In his paper “Explaining Deductive Inference” Prawitz states what he calls «a fundamental problem of logic and the philosophy of logic»: the problem of explaining «Why do certain inferences have the epistemic power to confer evidence on the conclusion when applied to premisses for which there is evidence already?». In this paper I suggest a way of articulating, and partly modifying, the intuitionistic answer to this problem in such a way as to both answer Prawitz’s problem and satisfy a requirement (...) I argue to be crucial for any epistemic theory of the meaning of the logical constants: the requirement that evidence is epistemically transparent. (shrink)

Classical propositional logic can be characterized, indirectly, by means of a complementary formal system whose theorems are exactly those formulas that are not classical tautologies, i.e., contradictions and truth-functional contingencies. Since a formula is contingent if and only if its negation is also contingent, the system in question is paraconsistent. Hence classical propositional logic itself admits of a paraconsistent characterization, albeit “in the negative”. More generally, any decidable logic with a syntactically incomplete proof theory allows for a paraconsistent characterization of (...) its set of theorems. This, we note, has important bearing on the very nature of paraconsistency as standardly characterized. (shrink)

A psicoterapia domiciliar é uma prática pouco conhecida que, entretanto, adquire importância junto a pacientes com dificuldade de locomoção ou com presença de patologias que dificultem o acesso à hospitais/ clínicas. Tendo em vista a escassez de estudos sobre o tema, este artigo apresenta os resultados de uma pesquisa exploratória sobre o atendimento psicológico domiciliar, realizado com 21 psicólogos da cidade de Curitiba (PR). O objetivo foi identificar o tipo de clientela atendida, quais as abordagens e quais as principais vantagens (...) e desvantagens relacionadas a esse tipo de atendimento. Identificou-se que essa modalidade é mais cômoda para o cliente, mas nem sempre para o profissional. Há predominância de algumas vantagens na psicoterapia realizada em domicílio como manutenção do vínculo terapêutico, maior acesso a informações importantes advindas da observação do ambiente e dos comportamentos espontâneos devido à familiaridade do paciente com o ambiente, o que possibilita novas referências para análise diagnóstica. (shrink)

This discussion of pride, shame, and guilt centers on the beliefs involved in the experience of any of these emotions. Through a detailed study, the author demonstrates how these beliefs are alike--in that they are all directed towards the self--and how they differ. The experience of these three emotions are illustrated by examples taken from English literature. These concrete cases supply a context for study and indicate the complexity of the situations in which these emotions usually occur.

Gabriele Taylor presents a philosophical investigation of the "ordinary" vices traditionally seen as "death to the soul": sloth, envy, avarice, pride, anger, lust, and gluttony. In the course of a richly detailed discussion of individual and interrelated vices, which complements recent work by moral philosophers on virtue, she shows why these "deadly sins" are correctly so named and grouped together.

The Catholic concept of “sanctity” can be thought of as a “cultural unit” (Eco) composed of a wide variety of “grounds” (Peirce) or distinctive features. The figures of individual saints, i.e., tokens of sanctity, are characterized by a particular set of grounds, organized and represented in texts of different genres. This paper presents a semiotic study of texts seeking to offer an encompassing view of “sanctity” by listing all the saints and supplementing their names with a short description of their (...) lives emphasizing the grounds characterizing each of them. The analysis focuses on a seminal liturgical text, the Martyrologium Romanun (1584–2004), and the first official encyclopedia of saints, the Bibliotheca Sanctorum (1961–2013), as well as a sample of digital texts and media such as websites and mobile apps. While the first text offers a dogmatic perspective on sanctity and saintly figures and the second offers a historical and culturological one, websites succeed in reconciling the two paradigms into a single syncretic form of interactive fruition in which the more up-to-date encyclopedic model subsumes the traditional calendar one and, in the case of apps, adds a glocal dimension, enhancing situated cognition. The analysis shows that the introduction of the encyclopedic genre and subsequent proliferation of digital repertoires is connected to a shift in the Catholic “episteme” (Foucault) of sanctity and a growing tendency to consider saints as not (only) religious characters and objects of cult, but (also) as historical individuals and components of a culture and, consequently, as suitable objects of critical discourse. (shrink)

