As embodied theories of cognition are increasingly formalized and tested, care must be taken to make informed assumptions regarding the nature of concepts and representations. In this study, we outline three reasons why one cannot, in effect, represent the same concept twice. First, online perception affects offline representation: Current representational content depends on how ongoing demands direct attention to modality-specific systems. Second, language is a fundamental facilitator of offline representation: Bootstrapping and shortcuts within the computationally cheaper linguistic system continuously modify (...) representational content. Third, time itself is a source of representational change: As the content of underlying concepts shifts with the accumulation of direct and vicarious experience, so too does the content of representations that draw upon these concepts. We discuss the ramifications of these principles for research into both human and synthetic cognitive systems. (shrink)

Previous studies have shown that object properties are processed faster when they follow properties from the same perceptual modality than properties from different modalities. These findings suggest that language activates sensorimotor processes, which, according to those studies, can only be explained by a modal account of cognition. The current paper shows how a statistical linguistic approach of word co-occurrences can also reliably predict the category of perceptual modality a word belongs to (auditory, olfactory–gustatory, visual–haptic), even though the statistical linguistic approach (...) is less precise than the modal approach (auditory, gustatory, haptic, olfactory, visual). Moreover, the statistical linguistic approach is compared with the modal embodied approach in an experiment in which participants verify properties that share or shift modalities. Response times suggest that fast responses can best be explained by the linguistic account, whereas slower responses can best be explained by the embodied account. These results provide further evidence for the theory that conceptual processing is both linguistic and embodied, whereby less precise linguistic processes precede precise simulation processes. (shrink)

Theories of embodied cognition hold that the conceptual system uses perceptual simulations for the purposes of representation. A strong prediction is that perceptual phenomena should emerge in conceptual processing, and, in support, previous research has shown that switching modalities from one trial to the next incurs a processing cost during conceptual tasks. However, to date, such research has been limited by its reliance on the retrieval of familiar concepts. We therefore examined concept creation by asking participants to interpret modality-specific compound (...) phrases (i.e., conceptual combinations). Results show that modality switching costs emerge during the creation of new conceptual entities: People are slower to simulate a novel concept (e.g., auditory jingling onion) when their attention has already been engaged by a different modality in simulating a familiar concept (e.g., visual shiny penny). Furthermore, these costs cannot be accounted for by linguistic factors alone. Rather, our findings support the embodied view that concept creation, as well as retrieval, requires situated perceptual simulation. (shrink)

The human conceptual system comprises simulated information of sensorimotor experience and linguistic distributional information of how words are used in language. Moreover, the linguistic shortcut hypothesis predicts that people will use computationally cheaper linguistic distributional information where it is sufficient to inform a task response. In a pre‐registered category production study, we asked participants to verbally name members of concrete and abstract categories and tested whether performance could be predicted by a novel measure of sensorimotor similarity (based on an 11‐dimensional (...) representation of sensorimotor strength) and linguistic proximity (based on word co‐occurrence derived from a large corpus). As predicted, both measures predicted the order and frequency of category production but, critically, linguistic proximity had an effect above and beyond sensorimotor similarity. A follow‐up study using typicality ratings as an additional predictor found that typicality was often the strongest predictor of category production variables, but it did not subsume sensorimotor and linguistic effects. Finally, we created a novel, fully grounded computational model of conceptual activation during category production, which best approximated typical human performance when conceptual activation was allowed to spread indirectly between concepts, and when candidate category members came from both sensorimotor and linguistic distributional representations. Critically, model performance was indistinguishable from typical human performance. Results support the linguistic shortcut hypothesis in semantic processing and provide strong evidence that both linguistic and grounded representations are inherent to the functioning of the conceptual system. All materials, data, and code are available at https://osf.io/vaq56/. (shrink)

Research into people’s comprehension of novel noun-noun phrases has long neglected the possible influences of prosody during meaning construction. At the same time, work in conceptual combination has disagreed about whether different classes of interpretation emerge from single or multiple processes; for example, whether people use distinct mechanisms when they interpret octopus apartment as property-based (e.g., an apartment with eight rooms) or relation-based (e.g., an apartment where an octopus lives). In two studies, we manipulate the prosodic emphasis patterns of novel (...) noun-noun combinations (placing stress on the modifier noun, the head noun, or dual stress on both nouns) and ask participants to generate an interpretation for the novel phrase. Results show that people are faster to generate property-based interpretations when dual emphasis stresses both nouns equally, with prosody having little effect on the speed of relation-based interpretations. These findings highlight a role for prosody during meaning construction and underline important differences between relation- and property-based interpretations that are difficult to reconcile with unitary process views of conceptual combination. (shrink)

