abstract A common bit of public political wisdom advises that in certain three‐way elections, one should cast a strategic vote for one of the top two candidates rather than a conscience‐driven vote for a third candidate, since doing otherwise amounts to ‘throwing one's vote away’. In this paper, I examine the possible justifications for this pragmatic advice to vote strategically. I argue that the most direct argument behind such advice fails to motivate strategic voting in large‐scale elections, since there is (...) no significant chance that one's own vote will alter the outcome of the election, even in plausible close‐call cases. In short, the lack of probable pragmatic effect undermines the pragmatic motivation for altering one's baseline voting behavior. However, an indirect argument succeeds in motivating strategic voting in some scenarios. Such an indirect argument relies on the possibility of one acquiring an obligation to engage in public strategic campaigning for one of the top two candidates. In many cases in which one strategically campaigns, one will, indirectly, acquire an obligation to vote strategically in accord with one's prior public campaign activities. Thus, the common bit of political wisdom about strategic voting can be justified, though only indirectly. (shrink)

abstract A common bit of public political wisdom advises that in certain three‐way elections, one should cast a strategic vote for one of the top two candidates rather than a conscience‐driven vote for a third candidate, since doing otherwise amounts to ‘throwing one's vote away’. In this paper, I examine the possible justifications for this pragmatic advice to vote strategically. I argue that the most direct argument behind such advice fails to motivate strategic voting in large‐scale elections, since there is (...) no significant chance that one's own vote will alter the outcome of the election, even in plausible close‐call cases. In short, the lack of probable pragmatic effect undermines the pragmatic motivation for altering one's baseline voting behavior. However, an indirect argument succeeds in motivating strategic voting in some scenarios. Such an indirect argument relies on the possibility of one acquiring an obligation to engage in public strategic campaigning for one of the top two candidates. In many cases in which one strategically campaigns, one will, indirectly, acquire an obligation to vote strategically in accord with one's prior public campaign activities. Thus, the common bit of political wisdom about strategic voting can be justified, though only indirectly. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an indirect argument for the Access Theory of privacy. First, I develop a new version of the rival Control Theory that is immune to all the classic objections against it. Second, I show that this new version of the Control Theory collapses into the Access Theory. I call the new version the ‘Negative Control Account’. Roughly speaking, the classic Control Theory holds that you have privacy if, and only if, you can control whether other (...) people know personal information about you. Critics of the Control Theory often give counterexamples, where privacy is either not diminished even though the claimant has lost control, or where privacy is diminished even though the claimant is in control. I argue that none of these alleged counterexamples work against the Negative Control Account. However, this is not a victory for the control theorist, because the Negative Control Account collapses into the Access Theory. The paper thus adds to the recent trend in the literature of favoring the Access Theory over the Control Theory. (shrink)

Cocking and Oakley, ("Indirect Consequentialism, Friendship, and the Problem of Alienation", Ethics 106 (October 1995)) claim that a consequentialist's particular relationships will always be contingent on their maximizing the good, and thus will always be alienated. However, an indirect consequentialist will take into account the fact that her relationships would be alienated were she disposed to terminate them whenever they become suboptimal. If real friendships are worth having, a consequentialist should have them. Thus, she should have a pro-friendship (...) disposition. Railton's counterfactual condition should be interpreted as a claim that consequentialists should be disposed to alter that disposition if it turns out that it is not optimal. (shrink)

The notion of an indirect speech act is at the very heart of cognitive pragmatics, yet, after nearly 50 years of orthodox (Searlean) speech act theory, it remains largely unclear how this notion can be explicated in a proper way. In recent years, two debates about indirect speech acts have stood out. First, a debate about the Searlean idea that indirect speech acts constitute a simultaneous realization of a secondary and a primary act. Second, a debate about (...) the reasons for the use of indirect speech acts, in particular about whether this reason is to be seen in strategic advantages and/or observation of politeness demands. In these debates, the original pragmatic conception of sentence types as indicators of illocutionary force seems to have been getting lost. Here, I go back to the seemingly outdated “literal force hypothesis” (see Levinson 1983: 263–264) and point out how it is still relevant for cognitive pragmatics. (shrink)