This article focuses on the work of Black and Asian women playwrights in Britain and examines their position as constitutive subjectivities in contemporary British culture. It suggests that recent developments in theatre studies such as the emphases on the postcolonial, intercultural, world theatre and performance art, which have emerged simultaneously with these playwrights’ work and might have offered some critical reception of their work, have not done so because of their maintenance of a colonial cultural imaginary that is more engaged (...) with the elsewhere and the ‘other’ than with the here and now and the diasporic reality of contemporary Britain. Utilizing Avtar Brah’s concept of the ‘diaspora space’, the article argues that Black and Asian women playwrights’ work in Britain not only demands an interrogation of British theatre as a ‘white’ space but also asks that we accept Britain as a diasporic space. (shrink)

Interdisciplinaridade, totalidade e a construção do conhecimento em artigos das áreas de Educação e Ensino Resumo: Neste artigo interrogamos: O que se mostra sobre a interdisciplinaridade e totalidade, tomadas sob a ótica do materialismo dialético, nos artigos de periódicos das áreas de Educação e Ensino, disponibilizados no Google acadêmico? Por meio da análise de conteúdo realizada em 27 pesquisas. Os resultados revelaram que ainda que não exista na literatura uma concepção única do que vem a ser a interdisciplinaridade, há entre (...) os estudiosos a compreensão comum de que ela está vinculada à busca pela ruptura com a fragmentação do conhecimento. No contexto escolar, explicita-se dos artigos analisados, a interdisciplinaridade impulsionada pelos interesses dos modos de produção capitalista, bem como o discurso de que a ampliação do debate sobre ela na escola solicita mudanças no modo como se dá o trabalho pedagógico, uma vez que requer abertura ao estabelecimento de uma relação dialógica para a construção do conhecimento, de modo que a totalidade possa ser almejada sem que as particularidades sejam desconsideradas. Palavras-chave: Interdisciplinaridade; Totalidade; Construção do Conhecimento; Materialismo dialético; Análise de conteúdo. Interdisciplinarity, totality and the construction of knowledge in articles of the areas of Education and Teaching: Article we question: What is shown about interdisciplinarity and totality, taken from the viewpoint of dialectical materialism, in the articles of Education and Teaching journals made available on Google scholar? Performing A content analysis, we consider 27 researches. The results revealed that even though there is no literature, a unique conception of what is interdisciplinarity, there are among scholars the common understanding that it is linked to the search for rupture with the fragmentation of knowledge. In The school context it is explained by the analyzed articles, the interdisciplinarity driven by the interests of the capitalist modes of production and discourse that the expansion of the debate on it in the school, calls for changes in the way the work is given Pedagogical and openness to the establishment of a dialogical relationship in the construct of knowledge, so that the totality can be pursued without the particularities being disregarded. Keywords: Interdisciplinarity; All Knowledge Construction; Dialectical Materialism; Content Analysis. La interdisciplinariedad, la totalidad y la construcción del conocimiento en los artículos de las áreas de educación y enseñanza Resumen: En este artículo cuestionamos: ¿lo que se muestra acerca de la interdisciplinariedad y la totalidad, tomada desde el punto de vista del materialismo dialectico, en los artículos de Educación y docencia revistas disponibles en Google Academico? Realizando un análisis de contención, consideramos 27 investigaciones. Los resultados revelan que aunque no hay literatura, una concepción único de lo que es la interdisciplinariedad, hay entre los eruditos el museo de común que está vinculado a la búsqueda de ruptura con la fragmentación del conocimiento. En el contexto escolar es explica por los artículos analizados, la interdisciplinariedad por las intereses de los modos de producción y discurso capitalistas que la expansión del debate sobre el mismo en la escuela, cambio s en la forma en que se da el tiempo Pedagógica y apertura al establecimiento de una relación dialógica en la construcción pueda del conocimiento, se puede desear la totalidad sin que se tengan en cuenta las particularidades. Palabras clave: interdisciplinariedad; todo Construcción del conocimiento; Materialismo dialéctico; Análisis de contenido. Financiamento: CAPES Data de registro: 02/04/2019 Data de aceite: 30/10/2019. (shrink)

In this paper, I distinguish three general approaches to public trust in science, which I call the individual approach, the semi-social approach, and the social approach, and critically examine their proposed solutions to what I call the problem of harmful distrust. I argue that, despite their differences, the individual and the semi-social approaches see the solution to the problem of harmful distrust as consisting primarily in trying to persuade individual citizens to trust science and that both approaches face two general (...) problems, which I call the problem of overidealizing science and the problem of overburdening citizens. I then argue that in order to avoid these problems we need to embrace a (thoroughly) social approach to public trust in science, which emphasizes the social dimensions of the reception, transmission, and uptake of scientific knowledge in society and the ways in which social forces influence both positively and negatively the trustworthiness of science. (shrink)

