Can a heritability value tell us something about the weight of genetic versus environmental causes that have acted in the development of a particular individual? Two possible questions arise. Q1: what portion of the phenotype of X is due to its genes and what portion to its environment? Q2: what portion of X’s phenotypic deviation from the mean is a result of its genetic deviation and what portion a result of its environmental deviation? An answer to Q1 provides the full (...) information about X’s development, while an answer to Q2 leaves out a large portion unexplained—that portion which corresponds to the phenotypic mean. Q1 is unanswerable, but I show it is nevertheless legitimate under certain quantitative genetics models. With regard to Q2, opinions in the philosophical and biological literature differ as to its legitimacy. I argue that not only is it legitimate, but in particular, under a few simplifying assumptions, it allows for a quantitative probabilistic answer: for normally distributed quantitative traits with no G-E correlation or statistical G × E interaction, we can assess the probability that X’s genes had a greater effect than its environment on its deviation from the mean population value. This probability is expressed as a function the heritability and the individual’s phenotypic value; we can also provide a quantitative probabilistic answer to Q2 for an arbitrary individual where the probability is a function only of heritability. (shrink)

The presence of gene–environment statistical interaction and correlation in biological development has led both practitioners and philosophers of science to question the legitimacy of heritability estimates. The paper offers a novel approach to assess the impact of GxE and rGE on the way genetic and environmental causation can be partitioned. A probabilistic framework is developed, based on a quantitative genetic model that incorporates GxE and rGE, offering a rigorous way of interpreting heritability estimates. Specifically, given an estimate of heritability and (...) the variance components associated with estimates of GxE and rGE, I arrive at a probabilistic account of the relative effect of genes and environment. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers frequently assume that Kant never seriously engaged with Spinoza or Spinozism --certainly not before the break of Der Pantheismusstreit, or within the Critique of Pure Reason. Offering an alternative reading of key pre-critical texts and to some of the Critique's most central chapters, Omri Boehm challenges this common assumption. He argues that Kant not only is committed to Spinozism in early essays such as "The One Possible Basis" and "New Elucidation," but also takes up Spinozist metaphysics as (...) Transcendental Realism's most consistent form in the Critique of Pure Reason. (shrink)

A central debate in philosophy and neuroscience pertains to whether PFC activity plays an essential role in the neural basis of consciousness. Neuroimaging and electrophysiology studies have revealed that the contents of conscious perceptual experience can be successfully decoded from PFC activity, but these findings might be confounded by post- perceptual cognitive processes, such as thinking, reasoning, and decision-making, that are not necessary for con- sciousness. To clarify the involvement of the PFC in consciousness, we present a synthesis of research (...) that has used intracranial electrical stimulation (iES) for the causal modulation of neural activity in the human PFC. This research provides compelling evidence that iES of only certain prefrontal regions (i.e., orbitofrontal cortex and anterior cingu- late cortex) reliably perturbs conscious experience. Conversely, stimulation of anterolateral prefrontal sites, often con- sidered crucial in higher-order and global workspace theories of consciousness, seldom elicits any reportable alterations in consciousness. Furthermore, the wide variety of iES-elicited effects in the PFC (e.g., emotions, thoughts, and olfactory and visual hallucinations) exhibits no clear relation to the immediate environment. Therefore, there is no evidence for the kinds of alterations in ongoing perceptual experience that would be predicted by higher-order or global workspace theories. Nevertheless, effects in the orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortices suggest a specific role for these PFC subregions in supporting emotional aspects of conscious experience. Overall, this evidence presents a challenge for higher-order and global workspace theories, which commonly point to the PFC as the basis for con- scious perception based on correlative and possibly confounded information. (shrink)

