According to Longtermism, our acts’ expected influence on the expected value of the world is mainly determined by their effects in the far future. There is, given total utilitarianism, a straightforward argument for Longtermism due to the enormous number of people that might exist in the future, but this argument does not work on person-affecting views. In this paper, we will argue that these views might also lead to Longtermism if Prudential Longtermism is true. Prudential Longtermism holds for a person (...) if and only if our acts’ overall influence on that person’s expected well-being is mainly determined by the acts’ effects in the far future. We argue that (due to a small chance of anti-ageing and uploading) there could be an enormous amount of prudential value for some contemporary person in the far future and that value may be so large that it dominates their overall expectation of lifetime well-being. (shrink)

Derek Parfit argues that fission is prudentially better for you than ordinary death. But is having more fission products with good lives prudentially better for you than having just one? In this paper, we argue that it is. We argue that, if your brain is split and the halves are transplanted into two recipients (who both have good lives), then it is prudentially better for you if both transplants succeed than if only one of them does (other things being equal). (...) This upshot rules out, among other things, that the prudential value of standing in the relation that matters in survival to multiple people is equal to their average well-being. (shrink)

While action selection strategies in well‐defined domains have received considerable attention, little is yet known about how people choose what to do next in ill‐defined tasks. In this contribution, we shed light on this issue by considering everyday tasks, which in many cases have a multitude of possible solutions (e.g., it does not matter in which order the items are brought to the table when setting a table) and are thus categorized as ill‐defined problems. Even if there are no hard (...) constraints on the ordering of subtasks in everyday activities, our research shows that people exhibit specific preferences. We propose that these preferences arise from bounded rationality, that is, people only have limited knowledge and processing power available, which results in a preference to minimize the overall physical and cognitive effort. In the context of everyday activities, this can be achieved by (a) taking properties of the spatial environment into account to use them to one's advantage, and (b) employing a stepwise‐optimal action selection strategy. We present the Opportunistic Planning Model as an explanatory cognitive model, which instantiates these assumptions, and show that the model is able to generalize to new everyday tasks, outperforming machine learning models such as neural networks during generalization. (shrink)

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have been successfully used by adults, but little information is available on BCI use by children, especially children with severe multiple impairments who may need technology to facilitate communication. Here we discuss the challenges of using non-invasive BCI with children, especially children who do not have another established method of communication with unfamiliar partners. Strategies to manage these challenges require consideration of multiple factors related to accessibility, cognition, and participation. These factors include decisions regarding where (home, clinic, (...) or lab) participation will take place, the number of sessions involved, and the degree of participation necessary for success. A strategic approach to addressing the unique challenges inherent in BCI use by children with disabilities will increase the potential for successful BCI calibration and adoption of BCI as a valuable access method for children with the most significant impairments in movement and communication. (shrink)

The Special Issue is started with the observation that the tension of mind and society, i.e. cognitive and sociological/cultural dimensions in knowledge production and innovation, is a well-known topic of academic discourse in Science and Technology Studies. The introduction mentions some historical hallmarks of the involved perspectives and discussions to outline the background of the Special Issue. The purpose of its contributions, which are briefly presented at the end of the introduction, is to review this long-existing tension of cognitive and (...) cultural dimensions in knowledge production and innovation in the light of the cognitive and societal changes that have just begun and will have a huge impact in the future. (shrink)

O desamparo psíquico é um conceito fundamental na psicanálise e está presente em textos de diferentes épocas da teoria freudiana. Por meio dele, Freud nos mostra nossa completa dependência de um outro, que é capaz de nos oferecer um conforto frente a um desamparo, que é eterno e irreversível. Assim que nascemos, estamos fadados a viver em desamparo. Em paralelo com a teoria de Judith Butler, pretendemos fazer a relação do desamparo psíquico tratado por Freud com o conceito de precariedade (...) e os laços de interdependência presentes na obra da autora, que mostra como a interdependência revela o nosso estado de precariedade em comum. (shrink)

Background Genuine uncertainty on superiority of one intervention over the other is called equipoise. Physician-investigators in randomized controlled trials need equipoise at least in studies with more than minimal risks. Ideally, this equipoise is also present in patient-participants. In pediatrics, data on equipoise are lacking. We hypothesize that 1) lack of equipoise at enrolment among parents may reduce recruitment; 2) lack of equipoise during participation may reduce retention in patients assigned to a less favoured treatment-strategy. Methods We compared preferences of (...) parents/patients at enrolment, documented by a questionnaire, with preferences developed during follow-up by an interview-study to investigate equipoise of child-participants and parents in the BeSt-for-Kids-study. This trial in new-onset Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis-patients consists of three strategies. One strategy comprises initial treatment with a biological disease-modifying-antirheumatic-drug, currently not standard-of-care. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 parents and 7 patients, median 11 months after enrolment. Results Initially most parents and children were not in equipoise. Parents/patients who refused participation, regularly declined due to specific preferences. Many participating families preferred the biological-first-strategy. They participated to have a chance for this initial treatment, and would even consider stopping trial-participation when not randomized for it. Their conviction of superiority of the biological-first strategy was based on knowledge from internet and close relations. According to four parents, the physician-investigator preferred the biological-first-strategy, but the majority stated that she had no preferred strategy. In phase 2, preferences tended to change to the treatment actually received. Conclusions Lack of equipoise during enrolment did not reduce study recruitment, mainly due to the fact that preferred treatment was only available within the study. Still, when developing a trial it is important to evaluate whether the physicians’ research question is in line with preferences of the patient-group. By exploring so-called ‘informed patient-group’-equipoise, successful recruitment may be enhanced and bias avoided. In our study, lack of equipoise during trial-participation did not reduce retention in those assigned to a less favoured option. We observed a change for preference towards treatment actually received, possibly explained by comparable outcomes in all three arms. (shrink)

