I present a perceptual account of other minds that combines a Husserlian insight about perceptual experience with a functionalist account of mental properties.

I defend a perceptual account of face-to-face mindreading. I begin by proposing a phenomenological constraint on our visual awareness of others' emotional expressions. I argue that to meet this constraint we require a distinction between the basic and non-basic ways people, and other things, look. I offer and defend just such an account.

This is a philosophical and historical investigation of the role of inconsistent representations of the same scientific phenomenon. The logical difficulties associated with the simultaneous application of inconsistent models are discussed. Internally inconsistent scientific proposals are characterized as structures whose application is necessarily tied to the confirming evidence that each of its components enjoys and to a vision of the general form of the theory that will resolve the inconsistency. Einstein's derivation of the black body radiation law is used as (...) an example application of such a strategy and is contrasted with planck's derivation. (shrink)

_reduction in favour of his existentialist account of être au monde. I show that whilst Merleau-Ponty _ _rejected, what he saw as, the transcendental idealist context in which Husserl presents the _ _reduction, he nevertheless accepts the heart of it, the epoché, as a methodological principle. _ _Contrary to a number of Merleau-Ponty scholars, être au monde is perfectly compatible with the _ _epoché and Merleau-Ponty endorses both. I also argue that it is a mistake to think that Merleau-_ _Ponty’s (...) liberal use of the results of empirical psychology signify a rejection of the epoché. A proper _ _understanding of his views on the relation between phenomenology and psychology shows that, at _ _least in Merleau-Ponty’s eyes, the methods of phenomenology and the empirical sciences are _ _largely similar. I conclude that we have every reason to think that Merleau-Ponty accepted _ _Husserl’s demand that the phenomenologist place the world in brackets._. (shrink)

A self-ascription is a thought or sentence in which a predicate is self-consciously ascribed to oneself. Self-ascriptions are best expressed using the first-person pronoun. Mental self-ascriptions are ascriptions to oneself of mental predicates (predicates that designate mental properties), non-mental self-ascriptions are ascriptions to oneself of non-mental predicates (predicates that designate non-mental properties). It is often claimed that there is a range of self-ascriptions that are immune to error through misidentification relative to the first-person pronoun (IEM for short). What this means, (...) and exactly which self-ascriptions are properly classed as IEM, is a topic hotly disputed. Some claim that only mental self-ascriptions are IEM, others claim that some non-mental self-ascriptions are IEM. Before this question can be decided, it needs to be judged exactly what it means to say that a self-ascription is IEM. And here we stumble across the fact that there are, at least, two non-equivalent ways of defining the phenomenon1. I will be claiming that one of these definitions should be rejected. (shrink)

Common wisdom tells us that we have five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. These senses provide us with a means of gaining information concerning objects in the world around us, including our own bodies. But in addition to these five senses, each of us is aware of our own body in way in which we are aware of no other thing. These ways include our awareness of the position, orientation, movement, and size of our limbs (proprioception and kinaesthesia), (...) our sense of balance, and our awareness of bodily sensations such as pains, tickles, and sensations of pressure or temperature. We can group these together under the title. (shrink)

I discuss the relation between egocentric spatial representation and the capacity for bodily activity, with specific reference to Merleau-Ponty.

Inconsistent representations of the world have in fact played and should play a role in scientific inquiry. However, it would seem that logical analysis of such representations is blocked by the explosive nature of deductive inference from inconsistent premisses. "Paraconsistent logics" have been suggested as the proper way to remove this impediment and to make explication of the logic of inconsistent scientific theories possible. I argue that installing paraconsistent logic as the underlying logic for scientific inquiry is neither a necessary (...) nor a sufficient condition for giving a philosophical alternative, I suggest that identification of heuristic strategies, based on the network of confirming evidence for inconsistent proposals for reasoning from such proposals to their consistent replacements is the proper way to explicate their function in science. (shrink)

Issues of race have traditionally been addressed in medical school curricula in a didactic manner. However, medical school curricula often lack adequate opportunity for the application of learning material relating to race and culture. When confronted with acts of racism in clinical settings, students are left unprepared to respond appropriately and effectively. Forum Theatre offers a dynamic platform by which participants are empowered to actively engage with and become part of the performance. When used in an educational context, Forum Theatre (...) can be a powerful tool for students to interact with a wide variety of social issues. This paper describes the process by which one medical school designed a workshop in the Forum Theatre style to equip students to respond to racism observed in clinical settings. Based on real student experiences, the Responding to Racism in the Clinical Setting workshop was designed to give students an opportunity to combine cultural humility, communication theory and conflict resolution skills in order to prepare for interactions in clinical stages of medical education. As a result of workshop evaluations, surveys, and written reflections, the authors propose that Forum Theatre is a novel teaching modality for incorporating issues of race and culture into medical curriculum. (shrink)

