It is well-known that people will adjust their first-order beliefs based on observations of others. We explore how such adjustments interact with second-order beliefs regarding universalism and relativism in a population. Across a range of simulations, we show that populations where individuals have a tendency toward universalism converge more quickly in coordination problems, and generate higher total payoffs, than do populations where individuals have a tendency toward relativism. Thus, in contexts where coordination is important, belief in universalism is advantageous. However, (...) we also show, across a range of simulations, that universalism will enshrine inequalities and eliminate diversity, and in these cases it seems that relativism has its own advantages. (shrink)

The experimental validity of research in the experimental philosophy of free will has been called into question. Several new, important studies (Murray et al. forthcoming; Nadelhoffer et al., Cognitive Science 44 (8): 1–28, 2020 ; Nadelhoffer et al., 2021; Rose et al., Cognitive Science 41 (2): 482–502, 2017 ) are interpreted as showing that the vignette-judgment model is defective because participants only exhibit a surface-level comprehension and not the deeper comprehension the model requires. Participants, it is argued, commit _bypassing_, _intrusion_, (...) and _fatalism_ errors. We respond in two ways: (1) we critique and improve existing methods for assessing deeper comprehension and (2) we develop videos to convey deterministic principles of change that succeed in significantly reducing participants’ bypassing, intrusion, and fatalism errors. Consequently, we have the best existing instrument for gauging folk intuitions about the relationship between free will and determinism. (shrink)

Work in philosophy of religion exhibits at least four symptoms of poor health: it is too partisan, too polemical, too narrow in its focus, and too often evaluated using criteria that are theological or religious instead of philosophical. Our diagnosis is that, because of the emotional and psychosocial aspects of religion, many philosophers of religion suffer from cognitive biases and group influence. We support this diagnosis in two ways. First, we examine work in psychology on cognitive biases and their affective (...) triggers. This work supports the view that, while cognitive biases are no doubt a problem in all inquiry and in all areas ofphilosophy, they are particularly damaging to inquiry in philosophy of religion. Second, we examine work in social and evolutionary psychology on religious sociality and its attendant emotions. This work establishes that the coalitional features of religion are correlated with group bias, and we contend that this bias is also harmful to inquiry in philosophy of religion. We close by offering both a prognosis and recommendations for treatment. (shrink)

Nichols offers the first comprehensive interpretation of the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid's theory of perception - by far the most important feature of his philosophical system. Nichols's consummate knowledge of Reid's texts, lively examples, and plainspoken style make this book especially readable. It will be the definitive analysis for a long time to come.

Assume for the sake of argument that doing philosophy is intrinsically valuable, where “doing philosophy” refers to the practice of forging arguments for and against the truth of theses in the domains of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and so on. The practice of the history of philosophy is devoted instead to discovering arguments for and against the truth of “authorial” propositions, that is, propositions that state the belief of some historical figure about a philosophical proposition. I explore arguments for thinking that (...) doing history of philosophy is valuable—specifically, valuable in such a way that its value does not reduce to the value of doing philosophy. Most such arguments proffered by historians of philosophy fail, as I show. I then offer a proposal about what makes doing history of philosophy uniquely valuable, but it is one that many historians will not find agreeable. (shrink)

Reid's unusual primary/secondary quality distinction is drawn along epistemic lines. Reid takes an epistemic turn because of Locke's failure to draw a metaphysical distinction. Secondary qualities differ from primary qualities in virtue of the fact that we acquire notions of secondary qualities via the mediation of sensations. Primary qualities require no such mediation. In one respect, the analysis I set out renders qualities relative to agents. I address whether Reid advocates a dispositional theory of secondary qualities, whether the phenomenology of (...) color underlying Reid's theory is tenable, and whether Reid's distinction coheres well with his theory of perceptual knowledge. (shrink)

Osiurak and Reynaud argue that cumulative technological culture is made possible by a “non-social cognitive structure” and they offer an account that aims “to escape from the social dimension” of human cognition. We challenge their position by arguing that human technical rationality is unintelligible outside of our species' uniquely social form of life, which is defined by shared intentionality :319–37; Tomasello 2019a, Becoming human: A theory of ontogeny. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press).

