Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 10, October 2022.

The ethical dilemma of large-scale multinational corporations is presented. The list of complaints and issues is summarized. A case is made for the concept of multinationals being inherently beneficial in today's world of high technology and dependence on international trade. The difficulty is extreme power wielded by some groups. It is concluded that a philosophical ideal is for control on size and power as well as international rules to prevent abuses of power. The concern is that today the worthiness of (...) being relatively small is slowly but surely being eroded. (shrink)

This article presents a study of the discourse characteristics of interaction within a virtual community. The data are from the text-based chat forum of an online community of learners and teachers of English. The forum is the meeting place for community members, and is an international site of language use with participants from a range of linguistic backgrounds. Within this context, some pertinent themes are investigated which relate to a relatively recent form of discourse, synchronous text-based computer-mediated communication. The discussion (...) centres on the interplay between the technological attributes of the medium and the linguistic, discourse and sociocultural conditions within which the participants interact. How do these elements combine to shape the discourse? This question is addressed with reference to the cohesive feature of conversational floor. Because there is a lack of coordination of turn transfer in SCMC interaction, conversational floor emerges as an organizing principle in preference to models of conversation based on turn taking. (shrink)

In a recent series of papers, Timothy Williamson argues that one can reach Edmund Gettier’s conclusion that the justified-true-belief (JTB) theory of knowledge is insufficient for knowledge by constructing Gettier cases in the framework of epistemic logic. In this paper, I argue, however, that Williamson’s Gettier cases in the framework of epistemic logic crucially turn on an assumption that the JTB theorist can plausibly and justifiably reject. In particular, I argue that it is rational for the JTB theorist to reject (...) Williamson’s preferred epistemic accessibility relation in favor of one for which Gettier cases in epistemic logic do not arise. Thus, I conclude that Williamson’s Gettier cases in epistemic logic do not genuinely threaten the tripartite theory of knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a serious new dilemma involving necessary truths for safety-based theories of knowledge, a dilemma that I argue safety theorists cannot resolve or avoid by relativizing safety to either the subject’s basis or method of belief formation in close worlds or to a set of related or sufficiently similar propositions. I develop this dilemma primarily in conversation with Duncan Pritchard’s well-known, oft-modeled safety-based theories of knowledge. I show that Pritchard’s well-regarded anti-luck virtue theory of knowledge and (...) his recently proposed (allegedly superior) anti-risk virtue theory of knowledge clearly succumb to the dilemma, and so they are inadequate as they stand. If Pritchard’s safety-based theories of knowledge are shown to be inadequate by the dilemma that is developed in this paper, then a number of other safety-based theories of knowledge (e.g., Beddor and Pavese’s, Luper’s, Dutant’s, early Pritchard’s, and others) look to be in jeopardy in this connection as well. (shrink)

A familiar anti-sceptical response (à la Sosa) to radical sceptical scenarios employs the safety of knowledge. Radical sceptical scenarios are purported to be too modally remote to really threaten knowledge of ordinary propositions. Why? Because knowledge requires safety, and safety requires the target belief to be true in all nearby possible worlds, but radical sceptical scenarios purportedly take place at distant possible worlds. Hence, the safety theorist claims that radical sceptical scenarios don’t challenge our knowledge of ordinary propositions. But it's (...) alleged by Sosa and others that there's one radical sceptical scenario that can’t be dismissed so easily: the dream scenario. After all, unlike evil demons and brains in vats, ‘dreaming is a daily part of our lives…it is too close for comfort’. In this paper, I sketch an argument to the effect that there's good reason to think that the dream of dream scepticism describes a modally remote possibility, in which case I argue that if the safety-based anti-sceptical response is successful against the evil demon sceptical scenario, the brain in a vat sceptical scenario, and other Cartesian sceptical scenarios in this mould, then it's successful against the dream sceptical scenario as well. (shrink)

