Fairness is undoubtedly an essential normative concept in humans and promotes cooperation in human societies. The fact that fairness exists is puzzling, however, because it works against the short-term interest of individuals. Theories of genetic evolution, cultural evolution, and gene-culture coevolution identify plausible mechanisms for the evolution of fairness in humans. Such mechanisms include kin selection, the support of group-beneficial moral norms through ethnic markers, free partner choice with equal outside options, and free partner choice with reputation as well as (...) spite in small populations. Here, we present the results of a common-pool resource game experiment on sharing. Based on data from 37 multiethnic villages in a subsistence agricultural population in Foutah Djallon, Guinea, we show that fair behavior in our experiment increased with increasing ethnic homogeneity and market integration. Group size and kinship had the opposite effect. Overall, fair behavior was not conditional on reputation. Instead, the ability of the different village populations to support individuals’ fairness in situations lacking the opportunity to build a positive reputation varied significantly. Our results suggest that evolutionary theory provides a useful framework for the analysis of fairness in humans. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Comparative Philosophy and Method: Contemporary Practices and Future Possibilities ed. by Steven Burik, Robert Smid and Ralph WeberDouglas L. Berger (bio)Comparative Philosophy and Method: Contemporary Practices and Future Possibilities. Edited by Steven Burik, Robert Smid and Ralph Weber. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023. Pp. vi + 272. Paperback $40.28, isbn 978-1-350-29704-3.The editors Steven Burik, Robert Smid and Ralph Weber, who have all made important revisions (...) to the theory of comparative philosophical method, have pulled together the contributions of ten other influential scholars in the field and their own work into this much-needed collection of essays. There has been much written about the methodology of comparative philosophy in the last hundred years. More recent reflections in this field have been strongly fueled by post-colonial evaluations as well as a proliferation of methodological approaches. Nonetheless, some consensus on what methods the field should adopt and to what ends still needs overt discussion. The editors argue in an Introduction and Epilogue to the volume that, now faced with the "obstacles" of often conflicting principles and aims of different methodological approaches which leads to their frequent mutual rejection, there is need for a wide acceptance of pluralism in the methodology of comparative philosophy (pp. 4–5). This methodological pluralism, for the editors, should be understood in two senses. Firstly, there should be a broad-based "methodological commitment to pluralism," which amounts to an acceptance that there is an existing plurality of philosophical traditions in the world which have very different foundational insights and worldviews (p. 254). Secondly, the fact that the plurality of philosophical traditions actually exhibits quite different approaches ought, despite any individual comparativist's preferred method, compel us to accept that this diversity is best dealt with by a plurality of research approaches (pp. 254–55). That is to say that, while the editors both acknowledge and endorse the particular specializations of any and all scholars engaged in intercultural philosophy, they urge each scholar to accept that both a descriptive and prescriptive pluralism of philosophical methodologies are necessary for the continued flourishing of the field. In order to demonstrate this descriptive and prescriptive pluralism, the editors organize the volume into what they call five "constellations" of discussion (p. 8).In the first "constellation" labeled "Necessary Conditions," Robert Neville, Jaap [End Page 1] van Brakel and Lin Ma offer general and detailed frameworks for what sorts of assumptions are needed for any comparative philosophical research to proceed fruitfully. Neville, while happily admitting that we need to be vigilant about biases and other limitations when crossing into other traditions, insists that philosophers need to at once be searching for the truth in any given comparison of ideas, while simultaneously always reflectively constructing the right categories on the basis of which the comparison may be justified and sound (pp. 22–27). Van Brakel and Ma present in their co-authored essay an elaborate blueprint for comparative research. This blueprint, while also conceding that there can never be "any one right interpretation" of any individual text, much less whole traditions, posit a basic "family resemblance principle" which highlights "mutually recognizable human practices" as the basic condition enabling comparative reflection in the first place (pp. 34–39).In the second "constellation," entitled "Generalization and Essentialization," Roger Ames and François Jullien insist in various ways that, while the essentialism that bedeviled previous eras of philosophy in general and comparative philosophy in particular should be rejected, generalizations are still fundamentally necessary to crystalize the most important ways in which traditions are distinct from one another. Ames, defending himself against recent allegations of essentialism in his approach, insists that the field needs to be supported by both a "self-reflective hermeneutical sensitivity" which acknowledges the positionality of the inquirer as well as a commitment to "search within the soil" of, in his case, the Chinese philosophical tradition for its own models of meaning (p. 58). To the latter end, Ames defends accurate generalizations which can help us understand "the language, the customs and the life-forms of a living tradition" since these, contrary to suspicions, aid us in preventing essentialization in comparative work (p. 63). Jullien... (shrink)

