The associative theory of creativity states that creativity is associated with differences in the structure of semantic memory, whereas the executive theory of creativity emphasises the role of top-down control for creative thought. For a powerful test of these accounts, individual semantic memory structure was modelled with a novel method based on semantic relatedness judgements and different criteria for network filtering were compared. The executive account was supported by a correlation between creative ability and broad retrieval ability. The associative account (...) was independently supported, when network filtering was based on a relatedness threshold, but not when it was based on a fixed edge number or on the analysis of weighted networks. In the former case, creative ability was associated with shorter average path lengths and higher clustering of the network, suggesting that the semantic networks of creative people show higher small-worldness. (shrink)

In vowel discrimination, commonly found discrimination patterns are directional asymmetries where discrimination is faster if differing vowels are presented in a certain sequence compared to the reversed sequence. Different models of speech sound processing try to account for these asymmetries based on either phonetic or phonological properties. In this study, we tested and compared two of those often-discussed models, namely the Featurally Underspecified Lexicon model and the Natural Referent Vowel framework. While most studies presented isolated vowels, we investigated a large (...) stimulus set of German vowels in a more naturalistic setting within minimal pairs. We conducted an mismatch negativity study in a passive and a reaction time study in an active oddball paradigm. In both data sets, we found directional asymmetries that can be explained by either phonological or phonetic theories. While behaviorally, the vowel discrimination was based on phonological properties, both tested models failed to explain the found neural patterns comprehensively. Therefore, we additionally examined the influence of a variety of articulatory, acoustical, and lexical factors but also the influence of factors beyond the well-known in depth via multiple regression analyses. The analyses revealed that the perceptual factor of perceived loudness has a greater impact than considered in the literature and should be taken stronger into consideration when analyzing preattentive natural vowel processing. (shrink)

While freedom has traditionally been discussed in philosophy and political theory, this paper proposes an anthropological approach to the study of freedom. The focus is on the Japanese word amae, which Takeo Doi calls the ‘key’ to Japanese culture and contrasts with the ‘Western’ concept of freedom. After discussing Doi’s influential work, meanings are reconstructed from interviews and group discussions with Japanese people about amae. The interviewees define amae literally in terms of social ‘non-independence’ and, unlike Doi, understand it in (...) a complex intertwining with freedom on the one hand and autonomy on the other. Overall, the paper argues that amae can hardly serve as a ‘key’ to understanding the Japanese, but can stimulate fruitful anthropological reflections not only on Japanese culture, but also on the concept of freedom. (shrink)

We have benefited from conversations with Archon Fung, Brian Jacob, Todd Pittinsky, Peter Schuck, Ani Satz, Andrew Williams, and students in a joint class on statistics and ethics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government in October 2002. We are also grateful to our audience at the conference “The Priority of Practice,” organized by Jonathan Wolff at University College London in September 2003, and to Arthur Applbaum, Miriam Avins, Frances Kamm, Simon Keller, Frederick Schauer, Alan Wertheimer, and the (...) Editors of Phi- losophy & Public Affairs for insightful comments. We have benefited from prepublication reading of Schauer’s work on profiling, Profiles, Probabilities, and Stereotypes (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2003). We thank Avedis Koutoujian for research assistance. (shrink)

In this paper, I begin by defending permissivism: the claim that, sometimes, there is more than one way to rationally respond to a given body of evidence. Then I argue that, if we accept permissivism, certain worries that arise as a result of learning that our beliefs were caused by the communities we grew up in, the schools we went to, or other irrelevant influences dissipate. The basic strategy is as follows: First, I try to pinpoint what makes irrelevant influences (...) worrying and I come up with two candidate principles. I then argue that one principle should be rejected because it is inconsistent with permissivism. The principle we should accept implies that it is sometimes rational to maintain our beliefs, even upon learning that they were caused by irrelevant influences. (shrink)

This paper is about the connection between rationality and accuracy. I show that one natural picture about how rationality and accuracy are connected emerges if we assume that rational agents are rationally omniscient. I then develop an alternative picture that allows us to relax this assumption, in order to accommodate certain views about higher order evidence.

