On the phenomenal view of evidence, seemings are evidence. More precisely, if it seems to S that p, S has evidence for p. Here, I raise a worry for this view of evidence; namely, that it has the counterintuitive consequence that two people who disagree would rarely, if ever, share evidence. This is because almost all differences in beliefs would involve differences in seemings. However, many literatures in epistemology, including the disagreement literature and the permissivism (...) literature, presuppose that people who disagree often do share evidence. I conclude that this is a reason to question the phenomenal view of evidence. (shrink)

According to simulation or shared-substrates models of emotion recognition, our ability to recognize the emotions expressed by other individuals relies, at least in part, on processes that internally simulate the same emotional state in ourselves. The term “emotional expressions” is nearly synonymous, in many people's minds, with facial expressions of emotion. However, vocal prosody and whole-body cues also convey emotional information. What is the relationship between these various channels of emotional communication? We first briefly review simulation models of emotion (...) recognition, and then discuss neuroscientific evidence related to these models, including studies using facial expressions, whole-body cues, and vocal prosody. We conclude by discussing these data in the context of simulation and shared-substrates models of emotion recognition. (shrink)

At conceptual and linguistic levels of cognition, events are said to be represented in terms of abstract categories, for example, the sentence Jackie cut the bagel with a knife encodes the categories Agent (i.e., Jackie) and Patient (i.e., the bagel). In this paper, we ask whether entities such as the knife are also represented in terms of such a category (often labeled “Instrument”) and, if so, whether this category has a prototype structure. We hypothesized the Proto-instrument is a tool: a (...) physical object manipulated by an intentional agent to affect a change in another individual or object. To test this, we asked speakers of English, Dutch, and German to complete an event description task and a sentence acceptability judgment task in which events were viewed with more or less prototypical instruments. We found broad similarities in how English, Dutch, and German partition the semantic space of instrumental events, suggesting there is a shared concept of the Instrument category. However, there was no evidence to support the specific hypothesis that tools are the core of the Instrument category—instead, our results suggest the most prototypical Instrument is the direct extension of an intentional agent. This paper supports theoretical frameworks where thematic roles are analyzed in terms of prototypes and suggests new avenues of research on how instrumental category structure differs across linguistic and conceptual domains. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 5, May 2022.

Benedikt von Liel provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of the concept of Creating Shared Value (CSV). In the theoretical analysis, the author assesses the uniqueness of the theory of Creating Shared Value by comparing it to other relevant social responsibility concepts. The empirical analysis provides insights from over 60 industry case studies of Creating Shared Value. The assessment includes the influence of geography as well as a range of other relevant external and internal factors. As a (...) result, the author identifies critical success factors for the creation of shared value. Contents Theoretical introduction into Creating Shared Value Comparative analysis of CSV theory and related concepts Empirical study of CSV's unique elements < Impact of geography and other success factors for CSV Target Groups < Researchers and students in the field of business ethics and corporate social responsibility Businessmen interested and responsible for the social activities of companies The Author Benedikt von Liel studied Business and Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University of Karlsruhe before gaining industry experience at an international management consulting company. The practical experience triggered further interest in the combination of profit maximization and ethical driven business decisions. For this reason, the author researched the field of Creating Shared Value obtaining his PhD at the Technical University of Munich. (shrink)

Using a sample of Chinese to-be-listed firms during the period of 2006–2012, this study examines the influence of CEO-auditor dialect sharing (CADS) on pre-IPO audit quality and further investigates the moderating effects of auditor reputation and audit firm industry specialization. On the basis of information in personal identification cards, this study hand-collects data about CADS, and then provides strong and consistent evidence to show that CADS is significantly positively related with discretionary accruals (the inverse proxy for audit quality), suggesting (...) that CADS leads to the collusion between the CEO and the signing auditors, elicits pre-IPO earnings management, and eventually impairs pre-IPO audit quality. Moreover, both auditor reputation and audit firm industry specialization attenuate the positive effect of CADS on discretionary accruals. Furthermore, sensitivity tests suggest that above findings are robust to different measures of CADS and discretionary accruals, and above conclusions still stand after controlling for the endogeneity. Lastly, the findings using the post-IPO sample further validate the negative association between CADS and pre-IPO audit quality. (shrink)

This is part of an authors meets critics session on Daniel Star's wonderful book, Knowing Better. I discuss a potential problem with Kearns and Star's Reasons as Evidence thesis. The issue has to do with the difficulties we face is we treat normative reasons as evidence and impose no possession conditions on evidence. On such a view, it's hard to see how practical reasoning could be a non-monotonic process. One way out of the difficulty would be to (...) allow for (potent) unpossessed reasons but insist that all evidence is possessed evidence. This option, I argue, isn't open to proponents of the Reasons as Evidence thesis. Instead, it seems that they'll have to say that all normative reasons are identified with pieces of possessed evidence. This requires the proponents of the Reasons as Evidence thesis to impose epistemic constraints on norms that some of us find objectionable. (shrink)