To say Early Confucians advocated the possession of a sense of shame as a means to moral virtue underestimates the tact and forethought they used successfully to mold natural dispositions to experience shame into a system of self, familial, and social governance. Shame represents an adaptive system of emotion, cognition, perception, and behavior in social primates for measurement of social rank. Early Confucians understood the utility of the shame system for promotion of cooperation, and they build and deploy cultural modules (...) – e.g., rituals, titles, punishments – with this in mind. These policies result in subtle alterations to components of the evolved shame system that are detectable in data form contemporary cross-cultural psychology that show that populations in the Confucian diaspora have a unique shame profile compared to Western and non-Western populations. The status of Confucian diaspora populations as outliers in the context of shame is partially explained by appeal to the cultural transmission and historical endurance of relevant Early Confucian cultural modules. (shrink)

We can make a good prima facie case for the inconsistency of Reid's theory of perception with his rejection of the Ideal Theory. Most scholars believe Reid adopts a theory on which the immediate object of perception is a physical body. Reid is thought to do this in order to avoid problems generated by the veil of perception in the Ideal Theory, a conjunction of commitments Reid closely associates with Hume and Locke. Reid explains that the Ideal Theory "leans with (...) its whole weight upon a hypothesis...[t]hat nothing is perceived but what is in the mind which perceives it". Reid attributes to the Ideal Theory thesis. (shrink)

The role of epistemology in philosophy of religion has transformed the discipline by diverting questions away from traditional metaphysical issues and toward concerns about justification and warrant. Leaders responsible for these changes, including Plantinga, Alston and Draper, use methods and arguments fromScottish Enlightenment figures. In general theists use and cite techniques pioneered by Reid and non-theists use and cite techniques pioneered by Hume, a split reduplicated among cognitive scientists of religion, with Justin Barrett and Scott Atran respectively framing their results (...) in Reid’s and in Hume’s language and argument. This state of affairs sets our agenda. First we identify Reid’s use in the epistemology of religion and in the cognitive science of religion. Then we turn to Reid’s texts in an effort to assess the interpretations and extrapolations of Reid given by participants in these debates. The answers to our research questions shed light on what Reid would believe today, were he apprised of the latest research in epistemology of and cognitive science of religion. (shrink)

I argue that Reid adopts a form of Meinongianism about fictional objects because of, not in spite of, his common sense philosophy. According to 'the way of ideas', thoughts take representational states as their immediate intentional objects. In contrast, Reid endorses a direct theory of conception and a heady thesis of first-person privileged access to the contents of our thoughts. He claims that thoughts about centaurs are thoughts of non-existent objects, not thoughts about mental intermediaries, adverbial states or general concepts. (...) In part this is because of the common sense semantics he adopts for fictional-object terms. I show that it is reasonable for Reid to endorse Meinongianism, given his epistemological priorities, for he took the way of ideas to imply that his view about first-person privileged access to our mental contents was false. (shrink)

Experimental tests about cross-cultural differentiation of cognitive style conclude that East Asian and Western cognition differ. Tendencies described as East Asian include holism, non-linearity, expectation of change, relationalism, field dependence, causal pluralism, dialecticism, and a tolerance of contradiction. Cross-cultural psychologists generally refrain from discussing the intellectual history or cultural evolution of these differences, preferring to explain results on cognitive scales in terms of results on social scales assessed using present-day participants. The present article attempts to partially close this explanatory gap (...) through detailed discussion of tendencies of East Asian cognitive style as represented in what is probably the most influential book in the history of East Asia, The Book of Changes. This study purports to show that the content of the Yijing 易經 and its commentaries is best described in terms of the cognitive tendencies just mentioned, that reading the Yijing activated those cognitive tendencies, and that the Yijing attained prodigious influence on subsequent Chinese and East Asian cultures through four known mechanisms of cultural transmission. Informed by this case study, researchers of cross-cultural cognition may be positioned to develop a richer appreciation of the cultural representation and evolution of East Asian cognitive style in historical context. (shrink)

