Research on sleep loss and vigilance both focus on declines in cognitive performance, but theoretical accounts have developed largely in parallel in these two areas. In addition, computational instantiations of theoretical accounts are rare. The current work uses computational modeling to explore whether the same mechanisms can account for the effects of both sleep loss and time on task on performance. A classic task used in the sleep deprivation literature, the Psychomotor Vigilance Test, was extended from the typical 10-min duration (...) to 35 min, to make the task similar in duration to traditional vigilance tasks. A computational cognitive model demonstrated that the effects of time on task in the PVT were equivalent to those observed with sleep loss. Subsequently, the same mechanisms were applied to a more traditional vigilance task—the Mackworth Clock Task—providing a good fit to existing data. This supports the hypothesis that these different types of fatigue may produce functionally equivalent declines in performance. (shrink)

Visual working memory is a construct hypothesized to store a small amount of accurate perceptual information that can be brought to bear on a task. Much research concerns the construct's capacity and the precision of the information stored. Two prominent theories of VWM representation have emerged: slot-based and continuous-resource mechanisms. Prior modeling work suggests that a continuous resource that varies over trials with variable capacity and a potential to make localization errors best accounts for the empirical data. Questions remain regarding (...) the variability in VWM capacity and precision. Using a novel eye-tracking paradigm, we demonstrate that VWM facilitates search and exhibits effects of fixation frequency and recency, particularly for prior targets. Whereas slot-based memory models cannot account for the human data, a novel continuous-resource model does capture the behavioral and eye tracking data, and identifies the relevant resource as item activation. (shrink)

Veksler and Gunzelmann argue that the vigilance decrement and the deleterious effects of sleep loss reflect functionally equivalent degradations in cognitive processing and performance. Our account is implemented in a cognitive architecture, where these factors produce breakdowns in goal-directed cognitive processing that we refer to as microlapses. Altmann raises a number of challenges to microlapses as a unified account of these deficits. Under scrutiny, however, the challenges do little to discredit the theory or conclusions in the original paper. In (...) our response, we address the most serious challenges. In so doing, we provide additional support for the theory and mechanisms, and we highlight opportunities for extending their explanatory breadth. (shrink)

We asked whether and how generations vary in their perceptions on moral matters ranging from their justifications of crime and questions concerning bodily autonomy. In our exploratory study using data from the World Values Survey, we found that Generations Y and Z are more likely than their older counterparts to justify crimes, such as cheating on taxes or stealing property, and to favor greater bodily autonomy in issues such as suicide and abortion. They also rank lower the importance of God (...) and national pride. Implications are offered for employers who wish to motivate and incentivize a multi-generational workforce. (shrink)

Dowód twierdzenia Bella sprowadza się do wyprowadzenia którejś z nierówności Bella. W ich standardowych wyprowadzeniach jednak kluczową rolę odgrywa warunek faktoryzowalności łącznego prawdopodobieństwa warunkowego, który można uzyskać jako konsekwencję dwóch innych warunków, znanych jako parameter independence i outcome independence. Pierwszy z nich jest dość oczywistym wyrazem warunku lokalności, natomiast drugi budzi wątpliwości. Ponieważ jednak jest on uszczegółowieniem warunku screening off zasady wspólnej przyczyny, jego podważenie wymagałoby zakwestionowania również tego warunku. Gdyby się to powiodło, efektywny dowód twierdzenia Bella (...) wymagałby wyprowadzenia nierówności Bella nie wykorzystującego żadnego uszczegółowienia warunku screening off. Przestawiona zostanie sugestia kierunku, w jakim powinny iść poszukiwania modelu naruszającego ten warunek. (shrink)

As a slew of recent work in epistemology has brought out, there is a range of cases where there's a strong temptation to say that prudential and (especially) moral considerations affect what we ought to believe. There are two distinct models of how this can happen. On the first, “reasons pragmatist” model, the relevant prudential and moral considerations constitute distinctively practical reasons for (or against) belief. On the second, “pragmatic encroachment” model, the relevant prudential and moral considerations affect what one (...) is epistemically justified in believing. The pragmatic encroachment model appears to have several advantages over reasons pragmatism, and this has led many recent philosophers to endorse the former. However, in this paper we argue that a version of reasons pragmatism can be (at least largely) saved from these purported disadvantages once paired with an independently plausible permissivism about epistemically justified outright belief. This hybrid view—“permissivist pragmatism”—holds that when there is more than one epistemically permitted doxastic attitude, practical (including moral) considerations can determine which epistemically permitted doxastic attitude one all-things-considered ought to have. This view avoids both the problems faced by simple versions of reasons pragmatism, and those that distinctively attend pragmatic encroachment, while preserving the advantages of each view. (shrink)

