Tim Crane characterizes the cognitive role of singular thought via singular mental files: the application of such files to more than one object is senseless. As many do, he thus stresses the contrast between ‘singular’ and ‘general’. I give a counterexample, plurally-directed singular thought, and I offer alternative characterizations of singular thought—better described as ‘objects-directed thought’—initially in terms of the defeasibility of the descriptions associated with one's thinking of an object, and then more broadly in terms of whether descriptions of (...) the object or description-independent epistemic routes to the object are primarily operative in an agent's thinking. (shrink)

Prior research found correlations between reflection test performance and philosophical tendencies among laypeople. In two large studies (total N = 1299)—one pre-registered—many of these correlations were replicated in a sample that included both laypeople and philosophers. For example, reflection test performance predicted preferring atheism over theism and instrumental harm over harm avoidance on the trolley problem. However, most reflection-philosophy correlations were undetected when controlling for other factors such as numeracy, preferences for open-minded thinking, personality, philosophical training, age, and gender. Nonetheless, (...) some correlations between reflection and philosophical views survived this multivariate analysis and were only partially confounded with either education or self-reported reasoning preferences. Unreflective thinking still predicted believing in God whereas reflective thinking still predicted believing that (a) proper names like ‘Santa’ do not necessarily refer to entities that actually exist and (b) science does reveal the fundamental nature of the world. So some robust relationships between reflection and philosophical tendencies were detected even among philosophers, and yet there was clearly more to the link between reflection and philosophy. To this end, demographic and metaphilosophical hypotheses are considered. (shrink)

Many studies find reflective thinking predicts less belief in God or less religiosity — so-called analytic atheism. However, the most widely used tests of reflection confound reflection with ancillary abilities such as numeracy, some studies do not detect analytic atheism in every country, experimentally encouraging reflection makes some non-believers more open to believing in God, and one of the most common sources of online research participants seems to produce lower data quality. So analytic atheism may be less than universal or (...) partially explained by confounding factors. To test this, we developed better measures, controlled for more confounds, and employed more recruitment methods. All four studies detected signs of analytic atheism above and beyond confounds (N > 70,000 people from five of six continental regions). We also discovered analytic apostasy: the better a person performed on reflection tests, the greater their odds of losing their religion since childhood — even when controlling for confounds. Analytic apostasy even seemed to explain analytic atheism: apostates were more reflective than others and analytic atheism was undetected after excluding apostates. Religious conversion was rare and unrelated to reflection, suggesting reflection’s relationships to conversion and deconversion are asymmetric. Detected relationships were usually small, indicating reflective thinking is a reliable albeit marginal predictor of apostasy. (shrink)

Philosophy is a reflective activity. So perhaps it is unsurprising that many philosophers have claimed that reflection plays an important role in shaping and even improving our philosophical thinking. This hypothesis seems plausible given that training in philosophy has correlated with better performance on tests of reflection and reflective reasoning has correlated with demonstrably better judgments in a variety of domains. This article reviews the hypothesized roles of reflection in philosophical thinking as well as the empirical evidence for these roles. (...) This reveals that although there are fairly reliable links between reflection and philosophical judgment among both laypeople and philosophers, the role of reflection in philosophical thinking may nonetheless depend in part on other factors, some of which have yet to be determined. So progress in research on reflection in philosophy may require further innovation in experimental methods and psychometric validation of philosophical measures. (shrink)

Reflectivists consider reflective reasoning crucial for good judgment and action. Anti-reflectivists deny that reflection delivers what reflectivists seek. Alas, the evidence is mixed. So, does reflection confer normative value or not? This paper argues for a middle way: reflection can confer normative value, but its ability to do this is bound by such factors as what we might call epistemic identity: an identity that involves particular beliefs—for example, religious and political identities. We may reflectively defend our identities’ beliefs rather than (...) reflect open-mindedly to adopt whatever beliefs cohere with the best arguments and evidence. This bounded reflectivism is explicated with an algorithmic model of reflection synthesized from philosophy and science that yields testable predictions, psychometric implications, and realistic metaphilosophical suggestions—for example, overcoming motivated reflection may require embracing epistemic identity rather than veiling it (à la Rawls 1971). So bounded reflectivism should be preferred to views offering anything less. (shrink)

Philosophers have probably been organizing conferences since at least the time of Plato’s academy (Barnes, 1998). More recently, philosophers have brought some of their conferences online (e.g., Brown, 2009; Buckner, Byrd, Rushing, & Schwenkler, 2017; Calzavarini & Viola, 2018; Nadelhoffer, 2006). However, the adoption of online conferences is limited. One might wonder if scholars prefer traditional conferences for their ability to provide goods that online conferences cannot. While this may be true, online conferences outshine traditional conferences in various ways, (...) and at a significantly lower cost. By considering the costs and benefits of both conference models, we may find reasons to prefer online to traditional conferences in some circumstances. This paper shares the methods, quantitative results, and qualitative results of the Minds Online conferences of 2015, 2016, and 2017. The evidence suggests that the online conference model can help scholars better understand their profession, share the workload of conference organizing, increase representation for underrepresented groups, increase accessibility to attendees, decrease monetary costs for everyone involved, sustain conference activity during states of emergency, and reduce their carbon footprint. So, the advantages of traditional conferences might be outweighed by their higher costs after all. (shrink)

