Two key research issues in the field of causal learning are how people acquire causal knowledge when observing data that are presented sequentially, and the level of abstraction at which learning takes place. Does sequential causal learning solely involve the acquisition of specific cause-effect links, or do learners also acquire knowledge about abstract causal constraints? Recent empirical studies have revealed that experience with one set of causal cues can dramatically alter subsequent learning and performance with entirely different cues, suggesting that (...) learning involves abstract transfer, and such transfer effects involve sequential presentation of distinct sets of causal cues. It has been demonstrated that pre-training can modulate classic causal learning phenomena such as forward and backward blocking. To account for these effects, we propose a Bayesian theory of sequential causal learning. The theory assumes that humans are able to consider and use several alternative causal generative models, each instantiating a different causal integration rule. Model selection is used to decide which integration rule to use in a given learning environment in order to infer causal knowledge from sequential data. Detailed computer simulations demonstrate that humans rely on the abstract characteristics of outcome variables to select a causal integration rule, which in turn alters causal learning in a variety of blocking and overshadowing paradigms. When the nature of the outcome variable is ambiguous, humans select the model that yields the best fit with the recent environment, and then apply it to subsequent learning tasks. Based on sequential patterns of cue-outcome co-occurrence, the theory can account for a range of phenomena in sequential causal learning, including various blocking effects, primacy effects in some experimental conditions, and apparently abstract transfer of causal knowledge. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the objection that Socrates makes against diviners, poets, and rhapsodies having knowledge is an example of what has come to be known as an opacity objection: that is, some aspect of what would be required for them to know is unrecognised by them. This chapter contends that the opacity is of a different kind than what contemporary epistemologists have considered, and claims that Socrates’ specific version should have a place in contemporary theory of knowledge.

This is the first philosophical study of artifacts that is book length. In it Randall Dipert develops a theory of what artifacts are and applies it extensively to one of the most complex and intriguing kind of artifacts, art works. He presents his own account of what agents, intentions, and actions are, then uses these notions to clarify what it is for an agent to "make" something. From this starting point, he develops a full theory of artifacts and other (...) artificial things - and, especially, a theory of art works and performances of art works as artifacts. He proposes a theory of nature and of the value of nature as what is essentially nonartificial. Two chapters are devoted to value considerations: merit in artifacts generally, and the evaluation of art works and performance art as artifacts or intentional gestures. Believing that a developed theory of action and philosophy of mind is necessary for a developed aesthetics and philosophy of art, Dipert relies on classical and contemporary research on agency, actions, and intentions, and on the intentionalist theory of mental objects of Brentano and Meinong. Dipert considers artifacts to be physical entities, but he also includes in the definition thoughts, utterances, and performances. This vast category encompasses everyday household objects and tools, streets and edifices, as well as communicative and artistic artifacts. Especially with regard to artistic artifacts, Dipert proposes a theory of expression and communication as actions and extensively discusses the problems of interpreting and recognizing actions, artifacts, and art works. (shrink)

The paper addresses several issues in the morality of cyberwar and cyberwarfare, defined as one nation's attacks on the governmental or civilian information systems of another nation. It sketches the diverse technical ways in which an attack may occur, including denial-of-service attacks and the insertion of various forms of malware. It argues that existing international law and widely discussed principles of Just War Theory do not straightforwardly apply to cyberwarfare, and many forms of cyberwarfare differ from previous forms of warfare (...) in neither injuring nor killing human beings, nor causing lasting physical damage ? but can nevertheless cause serious harm to a nation's vital interests. Another dissimilarity with traditional warfare is in the degree of knowledge of the identity of an attacker (the ?attribution problem?). The paper argues that cyberwarfare is not amenable to regulation by international pacts and that we can expect long periods of low-level, multilateral cyberwarfare, a Cyber Cold War, as a game-theoretic equilibrium is sought,. The paper laments the lack of a cyberwarfare policy, and concludes that it is only by applying game-theoretic principles that strategies can be discovered that are both moral and effective in suppressing overall harm to all parties in the long run. (shrink)

Randall R. Dipert argues that, at first glance, Rand's view of representational arts, such as literature and the visual arts, might seem to have little applicability to pure music. Nevertheless, Rand took music without words as a serious art form, and struggled to develop a plausible theory of music. As Torres and Kamhi note in What Art Is, Rand's approach probably contradicted certain elements of her full aesthetic theory. But her theory of music and its relationship to emotions offers (...) some fascinating suggestions that accord with—and in some respects go beyond—the best recent thinking in musical aesthetics. (shrink)