While the concept of adaptive preferences is an important tool for criticizing injustice, it is often claimed that using the concept involves showing disrespect for persons judged to have adaptive preferences. In this paper, I propose an account of adaptive preferences that does the relevant political work while still showing persons two centrally important kinds of respect. My account is based in what I call an indirect substantive account of autonomy, which places substantive requirements on the options available to (...) a person, rather than on the option that she ultimately prefers. This allows us to pinpoint cases in which a person's circumstances have rendered her insufficiently autonomous, without saying that any conception of the good must be non-autonomous tout court. (shrink)

Normative reflection on the ethics of migration has tended to remain at the level of abstract principle with limited attention to the practice of immigration administration and enforcement. This paper explores the implications of this practice for an ethics of immigration with particular attention to the problem of bureaucratic domination. I contend that migration administration and enforcement cannot overcome bureaucratic domination because of the inherent vulnerability of migrant populations and the transnational enforcement of border controls by multiple public and private (...) actors. The implication is that even if restrictive immigration policies are permissible in principle, the attempt to enforce them leads to injustices that make them ethically unacceptable in practice. (shrink)

Lakoff (1993) argued that basic level conceptual metaphors are grounded in human experience, and are therefore likely to be found widely across different languages and cultures. However, other mappings may not be shared. It is well documented that many metaphorical expressions vary across languages, and a number of researchers have argued cultural motivations for this. Possible reasons for cross-linguistic differences in metaphor are that different cultures hold different attitudes to metaphor vehicles, or that the source domain entities and events are (...) more salient in one culture than another. However, the corpus data discussed here suggest that rather than being a synchronic reflection of culture, metaphorical expressions are to some extent a cultural reliquary, and an incomplete one. (shrink)

Smythies and Ramachandran claim that the direct realist theory of perception has been refuted by recent psychophysics. This paper takes up the psychophysics, and the definition of direct realism employed by Smythies and Ramachandran, to show that direct realism has not been so refuted. I argue that the direct realist may grant that perceptual images are constructed by the central nervous system, without treating those images as “phenomenal objects.” Until phenomenal objects are shown to be distinct from extra-mental objects, and (...) the only objects of perception properly so-called, the direct realist will remain generally edified by the relevant psychophysics. (shrink)

Previous studies have demonstrated positive correlations between children’s interpersonal trust and social adjustment. However, the psychological mechanism underlying this effect is still unclear. The current study tested the indirect roles of teacher–student relationships from both students’ and teachers’ perspectives in a Chinese context. In total, 709 pupils from grade three to grade five, and their 17 head teachers from a Chinese public primary school participated in this study. The Children’s Generalized Trust Beliefs Scale, Social Adjustment Scale for Children and (...) Adolescents, and Teacher–Student Relationship Questionnaire were used in this study. All these variables were correlated with each other. Structural equation models showed that the interpersonal trust indirectly influenced social adjustment through the teacher–student relationship from students’ perspectives, while the teacher–student relationship from teachers’ perspectives did not play an indirect role. These findings suggest that the teacher–student relationship perceived by students is more important for children’s social adjustment than that perceived by teachers. Both parents and teachers should pay more attention to developing children’s interpersonal trust, build better teacher–student relationships, and focus more on how children feel about the relationship. (shrink)

The argument from divine hiddenness (ADH) requires accepting that nonresistant nonbelief has existed or does exist. Yet some reasons for accepting nonresistant nonbelief are also reasons for accepting theistic-supporting and naturalism-falsifying evidentially compelling religious experiences (ECREs). Additionally, any reasons for rejecting ECREs can be used to reject nonresistant nonbelief, thus creating parity (at the very least) of epistemic warrant between the two claims. Consequently, accepting nonresistant nonbelief should lead to accepting ECREs. Accepting nonresistant nonbelief therefore indirectly threatens naturalism, atheism and (...) even the ADH itself. To any reason that can be given for rejecting ECREs there corresponds a parallel reason for rejecting nonresistant nonbelief. So it is irrational to accept the ADH while refusing to accept ECREs. Yet the existence of ECREs contradicts the ADH’s conclusion. So the ADH is self-defeating. (shrink)