Drawing on Descartes' account of générosité, a reinterpretation of the Cogito is offered, emphasizing the role of the will. The paper's first part focuses on Cartesian ethics. It is argued that Descartes can be viewed as a Stoical thinker rather than a Baconian one. That is, he holds that theoretical contemplation is itself the primary ground of human happiness and tranquility of mind – experienced as the feeling of générosité. The paper's second part draws on the first in accounting for (...) the relation between radical doubt and certainty. By engaging with doubt, it is argued, the meditator comes to experience générosité, assert freedom. This experience is not, then, as argued by some, merely the Cogito's ethical counterpart. It is rather the Cogito's foundation. The meditator's assertion sum follows from – insofar as freedom is, as the definition of générosité asserts, ‘the only thing truly belonging to us', it consists in – the assertion of freedom. (shrink)

We suggest that as people move to construe robots as social agents, interact with them, and treat them as capable of social ties, they might develop (close) relationships with them. We then ask what kind of relationships can people form with bots, what functions can bots fulfill, and what are the societal and moral implications of such relationships.

: The question of Kant’s relation to Spinozist thought has been virtually ignored over the years. I analyze Kant’s pre-critical ‘possibility-proof’ of God’s existence, elaborated in the Beweisgrund, as well as the echoes that this proof has in the first Critique, in beginning to uncover the connection between Kant’s thought and Spinoza’s. Kant’s espousal of the Principle of Sufficient Reason [PSR] for the analysis of modality during the pre-critical period committed him, I argue, to Spinozist substance monism. Much textual evidence (...) suggests that he was aware of this commitment. However, by transforming the PSR into a regulative principle the critical Kant has transformed his pre-critical proof into a regulative ideal. He is thereby committed, I argue, to regulative Spinozism. (shrink)

Kant's attack on metaphysics consists in large part in his attack on a principle that he names the Supreme Principle of Pure Reason. This principle, it is not often noticed, is the Principle of Sufficient Reason [PSR]. In interpreting this principle as such, I argue that Kant's attack on the PSR depends on Kant's claim that existence is not a first-order predicate. If existence isn't what Kant calls a real predicate, the PSR is false. While this constitutes a powerful Kantian (...) argument against dogmatic rationalism, it also poses a problem for Kant. For, as I argue, if the PSR is true, Kant's argument that existence isn't a first-order predicate is false. In this sense, Kant's attack on the PSR is begging the question vis-á-vis radical metaphysicians. Concluding the paper I suggest relying on Kant's 'is'/'ought' distinction in avoiding this circularity, thereby reinforcing the Kantian critique. (shrink)

Scholars commonly assume that Kant never seriously engaged with Spinoza or Spinozism. However, in his later writings Kant argues several times that Spinozism is the most consistent form of transcendental realism. In the first part of the paper, I argue that the first Antinomy, debating the age and size of the world, already reflects Kant's confrontation with Spinozist metaphysics. Specifically, the position articulated in the Antithesis ? according to which the world is infinite and uncreated ? is Spinozist, not Leibnizian, (...) as commonly assumed. In the second part of the paper, I raise the chief Spinozist challenge to the Antinomy, arising from Spinoza's reliance on a cosmological `totum analyticum' ? an infinite whole which is prior to its parts. In conclusion, I begin to elaborate a defence of the Kantian position, confronting Spinoza's infinite whole with Kant's account of the absolutely infinite in his discussion of the sublime. (shrink)

If the instance of human rights cannot ensure the protection of the rightless, as Arendt famously claimed, how can the rightless struggle for freedom and equality? In this essay, I attempt to answer this question by reconsidering Arendt’s influential critique of human rights in light of the two polar responses it evoked from contemporary French philosophers Jacques Rancière and Étienne Balibar. Rancière, who objects to Arendt’s delimiting of the political, finds her argument excluding and dangerous. Balibar, on the other hand, (...) believes that it conveys an immense potential for politics to come, as it points to the dialectical political truth of equaliberty. In the following, I show the problematics of Rancière’s ingenious formulation of rights, and the answer Balibar’s original interpretation of Arendt’s thought might suggest in response. I contend that working through Rancière’s critique of Arendt’s argument and Balibar’s affirmation of it not only highlights the merits of her critical account but also points to the fundamental relation between Arendt’s work on rights and her later discussions of the human condition of non-sovereignty and the power of promises. I believe that such a reading can contribute to our interpretation of Arendt, and pave new routes of action for non-citizens (such as refugees, stateless persons and subjects of military occupation), who cannot employ the authorities’ strength for their protection. (shrink)

British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page 1-4, Ahead of Print.

