The history of science often has difficulty connecting with science at the lab-bench level, raising questions about the value of history of science for science. This essay offers a case study from taxonomy in which lessons learned about particular failings of numerical taxonomy in the second half of the twentieth century bear on the new movement toward DNA barcoding. In particular, it argues that an unwillingness to deal with messy theoretical questions in both cases leads to important problems in the (...) theory and practice of identifying taxa. This argument makes use of scientific and historical considerations in a way that the authors hope leads to convincing conclusions about the history of taxonomy as well as about its present practice. (shrink)

Dilation occurs when an interval probability estimate of some event E is properly included in the interval probability estimate of E conditional on every event F of some partition, which means that one’s initial estimate of E becomes less precise no matter how an experiment turns out. Critics maintain that dilation is a pathological feature of imprecise probability models, while others have thought the problem is with Bayesian updating. However, two points are often overlooked: (1) knowing that E is stochastically (...) independent of F (for all F in a partition of the underlying state space) is sufficient to avoid dilation, but (2) stochastic independence is not the only independence concept at play within imprecise probability models. In this paper we give a simple characterization of dilation formulated in terms of deviation from stochastic independence, propose a measure of dilation, and distinguish between proper and improper dilation. Through this we revisit the most sensational examples of dilation, which play up independence between dilator and dilatee, and find the sensationalism undermined by either fallacious reasoning with imprecise probabilities or improperly constructed imprecise probability models. (shrink)

Both dilation and non-conglomerability have been alleged to conflict with a fundamental principle of Bayesian methodology that we call \textit{Good's Principle}: one should always delay making a terminal decision between alternative courses of action if given the opportunity to first learn, at zero cost, the outcome of an experiment relevant to the decision. In particular, both dilation and non-conglomerability have been alleged to permit or even mandate choosing to make a terminal decision in deliberate ignorance of relevant, cost-free information. Although (...) dilation and non-conglomerability share some similarities, some authors maintain that there are important differences between the two that warrant endorsing different normative positions regarding dilation and non-conglomerability. This article reassesses the grounds for treating dilation and non-conglomerability differently. Our analysis exploits a new and general characterization result for dilation to draw a closer connection between dilation and non-conglomerability. (shrink)

Some thinkers have claimed that expert performance with technology is characterized by a kind of disappearance of that technology from conscious experience, that is, by the transparency of the tools and equipment through which we sense and manipulate the world. This is a claim that may be traced to phenomenological philosophers such as Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, but it has been influential in user interface design where the transparency of technology has often been adopted as a mark of good design. Moreover, (...) in the philosophy of cognitive science, such transparency has been advanced as necessary for extended cognition. By reflecting on concrete examples of our contemporary engagement with technology, I shall argue that the epistemic challenges posed by smart artefacts should prompt a reassessment of the drive for transparency in the design of some cases of technology-involving cognition. This has consequences for the place of extended minds in the contemporary technological context. (shrink)

We are becoming increasingly dependent on robots and other forms of artificial intelligence for our beliefs. But how should the knowledge gained from the “say-so” of a robot be classified? Should it be understood as testimonial knowledge, similar to knowledge gained in conversation with another person? Or should it be understood as a form of instrument-based knowledge, such as that gained from a calculator or a sundial? There is more at stake here than terminology, for how we treat objects as (...) sources of knowledge often has important social and legal consequences. In this paper, I argue that at least some robots are capable of testimony. I make my argument by exploring the differences between instruments and testifiers on a well-known account of knowledge: reliabilism. On this approach, I claim that the difference between instruments and testifiers as sources of knowledge is that only the latter are capable of deception. As some robots can be designed to deceive, so they too should be recognized as testimonial sources of knowledge. (shrink)

1857. After the fire of mutiny has swept through British India, young Lieutenant Victor Narraway arrives at a battered military base at Cawnpore. It is just two weeks before Christmas, but no one is able to celebrate: they have been betrayed. A soldier under arrest for dereliction of duty has killed a guard and escaped to join the rebels, taking crucial information that led to the massacre of nine men on patrol. Someone must have helped him, and medical orderly John (...) Tallis is the only man unaccounted for at the time. He is now on trial for his life, and Narraway is commanded to defend him. Narraway knows that his is an impossible task. The British Army needs justice to be carried out in full, and there seems no doubt of Tallis's guilt. But Narraway cannot see any motive for his actions. Will an innocent man hang before Christmas? (shrink)

