BackgroundThis study aimed to identify the healthcare providers’ experience and perspectives toward end-of-life care decisions focusing on end-of-life discussion and physician’s order of life-sustaining treatment documentation in Korea which are major parts of the Life-Sustaining Treatment Act.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted using a questionnaire developed by the authors. A total of 474 subjects—94 attending physicians, 87 resident physicians, and 293 nurses—participated in the survey, and the data analysis was performed in terms of frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation using the (...) SPSS 24.0 program.ResultsStudy results showed that respondents were aware of terminal illness and physician’s order of life-sustaining treatment in Korea well enough except for some details. Physicians reported uncertainty in terminal state diagnosis and disease trajectory as the most challenging. Study participants regarded factors (related to relationships and communications) on the healthcare providers’ side as the major impediment to end-of-life discussion. Study respondents suggested that simplification of the process and more staff are required to facilitate end-of-life discussion and documentation.ConclusionBased on the study results, adequate education and training for better end-of-life discussion are required for future practice. Also, a simple and clear procedure for completing a physician’s order of life-sustaining treatment in Korea should be prepared and legal and ethical advice would be required. Since the enactment of the Life-Sustaining Treatment Act, several revisions already have been made including disease categories, thus continuous education to update and support clinicians is also called for. (shrink)

My thesis examines Aquinas's philosophical psychology in the context of his controversy with Siger of Brabant. Chapters 1 and 2 are concerned with the central thesis of Aquinas's argument against the Averroist doctrine of the intellect, which he often expresses by the claim, intellectus est forma corporis. This claim is fundamental to Aquinas's philosophical psychology insofar as it relates not only to his solution to the tension between the Aristotelian definition of the soul as the form of the body and (...) the intellect's immateriality, but also to his alternative to the Averroist interpretation that the intellect cannot be the form of the body. I argue that this claim cannot be an adequate alternative to the Averroist interpretation of Aristotle since it is not compatible with Aquinas's insistence that the intellect cannot use any bodily organ, nor exist in any part of the body. Furthermore, the thesis of organlessness commits Aquinas to an intellect-body dualism since he postulates the existence of the intellect independently of the body in the human being. ;Chapters 3 and 4 deal with the question of whether Aquinas has an adequate alternative to Siger's critique that the intellect cannot be a power of the human soul which is the substantial form of the body. Some contemporary Thomists have argued that Aquinas's position is not vulnerable to the Sigerian critique at all by appealing to his claim that the human soul is a subsistent form. However, I maintain that the human soul's subsistence cannot be upheld insofar as Aquinas insists that the human soul is essentially the form of the body, and its nature is incomplete without the body. For nothing in the nature of the human soul as the form of the body provides a ground for showing that it can perform its proper operation without the body and thus can be subsistent. Consequently, Aquinas does not offer a satisfactory explanation of the possibility that the human soul can possess the intellect as its power. This leads us to conclude that the difficulties raised by Siger cannot be resolved by Aquinas's position. (shrink)

A controversy of the Perception is focused on the Mind-Nature relation by Confucian Scholars in 18th century Joseon Dynasty. Chang-Hyup Kim [金昌協], especially, asserted that the Perception should be the unique side of Mind, because the Wise [智: the Mind of Judgment, remarkably about the righteous or not] is one aspect of the Nature. He needs to define the category of Wise and Perception, because the existing definition of Wise as an unprocurable activity of Mind. That might bring a confusion (...) of concepts though The Mind and Nature, in his view. More over he added the essential aspect of Perception to real activity of Perception, and in this point of view, the position of Mind is important to the process of consolidating into Nature. Therefore he asserted that we should perceive the Nature, the essence, in the side of Mind [卽心指性]. This vision of the aim to Nature in the point of Mind, which was reinvestigation of Neo-Confucianism and this was succeeded to the general with academic traditional of Nak School [洛學]. (shrink)

By taking the collective character of scientific research seriously, some philosophers have claimed that scientific knowledge is indeed collective knowledge. However, there is little clarity on what exactly is meant by collective knowledge. In this article, I argue that there are two notions of collective knowledge that have not been well distinguished: irreducibly collective knowledge (ICK) and jointly committed knowledge (JCK). The two notions provide different conditions under which it is justified to ascribe knowledge to a group. It is argued (...) that ICK and JCK need to be approached independently, each of which can shed light on different aspects of science, knowledge production, and acceptance. (shrink)