Greaves and Wallace argue that conditionalization maximizes expected accuracy. In this paper I show that their result only applies to a restricted range of cases. I then show that the update procedure that maximizes expected accuracy in general is one in which, upon learning P, we conditionalize, not on P, but on the proposition that we learned P. After proving this result, I provide further generalizations and show that much of the accuracy-first epistemology program is committed to KK-like iteration principles (...) and to the existence of a class of propositions that rational agents will be certain of if and only if they are true. (shrink)

In recent years, permissivism—the claim that a body of evidence can rationalize more than one response—has enjoyed somewhat of a revival. But it is once again being threatened, this time by a host of new and interesting arguments that, at their core, are challenging the permissivist to explain why rationality matters. A version of the challenge that I am especially interested in is this: if permissivism is true, why should we expect the rational credences to be more accurate than the (...) irrational ones? My aim is to turn this challenge on its head and argue that, actually, those who deny permissivism will have a harder time responding to such a challenge than those who accept it. (shrink)

It has been claimed that, in response to certain kinds of evidence, agents ought to adopt imprecise credences: doxastic states that are represented by sets of credence functions rather than single ones. In this paper I argue that, given some plausible constraints on accuracy measures, accuracy-centered epistemologists must reject the requirement to adopt imprecise credences. I then show that even the claim that imprecise credences are permitted is problematic for accuracy-centered epistemology. It follows that if imprecise credal states are permitted (...) or required in the cases that their defenders appeal to, then the requirements of rationality can outstrip what would be warranted by an interest in accuracy. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to argue that, if a robust form of moral realism is true, then moral vagueness is ontic vagueness. The argument is by elimination: I show that neither semantic nor epistemic approaches to moral vagueness are satisfactory.

Saunders Mac Lane has drawn attention many times, particularly in his book Mathematics: Form and Function, to the system of set theory of which the axioms are Extensionality, Null Set, Pairing, Union, Infinity, Power Set, Restricted Separation, Foundation, and Choice, to which system, afforced by the principle, , of Transitive Containment, we shall refer as . His system is naturally related to systems derived from topos-theoretic notions concerning the category of sets, and is, as Mac Lane emphasises, one that is (...) adequate for much of mathematics. In this paper we show that the consistency strength of Mac Lane's system is not increased by adding the axioms of Kripke–Platek set theory and even the Axiom of Constructibility to Mac Lane's axioms; our method requires a close study of Axiom H, which was proposed by Mitchell; we digress to apply these methods to subsystems of Zermelo set theory , and obtain an apparently new proof that is not finitely axiomatisable; we study Friedman's strengthening of , and the Forster–Kaye subsystem of , and use forcing over ill-founded models and forcing to establish independence results concerning and ; we show, again using ill-founded models, that proves the consistency of ; turning to systems that are type-theoretic in spirit or in fact, we show by arguments of Coret and Boffa that proves a weak form of Stratified Collection, and that is a conservative extension of for stratified sentences, from which we deduce that proves a strong stratified version of ; we analyse the known equiconsistency of with the simple theory of types and give Lake's proof that an instance of Mathematical Induction is unprovable in Mac Lane's system; we study a simple set theoretic assertion—namely that there exists an infinite set of infinite sets, no two of which have the same cardinal—and use it to establish the failure of the full schema of Stratified Collection in ; and we determine the point of failure of various other schemata in . The paper closes with some philosophical remarks. (shrink)

A defense of imprecise credences (and other imprecise doxastic attitudes).