Assume for the sake of argument that doing philosophy is intrinsically valuable, where ‘doing philosophy’ refers to the practice of forging arguments for and against the truth of theses in the domains of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, etc. The practice of the history of philosophy is devoted instead to discovering arguments for and against the truth of ‘authorial’ propositions, i.e. propositions that state the belief of some historical figure about a philosophical proposition. I explore arguments to think that doing history of (...) philosophy is valuable, specifically, valuable in such a way that its value does not reduce to the value of doing philosophy. Most such arguments proffered by historians of philosophy fail egregiously, as I show. I then offer a proposal about what makes doing history of philosophy uniquely valuable, but it is one that many historians will not find agreeable. (shrink)

In this chapter, we outline the methods and aims of experimental philosophy as a methodological movement within philosophy, and suggest ways in which it may be employed in the study of Chinese philosophy.

This essay discusses Cecilia Heyes’ groundbreaking new book Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking. Heyes’ point of departure is the claim that current theories of cultural evolution fail adequately to make a place for the mind. Heyes articulates a cognitive psychology of cultural evolution by explaining how eponymous “cognitive gadgets,” such as imitation, mindreading and language, mental technologies, are “tuned” and “assembled” through social interaction and cultural learning. After recapitulating her explanations for the cultural and psychological origins of these (...) gadgets, we turn to criticisms. Among those, we find Heyes’ use of evolutionary theory confusing on several points of importance; alternative theories of cultural evolution, especially those of the Tomasello group and of Boyd, Richerson and Henrich, are misrepresented; the book neglects joint attention and other forms of intersubjectivity in its explanation of the origins of cognitive gadgets; and, whereas Heyes accuses other theories of being “mindblind,” we find her theory ironically other-blind and autistic in character. (shrink)

The project is to traverse with quite novel questions, and as though with new eyes, the enormous, distant, and so well hidden land of morality—of morality that has actually existed, actually been lived.This essay offers a contribution to the consilience of the humanities, social sciences, and life sciences in accord with naturalism (in a spirit closer to Slingerland 2008 than Wilson 1998). Human beings have a shared nature produced by evolutionary history and modified by culture, where 'culture' refers to "information (...) capable of affecting individuals' behavior that they acquire from other members of their species through teaching, imitation, and other forms of social transmission" (Richerson and Boyd 2005, p. 5). .. (shrink)

Social psychologists have found that stereotypes correlate with moral judgments about agents and actions. The most commonly studied stereotypes are race/ethnicity and gender. But atheists compose another stereotype, one with its own ignominious history in the Western world, and yet, one about which very little is known. This project endeavored to further our understanding of atheism as a social stereotype. Specifically, we tested whether people with non-religious commitments were stereotypically viewed as less moral than people with religious commitments. We found (...) that participants’ moral appraisals of atheists were more negative than those of Christians who performed the same moral and immoral actions. They also reported immoral behavior as more consistent for atheists, and moral behavior more consistent for Christians. The results contribute to research at the intersection of moral theory, moral psychology, and psychology of religion. (shrink)

In his recent book “Becoming Human” Michael Tomasello delivers an updated version of his shared intentionality (SI) account of uniquely human cognition. More so than in earlier writings, the author embraces the idea that SI shapes not just our social cognition but all domains of thought and emotion. In this critical essay, we center on three parts of his theory. The first is that children allegedly have to earn the status of “second persons” through the acquisition of collective intentionality at (...) age 3. We make the case that humans take a second-personal stance toward others even as infants. The second point concerns Tomasello’s claim that 3-year-olds are group-minded and think in terms of “us” vs. “them”. We doubt both that children this young have a clear overview of their in- and out-groups and that they possess the “agonistic spirit” necessary for inter-group competition. Third, due to his focus on collective intentionality and how it might explain 3-year-olds’ difficulties with theory of mind problems, Tomasello appears to pay less attention to the crucial conceptual change that allows 4- to 5-year-olds to master such tasks. (shrink)