Die Sprache weiß, wovon sie spricht. Das zeigt sich im Kompositum "ef?μe ", von dem das deutsche "ephemer" abgeleitet wurde. Während das Präfix "epi" u.a. die Bedeutungen "darauf, während, bis zu" umfasst, bedeutet "hemära" nicht nur "Tag", sondern auch "Zeit" und "Leben". Das Ephemere spricht existenziell die Daseinsweise des Menschen an. Ephemeroi, Menschen, sind "Eintagswesen", "eines Schattens Traum". Ohne das Ephemere als Kennzeichen der Moderne und Postmoderne zu vernachlässigen, unter Berücksichtigung der Wechselwirkungen mit Medienumbrüchen und Künsten stehen Fragen nach der (...) Zeitlichkeit als Bedingung der Möglichkeit allen Existierens, aber auch nach den Weisen der Zeitigung von Zeit, die die konkrete Lebenszeit prägen, im Zentrum. Mit Beiträgen von: Gabriele Brandstetter, Danica Darkic, Martina Dobbe, Martin Dornberg, Hinderk M. Emmrich, Daniel Fetzner, Angela Melitopoulos, Petra Maria Meyer, Jürgen Partenheimer, Claus-Arthur Scheier, Michael Schirner, Annette Stahmer, Georg Christoph Tholen, Michael Wetzel, Martin Zenck. (shrink)

O inconsciente foi a maior contribuição freudiana e passou por reformulações. Da primeira até a segunda tópica, Freud teorizou a respeito de um Eu inconsciente e nada soberano. Nos interessa nesse artigo mostrar como Freud estabelece uma crítica às teorias consciencialistas e qual o caminho percorrido para encontrar um outro caráter para o Eu. Para tanto, mobilizaremos sua teoria do desejo, sendo esta a principal responsável pelo funcionamento do psiquismo. Suporemos que o inconsciente freudiano introduz para a humanidade um modo (...) de lidar com as faltas que, além de não extirpáveis, nos descentram a todo momento. (shrink)

Two particular approaches to the imagination as a recreative capacity have recently gained prominence: neo-Humeanism and simulationatism. According to neoHumeanism, imaginings have cognitions as a constitutive part of their representational contents; while simulationalists maintain that, in imagining, we essentially simulate the occurrence of certain cognitive states. Two other kinds of constitutive dependence, that figure regularly in the debate, concern the necessity of cognitions for, respectively, the causation and the semantic power of imaginings. In what follows, I discuss each of these (...) kinds of dependence and assess how useful they are for spelling out the conception of imaginings as recreations of cognitions. A particular focus will thereby be on the details of Hume’s original conception of imaginings as causal reproductions (or “copies”) of cognitions, as well as on the influence of his view on contemporary approaches to the topic which replace Hume’s causal understanding of the representational link between imaginings and cognitions with either an intentional or a relational understanding. My conclusion will be that, if imaginings should be taken to be recreations at all, then they should be taken to be representational recreations. That is, neo-Humeanism turns out to be the most plausible way of understanding imaginings as recreations of cognitions. (shrink)

In this study, the affective explicit and implicit attitudes toward electric and gasoline cars are investigated. One hundred sixty-five participants completed an explicit and implicit affective rating task toward pictures of electric and gasoline cars, measurements of sustainability, future and past behaviors, and mindfulness. The results showed a positive emotional attitude for the electric cars compared with the gasoline cars only for the explicit rating but not for the implicit one. Furthermore, factors that correlated to the attitudes were investigated: explicit (...) ratings in car owners correlated with age, degree, sustainability in general, and the expressed intention to purchase an electric car in the future. Implicit attitudes in car owners correlated with the overall score of mindfulness and the dimension of “non-reactivity.” For the non-car owners, explicit attitudes correlated with the expressed intention to purchase an electric car in the future and the mindfulness dimension of “describing”. In this group, the implicit attitude correlated negatively with the mindfulness intention of acting with awareness. This indicates that several different factors should be considered in the development of promotion campaigns for the advantage of sustainable mobility behavior. (shrink)

This paper is a contribution to the development of model theory of fuzzy logic in narrow sense. We consider a formal system EvŁ of fuzzy logic that has evaluated syntax, i. e. axioms need not be fully convincing and so, they form a fuzzy set only. Consequently, formulas are provable in some general degree. A generalization of Gödel's completeness theorem does hold in EvŁ. The truth values form an MV-algebra that is either finite or Łukasiewicz algebra on [0, 1].The classical (...) omitting types theorem states that given a formal theory T and a set Σ of formulas with the same free variables, we can construct a model of T which omits Σ, i. e. there is always a formula from Σ not true in it. In this paper, we generalize this theorem for EvŁ, that is, we prove that if T is a fuzzy theory and Σ forms a fuzzy set , then a model omitting Σ also exists. We will prove this theorem for two essential cases of EvŁ: either EvŁ has logical constants for all truth values, or it has these constants for truth values from [0, 1] ∩ ℚ only. (shrink)

Doxasticism about our awareness of normative (i.e. justifying) reasons – the view that we can recognise reasons for forming attitudes or performing actions only by means of normative judgements or beliefs – is incompatible with the following triad of claims: -/- (1) Being motivated (i.e. forming attitudes or performing actions for a motive) requires responding to and, hence, recognising a relevant reason. -/- (2) Infants are capable of being motivated. -/- (3) Infants are incapable of normative judgement or belief. -/- (...) It should be clear that (3) is true, given that infants lack the required reflective and conceptual capacities. So doxasticists have to reject either (1) or (2) (or both). But this forced choice may be understood as a dilemma for doxasticism. On the hand, doxasticists may adopt a Kantian approach and reject (2), precisely because they think that motivation presupposes the doxastic recognition of reasons, and because infants lack the capacity to doxastically recognise reasons. But this choice seems to wrongly reduce the responses of infants to mere reflexes or instinctive reactions. On the other hand, doxasticists may choose a Humean route and deny (1) by espousing a purely causal or teleological account of motivation. But this would mean detrimentally ignoring the normative nature of (some instances of) motivation. -/- One elegant way of avoiding this dilemma is to give up doxasticism and instead endorse experientialism – the view that we enjoy some experiential access to reasons, which is independent of, and perhaps more fundamental than, our capacity to form normative judgements and beliefs. In this talk, I would like to provide an argument for the existence of such a non-doxastic form of access to reasons. More specifically, I aim to defend the claim that our basic awareness of reasons is phenomenal in nature. What this means is that it forms part of our access from the inside to those of our mental episodes that provide us with access to reasons. In other words, when we introspectively attend to reason-giving mental episodes and what they are about, we have the impression of the presence of a reason for us. My defence of this experientialist alternative to doxasticism will primarily focus on perceptual reasons for first-order beliefs about the external world. (shrink)