It is well known that the Ackermann function can be defined via diagonalization from an iteration hierarchy which is built on a start function like the successor function. In this paper we study for a given start function g iteration hierarchies with a sub-linear modulus h of iteration. In terms of g and h we classify the phase transition for the resulting diagonal function from being primitive recursive to being Ackermannian.

Scholars see Israel as a settler state, comparable with North American, South African and Oceanian cases. But how was Jewish settlement-colonization in pre-Israel Palestine even possible? In the North American, Oceanian and South African cases, European settlers did not encounter diseases like malaria that scholars argue impede settlement. Palestine, however, had high malaria morbidity rates. The disease incapacitated and killed settlers and was one of the most serious threats to Jewish settlement and political economic development. I argue that the exigencies (...) caused by malaria are exactly what fostered Jewish settlement-colonization in Palestine because they prompted the formation of socio-technical arrangements in order to combat the disease. These arrangements included, among other things, people, organizations, scientific knowledge, procedures and larvicides as well as considering the agency of mosquitos and other elements in the environment in disrupting settlement. These arrangements were marshalled by medical-national and political institutions that developed to combat malaria. Only then were Jewish settlers able to effectively colonize Palestine, make their colonies economically viable and make Palestine habitable for future Jewish immigrants. I demonstrate this argument by drawing on archival and library materials that describe the work of an important Zionist Malaria Research Unit (MRU) as well as malaria control efforts in Hefer Valley in the 1930s–1940s, after the unit’s disbandment. Then, I discuss the theoretical implications of this paper to settler-colonial and state-building literatures that, for the most part, neglected the socio-technical nature of state-building and settlement. (shrink)

The conventional wisdom is that any trading scheme that is not for investment purposes but, rather, for the purpose of inflating or deflating the market price, namely, manipulation, is fraudulent. This paper treats manipulation as a form of communication between the manipulator and the market. As with any communication, it may sometimes be fraudulent, but often it is based on the manipulator’s knowledge, or genuine belief, that a certain stock is being traded at a discount. Under the assumptions of the (...) CAPM, such an informed party should use this information to trade for investment purposes only, but liquidity and risk constraints, which are ignored by the CAPM, often do not allow him to invest; instead these constraints force him to bid the market up. The manipulator’s effect on the market arouses analyst attention and induces the market to update its evaluation of the firm’s value. The more liquid the market, the faster the market updates its evaluation of the firm’s value, and thus the greater the value to the manipulator if his scheme is based on information. I support this theoretical claim with an empirical study of stock manipulation indictments brought by the Israeli Securities Agency during the last decade. The study treats each indictment as a competition between two rival analysts: the Agency, which recommends a “hold” at the pre-manipulation price and a “sell” at the post-manipulation price, and the manipulator, who recommends a “buy” at the pre-manipulation price and a “hold” at the post-manipulation price. Examining the long-run performance of the forty-five stocks that were the subjects of the indictments, I find that investors could gain by following the advice of the Agency. However, the long-run performance of the twenty-two most liquid stocks shows that these stocks experienced a significant positive abnormal return. This finding provides support for my claim that information is a driving force behind many manipulative schemes, especially those that are conducted in liquid markets. (shrink)

