Epistemic peer disagreement raises interesting questions, both in epistemology and in philosophy of science. When is it reasonable to defer to the opinion of others, and when should we hold fast to our original beliefs? What can we learn from the fact that an epistemic peer disagrees with us? A question that has received relatively little attention in these debates is the value of epistemic peer disagreement—can it help us to further epistemic goals, and, if so, how? We investigate this (...) through a recent case in paleoanthropology: the debate on the taxonomic status of Homo floresiensis remains unresolved, with some authors arguing the fossils represent a novel hominin species, and others claiming that they are Homo sapiens with congenital growth disorders. Our examination of this case in the recent history of science provides insights into the value of peer disagreement, indicating that it is especially valuable if one does not straightaway defer to a peer’s conclusions, but nevertheless remains open to a peer’s evidence and arguments. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWhile Spinoza stipulates an ideal moral person in the propositions on the ‘free man’ in Ethics IV, this account does not seem to be intended to function as a pedagogical tool of political relevance. Hence, it does not seem to correspond to the purpose of moral exemplarism. If we look for that kind of practical guidance, Spinoza’s political works seem more relevant. Interestingly, when we approach Spinoza’s political theory with moral exemplarism in mind, we find that instead of constructing his (...) exemplar on the idea of a supremely moral person, he emphasizes the concept of ingenium to chisel out an imperfect model of human behavior. We argue that the purpose of this is to avoid a utopian and inefficient political theory and to work out a moral practice that is capable of assisting people and communities in ethical self-transformation. (shrink)

A series of experiments was performed in which subjects indicated whether two four-dot patterns were the same, although possibly viewed from different directions, or different, paired at random. Analyses of responses times and error rates suggest that the subjects' performance in this affine matching task is based on non-accidental properties such as convexity, parallelism, collinearity, and proximity, rather than on real affine invariants such as the ratio of triangular areas.

In spite op compulsory voting, the number of non-voters increased at the last general elections in Belgium to 7.3 per cent. This evolution can largely be explained by demographic factors. The number of blank or invalid voters reaches nearly the same level. Concerning this form of political non-participation, we noticed considerable differences occur between the types of elections due to factors such as the importance and the proximity of the proper institution, the social distance between candidate and citizen and the (...) main issue of the elections.The analysis of both phenomena over time at the level of the individual voters based on surveys shows that electoral absenteeism is rather accidental, white blanc and invalid voting is more permanent. From the analysis of absenteeism and blanc and invalid voting emerge on the one hand socio-economic factors which jeopardize electoral participation in a direct or indirect way, and on the other hand, attitudes and behaviour reflecting political indifference, alienation and hostility. (shrink)

This text deals with a problem concerning processes of the productive power of knowledge. We draw on so called poststructural theories challenging the classical image of thought – as hinged upon a representational logic identifying entities in a rigid sense – when formulating a problem concerning the gap between knowledge and the object of knowledge. More specifically we are looking at this problem in the contexts of sustainable development and childhood using illustrating examples in order to test the validity of (...) these theoretical accounts. The examples we use range from internationally agreed documents claiming universality concerning environmental protection and childhood to national curricula for the pre-school to a Swedish governmentally produced and distributed TV-series called Needle and Stick save the world, addressing the issue of sustainable development. In short, we wish to problematise the rigid positions of the child and the human being in relation to nature. (shrink)

This Element focuses on three challenges of evolution to religion: teleology, human origins, and the evolution of religion itself. First, religious worldviews tend to presuppose a teleological understanding of the origins of living things, but scientists mostly understand evolution as non-teleological. Second, religious and scientific accounts of human origins do not align in a straightforward sense. Third, evolutionary explanations of religion, including religious beliefs and practices, may cast doubt on their justification. We show how these tensions arise and offer potential (...) responses for religion. Individual religions can meet these challenges, if some of their metaphysical assumptions are adapted or abandoned. (shrink)

