ObjectiveHead and neck cancer treatments are known to significantly affect functionality and appearance, leading to an increased risk for body image disturbances. Yet, few longitudinal studies exist to examine body image in these patients. Based on a conceptual model, the current study aimed to determine, in patients newly diagnosed with HNC: the prevalence, level, and course of body image concerns; correlates of upon cancer diagnosis body image concerns; predictors of immediate post-treatment body image concerns; and association between body image concerns (...) and levels of anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, support, and alcohol and drug misuse.MethodsTwo hundred and twenty-three, newly diagnosed with a primary HNC were assessed using structured clinical interviews and psychometric measures at three, and 6 months after diagnosis. Primary outcome was 3-month, as it was most salient to body image disturbance. Multiple linear regression analyses were conducted on the potential body image predictors, based on the model.ResultsSixty-eight percent of patients with HNC presented some level of body image concerns. Body image concerns at baseline and post-treatment were significantly related and significantly increased from pre- to post-treatment. Immediately post-treatment, 89% presented some level of body image concerns. Correlates of body image concerns in patients with HNC at baseline included: physical symptom burden, difficulties with communication and eating, coping with the cancer diagnosis using denial, suicidal ideation, and having had a past anxiety diagnosis. When controlling for sociodemographic and medical variables, body image concerns in patients with HNC in the immediate post-treatment were predicted by: baseline body image, physical symptom burden, and neuroticism.ConclusionThis longitudinal study helps identify patients more susceptible to experience body image disturbance following head and neck cancer. Clinicians ought to pay special attention to body image concerns upon cancer diagnosis, physical symptom burden, and neuroticism, and may want to target these factors in future preventive interventions. (shrink)

From ancient conceptions of becoming a philosopher to modern discussions of psychedelic drugs, the concept of transformation plays a fascinating part in the history of philosophy. However, until now there has been no sustained exploration of the full extent of its role. Transformation and the History of Philosophy is an outstanding survey of the history, nature, and development of the idea of transformation, from the ancient period to the twentieth century. Comprising twenty-two specially commissioned chapters by an international team of (...) contributors, the volume is divided into four clear parts: -/- - Philosophy as Transformative: Ancient China, Greece, India, and Rome - Transformation Between the Human and the Divine: Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy - Transformation After the Copernican Revolution: Post-Kantian Philosophy - Treatises, Pregnancies, Psychedelics, and Epiphanies: Twentieth-Century Philosophy. -/- Each of these sections begins with an introduction by the editors. Transformation and the History of Philosophy is essential reading for students and researchers in the history of western and non-western philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, and aesthetics. It will also be extremely useful for those in related disciplines such as religion, sociology, and the history of ideas. (shrink)

Alterations to cognitive function are often reported with depression and anxiety symptoms, yet few studies have examined the same associations with mental well-being. This study examined the association between mental well-being, depression and anxiety symptoms and cognitive function in 1502 healthy adult monozygotic and dizygotic twins, and the shared/unique contribution of genetic and environmental variance. Using linear mixed models, mental well-being was positively associated with sustained attention, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, motor coordination and working memory, whereas depression and anxiety symptoms were (...) associated with poorer sustained attention, inhibition, cognitive flexibility and executive function. Bivariate twin modelling showed well-being shared a small environmental correlation with motor coordination and a small genetic correlation with working memory. Trivariate twin modelling showed well-being shared a small genetic correlation with inhibition, whereas depression and anxiety symptoms shared a small environmental correlation with inhibition. The remaining variance was mostly driven by unique G and/or E variance. Overall, well-being and depression and anxiety symptoms show both independent and shared relationships with cognitive functions but this is largely attributable to unique G or E variance and small shared G/E variance between pairs of variables. (shrink)

In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus “pandemic.” To reduce the risk of contamination, many countries have ordered a lockdown characterized by social distancing and restrictive isolation measures. While the lockdown has proven to be quite effective in terms of physical health, little is known about its impact on couple satisfaction in a dyadic perspective. The current research was a 4-waves longitudinal study with the objective to examine the trajectory of couple satisfaction during (...) the lockdown with a dyadic perspective, including the presence of children at home, the number of hours spent together, and the duration of the relationship as time-invariant predictors and the partner’s couple satisfaction trajectory as a time-varying covariate. Results showed positive intraindividual changes in couple satisfaction during the lockdown, especially an increase in partners’ effectiveness for resolving couple conflicts and a decrease in partners’ aggressiveness. Partners had also perceived the influence of the lockdown as more and more positive over time on couple and family functioning. Finally, the couple satisfaction of both partners changed in tandem during the lockdown: The perception of the couple relationship seems to similarly evolve between partners. (shrink)