Cognitive scientists have revealed systematic errors in human reasoning. There is disagreement about what these errors indicate about human rationality, but one upshot seems clear: human reasoning does not seem to fit traditional views of human rationality. This concern about rationality has made its way through various fields and has recently caught the attention of philosophers. The concern is that if philosophers are prone to systematic errors in reasoning, then the integrity of philosophy would be threatened. In this paper, I (...) present some of the more famous work in cognitive science that has marshaled this concern. Then I present reasons to think that those with training in philosophy will be less prone to certain systematic errors in reasoning. The suggestion is that if philosophers could be shown to be less prone to such errors, then the worries about the integrity of philosophy could be constrained. Then I present evidence that, according to performance on the CRT (Frederick 2005), those who have benefited from training and selection in philosophy are indeed less prone to one kind of systematic error: irrationally arbitrating between intuitive and reflective responses. Nonetheless, philosophers are not entirely immune to this systematic error, and their proclivity for this error is statistically related to their responses to a variety of philosophical questions. So, while the evidence herein puts constraints on the worries about the integrity of philosophy, it by no means eliminates these worries. The conclusion, then, is that the present evidence offers prima facie reasons to ascribe a mitigated privilege to philosophers' ability to rationally arbitrate between intuitive and reflective responses. (shrink)

Frankfurt-type examples seem to show that agents can be morally responsible for their actions and omissions even if they could not have done otherwise. Fischer and Ravizza's influential account of moral responsibility is largely based on such examples. I examine a problem with their account of responsibility in cases where we fail to act. The solution to this problem has a surprising and far reaching implication concerning the construction of successful Frankfurt-type examples. I argue that the role of the counterfactual (...) intervener in such examples can only be filled by a rational agent. (shrink)

Most philosophers of mathematics try to show either that the sort of knowledge mathematicians have is similar to the sort of knowledge specialists in the empirical sciences have or that the kind of knowledge mathematicians have, although apparently about objects such as numbers, sets, and so on, isn't really about those sorts of things as well. Jody Azzouni argues that mathematical knowledge really is a special kind of knowledge with its own special means of gathering evidence. He analyses the linguistic (...) pitfalls and misperceptions philosophers in this field are often prone to, and explores the misapplications of epistemic principles from the empirical sciences to the exact sciences. What emerges is a picture of mathematics both sensitive to mathematical practice, and to the ontological and epistemological issues that concern philosophers. (shrink)

Traditionally, incompatibilism has rested on two theses. First, the familiar Principle of Alternative Possibilities says that we cannot be morally responsible for what we do unless we could have done otherwise. Accepting this principle, incompatibilists have then argued that there is no room for such alternative possibilities in a deterministic world. Recently, however, a number of philosophers have argued that incompatibilism about moral responsibility can be defended independently of these traditional theses (Ginet 2005: 604-8; McKenna 2001; Stump 1999: 322-4, 2000 (...) and 2002; van Inwagen 1983: 182-8; and Zagzebski 2000). Incompatibilists of this stripe are generally motivated by the concern that, if determinism .. (shrink)

When ordinary people - mathematicians among them - take something to follow from something else, they are exposing the backbone of our self-ascribed ability to reason. Jody Azzouni investigates the connection between that ordinary notion of consequence and the formal analogues invented by logicians. One claim of the book is that, despite our apparent intuitive grasp of consequence, we do not introspect rules by which we reason, nor do we grasp the scope and range of the domain, as it were, (...) of our reasoning. This point is illustrated with a close analysis of a paradigmatic case of ordinary reasoning: mathematical proof. (shrink)

1. EXPLICATING THE CONCEPT OF REFLECTION (under review) -/- To understand how ‘reflection’ is used, I consider ordinary, philosophical, and scientific discourse. I find that ‘reflection’ seems to refer to reasoning that is deliberate and conscious, but not necessarily self-conscious. Then I offer an empirical explication of reflection’s conscious and deliberate features. These explications not only help explain how reflection can be detected; they also distinguish reflection from nearby concepts such as ruminative and reformative reasoning. After this, I find that (...) reflection is not obviously limited to only practical or only theoretical reasoning. The chapter ends with reasons to prefer ‘unreflective’ and ‘reflective’ to dual process theorists’ labels about systems or types. -/- 2. BOUNDED REFLECTIVISM & EPISTEMIC IDENTITY (in Metaphilosophy) -/- Reflection features centrally in philosophy (e.g., Korsgaard, 1996; Rawls, 1971; Sosa, 1991) and psychology (e.g., Pennycook, 2018). Bounded reflectivism is an empirically adequate model of reflection that explains reflection’s capacity to either help or hinder reasoning—e.g., reflective equilibrium vs. reflective polarization (e.g., Kahan et al., 2017). One innovation of the model is epistemic identity: an identity that involves particular beliefs—e.g., religious and political identities. When we feel that our epistemic identity is threatened, we can reflectively defend its beliefs rather than update our beliefs according to the best arguments and evidence. The solution, I argue, is not to suppress epistemic identity but embrace it by appealing to shared, superordinate epistemic identities. -/- 3. ALL MEASURES ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL (under review) -/- A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? “10 cents” comes to most people’s minds immediately. However, upon reflection, we can realize that “5 cents” is the correct answer. There are many reflection tests. Each has its limitations. Some reflection tests are mathematical—like the bat-and-ball problem (e.g., Frederick, 2005) and others are logical (e.g., Janis & Frick, 1943). So there are concerns that reflection tests track logical and mathematical competence rather than reflection per se. Also, some psychologists assume a priori that correct answers are reflective and lured answers are unreflective. New evidence raises additional concerns about the plausibility of these assumptions. I argue that think aloud protocols (Ericsson & Simon, 1998) and process dissociation (Jacoby, 1991) can assuage some of these concerns. -/- 4. GREAT MINDS DO NOT THINK ALIKE (in Review of Philosophy and Psychology) -/- Two large studies (N = 1299), one pre-registered, found that many correlations between reflection and philosophical beliefs among non-philosophers replicated among philosophers. For example, less reflective philosophers preferred theism to atheism and utilitarian rather than deontological responses to the trolley problem (Hannikainen & Cova, in prep.; Pennycook et al., 2016; Reynolds, Byrd, & Conway, forthcoming). However, philosophical judgments were sometimes better predicted by factors like education, gender, and personality than by reflection test performance. So although some relationships between reflection and philosophy were robust, there is more to the link between reflection and philosophy. Normative implications are also discussed—e.g., how we can infer the quality of philosophical views from their correlations with reflective or unreflective reasoning. -/- 5. WHAT WE CAN (AND CAN’T) INFER ABOUT IMPLICIT BIAS (in Synthese) -/- Contrary to some philosophers and psychologists, I argue that implicit bias is probably associative. However, I also argue that debiasing is not thereby entirely unconscious and involuntary. Indeed, strong evidence suggests that reflection can change implicitly biased behavior—e.g., conscious and deliberate counterconditioning. This has implications for the science and morality of implicit bias—e.g., evidence suggests that we can reform biases; so. intuitively, we can be responsible for biases. (shrink)