Experimental philosophy has blossomed into a variety of philosophical fields including ethics, epistemology, metaphysics and philosophy of language. But there has been very little experimental philosophical research in the domain of philosophy of religion. Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy demonstrates how cognitive science of religion has the methodological and conceptual resources to become a form of experimental philosophy of religion. Addressing a wide variety of empirical claims that are of interest to philosophers and psychologists of religion, a (...) team of psychologists and philosophers apply data from the psychology of religion to important problems in the philosophy of religion including the psychology of religious diversity; the psychology of substance dualism; the problem of evil and the relation between religious belief and empathy; and the cognitive science explaining the formation of intuitions that unwittingly guide philosophers of religion when formulating arguments. Bringing together authors and researchers who have made important contributions to interdisciplinary research on religion in the last decade, Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy provides new ways of approaching core philosophical and psychological problems. (shrink)

According to many experiments in cross-cultural psychology, East Asians exhibit holistic cognitive style typified by use of resemblance heuristics, field dependence, external sources of causation, intuitive forms of reasoning, and interdependent forms of social thinking. Holistic cognitive style contrasts with analytic cognitive style, which is common to Westerners. Section 1 presents information on the background of Buddhism’s entry into and treatment by China. Section 2 discusses experimental evidence for the representation of holistic cognitive style in contemporary East Asians. Section 3 (...) presents preliminary evidence for the interaction between holistic cognitive style and the history of ideas in China at large. Section 4 analyzes two discussions of the same philosophical problem conducted by Chinese Buddhist philosopher Fazang and Indian Vedic philosopher Shankara. It is provisionally argued that the interpretive strategies displayed by Fazang interact with several components of holistic cognitive style, in contrast with Shankara. Implications are discussed. (shrink)

To the question “What normative ethical theory does early Confucianism best represent?” researchers in the history of early Confucian philosophy respond with more than half a dozen different answers. They include sentimentalism, amoralism, pragmatism, Kantianism, Aristotelian virtue theory, care ethics, and role ethics. The lack of consensus is concerning, as three considerations make clear. First, fully trained, often leading, scholars advocate each of the theories. Second, nearly all participants in the debate believe that the central feature of early Confucianism is (...) its moral thought. However, these normative ethical theories are logically inconsistent with one another, the third point. The entailment is unavoidable: the majority of scholars of early Confucian normative ethics must be incorrect about their attributions of a normative theory to early Confucianism. It would appear, then, that we need a new dao 道 or pathway for the study of early Confucian moral thought. One alternative is to adopt an immersively interdisciplinary research methodology that pivots on the recognition that early Confucianism is a social-functional system the governing purpose of which is to influence cultural leaders. (shrink)

Scholars employing ossified ‘close reading’ methods generate countless articles that drop down into a gravity vortex, circling themselves for a self-referential eternity. After arguing that the study of texts in the humanities, especially literature and philosophy, makes no progress, I set this controversy in the light of a distinction between the Soft and Hard Humanities. This is not an a priori argument from an ivory tower. Rather than tell, I show. I present data from the testing of a hypothesis drawn (...) from genre theory about science fi ction, then say a few words about the uncertain future of philosophy and literature. (shrink)

John Hare’s central objections to secular theories of motivation arise via his ‘hateful nephew’ example, which, I argue, obscures important issues of scope:Who must be motivated (some/all)?How frequently must they be motivated (most/all of the time)?What is the extent of their motivation (act/tend to act)?Hare must adopt the stronger readings of these questions if his case against secular accounts of motivation is to succeed. But holding any account of motivationto such standards is misguided. Furthermore, Hare’s own theistic account of motivation (...) cannot meet the standards he applies to his primary secular interlocutor. This study opens into wider terrain as I (i) identify which of myriad moral gaps an account of motivation is alleged to bridge; (ii) explain how the dialectic between Hare and Shelly Kagan depends upon unarticulated assumptions about judgment externalism and judgment internalism; and (iii) criticize appeals to motivational versions of ‘ought implies can’ principles. (shrink)

_Philosophy Through Science Fiction_ offers a fun, challenging, and accessible way in to the issues of philosophy through the genre of science fiction. Tackling problems such as the possibility of time travel, or what makes someone the same person over time, the authors take a four-pronged approach to each issue, providing · a clear and concise introduction to each subject · a science fiction story that exemplifies a feature of the philosophical discussion · historical and contemporary philosophical texts that investigate (...) the issue with rigor, and · glossary, plot profiles of pertinent science fiction stories and films, and questions for further reflection. _Philosophy Through Science Fiction_ includes stories from contemporary science fiction writers including Greg Egan and Mike Resnick, as well as from classic authors like Philip K. Dick and Robert Heinlein. Philosophy readings include historical pieces by René Descartes and David Hume, and contemporary pieces by John Searle and Mary Midgley. (shrink)

