The capacity to attribute beliefs to others in order to understand action is one of the mainstays of human cognition. Yet it is debatable whether children attribute beliefs in the same way to all agents. In this paper, we present the results of a false-belief task concerning humans and God run with a sample of Maya children aged 4–7, and place them in the context of several psychological theories of cognitive development. Children were found to attribute beliefs in different ways (...) to humans and God. The evidence also speaks to the debate concerning the universality and uniformity of the development of folk-psychological reasoning. (shrink)

We report the results of a cross-cultural investigation of person-body reasoning in the United Kingdom and northern Brazilian Amazon (Marajó Island). The study provides evidence that directly bears upon divergent theoretical claims in cognitive psychology and anthropology, respectively, on the cognitive origins and cross-cultural incidence of mind-body dualism. In a novel reasoning task, we found that participants across the two sample populations parsed a wide range of capacities similarly in terms of the capacities’ perceived anchoring to bodily function. Patterns of (...) reasoning concerning the respective roles of physical and biological properties in sustaining various capacities did vary between sample populations, however. Further, the data challenge prior ad-hoc categorizations in the empirical literature on the developmental origins of and cognitive constraints on psycho-physical reasoning (e.g., in afterlife concepts). We suggest cross-culturally validated categories of “Body Dependent” and “Body Independent” items for future developmental and cross-cultural research in this emerging area. (shrink)

The role of imagery in encoding event-based prospective memories has yet to be fully clarified. Herein, it is argued that imagery augments a cue-to-context association that supports event-based prospective memory performance. By this account, imagery encoding not only improves prospective memory performance but also reduces interference to intention-related information that occurs outside of context. In the current study, when lure words occurred outside of the appropriate responding context, the use of imagery encoding strategies resulted in less interference when compared with (...) a standard event-based intention condition. This difference was eliminated when participants were not given a specific context to associate their intention . These results support a cue-to-context association account of how imagery operates in certain event-based prospective memory tasks. (shrink)

Using the latest cognitive and psychological scientific data and theory, this book answers the question "why would anyone believe in God?".

The counterfactual comparative account of harm has emerged as the main contender in the recent literature on the nature of harm. But Erik Carlson argues that the account violates plausible normative principles connecting harm with our reasons to perform certain actions and to prefer certain outcomes. According to Carlson, the account implies that we have reason to perform actions and to prefer outcomes that we do not in fact possess. This paper defends the counterfactual comparative account from these objections.

This article critically examines the competitive, adversarial nature of the Western neoliberal style of democracy. Specifically, this article focuses on Amartya Sen’s notion of a “universal democracy” as a means of addressing socio-economic inequalities through Sen’s capability approach. Sen’s capability theory has become an acclaimed and widely used theory to evaluate and understand development and inequalities. However, we employ a distinctive critique by engaging Amartya Sen through Herbert Marcuse’s analysis of one dimensionality and the adversarial nature of Western democracy. We (...) further highlight how contemporary neoliberal society employ a particular, adversarial form of public participation. Through this, we underline the various neoliberal problemata, such as Western idealism, political passivity, and a “flattening of choice,” within contemporary democracies and locate how their competitive, winner-take-all nature has become essential to contemporary, Western democratic models. Consequently, we argue that democracy, as a functional concept and form of public engagement, should be fundamentally re-examined in order to address inequalities. (shrink)

I defend a novel interpretation of Kant's conceptualism regarding the contents of our perceptual experiences. Conceptualist interpreters agree that Kant's Deduction aims to prove that intuitions require the categories for their spatiality and temporality. But conceptualists disagree as to which features of space and time make intuitions require the categories. Interpreters have cited the singularity, unity, infinity, and homogeneity of space and time. But this is incompatible with Kant's Aesthetic, which aims to prove that these same features qualify space and (...) time as intuitions, not concepts. On my interpretation, the feature is objectivity. Space and time are objective, in that they ground our judgments in geometry and mechanics. (shrink)

