What do mathematicians mean when they use terms such as ‘deep’, ‘elegant’, and ‘beautiful’? By applying empirical methods developed by social psychologists, we demonstrate that mathematicians' appraisals of proofs vary on four dimensions: aesthetics, intricacy, utility, and precision. We pay particular attention to mathematical beauty and show that, contrary to the classical view, beauty and simplicity are almost entirely unrelated in mathematics.

There has been little overt discussion of the experimental philosophy of logic or mathematics. So it may be tempting to assume that application of the methods of experimental philosophy to these areas is impractical or unavailing. This assumption is undercut by three trends in recent research: a renewed interest in historical antecedents of experimental philosophy in philosophical logic; a “practice turn” in the philosophies of mathematics and logic; and philosophical interest in a substantial body of work in adjacent disciplines, such (...) as the psychology of reasoning and mathematics education. This introduction offers a snapshot of each trend and addresses how they intersect with some of the standard criticisms of experimental philosophy. It also briefly summarizes the specific contribution of the other chapters of this book. (shrink)

This book explores the results of applying empirical methods to the philosophy of logic and mathematics. Much of the work that has earned experimental philosophy a prominent place in twenty-first century philosophy is concerned with ethics or epistemology. But, as this book shows, empirical methods are just as much at home in logic and the philosophy of mathematics. -/- Chapters demonstrate and discuss the applicability of a wide range of empirical methods including experiments, surveys, interviews, and data-mining. Distinct themes emerge (...) that reflect recent developments in the field, such as issues concerning the logic of conditionals and the role played by visual elements in some mathematical proofs. -/- Featuring leading figures from experimental philosophy and the fields of philosophy of logic and mathematics, this collection reveals that empirical work in these disciplines has been quietly thriving for some time and stresses the importance of collaboration between philosophers and researchers in mathematics education and mathematical cognition. (shrink)

_Evil Media_ develops a philosophy of media power that extends the concept of media beyond its tried and trusted use in the games of meaning, symbolism, and truth. It addresses the gray zones in which media exist as corporate work systems, algorithms and data structures, twenty-first century self-improvement manuals, and pharmaceutical techniques. _Evil Media _invites the reader to explore and understand the abstract infrastructure of the present day. From search engines to flirting strategies, from the value of institutional stupidity to (...) the malicious minutiae of databases, this book shows how the devil is in the details. The title takes the imperative "Don't be evil" and asks, what would be done any differently in contemporary computational and networked media were that maxim reversed. Media here are about much more and much less than symbols, stories, information, or communication: media do things. They incite and provoke, twist and bend, leak and manage. In a series of provocative stratagems designed to be used, Evil Media sets its reader an ethical challenge: either remain a transparent intermediary in the networks and chains of communicative power or become oneself an active, transformative medium. (shrink)

We investigated whether mathematicians typically agree about the qualities of mathematical proofs. Between-mathematician consensus in proof appraisals is an implicit assumption of many arguments made by philosophers of mathematics, but to our knowledge the issue has not previously been empirically investigated. We asked a group of mathematicians to assess a specific proof on four dimensions, using the framework identified by Inglis and Aberdein (2015). We found widespread disagreement between our participants about the aesthetics, intricacy, precision and utility of the proof, (...) suggesting that a priori assumptions about the consistency of mathematical proof appraisals are unreasonable. (shrink)

In this article, we highlight the importance of psychoanalysis and the Heideggerian concept of ‘place’ for each respective domain of inquiry. In particular, the writings of Jung and Lacan can unconceal and reveal new dimensions of Jeff Malpas’s work on place. Alternatively, Malpas can extend the work of these psychoanalysts by showing new dimensions of their ideas through an analysis of ‘place’. Ultimately, this article sets up a number of possibilities for future research through this novel interaction and engagement between (...) the philosophy of place and psychoanalysis. One of these possibilities is in genomics and genetic determinism, which we briefly acknowledge throughout. (shrink)