This article considers the imago Dei from the perspective of paleoanthropology. We identify structural, functional, and relational elements of the imago Dei that emerged mosaically during human evolution. Humans are unique in their ability to relate to each other and to God, and in their membership of cultural communities where shared attention, the transmission of moral norms, and symbolic behavior are important elements. We discuss similarities between our approach and the concept of theosis adopted in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Public interest theory has argued that lack of trust in companies may reduce support for free markets. The literature did not address, however, the underlying causes of lack of trust and support of free markets in customer’s perceptions of virtuousness in economic actors. Combining public interest theory with virtue theory and stakeholder trust theory of organizations, we surmise that if customers perceive that employees of companies have insufficient due care for customers’ interests, the perceived trustworthiness of those companies will be (...) low. Customers will then be more inclined to support government regulation in that particular sector or industry. In this paper, we test the relevance of these relationships for the banking sector using a representative sample of 5844 respondents in the Netherlands. We find that if bankers are perceived as persistent in their due care for customers, this encourages a perception that banks are trustworthy, which in turn induces support for free markets in banking and reduces the call for government regulation. An important management implication of our research is that banks should foster due care by means of employee-virtue training programs to enhance trust, thus generating more support for free market operations in the banking sector. (shrink)

O artigo aqui apresentado propõe uma leitura teológico-pastoral dos resultados do último Censo do IBGE 2010– Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística – sobre religião no Brasil, publicados em julho de 2012, recorrendo também ao estudo da Fundação Getúlio Vargas – O novo mapa das religiões – publicado em 2011, e à pesquisa encomendada pela Arquidiocese de Belo Horizonte sobre Valores e religião na região metropolitana, cuja realização se deu em 2012. A leitura proposta pelo artigo toma em conta sobretudo (...) o que os dados dessas pesquisas dizem da igreja católica. Após um breve comentário de alguns elementos apresentados por tais pesquisas, o texto propõe algumas chaves de interpretação. Começa com uma leitura de tipo sociorreligioso, mostrando que a queda acentuada da pertença ao catolicismo é o resultado da saída de uma religião de tipo ‘ambiental’ e herdado para uma religião de ‘convicção’, de caráter ‘confessante’. Num segundo momento apresenta algumas raízes dessa maneira de compreender a fé no Novo Testamento e na leitura sobre a natureza e a missão da igreja feita pelo Concílio Vaticano II. Conclui, enfim, com algumas considerações de tipo pastoral, apontando não tanto para as soluções levantadas pela queda da pertença ao catolicismo, mas para as atitudes que uma igreja ‘confessante’ deve assumir na hora atual. Palavras-chave: Censo IBGE 2010. Censo das Religiões. Igreja Católica no Brasil. Leitura teológicaThe article proposes a theological-pastoral reading of the results of the most recent Census by the IBGE 2010 – Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística – regarding religion in Brazil, published in July 2012, while also drawing on a study by the Fundação Getúlio Vargas – O novo mapa das religiões (The new map of religions) – published in 2011, and on the research project sponsored by the Archdiocese of Belo Horizonte regarding Valores e religião na região metropolitana (Values and religion in the metropolitan region), which was carried out in 2012. The reading proposed by this article focuses especially on what the data from these investigations says about the Catholic Church. After commenting briefly on some elements presented by the research, the text proposes some interpretive keys. The first is a socio-religious reading, showing that the steep decline in rates of belonging to Catholicism is the result of the shift from an “environmental” and “natal” type of religion to a religion of “conviction,” with a “confessional” nature. Secondly, the article presents some roots of this way of understanding faith in the New Testament and in the Second Vatican Council’s reading of the nature and mission of the Church. Finally, it concludes with some pastoral considerations, pointing not so much to solutions regarding the decline in Catholic belonging, but rather to the attitudes that a “confessional” church should have in our time. Key-words : IBGE Census 2010. Census data on religions. Catholic Church in Brazil. Theological reading. (shrink)

Recent experimental evidence from developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience indicates that humans are equipped with unlearned elementary mathematical skills. However, formal mathematics has properties that cannot be reduced to these elementary cognitive capacities. The question then arises how human beings cognitively deal with more advanced mathematical ideas. This paper draws on the extended mind thesis to suggest that mathematical symbols enable us to delegate some mathematical operations to the external environment. In this view, mathematical symbols are not only used to (...) express mathematical concepts—they are constitutive of the mathematical concepts themselves. Mathematical symbols are epistemic actions, because they enable us to represent concepts that are literally unthinkable with our bare brains. Using case-studies from the history of mathematics and from educational psychology, we argue for an intimate relationship between mathematical symbols and mathematical cognition. (shrink)