Abstract: This paper defends a constraint that any satisfactory decision theory must satisfy. I show how this constraint is violated by all of the decision theories that have been endorsed in the literature that are designed to deal with cases in which opinions or values are represented by a set of functions rather than a single one. Such a decision theory is necessary to account for the existence of what Ruth Chang has called “parity” (as well as for cases in (...) which agents have incomplete preferences or imprecise credences). The problem with the all of the decision theories that have been defended to account for parity is that they are committed to a claim I call unanimity: when all of the functions in the set agree that an agent ought to do A, then an agent ought to do A. A decision theory committed to unanimity violates the constraint I defend in this paper. Thus, if parity exists, a new approach to decision theory is necessary. (shrink)

Had we grown up elsewhere or been educated differently, our view of the world would likely be radically different. What to make of this? This paper takes an accuracy-centered first-personal approach to the question of how to respond to the arbitrary nature in which many of our beliefs are formed. I show how considerations of accuracy motivate different responses to this sort of information depending on the type of attitude we take towards the belief in question upon subjecting the belief (...) to doubt. (shrink)

Internalists face the following challenge: what is it about an agent's internal states that explains why only these states can play whatever role the internalist thinks these states are playing? Internalists have frequently appealed to a special kind of epistemic access that we have to these states. But such claims have been challenged on both empirical and philosophical grounds. I will argue that internalists needn't appeal to any kind of privileged access claims. Rather, internalist conditions are important because of the (...) way in which we expect them to act as causal mediators between states of the world, on the one hand, and our beliefs and actions on the other. (shrink)

Working in Z + KP, we give a new proof that the class of hereditarily finite sets cannot be proved to be a set in Zermelo set theory, extend the method to establish other failures of replacement, and exhibit a formula Φ(λ, a) such that for any sequence $\langle A_{\lambda} \mid \lambda \text{a limit ordinal} \rangle$ where for each $\lambda, A_{\lambda} \subseteq ^{\lambda}2$ , there is a supertransitive inner model of Zermelo containing all ordinals in which for every λ A (...) λ = {α ∣Φ(λ, a)}. (shrink)

Social liberals and liberal nationalists often argue that cosmopolitans neglect the normative importance of state sovereignty and self-determination. This paper counter-argues that, under current global political and socio-economic circumstances, only the establishment of supranational institutions with some (limited, but significant) sovereign powers can allow states to exercise sovereignty, and peoples? self-determination, in a meaningful way. Social liberals have largely neglected this point because they have focused on an unduly narrow, mainly negative, conception of state sovereignty. I contend, instead, that we (...) should more closely consider the positive aspects of sovereignty, understood as the capacity to maintain internal problem-solving capacities and make meaningful discretionary choices on a range of national issues. (shrink)

In this paper I’ll suggest that a certain challenge facing defeatist views about higher-order evidence cannot be met, namely, motivating principles that recommend abandoning belief in cases of higher order defeat, but do not recommend global scepticism. I’ll propose that, ultimately, the question of whether to abandon belief in response to the realization that our belief can’t be recovered from what I’ll call ‘a perspective of doubt’ can’t be answered through rational deliberation aimed at truth or accuracy.

This paper, a contribution to “micro set theory”, is the study promised by the first author in [M4], as improved and extended by work of the second. We use the rudimentarily recursive functions and the slightly larger collection of gentle functions to initiate the study of provident sets, which are transitive models of $\mathsf{PROVI}$, a subsystem of $\mathsf{KP}$ whose minimal model is Jensen’s $J_{\omega}$. $\mathsf{PROVI}$ supports familiar definitions, such as rank, transitive closure and ordinal addition—though not ordinal multiplication—and Shoenfield’s unramified (...) forcing. Providence is preserved under directed unions. An arbitrary set has a provident closure, and the extension of a provident $M$ by a set-generic $\mathcal{G}$ is the provident closure of $M\cup\{\mathcal{G}\}$. The improvidence of many models of $\mathsf{Z}$ is shown. The final section uses similar but simpler recursions to show, in the weak system $\mathsf{MW}$, that the truth predicate for $\dot{\varDelta}_{0}$ formulæ is $\Delta_{1}$. (shrink)

Working in Z + KP, we give a new proof that the class of hereditarily finite sets cannot be proved to be a set in Zermelo set theory, extend the method to establish other failures of replacement, and exhibit a formula $\Phi$ such that for any sequence $\langle A_{\lambda} \mid \lambda \text{a limit ordinal} \rangle$ where for each $\lambda, A_{\lambda} \subseteq ^{\lambda}2$, there is a supertransitive inner model of Zermelo containing all ordinals in which for every $\lambda A_{\lambda} = \{\alpha (...) \mid\Phi\}$. (shrink)

Albert provides a sketch of an entropy account of the causal and counterfactual asymmetries. This paper critically examines a proposal that may be thought to fill in some of the lacunae in Albert’s account.