Everyone is talking about food. Chefs are celebrities. "Locavore" and "freegan" have earned spots in the dictionary. Popular books and films about food production and consumption are exposing the unintended consequences of the standard American diet. Questions about the principles and values that ought to guide decisions about dinner have become urgent for moral, ecological, and health-related reasons. In _Philosophy Comes to Dinner_, twelve philosophers—some leading voices, some inspiring new ones—join the conversation, and consider issues ranging from the sustainability of (...) modern agriculture, to consumer complicity in animal exploitation, to the pros and cons of alternative diets. (shrink)

In this article, we highlight the importance of psychoanalysis and the Heideggerian concept of 'place' for each respective domain of inquiry. In particular, the writings of Jung and Lacan can unconceal and reveal new dimensions of Jeff Malpas's work on place. Alternatively, Malpas can extend the work of these psychoanalysts by showing new dimensions of their ideas through an analysis of 'place'. Ultimately, this article sets up a number of possibilities for future research through this novel interaction and engagement between (...) the philosophy of place and psychoanalysis. One of these possibilities is in genomics and genetic determinism, which we briefly acknowledge throughout. (shrink)

Thirteen original essays by leading scholars explore aspects of Spinoza's ethical theory and, in doing so, deepen our understanding of it as the richly rewarding core of his system. They resolve interpretive difficulties, advance longstanding debates, and point the direction for future research.

One of the central debates within contemporary Anglo-American political philosophy concerns how to formulate an egalitarian theory of distributive justice which gives coherent expression to egalitarian convictions and withstands the most powerful anti-egalitarian objections. This book brings together many of the key contributions to that debate by some of the world’s leading political philosophers: Richard Arneson, G.A. Cohen, Ronald Dworkin, Thomas Nagel, Derek Parfit, John Rawls, T.M. Scanlon, and Larry Temkin.

Two individuals can both be ethical vegans but disagree on the normative basis of their moral beliefs. This article will look at the development of two competing theories that hold prominence in debates among animal advocates: utilitarianism and deontology. Next, we turn toward their divergence in epistemology, the moral status of experiences and individuals, and the limits of permissibility. Last, we unite utilitarianism and deontology by noting where they converge. This union comes from enlightenment thinking, the postulation of direct duties (...) to animals, disapproval of factory farming conditions, and, most importantly, the goal of improving the lives of many animals. (shrink)

Many of the methods commonly used to research mathematical practice, such as analyses of historical episodes or individual cases, are particularly well-suited to generating causal hypotheses, but less well-suited to testing causal hypotheses. In this paper we reflect on the contribution that the so-called hypothetico-deductive method, with a particular focus on experimental studies, can make to our understanding of mathematical practice. By way of illustration, we report an experiment that investigated how mathematicians attribute aesthetic properties to mathematical proofs. We demonstrate (...) that perceptions of the aesthetic properties of mathematical proofs are, in some cases at least, subject to social influence. Specifically, we show that mathematicians’ aesthetic judgements tend to conform to the judgements made by others. Pedagogical implications are discussed. (shrink)

Warning: includes two somewhat graphic images. This paper is an effort to lay out a taxomony of conceptual relations between the domains of the sublime and the religious. -/- .

1 Adaptationism is a research strategy that seeks to identify adaptations and the specific selective forces that drove their evolution in past environments. Since the mid-1970s, paleontologist Stephen J. Gould and geneticist Richard Lewontin have been critical of adaptationism, especially as applied toward understanding human behavior and cognition. Perhaps the most prominent criticism they made was that adaptationist explanations were analogous to Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. Since storytelling is an inherent part of science, the criticism refers to the acceptance (...) of stories without sufficient empirical evidence. In particular, Gould, Lewontin, and their colleagues argue that adaptationists often use inappropriate evidentiary standards for identifying adaptations and their functions, and that they often fail to consider alternative hypotheses to adaptation. Playing prominently in both of these criticisms are the concepts of constraint, spandrel, and exaptation. In this article we discuss the standards of evidence that could be used to identify adaptations and when and how they may be appropriately used. Moreover, building an empirical case that certain features of a trait are best explained by exaptation, spandrel, or constraint requires demonstrating that the trait's features cannot be better accounted for by adaptationist hypotheses. Thus, we argue that the testing of alternatives requires the consideration, testing, and systematic rejection of adaptationist hypotheses. Where possible, we illustrate our points with examples taken from human behavior and cognition. Key Words: adaptation; ADHD; brain allometry; constraint; epistemology; evolutionary psychology; exaptation; female orgasm ; optimization; special design; waist-hip ratio. Footnotes1 The authors contributed equally to this paper. Order of authorship was determined alphabetically. Correspondence may be addressed to any of the authors. (shrink)