One central fact about hallucinations is that they may be subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions. Indeed, it has been argued that the hallucinatory experiences concerned cannot— and need not—be characterized in any more positive general terms. This epistemic conception of hallucinations has been advocated as the best choice for proponents of experiential (or “naive realist”) disjunctivism—the view that perceptions and hallucinations differ essentially in their introspectible subjective characters. In this chapter, I aim to formulate and defend an intentional alternative to experiential (...) disjunctivism called experiential intentionalism. This view not only enjoys some advantages over its rival but is also compatible with the epistemic conception of hallucinations, as well as with the disjunctivist view that perceptions and hallucinations differ essentially in their third-personal structures (e.g., their causal, informational, or reason-providing links to reality). It also maintains that there are actually two aspects to the subjective indistinguishability of mental episodes: (i) we cannot distinguish their first-personal characters in introspective awareness; and (ii) we cannot distinguish their third-personal structures in experiential awareness—that is, in how they are given to consciousness. While experiential disjunctivism makes the mistake of ignoring (ii) and reducing subjective indiscriminability to (i), experiential intentionalism correctly identifies (ii) as the primary source of the subjective indistinguishability of perception-like hallucinations. Accordingly, the intentional error involved in such hallucinations is due to the fact that we consciously experience them as possessing a relational structure. (shrink)

This paper advances a framework for modeling the component interactions between cognitive and social aspects of scientific creativity and technological innovation. Specifically, it aims to characterize Innovation Networks; those networks that involve the interplay of people, ideas and organizations to create new, technologically feasible, commercially-realizable products, processes and organizational structures. The tri-partite framework captures networks of ideas (Concept Level), people (Individual Level) and social structures (Social-Organizational Level) and the interactions between these levels. At the concept level, new ideas are the (...) nodes that are created and linked, kept open for further investigation or closed if solved by actors at the individual or organizational levels. At the individual level, the nodes are actors linked by shared worldviews (based on shared professional, educational, experiential backgrounds) who are the builders of the concept level. At the social-organizational level, the nodes are organizations linked by common efforts on a given project (e.g., a company–university collaboration) that by virtue of their intellectual property or rules of governance constrain the actions of individuals (at the Individual Level) or ideas (at the Concept Level). After describing this framework and its implications we paint a number of scenarios to flesh out how it can be applied. (shrink)

Many policies and ethical guidelines recommend developing “trustworthy AI”. We argue that developing morally trustworthy AI is not only unethical, as it promotes trust in an entity that cannot be trustworthy, but it is also unnecessary for optimal calibration. Instead, we show that reliability, exclusive of moral trust, entails the appropriate normative constraints that enable optimal calibration and mitigate the vulnerability that arises in high-stakes hybrid decision-making environments, without also demanding, as moral trust would, the anthropomorphization of AI and thus (...) epistemically dubious behavior. The normative demands of reliability for inter-agential action are argued to be met by an analogue to procedural metacognitive competence (i.e., the ability to evaluate the quality of one’s own informational states to regulate subsequent action). Drawing on recent empirical findings that suggest providing reliability scores (e.g., F1-scores) to human decision-makers improves calibration in the AI system, we argue that reliability scores provide a good index of competence and enable humans to determine how much they wish to rely on the system. (shrink)

Corporate social reporting, while not mandatory in most countries, has been adopted by many large companies around the world and there are now a variety of competing global standards for non-financial reporting, such as the Global Reporting Initiative and the UN Global Compact. However, while some companies (e. g., Henkel, BHP, Johnson and Johnson) have a long standing tradition in reporting non-financial information, other companies provide only limited information, or in some cases, no information at all. Previous studies have suggested (...) that there are, country and industry-specific, differences in the extent of CSR reports (e. g., Kolk et al.: 2001, Business Strategy and the Environment 10, 15-28; Kolk: 2005, Management International Review 45, 145-166; Maignan and Ralston: 2002, Journal of International Business Studies 33(3), 497-514). However, findings are inconclusive or contradictory and it is often difficult to compare previous studies owing to the idiosyncratic methods used in each study (Graafland et al.: 2004, Journal of Business Ethics 53, 137-152). Furthermore, previous studies have relied mainly on simple measures, such as word counts and page counts of reports, to compare the extent of reporting that may not capture significant differences in the content of the reports. In this article, we seek to overcome some of these deficiencies by using textual analysis software and a more robust statistical method to more objectively and reliably compare the CSR reports of firms in different industries and countries. We examine a sample of leading companies in four countries (US, UK, Australia, and Germany) and test whether or not membership of the Global Compact makes a difference to CSR reporting and is overcoming industry and country specific factors that limit standardization. We conclude that GlobalCompact membership is having an effect only in certain areas of CSR reporting, related to the environment and workers, and that businesses from different countries vary significantly in the extent to which they promote CSR and the CSR issues that they choose to emphasize in their reports. These country differences are argued to be related to the different institutional arrangements in each country. (shrink)