The article I am going to propose is a reflection on the theme of recognition in working and social contexts, and focuses on problems and troubles people cope with in this historical moment. This is a period during which reciprocity and recognition relationships involving our education and work career seem to have no more value, because the world of work now focuses on involving people in production and does not care about involved subjects' life plans. I also wish to point (...) out risks and sufferance affecting subjects who perceive with always greater precision that they are more and more often oppressed by labor and mind exploitation, rather than considered human resources with a working competence who can participate in a wider project. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider whether a reading of Kant's solution to the Third Antinomy can offer material for devising a new model of transcendental argument. The problem that this form of argument is meant to address is an antinomy between two apparently contradictory claims, q and ¬q, where we seem equally justified in holding both. The model has the following form: p; q is a necessary condition of p; the only justification we have for q is that it is (...) a necessary condition of p; p is justified only in domain X (where X is a domain of objects of cognition); therefore, q is justified only in domain X. Because the argument shows that our justification for q is valid only in X, it also establishes that there is conceptual space to hold ¬q outside of X. (shrink)

This book presents a systematic interpretation of Charles S. Peirce’s work based on a Kantian understanding of his teleological account of thought and inquiry. Departing from readings that contrast Peirce’s treatment of purpose, end, and teleology with his early studies of Kant, Gabriele Gava instead argues that focusing on Peirce’s purposefulness as a necessary regulative condition for inquiry and semiotic processes allows for a transcendental interpretation of Peirce’s philosophical project. The author advances this interpretation through presenting original views on (...) aspects of Peirce’s thought, including: a detailed analysis of Peirce’s ‘methodeutic’ and ‘speculative rhetoric,’ as well as his ‘critical common-sensism’; a comparison between Peirce’s and James’ pragmatisms in view of the account of purposefulness Gava puts forth; and an examination of the logical relationships that order Peirce’s architectonic classification of the sciences. (shrink)

In his 1868 ‘Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man’ and ‘Some Consequences of Four Incapacities’ Peirce famously rejected the possibility of having intuitions. He defined an intuition as ‘a cognition not determined by a previous cognition of the same object’ or as a ‘premiss not itself a conclusion.’ The rejection of intuitive knowledge can thus be seen as an expression of Peirce’s enduring conviction that our knowledge is by nature inferential. Even though the main polemical target of these papers (...) is surely Descartes, Peirce specifies in a footnote that he nearly uses the word intuitive ‘as the opposite of discursive cognition,’ and that this ‘is also nearly the sense in which Kant uses it.’ Peirce’s position seems thus to be quite radical in his rejection of the Kantian distinction between intuitive and discursive cognition, between intuitions and concepts. I show that Peirce, despite this opposition to the Kantian distinction in his early writings, retained and developed in a totally new way some of its essential features in his mature semiotic. In fact, Peirce’s famous distinction between icons, indices, and symbols can be read as having functions similar to those reserved by Kant for the distinction between intuitions and concepts. In this framework, the tasks that Kant attributed to intuitions are performed by indices and icons. (shrink)

_Derrida, Deleuze, Psychoanalysis_ explores the critical relationship between psychoanalysis and the work of Derrida (_Speech and Phenomena_, _Of Grammatology_, and his later writing on autoimmunity, cruelty, war, and human rights) and Deleuze (_A Thousand Plateaus_, _Anti-Oedipus_, and more). Each essay illuminates a specific aspect of Derrida's and Deleuze's perspectives on psychoanalysis: the human-animal boundary; the child's polymorphism; the face or mouth as constitutive of ethical responsibility toward others; the connections between pain and suffering and political resistance; the role of masochism (...) in psychoanalytic thinking; the use of psychoanalytic secondary revision in theorizing film; and the political dimension of the unconscious. Placing a particular emphasis on liminal figurations of the human and challenges to discourses on free will, the essays explore shared concerns in Derrida and Deleuze with regard to history, politics, the political unconscious, and resistance. By addressing the need to overcome the split between the psychological and the political, _Derrida, Deleuze, Psychoanalysis_ illuminates the ongoing relevance of psychoanalysis to critical interrogations of culture and politics. (shrink)

This paper is part of a book symposium on Theodore Sider's Writing the Book of the World.