A proof by Allan Gibbard (Ifs: Conditionals, beliefs, decision, chance, time. Reidel, Dordrecht, 1981) seems to demonstrate that if indicative conditionals have truth conditions, they cannot be stronger than material implication. Angelika Kratzer's theory that conditionals do not denote two-place operators purports to escape this result [see Kratzer (Chic Linguist Soc 22(2):1–15, 1986, 2012)]. In this note, I raise some trouble for Kratzer’s proposed method of escape and then show that her semantics avoids this consequence of Gibbard’s proof by denying (...) modus ponens. I also show that the same holds for Anthony Gillies’ semantics (Philos Rev 118(3):325–349, 2009) and argue that this consequence of these theories is not obviously prohibitive—hence, both remain viable theories of indicative conditionals. (shrink)

I develop a distinction between two types of psychological hedonism. Inferential hedonism (or “I-hedonism”) holds that each person only has ultimate desires regarding his or her own hedonic states (pleasure and pain). Reinforcement hedonism (or “R–hedonism”) holds that each person's ultimate desires, whatever their contents are, are differentially reinforced in that person’s cognitive system only by virtue of their association with hedonic states. I’ll argue that accepting R-hedonism and rejecting I-hedonism provides a conciliatory position on the traditional altruism debate, and (...) that it coheres well with the neuroscientist Anthony Dickinson’s theory about the evolutionary function of hedonic states, the “hedonic interface theory.” Finally, I’ll defend R-hedonism from potential objections. (shrink)

I develop a distinction between two types of psychological hedonism. Inferential hedonism (or “I-hedonism”) holds that each person only has ultimate desires regarding his or her own hedonic states (pleasure and pain). Reinforcement hedonism (or “R–hedonism”) holds that each person's ultimate desires, whatever their contents are, are differentially reinforced in that person’s cognitive system only by virtue of their association with hedonic states. I’ll argue that accepting R-hedonism and rejecting I-hedonism provides a conciliatory position on the traditional altruism debate, and (...) that it coheres well with the neuroscientist Anthony Dickinson’s theory about the evolutionary function of hedonic states, the “hedonic interface theory.” Finally, I’ll defend R-hedonism from potential objections. (shrink)