One routinely undergoes a noetic feeling (also called “metacognitive feeling” or “epistemic feeling”), the so-called “feeling of knowing”, whenever trying to recall a person’s name. One feels the name is known despite being unable to recall it. Other experiences also fall under this category, e.g., the tip-of-the-tongue experience, the feeling of confidence. A distinguishing characteristic of noetic feelings is how they are crucially related to the facts we know, so much so that the activation of semantic memory can easily result (...) in the production of noetic feelings – a regularity that memory research has often exploited. And yet little is known about the mechanism that produces noetic feelings. Is it solely brain-based or does it depend upon the extracerebral body for its production of feelings? To arrive at an answer, various studies in metamemory research will be analyzed to determine what ought to be made of the mechanism responsible for noetic feelings. I argue that evidence suggests that it relies upon extracerebral processes, in particular cardiovascular processes, the result being support for an embodied view of metacognition. (shrink)

Los derechos de conquista, descubrimiento y ocupación, y la libertad de los mares: una genealogía de la injusticia sobre los recursos naturales Este artículo analiza los orígenes coloniales de tres principios del derecho internacional: el derecho de conquista, el derecho de descubrimiento y ocupación, y la libertad de los mares. Argumento que cada uno de estos derechos se estableció como principio jurídico internacional para facilitar la colonización de pueblos lejanos, sus territorios y tierras, y con el fin de acumular sus (...) recursos naturales. El artículo analiza cómo se justificaron estos derechos, qué conjunto de facultades e inmunidades exclusivas conferían, y cómo están vinculados a tres regímenes jurídicos modernos distintos de derechos sobre el espacio natural y sus recursos: la soberanía territorial, los derechos de propiedad privada sobre tierras extranjeras y los bienes marítimos comunes mundiales. En tanto expongo los orígenes moralmente arbitrarios de cada uno de estos principios de derecho internacional, que reflejan las condiciones y los objetivos específicos de determinados proyectos coloniales, también sostengo que los regímenes de derechos sobre los recursos naturales que estos institucionalizaron son convergentes en el sentido de que permitieron una apropiación y una explotación distintivamente injustas de los recursos naturales. El artículo también señala las formas en que la lógica y el funcionamiento de estos regímenes siguen dando forma al uso injusto de los recursos naturales hasta el día de hoy. (shrink)

This is the original, longer draft for my entry on Hume in the 'The Routledge Hand- book of Philosophy of Imagination', edited by Amy Kind and published by Routledge in 2016 (see the separate entry). — Please always cite the Routledge version, unless there are passages concerned that did not make it into the Handbook for reasons of length. — -/- This chapter overviews Hume’s thoughts on the nature and the role of imagining, with an almost exclusive focus on the (...) first book of his Treatise of Human Nature. Over the course of this text, Hume draws and discusses three important distinctions among our conscious mental episodes (or what he calls ‘perceptions’): (i) between impressions (including perceptual experiences) and ideas (including recollections, imaginings and occurrent beliefs); (ii) between ideas of the memory and ideas of the imagination; and (iii), among the ideas of the imagination, between ideas of the judgement (i.e. occurrent beliefs) and ideas of the fancy (i.e. imaginings). I discuss each distinction in turn, also in connection to contemporary views on imagining. In addition, I briefly consider Hume’s views on the imagination as a faculty aimed at the production of ideas, as well as on the role that imagining plays in the wider context of our mental lives, notably in the acquisition of modal knowledge and in the comprehension of, and resistance to, stories and opinions that we take to be false or fictional. (shrink)

The aim of this project to expose the reasons behind the pandemic of misinformation (henceforth, PofM) by examining the enabling conditions of epistemic agency and the emerging technologies that threaten it. I plan to research the emotional origin of epistemic agency, i.e. on the origin of our capacity to acquire justification for belief, as well as on the significance this emotional origin has for our lives as epistemic agents in our so-called Misinformation Age. This project has three objectives. First, I (...) plan to expose the degree to which epistemic agency is made possible by an under-researched species of emotion called epistemic feelings. Perhaps, the most epistemically significant is the feeling of confidence. In particular, epistemic feelings make epistemic agency possible by making errors in reasoning salient or the potential lack thereof. -/- Second, in order to diagnose the reasons for PofM, I will analyze the emotional basis of epistemic agency in the context of emerging technologies. Epistemic feelings ought to be construed as motivators of epistemic acts, specifically acts following exposure to misinformation spread by social media. For example, a recent study found that subjects on YouTube have a 6.3% probability in five clicks to go from watching innocuous videos to misogynistic videos. Accordingly, one prominent view holds that social media algorithms lead subjects down the proverbial rabbit hole, producing content that elicits strong emotional reactions. -/- But under-researched is the degree to which these emotions are intertwined with epistemic feelings, so that subjects are likely to misjudge the information as correct due to being primed to do so by processing the AI's suggested media. Thus, when this technology is used in epistemic practices, the result is invariably epistemically bad behavior because of how this manner of producing content motivates epistemic acts through the production of erroneous feelings of confidence, which result from the perceived ease of cognitive processing: the content is easy to process and so, the subject confidently misjudges, it is true. As of yet, an account of this cognitive and emotional decision-making process has not been used to analyze how emerging technologies are threatening epistemic agency, and thus our wellbeing as knowers. -/- Finally, I plan to develop therapeutics for PofM by outlining how to reform our collective epistemic practices. Thus, this project complements existing research in virtue epistemology, specifically by articulating the challenges to cultivating epistemic virtues and warding off the vices of the mind. In summation, the project aims to account for how emerging technologies are committing a form of epistemic injustice through the exploitation of cognitive biases and the production of erroneous epistemic feelings, with the overarching goal being a framework for convalescing from the pandemic of misinformation plaguing our age. (shrink)

'... diese 'Einführung in die Metaphysik' [ist] echte Einführung in Heidegger... keines der Werke Heideggers [ist] so lebendig zu lesen und so unmittelbar aufzufassen...' Universitas 4 (1954) 'Unter dem Titel dieser Vorlesung aus dem Jahre 1935 verbirgt sich in Wirklichkeit eine große Auseinandersetzung mit den Grundlagen unserer planetarischen Situation.' Süddeutsche Zeitung vom 7./8.11.1953.

