Parafoveal preview benefit is an implicit measure of lexical activation in reading. PB has been demonstrated for orthographic and phonological but not for semantically related information in English. In contrast, semantic PB is obtained in German and Chinese. We propose that these language differences reveal differential resource demands and timing of phonological and semantic decoding in different orthographic systems.

The way in which vision represents objects as being the same despite movement and qualitative changes has been extensively investigated in contemporary psychology. However, the formal properties of the visual sameness relation are still unclear, for example, whether it is an identity-like, equivalence relation. The paper concerns one aspect of this problem: the transitivity of visual sameness. Results obtained by using different experimental paradigms are analysed, in particular studies using streaming/bouncing stimuli, multiple object tracking experiments and investigations concerning object-specific (...) class='Hi'>preview benefit, and it is argued that the transitive interpretation of visual sameness is the most plausible given the current stage of knowledge. What is more, it is claimed that the way in which visual sameness is represented suggests that in some cases it should be characterized as a “primitive sameness”, similarly as in philosophical theories postulating “thisness”. (shrink)

Object files (OFs) are hypothesized mid-level representations which mediate our conscious perception of persisting objects—e.g. telling us ‘which went where’. Despite the appeal of the OF framework, not previous research has directly explored whether OFs do indeed correspond to conscious percepts. Here we present at least one case wherein conscious percepts of ‘which went where’ in dynamic ambiguous displays diverge from the analogous correspondence computed by the OF system. Observers viewed a ‘bouncing/streaming’ display in which two identical objects moved such (...) that they could have either bounced off or streamed past each other. We measured two dependent variables: (1) an explicit report of perceived bouncing or streaming; and (2) an implicit ‘object-specific preview benefit’ (OSPB), wherein a ‘preview’ of information on a specific object speeds the recognition of that information at a later point when it appears again on the same object (compared to when it reappears on a different object), beyond display-wide priming. When the displays were manipulated such that observers had a strong bias to perceive streaming (on over 95% of the trials), there was nevertheless a strong OSPB in the opposite direction—such that the object files appeared to have ‘bounced’ even though the percept ‘streamed’. Given that OSPBs have been taken as a hallmark of the operation of object files, the five experiments reported here suggest that in at least some specialized (and perhaps ecologically invalid) cases, conscious percepts of ‘which went where’ in dynamic ambiguous displays can diverge from the mapping computed by the object-file system. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 2, February 2022.

Preview: /Review: Justo Serrano Zamora, Democratization and Struggles Against Injustice (London and New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2021), 232 pages./ “No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” In amongst a plethora of memorable metaphors and other impressive rhetorical devices, we find in Martin Luther King Jr’s most iconic speech (delivered at the March on Washington, August 28, 1963, on the steps of the (...) Lincoln Memorial – commonly known as the “I have a Dream” speech): this biblical expression of the fluid quality of the pursuit of justice. Quoting the Jewish prophet Amos, who was outraged by wealth disparities in the ancient Northern kingdom of Israel, King taps into a common imagery of the forward march of justice as a matter of a watery bursting forwards, aiming ultimately for a calmer, more settled state of affairs. This kind of imagery is widespread in popular culture. For example, people can be said to “flood” or “pour into” the streets at moments of mass mobilization; in response, the police often seek to “contain the flow” of crowds at protests; and a successful revolution is often thought of as a “turning of the tide.” This lexical field of water in motion evokes both a chaotic sense of the unexpected and the emergence of an underlying order seeking to overcome the existing political order. It also suggests that the justice-oriented masses are moved, at best, in a semi-conscious way by events that typically start outside of themselves – like a growing ripple caused by the proverbial pavé dans la mare. The strategic benefit of this kind of talk is that it presents the struggle for justice as natural and, in some sense, inevitable; while injustice is presented as merely artificial and temporary, for nature eventually reclaims its rights. To put it simply: φύσις meets νόμος, φύσις defeats νόμος. This way of speaking is both dramatically and rhetorically powerful. (shrink)