We live in a world of one-size-fits-all law. People are different, but the laws that govern them are uniform. "Personalized Law" - rules that vary person by person - will change that. Here is a vision of a brave new world, where each person is bound by their own personally-tailored law. "Reasonable person" standards would be replaced by a multitude of personalized commands, each individual with their own "reasonable you" rule. Skilled doctors would be held to higher standards of care, (...) the most vulnerable consumers and employees would receive stronger protections, age restrictions for driving or for the consumption of alcohol would vary according the recklessness risk that each person poses, and borrowers would be entitled to personalized loan disclosures tailored to their unique needs and delivered in a format fitting their mental capacity. The data and algorithms to administer personalize law are at our doorstep, and embryos of this regime are sprouting. Should we welcome this transformation of the law? Does personalized law harbor a utopic promise, or would it produce alienation, demoralization, and discrimination? This book is the first to explore personalized law, offering a vision of law and robotics that delegates to machines those tasks humans are least able to perform well. It inquires how personalized law can be designed to deliver precision and justice and what pitfalls the regime would have to prudently avoid. (shrink)

Boilerplate, the fine print of standard contracts, is more prevalent than ever in commercial trade and in electronic commerce. But what is in it, beyond legal technicalities? Why is it so hard to read and why is it often so one-sided? Who writes it, who reads it, and what effect does it have? The studies in this volume question whether boilerplate is true contract. Does it resemble a statute? Is it a species of property? Should we think of it as (...) a feature of the product we buy? Does competition improve boilerplate? Looking at the empirical reality in which various boilerplates operate, leading private law experts reveal subtle and previously unrecognized ways in which boilerplate clauses encourage information flow, but also reduce it; how new boilerplate terms are produced, and how innovation in boilerplate is stifled; how negotiation happens in the shadow of boilerplate, and how it is subdued. They offer a new explanation as to why boilerplate is often so one-sided. With emphasis on empiricism and economic thinking, this volume provides a more nuanced understanding of the 'DNA' of market contracts, the boilerplate terms. (shrink)

ABSTRACTMost legal theorists and philosophers of law who work in the analytic tradition believe that intellectual progress in their fields necessarily means going ‘deeper’: coming up with more nuan...

This paper addresses the phenomenon of judicial greatness by developing a general concept of greatness and applying it to law. Under the view offered in the paper, greatness is connected to theoretical or methodological diversification. When applied to adjudication, this means that great judges are revered because they successfully make a prima facie case for their novel adjudicative methods. This is not a judicial duty but rather a voluntary project. However, once a judge succeeds in making such a prima facie (...) case, he is exempt from other judicial duties. This thesis challenges many theories of judicial duty, which do not allow normative room for supererogatory actions in law. The paper demonstrates these claims by discussing two paradigmatic great judges – Chief Justice Marshall and Justice Holmes. (shrink)

This paper offers a new interpretation of Nietzsche's ‘higher men’ doctrine, which explains how he can simultaneously hold the following two positions: first, that higher types are especially important or valuable; and second, that all moral claims are false. Nietzsche can coherently subscribe to both views by arguing that higher types have wide inter-subjective value to lower types. More specifically, higher men, who are mainly characterized by their strong, commanding nature, fulfill a psychological need, common in most humans—the need to (...) obey. The paper develops this conception of higher types and shows how it relates to Nietzsche's insights on culture, nihilism, and becoming. (shrink)

This study analyzes how the board’s characteristics could be associated with globally corporate social responsibility CSR and specific areas of CSR. It is drawn on all listed firms, in 2016, on the SBF120 between 2003 and 2016. Our results provide strong evidence that diversity in boards and diversity of boards globally are positively associated with corporate social performance. However, they influence differently specific dimensions of CSR performance. First, we show that large boards are positively associated with all areas of CSR (...) performance, while specific and overall CSR scores are negatively associated with CEO-chair structures. Second, board gender diversity is positively associated with human rights and corporate governance dimensions. Third, age diversity is positively associated with corporate governance, human resources, human rights, and environmental activities. Also, our results provide evidence that outside directors care about CSR performance. Specifically, the presence of foreign directors is positively associated with environmental performance and community involvement, whereas CSR-Governance dimension is positively associated with the presence of independent directors. Regarding the director’s educational level, post-graduated directors are positively and significantly associated with overall CSR score and all CSR sub-scores, except the corporate governance one. When directors have multiple directorships, they are more concerned about human resources, environmental performance, and business ethics. Finally, our findings are robust only in non-family firms. In fact, family boards are less diverse than non-family ones; specifically, they have a lower number of independent, foreign, and high-educated directors. (shrink)