Upon first hearing sinewaves, all that can be discerned are beeps and whistles. But after hearing the original speech, the beeps and whistles sound like speech. The difference between these two episodes undoubtedly involves an alteration in phenomenal character. O’Callaghan (2011) argues that this alteration is non-sensory, but he leaves open the possibility of attributing it to some other source, e.g. cognition. I discuss whether the alteration in phenomenal character involved in sinewave speech provides evidence for cognitive phenomenology. I defend (...) both the existence of cognitive phenomenology and the phenomenal contrast method, as each concerns the case presented here. (shrink)

Empirical findings may be relevant for aesthetic evaluation in at least two ways. First — within criticism — they may help us to identify the aesthetic value of objects. Second— whithin philosophy — they may help us to decide which theory of aesthetic value and evaluation to prefer. In this paper, I address both kinds of relevance. My focus is thereby on empirical evidence gathered, not by means of first-personal experiences, but by means of third-personal scientific investigations of individual artworks (...) or, more generally, our interaction with art. The main thesis to be defended is that third-personal empirical findings are of limited significance for both critical and philosophical aesthetics. Indeed, they matter only to the extent to which they draw our attention to features or facts that we then iden- tify, from our first-personal perspective, as aesthetically relevant — for instance, as reasons counting for or against certain ascriptions of aesthetic value, or as factors that causally influence our actual as- sessments and thus render them partly inadequate or irrational. This limited significance of empirical findings is in line with the rationalist approach to the formation and justification of aesthetic judgements, that I have already started to defend elsewhere. -/- With respect to critical aesthetics, one problem is that empirical investigations cannot capture the normativity of the aesthetic relevance of lower-level features or facts: the respective studies can tell us what we take to be reason-giving or valuable, but not what is reason-giving or valuable. Furthermore, we cannot use empirically knowable principles to infer the presence of aesthetic values or reasons on the basis of recognising measurable lower-level features because the only available principles are too specific to allow for their actual application to more than one existing object, or even for their actual formulation. For their antecedents make reference to a large number of very determinate properties, as well as sometimes to particular events of creation. The only exception are conceptual principles (such as ‘something symmetrical is balanced’) or default principles (such as ‘something elegant is, by default, beautiful’). But knowledge of these principles is of little inferential use due to the holistic character of the justificatory power of aesthetic reasons and, moreover, does not allow for empirical acquisition. -/- With respect to philosophical aesthetics, I start with considering the limits of evolutionary accounts of aesthetic value. Even if it is true that humans originally came to value artworks because they recognised that artworks reveal certain skills or features of artists (such as imaginativeness or resourcefulness) that are desirable in sexual partners, it does not value that our reasons for valuing art have not changed, or at least not become much more complex. In addition, the answer to the question of why we value art from an evolutionary perspective has no obvious bearing on the issue of how we should appreciate art from an aesthetic perspective, or what such aesthetic appreciation would consist in. On the other hand, experimental studies showing that our actual aesthetic evaluations are influenced by factors (such as exposure e ects, or knowledge of the prices of objects), that undermine the good standing of our responses, just reveal that it is more difficult than perhaps expected to form sound aesthetic judgements; and that we need to improve our future aesthetic judgements by diminishing as much as possible the impact of those factors. (shrink)

Regarding the question of “theory”, the paper takes the perspective of creation, i. e. of producing texts that exhibit theoretical qualities and that in this sense both do justice to a – certainly complex – “function” of philosophical theory and also “work” as theory (namely in a sustainable way, and perhaps also beyond the current scientific orthodoxies) and can thus be received in the long line of the philosophically relevant reading canon. On the one hand, it is proposed to take (...) the project character of philosophical theory seriously. On the other hand, the conditions for the success of philosophical (theoretical) prose have to be looked at carefully. In addition to scholarship and a critical concern with and deep knowledge of discourse, literary qualities are also relevant. There is interplay between time-bound – i. e. historically changing – requirements and a paradoxically persistent style of philosophizing that proceeds despite the plurality of canonical references. “Philosophy”, of course, is not something timeless; it remains something provincial on an intercultural scale and, in principle, something that can be lost. (shrink)

The aim of the present work is to make a plausible case for the phylogenetic origin of self-knowledge, one which is compatible with a prevalent view about its ontogenetic origin, the social-scaffolding view. Essentially, the phylogenetic origin is generally argued to be evaluative metacognition, i.e. a system of cognitive control mechanisms, while the ontogenetic origin is generally argued to be mindreading, i.e. cognitive capacities supporting mental state attribution. So put simply, the present work aims to provide a plausible solution to (...) the problem of how to establish metacognition as a significant precursor to mindreading. Previous attempts to establish metacognition as an evolutionary precursor to mindreading have struggled to account for the exact relevance that metacognition has for the origin of self-knowledge. This present work analyses this struggle as first having to solve ‘the problem of triviality’, explain how metacognitive mechanisms are more sophisticated than mechanisms enabling basic cognitive feats. Once this problem is solved, however, the problem develops into having to show that the added layers of sophistication warrant construing metacognition as a significant precursor to self-knowledge. This latter problem is analysed as the ultimate problem, referred to here as simply ‘the problem of the origin of self-knowledge’. Thus, the present work seeks to offer a plausible solution to both of these problems. The solution to these problems is argued to be embodied metacognition, cognitive control mechanisms that enable conscious self-control of information-seeking behavior through the production of strongly embodied feedback signals. These feedback signals, often called ‘noetic feelings’, are theorized to motivate, demotivate, and guide cognitive acts to be more accurate. Here it is argued that these signals are strongly embodied, characterizing conscious emotional states constituted by psychological imperatives, states with external manifestations in the form of bodily expressions that can be detected, monitored, and regulated by individuals in the subject’s socio-cultural environment. To argue for this, I augment evaluative metacognition in light of evidence from recent interoception-based research in metacognition which reveals the degree to which noetic feelings are strongly embodied. They are thus argued to be cerebrally generated feedback signals produced by cognitive comparators that become intricately intertwined with bodily processes. Recent evidence suggests these signals come to fulfill their role in cognition through the conscious perception (the interoception) of internal bodily changes, specifically cardiovascular changes, and hence the subtitle of the present work, “How We Feel Our Hearts to Know Our Minds”. Reconceptualizing evaluative metacognition as embodied metacognition provides us with the tools for solving the two problems above. Concerning the first, mechanisms enabling conscious self-control of cognition are clearly more sophisticated than mechanisms that enable basic feats of cognition, such as reinforcement learning. Moreover, appealing to strongly embodied noetic feelings offers the possibility of solving the first problem in such a manner that the second problem is also solved. As conscious expressions of emotions, noetic feelings demand robust information-seeking behaviours and manifest feelings of confidence and uncertainty externally, thus they are well-suited to link metacognition to the social-scaffolding view about the origin of self-knowledge. (shrink)

