The Radical Enactive/embodied view of Cognition, or REC, claims that all cognition is a matter of skilled performance. Yet REC also makes a distinction between basic and content-involving cognition, arguing that the development of basic to content-involving cognition involves a kink. It might seem that this distinction leads to problematic gaps in REC’s story. We address two such alleged gaps in this paper. First, we identify and reply to the concern that REC leads to an “interface problem”, according to which (...) REC has to account for the interaction of two minds co-present in the same cognitive activity. We emphasise how REC’s view of content-involving cognition in terms of activities that require particular sociocultural practices can resolve these interface concerns. The second potential problematic gap is that REC creates an unjustified difference in kind between animal and human cognition. In response, we clarify and further explicate REC’s notion of content, and argue that this notion allows REC to justifiably mark the distinction between basic and content-involving cognition as a difference in kind. We conclude by pointing out in what sense basic and content-involving cognitive activities are the same, yet different. They are the same because they are all forms of skilled performance, yet different as some forms of skilled performance are genuinely different from other forms. (shrink)

We address some frequently encountered criticisms of Radical Embodied/Enactive Cognition. Contrary to the claims that the position is too radical, or not sufficiently so, we claim REC is just radical enough.

Goal‐directed cognition is often discussed in terms of specialized memory structures like the “goal stack.” The goal‐activation model presented here analyzes goal‐directed cognition in terms of the general memory constructs of activation and associative priming. The model embodies three predictive constraints: (1) the interference level, which arises from residual memory for old goals; (1) the strengthening constraint, which makes predictions about time to encode a new goal; and (3) the priming constraint, which makes predictions about the role of cues in (...) retrieving pending goals. These constraints are formulated algebraically and tested through simulation of latency and error data from the Tower of Hanoi, a means‐ends puzzle that depends heavily on suspension and resumption of goals. Implications of the model for understanding intention superiority, postcompletion error, and effects of task interruption are discussed. (shrink)

A ubiquitous argument against mental-state accounts of well-being is based on the notion that mental states like happiness and satisfaction simply cannot be measured. The purpose of this paper is to articulate and to assess this “argument from measurability.” My main thesis is that the argument fails: on the most charitable interpretation, it relies on the false proposition that measurement requires the existence of an observable ordering satisfying conditions like transitivity. The failure of the argument from measurability, however, does not (...) translate into a defense of mental-state accounts as accounts of well-being or of measures of happiness and satisfaction as measures of well-being. Indeed, I argue, the ubiquity of the argument from measurability may have obscured other, very real problems associated with mental-state accounts of well-being – above all, that happiness and satisfaction fail to track well-being – and with measures of happiness and satisfaction – above all, the tendency toward reification. I conclude that the central problem associated with the measurement of, e.g., happiness as a subjectively experienced mental state is not that it is too hard to measure, but rather that it is too easy to measure. (shrink)

Subjective measures of well-being—measures based on answers to questions such as ‘Taking things all together, how would you say things are these days—would you say you're very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy these days?’—are often presented as superior to more traditional economic welfare measures, e.g., for public policy purposes. This paper aims to spell out and assess what I will call the argument from directness: the notion that subjective measures of well-being better represent well-being than economic measures do (...) because subjective measures (and subjective measures alone) are direct measures of well-being. My main thesis is that the argument begs the question against proponents of economic measures: it is based on a premise that they reject and that is no less in need of justification than the conclusion of the argument, namely, the proposition that well-being is constituted by subjectively experienced mental states. If subjective measures can be defended as valid measures of well-being at all, I will maintain, it is because they are (imperfect) indirect measures of well-being. (shrink)

REC, or the radical enactive/embodied view of cognition makes a crucial distinction between basic and content-involving cognition. This paper clarifies REC’s views on basic and content-involving cognition, and their relation by replying to a recent criticism claiming that REC is refuted by evidence on affordance perception. It shows how a correct understanding of how basic and contentless cognition relate allows to see how REC can accommodate this evidence, and thus can afford affordance perception.

