The nature of educational philosophy.--Democracy as a social philosophy.--Aspects of a reconstructed educational policy.--References.

Galut is Hebrew for exile. Since the dispersion of the Jews from Palestine, the Jewish people have considered exile to be a basic tenet of their historical existence. The author, an eminent Palestinian historian, introduces students of Judaic history to the outstanding Jewish spokesmen who throughout the centuries have reflected on their people's condition in exile, among them Judah ha-Levi, Maimonides, Isaac Abravanel, Baruch Spinoza and others. First published in Hebrew, this edition is a reprint of the 1947 Schocken (...) Press English translation, with a new Introduction by Jacob Neusner. (shrink)

This paper discusses the logical space of alternative conceptual engineering projects, with a specific focus on (1) the processes, (2) the targets and goals, and (3) the methods of such projects. We present an overview of how these three aspects interact in the contemporary literature and discuss those alternative projects that have yet to be explored based on our suggested typology. We show how choices about each element in a conceptual engineering project constrain the possibilities for the others, thereby giving (...) rise to distinct groupings of possible projects under the banner of conceptual engineering. We conclude with a critical reflection on the potential ethical issues that arise as a result of effectively putting conceptual engineering into practice. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering means to provide a method to assess and improve our concepts working as cognitive devices. But conceptual engineering still lacks an account of what concepts are (as cognitive devices) and of what engineering is (in the case of cognition). And without such prior understanding of its subject matter, or so it is claimed here, conceptual engineering is bound to remain useless, merely operating as a piecemeal approach, with no overall grip on its target domain. The purpose of this (...) programmatic paper is to overcome this knowledge gap by providing some guidelines for developing the theories of concepts and of cognition that will ground the systematic unified framework needed to effectively implement conceptual engineering as a widely applicable method for the cognitive optimization of our conceptual devices. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is the method for assessing and improving our concepts. Some have recently claimed that the implementation of such method in the form of ameliorative projects is truth-driven and should thus be epistemically constrained, ultimately at least (Simion 2018; cf. Podosky 2018). This paper challenges that claim on the assumption of a social constructionist analysis of ideologies, and provides an alternative, pragmatic and cognitive framework for determining the legitimacy of ameliorative conceptual projects overall. The upshot is that one should (...) not ameliorate for the sake of truth or knowledge, in the case of ideologies—at least, not primarily. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is the method for assessing and improving our representational devices. On its ‘broad-spectrum’ version, it is expected to be appropriately applicable to any of our representation-involving cognitive activities, with major consequences for our whole cognitive life. This paper is about the theoretical foundations of conceptual engineering thus characterised. With a view to ensuring the actionability of conceptual engineering as a broad-spectrum method, it addresses the issue of how best to construe the subject matter of conceptual engineering and successively (...) defends the theses that conceptual engineering should be: (i) About concepts, (ii) psychologically theorised, (iii) as multiply realised functional kinds. Thereby, I claim to theoretically secure and justify the maximum scope, flexibility, and impact for the method of conceptual engineering on our representational devices in our whole cognitive life—in other words, a broad-spectrum version of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

The claim that similarity plays a role in representation has been philosophically discredited. Psychologists, however, routinely analyse the success of mental representations for guiding behaviour in terms of a similarity between representation and the world. I provide a foundation for this practice by developing a philosophically responsible account of the relationship between similarity and representation in natural systems. I analyse similarity in terms of the existence of a suitable homomorphism between two structures. The key insight is that by restricting attention (...) to only those homomorphisms induced by causal processes, we can solve two philosophical problems with a single assumption. First, causal structure provides an adequate source for the bias required to ensure the similarity relation is non-trivial; second, it provides an adequate source for the directionality required to move from similarity to representation. I defend this account against objections by Goodman and van Fraassen and demonstrate that it is indeed the account of similarity’s role in representation assumed by psychological practice. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is the method for assessing and improving our representational devices. On its ‘broad‐spectrum’ version, it is expected to be appropriately applicable to any of our representation‐involving cognitive activities, with major consequences for our whole cognitive life. This paper is about the theoretical foundations of conceptual engineering thus characterised. With a view to ensuring the actionability of conceptual engineering as a broad‐spectrum method, it addresses the issue of how best to construe the subject matter of conceptual engineering and successively (...) defends the theses that conceptual engineering should be: (i) About concepts, (ii) psychologically theorised, (iii) as multiply realised functional kinds. Thereby, I claim to theoretically secure and justify the maximum scope, flexibility, and impact for the method of conceptual engineering on our representational devices in our whole cognitive life—in other words, a broad‐spectrum version of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Ratio, Volume 34, Issue 4, Page 286-302, December 2021.

