It has been claimed that friendship not only involves partial treatment of one's friends but that it also involves some degree of doxastic partiality towards them. Taking these claims as their starting points, some philosophers have argued that friendship not only involves such partiality but that this is also what is normatively required. This gives rise to the possibility of conflict between the demands of friendship on the one hand and the demands of epistemic norms on the other. In this (...) paper, I consider some of the responses to this claim and show why they fail. I distinguish between different grades of doxastic partiality and explain why, although low grades of doxastic partiality fall within the bounds of the standard epistemic norm, the higher grades might infringe such norms. I conclude with an explanation of a fundamental intuition that seems to lie at the heart of the thesis of epistemic partiality. (shrink)

Theoretical reasoning (inference) is a conscious personal‐level activity and a causal process. It is the process of revising one's beliefs for a reason whereby some of our beliefs cause or result in other beliefs. But inference is more than mere causation. This raises the question of what exactly distinguishes theoretical reasoning from mere causal processes. Paul Boghossian has located the distinguishing feature of inference in, what he calls, the “taking condition” requirement (TC). It turns out, however, that all attempts to (...) explain this notion fail. In this paper, I shall offer an indirect argument for the taking condition grounded in a specific account of the structure of epistemic reasons that distinguishes two levels of epistemic normativity, namely, the possession and justification levels. I show how such an account can legitimize the role of (TC) in reasoning and deflect the standard objections raised against it. Finally, I explain how this proposal naturally accommodates the defeasibility of reasoning. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall examine William Alston's influential view that the cognitive element in religious faith should be identified with ‘acceptance’ rather than ‘belief’. Although I am sympathetic to Alston's reluctance to regard belief as essential to faith, I shall argue that one can redescribe the cases that Alston invokes in support of his claim in terms of the standard notion of degrees‐of‐belief without loss. It will be further argued that, given Alston's constraints, his notion of acceptance, if not (...) identical to belief, is at least a species of belief. (shrink)

In one of the earlier influential papers in the field of experimental philosophy titled Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions published in 2001, Jonathan M. Weinberg, Shaun Nichols and Stephen Stich reported that respondents answered Gettier type questions differently depending on their ethnic background as well as socioeconomic status. There is currently a debate going on, on the significance of the results of Weinberg et al. (2001) and its implications for philosophical methodology in general and epistemology in specific. Despite the debates, however, (...) to our knowledge, there has not been a replication attempt of the experiments of the original paper. We collected data from four different sources (two on-line and two in-person) to replicate the experiments. Despite several different data sets and in various cases larger sample sizes and hence greater power to detect differences, we failed to detect significant differences between the above-mentioned ethnic and socioeconomic groups. Our results suggest that epistemic intuitions are more robust across ethnic and socioeconomic groups than Weinberg et al. (2001) indicates. Given our data, we believe that the notion of differences in epistemic intuitions among different ethnic and socioeconomic groups that follows from Weinberg et al. (2001) needs to be corrected. (shrink)

The basing relation is a relation that obtains between a belief and the evidence or reason for which it is held. It is a highly controversial question in epistemology how such a relation should be characterized. Almost all epistemologists believe that causation must play a role in articulating the notion of the basing relation. The causal account however faces the serious problem of the deviant causal chains. In this paper, I will be particularly looking at the philosophers’ appeal to the (...) notion of disposition as a way of excluding deviant chains. Having argued against such accounts, it will be suggested that, since the obtaining of the basing relation is what distinguishes propositional from doxastic justification, we may have a better grasp of this notion if we could clearly see how those two species of justification are related to one another. Drawing on earlier work, a dispositional account of propositional and doxastic justification is subsequently defended. It will be argued that such a view has the resources to resolve the problem of causal deviance, thus, providing an acceptable account of the notion of the basing relation. (shrink)

In their paper titled “Gender and philosophical intuition,” Buckwalter and Stich argue that the intuitions of women and men differ significantly on various types of philosophical questions. Furthermore, men's intuitions, so the authors claim, are more in line with traditionally accepted solutions of classical problems. This inherent bias, so the argument goes, is one of the factors that leads more men than women to pursue degrees and careers in philosophy. These findings have received a considerable amount of attention and the (...) paper is to appear in the second edition of Experimental Philosophy edited by Knobe and Nichols , which itself is an influential outlet. Given the exposure of these results, we attempted to replicate three of the classes of questions that Buckwalter and Stich review in their paper and for which they report significant differences. We failed to replicate the results using several different sources for data collection (one being identical to the original procedures.. (shrink)

