This book is intended to help transform epistemology - the traditional study of knowledge - into a rigorous discipline by removing conceptual roadblocks and developing formal tools required for a fully naturalized epistemology. The evolutionary approach which Harms favours begins with the common observation that if our senses and reasoning were not reliable, then natural selection would have eliminated them long ago. The challenge for some time has been how to transform these informal musings about evolutionary epistemology into a rigorous (...) theoretical discipline capable of complementing current scientific studies of the evolution of cognition with a philosophically defensible account of meaning and justification. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom has it that evolution makes a sham of morality, even if morality is an adaptation. I disagree. I argue that our best current adaptationist theory of meaning offers objective truth conditionsfor signaling systems of all sorts. The objectivity is, however, relative to species – specifically to the adaptive history of the signaling system in question. While evolution may not provide the kind of species independent objective standards that (e.g.) Kantians desire, this should be enough for the practical work (...) of justifying our confidence in the objectivity of moral standards. If you believe morality is an adaptation, you should be a moral realist. (shrink)

Information theory offers a measure of "mutual information" which provides an appropriate measure of tracking efficiency for the naturalistic epistemologist. The statistical entropy on which it is based is arguably the best way of characterizing the uncertainty associated with the behavior of a system, and it is ontologically neutral. Though not appropriate for the naturalization of meaning, mutual information can serve as a measure of epistemic success independent of semantic maps and payoff structures. While not containing payoffs as terms, mutual (...) information places both upper and lower bounds on payoffs. This constitutes a non-trivial relationship to utility. (shrink)

Evolving signaling systems can be said to induce partitions on the space of world states as they approach equilibrium. Formalizing this claim provides a general framework for understanding what it means for language to “cut nature at its seams”. In order to avoid taking our current best science as providing the adaptive target for all evolving systems, the state space of the world must be characterized exclusively in terms of the coincidence of stimuli and payoffs that drives the evolution of (...) cognitive complexity. Cognition exploits the reliable clustering of events in this space. Using this framework to analyze our ordinary concepts of truth and justification, it appears that while justification can be a simple matter of conforming to historically entrenched strategies, truth cannot be fully specified on the basis of the system’s causal history, but requires a robust clustering in the larger world state space. (shrink)

The concept of information tempts us as a theoretical primitive, partly because of the respectability lent to it by highly successful applications of Shannon’s information theory, partly because of its broad range of applicability in various domains, partly because of its neutrality with respect to what basic sorts of things there are. This versatility, however, is the very reason why information cannot be the theoretical primitive we might like it to be. “Information,” as it is variously used, is systematically ambiguous (...) between whether it involves continuous or discrete quantities, causal or noncausal relationships, and intrinsic or relational properties. Many uses can be firmly grounded in existing theory, however. Continuous quantities of information involving probabilities can be related to information theory proper. Information defined relative to systems of rules or conventions can be understood relative to the theory of meaning . A number of causal notions may possibly be located relative to standard notions in physics. Precise specification of these distinct properties involved in the common notion of information can allow us to map the relationships between them. Consequently, while information is not in itself the kind of single thing that can play a significant unifying role, analyzing its ambiguities may facilitate headway toward that goal. (shrink)

What does a naturalistic epistemologist do? Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-4 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9531-7 Authors William F. Harms, Humanities and Social Sciences, Seattle Central Community College, 1701 Broadway, Seattle, WA 98122-9905, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

