There are good reasons to think there is a universal, fundamental length, specifically, at the order of the Planck length. If this holds, we then have an empirical answer for Zeno’s paradox of Achilles and the tortoise, a potential impasse in the second premise of the kalam cosmological argument, and creation ex nihilo. In this paper, I establish metaphysical, empirical, and epistemic reasons suggesting there is a universal, fundamental length. Along the way, I propose a “contingent necessity” for such a (...) notion. I then detail how a universal, fundamental length is a preferred solution for issues –. (shrink)

Multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs)—private governance mechanisms involving firms, civil society organizations, and other actors deliberating to set rules, such as standards or codes of conduct, with which firms comply voluntarily—have become important tools for governing global business activities and the social and environmental consequences of these activities. Yet, this growth is paralleled with concerns about MSIs’ deliberative capacity, including the limited inclusion of some marginalized stakeholders, bias toward corporate interests, and, ultimately, ineffectiveness in their role as regulators. In this article, we (...) conceptualize MSIs as deliberative systems to open the black box of the different elements that make up the MSI polity and better understand how their deliberative capacity hinges on problems in different elements. On the basis of this conceptualization, we examine how deliberative mini-publics—forums in which a randomly selected group of individuals from a particular population engage in learning and facilitated deliberations about a topic—can improve the deliberative capacity of MSIs. (shrink)

In light of rapid globalization, there has been an increase in U.S. psychologists conducting international cross-cultural research. Such researchers face unique ethical dilemmas. Although the American Psychological Association has its own Code of Ethics with guidelines regarding research, these guidelines do not specifically address international and cross-cultural research. The purposes of this article are to (a) provide a review of current ethical guidelines for research on human subjects, (b) provide a review of major ethical challenges and dilemmas in conducting cross-cultural (...) research, (c) highlight several existing frameworks that maybe useful for increasing cross-cultural understanding of these ethical challenges for U.S. psychologists, and (d) issue a call to the American Psychological Association to begin to assess and evaluate the nature and extent of ethical problems in conducting cross-cultural research among its members. (shrink)

Can beliefs that are not consciously formulated serve as part of an agent's evidence for other beliefs? A common view says no, any belief that is psychologically immediate is also epistemically immediate. I argue that some unconscious beliefs can serve as evidence, but other unconscious beliefs cannot. Person-level beliefs can serve as evidence, but subpersonal beliefs cannot. I try to clarify the nature of the personal/subpersonal distinction and to show how my proposal illuminates various epistemological problems and provides a principled (...) framework for solving other problems. (shrink)

Stewart Cohen argues that much contemporary epistemological theorizing is hampered by the fact that ‘epistemic justification’ is a term of art and one that is never given any serious explication in a non-tendentious, theory-neutral way. He suggests that epistemologists are therefore better off theorizing in terms of rationality, rather than in terms of ‘epistemic justification’. Against this, I argue that even if the term ‘epistemic justification’ is not broadly known, the concept it picks out is quite familiar, and partly because (...) it’s a term of art, justification talk is a better vehicle for philosophical theorizing. ‘Rational’ is too unclear for our philosophical purposes, and the fact that ‘epistemic justification’ gets fleshed out by appeal to substantive, controversial theses is no obstacle to its playing the needed role in epistemological theorizing. (shrink)

Nearly everyone agrees that perception gives us justification and knowledge, and a great number of epistemologists endorse a particular two-part view about how this happens. The view is that perceptual beliefs get their justification from perceptual experiences, and that they do so by being based on them. Despite the ubiquity of these two views, I think that neither has very much going for it; on the contrary, there’s good reason not to believe either one of them.

Morphological content (MC) is content that is implicit in the standing structure of the cognitive system. Henderson and Horgan claim that MC plays a distinctive epistemological role unrecognized by traditional epistemic theories. I consider the possibilities that MC plays this role either in central cognition or in peripheral modules. I argue that the peripheral MC does not play an interesting epistemological role and that the central MC is already recognized by traditional theories.

The traditional understanding of analyticity in terms of concept containment is revisited, but with a concept explicitly understood as a certain kind of mental representation and containment being read correspondingly literally. The resulting conception of analyticity avoids much of the vagueness associated with attempts to explicate analyticity in terms of synonymy by moving the locus of discussion from the philosophy of language to the philosophy of mind. The account provided here illustrates some interesting features of representations and explains, at least (...) in part, the special epistemic status of analytic judgments. (shrink)