Despite the proliferation of sharing economy initiatives in agri-food systems, the recent literature has still not unravelled what sharing exactly entails from an organizational standpoint. In light of this knowledge gap, this study aims to understand which resources are shared, and how, in a heterogeneous set of sharing economy initiatives in the context of food and agriculture. Specifically, this study compares the organization of various forms of alternative food networks, which are recognized to be frugal forms of sharing economy (...) initiatives, in terms of leadership, bureaucracy, shared resources and participants’ engagement. Data from a comparative case study across 18 AFNs identify five sharing economy models of AFNs with distinctive shared resources and organizational mechanisms: consumer groups; commercial community gardens; as well as network-based, privately owned and publicly owned self-consumption community gardens. These models also display notable differences in terms of their origins, participants’ goals and constraints which, to some extent, may be associated to the nature of their organization. Findings inform policy-makers, AFNs’ leaders and stakeholders—especially those seeking to support innovative models towards sustainable transitions—on how to tailor institutional norms and develop networks to meet the heterogeneous needs of different typologies of sharing economy initiatives in agri-food systems. (shrink)

IntroductionInternational sharing of health data opens the door to the study of the so-called ‘Big Data’, which holds great promise for improving patient-centred care. Failure of recent data sharing initiatives indicates an urgent need to invest in societal trust in researchers and institutions. Key to an informed understanding of such a ‘social license’ is identifying the views patients and the public may hold with regard to data sharing for health research.MethodsWe performed a narrative review of the empirical evidence addressing (...) patients’ and public views and attitudes towards the use of health data for research purposes. The literature databases PubMed, Embase, Scopus and Google Scholar were searched in April 2019 to identify relevant publications. Patients’ and public attitudes were extracted from selected references and thematically categorised.ResultsTwenty-seven papers were included for review, including both qualitative and quantitative studies and systematic reviews. Results suggest widespread—though conditional—support among patients and the public for data sharing for health research. Despite the fact that participants recognise actual or potential benefits of data research, they expressed concerns about breaches of confidentiality and potential abuses of the data. Studies showed agreement on the following conditions: value, privacy, risk minimisation, data security, transparency, control, information, trust, responsibility and accountability.ConclusionsOur results indicate that a social license for data-intensive health research cannot simply be presumed. To strengthen the social license, identified conditions ought to be operationalised in a governance framework that incorporates the diverse patient and public values, needs and interests. (shrink)

This study tested a conceptual model in which photo-sharing behavior during travel elicits tourists’ emotional state, and in turn improves evaluation of the tourism product. The research results in the context of tourist attractions and restaurants provide support for the proposed model. Specifically, tourists’ photo-sharing behavior was significantly associated with more positive product evaluation, both directly and indirectly via the emotion of pleasure. These associations were stronger when the interdependent self-construers had good social experience. The results provide practical guidance for (...) marketers to developing marketing strategy. (shrink)

The current investigation examined the bidirectional effects of cognitive control and emotional control and the overlap between these two systems in regulating emotions. Based on recent neural and cognitive findings, we hypothesised that two control systems largely overlap as control recruited for one system (either emotional or cognitive) can be used by the other system. In two experiments, participants completed novel versions of either the Stroop task (Experiment 1) or the Flanker task (Experiment 2) in which the emotional and cognitive (...) control systems were actively manipulated into either a high or low emotional-load condition (achieved by varying the proportions of negative-valence emotional cues) and a high and a low cognitive control condition (achieved through varying the proportion of conflict-laden trials). In both experiments, participants’ performance was impaired when both emotional and cognitive control were low, but significantly and similarly improved when one of the two control mechanisms were activated – the emotional or the cognitive. In Experiment 2, performance was further improved when both systems were activated. Our results give further support for a more integrative notion of control in which the two systems (emotional and cognitive control) not only influence each other, but rather extensively overlap. (shrink)

