Finding things funny is a pervasive aspect of human mental and social life, but humor has been neglected in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Recently, however, there has been a swell of interest in the topic. This essay critically introduces and evaluates contemporary developments in the field, and generates an associated list of questions that a successful theory of humor should be able to answer.

Despite sustained philosophical attention, no theory of humor claims general acceptance. Drawing on the resources provided by intentional systems theory, this article first outlines an approach to investigating humor based on the idea of a comic stance, then sketches the Dismissal Theory of Humor that has resulted from pursuing that approach. According to the DTH, humor manifests in cases where the future-directed significance of anticipatory failures is dismissed. Mirth, on this view, is the reward people get for declining to update (...) predictive representational schemata in ways that maximize their future-oriented value. The theory aims to provide a plausible account of the role of humor in human mental and social life, but it also aims to be empirically vulnerable, and to generate testable predictions about how the comic stance may actually be undergirded by cognitive architectures. (shrink)

Paradoxes are more than just intellectual puzzles - they raise substantive philosophical issues and offer the promise of increased philosophical knowledge. In this introduction to paradox and paradoxes, Doris Olin shows how seductive paradoxes can be, why they confuse and confound, and why they continue to fascinate. Olin examines the nature of paradox, outlining a rigorous definition and providing a clear and incisive statement of what does and does not count as a resolution of a paradox. The view (...) that a statement can be both true and false, that contradictions can be true, is seen to provide a challenge to the account of paradox resolution, and is explored. With this framework in place, the book then turns to an in-depth treatment of the Prediction Paradox, versions of the Preface/Fallibility Paradox, the Lottery Paradox, Newcomb's Problem, the Prisoner's Dilemma and the Sorites Paradox. Each of these paradoxes is shown to have considerable philosophical punch. Olin unpacks the central arguments in a clear and systematic fashion, offers original analyses and solutions, and exposes further unsettling implications for some of our most deep-seated principles and convictions. (shrink)

Naturalized metaphysicians defend the thesis that science licenses meta- physics, such that only metaphysical results that are based on the best science are to be considered legitimate. This view is problematic, due to the fact that the reasons they identify for such license are apparently self-defeating. Chakravartty defends a revised approach to understanding the licensing relation. I argue that the proposed response is a step forward on behalf of naturalizing metaphysics, but still does not take seriously the contention that science (...) involves, inextricably, a contribution from the a priori. I conclude by considering what options the aspiring naturalized metaphysician is left with. (shrink)

While there is now considerable anxiety about whether the psychological theory presupposed by virtue ethics is empirically sustainable, analogous issues have received little attention in the virtue epistemology literature. This paper argues that virtue epistemology encounters challenges reminiscent of those recently encountered by virtue ethics: just as seemingly trivial variation in context provokes unsettling variation in patterns of moral behavior, trivial variation in context elicits unsettling variation in patterns of cognitive functioning. Insofar as reliability is a condition on epistemic virtue, (...) we have reason to doubt that human beings possess the cognitive materials required for epistemic virtue, and thereby reason to think that virtue epistemology is threatened by skepticism. We conclude that while virtue epistemology has resources for addressing this challenge, exploiting these resources forces tradeoffs between empirical and normative adequacy. (shrink)

Despite sustained philosophical attention, no theory of humor claims general acceptance. Drawing on the resources provided by intentional systems theory, this article first outlines an approach to investigating humor based on the idea of a comic stance, then sketches the Dismissal Theory of Humor that has resulted from pursuing that approach. According to the DTH, humor manifests in cases where the future-directed significance of anticipatory failures is dismissed. Mirth, on this view, is the reward people get for declining to update (...) predictive representational schemata in ways that maximize their future-oriented value. The theory aims to provide a plausible account of the role of humor in human mental and social life, but it also aims to be empirically vulnerable, and to generate testable predictions about how the comic stance may actually be undergirded by cognitive architectures. (shrink)

In this beautiful book, Margaret Olin explores photography’s ability to “touch” us through a series of essays that shed new light on photography’s role in the world.