A promising recent development in molecular biology involves viewing the genome as a miniecosystem, where genetic elements are compared to organisms and the surrounding cellular and genomic structures are regarded as the local environment. Here we critically evaluate the prospects of Ecological Neutral Theory, a popular model in ecology, as it applies at the genomic level. This assessment requires an overview of the controversy surrounding neutral models in community ecology. In particular, we discuss the limitations of using ENT both as (...) an explanation of community dynamics and as a null hypothesis. We then analyze a case study in which ENT has been applied to genomic data. Our central finding is that genetic elements do not conform to the requirements of ENT once its assumptions and limitations are made explicit. We further compare this genome-level application of ENT to two other, more familiar approaches in genomics that rely on neutral mechanisms: Kimura’s Molecular Neutral Theory and Lynch’s Mutational Hazard Model. Interestingly, this comparison reveals that there are two distinct concepts of neutrality associated with these models which we dub ‘fitness-neutrality’ and ‘competitive neutrality’. This distinction helps to clarify the various roles for neutral models in genomics, for example, in explaining the evolution of genome size. (shrink)

Perceptual representations are sometimes said to be iconic, or picture-like. But what does this mean, and is it true? I suggest that the most fruitful way to understand iconicity is in terms of similarity, but there are three importantly different grades of similarity that that might hold between perceptual representations and their objects, and these should be distinguished. It is implausible that all perceptual representations achieve even the weakest grade of iconicity, but I speculatively suggest a “Kantian” view, whereby all (...) perceptual representation involves fillers placed in a “strongly iconic” spatial framework. Those fillers will likely be hybrid structures, with varying grades of iconicity combined with non-iconic elements. (shrink)

In October 2016, the White House, the European Parliament, and the UK House of Commons each issued a report outlining their visions on how to prepare society for the widespread use of artificial intelligence. In this article, we provide a comparative assessment of these three reports in order to facilitate the design of policies favourable to the development of a ‘good AI society’. To do so, we examine how each report addresses the following three topics: the development of a ‘good (...) AI society’; the role and responsibility of the government, the private sector, and the research community in pursuing such a development; and where the recommendations to support such a development may be in need of improvement. Our analysis concludes that the reports address adequately various ethical, social, and economic topics, but come short of providing an overarching political vision and long-term strategy for the development of a ‘good AI society’. In order to contribute to fill this gap, in the conclusion we suggest a two-pronged approach. (shrink)

The influence of Greek sources on the Arab philosophers is both obvious and important. What is less clear is how the quality of the translations from which the philosophers worked affected their understanding of the points that the Greek writers were making. This article investigates one small but self-contained topic from within the field of translation literature, covering the translations of poetic quotations in the Rhetoric of Aristotle in its Arabic translation, together with an analysis of the types of mistakes (...) to be found there. In itself this is of no more than curiosity value, but an application of the lessons to be learnt here to a linguistic study of Arabic philosophical commentaries, and, by extension, to philosophical theory, will be of clear importance. (shrink)

: The first section of this paper outlines the major theme, that “mind” is not the label of something unitary but of a collection of things that can only be revealed by research at three different levels. The first level of enquiry is the account of mind that can be gleaned from what is often referred to as our folk psychology. Even with its limitations, it is an indispensable part of our social interactions. The second section outlines how, with the (...) rise of experimental psychology, our account of human minds has been extended because experimental psychology often reveals a level of factors in our mental life which is not open to ordinary observation. The third section explores how our account of human minds is extended even further by the modern instrument-aided researches at the level of neuropsychology. The fourth section argues that no one level of enquiry should be described as ultimate or dominant but that each level reveals different facts about our mental life. The fifth section sums up and argues that a common narrow version of “naturalizing the mind” is a mistaken enterprise. Keywords : Mind; Mind/Body Problem; Naturalism and Naturalization; Psychology; Neuropsychology Alla ricerca della "mente" Riassunto : La prima parte di questo articolo illustra il tema principale del lavoro, ossia che “mente” non è l’etichetta linguistica per qualcosa di unitario, ma sta a indicare un insieme di cose che può solo essere svelato da una ricerca da condurre su tre differenti livelli. Il primo livello d’indagine è la descrizione della mente che può essere desunta da ciò cui solitamente ci si riferisce come la nostra psicologia ingenua. Nonostante i suoi limiti questa è una parte imprescindibile delle nostre interazioni sociali. La seconda parte illustra come, con il sorgere della psicologia sperimentale, la nostra descrizione delle menti umane si è estesa, poiché la psicologia sperimentale spesso rivela un livello di fattori nella nostra vita mentale che non sono accessibili con l’osservazione ordinaria. La terza parte esplora come la nostra descrizione delle menti umane è andata anche oltre grazie all’apparato strumentale di cui i ricercatori hanno potuto fruire sul piano della neuropsicologia. Nella quarta parte si sostiene che nessuno dei livelli d’indagine può essere descritto come ultimo o dominante, ma ogni livello rivela fatti diversi sulla vita della mente. Nella quinta parte si tirano le fila del discorso, sostenendo come una visione ristretta di senso comune della “naturalizzazione della mente” sia un’impresa fuorviante. Parole chiave : Mente; Problema mente/corpo; Naturalismo e naturalizzazione; Psicologia; Neuropsicologia. (shrink)