Evolutionary theory offers the possibility of building an epistemology that requires neither a theory of truth nor a definition of knowledge, thus bypassing some of the more notable difficulties with standard approaches to epistemology. Following a critique of one of the most popular approaches to thinking about cultural evolution I argue for a frequentist approach to evolutionary epistemology, and that cultural transmission should be understood as coordinated phenotypic variability within groups of closely related organisms. I construct a formal system which (...) allows the analysis of the evolution of networks of multiple interacting populations. Of particular epistemological interest is the relationship between genetic evolution and the evolution of cultural entities. The information-theoretic notion of "mutual information" is employed to quantify the transfer of information from the environment as it determines genetic fitnesses into the distribution of acquired traits Two simple models are constructed and analyzed. A two-level model of the navigation of a colony of bacteria demonstrates how selection on inherited traits affects the acquisition of information on the level of transient behavioral traits. A three-level model of bumblebee foraging shows how information about the environment is caught up in distributions of acquired foraging preferences--a bee-analog of human cognitive states. The Appendix contains an analytic proof of information gain under selection. (shrink)

Metagenomics bears upon all aspects of microbiology, including our understanding of mitochondrial and eukaryote origin. Recently, ribosomal protein phylogenies show the eukaryote host lineage – the archaeal lineage that acquired the mitochondrion – to branch within the archaea. Metagenomic studies are now uncovering new archaeal lineages that branch more closely to the host than any cultivated archaea do. But how do they grow? Carbon and energy metabolism as pieced together from metagenome assemblies of these new archaeal lineages, such as the (...) Deep Sea Archaeal Group (including Lokiarchaeota) and Bathyarchaeota, do not match the physiology of any cultivated microbes. Understanding how these new lineages live in their environment is important, and might hold clues about how mitochondria arose and how the eukaryotic lineage got started. Here we look at these exciting new metagenomic studies, what they say about archaeal physiology in modern environments, how they impact views on host‐mitochondrion physiological interactions at eukaryote origin. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Shakespeare’s Troilus and CressidaW. R. EltonIn Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida there occurs a particular pattern of parallels with Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics regarding ethical-legal questions surrounding an action: issues of the role of the voluntary or the involuntary, of volition and choice, of choice and virtue, and of virtue and habitual action. 1Aristotle’s EN was familiar to Elizabethan higher education and was reprinted in translation in (...) numerous editions, with commentaries, in the sixteenth century. 2 Twice Shakespeare alludes to Aristotle by name: first, recalling his ethics, in Taming of the Shrew (I.i.32)—cf. I.i.18–20 on [End Page 331]Virtue and that part of philosophy... that treats of happiness By virtue specially to be achiev’d,and second, in Troilus (II.ii.166–67) on Aristotle and “moral philosophy.” 3Opening EN, III, Aristotle distinguishes those actions that are “voluntary” from those that are “involuntary,” remarking the necessity to determine their limits. Such a course, he adds, is “useful also for legislators with a view to the assigning both of honours and of punishments” (1109 b 32–34). What Aristotle examines, in effect, is the procedure of determining culpability for an act. 4Under what circumstances and to what extent is one responsible for his action? In addition to the voluntary and the involuntary, there are such act-related dualisms as volition and choice, choice and virtue, and virtue and habitual practice. Such ethical-legal issues are appropriate to a play whose war-plot turns on an abductor’s culpability for an action and the subsequent issue of prescriptive possession—the Grecian claim to Helen against her Trojan possessors. 5The VoluntaryIn Troilus Aristotle’s voluntary-involuntary distinctions seem exemplified. 6 A passage (I.iii.354–56), previously glossed by the present writer, suggests a [End Page 332] parallel EN instance of the voluntary. 7 Aristotle defines the voluntary as “that of which the moving principle is in the agent himself “ (1111 a 23–24). In Troilus Nestor, recalling the agent’s responsibility for acts, explains:Limbes are in his instruments, In no lesse working, then are Swords and Bowes Directiue by the Limbes(I.iii.368–70).These lines occur in Troilus, Folio (1623), and are omitted, along with other relatively specialized lines, from Quarto (1609): 8 according to Aristotle, “the movement of the limbs instrumental to the action originates in the agent himself, and when this is so it is in a man’s own power to act or not to act.” 9 Where EN has “limbs... are the instruments,” F Troilus has “Limbes are in his instruments” (cf. Walker ed., I.iii.354).Limbs are instruments of the agent’s responsibility, as are the swords and bows employed by those limbs. Such a passage in Troilus on the responsibility and voluntariness of acts could have been recognizable to an academic (especially legal) audience and, as rehearsed by the ancient Nestor, might have drawn reminiscent response.The InvoluntaryIf Nestor (I.iii.354–56) had been voice of the voluntary, the combat-withdrawn Achilles is arbitrator of the involuntary. Responding to Thersites’ “I serve here voluntary,” Achilles adjudicates, “Your last service was sufferance, ‘twas not voluntary. No man is beaten voluntary. Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress” (II.i.94–97). Mocking Thersites’s “service,” including being beaten, Achilles argues this could not be “voluntary.” His “no man is beaten voluntary” echoes Aristotle’s own familiar terms, denying that a man can be wronged or injured voluntarily. In his commentary on EN John Case [End Page 333] gives the assurance that “No one voluntarily suffers injury..., no one voluntarily and maliciously harms himself: therefore no one willingly suffers injury.” 10In such instances as those above, Troilus (II.i.94–97) recalls basic legal procedure, including determination of the degree of responsibility for an action. What is the minimum requirement of the law before a man can be held accountable? “Those things... are thought involuntary,” says Aristotle, “which take place under compulsion... and that is compulsory of which the moving principle is outside, being a principle... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Shakespeare’s Troilus and CressidaW. R. EltonIn Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida there occurs a particular pattern of parallels with Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics regarding ethical-legal questions surrounding an action: issues of the role of the voluntary or the involuntary, of volition and choice, of choice and virtue, and of virtue and habitual action. 1Aristotle’s EN was familiar to Elizabethan higher education and was reprinted in translation in (...) numerous editions, with commentaries, in the sixteenth century. 2 Twice Shakespeare alludes to Aristotle by name: first, recalling his ethics, in Taming of the Shrew (I.i.32)—cf. I.i.18–20 on [End Page 331]Virtue and that part of philosophy... that treats of happiness By virtue specially to be achiev’d,and second, in Troilus (II.ii.166–67) on Aristotle and “moral philosophy.” 3Opening EN, III, Aristotle distinguishes those actions that are “voluntary” from those that are “involuntary,” remarking the necessity to determine their limits. Such a course, he adds, is “useful also for legislators with a view to the assigning both of honours and of punishments” (1109 b 32–34). What Aristotle examines, in effect, is the procedure of determining culpability for an act. 4Under what circumstances and to what extent is one responsible for his action? In addition to the voluntary and the involuntary, there are such act-related dualisms as volition and choice, choice and virtue, and virtue and habitual practice. Such ethical-legal issues are appropriate to a play whose war-plot turns on an abductor’s culpability for an action and the subsequent issue of prescriptive possession—the Grecian claim to Helen against her Trojan possessors. 5The VoluntaryIn Troilus Aristotle’s voluntary-involuntary distinctions seem exemplified. 6 A passage (I.iii.354–56), previously glossed by the present writer, suggests a [End Page 332] parallel EN instance of the voluntary. 7 Aristotle defines the voluntary as “that of which the moving principle is in the agent himself “ (1111 a 23–24). In Troilus Nestor, recalling the agent’s responsibility for acts, explains:Limbes are in his instruments, In no lesse working, then are Swords and Bowes Directiue by the Limbes(I.iii.368–70).These lines occur in Troilus, Folio (1623), and are omitted, along with other relatively specialized lines, from Quarto (1609): 8 according to Aristotle, “the movement of the limbs instrumental to the action originates in the agent himself, and when this is so it is in a man’s own power to act or not to act.” 9 Where EN has “limbs... are the instruments,” F Troilus has “Limbes are in his instruments” (cf. Walker ed., I.iii.354).Limbs are instruments of the agent’s responsibility, as are the swords and bows employed by those limbs. Such a passage in Troilus on the responsibility and voluntariness of acts could have been recognizable to an academic (especially legal) audience and, as rehearsed by the ancient Nestor, might have drawn reminiscent response.The InvoluntaryIf Nestor (I.iii.354–56) had been voice of the voluntary, the combat-withdrawn Achilles is arbitrator of the involuntary. Responding to Thersites’ “I serve here voluntary,” Achilles adjudicates, “Your last service was sufferance, ‘twas not voluntary. No man is beaten voluntary. Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress” (II.i.94–97). Mocking Thersites’s “service,” including being beaten, Achilles argues this could not be “voluntary.” His “no man is beaten voluntary” echoes Aristotle’s own familiar terms, denying that a man can be wronged or injured voluntarily. In his commentary on EN John Case [End Page 333] gives the assurance that “No one voluntarily suffers injury..., no one voluntarily and maliciously harms himself: therefore no one willingly suffers injury.” 10In such instances as those above, Troilus (II.i.94–97) recalls basic legal procedure, including determination of the degree of responsibility for an action. What is the minimum requirement of the law before a man can be held accountable? “Those things... are thought involuntary,” says Aristotle, “which take place under compulsion... and that is compulsory of which the moving principle is outside, being a principle... (shrink)