In Origins of Objectivity Burge advances a theory of perception according to which perceptions are, themselves, objective representations. The possession of veridicality conditions by perceptual states—roughly, non-propositional analogues of truth-conditions—is central to Burge’s account of how perceptual states differ, empirically and metaphysically, from sensory states. Despite an impressive examination of the relevant empirical literatures, I argue here that Burge has not succeeded in securing a distinction between perception and “mere” sensation.

Some recent artists and critics have taken it upon themselves to demystify the notion of stylistic unity. Their task has included the historical reconception of a few “modernist” artists along “postmodern” lines, usually as precursors of current semiotic strategies.11 These artists may have used a set of incompatible styles to expose the artificiality of competing stylistic conventions, or even to challenge the myth that celebrates the authenticity of artistic expressiveness. Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, otherwise very different artists, have both (...) been seen as having “deconstructed” the concept of authenticity by problematizing basic means of artistic reference.12 But the desire to challenge conventions must not be misconstrued as an enduring element of an iconoclastic artist’s personality. Otherwise, the characterization is merely an updated version of the traditional argument for authorial unity. 11. The terms “modern” and “postmodern” are used in a variety of ways in contemporary criticism. Here, “modern” refers to nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists who embrace the notion of originality, and “postmodern” to those who would attack the notion by exposing the conventionality at its center. Although some critics who profess “modernism” do not mention “originality” by name, most subscribe to it in some form, often with the originality and self-sufficiency of the artist transposed to that of the work. This is especially true of the criticism of Clement Greenburg and Michael Fried.12. Rosalind Krauss rightly uses the semiotic complications of Picasso’s art to object to autobiographical interpretations of his work. In the course of the argument, she refers to Picasso’s semiotics as part of the “proto-history” of postmodernist art. See Krauss, “In the Name of Picasso,” The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths , pp. 38-39. Arguments for Duchamp’s protopostmodernism are much more common. For one example, see Krauss, “Notes on the Index: Part 1,” The Originality of the Avant-Garde, pp. 196-209. Margaret Olin is an assistant professor in the department of art history and criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is presently writing a book on the theories of Alois Riegl. (shrink)

The original 1907 text is accompanied with a series of critical essays from scholars including Moore and Russell. In the introduction Olin evaluates the strength of the criticisms made against James.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

This paper explores the association of children and animals as an element in Western culture's symbolic universe. Three historical discourses found in the West associate animality with immaturity and growing up with the transcendence of this condition. The discourses differ in how they describe and evaluate the original animal-like condition of the child versus the socialized end product. All, however, tend to distinguish sharply between the human and the nonhuman. This paper explores expressions of this tendency in developmental theories that (...) set as the criterion of maturity the actualization of some capacity that is believed to set humans apart from animals. Seeing relationships with animals as marginally important in human development and life is a consequence of these assumptions. Simultaneously, these assumptions also marginalize the body. This constitutes a dual renunciation of body and animal, criticized for its effects both on inquiry and on our realization of the roles and values of nonhuman animals in development. Such research can help reveal the self-organizing nature of the human animal body. (shrink)

Przyroda otaczająca człowieka w naturalny sposób poddawana była rozmaitym interpretacjom, które stawały się faktami kulturowymi i zakorzeniały się życiu społeczeństw. Autorzy zebranych w tomie artykułów przedstawiają interpretacje przyrody w różnych kontekstach historycznych i geograficznych, a tym samym eksponują różnorodność ujęć interpretacji przyrody. Przyglądając się „człowiekowi w czasie”, pokazują „alternatywne przyrody”. Kolejne artykuły pozwalają czytelnikowi przede wszystkim zapoznać się z nimi w „działaniu”. Śledząc wraz z autorami takie tematy, jak: praktyki okołołowieckie, poszukiwanie zależności między pojęciami „wojna”, „pokój” i „zwierzęta”, niezwykły czyn (...) Oktawiana Augusta, poddanie świata wszelkich istot żywych influencji kosmicznej, wątek jelenia w dawnej kulturze, symboliczne karanie zwierząt, badania przyrodnicze Johanna Wolfganga Goethego, wiadomości o przyrodzie zawarte w prasie, obecność elementów roślinnych w europejskiej symbolice wojskowej, funkcjonowanie myślenia mityczno-magicznego i jego obecność w kulturze współczesnej − obserwujemy ich kulturową materialność. (shrink)

