Krueger & Funder (K&F) make the familiar accusation that social psychologists focus too much on what people do wrong, rather than on what they do right. Although there is some truth to their charge, their accusations are overstated and their conclusions are incorrect. The field is far less problem-focused than they suggest, and the proposed consequences of this approach are more imagined than real.

This book is the first detailed study of Kant's method of 'transcendental reflection' and its use in the Critique of Pure Reason to identify our basic human cognitive capacities, and to justify Kant's transcendental proofs of the necessary a priori conditions for the possibility of self-conscious human experience. Kenneth Westphal, in a closely argued internal critique of Kant's analysis, shows that if we take Kant's project seriously in its own terms, the result is not transcendental idealism but realism regarding (...) physical objects. Westphal attends to neglected topics - Kant's analyses of the transcendental affinity of the sensory manifold, the 'lifelessness of matter', fallibilism, the semantics of cognitive reference, four externalist aspects of Kant's views, and the importance of Kant's Metaphysical Foundations for the Critique of Pure Reason - that illuminate Kant's enterprise in new and valuable ways. His book will appeal to all who are interested in Kant's theoretical philosophy. (shrink)

One way that scientifically recognized properties are multiply realized is by “compensatory differences” among realizing properties. If a property G is jointly realized by two properties F1 and F2, then G can be multiply realized by having changes in the property F1 offset changes in the property F2. In some cases, there are scientific laws that articulate how distinct combinations of physical quantities can determine one and the same value of some other physical quantity. One moral to draw is that (...) in such cases we have the multiple realization of a single determinate, “fine grained” property instance that is exactly similar to another instance. As simple as this moral is, it has ramifications for a number of recent discussions of multiple realization in science. Taken collectively, these ramifications indicate that multiple realization by compensatory adjustments merits greater attention in the philosophy of science literature than it has hitherto received. (shrink)

One of the boldest claims one finds in the enactivist and embodied cognition literature is that perceiving is bodily action. Research on the role of eye movements in vision have been thought to support PBA, whereas research on paralysis has been thought to pose no challenge to PBA. The present paper, however, will argue just the opposite. Eye movement research does not support PBA, whereas paralysis research presents a strong challenge that seems not to have been fully appreciated.

The process of recognition or isolation of one or several entities from among many possible entities is termed intellego perception. It is shown that not only are many of our everyday percepts of this type, but perception of microscopic events using the methods of quantum mechanics are also intellego in nature. Information theory seems to be a natural language in which to express perceptual activity of this type. It is argued that the biological organism quantifies its sensations using an information (...) theoretical measure. This, in turn, sets the stage for a mathematical theory of sensory perception. (shrink)

Berkeley's philosophy is meant to be a defense of commonsense. However, Berkeley's claim that the ultimate constituents of physical reality are fleeting, causally passive ideas appears to be radically at odds with commonsense. In particular, such a theory seems unable to account for the robust structure which commonsense (and Newtonian physics) takes the world to exhibit. The problem of structure, as I understand it, includes the problem of how qualities can be grouped by their co-occurrence in a single enduring object (...) and how these enduring objects can bear spatiotemporal, causal, and other relations to one another. I argue that Berkeley's solution to these problems lies in his views about language. At one level, human language allows us to exploit patterns in our perceptions to construct a highly structured representation of the physical world which allows us to make accurate predictions at minimal cognitive expense. At a deeper level, these patterns occur in perception because our perceptions themselves form a language in which God speaks to us. (shrink)

_Phenomenological analyses of the orderliness of naturally occurring collaboration._.

Within the philosophy of sport, the phenomenon of practising has received very little attention, whereas other related aspects of sport such as excellence and competition have been subjected to many and thorough studies. This essay will attempt to clarify this particular phenomenon of practising through the notion of athletic ascetics, which will be analysed as a special variant of askēsis. Drawing especially on Foucault’s lectures on ascetics in ancient philosophy and Sloterdijk’s anthropology of the practising life, the essay outlines and (...) interrogates the potential relevance of an ascetological understanding of sport. Through both descriptive and normative analysis, it is argued that athletic ascetics can refine our understanding of performance in sport and comprise an embodied account of the formative aspect of ethics, with implications for ethical considerations related to performance enhancement. (shrink)

Business students have long been noted for their differential proclivity to engage in academic misconduct. Unfortunately, the potential for misconduct has been exacerbated in recent years by rapid advances in technology, easy access to information, competitive pressures, and the proliferation of websites that provide students access to information that allows them to directly circumvent the learning process. Using a convenience sample of 631 students matriculating in various business majors at four U.S. universities and structural equations modeling procedures, this study assesses (...) the effects of psychological factors on business students’ propensities to utilize the services of homework assistance websites. Specifically, we examine how “Dark Triad” personality traits (i.e., narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) interact with Fraud Diamond elements to influence student decisions to engage the services of these websites. We find that each Dark Triad trait exerts a significant influence on at least one of the Fraud Diamond elements, which in turn have a significant direct or indirect positive association with students’ reported intentions to utilize, and reported utilization of, these websites. (shrink)