"The Critical Theory of Religion: From the Frankfurt School to Emancipatory Islamic Thought" is a collection of essay of Dr. Dustin J. Byrd, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Olivet College. The book concerns the Frankfurt School's Critical Theory of Society and how it relates to religion, especially Islam, in the contemporary world.

In his book, The Frankfurt School and the Dialectics of Religion: Translating Critical Faith into Critical Theory, Dustin J. Byrd argues that at the core of the Frankfurt School's Critical Theory is a secularized theology. Unlike their predecessors, especially Feuerbach, Marx, Lenin, Freud, and Nietzsche, who argued for an abstract negation of religion, the first generation of Critical Theorists followed Hegel's logic and attempted to rescue and preserve the revolutionary, emancipatory, and liberational aspects of religion in their secular non-conformist (...) philosophy. They saw in both Judaism and Christianity certain conceptual and semantic elements that could be enlisted into their struggle for a future reconciled society, one beyond the slaughterbench of history. In order to rescue religion, theological concepts had to go through the process of determinate negation, wherein such materials migrate from the depth of the religious mythos into publicly accessible reasoning, thus making the revolutionary impulse of prophetic religion accessible to the secular world. Byrd also argues that this determinate negation of religion remains relevant to today's post-secular societies, especially in regard to religious Muslims attempting to find their place in Western countries, which are often hostile to religion and religiosity. Examining the strengths and weaknesses of Habermas' famous "translation proviso," he argues that both religious and secular citizens of the West can learn from the Frankfurt School's dialectical approach to religion in order to find a space wherein both religious faith and secular reason can not only co-exist, but also join together in the process of creating a more reconciled future society. (shrink)

In this article, derria byrd contends that more robust interrogation of the organizational contribution to inequity in higher education would be aided by understanding higher education organizations as social actors. Organizational social actor theory demonstrates that colleges and universities are more than inert contexts in which marginalized students' experiences and outcomes play out. They are entities that possess unique dispositional orientations, motives, and inclinations toward action. This conceptual article argues that engagement with institutional habitus, grounded in Pierre Bourdieu's theory (...) of practice, situates colleges and universities as social actors whose structural positions generate interests, beliefs, and behaviors that tend to constrain opportunity for students. The concept shifts the empirical gaze from students to colleges and universities in examinations of education inequity and facilitates analysis of how colleges' social position and the organizational identity, opportunities, and limitations it engenders support and/or inhibit organizational practice, including transformation toward equity. byrd crafts this argument in five parts: (1) exploration of organizational social actorhood theory, (2) overview of Bourdieu's theoretical framework and key conceptual tools, (3) expansions on Bourdieu's foundational formula to demonstrate how institutional habitus supplements the theorist's framework, (4) purposeful engagement with critiques of how institutional habitus has been employed in educational research, and (5) guiding principles for empirical engagement with institutional habitus. Throughout, byrd employs a collective case study of three college campuses to ground the theoretical review in empirical realities and uncover the invisible influence of social power on organizational practice. Given Bourdieu's attention to higher education and broad concern for systemic inequities reproduced at this level, this article focuses on higher education but has implications for educational research more broadly. (shrink)

1. Introduction It is generally assumed that, during his early pre-critical phase, Kant accepted a Leibnizian account of freedom according to which we are free to do otherwise than we do even though our actions are determined. This assumption is false. Far from endorsing such an account, Kant explicitly argues in the New Elucidation of the First Principle of Metaphysical Cognition that there is no relevant sense in which we can do otherwise than we do. Nevertheless, he is equally convinced (...) that we are free and responsible for our actions. And so he concludes that we can be responsible for what we do even if we could not have done otherwise. Little attention, however, has been paid to this argument. This is unfortunate, since a better understanding of this stage in Kant's theory of freedom would surely help us in understanding the later critical developments. This paper seeks to remedy this deficiency. (shrink)

Over one million annual deaths have been attributed to bacterial antimicrobial resistance. Although antibiotics have saved countless other lives, overuse and misuse of antibiotics increases this global threat. Developing new antibiotics and retraining clinicians can be undermined by patients who pressure clinicians to prescribe unnecessary antibiotics. So we validated two low-cost, scalable interventions for improving antibiotic decisions in an online randomized control trial and a pre-registered replication (N = 985). Both first-person vignette experiments found that an infographic and text message (...) caused intermediate to large improvements in antibiotic decisions compared to active controls — even when controlling for a dozen confounds. Notably, these educational interventions also reduced trust in a clinician who offered antibiotics for an upper respiratory infection. These data show how low-cost adjustments to existing communication systems can teach people to reduce the existential risks of antibiotic resistance and how inappropriate antibiotic prescribing can erode trust in health systems. (shrink)