In this review essay, Jeanne Connell examines the influence of pragmatic philosophy on the scholarly works of twentieth‐century literary theorist and English educator Louise Rosenblatt through the lens of a recent collection of her essays originally published between 1936 and 1999. Rosenblatt grounded her transactional theory of literature in pragmatic philosophy, particularly the epistemological constructs of John Dewey. While influential as a pioneer in the early development of reader‐response theory, Rosenblatt’s theory has only recently been given attention by (...) philosophers of education. Making Meaning with Texts: Selected Essays is an important collection of articles and book chapters that highlights the evolution of her thinking in literary theory, pedagogy, and literary criticism. Rosenblatt positioned the construction of meaning in the personal lived‐through quality of the literary experience, making central the generative relation between the text and the reader. Connell argues that the educational relevance of Rosenblatt’s theory for contemporary education is that it provides a powerful critique of classroom approaches that promote shallow readings with little opportunity for critical reflection. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article addresses the question of whether certain experiences that originate in causes other than bereavement are properly termed ‘grief’. To do so, we focus on widespread experiences of grief that have been reported during the Covid-19 pandemic. We consider two potential objections to a more permissive use of the term: grief is, by definition, a response to a death; grief is subject to certain norms that apply only to the case of bereavement. Having shown that these objections are unconvincing, (...) we sketch a positive case for a conception of grief that is not specific to bereavement, by noting some features that grief following bereavement shares with other experiences of loss. (shrink)

A globe-spanning investigation into the Transhumanist movement, considering the tech billionaires, scientific luminaries, and DIY body-hackers attempting to prolong, improve, and ultimately transcend the limits of human life.

In this editorial, we argue that midwives should focus on climate change, a link which has been underexplored.

Can we coherently conceive of an agent whose practical rationality is limited to merely instrumental reasoning? I argue that we cannot. Existing arguments to this effect have focused on what is required in order to have reasons to take means to our ends-or on what is required in order to be bound by the so-called ‘instrumental principle’. By contrast, I argue that consideration of the special kind of concept-use characteristic of instrumental reasoning reveals that a merely instrumentally rational agent would (...) not be so much as able to identify means to ends in the first place. I then elucidate this line of thought by testing it against three different conceptions of merely instrumentally rational agency found in the literature. I conclude by highlighting a risk associated with remaining agnostic concerning the possibility of merely instrumentally rational agents: namely, that we arrive at a false conception of our own capacity to identify means to ends as somehow isolated from our conceptions of the good. (shrink)

Famous for their enigmatic ambiguity, the fragmentary texts of the Presocratic philosopher Heraclitus have puzzled and fascinated readers for over two millennia ...

This research explores the experiences of UK NHS healthcare professionals working with asylum applicants housed in contingency accommodation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a critical understanding of the concept of moral resilience as a theoretical framework, we explore how the difficult circumstances in which they worked were navigated, and the extent to which moral suffering led to moral transformation. Ten staff from a general practice participated in semistructured interviews. Encountering the harms endured by people seeking asylum prior to arrival in (...) the UK and through the UK’s ‘Hostile Environment’ caused healthcare staff moral suffering. They responded to this in several ways, including: (1) feeling grateful for their own fortunes; (2) defining the limitations of their professional obligations; (3) focusing on the rewards of work and (4) going above and beyond usual care. Although moral resilience is reflected in much of the data, some participants described how the work caused ideological transformations and motivated challenges to systems of oppression. We show how current moral resilience theory fails to capture these transformative political and social responses, warning of how, instead, it might encourage healthcare staff to maintain the status quo. We caution against the widespread endorsement of current formulations of moral resilience in contemporary social and political climates, where the hostile and austere systems causing suffering are the result of ideological political decisions. Future work should instead focus on enabling working conditions to support, and developing theory to capture, collective resistance. (shrink)

William James’ celebrated lecture on “The Will to Believe” has kindled spirited controversy since the day it was delivered. In this lively reappraisal of that controversy, Father O’Connell contributes some fresh contentions: that James’ argument should be viewed against his indebtedness to Pascal and Renouvier; that it works primarily to validate our “over-beliefs” ; and most surprising perhaps, that James envisages our “passional nature” as intervening, not after, but before and throughout, our intellectual weighing of the evidence for belief.

