The following resources related to this article are available online at www.sciencemag.org (this information is current as of July 24, 2007 ).

Daydreaming appears to have a complex relationship with life satisfaction and happiness. Here we demonstrate that the facets of daydreaming that predict life satisfaction differ between men and women , that the content of daydreams tends to be social others , and that who we daydream about influences the relation between daydreaming and happiness variables like life satisfaction, loneliness, and perceived social support . Specifically, daydreaming about people not close to us predicts more loneliness and less perceived social support, whereas (...) daydreaming about close others predicts greater life satisfaction. Importantly, these patterns hold even when actual social network depth and breadth are statistically controlled, although these associations tend to be small in magnitude. Individual differences and the content of daydreams are thus important to consider when examining how happiness relates to spontaneous thoughts. (shrink)

What’s the difference between those psychological posits that are ‘me” and those that are not? Distinguishing between these psychological kinds is important in many domains, but an account of what the distinction consists in is challenging. I argue for Psychological Constructionism: those psychological posits that correspond to the kinds within folk psychology are personal, and those that don’t, aren’t. I suggest that only constructionism can answer a fundamental challenge in characterizing the personal level – the plurality problem. The things that (...) plausibly qualify as personal are motley. Other attempts at accounting for the personal level either cannot accommodate this plurality, or cannot explain what unifies the personal. Given arguments others have given for a pluralistic conception of folk psychology, constructionism explains and predicts this plurality in a systematic and unified way, thereby solving the plurality problem. (shrink)

This article describes four doctoral students' process of coming together to support each other's work. What emerged was a powerful space of learning and a framework on research for social change. The authors hosted a 2-hour reflection session, which was recorded and transcribed. Text of that session appears in this article along with discussion of (a) key principles of the social change framework, (b) the ways the students came to take ownership over their work and to collaborate, and (c) guidance (...) for other researchers working against the isolation and competition that is too common in the academy. (shrink)

When we look around us, some things look “alive,” others do not. What is it to “look alive”—to perceive animacy? Empirical work supports the view that animacy is genuinely perceptual. We should construe perception of animacy as perception of agents and behavior. This proposal explains how static and dynamic animacy cues relate, and explains how animacy perception relates to social cognition more broadly. Animacy perception draws attention to objects that are apt to be well‐understood folk psychologically, enabling us to marshal (...) our folk psychological resources efficiently. (shrink)

Studies of primate cognition have conclusively shown that humans and apes share a range of basic cognitive abilities. As a corollary, these same studies have also focussed attention on what makes humans unique, and on when and how specifically human cognitive skills evolved. There is widespread agreement that a major distinguishing feature of the human mind is its capacity for causal reasoning. This paper argues that causal cognition originated with the use made of indirect natural signs by early hominins forced (...) to adapt to variable late Miocene and early Pliocene environments; that early hominins evolved an innate tendency to search for such signs and infer their causes; that causal inference required the existence of incipient working memory; and that causal relationships were stored through being integrated into spatial maps to create increasingly complex causal models of the world. (shrink)

How do we know about other minds on the basis of perception? The two most common answers to this question are that we literally perceive others’ mental states, or that we infer their mental states on the basis of perceiving something else. In this paper, I argue for a different answer. On my view, we don’t perceive mental states, and yet perceptual experiences often immediately justify mental state attributions. In a slogan: other minds are neither seen nor inferred. I argue (...) that this view offers the best explanation of our deeply equivocal intuitions about perception-based mental state attributions, and also holds substantial interest for the epistemology of perception more generally. (shrink)

The Hypothesis of Extended Cognition (HEC)—that many cognitive processes are carried out by a hybrid coalition of neural, bodily and environmental factors—entails that the intentional states that are reasons for action might best be ascribed to wider entities of which individual persons are only parts. I look at different kinds of extended cognition and agency, exploring their consequences for concerns about the moral agency and personal responsibility of such extended entities. Can extended entities be moral agents and bear responsibility for (...) actions, in addition to or in place of the individuals typically held responsible? What does it mean to be autonomous when one’s cognition is influenced and supported by a milieu of environmental factors? To answer these questions, I explore strong parallels between HEC’s critique of individualism in cognition, and feminist critiques of individualist accounts of self, agency, and autonomy. This relational and social conception of autonomous agency, as scaffolded and supported (or undermined and impaired) by a milieu of social, relational, and normative factors, has important lessons for HEC. Drawing together these two visions of distributed and decentralized aspects of personhood highlights how cognition, action, and responsibility are inextricably linked. It also encourages a reconceptualization of all cognition and all concerns about responsibility for actions, not simply as sometimes extended around individuals, but as fundamentally communal, social, and normative, with individual cognition and individual moral responsibility being derivative special cases, not the paradigm examples. Individuals are merely one of many possible loci of cognition, action, and responsibility. (shrink)