Kierkegaard's pseudonym Johannes Climacus famously defines faith as a risky “venture” that requires “holding fast” to “objective uncertainty.” Yet puzzlingly, he emphasizes that faith requires resolute conviction and certainty. Moreover, Climacus claims that all beliefs about contingent propositions about the external world “exclude doubt” and “nullify uncertainty,” but also that uncertainty is “continually present” in these very same beliefs. This paper argues that these apparent contradictions can be resolved by interpreting Climacus as a belief‐credence dualist. That is, Climacus holds that (...) beliefs and credences (i.e., degrees of belief) are two irreducibly distinct types of mental states. Beliefs are resolutions that close inquiry, thereby excluding doubt and reflecting subjective certainty by disregarding the possibility of error. Credences, by contrast, reflect assessments of evidential probabilities, thereby encoding a recognition of “objective uncertainty” by acknowledging the possibility of error. In addition to solving a vexing interpretive puzzle and showing how Kierkegaard anticipates contemporary views about the nature of belief and credence, this paper demonstrates that Kierkegaard developed a sophisticated account of the nature of belief, doubt, and certainty that merits serious philosophical consideration. (shrink)

On the dominant contemporary accounts of how practical considerations affect what we ought to believe, practical considerations either encroach on epistemic rationality by affecting whether a belief is epistemically justified, or constitute distinctively practical reasons for belief which can only affect what we ought to believe by conflicting with epistemic rationality. This paper argues that Søren Kierkegaard offers a promising alternative view on which practical considerations can affect what we ought to believe without either encroaching on or (necessarily) conflicting with (...) epistemic rationality by determining which among the epistemically permitted outright doxastic attitudes one should all‐things‐considered adopt. (shrink)

According to a traditional interpretation of Kierkegaard, he endorses a strong form of direct doxastic voluntarism on which we can, by brute force of will, make a “leap of faith” to believe propositions that we ourselves take to be improbable and absurd. Yet most leading Kierkegaard scholars now wholly reject this reading, instead interpreting Kierkegaard as holding that the will can affect what we believe only indirectly. This paper argues that Kierkegaard does in fact endorse a restricted, sophisticated, and plausible (...) version of direct doxastic voluntarism. On Kierkegaard’s view, when we take ourselves to be in an epistemically permissive situation, we have the ability to form outright beliefs (but not credences) at will in virtue of our ability to voluntarily 1) open or close inquiry and 2) determine our attitude towards epistemic risk. (shrink)

Explanation of physical regularities from positions of the thermodynamic approach -- Application of the thermodynamic approach to the processes going in the human organism.

According to the thesis of doxastic wronging, our beliefs can non-derivatively wrong others. A recent criticism of this view claims that proponents of the doxastic wronging thesis have no principled grounds for denying that credences can likewise non-derivatively wrong, so they must countenance pervasive conflicts between morality and epistemic rationality. This paper defends the thesis of doxastic wronging from this objection by arguing that belief bears distinctive relationships to inquiry and blame that can explain why beliefs, but not credences, can (...) non-derivatively wrong. First, forming a belief (but not updating one’s credence) closes inquiry, and suspending judgment (but not updating one’s credence) opens inquiry. Consequently, beliefs can distinctively wrong others by prematurely closing inquiry or inappropriately opening inquiry. Second, beliefs (but not credences) can constitute blame. Unfittingly blaming someone can wrong them, and hence beliefs which constitute unfitting blame can distinctively wrong. In addition to defending the claim that only beliefs can non-derivatively wrong, this paper gestures towards an ethics of belief which attends to the relationship between belief and attitudes such as inquiry, faith, trust, and blame. (shrink)

Although doubt (Tvivl) and despair (Fortvivlelse) are widely recognized as two central and closely associated concepts in Kierkegaard’s authorship, their precise relationship remains opaque in the extant interpretive literature. To shed light on their relationship, this paper develops a novel interpretation of Kierkegaard’s understanding of the connection between despair and our agency over our beliefs, and its significance for Kierkegaard’s ethics of belief. First, I show that an important yet largely overlooked form of Kierkegaardian despair involves either failing to take (...) ethico-religious responsibility for one’s practical agency over one’s beliefs, or misusing one’s practical agency over one’s beliefs by refusing to recognize or comply with externally given ethico-religious norms governing belief. Second, I argue that Kierkegaard takes properly exercising one’s agency over one’s beliefs to matter because beliefs are partly constitutive of the theological virtues (faith, hope, and love) that Kierkegaard regards as the cure for despair. (shrink)