In his multi-faceted attack on Rawls’s account of justice, G.A. Cohen has argued that the notion of basic structure is necessarily insensitive to the importance of informal social norms to social justice. The paper argues that the most plausible account of the basic structure is not blind to informal social norms in any meaningful sense. Whereas informal, non-legally coercive institutions are not part of the basic structure as such, their careful consideration is necessary for the assessment of whether the basic (...) structure itself is indeed just. This claim is based on an account of what it means for normative principle to apply to institutions, which I expound in detail throughout the paper. Principles apply to institutions, I argue, not in that they restrain their conduct, but in that they indicate which social conditions they should bring about. (shrink)

In addition to facing the known competitors in the formal economy, entrepreneurs must also be concerned with rivalry emanating from the informal economy. The informal economy is characterized by actions outside the normal scope of commerce, such as unsanctioned payments and gift-giving, as means of influencing competition. Scholars and policy makers alike have an interest in mitigating the impacts of such informal activity in that it might present an obstacle for legitimate commerce. Received theory suggests that country institutions can enable (...) and constrain productive activity, and, in doing so, influence competitive obstacles in a country. Leveraging 13,670 responses from entrepreneurs distributed across 59 countries, we provide evidence that two particular types of enabling institutions, countries’ property rights regulations and cooperative actions, are useful for lowering the obstacles presented by informal activity. We also find evidence that two constraining institutions, economic and financial regulations lead to more obstacles presented by informal activity. We describe implications for entrepreneurs, policy makers, and future researchers stemming from these findings. (shrink)

The usage of imprecise probabilities has been advocated in many domains: A number of philosophers have argued that our belief states should be “imprecise” in response to certain sorts of evidence, and imprecise probabilities have been thought to play an important role in disciplines such as artificial intelligence, climate science, and engineering. In this paper I’m interested in the question of whether the usage of imprecise probabilities can be given a practical motivation (a motivation based on practical rather than epistemic, (...) or alethic concerns). My aim is to challenge the central motivation for using imprecise probabilities in decision-making that has been offered in the literature: the idea that, in at least some contexts, it’s desirable to be ambiguity averse. If I succeed, this will show that we need to reconsider whether there are good reasons to use imprecise probabilities in contexts in which making good decisions is what's of primary concern. (shrink)

In order to motivate the thesis that there is no single concept of causation that can do justice to all of our core intuitions concerning that concept, Ned Hall has argued that there is a conflict between a counterfactual criterion of causation and the condition of causal locality. In this paper I critically examine Hall's argument within the context of a more general discussion of the role of locality constraints in a causal conception of the world. I present two strategies (...) that defenders of counterfactual accounts of causation can pursue to respond to Hall's challenge—including the adoption of a counterfactual condition that is sufficient for causal action-at-a-distance in place of Hall's ‘process’ condition—and conclude that Hall's argument against counterfactual accounts of causation is unsuccessful. (shrink)

Le corps éprouve-t-il ce que l’esprit seul exprime? On fera plutôt l’hypothèse qu’en Montaigne nos affects font figure de sémantique, le senti étant la traduction signifiante du sentir et, de là, le fil d’Ariane de nos évaluations et de nos connaissances. Alors nos représentations ne traduiraient pas les mouvements du corps dans des idées de l’esprit, elles constitueraient l’élaboration immédiatement signifiante de notre expérience du monde, aussi incertaine soit-elle, les sens étant les opérateurs d’une mutation instantanée des affects en conceptions (...) plus ou moins complexes. Mais le corps lui-même? Il est vie, au cœur de « la vie », entre savoir et sagesse, entre souffrance et volupté. (shrink)

Bourbaki suggest that their definition of the number 1 runs to some tens of thousands of symbols. We show that that is a considerable under-estimate, the true number of symbols being that in the title, not counting 1 179 618 517 981 links between symbols that are needed to disambiguate the whole expression.