Many scholars have investigated the direct impact of entrepreneurial orientation on performance, but this direct association seems both spurious and ambiguous because many parameters may have an indirect influence on this relationship. The present study thus considers sustainable practices—environmental practices, social practices in the workplace, and social practices in the community —as three probable mediators in the relationship between EO and performance, which is considered in terms of its financial and non-financial dimensions. We seek to show to what extent small- (...) and medium-sized enterprises’ sustainable practices are useful assets, which are supported by EO, to improve performance. Using a structural equation modeling approach, data collected from 406 French SMEs were tested against the model. Our findings reveal that EO has a positive impact on the implementation of sustainable practices and that SPW partially mediate the link between EO and performance. Taken together, these findings suggest that EO plays a role in indirectly promoting performance by enhancing certain human resource management practices. (shrink)

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) represent two distinct but equally impactful challenges in the field of neurology and cognitive health. AD is a degenerative neurological condition characterized by its progressive nature, typically affecting individuals in later stages of life. The hallmark features include cognitive impairment, mem- ory deterioration, and alterations in behavior. In contrast, ASD is a developmental disorder typically diagnosed in childhood, marked by difficulties in social interaction, communication, and repetitive behaviors. This paper explores the potential (...) of the time-frequency feature extraction model known as the Left-Right Fast Fourier Transform (LR-FFT) in the context of these two disorders. While AD and ASD differ significantly in their onset, presentation, and demographic affected, both necessitate early and accurate diagnosis to enable timely intervention and tailored treatment strategies. Our research yields promising results, with classification accuracies reaching 88.26% for AD and 99.86% for ASD, demonstrating the LR-FFT’s potential to enhance diagnostic accuracy. By contributing to improved differentiation between these complex neurological conditions, this work aims to advance our understanding and management of AD and ASD, ultimately benefiting patients, their families, and healthcare practitioners. (shrink)

Shortcomings in the target article preclude adequate tests of developmental/attachment and strategic pluralism theories. Methodological problems include comparing college student attitudes with societal level indicators that may not reflect life conditions of college students. We show, through two principal components analyses, that multiple tests of the theories reduce to only two findings that cannot be interpreted as solid support for evolutionary hypotheses.

Most theories and hypotheses in psychology are verbal in nature, yet their evaluation overwhelmingly relies on inferential statistical procedures. The validity of the move from qualitative to quantitative analysis depends on the verbal and statistical expressions of a hypothesis being closely aligned – that is, that the two must refer to roughly the same set of hypothetical observations. Here, I argue that many applications of statistical inference in psychology fail to meet this basic condition. Focusing on the most widely used (...) class of model in psychology – the linear mixed model – I explore the consequences of failing to statistically operationalize verbal hypotheses in a way that respects researchers' actual generalization intentions. I demonstrate that although the “random effect” formalism is used pervasively in psychology to model intersubject variability, few researchers accord the same treatment to other variables they clearly intend to generalize over (e.g., stimuli, tasks, or research sites). The under-specification of random effects imposes far stronger constraints on the generalizability of results than most researchers appreciate. Ignoring these constraints can dramatically inflate false-positive rates, and often leads researchers to draw sweeping verbal generalizations that lack a meaningful connection to the statistical quantities they are putatively based on. I argue that failure to take the alignment between verbal and statistical expressions seriously lies at the heart of many of psychology's ongoing problems (e.g., the replication crisis), and conclude with a discussion of several potential avenues for improvement. (shrink)