Quatrième de couverture : "Woher kommen wir Menschen, was sind unsere biologischen Wurzeln? Und wohin gehen wir? Nehmen wir unsere Biologie jetzt selber in die Hand - wenn wir zum Beispiel mit Gen-Scheren tief ins Erbgut eingreifen? Was können und wollen wir erreichen? Was machen wir mit der Natur? Woher nehmen wir die Maßstäbe für unser Handeln und Unterlassen? Wie können wir alle gut auf unserem Planeten Erde leben? In diesem Buch geben führende Forscherinnen und Forscher überraschende Antworten und stellen (...) wichtige Fragen neu. Zu den Autoren gehören unter anderem Hans Jonas, Giovanni Maio, Jens Reich und E. O. Wilson". (shrink)

This essay attempts to characterize the “strict” methodology of Michel Serres, a structuralist philosopher of knowledge, science and culture. On the one hand his works seem to be playful, even literary. On the other hand – and above all, so the author’s thesis – in its consequence they are quite uncompromising: Serres follows a structuralist, if not mathematical, paradigm. Methodically important leitmotifs of Serres’ thinking – for the epistemic context, these are, e. g. the detour, the wandering, the journey, the (...) creation of connections – appear as micrological scenes or narrations. They offer small phenomenologies and at the same time explore and expose structures: the interplay between disorder and order. In recent years, Serres has become known for his writings on Internet and digitization. But there is also something like Serres’ legal, social, and ecological philosophy – which is well worth looking into. (shrink)

O inconsciente, a grande descoberta freudiana, foi o responsável por toda a composição da teoria psicanalítica. Como toda teoria, passou por adaptações de acordo com as descobertas de Freud, que se via na necessidade de reestabelecer as regras e os meios de funcionamento do aparelho psíquico. Através das antinomias pulsionais, das topologias relativas ao inconsciente e, em particular, da melancolia como pivô entre tópicas, mostraremos como Freud possibilita pensar não só as consequências da perda objetal, mas como esta influencia na (...) composição do Eu. Elegendo-a como fundamental à instauração da segunda tópica, advogaremos que é a partir da melancolia que Freud nos permite compreender o Eu como descentrado e despossuído por uma “cena outra” que o coloca numa situação perpetuamente deficitária. Do advento da segunda tópica, defenderemos que Freud foi capaz de desvelar um Eu que é, também, inconsciente. (shrink)

The first premise of Schellenberg’s particularity argument reads, “If a subject S perceives a particular α, then S discriminates and singles out α” (2018: 25). But this is false if seeing a ganzfeld is possible (i.e., a homogeneous field without any particulars to discriminate). In response, Schellenberg argues that seeing a ganzfeld is impossible by appealing to the ganzfeld effect (viz. hallucinatory experiences caused by ganzfeld exposure) exclusively as a ‘sense of blindness’. I present two challenges for this line of (...) reasoning. The first concerns the need to account for the long delay before blindness is reported (if it is reported at all) and the second concerns the need to be consistent with potential causes of ganzfeld hallucinations (in general, not exclusive to the sense of blindness). I show how Schellenberg’s particularity argument can meet the first challenge but struggles to meet the second. I present evidence based on considerations related to sensory deprivation and that follow from the predictive processing theory of cognition, which describes seeing a ganzfeld as the cause of ganzfeld hallucinations. If correct, this means that you can see a homogeneous field, and thus we ought to be skeptical of the soundness of Schellenberg’s particularity argument. I conclude with a possible strategy for rehabilitating the particularity argument that reconceptualizes perceptual experience as fundamentally multimodal, constituted by both exteroceptive and interoceptive sensation. (shrink)

O presente artigo é uma experiência pedagógica com a Ginástica, especificamente a Ginástica Circense e Acrobática para alunos do ensino médio a partir de uma metodologia superadora. Através do método da práxis social foi possível identificar o conhecimento inicial dos alunos, problematizar elementos emergentes durante as aulas, confrontar o conhecimento científico com o senso comum, permitir a criatividade do aluno para novas possibilidades e superar a realidade a qual os alunos se encontravam. As aulas aqui expostas proporcionaram ao aluno superar (...) a sua realidade a partir da apropriação e objetivação dos conhecimentos propostos. (shrink)

During the COVID-19 epidemic, personal safety has received increasing attention, leading to behavioral changes. Mobile-wallet makes it easier for people to keep social distance, which helps stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Evolving Internet technology has brought about changes in consumer lifestyle. The current situation of COVID-19 has created a business environment to shift from traditional ways and adopt e-commerce solutions worldwide. Grounded in technology acceptance model theory, this study’s objective is two-fold: First, this study intends to examine perceived (...) susceptibility to COVID-19, perceived severity of COVID-19, insecurity and discomfort as the predictors of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Second, the current research intends to test the moderating effect of electronic words-of-mouth on the relationship between attitude and usage intention. Using survey methods, 226 usable responses were collected through a mall intercept survey in Pakistan. Data were analyzed using partial least square. The results revealed that PEOU and PU positively influence attitude toward M-wallet. This study has found that attitude positively influences the usage intention in adopting M-wallet. The results also support the moderating role of eWOM. These findings contribute to the marketing literature in several ways, particularly in Pakistan. This is the first study to use eWOM as a moderating variable in the TAM theory. In addition, this study adds to the current body of knowledge by considering eWOM as a multi-dimensional construct novel in m-wallet literature. (shrink)