Autobiography and Teacher Development in China investigates the roles of autobiography in teacher education, as several scholars in China recontextualize Western conceptions of teacher development, combining them with uniquely Chinese cultural conceptions to articulate a reconceptualization of teacher development that holds worldwide significance. Framed by the work of Zhang Hua and William F. Pinar, these theoretical and practical essays point to an internationally inflected reconceptualization of teachers' professional development, pre-service and in-service. This volume addresses multiple movements of teacher education (...) reform worldwide, focused on crafting a nationally distinctive course not only internationally, but also culturally, historically, and locally. (shrink)

Moral norms are the rules of morality, those that people actually follow, and those that we feel people ought to follow, even when they don’t. Historically, the social sciences have been primarily concerned with describing the many forms that moral norms take in various cultures, with the emerging implication that moral norms are mere arbitrary products of culture. Philosophers, on the other hand, have been more concerned with trying to understand the nature and source of rules that all cultures ought (...) to follow, with relatively little regard for what people actually do. The tension between the two approaches has to do with whether there are any standards higher than the whims of culture in determining right and wrong. Typically, the social sciences say “no”, pointing at the diversity of moral beliefs. Most philosophers (along with people of moral conviction) feel that there must be some deeper source of morality than the trends and fads of culture. Unfortunately, the nature and source of such standards has remained something of a mystery. Recent work on the evolution of norms has changed this picture dramatically. (shrink)

In Divine Providence, Swedish visionary Emanuel Swedenborg describes how God works in our lives to turn us away from evil and toward him while still allow us to make our own choices. Swedenborg addresses a number of questions that challenge people of faith, such as why accidents and disasters happen, and why evil people seem to prosper while others suffer. This edition is a reprint of a 1963 translation by William F. Wunsch.

A discussion of Christian ethics focuses on the physician's image as a parent, warrior against death, expert, and teacher, and the oath that guides his or her practice.

William F. Doverspike, PhD, is a licensed psychologist who holds a Diplomate in Clinical Psychology (ABPP) and he is also board certified in Neuropsychology (ABPN). He is an Associate Faculty member of the Georgia School of Professional Psychology, where he teaches graduate courses in professional ethics. As an independent practitioner, he maintains privileges at several local hospitals. He is a member of the Ethics Committee of the Georgia Psychological Association. Dr. Doverspike is Editor of the Georgia Psychologist magazine and (...) has authored over 50 articles and chapters. He conducts seminars on ethics, risk management, and diagnostic consultation. (shrink)

Modern professionals wield considerable power by virtue of their knowledge. However, they also feel beleaguered by the constraints they face and the public disapproval they often experience. These pressures combine to diminish the professional's sense of public responsibility and convert him or her in self-perception to a careerist.