In chapter 9 of De Interpretatione, Aristotle offers a defense of free will against the threat of fatalism. According to the traditional interpretation, Aristotle concedes the validity of the fatalist's arguments and then proceeds to reject the Principle of Bivalence in order to avoid the fatalist's conclusion. Assuming that the traditional interpretation is right on this point, it remains to be seen why Aristotle felt compelled to reject such an intuitive semantic principle rather than challenge the fatalist's inference from truth (...) to necessity. The answer, I contend, lies in Aristotle's theory of truth and truthmakers. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on the problem of accounting for apparent inconsistencies between Plato’s early and middle works. Developmentalism seeks to account for these variances by differentiating a Socratic philosophy in the early dialogues from a Platonic philosophy in the middle. In opposition to this position, I propose an alternative explanation: differences between these two groups are due to Plato’s depiction and use of middle period epistemology. I argue that, in the early dialogues, Plato depicts Socrates’ use of the (...) “summoners” described in Book 7 of the Republic, and that Plato uses Socrates’ failed attempts to summon interlocutors for the purpose of summoning readers. In conclusion, I suggest that the hypothesis that Plato uses summoners provides a framework for addressing the wider problem of inconsistencies within the Platonic corpus. (shrink)

Ordinary language and scientific language enable us to speak about, in a singular way, what we recognize not to exist: fictions, the contents of our hallucinations, abstract objects, and various idealized but nonexistent objects that our scientific theories are often couched in terms of. Indeed, references to such nonexistent items-especially in the case of the application of mathematics to the sciences-are indispensable. We cannot avoid talking about such things. Scientific and ordinary languages thus enable us to say things about Pegasus (...) or about hallucinated objects that are true, such as "Pegasus was believed by the ancient Greeks to be a flying horse," or "That elf I'm now hallucinating over there is wearing blue shoes." Standard contemporary metaphysical views and semantic analyses of singular idioms on offer in contemporary philosophy of language have not successfully accommodated these routine practices of saying true and false things about the nonexistent while simultaneously honoring the insight that such things do not exist in any way at all. That is, philosophers often feel driven to claim that such objects do exist, or they claim that all our talk isn't genuine truth-apt talk, but only pretence. This book reconfigures metaphysics in radical ways that allow the accommodation of our ordinary ways of speaking of what does not exist while retaining the absolutely crucial presupposition that such objects exist in no way at all, have no properties, and so are not the truth-makers for the truths and falsities that are about them. (shrink)

Reflective reasoning often correlates with certain philosophical decisions, but it is often unclear whether reflection causes those decisions. So a pre-registered experiment assessed how reflective thinking relates to decisions about 10 thought experiments from epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of mind. Participants from the United States were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk, CloudResearch, Prolific, and a university. One participant source yielded up to 18 times as many low-quality respondents as the other three. Among remaining respondents, some prior correlations between reflective and (...) philosophical thinking replicated. For example, reflection predicted denying that accidentally justified true beliefs count as knowledge. However, reflection test order did not impact philosophical decisions. Instead, a philosophical reflection effect emerged: making philosophical decisions before the reflection test improved reflection test performance. These and other data suggest causal paths between reflection and philosophy can go both directions, but detecting such results can depend on factors such as data quality. (shrink)

Sextus Empiricus presents Pyrrhonism as a skeptical lifestyle that is appealing, in large part, because of the tranquility it appears to afford. Addressing concerns about the practicality of such a lifestyle, Sextus suggests that Pyrrhonists can lead sufficiently ordinary lives while suspending belief about everything unclear. Here, I aim to offer a partial examination of the practicality and appeal of Pyrrhonism from the Pyrrhonist’s perspective. In particular, I examine how a skeptic would likely respond if asked to consider his potential (...) use of problematic concepts in his daily life. I argue that, even if the Pyrrhonist’s skepticism is limited to certain types of controversial theoretical commitments, consideration of this issue would likely still cause him to worry that he is relying on beliefs about things unclear in his ordinary life. Along the way, I also hope to highlight some of the difficulties that a philosophically reflective person is likely to encounter if he is resistant to taking on philosophical commitments. (shrink)

Our understanding of implicit bias and how to measure it has yet to be settled. Various debates between cognitive scientists are unresolved. Moreover, the public’s understanding of implicit bias tests continues to lag behind cognitive scientists’. These discrepancies pose potential problems. After all, a great deal of implicit bias research has been publicly funded. Further, implicit bias tests continue to feature in discourse about public- and private-sector policies surrounding discrimination, inequality, and even the purpose of science. We aim to do (...) our part by reconstructing some of the recent arguments in ordinary language and then revealing some of the operative norms or values that are often hidden beneath the surface of these arguments. This may help the public learn more about the science of implicit bias. It may also help both laypeople and scientists reflect on the values, interests, and stakeholders involved in establishing, justifying, and communicating scientific research. (shrink)

Though Socrates appears to present examples of mathematicians hypothesizing entities in Republic 510c3-6, most interpreters assume that he really means that they hypothesize propositions. After establishing the plausibility of the entities interpretation, I show that it is fruitful in respect to locating the objects of dianoia, addressing the question of whether Plato held a theory of mathematical intermediates, and explaining the inferiority of mathematical reasoning to dialectic.