Previous research into the perception of agency has found that objects in twodimensional displays that move along non-inertial-looking paths are frequently attributed intentional agency, including beliefs and desires. The present experiment re-addressed this finding using a tangible, interactive, electromagnetic puzzle. The experimental manipulation was whether or not participants controlled the electromagnet that moved the marbles along unexpected trajectories. Thirty-one college undergraduates participated. Participants who lacked control over the movement of the marbles were significantly more likely to attribute agency to the (...) marbles. Participants in control of the display rarely attributed intentional agency to the marbles. Implications are discussed for the identification of agents in the real world. (shrink)

This book brings together academics, legal practitioners and activists with a wide range of pro-choice, pro-life and other views to explore the possibilities for cultural, philosophical, moral and political common ground on the subjects of abortion and reproductive justice more generally. It aims to rethink polarized positions on sexuality, morality, religion and law, in relation to abortion, as a way of laying the groundwork for productive and collaborative dialogue. The book will be valuable to anyone interested in law and society, (...) gender and religious studies and philosophy and theory of law. (shrink)

‘Epistocracy’ is the name of a type of political power structure in which the power is held by the knowledgable—for example, by restricting the right to vote to those who can demonstrate sufficient knowledge. Though Plato and Mill defended epistocratic views, it has found few contemporary advocates. In a recent book, however, Jason Brennan argues that epistocratic power structures are capable of outperforming democratic ones. His argument is two-pronged: first, he argues that democratic procedures with universal suffrage allow poorly-informed voters (...) to pollute the electorate, and that doing so has negative policy-related consequences that are easily avoidable. Second, he argues that voting does not possess any non-intrinsic value, and so restricting suffrage to the educated does not result in a loss of status or standing for less well-educated persons in any meaningful way. I argue that epistocratic techniques are impossible to implement fairly, and represent an ineffective solution for the problems they are designed to solve. On these bases, I recommend rejecting it. (shrink)

The problem of Kant’s Neglected Alternative is that while his Aesthetic provides an argument that space and time are empirically real – in applying to all appearances – its argument seems to fall short of the conclusion that space and time are transcendentally ideal, in not applying to any things in themselves. By considering an overlooked passage in which Kant explains why his Transcendental Deduction is ‘unavoidably necessary’, I argue that it is not solely in his Aesthetic but more so (...) in his Deduction where he intends to provide his argument for the transcendental ideality of space and time. His Deduction shows that space and time do not have a valid application to any things in themselves by arguing that the categories do have a valid application to everything in space and time, but that the categories do not have a valid application to any things in themselves. (shrink)

Four studies conducted with American Protestant college students explored intuitions concerning petitionary prayer. Since Protestant theology offers little teaching on through which modes of causation God is most likely to act, it was hypothesized that intuitive causal cognition would be used to generate inferences regarding this aspect of petitionary prayer. Participants in these studies favored asking God to act via psychological causation over the biological and mechanistic domains. Further, in fictitious scenarios participants reported being more likely to ask a supercomputer (...) or Superman to solve a problem through mechanistic intervention than God. These results are consistent with two previous findings: that God is often intuitively represented as having a single physical location ; and psychosocial agents are expected to require physical contact to act on non-agents. (shrink)

The assertion that an experiment by Afshar et al. demonstrates violation of Bohr’s Principle of Complementarity is based on the faulty assumption that which-way information in a double-slit interference experiment can be retroactively determined from a future measurement.