I do not think that previous writing on artifacts has been satisfactory, for reasons that will become clear. This situation has only been slightly remedied, I believe, by works such as my Artifacts, Agency, and Art Works, Dipert, sometimes referred to here as “AAA.” At the same time, I believe that a general notion of artifact is crucial for philosophy: the concept of an artifact is a central piece of our conception of the world. One of the important projects in (...) the theory of artifacts that is incomplete, or perhaps has not yet even been seriously undertaken, is a definition of artifacts. To give a definition of artifact, and to explore its difficulties and entanglements, is the central organizing goal of this essay. (shrink)

The main focus of this book is the normative or ethical aspects of sustainability, including matters of justice in governance that is important to sustainability. The idea of sustainability is widely perceived as having a normative dimension, often referred to as equity, but the character of this normative dimension is seldom explored. The book aims to fill this gap in the literature of sustainability. It proposes a conceptualization of sustainability that is geared to clarifying its essential ethical structure. It frames (...) sustainability in terms of the capacity of natural systems to provide opportunities to live well, as well as the conduciveness of human practices and systems to preserving such opportunity into the distant future. It develops the idea of sustainability as an art of preserving opportunity to live well – an ethically and scientifically grounded political art of living well together without diminishing opportunity to live well in the future. (shrink)

BEFORE Frege’s Begriffsschrift, propositional logic was submerged in the often murky theory of the "hypothetical syllogism." With the exception of the Stoa, a handful of astute mediaeval logicians, Leibniz, and Bolzano, one might well obtain the impression from studying the history of logic that Frege created his theory ex nihilo—which is substantially true, since Frege was apparently little influenced by previous work. One might also obtain the impression, especially by reading Frege himself, that very little was being done on propositional (...) logic in the 19th century. This claim would be false. As one might expect from a philosopher who is sometimes grouped with Frege and De Morgan as one of the greatest nineteenth century logicians, Charles S. Peirce dealt extensively with propositional logic, or as he would have called it, with the theory of the hypothetical syllogism. (shrink)

Aristotle regarded law and education as the two fundamental and deeply interdependent tools of political art, making the use of education by the statesman a topic of the first importance in his practical philosophy. The present work develops the first comprehensive treatment of this neglected topic, and assesses the importance of Aristotle's defense of public education for current debates about school choice and privatization, and educational equality.

Too many patients are injured in the course of care. Clinicians may mistakenly cause new harm to a patient or fail to take established steps to improve the presenting condition. Medical institutions within which they work may lack mechanisms to reduce errors or prevent them from harming patients. Many, perhaps even most, injuries are preventable, probably numbering in the hundreds of thousands a year for hospital care alone. Long ignored by medical practitioners and health-care payers and little appreciated by the (...) public, the problem of medical injury is finally receiving high-level policy attention. Much credit goes to the Institute of Medicine for its landmark report of November 1999, which marshaled the evidence about medical injuries and highlighted new approaches to systematic improvement of safety within systems of care. (shrink)

Too many patients are injured in the course of care. Clinicians may mistakenly cause new harm to a patient or fail to take established steps to improve the presenting condition. Medical institutions within which they work may lack mechanisms to reduce errors or prevent them from harming patients. Many, perhaps even most, injuries are preventable, probably numbering in the hundreds of thousands a year for hospital care alone. Long ignored by medical practitioners and health-care payers and little appreciated by the (...) public, the problem of medical injury is finally receiving high-level policy attention. Much credit goes to the Institute of Medicine for its landmark report of November 1999, which marshaled the evidence about medical injuries and highlighted new approaches to systematic improvement of safety within systems of care. (shrink)

American health policy today faces dual problems of too little coverage at too high a cost. The mix of private and public financing leaves about one seventh of the population without any insurance coverage. At the same time, the coverage Americans do have costs an ever-larger share of our country’s productive capacity. The U.S. pays well above what other countries pay and what many people, health plans, businesses, and governments want to pay. This “paradox of excess and deprivation” results from (...) the incremental approach the U.S. has taken to promoting incompatible policy goals of increasing health insurance coverage and medical quality while trying to control costs, without squarely confronting tradeoffs. This essay examines the record of incremental developments and draws lessons for current efforts at reform. (shrink)

American health policy today faces dual problems of too little health coverage at too high a cost. The mix of public and private financing leaves about one seventh of the population without any insurance coverage. At the same time, the coverage Americans do have costs an ever-larger share of our country's productive capacity. This "paradox of excess and deprivation" results from the incremental approach the U.S. has taken to promoting incompatible policy goals of increasing health insurance coverage and medical quality (...) while trying to control costs, without squarely confronting tradeoffs. This essay examines the record of incremental developments and draws lessons for current efforts at reform. (shrink)