Skyrms describes how evolutionary models are helping us understand unselfish or cooperative behaviour in humans and animals. Mechanisms which can stabilize cooperative behaviour are sensitive to population densities, however. This creates the need for agent-based evolutionary models which depict individual interactions, spatial locations, and stochastic effects. One such model suggests that hostile environments may provide conditions conducive to the emergence and stabilization of cooperative behaviour. In particular, simulations show that random extinctions can keep population densities low, provide ongoing colonization opportunities, (...) and insulate cooperative communities from invasion. Agent-based and population models play complementary roles in furthering our understanding evolutionary processes. (shrink)

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is a form of life support for cardiac and/or pulmonary failure with unique ethical challenges compared to other forms of life support. Ethical challenges with ECMO exist when conventional standards of care apply, and are exacerbated during periods of absolute ECMO scarcity when “crisis standards of care” are instituted. When conventional standards of care apply, we propose that it is ethically permissible to withhold placing patients on ECMO for reasons of technical futility or when patients have (...) terminal, short-term prognoses that are untreatable by ECMO. Under crisis standards of care, it is ethically permissible to broaden exclusionary criteria to also withhold ECMO from patients who have a low likelihood of recovery, to maximize the overall number of lives saved. Unilateral withdrawal of ECMO against a patient’s preferences is unethical under conventional standards of care, but is ethical under crisis standards of care to increase access to ECMO to others in society. ECMO should only be rationed when true scarcity exists, and allocation protocols should be transparent to the public. When rationing must occur under crisis standards of care, it is imperative that oversight bodies assess for inequities in the allocation of ECMO and make frequent changes to improve any inequities. (shrink)

Chernyshevskii (1828-1889), a pivotal figure in the Russian protest movement after the Crimean War, was esteemed by Marx and Lenin. This first thorough treatment of Chernyshevskii in English is a biography and a presentation of his views on philosophy, aesthetics and literary criticism, economics and social relations, politics and revolution.

The goal of this chapter is to describe recollective memory and give an account of some of the characteristics of this form of human memory. I take recollective memory to be the type of memory that occurs when an individual recalls a specific episode from their past experience. I start with this very loose definition because a large part of this chapter consists of an attempt to work out a more detailed and analytic description of this form of memory.

Empirical research has discovered that experimental subjects in ultimatum bargaining situations generally fail to play the decision-theoretic optimum strategy, and instead play something between that strategy and a fair split. In evolutionary dynamics, fair division and nearly fair division strategies often go to fixation and weakly dominated strategies can do quite well. Computer simulations were done using three different ultimatum bargaining games as determinates of fitness. (1) No tendency toward the elimination of weakly dominated strategies was observed, with or without (...) mutation. (2) Strategies making fair demands had sizable basins of attraction. (3) In a system where five different demands can be made, demands closest to (approximately) 91% had the largest basins of attraction. (4) If the strategies have thresholds for acceptable demands, rather than individuated responses to each demand, the apparent optimum demand may be quite low: 64% for one set of trials. (shrink)

This paper presents a cognitive account of the process of evaluating scientific data. Our account assumes that when individuals evaluate data, they construct a mental model of a data-interpretation package, in which the data and theoretical interpretations of the data are integrated. We propose that individuals attempt to discount data by seeking alternative explanations for events within the mental model; data-interpretation packages are accepted when the individual cannot find alternative accounts for these events. Our analysis indicates that there are many (...) levels at which data-interpretation packages can be accepted or denied. (shrink)

This paper presents a cognitive account of the process of evaluating scientific data. Our account assumes that when individuals evaluate data, they construct a mental model of a data-interpretation package, in which the data and theoretical interpretations of the data are integrated. We propose that individuals attempt to discount data by seeking alternative explanations for events within the mental model; data-interpretation packages are accepted when the individual cannot find alternative accounts for these events. Our analysis indicates that there are many (...) levels at which data-interpretation packages can be accepted or denied. (shrink)

Charity is not only about giving to those in need, but in a broader sense about loving your neighbor and doing good things for other people without thought of reward. So wrote Swedish visionary Emanuel Swedenborg, who believed that charity, along with faiths, was part of the foundation of spiritual practice. This work combines two of Swedenborg's unpublished manuscripts to form a practical, inspirational handbook for appying the principle of doing good to daily life.