Our experience of objects is very rich. We perceive objects as possessing individuation conditions. This, however, is a projection of our senses and thinking. Azzouni shows the resulting austere metaphysics tames many ancient philosophical problems about constitution, as well as contemporary puzzles about reductionism.

Some have argued that our sense of free will is an illusion. And some base this free will skepticism on claims about when we become consciously aware of our intentions. Evidence suggests that unreflective intentions form before we are conscious of them. And that is supposed to challenge our sense of free will. This inference from unreflective intention to free will skepticism may seem intuitive at first. However, upon reflection, this argument seems to entail a magical view of free will. (...) So, insofar as free will does not require magic, unreflective intentions do not necessarily undermine our sense of free will. (shrink)

_Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science_ is a fascinating study of the bounds between science and language: in what sense, and of what, does science provide knowledge? Is science an instrument only distantly related to what's real? Can the language of science be used to adequately describe the truth? In this book, Jodi Azziouni investigates the technology of science - the actual forging and exploiting of causal links, between ourselves and what we endeavor to know and understand.

Given the available evidence, I argue that we face considerable uncertainty about free will. In particular, I argue that the available philosophical evidence does not support being highly confident in our theories about the nature of free will, though this does not necessarily mean that we should suspend judgment about either incompatibilism or compatibilism. For those who accept incompatibilism, however, I argue that there is enough uncertainty about libertarian free will that they should suspend judgment about whether we are ever (...) free, if not reject free will entirely. While I do not claim that compatibilists should be similarly agnostic about the existence of free will, I argue that most compatibilist theories are subject to considerable uncertainty as well, so that most compatibilists should be agnostic about how often we act freely. I conclude with a brief discussion of how we might address these issues going forward. (shrink)

It’s 2019. Computers can drive cars, operate stores, and outperform humans in sophisticated games. However, computers cannot correctly read a PDF with footnotes. Alas, many people have to rely on their computers to read PDF papers. So, many people face significant obstacles while trying to consume written research. That seems bad. Insofar as we can prevent this bad outcome without making matters worse, we should.

Depression is a common and devastating instance of ill-being which deserves an account. Moreover, the ill-being of depression is impacted by digital technology: some uses of digital technology increase such ill-being while other uses of digital technology increase well-being. So a good account of ill-being would explicate the antecedents of depressive symptoms and their relief, digitally and otherwise. This paper borrows a causal network account of well-being and applies it to ill-being, particularly depression. Causal networks are found to provide a (...) principled, coherent, intuitively plausible, and empirically adequate account of cases of depression in every-day and digital contexts. Causal network accounts of ill-being also offer philosophical, scientific, and practical utility. Insofar as other accounts of ill-being cannot offer these advantages, we should prefer causal network accounts of ill-being. (shrink)

The current study examines similarity or disparity of a frontally mediated physiological response of mental effort among multiple executive functioning tasks between children and adults. Task performance and phasic heart rate variability (HRV) were recorded in children (6 to 10 years old) and adults in an examination of age differences in executive functioning skills during periods of increased demand. Executive load levels were varied by increasing the difficulty levels of three executive functioning tasks: inhibition (IN), working memory (WM), and planning/problem (...) solving (PL). Behavioral performance decreased in all tasks with increased executive demand in both children and adults. Adults’ phasic high frequency HRV was suppressed during the management of increased IN and WM load. Children’s phasic HRV was suppressed during the management of moderate WM load. HRV was not suppressed during either children’s or adults’ increasing load during the PL task. High frequency phasic HRV may be most sensitive to executive function tasks that have a time-response pressure, and simply requiring performance on a self-paced task requiring frontal lobe activation may not be enough to generate HRV responsitivity to increasing demand. (shrink)

In this dissertation I propose a new method of interpreting Plato's Phaedo based upon Socrates' description of the "summoner" at Republic 522e--525a. I elucidate the summoner paradigm as a four step process in which one notices an apparent contradiction in perception, separates two opposites from one mixed perception, realizes the priority of the opposites, and recognizes their transcendence. In the Republic , its primary purpose is to move the subject from pistis to dianoia and from dianoia to nous. The summoner (...) method of interpretation looks at how Plato sets up contradictions within the text and implicitly argues for models of resolving them. ;Using this method of interpretation, I, in performing a close reading of the Phaedo, argue that early in the dialogue Plato introduces contradictions and suggests models of resolution which he later applies in the arguments for immortality of the soul as he attempts to resolve the soul as summoner. He avoids contradiction in the cyclical argument by treating the soul as if it were a substrate in which characteristics alternate and in the recollection argument by applying the summoner paradigm in an attempt to separate out form. When neither of these approaches is successful, he uses the affinity argument to show that the soul is some kind of an intermediate. In the final argument, Plato resolves contradiction by locating the ontological level of the soul and altering the summoner paradigm so that it separates out intermediates, thus making the soul an intelligible object that may be grasped by the intellect. ;In conclusion, I argue that, though I show limitations of all of the arguments individually, each plays a significant role in directing and refining Plato's inquiry into the nature of the soul, and that the arguments work dialectically to help us move from opinions of the soul to some degree of knowledge of its status and degree of intelligibility. (shrink)

Unit I. Fundamental characteristics of the common law. The source of law -- The jury -- The adversary system of trial -- Retroactivity: a return to stare decisis -- Unit II. The courts and their jurisdiction. Court systems in the United States -- Court system in England -- Unit III. Constitutional law. Judicial review -- Equal protection -- Freedom of speech -- Appendix I. Constitution of the United States -- Appendix II. Table of Supreme Court cases -- Appendix III. Common (...) case citations. (shrink)