Completely revised and updated, this classic introduction to moral theology in the Roman Catholic tradition speak clearly to anyone interested in understanding what it means to live the Christian life. Beginning with a concise definition of the roles of revelation and interpretation in the formation of moral theology, O'Connell explores the concept of a moral person, the shape and dynamics of a moral world, and the implications not only for the individual Christian but for the community as a whole.

Have you lost a loved one? The loss can be inestimable, the grief excruciating. What helped you? Did someone say something comforting? Did someone offer a consolation, which you resented? Have you ever tried to comfort someone with a terminal illness or one who has lost a loved one? Knowing how to help or what to say that is not trite, insincere, or superficial can be difficult. The point of view of a grieving person is quite different from that of (...) those who wish to offer comfort. In a multicultural society such as ours, anticipating the beliefs of the grieving person can be even more difficult. This book explores the perspective of a grieving person. It considers the merits and potential harm of alternative comfort strategies. As a philosophical analysis of grief, it emphasizes an understanding of the beliefs that underlie grief and the usefulness or dangers of emotions. Because grief is so complex and sensitive, a narrow approach runs the risk of alienating the grieving person. The ideas in this book are expressed in a dialogue among three characters. Their discussion is broad and fundamental. Starting from the familiar consolation, “She’s no longer suffering” and the grieving person’s resentment toward the expression, the three friends articulate the value of life and the evils of death. Their discussion enriches their understanding of grief. Many consolations offered to mourners are poor arguments. Even the better ones do their work best in the context of a greater understanding of grief. (shrink)

It is generally accepted that sight—the capacity to see or to have visual experiences—has the power to give us knowledge about things in the environment and some of their properties in a distinctive way. Seeing the goose on the lake puts me in a position to know that it is there and that it has certain properties. And it does this by, when all goes well, presenting us with these features of the goose. One might even think that it is (...) part of what it is to be a perceptual capacity that it has this kind of epistemological power, such that a capacity that lacked this power could not be perceptual. My focus in this essay is the sense of taste—the capacity to taste things or to have taste experiences. It has sometimes been suggested that taste lacks sight-like epistemological power. I argue that taste has epistemological power of the same kind as does sight, but that as a matter of contingent fact, that power often goes unexercised in our contemporary environment. We can know about things by tasting them in the same kind of way as we can know about things by seeing them, but we often do not. I then consider the significance of this conclusion. I suggest that in one way, it matters little, because our primary interest in taste is not epistemic but aesthetic. But, I end by suggesting, it can matter ethically. (shrink)

The nature of moral judgments, and, more specifically, the question of how they relate, on the one hand, to objective reality and, on the other, to subjective experience, are issues that have been central to metaethics from its very beginnings. While these complex and challenging issues have been debated by analytic philosophers for over a century, it is only relatively recently that more interdisciplinary and empirically-oriented approaches to such issues have begun to see light. The present chapter aims to make (...) a contribution of that kind. We will present the results of an empirical – specifically, corpus linguistic – study that offers evidence that moral predicates exhibit hallmarks of subjectivity at the linguistic level, but also, that they differ significantly from paradigmatically subjective predicates. (shrink)

Written by one of the world's preeminent authorities on Kierkegard, this biography is the first to reveal the delicate imbrication of Kierkegard's life and thought. To grasp the importance and influence of Kierkegaard's thought far beyond his native Denmark, it is necessary to trace the many factors that led this gifted but (according to his headmaster) 'exceedingly childish youth' to grapple with traditional philosophical problems and religious themes in a way that later generations would recognize as amounting to a philosophical (...) revolution. Although Kierkegaard's works are widely tapped and cited they are seldom placed in context. Nor is due attention placed to their chronology. However, perhaps more than the work of any other contributor to the Western philosophical tradition, these writings are so closely meshed with the background and details of the author's life that knowledge of this is indispensible to their content. Alastair Hannay solves these problems by following the chronological sequence of events and focusing on the formative stages of his career from the success of his first, pseudonymous work ^Either/Or through to The Sickness Unto Death and Practice in Christianity. This book offers a powerful narrative account which will be of particular interest to philosophers, literary theorists, intellectual historians, and scholars of religious studies as well as any non-specialist looking for an authoritative guide to the life and work of one of the most original and fascinating figures in Western philosophy. Alastair Hannay is Professor Emeritus in the department of philosophy at the University of Oslo. He is the co-editor of The Cambridge Companion of Kierkegaard (1998) and is also translator of several works by Kierkegaard in Penguin Classics. (shrink)