Public reason liberalism is defined by the idea that laws and policies should be justifiable to each person who is subject to them. But what does it mean for reasons to be public or, in other words, suitable for this process of justification? In response to this question, Kevin Vallier has recently developed the traditional distinction between consensus and convergence public reason into a classification distinguishing three main approaches: shareability, accessibility and intelligibility. The goal of this paper is to defend (...) the accessibility approach by demonstrating its ability to strike an appealing middle course in terms of inclusivity between shareability and intelligibility. We first argue against Vallier that accessibility can exclude religious reasons from public justification. Second, we use scientific reasons as a case study to show that accessibility excludes considerably fewer reasons than shareability. Throughout the paper, we connect our discussion of accessibility to John Rawls’s model of public reason, so as to give substance to the accessibility approach and to further our understanding of Rawls’s influential model. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop Mauricio Suárez’s distinction between denotation, epistemic representation, and faithful epistemic representation. I then outline an interpretational account of epistemic representation, according to which a vehicle represents a target for a certain user if and only if the user adopts an interpretation of the vehicle in terms of the target, which would allow them to perform valid (but not necessarily sound) surrogative inferences from the model to the system. The main difference between the interpretational conception I (...) defend here and Suárez’s inferential conception is that the interpretational account is a substantial account—interpretation is not just a “symptom” of representation; it is what makes something an epistemic representation of a something else. (shrink)

Prescission is a method used by Peirce to separate concepts and ideas from one another and to find hierarchical relationship of dependence among them. In particular, prescission is applied in those cases in which two objects cannot be imagined separately, but we can nonetheless suppose one without the other. Prescission is of fundamental importance within Peirce’s system because it is used to identify relationships among the three fundamental categories.

Empirische Forschungsarbeiten zur Ethik im Gesundheitswesen können entsprechende Implementationsprojekte unterstützen. Inzwischen gibt es eine Vielfalt von Ethikberatungsansätzen und -strukturen, die jedoch noch nicht in allen Gesundheitseinrichtungen genutzt werden. Bedarfserhebungen können wichtige Daten zu Strategie- und Projekterfordernissen darstellen. Die Bedeutung und Gründe für die Einschätzung des Bedarfs an klinischer Ethikberatung werden in der Fachliteratur vielfach diskutiert. Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden die Ergebnisse aus der Literaturanalyse im Hinblick auf vorhandene Erhebungsinstrumente zusammengefasst und ein Konzept zur Entwicklung eines Bedarfserhebungsinstruments beschrieben. Das Konzept beinhaltet (...) Daten zum Erhebungsbereich, zu den Forschungsfragen, zur Zielformulierung und zu den Zielgruppen. Anschließend wird das vorläufig entwickelte Instrument kurz vorgestellt. Ziel des Erhebungsinstruments ist es zunächst, empirische Daten von handelnden Pflegepersonen zu erheben, um so eine Grundlage für den konkreten Unterstützungsbedarf zu erhalten. (shrink)

In two often neglected passages of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant submits that the Critique is a 'treatise' or a 'doctrine of method'. These passages are puzzling because the Critique is only cursorily concerned with identifying adequate procedures of argument for philosophy. In this book, Gabriele Gava argues that these passages point out that the Critique is the doctrine of method of metaphysics. Doctrines of method have the task of showing that a given science is indeed a science (...) because it possesses 'architectonic unity' – which happens when it realizes the 'idea' of a science. According to Gava's novel approach, the Critique establishes that metaphysics is capable of this unity, and his reading of the Critique from this perspective not only illuminates the central role of the Transcendental Doctrine of Method within it, but also clarifies the relationship between the different parts of the work. (shrink)

Abstract“Simulanten des Irrsinns auf dem Vortragspult”: Dada, War and Psychiatry – ‘Active Dynamics of Trauma’. This paper relates stage performances of dada artists to war neurosis and shell shock as sociocultural phenomena. The leitmotif of this investigation is the notion of simulation, as dada artists were referred to as malingerers (simulators) of madness by the press at the time. I hypothesize that the performers imitate/simulate with drums, shouting and ‘bruitist’ sound poems, the noises of war, staging themselves as war neurotics (...) in a kind of shocking clinical demonstration. Both discourses intersect in the fact that many dadaists try to dodge the draft by simulating madness. The scandalizing anti‐art of dada will be understood as contagious anti‐pedagogy, trying to vaccinate against the madness of the era. (shrink)