Defenders of Motivational judgment internalism (MJI) argue that in one sense or another, our moral judgments necessarily motivate us to some extent. One of the most prominent defenders is Michael Smith, who in his highly influential book The Moral Problem defends a form of moral rationalism, which is the view that moral reasoning is based on practical reasoning, and thus that moral facts can and are determined a priori. This form of rationalism Smith claims to entail his account about internalism.One (...) of the main merits of Smith’s account of moral motivation is that it allows for individual difference in levels of moral motivation, by making the claim that moral judgments necessarily motivate defeasible. Before elaborating on how Smith does so, I shall first discuss Smith's approach in The Moral Problem, which will also help to set out the basic assumptions that will be taken for granted within this essay. I will then look at the account that he provides, and assess it with respect to one of Russ Shafer-Landau's criticisms thereof. Shafer-Landau rather helpfully puts Smith’s case for his moral rationalism in the form of what he calls ‘the incoherence argument’. The strongest problem that Shafer-Landau has with this argument seems to be with the following claim: ‘it is irrational for an individual to not desire what his fully rational self would desire’. What I hope to conclude is as follows: Although Smith’s account of internalism can for the most part withstand this objection that Shafer-Landau makes to it, even though Smith himself does not demonstrate any incoherence in failing to desire what one’s fully rational self would desire, in that a different kind of incoherence can be defended through other means. This would however result in a requirement for Smith to make significant concessions to his project in The Moral Problem. (shrink)

Stereotype threat—a situational context in which individuals are concerned about confirming a negative stereotype—is often shown to impact test performance, with one hypothesized mechanism being that cognitive resources are temporarily co-opted by intrusive thoughts and worries, leading individuals to underperform despite high content knowledge and ability. We test here whether stereotype threat may also impact initial student learning and knowledge formation when experienced prior to instruction. Predominantly African American fifth-grade students provided either their race or the date before a videotaped, (...) conceptually demanding mathematics lesson. Students who gave their race retained less learning over time, enjoyed the lesson less, reported a diminished desire to learn more, and were less likely to choose to engage in an optional math activity. The detrimental impact was greatest among students with high baseline cognitive resources. While stereotype threat has been well documented to harm test performance, the finding that effects extend to initial learning suggests that stereotype threat's contribution to achievement gaps may be greatly underestimated. (shrink)

Contemporary philosopher Michael Walzer described the Problem of Dirty Hands as the choice between achieving a morally good end by violating one's own moral principles and sticking to one's moral principles without achieving this end. Walzer specifically explored this problem in the context of someone in the position of political power who can make a significant impact on the greater good but only through performing morally problematic deeds. In the 2016 film Doctor Strange, there are three characters who see themselves (...) as presented with this problem: the Ancient One, Kaecilius, and Doctor Stephen Strange himself. Of the three characters we've considered, the Ancient One most obviously faced the Problem of Dirty Hands. Dark magic is one of those things that are so dangerous that they're simply forbidden, even by the most adept of users, such as the Ancient One. (shrink)

In struggling to free science from theological implications, Huxley let his own philosophical beliefs influence his interpretation of the data. However, he was certainly not unique in this respect. Like the creationists he despised, he made many important contributions to the issue of progression in the fossil record and its relationship to evolutionary theory. Certainly other factors were involved as well. Undoubtedly, just the sheer inertia of ideas played a role. He was committed to a theory of type and was (...) heavily influenced by von Baer, who argued that one could not rate the different types as being higher or lower than the others. By the mid-1850s his animosity toward Owen had become extreme and he tried to discredit the man whenever possible; yet, as I have pointed out, he also was more than willing to cite Owen's early work when it suited his needs.But I believe the crucial factor in Huxley's eventually accepting progression was that he finally disassociated it from the idea of divine plan. This happened gradually through the 1860s and 1870s, as more and more fossil finds provided support for Darwin's theory. In evaluating this new evidence that supported gradualism, Huxley also realized that progression was an intrinsic part of Darwin's theory:The hypothesis of evolution supposes that at any given period in the past we should meet with a state of things more or less similar to the present, but less similar in proportion as we go back in time... if we traced back the animal world and the vegetable world we should find preceding what now exist animals and plants not identical with them, but like them, only increasing their differences as we go back in time, and at the same time becoming simpler and simpler until finally we should arrive at that gelatinous mass which, so far as our present knowledge goes, is the common foundation of all life.In concluding his first lecture to the Americans, he told them: “The hypothesis of evolution supposes that in all this vast progression there would be no breach of continuity, no point at which we could say ‘This is a natural process,’ and ‘This is not a natural process.’”85 Finally for Huxley, progression was no longer linked to Divine Plan. (shrink)