This paper discusses the thesis defended by Edith Stein that certain acts can be attributed to the State. According to Stein, the State is a social structure characterized by sovereignty. As such, it is responsible for the production, interpretation, and application of law. These tasks require the performance of acts, most of which are what Stein calls “social acts” like enactments and orders. For Stein, the acts in question are made by the organs of the State, but in the name (...) of the State, and are thus attributed to the State via a relation of representation. In the first section, the paper presents Stein’s thesis that the sovereignty of the State entails a series of legal prerogatives, which in turn result in various social acts being ascribed to the State through its representatives. In the second section, the paper critically discusses Stein’s views, notably her theory of representation, and her account of the nature of the State, while emphasizing its most interesting aspects, namely, its fine-grained analyses of the various acts that are attributed to the State. (shrink)

According to the thesis of epistemic conservatism it would be unreasonable to change one's beliefs in the absence of any good reasons. Although it is claimed that epistemic conservatism has informed and resolved a number of positions and problems in epistemology, it is difficult to identify a single representative view of the thesis. This has resulted in advancing a series of disparate and largely unconnected arguments to establish conservatism. In this paper, I begin by casting doubt on the claim of (...) widespread and genuine applications of the conservative policy. I then distinguish between three main varieties of epistemic conservatism, namely, differential, perseverance and generation conservatism Having evaluated various arguments that have been offered or may be considered on behalf of the conservative thesis, I close by concluding that those versions of the thesis that survive critical scrutiny fail to live up to the aspirations of the thesis as a substantive canon of rationality, that to the extent that principles of conservatism are epistemically promising, they are not plausible. While to the extent that they are plausible, they are not of much epistemic interest. (shrink)

This book sheds new light on the history of the philosophically crucial notion of intentionality, which accounts for one of the most distinctive aspects of our mental life: the fact that our thoughts are about objects. Intentionality is often described as a certain kind of relation. Focusing on Franz Brentano, who introduced the notion into contemporary philosophy, and on the Aristotelian tradition, which was Brentano’s main source of inspiration, the book reveals a rich history of debate on precisely the relational (...) nature of intentionality. It shows that Brentano and the Aristotelian authors from which he drew not only addressed the question whether intentionality is a relation, but also devoted extensive discussions to what kind of relation it is, if any. The book aims to show that Brentano distinguishes the intentional relation from two other relations with which it might be confused, namely, causality and reference, which also hold between thoughts and their objects. Intentionality accounts for the aboutness of a thought; causality, by contrast, explains how the thought is generated, and reference, understood as a sort of similarity, occurs when the object towards which the thought is directed exists. Brentano claims to find some anticipation of his views in Aristotle. This book argues that, whether or not Brentano’s interpretation of Aristotle is correct, his claim is true of the Aristotelian tradition as a whole, since followers of Aristotle more or less explicitly made some or all of Brentano’s distinctions. This is demonstrated through examination of some major figures of the Aristotelian tradition (broadly understood), including Alexander of Aphrodisias, the Neoplatonic commentators, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Francisco Suárez. This book combines a longue durée approach – focusing on the long-term evolution of philosophical concepts rather than restricting itself to a specific author or period – with systematic analysis in the history of philosophy. By studying Brentano and the Aristotelian authors with theoretical sensitivity, it also aims to contribute to our understanding of intentionality and cognate features of the mind. (shrink)

