Sleep enhances integration across multiple stimuli, abstraction of general rules, insight into hidden solutions and false memory formation. Newly learned information is better assimilated if compatible with an existing cognitive framework or schema. This article proposes a mechanism by which the reactivation of newly learned memories during sleep could actively underpin both schema formation and the addition of new knowledge to existing schemata. Under this model, the overlapping replay of related memories selectively strengthens shared elements. Repeated reactivation of memories in (...) different combinations progressively builds schematic representations of the relationships between stimuli. We argue that this selective strengthening forms the basis of cognitive abstraction, and explain how it facilitates insight and false memory formation. (shrink)

This article offers an overview of philosophical methodologies. In an attempt to avoid a certain circularity, the article itself tries to avoid consciously or solely deploying and engaging with any current standard notion of what constitutes a philosophical method or philosophy itself. It hopes to find some of the possible places in which philosophy occurs, and this turns out to include such endeavours as literature, art, poetry, and linguistics. From here it considers how almost anything—for example, conversation, everyday life, and (...) love—can also be philosophy. An attempt is made to identify some characteristic feature of philosophy as it occurs in all such forms. In the end, the simultaneous enacting of a peculiar optimism and particular humility both, in the search for knowledge, is put forward as potentially sufficient to at least begin to identify philosophy across its many guises. (shrink)

IntroductionAcademic integrity policy that is inaccessible, ambiguous or confusing is likely to result in inconsistent policy enactment. Additionally, policy analysis and development are often undertaken as top down processes requiring passive acceptance by users of policy that has been developed outside the context in which it is enacted. Both these factors can result in poor policy uptake, particularly where policy users are overworked, intellectually critical and capable, not prone to passive acceptance and hold valuable grass roots intelligence about policy enactment.Case (...) descriptionThe case study presented in this paper describes the actions of a community of practice at a regional Australian university to deconstruct and translate ambiguous academic integrity policy into a suite of accessible academic integrity resources that were intelligible to staff and students, and which assisted academic staff to consistently enact policy. The paper narrates the formation of the CoP, the tangible and intangible value it created, the social learning practices enacted by its members, its grassroots policy work and the material resources produced from that work.Discussion and evaluationAn evaluation of the CoP was conducted using a value creation framework to explore its immediate value, potential value, applied value, realised value, and reframing value. These values were considered at each stages of the CoP’s lifespan. The evaluation was a useful process that demonstrated the wide-ranging value created by the CoP. Six insights were drawn from the evaluation which promote understanding of the value created for a university by a CoP, particularly in contributing to academic integrity culture over a sustained period of time.ConclusionsThis paper contributes to a research gap on specific examples of discretion within rule-based systems. It illustrates how academics and members of the CoP used their discretion to interpret and enact academic integrity policy within a higher education setting. Drawing from the evaluation of the CoP we argue for greater understanding of the grass-roots contribution of academic and professional staff to academic integrity policy translation and enactment. (shrink)

ABSTRACTGrounded in Emotional Cascade Theory, we explored whether rumination and multisensory imagery-based cognitions moderated the relationships between affect and both odds of non-suicidal self-injury, and frequency of the behaviour. A sample of 393 university students completed self-report questionnaires assessing the constructs of interest. Contrary to expectations, rumination did not emerge as a significant moderator of the affect-NSSI relationship. However, the relationship between affect and frequency of NSSI was moderated by the use of imagery. Further, the relationship between negative affect and (...) NSSI was moderated by positive affect, underscoring the need to consider both negative and positive affect in models of NSSI. Most youth who self-injured reported thinking in images while the urge to self-injure was strong, with 53% thinking in images at least half the time. Future work is needed to explore how positive and negative affect work in concert to govern NSSI, and how imagery might eit... (shrink)

Richard L. Epstein with Carolyn Kerbrger, Critical Thinking, 3rd Edition, Advanced Reasoning Forum, 2012, 464 pp., ISBN-10: 1938421000, ISBN-13: 978-1938421006.Richard L. Epstein, The Pocket Guide to Critical Thinking, 4th Edition, Advanced Reasoning Forum, 2011, 162 pp., paperback ISBN-13: 9780981550770, ISBN-10: 0981550770, ebook ISBN-13: 9780981550787.