Exploring whether clades can reproduce leads to new perspectives on general accounts of biological development and individuation. Here we apply James Griesemer's general account of reproduction to clades. Griesemer's account of reproduction includes a requirement for development, raising the question of whether clades may bemeaningfully said to develop. We offer two illustrative examples of what clade development might look like, though evaluating these examples proves difficult due to the paucity of general accounts of development. This difficulty, however, is instructive about (...) what a general account of development should look like and how it may usefully be applied to research problems (further suggesting a means for evaluating general accounts of development). Reproduction also requires individuation of parent and offspring. We argue that there is no special problem of individuating older and younger clades. The vagaries involved with determining when clades begin, mature, and end are precisely the same as those that arise when the same questions are asked of cells, organisms, or species. Though the question of clade reproduction and selection may still be open, the process of discovery presents new insights into old problems. (shrink)

Samir Okasha argues that clade selection is an incoherent concept, because the relation that constitutes clades is such that it renders parent-offspring (reproduction) relations between clades impossible. He reasons that since clades cannot reproduce, it is not coherent to speak of natural selection operating at the clade level. We argue, however, that when species-level lineages and clade-level lineages are treated consistently according to standard cladist commitments, clade reproduction is indeed possible and clade selection is coherent if certain conditions obtain. Despite (...) clade selection's logical coherence, however, we share some of Okasha's pessimism. Whether or not clades are a unit of selection is ultimately a question of empirical support and theoretical import. (shrink)

In this article, we review genetic determinism and highlight how our earlier research on the philosophy of place can contribute to a better understanding of genomics and ongoing debates about genetic modification. We show how place can undermine any philosophy of genetic determinism. By using our philosophy of place, our investigation contributes to a call for a turn for humanity toward a “collective being-at-home-in-the-world”, instead of being estranged from place which genetic determinism actively promotes. We also utilise cinema studies research (...) of the film GATTACA to conceptualise how place and genetic determinism contrast. Our examination is intended to contribute to ongoing discussions about genetic determinism as they play out in the media, in education and influence discrimination. Fundamentally, we show why scholars in this area should consider place alongside genetic determinism in their future investigations. (shrink)

Drawing on contemporary pragmatic philosophy and grounded in a reading of techniques associated with digital media as sophist practices of influence and manipulation, this paper proposes an ‘experimental’ reading of key aspects of the topological qualities of the infrastructure of the knowledge economy, with its obsessive attempts at measuring, recording and monitoring, or ‘qualculation’. Taking seriously, albeit with humour, early criticisms of actor-network for its ostensibly Machiavellian proclivities, it offers a series of playful stratagems for the exploration and analysis of (...) power as an emergent property of socio-technical relations. Topology, in this account, becomes relevant to cultural analysis because of the way that it allows us to think together processes constructive of the intensive continua of ‘desiring production’ with the sociotechnical operations of digital media infrastructures. Different elements operative within digital media (the super-hub, the power of small numbers, recursion and relational databases) are read stratagematically – as figures of a praxis (the material practice of immaterial labour), that reveals different facets of the operations of power, while also allowing for counter-tactics to be deployed. Rather than proposing a theoretical account or an empirical analysis, the paper develops what Stengers (2011) calls ‘operative constructs’, which become ingredients for further active exploration of and thinking about the topological qualities of mediatic infrastructure. The paper addresses four different and overlapping areas of digital media from a point of view that considers the plural, compositional quality of media/power relations. (shrink)

