Proportionality—the idea that causes are neither too general nor too specific for their effects—seems to recommend implausibly disjunctive causes (McGrath, 1998 ; Shapiro & Sober, 2012 ; Franklin-Hall, 2016 ). I argue that this problem should be avoided by appeal to the notion of cohesion. I propose an account of cohesion in terms of the similarity structure of property-spaces, argue that it is not objectionably mysterious, and that alternative approaches—based on naturalness, interventionism, and contrastivism—are inadequate without appeal to it. (...) In an appendix, I show how my proposal can be perspicuously formalized by adapting structural equation models. (shrink)

Part I -- Scientific Composition and the New Mechanism. - 1. Laura Franklin-Hall: New Mechanistic Explanation and the Need for Explanatory Constraints. - 2. Kenneth Aizawa: Compositional Explanation: Dimensioned Realization, New Mechanism, and Ground. - 3. Jens Harbecke: Is Mechanistic Constitution a Version of Material Constitution?. - 4. Derk Pereboom: Anti-Reductionism, Anti-Rationalism, and the Material Constitution of the Mental. Part II -- Grounding, Science, and Verticality in Nature. - 5. Jonathan Schaffer: Ground Rules: Lessons from Wilson. - 6. Jessica (...) Wilson: The Unity and Priority Arguments for Grounding. - 7. Carl Gillett: The Metaphysics of Nature, Science, and the Rules of Engagement. - 8. Andrew Melnyk: Grounding and the Formulation of Physicalism. - 9. Alyssa Ney: Grounding in the Philosophy of Mind: A Defense. (shrink)

The traditional scope theory of intensionality (STI) (see Russell 1905; Montague 1973; Ladusaw 1977; Ogihara 1992, 1996; Stowell 1993) is simple, elegant, and, for the most part, empirically adequate. However, a few quite troubling counterexamples to this theory have lead researchers to propose alternatives, such as positing null situation pronouns (Percus 2000) or actuality operators (Kamp 1971; Cresswell 1990) in the syntax of natural language. These innovative theories do correct the undergeneration of the original scope theory, but at a cost: (...) the situation pronoun and operator theories overgenerate, as argued extensively by Percus (2000) and Keshet (2008). This paper presents new data that supports the STI over other analyses, such as structures where DPs lose their de re readings in positions where syntactic movement is blocked. These data point the way to a new theory of intensionality. This new theory, called split intensionality, is a modification of the STI which aims to solve the problems raised for the original scope theory without overgenerating. The proposal calls for an additional intensional abstraction operator that creates an expression denoting an intension from an expression denoting an extension. When a DP moves to a position above this operator, it is interpreted de re; otherwise it is de dicto. The crucial part of the new proposal is that a DP may move above this operator and yet remain, for instance, below an intentional verb or inside an if-clause. Therefore, a DP within an island for syntactic movement may be de re and yet not move out of the island when the intensional abstraction operator is also within the island. (shrink)

Researchers often assume that possible worlds and times are represented in the syntax of natural languages. However, it has been noted that such a system can overgenerate. This paper proposes a constraint on systems where worlds and times are represented as situation pronouns. The Intersective Predicate Generalization, based on and extending work by R. Musan, states that two items composed via Predicate Modification, such as a noun and an intersective modifier, must be evaluated in the same world and time. To (...) explain this generalization, a rule of Situation Economy is advanced, which holds that structures must have the fewest number of situation pronouns possible. Since strong DPs require a situation pronoun to receive a de re reading, a restriction on the type of strong determiners is proposed, which supersedes Situation Economy in this case. Finally, the paper shows how the Situation Economy approach explains an unrelated phenomenon involving bare plurals and examines the connection between this new rule and the grammar of natural language in general. (shrink)

Ernest Gellner was a multilingual polymath who set the agenda in the study of nationalism and the sociology of Islam for an entire generation of academics and students. This definitive biography follows his trajectory from his early years in Prague, Paris and England to international success as a philosopher and public intellectual. Known both for his highly integrated philosophy of modernity and for combining a respect for nationalism with an appreciation for science, Gellner was passionate in his defence of reason (...) against every for of relativism. (shrink)