We give Scott sentences for certain computable groups, and we use index set calculations as a way of checking that our Scott sentences are as simple as possible. We consider finitely generated groups and torsion-free abelian groups of finite rank. For both kinds of groups, the computable ones all have computable \ Scott sentences. Sometimes we can do better. In fact, the computable finitely generated groups that we have studied all have Scott sentences that are “computable d-\” sentence and a (...) computable \ sentence). In [9], this was shown for the finitely generated free groups. Here we show it for all finitely generated abelian groups, and for the infinite dihedral group. Among the computable torsion-free abelian groups of finite rank, we focus on those of rank 1. These are exactly the additive subgroups of \. We show that for some of these groups, the computable \ Scott sentence is best possible, while for others, there is a computable d-\ Scott sentence. (shrink)

No trait is more characteristic of contemporary philosophy in France than its continued fecundation by the physical and biological sciences. The divorce between philosophy and science that existed in the first half of last century is now regarded, by almost common consent, as an error of the great pre-war Unenlightenment. The ménage is rémonté ; the vieilles traditions of Descartes and Pascal live again, though very transfigured. How long the alliance may endure, how and how much it may benefit both (...) parties, it would be idle to prophesy. But it is significant that Boutroux and Bergson were compelled to devote much energy to acquiring a scientific competence, the one in mechanics, the other in biology. It is still more significant that a number of professional scientists should, with the passing of years, have contributed less to their sciences and increasingly to philosophy. This mutual invasion of territories has, indeed, become so considerable and enduring that philosophy in France is at present, for good or ill, almost wholly ‘philosophy of the sciences.’ It is now within this ‘internationalized’ neutral zone that the distinction between the epistemological and the ontological has to be drawn. Thus, Meyerson fairly represents the former emphasis, Bergson and Le Roy the latter. And if it is rare for one man to hold successively a chair in mathematics and a chair in philosophy, like Milhaud and Whitehead, rarer still is it for one man to hold both concurrently. But M. Edouard Le Roy has for many years lectured on mathematics and mechanics at the Faculte des Sciences in Paris; he has extended and modified Bergsonism from Bergson's former chair at the College de France. (shrink)

Participation in the local food movement has grown dramatically in the United States, with the farmers’ market being one of its most widespread and heavily promoted forums. Proponents argue that the interactions and transactions that occur at farmers’ markets benefit market participants, but, more importantly, have broader benefits for the neighborhoods they are located in and for society itself. The promise of these benefits raises several important questions, notably: where are farmers’ markets located and who has access to them? While (...) many works have examined the characteristics of individuals who frequent markets, few have examined the areas and inhabitants hosting these markets. Using data from the USDA and US Census, I explore the location of farmers’ markets areas across several geographic measurements, including at the national, census division, and census tract levels. Results reveal the following: (1) Perhaps not being as white of a movement as critics have suggested, farmers’ markets are almost exclusively a middle to middle-upper class phenomenon; and (2) Farmers’ markets are very unlikely to be found in neighborhoods with lower than average socio-economic statuses indicators, in specific divisions of the US, and in rural areas. Results from this research further illuminate our understanding of where farmers’ markets are located throughout United States while presenting some interesting questions for the local food movement as it continues to moves forward. (shrink)

We propose a multi-agent logic of knowledge, public announcements and arbitrary announcements, interpreted on topological spaces in the style of subset space semantics. The arbitrary announcement modality functions similarly to the effort modality in subset space logics, however, it comes with intuitive and semantic differences. We provide axiomatizations for three logics based on this setting, with S5 knowledge modality, and demonstrate their completeness. We moreover consider the weaker axiomatizations of three logics with S4 type of knowledge and prove soundness and (...) completeness results for these systems. (shrink)

Thomas Friedman’s best-selling The World is Flat has exerted much influence in the west by providing both an accessible analysis of globalisation and its economic and social effects, and a powerful cultural metaphor for globalisation. In this review, we more closely examine Friedman’s notion of the social contract, the moral centre of his hopeful vision of a globalised world. While Friedman’s social contract holds a more generous view of social and state obligation than his neoliberal economic analysis might otherwise allow, (...) his fallacious assumptions about education rest on poorly argued claims about the nature of human beings, the proper aims of schooling, and meanings of justice in a globalised world. (shrink)

This volume explores the intersection between early modern philosophy and the life sciences by presenting the contributions of important but often neglected figures such as Cudworth, Grew, Glisson, Hieronymus Fabricius, Stahl, Gallego, Hartsoeker, and More, as well as familiar figures such as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Malebranche, and Kant.