Equality and identity. Bulletin of Symbolic Logic. 19 (2013) 255-6. (Coauthor: Anthony Ramnauth) Also see https://www.academia.edu/s/a6bf02aaab This article uses ‘equals’ [‘is equal to’] and ‘is’ [‘is identical to’, ‘is one and the same as’] as they are used in ordinary exact English. In a logically perfect language the oxymoron ‘the numbers 3 and 2+1 are the same number’ could not be said. Likewise, ‘the number 3 and the number 2+1 are one number’ is just as bad from a logical (...) point of view. In normal English these two sentences are idiomatically taken to express the true proposition that ‘the number 3 is the number 2+1’. Another idiomatic convention that interferes with clarity about equality and identity occurs in discussion of numbers: it is usual to write ‘3 equals 2+1’ when “3 is 2+1” is meant. When ‘3 equals 2+1’ is written there is a suggestion that 3 is not exactly the same number as 2+1 but that they merely have the same value. This becomes clear when we say that two of the sides of a triangle are equal if the two angles they subtend are equal or have the same measure. -/- Acknowledgements: Robert Barnes, Mark Brown, Jack Foran, Ivor Grattan-Guinness, Forest Hansen, David Hitchcock, Spaulding Hoffman, Calvin Jongsma, Justin Legault, Joaquin Miller, Tania Miller, and Wyman Park. -/- ► JOHN CORCORAN AND ANTHONY RAMNAUTH, Equality and identity. Philosophy, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260-4150, USA E-mail: [email protected] The two halves of one line are equal but not identical [one and the same]. Otherwise the line would have only one half! Every line equals infinitely many other lines, but no line is [identical to] any other line—taking ‘identical’ strictly here and below. Knowing that two lines equaling a third are equal is useful; the condition “two lines equaling a third” often holds. In fact any two sides of an equilateral triangle is equal to the remaining side! But could knowing that two lines being [identical to] a third are identical be useful? The antecedent condition “two things identical to a third” never holds, nor does the consequent condition “two things being identical”. If two things were identical to a third, they would be the third and thus not be two things but only one. The plural predicate ‘are equal’ as in ‘All diameters of a given circle are equal’ is useful and natural. ‘Are identical’ as in ‘All centers of a given circle are identical’ is awkward or worse; it suggests that a circle has multiple centers. Substituting equals for equals [replacing one of two equals by the other] makes sense. Substituting identicals for identicals is empty—a thing is identical only to itself; substituting one thing for itself leaves that thing alone, does nothing. There are as many types of equality as magnitudes: angles, lines, planes, solids, times, etc. Each admits unit magnitudes. And each such equality analyzes as identity of magnitude: two lines are equal [in length] if the one’s length is identical to the other’s. Tarski [1] hardly mentioned equality-identity distinctions (pp. 54-63). His discussion begins: -/- Among the logical concepts […], the concept of IDENTITY or EQUALITY […] has the greatest importance. -/- Not until page 62 is there an equality-identity distinction. His only “notion of equality”, if such it is, is geometrical congruence—having the same size and shape—an equivalence relation not admitting any unit. Does anyone but Tarski ever say ‘this triangle is equal to that’ to mean that the first is congruent to that? What would motivate him to say such a thing? This lecture treats the history and philosophy of equality-identity distinctions. [1] ALFRED TARSKI, Introduction to Logic, Dover, New York, 1995. [This is expanded from the printed abstract.] . (shrink)

Because anticipated and retrospective regret play important roles in practical deliberation and motivation, better understanding them can illuminate the contours of human agency. However, the possibility of self-ignorance and the fact that we change over time can make regret—especially anticipatory regret—not only a poor predictor of where the agent will be in the future but also an unreliable indicator of where the agent stands. Granting these, this paper examines the way in which prospective and, particularly, retrospective regret can nevertheless yield (...) important insight into the sorts of creatures we are, both generally and individually. The experience of retrospective regret can show a person she values something in a way she did not know or that she is (or was) a different person than she had thought, insights which can factor into forward-looking, or prospective, deliberation. Such instances of revelatory regret reveal something to the agent about herself as agent. I examine two cases of agential self-ignorance. In the first, the experience of regret reveals what the agent values, not only to others but even to the agent himself. In the second, the agent anticipates experiencing regret for an action but does not experience the regret, suggesting that the agent did not value the rejected alternative in the way she thought. Anticipatory regret is forward-looking and can play an important role in practical deliberation. But insofar as anticipatory regret flows from one’s imperfect judgment and prospection about oneself, retrospective regret can be an important corrective in helping the agent understand her own standpoint. (shrink)

Short Arguments: Some General Rules Arguments begin by marshaling reasons and organizing them in a clear and fair way. Chapter I offers general rules for ...

Taking a refreshingly hands-on approach to introductory ethics, A 21st Century Ethical Toolbox provides students with a set of tools to help them understand and make a constructive difference in real-life moral controversies. Thoroughly optimistic, it invites students to approach ethical issues with a reconstructive intent, making room for more and better options than the traditional "pro" and "con" positions that have grown up around tough problems like abortion and animal rights. Ideal for introductory and applied ethics courses, this unique (...) text does not treat ethics as a purely academic, historical, or theoretical subject, but as a wide-ranging and ongoing set of challenges that calls for multiple and interwoven kinds of intelligence. It covers the skills that are most vital to making real progress in ethics, including paying careful attention to the values at stake on all sides of an issue; looking for creative opportunities within difficult problems; critical-thinking skills such as defining key terms and making sure to judge similar cases alike; and learning how to engage in constructive dialogue. Instructors can readily use the experiential and applied activities inspired by this "toolbox" of practical skills to design an interactive and collaborative ethics course. Students can carry these essential skills directly from this book into such projects as campaigning for environmental awareness and staffing local homeless shelters. In addition to his own discussion, Weston includes gripping and provocative short selections from essayists, activists, and philosophers, and also cites his own students. Extensive "Exercises and Notes" sections end each chapter, and a detailed appendix offers instructors advice on how to use the Toolbox in the classroom. (shrink)