In this unique study Fulford combines the disciplines of rigorous philosophy with an intimate knowledge of psychopathology to overturn traditional hegemonies. The patient replaces the doctor at the heart of medicine. Moral theory and the logic of evaluation replace epistemology as the focus of philosophical enquiry. Ever controversial, mental illness is at the interface of philosophy and medicine. Mad or bad? Dissident or diseased? Dr Fulford shows that it is possible to achieve new insights into these traditional dilemmas, insights at (...) once practically relevant and philosophically significant. (shrink)

What grounds the facts about what is identical to/distinct from what? A natural answer is: the facts about what exists. Despite its prima facie appeal, this view has received surprisingly little attention in the literature. Moreover, those who have discussed it have been inclined to reject it because of the following important challenge: why should the existence of some individuals ground their identity in some cases and their distinctness in others? (Burgess 2012, Shumener 2020b). This paper offers a sustained defense (...) of the view. The first half provides some positive motivations in terms of other natural principles involving ground. The second half considers various ways of distilling the challenge into a precise objection to the view, and argues that none of the resulting objections proves persuasive. (shrink)

In ‘Proportionality in Causation, Part I: Theories’, I presented various ways of understanding the idea that causes which are ‘proportional’ to their effects are in some sense preferable. In this companion article, I discuss the principal applications of the resulting theories of proportionality, and the challenges they face.

This open access book is a systematic update of the philosophical and scientific foundations of the biopsychosocial model of health, disease and healthcare. First proposed by George Engel 40 years ago, the Biopsychosocial Model is much cited in healthcare settings worldwide, but has been increasingly criticised for being vague, lacking in content, and in need of reworking in the light of recent developments. The book confronts the rapid changes to psychological science, neuroscience, healthcare, and philosophy that have occurred since the (...) model was first proposed and addresses key issues such as the model’s scientific basis, clinical utility, and philosophical coherence. The authors conceptualise biology and the psychosocial as in the same ontological space, interlinked by systems of communication-based regulatory control which constitute a new kind of causation. These are distinguished from physical and chemical laws, most clearly because they can break down, thus providing the basis for difference between health and disease. This work offers an urgent update to the model’s scientific and philosophical foundations, providing a new and coherent account of causal interactions between the biological, the psychological and social. (shrink)

A much-discussed idea in the causation literature is that it is preferable to invoke causes which are proportional to—neither too general nor too specific for—the effect. This article presents various ways of understanding this idea. In what sense are such causal claims ‘preferable’? And what is it for one event to be ‘proportional’ to another? In a companion article, ‘Proportionality in Causation, Part II: Applications and Challenges’, I discuss the principal applications of the resulting theories of proportionality, and the challenges (...) they face. (shrink)

This study adapts the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980) to the behavior of fraudulent reporting on financial statements so as to examine the effects of moral reasoning and self-monitoring on intention to report fraudulently, using structural equation modeling. The paper seeks to investigate two of the red flags for financial statement fraud identified in Loebbecke et al.'s (1989) paper: client management displays a significant lack of moral fiber and client personnel exhibit strong personality anomalies. As expected, high (...) moral reasoners are more influenced than low moral reasoners by their own attitude towards the behavior. Contrary to prior research, low self-monitors are found to be more influenced than high self-monitors by subjective norms. Future research is recommended to investigate the counter-intuitive results for self-monitors, to consider the implications of group decision making as regards the promulgation of fraudulent financial statements, and to examine additional red flags for financial statement fraud. (shrink)