Shepherdson [14] showed that for a discrete ordered ring I, I is a model of IOpen iff I is an integer part of a real closed ordered field. In this paper, we consider integer parts satisfying PA. We show that if a real closed ordered field R has an integer part I that is a nonstandard model of PA (or even IΣ₄), then R must be recursively saturated. In particular, the real closure of I, RC (I), is recursively saturated. We (...) also show that if R is a countable recursively saturated real closed ordered field, then there is an integer part I such that R = RC(I) and I is a nonstandard model of PA. (shrink)

The Heideggerian critique of onto-theology has attained a semi-canonical status for continental philosophy of religion. But is the critique itself sound, and does it actually result in a richer philosophical and theological discourse concerning God? In this paper, I argue that Heidegger’s onto-theological critique suffers from serious difficulties. First I examine the critique, summarizing and condensing the critique in its essentials. I use Westphal’s fourfold criteria as a way of giving it some precision, while presenting it in relative independence from (...) Heidegger’s own account of Being. In section III, I examine the results of non-onto-theological discourse on God post-Heidegger, suggesting, using the examples of John Caputo and Richard Kearney, that Heidegger’s onto-theological critique has not inspired a less problematic religious discourse. In the fourth and final section, I question the legitimacy of the critique itself. While Heidegger’s critique of onto-theology has the seemingly admirable goal of rendering our discourse about God less instrumental and idolatrous, a careful analysis of the criteria themselves reveals that onto-theology either misinterprets natural theological discourse on God or subjects it to impossible requirements. (shrink)

One can view the recent science fiction films Gravity, Interstellar, and The Martian as a three-part dialogue concerning the existential relationship between humanity, technology, and the science employed to create said technologies. Pitched into the deep of space, each film’s protagonist must seek to find technological answers to save their own existence. Each film’s exploration of these themes essentially questions the importance of technology as a product of scientific-calculative thinking and the validity of this thinking as the primary mode of (...) understanding the world. In this article, I explore the existential dialogue crafted between these films through Walter Benjamin and Martin Heidegger. Through Benjamin, we will see how the medium of film is completely dependent upon technology to present its art and how this transforms the stories it tells, while also transforming the audience and the audience’s reality. Consequently, understanding the popular reception of these films becomes just as important as the films themselves for our present study. Through Heidegger, we will see how technology provides a space where we can find a truth about ourselves and our reality. However, modern technology’s increasing scientific complexity, created by scientists who in turn employ modern technology to further science, also conceals just as much as it reveals. These films provide us with an opportunity to explore a truth about our dependence upon technology even though, as technologically dependent works of art, they may also conceal how dependent upon science we have become when constructing our reality. (shrink)

The social principle of subsidiarity, both regarding the federalism debate in North America and the principle’s role in the formation of the European Union, has garnished increased attention in recent years. In this paper I will argue that if one looks for the historical seed of the principle of subsidiarity in Aristotle—as many authors do—then attention should fall more properly on his analysis of practical reasoning in Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics than on Book I of the Politics. The (...) treatment of practical reasoning more aptly explains the need for the principle of subsidiarity and, indeed, averring that it is based on an Aristotelian sense of autonomy is misplaced at best and dangerous at worst. (shrink)

Let be a recursive structure, and let R be a recursive relation on . Harizanov isolated a syntactical condition which is necessary and sufficient for to have recursive copies in which the image of R is r.e. of arbitrary r.e. degree. We had conjectured that a certain extension of Harizanov's syntactical condition would be necessary and sufficient for to have recursive copies in which the image of R is ∑α0 of arbitrary ∑α0 degree, but this is not the case. Here (...) we give examples illustrating some restrictions on the possible ∑α0 degrees. In these examples, the image of R cannot be ∑α0 of degree d unless d possesses an “α-table”. (shrink)

