This study was designed to address the issue of whether there is a general processor for the perception of emotion or whether there are separate processors. We examined the relationships among three channels of emotional communication in 100 healthy right-handed adult males and females. The channels were facial, prosodic/intonational, and lexical/verbal; both identification and discrimination tasks of emotional perception were utilised. Statistical analyses controlled for nonemotional perceptual factors and subject characteristics (i.e. demographic and general cognitive). For identification, multiple significant correlations (...) were found among the channels. For discrimination, fewer correlations were significant. Overall, these results provide support for the notion of a general processor for emotional perceptual identification in normal adult subjects. (shrink)

Chimpanzee behaviour with mirrors makes it plausible that they can recognise themselves as themselves in mirrors, and so have a 'self-concept'. I defend this claim, and argue that roughly similar behaviour in pigeons, as reported, does not in fact make it equally plausible that they also have this mental capacity. But for all that it is genuine, chimpanzee self-consciousness may differ significantly from ours. I describe one possibility I believe consistent with the data, even if not very plausible: that the (...) chimpanzee is aware of itself only as a material being, and not as a subject of any psychological states. As I try to make clear, this possibility exists even if the chimpanzee has psychological states, and is aware of some of them. (shrink)

My One Fallacy theory says there is only one fallacy: equivocation, or playing on an ambiguity. In this paper I explain how this theory arose from rnetaphilosophical concerns. And I contrast this theory with purely logical, dialectical, and psychological notions of fallacy.

Ritalin use has increased by 500 percent in the last five years. The reasons for this dramatic surge are rooted in changes and pressures in psychiatry and society at large.

Ad hominem arguments argue that some opponent should not be heard and no argument of that opponent should be heard or considered. The opponent has generally pernicious views, false and harmful. Moreover he is diabolically clever at arguing for his views. Thus, the ad hominem argument is essentially a device by which non-intellectuals try to wrest control of a dialectical situation from intellectuals. Stifling intellectuals, disrupting the dialectical situation, is an unpleasant conclusion, but no fallacy has been shown in what (...) leads up to that conclusion. (shrink)

What distinguishes actions of persons from other events? Too big a question; we make a customary substitution: what distinguishes a person's raising his arm from a person's arm rising? In each case, the arm rises. But in the former, we have something in addition. Let us say that in the former case, the person causes the arm's rising. Our problem then is to interpret this notion of causation by an agent.It can be done, I believe, in terms of the notion (...) of causation of events by other events-events which may not be “mental,” contrary to one common view. My account of agent causation is presented in the concluding section of this paper. I set the stage for this account by first examining rivals of three types: one asserting that agent causation is or involves a causal concept which cannot be interpreted further, but which we all understand well enough; one which invokes causation by mental events of certain kinds; and one which avoids all reference to causation. (shrink)

Sydney Shoemaker has claimed that functionalism, a theory about mental states, implies a certain theory about the identity over time of persons, the entities that have mental states. He also claims that persons can survive a "Brain-State-Transfer" procedure. My examination of these claims includes description and analysis of imaginary cases, but-notably-not appeals to our "intuitions" concerning them. It turns out that Shoemaker's basic insight is correct: there is a connection between the two theories. Specifically, functionalism implies that "non-branching functional continuity" (...) is sufficient for personal identity. But there is no implication that it is necessary. And the "BST" procedure may not preserve functional continuity. I consider several possibilities. On what may be the most attractive, the survivor of this-or any similar-procedure is not identical with the original person, but related to him or her as are the survivors in a case of fission. (shrink)

Sydney Shoemaker has claimed that functionalism, a theory about mental states, implies a certain theory about the identity over time of persons, the entities that have mental states. He also claims that persons can survive a “Brain-State-Transfer” procedure.My examination of these claims includes description and analysis of imaginary cases, but-notably-not appeals to our “intuitions” concerning them.It turns out that Shoemaker’s basic insight is correct: there is a connection between the two theories. Specifically, functionalism implies that “non-branching functional continuity” is sufficient (...) for personal identity. But there is no implication that it is necessary. And the “BST” procedure may not preserve functional continuity. I consider several possibilities. On what may be the most attractive, the survivor of this---or any similar---procedure is not identical with the original person, but related to him or her as are the survivors in a case of fission. (shrink)

The Clash of Economic Ideas interweaves the economic history of the last hundred years with the history of economic doctrines to understand how contrasting economic ideas have originated and developed over time to take their present forms. It traces the connections running from historical events to debates among economists, and from the ideas of academic writers to major experiments in economic policy. The treatment offers fresh perspectives on laissez faire, socialism and fascism; the Roaring Twenties, business cycle theories and the (...) Great Depression; Institutionalism and the New Deal; the Keynesian Revolution; and war, nationalization and central planning. After 1945, the work explores the postwar revival of invisible-hand ideas; economic development and growth, with special attention to contrasting policies and thought in Germany and India; the gold standard, the interwar gold-exchange standard, the postwar Bretton Woods system and the Great Inflation; public goods and public choice; free trade versus protectionism; and finally fiscal policy and public debt. (shrink)

One might expect functionalism to imply that personal identity is preserved through various operations on the brain, including transplantation. I argue that this is not clearly so even where the whole brain is transplanted. It is definitely not so in cases where only the cerebrum is transplanted, a conceivable kind of hemispherectomy, and even certain cases in which the brain is "gradually" replaced by an inorganic substitute. These results distinguish functionalism from other accounts taking what Eric T. Olson calls the (...) "Psychological Approach" to personal identity, enabling it to avoid some of his objections to them. (shrink)

What distinguishes actions of persons from other events? Too big a question; we make a customary substitution: what distinguishes a person's raising his arm from a person's arm rising? In each case, the arm rises. But in the former, we have something in addition. Let us say that in the former case, the person causes the arm's rising. Our problem then is to interpret this notion of causation by an agent.It can be done, I believe, in terms of the notion (...) of causation of events by other events-events which may not be “mental,” contrary to one common view. My account of agent causation is presented in the concluding section of this paper. I set the stage for this account by first examining rivals of three types: one asserting that agent causation is or involves a causal concept which cannot be interpreted further, but which we all understand well enough; one which invokes causation by mental events of certain kinds; and one which avoids all reference to causation. (shrink)

In contrast to what merely happens to us, or to parts of us, actions are what we do. My moving my finger is an action, to be distinguished from the mere motion of that finger. My snoring likewise is not something I ‘do’ in the intended sense, though in another, broader sense, it is something I often ‘do’ while asleep.

According to the one-fallacy theory, the only real fallacy is equivocation. In particular, the fallacy of incomplete evidence draws a conclusion inductively from parts of our evidence while ignoring other parts of it which undermine the conclusion. T his is an equivocation on the relative term 'probable': the conclusion is probable relative to a part of our evidence but not relative to the whole of it. Unfortunately, this view is not entirely consistent with my meta-theory of fallacies which allows t (...) hat some failures of rationality are errors simply in inductive reasoning rather than being equivocations. (shrink)