Using a multiple-trial stock market decision paradigm, the possibility that counterfactual thinking can be dysfunctional for learning and performance by distorting the processing of outcome information was examined. Correlational (Study 1) and experimental (Study 2) evidence suggested that counterfactuals are associated with a decrease in experiential learning. When counterfactuals were made salient, participants displayed significantly poorer performance compared to their counterparts for whom counterfactuals were relatively less salient. A counterfactual salience ? need for cognition (NFC) interaction qualified these findings. High (...) NFC participants outperformed their counterparts when counterfactuals were not salient. Evidence for a memory-based mechanism was also supported. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Moral Motivation and the Development of Francis Hutcheson’s PhilosophyJohn D. BishopHutcheson was an able philosopher, but philosophical analysis was not his only purpose in writing about morals. 1 Throughout his life his writings aimed at promoting virtue; his changing philosophical views often had to conform, if he could make them, to that rhetorical end. But a mind which understands philosophical argument cannot always control the conclusions at which it (...) arrives. The result for Hutcheson was often tension in his thought—which in the end produced a farrago when he tried to create a system of moral philosophy.Throughout his writing career, Hutcheson’s views on the problem of moral motivation were a combination of change and development against a background of certain constant views. A close examination of his views on moral motivation throws light on the development of his thought, including his growing Stoicism, and some of the changes he made to the moral sense theory.The phrase “moral motivation” can refer to either of two issues. On the one hand there is the question of what motivates virtuous actions, and the usual answer for Hutcheson is benevolence. Because they are approved by the moral sense, actions motivated by benevolence are morally good or virtuous (terms which I will use interchangeably). Hutcheson in his late writings calls such actions “formally good” to distinguish them from actions which do in fact promote the greatest happiness, or the natural good, of others; these latter actions are “materially good.” 2 On the other hand there is [End Page 277] the question of how our knowledge of the virtuousness of certain actions can motivate and how in particular such knowledge can motivate morally good actions. For Hutcheson we know which actions are morally good because we have a moral sense, but how this knowledge motivates morally good actions is a question Hutcheson made several attempts to answer. This second question, how the moral sense can motivate morally good actions, is the focus of this paper. The development of Hutcheson’s idea of benevolence will be commented on briefly, but first we need to look at some of the unchanging aspects of Hutcheson’s thought and purposes to provide background to the issue of motivation.Virtuous actions are the result of virtuous character. Hutcheson maintained this from his earliest publications (Reflections, par. 5) to his posthumous System. 3 A virtuous character cannot be directly chosen, even if we wanted to, because we cannot choose to have benevolent desires: “[N]either benevolence nor any other affection or desire can be directly raised by volition” (Inquiry, IV, 139; revised from first edition).But virtue can be cultivated:... virtue, itself, or good dispositions of mind, are not directly taught, or produced by instruction; they must be originally planted in our nature by its great Author, and afterwards strengthened and confirmed by our own cultivation.(Inquiry, IV, 271. Changed from I, 253, with reference to cultivation added; cf. also Introduction, 13, 25, 38, 39, 58–59, etc.)We can cultivate virtue in ourselves; and through writing, teaching, conversation, and social interaction, we can cultivate it in others. 4 At the start of his career, when announcing in Reflections the purpose of his writing on [End Page 278] moral theory, Hutcheson regrets that the moral systems common in his day are not conducive to promoting virtue: they are written, he says, by moralists who are “sour and morose in their deportment;... easily put out of humour...; dejected with common calamities, and insolent upon any prosperous change in fortune” (Reflections, par. 4). He promises that his forthcoming Inquiry will not have this fault. In the preface to the Essay he complains about the writings of the ethical egoists because “many [people] have been discouraged from all attempts of cultivating kind generous affections in themselves, by a previous notion that there are no such affections in nature...” (I, v; III, v). Throughout all the rest of his writings on morality Hutcheson advocates both the private and communal cultivation of virtue, and at the same time he contributes to that cultivation.The other constant which dominates the moral motivation issue is Hutcheson’s rejection of egoism. Benevolence is a... (shrink)