One of the most significant discoveries of early twentieth century mathematical logic was a workable definition of ‘ordered pair’ totally within set theory. Norbert Wiener, and independently Casimir Kuratowski, are usually credited with this discovery. A definition of ‘ordered pair’ held the key to the precise formulation of the notions of ‘relation’ and ‘function’ — both of which are probably indispensable for an understanding of the foundations of mathematics. The set-theoretic definition of ‘ordered pair’ thus turned out to be a (...) key victory for logicism, providing one admits set theory is logic. The definition also was instrumental in achieving the appearance of ontological economy — since it seemed only sets were needed — although this feature was emphasized only later. (shrink)

This paper explores some general considerations bearing on the question of whether virtue can be measured. What is moral virtue? What are measurement and evaluation, and what do they presuppose about the nature of what is measured or evaluated? What are the prospective contexts of, and purposes for, measuring or evaluating virtue, and how would these shape the legitimacy, methods, and likely success of measurement and evaluation? We contrast the realist presuppositions of virtue and measurement of virtue with the behavioral (...) operationalism of a common conception of measurement in psychometrics. We suggest a realist and non-reductive conceptualization of the measurability of virtue. We then discuss three possible educational contexts in which the measurement of virtue might be pursued: high-stakes testing and accountability schemes, the evaluation of programs in character education, and routine student evaluation. We argue that high-stakes testing of virtue would be ill-advised and counterproductive. We make some suggestions for how program evaluation in character education might proceed, and offer some examples of evaluation of student virtue-related learning. We conclude that virtue acquisition might be measured in a population of students accurately enough for program evaluation, while also arguing that student and program evaluation do not require comprehensive evaluations of how virtuous individual students are. Routine student evaluation will typically focus on specific aspects of virtue acquisition, and program evaluations can measure the aggregate progress of virtue acquisition in all its aspects while evaluating only limited aspects of the learning of individual students. (shrink)

This paper assesses the historical meaning and contemporary significance of Aristotle’s educational ideas. It begins with a broad characterization of the project of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, which he calls “political science” (hê politikê epistêmê), and the central place of education in his vision of statesmanship. It proceeds through a series of topics fundamental to his educational ideas, culminating in the account of education in Politics VIII. A concluding section appraises the uses to which Aristotelian ideas are currently put (...) in philosophy of education, identifying some confusions in the influential literature of “practices.”. (shrink)

Barnhardt, in “Dissociation: An Evolutionary Interpretation,” makes a case for understanding multiple personality as a “natural”phenomenon resulting from human biological evolution. He also argues that the reason that “multiple personalities” are not encountered more frequently is a result of a social construction encouraging “single” personalities. He concludes that it is from the interaction between the two that ethics derive. In this response I offer an alternative hermeneutic, using memory as the interpretive key, and by introducing Ricoeur’s work on narrative. highlight (...) how Barnhardt’s argument limits us to a “scientific” understanding of MultiplePersonality and thus limits our ability to understand and enact a viable “ethic” of care. (shrink)

This chapter addresses some basic questions about the cultivation of responsibilist intellectual virtue. What is intellectual virtue? How are specific intellectual virtues defined and how do they contribute to intellectual virtue in general? What are the epistemic goods at which intellectual virtue and virtues aim? What justifies education in epistemic virtue, understood as a state of intellectual character? How should the motivational aspect of epistemic character be understood? How can educators cultivate a devotion to epistemic goods for themselves? How can (...) curricula, methods of instruction, and the evaluation of student learning and schools best support and not undermine the cultivation of intellectual virtue? (shrink)

Too many patients are injured in the course of medical care. This truth is as distressing now as it was four years ago when it began an article in this journal’s last similar symposium. Many or most injuries seem preventable. Yet today’s systems of care and of oversight of care too often fail to prevent them, despite generations of increasing legal intervention. Few injuries are litigated, even fewer addressed through medical peer review or state disciplinary authorities. The Institute of Medicine’s (...) landmark report To Err Is Human brought patient safety to national attention when released in late 1999. Half a decade later, significant reduction of injury remains a distant prospect, despite some apparent progress. (shrink)

Too many patients are injured in the course of medical care. This truth is as distressing now as it was four years ago when it began an article in this journal’s last similar symposium. Many or most injuries seem preventable. Yet today’s systems of care and of oversight of care too often fail to prevent them, despite generations of increasing legal intervention. Few injuries are litigated, even fewer addressed through medical peer review or state disciplinary authorities. The Institute of Medicine’s (...) landmark report To Err Is Human brought patient safety to national attention when released in late 1999. Half a decade later, significant reduction of injury remains a distant prospect, despite some apparent progress. (shrink)