Why are some autocrats able to personalize power within their regimes while others are not? Past studies have focused on the balance of power between the autocrat and his or her supporting coalition of peer or subordinate elites, but we find that often the crucial relationship is between the autocrat and the “old guard”—retired leaders, party elders, and other elites of the outgoing generation. Using an original data set of authoritarian leadership transitions, we argue that when members of the old (...) guard retain oversight capacity over their incoming successor, he or she is less likely to overturn power-sharing arrangements and consolidate individual power. We illustrate this argument with a case study of three leadership transitions in China between 1989 and 2012. This study’s findings advance our understanding of elite politics and intergenerational conflict in authoritarian regimes. (shrink)

What does it mean to consider the world of AI through a Christian lens? Rapid developments in AI continue to reshape society, raising new ethical questions and challenging our understanding of the human person. Encountering Artificial Intelligence draws on Pope Francis’ discussion of a culture of encounter and broader themes in Catholic social thought in order to examine how current AI applications affect human relationships in various social spheres and offers concrete recommendations for better implementation. The document also explores questions (...) regarding personhood, consciousness, and the kinds of relationships humans might have with even the most advanced AI. Through these discussions, this book investigates the theoretical and practical challenges to interpersonal encounter raised by the age of AI. (AI Research Group for the Centre for Digital Culture of the Dicastery of Culture and Education of the Holy See). (shrink)

This book discusses the philosophy of place and the implications for understanding ourselves authentically. It sets out to investigate this by providing a review of the phenomenological and humanistic views of place as background reading for the chapters that follow. This contributed book offers unique chapters from international scholars on place in relation to individual philosophers such as Nietzsche, Sloterdijk, Foucault, as well as more broad areas of research including Ecology, Ontogenesis, Bioethics and Metaphysics. The book then presents an integration (...) of the arguments of the contributing authors to give a better and fresh insight to the relationship between place and self. This fusion of chapters amplifies each to show how they all have an important contribution to an expanded understanding of place and self. This combination of topics as well as each author's view of place makes this book an important contribution to the literature. The book is intended for philosophers but would also be of interest to a general audience. (shrink)

The potential to instrumentalize drug use based upon the detection of very many different drug states undoubtedly exists, and such states may play a role in psychiatric and many other drug uses. Nevertheless, nonaddictive drug use is potentially more parsimoniously explained in terms of sensation seeking/impulsivity and drug expectations. Cultural factors also play a major role in nonaddictive drug use.

For many decades, researchers have explored the true potential of human achievement. The expertise field has come a long way since the early works of de Groot (1965) and Chase and Simon (1973). Since then, this inquiry has expanded into the areas of music, science, technology, sport, academia and art. Despite the vast amount of research to date, the capability of study methodologies to truly capture the nature of expertise remains questionable. Some considerations include (i) the individual bias in the (...) retrospective recall of developmental activities, (ii) the ability to develop ecologically valid tasks, and (iii) difficulties capturing the influence of confounding factors on expertise. This article proposes that expertise research in electronic sports (esports) presents an opportunity to overcome some of these considerations. Esports involves individuals or teams of players that compete in video game competitions via human-computer interaction. Advantages of applying the expert performance approach in esports include (i) developmental activities are objectively tracked and automatically logged online, (ii) the constraints of representative tasks correspond with the real-world environment of esports performance, and (iii) expertise has emerged without the influence of guided systematic training environments. Therefore, this article argues that esports research provides an ideal opportunity to further advance research on the development and assessment of human expertise. (shrink)