In a recent article, Timothy Hsiao criticizes the basic argument for moral vegetarianism. In this connection, Hsiao offers an interesting, original argument (that I'll christen Hsiao's Argument) with the conclusion that human consumption of meat solely for the purposes of nutrition trumps the welfare interests of nonhuman animals. In this article, however, I'll argue that if Hsiao's Argument isn't to be problematically circular, we have very strong grounds for thinking that it is either unsound or invalid. Toward the end of (...) this article, I'll also show that a slightly modified version of Hsiao's Argument—that I call Hsiao's Argument*—fares no better than Hsiao's Argument. So, the basic argument for moral vegetarianism looks to be in much better shape than Hsiao imagines. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal, Calum Miller skillfully and creatively argues for the counterintuitive view that there aren’t any good reasons to believe that non-human animals feel pain in a morally relevant sense. By Miller’s lights, such reasons are either weak in their own right or they also favor the view that non-human animals don’t feel morally relevant pain. In this paper, I explain why Miller’s view is mistaken. In particular, I sketch a very reasonable abductive argument for (...) the conclusion that non-human animals feel morally relevant pain. This argument shows that, even in the face of Miller’s moderate skepticism about whether non-human animals feel pain in a morally relevant sense, it’s still more epistemically reasonable to believe that non-human animals feel pain in a morally relevant sense than not. In which case, I conclude that Miller has failed to show that there aren’t any good reasons to believe that non-human animals don’t feel pain in a morally relevant sense that don’t also count in favor of the view that non-human animals don’t feel morally relevant pain. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal, Timothy Hsiao argues that spanking a misbehaving child is morally permissible on the grounds that it's what the child deserves. However, in this short article, I argue that Hsiao's argument in this connection is either obviously unsound or invalid.

In a recent paper in this journal, Alex Grzankowski argues, contra Howard Sankey, that to believe that p isn’t to believe that p is true. In this short reply, I’ll agree with Grzankowski that to believe that p isn’t to believe that p is true, and I’ll argue that Sankey’s recent response to Grzankowski is inadequate as it stands. However, it’ll be my contention that Grzankowski’s argument doesn’t demonstrate that believing that p doesn’t require taking it to be the case (...) that p. (shrink)

This Handbook addresses Chaucer's poetry in the context of several disciplines, including late medieval philosophy and science, Mediterranean culture, comparative European literature, vernacular theology, and popular devotion.

Despite the challenges associated with virtually mediated communication, remote collaboration is a defining characteristic of online multiplayer gaming communities. Inspired by the teamwork exhibited by players in first-person shooter games, this study investigated the verbal and behavioral coordination of four-player teams playing a cooperative online video game. The game, Desert Herding, involved teams consisting of three ground players and one drone operator tasked to locate, corral, and contain evasive robot agents scattered across a large desert environment. Ground players could move (...) throughout the environment, while the drone operator’s role was akin to that of a “spectator” with a bird’s-eye view, with access to veridical information of the locations of teammates and the to-be-corralled agents. Categorical recurrence quantification analysis was used to measure the communication dynamics of teams as they completed the task. Demands on coordination were manipulated by varying the ground players’ ability to observe the environment with the use of game “fog.” Results show that catRQA was sensitive to changes to task visibility, with reductions in task visibility reorganizing how participants conversed during the game to maintain team situation awareness. The results are discussed in the context of future work that can address how team coordination can be augmented with the inclusion of artificial agents, as synthetic teammates. (shrink)

Readily available data are used to provide relevant decision making information on the highly subjective issue of animal rights. Two examples of alleged crowding; cattle being finished in concrete lots, and broilers in confined operations were evaluated to determine the impact on producers and consumers from increasing space per animal. It is concluded that similar policy changes, such as doubling floor space, can lead to dramatic differences in economic impact depending on the industry affected. It is shown that economic analysis (...) can provide valuable information in estimating the tradeoffs in moral issues. (shrink)

In this paper, I’ll survey a number of closure principles of epistemic justification and find them all wanting. However, it’ll be my contention that there’s a novel closure principle of epistemic justification that has the virtues of its close cousin closure principles, without their vices. This closure principle of epistemic justification can be happily thought of as a multi-premise closure principle and it cannot be used in Cartesian skeptical arguments that employ a closure principle of epistemic justification. In this way, (...) then, it represents marked improvement over other contemporary closure principles of epistemic justification that require both sacrificing multi-premise closure and forcing anti-Cartesian skeptics who reject the closure principle employed in certain Cartesian skeptical arguments to cast aside justification closure. (shrink)

