Drawing from religion and the human sciences, particularly psychology after Freud, the author attempts to demonstrate that the fear of death is man's central ...

This book sets out first to explain how two fairly recent developments in philosophy, externalism and modalism, provide the basis for a promising account of knowledge, and then works through the different modalized epistemologies extant in the literature, assessing their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, the author proposes the theory that knowledge is reliably formed, sensitive true belief, and defends the theory against objections.

Chapter One THE MAN-APES A Lesson for Thomas Hobbes Probably the most exciting development in modern anthropology is the discovery of the australopithecines ...

Examines men's efforts to escape from the fear of death by performing acts of human wickedness through socially-sanctioned institutions.

Jonathan Vogel has recently argued that counterfactual reliabilism cannot account for higher‐level knowledge that one's belief is true, or not false. His particular argument for this claim is straightforward and valid. Interestingly, there is a parallel argument, based on an alternative but plausible reinterpretation of the main premise in Vogel's argument, which squares CR with higher‐level knowledge both that one's belief is true and that one's belief is not false. I argue that, while Vogel's argument reveals the incompatibility of CR (...) and knowledge of certain higher‐level propositions, it does not establish the general claim that CR is incompatible with knowledge that any of one's beliefs is true, or not false. (shrink)

Uses the disciplines of psychology, anthropology, sociology and psychiatry to explain what makes people act the way they do.

Jonathan Vogel has recently argued that counterfactual reliabilism cannot account for higher‐level knowledge that one's belief is true, or not false. His particular argument for this claim is straightforward and valid. Interestingly, there is a parallel argument, based on an alternative but plausible reinterpretation of the main premise in Vogel's argument, which squares CR with higher‐level knowledge both that one's belief is true and that one's belief is not false. I argue that, while Vogel's argument reveals the incompatibility of CR (...) and knowledge of certain higher‐level propositions, it does not establish the general claim that CR is incompatible with knowledge that any of one's beliefs is true, or not false. (shrink)

The editors, working with a team of 325 renowned authorities in the field of ethics, have revised, expanded and updated this classic encyclopedia. Along with the addition of 150 new entries, all of the original articles have been newly peer-reviewed and revised, bibliographies have been updated throughout, and the overall design of the work has been enhanced for easier access to cross-references and other reference features. New entries include * Cheating * Dirty hands * Gay ethics * Holocaust * Journalism (...) * Political correctness * and many more. (shrink)

We articulate a distinction between ontology, understood as involving existence questions, and metaphysics, understood as either providing for metaphysical profiles of entities or else as dealing with fundamentality and/or grounding and dependence questions. The distinction, we argue, allows a better understanding of the roles of metaontology and metametaphysics when it comes to discussing the relations between ontology and science on the one hand, and metaphysics and science on the other. We argue that while ontology, as understood in this paper, may (...) have reasonable perspectives for naturalization, given its relation to science, the same cannot be said for metaphysics, given that it is typically understood as an additional theoretical layer over science, not participating in the scientific investigation. That may result either in skepticism over metaphysics, or else on accepting that metaphysics is an autonomous branch of investigation, depending on one’s concern for metaphysics. (shrink)

We link Ivancovsky et al.'s novelty-seeking model (NSM) to computational models of intrinsically motivated behavior and learning. We argue that dissociating different forms of curiosity, creativity, and memory based on the involvement of distinct intrinsic motivations (e.g., surprise and novelty) is essential to empirically test the conceptual claims of the NSM.

Our understanding of human visual perception generally rests on the assumption that conscious visual states represent the interaction of spatial structures in the environment and our nervous system. This assumption is questioned by circumstances where conscious visual states can be triggered by external stimulation which is not primarily spatially defined. Here, subjective colors and forms are evoked by flickering light while the precise nature of those experiences varies over flicker frequency and phase. What’s more, the occurrence of one subjective experience (...) appears to be associated with the occurrence of others. While these data indicate that conscious visual experience may be evoked directly by particular variations in the flow of spatially unstructured light over time, it must be assumed that the systems responsible are essentially temporal in character and capable of representing a variety of visual forms and colors, coded in different frequencies or at different phases of the same processing rhythm. (shrink)

