In the past thirty years, face perception has become an area of major interest within psychology. The Oxford Handbook of Face Perception is the most comprehensive and commanding review of the field ever published.For anyone looking for the definitive review of this burgeoning field, this is the essential book.

Overestimation of one’s ability to argue their position on socio-political issues may partially underlie the current climate of political extremism in the U.S. Yet very little is known about what factors influence overestimation in argumentation of socio-political issues. Across three experiments, emotional investment substantially increased participants’ overestimation. Potential confounding factors like topic complexity and familiarity were ruled out as alternative explanations. Belief-based cues were established as a mechanism underlying the relationship between emotional investment and overestimation in a measurement-of-mediation and manipulation-of-mediator (...) design. Representing a new bias blind spot, participants believed emotional investment helps them argue better than it helps others ; where in reality emotional investment harmed or had no effect on argument quality. These studies highlight misguided beliefs about emotional investment as a factor underlying metacognitive miscalibration in the context of socio-political issues. (shrink)

In many scientific fields, the practice of self-experimentation waned over the course of the twentieth century. For exercise physiologists working today, however, the practice of self-experimentation is alive and well. This paper considers the role of the Harvard Fatigue Laboratory and its scientific director, D. Bruce Dill, in legitimizing the practice of self-experimentation in exercise physiology. Descriptions of self-experimentation are drawn from papers published by members of the Harvard Fatigue Lab. Attention is paid to the ethical and practical justifications for (...) self-experimentation in both the lab and the field. Born out of the practical, immediate demands of fatigue protocols, self-experimentation performed the long-term, epistemological function of uniting physiological data across time and space, enabling researchers to contribute to a general human biology program. (shrink)

We report the identification of a recurrent, 520-kb 16p12.1 microdeletion associated with childhood developmental delay. The microdeletion was detected in 20 of 11,873 cases compared with 2 of 8,540 controls and replicated in a second series of 22 of 9,254 cases compared with 6 of 6,299 controls. Most deletions were inherited, with carrier parents likely to manifest neuropsychiatric phenotypes compared to non-carrier parents. Probands were more likely to carry an additional large copy-number variant when compared to matched controls. The clinical (...) features of individuals with two mutations were distinct from and/or more severe than those of individuals carrying only the co-occurring mutation. Our data support a two-hit model in which the 16p12.1 microdeletion both predisposes to neuropsychiatric phenotypes as a single event and exacerbates neurodevelopmental phenotypes in association with other large deletions or duplications. Analysis of other microdeletions with variable expressivity indicates that this two-hit model might be more generally applicable to neuropsychiatric disease. © 2010 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

According to Wittgenstein, in the remarks collected as Culture and Value , ‘People nowadays think, scientists are there to instruct them, poets, musicians etc. to entertain them. That the latter have something to teach them; that never occurs to them.’ 18th and early 19th century art-lovers would have taken a very different view. Dr. Johnson assumed that the poets had truths to impart, while Hegel insisted that ‘In art we have to do not with any agreeable or useful child's (...) play, but with an unfolding of the truth.’ Though it still exerts a submerged influence, the concept of artistic truth has since sustained hammer-blows both from modernist aestheticism, which divorces art from reality, and from postmodern subjectivism about truth. This article aims to resurrect it, seeking a middle way between Dr. Johnson's didactic concept of art , and the modernist and postmodernist divorce of art from reality. (shrink)

Partly in reply to D. Cannon’s critique of my analytical reconstruction of Polanyi’s post-critical theory of knowledge, I argue that there are good reasons for not appropriating Polanyi’s programme of self-identication and the confessional rhetoric which may be derived from it. Arguing that “post-critical”should not be identified with an uncritical dogmatism, I then go on to suggest that the theory of tacit knowing had best be elaborated further by drawingon the work of J. Searle and M. Johnson. Finally, I (...) make use of E. Meek’s account of the notion of “contact with reality”to highlight the Polanyian criteria of truth. (shrink)