In a recent exchange in the pages of this journal, John Biro responds to Gabor Forrai’s argument against Biro’s argument that in most, if not all, Gettier cases the belief condition, contra popular opinion, isn’t satisfied. In this note, I’ll argue that Biro’s response to Forrai satisfactorily resolves the first of Forrai’s two central objections to Biro’s argument that the belief condition isn’t satisfied in most, if not all, Gettier cases. But Biro’s response leaves mostly unaddressed the most plausible way (...) of construing Forrai’s second objection. I’ll take up the mantle of successfully defending Biro’s argument from this more plausible construal of Forrai’s second objection. However, even though I’ll argue that Biro’s argument is in good shape with respect to Forrai’s objections, I’ll show that the definition of serious belief that Biro offers us is mistaken. (shrink)

In a recent discussion note in this journal, Moti Mizrahi offers us the following argument for the conclusion that knowledge requires epistemic certainty:1) If S knows that p on the grounds that e, then p cannot be false given e.2) If p cannot be false given e, then e makes p epistemically certain.3) Therefore, if S knows that p on the grounds that e, then e makes p epistemically certain. I’ll argue that premise 2 of Mizrahi’s argument is false, and (...) so Mizrahi’s argument is unsound. (shrink)

Fallibilism is typically taken to face a problem from the apparent infelicity of concessive knowledge attributions. CKAs are of the form: “S knows that p, but it’s possible that q,” where q obviously entails not-p. CKAs sound to the ears of many philosophers as contradictory or infelicitous. But CKAs look to be overt statements of fallibilism, since if S fallibly knows that p, then she can’t properly rule out some possibility in which not-p. Do fallibilists, then, have some way of (...) explaining the seeming infelicity of CKAs that doesn’t impugn the truth of fallibilism? Fallibilists think so. In this connection, there are two well-known responses to the problem: Patrick Rysiew’s pragmatic strategy and Jason Stanley’s semantic strategy. While both strategies have real virtues, there are aspects of each strategy that face certain complications. In this paper, I’ll outline those complications and I’ll develop some remedies to them. The aim of this paper will be to show that the challenge posed by CKAs isn’t a grave problem at all. In particular, I’ll argue that if the semantic strategy fails because CKAs really are overt statements of fallibilism, then there’s good reason to think that the pragmatic strategy succeeds, but if the pragmatic strategy fails because CKAs are obviously false or aren’t overt statements of fallibilism, then the semantic strategy succeeds. Thus, I’ll conclude that the problem for fallibilism posed by CKAs isn’t a grave problem at all. (shrink)

This volume is based upon the sixth series of lectures delivered at Yale University on the Foundation established by the late Dwight H. Terry of Plymouth, Connecticut, through his gift of an endowment fund for the delivery and subsequent publication of "Lectures on Religion in the Light of Science and Philosophy." The deed of gift declares that "the object of this Foundation is not the promotion of scientific investigation and discovery, but rather the assimilation and interpretation of that which has (...) been or shall be hereafter discovered, and its application to human welfare, especially by the building of the truths of science and philosophy into the structure of a broadened and purified religion. (shrink)

A 1995 study of two important late medieval poems and their philosophical and psychological contexts.

Francis Ingledew's impressive recent article in this journal argues the following: that the Trojan historiography produced by secular clerics for Norman lords and English kings is characterized by the defining features of the Virgilian philosophy of history . Even if the “Book of Troy” is “irreducible … to any single work,” Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae may be taken to be exemplary of it, since Geoffrey's “book is the effective mastertext of the new rendering of the historical field.” In (...) this article I set aside my agreement with the broad thrust of Ingledew's argument; instead I want to qualify it in two ways. In the first place, I question whether the template of the Aeneid can be used quite so straightforwardly for Galfridian material. More importantly, I question the notion of one “Troy Book.” There is another version of the “Troy Book,” that of Guido delle Colonne's Historia destructionis Troiae, translations of which constitute a significant body of English vernacular writing in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This tradition is resolutely anti-imperialistic in every way. Even if works in this tradition were written for aristocratic readers, they were pitched from a clerical position that stood opposed to imperial enterprise. I make each of these points by looking back to English narratives in the Guido tradition from the vantage point of Gavin Douglas's early-sixteenth-century translation of the Aeneid, his Eneados. (shrink)