Human rights may feel self-apparent to us, but less than 80 years ago, one of the most advanced countries at the time acted based on an utterly contrary ideology. The view of social Darwinism that abandoned the idea of the intrinsic value of human lives instead argued that oppression of the inferior is not only inevitable but desirable. One of the many catastrophic outcomes is the medical data obtained from inhuman experiments at concentration camps. Ethical uncertainty over whether the resulting (...) insights should be a part of the medical literature provides a chance to consider the seemingly irreplaceable social construct of human dignity. Would any medical benefit justify the utilization of this illicit data? Would utilization even qualify as an insult to the dignity of the exploited subjects, or is this a question about intersubjective meaning? This work discusses the wisdom in blind adherence to human dignity, the possibility of retrospective insults, moral complicity, contrary viewpoints, and possible resolutions. (shrink)

The consequences of taxation matter for the optimal design of the tax system. Those consequences depend on behavioral responses to taxation, as summarized by the elasticity of taxable income. Although this elasticity depends on characteristics of preferences, such as the elasticity of substitution between goods and leisure, it also depends on the avoidance technology, and on the response of government to avoidance behavior. It depends on the size of states, and the amount of tax coordination and harmonization. To some degree (...) the elasticity of response can be affected by government policies, and the government need not accept it passively, but rather should put in place policies that optimally determine it. (shrink)

The Expression of Emotion collects cutting-edge essays on emotional expression written by leading philosophers, psychologists, and legal theorists. It highlights areas of interdisciplinary research interest, including facial expression, expressive action, and the role of both normativity and context in emotion perception. Whilst philosophical discussion of emotional expression has addressed the nature of expression and its relation to action theory, psychological work on the topic has focused on the specific mechanisms underpinning different facial expressions and their recognition. Further, work in both (...) legal and political theory has had much to say about the normative role of emotional expressions, but would benefit from greater engagement with both psychological and philosophical research. In combining philosophical, psychological, and legal work on emotional expression, the present volume brings these distinct approaches into a productive conversation. (shrink)

This Master of Arts thesis is in two parts: a novel, An Anarchy of Man, and an exegesis which places the novel in relation to philosophical concerns about the self and the way those concerns are portrayed in selected works of Western literature. The novel is set in Canberra and Sydney and tells the story of the relationship between two characters: Joe and Gin. It explores the way we in the modern Western world think about ourselves and those around us. (...) Chapter One considers the view of the self in the work of the philosopher Rene Descartes and explores how this view is portrayed in three contemporary Australia novels, and in An Anarchy of Man. Chapter Two examines post-Cartesian views of the self, especially those in the work of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and then considers the way the self is portrayed in Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, and in my own An Anarchy of Man. Chapter Three examines postmodern conceptions of the self and considers how these conceptions are portrayed in the work of the contemporary American novelist Don DeLillo and in my own An Anarchy of Man. (shrink)

It is now generally recognized that Earth is at risk of a devastating collision with an asteroid or a comet. Impressive strides in our understanding of this threat have been made in recent decades, and various efforts to deal with it have been undertaken. However, the pace of government action hasn’t kept up with the advance of our knowledge. Despite the daunting dimensions of planetary defense, one intrepid NGO has stepped up to the plate: The B612 Foundation has embarked on (...) a half-billion-dollar project, called Sentinel, to map the estimated one million near-Earth objects that could wipe out a city or even end civilization. This article offers an explanation of how it came to be that private citizens have assumed what is arguably government’s primary mandate to "provide for the common defence." It then examines some of the practical – or, if you will, ethical – risks that may be attendant on such a shift of responsibility. Finally, a new policy emphasis is proposed. (shrink)

Russell's Principle states that in order to think about an object I must know which thing it is, in the sense of being able to distinguish it from all other things. I show that, contra Strawson, Evans and Cassam, Russell's Principle cannot be applied to first-person thought so as to yield necessary conditions of self-consciousness. Footnotes1 Thanks to Naomi Eilan, Keith Hossack, Lucy O'Brien and Ann Whittle for helpful comments.