It is a theorem of Rowbottom [12] that ifκis measurable andIis a normal prime ideal onκ, then for eachλ<κ,In this paper a natural structural property of ideals, distributivity, is considered and shown to be related to this and other ideal theoretic partition relations.The set theoretical terminology is standard and background results on the theory of ideals may be found in [5] and [8]. Throughoutκwill denote an uncountable regular cardinal, andIa proper, nonprincipal,κ-complete ideal onκ.NSκis the ideal of nonstationary subsets ofκ, andIκ= (...) {X⊆κ∣∣X∣<κ}. IfA∈I+ −I), then anI-partitionofAis a maximal collectionW⊆,P ∩I+so thatX∩ Y ∈IwheneverX, Y∈W, X≠Y. TheI-partitionWis said to be disjoint if distinct members ofWare disjoint, and in this case, fordenotes the unique member ofWcontainingξ. A sequence 〈Wα∣α<η} ofI-partitions ofAis said to be decreasing if wheneverα<β<ηandX∈Wβthere is aY∈Wαsuch thatX⊆Y.. (shrink)

Since its inception in 2010, the Network for Public Health Law has aligned with federal, state, tribal, and local public health practitioners to assess how law can promote and protect the public’s health. In 2013, Network authors illustrated major trends in public health laws and policies emanating from an internal assessment of thousands of requests for technical assistance nationally. More recently, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has invited the Network and other partners to consider new ideas and strategies toward (...) building a “culture of health.” Per Figure 1, RWJF’s conception of a culture of health emphasizes key action areas essential to the promotion of health across all sectors and diverse populations. (shrink)

According to the “Embodied Cognition” entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the three landmark texts in the 4E cognitive science tradition are Lakoff and Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By, Varela, Thompson, and Rosch’s The Embodied Mind, and Andy Clark’s Being There. In my first section, I offer a phenomenological interpretation of these three texts, identifying recuring affirmations of the figure of dance alongside explicit marginalization of the practice of dance, perhaps in part due to cognitive science’s overemphasis on (...) cognition to the exclusion of affect. In my second section, drawing on my previous interpretations of proto-affect theorists (including Spinoza, Deleuze, and Fanon), I channel this tension in 4E cognitive science into a dancing partnership with human science psychology, suggesting three “choreographic provocations” for therapeutic practice and psychological research, namely (1) treating clients/subjects as dancers, (2) reimagining research and therapy as improvised duets between practitioners and clients/subjects, and (3) pursuing an ideal of freer movement and an emergent flourishing singularity for clients/subjects. Finally, I reformulate these three choreographic provocations in terms of my new theoretical method of “dancing-with,” as well as the four psychological prerequisites for flourishing posited by my figuration philosophy of dance. (shrink)

The article investigates the development of discourses related to freedom of religion and discrimination against religious minority in current Indonesia by identifying the discourse constructions of Ahmadiyya in various texts and talks produced and disseminated by government institution and the Indonesian Council of Ulama (the MUI). This study aims to reveal these institutions’ views and perspectives on Ahmadiyya issue using various discourse strategies. The data analysed are some legal proclamations issued and personal views delivered by the officials of these two (...) institutions. The CDA theoretical framework employed is to examine the positive-self and negative-other presentations. The finding reveals that the issue of Ahmadiyya is addressed through discourses related to Indonesian national interest and discourses related to religious matters. in these discourses, the two institutions and their officials present themselves positively and portray the Ahmadiyya sect negatively. The sect followers are negatively presented as the troublemaker, blasphemer, and the destroyer of religious harmony and social order. (shrink)

Using path-breaking discoveries of cognitive science, Mark Johnson argues that humans are fundamentally imaginative moral animals, challenging the view that morality is simply a system of universal laws dictated by reason. According to the Western moral tradition, we make ethical decisions by applying universal laws to concrete situations. But Johnson shows how research in cognitive science undermines this view and reveals that imagination has an essential role in ethical deliberation. Expanding his innovative studies of human reason in Metaphors (...) We Live By and The Body in the Mind, Johnson provides the tools for more practical, realistic, and constructive moral reflection. (shrink)