Two recent attempts to clarify misunderstandings about the nature of cultural evolution came to very different conclusions, based on very different understandings of what evolves and how. This paper begins by examining these two ‘clarifications’ in order to reveal their key differences, and goes on to rethink how culture evolves by focussing on the role of cognitive structure, or worldview.

Clinical bioethics is big business. There are now hundreds of people who bioethics in community and university hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation and home care settings, and some who play the role of clinical ethics consultant to transplant teams, managed care companies, and genetic testing firms. Still, there is as much speculation about what clinically active bioethicists actually do as there was ten years ago. Various commentators have pondered the need for training standards, credentials, exams, and malpractice insurance for ethicists engaged (...) in clinical consultation. Much of the discussion seems to accept an implicit presumption that all clinical ethics consultation practices look pretty much alike. But is this accurate? What do clinical ethicists do, how and where do they do it, and what kind of clinical ethics is useful in the hospital and in other settings? (shrink)

Quilty-Dunn et al. argue that deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) optimized for image classification exemplify structural disanalogies to human vision. A different kind of artificial vision – found in reinforcement-learning agents navigating artificial three-dimensional environments – can be expected to be more human-like. Recent work suggests that language-like representations substantially improves these agents’ performance, lending some indirect support to the language-of-thought hypothesis (LoTH).

Several attempts have been made recently to apply Darwinian evolutionary theory to the study of culture change and social history. The essential elements in such a theory are that variations occur in population, and that a process of selective retention operates during their replication and transmission. Location of such variable units in the semantic structure of cognition provides the individual psychological basis for an evolutionary theory of history. Selection operates on both the level of cognition and on its phenotypic expression (...) in action in relation to individual preferred sources of psychological satisfaction. Social power comprises the principal selective forces within the unintended consequences of action and through the struggle of individuals and groups in pursuit of opposing interests. The implication for historiography are methodological in that evolutionary theory of history sharpens the focus of explanatory situational analysis, and interpretive in that it provides a paradigmatic metanarrative for the understanding of historical change. (shrink)

Climate science denial results from ignorance and perpetuates ignorance about scientific facts and methods of inquiry. In this paper, I explore climate science denial as a type of active ignorance...

Many now accept the thesis that norms are somehow constitutively involved in people's contentful intentional states. I distinguish three versions of this normative thesis that disagree about the type of norms constitutively involved. Are they objective norms of correctness, subjective norms of rationality, or intersubjective norms of social practices? I show the advantages of the third version, arguing that it improves upon the other two versions, as well as incorporating their principal insights. I then defend it against two serious challenges: (...) (1) If content is constituted by others' normative judgments, how can content be causally efficacious? (2) This account appears to make having contentful thoughts a matter of people having contentful thoughts about your thoughts. That appears to be viciously circular and so can't be naturalistic. (shrink)

In his latest contribution to the application of Darwinian evolutionary thinking to the social sciences, W. G. Runciman conceives of human behavior as resulting from three levels of selection - biological, cultural, and social. These give rise, respectively, to evoked, acquired, and imposed patterns of behavior. The biological level is hardly controversial, but to draw a distinction between separate cultural and social selective processes is more problematic. Runciman takes memes to be the variants competitively selected at the cultural level and (...) the practices constituting rule-governed roles to be the variants competitively selected at the social level - thus preserving separate spheres of research for anthropology and sociology. It is not clear, however, what drives cultural and social evolution. Nor are the three levels theoretically well integrated. The book's strength lies in the numerous examples provided of how the application of selectionist theory illuminates and enriches sociological and historical explanations and contributes to the construction of historical narrative. (shrink)