Conditional information can be equally asserted in the forms if p, then q (e.g., ?if I am ill, I will miss work tomorrow?) and q, if p (e.g., ?I will miss work tomorrow, if I am ill?). While this type of clause order manipulation has previously been found to have no influence on the ultimate conclusions participants draw from conditional rules, we used self-paced reading to examine how it affects the real time incremental processing of everyday conditional statements. Experiment 1 (...) revealed that clause order interacts with presuppositional congruency as readers hypothetically represent counterfactual statements. When if p, then q counterfactuals contained a presupposition that was incongruent with prior context, these statements took longer to read than when the presupposition was congruent, but for q, if p conditionals there was no such congruency effect. Experiment 2 revealed that reading times were influenced by the subjective probability of an indicative conditional regardless of clause order, with a penalty observed for low-probability statements relative to high-probability statements in both conditional clause orders. These data reveal a dissociation whereby clause order mediates the effect of suppositional congruency on reading times, but does not mediate the effect of subjective probability. (shrink)

Introduction: The aim of this study was to investigate time-trial (TT) performance in the presence of one competitor and in a group with competitors of various abilities. Methods: In a randomized order, 24 participants performed a 5-km cycling TT individually (IND), with one similarly matched participant (1v1), and in a group of four participants (GRP). For the GRP session, two pairs of matched participants from the 1v1 session were used. Pairs were selected so that TT duration was considered either inferior (...) (INF) or superior (SUP) compared to the other pair of participants. Results: Overall, TT duration (P = 0.86, ηp2 < 0.01) was not different between conditions, whilst heart rate (HR) was significantly greater in GRP compared to IND (P < 0.01, ηp2 = 0.16). For INF, a large effect size for both mean power (P = 0.07, ηp2 = 0.15) and HR (P = 0.05, ηp2 = 0.16), indicates greatest effort in GRP. Pacing behaviour was affected by competition but similar in 1v1 and GRP for SUP, whilst large effect sizes indicate an increased power output in the initial 750-m for INF in GRP. Additionally, for INF, there was a significant correlation with ego orientation for an increase in TT duration between the GRP session and both the IND (r = 0.43, P = 0.04) and 1v1 (r = 0.54, P = 0.01) sessions. Conclusion: For INF participants, intensity was increased when competing in GRP. Yet, the presence of the SUP competitors resulted in lesser performance improvements for ego oriented INF participants. These findings demonstrate that consideration should be given to the ability of competitors in a group setting to provide adequate motivation. (shrink)

The inaugural collection in an exciting new exchange between philosophers and geographers, this volume provides interdisciplinary approaches to the environment as space, place, and idea. Never before have philosophers and geographers approached each other's subjects in such a strong spirit of mutual understanding. The result is a concrete exploration of the human-nature relationship that embraces strong normative approaches to environmental problems.

One of the concerns that citizen science shares with the evolving practice of precision medicine is how to approach oversight for N-of-1 or N-of-many-1’s research. In their target article, Wiggins...

Despite increasing scientific interest in self-generated thought-mental content largely independent of the immediate environment-there has yet to be any comprehensive synthesis of the subjective experience and neural correlates of affect in these forms of thinking. Here, we aim to develop an integrated affective neuroscience encompassing many forms of self-generated thought-normal and pathological, moderate and excessive, in waking and in sleep. In synthesizing existing literature on this topic, we reveal consistent findings pertaining to the prevalence, valence, and variability of emotion in (...) self-generated thought, and highlight how these factors might interact with self-generated thought to influence general well-being. We integrate these psychological findings with recent neuroimaging research, bringing attention to the neural correlates of affect in self-generated thought. We show that affect in self-generated thought is prevalent, positively biased, highly variable (both within and across individuals), and consistently recruits many brain areas implicated in emotional processing, including the orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, insula, and medial prefrontal cortex. Many factors modulate these typical psychological and neural patterns, however; the emerging affective neuroscience of self-generated thought must endeavor to link brain function and subjective experience in both everyday self-generated thought as well as its dysfunctions in mental illness. (shrink)

This reader brings together classic and contemporary contributions to debates about social justice. A collection of classic and contemporary contributions to debates about social justice. Includes classic discussions of justice by Locke and Hume. Provides broad coverage of contemporary discussions, including theoretical pieces by John Rawls, Robert Nozick and Ronald Dworkin. Contains papers that apply theories of justice to concrete issues, such as gender and the family, the market, world poverty, cultural rights, and future generations. Philosophically challenging yet accessible to (...) students. (shrink)