If we consider modeling not as a heap of contingent structures, but (where possible) as evolving coordinated systems of models, then we can reasonably explain as "direct representations" even some very complicated model-based cognitive situations. Scientific modeling is not as indirect as it may seem. "Direct theorizing" comes later, as the result of a successful model evolution.

Do firms benefit from their voluntary efforts to alleviate the many problems confronting society? A vast literature establishing a “business case” for corporate social responsibility appears to find that usually they do. However, as argued herein, the business case literature has established only that firms usually benefit from responding to the demands of their primary stakeholders. The nature of the relationship between the interests of business and those of broader society, beyond a subset of powerful primary stakeholders, remains an open (...) question despite this vast literature. This article develops a set of propositions that highlight constraints on firms’ ability to profit from CSR and outlines a set of managerial challenges on which researchers must focus their attention to truly determine whether and when firms can profit by responding to the needs of society. (shrink)

Can the phenomenal character of perceptual experience be altered by the states of one's cognitive system, for example, one's thoughts or beliefs? If one thinks that this can happen then one thinks that there can be cognitive penetration of perceptual experience; otherwise, one thinks that perceptual experience is cognitively impenetrable. I claim that there is one alleged case of cognitive penetration that cannot be explained away by the standard strategies one can typically use to explain away alleged cases. The case (...) is one in which it seems subjects' beliefs about the typical colour of objects affects their colour experience. I propose a two-step mechanism of indirect cognitive penetration that explains how cognitive penetration may occur. I show that there is independent evidence that each step in this process can occur. I suspect that people who are opposed to the idea that perceptual experience is cognitively penetrable will be less opposed to the idea when they come to consider this indirect mechanism and that those who are generally sympathetic to the idea of cognitive penetrability will welcome the elucidation of this plausible mechanism. (shrink)

Resumen Dada la renovada vigencia que la antigua pregunta socrática: ¿cómo se debería vivir? goza en nuestros días -en particular, en el ámbito anglosajón y alemán-, no extraña que los diferentes enfoques vengan acompañados a menudo por con sideraciones de índole metodológica. ¿Cómo abordar hoy la proverbial pregunta? ¿Con qué criterios de corrección debería cumplir una teoría de la vida buena? ¿Es siquiera posible una tal teoría? El propósito de la presente reflexión es contribuir al esclarecimiento de estas cuestiones mediante (...) lo que propongo llamar una apro ximación indirecta a la cuestión de la vida buena. En el texto se describen y justifican los rasgos centrales de dicha aproximación, la que se distancia del debate actual entre teorías de la vida buena, al no asumir una serie de pretensiones metodológicas características de dicho debate.Given the renewed interest that the old Socratic question “How should we live?” has taken in the present day -in particular, in the Anglo-Saxon and in the Germán world- it is not surprising that the different approaches are often accompanied by methodological considerations. How to deal with the old question today? What correction criteria should a theory of the good life meet? Is such a theory even possible? The aim of this essay is to contribute to the clarification of these issues through what I propose to call “an indirect approach” to the question of the good life. The paper describes and justifies the central features of this approach, which distances itself from the current debate between good life theories, by not assuming a series of methodological claims characteristic of this debate. (shrink)