E-commerce has led to a significant increase in internet purchases. The marketing sector is very competitive these days, and marketers have a difficult task: understanding the behavior of their customers. Strategic marketing planning relies heavily on consumer behavior since the consumer acts as the user, buyer, and payer in that process. Consumers’ behavior changes in response to shifts in the factors that influence it. The purpose of this research is to show how Internet usage influence on consumer impulsive buying behavior (...) of agriculture products through moderating role personality traits and emotional intelligence in China organic market. The data gathered in three months from January to March 2022, due to COVID-19 pandemic data was gathered through an online survey questionnaire sent by Chinese social media platforms including WeChat and an email address. The PLS-SEM technique and the SmartPLS software version 3.2.8 were used for data analyses. The result revealed that internet usage positively and significantly influences consumer impulsive buying behavior. Also, both moderator personality trait and emotional intelligence positively and significantly moderate the relationship between internet usage and consumer impulsive buying behavior. Lastly, theoretical and practical implications, and future directions were discussed. (shrink)

Citizen science is growing quickly, given its potential to enhance knowledge coproduction by diverse participants, generating large and global data sets. However, uneven participation in CS is still an important concern. This work aims to understand participation dynamics in CS and how they are shaped by participation barriers and drivers. We do so by examining participation in CONECT-e, a CS project that uses a wiki-like platform to document traditional ecological knowledge. More precisely, we analyze quantitative data on participants’ profile and (...) activity patterns and qualitative data on barriers and drivers of participation. Our findings suggest that overcoming the education, age, and residence participation barriers is challenging even in cocreated CS projects. This is potentially due to issues of perceived self-illegitimacy and low access to information and communication technologies. Our results also point out that participants’ alliance with the project’s objectives and trust relationships with the project team are important drivers of participation in CS projects. Finally, we also highlight the need to think beyond participation as single actions and rather consider participation diversity in CS as functional diversity in ecosystems, with participants performing a diverse set of interconnected tasks or functions. (shrink)

On the basis of Descartes’s account of the passions of the soul, we argue that current interoception-based theories of emotions cannot account for the hallmark of a passion of the soul, i.e., that its effects are felt as being in the soul itself. We also pay attention to the epistemic functions of the passions and to Descartes’s category of emotions that are caused and occur in the soul alone. Certain passions of the soul and certain internal emotions are similar to (...) what are today called ‘epistemic feelings’ and ‘epistemic emotions.’ Descartes’s work reflects another challenge for contemporary embodied cognition: how might epistemic affect be embodied? Since the signature of embodiment is increasingly understood as interoceptive, the challenge to interoceptive research is demonstrating the degree to which affect results from interoception. This challenge also implies that the locus of emotional experience is taken into account. (shrink)

This paper describes an exploratory comparative study of knowledge workers and their challenges in high tech global project teams. More specifically we focus on the tension between perceived collocation and actual geographical distributed project work as a function of: (1) the demand to distribute and shift attention in multi-teaming, (2) virtuality i.e. number of virtual teams participants engage in, (3) the continuous adjustment and re-adjustment to new places they perform their activity, and (4) the collaboration technologies they use. We present (...) the methodology for data collection that included semi-structured interviews, surveys, and on site shadowing of the project participants, and discuss the findings from the data analysis. The study is based on the bricks-bits-interaction framework. It is at the intersection of the design of physical spaces, i.e., bricks; rich digital information and collaboration technology (ICT) content, mobile devices and network infrastructures, i.e., bits, and emergent work practices, process, and new ways people behave in communicative events using the affordances of ICT augmented physical, virtual spaces and digital content, i.e., interaction. (shrink)

The current situation around COVID-19 portrays a threat to us in several ways: It imposes uncertainty, a lack of control and reminds us of our own mortality. People around the world have reacted to these threats in seemingly unrelated ways: From stockpiling yeast and toilet paper to favoring nationalist ideas or endorsing conspiratorial beliefs. According to the General Process Model of Threat and Defense the confrontation with a threat - a discrepant experience - makes humans react with both proximal and (...) distal threat responses. While the proximal response manifests in behavioral inhibition that leads to heightened anxious arousal and vigilance, distal responses seek to lower behavioral inhibition and the associated state of anxiety and vigilance through engaging in distal defenses. In the present research, we propose that the reactions to COVID-19 may represent distal defense strategies to the pandemic (in the form of environmental or group related worldview defenses) and therefore can be explained and forecasted by the model. Thus we hypothesized increased perceived COVID-19 threat perception to lead to a proximal threat response in the form of heightened behavioral inhibition. This, in return, should enhance the use of distal defenses (i.e.: several ingroup biases, system justification and conspiratorial beliefs) overlapping with the reactions observed as a response to COVID-19. This hypothesized mediated effect of increased perceived COVID-19 threat on distal defenses was tested in two pre-registered studies: In Study 1 (N = 358) results showed perceived COVID-19 threat to be related to behavioral inhibition and in turn to be associated with increased distal defenses (i.e., higher entitativity, control restoration motivation, passive party support). In Study 2 (N = 348) we manipulated COVID-19 threat salience and found results suggesting the distal defenses of system justification and conspiratorial beliefs to be mediated by the proximal threat response. The results of the present research hint towards a common mechanism through which the seemingly unrelated reactions to COVID-19 can be explained. The results might help to predict future behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic and design measures to counteract detrimental effects of the pandemic. (shrink)