Monte Johnson examines one of the most controversial aspects of Aristiotle's natural philosophy: his teleology. Is teleology about causation or explanation? Does it exclude or obviate mechanism, determinism, or materialism? Is it focused on the good of individual organisms, or is god or man the ultimate end of all processes and entities? Is teleology restricted to living things, or does it apply to the cosmos as a whole? Does it identify objectively existent causes in the world, or is it (...) merely a heuristic for our understanding of other causal processes? Johnson argues that Aristotle's aporetic approach drives a middle course between these traditional oppositions, and avoids the dilemma, frequently urged against teleology, between backwards causation and anthropomorphism. Although these issues have been debated with extraordinary depth by Aristotle scholars, and touched upon by many in the wider philosophical and scientific community as well, there has been no comprehensive historical treatment of the issue. Aristotle is commonly considered the inventor of teleology, although the precise term originated in the eighteenth century. But if teleology means the use of ends and goals in natural science, then Aristotle was rather a critical innovator of teleological explanation. Teleological notions were widespread among his predecessors, but Aristotle rejected their conception of extrinsic causes such as mind or god as the primary causes for natural things. Aristotle's radical alternative was to assert nature itself as an internal principle of change and an end, and his teleological explanations focus on the intrinsic ends of natural substances - those ends that benefit the natural thing itself. Aristotle's use of ends was subsequently conflated with incompatible 'teleological' notions, including proofs for the existence of a providential or designer god, vitalism and animism, opposition to mechanism and non-teleological causation, and anthropocentrism. Johnson addresses these misconceptions through an elaboration of Aristotle's methodological statements, as well as an examination of the explanations actually offered in the scientific works. Reviewed in: Notre Dame Philosophical Review 2006.06.15; Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2006.08.37; Il-Sole – 24 Ore 6 Aug. 2006; Philosophy in Review 26 (2006): 360-2; Rhizai 3 (2006): 171-8; Journal of the History of Philosophy 45 (2007): 323-4; Ancient Philosophy 27 (2007): 191-200; Phronesis 52 (2007): 248-9; Isis 98 (2007): 375; Aestimatio 4 (2007) 146-152; The British Journal for the History of Science 41 (2008): 129-130. The European Legacy 14 (2009); La Cultura 47 (2009): 174-175; Sean M. Row, Teleology in Political Contexts: an assessment of Monte Ransome Johnson’s “Aristotle on Teleology”. (A thesis presented to the faculty of the college of arts and sciences of Ohio University, 2009.). (shrink)

In _The Meaning of the Body_, Mark Johnson continues his pioneering work on the exciting connections between cognitive science, language, and meaning first begun in the classic _Metaphors We Live By_. Johnson uses recent research into infant psychology to show how the body generates meaning even before self-consciousness has fully developed. From there he turns to cognitive neuroscience to further explore the bodily origins of meaning, thought, and language and examines the many dimensions of meaning—including images, qualities, emotions, (...) and metaphors—that are all rooted in the body’s physical encounters with the world. Drawing on the psychology of art and pragmatist philosophy, Johnson argues that all of these aspects of meaning-making are fundamentally aesthetic. He concludes that the arts are the culmination of human attempts to find meaning and that studying the aesthetic dimensions of our experience is crucial to unlocking meaning's bodily sources. Throughout, Johnson puts forth a bold new conception of the mind rooted in the understanding that philosophy will matter to nonphilosophers only if it is built on a visceral connection to the world. “Mark Johnson demonstrates that the aesthetic and emotional aspects of meaning are fundamental—central to conceptual meaning and reason, and that the arts show meaning-making in its fullest realization. If you were raised with the idea that art and emotion were external to ideas and reason, you must read this book. It grounds philosophy in our most visceral experience.”—George Lakoff, author of _Moral Politics_. (shrink)

Recent just war thought has tended to prioritize just cause among the moral criteria to be satisfied for resort to armed force, reducing the requirement of sovereign authority to a secondary, supporting role: such authority is to act in response to the establishment of just cause. By contrast, Aquinas and Luther, two benchmark figures in the development of Christian thought on just war, unambiguously gave priority to the requirement of sovereign authority as instituted by God to carry out the responsibilities (...) of ensuring a just and peaceful order in the world. On this conception it is the sovereign, in deciding whether to resort to armed force, who must make sure to satisfy the other moral requirements of the jus ad bellum. This paper examines Aquinas and Luther on sovereign authority for use of armed force. Recapturing the importance of this conception is important both for the proper understanding of just war tradition and for working out its implications for such contemporary issues as humanitarian intervention and "regime change.". (shrink)