The extended Church-Turing thesis posits that any computable function can be calculated efficiently by a probabilistic Turing machine. If this thesis held true, the global effort to build quantum computers might ultimately be unnecessary. The thesis would however be strongly contradicted by a physical device that efficiently performs a task believed to be intractable for classical computers. BosonSampling - the sampling from a distribution of n photons undergoing some linear-optical process - is a recently developed, and experimentally accessible example of (...) such a task [1]. (shrink)

In our target article, we discussed the standards of evidence that could be used to identify adaptations, and argued that building an empirical case that certain features of a trait are best explained by exaptation, spandrel, or constraint requires the consideration, testing, and rejection of adaptationist hypotheses. We are grateful to the 31 commentators for their thoughtful insights. They raised important issues, including the meaning of “exaptation”; whether Gould and Lewontin's critique of adaptationism was primarily epistemological or ontological; the necessity, (...) sufficiency, or utility of design evidence, phylogenetic analyses, homology, and molecular genetics in distinguishing exaptations from adaptations; whether adaptationists accept adaptationist hypotheses too quickly; and the real utility of adaptationism to human behavioral science. We organize our response along the major points of the target article, in some situations defending our original claims and in others modifying them. While debate on these issues will undoubtedly continue, we are cautiously optimistic that the main points of the target article (as modified by our response) will help move the debate in a positive direction. (shrink)

It is often assumed that engaging in a one‐on‐one dialogue with a tutor is more effective than listening to a lecture or reading a text. Although earlier experiments have not always supported this hypothesis, this may be due in part to allowing the tutors to cover different content than the noninteractive instruction. In 7 experiments, we tested the interaction hypothesis under the constraint that (a) all students covered the same content during instruction, (b) the task domain was qualitative physics, (c) (...) the instruction was in natural language as opposed to mathematical or other formal languages, and (d) the instruction conformed with a widely observed pattern in human tutoring: Graesser, Person, and Magliano's 5‐step frame. In the experiments, we compared 2 kinds of human tutoring (spoken and computer mediated) with 2 kinds of natural‐language‐based computer tutoring (Why2‐Atlas and Why2‐AutoTutor) and 3 control conditions that involved studying texts. The results depended on whether the students' preparation matched the content of the instruction. When novices (students who had not taken college physics) studied content that was written for intermediates (students who had taken college physics), then tutorial dialogue was reliably more beneficial than less interactive instruction, with large effect sizes. When novices studied material written for novices or intermediates studied material written for intermediates, then tutorial dialogue was not reliably more effective than the text‐based control conditions. (shrink)

Mammalian hibernation is characterized by profound reductions in metabolism, oxygen consumption and heart rate. As a result, the animal enters a state of suspended animation where core body temperatures can plummet as low as −2.9°C. Not only can hibernating mammals survive these physiological extremes, but they also return to a normothermic state of activity without reperfusion injury or other ill effects. This review examines recent findings on the genes, proteins and small molecules that control the induction and maintenance of hibernation (...) in mammals. The molecular events involved with remodeling metabolism, inducing hypothermia and maintaining organ function are discussed and considered with respect to analogous processes in non‐hibernating mammals such as mice and humans. The advent of sequenced genomes from three distantly related hibernators, a bat, hedgehog and ground squirrel, provides additional opportunities for molecular biologists to explore the mechanistic aspects of this biological adaptation in greater detail. BioEssays 29:431–440, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

We say that a theory [Formula: see text] satisfies arithmetic-is-recursive if any [Formula: see text]-computable model of [Formula: see text] has an [Formula: see text]-computable copy; that is, the models of [Formula: see text] satisfy a sort of jump inversion. We give an example of a theory satisfying arithmetic-is-recursive non-trivially and prove that the theories satisfying arithmetic-is-recursive on a cone are exactly those theories with countably many [Formula: see text]-back-and-forth types.

We say that a theory T satisfies arithmetic-is-recursive if any X′-computable model of T has an X-computable copy; that is, the models of T satisfy a sort of jump inversion. We give an example of a...