Moral luck is a puzzling aspect of our psychology: Why do we punish outcomes that were not intended (i.e. accidents)? Prevailing psychological accounts of moral luck characterize it as an accident or error, stemming either from a re‐evaluation of the agent's mental state or from negative affect aroused by the bad outcome itself. While these models have strong evidence in their favor, neither can account for the unique influence of accidental outcomes on punishment judgments, compared with other categories of moral (...) judgment. Why might punishment be particularly sensitive to moral luck? We suggest that such sensitivity is easily understood from the broader perspective of punishment's ultimate adaptive goal: Changing others’ behavior by exploiting their capacity to learn. This pedagogical perspective accounts for the exceptional influence of outcomes on punitive sentiments and makes predictions for additional moderators of punishment. We review evidence supporting the pedagogical hypothesis of punishment and discuss fruitful directions for future research. (shrink)

A Practical Companion to Ethics, Fourth Edition, is a concise and accessible introduction to the basic attitudes and skills that make ethics work, like thinking for oneself, creative and integrative problem-solving, and keeping an open mind. This unique volume illuminates the broad kinds of practical intelligence required in moral judgment, complementing the narrower theoretical considerations that often dominate ethics courses. The optimistic tone and brisk pace of the narrative provide an entertaining and intelligent guide to "everyday" morality. The fourth edition (...) features a new chapter on ethical theories; significantly revised and expanded chapters on conflicts of value and creative problem- solving in ethics; and a new concluding chapter on "Making a Difference, " which explains how students can incorporate ethical thinking and practice into their daily lives. (shrink)

This popular selection of Wittgenstein’s key writings has now been updated to include new material relevant to recent debates about the philosopher. Follows the evolution of Wittgenstein’s philosophical thought from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus through to the Philosophical Investigations. Excerpts are arranged by topic and introduce readers to all the central concerns of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. Now includes a new chapter on ‘Sense, Nonsense and Philosophy’ incorporating material relevant to recent debates about Wittgenstein.

In "Mathematical Truth", Paul Benacerraf articulated an epistemological problem for mathematical realism. His formulation of the problem relied on a causal theory of knowledge which is now widely rejected. But it is generally agreed that Benacerraf was onto a genuine problem for mathematical realism nevertheless. Hartry Field describes it as the problem of explaining the reliability of our mathematical beliefs, realistically construed. In this paper, I argue that the Benacerraf Problem cannot be made out. There simply is no intelligible problem (...) that satisfies all of the constraints which have been placed on the Benacerraf Problem. The point generalizes to all arguments with the structure of the Benacerraf Problem aimed at realism about a domain meeting certain conditions. Such arguments include so-called "Evolutionary Debunking Arguments" aimed at moral realism. I conclude with some suggestions about the relationship between the Benacerraf Problem and the Gettier Problem. (shrink)

Margaret MacDonald (1907–56) was a central figure in the history of early analytic philosophy in Britain due to both her editorial work as well as her own writings. While her later work on aesthetics and political philosophy has recently received attention, her early writings in the 1930s present a coherent and, for its time, strikingly original blend of common-sense and scientific philosophy. In these papers, MacDonald tackles the central problems of philosophy of her day: verification, the problem of induction, and (...) the relationship between philosophical and scientific method. MacDonald’s philosophy of science starts from the principle that we should carefully analyse the elements of scientific practice (particularly its temporal features) and the ways that scientists describe that practice. That is, she applies the techniques of ordinary language philosophy to actual scientific language. MacDonald shows how ‘scientific common-sense’ is inconsistent with both of the dominant schools of philosophy of her day. Bringing MacDonald back into the story of analytic philosophy corrects the impression that in early analytic philosophy, there are fundamental dichotomies between the style of Moore and Wittgenstein, on the one hand, and the Vienna Circle on the other. (shrink)

There is a widely held view that the rules forbidding the use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) are justified on grounds that utilizing these drugs constitutes cheating . In this chapter we engage with this assumption. Relying on an interpretative approach borrowed from Ronald Dworkin, we offer a novel analysis of cheating, one that makes it out to be a matter of inhibiting the attainment of certain sorts of achievements. These achievements are the important goods at the centre of sport, (...) the telos of sport. We then argue that a given enhancement should be regarded as cheating only when it inhibits or prevents competitors from realizing these important goods. (shrink)