Part I: The Life of Cognitive Science:. William Bechtel, Adele Abrahamsen, and George Graham. Part II: Areas of Study in Cognitive Science:. 1. Analogy: Dedre Gentner. 2. Animal Cognition: Herbert L. Roitblat. 3. Attention: A.H.C. Van Der Heijden. 4. Brain Mapping: Jennifer Mundale. 5. Cognitive Anthropology: Charles W. Nuckolls. 6. Cognitive and Linguistic Development: Adele Abrahamsen. 7. Conceptual Change: Nancy J. Nersessian. 8. Conceptual Organization: Douglas Medin and Sandra R. Waxman. 9. Consciousness: Owen Flanagan. 10. Decision Making: J. Frank Yates (...) and Paul A. Estin. 11. Emotions: Paul E. Griffiths. 12. Imagery and Spatial Representation: Rita E. Anderson. 13. Language Evolution and Neuromechanisms: Terrence W. Deacon. 14. Language Processing: Kathryn Bock and Susan M. Garnsey. 15. Linguistics Theory: D. Terence Langendoen. 16. Machine Learning: Paul Thagard. 17. Memory: Henry L. Roediger III and Lyn M. Goff. 18. Perception: Cees Van Leeuwen. 19. Perception: Color: Austen Clark. 20. Problem Solving: Kevin Dunbar. 21. Reasoning: Lance J. Rips. 22. Social Cognition: Alan J. Lambert and Alison L. Chasteen. 23. Unconscious Intelligence: Rhianon Allen and Arthur S. Reber. 24. Understanding Texts: Art Graesser and Pam Tipping. 25. Word Meaning: Barbara C. Malt. Part III: Methodologies of Cognitive Science:. 26. Artificial Intelligence: Ron Sun. 27. Behavioral Experimentation: Alexander Pollatsek and Keith Rayner. 28. Cognitive Ethology: Marc Bekoff. 29. Deficits and Pathologies: Christopher D. Frith. 30. Ethnomethodology: Barry Saferstein. 31. Functional Analysis: Brian Macwhinney. 32. Neuroimaging: Randy L. Buckner and Steven E. Petersen. 33. Protocal Analysis: K. Anders Ericsson. 34. Single Neuron Electrophysiology: B. E. Stein, M.T. Wallace, and T.R. Stanford. 35. Structural Analysis: Robert Frank. Part IV: Stances in Cognitive Science:. 36. Case-based Reasoning: David B. Leake. 37. Cognitive Linguistics: Michael Tomasello. 38. Connectionism, Artificial Life, and Dynamical Systems: Jeffrey L. Elman. 39. Embodied, Situated, and Distributed Cognition: Andy Clark. 40. Mediated Action: James V. Wertsch. 41. Neurobiological Modeling: P. Read Montague and Peter Dayan. 42. Production Systems: Christian D. Schunn and David Klahr. Part V: Controversies in Cognitive Science:. 43. The Binding Problem: Valerie Gray Hardcastle. 44. Heuristics and Satisficing: Robert C. Richardson. 45. Innate Knowledge: Barbara Landau. 46. Innateness and Emergentism: Elizabeth Bates, Jeffrey L. Elman, Mark H. Johnson, Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Domenico Parisi, and Kim Plunkett. 47. Intentionality: Gilbert Harman. 48. Levels of Explanation and Cognition Architectures: Robert N. McCauley. 49. Modularity: Irene Appelbaum. 50. Representation and Computation: Robert S. Stufflebeam. 51. Representations: Dorrit Billman. 52. Rules: Terence Horgan and John Tienson. 53. Stage Theories Refuted: Donald G. Mackay. Part VI: Cognitive Science in the Real World:. 54. Education: John T. Bruer. 55. Ethics: Mark L. Johnson. 56. Everyday Life Environments: Alex Kirlik. 57. Institutions and Economics: Douglass C. North. 58. Legal Reasoning: Edwina L. Rissland. 59. Mental Retardation: Norman W. Bray, Kevin D. Reilly, Lisa F. Huffman, Lisa A. Grupe, Mark F. Villa, Kathryn L. Fletcher, and Vivek Anumolu. 60. Science: William F. Brewer and Punyashloke Mishra. Selective Biographies of Major Contributors to Cognitive Science: William Bechtel and Tadeusz Zawidzki. (shrink)

He further argues that it is necessary to rethink traditional conceptions of argument, and to find a position that avoids the limitations of both the highly abstract approach of formal logic and the highly contextualized approaches of rhetoric and communication theory.".