Richard L. Epstein, Reasoning in Science and Mathematics: Essayson Logic as The Art of Reasoning Well, Advanced Reasoning Forum,2011, 134 pp., ISBN-13: 978-0983452126, ISBN-10: 0983452121.

Fifty years on from its first publication, The Concept of Law is still the starting point for the study of legal philosophy and is widely heralded as a classic work of modern philosophy. This third edition features a new introduction by Leslie Green, looking at Hart's work from the perspective of modern jurisprudence.

Many philosophers claim to be naturalists, but there is no common understanding of what naturalism is. Maddy proposes an austere form of naturalism called 'Second Philosophy', using the persona of an idealized inquirer, and she puts this method into practice in illuminating reflections on logical truth, philosophy of mathematics, and metaphysics.

A plea for natural philosophy --On the question of realism --Hume and Reid --Moore's hands --Wittgenstein on hinges --A note on truth and reference --The philosophy of logic --A Second Philosophy of logic --Psychology and the a priori sciences --Do numbers exist? --Enhanced if-thenism.

We adopt and extend the concept of ‘noncooperative space’ to analyze how (aspirant) black women intellectual activists attempt to sustain their efforts within settings that publicly endorse racial equality, while, in practice, the contexts remain deeply racist. Noncooperative spaces reflect institutional, organizational, and social environments portrayed by powerful white agents as conducive to anti-racism work and promoting racial equality but, indeed, constrain individuals who challenge racism. Our work, which is grounded in intersectionality, draws on an autoethnographic account of racially motivated (...) domestic violence suffered by our lead author. Our analysis suggests that (aspirant) black women intellectual activists must develop courage to sustain their ‘voice’ within noncooperative spaces. However, the three interlinked dimensions of noncooperative spaces—namely, deceiving design, hegemonic actors’ indifference to racism, and (some assimilated gatekeepers’) false equivalence—may gradually erode a black female scholar’s courage. This forces her ‘voice’ to vanish temporarily, or even permanently. Courage is thus fragile and depletable. Yet, courage can be regenerated, resulting in regaining voice. Consequently, we propose courageous collective action by white allies and black and brown individuals who voluntarily and officially cooperate within and across various spaces to achieve racial equality. (shrink)

Many philosophers these days consider themselves naturalists, but it's doubtful any two of them intend the same position by the term. In Second Philosophy, Penelope Maddy describes and practices a particularly austere form of naturalism called "Second Philosophy". Without a definitive criterion for what counts as "science" and what doesn't, Second Philosophy can't be specified directly ("trust only the methods of science" for example), so Maddy proceeds instead by illustrating the behaviors of an idealized inquirer she calls the "Second (...) Philosopher". mhis Second Philosopher begins from perceptual common sense experimentation, theory formation and testing, working all the while to asses, correct and improve her methods as she goes. Second Philosophy is then the result of the Second Philosopher's investigations. Maddy delineates the Second Philosopher's approach by tracing her reactions to various familiar skeptical and transcendental views (Descartes, Kant, Carnap, late Putnam, van Fraassen), comparing her methods to those of other self-described naturalists (especially Quine), and examining a prominent contemporary debate (between disquotationalists and correspondence theorists in the theory of truth) to extract a properly second-philosophical line of thought. She then undertakes to practice Second Philosophy in her reflections on the ground of logical truth, the methodology, ontology and epistemology of mathematics, and the general prospects for metaphysics naturalized. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs Steel’s multiverse project in his ‘Gödel’s program’ (Steel [2014]), first by comparing it to those of Hamkins [2012] and Woodin [2011], then by detailed analysis what’s presented in Steel’s brief text. In particular, we reconstruct his notion of a ‘natural’ theory, describe his multiverse axioms and his translation function, and assess the resulting status of the Continuum Hypothesis. In the end, we reconceptualize the defect that Steel thinks CH might suffer from and isolate what it would take (...) to remove it while working within his framework. As our goal is to present as coherent and compelling a philosophical and mathematical story as we can, we allow ourselves to augment Steel’s story in places (e.g., in the treatment of Amalgamation) and to depart from it in others (e.g., the removal of ‘meaning’ from the account). The relevant mathematics is laid out in the appendices. (shrink)