Recent scholarship in philosophy of science and technology has shown that scientific and technological decision making are laden with values, including values of a social, political, and/or ethical character. This paper examines the role of value judgments in the design of machine-learning systems generally and in recidivism-prediction algorithms specifically. Drawing on work on inductive and epistemic risk, the paper argues that ML systems are value laden in ways similar to human decision making, because the development and design of ML systems (...) requires human decisions that involve tradeoffs that reflect values. In many cases, these decisions have significant—and, in some cases, disparate—downstream impacts on human lives. After examining an influential court decision regarding the use of proprietary recidivism-prediction algorithms in criminal sentencing, Wisconsin v. Loomis, the paper provides three recommendations for the use of ML in penal systems. (shrink)

ABSTRACT One simple but relatively neglected solution to the notorious coincidence puzzle of the statue and the piece of clay claims that the property of being a statue is a phase sortal property that the piece of clay instantiates temporarily. I defend this view against some standard objections, by reinforcing it with a novel counterpart-theoretic account of identity under a sortal. This proposal does not require colocation, four-dimensionalism, eliminativism, deflationism, or unorthodox theses about classical identity.

Drawing from contemporary blog data, this article examines an emerging project termed “neuroqueer.” Neuroqueer is a collaboration of activists, academics, and bloggers engaging in online community building. Neuroqueer requires those who engage in it to disidentify from both oppressive dominant and counterculture identities that perpetuate destructive medical model discourses of cure. It is a queer/crip response to discussions about gender, sexuality, and disability as pathology that works to deconstruct normative identity categories. Blog members employ neuroqueer practices to subversively combat exclusion (...) through rejection of able-hetero assimilation and counteridentification in favor of disidentification. Of particular interest for this special issue are the ways in which neuroqueer perspectives build more fluid conceptualizations of both gender and intersectionality through conscious disidentification from neurotypical norms and medical notions of cure on which they are often unconsciously based. (shrink)

Governments are subject to the requirements of justice, yet often seem to go above and beyond what justice requires in order to act in ways many people think are good. These kinds of acts – examples of which include putting on celebrations, providing grants to poets, and preserving historic architecture – appear to be acts of government supererogation. In this paper, I argue that a common view about the relationship between government, coercion, and justice implies that most such acts are (...) not supererogatory, but wrong. Many will find that conclusion unattractive, but rejecting the common view that implies it raises problems, too. (shrink)

COMMISSIONER KLAUS VERSEN: Counselors, I want to remind you both of two matters. First, this commission is not bound by the statutes or legal precedents of ...

For some, biology explains all there is to know about the mind. Yet many big questions remain: is the mind shaped by genes or the environment? If mental traits are the result of adaptations built up over thousands of years, as evolutionary psychologists claim, how can such claims be tested? If the mind is a machine, as biologists argue, how does it allow for something as complex as human consciousness? The Biological Mind: A Philosophical Introduction explores these questions and more, (...) using the philosophy of biology to introduce and assess the nature of the mind. Drawing on the four key themes of evolutionary biology; molecular biology and genetics; neuroscience; and biomedicine and psychiatry Justin Garson addresses the following key topics: moral psychology, altruism and levels of selection evolutionary psychology and modularity genes, environment and the nature-nurture debate neuroscience, reductionism and the relation between biology and free will function, selection and mental representation psychiatric classification and the maladapted mind. Extensive use of examples and case studies is made throughout the book, and additional features such as chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary make this an indispensable introduction to those teaching philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology. It will also be an excellent resource for those in related fields such as biology. (shrink)

I introduce a new approach to fission puzzles called the Diversified Approach that proceeds by distinguishing different kinds of fission and assimilating each kind to a different ordinary phenomenon, such as breaking apart, replication, or part loss. To illustrate this approach, I apply it to the case of amoebic fission. The upshot is a novel account of amoebic fission according to which the dividing amoeba ceases to exist because it breaks apart. After developing this solution and highlighting some of its (...) advantages, I discuss briefly how the Diversified Approach can be extended to other varieties of fission. (shrink)