Bourbaki suggest that their definition of the number 1 runs to some tens of thousands of symbols. We show that that is a considerable under-estimate, the true number of symbols being that in the title, not counting 1 179 618 517 981 links between symbols that are needed to disambiguate the whole expression.

G. A. Cohen argues that John Rawls’s focus on the basic structure of society as the exclusive subject of social justice is misguided. I argue that two understandings of the notion of basic structure seem to be present in the literature, either in implicit or in explicit terms. According to the first, the basic structure is to be equated with a given set of institutions: if they endorse the right principles of justice, the basic structure of society is just; According (...) to the second, a society has a just basic structure if and only if its institutional web manages to realize the relevant principles of justice as well it can. In, the institutional structure is not a given: different social circumstances call for different institutional solutions in order to achieve a just basic structure overall. The first part of the paper make a case for, and explores some of its normative implications. The second part asks which consequences this understanding may have for the idea of a global basic structure. (shrink)

G. A. Cohen argues that John Rawls’s focus on the basic structure of society as the exclusive subject of social justice is misguided. I argue that two understandings of the notion of basic structure seem to be present in the literature, either in implicit or in explicit terms. According to the first, the basic structure is to be equated with a given set of institutions: if they endorse the right principles of justice, the basic structure of society is just; According (...) to the second, a society has a just basic structure if and only if its institutional web manages to realize the relevant principles of justice as well it can. In, the institutional structure is not a given: different social circumstances call for different institutional solutions in order to achieve a just basic structure overall. The first part of the paper make a case for, and explores some of its normative implications. The second part asks which consequences this understanding may have for the idea of a global basic structure. (shrink)

Dans cet ouvrage, l'auteur se livre à une comparaison conceptuelle entre le principe de précaution et le principe responsabilité. Il combat la démarche tendancieuse des penseurs de la précaution qui, à l'image de Corinne Lepage, dont la conception a été reprise par le chef de l'Etat français lors du " Grenelle de l'Environnement ", assimilent précaution et responsabilité, réduisant la seconde à la première. Précaution et responsabilité ne sont en réalité absolument pas réductibles, et le principe responsabilité tel que défini (...) par Hans Jonas contient les germes d'une remise en question du mode de développement occidental, dont la notion de développement durable est actuellement le fer de lance, que le principe de précaution ne permet pas - et qu'il interdit même. Politique de Cassandre dévoile ainsi l'escroquerie politico-intellectuelle dont le principe de précaution est la manifestation, et dont le " Grenelle de l'environnement " est le dernier avatar. La responsabilité politique ne consiste à intervenir ni en aval de la catastrophe comme nous y oblige le développement techno-scientifique, ni en amont de la catastrophe et en aval des causes de cette catastrophe comme nous y incite le principe de précaution, mais en amont des causes de la catastrophe. Cet essai, à la fois philosophique, politique et poétique, tente d'allier la rigueur de la démarche intellectuelle, le souci moral de la pratique et la sensibilité humaine. (shrink)