Developmental processes in complex animals are directed by a hardwired genomic regulatory code, the ultimate function of which is to set up a progression of transcriptional regulatory states in space and time. The code specifies the gene regulatory networks (GRNs) that underlie all major developmental events. Models of GRNs are required for analysis, for experimental manipulation and, most fundamentally, for comprehension of how GRNs work. To model GRNs requires knowledge of both their overall structure, which depends upon linkage amongst regulatory (...) genes, and the modular building blocks of which GRNs are heirarchically constructed. The building blocks consist of basic transcriptional control processes executed by one or a few functionally linked genes. We show how the functions of several such building blocks can be considered in mathematical terms, and discuss resolution of GRNs by both “top down” and “bottom up” approaches. BioEssays 24:1118–1129, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In the famous Appendix to paragraphs 11 and 20 of his 5th Logical Investigation, Husserl criticizes the concept of ‘immanent object’ defended by Brentano and his pupils. Husserl holds that intentional objects, even non-existent ones, are ‘transcendent’. Yet long before Husserl’s criticism, Brentano and his pupils, in their theories of intentionality, besides immanent objects also took into account transcendent ones, in a similar way to Husserl, since such transcendent objects were not necessarily objects that exist. The ‘immanent object’ (immanenter Gegenstand) (...) was also called ‘presented-thing as presented’ (Vorgestelltes als Vorgestelltes), whereas the ‘transcendent object’ was called ‘object tout court’ (Gegenstand schlechtweg) or ‘presented-thing tout court’ (Vorgestelltes schlechtweg). Even if it is in Marty that one finds the clearest distinction between these two kinds of objects, other pupils of Brentano, and Brentano himself, made similar distinctions. Despite its importance, this point has been neglected in the Brentanian literature. In the first part of this article, I present the way in which immanent and transcendent objects have been distinguished in the School of Brentano. In the second part of the article, I present some problems linked to the distinction of two objects for every mental act, an immanent and a transcendent one; these problems could explain the abandonment of the notion of ‘immanent object’ by many philosophers of the Brentanian tradition. I conclude with some remarks on the distinction between content and object in the School of Brentano. (shrink)

Emotions play vital roles in our psychology and our lives. They also often form the basis of our evaluative beliefs. On some views, emotions, like perceptions, justify the beliefs to which they give rise. It has, however, been claimed that, unlike perceptions, emotions are merely proxies for the genuine reasons that are constituted by their cognitive bases. In this paper, I argue that this objection arises from the failure to notice the difference between the notions of ‘reasons there are’ and (...) ‘possessed reasons’. After developing an account of what it is to possess a reason, it will be argued that emotions do constitute genuine reasons for the evaluative beliefs that result from them. To support this claim, a distinction is made between thinner and thicker descriptions of the same event, where a thinner description may be in terms of the emotional response, whereas a thicker description may be in terms of possessing a normative reason to hold a belief or to act. (shrink)

Beliefs can be evaluated from a number of perspectives. Epistemic evaluation involves epistemic standards and appropriate epistemic goals. On a truthconducive account of epistemic justification, a justified belief is one that serves the goal of believing truths and avoiding falsehoods. Beliefs are also prompted by nonepistemic reasons. This raises the question of whether, say, the pragmatic benefits of a belief are able to rationalize it. In this paper, after criticizing certain responses to this question, I shall argue that, as far (...) as beliefs are concerned, justification has an essentially epistemic character. This conclusion is then qualified by considering the conditions under which pragmatic consequences of a belief can be epistemically relevant. (shrink)

Fronto-parietal activity has been frequently observed in fMRI and PET studies of attention, working memory, and episodic memory retrieval. Several recent fMRI studies have also reported fronto-parietal activity during conscious visual perception. A major goal of this review was to assess the degree of anatomical overlap among activation patterns associated with these four functions. A second goal was to shed light on the possible cognitive relationship of processes that relate to common brain activity across functions. For all reviewed functions we (...) observed a consistent and overlapping pattern of brain activity. The overlap was most pronounced for the bilateral parietal cortex , and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex . The common fronto-parietal activity will be discussed in terms of processes related to integration of distributed representations in the brain. (shrink)

While recent debates over content externalism have been mainly concerned with whether it undermines the traditional thesis of privileged self‐knowledge, little attention has been paid to what bearing content externalism has on such important controversies as the internalism/externalism debate in epistemology. With a few exceptions, the question has either been treated as a side issue in discussions concerning the implications of content externalism, or has been dealt with in a cursory way in debates over the internalism/externalism distinction in justification theory. (...) In this paper, I begin by considering some of the arguments that have sought to address the question, focusing mainly on Boghossian's pioneering attempt in bringing the issue to the fore.1 It will be argued that Boghossian's attempt to exploit the alleged non‐inferentiality of self‐knowledge to show that content externalism and justification internalism are incompatible fails.In the course of this examination, I consider and reject as inadequate some recent responses to Boghossian's argument . I then turn to evaluating Chase's own proposed argument to show how content externalism can be brought to bear on the internalism/externalism debate in epistemology, and find it wanting. Finally, having discussed BonJour's terse remarks in this connection,3 I set out to present, what I take to be, the strongest argument for the incompatibility of content externalism and justification internalism while highlighting the controversial character of one of its main premises. Let us, however, begin by drawing the contours of the debate. (shrink)