The paper presents a general reconstruction of Aquinas’s interpretation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Book Z, the book devoted to the notion of substance. The aim of the study is to evaluate Aquinas’s reading in the light of a series of exegetical and philosophical issues debated in the contemporary literature on Book Z. Therefore, the paper focuses on four main issues: the relation between Book Z’s ontology and the one outlined by Aristotle in the Categories; the problem of the definition of sensible (...) substances; the question as to whether a thing is identical with its own essence; the ontological status of the forms of sensible substances. The paper presents Aquinas’s position on each of the aforementioned topics. The main thesis defended throughout is that Aquinas’s interpretation of Book Z is guided by the intuition that sensible substances are ontologically prior to their substantial components, matter and form. (shrink)

Der bekannte Liturgiewissenschaftler, der nicht nur in der Abtei Grottaferrata, sondern auch als Dozent für Liturgiewissenschaft am Pont. Ateneo «Anselmianum» in Rom tätig und mit dem byzantinischen Ritus und den Handschriften Grottaferratas bestens vertraut ist, hat nun diese schöne Einführung in das Offizium Grottaferratas vorgelegt, die der italienischen Übersetzung vorangestellt wurde.

A complementary system for a given logic is a proof system whose theorems are exactly the formulas that are not valid according to the logic in question. This article is a contribution to the complementary proof theory of classical propositional logic. In particular, we present a complementary proof-net system, $$\textsf{CPN}$$ CPN, that is sound and complete with respect to the set of all classically invalid (one-side) sequents. We also show that cut elimination in $$\textsf{CPN}$$ CPN enjoys strong normalization along with (...) strong confluence (and, hence, uniqueness of normal forms). (shrink)

Kant’s account of practical justification for belief has attracted much attention in the literature, especially in recent years. In this context, scholars have generally emphasized the originality of Kant’s thought about belief (Glaube), and Kant indeed offers a definition of belief that is very different from views that were prevalent in eighteenth-century Germany. In this article, however, I argue that it is very likely that Christian August Crusius exerted influence on Kant’s definition of belief and his account of practical justification. (...) In turn, acknowledging this influence has relevant consequences for how we understand the phenomenology of Kantian belief. (shrink)

Philosophers and cognitive scientists try to understand, from different perspectives, the nature of the experience of reality. Given this shared, interdisciplinary interest, it would be beneficial to have a coherent story about the experience of reality, in which there is reciprocal contribution from both philosophy and cognitive science. This paper wants to pave the way for this shared enterprise on the investigation of the experience of reality. I first distinguish between two indicators of reality. (1) The experience of availability to (...) motor interaction. (2) The experience of mind-independence. I then show how invoking an analysis of the results from vision science, concerning the visual mechanisms of stereopsis, which is related to the visual impression of a solid, three-dimensional world available to motor interaction, successfully provides a coherent description of the first indicator. Furthermore, I suggest that the analysis of the evidence about the first indicator is very informative in preparing the ground for the investigation of the second indicator. This is shown by discussing experimental evidence directly related to stereopsis, as well as some perceptual phenomena that are usually described by invoking the story from vision science about stereopsis. Thus, the epistemological analysis of the results from vision science on stereopsis, offered in this paper, is beneficial in a twofold manner, for the interdisciplinary enterprise aimed at understanding the experience of reality. It is explicitly beneficial in the description of the first indicator, and implicitly beneficial to understand the second indicator. Finally, it also suggests future research about their relation. (shrink)

The topic of this volume is the meaning, for a 21st-century reader, of Epictetus’ Handbook (henceforth Ench.). Aikin and Stephens’ (henceforth A. & S.) goal is to explain each chapter of Ench. by showing, on the one hand, what role it plays in the overall structure of the work and how it enacts one or more concerns proper to Epictetus and to the Stoics; on the other hand, the content of Ench. is unfolded into a message relevant to a present-day (...) reader. This project, to which Ench. lends itsel... (shrink)