Within emotion-focused therapy, the client’s ability to express and reflect on core emotional experiences is seen as fundamental to constructing the self and to entering into a change process. For this study, we 1) examine storytelling contexts in which clients do not disclose the emotional impact of their narrative, and 2) identify the interactional practices through which EFT therapists subsequently call attention to what the client may have felt. In doing so, we examine client stories drawn from video-taped individual psychotherapy (...) sessions involving clinically depressed clients. Client stories and therapists’ responses to these stories were analysed using conversation analytic methods. Three different therapist response types were identified: eliciting, naming and illustrating the emotional impact of the client’s prior narrative. These responses also were found to differ in terms of how effectively they could display empathy and secure affiliation with clients. The implications of this work for therapeutic practice are discussed. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 10, October 2020, Page 5-6.

The antireductionist arguments of many philosophers (e.g., Baker, Fodor and Davidson) are motivated by a worry that successful reduction would eliminate rather than conserve the mental. This worry derives from a misunderstanding of the empiricist account of reduction, which, although it does not underwrite "cognitive suicide", should be rejected for its positivist baggage. Philosophy of psychology needs more detailed attention to issues in natural science which serve as analogies for reduction of the mental. I consider a range of central cases, (...) including water and H 2 O, genes and DNA, and common sense and scientific solidity. The last case is illuminated by Eddington's Two Tables paradox, a resolution which suggests the plasticity of the mental under reduction. If reduction of the mental is like any of these cases, it is neither empiricist nor eliminative. (shrink)

Merold Westphal’s method often consists in recontextualizing, or appropriating, various sources in order to either make his own argument or to make other’s arguments seem self-evident. This method is especially noteworthy in his use of Aufhebung, a term which he initially discovers in his early work on Hegel. Westphal will eventually appropriate this term and, as this article will show, utilize it throughout his other academic works, particularly in his reading of Kierkegaard, for many an ‘anti-dialectical’ thinker. This article further (...) explores Westphal’s use of the term in order to reveal that his utilization of the term extends beyond Hegel’s own original intention and that, in doing so, Westphal creates something quite unique and separate from the term itself: a ‘Westphalian Aufhebung.’. (shrink)