Several attempts have been made recently to apply Darwinian evolutionary theory to the study of culture change and social history. The essential elements in such a theory are that variations occur in a population, and that a process of selective retention operates during their replication and transmission. Location of such variable “units” in the semantic structure of cognition provides the individual psychological basis for an evolutionary theory of history. Selection operates on both the level of cognition and on its “phenotypic” (...) expression in action in relation to individual preferred sources of psychological satisfaction. Social power comprises the principal selective forces within the sociocultural environment. Sociocultural evolution takes place both as a result of the unintended consequences of action and through the struggle of individuals and groups in pursuit of opposing interests. The implications for historiography are methodological in that evolutionary theory of history sharpens the focus of explanatory situational analysis, and interpretive in that it provides a paradigmatic metanarrative for the understanding of historical change. (shrink)

A central debate in philosophy and neuroscience pertains to whether PFC activity plays an essential role in the neural basis of consciousness. Neuroimaging and electrophysiology studies have revealed that the contents of conscious perceptual experience can be successfully decoded from PFC activity, but these findings might be confounded by post- perceptual cognitive processes, such as thinking, reasoning, and decision-making, that are not necessary for con- sciousness. To clarify the involvement of the PFC in consciousness, we present a synthesis of research (...) that has used intracranial electrical stimulation (iES) for the causal modulation of neural activity in the human PFC. This research provides compelling evidence that iES of only certain prefrontal regions (i.e., orbitofrontal cortex and anterior cingu- late cortex) reliably perturbs conscious experience. Conversely, stimulation of anterolateral prefrontal sites, often con- sidered crucial in higher-order and global workspace theories of consciousness, seldom elicits any reportable alterations in consciousness. Furthermore, the wide variety of iES-elicited effects in the PFC (e.g., emotions, thoughts, and olfactory and visual hallucinations) exhibits no clear relation to the immediate environment. Therefore, there is no evidence for the kinds of alterations in ongoing perceptual experience that would be predicted by higher-order or global workspace theories. Nevertheless, effects in the orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortices suggest a specific role for these PFC subregions in supporting emotional aspects of conscious experience. Overall, this evidence presents a challenge for higher-order and global workspace theories, which commonly point to the PFC as the basis for con- scious perception based on correlative and possibly confounded information. (shrink)

Representation is a pivotal concept in cognitive science, yet there is a serious obstacle to a naturalistic account of representations’ semantic content and intentionality. A representation having a determinate semantic content distinguishes correct from incorrect representation. But such correctness is a normative matter. Explaining how such norms can be part of a naturalistic cognitive science is what I call the normativity problem. Teleosemantics attempts to naturalize such norms by showing that evolution by natural selection establishes neural mechanisms’ functions, and such (...) functions provide the normativity requisite for a determinate semantic content. I argue that such attempts fail, because when specifying functions, and thus semantic contents, that are determinate enough to enable misrepresentation, they must tacitly appeal to human normative practices, especially the practice of giving intentional states as reasons for actions. I present a different tactic: using evolution by natural selection to avoid rather than solve the normativity problem. Representations’ semantic contents and their intentional targets are irreducibly normative. Semantics and intentionality are constituted within human normative practices. However, evolution by natural selection can be used to naturalistically explain the transition from a world without human beings and human normative practices — and thus without any distinction between thoughts that may be called “correct” or “incorrect” — to a world in which such human practices and distinctions are commonplace. (shrink)

Propositional temporalism is the view that there are temporary propositions: propositions that are true, but not always true. Factual futurism is the view that there are futurist facts: facts that obtain, but that will at some point not obtain. Most A-theoretic views in the philosophy of time are committed both to propositional temporalism and to factual futurism. Mark Richard, Jeffrey King and others have argued that temporary propositions are not fit to be the contents of propositional attitudes, or to be (...) the semantic values of natural language utterances. But these discussions have overlooked another role that the A-theorist’s posits struggle to play: the role of facts in explaining other facts. Focusing on the case of action explanation by reasons, this paper presents the challenge that explanation poses for factual futurism. It then brings that challenge to bear against propositional temporalism and the A-theory more generally. My argument saddles the factual futurist with surprising commitments concerning reasons, facts and explanation. The futurist might accept those commitments and pay the price. The alternative – which I prefer – is to reject factual futurism, and with it the A-theory. (shrink)