The historical consensus is that logical evidence is special. Whereas empirical evidence is used to support theories within both the natural and social sciences, logic answers solely to a priori evidence. Further, unlike other areas of research that rely upon a priori evidence, such as mathematics, logical evidence is basic. While we can assume the validity of certain inferences in order to establish truths within mathematics and test scientifi c theories, logicians cannot use results from (...) mathematics or the empirical sciences without seemingly begging the question. Appeals to rational intuition and analyticity in order to account for logical knowledge are symptomatic of these commitments to the apriority and basicness of logical evidence. This chapter argues that these historically prevalent accounts of logical evidence are mistaken, and that if we take logical practice seriously we fi nd that logical evidence is rather unexceptional, sharing many similarities to the types of evidence appealed to within other research areas. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for a version of the Total Evidence view according to which the rational response to disagreement depends upon one's total evidence. I argue that perceptual evidence of a certain kind is significantly weightier than many other types of evidence, including testimonial. Furthermore, what is generally called "The Uniqueness Thesis" is actually a conflation of two distinct principles that I dub "Evidential Uniqueness" and "Rationality Uniqueness." The former principle is likely true but (...) the latter almost certainly false. Seeing why the Rationality Uniqueness fails opens the door to seeing how mutual reasonable disagreement is possible even among those who share the same evidence. (shrink)

We use institutional-related theories and a unique natural experiment that enables an exogenous test of the influence of controlling shareholders on managerial accountability to corporate fraud. In China, prior to the Split Share Structure Reform, state shareholders held restricted shares that could not be traded. This restriction mitigated state-owned enterprise controlling shareholders’ incentives to monitor managers. The data examined show the SSSR strengthens incentives of state-owned enterprise controlling shareholders to replace fraudulent management. Our findings support the view that economic incentives (...) are important to promote corporate governance and deter fraud. (shrink)

Shared intentions supporting cooperation and other social practices are often used to describe human social life but not the social lives of nonhuman animals. This difference in description is supported by a lack of evidence for rebuke or stakeholding during collaboration in nonhuman animals. We suggest that rebuke and stakeholding are just two examples of the many and varied forms of social maintenance that can support shared intentions. Drawing on insights about mindshaping in social cognition, we show (...) how apes can be stakeholders of a different sort in joint action. Drawing on pluralistic social maintenance methods of behavior enforcement, we show ape joint action can be supported by different forms of positive and negative social pressures, and not just protest. We explain how diverse relationships, contexts, social structures, and forms of communication may play a role in forming and successfully fulfilling joint commitments for humans, great apes, and other animals. (shrink)

The traditional view of evidence in mathematics is that evidence is just proof and proof is just derivation. There are good reasons for thinking that this view should be rejected: it misrepresents both historical and current mathematical practice. Nonetheless, evidence, proof, and derivation are closely intertwined. This paper seeks to tease these concepts apart. It emphasizes the role of argumentation as a context shared by evidence, proofs, and derivations. The utility of argumentation theory, in general, (...) and argumentation schemes, in particular, as a methodology for the study of mathematical practice is thereby demonstrated. Argumentation schemes represent an almost untapped resource for mathematics education. Notably, they provide a consistent treatment of rigorous and non-rigorous argumentation, thereby working to exhibit the continuity of reasoning in mathematics with reasoning in other areas. Moreover, since argumentation schemes are a comparatively mature methodology, there is a substantial body of existing work to draw upon, including some increasingly sophisticated software tools. Such tools have significant potential for the analysis and evaluation of mathematical argumentation. The first four sections of the paper address the relationships of evidence to proof, proof to derivation, argument to proof, and argument to evidence, respectively. The final section directly addresses some of the educational implications of an argumentation scheme account of mathematical reasoning. (shrink)

Much research on color representation and categorization has assumed that relations among color terms can be proxies for relations among color percepts. We test this assumption by comparing the mapping of color words with color appearances among different observer groups performing cognitive tasks: an invariance of naming task; and triad similarity judgments of color term and color appearance stimuli within and across color categories. Observer subgroups were defined by perceptual phenotype and photopigment opsin genotype analyses. Results suggest that individuals rely (...) on at least two different representational models of color experience: one lexical, conforming to the culture's normative linguistic representation, and another individual perceptual representation organizing each observer's color sensation experiences. Additional observer subgroup analyses suggest that perceptual phenotype variation within a language group may play a greater role in the shared color naming system than previously thought. A reexamination of color naming data in view of these findings may reveal influences on color naming important to current theories. (shrink)

In today’s knowledge economy, knowledge and knowledge sharing are fundamental for organizations to achieve competitiveness and for individuals to strengthen their innovation capabilities. Knowledge sharing is a complex language-based activity; language affects how individuals communicate and relate. The growth in international collaborations and the increasing number of diverse teams affect knowledge sharing because individuals engage in daily knowledge activities in a language they are not native speakers. Understanding the challenges they face, and how they manage the emerging difficulties is the (...) main aim of this manuscript. For this purpose, an explorative case study was conducted in an international university research project, namely the TED project. Both interviews and direct observations were employed to understand the phenomenon better and deliberately triangulate data and improve validity. Results show that non-native language use determines the emergence of different language proficiency, depending on the nature of the knowledge domain–job-related vs. non-job-related. Within non-job-related knowledge domains, the lack of linguistic abilities, summed to the perceived cultural diversities, mainly affects people’s propensity to engage in personal and more intense social relationships. Under such circumstances, tacit knowledge sharing is reduced with negative consequences on the project’s long-term innovative performance. Since the project is still running, detecting language challenges will allow the partners to design and apply effective measures to support cooperation with language and cultural barriers. Among them, code switching, adopted by “bridge” actors, already emerges as tool supporting communication and knowledge exchange. (shrink)