One of the earliest and most‐fundamental pattern‐ formation events in embryonic development is endoderm and mesoderm specification. In sea urchin embryos, this process begins with blimp1 and wnt8 gene expression at the vegetal pole as soon as embryonic transcription begins. Shortly afterwards, wnt8/blimp1 expression spreads to the adjacent ring of mesoderm progenitor cells and is extinguished in the vegetal‐most cells. A little later, the ring of wnt8/blimp1 activity moves out of the mesoderm progenitors and into the neighboring endoderm cells. Remarkably, (...) this moving ring of gene expression has now been shown to be controlled entirely by transcriptional cis‐regulatory logic.1. BioEssays 30:412–417, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The method of phenomenal contrast (in perception) invokes the phenomenal character of perceptual experience as a means to discover its contents. The method implicitly takes for granted that ‘what it is like’ to have a perceptual experience e is the same as ‘what it is like’ to imagine or recall it; accordingly, in its various proposed implementations, the method treats imaginations and/or recollections as interchangeable with real experiences. The method thus always contrasts a pair of experiences, at least one of (...) which is imagined or remembered rather than occurrent. Surveying all eighteen forms of implementing the method, I argue that in all of the proposed pairings, the substitution of imagination or recollection for perceptual experience in the method, is either inconceivable or impermissible. I identify four reasons why I think imagination cannot be substituted for real experience, and three reasons why recollection cannot be substituted for real experience. If my argument works, there is no form of implementing the method that is useful for discovering the contents of experience, and thus the method is not a well‐functioning tool to study the contents of perception. (shrink)

Recent discussions of externalism about mental content have been dominated by the question whether it undermines the intuitively plausible idea that we have knowledge of the contents of our thoughts. In this article I focus on one main line of reasoning (the so-called 'slow switching argument') for the thesis that externalism and self-knowledge are incompatible. After criticizing a number of influential responses to the argument, I set out to explain why it fails. It will be claimed that the argument trades (...) on an ambiguity, and that only by incorporating certain controversial assumptions does it stand a chance of establishing its conclusion. Finally, drawing on an analogy with Benacerraf's challenge to Platonism, I shall offer some reasons as to why the slow switching argument fails to reveal the real source of tension between externalism and privileged self-knowledge. (shrink)

Kant’s Antinomy of Teleological Judgment is unique in offering two pairs of oppositions, one of regulative maxims, and the other of constitutive principles. Here I defend a traditional interpretation of the antinomy— as proposed, for example, by Stadler (1874), Adickes (1925), and Cassirer (1921)—that the antinomy consists in an opposition between constitutive principles, and is resolved by pointing out their legitimate status as merely regulative maxims. I argue against recent interpretations—for example, in McLaughlin (1990), Allison (1991), and Watkins (2009)—which treat (...) the regulative pair as itself antinomial. I then address several textual worries having to do with reconciling the traditional interpretation within the overall structure of the Dialectic of Teleological Judgment that have led these scholars to espouse the new view. Throughout the paper, I emphasize hitherto neglected parallels with Kant’s treatment of the antinomy of taste, which sheds light on understanding the antinomy of teleology. (shrink)

Abstract: Moore's sentences of the form "P & ∼I believe that P" and "P & I believe that ∼P" are thought to be paradoxical because they cannot be properly asserted despite being possibly true. Solutions to the paradox usually explain the oddity of such sentences in terms of phenomena as diverse as the pragmatics of speech acts, nature of belief or justification. In this paper I shall argue that despite their seemingly different approaches to the problem, there is a single (...) strategy that underlies all such proposals. Having criticized these suggestions, I shall defend my own solution according to which Moorean sentences are defective not because of some associated logical impropriety but because their assertion violates a certain interpretive constraint, viz., the principle of charity, on an adequate theory of meaning. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉMalgré son usage très répandu, l'inférence à la meilleure explication a souvent été considérée avec suspicion par des théoriciens d'allégeances diverses. On lui a reproché à maintes reprises defaire reposer son recours à la simplicité et ses autres vertus explicatives sur des présuppositions métaphysiques douteuses. J'aborde ces questions, dans le présent article, dans le contexte d'une discussion large de l'usage de l'IME pour fonder notre croyance au monde extérieur. Distinguant entre la légitimité et l'efficacité de l'IME, je soutiendrai qu'elle constitue (...) bien une forme légitime d'inférence, mais que son efficacité dépend de la fonction de la théorie de la connaissance qui la supporte. (shrink)

