There has been much interest in group judgment and the so-called 'wisdom of crowds'. In many real world contexts, members of groups not only share a dependence on external sources of information, but they also communicate with one another, thus introducing correlations among their responses that can diminish collective accuracy. This has long been known, but it has-to date-not been examined to what extent different kinds of communication networks may give rise to systematically different effects on accuracy. We argue that (...) equations that relate group accuracy, individual accuracy, and group diversity are useful theoretical tools for understanding group performance in the context of research on group structure. In particular, these equations may serve to identify the kind of group structures that improve individual accuracy without thereby excessively diminishing diversity so that the net positive effect is an improvement even on the level of collective accuracy. Two experiments are reported where two structures are investigated from this perspective. It is demonstrated that the more constrained network outperforms the network with a free flow of information. (shrink)

A common view in both philosophy and the vision sciences is that, in human vision, wavelength information is primarily ‘for’ colouring: for seeing surfaces and various media as having colours. In this article we examine this assumption of ‘colour-for-colouring’. To motivate the need for an alternative theory, we begin with three major puzzles from neurophysiology, puzzles that are not explained by the standard theory. We then ask about the role of wavelength information in vision writ large. How might wavelength information (...) be used by any monochromat or dichromat and, finally, by a trichromatic primate with object vision? We suggest that there is no single ‘advantage’ to trichromaticity but a multiplicity, only one of which is the ability to see surfaces and so on as having categorical colours. Instead, the human trichromatic retina exemplifies a scheme for a general encoding of wavelength information given the constraints imposed by high spatial resolution object vision. Chromatic vision, like its partner, luminance vision, is primarily for seeing. Viewed this way, the ‘puzzles’ presented at the outset make perfect sense. 1 Reframing the Problem1.1 Introduction1.2 Three puzzles1.2.1 Why is trichromatic vision an anomaly in diurnal mammals?1.2.2 Why does the colour system occupy such a large and central part in human vision?1.2.3 Why are the blue cones so rare?1.3 Recasting the question2 The Costs and Benefits of Spectral Vision2.1 Spectral information and object vision2.2 Encoding the spectral dimension of light2.2.1 ‘General’ versus ‘specific’ encoding2.2.2 Spectral encoding and the monochromat2.2.3 Spectral encoding and the dichromat2.2.4 Spectral encoding and the human trichromat2.3 Three puzzles revisited2.3.1 Why is trichromatic vision an anomaly in diurnal mammals?2.3.2 Why does the colour system occupy such a large and central part in human vision?2.3.3 Why are the blue cones so rare3 Conclusion. (shrink)

Essays by various philosphers on the work of Tyler Burge and Burge's extensive responses.

Metamerism is a rather common feature of objects. The authors see it as problematic because they are concerned with a special case: metamerism in standard conditions. Such metamerism does not, however, pose a problem for color realists. There is an apparent problem in cases of metameric light sources, but to see such metamers as problematic is to fail to answer Berkeley's challenge.

There is a prima facie conflict between the semantical theory of direct reference and an intuitively plausible view often called 'individualism'. Direct reference theory is the view that certain expressions pick out their referent directly, without any intervening semantical mechanism. In order to describe the meaning of a sentence which contain such an expression, we have to mention the referent itself. Individualism is a view that mental states are individuated without reference to the subject's environment, either social or physical, and (...) therefore without mentioning an external object of reference. ;I argue that there is no conflict because it is a mistake to carry over the results of a semantical theory into a theory of mental content. My argument ultimately relies on a certain understanding of the difficult notions of mental content and linguistic meaning, gained in part by a close analysis of the historical context in which the theory of reference emerged out of the parallel work in the theory of intentionality. Fundamentally, the elucidation of these concepts is the principal aim of the dissertation, rather than the dismantling of an apparent conflict between two currently accepted views. ;There are two ways in which the conflict may be thought to arise. One argument relies on the identification of linguistic meaning with mental content. Against this I argue that we cannot hold both direct reference and the thesis, crucial to the argument, that linguistic meaning is identical to the thought-content of a competent. The short argument for conflict, therefore, fails. ;The second argument for the conflict is less direct. There are some thoughts, called De Re, which are said to constitute a direct connection between thinker and object. It is often thought that such thoughts are the ones attributed correctly using directly referential expressions. But what we attribute in such cases are just mental states whose attribution essentially involves the extra-mental objects of thought themselves, pace individualism. I argue that this argument depends on a conception of De Re, inherited from W. V. O. Quine, which mistakenly collapses issues of mental content with those of thought-attribution. (shrink)

This, the 21st volume in the Library of Living Philosophers, is more than Sir Alfred Ayer's final word on the philosophical issues that preoccupied him for more than sixty years; the list of contributors is a roll-call of some of the greatest living figures in philosophy, each expertly addressing a key problem arising in Ayer's work. Most of the critical papers are answered directly and in detail by Sir Alfred-he completed his replies to 21 of the 24 papers before his (...) death. Contributors include: A. J. Ayer, Evandro Agazzi, James Campbell, David S. Clarke, Michael Dummett, Elizabeth Eames, John Foster, Dimitri Ginev, Paul Gochet, Martin Hollis, Ted Honderich, Tscha Hung, Peter Kivy, Arne Naess, D. J. O'Connor, Desiree Park, David Pears, Azarya Polikarov, Hilary Putnam, Francisco Miró, Quesada C., A. Anthony Quinton, Emanuele Riverso, Ernest Sosa, T. L. S. Sprigge, Barry Stroud, and David Wiggins. (shrink)