In 1986, philosopher-bioethicist Samuel Gorovitz published an essay entitled “Baiting Bioethics,” in which he reported on various criticisms of bioethics that were “in print, or voiced in and around … the field” at that time, and set forth his assessment of their legitimacy. He gave detailed attention to what he judged to be the particularly fierce and “irresponsible attacks” on “the moral integrity” and soundness of bioethics contained in two papers: “Getting Ethics” by philosopher William Bennett and “Medical Morality Is (...) Not Bioethics,” coauthored by us. Gorovitz attributed some of the criticisms that bioethics was eliciting to the fact that this new, rapidly rising, and increasingly visible field had brought “scholars and practitioners together who otherwise would have little exposure to one another's disciplines. Their interactions are mutually enriching at times,” he declared, “but mutually baffling and even infuriating at other times.” In this latter regard, he suggested that “perhaps” Fox and Swazey's characterization of bioethics in the article he dissected “reflects a general revulsion at endeavors they see as inadequately like the social sciences or insufficiently respectful of them.” He went on to say that despite his objections to our “complaints” about bioethics—especially to our claim that “autonomy [had] been an unduly emphasized value” in the field—he had “a lingering sense” that there might be “a grain of truth” in them. Gorovitz ended his essay with an affirmation about the “benefit” that bioethics can derive from “responsible” and even from “irresponsible” criticism. “The unexamined discipline invites the philosopher's critical scrutiny no less than the unexamined life,” he aphoristically concluded. a. (shrink)

Brian Barry's Justice as Impartiality is a highly enjoyable and rewarding book. It throws new light on some familiar theories of justice, and shows how the idea that principles of justice are those principles which no one could reasonably reject can yield prescriptions for constitutional design. But I shall argue that Barry's defence of his theory is less robust than he thinks, and more generally that there is reason to suppose that principles of justice are as contestable as conceptions of (...) the good. (shrink)

The relation between Hume’s constructive and skeptical aims has been a central concern for Hume interpreters. Hume’s two definitions of ‘cause’ in the Treatise and first Enquiry apparently represent an important constructive achievement, but this paper argues that the definitions must be understood in terms of Hume’s skepticism. The puzzle I address is simply that Hume gives two definitions rather than one. I use Don Garrett’s interpretation as a foil to develop my alternative skeptical interpretation. Garrett claims the definitions exhibit (...) a general susceptibility to two kinds of definition that all “sense-based concepts” share. Against Garrett, I argue that the definitions express an imperfection Hume finds only in our concept of causation. That imperfection is absent from other sense-based concepts, and prompts skeptical sentiments in Hume’s conclusion to the Treatise’s Book 1. I close by comparing my interpretation with those of Helen Beebee, Stephen Buckle, Galen Strawson and Paul Russell. (shrink)

Warwick Fox questions the question set by Shell and The Economist for their year 2003 essay prize.

This article explores the principles of interaction that shape grammatical practices of conversational speech cross-linguistically. Seven such principles are explored, and the grammatical practices they give rise to are illustrated. The role of these principles in shaping non-linguistic behavior is also touched on.

(Series copy) The new Oxford Readings in Feminism series maps the dramatic influence of feminist theory on every branch of academic knowledge. Offering feminist perspectives on disciplines from history to science, each book assembles the most important articles written on its field in the last ten to fifteen years. Old stereotypes are challenged and traditional attitudes upset in these lively-- and sometimes controversial--volumes, all of which are edited by feminists prominent in their particular field. Comprehensive, accessible, and intellectually daring, the (...) Oxford Readings in Feminism series is vital reading for anyone interested in the effects of feminist ideas within the academy. Can science be gender-neutral? In recent years, feminist critics have raised troubling questions about the practice and goals of traditional science, demonstrating the existence of a pervasive bias in the ways in which scientists conduct and discuss their work. This exciting volume gathers seventeen essays--by sociologists, scientists, historians, and philosophers--of seminal significance in the emerging field of feminist science studies. Analyzing topics from the stereotype of the "Man of Reason" to the "romantic" language of reproductive biology, these fascinating essays challenge readers to take a fresh look at the limitations--and possibilities--of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Recent work by Alfred Mele, Romy Jaster and Chandra Sripada recognizes that abilities come in degrees of fallibility. The rough idea is that abilities are often not surefire. They are liable to fail. The more liable an ability is to fail, the more fallible it is. Fallibility is plausibly significant for addiction, responsibility, and normative theorizing. However, we lack an adequate account of what fallibility consists in. This article addresses that problem. Perhaps the most natural approach is to say (roughly) (...) the fallibility of your ability to F is the proportion of scenarios in which you do not F, among those in which you try to F. I argue that this approach (in all plausible versions) is mistaken. I then introduce the notion of an action’s “fragility,” and propose that we use that new notion to understand fallibility. (shrink)