Shared decision-making involves health professionals and patients/clients working together to achieve true person-centred health care. However, this goal is infrequently realized, and most barriers are unknown. Discussion between philosophers, clinicians, and researchers can assist in confronting the epistemic and moral basis of health care, with benefits to all. The aim of this paper is to describe what shared decision-making is, discuss its necessary conditions, and develop a definition that can be used in practice to support excellence in maternity (...) care. Discussion between the authors, with backgrounds in philosophy, clinical maternity care, health care management, and maternity care research, assisted the team to confront established norms in maternity care and challenge the epistemic and moral basis of decision-making for caesarean section. The team concluded that shared decision-making must start in pregnancy and continue throughout labour and birth, with equality in discourse facilitated by the clinician. Clinicians have a duty of care for the adequacy of women's knowledge, which can only be fulfilled when relevant knowledge is offered freely and when personal beliefs and biases that may impinge on decision-making (defeaters) are disclosed. Informed consent is not shared decision-making. Key barriers include existing cultural norms of “the doctor knows best” and “patient acquiescence” that prevent defeaters being acknowledged and discussed and can lead to legal challenges, overuse of medical intervention and, in some areas, obstetric violence. Shared decision-making in maternity care can thus be defined as an enquiry by clinician and expectant woman aimed at deciding upon a course of care or none, which takes the form of a dialogue within which the clinician fulfils their duty of care to the client's knowledge by making available their complete knowledge (based on all types of evidence) and expertise, including an exposition of any relevant and recognized potential defeaters. Research to develop measurement tools is required. (shrink)

Consider: -/- The Evidence Question: When, and under what conditions does an agent have proposition E as evidence (at t)? -/- Timothy Williamson's (2000) answer to this question is the well-known E = K thesis: -/- E = K: E is a member of S's evidence set at t iff S knows E at t. -/- I will argue that this answer is inconsistent with the version of Bayesianism that Williamson advocates. This is because E = K (...) allows an agent to garner evidence via inductive inference whereas standard Bayesian views disallow such a thing. Since Williamson's version of Bayesianism shares the key features with the standard Bayesian view, there is an inconsistency. (shrink)

We often have reason to doubt our own ability to form rational beliefs, or to doubt that some particular belief of ours is rational. Perhaps we learn that a trusted friend disagrees with us about what our shared evidence supports. Or perhaps we learn that our beliefs have been afflicted by motivated reasoning or other cognitive biases. These are examples of higher-order evidence. While it may seem plausible that higher-order evidence should impact our beliefs, it is (...) less clear how and why. Normally, when evidence impacts our beliefs, it does so by virtue of speaking for or against the truth of theirs contents. But higher-order evidence does not directly concern the contents of the beliefs that they impact. In recent years, philosophers have become increasingly aware of the need to understand the nature and normative role of higher-order evidence. This is partly due to the pervasiveness of higher-order evidence in human life. But it has also become clear that higher-order evidence plays a central role in many epistemological debates, spanning from traditional discussions of internalism/externalism about epistemic justification to more recent discussions of peer disagreement and epistemic akrasia. This volume brings together, for the first time, a distinguished group of leading and up-and-coming epistemologists to explore a range of issues about higher-order evidence. (shrink)

Background The increase in empirical methods of research in bioethics over the last two decades is typically perceived as a welcomed broadening of the discipline, with increased integration of social and life scientists into the field and ethics consultants into the clinical setting, however it also represents a loss of confidence in the typical normative and analytic methods of bioethics. Discussion The recent incipiency of "Evidence-Based Ethics" attests to this phenomenon and should be rejected as a solution to the (...) current ambivalence toward the normative resolution of moral problems in a pluralistic society. While "evidence-based" is typically read in medicine and other life and social sciences as the empirically-adequate standard of reasonable practice and a means for increasing certainty, I propose that the evidence-based movement in fact gains consensus by displacing normative discourse with aggregate or statistically-derived empirical evidence as the "bottom line". Therefore, along with wavering on the fact/value distinction, evidence-based ethics threatens bioethics' normative mandate. The appeal of the evidence-based approach is that it offers a means of negotiating the demands of moral pluralism. Rather than appealing to explicit values that are likely not shared by all, "the evidence" is proposed to adjudicate between competing claims. Quantified measures are notably more "neutral" and democratic than liberal markers like "species normal functioning". Yet the positivist notion that claims stand or fall in light of the evidence is untenable; furthermore, the legacy of positivism entails the quieting of empirically non-verifiable considerations like moral claims and judgments. As a result, evidence-based ethics proposes to operate with the implicit normativity that accompanies the production and presentation of all biomedical and scientific facts unchecked. Summary The "empirical turn" in bioethics signals a need for reconsideration of the methods used for moral evaluation and resolution, however the options should not include obscuring normative content by seemingly neutral technical measure. (shrink)