Even though it has been argued that scientific cognition is distributed, there is no consensus on the exact nature of distributed cognition. This paper aims to characterize distributed cognition as appropriate for philosophical studies of science. I first classify competing characterizations into three types: the property approach, the task approach, and the system approach. It turns out that the property approach and the task approach are subject to criticism. I then argue that the most preferable way to understand distributed cognition (...) in science is provided by the system approach that takes a distributed-cognitive system as the unit of analysis. I clarify this position by considering possible objections and replies. (shrink)

The function of concepts must be taken seriously to understand the scientific practices of developing and working with concepts. Despite its significance, little philosophical attention has been paid to the function of concepts. A notable exception is Brigandt (2010), who suggests incorporating the epistemic goal pursued with the concept’s use as an additional semantic property along with the reference and inferential role. The suggestion, however, has at least two limitations. First, his proposal to introduce epistemic goals as the third component (...) of concepts lacks independent grounding, except to account for the rationality of semantic change (the Grounding Problem). Second, it is hardly justified to consider epistemic goals as a semantic property (the Misplacement Problem). To remedy these predicaments, we suggest a new perspective that takes concepts as cognitive entities with a 2-layered structure rather than as merely linguistic entities and develop an account of the function of concepts. We provide empirical evidence showing that functional information affects our cognitive processes. It is claimed that the function of concepts is not a semantic property but a type of meta-information regulating a body of concept-constitutive information. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

A popular rejoinder to the potential threat that incommensurability might pose to scientific realism has been the referential response: despite meaning variance, there can be referential continuity, which is sufficient for rational theory choice. This response has been charged with meta-incommensurability, according to which it begs the question by assuming realist metaphysics. However, realists take it to be a rhetorical device that hinders productive discussion. By reconstructing the debate, this paper aims to demonstrate two things. First, there are unexpected commonalities (...) between realists and non-realists, meaning that the charge of meta-incommensurability is more or less exaggerated. Second, meta-incommensurability, which is to be found in the ways to make sense of referential overlap at the token level, still plays a role in the realism debate. (shrink)

Here, we argue that attackers in intergroup conflicts are also likely to hold strong identity fusion, anticipate threat from the out-groups, and retaliate by signaling preemptive aggressiveness, which may not be asymmetrically exclusive to defenders. We propose that the study of the intergroup and intragroup dynamics could highlight more specific, robust markers to differentiate types of defenders from attackers.

Philosophers have long debated whether, if determinism is true, we should hold people morally responsible for their actions since in a deterministic universe, people are arguably not the ultimate source of their actions nor could they have done otherwise if initial conditions and the laws of nature are held fixed. To reveal how non-philosophers ordinarily reason about the conditions for free will, we conducted a cross-cultural and cross-linguistic survey (N = 5,268) spanning twenty countries and sixteen languages. Overall, participants tended (...) to ascribe moral responsibility whether the perpetrator lacked sourcehood or alternate possibilities. However, for American, European, and Middle Eastern participants, being the ultimate source of one’s actions promoted perceptions of free will and control as well as ascriptions of blame and punishment. By contrast, being the source of one’s actions was not particularly salient to Asian participants. Finally, across cultures, participants exhibiting greater cognitive reflection were more likely to view free will as incompatible with causal determinism. We discuss these findings in light of documented cultural differences in the tendency toward dispositional versus situational attributions. (shrink)

Cultural attachment (CA) refers to processes that allow culture and its symbols to provide psychological security when facing threat. Epistemologically, although we currently have an adequate predictivist model of CA, it is necessary to prepare for a mechanistic approach that will not only predict, but also explain CA phenomena. Towards that direction, we first examine the concepts and mechanisms that are the building blocks of both prototypical maternal attachment and CA. Based on existing robust neuroscience models we associate these concepts (...) and mechanisms with bona fide neurobiological functions to advance an integrative neurobiological model of CA. We end by discussing the unresolved relationship of CA to other similar socio-cognitive concepts. The aim of the paper is to highlight the importance of integrating CA theory into computational approaches to culture and evolution (such as predictive processing computations explaining niche construction) as this will allow a dynamic interpretation of cultural processes. (shrink)

Henrich et al. provide a compelling argument about a bias in the behavioral sciences to study human behavior primarily in WEIRD populations. Here we argue that brain scientists are susceptible to similar biases, sampling primarily from WEIRD populations; and we discuss recent evidence from cultural neuroscience demonstrating the importance and viability of investigating culture across multiple levels of analysis.