In a recent study, Becker and Elliott [Becker, C., & Elliott, M. A. . Flicker induced color and form: Interdependencies and relation to stimulation frequency and phase. Consciousness & Cognition, 15, 175–196] described the appearance of subjective experiences of color and form induced by stimulation with intermittent light. While there have been electroencephalographic studies of similar hallucinatory forms, brain activity accompanying the appearance of hallucinatory colors was never measured. Using a priming procedure where observers were required to indicate (...) the presence of one of eight target colors we compared electrophysiological correlates of hallucinatory color with brain states associated with other visual phenomena. Different target colors were accompanied by different patterns of EEG activation. However, in general, we found that the appearance of hallucinatory colors is preceded by a power decrease in the lower alpha band alongside an increase in gamma band frequencies. We argue that decreasing activity in the lower alpha band acts as a gating mechanism, inducing a switch in perception between different colors. The increasing gamma activation may correlate with the formation of a coherent conscious percept. (shrink)

: Duncan Pritchard has recently highlighted the problem of veritic epistemic luck and claimed that a safety‐based account of knowledge succeeds in eliminating veritic luck where virtue‐based accounts and process reliabilism fail. He then claims that if one accepts a safety‐based account, there is no longer a motivation for retaining a commitment to reliabilism. In this article, I delineate several distinct safety principles, and I argue that those that eliminate veritic luck do so only if at least implicitly committed to (...) reliabilism. (shrink)

We examine two different descriptions of the behavioral functions of the hippocampal system. One emphasizes spatially organized behaviors, especially those using cognitive maps. The other emphasizes memory, particularly working memory, a short-term memory that requires iexible stimulus-response associations and is highly susceptible to interference. The predictive value of the spatial and memory descriptions were evaluated by testing rats with damage to the hippocampal system in a series of experiments, independently manipulating the spatial and memory characteristics of a behavioral task. No (...) dissociations were found when the spatial characteristics of the stimuli to be remembered were changed; lesions produced a similar deficit in both spatial and nonspatial test procedures, indicating that the hippocampus was similarly involved regardless of the spatial nature of the task. In contrast, a marked dissociation was found when the memory requirements were altered. Rats with lesions were able to perform accurately in tasks that could be solved exclusively on the basis of reference memory. They performed at chance levels and showed no signs of recovery even with extensive postoperative training in tasks that required working memory. In one experiment all the characteristics of the reference memory and working memory procedures were identical except the type of memory required. Consequently, the behavioral dissociation cannot be explained by differences in attention, motivation, response inhibition, or the type of stimuli to be remembered. As a result of these experiments we propose that the hippocampus is selectively involved in behaviors that require working memory, irrespective of the type of material that is to be processed by that memory. (shrink)

The ethical behavior of marketing managers was examined by analyzing their responses to a series of different types of ethical dilemmas presented in vignette form. The ethical dilemmas addressed dealt with the issues of (1) coercion and control, (2) conflict of interest, (3) the physical environment, (4) paternalism, and (5) personal integrity. Responses were analyzed to discover whether managers' behavior varied by type of issue faced or whether there is some continuity to ethical behavior which transcends the type of ethical (...) problem addressed. (shrink)

La prévalence des situations de maltraitance sur enfants demeure importante, celles-ci intervenant habituellement dans le cadre familier de la jeune victime. Si de nombreux aspects théoriques et cliniques des formes de maltraitance sont aujourd’hui étudiés, peu de travaux se centrent sur les questions spécifiques des transgressions commises par les grands-parents. À partir d’une vignette clinique, l’auteur montre l’utilité d’une prise en charge s’appuyant sur les temps successifs que constituent l’évaluation et le traitement. Tenir un cadre et évaluer, c’est-à-dire faire émerger (...) d’un côté les ressources, de l’autre les défaillances, représente par essence un temps constructif. Quatre catégories principales de fonctionnement psychique des grands-parents maltraitants sont retrouvées. Comme la plupart de ceux-ci relèvent de soins individuels et familiaux, on gagne en efficacité par une diffraction des tâches via un travail en réseau. (shrink)

The editors, working with a team of 325 renowned authorities in the field of ethics, have revised, expanded, and updated this classic encyclopedia. Along with the addition of 150 new entries, all of the original articles have been newly peer-reviewed and revised, bibliographies have been updated throughout, and the overall design of the work has been enhanced for easier access to cross-references and other reference features. New entries include * Aristotelian Ethics * Avicenna * Bad Faith * Beneficence * Categorical (...) (...). (shrink)