Leibniz has been widely praised for maintaining against the Newtonians of his day the view that space and time are relative. At the same time, he has been roundly criticized for allowing that we can distinguish absolute from merely relative motion. This distribution of applause and criticism, I will argue, is in a measure unjustified. For on the one hand, those arguments, found in his correspondence with Clarke, by which Leibniz seeks to reject the view that space and time are (...) “something absolute” are for the most part unsatisfactory, and on the other hand, Leibniz was not so naive as his critics have supposed in allowing absolute motions. Sections I ‐ V of this essay will be concerned with the former issue; Leibniz's views on motion will be taken up in Section VI. The chief interest in all of this for present‐day philosophers may lie, not so much in the historical issues concerning Leibniz and the Newtonians, but in a meta‐philosophical question which inevitably arises from the historical issues, namely, the question whether developments in science can undermine the soundness of philosophical arguments which appeal to ordinary usage. (shrink)

This book is a philosophical examination of the main stages in our journey from hominid to human. It deals with the nature and origin of language, the self, self-consciousness, and the religious ideal of a return to Eden. It approaches these topics through a philosophical anthropology derived from the later writings of Wittgenstein. The result is an account of our place in nature consistent with both a hard-headed empiricism and a this-worldy but religiously significant mysticism.

The nature of representation is a central topic in philosophy. This is the first book to connect problems with understanding representational artifacts, like pictures, diagrams, and inscriptions, to the philosophies of science, mind, and art. Can images be a source of knowledge? Are images merely conventional signs, like words? What is the relationship between the observer and the observed? In this clear and stimulating introduction to the problem John V. Kulvicki explores these questions and more. He discusses: the nature (...) of pictorial experience and "seeing in" recognition, resemblance, pretense, and structural theories of depiction images as aids to scientific discovery and understanding mental imagery and the nature of perceptual content photographs as visual prostheses. In so doing he assesses central problems in the philosophy of images, such as how objects we make come to represent other things, and how we distinguish kinds of representation - pictures, diagrams, graphs - from one another. Essential reading for students and professional philosophers alike, the book also contains chapter summaries, annotated further reading, and a glossary. (shrink)

1. The early philosophy--language as picture -- 2. Logic and ontology -- 3. "My world and its value" -- 4. The later philosophy--views and reviews -- 5. Method and essense -- 6. Meaning -- 7. Criteria -- 8. Knowing, naming, certainty, and idealism -- 9. The private language argument -- 10. Logical necessity and rules -- 11. Philosophy of mathematics -- 12. Persons -- 13. Psychology and conceptual relativity -- 14. Aesthetics, ethics, and religion -- 15. Elective affinities.

. Because of similarities between some implications of Michael Polanyi's theory of personal knowledge and intelligent design, claims have been made that his theory provides support to the project of intelligent design. This essay contends that, when Polanyi's reflections on a Ideological framework for contextualizing evolutionary biology are properly understood as a heuristic vision, his position contrasts sharply with the empirical claims made on behalf of intelligent design.

. This essay attempts to explore the senses in which religious meanings may be understood to be grounded ontologically and in which they may be validly accepted as true. It begins by outlining Wolfhart Pannenberg’s proposal for conceiving the scientific status of theology and his formulation of the question of theological truth. Then certain epistemological presuppositions are challenged in light of Michael Polanyi’s theory of knowledge. Finally a revised understanding is proposed in Polanyian terms. Here in their primordial sense religious (...) meanings are based in the act of breaking out toward the ground of our tacit foreknowledge. In their primary sense religious symbolizations are accepted as human creations and judged to be valid insofar as they integrate meaningfully all the disparate elements of our experience. (shrink)

This review discusses Weightman's interpretation of Torrance's appropriation of Polanyi's theory of science; Weightman shows how Torrance develops a contemporary “natural”theology, moving beyond Barthian roots, but he argues Torrance misconstrues Polanyi's understanding of “religion” and God. I support Weightman's account, acknowledging much of his argument regarding the nature of religion, but I question whether his constructivist view of God can support the role it must play in Polanyi's thought.