According to the hypothesis of extended phenomenal consciousness, although the material vehicles that realize phenomenal consciousness include neural elements, they are not restricted to such elements. There will be cases in which those material vehicles additionally include not only non-neural bodily elements, but also elements located beyond the skull and skin. In this paper, I examine two arguments for ExPC, one due to Noë and the other due to Kiverstein and Farina. Both of these arguments conclude that ExPC is true (...) on the basis of an analysis of sensory substitution, the phenomenon in which technological augmentation enables one sensory modality, for instance touch, to support the kind of environmental access and interaction ordinarily supported by a different sensory modality, for instance vision. I develop considerations which reveal that, as they stand, both of these arguments fall short. If the phenomenon of sensory substitution provides evidence for the truth of ExPC, it is not because of the specific arguments offered by these authors. (shrink)

In ‘Rethinking Nature: Phenomenology and a Non-reductionist Cognitive Science’, Gallagher [2019] sets out to overcome resistance to the idea that phenomenology is relevant to cognitive science. He argues that the relevance in question may be secured if we rethink the concept of nature. For Gallagher, this transformed concept of nature—which is to be distinguished from the classic scientific conception of nature in that it embraces irreducible subjectivity—is already at work in some contemporary enactive phenomenological approaches to cognitive science. Following a (...) summary of Gallagher’s argument, we argue that this rethinking of nature is not necessary to secure the aim in question. We articulate two alternative ways of achieving the relevance of phenomenology to cognitive science. The first, which turns on a minimal notion of naturalism, leaves the classic scientific conception of nature intact. The second, which turns on a practice-based analysis of collaboration between phenomenology and cognitive science, leaves it open which concept of nature one should adopt. As we show, each of the proposals on the table (Gallagher’s own and our two alternatives) comes at a cost. Which of the three proposals is the more attractive will depend on which cost one wants to pay. (shrink)

It is often said that the best system account of laws (BSA) needs supplementing with a theory of perfectly natural properties. The ‘strength’ and ‘simplicity’ of a system is language-relative and without a fixed vocabulary it is impossible to compare rival systems. Recently a number of philosophers have attempted to reformulate the BSA in an effort to avoid commitment to natural properties. I assess these proposals and argue that they are problematic as they stand. Nonetheless, I agree with their aim, (...) and show that if simplicity is interpreted as ‘compression’, algorithmic information theory provides a framework for system comparison without the need for natural properties.A menudo se dice que la explicación de las leyes del mejor sistema (BSA) requiere ser completada con una teoría de las propiedades perfectamente naturales. La ‘fuerza’ y la ‘simplicidad’ de un sistema son relativas a un lenguaje y sin un vocabulario fijo es imposible comparar sistemas rivales. Recientemente, varios filósofos han intentado reformular la BSA en un esfuerzo por evitar el compromiso con las propiedades naturales. Aquí valoro estas propuestas y argumento que son problemáticas en su forma actual. Sin embargo, comparto su objetivo y muestro que si la simplicidad es interpretada como ‘compresion’, la teoría algoritmica de la información proporciona un marco para la comparación sin necesidad de apelar a propiedades naturales. (shrink)

In this important new book, Quentin Skinner shows us, with rare precision and eloquence, a world with which we are undoubtedly far less familiar than he, that of humanist rhetoric, and uses his deep knowledge of it to illuminate the recesses of a thinker with whom we feel we are all too familiar. In so doing he opens our eyes to different ways of thinking about early modern political philosophy and provides us with a Hobbes quite different from the (...) one we thought we knew, and the context in which to understand him. (shrink)

The structural view of rational acceptance is a commitment to developing a logical calculus to express rationally accepted propositions sufficient to represent valid argument forms constructed from rationally accepted formulas. This essay argues for this project by observing that a satisfactory solution to the lottery paradox and the paradox of the preface calls for a theory that both (i) offers the facilities to represent accepting less than certain propositions within an interpreted artificial language and (ii) provides a logical calculus of (...) rationally accepted formulas that preserves rational acceptance under consequence. The essay explores the merit and scope of the structural view by observing that some limitations to a recent framework advanced James Hawthorne and Luc Bovens are traced to their framework satisfying the first of these two conditions but not the second. (shrink)

Ever since Darwin, scholars have noted that cultural entities such as languages, laws and theories seem to evolve through variation, selection and replication. These essays consider whether this comparison is just a metaphor.

We suggest there is somewhat more potential than Christiansen & Chater (C&C) allow for genetic adaptations specific to language. Our uniquely cooperative social system requires sophisticated language skills. Learning and performance of some culturally transmitted elements in animals is genetically based, and we give examples of features of human language that evolve slowly enough that genetic adaptations to them may arise.

