Remembrance and reconciliation envision intentional pathways out of conflict and toward peace.

In response to the significant increase of judgment and judgmentalism in contemporary film and television, 'A Critique of Judgment in Film and Television' investigates the evolving connections between the aesthetics and ethics of judgment. The volume ultimately contemplates whether we should, and can, do without judgment, questions that are just the beginning of a much-needed re-examination. The individual contributions of the collection all work towards a very specific focus on judgment that is unprecedented in its transdisciplinary composition and contemporary relevance. (...) By exploring examples of entertainment that aim to instigate judgment, 'A Critique of Judgment in Film and Television' advances the as yet underdeveloped area of research into television and philosophy. (shrink)

What is intellectual humility? In this essay, we aim to answer this question by assessing several contemporary accounts of intellectual humility, developing our own account, offering two reasons for our account, and meeting two objections and solving one puzzle.

Perceptual attention is essential to both thought and agency, for there is arguably no demonstrative thought or bodily action without it. Psychologists and philosophers since William James have taken attention to be a ubiquitous and distinctive form of consciousness, one that leaves a characteristic mark on perceptual experience. As a process of selecting specific perceptual inputs, attention influences the way things perceptually appear. It may then seem that it is a specific feature of perceptual representation that constitutes what it is (...) like to consciously attend to an object. In fact conscious attention is more complicated. In what follows, I argue that the phenomenology of conscious attention to what is perceived involves not just a way of perceptually locking on to a specific object. It necessarily involves a way of cognitively locking on to it as well. (shrink)

This article provides a detailed overview of the neuroscience of consciousness.

This paper considers the connection between automaticity, control and agency. Indeed, recent philosophical and psychological works play up the incompatibility of automaticity and agency. Specifically, there is a threat of automaticity, for automaticity eliminates agency. Such conclusions stem from a tension between two thoughts: that automaticity pervades agency and yet automaticity rules out control. I provide an analysis of the notions of automaticity and control that maintains a simple connection: automaticity entails the absence of control. An appropriate analysis, however, shows (...) that actions are forms of control and pervasively automatic even if automaticity implies the absence of control. Consequences are drawn for the theory of mental agency and the psychological concepts of automaticity and control. (shrink)

This paper extends several themes from recent work on norms of assertion. It does as much by applying those themes to the speech act of asking. In particular, it argues for the view that there is a species of asking which is governed by a certain norm, a norm to the effect that one should ask a question only if one doesn’t know its answer.

This paper argues that questions can be bullshit. First it explores some shallowly interrogative ways in which that can happen. Then it shows how questions can also be bullshit in a way that’s more deeply interrogative.

Field theories have been central to physics over the last 150 years, and there are several theories in contemporary physics in which physical fields play key causal and explanatory roles. This paper proposes a novel field trope-bundle (FTB) ontology on which fields are composed of bundles of particularized property instances, called tropes and goes on to describe some virtues of this ontology. It begins with a critical examination of the dominant view about the ontology of fields, that fields are properties (...) of a substantial substratum. (shrink)

Commentators divide on whether the basic elements of Hume’s philosophy—perceptions, their division into impressions and ideas, and their associative relation—should be construed as objects and relations between objects or as representations of objects and their relations. Although the latter reading is generally favored, in this chapter the author argues that the textual evidence favors the former and that Hume’s philosophy should be interpreted accordingly. The focus is on Part 1 of the first book of the Treatise but subsequent texts are (...) considered as well, particularly passages in Part 4, Sections 2 and 6. (shrink)

In 1967, the superior general of the Society of Jesus, Pedro Arrupe, sent a memorandum on the American “racial crisis” to the Jesuit priests, brothers, and social institutions of the United States. Through appeals to the American legal and Catholic moral traditions, On the Interracial Apostolate articulated why Jesuits should strive to achieve racial equality, initiating a historic period of expansion in Jesuit civil rights programs. Given scholars’ limited engagement with On the Interracial Apostolate’s distinctive rhetorical features, this article explains (...) why the document was framed within the discursive framework of prophetic indictment by uncovering the influence of William J. Kenealy, a Jesuit legal scholar, on the document’s drafting. In light of this drafting history, this article concludes by suggesting that the emergence of twentieth-century “Jesuit anti-racism” can, in part, be explained by how questions about racial equality came to be understood as discrete expressions of broader debates about the American legal tradition’s moral foundations. (shrink)

In this collection, a leading sociologist brings his distinctive method of social criticism to bear on some of the most significant ideas, political and social events, and thinkers of the late twentieth century. In the first section, the author examines several concepts that have figured prominently in recent political-ideological controversies: capitalism, rationality, totalitarianism, power, alienation, left and right, and cultural relativism/ multiculturalism. He considers their origins, historical shifts in their meaning and the myths surrounding them, and their resonance beyond their (...) formal definitions. The second section highlights the author's lifelong interest in the relation of intellectuals to social classes and institutions. The author assesses the notion of a 'New Class', considers the implications for class structure of the increasing centring of intellectual life in the university, and assesses the relation of sociology to professional jargon. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that visual attention is cognitively penetrated by intention. I present a detailed account of attention and its neural basis, drawing on a recent computational model of neural modulation during attention: divisive normalization. I argue that intention shifts computations during divisive normalization. The epistemic consequences of attentional bias are discussed.