© Mind Association 2018Some time ago I was at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris investigating the teaching of philosophy during Descartes’ time. Fine monographs had already been published on the various regimens and practices at Descartes’ college at La Flèche, and Jesuit institutions in general, as well as the collegiate curriculum in seventeenth-century France. But as interested as I was in the form of the teaching—how philosophy was taught, where, and when—I was more interested in its content—what was actually taught. (...) A fair number of early modern textbooks and some manuscripts of lectures and student notebooks were still available; beyond that, one could find reports of weekly or monthly disputations, condemnations of specific doctrines, various broadsheets, manifestos, and student theses and dissertations. After overcoming some administrative resistance, I found myself in a room at the Cabinet d’Estampes looking at a... (shrink)

Why and how do institutions endure? The most characteristic feature of institutions—their longevity—seems to be a neglected topic in current institutional analysis, which overwhelmingly is conducted as an analysis of institutional change. This article, in contrast, attempts to answer some basic questions about institutional endurance and reproduction, most notably how institutional reproduction can be distinguished from institutional endurance, how institutions manage to “bind” time and space, and which role structures “out of time and space” play in this. I explore the (...) processual nature of three theories institutionalist authors draw on (Berger and Luckmann’s theory of social construction, Giddens’s structuration theory, and Bourdieu’s theory of field and habitus) to identify elements and explanations of endurance. I then elaborate on these insights by introducing Roger Friedland’s notion of institutional substance and ideas from the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. (shrink)

Offers an in-depth exposition of the Confucian conception of persons as the starting point of Confucian ethics.

The discipline of psychology has been under-represented in the critical realist account of the relationship between structure and agency. In this paper a critical realist perspective of educational...

Can we lose our concepts? A case like ‘phlogiston’ invites a positive answer, though the sensefulness of ‘There is no phlogiston’ gives us pause. But concepts are about more than just ‘extension-determination’; hence Diamond’s examination of putative loss of moral concepts does point to a possible phenomenon. That loss of concepts could be regrettable seems to make room for the thought that having certain concepts could likewise be regrettable. Anscombe’s critique of the concept of ‘moral obligation’ appears to be suggesting (...) this, but it presents a dilemma: do the relevant words and phrases have a ‘special sense’ or are they senseless? Either answer is acceptable, I argue; roughly speaking, confused use makes for confused meaning. Objections coming from a certain picture of the autonomy of grammar fail. A diagnosis of ‘confused use’ can lead naturally to our seeing speakers as caught up in a species of dishonesty or inauthenticity, and also to our referring to the ‘kind of nonsense’ being talked. This last phrase seems to fall foul of the sort of consideration Diamond raised when discussing nonsense in the Tractatus. However, the case of ‘secondary sense’ shows us how we can understand this reference to ‘kinds of nonsense’. (shrink)

The author argues that Rand’s ethical theory is much closer in essence to the eudaimonist, self-perfectionist perspectives of Aristotle and the neo-Aristotelians, Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen, than to the “selfish,” egoistic ethics many assume to be her basic position. He discusses Rand’s anti-hedonist and pro-rational selfishness positions as corollaries of man’s life as the standard of moral value, as well as Rand’s point that treating either happiness or personal benefit as the standard of moral value is a reversal (...) of cause and effect. He also identifies the oppressive negativism in Rand’s discussion of the seven canonical Objectivist virtues. (shrink)