Visiting a museum and seeing an original artwork can be a special experience. We use a survey and a set of hypothetical questions to explore how such experience would be affected by changes in how the artwork is seen. In a first study, participants imagined that they had travelled to see a painting that they particularly like. They discover that it is impossible to directly see the original painting. Three alternatives are offered: seeing an optical reflection (using a mirror), seeing (...) a video screening (a closed-circuit camera) or seeing a reproduction. In all cases it is made clear that the size, brightness, and resolution will match that of the original. In addition, these options could be within the same room as the original, in the room next door, or in a different building. Results show that physical distance did not affect significantly the responses. However, there was an overall preference for seeing a reproduction as opposed to an optical or digital image. Contrary to the idea that the original is always superior to a copy, many people felt that a direct view of a copy is a preferable experience than an indirect view. The second study was focused directly on the comparison between a mirror and a monitor. Here we highlighted the fact that for the mirror light coming from the mirror originated from the painting. Data were collected in Britain and in China. In both cases there was a clear preference for the mirror over the monitor. (shrink)

Justin D’Arms and Daniel Jacobson have argued that to evaluate the funniness of a joke based on the consideration of whether it is morally appropriate to feel amused commits the “moralistic fallacy.” We offer a new and empirically informed reply. We argue that there is a way to take morality into consideration without committing this fallacy, that is, it is legitimate to say that for some people, witty but immoral jokes can fail to be funny because they are immoral. In (...) our account, one has an intramural moral reason not to feel amused if one focuses on the moral feature itself of a joke rather than the moral consequence implied in one’s reaction to the joke. When one judges a joke as not funny because of the intramural moral reason, one is in a negative emotional state with high arousal, for example, moral disgust or anger. This state is psychologically incompatible with amusement. That one has an intramural reason not to feel amused thus implies that one does not have a reason to feel amused. Moral consideration thus plays an indirect and appropriate role in the evaluation of the funniness of a joke. (shrink)

Like many 19th c. thinkers, Kierkegaard embraces a cognitivist view of art. He thinks works of art matter because they can teach us in important ways. This chapter defends two striking features of Kierkegaard’s version of this theory. First, works of art do not teach “directly” by telling us truths and offering us evidence. Instead, they educate us “indirect-ly” by helping us make our own discoveries. Second, the fact that art does not teach in a straightforward manner is no (...) defect. On the contrary, it is precisely because art teaches indirectly that it teaches better than philosophy and science do. (shrink)

There has been a long debate on whether demonstratives are directly referential as Kaplan originally argued, or indirectly referential like a definite description. I propose a new analysis of demonstratives that combines intuitions from both direct and indirect approaches. The demonstrative is analyzed as an indirectly referential expression with a binary maximality operator that takes two arguments, where the second argument can be a deictic pointing, an anaphoric index, or a relative clause. Direct reference is encoded not in the (...) meaning of the demonstrative but in the meaning contributed by the pointing gesture, thus capturing both direct and indirect uses. I further propose that some pronouns in English function as demonstratives, realizing the binary structure and competing with the demonstrative. The main advantages of this proposal include (a) deriving the distribution of pronominal and adnominal demonstratives systematically; (b) capturing the unique interaction that demonstratives have with a pointing gesture; and (c) locating English demonstratives against a larger, cross-linguistic picture. (shrink)

The relationship between self‐realization, and so what I really wholeheartedly endorse and owe to myself, and morality or what we owe to others is normally thought of as antagonism, or as a pleasant coincidence: only if I am indebted to such relations as my fundamental projects that I care wholeheartedly about does morality have a direct connection to self‐realization. The aim of this article is to argue against this picture. It will be argued that the structure of self‐realization and the (...) caring activity involved commits the person to values that are beyond the object of his wholehearted caring, in a way that might just pave the way to morality. (shrink)