Im Anschluß an die Erörterung einiger Voraussetzungen der Metaphysik Strawsons benenne ich dessen Hauptargument gegen Leibniz: Sobald wir die Rolle recht verstehen, welche die Perspective spielt, die individualisierenden Akten jeweils zugrunde liegen kann, erkennen wir sofort, daß Leibniz Strawsons Theorie der Individualisierung dadurch untergraben könnte, daß er jene Pramissen attackiert. Den Spieß drehe ich dann um und zeige, daß nicht nur Strawsons Einwand gegen Leibniz' Konzeption von Individualität untauglich bleibt, vielmehr die eigene Theorie auch keine adäquate Antwort auf eine Modifikation (...) des Schachbrett-Beispiels liefern kann, das er gegen Leibniz einsetzt. Dies führt am Ende zu der Einsicht, daß Strawsons Wendung gegen Leibniz wie manche Verteidigung von Leibniz gegen Strawson Leibniz' Prinzip der Identität des Ununterscheidbaren unangemessen in einer Weise interpretiert, die Strawson viel zu viel dialektischen Spielraum beläßt. (shrink)

This chapter develops a naturalistic and evolutionary psychological account of shame and the sense of shame, according to which shame is a social rank‐based emotion. Culture, itself a part of nature, can modify our Homo sapiens bioprogram. In a special case of the cultural modification of our shame program, Early Confucian culture sought to exploit shame in order to decrease high rates of violence in the Warring States period (475–221 BCE). Early Confucian leaders believed that if people were to acquire (...) increases in social rank primarily through prestige rather than violence, peace would reign. For several reasons, not least having to do with high‐fidelity cultural transmission of Confucianism through Chinese history, East Asians today display a heightened shame profile that makes them outliers with respect to the rest of the world. This is developed in the final part of the paper. (shrink)

This ground-breaking handbook provides multi-disciplinary insight into Chinese morality, cognition and emotion by collecting in one place a comprehensive collection of essays focused on Chinese morality by world-leading experts from more than a dozen different academic fields of study. Through fifteen substantive chapters, readers are offered a holistic look into the ways morality could be interpreted in China, and a broad range of theoretical perspectives, including ecological, anthropological and cultural neuroscience.