Pretendemos neste artigo apresentar uma aproximação crítica com relação à filosofia desenvolvida pelos chamados megáricos, em face sobretudo da figura de Euclides de Mégara como representante e líder dessa linhagem de pensamento. O enfoque será feito tendo em vista o tipo de filosofia exposta e praticada por Euclides, a partir das acusações que contra ela se fizeram denunciando-a como pura erística, ou seja, a disputa e o debate entre discursos com o único objetivo de obter vitória na argumentação. O que (...) se constata em Euclides é a defesa da prática do debate com a finalidade de mostrar que o discurso é incapaz de dar conta da realidade, de um modo geral, e assim impossível de determinar, de um modo específico, o Ser e a Unidade que são a essência daquilo que organiza e move todas as coisas. Essa essência de ordem é desejável por ser boa, e o Bem se apresenta, assim, como fundamento da realidade. Os estudos sobre a tradição megárica dividem-se entre a influência dos eleatas e a influência de Sócrates. Faremos, desse modo, a defesa de que a filosofia de Euclides está afinada com o socratismo, conjugando de um modo exemplar aquilo que os eleatas haviam definido em relação ao Ser. (shrink)

We derive the schemes of from certain weak forms of the same.

The paper analyses Rawls's teleology/deontology distinction, and his concept of priority of the right. The first part of the paper aims both 1) to clarify what is distinctive about Rawls's deontology/teleology distinction (thus sorting out some existing confusion in the literature, especially regarding the conflation of such distinction with that between consequentialism and nonconsequentialism); and 2) to cash out the rich taxonomy of moral theories that such a distinction helpfully allows us to develop. The second part of the paper examines (...) the concept of priority of the right. It argues that such a concept should not be identified with that of deontology— indeed, deontological theories do not necessarily assign priority to the right over the good. However, it contends that the concept of priority of the right is essential to explaining what specific kind of deontological theory "justice as fairness" is. Justice as fairness is a deontological theory which assigns priority to the right as a consequence of its commitment to a neutral position with respect to different accounts of what is ultimately valuable and good. (shrink)

Im Angesicht der Klimakatastrophe häufen sich die Versuche, Autor*innen der frühen Kritischen Theorie in Debatten um das sogenannte Anthropozän einzubringen. Häufig wird eine produktive Auseinandersetzung mit anderen Theorietraditionen allerdings kategorisch verweigert. In diesem Beitrag wird Theodor W. Adornos Naturbegriff in ein Gespräch mit den Arbeiten der Wissenschaftstheoretikerin Donna J. Haraway gebracht. Er zeigt, dass die gemeinsame Diskussion einen wertvollen Beitrag zu einer Kritik an gesellschaftlichen Naturverhältnissen leisten kann. Dafür werden zunächst Punkte der Überschneidung in den jeweiligen Naturbegriffen herausgearbeitet. Anschließend wird (...) die Differenz in der Frage danach, wie sich innerhalb der Logik der Naturbeherrschung dem Besonderen oder Nichtidentischen überhaupt genähert werden kann, ausgehend von dem Verhältnis von Kritik und Spekulation in beiden Ansätzen diskutiert. Es wird argumentiert, dass Adorno auch die spekulativen Momente unter die Identitätslogik der Naturbeherrschung subsumiert, während Haraway einige dieser Fallstricke vermeiden kann. Allerdings drohen ihre Spekulationen den Kontakt zum Gegenstand der Kritik zu verlieren. Zwischen den diskutierten Ansätzen lässt sich ein Verhältnis von Spekulation und Kritik anvisieren, das die Ausarbeitung eines Naturbegriffs ermöglichen kann, der auf ein herrschaftsfreies Zusammenleben aller abzielt. (shrink)

The childhood platitude, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” has become nothing more than wishful thinking as we prepare each new generation for the slew of hurtful words they will inevitably encounter throughout their life. The truth of the matter is, words can hurt. To discuss how this is possible, a recent surge in philosophy of language literature has had the sole focus of analyzing pejorative language, particularly slurs. From semantic content theories to (...) deflationary accounts, there have been numerous attempts to answer the questions “How can words hurt?” and “Why do some words hurt?” Unfortunately, in the current discourse, the focus has been so heavily on accounting for the features of derogatory words that the accounts skip over providing for even the most basic insult, as an indirect speech act. Using an analysis of insults, I argue that there is a layer of analysis prior to any semantic content that theories regarding speech acts should include and and I present a framework for an ethicist to do such an analysis. (shrink)