This article studies the evolution of altruism. We consider a model in which a population of agents are assortatively matched to play some asymmetric two-player game, and evolution operates at the level of behavior rules. We find that the relationship between the evolutionarily stable level of altruism and the index of assortativity of matching is determined by two novel features: whether the total payoff function of the game exhibits complementarity or substitutability; whether the two players’ strategies affect each other’s fitness (...) in the same direction or the opposite. These two features combined generalize the stability conditions related to Hamilton’s rule to a class of asymmetric games. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:INDIRECT METHODS IN THEOLOGY: KARL RAHNER AS AN AD HOC APOLOGIST NICHOLAS M. HEALY St. John's University Staten Island, New York THE PURPOSE of this paper is to discuss Karl Rahner's emarks upon, and use of, what he called ' indirect methds ' in theology.1 To my knowledge there has been little analysis, beyond incidental treatment, of Rahner's scattered references to these methods.2 In the following pages (...) I hope to remedy this gap, and argue for two interdependent theses : First, by construing Rahner's own theological practice in the light of his remarks on the indirect methods, an apologetic method can be discerned which could prove useful for contemporary theology. Second, reading Rahner from this perspective indicates that his apologetic method is much more situation-relative and occasionalist than has generally been recognized hitherto. Two Kinds of Apologetics A quick sketch of some aspects of the present theological scene will help make these theses a little clearer and provide some cate1 My discussion of the indirect methods is based primarily upon the following sources: Theological Investigations (New York: Crossroad, 1961-1982) (cited in the text as TI), vol. 6, " A Small Question Regarding the Contemporary Pluralism in the Intellectual Situation of Catholic and the Church", pp. 21-30; vol. 11, "Reflections on Methodology in Theology", pp. 68-114; vol. 16, "A New Task for Theology". Foundations of Christian Faith (New York: Crossroad, 1978) (henceforth cited as FCF), introduction, pp. 1-23, et passim. 2 See e.g., Anne Carr, The Theological Method of Karl Rahner (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1977), pp. 267-9; Francis S. Fiorenza, Foundational Theology: Jesus and the Church (New York: Crossroad, 1984) (cited as Fiorenza), p. 93. Both these interpreters consider the indirect methods to be synonymous with the transcendental method. They then interpret the former in terms of the latter, misguidedly, I will argue. 613 614 NICHOLAS M. HEALY gories for the following discussion. According to William Placher,8 the contemporary situation in North American theology is often characterized as one in which two rival models of theology are dominant, the revisionist and the post-liberal (Placher, 17-19). Placher discusses many aspects of each model; here I want to look only at those features which bear upon their different conceptions of the nature of apologetics. According to David Tracy, a leading practitioner of the revisionist model, theology in all its forms must be " determined by a relentless drive to genuine publicness ".4 In order to maintain its public character, theology, like any discipline, must develop a preliminary systematic argument by which to ground its possibility and to ·establish its claims to truth and meaningfulness. This initial apologetics uses universal categories and proceeds in accordance with general criteria, functioning in terms, that is, which " all reasonable persons, whether ' religiously involved ' or not, can recognize as reasonable" (Tracy, 57). Usually it takes the form of a foundational explanatory theory of religious discourse which appeals to the universal nature of the deep structures of religious experience. This general theory of religion provides criteria for the subsequent theology, thereby maintaining the latter's relevance for the general, non-Christian public. The theological method considered appropriate is one which attempts systematically to correlate Christian-specific claims with the deep structures of human experience.5 The post-liberal model, by comparison, is more concerned to preserve Christian identity than to maintain the publicness of Christian discourse. The task of theology is not primarily the apologetic one of justifying Christianity to a non-Christian puba Unapologetic Theology: A Christian Voice in a Pluralistic Conversation (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989) (cited as Placher). 4 David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (New York: Crossroad, 1981), p. 31 (cited as Tracy). 5 See the analyses in, e.g., George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984), chapter 2; and Ronald F. Thiemann, Revelation and Theology: The Gospel as Narrated Promise (Notre Dame: U. of N. D. Press, 1985), chapter 4. KARL RAHNER AS AN AD HOC APOLOGIST 615 lie. Instead the theologian should critically " describe and redescribe the character and relationship of Christian beliefs and... (shrink)