Penelope Deutscher reconsiders the role of procreation in Foucault's thought, especially its proximity to risk, mortality, and death. Foucault's Futures brings together his work on sexuality and biopolitics to provide new insights into the conflicted political status of reproductive conduct and what it means for feminism and critical theory.

This paper outlines a second-philosophical account of arithmetic that places it on a distinctive ground between those of logic and set theory.

Sexual difference as a basis of equality : an introduction to Irigarayan politics -- Irigaray on language : from the speech of dementia to the problem of sexual indifference -- Rethinking the politics of recognition : the declaration of Irigarayan sexuate rights -- Irigarayan performativity : is this a question of can saying it make it so? -- Sexuate genre : ethics and politics for improper selves -- Anticipating sexual difference : mediation, love, and divinity -- Interrogating an unasked question (...) : is there sexual difference? -- The impossible friend : traversing the heterosocial, the homosocial, and the successes of failure -- Sexed discourse and the language of the philosophers : to be two -- Effacement redoubled? : between the Orient and the Occident. (shrink)

Non-suicidal self-injury is a complex behaviour, routinely engaged for emotion regulatory purposes. As such, a number of theoretical accounts regarding the aetiology and maintenance of NSSI are grounded in models of emotion regulation; the role that cognition plays in the behaviour is less well known. In this paper, we summarise four models of emotion regulation that have repeatedly been related to NSSI and identify the core components across them. We then draw on social cognitive theory to unite models of cognition (...) and models of emotion in developing a new cognitive-emotional model of NSSI. Our model articulates how emotion regulation and cognition can work in concert to govern NSSI, and offers several new research questions that can be addressed within this framework. (shrink)

Mathematicians tend to think of themselves as scientists investigating the features of real mathematical things, and the wildly successful application of mathematics in the physical sciences reinforces this picture of mathematics as an objective study. For philosophers, however, this realism about mathematics raises serious questions: What are mathematical things? Where are they? How do we know about them? Offering a scrupulously fair treatment of both mathematical and philosophical concerns, Penelope Maddy here delineates and defends a novel version of mathematical (...) realism. She answers the traditional questions and poses a challenging new one, refocusing philosophical attention on the pressing foundational issues of contemporary mathematics. (shrink)

It’s often said that set theory provides a foundation for classical mathematics because every classical mathematical object can be modeled as a set and every classical mathematical theorem can be proved from the axioms of set theory. This is obviously a remarkable mathematical fact, but it isn’t obvious what makes it ‘foundational’. This paper begins with a taxonomy of the jobs set theory does that might reasonably be regarded as foundational. It then moves on to category-theoretic and univalent foundations, exploring (...) to what extent they do these same jobs, and to what extent they might do other jobs also reasonably regarded as foundational. (shrink)

This Element looks at the problem of inter-translation between mathematical realism and anti-realism and argues that so far as realism is inter-translatable with anti-realism, there is a burden on the realist to show how her posited reality differs from that of the anti-realist. It also argues that an effective defence of just such a difference needs a commitment to the independence of mathematical reality, which in turn involves a commitment to the ontological access problem – the problem of how knowable (...) mathematical truths are identifiable with a reality independent of us as knowers. Specifically, if the only access problem acknowledged is the epistemological problem – i.e. the problem of how we come to know mathematical truths – then nothing is gained by the realist notion of an independent reality and in effect, nothing distinguishes realism from anti-realism in mathematics. (shrink)