First, this article considers Kant's rather odd requirement that every contract consist of four declarations of will: an offer, an approval of the offer, a promise and an acceptance of this promise. It explains Kant's theory as a stepping stone for Savigny's later development of the principle of abstraction, a principle which separates the contract of obligation from the contract of ownership transfer and makes the validity of each independent of the validity of the other. Second, the article interprets Kant's (...) "Dogmatic Division of All Rights Acquirable through Contracts," contained in section 31 of the Doctrine of Right. It claims that the table consists of aspects of contractual relationships and is dynamic rather than static in that these aspects can be intermingled to produce a wealth of different types of contracts. (shrink)

In connection with his discussion of the three Ulpian formulae, Kant introduces three “leges,” namely the “lex iusti,” the “lex iuridica,” and the “lex iustitiae,” which he then defines in § 41 of the Doctrine of Right. The three “leges” correspond to the attributes “right,” “juridical,” and “established as right.” These three attributes in turn relate to the possibility, the reality, and the (material) necessity of our rights and juridical duties. The three “leges” and attributes have certain consequences for the (...) division of public justice, public justice being constitutive of the juridical state, into “iustitia tutatrix,” “iustitia commutativa,” and “iustitia distributiva.” This article provides a comprehensive account of all these concepts from § 41 of the Doctrine of Right. It also explains what until now has seemed to be a rather cryptic comment Kant makes at the end of his discussion of the Ulpian formulae regarding internal and external legal duties, and those legal duties that contain the derivation of the external legal duties from the principle of the internal legal duties through subsumption. Indeed the article provides the key to understanding the entire Doctrine of Right from a totally new perspective. (shrink)

This article attemps to provide a good defense for battered women who kill their sleeping husbands, particularly in cases where it is judged that she was mistaken in her assumption of the need to exercise self-defense. Proceeding from the distinction between the imputation of an act to an actor and the imputation of blame to an actor for criminally prohibited conduct , the article moves on to a discussion of the relevance of mistakes as to justifying circumstances under the criminal (...) law. Although some attention is given to the theoretically sound solution to the problem raised by the unknowingly justified actor, primary emphasis is placed on the putatively justified actor. The argument is advanced that the false assumption of justifying circumstances negates the imputation of wrongful conduct to an actor, rather than negating the imputation of blame to him for his wrongful conduct. Accordingly, criminal liability can only attach to an individual acting in putative self-defense, for example, if that individual was negligent for making the mistake . The standard for judging negligence in the United States is that of the so-called "reasonable person". A great deal of discussion in the U.S. scholarly literature has been revolving around the question of whether an "objective" or "subjective" standard of reasonableness should be employed when determining whether an individual acted reasonable and thus non-negligently. This article argues for a "subjective" standard for the criminal law, as opposed to an "objective" standard, which is claimed to have more relevance for tort law . Finally, the claim is made that a battered woman who kills her sleeping husband should be given the benefit of the self-defense justification under the U.S. law approach to self-defense. If the woman is mistaken as to the need to exercise self-defense, then wrongful conduct should be imputed to her only on the basis of whether her mistake was subjectively unreasonable and thus negligent . Der Aufsatz liefert Argumente dafür, daß eine "battered woman" für die Tötung ihres schlafenden Ehemannes strafrechtlich nicht zur Verantwortung gezogen werden kann, und zwar insbesondere dann nicht, wenn sie irrig Umstände annimmt, die, wenn sie vorlägen, die Handlung der Frau unter Notwehrgesichtspunkten rechtfertigen würden. Die Unterscheidung zwischen der Zurechnung eines Vorgangs als Handlung und der Zurechnung einer rechtswidrigen Tat zur Schuld wird vorangeschickt . Dann wird die strafrechtliche Relevanz von Irrtümern über rechtfertigende Umstände besprochen. Zwar wird die theoretisch richtige Lösung auch solcher Fälle diskutiert, bei denen der Täter rechtfertigende Umstände verkennt. Doch wird die Betonung auf die Fälle der Putativnotwehr gelegt, wobei die These vertreten wird, daß die irrige Annahme von rechtfertigenden Umständen die Zurechnung des Vorgangs als Totschlagshandlung und nicht erst die Zurechnung zur Schuld ausschließt. Daraus läßt sich entnehmen, daß der Täter, der in Putativnotwehr handelt, strafrechtlich nur dann verantwortlich ist, wenn sein Irrtum auf Fahrlässigkeit beruht . In den U.S.A. wird die Frage, ob jemand fahrlässig gehandelt hat oder nicht, danach beantwortet, ob eine "reasonable person" in der gegebenen Situation genauso wie der Täter gehandelt hätte. Zur Zeit findet eine lebhafte Diskussion darüber statt, ob dieser Maßstab "objektiv" oder "subjektiv" aufzufassen sei. Anders ausgedrückt: Es wird die Frage gestellt, ob die Geschworenen die Annahmen eines Durchschnittsmenschen oder aber die eines Menschen mit den persönlichen Merkmalen und Erfahrungen des Angeklagten in ihren Überlegungen darüber heranziehen sollten, ob dieser hypothetische Mensch einem Irrtum wie dem des Angeklagten erlegen wäre. Der Aufsatz spricht sich, was strafrechtliche Urteile angeht, für den "subjektiven" und gegen den "objektiven" Maßstab aus, der statt dessen für die deliktsrechtlichen Urteile der angemessenere zu sein scheint . Die Ergebnisse dieser Argumentationen werden dann auf den Fall der "battered woman" angewandt. Es wird gezeigt, daß die geschundene Frau, die ihren schlafenden Ehemann tötet, nach dem U.S. Model Penal Code unter Notwehrgesichtspunkten gerechtfertigt sein kann. Sollte es im Einzelfall so sein, daß die Frau sich über die Erforderlichkeit der Notwehrhandlung geirrt hat, dann kann ihr die Handlung nur dann zugerechnet werden, wenn der Irrtum im "subjektiven" Sinne fahrlässig gewesen ist. (shrink)

The _Critique of Religion and Religion’s Critique: On Dialectical Religiology_, is a book compiled in honour of Rudolf J. Siebert, Critical Theorist of Society and Religion. It is meant to both illuminate and interrogate his critical approach to the study of religion: Dialectical Religiology.