Several strands of contemporary cognitive science and its philosophy have emerged in recent decades that emphasize the role of action in cognition, resting their explanations on the embodiment of cognitive agents, and their embedding in richly structured environments. Despite their growing influence, many foundational questions remain unresolved or underexplored for this cluster of proposals, especially questions of how they can be extended beyond straightforwardly visuomotor cognitive capacities, and what constraints the commitment of embodiment places on the ontology of explanations. This (...) special issue aims to contribute to these foundational debates by drawing on important precursors to embodied cognition in mid-twentieth century gestalt psychology, its immediate successor ecological psychology, and their dialectical counterpart, phenomenology. Gestalt psychologists and phenomenologists wrestled with many of the same foundational questions that still haunt us today, in a manner that seems refreshing in hindsight, and poised to contribute constructively to contemporary debate. Looking back on this history reveals deep commonalities across competing embodied approaches, exposing fundamental tensions that remain unresolved, but also paving the way to a more ecumenical and conciliatory embodied cognitive science. (shrink)

Timbre is that property of a sound that distinguishes it other than pitch and loudness, for instance the distinctive sound quality of a violin or flute. While the term is obscure, the concept has played an important, implicit role in recent philosophy of sound. Philosophers have debated whether to identify sounds with properties of waves, events, or objects. Many of the intuitive considerations in this debate apply most clearly to timbre qualities. Two prominent forms of timbre physicalism have emerged: one (...) identifying timbre with the spectral composition of proximal waves; the second identifying timbre with the mechanical vibrations at a sound source. I demonstrate that the first possibility is conceptually unsatisfying, while the second fails to meet the standards of rigor established by the color physicalism literature. One response to these worries might be to adopt a more modest, non-reductive realism about timbre, such as the ecological view of J. J. Gibson. (shrink)

Psychophysics measures the attributes of perceptual experience. The question of whether some of these attributes should be interpreted as more fundamental, or “real,” than others has been answered differently throughout its history. The operationism of Stevens and Boring answers “no,” reacting to the perceived vacuity of earlier debates about fundamentality. The subsequent rise of multidimensional scaling (MDS) implicitly answers “yes” in its insistence that psychophysical data be represented in spaces of low dimensionality. I argue the return of fundamentality follows from (...) a trend toward increasing epistemic humility. Operationism exhibited a kind of hubris in the constitutive role it assigned to the experimenter’s presuppositions that is abandoned by the algorithmic methods of MDS. This broad epistemic trend is illustrated by following the trajectory of research on a particular candidate attribute: tonal volume. (shrink)

Early psychophysical methods as codified by Fechner motivate the development of quantitative theories of subjective experience. The basic insight is that just noticeable differences between experiences can serve as units for measuring a sensory domain. However, the methods described by Fechner tacitly assume that the experiences being investigated can be linearly ordered. This assumption is not true for all sensory domains; for example, there is no trivial linear order over all possible color sensations. This paper discusses key developments in the (...) history of psychophysical methods for measuring color experience. In particular, a clear distinction between topological and metrical structure allowed Helmholtz to use opponent colors as a standard for measuring the gross structure of color space. Once this gross structure had been determined, lines through color space could be defined and Fechner-style methods employed for determining local structure. Extensions of these methods due to Wright, MacAdam, and others provide detailed evidence for the degree of agreement in the qualities of color experience across individuals. This allows a precise statement of the evidential support for the claim that your experience of color and mine are the same. (shrink)

How can mathematical models which represent the causal structure of the world incompletely or incorrectly have any scientific value? I argue that this apparent puzzle is an artifact of a realist emphasis on representation in the philosophy of modeling. I offer an alternative, pragmatic methodology of modeling, inspired by classic papers by modelers themselves. The crux of the view is that models developed for purposes other than explanation may be justified without reference to their representational properties.