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;The main part of the thesis concerns how things, in the sense of individuals, might have been. The topic is what limits there are on the counterfactual possibilities for individuals: in other words, what essential properties, if any, they have. ;In Chapters 3-6 three answers to this question that have been given in recent philosophical literature are examined. They are: that each thing has a unique individual essence ; (...) that there are features of the origin of an individual without which it could not possibly have existed ; and, finally, that there are sortal concepts that represent essential properties of the things that fall under them . ;All of these answers, and many of the arguments that have been given for them, are criticised. Sometimes the criticism takes the form of pointing to unpalatable consequences that result from the acceptance of the doctrine in question. Sometimes the criticism consists in pointing to difficulties or inadequacies in the arguments that have been presented in its favour. ;A preliminary chapter prepares the ground by setting out the conceptual framework, and the chief formal characteristics, of the essentialism discussed in the later chapters. Chapter 2 discusses the nature of necessary a posteriori truth, touching on questions in the philosophy of language and mind concerning the notion of de re thought. ;It is argued that essentialism about natural kinds raises problems of its own: some of these are discussed in Chapters 7 and 8. Here the main topic is the connection between semantic theory and natural kind essentialism. Concluding that the essentialism should be regarded as in an important sense independent of semantic theory, the chapters add to, and also criticise, the work of other writers who have reached the same verdict. Scepticism is also expressed about the independent plausibility of natural kind essentialism. ;Recent interest in essentialism owes its genesis chiefly to the work of Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam: these figures stand in the background throughout the discussion. Among the other writers whose work is discussed are Baruch Brody, Gareth Evans, Graeme Forbes, Colin McGinn, J. L. Mackie, D. H. Mellor, Nathan Salmon, and David Wiggins. (shrink)

Outlines a physicalistic version of set theoretic realism, and compares and contrasts it with Field's nominalism, with structuralism, and with modalism. I conclude that, despite metaphysical differences, versions of all these views share the new challenge raised in Ch. 4: how are new axiom candidates to be rationally evaluated?

Begins with a review of Benacerraf's metaphysical challenge to mathematical realism based on sets: how, for example, can number theory be the study of particular sets when other sets with the same structural relations would seem to do just as well? The set theoretic realist gives the straightforward response that numbers are not particular sets, but properties of sets. I close with a digression on the prospects for ‘Frege numbers’—i.e. numbers construed as proper classes.

This talk surveys a range of positions on the fundamental metaphysical and epistemological questions about elementary logic, for example, as a starting point: what is the subject matter of logic—what makes its truths true? how do we come to know the truths of logic? A taxonomy is approached by beginning from well-known schools of thought in the philosophy of mathematics—Logicism, Intuitionism, Formalism, Realism—and sketching roughly corresponding views in the philosophy of logic. Kant, Mill, Frege, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Ayer, Quine, and Putnam (...) are among the philosophers considered along the way. (shrink)

The human microbiome has become one of the dominant biomedical frameworks of the contemporary moment that may be understood to be post-Pasteurian. The recognitions the human microbiome opens up for thinking about the biological self and the individual have ontological and epistemological ramifications for considering what and who the human being is. As this article illustrates, the microbiopolitics of the human microbiome challenges the immunitarian Pasteurian model in which the organismic self shores itself up and defends itself against a microbial (...) non-self or other. Instead, this theory presents the human organism as comprised of multiple ecosystems and as a multitude, suggesting that the thanatopolitical attempts to wipe out microbial others (evident in the overuse and misuse of antibiotics, for example) are giving way to an affirmative microbiopolitics grounded in generative multispecies relationality. This article sets out to make the case for this affirmative microbiopolitics. (shrink)

What Do Philosophers Do? takes up the leading arguments for radical skepticism from an everyday point of view. A range of philosophical methods are examined and employed, for a revealing portrait of what philosophers do, and perhaps a quiet suggestion for what they should do, for what they do best.