It has been argued that just as, say, prejudice or wishful thinking can generate ill-founded beliefs, the same is true of experiences. The idea is that the etiology of cognitively penetrated experiences can downgrade their justificatory force. This view, known as the Downgrade Principle, seems to be compatible with both internalist and externalist conceptions of epistemic justification. An assessment of the credentials of the Downgrade Principle is particularly important in view of the fact that not all cases of cognitive penetration (...) are epistemically malignant. There are good and bad cases of cognitive penetration. I argue that a proper assessment of the Downgrade Principle will have to address two fundamental questions. I identify two general ways of responding to these questions and show why they fail. It will be maintained that an explanationist conception of justification has a better chance of accounting for the distinction between good and bad cases of cognitive penetration. The Downgrade Principle is then discussed in the context of the extended cognition thesis. In particular, I look at the sensorimotor theory of perception, as a way of broadening the scope of to include conscious perceptual experience, that sees senses as ways of exploring the environment mediated by different patterns of sensorimotor contingency. I suggest possible ways in which one could distinguish between good and bad cases of cognitive penetration on such a view compatible with the explanationist view of epistemic justification. (shrink)

This paper examines the account of ordinary language semantics developed by Franz Brentano and his pupil Anton Marty. Long before the interest in ordinary language in the analytic tradition, Brentanian philosophers were exploring our everyday use of words, as opposed to the scientific use of language. Brentano and Marty were especially interested in the semantics of (common) names in ordinary language. They claimed that these names are vague, and that this is due to the structure of the concepts that constitute (...) their meaning: concepts expressed by such names are themselves vague, based on typicality, and have more or less similar items within their extension. After presenting the views of Brentano and Marty, this paper compares them to later accounts of meaning and concepts, notably Wittgenstein’s theory of family resemblances and the prototype theory of concepts, and emphasizes the originality of the Brentanian position. (shrink)

Brentanians defend the view that there are distinct types of object, but that this does not entail the admission of different modes of being. The most general distinction among objects is the one between realia, which are causally efficacious, and irrealia, which are causally inert. As for being, which is equated with existence, it is understood in terms of “correct acknowledgeability.” This view was defended for some time by Brentano himself and then by his student Anton Marty. Their position is (...) opposed to Bolzanian, Husserlian, and Meinongian ontologies, in which a distinction in the (higher) types of object implies a distinction in their mode of being. These Austro-German discussions anticipate much of the contemporary debate between Quineans, who accept only differences in objects, and neo-Meinongians or other ontological pluralists, who accept different modes of being. My paper first presents the Brentanian view in detail and then evaluates its philosophical significance. (shrink)

Corporate activities conducted under the banner of creating shared value (CSV) have gained popularity over the last decade, and some MNCs have espoused that CSV has entered the heart of their practices. There has, however, been criticism about the lack of a standard definition of CSV. The purpose of the current study was to develop a working definition of CSV by identifying distinctions between CSV and various conceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR). We conducted 26 semi-structured interviews with managers and (...) stakeholder representatives of five multinational corporations (MNCs) and three small and medium enterprises (SMEs), all headquartered or rooted in Asia. These firms had received public recognition for their CSV engagement. We compared and contrasted interviewees’ conceptions and descriptions of CSV and traditional CSR (philanthropy) and mapped these against Carroll’s four-layer model of responsible corporate management. Interviewees tended to frame CSV as a sustainable business model that generates social and economic value simultaneously. Traditional CSR was characterized as “giving back” some of the surplus from economic returns. In addition, interviewees described examples of strategic CSR, which involved pump-priming interventions for empowering and enabling stakeholders of the CSV practices of the focal firm to participate in the associated wealth and well-being co-creation. Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, creating shared value, qualitative, Asia. (shrink)