The main response to the multiple crises besetting Western societis in the past decades has been the attempt of the academic and scientific as well as political circles to gain a sense of orientation—and of social cohesion—by two main modes of thinking: identity politics and evidence-based knowlegde. Regarding the latter, I argue that if scientific knowledge is reduced to facts, data and numbers, as the basis for political decisions without any alternatives, it would become a dogma propagating the truth—that is, (...) a new religion. Politicians will no longer have to struggle with other perspectives, once there is a consensus about following the line that “the numbers or the facts speak for themselves.” While many people would perhaps find in this new religion a guarantee of security in an insecure world, this sense would be illusionary. I argue that the role intellectuals should play in a spiritual crisis of this kind is paradoxically to cultivate a sense of more security by strengthening a culture of “insecureness” or docta ignorantia against the dogmas within science and religion. To create and encourage a new art of questioning and listening, and of learning to appreciate non-knowledge as the basis of coming together. This notion is found in the Greek and Christian as well as the Jewish tradition of European thought, and it continues in the works of modern thinkers such as Paul Ricoeur, Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Hartmut Rosa, and of philosophers who focus on the question of the ineffable. My aim is to present this quality of certainty within uncertainty by examples from different fields, including philosophy, art and psychotherapy, and to elaborate on the paradoxical question: does a troubled Geist need more trouble in order to help us find a sense of orientation through disorientation? (shrink)

Contents: K. Ludeking, The Body and the Letters Albrecht Durer s self-portrait from 1500; E. Osterkamp, Spartacus under the Germans on the history of a literary legacy; F. Forster-Hahn, German, Modern and Jewish Max Liebermann s 1906 exhibitions in Berlin and London; U. Haselstein, A Genealogy of Modernity Flaubert, Cezanne, and Gertrude Stein; C. Asendurf, Bodies in Force Fields Art War and Spatial Theory in Classical Modernity.".

This anthology on creativity represents a lifetime of reading and study by the late Charles Dewey Tenney, a philosopher who had been a student of Alfred North Whitehead at Harvard. In a series of fourteen essays Tenney considers the various factors that can be identified in creativity, followed by the recorded testimony of philosophers, artists, historians, explorers, scientists and others, both theorists and practitioners. The contributors extend in time from Aristotle and Sophocles to Buckminster Fuller and May Sarton. They include (...) such diverse thinkers as Martin Luther, Karl Marx, Lewis Carroll, Julian Huxley, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Gertrude Stein, Henry Nelson Wieman and Alfred North Whitehead. In all, more than 300 of the world's most creative individuals are included. Contents: Discovery, Invention and Creation; Roots of Discovery; Environs of Discovery; Agents of Discovery; Hinderances to Discovery; Observation and Discovery; Reason in Discovery; Reverie Discovery; Imagination in Discovery; Sensibility and Discovery; Method in Discovery; Artistry in Discovery; Diffusion; and Foresight and Discovery. (shrink)

The well-documented history of the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938/1939 has been distorted during the last decade by a fictitious biography of Lise Meitner (1878–1968).

It is shown in more detail how the well-documented history of nuclear fission in 1938/9 has been distorted by a legend.

Die Wildtierethik beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, ob moralische Akteure empfindungsfähigen wildlebenden Tieren aus ethischer Sicht positive Pflichten in der Form von Rettungs-, Hilfs- und Unterstützungspflichten schulden, und falls ja, was diese Pflichten genau beinhalten. Haben wir die Verpflichtung, Wildtiere aus Naturkatastrophen wie Buschfeuern und aus den Fängen von Raubtieren zu retten? Sollen wir die Lebensqualität wilder Tiere beispielsweise durch Impfungen verbessern? Oder haben diese das Recht auf ein Leben frei jeglicher menschlicher Einmischung?In der Literatur finden sich verschiedene Vorschläge, was (...) man unter einem ›Wildtier‹ verstehen soll. Ortsorientierten Definitionen zufolge leben Wildtiere in von Menschen unberührten Gebieten. Nicht-domestizierte Tiere, welche sich in Städten wiederfinden, wie beispielsweise migrierende Vögel, Waschbären oder Füchse, fallen diesem Verständnis zufolge nicht in die Gruppe der Wildtiere. Dispositionelle Definitionen beziehen sich auf das Verhalten von Tieren. Wildtiere sind demzufolge Tiere, welche nicht gezähmt sind. Hunde und Hähne, welche vom Menschen gezielt mit unkontrollierbaren und aggressiven Charakterzügen gezüchtet wurden, zählen somit zu den Wildtieren. Konstitutiven Definitionen zufolge sind Wildtiere nicht-domestizierte Tiere, also Tiere, in deren Physiologie und Wesensart nicht durch Züchtung eingegriffen wurde und welche nicht vom Menschen abhängig sind. Die meisten Autorinnen und Autoren beziehen sich auf letztere Definition wenn sie von Wildtieren sprechen. (shrink)