Preview: /Aaron J. Wendland interviewed by Przemysław Bursztyka/ “What Good Is Philosophy?” took place on 17-19 March 2023, and it aimed to raise the funds required to establish a Centre for Civic Engagement at Kyiv Mohyla Academy. This Centre will provide support for academic and civic institutions in Ukraine to counteract the destabilizing impact that Russia’s invasion has had on Ukrainian higher education and civilian life. Keynotes at the conference were delivered by world-renowned author, Margaret Atwood, one of the (...) most celebrated scholars of Ukrainian history, Timothy Snyder, and two of Ukraine’s preeminent public intellectuals, Mychailo Wynnyckyj and Volodymyr Yermolenko. Lectures were also given by some of the most influential philosophers writing today, including Peter Adamson, Elizabeth Anderson, Seyla Benhabib, Agnes Callard, Quassim Cassam, Tim Crane, Simon Critchley, David Enoch, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Sally Haslanger, Angie Hobbs, Barry Lam, Melissa Lane, Dominic Lopes, Kate Manne, Jeff McMahan, Jennifer Nagel, Philip Pettit, Kieran Setiya, Jason Stanley, Timothy Williamson, and Jonathan Wolff. The closing remarks were delivered by Ukraine’s Ambassador to Canada, Yulia Kovaliv. This benefit event was designed to provide members of the public, individual academics, colleges and universities, professional associations, charitable foundations, and private companies with a way to support students, scholars, and civic institutions in Ukraine. The entire conference is now available to be viewed online via on the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy’s YouTube channel. Here is the relevant link. I encourage everyone who watches the conference to make a donation to support students, scholars, and publicly engaged academics in Ukraine. All donations can be made here. And as the conference organizer, I am extremely grateful for any and every contribution to this cause. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I investigate a conception of thoughts figuring in ordinary discourse, and argue that this conception is an improvement over a certain standard conception employed in current philosophical and linguistic endeavors. ;In Chapter 2, I discuss the leading principles of the standard conception, a conception according to which thoughts in general are to be identified with propositions. I also briefly preview some of the main features that distinguish the conception developed in the course of this study from (...) the standard conception. ;Chapter 4 is the heart of the thesis. I isolate a reading of the verb 'think' that I contend is both familiar from and central to our ordinary discourse about thoughts and thinking--the "generic reading", I call it. An investigation of the relation expressed by the verb, 'think', on this generic reading, and of the correlative conception of thoughts, occupies the remainder of the study. ;If this ordinary conception of thoughts is to serve the principal functions to which thoughts have standardly been assigned, in philosophical and linguistic endeavors, then there should be a discernible sense in which it is correct to say that thoughts, so conceived, are things that sentences express. In Chapter 5, I discuss the relevant notion of sentential expression. Accounts of this notion have commonly faced a stumbling block in the case of non-declarative sentences. What sort of thoughts, for example, can imperatives or interrogatives be said to express? In Chapter 6, I explain how, on the present conception, there is a clear sense in which sentences of a variety of grammatical moods--imperatives and interrogatives as well as declaratives--may be said, with equal propriety, to express thoughts. ;In Chapter 7, I discuss a fundamental thesis of the standard conception, and argue, in Chapter 8, that any account of the nature of thoughts accommodating this thesis is incompatible with the conception of thoughts arrived at in Chapter 4. Then, in order to retain this familiar conception and its benefits, a new account of the nature of thoughts must be provided. Such an account is described in Chapter 9. (shrink)

Originally published as Scientific Research, this pair of volumes constitutes a fundamental treatise on the strategy of science. Mario Bunge, one of the major figures of the century in the development of a scientific epistemology, describes and analyzes scientific philosophy, as well as discloses its philosophical presuppositions. This work may be used as a map to identify the various stages in the road to scientific knowledge. Philosophy of Science is divided into two volumes, each with two parts. Part 1 offers (...) a preview of the scheme of science and the logical and semantical took that will be used throughout the work. The account of scientific research begins with part 2, where Bunge discusses formulating the problem to be solved, hypothesis, scientific law, and theory. The second volume opens with part 3, which deals with the application of theories to explanation, prediction, and action. This section is graced by an outstanding discussion of the philosophy of technology. Part 4 begins with measurement and experiment. It then examines risks in jumping to conclusions from data to hypotheses as well as the converse procedure. Bunge begins this mammoth work with a section entitled "How to Use This Book." He writes that it is intended for both independent reading and reference as well as for use in courses on scientific method and the philosophy of science. It suits a variety of purposes from introductory to advanced levels. Philosophy of Science is a versatile, informative, and useful text that will benefit professors, researchers, and students in a variety of disciplines, ranging from the behavioral and biological sciences to the physical sciences. (shrink)