Provision of adequate nutrition to elderly patients who develop dysphagia after a stroke can be quite challenging, often leading to the placement of a percutaneous entero‐gastrostomy (PEG) tube for nutritional support. This hypothetical case describes the additional challenge of cross‐cultural belief that leads a daughter to provide oral feeding to her mother, an act that the medical team believes is dangerous and the daughter sees as salubrious. In this case, what is the proper balance between patient safety and deference to (...) cultural traditions and norms? Where are the limits? Two commentaries offer insights for conflict resolution, including recommending that the medical team seek to understand the cultural motivations of the family, balancing safety and respect for cultural norms. The second commentary also disagrees with the team's presumption that the daughter's feeding of her mother is a greater threat to the patient than the PEG tube feeding is. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 29.2 (2005) 269-285 [Access article in PDF] Oedipus The King: Temperament, Character, and Virtue Grant Gillett Robin Hankey University of Otago I Recent discussions of ethics and literature suggest that there is a relationship between reading (or, better, immersing oneself in) literature (in particular, fiction) and the virtues. Nussbaum goes so far as to claim not only that good literature is conducive to moral sense and (...) sensibility but also that "the well-lived life is a work of literary art."1 The character development in most substantial fictional work that aims to engage us through its realism and truth to the human condition suggests that there is such a thing as a quasi-stable character and that an agent's character plays a significant role in the way not only that the person acts but also in the kinds of thing that happen to him or her. For a certain kind of virtue theorist, the internal harmony of character required for a person to do the right thing in a diverse range of situations involves cultivating exactly those skills required to live well. This thesis amounts to a claim that there is a close, indeed conceptual, relationship between right living and good living and that the type of character which results from cultivating the virtues is a character conducive to getting the best out of the situations that life throws in our way, whereas the vicious character reveals itself by causing strife, harm, and even tragedy.Gilbert Harman, criticizing virtue ethics on the basis of some key experiments in social psychology which have led to the idea of a "fundamental attribution error," argues that people do not have enduring character traits of the type required to sustain such a position.2 His critique has itself been attacked on the basis that what the experiments show is not the absence of character traits but their ability [End Page 269] to be influenced by the demands of a situation.3 Our objection is against the conception of virtues being attacked and also his sweeping conclusion about human nature and it has two strands. First we argue that phronesis, as the hallmark of a virtuous character, is a mix of skills, abilities, and attitudes honed in such a way as to allow the person to act fittingly in different life situations. Second, character runs true to type in an individual and even runs in families.We find support for both claims in Sophocles' Oedipus the King. This is, of course, a myth but one that has spoken to human beings across the ages and it recognizes both that different individuals show certain regularities in their modes of relationship and their conduct and that these tendencies are often familial, contributing significantly to the events marking family stories and traditions. Phronesis or practical wisdom is the skill to negotiate the challenges that life produces when fate deals one a hand of this (genetic and genealogical) kind. In the process of making the case we will support the claim that fiction "can significantly contribute to moral understanding by revealing what certain situations amount to" and therefore that it "can bring home to us the force of, for example, moral dilemmas" and indeed moral concepts, and we will use the Oedipus story to reflect on the lessons emerging from one version of virtue ethics.4We approach the Oedipus myth through Sophocles' tragedy in which an oracle about patricide and incest plays itself out in the lives of certain characters. The relevance for virtue ethics arises from the ways in which characters in the play react to their predicament and try to cope with the situations they must face. In moral life, individuals need to find strategies to deal with challenges they face both as individuals and as persons-in-relationships-with-others. The reactions portrayed in Oedipus make vivid not only the idea of character traits but also the role of virtue in moderating what we might do in situations that interact with our characters in potentially disastrous ways. II Harman's challenge begins... (shrink)