Loss aversion can occur in riskless and risky choices. We present novel evidence on both in a non-student sample (660 randomly selected customers of a car manufacturer). We measure loss aversion in riskless choice in endowment effect experiments within and between subjects and find similar levels of average loss aversion in both. The subjects of the within study also participate in a simple lottery choice task which arguably measures loss aversion in risky choices. We find substantial heterogeneity in both measures (...) of loss aversion. Loss aversion in riskless choice and loss aversion in risky choice are strongly positively correlated, but on average riskless loss aversion is higher than risky loss aversion. We find that in both choice tasks, loss aversion increases in age, income, and wealth, and decreases in education. Our results provide novel supportive input to the debate about the reality of loss aversion. (shrink)

The structure of words is often thought to provide important evidence regarding the structure of concepts. At the same time, most contemporary linguists posit a great deal of structure in words. Such a trend makes some atomists about concepts uncomfortable. The details of linguistic methodology undermine several strategies for avoiding positing structure in words. I conclude by arguing that there is insufficient evidence to hold that word-structure bears any interesting relation to the structure of concepts.

Responsible Robotics is about developing robots in ways that take their social implications into account, which includes conceptually framing robots and their role in the world accurately. We are now in the process of incorporating robots into our world and we are trying to figure out what to make of them and where to put them in our conceptual, physical, economic, legal, emotional and moral world. How humans think about robots, especially humanoid social robots, which elicit complex and sometimes disconcerting (...) reactions, is not predetermined. The animal–robot analogy is one of the most commonly used in attempting to frame interactions between humans and robots and it also tends to push in the direction of blurring the distinction between humans and machines. We argue that, despite some shared characteristics, when it comes to thinking about the moral status of humanoid robots, legal liability, and the impact of treatment of humanoid robots on how humans treat one another, analogies with animals are misleading. (shrink)

We examine the pros and cons of color realism, exposing some desiderata on a theory of color: the theory should render colors as scientifically legitimate and correctly individuated, and it should explain how we have veridical color experiences. We then show that these desiderata can by met by treating colors as properties of the special sciences. According to our view, some of the major as properties of the special sciences. According to our view, some of the major disputes in the (...) literature about color -- anti-realism versus dispositionalism versus reductionism -- are not well-founded at this stage of scientific inquiry. Our account of color is designed to be of use in the sciences and as such is driven largely by considerations of what the various sciences need in order to proceed appropriately. We argue that a scientific theory of colors need not regard colors as anything more than high-level statistical constructs built out of correlations between color experiences and other phenomena. (shrink)

Lawrence Johnson advocates a major change in our attitude toward the nonhuman world. He argues that nonhuman animals, and ecosystems themselves, are morally significant beings with interests and rights. The author considers recent work in environmental ethics in the introduction and then presents his case with the utmost precision and clarity. Written in an attractive, nontechnical style, the book will be of particular interest to philosophers, environmentalists and ecologists.

This article uses the Confucian and Neo-Confucian slogan that we should strive to “form one body with all things” as a starting point for asking whether the organismic metaphors so central to their ontology might be compatible with and of service to contemporary thinkers in cognitive science and philosophy of mind who are actively pursuing a fully embodied theory of mind. In this article I draw upon lines of inquiry exemplified in the work of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (...) and Andy Clark who take different routes to important conclusions that I argue would be even more convincing where they to be seen from within the context of an ontology that draws upon organismic rather than mechanistic metaphors. In short, this article draws attention to the largely unnoticed fact that a fully embodied understanding of mind, one that treats knowledge as a kind of active engagement with the world rather than as a purely cognitive state, points away from mechanistic metaphors and toward organismic ones. (shrink)

Study and teaching of Islam with refererence to Qurʼan and Hadith.

Suppose I make an utterance, intending it to be a command. You don’t take it to be one. Must one of us be wrong? In other words, must each utterance have, at most, one illocutionary force? Current debates over the constitutive norm of assertion and over illocutionary silencing, tend to assume that the answer is yes—that each utterance must be either an assertion, or a command, or a question, but not more than one of these. While I think that this (...) assumption is intuitive, I will argue in this paper that it is not sustainable. I’ll argue that this assumption makes it hard to explain what determines illocutionary force in a consistent and non-ad hoc way. I will demonstrate this is not fatal for the notion of illocutionary force writ large by offering some alternatives. (shrink)