The philosophy of measurement studies the conceptual, ontological, epistemic, and technological conditions that make measurement possible and reliable. A new wave of philosophical scholarship has emerged in the last decade that emphasizes the material and historical dimensions of measurement and the relationships between measurement and theoretical modeling. This essay surveys these developments and contrasts them with earlier work on the semantics of quantity terms and the representational character of measurement. The conclusions highlight four characteristics of the emerging research program in (...) philosophy of measurement: it is epistemological, coherentist, practice oriented, and model based. (shrink)

We are currently witnessing a sharp rise in the use of algorithmic decision-making tools. In these instances, a new wave of policy concerns is set forth. This article strives to map out these issues, separating the wheat from the chaff. It aims to provide policy makers and scholars with a comprehensive framework for approaching these thorny issues in their various capacities. To achieve this objective, this article focuses its attention on a general analytical framework, which will be applied to a (...) specific subset of the overall discussion. The analytical framework will reduce the discussion to two dimensions, every one of which addressing two central elements. These four factors call for a distinct discussion, which is at times absent in the existing literature. The two dimensions are the specific and novel problems the process assumedly generates and the specific attributes which exacerbate them. While the problems are articulated in a variety of ways, they most likely could be reduced to two broad categories: efficiency and fairness-based concerns. In the context of this discussion, such problems are usually linked to two salient attributes the algorithmic processes feature—its opaque and automated nature. (shrink)

We examine whether the "evidence of evidence is evidence" principle is true. We distinguish several different versions of the principle and evaluate recent attacks on some of those versions. We argue that, whatever the merits of those attacks, they leave the more important rendition of the principle untouched. That version is, however, also subject to new kinds of counterexamples. We end by suggesting how to formulate a better version of the principle that takes into account those new counterexamples.

This article develops a model-based account of the standardization of physical measurement, taking the contemporary standardization of time as its central case study. To standardize the measurement of a quantity, I argue, is to legislate the mode of application of a quantity concept to a collection of exemplary artefacts. Legislation involves an iterative exchange between top-down adjustments to theoretical and statistical models regulating the application of a concept, and bottom-up adjustments to material artefacts in light of remaining gaps. The model-based (...) account clarifies the cognitive role of ad hoc corrections, arbitrary rules, and seemingly circular inferences involved in contemporary timekeeping, and explains the stability of networks of standards better than its conventionalist and constructivist counterparts. 1 Introduction2 Making Time Universal2.1 Stability and accuracy2.2 Multiple realizability2.3 The challenges of synchronicity2.4 Divergent standards2.5 The leap second3 The Two Faces of Stability3.1 An explanatory challenge3.2 Conventionalist explanations3.3 Constructivist explanations4 Models and Standardization4.1 A third alternative4.2 Stability reconceived4.3 Legislative freedom4.4 Discovering gaps4.5 Nature and society entangled4.6 Remark on scope5 Conclusions. (shrink)

This article develops a model-based account of the standardization of physical measurement, taking the contemporary standardization of time as its central case-study. To standardize the measurement of a quantity, I argue, is to legislate the mode of application of a quantity-concept to a collection of exemplary artefacts. Legislation involves an iterative exchange between top-down adjustments to theoretical and statistical models regulating the application of a concept, and bottom-up adjustments to material artefacts in light of remaining gaps. The model-based account clarifies (...) the cognitive role of ad hoc corrections, arbitrary rules and seemingly circular inferences involved in contemporary timekeeping, and explains the stability of networks of standards better than its conventionalist and constructivist counterparts. (shrink)

Contrary to the claim that measurement standards are absolutely accurate by definition, I argue that unit definitions do not completely fix the referents of unit terms. Instead, idealized models play a crucial semantic role in coordinating the theoretical definition of a unit with its multiple concrete realizations. The accuracy of realizations is evaluated by comparing them to each other in light of their respective models. The epistemic credentials of this method are examined and illustrated through an analysis of the contemporary (...) standardization of time. I distinguish among five senses of ‘measurement accuracy’ and clarify how idealizations enable the assessment of accuracy in each sense. (shrink)