Recent philosophy of measurement has emphasized the existence of both diachronic and synchronic “loops,” or feedback processes, in the epistemic achievements of measurement. A widespread response has been to conclude that measurement outcomes do not convey interest-independent facts about the world, and that only a coherentist epistemology of measurement is viable. In contrast, I argue that a form of measurement realism is consistent with these results. The insight is that antecedent structure in measuring spaces constrains our empirical procedures such that (...) successful measurement conveys a limited, but veridical knowledge of “fixed points,” or stable, interest- independent features of the world. (shrink)

The Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies has been and continues to be enormously influential in the physiology, psychology, and philosophy of perception. In simple terms, the Doctrine states that we directly perceive in the first instance the activity of our nerves, rather than properties in the external world. The canonical early statement of the Doctrine by the physiologist Johannes Peter Müller had profound influence on both the phi- losophy and psychology of the 19th and early 20th centuries, especially as reformulated (...) and transmitted by Müller’s student Helmholtz. A common assumption of historical and ongoing debate about the Doctrine has been its supposedly idealist or skeptical implications. What is not commonly recognized is that Müller himself ad- vanced a realist interpretation along lines that would be recognized today as a form of epistemic structural realism. This paper analyzes Müller’s structuralist epistemology in detail and reconstructs his articulation and defense of the Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies in its canonical form. Part II argues for the continued im- portance of the Doctrine and its structuralist interpretation for contemporary psychology, philosophy of per- ception, and history of philosophy of science. (shrink)

Au terme des Prolégomènes, Husserl formule son idée de la logique pure en la structurant sur deux niveaux: l'un, supérieur, de la logique formelle fondé transcendantalement et d'un point de vue épistémologique par l'autre, inférieur, d'une morphologie des catégories. Seul le second de ces deux niveaux est traité dans les Recherches logiques, tandis que les travaux théoriques en logique formelle menés par Husserl à la même époque en paraissent plutôt indépendants. Cet article est consacré à ces travaux tels que recueillis (...) dans les appendices VI-X du volume 12 des Husserliana. Mettant en évidence la théorie de la signification qui les sous-tend par le biais d'une analyse de la question dite de l'extension des systèmes d'axiomes et de sa résolution au moyen d'une notion de complétude, son objectif est d'expliciter les modalités de l'intégration de la logique formelle dans l'idée husserlienne de la logique pure au tournant du xx siècle.When formulating his idea of pure logic in the Prole.. (shrink)

This essay argues that post-analytic philosophy finds its origins not only in an invented tradition—that of ‘analytic philosophy’—but also in an invented dilemma: namely, the response to the allegedly overweening dominance of ‘positivism’ in American philosophy. I begin by surveying the problems with the folk wisdom about positivism and analytic philosophy. This pervasive narrative locates the emergence of post-analytic philosophy after a period of hegemony for logical positivism and cognate philosophical subfields. Taking seriously evidence indicating a distinct overlap in the (...) construction of the analytic and post-analytic traditions, I return to the founding moment of American analytic philosophy in the years immediately following World War II. What we see, I suggest, is not a reaction against a clearly defined and powerful logical positivist mainstream, but the careful, piecewise co-ordination of what would become characteristic ‘analytic’ modes of argument, problematics, and tool kits. Willard Van Orman Quine played a central role in this process, and for this reason I focus on the circumstances in which his field-defining 1951 article, ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’ was written and received. I conclude with the claim that both analytic and post-analytic philosophers relied on a peculiar image of the failure of logical positivism, and of the opportunities that failure presented. (shrink)