Epistemic reasons are meant to provide justification for beliefs. In this paper, I will be concerned with the requirements that have to be met if reasons are to discharge this function. It is widely recognized, however, that only possessed reasons can justify beliefs and actions. But what are the conditions that have to be satisfied in order for one to possess reasons? I shall begin by motivating a particular condition, namely, the ‘treating’ requirement that has been deemed to be necessary (...) for possessing reasons. In Sect. 1, I explain and criticize some of the existing accounts of the treating requirement for reason-possession. In Sect. 2, I will suggest a dispositional account of reason-possession in which the treating condition features prominently. Section 3 will deal with the some of the consequences of this account for such issues as the structure of epistemic defeat, the immediacy of perceptual justification and logical knowledge. (shrink)

In the spirit of Von Neumann and Morgenstern (Theory of games and economic behavior, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1944), we introduce a notion of network stability. We study the structure of stable economic networks and their associated stable payoff allocations by analyzing the conditions under which complete networks and star networks (both with desirable property of inclusiveness) are stable. We also address conditions for existence and uniqueness of stable set of networks.

In recent years a new discussion on the nature of philosophical expertise has emerged: whether philosophers possess a special kind of expertise, what such expertise would entail, how to measure it, and related concerns. The aim of the present article is to clarify certain related points across these debates in the hope of paving a clearer path forward, by addressing the following. (1) The expertise defense, which seems central to many discussions on methodology and expertise, has been misconstrued at times. (...) (2) Questions of expertise and methodology could be separated more clearly. (3) The study of expertise may be important in its own right; however, there may be good reasons to give priority to methodological concerns. (4) Finally, when viewed in light of methodological concerns, a new project emerges when engaging with recent contributions to the expertise debate. The present article attempts a brief outline of this project. (shrink)

The legal-ethical dynamism in Islamic law which allows it to respond to the challenges of modernity is said to reside in the institution of ijtihād (independent legal thinking and hermeneutics). However, jurists like Mohsen Kadivar and Ayatollah Faḍlalla have argued that the “traditional ijtihād” paradigm has reached its limits of flexibility as it allows for only minor adaptations and lacks a rigorous methodology because of its reliance on vague and highly subjective juridical devices such as public welfare (maṣlaḥa), imperative necessity (...) (ḍarūra), emergency (iḍtirār), need (ḥāja), averting difficulty (‘usr) and distress (ḥaraj), hardship (mashaqqa), and harm (ḍarar) without interrogating the fundamentals (uṣūl) of ijtihād. In contrast, in the “foundational ijtihād” model theology, ethics, intellect, epistemology, linguistics, hermeneutics, modern sciences, history, cosmology, anthropology, and the sources of Islamic legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh) interact with one another to obtain resolutions that are just and non-discriminatory. (shrink)

We often decide whether a state of affairs is possible by trying to mentally depict a scenario where the state in question obtains . These mental acts seem to provide us with an epistemic route to the space of possibilities. The problem this raises is whether conceivability judgments provide justification-conferring grounds for the ensuing possibility-claims . Although the question has a long history, contemporary interest in it was, to a large extent, prompted by Kripke's utilization of modal intuitions in the (...) course of propounding certain influential theses in the philosophy of language and mind. The interest has been given a further boost by the recent two-dimensional approach to the Kripkean framework. In this paper, I begin by providing a detailed examination of a most recent attempt to defend the thesis and argue that it is unsuccessful. This is followed by presenting my own gloss on Kripke's explanation of the illusions of contingency and I close by raising a general problem intended to undermine the prospects for a successful defense of the thesis. (shrink)