Humans have a tendency to reason teleologically. This tendency is more pronounced under time pressure, in people with little formal schooling and in patients with Alzheimer’s. This has led some cognitive scientists of religion, notably Kelemen, to call intuitive teleological reasoning promiscuous, by which they mean teleology is applied to domains where it is unwarranted. We examine these claims using Kant’s idea of the transcendental illusion in the first Critique and his views on the regulative function of teleological reasoning in (...) the third Critique. We examine whether a Kantian framework can help resolve the tension between the apparent promiscuity of intuitive teleology and its role in human reasoning about biological organisms and natural kinds. (shrink)

According to cognitive science of religion (CSR) people naturally veer toward beliefs that are quite divergent from Anselmian monotheism or Christian theism. Some authors have taken this view as a starting point for a debunking argument against religion, while others have tried to vindicate Christian theism by appeal to the noetic effects of sin or the Fall. In this paper, we ask what theologians can learn from CSR about the nature of the divine, by looking at the CSR literature and (...) what it identifies as commonalities across religions. We use a pluralist, non-confessional approach to outline properties of the divine. We connect our approach to Hick’s religious pluralism, Ramakrishna’s realization of God through multiple spiritual paths, and Gellman’s inexhaustible plenitude. (shrink)

Speculative fiction, such as science fiction and fantasy, has a unique epistemic value. We examine similarities and differences between speculative fiction and philosophical thought experiments in terms of how they are cognitively processed. They are similar in their reliance on mental prospection, but dissimilar in that fiction is better able to draw in readers (transportation) and elicit emotional responses. By its use of longer, emotionally poignant narratives and seemingly irrelevant details, speculative fiction allows for a better appraisal of the consequences (...) of philosophical ideas than thought experiments. (shrink)

This paper takes a cognitive perspective to assess the significance of some Late Palaeolithic artefacts (sculptures and engraved objects) for philosophicalconcepts of art. We examine cognitive capacities that are necessary to produceand recognize objects that are denoted as art. These include the ability toattribute and infer design (design stance), the ability to distinguish between themateriality of an object and its meaning (symbol-mindedness), and an aesthetic sensitivity to some perceptual stimuli. We investigate to what extent thesecognitive processes played a role in (...) the production and appreciation of somerecently discovered Palaeolithic artefacts. (shrink)

The cosmological argument has enjoyed and still enjoys substantial popularity in various traditions of natural theology. We propose that its enduring appeal is due at least in part to its concurrence with human cognitive predispositions, in particular intuitions about causality and agency. These intuitions seem to be a stable part of human cognition. We will consider implications for the justification of the cosmological argument from externalise and internalise perspectives.

The artistic design stance is an important part of art appreciation, but it remains unclear how it can be applied to artworks for which art historical context is no longer available, such as Ice Age art. We propose that some of the designer's intentions can be gathered noninferentially through direct experience with prehistoric artworks.

This paper develops propositions on the added value for SMEs of normatively based, employee-oriented corporate social responsibility (CSR). We suggest that not only motives but also the skills of the owner/manager as an institutional entrepreneur are critical in dealing with institutional variance. Also, the transfer of employee-oriented CSR can have positive results for SMEs that could imply that globalisation is not only a race to the bottom.

This paper examines explanations for human artistic behavior in two reductionist research programs, cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. Despite their different methodological outlooks, both approaches converge on an explanation of art production and appreciation as byproducts of normal perceptual and motivational cognitive skills that evolved in response to problems originally not related to art, such as the discrimination of salient visual stimuli and speech sounds. The explanatory power of this reductionist framework does not obviate the need for higher-level accounts of (...) art from the humanities, such as aesthetics, art history or anthropology of art. (shrink)

Empirical research in the psychology of nature appreciation suggests that humans across cultures tend to evaluate nature in positive aesthetic terms, including a sense of beauty and awe. They also frequently engage in joint attention with other persons, whereby they are jointly aware of sharing attention to the same event or object. This paper examines how, from a natural theological perspective, delight in natural beauty can be conceptualized as a way of joining attention to creation. Drawing on an analogy between (...) art and creation, we propose that aesthetic appreciation of nature may provide theists with a unique phenomenological insight into God's creative intentions, which are embodied in the physical beauty of creation. We suggest two directions in which this way of looking at the natural world can be fleshed out: in a spontaneous way, that does not take into account background information, and with the help of science. (shrink)