What is the basis of belief in an era when globalization, multiculturalism and big business are the new religion? Slavoj Zizek, renowned philosopher and irrepressible cultural critic takes on all comers in this compelling and breathless new book. From 'cyberspace reason' to the paradox that is 'Western Buddhism', _On Belief_ gets behind the contours of the way we normally think about belief, in particular Judaism and Christianity. Holding up the so-called authenticity of religious belief to critical light, Zizek draws on (...) psychoanalysis, film and philosophy to reveal in startling fashion that nothing could be worse for believers than their beliefs turning out to be true. (shrink)

On the “Isolation Account” of belief’s ethical significance, our beliefs can be non-instrumentally ethically significant independently of their epistemic status and in isolation from other attitudes or actions. However, critics object that fundamental ethical significance should instead be located in non-doxastic attitudes in belief’s vicinity. This paper develops an alternative view—the “Constitutive Inheritance Account”—on which our beliefs can inherit ethical significance from the more fundamental ethical significance of the attitudes they partly or fully constitute. The Constitutive Inheritance Account incorporates the (...) objection’s insight while accommodating the intuitions motivating the Isolation Account and better explaining belief’s non-instrumental ethical significance. (shrink)

Donald Davidson has made enormous contributions to the philosophy of action, epistemology, semantics and philosophy of mind and today is recognized as one of the most important analytical philosophers of the late twentieth century. _Donald Davidson: Truth, Meaning and Knowledge_ addresses * Davidson's writings on epistemology and theory of language with their implications of ontology and philosophy of mind * the central issue of whether truth is the ultimate goal of enquiry, challenged by contributions from Richard Rorty and Paul Horwich (...) * Davidson's approach to semantics and applied linguistics as addressed by Kirk Ludwig, Gabriel Segal, Peter Pagin, Stephen Neale, Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore and Reinaldo Elugardo * Davidson's advances in the philosophy of mind in relation to the views of Williard V. Quine, John McDowell and Peter F. Strawson, in essays by Roger Gibson and Anita Avramides. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the well-being and mental health of populations worldwide. This study sought to examine whether religious coping mediated the relationship between COVID-19-related fear and death distress. We administered an online survey to 390 adult participants (66.15% females; Mage = 30.85 ± 10.19 years) across Turkey. Participants completed a series of questionnaires measuring the fear they had experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, their levels of religious coping and their levels of death anxiety and depression. Our findings revealed (...) that (a) fear of COVID-19 was associated with positive religious coping, negative religious coping, death anxiety and death distress; (b) negative religious coping was associated with death anxiety and depression and (c) negative religious coping mediated the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and death anxiety and depression. These results highlight the detrimental effect of negative religious coping in increasing the adverse effect of the COVID-19 fear on death depression. (shrink)

This study discusses the numerous challenges that Chinese Muslims experience as a minority in Indonesia, as well as the role of Chinese Muslim groups in providing them with religious direction. This study employs a phenomenological approach that relies on in-depth interviews with 14 informants who were chosen purposively. According to the study, the obstacles faced are domestic constraints, where they are alienated by their extended family, and social constraints, particularly for those from disadvantaged groups. As a result of this situation, (...) they became acquainted with several Chinese Muslim organisations. Although this phenomena demonstrates a constructive cooperation among Chinese Muslims, it also implies that assimilation efforts with local Muslims are not properly manifested.Contribution: Although the decision to convert to Islam has resulted in exclusion from their extended family, they are still able to maintain their new faith by relying on Islamic organisations run by fellow Chinese Muslims. At the same time, this phenomenon illustrates that their assimilation efforts with local Muslims have not been properly realised. (shrink)

According to a traditional interpretation of Kierkegaard, he endorses a strong form of direct doxastic voluntarism on which we can, by brute force of will, make a “leap of faith” to believe propositions that we ourselves take to be improbable and absurd. Yet most leading Kierkegaard scholars now wholly reject this reading, instead interpreting Kierkegaard as holding that the will can affect what we believe only indirectly. This paper argues that Kierkegaard does in fact endorse a restricted, sophisticated, and plausible (...) version of direct doxastic voluntarism. On Kierkegaard's view, when we take ourselves to be in an epistemically permissive situation, we have the ability to form outright beliefs (but not credences) at will in virtue of our ability to voluntarily 1) open or close inquiry and 2) determine our attitude towards epistemic risk. (shrink)

Reviewed Work: The Leader's Two Bodies: Slavoj Žižek's Postmodern Political Theology by Claudia Breger.