This paper examines the implications of the Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies for contemporary philosophy and psychology. Part I analyzed Johannes Peter Muller’s canonical formulation of the Doctrine, arguing that it follows from empirical results combined with methodological principles. Here, I argue that these methodological principles remain valid in psychology today, consequently, any naturalistic philosophy of perception must accept the Doctrine’s skeptical conclusion, that the qualities of our perceptual experience are not determined by, and thus do not reveal the nature (...) of, their causes in the world. Nevertheless, this does not mean that we must be global skeptics; rather, I argue that contemporary epistemology of perception should embrace Muller’s own response to the Doctrine: epistemic structural realism. As articulated by Muller’s student, Helmholtz, structural realism follows from the Doctrine once we recognize that active exploration constitutes part of the mechanism that determines perceptual experience, a view congenial to contemporary theories of embodied perception in cognitive science. Structural realists in philosophy of science should likewise heed the lessons of the Doctrine, as it played a critical part in the early history of their view, and may still serve a constructive role as exemplar today. (shrink)

As more young people feel safe to outwardly identify as transgender or gender expansive (TGE), meaning that their gender identity does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth, an increasing number of youth who identify as TGE seek gender-affirming medical care (GAMC). GAMC raises a number of ethical questions, such as the capacity of a minor to assent or consent, the role of parents or legal guardians in decisions about treatment, and implications for equitable access to care (...) when differing parental or custodial viewpoints are present. These questions are further complicated by the difficulties in explaining the limits of long-term research in GAMC, with regard to the preservation of fertility, for example. We present two de-identified composite case studies to highlight dilemmas that may arise and offer recommendations to better support patient- and family-centered decision making for GAMC. These include employing a multidisciplinUniverary shared decision-making approach, disentangling informed consent and assent from chronological age, developing a consistent approach to the assessment of decisional capacity, and developing age-appropriate informational materials. (shrink)

Among the topics discussed in Thomas Kuhn'sThe Structure of Scientific Revolutions, those of education, training, and pedagogy are apt to seem the least compelling. Certainly, the earliest debates aboutStructurefocused on other, more controversial, matters: incommensurability, meaning change, the rationality of theory choice, normal science—the list goes on. Over the past two decades, however, a growing concern among historians and sociologists of science with the nature of scientific apprenticeship has stimulated greater appreciation of the importance of questions of teaching and learning (...) to the philosophical position sketched inStructure. This paper seeks to develop further our understanding of these issues as they bear on Kuhn's theory of science. (shrink)

Intentionality may be dealt with in two different ways: either ontologically, as an ordinary relation to some extraordinary objects, or epistemologically, as an extraordinary relation to some ordinary objects. This paper endorses the epistemological view in order to provide a model of semiotic intentionality defined as the meaning-and-cognizing process that constitutes to power of the mind to be about something on the basis of a semiotic system. After a short introduction that presents the components of semiotic intentionality (viz. sign, act, (...) content, referent) along with their division into an intending and a fulfilling side (Sect. 1), the first main part of the paper analyzes semiotic intentionality at its primary level (a.k.a. 'concrete intentionality') as a real and subjective relation between meaning-intending and meaning-fulfilling acts grounded in the manipulation of some semiotic system (Sect. 2). Then, building on such concrete intentionality, the second main part of the paper analyzes semiotic intentionality at its secondary level (a.k.a. 'abstract intentionality') as an ideal and objective relation between intentional and fulfillment contents, which in turn: (i) proceed from an abstraction performed on the intending and fulfilling acts, respectively, and (ii) retroactively categorize the intending and fulfilling acts, respectively (Sect. 3). Finally, from this combination of an act-based conception of content with a presentationalist account of intentionality, the conclusion of this paper produces the intended model of semiotic intentionality in such a way that knowledge and truth are then respectively defined in it as the subjective correspondence between the two acts of concrete intentionality and as the objective correspondence between the two contents of abstract intentionality (Sect. 4). (shrink)