People often use indirect speech, for example, when trying to bribe a police officer by asking whether there might be “a way to take care of things without all the paperwork.” Recent game theoretic accounts suggest that a speaker uses indirect speech to reduce public accountability for socially risky behaviors. The present studies examine a secondary function of indirect speech use: increasing the perceived moral permissibility of an action. Participants report that indirect speech is associated with (...) reduced accountability for unethical behavior, as well as increased moral permissibility and increased likelihood of unethical behavior. Importantly, moral permissibility was a stronger mediator of the effect of indirect speech on likelihood of action, for judgments of one's own versus others' unethical action. In sum, the motorist who bribes the police officer with winks and nudges may not only avoid public punishment but also maintain the sense that his actions are morally permissible. (shrink)

Abstract: An indirect report typically takes the form of a speaker using the locution “said that” to report an earlier utterance. In what follows, I introduce the principal philosophical and pragmatic points of interest in the study of indirect reports, including the extent to which context sensitivity affects the content of an indirect report, the constraints on the substitution of co-referential terms in reports, the extent of felicitous paraphrase and translation, the way in which indirect reports (...) are opaque, and the use of indirect reports as pragmatic vehicles for other speech acts such as humor, insult, or irony. Throughout I develop several positions: (i) that a semantic analysis of indirect reports is insufficient, (ii) that the distinction between direct and indirect reports is not clear and that indirect reports are the predominate way of reporting while direct reports may be a para-linguistic variation on them, (iii) that most questions about the semantics and pragmatics of indirect reports will rely on a full understanding of the nature of what is reported and how it gets reported, (iv) that an analysis of reporting requires the pragmatic tools of metarepresentation and a social, inter-personal understanding of relevance and shared knowledge. (shrink)