We use evidence from cognitive psychology and the history of science to examine the issue of the theory-ladenness of perceptual observation. This evidence shows that perception is theory-laden, but that it is only strongly theory-laden when the perceptual evidence is ambiguous or degraded, or when it requires a difficult perceptual judgment. We argue that debates about the theory-ladenness issue have focused too narrowly on the issue of perceptual experience, and that a full account of the scientific process requires an examination (...) of theory-ladenness in attention, perception, data interpretation, data production, memory, and scientific communication. We conclude that the evidence for theory-ladenness does not lead to a relativist account of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Hegel's objection -- Is Kant's idealism subjective? -- An ambiguity in 'subjectivism' -- The epistemological problem -- The transcendental deduction of the categories and subjectivism -- Are Kant's categories subjective? -- Hegel's suspicion : Kantian critique and subjectivism -- What is kantian philosophical criticism? -- Hegel's suspicion : initial formulation -- A shallow suspicion? -- Deepening the suspicion : criticism, autonomy, and subjectivism -- Directions of response -- Critique and suspicion : unmasking the critical philosophy -- Hegel's transformation of critique (...) -- The rejection of Kantian critique : philosophy, skepticism, and the recovery of the ancient idea -- Hegel's epistemology in the shadow of Schelling -- Schulze's skepticism contra the critical philosophy -- Ancient versus modern skepticism : Hegel's difference -- Against the modern conception of rational cognition -- Against modern self-certainty -- The history of skepticism: decline into dogmatism -- Philosophy counter culture and time -- The return to Kantian critique : recognizing the rights of ordinary consciousness -- Two conceptions of philosophical critique -- The return to critique and the relation of philosophy to its history -- The rights of ordinary consciousness and the need for critique -- Critique as the realization of the science of metaphysics -- Hegel's self-transformational criticism -- Presuppositionless philosophy -- The problem of the criterion -- Self-transformational criticism -- The problem of the we' -- Our transformation -- Hegel's alternative model : critical transformation as self-realization. (shrink)

It is common in attempts to extend the theory of evolution to culture to generalize from the causal basis of biological evolution, so that evolutionary theory becomes the theory of copying processes. Generalizing from the formal dynamics of evolution allows greater leeway in what kinds of things cultural entities can be, if they are to evolve. By understanding the phenomenon of cultural transmission in terms of coordinated phenotypic variability, we can have a theory of cultural evolution which allows us to (...) avoid the various difficulties with the elaboration of informational entities such as the cultural replicator, or meme. Such an account is a boon to the project of evolutionary epistemology since it confirms the presumption in favor of the general adaptiveness of culture, illuminating rather than obscuring the inherent intimacy of our relationship to (e.g.) our ideas. (shrink)

This article articulates and defends F. H. Bradley's regress argument against external relations using contemporary analytic techniques and conceptuality. Bradley's argument is usually quickly dismissed as if it were beneath serious consideration. But I shall maintain that Bradley's argument, suitably reconstructed, is a powerful argument, plausibly premised, and free of such obvious fallacies as petitio principii. Thus it does not rest on the question‐begging assumption that all relations are internal, as Russell, and more recently van Inwagen, maintain. Bradley does not (...) attack external relations in order to affirm a doctrine of internal relations, and his monism is not derived from the internality of all relations, but from the self‐contradictory nature of all relations. For Bradley, it is the “relational situation”as such that is ontologically defective. (shrink)