Arapçada izâfet bütünleşik bir yapı arz eden ve ögeleri arasındaki kuvvetli bağ sebebiyle iki isimli bu yapının müfred isim mesabesinde kabul edildiği bir dizilimdir. Bu yapıyı oluşturan kelimelerin diziliminde herhangi bir yer değişimi olmamakla birlikte şiir zarureti gibi oldukça istisna sayılabilecek durumlar dışında bu iki ismin arasına başka bir sözün girmesi de karşılaşılan bir durum değildir. Sözü bu derece kuvvetli bir yapıyla ifade etmenin birtakım anlamsal gerekçeleri bulunmaktadır. Ancak yine anlamın etkili olduğu başka gerekçeler, izâfetle ifadesi mümkün olan bir sözün (...) farklı dizilimlerle dile getirilmesini gerekli kılmaktadır. Bu çalışma Arapçada izâfetle ifadesi mümkün olmakla birlikte farklı yapılarla meydana getirilen dizilimleri tespit edip incelemektedir. Çalışma bir yandan izâfetle ilişkili olup gramerde farklı başlıklar altında yer alan dizilimleri analiz edip değerlendirerek bir arada sunmayı, bir yandan da bu dizilimlerin yapısal farklılıklarını ve farklılığın anlamsal gerekçelerini değerlendirerek konunun öğretimine yönelik veriler oluşturmayı amaçlamaktadır. Konunun yapısal boyutunda bu dizilimlerin izâfetten farkı ve dönüşümün biçimsel boyuta nasıl yansıdığı incelenmektedir. Anlamsal boyutta ise izâfet ve izâfet dışındaki dizilimlerin tercihinde etkili olan anlamsal faktörler incelenmektedir. Her dizilimin biçime yansıyan kendine has oluşturulma gerekçesi olmakla beraber izâfetin tercihinde veciz olmasının, izâfet formunun değişimiyle elde edilen ifadelerde ise çalışmada ayrıntıları izah edilen diğer sebeplerin etkili olduğu sonucuna ulaşılmıştır. (shrink)

In the last half century, psychological studies on the New Religious Movements have shown a significant increase not only in the discipline of psychology but also in sociology, history of religions and other religious studies. Today, it is a judgement that people seek a measure to protect themselves from the alienating and degenerating effects of modern life. In this context, firstly the inclusion of a New Religious Movement (NRM) reflects a desire to take back time in behalf of experiencing the (...) truth in the modern world. Secondly, this belonging refers, at the same time, to the desire to carry the ancient truth to modern times and move it into action on a contemporary and secular level. At this point, New Religious Movements are characterized as a protest against modernity. In the aim of this argument, there is the deconstruction of the institutionalized religion and the secular structure by the hand of individual. This situation realizes with the participation of the ‘new’ and the movement, which is a modern social structure, to the ‘religion’; and with the participation of the religion to the ‘new’, that is, the ‘secular’. For this reason, many New Religious Movements blend themselves with modern, anti-modern, sometimes even post-modern elements. These include both elements of adaptation to modernity and elements of resistance to it. The new religious movements are quite diverse and colorful. Some are theoretically highly conservative, but some of them are radically innovative. Some of them emerge from traditional religions, while others show an eclectic and syncretic appearance. It is a fact that the target group of the New Religious Movement is a group of young people aged 15-25. Since their target majority is young people, such religious movements are also defined as “youth religions/sects”. Is attending YDHs a strategic success only in New Religious Movements? Or is it the possibility that the lifestyle in the modern age presents the individual? Or a sense of meaning in which his quest corresponds to it? Or is this a grueling vicious circle that he can't afford to become an addict? In this context, the following elements are explained in general as the main reasons for the participation in a new religious movement for the individual: deprivation, alienation, the tendency to be engaged with religious issues, the instability of one's own personality and the experience of personal crisis. The individual experiences a life in “homeless mind” mode. In “homeless mind” approach, the individual perceives modernization and existence as secular, not as sacred as it used to be. The existence and life in the Western thinking experiencing this process have been seen as “ rationally understood ”, but the Western man feels himself homeless and free of refuge in the cosmos and social life when big problems are encountered. The New Religious Movements have precisely aspired the field of meaning that this feeling corresponds to, and they have met the individual in the claim of satisfying this feeling. In this study, the relationship between NRMs, psychology and personality are tried to be discussed with descriptive and partly analytic approaches. The nature of modern man's ontological entity requires the interpretation of the belief trend in the context of psychology and also requires developing a perspective that prioritizes the effectiveness of comprehension and analysis. (shrink)