In the remainder of this article, we will disarm an important motivation for epistemic contextualism and interest-relative invariantism. We will accomplish this by presenting a stringent test of whether there is a stakes effect on ordinary knowledge ascription. Having shown that, even on a stringent way of testing, stakes fail to impact ordinary knowledge ascription, we will conclude that we should take another look at classical invariantism. Here is how we will proceed. Section 1 lays out some limitations of previous (...) research on stakes. Section 2 presents our study and concludes that there is little evidence for a substantial stakes effect. Section 3 responds to objections. The conclusion clears the way for classical invariantism. (shrink)

What does it mean to read Ham Seok-heon in the 21st century? Furthermore, what does it mean to read the ‘East-Asian Classics’ through him? In this article, I would like to raise a few issues that existing discussions on the relationship between Ham Seok-heon and the East-Asian Classics have not paid attention to, in order to point out the points that we should give more weight to in the hermeneutics of Ham Seok-heon’s ‘Chewing on Old Classics’. First, Ham’s should be (...) read as an independent text in its own right, not as a commentary on the ‘Oriental Classics’. Second, his SSi-al’ Readings of Old Classics should be read in the context of life and place in contemporary Korea, rather than the Laozi and the Zhuangzi relationships it addresses. Third, the meanings and values in SSi-al’ Readings of Old Classics do not lie in its original interpretation of traditional commentaries, but rather in the “common sense” that guided the perceptions and practices of Ssi-al in the democratization process of twentieth-century Korea. To emphasize this aspect, I contrast it with the interpretation of the Zhuangzi in China during the same period. I want to argue that if Chinese intellectuals in the twentieth century anticipated their own destiny through the interpretation and discussion of the Zhuangzi, Ham Seok-heon’s reading of the Zhuangzi was expressed as the voice of Ssi-al, which changed the subject of interpretation and at the same time called for the values of modern freedom and equality and preached the ideology of democracy and self-government to realize them. In reading Ham Seok-heon in this way, I believe that we can properly evaluate the historical and philosophical meaning and value of SSi-al’ Readings of Old Classics. (shrink)

This article examines whether people share the Gettier intuition (viz. that someone who has a true justified belief that p may nonetheless fail to know that p) in 24 sites, located in 23 countries (counting Hong Kong as a distinct country) and across 17 languages. We also consider the possible influence of gender and personality on this intuition with a very large sample size. Finally, we examine whether the Gettier intuition varies across people as a function of their disposition to (...) engage in “reflective” thinking. (shrink)

This article examines whether people share the Gettier intuition (viz. that someone who has a true justified belief that p may nonetheless fail to know that p) in 24 sites, located in 23 countries (counting Hong-Kong as a distinct country) and across 17 languages. We also consider the possible influence of gender and personality on this intuition with a very large sample size. Finally, we examine whether the Gettier intuition varies across people as a function of their disposition to engage (...) in “reflective” thinking. (shrink)

The present research examines whether identity essentialism, an important component of psychological essentialism, is a fundamental feature of human cognition. Across three studies (Ntotal = 1723), we report evidence that essentialist intuitions about the identity of kinds are culturally dependent, demographically variable, and easily malleable. The first study considered essentialist intuitions in 10 different countries spread across four continents. Participants were presented with two scenarios meant to elicit essentialist intuitions. Their answers suggest that essentialist intuitions vary dramatically across cultures. Furthermore, (...) these intuitions were found to vary with gender, education, and across eliciting stimuli. The second study further examined whether essentialist intuitions are stable across different kinds of eliciting stimuli. Participants were presented with two different scenarios meant to elicit essentialist intuitions—the “discovery” and “transformation” scenarios. Their answers suggest that the nature of the eliciting stimuli influences whether or not people report essentialist intuitions. Finally, the third study demonstrates that essentialist intuitions are susceptible to framing effects. Keeping the eliciting stimulus (i.e., the scenario) constant, we show that the formulation of the question eliciting a judgment influences whether or not people have essentialist intuitions. Implications of these findings for identity essentialism and psychological essentialism, in general, are discussed. (shrink)