A great thinker once said that "all philosophy is merely footnotes to Plato."Through Plato, Father O'Connell provides us here with an introduction to all philosophy. Designed for beginning students in philosophy, Plato on the Human Paradox examines and confronts human nature and the eternal questions concerning human nature through the dialogues of Plato, focusing on the Apology, Phaedo, Books III-VI of the Republic, Meno, Symposium, and O'Connell presents us here with an introduction to Plato through the philosopher's quest (...) to define "human excellence" or arete in terms of defining what "human being" is body and soul, focusing on Plato's preoccupations with the questions of how and what it means to have a "good life" in relation to or as opposed to a "moral life.". (shrink)

When a chimpanzee stockpiles rocks as weapons or when a frog sends out mating calls, we might easily assume these animals know their own motivations--that they use the same psychological mechanisms that we do. But as Beyond the Brain indicates, this is a dangerous assumption because animals have different evolutionary trajectories, ecological niches, and physical attributes. How do these differences influence animal thinking and behavior? Removing our human-centered spectacles, Louise Barrett investigates the mind and brain and offers an alternative (...) approach for understanding animal and human cognition. Drawing on examples from animal behavior, comparative psychology, robotics, artificial life, developmental psychology, and cognitive science, Barrett provides remarkable new insights into how animals and humans depend on their bodies and environment--not just their brains--to behave intelligently. Barrett begins with an overview of human cognitive adaptations and how these color our views of other species, brains, and minds. Considering when it is worth having a big brain--or indeed having a brain at all--she investigates exactly what brains are good at. Showing that the brain's evolutionary function guides action in the world, she looks at how physical structure contributes to cognitive processes, and she demonstrates how these processes employ materials and resources in specific environments. Arguing that thinking and behavior constitute a property of the whole organism, not just the brain, Beyond the Brain illustrates how the body, brain, and cognition are tied to the wider world. (shrink)

This paper explores possible connections between gender and the willingness to engage in unethical business behavior. Two approaches to gender and ethics are presented: the structural approach and the socialization approach. Data from a sample of 213 business school students reveal that men are more than two times as likely as women to engage in actions regarded as unethical but it is also important to note that relatively few would engage in any of these actions with the exception of buying (...) stock with inside information. Fifty percent of the males were willing to buy stock with insider information. Overall, the results support the gender socialization approach. (shrink)

A person points to a situation, A, and says that A is morally repugnant; A ought to be condemned; we should do something about A. In response, another person says, “Well, what about B? B is analogous to A in that it is equally morally repugnant. If we ought to condemn and do something about A then we should also condemn and do something about B.” This “what about” response is an argumentative strategy, sometimes called “whataboutery” or “whataboutism.” In popular (...) discussion, whataboutery is condemned as a fallacy, in particular an instance of the tu quoque fallacy. I will present an analysis of whataboutery showing that, to the degree that this is a fallacy, it is a red herring. But this argumentative move cannot always be dismissed as fallacious. Sometimes the imputation of fallacious reasoning attempts to cover over political commitments. (shrink)

Among semanticists and philosophers of language, there has been a recent outburst of interest in predicates such as delicious, called predicates of personal taste (PPTs, e.g. Lasersohn 2005). Somewhat surprisingly, the question of whether or how we can distinguish aesthetic predicates from PPTs has hardly been addressed at all in this recent work. It is precisely this question that we address. We investigate linguistic criteria that we argue can be used to delineate the class of specifically aesthetic adjectives. We show (...) that there are, in fact, good motivations for keeping PPTs and aesthetic predicates apart: the semantic structure of the former, but not the latter, entails an experiencer. There are many adjectives whose semantic structure arguably also entails an experiencer, yet which are readily used in expressing aesthetic judgments. Adjectives such as provocative or moving are a case in point, since as adjectives they arguably maintain the experiencer argument from the verb they are derived from. Nevertheless, when we describe, say, a sculpture as provocative, or a theater performance as moving, we clearly make aesthetic judgments. The difficult question, then, is to articulate the relationship between an aesthetic predicate (of which beautiful and ugly are paradigms) and other predicates that just happen to be used in making an aesthetic judgment. Tightly related to this point is the more general question of the relationship between an evaluative predicate and a predicate that occurs in an evaluative judgment. One of our aims is to make some progress in addressing these questions. (shrink)

