been proposed or explored. This dissertation presents an exploration of multiple analogies as found in the literature of evolutionary biology, archaeology, and philosophy with the aim of proposing a cognitive model of this interesting mode of reasoning. This model is based upon the Multiconstraint theory of analogies, which is extended for the purpose, and also contrasted with previous theories of analogy. (shrink)

A plausible condition on having the standing to blame someone is that the target of blame's wrongdoing must in some sense be your “business”—the wrong must in some sense harm or affect you, or others close to you. This is known as the business condition on standing to blame. Many cases of epistemic blame discussed in the literature do not obviously involve examples of someone harming or affecting another. As such, not enough has been said about how an individual's epistemic (...) failing can really count as another person's business. In this paper, I deploy a relationship-based account of epistemic blame to clarify the conditions under which the business condition can be met in the epistemic domain. The basic idea is that one person's epistemic failing can be another's business in virtue of the way it impairs their epistemic relationship. (shrink)

Paul Sheehy has argued that the modal realist cannot satisfactorily allow for the necessity of God's existence. In this short paper I show that she can, and that Sheehy only sees a problem because he has failed to appreciate all the resources available to the modal realist. God may be an abstract existent outside spacetime or He may not be: but either way, there is no problem for the modal realist to admit that He exists at every concrete possible world.

We see unique opportunities to advance emotional research by studying an overlooked environmental problem. The biodiversity crisis is caused by land use, in particular by reducing and damaging habitats, such as deforestation for cattle grazing. Biodiversity processes are proximate and personally moving, like when a person is causing or experiencing changes to livelihood-providing ecosystems, and we suggest this affect-rich context is useful for studying social and psychological processes. In contrast, much research on far-away populations thinking about climate change effects involves (...) more abstract and distant cognitions. We also suggest biodiversity-related emotions have consequential outcomes for health and behavior, and provide advice for shaping research programs on specific populations and wildlife interactions. (shrink)