Humans have cognitive mechanisms that allow them to keep track of time, represent past events, and simulate the future, but these capacities have intrinsic constraints. Here, we explore the role of material culture as an extension of internal time representations through anthropological and archeological case studies, focusing on Upper Paleolithic material culture. We argue that calendars complement and extend internal time representations, because they enable humans to project past events into the future more accurately than is possible with episodic memory (...) alone, making them one of the factors that significantly improved foraging success during the Upper Paleolithic. We discuss the implications of the epistemic use of material culture for our understanding of the causes of shifts in human behavior during the Upper Paleolithic. (shrink)

In this chapter, we focus on animism and how it is studied in the cognitive science of religion and cultural anthropology. We argue that philosophers of religion still use (outdated) normative notions from early scientific studies of religion that go back at least a century and that have since been abandoned in other disciplines. Our argument is programmatic: we call for an expansion of philosophy of religion in order to include traditions that are currently underrepresented. The failure of philosophy of (...) religion to discuss and accommodate different perspectives means a large part of human religious beliefs, practices, and experiences remains outside its purview. As a point of focus, we examine animism in two cultures as a way to think about what sorts of questions and ideas an expansion of philosophy of religion into lesser-explored traditions could offer. (shrink)

Following Darwin, many comparative psychologists assume that the human mind is a kind of ape mind, differing only in degree from the extant apes – we call this the mental continuity assumption. However, the continuity principle in evolutionary theory does not posit continuity between extant closely related species, but between extant species and their extinct ancestors. Thus, it is possible that some human cognitive capacities have no parallels in extant apes, but that they emerged in extinct hominid species after the (...) human-chimpanzee divergence. Our examination of the case of social cognition from an archaeological and comparative psychological perspective suggests that the human brain is not simply an enlarged chimpanzee brain. Instead, natural selection seems to have favoured a different social cognition in both species. (shrink)

This handbook presents a comprehensive introduction to the core areas of philosophy of education combined with an up-to-date selection of the central themes. It includes 95 newly commissioned articles that focus on and advance key arguments; each essay incorporates essential background material serving to clarify the history and logic of the relevant topic, examining the status quo of the discipline with respect to the topic, and discussing the possible futures of the field. The book provides a state-of-the-art overview of philosophy (...) of education, covering a range of topics: Voices from the present and the past deals with 36 major figures that philosophers of education rely on; Schools of thought addresses 14 stances including Eastern, Indigenous, and African philosophies of education as well as religiously inspired philosophies of education such as Jewish and Islamic; Revisiting enduring educational debates scrutinizes 25 issues heavily debated in the past and the present, for example care and justice, democracy, and the curriculum; New areas and developments addresses 17 emerging issues that have garnered considerable attention like neuroscience, videogames, and radicalization. The collection is relevant for lecturers teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of education as well as for colleagues in teacher training. Moreover, it helps junior researchers in philosophy of education to situate the problems they are addressing within the wider field of philosophy of education and offers a valuable update for experienced scholars dealing with issues in the sub-discipline. Combined with different conceptions of the purpose of philosophy, it discusses various aspects, using diverse perspectives to do so. Contributing Editors: Section 1: Voices from the Present and the Past: Nuraan Davids Section 2: Schools of Thought: Christiane Thompson and Joris Vlieghe Section 3: Revisiting Enduring Debates: Ann Chinnery, Naomi Hodgson, and Viktor Johansson Section 4: New Areas and Developments: Kai Horsthemke, Dirk Willem Postma, and Claudia Ruitenberg. (shrink)

A growing body of evidence from the sciences suggests that our moral beliefs have an evolutionary basis. To explain how human morality evolved, some philosophers have called for the study of morality to be naturalized, i.e., to explain it in terms of natural causes by looking at its historical and biological origins. The present literature has focused on the link between evolution and moral realism: if our moral beliefs enhance fitness, does this mean they track moral truths? In spite of (...) the growing empirical evidence, these discussions tend to remain high-level: the mere fact that morality has evolved is often deemed enough to decide questions in normative and meta-ethics. This volume starts from the assumption that the details about the evolution of morality do make a difference, and asks how. It presents original essays by authors from various disciplines, including philosophy, anthropology, developmental psychology, and primatology, who write in conversation with neuroscience, sociology, and cognitive psychology. (shrink)

This introductory essay provides a historical and cross-cultural overview of evolutionary ethics, and how it can be situated within naturalized ethics. We also situate the contributions to this volume.