More than 200 million children under the age of 5 years are affected by malnutrition worldwide according to the World Health Organization. The Barbados Nutrition Study (BNS) is a 55-year longitudinal study on a Barbadian cohort with histories of moderate to severe protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) limited to the first year of life and a healthy comparison group. Using quantitative electroencephalography (EEG), differences in brain function duringchildhood(lower alpha1 activity and higher theta, alpha2 and beta activity) have previously been highlighted between participants (...) who suffered from early PEM and controls. In order to determine whether similar differences persisted intoadulthood, our current study used recordings obtained during a Go-No-Go task in a subsample of the original BNS cohort [population size (N) = 53] at ages 45–51 years. We found that previously malnourished adults [sample size (n) = 24] had a higher rate of omission errors on the task relative to controls (n= 29). Evoked-Related Potentials (ERP) were significantly different in participants with histories of early PEM, who presented with lower N2 amplitudes. These findings are typically associated with impaired conflict monitoring and/or attention deficits and may therefore be linked to the attentional and executive function deficits that have been previously reported in this cohort in childhood and again in middle adulthood. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage est une réédition numérique d’un livre paru au XXe siècle, désormais indisponible dans son format d’origine.

Title: Michel Foucault Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan ISBN: 0312531664 Author: Mark Cousins and Athar Hussain Title: Michel Foucault and the Subversion of Intellect Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 0801415721 Author: Karlis Racevskis.

Paden finds Rawls's new theory inadequate in its response to communitarian criticisms advocating a different theory of good than that of liberal societies. Paden goes back to "A Theory of Justice" to state that all societies seek one good - the protection of their just institutions.

This chapter contains sections titled: References: primary sources.

This book reformulates the sociological subdiscipline known as the sociology of knowledge. Knowledge is presented as more than ideology, including as well false consciousness, propaganda, science and art.

These essays engage Jin Y. Park’s recent translation of the work of Kim Iryŏp, a Buddhist nun and public intellectual in early twentieth-century Korea. Park’s translation of Iryŏp’s Reflections of a Zen Buddhist Nun was the subject of two book panels at recent conferences: the first a plenary session at the annual meeting of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy and the second at the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association on a group program session sponsored by the (...) International Society for Buddhist Philosophy. This exchange also includes a response from Park. (shrink)

L. M. de Rijk supposed in 1982 that two anonymous logical tracts in the Viennese Codex 4698, fol. 18r–27v, may be the work of Martinus Anglicus to whom a tract on consequences and one on obligations are ascribed in that codex. The tract on supposition of which the Viennese codex hands down only a fragment of the beginning is contained completely in Hs I 613 of the Stadtbibliothek Mainz, fol. 20vb–21vb. This finding ensures the authorship of Martinus Anglicus and allows (...) to ascribe an Introduction into Logic in some seven parts to him. Martin’s tract on supposition and the more detailed one by Thomas Manlevelt show some resemblances in structure and content, the first being presumably the later one. This paper presents an edition of Martin’s Tractatus de suppositione from the Mainz manuscript and an introduction regarding the author and his work. (shrink)

Berger and Whistler provide a ground-breaking account of Schelling's first controversy with his critic A.C.A. Eschenmayer in 1801, which focused on the philosophy of nature. They argue that key Schellingian concepts, such as identity, potency and abstraction, were first forged in his early debate with Eschenmayer.

Relationalism holds that perceptual experiences are relations between subjects and perceived objects. But much evidence suggests that perceptual states can be unconscious. We argue here that unconscious perception raises difficulties for relationalism. Relationalists would seem to have three options. First, they may deny that there is unconscious perception or question whether we have sufficient evidence to posit it. Second, they may allow for unconscious perception but deny that the relationalist analysis applies to it. Third, they may offer a relationalist explanation (...) of unconscious perception. We argue that each of these strategies is questionable. (shrink)

Berger, U., Total sets and objects in domain theory, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 60 91-117. Total sets and objects generalizing total functions are introduced into the theory of effective domains of Scott and Ersov. Using these notions Kreisel's Density Theorem and the Theorem of Kreisel-Lacombe-Shoenfield are generalized. As an immediate consequence we obtain the well-known continuity of computable functions on the constructive reals as well as a domain-theoretic characterization of the Heriditarily Effective Operations.