Indirectness is often used in our daily communication as a major communicative skill to keep a harmonious interpersonal relationship. From an Asian perspective, this paper is to discuss the various motives of indirectness, such as: politeness, self-protection, humor, rejection or denial, etc.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume 29, Number 2, November 2003, pp. 205-221 The Origin of the Indirect Passions in the Treatise: An Analogy between Books 1 and 2 HARUKOINOUE 1. The Analogy Between Book 1 and Book 2 If the central design of the Treatise is to demonstrate that "the subjects of the Understanding and Passions make a complete chain of reasoning by themselves" (T 2; SBN xii), as Hume (...) advertises, it seems unquestionable that his intention lies in the illustration of the human mind as an integrated system dependent upon the cooperation of the understanding and the passions, which are discussed separately in Book 1 and Book 2, respectively.1 What is yet to be determined is whether any internal or systematic connection between these two books was originally intended by the author. Is it too fanciful to agree with John Passmore, and to suggest that some dynamic system of the human mind would emerge when we open the door which stands between the first two books?2 The key for this door seems to be found in Hume's account of personal identity. We may well remember how he distinguished two aspects of our identity, one regarding the understanding and another regarding the passions, and claimed that the latter "serves to corroborate" the former "by the making our distant perceptions influence each other, and by giving us a present concern for our past or future pains or pleasures" (T 1.4.6.19; SBN Haruko Inoue is Professor of Philosophy, Sapporo University 3-7-3-1 Toyohira-ku, Sapporo 062-8520, Japan. e-mail: [email protected] 206 Haruko Inoue 261). It seems reasonable to agree with Jane Mclntyre, who suggests that "Hume recognized questions about personal identity not addressed in Book 1, and that Book 2 makes an important contribution to our understanding of Hume's account of the self and its identity."3 And once we get a good understanding of this integrated mechanism of the human mind operating with both wheels, as it were, of the imagination and the passions, all we have to do is to accept his invitation and enjoy the efficiency of this two-wheeled car, driving through the fields of "Morals, Politics, and Criticism." For, if we take his words in his Advertisement seriously,4 it seems quite likely that the Treatise was published first as a set of Book 1 and Book 2, as Passmore suggests,5 and that Book 3 was written as the demonstration of the consistency of his system through the application of the hypothesis established in the first two books. This paper is a modest attempt to illustrate the intimate connection between Book 1 and Book 2: the latter, planned as a proof and reinforcement of the system Hume had established in Book 1, depends on the former. His basic strategy in the Treatise is to explain both systems of the mind by means of the easy transition of the imagination, which connects different perceptions with each other according to two kinds of principles or "properties of human nature " (T 2.1.4.2; SBN 283), viz. "the association both of impressions and ideas, and the mutual assistance they lend each other" (T 2.1.5.5; SBN 284). In Book 1 Hume establishes the system of the understanding in terms of the first association, viz. the association of ideas, and in Book 2 he proceeds to illustrate the system of passions by involving not only the second association but also the concurrence of both kinds of association which he calls "a double relation of impressions and ideas." His basic strategy is thus to apply the same method of reasoning to the illustration of both systems, assuming that "there is an attraction or association among impressions, as well as among ideas" (T 2.1.4.3; SBN 283). The intimate connection between the two systems of the understanding and the passions is illustrated through the demonstration of the "influence of the imagination upon the passions" (T 2.3.6.1; SBN 424), or in terms of the dependence of the latter on the former. It is owing to the dependence of the association of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume 29, Number 2, November 2003, pp. 205-221 The Origin of the Indirect Passions in the Treatise: An Analogy between Books 1 and 2 HARUKOINOUE 1. The Analogy Between Book 1 and Book 2 If the central design of the Treatise is to demonstrate that "the subjects of the Understanding and Passions make a complete chain of reasoning by themselves" (T 2; SBN xii), as Hume (...) advertises, it seems unquestionable that his intention lies in the illustration of the human mind as an integrated system dependent upon the cooperation of the understanding and the passions, which are discussed separately in Book 1 and Book 2, respectively.1 What is yet to be determined is whether any internal or systematic connection between these two books was originally intended by the author. Is it too fanciful to agree with John Passmore, and to suggest that some dynamic system of the human mind would emerge when we open the door which stands between the first two books?2 The key for this door seems to be found in Hume's account of personal identity. We may well remember how he distinguished two aspects of our identity, one regarding the understanding and another regarding the passions, and claimed that the latter "serves to corroborate" the former "by the making our distant perceptions influence each other, and by giving us a present concern for our past or future pains or pleasures" (T 1.4.6.19; SBN Haruko Inoue is Professor of Philosophy, Sapporo University 3-7-3-1 Toyohira-ku, Sapporo 062-8520, Japan. e-mail: [email protected] 206 Haruko Inoue 261). It seems reasonable to agree with Jane Mclntyre, who suggests that "Hume recognized questions about personal identity not addressed in Book 1, and that Book 2 makes an important contribution to our understanding of Hume's account of the self and its identity."3 And once we get a good understanding of this integrated mechanism of the human mind operating with both wheels, as it were, of the imagination and the passions, all we have to do is to accept his invitation and enjoy the efficiency of this two-wheeled car, driving through the fields of "Morals, Politics, and Criticism." For, if we take his words in his Advertisement seriously,4 it seems quite likely that the Treatise was published first as a set of Book 1 and Book 2, as Passmore suggests,5 and that Book 3 was written as the demonstration of the consistency of his system through the application of the hypothesis established in the first two books. This paper is a modest attempt to illustrate the intimate connection between Book 1 and Book 2: the latter, planned as a proof and reinforcement of the system Hume had established in Book 1, depends on the former. His basic strategy in the Treatise is to explain both systems of the mind by means of the easy transition of the imagination, which connects different perceptions with each other according to two kinds of principles or "properties of human nature " (T 2.1.4.2; SBN 283), viz. "the association both of impressions and ideas, and the mutual assistance they lend each other" (T 2.1.5.5; SBN 284). In Book 1 Hume establishes the system of the understanding in terms of the first association, viz. the association of ideas, and in Book 2 he proceeds to illustrate the system of passions by involving not only the second association but also the concurrence of both kinds of association which he calls "a double relation of impressions and ideas." His basic strategy is thus to apply the same method of reasoning to the illustration of both systems, assuming that "there is an attraction or association among impressions, as well as among ideas" (T 2.1.4.3; SBN 283). The intimate connection between the two systems of the understanding and the passions is illustrated through the demonstration of the "influence of the imagination upon the passions" (T 2.3.6.1; SBN 424), or in terms of the dependence of the latter on the former. It is owing to the dependence of the association of... (shrink)

A semantic theory T for a language L should assign content to utterances of sentences of L. One common assumption is that T will assign p to some S of L just in case in uttering S a speaker A says that p. We will argue that this assumption is mistaken.