BackgroundThe increase in empirical methods of research in bioethics over the last two decades is typically perceived as a welcomed broadening of the discipline, with increased integration of social and life scientists into the field and ethics consultants into the clinical setting, however it also represents a loss of confidence in the typical normative and analytic methods of bioethics.DiscussionThe recent incipiency of "Evidence-Based Ethics" attests to this phenomenon and should be rejected as a solution to the current ambivalence toward (...) the normative resolution of moral problems in a pluralistic society. While "evidence-based" is typically read in medicine and other life and social sciences as the empirically-adequate standard of reasonable practice and a means for increasing certainty, I propose that the evidence-based movement in fact gains consensus by displacing normative discourse with aggregate or statistically-derived empirical evidence as the "bottom line". Therefore, along with wavering on the fact/value distinction, evidence-based ethics threatens bioethics' normative mandate. The appeal of the evidence-based approach is that it offers a means of negotiating the demands of moral pluralism. Rather than appealing to explicit values that are likely not shared by all, "the evidence" is proposed to adjudicate between competing claims. Quantified measures are notably more "neutral" and democratic than liberal markers like "species normal functioning". Yet the positivist notion that claims stand or fall in light of the evidence is untenable; furthermore, the legacy of positivism entails the quieting of empirically non-verifiable (or at least non-falsifiable) considerations like moral claims and judgments. As a result, evidence-based ethics proposes to operate with the implicit normativity that accompanies the production and presentation of all biomedical and scientific facts unchecked.SummaryThe "empirical turn" in bioethics signals a need for reconsideration of the methods used for moral evaluation and resolution, however the options should not include obscuring normative content by seemingly neutral technical measure. (shrink)

Cancer research is experiencing ‘paradigm instability’, since there are two rival theories of carcinogenesis which confront themselves, namely the somatic mutation theory and the tissue organization field theory. Despite this theoretical uncertainty, a huge quantity of data is available thanks to the improvement of genome sequencing techniques. Some authors think that the development of new statistical tools will be able to overcome the lack of a shared theoretical perspective on cancer by amalgamating as many data as possible. We think (...) instead that a deeper understanding of cancer can be achieved by means of more theoretical work, rather than by merely accumulating more data. To support our thesis, we introduce the analytic view of theory development, which rests on the concept of plausibility, and make clear in what sense plausibility and probability are distinct concepts. Then, the concept of plausibility is used to point out the ineliminable role played by the epistemic subject in the development of statistical tools and in the process of theory assessment. We then move to address a central issue in cancer research, namely the relevance of computational tools developed by bioinformaticists to detect driver mutations in the debate between the two main rival theories of carcinogenesis. Finally, we briefly extend our considerations on the role that plausibility plays in evidence amalgamation from cancer research to the more general issue of the divergences between frequentists and Bayesians in the philosophy of medicine and statistics. We argue that taking into account plausibility-based considerations can lead to clarify some epistemological shortcomings that afflict both these perspectives. (shrink)

This study examines how evidence is used differently in argumentative discourse compared to individual arguments. Applying a 1×2 crossover study design, 37 secondary school students were asked either to discuss a social issue with their partner before individually writing an essay outlining their opinion or, vice versa, first to discuss and then to write. As background information, they were provided with pieces of evidence with different levels of quality. Dialogs and essays were analyzed regarding (a) the type of (...) evidence and (b) the way evidence was used. Results showed that in their essays students referred more often to the pieces of evidence provided to them (shared evidence). In contrast, they used evidence more often to address the opposing viewpoint in dialogs by incorporating it in a more elaborated (clearer) line of reasoning. Findings suggest that dialogues are a more effective tool than individual writing production, and the study provides first hints regarding how to design curricula that will encourage students to use evidence in a more sophisticated way in their argumentation. (shrink)