"Gill's and Ryan's Parmenides is, simply, superb: the Introduction, more than a hundred pages long, is transparently clear, takes the reader meticulously through the arguments, avoids perverseness, and still manages to make sense of the dialogue as a whole; there is a fine selective bibliography; and those parts of the translation I have looked at in detail suggest that it too is very good indeed." --Christopher Rowe, _Phronesis_.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IntroductionWilliam J. ConnellOne of the more unusual works in the corpus of the Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla is the Oratio in principio sui studii, on the relation between Latin letters and the Christian faith. The speech was written and delivered in October 1455, toward the end of Valla’s life, as a lecture to inaugurate the academic year at the University of Rome where he had held the chair in (...) rhetoric since 1450. It was traditional at Rome to hold such an address each year not only to encourage the assembled students and faculty in their studies but also to thank the papacy for its support of the university, the Studium Urbis. For this reason Valla’s speech ends with customary words praising Pope Calixtus III for having increased the stipends of the lecturers in the university, even though, notwithstanding some remarkable kindnesses to Valla himself, Calixtus’s reputation was not that of a friend to scholarship. Valla’s Schoolyear Inaugural was not lengthy: it can only have lasted fifteen minutes. Nor is there indication that anyone was displeased with it. In fact, that is precisely what is oddest about the Inaugural, for throughout his career Valla had shown himself to be the sort of person who seized on such occasions to make polemical arguments. We read the speech—and it is possible that his audience also listened to it this way—expecting with each step that Valla will let fly a critical or unorthodox statement, but that never happens. 1Beginning with his earliest formal work, a comparison of Cicero and Quintilian written in 1428 and now lost, in which the humanist argued against Cicero on behalf of Quintilian, Valla seemed to delight in challenging established authorities. 2 His next important work, an attack on Bartolus of [End Page 1] Sassoferrato and the scholastic method of contemporary jurists, resulted in his forced departure from the University of Pavia. 3 A continuing combativeness is illustrated in subsequent writings, reaching an apogee in the work on the Donation. Even when Valla was developing another writer’s idea, he had a consistent way of pushing the argument to a daring extreme. This, as Riccardo Fubini argues below, is what Valla did in the De donatione, a work Fubini suggests relied more heavily on Nicholas of Cusa’s De concordantia catholica than hitherto realized, but written to promote an agenda far more radical than that of Cusanus. One of the surest indications of Valla’s brilliance as a polemicist is the fact that seventy years after his death humanists of the caliber of Agostino Steuco, the subject of Ronald K. Delph’s essay in this number, were still eager to take up cudgels against him.Valla paid a price for initiating so many disputes. In 1444, when he was called before the Inquisition in Naples after the attack on the Donation of Constantine, Valla was made to answer charges against not only that work, but also against the De vero bono for its Epicureanism, the De libero arbitrio for its determinism, the De professione religiosorum for its criticism of religious orders, and the Repastinatio totius dialectice et philosophie for various unorthodox statements, especially concerning the Trinity. This last work was the humanist’s most ambitious project, and he seems to have been aware of its explosive quality, since he alluded to a “peril to his life” should it be published. 4The 1455 Schoolyear Inaugural shows no trace of the risks that Valla took in his other writings, of his polemical temperament, or of his past disagreements with the Church. With style and vigor the speech argues that the Church deserves great thanks and praise for having ensured the survival [End Page 2] of Latin letters after the collapse of the Empire. This may seem a notable change of heart in the author who had written the oration On the Falsely Believed and Forged Donation of Constantin—a text which always seems to be lurking in the background of the Inaugural but which finds no explicit reference there. Given the proximity of Valla’s argument to the well-worn medieval theme of the translatio studii, his argument could hardly have been... (shrink)

Although Gramsci's notions of hegemony and subalternity may seem outdated in this 21st century, a critical examination of the literature shows that these concepts apply in this global pandemic and political context. Racialization is a form of structural violence. In this paper, I also explore Gramsci's’ notion of engaged intellectuals to support the idea of social and political activism in nursing. Nurse scholars call for the decolonization of the discipline. Gramsci's philosophical approach to hegemony can be extended to racialization in (...) nursing. Gramsci's notions of civil society and state can help nurses to see the structures that create racism in nursing and society. (shrink)