In diesem Artikel bringe ich zwei Thesen vor. Zum einen behaupte ich, daβ in den ersten Jahren des 18. Jahrhunderts eine wichtige terminologische Wende in der Leibnizschen Metaphysik stattfand: Das Thema der körperlichen Substanz wurde durch den Begriff des Organismus ersetzt. Die Entdeckung dieser Wende widerspricht der weit verbreiteten Meinung, Leibniz habe -vom Briefwechsel mit Des Bosses hier abgesehen -in seinen letzten Jahren das Interesse an einer Theorie der zusammengesetzten Einheiten verloren und stattdessen seinen früheren idealistischen Glauben, daß es nur (...) einfache Substanzen gibt, bis zum Ende seines Lebens verteidigt. Zum zweiten vermute ich, daß die Realität der zusammengesetzten Entitäten, die aus der unio von Seele und Körper entsteht, durch die Lehre der prästabilierten Harmonie begründet wird -aufgrund der in meiner Dissertation verteidigten Auffassung, daβ diese Lehre von der Mikroskopie der Leibniz-Zeit inspiriert und gerechtfertigt wird, behaupte ich zudem, daβ Leibniz' spätere Ideen zum ontologischen Status der Körper ebenfalls auf sein Interesse an der Mikroskopie verweisen. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:William James, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the Art of New Religious IdealsKolby Knight (bio)And I don’t know a soul who’s not been batteredI don’t have a friend who feels at easeI don’t know a dream that’s not been shatteredOr driven to its knees...Oh, and it’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alrightYou can’t be forever blessedStill, tomorrow’s going to be another working dayAnd I’m trying to get some (...) restThat’s all, I’m trying to get some rest—Paul Simon, “American Tune” (1973) / Recreated by Allen Toussaint (2016)William James and W. E. B. Du Bois believed that an artful life could produce new and world-changing religious ideals. As cosmopolitan scholars who studied in the United States and Europe, both men confidently interlaced original interpretations of Shakespeare, Wagner, and Goethe into their academic accounts of individual and social behavior. Beyond their patronage of the arts, James and Du Bois also saw themselves as scientists and artists who had the responsibility to create new pathways and religious ideals at a time when many European and American intellectuals depicted Western civilization as the endpoint of history.This article explores the pragmatic visions of science, art, and religion respectively offered by James and Du Bois. Pragmatism, here, refers to an active mode of study that looks closely at the interaction between specific thoughts and behaviors in particular situations without assuming a standard of truth which influences or evaluates human life from the outside of experience. As pragmatists, James and Du Bois did not believe their work consisted of merely the explication and description of preexisting truths, but more importantly the religious creation of what James called “new facts,” including healthier habits of thought and practice.1 [End Page 71]In this article, I will trace how the two men, as religious naturalists and leaders in the development of a pragmatic social science at the turn of the twentieth century, challenged evolutionary theories which envisioned Western civilization as the highest standard of aesthetic and intellectual development. Part one demonstrates how James, as a psychologist who prioritized the study and development of “first-hand” experiences, worked against visions of science that saw “lower” emotions as a hindrance to impartial intellectual discovery. It also explores how James centered personal religious experiences in his effort to de-center “impersonal” scientific frameworks which depicted human behavior and thinking as beholden to evolutionary laws which transcended individual experience. Part two considers James’s dissatisfaction with the “bad habits” of his privileged intellectual class, and how his own experience of “soul-sickness” and “stage fright” led him to contest both celebratory histories of Western progress and institutional arrangements which juxtaposed his “mystifying” intellectual performances to the lives of everyday people.Part three moves to how Du Bois, as a sociologist and former student of James, refocused James’s religious pragmatism within the context of his experience of anti-Black racism in the United States. This section traces how Du Bois saw his intellectual career as a work of art which could empower Black individuals to see themselves beyond what David Lloyd describes as “the racial regime of aesthetics” which imagines the progress of “lower humans” as dependent on higher civilizational and educational agents. This section also offers a tripartite interpretation of Du Bois’s experience of “double-consciousness” that considers its aesthetic, social, and political dimensions.2 While James expressed a desire to discard his own sense of double-consciousness, Du Bois’s experience of anti-Black racism made his two-ness more enforced and insidious. The fourth section looks at Du Bois’s disillusionment with white standards of beauty and intelligence as an experience akin to what James described as “soul-sickness.” It shows that whereas James believed that his negative emotional experiences could lead him to “new religious ideals” taking shape within the spiritual energy [End Page 72] and discomforts of his own individual body, Du Bois’s negative experience of racism led him to immerse himself in the religious and artistic vitality of Black social worlds which resisted the oppressive mechanisms and caricatures of... (shrink)

Kant's Incorporation Thesis states that inclinations do not determine the will independently of reason. But do inclinations represent objects as desirable independently of reason? Or, is reason involved in the very constitution of an inclination so that inclinations without reason are impossible? The former interpretation is held by Christine Korsgaard and Tamar Schapiro. The latter is given by Janelle DeWitt and Allen Wood. I argue for a novel version of the latter interpretation by appealing to Kant's hylomorphism. On my interpretation, (...) reason makes inclinations possible in the way that form does matter. Reason orders the objects of our possible inclinations amongst all our ends in a system. Rather than these relations being consequent to or dependent upon the contents of our inclinations, I argue that these relations are a priori conditions of the possibility of our inclinations. For, we come to have particular inclinations only by their objects coming to occupy places in our system of ends, where such places are antecedently marked out by reason's determination of the interrelations among all our ends. (shrink)

The assertion by Yu and Nikolic that the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment of Kim et al. empirically falsifies the consciousness-causes-collapse hypothesis of quantum mechanics is based on the unfounded and false assumption that the failure of a quantum wave function to collapse implies the appearance of a visible interference pattern.