BackgroundCognitive impairments are a core feature in schizophrenia and are linked to poor social functioning. Numerous studies have shown that cognitive remediation can enhance cognitive and functional abilities in patients with this pathology. The underlying mechanism of these behavioral improvements seems to be related to structural and functional changes in the brain. However, studies on neural correlates of such enhancement remain scarce.ObjectivesWe explored the neural correlates of cognitive enhancement following cognitive remediation interventions in schizophrenia and the differential effect between cognitive (...) training and other therapeutic interventions or patients’ usual care.MethodWe searched MEDLINE, PsycInfo, and ScienceDirect databases for studies on cognitive remediation therapy in schizophrenia that used neuroimaging techniques and a randomized design. Search terms included randomized controlled trial, cognitive remediation, cognitive training, rehabilitation, magnetic resonance imaging, po... (shrink)

A question at the intersection of scientific modeling and public choice is how to deal with uncertainty about model predictions. This "high-level" uncertainty is necessarily value-laden, and thus must be treated as irreducibly subjective. Nevertheless, formal methods of uncertainty analysis should still be employed for the purpose of clarifying policy debates. I argue that such debates are best informed by models which integrate objective features with subjective ones. This integrated subjectivism is illustrated with a case study from the literature on (...) monetary policy. The paper concludes with some morals for the use of models in determining climate policy. (shrink)

A “Zanzibar” is an island of measurement values that internally cohere, but are detached from independent contact with reality. One manifestation of Zanzibars is through “bandwagon effects,” the tendency of contemporaneous measurements to agree. Bandwagons illustrate how the otherwise virtuous drive towards coherence can have negative epistemic consequences. I argue that precision is an epistemic virtue that mitigates against bandwagon effects and illustrate this claim with a case study from the history of measurements of c. This precision-first reasoning motivates the (...) practice of blind data analysis in bleeding edge precision measurement, where outcomes can point the way to new physics. (shrink)

The paper includes a series of letters exchanged between the author and the late Professor Feyerabend, concerning the best "method" for military intelligence, as a test case for the role of conceptual frameworks in philosophy of science. The letters deal with issues like: Is it possible to make an intelligence estimate without a conceptual framework? Does such a framework have any 'positive' role? If so, how should a conceptual framework in intelligence be built? What risks lurk within it? Is it (...) possible to indicate methods for intelligence estimates which are 'better' and more 'successful' than others? (shrink)

Typical accounts of imagistic content have focused on the apparent analog character or continuous variability of images. In contrast, I consider the distinctive features of digital images, those composed of finite sets of discrete pixels. A rich source of evidence on digital imagistic content is found in the content-preserving algorithms that resize and reproduce digital images on computer screens and printers. I argue that these algorithms reveal a distinctive structural feature: digital images are always compositional (their parts contribute systematically to (...) overall content), but never inverse compositional (atomic parts may be replaced nonsynonymously without changing content). This indicates a sharp contrast with linguistic representations, which may or may not be compositional, and may or may not be inverse compositional. I argue this result sheds new light on the claim that imagistic content is inherently perspectival. (shrink)

This paper surveys applications of logical methods in the cognitive sciences. Special attention is paid to non-monotonic logics and complexity theory. We argue that these particular tools have been useful in clarifying the debate between symbolic and connectionist models of cognition.

Paul Churchland has recently offered a novel argument for the “objective reality” of color. The strategy he employs to make this argument is an instance of a more general research program for interpreting perceptual content, “domain‐portrayal semantics.” In the first half of the article, I point out some features of color vision that complicate Churchland's conclusion, in particular, the context‐sensitive and inferential nature of color perception. In the second half, I examine and defend the general research program, concluding it is (...) naturalistic in a minimal sense and should be of interest to naturalists and nonnaturalists alike. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)