This paper reviews current psychological theories of syllogistic inference and establishes that despite their various merits they all contain deficiencies as theories of performance. It presents the results of two experiments, one using syllogisms and the other using three-term series problems, designed to elucidate how the arrangement of terms within the premises affects performance. These data are used in the construction of a theory based on the hypothesis that reasoners construct mental models of the premises, formulate informative conclusions about the (...) relations in the model, and search for alternative models that are counterexamples to these conclusions. This theory, which has been implemented in several computer programs, predicts that two principal factors should affect performance: the figure of the premises, and the number of models that they call for. These predictions were confirmed by a third experiment. Dans cet article sont passées en revue les théories psychologiques du traitement des syllogismes. On établit qu'en dépit de leurs mérites variés toutes sont en défaut en tant que théories de la performance. On présente les résultats de deux expériences, une utilisant des syllogismes et l'autre des problémes avec des séries de trois termes conçues pour élucider comment l'arrangement des termes dans les premises affecte la performance. Ces données sont utilisées pour construire une théorie fondée sur l'hypothése que les gens construisent des modèles mentaux des premises, formulent des conclusions explicites sur les relations dans le modèle et cherchent des modèles qui seraient des contre-exemples pour leurs conclusions. Cette théorie, utilisée dans plusieurs programmes d'ordinateur, prédit que deux principaux facteurs affectent la performance: la figure des premises et le nombre de; modèles qu'ils mettent en jeu. Cette prédiction est confirmée dans les trois expériences. (shrink)

The authors outline a theory of conditionals of the form If A then C and If A then possibly C. The 2 sorts of conditional have separate core meanings that refer to sets of possibilities. Knowledge, pragmatics, and semantics can modulate these meanings. Modulation can add information about temporal and other relations between antecedent and consequent. It can also prevent the construction of possibilities to yield 10 distinct sets of possibilities to which conditionals can refer. The mental representation of a (...) conditional normally makes explicit only the possibilities in which its antecedent is true, yielding other possibilities implicitly. Reasoners tend to focus on the explicit possibilities. The theory predicts the major phenomena of understanding and reasoning with conditionals. (shrink)

William Ernest Johnson was a renowned British logician and economist, and also a fellow of King's College, Cambridge. Originally published in 1921, this book forms the first of a three-volume series by Johnson relating to 'the whole field of logic as ordinarily understood'. The series is widely regarded as Johnson's greatest achievement, making a significant contribution to the tradition of philosophical logic. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Johnson's theories, philosophy (...) and the historical development of logic. (shrink)

In this paper we develop a general theory of algorithmic fairness. Drawing on Johnson King and Babic’s work on moral encroachment, on Gary Becker’s work on labor market discrimination, and on Strawson’s idea of resentment and indignation as responses to violations of the demand for goodwill toward oneself and others, we locate attitudes to fairness in an agent’s utility function. In particular, we first argue that fairness is a matter of a decision-maker’s relative concern for the plight of people (...) from different groups, rather than of the outcomes produced for different groups. We then show how an agent’s preferences, including in particular their attitudes to error, give rise to their decision thresholds. Tying these points together, we argue that the agent’s relative degrees of concern for different groups manifest in a difference in decision thresholds applied to these groups. (shrink)

The need for ethical naturalism -- Moral problem-solving as an empirical inquiry -- Where are our values bred? : sources of moral norms -- Intuitive processes of moral cognition -- Moral deliberation as cognition, imagination, and feeling -- The nature of "reasonable" moral deliberation -- There is no moral faculty -- Moral fundamentalism is immoral -- The making of a moral self.

We offer a sceptical examination of a thesis recently advanced in a monograph published by Princeton University Press, entitled Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia. In this dense and probing work, Christopher I. Beckwith, a professor of Central Eurasian studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, argues that Pyrrho of Elis adopted a form of early Buddhism during his years in Bactria and Gandhāra, and that early Pyrrhonism must be understood as a sect of early Buddhism. In making (...) his case Beckwith claims that virtually all scholars of Greek, Indian, and Chinese philosophy have been operating under flawed assumptions and with flawed methodologies, and so have failed to notice obvious and undeniable correspondences between the philosophical views of the Buddha and of Pyrrho. In this study we take Beckwith’s proposal and challenge seriously, and we examine his textual basis and techniques of translation, his methods of examining passages, his construal of problems and his reconstruction of arguments. We find that his presuppositions are contentious and doubtful, his own methods are extremely flawed, and that he draws unreasonable conclusions. Although the result of our study is almost entirely negative, we think it illustrates some important general points about the methodology of comparative philosophy. (shrink)