With his doctrine of the “complete irresponsibility of man,” Nietzsche in different ways complicates the opposition between responsibility and irresponsibility. This article traces the different and conflicting senses of irresponsibility throughout Nietzsche’s development. First, the doctrine is shown to build on Nietzsche’s early study of Heraclitus (section I), whom Nietzsche admired for expounding and embodying a radical “innocence” that was both responsible and irresponsible in different senses. When presented as “philosophical conviction” in Human, All too Human, Nietzsche paradoxically speculates about (...) the doctrine’s incorporation out of a sense of responsibility for the future of mankind (section II). Section III shows how Nietzsche’s later writings evince an increasing awareness of this paradox by explicitly positing complete irresponsibility as his own redemptive doctrine in Twilight of the Idols. After 1881, he has come to affirm a new notion of responsibility and criticizes a weak sense of irresponsibility as the abdication of one’s task. I end by discussing the relation of these different senses of irresponsibility, and argue that the fact that Nietzsche’s texts often deliberately complicate rather than clarify such distinctions is an important reflection of how he textually takes responsibility for “complete irresponsibility” (section IV). (shrink)

Our ability for scientific reasoning is a byproduct of cognitive faculties that evolved in response to problems related to survival and reproduction. Does this observation increase the epistemic standing of science, or should we treat scientific knowledge with suspicion? The conclusions one draws from applying evolutionary theory to scientific beliefs depend to an important extent on the validity of evolutionary arguments (EAs) or evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs). In this paper we show through an analytical model that cultural transmission of scientific (...) knowledge can lead toward representations that are more truth-approximating or more efficient at solving science-related problems under a broad range of circumstances, even under conditions where human cognitive faculties would be further off the mark than they actually are. (shrink)

[from the publisher's website] Questions about the existence and attributes of God form the subject matter of natural theology, which seeks to gain knowledge of the divine by relying on reason and experience of the world. Arguments in natural theology rely largely on intuitions and inferences that seem natural to us, occurring spontaneously—at the sight of a beautiful landscape, perhaps, or in wonderment at the complexity of the cosmos—even to a nonphilosopher. In this book, Helen De Cruz and Johan (...) De Smedt examine the cognitive origins of arguments in natural theology. They find that although natural theological arguments can be very sophisticated, they are rooted in everyday intuitions about purpose, causation, agency, and morality. Using evidence and theories from disciplines including the cognitive science of religion, evolutionary ethics, evolutionary aesthetics, and the cognitive science of testimony, they show that these intuitions emerge early in development and are a stable part of human cognition. -/- De Cruz and De Smedt analyze the cognitive underpinnings of five well-known arguments for the existence of God: the argument from design, the cosmological argument, the moral argument, the argument from beauty, and the argument from miracles. Finally, they consider whether the cognitive origins of these natural theological arguments should affect their rationality. (shrink)

This paper analyses the use of strategies and instruments for organising ethics by small and large business in the Netherlands. We find that large firms mostly prefer an integrity strategy to foster ethical behaviour in the organisation, whereas small enterprises prefer a dialogue strategy. Both large and small firms make least use of a compliance strategy that focuses on controlling and sanctioning the ethical behaviour of workers. The size of the business is found to have a positive impact on the (...) use of several instruments, like code of conduct, ISO certification, social reporting, social handbook and confidential person. Also being a subsidiary of a larger firm has a significant positive influence on the use of instruments. The most popular instrument used by small firms is to let one member of the board be answerable for ethical questions, which fits the informal culture of most small firms. With respect to sectorial differences, we find that firms in the metal manufacturing and construction sectors are more actively using formal instruments than firms in the financial service sector and retail sector. The distinction between family and non-family firms hardly affects the use of instruments. (shrink)