Lack of supportive workplaces may be depriving babies and mothers of the health advantages of breastfeeding. This citizen science pilot project set out to engage women in photographing and sharing information on the available facilities for breastfeeding and expressing and storing breastmilk in Australian workplaces. While some useful insights were gained, the project failed in the sense that 234 people ‘liked’ the project Facebook page set up to recruit participants, but only nine photographs were submitted. The heaviest loss of participation (...) occurred after the ethics committee requirements were explained, in particular, the requirement for employer consent to take a photograph, or alternatively, for a participant to agree to bear the risk of taking a photo without permission. The ethics committee also made stipulations about the formality of language to be used. Thus, the project’s potential role as an enabler for health action was neutered. We argue that the ethics requirements worked contrary to our purpose and possibly acted to reinforce the powerlessness some women experience at work. (shrink)

Despite the increase in global research on health inequalities, more needs to be done to strengthen efforts to inform local interventions. In this article, we ask what determines the local capacity to engage in research on health inequalities. A bibliometric analysis identified Spain as the 10th highest global contributor to this research field (1966–2015), yet a significant proportion of this production was affiliated to just a few institutions in Barcelona. How and why has the city produced so much health inequalities (...) research over four decades? A realist explanatory case study was conducted to test and refine six causal mechanisms, and identify the contextual conditions that might have activated them to generate this outcome. Data was triangulated from 10 semi-structured interviews, and scientific and grey literature. Our findings confirmed that several of our proposed mechanisms - functioning under certain conditions over time - explain the large volume of health inequalities research in Barcelona. Based on these findings, key lessons from the city's experience are suggested. Further research is needed on this topic. (shrink)

My goal here is to explore the relationship between pure and applied mathematics and then, eventually, to draw a few morals for both. In particular, I hope to show that this relationship has not been static, that the historical rise of pure mathematics has coincided with a gradual shift in our understanding of how mathematics works in application to the world. In some circles today, it is held that historical developments of this sort simply represent changes in fashion, or in (...) social arrangements, governments, power structures, or some such thing, but I resist the full force of this way of thinking, clinging to the old school notion that we have gradually learned more about the world over time, that our opinions on these matters have improved, and that seeing how we reached the point we now occupy may help us avoid falling back into old philosophies that are now no longer viable. In that spirit, it seems to me that once we focus on the general question of how mathematics relates to science, one observation is immediate: the march of the centuries has produced an amusing reversal of philosophical fortunes. Let me begin there. In the beginning, that is, in Plato, mathematical knowledge was sharply distinguished from ordinary perceptual belief about the world. According to Plato’s metaphysics, mathematics is the study of eternal and unchanging abstract Forms,1 while science is uncertain and changeable opinion about the world of mere becoming. Indeed, in Plato’s lights, of the two, only mathematics deserves to be called ‘knowledge’ at all! Of course if sense perception cannot give us knowledge, if mathematics is not about perceivable things, then Plato owes us an account of how we ordinary humans achieve this wonderful insight into the properties of the abstract world of Forms. Plato’s answer is that we do not actually acquire mathematical knowledge at all; rather, we recollect it from a time before birth, when our souls, unencumbered by physical bodies, were free to commune with the Forms, and not just the mathematical ones, either – also Truth, Beauty, Justice, the Good, and so on.2 Whatever appeal this position may have held for the ancient Greeks, it will not begin to satisfy a contemporary, scientifically minded philosopher.. (shrink)

Begins with a presentation and elaboration of Benacerraf's epistemic challenge to realism: how can we gain knowledge of an acausal world of non‐spatio‐temporal abstracts? I then outline a theory of perception based in part on neurological theories of Hebb and developmental evidence from Piaget, and I argue in these terms that we can, in fact, perceive sets of medium‐sized physical objects. This account of perception is elaborated into an account of physical and mathematical intuition, faculties that produce various rudimentary beliefs (...) that underlie the simplest physical and set theoretic assumptions. I conclude by comparing and contrasting this epistemology with some controversial passages from Gödel's writings. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to sketch a distinctive version of naturalism in the philosophy of science, both by tracing historical antecedents and by addressing contemporary objections.