Precision targeting of specific white matter bundles that traverse the subcallosal cingulate has been linked to efficacy of deep brain stimulation for treatment resistant depression. Methods to confirm optimal target engagement in this heterogenous region are now critical to establish an objective treatment protocol. As yet unexamined are the time-frequency features of the SCC evoked potential, including spectral power and phase-clustering. We examined these spectral features—evoked power and phase clustering—in a sample of TRD patients with implanted SCC stimulators. Electroencephalogram was (...) recorded during wakeful rest. Location of electrical stimulation in the SCC target region was the experimental manipulation. EEG was analyzed at the surface level with an average reference for a cluster of frontal sensors and at a time window identified by prior study. Morlet wavelets generated indices of evoked power and inter-trial phase clustering. Enhanced phase clustering at theta frequency was observed in every subject and was significantly correlated with SCC-EP magnitude, but only during left SCC stimulation. Stimulation to dorsal SCC evinced stronger phase clustering than ventral SCC. There was a weak correlation between phase clustering and white matter density. An increase in evoked delta power was also coincident with SCC-EP, but was less consistent across participants. DBS evoked time-frequency features index mm-scale changes to the location of stimulation in the SCC target region and correlate with structural characteristics implicated in treatment optimization. Results also imply a shared generative mechanism between evoked potentials evinced by electrical stimulation and evoked potentials evinced by auditory/visual stimuli and behavioral tasks. Understanding how current injection impacts downstream cortical activity is essential to building new technologies that adapt treatment parameters to individual differences in neurophysiology. (shrink)

