Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 31-44, January 2022.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Abbreviations -- Introduction: 'We': The Dangerous Thing -- 1 The Sellarsian Ethical Framework -- 2 Josiah Royce's Philosophy of Loyalty -- 3 Richard Rorty's Quasi-Sellarsian We -- 4 On the Prospects of Redescribing Rorty Roycely -- Bibliography -- Index.

The use of phenomenology and phenomenography as a method in the educational research literature has risen in popularity, particularly by researchers who are interested in understanding and generati...

Social order is regulated from above by the law but its foundation is built on norms and customs, informal social practices that enable people to make meaningful and productive uses of their time and resources. Despite the importance of these practices in keeping the social fabric together, very little of the jurisprudential literature has focused on a discussion of these norms and customs. In Social Norms in a Wired World Steven Hetcher argues that the traditional conception of norms as (...) rule-like linguistic entities is erroneous. Instead, norms must be understood as patterns of rationally governed behaviour maintained in groups by acts of conformity. Using informal game theory in the analysis of norms and customs, Hetcher applies his theory of norms to tort law and Internet privacy laws. This book will appeal to students and professionals in law, philosophy, and political and social theory. (shrink)

Conceptual features differ in how mentally tranformable they are. A robin that does not eat is harder to imagine than a robin that does not chirp. We argue that features are immutable to the extent that they are central in a network of dependency relations. The immutability of a feature reflects how much the internal structure of a concept depends on that feature; i.e., how much the feature contributes to the concept's coherence. Complementarily, mutability reflects the aspects in which a (...) concept is flexible. We show that features can be reliably ordered according to their mutability using tasks that require people to conceive of objects missing a feature, and that mutability (conceptual centrality) can be distinguished from category centrality and from diagnosticity and salience. We test a model of mutability based on asymmetric, unlabeled, pairwise dependency relations. With no free parameters, the model provides reasonable fits to data. Qualitative tests of the model show that mutability judgments are unaffected by the type of dependency relation and that dependency structure influences judgments of variability. (shrink)

From a prima facie point of view, Nietzsche’s use of virtue may appear to be a form of virtue ethics. Certainly, this is one position that has been established within the secondary literature; however, I argue that a more fruitful philosophical reading is to view his use of virtue as a part of his drive psychology. Indeed, what makes Nietzsche’s philosophical psychology relevant to this topic, is the way in which he characterises the “sovereign individual” as an agent that is (...) in control of good or appropriate actions because they are strong enough in character to sublimate their “drives” in the act of willing. Nietzsche’s philosophical psychology has important educational implications because an obvious place to cultivate the sovereign individual is through education, but to Nietzsche, education and educational institutions seem only interested in promoting certain Christian virtues (e.g., faith, hope, and charity), and herd forming virtues (e.g., obedience, guilt, and equality) that breed sick young people who are decadent and weak willed. In response to this dilemma, I turn my attention to how Nietzsche overcomes this problem by proposing new virtues that should figure in a new type of education which is concerned with educating the will of the sovereign individual. Central to Nietzsche’s new type of education is the painful labour of self-cultivation (Bildung), the revaluation of one’s values, and a ceaseless striving to overcome obstacles (will to power), so we are able to educate ourselves against life-negating virtues or vices that make us decadent and weak willed. (shrink)

From beginning to end, the ethical vision of The Good Place is shaped by creator Mike Schur's reading of T.M. Scanlon's What We Owe to Each Other. The characters on The Good Place become better people not because they have figured out a system for getting along with each other. Rather, the moral journey of the characters on The Good Place changes them into fundamentally different people. Levinasian ethics focuses on the encounter with other people and the response to that (...) encounter. For Emmanuel Levinas, the act of preserving an understanding of the world or self is always done at the expense of other people. Contrary to Scanlon, on The Good Place the responsibility for the other is not met in agreement or in respecting disagreement. It is met in the willingness to cede one's place to the other. (shrink)