Preventive behavior adoption is the key to reduce the possibility of getting COVID-19 infection. This paper aims to examine the determinants of intention to adopt preventive behavior by incorporating perception of e-government information and services and perception of social media into the theory of reasoned action. A cross-sectional online survey was carried out among Malaysian residents. Four hundred four valid responses were obtained and used for data analysis. A partial least-square-based path analysis revealed direct effects of attitude and subjective norm (...) in predicting intention to adopt preventive behavior. In addition, perception of e-government information and services and perception of social media were found to be significant predictors of attitude toward preventive behavior. The findings highlight the importance of digital platforms in improving people’s attitudes toward preventive behavior and in turn contain the spread of the infectious disease. (shrink)

Linguistic category learning has been shown to be highly sensitive to linear order, and depending on the task, differentially sensitive to the information provided by preceding category markers (premarkers, e.g., gendered articles) or succeeding category markers (postmarkers, e.g., gendered suffixes). Given that numerous systems for marking grammatical categories exist in natural languages, it follows that a better understanding of these findings can shed light on the factors underlying this diversity. In two discriminative learning simulations and an artificial language learning experiment, (...) we identify two factors that modulate linear order effects in linguistic category learning: category structure and the level of abstraction in a category hierarchy. Regarding category structure, we find that postmarking brings an advantage for learning category diagnostic stimulus dimensions, an effect not present when categories are non‐confusable. Regarding levels of abstraction, we find that premarking of super‐ordinate categories (e.g., noun class) facilitates learning of subordinate categories (e.g., nouns). We present detailed simulations using a plausible candidate mechanism for the observed effects, along with a comprehensive analysis of linear order effects within an expectation‐based account of learning. Our findings indicate that linguistic category learning is differentially guided by pre‐ and postmarking, and that the influence of each is modulated by the specific characteristics of a given category system. (shrink)

Linguistic category learning has been shown to be highly sensitive to linear order, and depending on the task, differentially sensitive to the information provided by preceding category markers (premarkers, e.g., gendered articles) or succeeding category markers (postmarkers, e.g., gendered suffixes). Given that numerous systems for marking grammatical categories exist in natural languages, it follows that a better understanding of these findings can shed light on the factors underlying this diversity. In two discriminative learning simulations and an artificial language learning experiment, (...) we identify two factors that modulate linear order effects in linguistic category learning: category structure and the level of abstraction in a category hierarchy. Regarding category structure, we find that postmarking brings an advantage for learning category diagnostic stimulus dimensions, an effect not present when categories are non‐confusable. Regarding levels of abstraction, we find that premarking of super‐ordinate categories (e.g., noun class) facilitates learning of subordinate categories (e.g., nouns). We present detailed simulations using a plausible candidate mechanism for the observed effects, along with a comprehensive analysis of linear order effects within an expectation‐based account of learning. Our findings indicate that linguistic category learning is differentially guided by pre‐ and postmarking, and that the influence of each is modulated by the specific characteristics of a given category system. (shrink)

Reduced forms such as the pronoun he provide little information about their intended meaning compared to more elaborate descriptions such as the lead singer of Coldplay. Listeners must therefore use contextual information to recover their meaning. Across languages, there appears to be a trade‐off between the informativity of a form and the prominence of its referent. For example, Italian adults generally interpret informationally empty null pronouns as in the sentence Corre (meaning “He/She/It runs”) as referring to the most prominent referent (...) in the discourse, and more informative overt pronouns (e.g., lui in Lui corre, “He runs”) as referring to less prominent referents. Although children acquiring Italian are known to experience difficulties interpreting pronouns, it is unclear how they acquire this division of pragmatic labor between null and overt subject pronouns, and how this relates to the development of their cognitive capacities. Here we show that cognitive development can account for the general interpretation patterns displayed by Italian‐speaking children and adults. Using experimental studies and computational simulations in a framework modeling bounded‐rational behavior, we argue that null pronoun interpretation is influenced by working memory capacity and thus appears to depend on discourse context, whereas overt pronoun interpretation is influenced by processing speed, suggesting that listeners must reason about the speaker's choices. Our results demonstrate that cognitive capacities may constrain the acquisition of linguistic forms and their meanings in various ways. The novel predictions generated by the computational simulations point out several directions for future research. (shrink)

Problem: Visions of technology, future scenarios, guiding visions represent imaginations of future states of affairs that play a functional role in processes of technological research, development and innovation—e.g. as a means to create attention, communication, coordination, or for the strategic exertion of influence. Since a couple of years there is a growing attention for such imaginations of futures in politics, the economy, research and the civil society. This trend concerns technology assessment as an observer of these processes and a consultant (...) on the implications of technology and innovation. TA faces increasing demands to assess imaginations of futures that circulate in the present and to participate in shaping these through scenarios or foresights. More than ever, this raises the question, which propositions can be made based on these imaginations by TA and how this can be used in advisory practices. Imaginations of futures are relevant for TA not as predictions but in their significance and effectiveness in the present, which need to be understood and assessed.Contents: This discussion paper outlines how present significance and effects of imagined futures in technological research and innovation processes can be conceived and analyzed. In this paper, all forms of imaginations of technology futures will be called “socio-technical futures” because within them technological developments and social changes are interwoven and inseparably interrelated. In this paper, we discuss why TA should analyze socio-technical futures, how such analyses can grasp the societal conditions that are expressed in the imagined futures and how these become effective in processes of technology development, communication, decision making etc. We raise the question which self-reflexive positioning or possible realignment of TA is needed as a response to its increased concern with assessing and even co-producing socio-technical futures. The latter is often demanded regarding the growing attention by politics and publics to imaginations of futures with wide temporal and spatial reach.Addressee of this paper is the TA community in a broader sense. The aim is to sensitize colleagues for the topic and its challenges, to consolidate discussions and to provide theoretical and methodical suggestions for research in TA and related advisory practices with respect to socio-technical futures. This paper has been originally initiated during the workshop “The present of technological futures-theoretical and methodical challenges for Technology Assessment”, in which all of the paper’s authors participated. The contents of this discussion paper are preliminary results that shall initiate and guide further discussions. (shrink)