The push of biomedical profits and pull of consumer desire for greater happiness and superior performance heralds a robust market in offspring enhancement. There are two reasons we might worry about the reach of commerce into the realm of selective reproduction. The first concern is that for-profit genetic enhancement, under conditions of economic necessity, would exploit the poor, by coercing them, in effect, to part with reproductive material they would prefer not to sell for money, if not for their desperate (...) situation. The second concern is that the market valuation and exchange of sperm, eggs, and embryos would distort the meaning, and degrade the worth, of those procreative goods. I argue that the concern about exploitation does not give reason to resist a market in pre-natal enhancement, but that the concern about degradation does. This degradation concern gives rise to two specific worries: one about altruism and another about commensurability. I conclude by sketching several policy recommendations to regulate the transfer of money in exchange for sperm and eggs with specified characteristics. (shrink)

This article offers a critique of the recently revised BMA guidance on routine neonatal male circumcision and seeks to challenge the assumptions underpinning the guidance which construe this procedure as a matter of parental choice. Our aim is to problematise continued professional willingness to tolerate the non-therapeutic, non-consensual excision of healthy tissue, arguing that in this context both professional guidance and law are uncharacteristically tolerant of risks inflicted on young children, given the absence of clear medical benefits. By interrogating historical (...) medical explanations for this practice, which continue to surface in contemporary justifications of non-consensual male circumcision, we demonstrate how circumcision has long existed as a procedure in need of a justification. We conclude that it is ethically inappropriate to subject children—male or female—to the acknowledged risks of circumcision and contend that there is no compelling legal authority for the common view that male circumcision is lawful. (shrink)

I have proposed the language of narrative as a vehicle for explaining and promoting the values and concerns of humanists. It is a different language than that of idealism, empiricism, and theological supernaturalism. In the language of the humanist narrative the old metaphors contained in a supernatural dualistic view must be relinquished, for they no longer make sense, nor do they work. The view of the world in the humanist narrative is non-dualistic, and it is “naturalistic” in a pragmatic sense (...) that is limited to an understanding of language in which both culture and nature are viewed as linguistic constructs. (shrink)

It is common to think that clarity is an essential ingredient of good teaching, meaning, in part, that good teachers always make it as easy as possible to follow what they say. We disagree. What we argue is that there are cases in which a philosophy teacher needs to forego clarity, making strategic use of obscurity in the undergraduate classroom.

ABSTRACT This paper considers Robert Nozick's account of self‐esteem, as presented in Anarchy, State, and Utopia. I criticise three aspects of it. First, the claim that people gain self‐esteem only when they believe that they possess greater quantities than others of some valued talent or attribute. Secondly, the view that there will always be a conflict of interests between people over the acquisition of self‐esteem. Thirdly, the proposal that the most promising way to improve levels of self‐esteem across a society (...) is to educate people so that they value a number of different activities and attributes. I argue against Nozick that there are non‐comparative standards of doing something well or successfully that provide a person with a means of self‐assessment; there is no necessary conflict of interests over the acquisition of self‐esteem; reforming basic social and economic institutions is a promising way for a society to increase levels of self‐esteem. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Nietzsche once remarked of Emerson's Essays, “never have I felt so much at home in a book.” Indeed, throughout his intellectual life, Nietzsche returned to Emerson more than any other author. This text is a presentation, for the first time in English, of Nietzsche's Emerson marginalia of 1881, along with those passages that he copied, with variations and abridgments, from Emerson's Versuche into a separate notebook in January 1882. For context, I have included in my notes brief passages from (...) the German translation alongside Emerson's original that bear the most direct relevance to the texts here presented. Often these are passages Nietzsche himself underlined. With particular attention to the German translation Nietzsche was reading, I demonstrate in my introduction critical ways in which Emerson provoked Nietzsche's thought, and articulate what I take to be the basis of Nietzsche's deep and abiding affinity with the American thinker. (shrink)

Three decades have elapsed since Stanley Cavell, regarding Nietzsche's debt to Emerson, remarked, "no matter how obvious to anyone who cares to verify it, it stays incredible". With this book, Benedetta Zavatta has dispelled completely and forever that aura of the incredible. The book is a great advance on the two previous monographs dedicated to the Emerson–Nietzsche connection...

States that are about things are intentional, that is, they have content. The precise nature of intentional states is a matter of dispute.What makes some states, but not others, intentional? Of those states that are intentional, what makes them about what they are about as opposed to something else, i.e. what gives them their specific content?