Aristotle presents his Nicomachean Ethics and Politics as an ordered pair comprising political science (hê politikê epistêmê), suggesting an axiomatic structure of theorems that are demonstratively deduced from first principles. He holds that this systematic knowledge of ethical and legislative matters provides the ‘universals’ essential to phronesis or practical wisdom, and that its acquisition begins in sound habituation. Aristotle thereby assigns habituation an epistemic role that must be understood in light of his account of the nature of a science. This (...) paper argues that what would be inductively established by, or on the basis of, sound habituation is the supposition that the natural kind of activity constitutive of living well exists; it establishes the supposition on which Aristotle’s definition of a eudaimon life rests. Having addressed this central interpretive issue, the paper sketches a psychologically grounded position on the substantive philosophical questions at stake. Are there natural signs of flourishing and failure to flourish present to us in our experience of attempts to live well? If such signs exist but are not sufficient to qualify ethical beliefs as knowledge in their own right, might they play a role in a science of what is good and bad for human beings? (shrink)

Philosophers have almost always said something about emotions and passions whenever they have discussed human mental life. Many have asserted that it is some emotions or, more broadly, passions, that are to be primarily valued and sought. These valued passionate states of mind might include emotions, moods, desires, belief-like feelings of conviction and commitment, and romantic or erotic love, which are typically scarcely distinguished. Not only are these states of mind lumped together, but the reasons why they are valued may (...) likewise be various: they may be valued because of their intrinsic feeling (especially insofar as they are intense), through their long-term or deep effects on the rest of our practical and mental lives, through their effects on others’ lives, or even in the glimpse they give us of an object that transcends our mundane and superficial concerns, as in love, peak experiences, or intimations of God, Beauty, or Nature. Others have claimed that it is in the subduing or elimination of some or all of these passions that the ideal human life consists. Again, what precisely are the objectionable passions is typically not delineated, and why such mental states are objectionable may be diverse and even unspecified. One might resent their "disruptive" nature on our mental life, especially insofar as some of them stem from external, uncontrollable sources, and instead seek a calm state that is within one’s control and not subject to these whimsical externalities. Or one can see many or all passions as disruptive of control and success in our inner or outer life, or in the lives of others. We might call this latter group the anti-emotional Rationalists, and the former group the pro-emotional Romantics. (shrink)

Few philosophers today know much about Charles Peirce’s metaphysics, although a great many know something about his epistemology, philosophy of science, and logic. Indeed, few Peirce experts have written much on his metaphysics or made it the focus of their research. To an extent, this is understandable. Peirce’s writings were left in a disastrously disorganized state (mostly unpublished), and the crucial papers on metaphysics from his later years have not yet been republished in the first-rate chronological edition, the incomplete Writings (...) of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition , edited at Indianapolis by my friends. And then there is Peirce’s writing: an awkward, abrasive, arrogant, eclectic style that demands technical knowledge in diverse fields, especially logic, mathematics, and the natural sciences. His worst personality traits manifested themselves in his highly technical metaphysics—with its idiosyncratic, anti-Cantorian conception of continua, a pecularly mathematical phenomenology, and elaborate views on Darwinian and non-Darwinian evolution, for example. Finally, there is what might appear to be the bizarreness of the theory itself, as we shall see. Peirce was a kind of philosophical swashbuckler, a bold, courageous speculator on philosophical questions beyond most of our temperaments even to ponder. Ours is not the philosophical age of Errol Flynn but the minimalist age of Harrison Ford, with no grand gestures or speeches, just a series of small, no-nonsense gestures: we typically like our philosophy short, neat, "science-like," and isolated from other philosophical issues. (shrink)

This is an extensive and diffuse collection of essays woven together by a number of leitmotifs. It is a work by a technically virtuosic professional philosopher for readers with the same credentials; even many of the complicated examples use extensive insider information about the institution of professional analytic philosophy in the last half of the twentieth century in the United States. In the sequence of its chapters, we see a development that in some ways mirrors Castañeda's philosophical career and topics (...) of active thought. Namely, Part 1 of the book, embracing 4 chapters, is devoted to linguistic phenomena--broadly to issues of reference, but with special attention to indexicals and what Castaneda has called "quasi-indexicals." It reads very difficultly for anyone not steeped in recent issues in the philosophy of language. Many elements of this work, might seem at first a rather slender basis on which to found a broader philosophy of mind, experience, and the world in the tradition of modern philosophy. But this is precisely what Castaneda has done in his career and in this volume. His earlier analyses of complex referential phenomena form the unlikely springboard for far-flung reflections in epistemology, phenomenology, metaphysics, and, especially, the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Aristotle’s Politics offers both a broad diagnosis of the hazards of contemporary populism and a broad characterization of actionable remedies, and it does so in conjunction with an ideal of political societies as properly partnerships in living well, characterized by voluntary cooperation, mutual advantage, and civic friendship. The task of this paper is to explain the diagnosis, remedies, and ideals more fully and to illustrate their currency and value in contemporary political analysis. It addresses Aristotle’s views on demagogues and civic (...) friendship, the nature and circumstances of populism in the U.S., and the Aristotelian remedies that may be helpful in strengthening civic friendship today. (shrink)