Traditional accounts of the feminist history of philosophy have viewed reason as associated with masculinity and subsequent debates have been framed by this assumption. Yet recent debates in deconstruction have shown that gender has never been a stable matter. In the history of philosophy 'female' and 'woman' are full of ambiguity. What does deconstruction have to offer feminist criticism of the history of philosophy? _Yielding Gender_ explores this question by examining three crucial areas; the issue of gender as 'troubled'; deconstruction; (...) and feminist criticism of the history of philosophy. The first part of the book discusses the work of Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, and contemporary French feminist philosophy including key figures such as Luce Irigiray. Particular attention is given to the possibilities offered by deconstruction for understanding the history of philosophy. The second part considers and then challenges feminist interpretations of some key figures in the history of philosophy. Penelope Deutscher sketches how Rousseau, St. Augustine and Simone de Beauvoir have described gender and argues that their readings of gender are in fact empowered by gender's own contradiction and instability rather than limited by it. (shrink)

Pursues the theoretical level of the two‐tiered epistemology of set theoretic realism, the level at which more abstract axioms can be justified by their consequences at more intuitive levels. I outline the pre‐axiomatic development of set theory out of Cantor's researches, describe how axiomatization arose in the course of Zermelo's efforts to prove Cantor's Well‐ordering Theorem, and review the controversy over the Axiom of Choice. Cantor's Continuum Hypothesis and various questions of descriptive set theory were eventually shown to be independent (...) of the standard axioms, and new axiom candidates—Gödel's Axiom of Constructibility, on the one hand, determinacy and large cardinal axioms, on the other—offer dramatically different solutions. This situation presents a new epistemic challenge to the set theoretic realist: on what grounds can we adjudicate between new axiom candidates? (shrink)

The early sections describe the pre‐theoretic realism of the mathematician, survey the basic forms of realism in philosophy, and attempt to disentangle the issues of realism from debates over the nature of truth. The final section begins by laying out traditional Platonism, intuitionism, and formalism. Quine's famous critique of Carnap's conventionalism then leads to Quine's realism, and Putnam's developments thereof, while a different sort of mathematical realism is found in Gödel's writings. Set theoretic realism emerges as an effort to build (...) on the strengths of Quine's and Gödel's realisms, while avoiding their weaknesses and filling in their lacunae. (shrink)

A novel treatment of an issue central to much current work in metaphysics: the distinction between the essential and accidental properties of individuals. Mackie challenges widely held views, and arrives at what she calls "minimalist essentialism," an unorthodox theory according to which ordinary individuals have relatively few interesting essential properties. Mackie's clear and accessible discussions of issues surrounding necessity and essentialism mean that the book will appeal as much to graduate students as it will to seasoned metaphysicians.

Story is central to everyday theology, translating concepts into images which reach into our deepest psyche. This is graphically illustrated in the story of the Magi which conveys in dramatic form essences of belief and understanding. St. Francis appreciated the power of drama and imagery and the Franciscans, nurtured in this tradition, carried it with them to Mexico. Of all these stories introduced after 1524, one of the most enthusiastically received by the Aztecs was the story of the feast of (...) the Epiphany. It is a testament to its popularity that we have inherited two almost contemporaneous autos, La Adoración de los Reyes and La Comedia de los Reyes. Horcasitas comments on this phenomenon: “The Feast of the... (shrink)

The paper discusses sortal essentialism': the view that some sortal concepts represent essential properties of the things that fall under them. Although sortal essentialism is widely accepted, there is a dearth of theories purporting to explain why some sortals should have this characteristic. The paper examines two theories that do attempt this explanatory task, theories proposed by Baruch Brody and David Wiggins. It is argued that Brody's theory rests on an untenable principle about "de re" modality, while Wiggins' theory appeals (...) to a thesis about principles of individuation that is either unjustified, or vacuous and incapable of supporting sortal essentialism. (shrink)