According to Rosenthal's higher-order thought (HOT) theory of consciousness, one is in a conscious mental state if and only if one is aware of oneself as being in that state via a suitable HOT. Several critics have argued that the possibility of so-called targetless HOTs—that is, HOTs that represent one as being in a state that does not exist—undermines the theory. Recently, Wilberg (2010) has argued that HOT theory can offer a straightforward account of such cases: since consciousness is a (...) property of mental state tokens, and since there are no states to exhibit consciousness, one is not in conscious states in virtue of targetless HOTs. In this paper, I argue that Wilberg's account is problematic and that Rosenthal's version of HOT theory, according to which a suitable HOT is both necessary and sufficient for consciousness, is to be preferred to Wilberg's account. I then argue that Rosenthal's account can comfortably accommodate targetless HOTs because consciousness is best understood as a property of individuals, not a property of states. (shrink)

I offer here a new hypothesis about the nature of implicit attitudes. Psy- chologists and philosophers alike often distinguish implicit from explicit attitudes by maintaining that we are aware of the latter, but not aware of the former. Recent experimental evidence, however, seems to challenge this account. It would seem, for example, that participants are frequently quite adept at predicting their own perfor- mances on measures of implicit attitudes. I propose here that most theorists in this area have nonetheless overlooked (...) a commonsense distinction regarding how we can be aware of attitudes, a difference that fundamentally distinguishes implicit and explicit attitudes. Along the way, I discuss the implications that this distinction may hold for future debates about and experimental investigations into the nature of implicit attitudes. (shrink)

According to what Birch (2022) calls the theory-heavy approach to investigating nonhuman-animal consciousness, we select one of the well-developed theories of consciousness currently debated within contemporary cognitive science and investigate whether animals exhibit the neural structures or cognitive abilities posited by that theory as sufficient for consciousness. Birch argues, however, that this approach is in general problematic because it faces what he dubs the dilemma of demandingness—roughly, that we cannot use theories that are based on the human case to assess (...) consciousness in nonhuman animals and vice versa. We argue here that, though this dilemma may problematize the application of many current accounts of consciousness to nonhuman animals, it does not challenge the use of standard versions of the higher-order thought theory (“HOTT”) of consciousness, according to which a creature is in a conscious mental state just in case it is aware of being in that state via a suitable higher-order thought (“HOT”). We show this in two ways. First, we argue that, unlike many extant theories of consciousness, HOTT is typically motivated by a commonsense, and more importantly, neutral condition on consciousness that applies to humans and animals alike. Second, we offer new empirical and theoretical reasons to think that many nonhuman animals possess the relevant HOTs necessary for consciousness. Considering these issues not only reveals the explanatory power of HOTT and some of its advantages over rival accounts, but also enables us to further extend and clarify the theory. (shrink)

While there seems to be much evidence that perceptual states can occur without being conscious, some theorists recently express scepticism about unconscious perception. We explore here two kinds of such scepticism: Megan Peters and Hakwan Lau's experimental work regarding the well-known problem of the criterion -- which seems to show that many purported instances of unconscious perception go unreported but are weakly conscious -- and Ian Phillips' theoretical consideration, which he calls the 'problem of attribution' -- the worry that many (...) purported examples of unconscious perception are not perceptual, but rather merely informational and subpersonal. We argue that these concerns do not undermine the evidence for unconscious perception and that this sceptical approach results in a dilemma for the sceptic, who must either deny that there is unconscious mentality generally or explain why perceptual states are unique in the mind such that they cannot occur unconsciously. Both options, we argue, are problematic. (shrink)