When discrepancies are discovered between the outcomes of different measurement procedures, two sorts of explanation are open to scientists. Either some of the outcomes are inaccurate or the procedures are not measuring the same quantity. I argue that, due to the possibility of systematic error, the choice between and is underdetermined in principle by any possible evidence. Consequently, foundationalist criteria of quantity individuation are either empty or circular. I propose a coherentist, model-based account of measurement that avoids the underdetermination problem, (...) and use this account to explain how scientists individuate quantities in practice. (shrink)

Suppose we learn that we have a poor track record in forming beliefs rationally, or that a brilliant colleague thinks that we believe P irrationally. Does such input require us to revise those beliefs whose rationality is in question? When we gain information suggesting that our beliefs are irrational, we are in one of two general cases. In the first case we made no error, and our beliefs are rational. In that case the input to the contrary is misleading. In (...) the second case we indeed believe irrationally, and our original evidence already requires us to fix our mistake. In that case the input to that effect is normatively superfluous. Thus, we know that information suggesting that our beliefs are irrational is either misleading or superfluous. This, I submit, renders the input incapable of justifying belief revision, despite our not knowing which of the two kinds it is. (shrink)

This work develops an epistemology of measurement, that is, an account of the conditions under which measurement and standardization methods produce knowledge as well as the nature, scope, and limits of this knowledge. I focus on three questions: (i) how is it possible to tell whether an instrument measures the quantity it is intended to? (ii) what do claims to measurement accuracy amount to, and how might such claims be justified? (iii) when is disagreement among instruments a sign of error, (...) and when does it imply that instruments measure different quantities? Based on a series of case studies conducted in collaboration with the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), I argue for a model-based approach to the epistemology of physical measurement. To measure a physical quantity, I argue, is to estimate the value of a parameter in an idealized model of a physical process. Such estimation involves inference from the final state (‘indication’) of a process to the value range of a parameter (‘outcome’) in light of theoretical and statistical assumptions. Contrary to contemporary philosophical views, measurement outcomes cannot be obtained by mapping the structure of indications. Instead, measurement outcomes as well as claims to accuracy, error and quantity individuation can only be adjudicated relative to a choice of idealized modelling assumptions. (shrink)

Panmicropsychism is the view that the fundamental physical ingredients of our universe are also its fundamental phenomenal ingredients. Since there is only a limited number of fundamental physical ingredients, panmicropsychism seems to imply that there exists only a small set (palette) of basic phenomenal qualities. How does this limited palette of basic phenomenal qualities give rise to our rich set of experiences? This is known as ‘the palette problem’. One class of solutions to this problem, large-palette solutions, simply denies that (...) the palette is limited. These solutions assume that all types of phenomenal qualities (color, sound, odor, taste, etc., and presumably also types not experienced by humans) were created fully formed at the birth of our universe. On this view, brains evoke conscious experiences by sampling primordial, preexisting phenomenal spaces. My main claim in this paper is that, by analogy with the mathematical description of the fundamental physical ingredients of our universe, which exhibits simplicity, symmetry, and beauty, panmicropsychists should expect the mathematical description of the fundamental phenomenal ingredients of our universe to exhibit similar features. The goal of this paper is to exemplify this claim using what is arguably the simplest of all types of phenomenal qualities—color. Specifically, I utilize phenomenological data on color to construct the maximally symmetric mathematical description of phenomenal color space. I then show that this mathematical description is isomorphic to the mathematical description of two-state quantum systems in a mixed state. Based on this isomorphism, I suggest that color may be the phenomenal dual aspect of two-state quantum systems. (shrink)