The unsettling fear of COVID-19 infections has caused a new trend in consumer behavior in the food and beverage industry. The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has shifted consumers’ preferences from eat-in to online delivery. This research aims to measure the impact of consumers’ motivation to protect themselves from contracting COVID-19, which explains why people switch from eat-in to online food delivery. We adopted the theory of protection motivation to explain consumer switching behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study investigated the (...) mediating effect of switching intention on the relationship between vulnerability, altruistic fear, anticipated regret, and switching behavior. Simultaneously, we examined the role of brand awareness as a moderator of behavioral choices of consumers switching from eat-in to online delivery. We collected data from 681 eatery consumers in Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia, using scenario-based survey questionnaires. Then, the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. This new generation analysis was conducted using the analysis of moment structure and the statistical package for social science. The results indicated that consumer vulnerability, altruistic fear, and anticipated regret of COVID-19 increased consumers’ propensity to shift from eat-in to online food delivery. Allegedly, consumer behavioral control and intention of switching toward online delivery were pointedly affected by switching behavior. The results indicated that consumer vulnerability, altruistic fear, and anticipated regret of COVID-19 increased the shifting of restaurant dine-in patterns and made the intention to switch to online delivery. Consumers’ alleged behavioral control and their intention of switching toward online delivery were pointedly affected by switching behavior. We also found that brand awareness moderately affects switching behavior toward restaurant settings. The present research contributes to developing the consumer behavior model of switching from eat-in to online delivery. This study also provides eatery customers and the business community with a safer and healthier proposition of shifting to online food delivery during the pandemic. (shrink)

This paper presents the defense by the medieval philosopher Peter Auriol of the thesis that sounds and odors have no real, mind-independent being, but exist only as mental correlates of acts of hearing and smelling. Auriol does not see this as an idiosyncratic position, as he claims to be following not only Aristotle, but also Averroes on the issue. Since it is often thought that non-realism about sensible qualities was “inconceivable” for medieval authors and was made possible only by the (...) early modern scientific revolution led by Galileo, it is crucial to bring Auriol’s position to the fore. Auriol’s view, and its alleged roots in Arabic philosophy, invites us to reassess our standard narrative in the history of philosophy and science. (shrink)

►JOHN CORCORAN AND IDRIS SAMAWI HAMID, Two-method errors: having it both ways. Philosophy, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260-4150, USA E-mail: [email protected] Philosophy, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1781 USA E-mail: [email protected] Where two methods produce similar results, mixing the two sometimes creates errors we call two-method errors, TMEs: in style, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, implicature, logic, or action. This lecture analyzes examples found in technical and in non-technical contexts. One can say “Abe knows whether Ben draws” in two (...) other ways: ‘Abe knows whether or not Ben draws’ or ‘Abe knows whether Ben draws or not’. But a stylistic TME occurs in ‘Abe knows whether or not Ben draws or not’. One can say “Abe knows how Ben looks” using ‘Abe knows what Ben looks like’. But syntactical TMEs are in ‘Abe knows what Ben looks’ and in ‘Abe knows how Ben looks like’. One can deny that Abe knows Ben by prefixing ‘It isn’t that’ or by interpolating ‘doesn’t’. But a pragmatic TME occurs in trying to deny that Abe knows Ben by using ‘It isn’t that Abe doesn’t know Ben’. There are several standard ways of defining truth using sequences. Quine’s discussions in the 1970 first printing of Philosophy of logic [3] and in previous lectures were vitiated by mixing two [1, p. 98]. The logical TME in [3], which eluded Quine’s colleagues, was corrected in the 1978 sixth printing [2]. But Quine never explicitly acknowledged, described, or even mentioned the error. This lecture presents and analyses two-method errors in the logic literature. [1] JOHN CORCORAN, Review of Quine’s 1970 Philosophy of Logic. In Philosophy of Science, vol. 39 (1972), pp. 97–99. [2] JOHN CORCORAN, Review of sixth printing of Quine’s 1970 Philosophy of Logic. In Mathematical Reviews MR0469684 (1979): 57 #9465. [3] WILLARD VAN ORMAN QUINE, Philosophy of logic, Harvard, 1970/1986. (shrink)

It is generally thought that knowledge is incompatible with epistemic luck as the post‐Gettier literature makes it abundantly clear. Examples are produced where although a belief is true and justified, it nevertheless falls short of being an instance of knowledge because of the intrusion of luck. Knowledge is regarded as being distinct from lucky guesses. It is, nevertheless, acknowledged by a number of epistemologists that some kind of luck is in fact an inevitable component of the process of knowledge acquisition. (...) In this paper I wish to delineate varieties of epistemic luck in the light of the Gettier literature, and specify the kind that should be tolerated in the process of acquiring knowledge. To do this, it would be best to start by examining some of the recent attempts at analyzing the concept of luck and its bearing on the concept of knowledge. (shrink)