Employing Critical Autism Studies and Narrative Analysis, this project examines how autistic Twitter users engage in narrative meaning-making through social media. By analyzing the hashtags #ActuallyAutistic and #AskingAutistics this project broadly explores how individuals construct identity when lacking access to positive representations and identity communities. Answering the research question, “How do autistic people construct individual and collective identity narratives through Twitter?,” findings indicate that autistic Twitter users use their social media presence to build virtual learning communities. Common knowledge about autism (...) is often oversimplified and highly medicalized. Therefore, autistics use Twitter to make meaning of their experiences that are not represented within cultural notions of what it means to be autistic. Autistic Twitter users reject medicalized narratives by contesting stereotypes, flipping negative narratives into positive stories, re-inscribing “deficiencies” as beneficial, and resisting rehabilitation and “cure.” Users do important social activist work by building strong autistic communities in ways that counter current negative representation, constructing positive self-affirming individual and community identities and resisting eugenic notions that autistic people are “less valuable.”. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that the criteria of identity over time for ordinary objects entail that such objects are permanent members of certain sortal kinds. The sortal kinds in question have come to be known as substance sortal kinds. But in this article, I defend a criterion of identity that is suited to phasalism, the view that alleged substance sortals are in fact phase sortals. The criterion I defend is a sortal‐weighted version of a change‐minimizing criterion first discussed by Eli Hirsch. (...) I present this criterion and then argue that it withstands attempts to show that it is inferior to non‐phasalist rivals. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to address the neglected but important problem of differentiating between epistemically beneficial and epistemically detrimental dissent. By “dissent,” we refer to the act of objecting to a particular conclusion, especially one that is widely held. While dissent in science can clearly be beneficial, there might be some instances of dissent that not only fail to contribute to scientific progress, but actually impede it. Potential examples of this include the tobacco industry’s funding of studies that (...) questioned the link between smoking and lung cancer, and the attempt by the petroleum industry and other groups to cast doubt upon the conclusion that human consumption of fossil fuels contributes to global climate change. The problem of distinguishing between good and bad dissent is important because of the growing tendency of some stakeholders to attempt to delay political action by ’manufacturing doubt’. Our discussion in this paper focuses on climate science. This field, in our view, is rife with instances of bad dissent. On the basis of our discussion of climate science, we articulate a set of sufficient conditions for epistemically problematic dissent in general, which we call “the inductive risk account of epistemically detrimental dissent.”. (shrink)

This paper examines the state of the field of “science and values”—particularly regarding the implications of the thesis of transient underdetermination for the ideal of value-free science, or what I call the “ideal of epistemic purity.” I do this by discussing some of the main arguments in the literature, both for and against the ideal. I examine a preliminary argument from transient underdetermination against the ideal of epistemic purity, and I discuss two different formulations of an objection to this argument—an (...) objection that requires the strict separation of the epistemic from the practical. A secondary aim of the paper is to suggest some future directions for the field, one of which is to replace the vocabulary of values that is often employed in the literature with a more precise one. (shrink)

A common misunderstanding of the selected effects theory of function is that natural selection operating over an evolutionary time scale is the only functionbestowing process in the natural world. This construal of the selected effects theory conflicts with the existence and ubiquity of neurobiological functions that are evolutionary novel, such as structures underlying reading ability. This conflict has suggested to some that, while the selected effects theory may be relevant to some areas of evolutionary biology, its relevance to neuroscience is (...) marginal. This line of reasoning, however, neglects the fact that synapses, entire neurons, and potentially groups of neurons can undergo a type of selection analogous to natural selection operating over an evolutionary time scale. In the following, I argue that neural selection should be construed, by the selected effect theorist, as a distinct type of function-bestowing process in addition to natural selection. After explicating a generalized selected effects theory of function and distinguishing it from similar attempts to extend the selected effects theory, I do four things. First, I show how it allows one to identify neural selection as a distinct function-bestowing process, in contrast to other forms of neural structure formation such as neural construction. Second, I defend the view from one major criticism, and in so doing I clarify the content of the view. Third, I examine drug addiction to show the potential relevance of neural selection to neuroscientific and psychological research. Finally, I endorse a modest pluralism of function concepts within biology. (shrink)