Axiomatic measurement theories are commonly interpreted as claiming that, in order to quantify an empirical domain, the qualitative structure of data about that domain must be mapped to a numerical structure. Such mapping is supposed to be established independently, i.e., without presupposing that the domain can be quantified. This interpretation is based on two myths: that it is possible to independently infer the qualitative structure of objects from empirical data, and that the adequacy of numerical representations can only be justified (...) by mapping such qualitative structures to numerical ones. I dispel the myths and show that axiomatic measurement theories provide an inadequate characterization of the kind of evidence required to detect quantities. (shrink)

In this book, Tal S. Shamir sets out to identify cinema as a novel medium for philosophy and an important way of manifesting and developing philosophical thought. The volume presents a comprehensive analysis of the nature of philosophy's potential-or, more strongly put, its need-to be manifested cinematically. Drawing on the fields of cinema, philosophy, and media studies, Cinematic Philosophy adds film to the traditional list of ways through which philosophy can be created, concentrating on the unique potential of the cinematic (...) medium to effectively put forward and create philosophy. In the process, the book opens up innovative horizons for new types of knowledge and wisdom grounded in contemporary contexts and philosophical thought. Philosophy, best characterized as the love of wisdom, is not dependent on a specific medium nor solely situated within written text or oral lectures. Shamir asserts that philosophy can, should, and must be manifested and identified in a range of different platforms. (shrink)

There is now considerable evidence that human sentence processing is expectation based: As people read a sentence, they use their statistical experience with their language to generate predictions about upcoming syntactic structure. This study examines how sentence processing is affected by readers' uncertainty about those expectations. In a self-paced reading study, we use lexical subcategorization distributions to factorially manipulate both the strength of expectations and the uncertainty about them. We compare two types of uncertainty: uncertainty about the verb's complement, reflecting (...) the next prediction step; and uncertainty about the full sentence, reflecting an unbounded number of prediction steps. We find that uncertainty about the full structure, but not about the next step, was a significant predictor of processing difficulty: Greater reduction in uncertainty was correlated with increased reading times. We additionally replicated previously observed effects of expectation violation, orthogonal to the effect of uncertainty. This suggests that both surprisal and uncertainty affect human RTs. We discuss the consequences for theories of sentence comprehension. (shrink)

Kant's category of reality is an often overlooked element of his Critique of Pure Reason. Tal Glezer shows that it nevertheless belongs at the core of Kant's mature critical philosophy: it captures an issue that motivated his critical turn, shaped his theory of causation, and established the role of his philosophy of science. Glezer's study traces the roots of Kant's category of reality to early modern debates over the intelligibility of substantial forms, fueled by the tension between the idea of (...) non-extended substances and that of extended objects. This tension influenced Kant's pre-critical work, and eventually inspired his radical break towards transcendental idealism. Glezer explores the importance of reality for Kant's conceptions of cause and force, and sheds new light on his philosophy of physical science, including gravity. His book will interest scholars of Kant and of early modern philosophy, as well as historians of scientific ideas. (shrink)

The Self-Intimation thesis has it that whatever justificatory status a proposition has, i.e., whether or not we are justified in believing it, we are justified in believing that it has that status. The Infallibility thesis has it that whatever justificatory status we are justified in believing that a proposition has, the proposition in fact has that status. Jointly, Self-Intimation and Infallibility imply that the justificatory status of a proposition closely aligns with the justification we have about that justificatory status. Self-Intimation (...) has two noteworthy implications. First, assuming that we never have sufficient justification for a proposition and for its negation, we can derive Infallibility from Self-Intimation. Interestingly, there seems to be no equivalently simple way to derive Self-Intimation from Infallibility. This asymmetry provides reason for thinking that bottom-level justification rather than top-level justification drives the explanation for why the levels of justification align. Second, Self-Intimation suggests a counterintuitive treatment of information concerning what justificatory status a proposition has. It follows from Self-Intimation that we always have justification for the truth about whether a proposition is justified for us, and therefore, that higher-order evidence could change what we should believe on this matter only by misleading us. This permits forming beliefs about whether a proposition is justified for us without regard to higher-order evidence, and thus reveals a reason for thinking that top-level justification is evidentially inert. (shrink)