I argue that current projects in ‘naturalized metaphysics’ fail to be properly naturalistic, and thereby fail in their stated aim to take one’s metaphysics from science. I argue that naturalism must involve the idea of taking science seriously, and that this can only be spelled out in terms of taking not only the theories of science seriously, but also its practice and its socio-linguistic situatedness seriously as well. This accords with naturalism because not doing so draws an artificial (non-natural) distinction (...) between the epistemic products of science as essence, and its socio-linguistic and practical features as accidents. The picture of naturalism which falls out of this is a form of pragmatism. Once this is spelled out, the question becomes, what is the appropriate attitude for the pragmatist/naturalist to have toward ontology? It is not the same as that of traditional metaphysics, since such an attitude (that metaphysical theorizing can make positive epistemic contributions) requires a priori commitments which themselves are (1) not subject to empirical review, and (2) are anthropocentric and so potentially distorted. But the pragmatist/naturalist will not go the opposite way, and say that metaphysics is meaningless either, since (true to their pragmatic commitments) ontology does things for the scientist and the layperson. It is a mistake to reject it wholesale, since the task of asserting what there is, exposing such an ontology to criticism, both empirical and logical, and revising it, has both small-scale and large-scale consequences. On the small-scale, ontologies are a guide for thinking—scientists, engineers, and lay people can and do use models of existence to navigate occurent problems in their day-to-day lives. Whether this is posing research hypotheses, developing protocols for generating new materials, or cooling off a cup of coffee, ontology plays a role. Large-scale consequences are more weighty, and more difficult to see. These large-scale consequences have to do with the aims and values which individuals and societies possess, and their interrelation with ontology. This certainly was at the forefront of the earliest ontologies—the Epicureans and Stoics built their moral philosophy on the basis of what ontology they thought was correct. This sort of practice goes on, unabated, today, though with virtually no overt acknowledgement of this important interdependency. How, for the pragmatist, do we make sense of ontological talk, if we are to eschew traditional metaphysics? Ontology—the naturalist/pragmatist declares—is a tool. Ontology helps us do things, whether it be predict behavior, understand phenomena, blame or forgive someone, and hope or despair about a life after this one (for example). Building an ontology is about building our own concepts, and this, in turn is a negotiation between our beliefs, experiences, and commitments, and the beliefs, experiences, and commitments of with whom we’re discursively engaged. (shrink)

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Olin’s focus in this collection of essays is the historical period of the early sixteenth century, the juncture of the Renaissance and the Reformation. Providing an in-depth alternative to the standard treatment – so often limited to the classical revival – this work concerns itself with the unique link between humanism and the great literary works of the period, and, in particular, the patristic scholarship inherent in Erasmus’ ideals of reform. Olin specifically take into account the movements of (...) New Learning and Humanism defining the cultural break between Medieval scholasticism and the renaissance of interest in the literature of antiquity. (shrink)

Este artigo examina a objeção ao fechamento [dedutivo] que surge no contexto de certos paradoxos epistêmicos, paradoxos cuja conclusão é que a crença justificada pode ser inconsistente. É universalmente aceito que, se essa conclusão é correta, o fechamento deve ser rejeitado, para que se evite a crença justificada em enunciados contraditórios (P, ~P). Mas, mesmo que os argumentos desses paradoxos – o paradoxo da falibilidade (do prefácio) e o paradoxo da loteria – sejam mal-sucedidos, eles, ainda assim, sugerem a existência (...) de evidência independente para uma objeção mais direta contra o fechamento. O exame do argumento da falibilidade revela uma exigência de modéstia epistêmica que viola o fechamento a partir de múltiplas premissas. A reflexão sobre o paradoxo da loteria nos confronta com um dilema em que cada alternativa fornece um contra-exemplo ao fechamento a partir de uma única premissa. Seja ou não possível a inconsistência racional, há uma objeção contra o fechamento. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Fechamento dedutivo. Falibilidade. Paradoxo da Loteria. Paradoxo do Prefácio. Justificação. Inconsistência. ABSTRACT This paper examines the case against closure that arises in the context of certain epistemic paradoxes, paradoxes whose conclusion is that it is possible for justified belief to be inconsistent. It is generally agreed that if this conclusion is correct, closure must be rejected in order to avoid justified belief in contradictory statements (P, ~P). But even if the arguments of these paradoxes – the fallibility (preface) paradox and the lottery paradox – are unsuccessful, they nonetheless suggest independent grounds for a more direct case against closure. Examination of the fallibility argument reveals a requirement of epistemic modesty that violates multiple premise closure. Reflection on the lottery paradox presents us with a dilemma in which each alternative provides a counterexample to single premise closure. Whether or not rational inconsistency is possible, there is a case against closure. KEY WORDS – Closure. Fallibility. Lottery paradox. Preface paradox. Justification. Inconsistency. (shrink)