When speakers utter conflicting moral sentences, it seems clear that they disagree. It has often been suggested that the fact that the speakers disagree gives us evidence for a claim about the semantics of the sentences they are uttering. Specifically, it has been suggested that the existence of the disagreement gives us reason to infer that there must be an incompatibility between the contents of these sentences. This inference then plays a key role in a now-standard argument against certain theories (...) in moral semantics. In this paper, we introduce new evidence that bears on this debate. We show that there are moral conflict cases in which people are inclined to say both that the two speakers disagree and that it is not the case at least one of them must be saying something incorrect. We then explore how we might understand such disagreements. As a proof of concept, we sketch an account of the concept of disagreement and an independently motivated theory of moral semantics which, together, explain the possibility of such cases. (shrink)

I suggest that we can read Marx in the light of recent analytic, neo-Hegelian thought. I summarize the Pittsburgh School philosophers’ claims about the myth of the given, the claim that human experience is conceptual all the way out, and that we live in a space of reasons. I show how Hegel has been read in those terms, and then apply that reading of Hegel to Marx’s argument that capital is akin to what Hegel called Geist, or spirit. We can (...) understand capitalism as a space of reasons that is contradictory: while the space of reasons is supposed to make human freedom possible, our space of reasons makes freedom impossible. Reading Marx in this way is helpful, because it avoids the flaws of analytical Marxism, existentialism and structuralism. However, it raises a large problem of its own: Can the theory of the space of reasons be applied to a society that is not free of alienation? I argue that it can, but only in ways that would not satisfy the analytic neo-Hegelians themselves. (shrink)

Despite its small stature, "if" occupies a central place both in everyday language and the philosophical lexicon. In allowing us to talk about hypothetical situations, "if" raises a host of thorny philosophical puzzles about language and logic. Addressing them requires tools from linguistics, logic, probability theory, and metaphysics. Justin Khoo uses these tools to navigate a maze of interconnected issues about conditionals, some of which include: the nature of linguistic communication, the relationship between logical and natural languages, and the (...) relationship between different kinds of modality. According to Khoo's theory, conditionals form a unified class of expressions which share a common semantic core that encodes inferential dispositions. Thus, rather than represent the world, conditionals are devices used to communicate how we are disposed to infer. Khoo shows that this theory can be extended to predict the probabilities of conditionals, as well as how different kinds of conditionals differ both semantically and pragmatically. Khoo's book will make for a significant contribution to the literature on conditionals and should be of interest to philosophers, linguists, and computer scientists. (shrink)

Mechanisms, in the prominent biological sense of the term, are historical entities. That is, whether or not something is a mechanism for something depends on its history. Put differently, while your spontaneously-generated molecule-for-molecule double has a heart, and its heart pumps blood around its body, its heart does not have a mechanism for pumping, since it does not have the right history. My argument for this claim is that mechanisms have proper functions; proper functions are historical entities; so, mechanisms are (...) historical entities, too. This thesis runs against the mainstream new mechanist way of thinking about mechanisms, where mechanisms are generally thought of in an ahistorical way. After arguing for this thesis, I draw out some consequences for philosophy of science and metaphysics. (shrink)

This essay* takes two notions of autonomy and two notions of explanation and argues that colours occur in explanations that fall under all of them. The claim that colours can be used to explain anything at all may seem to some people an outrage. But their pessimism is unjustified and the orthodox dispositional view which may seem to support it, I shall argue, itself has difficulties. In broad terms, Section 2 shows that there exist good straight scientific laws of colour, (...) constituting what one might call a phenomenal science. Section 3 offers a larger view of what we are doing when we attribute colours to things, a view which makes it a case of holistic explanation, similar in many ways to psychological explanation. Section 2 emphasizes the model of scientific explanation, and Section 3 the holistic model found in rational explanation; but it will emerge that colour explanation in different ways fits both models, as it also does the two principal notions of autonomy that the first section identifies. (shrink)

The world is swimming in misinformation. Conflicting messages bombard us every day with news on everything from politics and world events to investments and alternative health. The daily paper, nightly news, websites, and social media each compete for our attention and each often insist on a different version of the facts. Inevitably, we have questions: Who is telling the truth? How would we know? How did we get here? What can we do? Beyond Fake News answers these and other queries. (...) It offers a technological and market-based explanation for how our informational environment became so polluted. It shows how purveyors of news often have incentives to mislead us, and how consumers of information often have incentives to be misled. And it chronicles how, as technology improves and the regulatory burdens drop, our information-scape becomes ever more littered with misinformation. Beyond Fake News argues that even when we really want the truth, our minds are built in such a way so as to be incapable of grasping many facts, and blind spots mar our view of the world. But we can do better, both as individuals and as a society. As individuals, we can improve the accuracy of our understanding of the world by knowing who to trust and recognizing our limitations. And as a society, we can take important steps to reduce the quantity and effects of misinformation. (shrink)