Outlines the etiological theory of normative functionality. Analysis of the autonomous system; Function of systems-oriented approaches; Specifications of system identity.

Movements of the Mind is about what it is to be an agent. Focusing on mental agency, it integrates multiple approaches, from philosophical analysis of the metaphysics of agency to the activity of neurons in the brain. Philosophical and empirical work are combined to generate concrete explanations of key features of the mind. The book should be relevant and accessible to philosophers and scientists interested in mind and agency.

ABSTRACTIn keeping with the dominant view that skills are largely automatic, the standard view of memory systems distinguishes between a representational declarative system associated with cognitive processes and a performance-based procedural system. The procedural system is thought to be largely responsible for the performance of well-learned skilled actions. Here we argue that most skills do not fully automate, which entails that the declarative system should make a substantial contribution to skilled performance. To support this view, we review evidence showing that (...) the declarative system does indeed play a number of roles in skilled action. (shrink)

Semantic implicatures are features for understanding the use of sentences. The status of this implementations of meaning is a quasi-logical relation as a "weak implication". They are determinated through types of lexical units and expressions in grammatical positions. But both are only necessary conditions for semantic implicatures. Further assumption for meaningful use of sentences are presupposed e.g. existence presuppositions, evidences, customs etc. So, the delimination to pragmatic (presuppositions) is indicated.

Is vision informationally encapsulated from cognition or is it cognitively penetrated? I shall argue that intentions penetrate vision in the experience of visual spatial constancy: the world appears to be spatially stable despite our frequent eye movements. I explicate the nature of this experience and critically examine and extend current neurobiological accounts of spatial constancy, emphasizing the central role of motor signals in computing such constancy. I then provide a stringent condition for failure of informational encapsulation that emphasizes a computational (...) condition for cognitive penetration: cognition must serve as an informational resource for visual computation. This requires proposals regarding semantic information transfer, a crucial issue in any model of informational encapsulation. I then argue that intention provides an informational resource for computation of visual spatial constancy. Hence, intention penetrates vision. (shrink)

We present a synthetic theory of skilled action which proposes that cognitive processes make an important contribution to almost all skilled action, contrary to influential views that many skills are performed largely automatically. Cognitive control is focused on strategic aspects of performance, and plays a greater role as difficulty increases. We offer an analysis of various forms of skill experience and show that the theory provides a better explanation for the full set of these experiences than automatic theories. We further (...) show that the theory can explain experimental evidence for skill automaticity, including evidence that secondary tasks do not interfere with expert performance, and evidence that experts have reduced memory for performance of sensorimotor skills. (shrink)

Recent decades have seen a revived interest in super-substantivalism, the idea that spacetime is the only fundamental substance and matter some kind of aspect, property or consequence of spacetime structure. However, the metaphysical debate so far has misidentified a particular variant of super-substantivalism with the position per se. I distinguish between a super-substantival core commitment and different ways of fleshing it out. I then investigate how general relativity and alternative spacetime theories square with the different variants of super-substantivalism.

WHILE THERE IS AGREEMENT AMONG MANY (BUT NOT ALL) THEOLOGIANS AND PHILOSOPHERS THAT A MIRACULOUS EVENT SHOULD BE CONCEIVED IN OPPOSITION TO THE NATURAL ORDER, THERE IS DISAGREEMENT ABOUT WHY THIS OPPOSITION MUST BE PRESENT. IN THIS PAPER I EXAMINE ANTONY FLEW’S EXPLANATION OF HOW AND WHY MIRACLES AND NATURE ARE OPPOSED, SUGGESTING THAT HIS ACCOUNT IS, AS IT STANDS, PROBLEMATICAL AND IN NEED OF REVISION. I ARGUE THAT IF MIRACLES ARE TO BE THOUGHT OF AS SUPERNATURAL INTERVENTIONS INTO THE (...) NATURAL WORLD, AND HENCE IT IS THOUGHT APPROPRIATE TO SPEAK OF THEM AS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE, THEN ONE MUST DEFINE THE PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE IN TERMS OF WHAT CAN BE EXPLAINED ONLY BY REFERENCE TO SUPERNATURAL FORCE, RATHER THAN IN TERMS OF WHAT IS LOGICALLY INCONSISTENT WITH LAWS OF NATURE. (shrink)