With the development of network technology, many online educational resource platforms have emerged, and the number of resources on these platforms is increasing dramatically. Compared with the traditional resources, the interactive educational resources have hidden interactive information and dynamic content. Only when the users perform interactive operations correctly can they acquire the knowledge conveyed by the resources, which makes it a challenge to help the users understand the general content of resources and find the resources that they are interested in. (...) Therefore, in this paper, we propose a method for generating picture previews of IERs. Firstly, we analyze the file that stores interactive resource information, obtain the interactive elements’ information, extract the dependencies, and generate an operation sequence. Secondly, we execute the operation sequence using an automated software tool to mimic the interaction process between the user and the resource and save the screenshots in the process to generate a picture preview of an IER. We apply this method to a dynamic geometry platform, NetPad, and conduct experiments. Experimental results demonstrate that the method can effectively extract interactive semantic information and simulate the interactive process, and the generated picture previews are of great help to the users to understand the content of IERs. (shrink)

:In a recent paper in Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics on the necessary conditions for morally responsible animal research David DeGrazia and Jeff Sebo claim that the key requirements for morally responsible animal research are an assertion of sufficient net benefit, a worthwhile-life condition, and a no-unnecessary-harm condition. With regards to the assertion of sufficient net benefit, the authors claim that morally responsible research offers unique benefits to humans that outweigh the costs and harms to humans and animals. (...) In this commentary we will raise epistemic, practical, and ethical challenges to DeGrazia and Sebo’s emphasis on benefits in the prospective assessment of research studies involving animals. We do not disagree with DeGrazia and Sebo that, at the theoretical level, the benefits of research justify our using animals. Our contribution intends to clarify, at the practical level, how we should understand benefits in the prospective assessment and moral justification of animal research. We argue that ASNB should be understood as an assessment of Expectation of Knowledge Production in the prospective assessment and justification of animal research. EKP breaks down into two further claims: that morally responsible research generates knowledge worth having and that morally responsible research is designed and executed to produce generalizable knowledge. We understand the condition called knowledge worth having as scientists’ testing a hypothesis that, whether verified or falsified, advances an important interest, and production of generalizable knowledge in terms of scientific integrity. Generalizable knowledge refers to experimental results that generalize to a larger population beyond the animals studied. Generalizable scientific knowledge is reliable, replicable, and accurately descriptive. In sum, morally responsible research will be designed and carefully executed to successfully test a hypothesis that, whether verified or falsified, advances important interests. Our formulation of EKP, crucially, does not require further showing that an experiment involving animals will produce societal benefits. (shrink)

A preview of my book *Perception*. Discusses the relationship between perception and the physical world and the issue of whether reality is as it appears. Useful examples are included throughout the book to illustrate the puzzles of perception, including hallucinations, illusions, the laws of appearance, blindsight, and neuroscientific explanations of our experience of pain, smell and color. The book covers both traditional philosophical arguments and more recent empirical arguments deriving from research in psychophysics and neuroscience. The addition of chapter (...) summaries, suggestions for further reading and a glossary of terms make Perception essential reading for anyone studying the topic in detail, as well as for students of philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology and metaphysics. (shrink)

PETRIVERSE. Noun.1) A world composed of rocks; e.g., a rock garden.2) Words composed of rocks; i.e., verse written in stone.The Petriverse of Pierre Jardin is a born-digital work of speculative theory that documents a decade of work on stone in a variety of media, from collecting cobble and composing displays in a contemplative rock garden, to conducting research, traveling, and photographing and writing about stones. This work has been undertaken as an apprenticeship to stone, in Deleuze's sense of apprenticeship of (...) a process in which "to learn is first of all to consider a substance…as if it emitted signs to be deciphered, interpreted. … One becomes a carpenter only by becoming sensitive to the signs of wood"... (shrink)

Bracket out the wrong of committing a wrong, or conspiring or colluding or conniving with others in their committing one. Suppose you have done none of those things, and you find yourself merely benefiting from a wrong committed wholly by someone else. What, if anything, is wrong with that? What, if any, duties follow from it? If straightforward restitution were possible — if you could just ‘give back’ what you received as a result of the wrongdoing to its rightful owner (...) — then matters are morally more straightforward. But in real-world cases that is often impossible, and questions of ‘how much, from whom and to whom?’ become far more vexing. The beneficiary disgorging all benefits of the wrong is part of the story, but where that is not possible or will not suffice to compensate the victim of wrongdoing we discuss various ways of allocating the cost of making the victim whole, including supplementation from public coffers. (shrink)

Critics and author, Alvin Goldman’s response to Knowledge in the Social World.