Statements that share an explanation tend to lend inductive support to one another. For example, being told that Many furniture movers have a hard time financing a house increases the judged probability that Secretaries have a hard time financing a house. In contrast, statements with different explanations reduce one another s judged probability. Being told that Many furniture movers have bad backs decreases the judged probability that Secretaries have bad backs. I pose two questions concerning such discounting effects. First, does (...) the reduction depend on explanations being mutually incompatible or does it occur when explanations are deemed irrelevant to one another? I found that a small discounting effect occurred with statements that were blatantly unrelated. However, the discounting effect also depended on a factor external to the argument being judged; the composition of the argument set. Second, are explanation effects attributable to changes in the belief afforded statements or to response-specific changes resulting from misunderstanding of the probability rating task or response bias? The results implicate changes in belief. Prior belief influenced conditional probability more than argument strength judgements, as it would if participants understood the tasks in the same way as the experimenter. Also, conditional probability true and false judgements were complementary, suggesting no response bias. (shrink)

This study investigates the effect of country-level emancipative forces on corporate gender diversity around the world. Based on Welzel’s theory of emancipation, we develop an emancipatory framework of board gender diversity that explains how action resources, emancipative values and civic entitlements enable, motivate and encourage women to take leadership roles on corporate boards. Using a sample of 6390 firms operating in 30 countries around the world, our results show positive single and combined effects of the framework components on board gender (...) diversity. Our research adds to the existing literature in a twofold manner. First, our integrated framework offers a more encompassing, complete and theoretically richer picture of the key drivers of board gender diversity. Second, by testing the framework empirically, we extend the evidence on national drivers of board gender diversity. (shrink)

In this article, the author describes some of his own experiences of becoming an organizational systems theorist. The article also presents overviews of various systems theories that influenced the learning process from subject exploration to mastery. These include system dynamics, management systems, General Systems Theory, self-organizing systems, and autognomics. Additionally, discussions of system failures, philosophical pragmatism, and knowledge management all relate to their influence on systems theories. The article culminates with an examination of the possible causes of system failures and (...) proposes various new ideas for intervening in several large-scale issues, such as sustainability. Finally, there is a review of a new type of organizational performance measurement system known as the adaptive scorecard. (shrink)

