Scientists and laypeople alike use the sense of understanding that an explanation conveys as a cue to good or correct explanation. Although the occurrence of this sense or feeling of understanding is neither necessary nor sufficient for good explanation, it does drive judgments of the plausibility and, ultimately, the acceptability, of an explanation. This paper presents evidence that the sense of understanding is in part the routine consequence of two well-documented biases in cognitive psychology: overconfidence and hindsight. In light of (...) the prevalence of counterfeit understanding in the history of science, I argue that many forms of cognitive achievement do not involve a sense of understanding, and that only the truth or accuracy of an explanation make the sense of understanding a valid cue to genuine understanding. (shrink)

Philosophers agree that scientific explanations aim to produce understanding, and that good ones succeed in this aim. But few seriously consider what understanding is, or what the cues are when we have it. If it is a psychological state or process, describing its specific nature is the job of psychological theorizing. This article examines the role of understanding in scientific explanation. It warns that the seductive, phenomenological sense of understanding is often, but mistakenly, viewed as a cue of genuine understanding. (...) The article closes with a discussion of several new paths of research that tie the psychology of scientific explanation to cognate notions of learning, testimony, and understanding. (shrink)

We show that if the weak compactness of a cardinal is made indestructible by means of any preparatory forcing of a certain general type, including any forcing naively resembling the Laver preparation, then the cardinal was originally supercompact. We then apply this theorem to show that the hypothesis of supercompactness is necessary for certain proof schemata.

While the United States is an important Asia-Pacific actor, its engagement with the region is complex and often difficult. Not only must US regionalism balance the diverse requirements of an ambitious policy agenda, but also US policy norms and priorities often clash with those of other regional actors. This has important implications for the capacity of the United States to provide regional leadership. Recent years have seen growing policy convergence between the United States and other Asia-Pacific actors, particularly in economic (...) terms, but US regionalism continues to feature competition alongside collaboration. (shrink)

Scientific realists contend that theory-conjunction presents a problem for empiricist conceptions of scientific knowledge and practice. Van Fraassen (1980) has offered a competing account of theory-conjunction which I argue fails to capture the mercenary character of epistemic dependence in science. Representative cases of theory-conjunction developed in the present paper show that mercenary reliance implies a "principle of epistemic symmetry" which only a realist can consistently accommodate. Finally, because the practice in question involves the conjunction of theories, a version of realism (...) more robust than the "entity realism" of Cartwright (1983, 1989) and Hacking (1983) is required to explain the success of theory-conjunction. (shrink)

That style which modern scholars have called “curial” or “clergial” is an elaborate fifteenth-century prose style practiced most notoriously by William Caxton in works published during the last decades of the century. It is often assumed that he learned the style from French courtly models. This view has recently suffered modification through the work of Diane Bornstein, whose study of the Tale of Melibee revealed that Chaucer had an independent grasp of many features of the style almost a hundred years (...) before Caxton used it. Although she was successful in demonstrating the use at an early date of these stylistic features, Bornstein did not question or discuss the sources of Chaucer's evident competence. It could be reasonably assumed, as had been assumed for Caxton, that they lay in French literary texts, since features of the style are present in the source of Melibee, the Livre de Mellibee et de Prudence, and they could be presumed to have occurred also in other literary texts of French origin with which Chaucer was doubtless familiar. (shrink)

Realizing the ideal of democracy requires political inclusion for citizens. A legitimate democracy must give citizens the opportunity to express their attitudes about the relative attractions of different policies, and access to political mechanisms through which they can be counted and heard. Actual governance often aims not at accurate belief, but at nonepistemic factors like achieving and maintaining institutional stability, creating the feeling of government legitimacy among citizens, or managing access to influence on policy decision-making. I examine the traditional relationship (...) between inclusiveness and accuracy, and illustrate this connection by discussing empirical work on how group decision-making can improve accuracy. I also advance a Generic Epistemic Principle that any evidence-based decision-making procedures must embrace. Focusing on policy-making, I then measure the distance between these standards and the ones actually implemented in U.S. political settings. Psychological research on individual and group decision-making is a source of normative assessment for existing policy judgment, but it neither rationalizes nor legitimates the actual and typical processes used in U.S. institutions of political decision making. To establish this point, I focus on one characteristic government institution—the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology—that displays deliberative processes at odds with the sciences they advocate, and with the Generic Epistemic Principle. I explain this discouraging condition in terms of several inveterate factors in U.S. politics: a limitlessly money-driven and endless campaigning process that effectively forces elected representatives to align themselves with money and vote strategically, the use of procedural arrangements known to make people feel politically included when they are not, and the unresponsiveness of a majoritarian (vs. consensus) democracy. (shrink)

In this paper we prove that the equational class generated by bounded BCK-algebras is the variety generated by the class of finite simple bounded BCK-algebras. To obtain these results we prove that every simple algebra in the equational class generated by bounded BCK-algebras is also a relatively simple bounded BCK-algebra. Moreover, we show that every simple bounded BCK-algebra can be embedded into a simple integral commutative bounded residuated lattice. We extend our main results to some richer subreducts of the class (...) of integral commutative bounded residuated lattices and to the involutive case. (© 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim). (shrink)

One third of the transcendental dialectic in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is devoted to demolishing the pseudo-science of rational psychology. In this part of his work Kant attacks the idea that there is an ultimate subject of experience — the ‘I’ or Self — which can only be investigated and understood intellectually. The belief that such a study is possible is natural to human reason; but it is based on demonstrable error. Kant tries to exorcize our minds from falling (...) prey to this mistake. (shrink)

As in the transmigration of souls after death in the Pythagorean myth that Socrates recounts in the Phaedo, for G.W.F. Hegel, in the Philosophy of Right, individuals are also 'reborn' out of their original nature into a 'second nature'. This article asks whether the Hegelian transmigration aims at their becoming nothing higher than that 'race of tame and social creatures . . . bees perhaps, wasps, or ants' which the Pythagorean myth relates is the fate of those who 'practiced popular (...) and social goodness . . . but devoid of philosophy and intelligence'. Through an analysis of duty, virtue, rectitude, custom and habit, this article argues that Hegel's account of the nature of fully ethical self-consciousness contains within it a robust, practical knowledge that resists the 'bees problem', shifts the focus of criticism from the truncation of human possibilities to the vitality of life, and ultimately furnishes resources that can secure the latter -- all without abandoning conventionality as the ethical horizon. (shrink)

The main object of this thesis is to explain in a systematic fashion Francis Hutcheson's moral theory. Such an attempt will necessarily involve a discussion of the various philosophical problems which are inherent in his theory. For example, I discuss the issue of whether Hutcheson's theory of the moral sense is to be interpreted in an intuitionist or an emotivist fashion. It is argued that some aspects of his moral sense theory favour the former and some the latter interpretation, Hutcheson's (...) theory of benevolence is outlined and his' arguments against the psychological egoists are discussed. Perhaps the most important problem with Hutcheson's moral sense theory is the problem of motivation. Any moral theory which locates the virtue of virtuous actions in the motive from which they are done, as Hutcheson's does, will encounter problems in explaining how knowledge of right and wrong can influence us to be virtuous. Hutcheson's ingenious solution to this problem and his theory of moral motivation, which I suggest have not been adequately discussed previously to this thesis, are explicated at length. Hutcheson's criticisms of the moral rationalists are considered, as are Price's criticisms of Hutcheson. A final chapter attempts to show how the development of Hutcheson's thinking was the result of his realizing the implications of his own theories, especially his theory of moral motivation. (shrink)