John Kulvicki explores the many ways in which pictures can be meaningful, taking inspiration from the philosophy of language. Pictures are important parts of communicative acts. They express a variety of thoughts, and they are also representations. Kulvicki shows how the meanings of pictures let us put them to a wide range of communicative uses.

In ‘Wittgenstein and Qualia’ Ned Block argues for the existence of inverted spectra and those ineffable things, qualia. The essence of his discussion is a would-be proof, presented through a series of pictures, of the possible existence of an inverted spectrum. His argument appeals to some remarks by Wittgenstein which, Block holds, commit the former to a certain ‘dangerous scenario’ wherein inverted spectra, and consequently qualia live and breath. I hold that a key premise of this proof is incoherent. Furthermore, (...) Block’s dangerous scenario does not follow from Wittgenstein’s innocent one, as Block believes it does, but rather is in conflict with it. (shrink)

I can’t help but like a book that calls Wittgenstein the greatest philosopher since Kant and then proceeds to show how On Certainty, a manifestly brilliant but understudied book, sheds light on matters under current debate. It is pleasant to see a highly skilled contemporary put texts from the later philosophy under close scrutiny and mine them for insight, and that outside the bounds of familiar Wittgenstein scholarship.

These remarks are comments on Tihamér Margitay’s criticisms of Polanyi’s so-called “correspondence thesis” in his recent essay “From Epistemology to Ontology.”.

This review essay argues that the emphasis on the personal commitments sustaining all knowledge, while permitting some fruitful insights into structural parallels between Newman's and Polanyi’s epistemological positions, finally is not fully satisfactory for developing a theological program. Moleski’s effort to develop such theological insights may be advanced if it were supplemented by incorporating a more detailed structural analysis of the illative sense and of tacit knowing.

The aim of this essay is to display a congruence between several important features of Augustine’s theory of knowledge, including our knowledge of the world (sapientia) and our knowledge of the standards guiding our thought (sapientia), and Michael Polanyi’s theory of personal knowledge. Its purpose is to commendan interpretation of Polanyi’s thought which situates his major insights within an Augustinian intellectual tradition and which thereby offers fruitful possibilities for theological reflection, particularly on the reality of God.

Language Games 2 This chapter provides some background necessary for subsequent discussions by sketching in the idea of a language game, thereby giving a ...

This paper seeks to highlight the importance of spatial cognition in Bergson’s Données immédiates by engaging with Robert Watt’s reconstruction of Bergson’s argument that every idea of number involves the idea of space. We focus on the second stage of Watt’s reconstruction, where Bergson argues that only space can provide the distinction required for our counting of otherwise identical items. Watt bases his reconstruction on a premise regarding the possibility that identical objects, in the absence of spatial distinction, might remain (...) identical across different “temporal locations”. Our paper raises the prospect that Bergson is committed to a stronger thesis, namely one implying that identical objects would necessarily remain indistinguishable without the intervention of space. The paper thus concludes by emphasizing the indispensability of space for knowledge according to Bergson. (shrink)

Saul Kripke, among others, reads Wittgenstein’s private-language argument as an inference from the idea of rule following: The concept of a private language is inconsistent, because using language entails following rules, and following rules entails being a member of a community. Kripke expresses the key exegetical claim underlying that reading as follows.

The Metaphysical Society was founded in 1869 at the instigation of James Knowles (editor of the Contemporary Review and then of the Nineteenth Century) with a view to 'collect, arrange, and diffuse Knowledge (whether objective or subjective) of mental and moral phenomena' (first resolution of the society in April 1869). The Society was a private dining and debate club that gathered together a latter-day clerisy. Building on the tradition of the Cambridge Apostles, they elected talented members from across the Victorian (...) intellectual spectrum: Bishops, one Cardinal, philosophers, men of science, literary figures, and politicians. The Society included in its 62 members prominent figures such as T. H. Huxley, William Gladstone, Walter Bagehot, Henry Edward Manning, John Ruskin, and Alfred Lord Tennyson. (shrink)