We propose that the crucial difference between human cognition and that of other species is the ability to participate with others in collaborative activities with shared goals and intentions: shared intentionality. Participation in such activities requires not only especially powerful forms of intention reading and cultural learning, but also a unique motivation to share psychological states with others and unique forms of cognitive representation for doing so. The result of participating in these activities is species-unique forms of cultural (...) cognition and evolution, enabling everything from the creation and use of linguistic symbols to the construction of social norms and individual beliefs to the establishment of social institutions. In support of this proposal we argue and present evidence that great apes understand the basics of intentional action, but they still do not participate in activities involving joint intentions and attention. Human children's skills of shared intentionality develop gradually during the first 14 months of life as two ontogenetic pathways intertwine: the general ape line of understanding others as animate, goal-directed, and intentional agents; and a species-unique motivation to share emotions, experience, and activities with other persons. The developmental outcome is children's ability to construct dialogic cognitive representations, which enable them to participate in earnest in the collectivity that is human cognition. Key Words: collaboration; cooperation; cultural learning; culture; evolutionary psychology; intentions; shared intentionality; social cognition; social learning; theory of mind; joint attention. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall discuss a problem that arises when you try to combine an attractive account of what constitutes evidence with an independently plausible account of the kind of access we have to our evidence. According to E = K, our evidence consists of what we know. According to the principle of armchair access, we can know from the armchair what our evidence is. Combined, these claims entail that we can have armchair knowledge of (...) the external world. Because it seems that the principle of armchair access is supported by widely shared intuitions about epistemic rationality, it seems we ought to embrace an internalist conception of evidence. I shall argue that this response is mistaken. Because externalism about evidence can accommodate the relevant intuitions about epistemic rationality, the principle of armchair access is unmotivated. We also have independent reasons for preferring externalism about evidence to the principle of armchair access. (shrink)

Scientific consensus is widely deferred to in public debates as a social indicator of the existence of knowledge. However, it is far from clear that such deference to consensus is always justified. The existence of agreement in a community of researchers is a contingent fact, and researchers may reach a consensus for all kinds of reasons, such as fighting a common foe or sharing a common bias. Scientific consensus, by itself, does not necessarily indicate the existence of shared knowledge (...) among the members of the consensus community. I address the question of under what conditions it is likely that a consensus is in fact knowledge based. I argue that a consensus is likely to be knowledge based when knowledge is the best explanation of the consensus, and I identify three conditions—social calibration, apparent consilience of evidence, and social diversity, for knowledge being the best explanation of a consensus. (shrink)

This paper assesses the scope and limits of a widely influential model of goal-ascription by human infants: the shared-intentionality model. It derives much of its appeal from its ability to integrate behavioral evidence from developmental psychology with cognitive neuroscientific evidence about the role of mirror neuron activity in non-human primates. The central question raised by this model is whether sharing a goal with an agent is necessary and sufficient for ascribing it to that agent. I argue that (...) advocates of the shared-intentionality model underestimate both the distinction between the target and the goal of a goal-directed action and the gap between sharing and ascribing a goal. (shrink)

This article tries to present a broad view on the values and ethicalissues that are at stake in efforts to rationalize health policy on thebasis of economic evaluations (like cost-effectiveness analysis) andrandomly controlled clinical trials. Though such a rationalization isgenerally seen as an objective and `value free' process, moral valuesoften play a hidden role, not only in the production of `evidence', butalso in the way this evidence is used in policy making. For example, thedefinition of effectiveness of medical (...) treatment or health care serviceis heavily dependent on dominant individual or social views about thegoals of the particular treatment or service. There is also a concernthat a reliance on EBM in health policy will occur at the expense ofwidely shared social values like equity and solidarity. Moreover, thereis a concern that when economic considerations and rational proceduresbecome more influential, various `outside' groups third parties likeinsurance companies and policy makers will get a stronger influence onmedical practice which may lead to a change in the patient-providerrelationship. The authors conclude that social values and patientpreference should be explicitly addressed when health policy making isbased on economic and other scientific evidence. (shrink)

Evolutionary models consider hunting and food sharing to be milestones that paved the way from primate to human societies. Because fossil evidence is scarce, hominoid primates serve as referential models to assess our common ancestors’ capacity in terms of communal use of resources, food sharing, and other forms of cooperation. Whereas chimpanzees form male-male bonds exhibiting resource-defense polygyny with intolerance and aggression toward nonresidents, bonobos form male-female and female-female bonds resulting in relaxed relations with neighboring groups. Here we report (...) the first known case of meat sharing between members of two bonobo communities, revealing a new dimension of social tolerance in this species. This observation testifies to the behavioral plasticity that exists in the two Pan species and contributes to scenarios concerning the traits of the last common ancestor of Pan and Homo. It also contributes to the discussion of physiological triggers of in-group/out-group behavior and allows reconsideration of the emergence of social norms in prehuman societies. (shrink)