How could neural processes be associated with phenomenal consciousness? We present a way to answer this question by taking the counterintuitive stance that the sensory feel of an experience is not a thing that happens to us, but a thing we do: a skill we exercise. By additionally noting that sensory systems possess two important, objectively measurable properties, corporality and alerting capacity, we are able to explain why sensory experience possesses a sensory feel, but thinking and other mental processes do (...) not. We are additionally able to explain why different sensory feels differ in the way they do. (shrink)

This paper examines issues of ontology and methodology in behavioral economics: the attempt to increase the explanatory and predictive power of economic theory by providing it with more psychologically plausible foundations. Of special interest is the epistemological status of neoclassical economic theory within behavioral economics, the runaway success story of contemporary economics. Behavioral economists aspire to replace the fundamental assumptions of orthodox, neoclassical economic theory. Yet, behavioral economists have gone out of their way to praise those very assumptions. Matthew Rabin, (...) for example, writes that behavioral economics “is not only built on the premise that [orthodox] economic methods are great, but also that most mainstream economic assumptions are great.” These apparently contradictory attitudes toward neoclassical theory raises the question of what, exactly, its epistemological status within behavioral economics is. This paper argues that the paradox can be resolved, and the question answered, by thinking of the epistemological status of neoclassical theory within behavioral economics in terms of Max Weber’s ideal types: analytical constructs that are not intended to be descriptively true of anything but which nevertheless can be used for a variety of theoretical purposes. The analysis is consistent with many of the insights from the philosophical literature on models in science and has important implications for the practice of economics—behavioral and neoclassical—as well as for the very nature of rationality. (shrink)

Drawing on research in the psychology of judgment and decision making, I argue that individual economists acting as experts in matters of public policy are likely to be victims of significant overconfidence. The case is based on the pervasiveness of the phenomenon, the nature of the task facing economists?as?experts, and the character of the institutional constraints under which they operate. Moreover, I argue that economist overconfidence can have dramatic consequences. Finally, I explore how the negative consequences of overconfidence can be (...) mitigated, and how the phenomenon can be reduced or eliminated. As a case study, I discuss the involvement of Western experts in post?communist Russian economic reforms. (shrink)

This paper examines the notion of “subjective well-being” as it is used in literature on subjective measures of well-being. I argue that those who employ the notion differ at least superficially on at least two points: first, about the relationship between subjective well-being and well-being simpliciter, and second, about the constituents of subjective well-being. In an effort to reconcile the differences, I propose an interpretation according to which subjective measures presuppose preference hedonism: an account according to which well-being is a (...) matter of desired mental states. (shrink)

The present paper revisits the issue of rational decision making in John Rawls' original position. Drawing on Isaac Levi's theory of decision, I discuss how we can defend Rawls against John C. Harsanyi's charge that maximin reasoning in the original position is irrational. The discussion suggests that systematic application of Levi's theory is likely to have important consequences for ethics and political theory as well as for public policy.

Theorizing about perception is often motivated by a belief that without a way of ensuring that our perceptual experience correctly reflects the external world we cannot be sure that we perceive the world at all. Historically, coming up with a way of securing such epistemic contact has been a foundational issue in psychology. Recent ecological and enactive approaches challenge the requirement for perception to attain epistemic contact. This article aims to explicate this pragmatic starting point and the new direction of (...) inquiry that this opens up for psychology. It does so by detailing the development of James J. Gibson’s ecological psychology. Securing epistemic contact has been a leitmotiv in Gibson’s early work, but subsequent developments in Gibson’s works can teach us what it takes to adopt a pragmatic approach to psychology. We propose a reading of the developments in Gibson’s original works that shows that, since perception is a mode of acting, perception aims for pragmatic contact before allowing for epistemic contact. Amplifying these pragmatist lines of thought in Gibson’s works we end by considering situations where an individual is adapted to the intricacies of specific social practices. These situations show how pragmatic contact can also afford attaining epistemic contact. (shrink)

One can be reproached for not remembering. Remembering and forgetting shows who and what one values. Indeed, memory is constitutively normative. Theoretical approaches to memory should be sensitive to this normative character. We will argue that traditional views that consider memory as the storing and retrieval of mental content, fail to consider the practices we need for telling the truth about our past. We introduce the Radically Enactive view of Cognition, or REC, as well-placed to recognize the central role of (...) norms in remembering. Crucially, REC construes all remembering as “something we do”, and the most sophisticated forms of remembering as things we collectively do, answerable to socioculturally established practices. On this view our mnemonic performances cannot avoid re-shaping our collective ways of doing and seeing going forward. By REC’s lights therefore, the “is” of memory is “oughty” through and through. (shrink)