I develop a reduction of grounding to essence. My approach is to think about the relation between grounding and essence on the model of a certain conceptof existential dependence. I extend this concept of existential dependence in a coupleof ways and argue that these extensions provide a reduction of grounding to essenceif we use sorted variables that range over facts and take it that for a fact to obtain is forit to exist. I then use the account to resolve various (...) issues surrounding the concept of grounding and its connection with essence; apply the account to paradigm cases andto the impure logic of grounding; and respond to objections. (shrink)

. Recent philosophers of science have not only revived the classical argument from inductive risk but extended it. I argue that some of the purported extensions do not fit cleanly within the schema of the original argument, and I discuss the problem of overdiagnosis of disease due to expanded disease definitions in order to show that there are some risks in the research process that are important and that very clearly fall outside of the domain of inductive risk. Finally, I (...) introduce the notion of epistemic risk in order to characterize such risks. (shrink)

How does Aristotle think about sentences like ‘Every x is y’ in the Prior Analytics? A recently popular answer conceives of these sentences as expressing a mereological relationship between x and y: the sentence is true just in case x is, in some sense, a part of y. I argue that the motivations for this interpretation have so far not been compelling. I provide a new justification for the mereological interpretation. First, I prove a very general algebraic soundness and completeness (...) result that unifies the most important soundness and completeness results to date. Then I argue that this result vindicates the mereological interpretation. In contrast to previous interpretations, this argument shows how Aristotle’s conception of predication in mereological terms can do important logical work. (shrink)

We are all guilty of it. We call people terrible names in conversation or online. We vilify those with whom we disagree, and make bolder claims than we could defend. We want to be seen as taking the moral high ground not just to make a point, or move a debate forward, but to look a certain way--incensed, or compassionate, or committed to a cause. We exaggerate. In other words, we grandstand. Nowhere is this more evident than in public discourse (...) today, and especially as it plays out across the internet. To philosophers Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke, who have written extensively about moral grandstanding, such one-upmanship is not just annoying, but dangerous. As politics gets more and more polarized, people on both sides of the spectrum move further and further apart when they let grandstanding get in the way of engaging one another. The pollution of our most urgent conversations with self-interest damages the very causes they are meant to forward. Drawing from work in psychology, economics, and political science, and along with contemporary examples spanning the political spectrum, the authors dive deeply into why and how we grandstand. Using the analytic tools of psychology and moral philosophy, they explain what drives us to behave in this way, and what we stand to lose by taking it too far. Most importantly, they show how, by avoiding grandstanding, we can re-build a public square worth participating in. (shrink)

Promoting the ethical formation of engineering students through the cultivation of their discipline-specific knowledge, sensitivity, imagination, and reasoning skills has become a goal for many engineering education programs throughout the United States. However, there is neither a consensus throughout the engineering education community regarding which strategies are most effective towards which ends, nor which ends are most important. This study provides an overview of engineering ethics interventions within the U.S. through the systematic analysis of articles that featured ethical interventions in (...) engineering, published in select peer-reviewed journals, and published between 2000 and 2015. As a core criterion, each journal article reviewed must have provided an overview of the course as well as how the authors evaluated course-learning goals. In sum, 26 articles were analyzed with a coding scheme that included 56 binary items. The results indicate that the most common methods for integrating ethics into engineering involved exposing students to codes/standards, utilizing case studies, and discussion activities. Nearly half of the articles had students engage with ethical heuristics or philosophical ethics. Following the presentation of the results, this study describes in detail four articles to highlight less common but intriguing pedagogical methods and evaluation techniques. The findings indicate that there is limited empirical work on ethics education within engineering across the United States. Furthermore, due to the large variation in goals, approaches, and evaluation methods described across interventions, this study does not detail “best” practices for integrating ethics into engineering. The science and engineering education community should continue exploring the relative merits of different approaches to ethics education in engineering. (shrink)