Is consistency always epistemically virtuous? In this paper, I examine one threat to the traditional view that consistency is a minimum requirement for rational belief. Central to the argument is the notion of epistemic probability, understood as the degree of support or confirmation provided by the total available evidence. My strategy in examining this argument is to apply analogous reasoning to carefully tailored examples. The conclusions which emerge are substantive, informative and utterly implausible. I conclude, first, that the argument for (...) inconsistency fails and, second, that it fails because epistemic probability does not conform to the axioms of the probability calculus. A plausible alternate model for determining degree of support is briefly considered. (shrink)

Although the use of new health technologies in healthcare and medicine is generally seen as beneficial, there has been little analysis of the impact of such technologies on people's lives and understandings of health and illness. This book explores how new technologies not only provide hope for cure and well-being, but also introduce new ethical dilemmas and raise questions about the "natural" body. Focusing on the ways new health technologies intervene into our lives and affect our ideas about normalcy, the (...) body and identity, New Health Technologies explores: how new health technologies are understood by lay people and patients how the outcomes of these technologies are communicated in various clinical settings how these technologies can alter our notions of health and illness and create "new illness." Written by authors with differing backgrounds in phenomenology, social psychology, social anthropology, communication studies and the nursing sciences, this book is essential reading for students andacademics of medical sociology, health and allied studies, and anyone with an interest in new health technologies. (shrink)

Perhaps the most intractable aspect of gender inequality concerns inequalities within the family around the domestic division of labor, especially over child care and other forms of caregiving. These enduring gender inequalities constitute a significant obstacle to achieving “strong gender egalitarianism”—a structure of social relations in which the division of labor around housework and caregiving within the family and occupational distributions within the public sphere are unaffected by gender. This article explores three kinds of publicly supported parental caregiving leaves that (...) bear on the potential for public policy to transform this private realm of inequality: equality-impeding policies, equality-enabling policies, and equality-promoting policies. The authors defend the third of these as necessary, given the importance of cultural constraints on the slow erosion of the gender division of labor over caregiving activities. (shrink)

Of the many genes mutated on the road to tumor formation, few have received as much attention as p53. The gene has come to occupy center stage for the simple reason that it is more frequently altered in human tumors than any other known gene, undergoing mutation at a significant rate in almost every tumor type in which it has been studied. This association between p53 mutation and tumorigenesis has spurred a flurry of research attempting to delineate the normal function (...) of p53 and, by extension, the role of p53 mutation in tumor formation. At the cellular level, p53 has been shown to suppress growth. Recent efforts to further discern the function of p53 have centered on the underlying molecular basis for this growth suppression. In particular, research has focused on the identification of cellular molecules (specifically DNA and proteins) with which the p53 protein associates. p53 has now been shown to bind DNA in a sequence‐specific manner, and mounting evidence suggests that p53 acts as a transcription factor, perhaps regulating the expression levels of genes involved in the inhibition of cell growth. The logical next step in understanding p53 function involves the resolution of two questions: (1) what are the physiological transcriptional targets of p53, and (2) what cellular proteins regulate or mediate the ability of p53 to modulate transcription? Some initial clues to these puzzles are now emerging, and these form the subject of this review. (shrink)