To give priority to the young over the elderly has been labelled ‘ageism’. People who express ‘ageist’ preferences may feel that, all else equal, an individual has greater right to enjoy additional life years the fewer life years he or she has already had. We shall refer to this as egalitarian ageism. They may also emphasise the greater expected duration of health benefits in young people that derives from their greater life expectancy. We may call this utilitarian ageism. Both these (...) forms of ageism were observed in an empirical study of social preferences in Australia. The study lends some support to the assumptions in the QALY approach that duration of benefits, and hence old age, should count in prioritising at the budget level in health care. (shrink)

Much recent philosophical literature on happiness and satisfaction is based on the belief that empirical research is relevant to philosophical conclusions. In his2010 book What is This Thing Called Happiness? Fred Feldman begs to differ. He suggests that there is no evidence that empirical research is relevant to long-standing philosophical questions; consequently, that philosophers have little reason to pay attention to the work of psychologists or economists; and that philosophers need not fear embarrassing themselves by being ignorant of important scientific (...) findings that bear directly on their work. Relying on an example invoked by Feldman himself, this paper makes the case that all three theses are false. The argument suggests a picture according to which science and philosophy stand in a symbiotic relationship, with scientists and philosophers engaging in a mutually beneficial exchange of ideas for the advancement of thegeneral knowledge. (shrink)

Daniel Hausman’s book ‘Valuing Health’ is a valuable contribution to our understanding of QALYs and DALYs and to moving health economics to adopting a broader perspective than that taken in conventional cost-effectiveness analysis. Hausman’s attempt at constructing a public value table for health states without having recourse to data from population preferences studies is also a fascinating read. But I have serious concerns about his resulting table. Hausman’s views on which dimensions of health a benevolent liberal state should care about (...) are essentially not different from what has long been emphasized in health economists’ work on valuations of health outcomes. His table would have been helpful as a sketch if it was the first attempt in health economics to quantify numerically the societal value of different types and degrees of health improvement. But research in the field has gone far beyond that. Multi-attribute utility instruments with much more accurate health classification systems than Hausman’s sketch are now at hand. Available also are models of societal valuations of QALYs that are broadly consistent with general population values, incorporate wider concerns than Hausman’s table does and do not have the questionable numerical properties that characterize Hausman’s sketch. (shrink)

We enjoy sounds. What about silence: the absence of sound? Certainly not all, but surely many of us seek out, attend to, and appreciate silence. But, if nothing is there, then there is nothing to possess aesthetic qualities that might engage aesthetic interest or reward aesthetic attention. This is at least puzzling, perhaps even paradoxical. In this paper, I attempt to dispel the sense of paradox and provide a way to understand aesthetic appreciation of silence. I argue that silence can (...) have an aesthetic character and can sustain the kinds of rich experiences apt for aesthetic assessment and appraisal. (shrink)

While color realism is endorsed, Byrne & Hilbert's (B&H's) case for it stretches the notion of “physical property” beyond acceptable bounds. It is argued that a satisfactory account of color should do much more to respond to antirealist intuitions that flow from the specificity of color experience, and a pointer to an approach that does so is provided.

To give priority to the young over the elderly has been labelled ‘ageism’. People who express ‘ageist’ preferences may feel that, all else equal, an individual has greater right to enjoy additional life years the fewer life years he or she has already had. We shall refer to this asegalitarian ageism. They may also emphasise the greater expected duration of health benefits in young people that derives from their greater life expectancy. We may call thisutilitarian ageism. Both these forms of (...) ageism were observed in an empirical study of social preferences in Australia. The study lends some support to the assumptions in the QALY approach that duration of benefits, and hence old age, should count in prioritising at the budget level in health care. (shrink)