(1995). Theoretical issues surrounding interdisciplinary interpenetration. Social Epistemology: Vol. 9, Boundary Rhetorics and the Work of Interdisciplinarity, pp. 175-187.

Social Epistemology, Volume 26, Issue 2, Page 145-147, April 2012.

We have argued that the counterfactual comparative account of harm and benefit (CCA) violates the plausible adequacy condition that an act that would harm an agent cannot leave her much better off than an alternative act that would benefit her. In a recent paper in this journal, however, Neil Feit objects that our argument presupposes questionable counterfactual backtracking. He also argues that CCA proponents can justifiably reject the condition by invoking so-called plural harm and benefit. In this (...) reply, we argue that Feit’s lines of criticism are both unsuccessful. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Benefit sharing aims to achieve an equitable exchange between the granting of access to a genetic resource and the provision of compensation. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, is the only international legal instrument setting out obligations for sharing the benefits derived from the use of biodiversity. The CBD excludes human genetic resources from its scope, however, this article considers whether it should be expanded to include those resources, (...) so as to enable research subjects to claim a share of the benefits to be negotiated on a case‐by‐case basis. Our conclusion on this question is: ‘No, the CBD should not be expanded to include human genetic resources.’ There are essential differences between human and non‐human genetic resources, and, in the context of research on humans, an essentially fair exchange model is already available between the health care industry and research subjects. Those who contribute to research should receive benefits in the form of accessible new health care products and services, suitable for local health needs and linked to economic prosperity (e.g. jobs). When this exchange model does not apply, as is often the case in developing countries, individually negotiated benefit sharing agreements between researchers and research subjects should not be used as ‘window dressing’. Instead, national governments should focus their finances on the best economic investment they could make; the investment in population health and health research as outlined by the World Health Organization’s Commission on Macroeconomics and Health; whilst international barriers to such spending need to be removed. (shrink)

Social Epistemology, Volume 25, Issue 2, Page 123-124, April 2011.

In this article I ask whether elaborated and systematized delusions emerging in the context of schizophrenia have the potential for epistemic innocence. Cognitions are epistemically innocent if they have significant epistemic benefits that could not be attained otherwise. In particular, I propose that a cognition is epistemically innocent if it delivers some significant epistemic benefit to a given agent at a given time, and if alternative cognitions delivering the same epistemic benefit are unavailable to that agent at that (...) time. Elaborated and systematized delusions in schizophrenia are typically false and exemplify failures of rationality and self-knowledge. Empirical studies suggest that they may have psychological benefits by relieving anxiety and enhancing meaningfulness. Moreover, these delusions have been considered as adaptive in virtue of the fact that they enable automated learning to resume after a significant disruption caused by incorrect prediction-error signalling. I argue that such psychological benefits and adaptive features also have positive epistemic consequences. More precisely, delusions can be a means to restoring epistemic functionality in agents who are overwhelmed by hypersalient experiences in the prodromal stage of psychosis. The analysis leads to a more complex view of the epistemic status of delusions than is found in the contemporary philosophical literature and has some implications for clinical practice. 1 Introduction2 Types of Delusions3 What Is Wrong with Elaborated and Systematized Delusions?4 Finding Life Meaningful5 Learning Resumed6 Epistemic Innocence7 Epistemic Benefit8 No Alternatives9 Conclusions and Implications. (shrink)

Cost-benefit analysis is a widely used governmental evaluation tool, though academics remain skeptical. This volume gathers prominent contributors from law, economics, and philosophy for discussion of cost-benefit analysis, specifically its moral foundations, applications and limitations. This new scholarly debate includes not only economists, but also contributors from philosophy, cognitive psychology, legal studies, and public policy who can further illuminate the justification and moral implications of this method and specify alternative measures. These articles originally appeared in the Journal of (...) Legal Studies. Contributors: - Matthew D. Adler - Gary S. Becker - John Broome - Robert H. Frank - Robert W. Hahn - Lewis A. Kornhauser - Martha C. Nussbaum - Eric A. Posner - Richard A. Posner - Henry S. Richardson - Amartya Sen - Cass R. Sunstein - W. Kip Viscusi. (shrink)