The recent scandal involving Tokyo Medical University’s practice of restricting the number of incoming students, primarily female, by systematically lowering their entrance exam scores has once again shone a spotlight on the issue of gender discrimination in Japan. The bulk of the media coverage to date has centered on the manner in which the female applicants to the university have been treated unfairly and how societal perceptions of women’s roles in the workplace may be in need of significant revision. In (...) the present paper, the author will provide an overview of this aspect of the situation and suggest potential means to be taken by the university to redress its actions. Additionally, the author will examine another extremely important aspect of the scandal, namely, how the university was able to conduct its discriminatory practice unchecked for over a decade, a topic that has received less attention. Possible means through which similar scandals may be avoided in the future will also be discussed. (shrink)

Relative essentialism, the view that multiple objects about which there are distinct de re modal truths can occupy the same space at the same time, is a metaphysical view that dissolves a number of metaphysical issues. The present essay constructs and defends relative essentialism and argues that it is implicit in some of the ideas of W. V. Quine and Donald Davidson. Davidson’s published views about individuation and sameness can accommodate the common-sense insights about change and persistence of Aristotle and (...) Kripke. Aristotle and Kripke have to give up unmediated direct reference resting on a unique correct articulation of reality into entities. Davidson has to acknowledge a distinction between descriptions giving accidental and those giving essential features of an object. Quine and Davidson were in a position to be a relative essentialist, but were over-impressed by supervenience. The relative essentialist view of beings developed from Quine and Davidson strongly suggests the Heideggerian distinction between beings and Being, and is the perspective from which analytic philosophy can engage that topic. Relative essentialism also connects analytic philosophy to Derrida’s thinking about differance. (shrink)

[E.H. Gombrich wrote on May 13, 1975:] . . . I recently was invited to talk about "Art" at the Institution for Education of our University. There was a well-intentioned teacher there who put forward the view that we had no right whatever to influence the likes and dislikes of our pupils because every generation had a different outlook and we could not possibly tell what theirs would be. It is the same extreme relativism, which has invaded our art schools (...) and resulted in the doctrine that art could not possibly be taught because only what has been done already can be taught, and since art is creativity it is not possible to teach it. Q.E.D.—I recently asked my history finalists what "Quod erat demonstrandum" means and they did not know. . . . [Quentin Bell responded on May 15, 1975:] . . . Your teacher at the Institute, is he really a relativist? Isn't he a kind of religious zealot? I used to teach school children. With me there was a much better teacher . One day she came into the room where I had been teaching and found a series of the most surprising and beautiful water colours. "What are these?" said she. I explained that they were copies of Raphael made by eleven and twelve year old children. I would have gone on to explain how interested I was by their resemblance, not to Raphael but rather to Simone Martini, for they had all the shapes beautifully right but none of the internal drawing or the sentiment, but I was checked by her look of horror. "You've made them copy from Raphael?" she said. Her expression was exactly that of someone who had been casually informed that that I had committed a series of indecent assaults upon the brats. And in fact in subsequent conversation it appeared that this was very nearly what she did feel. For her, what she called "self expression" was as precious as virginity. E.H. Gombrich was director of the Warburg Institute and Professor of the History of the Classical Tradition at the University of London from 1959 to 1976. His books include The Story of Art, Art and Illusion, Meditations on a Hobby Horse, Norm and Form, Symbolic Images, The Heritage of Apelles, and In Search of Cultural History. He became a Fellow of the British Academy in 1960, a Commander of the British Empire in 1966, and was knighted in 1972. He is also a trustee of the British Museum and a foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Philosophical Society. His contributions to Critical Inquiry include "Notes and Exchanges" ,"Standards of Truth: The Arrested Image and the Moving Eye" , and, with Quentin Bell, "Canons and Values in the Visual Arts: A Correspondence" . Quentin Bell is professor of the history and theory of art, Sussex University. He has written Virginia Woolf: A Biography, Of Human Finery, Ruskin, Victorian Artists and Bloomsbury. Other contributions to Critical Inquiry are "The Art Critic and the Art Historian" , "Notes and Exchanges" , and "Bloomsbury and 'the Vulgar Passions'". (shrink)

Self-awareness is thought to be tied to processes of higher-order perspective taking including empathy. These abilities appear to be reserved for humans, great apes, and possibly, dolphins. Recent examinations reveal that both self-awareness and empathy may have origins in the right hemisphere. It is possible that, as in language, lateralization plays a key role in the development of higher-order perspective taking and self-awareness.