The “new natural lawyers” (NNLs) are a prolific group of philosophers, theologians, and political theorists that includes John Finnis, Robert George, Patrick Lee, Gerard Bradley, and Germain Grisez, among others. These thinkers have devoted themselves to developing and defending a traditional sexual ethic according to which homosexual sexual acts are immoral per se and marriage ought to remain an exclusively heterosexual institution. The sterility objection holds that the NNLs are guilty of making an arbitrary and irrational distinction between same-sex couples (...) and sterile heterosexual couples. The NNLs believe that it is a necessary condition for two people’s being morally and legally entitled to get married that they be able to perform sexual acts that are “suited to procreating.” But sterile heterosexual couples are incapable of performing such acts. Therefore, it should follow from the NNLs’ own premises that sterile heterosexual couples are not entitled to marry. But the NNLs do not draw this conclusion. Instead, they maintain that sterile heterosexuals can marry while denying that the same is true of same-sex couples. The sterility objection claims the NNLs are being inconsistent in treating the two kinds of couples differently. Although the sterility objection has been endorsed by recent critics, I don’t think it has yet been adequately defended. The NNLs have responded by arguing that there is a sense in which the sex acts of sterile heterosexual couples are as suited to reproduction as those of fertile heterosexuals. Thus they maintain that the distinction they draw between the two kinds of couple has a rational basis. A successful defense of the sterility objection must show that this response on the part of the NNLs fails. Such is the task I undertake in this paper. I argue that the NNLs’ response fails because acts of penile-vaginal intercourse between sterile heterosexuals lack the actual causal power to produce conception that sexual acts need to be considered truly reproductive, and because their assumption that penile-vaginal intercourse always functions reproductively is bad biology. (shrink)

What, for Kant, is the semantic status of the proposition: Water is H2O? Is it analytic or synthetic? The question is not one of merely esoteric import since an answer to it would constitute a statement about the meaningfulness of all our scientific propositions. And, insofar as the Critique is a defense of the possibility of the natural sciences, it seems that we should be able to find in it the answer to our question. Further, we should be able to (...) find an answer to the question of whether or not Kant is a scientific essentialist. I attempt to show that he is not an essentialist despite the fact that his semantics of natural kind terms greatly resembles that of some contemporary authors who are essentialists and take their semantic theories to provide evidence for their views. One way to go about this would be simply to locate Kant's criteria for the analytic/synthetic distinction and then to place the proposition in the category dictated by those criteria. Rather than employ this method, I will examine instead some of Kant's own examples. The hope is that by means of the examples the criteria themselves will achieve a greater degree of clarity and that through this clarification Kant's position will emerge as a genuine alternative to contemporary positions. (shrink)

Two kinds of vision science are distinguished: a representational versus a nonrepresentational one. Seeing in the former is conceived of as creating an internal replica of the external world, while in the latter seeing is taken to be a process of active engagement with the environment. The potential of each theory for elucidating artistic creation and aesthetic appreciation is considered, necessarily involving some comments on visual consciousness. This discussion is intended as a background against which various themes of the papers (...) light up. (shrink)

Among the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs is a sign that can be termed and defined as a “Black Hole.” It is a circle (writing being two-dimensional) filled in black, appearing in the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts for the first time. Initially serving as a determinative for concepts like “death” or “enemy,” it is also later used for words like “pit,” “hole,” or “cave,” and in a few rare instances this black circle determines the word for the Netherworld (dat) or shade.