Entrepreneurs with social goals face various challenges; insights into how these entrepreneurs experience and appreciate their work remain a black box though. Drawing on identity, conservation of resources, and person–organization fit theories, this study examines how entrepreneurs’ social value creation beliefs relate to their work-related well-being (job satisfaction, work engagement, and lack of work burnout), as well as how this process might be influenced by social concerns with respect to the common good. Using data from the German Public Value Atlas (...) 2015 and 2019 and the Swiss Public Value Atlas 2017, a three-study design analyzes three samples of entrepreneurs in Germany and Switzerland. Study 1 reveals that entrepreneurs report higher job satisfaction when they believe their organization creates social value. Study 2 indicates that these beliefs relate negatively to work burnout; entrepreneurs’ perceptions of having meaningful work mediate this relationship. Study 3 affirms and extends these results by showing that a sense of work meaningfulness mediates the relationship between social value creation beliefs and work engagement and that this mediating role is more prominent among entrepreneurs with strong social concerns. This investigation thus identifies a critical pathway—the extent to which entrepreneurs experience their work activities as important and personally meaningful—that connects social value creation beliefs with enhanced work-related well-being, as well as how this process might vary with a personal orientation that embraces the common good. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:YVES SIMON'S APPROACH TO NATURAL LAW STEVEN A. LONG St. Joseph's College Rensselear, Indiana VES SIMON'S recently reissued work, The Tradition f Natural Law, originating from the author's lectures of 958 at the University of Chicago, represents an uncommonly intelligent approach to a philosophically complicated subject. Rather than immediately moving to defend the much-challenged notion of natural law, or to outline a positive account of the latter, he (...) considers the recurrent questions that render natural law theory a permanent feature of the speculative landscape. After all, in one sense anyone who is convinced that there is a morally normative natural order-that some things " by nature " are unjust-is a "natural lawyer." The same phenomenon that nourishes sceptical impulses-diversity in customs and moral convictions-renders ineluctable the asking of the question whether any of the competing customs or moral tenets is ratified by the evidence of nature. As Simon puts it: There would be no eternal return of natural law without an everlasting opposition to natural law. Again, this opposition thrives on the contrast between the notion of actions that are right or wrong by nature, and the lack of uniformity which we observe in actual judgments.1 · Yet as Simon later observes: There is a rumor that modern ethnology has demonstrated the absence of uniformity among peoples in matters of so-called natural law. That is rather naive. This lack of uniformity was well known long, long before what is called modern science came to exist. In 1 Yves Simon, The Tradition of Natural Law (hereinafter cited as TNL) ed. Vukan Kuic (New York: Fordam University, 1992), 4. 125 126 STEVEN A. LONG fact, modern ethnologists would be rather more critical and skeptical about stories of strange customs than men of antiquity or of the Renaissance.2 Simon recognizes that the opposition to natural law theory that is predicated on the notion that natural law implies the absence of divergent moral convictions is "as old as the theory." 3 Such objection is a mere prefatory hurdle marking one's entry into contemplation of the densely interwoven fabric of natural law. The subject of natural law is, Simon insists, difficult because it is engaged in an overwhelming diversity of doctrinal contexts and of historical accidents. It is doubtful that this double diversity, doctrinal and historical, can so be mastered as to make possible a completely orderly exposition of the subject of natural law.4 As Dr. Russell Rittinger points out in his introduction to the volume, Simon is aware that there is not merely one " tradition" of natural law, but several.5 The contrast between convention and nature is susceptible of quite diverse formulations, and these are in large part dependent upon social and institutional factors. Nonetheless, in Simon's focus upon the doctrinal and historical problematic of natural law theory, he achieves the difficult feat of elucidating root speculative questions. Indeed, it is a major strength of Simon's treatment that he is wary of the ideological use of natural law theory. As he puts it: an ideology is a system of propositions which, though undistinguishable so far as. expression goes from statements about facts and essences, actually refer not so much to any real state of affairs as to the aspirations of a society at a certain time in its evolution. These are the three components which, taken together, distinguish ideology from philosophy. The notion of truth which an ideology embodies is utilitarian, sociological, and evolutionistic. When what is actually an expression of aspirations assumes the form of statements about 2 TNL, 5. 3 TNL, 5. 4 TNL, 5. 5 Russell Hittinger's Introduction to The Tradition of Natural Law, xix. YVES SIMON'S APPROACH TO NATURAL LAW 127 things, when these aspirations are those of a definite group, and when that group expresses its timely aspirations in the language of everlasting truth-then, without a doubt, it is an ideology that we are dealing with.6 By contrast, " the law of philosophy is altogether one of objectivity." 7 Whereas objects of aspiration are not purely speculative objects of contemplation, but are also ends, "the object of cognition alone is a pure... (shrink)

Somatic mutations arising in human skin cancers are heterogeneously distributed across the genome, meaning that certain genomic regions (e.g., heterochromatin or transcription factor binding sites) have much higher mutation densities than others. Regional variations in mutation rates are typically not a consequence of selection, as the vast majority of somatic mutations in skin cancers are passenger mutations that do not promote cell growth or transformation. Instead, variations in DNA repair activity, due to chromatin organization and transcription factor binding, have been (...) proposed to be a primary driver of mutational heterogeneity in melanoma. However, as discussed in this review here, recent studies indicate that chromatin organization and transcription factor binding also significantly modulate the rate at which UV lesions form in DNA. The authors propose that local variations in lesion susceptibility may be an important driver of mutational hotspots in melanoma and other skin cancers, particularly at binding sites for ETS transcription factors. (shrink)

This essay argues that the new natural law theory (NNLT) propounds five errors that place it on a collision course with the traditional Thomistic understanding central to the moral magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church. These root errors are argued to be (1) the denial of the primacy of speculative over practical truth, (2) the negation of unified normative natural teleology expressed in the NNLT doctrine of the putative “incommensurability” of basic goods prior to choice, (3) failure to affirm the (...) transcendence of the common good, (4) negation of the essentially theonomic character of the natural law, and (5) the intentionalist construction of human action. The teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas is held to be a superior light for understanding Catholic moral life. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13.1 (Spring 2013): 105–131. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between women entrepreneurs’ job autonomy and work–life balance, with a particular focus on how this relationship might be augmented by environments that discriminate against women, whether socio-economically, institutionally, or culturally. Multisource data pertaining to 5334 women entrepreneurs from 37 countries indicate that their sense of job autonomy increases the likelihood that they feel satisfied with their ability to balance the needs of their work with those of their personal life. This process is particularly prominent when (...) they operate in countries characterized by discriminatory socio-economic and institutional conditions, though a mitigating instead of invigorating effect arises in culturally discriminatory settings. For business ethics scholars and practitioners, these findings indicate how the extent to which women entrepreneurs, seeking to combine professional and private responsibilities, derive benefits from initiatives aimed at enhancing their job-related freedom critically depends on whether they operate in adverse external environments. (shrink)