According to a radical account of quantum metaphysics that I label ‘high-dimensionalism’, ordinary objects are the ‘shadows’ of high-dimensional fundamental ontology. Critics—especially Maudlin —allege that high-dimensionalism cannot provide a satisfactory explanation of the manifest image. In this paper, I examine the two main ideas behind these criticisms: that high-dimensionalist connections between fundamental and non-fundamental are 1) inscrutable, and 2) arbitrary. In response to the first, I argue that there is no metaphysically significant contrast regarding the scrutability of low- and high-dimensionalist (...) connections. In response to the second, I argue that the arbitrariness of high-dimensionalist connections has been overstated, and what arbitrariness there is afflicts low-dimensionalist connections too. Thus, the debate should not be focused on whether high-dimensionalism can provide a satisfactory explanation of the manifest image—as it has been in recent literature—but rather on the broader question of whether there is good all-things-considered reason to prefer low-dimensionalist theories. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.1 (2005) 23-24 [Access article in PDF] Schechtman's Narrative Account of Identity Grant Gillett Keywords personal identity, narrative self, memory I have long been an admirer of Schechtman's sensitive and psychologically realistic account of personal identity. In the present piece, she addresses the issues surrounding personal identity through Locke's view and problems attending that view and the psychological continuity theories descended from it.She examines the (...) claim that the person is more extensive than the conscious mind and includes aspects of nonconscious mental activity. Schechtman argues that one must have a self-conception that includes a trajectory where present experience unfolds meaningfully out of one's past replete with implications for what one does and how one does it. She locates, in current writing on the self, the idea of a perceiver or narrator self who tries to make sense out of herself as a human being with certain thoughts and feelings and is sometimes at a loss to do so. To this potentially very rich starting point we need only add the fact that a person draws on discursive and narrative skills that have been inscribed in her being to do this narrative, editorial, and judicial task and that many of these skills have been imbibed with mother's milk (and father's voice). From this discursively inscribed set of resources and orientations arise guilt, shame, pride, aspiration, vulnerability, and that crucial sense of who one is as a person among others.It follows that here we might also find the source of the discontents that induce a person to apply to a psychiatrist or counselor for help with the narrative work required to fashion a liveable self. If Schechtman is right, the cognitive capacities contributing to memory and "keeping track of oneself"(in a deep and satisfying way) are to be found in part in the nonconscious domain rather than the thin layer of consciousness and propositional attitude psychology that enters the mind of an analytic philosopher or a psychiatrist uninterested in depth.I think she is right and that this paper and her more extensive work on the constitution of self represent a fertile point at which psychiatrists and psychotherapists can begin the task of understanding the nature of identity and the challenges involved in finding one that will serve the unfolding project of understanding and forming the self. I believe that the resources that individuals need for this task are derived from one's rootedness in culture and human relationships where the levels of self that support consciousness can be nurtured according to what Michel Foucault calls the techniques proper to the care of the self. Schechtman has done us a favor in taking the debates surrounding neo-Lockean [End Page 23] views of personal identity and outlining a perspective on identity and memory that can lead us to develop our understanding of the complexity of the human psyche as it roams through the jungle/jumble of discursive life and tries to nourish itself on what it finds there.Grant Gillett is a Professor of Medical Ethics at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. He is also a practicing neurosurgeon. His philosophical work is in philosophy of mind and psychiatry, continental philosophy, and bioethics. His most recent books are The Mind and Its Discontents (Oxford University Press) and Bioethics in the Clinic (Johns Hopkins University Press). He works on postmodern and traditional analytic approaches to mind, language, and psychiatry. He can be reached at Dunedin Hospital and Otago Bioethics Centre, University of Otago Medical School, PO Box 913, Dunedin, New Zealand, or via e-mail at [email protected].... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.2 (2002) 123-125 [Access article in PDF] The Self as Relatum in Life and Language Grant Gillett THE STUDY REPORTED by van Staden is extremely interesting to any psychological theorist influenced by Jacques Lacan because of Lacan's insistence that the unconscious is not only structured like a language but actually reflects and is produced by linguistic interactions between the subject and others.The distinction he draws, (...) on the basis of Frege's analysis of logical and grammatical structure, is not straightforwardly evident on a superficial inspection of the sentences concerned. It is also less clear than the agent-patient or subject-object distinction that one might look for on the basis of considering the action being performed. van Staden makes both of these points in the course of illustrating the relevant deep grammatical property on which the study turns. In doing so he engages with the subtle work on subject and object by Strawson (1959) who was one of the first, in the "descriptive metaphysics" of Individuals, to explore the resonance between what we might call (after Frege) "logical grammar" and the deep metaphysical structure of our thought. Strawson noted that the position of grammatical subject in a sentence was typically occupied by a particular or individual substance rather than the accident or property of a substance so that the subject predicate structure of language reflects a basic feature of our world picture whereby the world is seen to be populated by particular objects that instance universal features.Chomsky is the other player whose thought is important in this area in that he argues that we have an innate sense of deep structure, which allows us to disambiguate any sentence so as to reveal the state of affairs that is being represented. Thus we discern that what is denoted by "John loves Mary" is the same thought as that conveyed by "Mary is loved by John." van Staden focuses on something more general—the deep structure that expresses semantic relations or positions. This is not the same as the agent or the simply grammatical subject and van Staden calls it the owner of the relation involved as distinct from the accident of that relation. The terms are well chosen because ownership is a term a la mode in postmodern thought to express the relationship of a human being to the events and attributes associated with him or her. When we look at this subtle grammatological or semantic feature of language we see that the linguistic feature in question is the kind of thing that could easily be overlooked were it not for a post-Fregean analysis of the type van Staden offers.The content that van Staden identifies in relation to what is signified or represented by an utterance is difficult to characterize. It is not what Frege would call logical content in that it does not contribute to the truth value of any of the propositions concerned. It is also problematic to call it psychological content because it is not part of the conscious message conveyed by the utterance. Nevertheless, the study concerned raises [End Page 123] the possibility that it is psychic in a very significant way, which is best approached by considering the relationships between language and the unconscious.Chomsky is regarded as having defined a number of linguistic operations that take propositional or meaningful content and transform it into the form in which it is uttered. The relevant cognitive operations are usually regarded as being performed by the cognitive unconscious, which in some sense applies the rules of grammar to yield well-formed utterances on the basis of speaker intentions. In any event, nobody would seriously question the idea that there are unconscious operations that underpin the production of grammatically structured utterances.If we add to this the possibility that a more dynamic aspect to the unconscious has a role to play in the semantic content of our utterances, then a fruitful line of thought begins to emerge. The dynamic unconscious has to do with self-image and those influences that form the psyche... (shrink)