In recent years there has been an explosion of interest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) both in health care and academic philosophy. This has been due mainly to the rise of effective machine learning and deep learning algorithms, together with increases in data collection and processing power, which have made rapid progress in many areas. However, use of this technology has brought with it philosophical issues and practical problems, in particular, epistemic and ethical. In this paper the authors, with backgrounds in (...) philosophy, maternity care practice and clinical research, draw upon and extend a recent framework for shared decision-making (SDM) that identified a duty of care to the client's knowledge as a necessary condition for SDM. This duty entails the responsibility to acknowledge and overcome epistemic defeaters. This framework is applied to the use of AI in maternity care, in particular, the use of machine learning and deep learning technology to attempt to enhance electronic fetal monitoring (EFM). In doing so, various sub-kinds of epistemic defeater, namely, transparent, opaque, underdetermined, and inherited defeaters are taxonomized and discussed. The authors argue that, although effective current or future AI-enhanced EFM may impose an epistemic obligation on the part of clinicians to rely on such systems' predictions or diagnoses as input to SDM, such obligations may be overridden by inherited defeaters, caused by a form of algorithmic bias. The existence of inherited defeaters implies that the duty of care to the client's knowledge extends to any situation in which a clinician (or anyone else) is involved in producing training data for a system that will be used in SDM. Any future AI must be capable of assessing women individually, taking into account a wide range of factors including women's preferences, to provide a holistic range of evidence for clinical decision-making. (shrink)

Most scientists recognize the importance of sharing data online in an open fashion. Nonetheless, many studies have documented the concerns that accompany data sharing activities, including loss of credit or IP, misuse and the time needed to curate interoperable data. To this end, discussions around data sharing often identify incentives that could potentially ameliorate these disincentivising concerns. Nonetheless, current Open Data discussions often rely on evidence‐based studies to identify the disincentives to overcome. This results in highly specific and directed (...) interventions. In contrast, this paper offers a different interpretation of these concerns. To do so, it makes use of the Thomas Theorem which suggests that: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”. Using empirical evidence from sub‐Saharan African (bio)chemistry laboratories, this paper illustrates how individual perceptions of research environments – whether associated with evidence or not – are highly influential in shaping data sharing practices. It concludes with the suggestion that discussion on incentivising data sharing amongst scientific communities need to take a broader set of concerns into account and offer a more creative approach to ameliorating environmental disincentives. (shrink)

This treatise covers the history, now more than 170 years long, of researches and debates concerning the biblical city of Ai. This archetypical chapter in the evolution of biblical archaeology and historiography was never presented in full. I use the historical data as a case study to explore a number of epistemological issues, such as the creation and revision of scientific knowledge, the formation and change of consensus, the Kuhnian model of paradigm shift, several models of discrimination between hypotheses about (...) the past, the interplay between scientists' values and their epistemic beliefs, and the truth-bearing of historiographic reconstruction. I show, in particular, that when scientists share common epistemic values they can modify their beliefs even when such changes go against deeply entrenched biases and preconceptions. Considerations of coherence usually constrain such modifications, and when sufficient data is available the result can be a profound change of beliefs. Several episodes of the "Ai debates" demonstrate, however, that similar change of beliefs will not occur when non-epistemic values take precedence. (shrink)

This review demonstrates that an individualist view of emotion and regulation is untenable. First, I question the plausibility of a developmental shift away from social interdependency in emotion regulation. Second, I show that there are multiple reasons for emotional experiences in adults to elicit a process of social sharing of emotion, and I review the supporting evidence. Third, I look at effects that emotion sharing entails at the interpersonal and at the collective levels. Fourth, I examine the contribution of (...) emotional sharing to emotion regulation together with the relevant empirical evidence. Finally, the various functions that the social sharing of emotion fulfills are reviewed and the relevance of the social sharing of emotion for emotion scientists is discussed. (shrink)

Empirical evidence of our changing climate is frequently interpreted through the lens of either optimism or pessimism. In tandem with this, ethical responses can oscillate from myopic ‘business as usual’ to misanthropic ‘lifeboat ethics’. In this paper I argue that these are inadequate and unworthy positions from which to begin in Christian ethics. The question of sharing the burdens of climate-change mitigation and adaptation is the crucial task facing the world community. The development of the burden-sharing rules—sector based as (...) well as country based—since the Kyoto agreement will be evaluated from the perspective of three theological ethical principles: justice, solidarity and subsidiarity. Lastly I suggest that creation serves as a ground for developing shared perspectives in the ethics of environmental questions in the context of intercultural and interfaith dialogue. (shrink)