This study examines the logical coherence of the theological claim that Jesus was "truly man and truly God." The primary question dealt with is whether or not it is possible for one person to have all of the properties necessary for being fully divine and all of the properties necessary for being fully human. The philosophical approach is analytic, focusing upon alleged coherence problems generated by applying the Indiscernibility of Identicals to statements about Jesus. Two extended arguments against the coherence (...) of the doctrine of the incarnation are examined and rebutted. The bulk of the study is a presentation and evaluation of five modern philosophical approaches to solving the coherence problems generated by the Indiscernibility of Identicals. These are Relative Trinitarianism, the One-Nature view, the Reduplicative maneuver, kenoticism, and the Two-Minds view. Relative Trinitarianism is rejected because it denies the Indiscernibility of Identicals as a logical principle. The One-Nature view unnecessarily alters the concept of divinity and it, too, is rejected. Traditional kenoticism is judged an inadequate response to the incoherence challenge, but a revised kenoticism does show that many statements about Jesus can be coherently stated. This revised kenoticism eliminates coherence problems concerning many properties of Jesus, but not all. Some statements about Jesus, particularly modal statements, can be coherently stated as reduplicative statements. The problem is that some Steven A. Long incarnational property adjectives do not appear to be logically attributive, hence they cannot be predicated reduplicatively. Though the Two-Minds view is rejected, some features of it are used to show how incarnational property adjectives can be logically attributive and predicated reduplicatively. The conclusion is that there are no convincing arguments against the coherence of the incarnation and that a revised kenoticism and the Reduplicative maneuver together can be used to formulate a coherent interpretation of the doctrine of the incarnation that is possibly true. (shrink)

Along with national data, this book uses two detailed questionnaires which were administered to older Americans in Allegany County, New York in 1983 and 1987 as the basis for exploring the public lives of rural older Americans. The authors discuss the factors that shape the political views and behavior of the rural elderly, consulting social, economic, health and nutritional variables.

Product differentiation has emerged as a central dynamic in contemporary agrofood systems. Departure from the mode of standardization emblematic of agrofood modernization raises questions about future technical trajectories and the ways in which learning will be sustained. This article examines two innovation trajectories: the rapid coupling of biotechnologies and information technologies to yield products differentiated by constituent components—a model based on a cognitive logic of decomposition/ recomposition—and the proliferation of product networks that mobilize distinctive, localized resources to create complete identities—a (...) model based on a cognitive logic of identity. The article analyzes the information structures—institutional mechanisms that support information exchange and learning—in each of these opposed development paradigms. We find that knowledge creation under each of the logics occurs through mechanisms not recognized within the respective paradigms. On this basis, we derive institutional hybridity as a fundamental resource in systems of innovation. (shrink)

This essay revolves around a careful assessment of Hui-chieh Loy's essay ?Justification and Debate: Thoughts on Moist Moral Epistemology?. There is much to appreciate in Loy's analysis of the standard of sound doctrine in the ?Against Fatalism? chapters of the Mozi, but a close reading of Loy's essay reveals problematic aspects in his approach along both hermeneutic and logical lines. For one, he groups Mozi's tests of the standard of sound doctrine in a way that does not square well with (...) how they are grouped in the primary text. I call this the problem of alignment. Secondly, he conflates the notions of standard and test. I refer to this as the problem of implementation insofar as such conflation causes the tests to be implemented in a way that they did not seem to be intended to be by Mozi, that is, each on its own as constituting sound doctrine instead of taking them all together as the indicator of sound doctrine. (shrink)