Philosophers have suggested that, in order to understand the particular visual state we are in during picture perception, we should focus on experimental results from vision neuroscience—in particular, on the most rigorous account of the functioning of the visual system that we have from vision neuroscience, namely, the ‘Two Visual Systems Model’. According to the initial version of this model, our visual system can be dissociated, from an anatomo-functional point of view, into two streams: a ventral stream subserving visual recognition, (...) and a dorsal stream subserving the visual guidance of action. Following this model, philosophers have suggested that, since the two streams have different functions, they represent different properties of a picture. However, the original view proposed by the ‘Two Visual Systems Model’ about the presence of a strong anatomo-functional dissociation between the two streams has recently been questioned on both philosophical and experimental grounds. Indeed, the analysis of several new pieces of evidence seems to suggest that many visual representations in our visual system, related to different tasks, are the result of a deep functional interaction between the streams. In the light of the renewed status of the ‘Two Visual Systems Model’, also our best philosophical model of picture perception should be renewed, in order to take into account a view of the process of picture perception informed by the new evidence about such interaction. Despite this, no account fulfilling this role has been offered yet. The aim of the present paper is precisely to offer such an account. It does this by suggesting that the peculiar visual state we are in during picture perception is subserved by interstream interaction. This proposal allows us to rely on a rigorous philosophical account of picture perception that is, however, also based on the most recent results from neuroscience. Unless the explanation offered in this paper is endorsed, all the recent evidence from vision neuroscience will remain unexplained under our best empirically informed philosophical theory of picture perception. (shrink)

Since the early 1990s, increasing attention has been paid to the impact of workplace bullying on employees’ well-being and job attitudes. However, the relationship between workplace bullying and job satisfaction remains unclear. This study aims to shed light on the nature of the bullying-job satisfaction relationship in the Italian context. As expected, the results revealed a U-shape curvilinear relationship between workplace bullying and job satisfaction after controlling for demographic variables. In contrast to the curvilinear model, the results support a negative (...) linear relationship between workplace bullying and psychological well-being, in which higher exposure to negative acts at work is associated with diminished well-being. In addition, gender and job position significantly predicted mental health scores where men and managers reported a better psychological well-being than women, blue-collar, and white-collar employees. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed according to these results. (shrink)

The Simple Counterfactual Analysis (SCA) was once considered the most promising analysis of disposition ascriptions. According to SCA, disposition ascriptions are to be analyzed in terms of counterfactual conditionals. In the last few decades, however, SCA has become the target of a battery of counterexamples. In all counterexamples, something seems to be interfering with a certain object’s having or not having a certain disposition thus making the truth-values of the disposition ascription and of its associated counterfactual come apart. Intuitively, however, (...) it would seem that, if all interferences were absent, the disposition ascription and its associated conditional would have the same truth-value. Although this idea may seem obvious, it is far from obvious how to implement it. In fact, it has become widely assumed that the content of qualifying ceteris paribus clauses (such as ‘if all interferences were absent’) cannot be specified in a clear and non-circular manner. In this paper, I will argue that this assumption is wrong. I will develop an analysis of disposition ascriptions, the Interference-Free Counterfactual Analysis, which relies on a clear and non-circular definition of the notion of interference and avoids the standard counterexamples to SCA while vindicating the intuition that disposition ascriptions and counterfactual conditionals are intimately related. (Please note that an erratum has been issued for the published version of this paper. It is recommended to read the self-archived version of the paper.). (shrink)

My two daughters would love to go tobogganing down the hill by themselves, but they are just toddlers and I am an apprehensive parent, so, before letting them do so, I want to ensure that the toboggan won’t go too fast. But how fast will it go? One way to try to answer this question would be to tackle the problem head on. Since my daughters and their toboggan are initially at rest, according to classical mechanics, their final velocity will (...) be determined by the forces they will be subjected to between the moment the toboggan will be released at the top of the hill and the moment it will reach its highest speed. The problem is that, throughout their downhill journey, my daughters and the toboggan will be subjected to an incredibly large number of forces—from the gravitational pull of any massive object in the universe to the weight of the snowflake that is sitting on the tip of one of my youngest daughter’s hairs—so that any attempt to apply the theory directly to the real-world system in all its complexity seems to be doomed to failure. (shrink)

This paper explores the socio-epistemic practice of shopping for experts. I argue that expert shopping is particularly likely to occur on what Thi Nguyen calls cognitive islands. To support my argument, I focus on macroeconomics. First, I make a prima-facie case for thinking that macroeconomics is a cognitive island. Then, I argue that ordinary people are particularly likely to engage in expert shopping when it comes to macroeconomic matters. In particular, I distinguish between two kinds of expert shopping, which I (...) call cynical and wishful, and introduce the notion of assisted expert shopping, which occurs when people or organizations shop for experts on behalf of other people. I argue that assisted expert shopping can sometime result in what I call a propagandistic use of expertise. Finally, I critically examine some possible reasons for optimism and find them wanting. I conclude by suggesting that that much of what I said about shopping for macroeconomic experts might also apply mutatis mutandis to other policy-relevant domains of expertise. (shrink)