The processing of information within the retino-tectal visual system of amphibians is decomposed into five major operational stages, three of them taking place in the retina and two in the optic tectum. The stages in the retina involve a spatially local high-pass filtering in connection to the perception of moving objects, separation of the receptor activity into ON- and OFF-channels regarding the distinction of objects on both light and dark backgrounds, spatial integration via near excitation and far-reaching inhibition. Variation of (...) the spatial range of excitation and inhibition allows to account for typical activities observed in a variety of classes of retina ganglion cells.Mathematical description of the operations in the tectum opticum include spatial summation of retinal output, and direct or indirect lateral inhibition between tectal cells. In the computer simulation, first the output of the mathematical retina model is computed which, then, is used as the input to the tectum model. The full spatio-temporal dynamics is taken into account.The simulations show that different combinations of strength of lateral inhibition on the one side and the response properties of the retina ganglion cells on the other side determine the response properties of tectal cell types involved in object recognition. (shrink)

Indirect observation is a recent concept in systematic observation. It largely involves analyzing textual material generated either indirectly from transcriptions of audio recordings of verbal behavior in natural settings (e.g., conversation, group discussions) or directly from narratives (e.g., letters of complaint, tweets, forum posts). It may also feature seemingly unobtrusive objects that can provide relevant insights into daily routines. All these materials constitute an extremely rich source of information for studying everyday life, and they are continuously growing with the (...) burgeoning of new technologies for data recording, dissemination, and storage. Narratives are an excellent vehicle for studying everyday life, and quantitization is proposed as a means of integrating qualitative and quantitative elements. However, this analysis requires a structured system that enables researchers to analyze varying forms and sources of information objectively. In this paper, we present a methodological framework detailing the steps and decisions required to quantitatively analyze a set of data that was originally qualitative. We provide guidelines on study dimensions, text segmentation criteria, ad hoc observation instruments, data quality controls, and coding and preparation of text for quantitative analysis. The quality control stage is essential to ensure that the code matrices generated from the qualitative data are reliable. We provide examples of how an indirect observation study can produce data for quantitative analysis and also describe the different software tools available for the various stages of the process. The proposed method is framed within a specific mixed methods approach that involves collecting qualitative data and subsequently transforming these into matrices of codes (not frequencies) for quantitative analysis to detect underlying structures and behavioral patterns. The data collection and quality control procedures fully meet the requirement of flexibility and provide new perspectives on data integration in the study of biopsychosocial aspects in everyday contexts. (shrink)

The non-identity problem is the problem of grounding moral wrongdoing in cases in which an action affects who will exist in the future. Consider a woman who intentionally conceives while on medication that is harmful for a fetus. If the resulting child is disabled as a result of the medication, what makes the woman's action morally wrong? I argue that an explanation in terms of harmful rights violations fails, and I focus on Peter Markie's recent rights-based defense. Markie's analysis rests (...) on the notion of an indirect harm, and I show that the calculation of an indirect harm relies on an improper baseline for the determination of whether or not an action adversely affects a patient's interests. I also defend an impersonal duty-based analysis of the wrongdoing in non-identity cases against an objection by Markie. I close by arguing that the rights-based analysis is insensitive to context and that context is morally relevant in the determination of the moral valence of actions in cases of non-identity. This failure provides a pro tanto reason to favor an impersonal duty-based analysis of the wrongdoing in non-identity cases. (shrink)