ABSTRACTA Danish fitness chain recently introduced a new concept called Bubbles & Squat. Here, fitness training is combined with free champagne and music. In this paper, we examine this new way of bringing parties, alcohol and physical culture together by exploring the possible meaning of it through existential philosophical analysis. We draw in particular on Nietzsche’s distinction between the Apolline and the Dionysiac, as well as his account of great health. On this basis, we analyse Bubbles & Squat as a (...) case of Dionysiac intoxication, excess and ecstasy sneaking into contemporary Apolline fitness culture. In the last part of the paper, we raise the question if adding parties and bubbles to fitness training may, perhaps paradoxically, be healthy for the participants in an existential sense because it contributes to existential balance between the Dionysiac and the Apolline. We conclude that the philosophical framework presented in this paper can contribute to a new understanding of a general physical c... (shrink)

This research explores the field dynamics that facilitated the emergence of a dominant understanding of business’ role in sustainable development (SD). Based on a study of the U.N. Earth Summits, we examine how actors meet every decade to battle for definitional control of what SD means for business, and what business means for SD. Through a discourse analysis of texts from business, policy, and civil society actors during each Summit, we illustrate how an ensuing discursive struggle shifts the role of (...) business in SD from being largely undefined in 1992, to being considered an SD partner in 2002, and finally to becoming a driver of SD by 2012. We contend that these shifts occurred largely due to two field dynamics: (a) rearranging of field boundaries and (2) forming of a discourse coalition. Accordingly, our study highlights how disparate actors coalesce around a shared-meaning system and collectively shape the role of business role in SD. However, we argue that despite the allure of a unified meaning-making process between once antagonistic actors, business–SD relations are underpinned by politicized interaction where certain actors come to dominate, and, in doing so, marginalize others. (shrink)

Probes the nature of linguistic or symbolic action as it relates to specific novels, plays, and poems.

This paper begins with the decisive moment of the 2010 Champions League final, as Diego Milito dribbles past van Buyten to settle the score. By taking a closer look at this situation we witness a complex and ambiguous movement phenomenon that seems to transcend established phenomenological accounts of performance, as a creative performance such as this cannot be reduced to bodily self-awareness or absorbed skilful coping. Instead, the phenomenon of the feint points to a central question we need to ask (...) when investigating performance in football: ?How can one intentionally transcend the expectations of others?? In order to clarify this, the paper will conduct a contextual analysis of a feint drawing on existential philosophy and phenomenology. The main argument is that the feint incarnates a fundamental and indispensable strategy in the game context of football and the analysis of it throws light on central existential phenomena involved in game creativity, with appearance, seduction, commitment and value being the focal ones. The analysis suggests a broader notion of expertise by pointing to the need of stressing the dynamic and social game context. What the feint explicates is that in football it is not enough to be aware of your own body or rely on your embodied habits. In order to cope in the game situation it is also necessary to be absorbed in the other and transcend his or her expectations. (shrink)

This article examines the role and value of defiance in sport. I argue that defiance is a virtue in sport and make a case for it as a spirited and praiseworthy way of counteracting burdened conditi...

This paper discusses the role of religious speech in the public square and the common school. It argues for more openness to political theology than many liberals are willing to grant and for an educational strategy of engagement over one of avoidance. The paper argues that the exclusion of religious debate from the public square has dysfunctional consequences. It discusses Rawls’s more recent views on public reason and claims that, while they are not altogether adequate, they are consistent with engagement. (...) The outcome of these arguments is applied to three ‘hot button’ issues in US education: creationism, an issue of gay rights, and teaching the Bible in schools. (shrink)

The social philosophy of Kenneth Boulding.

It has been reported by some studies that the desire to be involved in decisions concerning one’s healthcare especially with regard to obtaining informed consent is related to educational status. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to assess the influence of educational status on attitude towards informed consent practice in three south-eastern Nigerian communities.

Just as recognition and pursuit of the human good take place in language and action, so too do they unfold in encounter with the material and visual. The ethical crises, projects, and striving we see in everyday religious life are worked out not just in the intersubjective play and politics of language but also in encounter with, in dwelling with, material and visual substances and forms. This essay considers the material conditions that make possible the “ethical pleasures” sought by Indonesian (...) painter A. D. Pirous in making and displaying contemporary works of “Islamic art,” most especially works that make “visual recitation” of passages from the Qur'an. (shrink)

Rejection of the philosophical relevance of history of philosophy remains pronounced within contemporary analytic philosophy. The two main reasons for this rejection presuppose that strict deduction is both necessary and sufficient for rational justification. However, this justificatory ideal of scientia holds only within strictly formal domains. This is confirmed by a neglected non-sequitur in van Fraassen’s original defence of ‘Constructive Empiricism’. Conversely, strict deduction is insufficient for rational justification in non-formal, substantive domains of inquiry. In non-formal, substantive domains, rational justification (...) is also, in part, ineliminably social and historical, for sound reasons Hegel was the first to articulate. Demonstrating this involves considering closely two key reasons many analytic philosophers (still) reject the philosophical relevance of historical philosophy (§2). As specific example of presumed, though fallacious, deductivism about justification in the non-formal domain of empirical knowledge is found in van Fraassen’s (1980) defence of ‘Constructive Empiricism’ (§3). These first two sections contend that philosophical consideration of historical philosophy is required to properly formulate key issues in non-formal domains. I next consider the further issues involved rational justification in non-formal domains, issues quintessentially posed by the Pyrrhonian Dilemma of the Criterion (§4). Finally I consider what kind of history of philosophy is required for cogent philosophy in non-formal domains (§5). (shrink)

This is a pre- publication copy of an article that appeared in "Debating Design from Darwin to DNA," edited by Michael Ruse and William Dembski. Debating Design..