OVERVIEWWe ambitiously reexamine Smith’s moral theory in relation to Hume’s. We regard Smith's developments as glorious and important. We also see them as quite fully agreeable to Hume, as enhancement, not departure. But Smith represents matters otherwise! Why would Smith overstate disagreement with his best friend?One aspect of Smith’s enhancement, an aspect he makes very conspicuous, is that between moral approval and beneficialness there is another phase, namely, the moral judge's sense of propriety. With that phase now finding formulation, Smith, (...) if only implicitly, generates a spiral of beneficialness and propriety, a spiral shown in Figure 7 in the present paper. We consider Figure 7, illustrating the spiral, to be the most important arrival point in the present paper; it highlights the non-foundationalism of Smith's ethics. But to arrive at the spiral, we must engage in extensive exegesis.In Part IV of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith presents a foil against which he develops his own theory, a foil supposedly representing Hume. According to the foil, moral approval derives from ‘utility.’ But, in multiple ways, the foil is misleading. We provide an interpretation of Hume, notably his four-factor account of moral approval, before examining Smith's representation of Hume.One twist is that Smith used the words utility and useful differently than Hume did – Smith quietly stretched them to include species of agreeableness, thereby obscuring the importance of agreeableness in Hume’s theory.Another, more significant problem is that Smith allows the impression that in Hume moral approval derives quite determinately from beneficialness. In fact Hume conveys the interpretive and sentimental spaciousness of the operations that generate moral approval; here, Hume even speaks repeatedly of ‘proper sentiments’, thus almost using the term propriety himself.But the propriety phase in Smith opens up to a key facet of Smith’s development on Hume: He poeticizes a locus of sympathy not emphasized in Hume – namely, that between the moral judge and her own man within the breast; that locus enters the theory in addition to the sympathies emphasized in Hume, not in lieu of them. We distinguish lateral sympathy, which is important in Hume’s thought, and vertical sympathy, which is especially characteristic of Smith’s more inner-directed and allegorical thought. Smith embraces Hume’s lateral sympathy and enhances moral theory by adding formulations that elaborate vertical sympathy.Next, we come to something of a twist in the whole matter: We show that – as Smith well knew all along! – propriety is a species of agreeableness! Smith’s propriety phase represents another dimension within which such agreeableness lives: Smith’s vertical dimension thus gives rise to a spiral representing the diachronic development of the judge herself. It is a spiral of beneficialness and propriety: Each propriety phase in the next loop of the spiral engenders a species of agreeableness now as a part of beneficialness.Smith's developments on Hume, then, involve the following three facets: formulation of the propriety phase; the poetic elaboration of vertical sympathy; the diachronic spiral of propriety and beneficialness.The three facets come together, especially in Ed. 6 of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. The whole development goes beyond Hume, but, really, is agreeable to Hume – though Smith himself portrays his developments as disagreeing with features of Hume's moral theory.We speculate that Smith was more or less aware of all that that we say, including the absense of any really substantive disagreement. Why, in that case, would Smith have proceeded as he did? We address that question at the end of the piece. Our speculations suggest a method in the madness. (shrink)

Memphis Elvis is cool; Vegas Elvis is cheesy. How come? To call something cheesy is, ostensibly, to disparage it, and yet cheesy acts are some of the most popular in popular culture today. How is this possible? The concepts of cheese, cheesy, and cheesiness play an important and increasingly ubiquitous role in popular culture today. I offer an analysis of these concepts, distinguishing them from nearby concepts like kitchy and campy. Along the way I draw attention to the important roles (...) of cultural/historical context, background knowledge, and especially artist’s intentions as they are relevant to aesthetic assessments involving cheese and related concepts. I go on to contend that these concepts, properly understood, serve as helpful test cases concerning some important issues in contemporary aesthetics, such as the paradox of negative art and the contentious debate between intentionalists and anti-intentionalists. (shrink)

In the action-space account of color, an emphasis is laid on implicit knowledge when it comes to experience, and explanatory ambitions are expressed. If the knowledge claims are interpreted in a strong way, the action-space account becomes a form of conservative enactivism, which is a kind of cognitivism. Only if the knowledge claims are weakly interpreted, the action space-account can be seen as a distinctive form of enactivism, but then all reductive explanatory ambitions must be abandoned.

The teaching of professional rules, procedures and standards, as well as the existence of ethics committees and legal advisers to achieve desired behaviours for a given profession, produces an unforeseen by-product of altering the way individuals relate to ethics. The institutionalization of a moral voice, a kind of artificial conscience for the legally defined ‘artificial person’, tends to do the ethical thinking for the individual who thinks being moral means methodically following the professionally approved rules. Professionalism and the type of (...) methodological reason it requires are becoming a substitute for internal moral reasoning and personal responsibility, despite the belief that we are becoming more morally responsibly through professional behaviour. (shrink)

Veksler and Gunzelmann make an extraordinary claim, which is that sleep deprivation effects and the vigilance decrement are functionally equivalent. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, which is missing from Veksler and Gunzelmann's study. Their behavioral data offer only weak theoretical constraint, and to the extent their modeling exercise supports any position, it is that these two performance impairments involve functionally distinct underlying mechanisms.