Evidence is often taken to be “normative” for doxastic agents. For instance, we are told to apportion our beliefs to the evidence, to not believe a claim without seeking out countervailing evidence, and so on. But what accounts for the normativity of evidence? This dissertation is devoted to answering this question. In order to answer it, I develop a novel approach to the theory of epistemic normativity. According to my approach, epistemic norms structure a social practice (...) of epistemic accountability. This approach shares affinities with Strawsonian attempts to elucidate moral responsibility by considering the conditions under which it’s appropriate to subject a person to the “reactive attitudes” (e.g. resentment and indignation). However, when it comes to epistemic (as opposed to moral) accountability, I argue that the relevant attitudinal responses need not involve reactive emotions. Moreover, what I seek to elucidate by appealing to these attitudinal responses is not responsible agency, but rather the content and normative significance of epistemic norms. Crucial to my approach is a distinctly epistemic way of holding a person accountable for their doxastic attitudes. To hold a person epistemically accountable, on my approach, is to modify trust in the person in a particular way. For instance, someone might cease to take a person’s words at face value when it comes to a certain topic, or someone might be unwilling to rely on another as a testimonial source of information. I argue that our practice of epistemic accountability is a legitimate social practice. I then go on to consider what norms of belief structure its activities. I argue that a number of norms of belief are implicit in our practice of epistemic accountability, including evidential norms and knowledge norms. I ultimately argue that our acceptance of epistemic norms is itself grounded in the fact that we participate in a social practice wherein we hold each other epistemically accountable. (shrink)

Promoting clinicians’ knowledge sharing of appropriate health technology within the integrated care system is of great vitality in bridging the technological gap between member institutions. However, the role of social networks in knowledge sharing of health technology is still largely unknown. To address this issue, the study aims to clarify the influence of clinicians’ social networks on knowledge sharing of health technology within the ICS. A questionnaire survey was conducted among the clinicians in the Alliance of Liver Disease Specialists in (...) Fujian Province, China. Social network analysis was conducted using NetDraw and UCINET, and the quadratic assignment procedure multiple regression was used to analyze the influencing factors of knowledge sharing of health technology. The results showed that the ICS played an insufficient role in promoting overall knowledge sharing, especially inter-institutional knowledge sharing. Trust, emotional support, material support, and cognitive proximity positively influenced knowledge sharing of health technology, while the frequency of interaction and relationship importance had a negative impact on it. The finding extended the research scope of social network theory to the field of healthcare and will bridge the evidence gap in the influence of the clinicians’ social networks on their knowledge sharing within the ICS, providing new ideas to boost knowledge sharing and diffusion of appropriate health technology. (shrink)

The concept of shared mental models refers to the shared understanding among team members about how they should behave in different situations. This article aimed to develop a new shared mental model measure, specifically designed for the refereeing context. A cross-sectional study was conducted with three samples: national and regional football referees (n = 133), national football referees and assistant referees and national futsal referees (n = 277), and national futsal referees (n = 60). The proposed version (...) of the Referee Shared Mental Models Measure (RSMMM) has 13 items that are reflected on a single factor structure. The RSMMM presented good validity evidence both based on the internal structure and based on relations to other variables (presenting positive associations with team work engagement, team adaptive performance, and team effectiveness). Such promising psychometric properties point to an optimistic outlook regarding its use to measure shared mental models in futsal and football referee teams. -/- . (shrink)

Curiosity and creativity are central pillars of human growth and invention. Although they have been studied extensively in isolation, the relationship between them has not yet been established. We propose that both curiosity and creativity emanate from the same mechanism of novelty seeking. We first present a synthesis showing that curiosity and creativity are affected similarly by a number of key cognitive faculties such as memory, cognitive control, attention, and reward. We then review empirical evidence from neuroscience research, indicating (...) that the same brain regions are involved in both curiosity and creativity, focusing on the interplay between three major brain networks: the default mode network, the salience network, and the executive control network. After substantiating the link between curiosity and creativity, we propose a novelty-seeking model (NSM) that underlies them and suggests that the manifestation of the NSM is governed by one's state of mind. (shrink)

Based on neuropsychological evidence of nonverbal impairment accompanying aphasia, I propose that the neural prerequisites for language acquisition are shared with a range of nonverbal capacities. Their commonality concerns the ability to recognize a limited number of finite elements in manifold perceptual entities and to combine them for constructing manifold entities.

Phylogenetic information is often necessary to distinguish between evolutionary scenarios. Recently, some prominent proponents of evolutionary psychology have acknowledged this, and have claimed that such evidence has in fact been brought to bear on adaptive hypotheses involving complex human psychological traits. Were this possible, it would be a valuable source of evidence regarding hypothesized adaptive traits in humans. However, the structure of the Hominidae family makes this difficult or impossible. For many traits of interest, the closest extant relatives (...) to the human species are too phenotypically different from humans for such methods to provide meaningful data. While phylogenetic information can be useful for testing adaptive hypotheses in humans, these generally involve traits that are (a) not widely shared in the species or (b) fairly widely shared in the Hominidae family, and hence likely of a lower order of complexity than the sorts of traits evolutionary psychology has so far been interested in. (shrink)