Some philosophers posit a connection between normativity and agency. This connection allows us to infer propositions about what we ought to do or what reason we have to do from the conditions of action. This chapter considers arguments for this connection. In particular, the chapter argues that not only do the conditions of generic agency have important normative implications for us, but so too do the conditions of narrower, more contingent, and more local kinds of agency. Finally, objections to this (...) thesis are summarized and rejected, in part because they presuppose our having far more control over what our deliberations require in the way of agency than we actually do. -/- . (shrink)

In the extended mind literature, one sometimes finds the claim that there is no neural correlate of consciousness. Instead, there is a biological or ecological correlate of consciousness. Consciousness, it is claimed, supervenes on an entire organism in action. Alva Noë is one of the leading proponents of such a view. This paper resists Noë's view. First, it challenges the evidence he offers from neuroplasticity. Second, it presses a problem with paralysis. Third, it draws attention to a challenge from the (...) existence of metamers and visual illusions. (shrink)

It is sometimes suggested that the history of computation in cognitive science is one in which the formal apparatus of Turing-equivalent computation, or effective computability, was exported from mathematical logic to ever wider areas of cognitive science and its environs. This paper, however, indicates some respects in which this suggestion is inaccurate. Computability theory has not been focused exclusively on Turing-equivalent computation. Many essential features of Turing-equivalent computation are not captured in definitions of computation as symbol manipulation. Turing-equivalent computation did (...) not play the role in McCulloch and Pitts’s early cybernetic work that is sometimes attributed to it. Finally, various segments of the neuroscientific community invoke a notion of computation that differs from the Turing-equivalent notion.Keywords: Circular causality; Computation; Cortical maps; Neural networks; Symbol manipulation; Turing-equivalent computation. (shrink)

Michel Foucault is often criticised in English-speaking circles for being interested only in power as domination, and of being uninterested in freedom and social reform. This paper shows, however, that Foucault's overarching concern was with the constitution of the self under conditions of modernity. It emphasises the significance of his interest in the Classical project of ‘Self-care’, and of his countermodernist educational programme in which the skills of self-governance and the ethical (non-dominating) governance of others, as well as the practice (...) of freedom through self-creation, are the key ingredients. (shrink)

This is a review of Andy Clark's book, Supersizing the Mind.

Introduction to the 2009 Synthese Special Issue on Philosophy and Neuroscience. The papers are: -/- The multiplicity of experimental protocols: a challenge to reductionist and non-reductionist models of the unity of neuroscience Jacqueline A. Sullivan -/- Making sense of mirror neurons Lawrence Shapiro -/- Evaluating the evidence for multiple realization Thomas W. Polger -/- Multiple realization and methodological pluralism Robert C. Richardson -/- Neuroscience and multiple realization: a reply to Bechtel and Mundale Ken Aizawa .

This book is written for the non-philosophy major taking 'Contemporary Moral Issues' or 'Intro to Ethics' courses. It provides a method to research any complex moral issue in hundreds of print, periodical, and Internet research sources, and gives a model of the method applied to the question of capital punishment.

This paper discusses the role of religious speech in the public square and the common school. It argues for more openness to political theology than many liberals are willing to grant and for an educational strategy of engagement over one of avoidance. The paper argues that the exclusion of religious debate from the public square has dysfunctional consequences. It discusses Rawls’s more recent views on public reason and claims that, while they are not altogether adequate, they are consistent with engagement. (...) The outcome of these arguments is applied to three ‘hot button’ issues in US education: creationism, an issue of gay rights, and teaching the Bible in schools. (shrink)

Some 30 years ago the role of the clinical ethics consultant (CEC) was formalized. At the time, the perception of the role differed between two groups serving in that capacity, clinicians and nonclinicians. Differences in their roles reflected their training and experience.These divergent views were resolved semantically by designating the role of the CEC as “ethics facilitation.” In practice the different perspectives have remained. However, the subsequent published literature on clinical ethics consultation has not adequately reflected the activity of the (...) clinician as a CEC.There have been recurring unanswered calls for the acquisition of empirical data on the nature of the problems that prompt ethics consultation requests and the functions required to address them. The authors introduce a template that provides a means to acquire such data for clinician ethicists. A similar instrument could be constructed to reflect the role of the nonclinician ethicist serving in that capacity. (shrink)