In this paper, we present an account of phenomenal consciousness. Phenomenal consciousness is experience, and the problem of phenomenal consciousness is to explain how physical processes?behavioral, neural, computational?can produce experience. Numerous thinkers have argued that phenomenal consciousness cannot be explained in functional, neural or information-processing terms (e.g. Block 1990, 1994; Chalmers 1996). Different arguments have been put forward. For example, it has been argued that two individuals could be exactly alike in functional/computational/behavioral measures, but differ in the character of their (...) experience. Though such persons would behave in the same way, they would differ in how things felt to them (for example, red things might give rise to the experience in one that green things give rise to in the other). Similarly, it has been held that two individuals could be functionally/computationally/behaviorally alike although one of them, but not the other, is a mere zombie, that is, a robot-like creature who acts as if it has experience but is in fact phenomenally unconsciousness. For any being, it has been suggested, the question whether it has experience (is phenomenally conscious) cannot be answered by determining that it is an information-processor of this or that sort. The question is properly equivalent to the question whether there is anything it is like to be that individual (Nagel 1974). Attempts to explain consciousness in physical or information-processing terms sputter: we cannot get any explanatory purchase on experience when we try to explain it in terms of neural or computational processes. Once a particular process has been proposed as an explanation, we can then always reasonably wonder, it seems, what it is about that particular process that make it give rise to experience. Physical and computational mechanisms, it seems, require some further ingredient if they are to explain experience. This explanatory shortfall has aptly been referred to as "the explanatory gap" (Levine 1983).. (shrink)

I argue that silence is replete with aesthetic character and that it can be a rewarding object of aesthetic appreciation, assessment, and appraisal. The appreciation of silence might initially seem impossible, for, it might seem, there is nothing there to behold. Taking up this challenge, I attempt to dispel the sense of paradox. I contend that, despite our never actually experiencing absolute silence, there is much to enjoy in the silences that we do experience. I go on to argue that (...) proper appreciation of silence is a two-way street, involving quiet on the outside and stillness on the inside. I conclude by offering some suggestions for how to make the aesthetic appreciation of silence part of a flourishing life. (shrink)

Feminists are divided on whether consent should be employed in legal definitions of rape. Catharine MacKinnon has criticized the usefulness of consent in enabling legal systems to recognize and prosecute instances of rape (MacKinnon 1989, 2005, 2016). In a recent article in this journal, Lisa H. Schwartzman defends the use of affirmative consent in rape law against MacKinnon’s critique (Schwartzman 2019). In contrast to MacKinnon, Schwartzman claims our understanding of rape must include both force and consent components. In this paper, (...) I will argue in agreement with Schwartzman and against MacKinnon that the legal definition of rape should include an affirmative consent component. I will take Schwartzman’s discussion as my point of departure and consider whether she has responded adequately to MacKinnon’s criticisms of consent. I will argue that her responses are not fully adequate. In particular, she has not successfully rebutted the argument that an appeal to consent is unnecessary once we have accepted an expanded definition of coercion. I will then provide a more affirmative defense of affirmative consent in response to MacKinnon’s most challenging criticism. (shrink)

This paper argues that Isaac Levi's account of preference reversals is only a limited success. Levi succeeds in showing that an agent acting in accord with his theory may exhibit reversals. Nevertheless, the specific account that Levi presents in order to accommodate the behavior of experimental subjects appears to be disconfirmed by available evidence.

One of Hume's early biographers, John Hill Burton, described Hume's Political Discourses as "the cradle of political economy".1 "As much as that science has been investigated and expounded in later times," Burton argued, "these earliest, shortest, and simplest developments of its principles [in the Political Discourses] are still read with delight even by those who are masters of all the literature of this great subject."2 In their recent book, Margaret Schabas and Carl Wennerlind do much to vindicate Burton's claim, illustrating (...) the genius, breadth, and lasting influence, across various schools of thought, of Hume's economics.Through a careful exposition of Hume's reflections on the methodology of... (shrink)