Data and ideas are the capital of research productivity. Is it ethical to preempt the publication of another researcher’s unpublished data or preliminary analysis, perhaps without citation? The long-established answer is ‘certainly not’—but recent ‘open data’ use suggests otherwise. A research competition was held using data from The Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial. This SPRINT Data Analysis Challenge created a novel environment for using open data as data became open early. This allowed third-party researchers the opportunity to assess some of (...) the trial’s outcomes before trialists. Could this infringe on trialists’ right to analyse their data? Simultaneously, trialists had access to analyses from submissions to the competition that were not formally ‘published’ with a typical author credit or citation. Therefore, trialists had the opportunity to view the competition submissions and published on those ideas first without a typical way to cite the source of that idea. Could this infringe on researchers’ right to be credited for their ideas? This is not intended as a criticism of open data, the SPRINT Data Analysis Challenge, or similar systems/ventures, but is an effort to objectively note what may be remediable flaws in the worthwhile, growing and dynamic uses of open data. We offer preliminary analytics to shed more light and provide fodder for additional discussion. (shrink)

Does the Ship of Theseus present a genuine puzzle about persistence due to conflicting intuitions based on “continuity of form” and “continuity of matter” pulling in opposite directions? Philosophers are divided. Some claim that it presents a genuine puzzle but disagree over whether there is a solution. Others claim that there is no puzzle at all since the case has an obvious solution. To assess these proposals, we conducted a cross-cultural study involving nearly 3,000 people across twenty-two countries, speaking eighteen (...) different languages. Our results speak against the proposal that there is no puzzle at all and against the proposal that there is a puzzle but one that has no solution. Our results suggest that there are two criteria—“continuity of form” and “continuity of matter”— that constitute our concept of persistence and these two criteria receive different weightings in settling matters concerning persistence. (shrink)

Is behavioral integration (i.e., which occurs when a subjects assertion that p matches her non-verbal behavior) a necessary feature of belief in folk psychology? Our data from nearly 6,000 people across twenty-six samples, spanning twenty-two countries suggests that it is not. Given the surprising cross-cultural robustness of our findings, we suggest that the types of evidence for the ascription of a belief are, at least in some circumstances, lexicographically ordered: assertions are first taken into account, and when an agent sincerely (...) asserts that p, non-linguistic behavioral evidence is disregarded. In light of this, we take ourselves to have discovered a universal principle governing the ascription of beliefs in folk psychology. (shrink)

Is behavioral integration a necessary feature of belief in folk psychology? Our data from over 5,000 people across 26 samples, spanning 22 countries suggests that it is not. Given the surprising cross-cultural robustness of our findings, we argue that the types of evidence for the ascription of a belief are, at least in some circumstances, lexicographically ordered: assertions are first taken into account, and when an agent sincerely asserts that p, nonlinguistic behavioral evidence is disregarded. In light of this, we (...) take ourselves to have discovered a universal principle governing the ascription of beliefs in folk psychology. (shrink)

Since at least Hume and Kant, philosophers working on the nature of aesthetic judgment have generally agreed that common sense does not treat aesthetic judgments in the same way as typical expressions of subjective preferences—rather, it endows them with intersubjective validity, the property of being right or wrong regardless of disagreement. Moreover, this apparent intersubjective validity has been taken to constitute one of the main explananda for philosophical accounts of aesthetic judgment. But is it really the case that most people (...) spontaneously treat aesthetic judgments as having intersubjective validity? In this paper, we report the results of a cross‐cultural study with over 2,000 respondents spanning 19 countries. Despite significant geographical variations, these results suggest that most people do not treat their own aesthetic judgments as having intersubjective validity. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for theories of aesthetic judgment and the purpose of aesthetics in general. (shrink)