The Body Claim states that a transcendental condition of self-consciousness is that one experience oneself as embodied. The contention of this thesis is that popular arguments in support of the Body Claim are unconvincing. Understanding the Body Claim requires us to have a clear understanding of both self-consciousness and embodied experience. In the first chapter I lay out two different conceptions of self-consciousness, arguing that the proponent of the Body Claim should think of self-consciousness as first-person thought. I point out (...) that since arguments for the Body Claim tend to proceed by stating putative transcendental conditions on self-reference, the proponent of the Body Claim must maintain that there is a conceptual connection between self-consciousness and self-reference. In the second chapter I argue against views, originating from Wittgenstein and Anscombe, which reject this connection between self-consciousness and self-reference. In chapter three I show that a well known principle governing the ascription of content, that which Evans calls ‘Russell’s Principle’, occupies an ambiguous position with regards to the Body Claim. I argue that Russell’s Principle should be rejected. Chapter four distinguishes between two conceptions of embodied experience: bodily-awareness and bodily self-awareness. I argue that there is no such thing as bodily self-awareness and so it cannot be a transcendental condition of self-consciousness. Chapter five looks at, and finds wanting, arguments for the Body Claim that can be found in the work of Strawson. Chapter six argues that it is a transcendental condition of self-consciousness that one enjoy spatial experience. Chapters seven and eight assess two influential arguments that attempt to complete a defence of the Body Claim: the solidity argument and the action argument. I argue that neither argument is convincing. Although the conclusions are primarily negative, much is learned along the way about the nature of both self-consciousness and embodied experience. (shrink)

A stunning visual record of the emergence of Steichen as a great artist which explores the photographer's maturing artistry in the light of contemporary developments in photography, graphic design, and graphic arts. 60 color plates. 25 duotones.

Abstract: Shinran (1173-1263), the founder of the Jōdoshinshū of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism, and Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), the Danish father of Christian existentialism, belong to very different eras, cultures, and religious traditions. Yet there are striking similarities between their religious philosophies, especially in how both offer theistic views emphasising faith and grace that see the person as radically insufficient to attain complete self-transformation. Both claim that the human person is so radically insufficient that no one can attain Buddhist enlightenment or (...) Christian salvation through his or her own power, but only through divine power. I will argue against some commentators that although the Deity accepts and transforms this insufficiency, even the power of the Deity does not eradicate human insufficiency in this life for the person of faith. I will also argue that Shinran and Kierkegaard differ significantly about the role of human freedom in faith, and that this difference expresses the central difference between Mahāyāna Buddhism and Christianity regarding the relationship between the person and the Deity. (shrink)

Numerous writers on photography and motion pictures have claimed that photographically originated pictures are essentially different from handmade pictures. Arguments made on behalf of the essential difference of photographs from other kinds of pictures generally depend upon one or another of two models of the photographic process: the visual model claims that photographs are closely allied to vision and show what we would have seen from the standpoint of the camera at the time of exposure; the mechanical or automatic model (...) claims that irrespective of what a photograph looks like, it is a reliable index of what was the case at the moment of exposure. Each of these models is examined and shown to be faulty on either or both factual and/or conceptual grounds. Stanley Cavell's assertions about the "automatic" nature of photography are examined in some detail and shown to be either equivocal or false. It is suggested, in closing, that sharp, categorial differences between photographs and handmade pictures do not exist and that questions about the differences between photographs and, say, paintings, can be solved only within the context of viewing particular photographs and particular paintings. In sum, claims about the ontological distinctions between photographs and handmade pictures cannot be warranted. (shrink)

I argue that Rachlin's notion of self-control is imprecise and not well suited to the discussion of altruism. Rachlin's broader agenda, to improve collective welfare by identifying behavioral mechanisms that increase altruism, neglects the fact that altruism is neither necessary nor sufficient for desirable social outcomes.

We show that for random bit strings, Up, with probability, image, the first order quantifier depth D) needed to distinguish non-isomorphic structures is Θ, with high probability. Further, we show that, with high probability, for random ordered graphs, G≤,p with edge probability image, D)=Θ, contrasting with the results for random graphs, Gp, given by Kim et al. [J.H. Kim, O. Pikhurko, J. Spencer, O. Verbitsky, How complex are random graphs in first order logic? Random Structures and Algorithms 26 119–145] of (...) D)=log1/pn+O. (shrink)

In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice, “When I use a word … it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” When Alice questions this license, Humpty Dumpty replies, “The question is … which is to be master — that’s all.” The present article offers a lexicon of words that are used by human beings, however unintentionally or ingenuously, to maintain their mastery or prerogatives over other animals. A motivating (...) assumption of the article is that putting on display the verbal menagerie in animal agriculture, animal experimentation, and the rest of the industries and institutions that use nonhuman animals, could go a long way toward eliminating these enterprises, since they are built as much on equivocation as on exploitation. (shrink)