Traditionally, incompatibilists about moral responsibility and determinism claim that we cannot be morally responsible unless we could have done otherwise and that we cannot do otherwise if we are determined. The Direct Argument for incompatibilism supposedly offers its defenders a dialectical advantage over this traditional approach insofar as it does not appear to rely on either of these controversial claims. Recently, though, David Widerker has argued against this supposition and urged that it is time to say farewell to the Direct (...) Argument. I examine two of Widerker’s criticisms and argue that, while they are not compelling, a revised version of one does show that supporters of the Direct Argument will very likely need to deny that an agent could do otherwise if determinism is true. I conclude that, nevertheless, the Direct Argument may still have considerable dialectical appeal and that neither of Widerker’s criticisms should lead us to say goodbye to it just yet. (shrink)

One of the most troubling aspects of dealing with past injustice in the former East Block is the conflict between positive law and law as the expression of higher principles of justice. In his Die Metaphysik der Sitten, Kant attempts to give content to, and place limitations on, what one may reasonably call "law". The purpose of this paper is to examine Kant's theories of commutative justice in a state of nature and distributive justice in a civil state in an (...) effort to define principles that are binding for every legal system. The paper examines two sets of four cases, namely 1) equity, necessity, pardons and duels; and 2) gifts, loans, bona fide purchasers and oaths, where Kant establishes limitations on state power with respect to the individual and to the society of individuals as a whole. Kant's legal system reveals itself to be a system devoted to liberal individualism and the maximum of protection of individual liberties. Einer der am meisten beunruhigenden Aspekte beim Umgang mit vergangenem Unrecht im früheren Ostblock besteht in dem Konflikt zwischen positivem Recht einerseits und Recht als Ausdruck höherer Prinzipien der Gerechtigkeit andererseits. In seinem Werk Die Metaphysik der Sitten versucht Kant, Inhalt und Grenzen dessen zu bestimmen, was man vernünftigerweise als "Recht" bezeichnen kann. Die Aufgabe dieses Beitrags besteht darin, Kants Theorien kommutativer Gerechtigkeit im Naturzustand sowie distributiver Gerechtigkeit im bürgerlichen Zustand zu untersuchen, um auf diese Weise Prinzipien zu ermitteln, die für jedes Rechtssystem bindend sind. Es werden dabei zwei Gruppen von je vier Fällen näher betrachtet, und zwar 1) Billigkeit, Notstand, Duell und Gnadenerweis sowie 2) Schenkung, Leihe, Gutglaubenserwerb und Eidesleistung, in denen Kant der staatlichen Macht im Hinblick auf das Individuum und die Gesellschaft der Individuen insgesamt Grenzen zieht. Kants Rechtssystem erweist sich hier als ein System, das dem liberalen Individualismus und einem maximalen Schutz individueller Freiheit verpflichtet ist. (shrink)

The Socratic method has long been venerated for its ability to produce insightful and engaging academic discourse in the classroom. It has also been criticized, however, for encouraging an overly aggressive and, perhaps, combative teaching style, as well as for its potential stultifying and manipulative effect on students. Assessing its merits, though, is a difficult task, as there is little consensus as to what constitutes a successful application of the Socratic method. Addressing this issue requires a closer examination of Plato’s (...) dialogues, our main source for descriptions of Socrates’s pedagogical practices, in the hope that they might provide us with a clearer and richer understanding of the principles that guide Socrates as he questions his interlocutors. While we cannot undertake anything near an exhaustive examination in this chapter, our aim is instead to uncover some important features of the underlying pedagogical model employed in the dialogues most closely associated with the Socratic method. After examining these features in light of recent criticisms, we conclude that educators today still have good reason to look to this ancient method for inspiration. (shrink)

All sides in the recent debates over the Quine‐Putnam Indispensability thesis presuppose Quine's criterion for determining what a discourse is ontologically committed to. I subject the criterion to scrutiny, especially in regard to the available competitor‐criteria, asking what means of evaluation there are for comparing alternative criteria against each other. Finding none, the paper concludes that ontological questions, in a certain sense, are philosophically indeterminate.