There is a fairly closed circle between culture, language, meaning, and truth such that the world of a given culture is a world understood in terms of the meanings produced in that culture. Medicine is, in fact, a subculture of a powerful type and has its own language and understanding of the range of illnesses that affect human beings. So how does medicine get at the truth of people and their ills in such a way as to escape its own (...) limited constructions? There is a way out of the closed circle implicit in the idea of a praxis and the engagement with reality that is central to it and the further possibility introduced by Jacques Lacan that signification is never comprehensive in relation to the subject's encounter with the real. I will explore both of these so as to develop a conception of truth that is apt for the knowledge that arises in the clinic. (shrink)

IntroductionAdolescent connectedness, a key component of positive youth development, is associated with various positive health outcomes. Several measures have been developed to assess this construct. However, no study has summarized data on the existing measures of adolescent connectedness. We conducted this scoping review to fill this gap. We specifically aimed to: identify the existing measures of adolescent connectedness, determine the most frequently used measures among the identified measures, and summarize the psychometric properties of these measures with a keen interest in (...) highlighting their cross-cultural utility and validity.MethodsWe searched CINAHL, Embase, PsycInfo, PubMed, and Web of Science databases for relevant articles published since database inception to 7th February 2021. Our search structure contained the key words “Adolescents”, “Connectedness”, and “Measures”. We also searched Open Gray for potentially relevant gray literature.ResultsWe identified 335 measures from 960 eligible studies assessing various domains of adolescent connectedness, including school, family, community, peer, ethnic, racial, cultural, religious/spiritual, and self-connectedness. Most of the included studies were from North America and Europe. Most of the measures were measures of school connectedness among adolescents. Of the identified measures, 60 of them met our criteria of frequently used measures. These frequently used measures were used across 481 of the included studies with 400 of them reporting their psychometric properties. The reported reliability of these measures was adequate in 89.8% of these studies. These measures also appeared to be valid in terms of their face, content, construct, criterion, convergent, discriminant, concurrent, predictive, measurement invariance, and cross-cultural validity.ConclusionsThere exists a wide array of measures of adolescent connectedness. Sixty of these measures have been frequently used across studies and appear to be reliable and/or valid. However, this evidence is mostly from North America and Europe. This is a reflection of the limitation of this review where only studies published in English were considered. It might also reflect the paucity of research in other regions of the world. More research is needed for clearer insights. (shrink)

Abstract: There has recently been controversy over the existence of 'multiple realization' in addition to some confusion between different conceptions of its nature. To resolve these problems, we focus on concrete examples from the sciences to provide precise accounts of the scientific concepts of 'realization' and 'multiple realization' that have played key roles in recent debates in the philosophy of science and philosophy of psychology. We illustrate the advantages of our view over a prominent rival account ( Shapiro, 2000 and (...) 2004 ) and use our work to rebut recent objections to the long-standing claim that psychological properties are multiply realized. For we use scientific evidence, in combination with our more precise theoretical framework, to show that we have strong reason to believe that psychological properties are indeed multiply realized both at the biochemical and neuronal levels. (shrink)

Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 2, Page 363-387, April 2022.

The interventionist account of causal explanation, in the version presented by Jim Woodward, has been recently claimed capable of buttressing the widely felt—though poorly understood—hunch that high-level, relatively abstract explanations, of the sort provided by sciences like biology, psychology and economics, are in some cases explanatorily optimal. It is the aim of this paper to show that this is mistaken. Due to a lack of effective constraints on the causal variables at the heart of the interventionist causal-explanatory scheme, as presently (...) formulated it is either unable to prefer high-level explanations to low, or systematically overshoots, recommending explanations at so high of a level as to be virtually vacuous. (shrink)

One of the key concepts in Giorgio Agamben’s reading of Paul is temporality. In this article, Delahaye examines this concept. Delahaye shows that Agamben’s understanding of messianic temporality hinges on the opposition between kairos and chronos, which Agamben takes for granted. He consequently traces this opposition back to Heidegger’s influence on Agamben. This leads Delahaye to conclude that messianic temporality can be understood as a variation on Heidegger’s idea of ecstatic temporality.