This book represents a considerable revision and expansion of Public Choice II. Six new chapters have been added, and several chapters from the previous edition have been extensively revised. The discussion of empirical work in public choice has been greatly expanded. As in the previous editions, all of the major topics of public choice are covered. These include: why the state exists, voting rules, federalism, the theory of clubs, two-party and multiparty electoral systems, rent seeking, bureaucracy, interest groups, dictatorship, the (...) size of government, voter participation, and political business cycles. Normative issues in public choice are also examined including a normative analysis of the simple majority rule, Bergson–Samuelson social welfare functions, the Arrow and Sen impossibility theorems, Rawls's social contract theory and the constitutional political economy of Buchanan and Tullock. (shrink)

Acquiring expertise in a task is often thought of as an automatic process that follows inevitably with practice according to the log‐log law (aka: power law) of learning. However, as Ericsson, Chase, and Faloon (1980) showed, this is not true for digit‐span experts and, as we show, it is certainly not true for Tetris players at any level of expertise. Although some people may simply “twitch” faster than others, the limit to Tetris expertise is not raw keypress time but the (...) techniques acquired by players that allow them to use the tools provided by the hardware and software to compensate for the game's relentlessly increasing drop speed. Unfortunately, these increases in drop speed between Tetris levels make performance plateaus very short and quickly followed by game death. Hence, a player's success at discovering, exploring, and practicing new techniques for the tasks of board preparation, board maintenance, optimal placement discovery, zoid rotation, lateral movement of zoids, and other tasks important to expertise in Tetris is limited. In this paper, we analyze data collected from 492 Tetris players to reveal the challenges they confronted while constructing expertise via the discovery of new techniques for gameplay at increasingly difficult levels of Tetris. (shrink)

Do self‐monitoring accounts, a dominant account of the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, explain auditory verbal hallucination? In this essay, I argue that the account fails to answer crucial questions any explanation of auditory verbal hallucination must address. Where the account provides a plausible answer, I make the case for an alternative explanation: auditory verbal hallucination is not the result of a failed control mechanism, namely failed self‐monitoring, but, rather, of the persistent automaticity of auditory experience of a voice. My argument (...) emphasizes the importance of careful examination of phenomenology as providing substantive constraints on causal models of the positive symptoms in schizophrenia. (shrink)

Wayne C. Booth argues for the relocation of ethics to the center of our engagement with literature.

I argue that, contrary to folklore, Einstein never really cared for geometrizing the gravitational or the electromagnetic field; indeed, he thought that the very statement that General Relativity geometrizes gravity "is not saying anything at all". Instead, I shall show that Einstein saw the "unification" of inertia and gravity as one of the major achievements of General Relativity. Interestingly, Einstein did not locate this unification in the field equations but in his interpretation of the geodesic equation, the law of motion (...) of test particles. (shrink)

In response to Mole 2009, I present an argument for zombie action. The crucial question is not whether but rather to what extent we are zombie agents. I argue that current evidence supports only minimal zombie agency.

As interpreted by Pattee, von Neumann’s Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata has proved to be a useful tool for understanding some of the difficulties and paradoxes of molecular biosemiotics. But is its utility limited to molecular systems or is it more generally applicable within biosemiotics? One way of answering that question is to look at the Theory as a model for one particular high-level biosemiotic activity, human language. If the model is not useful for language, then it certainly cannot be generally (...) useful to biosemiotics. Beginning with the Universal Turing Machine and continuing with von Neumann’s Theory and Pattee’s interpretation, the properties of universality, programmability, underspecification, complementarity of description/construction, and open-ended evolutionary potential are shown to be usefully applicable to language, thus opening a new line of inquiry in biosemiotics. (shrink)

Andrew Wayne discusses some recent attempts to account, within a Bayesian framework, for the "common methodological adage" that "diverse evidence better confirms a hypothesis than does the same amount of similar evidence". One of the approaches considered by Wayne is that suggested by Howson and Urbach and dubbed the "correlation approach" by Wayne. This approach is, indeed, incomplete, in that it neglects the role of the hypothesis under consideration in determining what diversity in a body of evidence (...) is relevant diversity. In this paper, it is shown how this gap can be filled, resulting in a more satisfactory account of the evidential role of diversity of evidence. In addition, it is argued that Wayne's criticism of the correlation approach does not indicate a serious flaw in the approach. (shrink)