Kant's theory of punishment is commonly regarded as purely retributive in nature, and indeed much of his discourse seems to support that interpretation. Still, it leaves one with certain misgivings regarding the internal consistency of his position. Perhaps the problem lies not in Kant's inconsistency nor in the senility sometimes claimed to be apparent in the Metaphysic of Morals, but rather in a superimposed, modern yet monistic view of punishment. Historical considerations tend to show that Kant was discussing not one, (...) but rather two facets of punishment, each independent but nevertheless mutually restrictive. Punishment as a threat was intended to deter crime. It was a tool in the hands of civil society to counteract human drives toward violating another's rights. In its execution, however, the state was limited in its reaction by a retributive theory of justice demanding respect for the individual as an end and not as a means to some further social goal. This interpretation of Kant's theory of punishment maintains consistency from the earliest through the latest of his writings on moral, legal, and political philosophy. It provides a good reason for rejecting current economic analyses of crime and punishment. Most important of all, it credits Kant's theory in its clear recognition of the ideals intrinsic to libertarian government. (shrink)

The process of learning a new language can be filled with many emotions, both positive and negative, for the learner. This is particularly true in the area of writing, where students may feel a close connection to their sense of self. Thus far, the foreign language teaching profession has tended to prioritize cognition over emotion in research and classroom practice, with limited attention paid to the role of emotions in language learning. Recently, however, scholars, influenced by psychology, have taken a (...) more active look at how emotions might mediate language learning. Among these scholars, Rebecca Oxford proposed a model that integrates tenets of positive psychology and second language learning, which she has designated as EMPATHICS. This nine-component model examines emotions/empathy, meaning/motivation, perseverance, agency/autonomy, time, hardiness/habits of mind, intelligences, characteristics, and self-factors. In this paper, we apply the EMPATHICS model to teaching second language writing and offer suggestions for task design at different stages of the writing process. While many second language teachers already incorporate some aspects of positive psychology in their classroom, becoming explicitly aware of its potential to foster better learning outcomes behooves us all. (shrink)

This article serves as a case study of how contemporary residents of the Upper Great Lakes states debate the ethics and meanings of living with wolves. An overview of the challenges facing Minnesota wolf management is provided, and the results of a Q-methodology study are presented. The study revealed three primary factors, or shared belief systems, about wolf management in Minnesota. The idealist perspective tells a redemption story of sin and atonement, the institutional perspective endorses scientific management and rationality and (...) the localist perspective promises justice, respect and acknowledgement for its champions. The factors are interpreted as narratives or latent myths that provide a set of tacit directions to its adherents about understanding the complexities of living among carnivores. The intricacies and unique logic of each of the three factors are discussed, and themes of consensus and disagreement are briefly highlighted. (shrink)

According to a two-level criterion for combination tests in the field of ordinary language, moral 'ought'-sentences may be taken to imply 'I intend'-sentences partly semantically and partly pragmatically. If so, a trenchant linguistic analysis of the concept of moral obligation cannot do without a non-classical logic which allows to model these important kinds of ordinary-language implications by means of purely syntactical derivations. For this purpose, an integrated logic of conviction and intention has been tentatively devised by way of a doxastically, (...) buletically, and pragmatically extended calculus of natural deduction. This system of buletic logic cannot even be launched without one or two derivation rules of deductive closedness. However, these very closedness rules appear to be responsible for buletic paradoxes which are analogous to paradoxes long since known from other, less exotic branches of logic but at first sight look much more virulent. After having scrutinized two potential strategies for coping with the paradoxes of buletic logic, finally we can convince ourselves that these paradoxes, as well as their familiar non-buletic counterparts, are but apparent paradoxes, provided we consistently lean on C-CT and do not let pragmatical considerations intrude into purely logical ones. (shrink)

Philosophers are very fond of making non-factualist claims—claims to the effect that there is no fact of the matter as to whether something is the case. But can these claims be coherently stated in the context of classical logic? Some care is needed here, we argue, otherwise one ends up denying a tautology or embracing a contradiction. In the end, we think there are only two strategies available to someone who wants to be a non-factualist about something, and remain within (...) the province of classical logic. But one of these strategies is rather controversial, and the other requires substantially more work than is often supposed. Being a non-factualist is no easy business, and it may not be the most philosophically perspicuous way to go. (shrink)

Mistaken reasons for thinking diagrammatic proofs aren't rigorous are explored. The main result is that a confusion between the contents of a proof procedure (what's expressed by the referential elements in a proof procedure) and the unarticulated mathematical aspects of a proof procedure (how that proof procedure is enabled) gives the impression that diagrammatic proofs are less rigorous than language proofs. An additional (and independent) factor is treating the impossibility of naturally generalizing a diagrammatic proof procedure as an indication of (...) lack of rigor. (shrink)

There is an important gap in philosophical, clinical and bioethical conceptions of decision-making capacity. These fields recognize that when traumatic life circumstances occur, people not only feel afraid and demoralized, but may develop catastrophic thinking and other beliefs that can lead to poor judgment. Yet there has been no articulation of the ways in which such beliefs may actually derail decision-making capacity. In particular, certain emotionally grounded beliefs are systematically unresponsive to evidence, and this can block the ability to deliberate (...) about alternatives. People who meet medico-legal criteria for decision-making capacity can react to health and personal crises with such capacity-derailing reactions. One aspect of this is that a person who is otherwise cognitively intact may be unable to appreciate her own future quality of life while in this complex state of mind. This raises troubling ethical challenges. We cannot rely on the current standard assessment of cognition to determine decisional rights in medical and other settings. We need to understand better how emotionally grounded beliefs interfere with decision-making capacity, in order to identify when caregivers have an obligation to intervene. (shrink)

In this book Jody Azzouni challenges existing epistemological conventions about knowledge: what it means to know something, who or what is seen as knowing, and how we talk about it. He argues that the classic restrictive conditions philosophers routinely place on knowers only hold in special cases, and suggests that knowledge can be equally attributed to children, sophisticated animals, unsophisticated animals, and machinery or devices. Through this perspective and a close examination of its relation to linguistics and psychology, Azzouni freshly (...) approaches longstanding epistemological puzzles including the dogmatism paradox, Gettier puzzles, Agrippa's trilemma, and the surprise-exam paradox. (shrink)