In this essay I intentionally employ Nietzsche's genealogical method as a means to critique the complex concept of ‘good’ teaching, and at the same time reconstitute ‘good’ teaching in a form that is radically different from contemporary accounts. In order to do this, I start out by undertaking a genealogical analysis to both reveal the complicated historical development of ‘good’ teaching and also disentangle the intertwining threads that remain hidden from us so we are aware of the core threads that (...) hold it together. Two major threads are identified in my analysis, which I refer to as: Genealogy I: Teaching as applied science or practice; and, Genealogy II: Teaching as a vocational calling or neutral profession. With this in mind, I take the two value systems presented in my critique of ‘good’ teaching, and rather than return to old, or create new values, I argue that the true task of any educational endeavour is to make human beings human. Therefore, in the spirit of Nietzsche, I revive and extend Nietzsche's account of Bildung as a dynamic way of living timeless educational aims, such as learning to see, think, speak, write and feel in becoming true human beings. (shrink)

The ancient philosopher Theophrastus described a gemstone called lyngurium, purported to be solidified lynx urine, in his work De lapidibus . Knowledge of the stone passed from him to other classical authors and into the medieval lapidary tradition, but there it was almost always linked to the 'learned master Theophrastus'. Although no physical example of the stone appears to have been seen or touched in ancient, medieval, or early modern times, its physical and medicinal properties were continually reiterated and elaborated (...) as if it did 'exist'. By the seventeenth century, it began to disappear from lapidaries, but with no attempt to explain previous authors' errors since it had never 'existed' anyway. In tracing the career of lyngurium, this study sheds some light on the transmission of knowledge from the classical world to the Renaissance and the changing criteria by which such knowledge was judged. (shrink)

Public policy makers are calling for all university students to learn entrepreneurial competencies to prepare them to be productive citizens in an unpredictable future. Far more than simply starting up businesses, entrepreneurship is increasingly seen as a student-centric pedagogical technique (teaching through entrepreneurship) for helping students learn desperately needed foundational skills and attitudes such as curiosity, creativity, opportunity spotting, grit, resilience, proactivity, adaptability, empathy, self-efficacy, motivation, and tolerance for uncertainty and risk. This article describes generational trends that make this education (...) increasingly important and provides a Comprehensive Framework for Entrepreneurship Education (CFEE) to help implement best practices to achieve measurable Assurances of Learning (AoL) results at the institutional, degree program, and individual course levels. (shrink)

Larry A. Hickman and Albert Borgmann have carried on a decades-long debate about the status and value of technological practices. Hickman’s work develops from the thought of John Dewey. A recent essay alleges that Hickman’s engagement with Borgmann has been superficial, particularly because full engagement would involve admitting that Dewey’s instrumentalist theory of inquiry and his aesthetics are at odds. This paper argues not only that Hickman has attended to the full scope of Borgmann’s thought but also that Dewey is (...) innocent of the criticism charged. Along the way, I develop a critique of the traditionalistic nostalgia implicit in accounts like Borgmann’s. This all serves to address the longstanding concern that pragmatism can be reduced to a crass form of instrumentalism. (shrink)

In recent years there has been a notable increase in the use of phenomenology as a research method, particularly in educational research. With the rise of phenomenology as a research method, confusion has also arisen concerning what counts as phenomenology, and how best to practice phenomenological research in non-philosophical contexts. Consequently, this article will be concerned with three issues: firstly, to contextualise the debate, I provide a brief overview of three popular and influential approaches to phenomenology as a research method: (...) (1) Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenological method; (2) van Manen’s hermeneutic phenomenology; and, (3) Smith’s interpretative phenomenological analysis; secondly, for the sake of conceptual clarity, I then turn my attention to a critical discussion of these approaches and argue that these approaches tend to converge phenomenology into either a descriptive or interpretative focus that essentially transforms phenomenology into a kind of solipsist subjectivism; and, lastly, to progress the debate forward, I argue that it makes sense to look beyond the qualitative or educational research literature to successful applications of phenomenology in non-philosophical contexts because there are plenty of relevant resources that can offer significant theoretical and methodological support to researchers. (shrink)