Ryan Nichols - Thomas Reid on Logic, Rhetoric and the Fine Arts: Papers on the Culture of the Mind - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:1 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.1 165-166 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Ryan Nichols California State University, Fullerton Alexander Broadie, editor. Thomas Reid on Logic, Rhetoric and the Fine Arts: Papers on the Culture of the Mind. The Edinburgh Edition of Thomas Reid, Vol. 5. University (...) Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005. Pp. xlix + 350. Cloth, $85.00. Following an enlightening introduction by Alexander Broadie, this volume collects Reid's manuscripts into three parts of about 100 pages each: the first about the culture of the mind, the second about Aristotle's logic, and the third about eloquence and the fine arts. The first part.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Thomas Reid on Logic, Rhetoric and the Fine Arts: Papers on the Culture of the MindRyan NicholsAlexander Broadie, editor. Thomas Reid on Logic, Rhetoric and the Fine Arts: Papers on the Culture of the Mind. The Edinburgh Edition of Thomas Reid, Vol. 5. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005. Pp. xlix + 350. Cloth, $85.00.Following an enlightening introduction by Alexander Broadie, this volume collects Reid's manuscripts (...) into three parts of about 100 pages each: the first about the culture of the mind, the second about Aristotle's logic, and the third about eloquence and the fine arts.The first part reproduces Reid's manuscripts on the cultivation or improvement of the mind—originally lecture notes delivered to one of his classes at the University of Glasgow. Reid describes how one is to improve one's faculties of the mind, including reason, memory, perception, and imagination. His motivation lies in his conviction that the faculties are like "the Earth itself" which was "left by the Almighty in a Rude and uncultivated state but capable of a high degree of Cultivation by human Labour Industry [and] Art" (13).This material will be most useful to those interested in Reid's philosophy of education, or the philosophy of education in eighteenth-century Scotland. Nonetheless, Reid makes several interesting points in these lectures that students of his metaphysics, ethics, and epistemology will find interesting. For example, he considers the nature of acquired perception here because our ability to form acquired perceptions depends on the cultivation of our senses. He recognizes that "the far greater part of the perceptions we have by [the senses] are acquired and therefore must be learned by practice and Habit" (18). This would confirm the interpretation of acquired perceptions according to which they are not as non-inferential and non-cognitive as Reid's "original perceptions."Perhaps Reid's most intriguing observations concern the social nature of our faculties. In his analysis of testimony, scholars have seen in Reid a concern with social aspects of knowledge unparalleled in the history of philosophy. But Reid goes a step further by arguing that the faculties themselves are social in origin. Comparing a cultured man with a feral man, he argues that culture is necessary for the development of our intellectual and active powers, including reasoning, language-use, the conception of abstract ideas, and moral perception (40–42). This prompts Reid to attack Rousseau's thesis that man is most happy as a solitary individual in a state of nature, lacking these powers. Reid's case against Rousseau includes some unjustifiable ad hominem attacks, but is on the whole persuasive.Reid also applies philosophical reasoning to his religious beliefs in these lectures, warning readers that some facts are beyond the human mind: "the first origin both of the human Soul and of the human Body is unknown to us" (25). This discussion should influence the question of whether Reid believes the substance of the mind is fundamentally beyond human comprehension. Second, in a conceptual argument that eludes me, he contends that it is "probable" that God "must" have created human beings as fully-formed adults (49).The second part is entitled 'A Brief Account of Aristotle's Logic. With Remarks.' Amidst his excoriation of Aristotle and syllogistic reasoning, Reid's emphasis on the use of induction is impressive and important. Readers of this part will get glimpses of Reid's views on first principles and the nature of truth. Reid sees his philosophical reasoning—about the [End Page 165] mind and now about logic—as having immediate practical benefit to those wishing to learn about the world. Though he praises Aristotle on several occasions for establishing the foundations of logic, he sees little of value in Aristotle's own logic. Of Aristotle's Topics, Reid asks, "Why should I throw away so much time and painful attention upon a thing of so little real use?" (115).The final part of the volume is about the fine arts, principally eloquence, which is noblest because it combines the virtues of all the others (197). Reid mentions several conditions for a flourishing art of eloquence, including a number... (shrink)

Reid advocates some fascinating views and voices forceful arguments on their behalf, the plausibility of which has only ripened with age. Perhaps the best way to characterize Wolterstorff’s book is as a guided tour of these arguments. The book is timely because there are only a handful of books explicating Reid’s theories. Due to its structure and scope, Wolterstorff’s effort occupies a place on the scholarly shelf near Keith Lehrer’s Thomas Reid and Roger D. Gallie’s Thomas Reid and the “Way (...) of Ideas”. Wolterstorff’s point of departure and his primary line of investigation is the analysis of conception. I will focus on this aspect of the book in this review at the risk of neglecting other important and able discussions. (shrink)

In 2004 Edouard Machery, Ron Mallon, Shaun Nichols and Stephen Stich published what has become one of the most widely discussed papers in experimental philosophy, in which they reported that East Asian and Western participants had different intuitions about the semantic reference of proper names. A flurry of criticisms of their work has emerged, and although various replications have been performed, many critics remain unconvinced. We review the current debate over Machery et al.’s (2004) results and take note of (...) which objections to their work have been satisfactorily answered and which ones still need to be addressed. We then report the results of studies that reveal significant cross-cultural and intra-cultural differences in semantic intuitions when we control for variables that critics allege have had a potentially distorting effect on Machery et al.’s findings. These variables include the epistemic perspective from which participants are supposed to understand the research materials, unintended anchoring effects of those materials, and pragmatic factors involved in the interpretation of speech acts within them. Our results confirm the robustness of the cross-cultural differences observed by Machery et al. and thereby strengthen the philosophical challenge they pose. (shrink)