The claim that language is in principle inaccessible to consciousness may look counterintuitive but is not as challenging as finding an answer to the subsequent question of why that must be the case -- if language is a function that is in the service of consciousness and we cannot imagine why language would have existed at all without the existence of consciousness. On the one hand, language is the cognitive capacity that seems best fit to support consciousness in its monitoring (...) and control functions; on the other hand, language learning (learning the rules of one's own language), language structure and language processing turn out upon closer scrutiny to be in principle inaccessible to consciousness. I present a set of arguments in favour of the thesis that language is in principle inaccessible to consciousness on the basis of a set of asymmetries between sentence structure and the structure of consciousness. If the thesis in question is on the right track, we have to face two basic problems. The first deals with linguistics method(s), namely how can we study a very complex mental phenomenon like language if it is not available to introspection? The second problem is related to the question put in the title of this article. The suggested answer is along the lines that inaccessibility of language to consciousness enables a cognitive architecture that can run a Cartesian theatre. (shrink)

Do laypeople think that moral responsibility is compatible with determinism? Recently, philosophers and psychologists trying to answer this question have found contradictory results: while some experiments reveal people to have compatibilist intuitions, others suggest that people could in fact be incompatibilist. To account for this contradictory answers, Nichols and Knobe (2007) have advanced a ‘performance error model’ according to which people are genuine incompatibilist that are sometimes biased to give compatibilist answers by emotional reactions. To test for this hypothesis, we (...) investigated intuitions about determinism and moral responsibility in patients suffering from behavioural frontotemporal dementia. Patients suffering from bvFTD have impoverished emotional reaction. Thus, the ‘performance error model’ should predict that bvFTD patients will give less compatibilist answers. However, we found that bvFTD patients give answers quite similar to subjects in control group and were mostly compatibilist. Thus, we conclude that the ‘performance error model’ should be abandoned in favour of other available model that best fit our data. (shrink)

Men are living in the midst of a world pervaded by ideas.* Ideas, which provide men with help in their will to act and to think according to rules, which offer them guidance in their lives, are mustered into systems which are called ideologies.Ideologies are issued by the inclusive society, by special, functional groups inside the society and, beginning with a given stage in the development of human society, by ideological movements which profess to provide men not only with guidance (...) for special tasks or functions, but for life as a whole. So, individual men are faced with various sets of ideologies, more or less in agreement between themselves, more 'or less authoritative for them. They must choose between the suggestions, the rules, the orders given to them. As men are always in search of some degree of consistency in their ways of thinking and acting, they fit together the ideas they choose, unconsciously, into systems, into personal, private, individual ideologies. (shrink)

Associations between cardiorespiratory fitness and brain health in healthy older adults have been reported using a variety of cardiorespiratory fitness estimates. Using commonly used methods to determine CRF, we assessed the relationship between CRFe and executive function performance. Healthy older adults, underwent three CRF tests: a Maximal Graded Exercise Test performed on a cycle ergometer, the Rockport Fitness Walking Test, and a Non-Exercise Prediction Equation. Executive function was assessed by a computerized cognitive assessment using an N-Back task (...) and a Stroop task. Multiple hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to assess the relationship between different CRFe and executive function performance. Regardless of age and education, cardiorespiratory fitness estimated from the Maximal Graded Exercise Test and the Rockport Fitness Walking Test was significantly associated with the global switch cost. All CRFe were associated with the interference cost. No association was observed between CRFe and local switching costs or the updating costs. In the present study, not all subcomponents of executive function were related to CRFe. Interestingly, the executive functions that were associated with CRFe are those that are known to be the most affected by aging. (shrink)

Is there any way to reconcile the adaptationist’s image of natural selection as an engine of optimality with the more complex image of its dynamics we get from population genetics? This has long been an important strand in the controversy surrounding adaptationism, yet debate has been hampered by a tendency to conflate various different ways of thinking about maximization. Here I distinguish four varieties of maximization principle. I then discuss the logical relations between these varieties, arguing that, although (...) they may seem similar at face value, none entails any of the others. I then turn briefly to the status of each variety, arguing that, while each type of maximization principle faces serious problems, the problems are subtly different for each type. In the last section, I reflect on what is at stake in the debate. (shrink)

This paper is a commentary on the focal article by Grafen and on earlier papers of his on which many of the results of this focal paper depend. Thus it is in effect a commentary on the “formal Darwinian project”, the focus of this sequence of papers. Several problems with this sequence are raised and discussed. The first of these concerns fitness maximization. It is often claimed in these papers that natural selection leads to a maximization of (...) fitness and that this view is claimed in Fisher’s “fundamental theorem of natural selection”. These claims are refuted, and various incorrect statements about the meaning and interpretation of the fundamental theorem of natural selection, in this sequence and in other papers by other authors, are discussed. Next, much of the work in this sequence rests on the first Price equation. In the deterministic (infinite population) case this equation is no more than the standard classical equation relating to changes in gene frequencies. In the stochastic case the equation gives the change in gene frequencies as the sum of two terms (the second of which vanishes in the deterministic case). These two terms are of essentially equal importance in the situation considered in the focal article, yet one of Grafen’s results ignores the second term in the stochastic analysis. This is associated with a wavering between deterministic and stochastic analyses and the use of the Price fitness concept and the classical fitness concept. These comments cast doubts on Grafen’s optimization theory. (shrink)

The notion that natural selection is a process of fitness maximization gets a bad press in population genetics, yet in other areas of biology the view that organisms behave as if attempting to maximize their fitness remains widespread. Here I critically appraise the prospects for reconciliation. I first distinguish four varieties of fitness maximization. I then examine two recent developments that may appear to vindicate at least one of these varieties. The first is the ‘new’ (...) interpretation of Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection, on which the theorem is exactly true for any evolving population that satisfies some minimal assumptions. The second is the Formal Darwinism project, which forges links between gene frequency change and optimal strategy choice. In both cases, I argue that the results fail to establish a biologically significant maximization principle. I conclude that it may be a mistake to look for universal maximization principles justified by theory alone. A more promising approach may be to find maximization principles that apply conditionally and to show that the conditions were satisfied in the evolution of particular traits. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In social evolution theory, biological individuals are often represented on the model of rational agents, that is, as if they were ‘seeking’ to maximize their own reproductive success. In the 1990s, important criticisms of this mode of thinking were made by Brian Skyrms and Elliott Sober, who both argued that ‘rational agent’ models can lead to incorrect predictions when there are positive correlations between individuals’ phenotypes. In this article, I argue that one model of rational choice—namely, Savage’s model —can (...) actually be vindicated in evolutionary biology, provided that the pay-offs are computed in inclusive fitness terms. I also show that the use of this model is better avoided when pay-offs are non-additive, or when certain causal influences affect the outcome of natural selection. The result is a partial rehabilitation of this mode of thinking, conditional on both the additivity of the pay-off structure and the absence of any form of manipulation or coercion. _1_ Introduction _2_ When Natural Selection and Rational Deliberation Part Ways _3_ A Simple Solution: Redefining the Pay-offs in Inclusive Fitness Terms _4_ Sober on Inclusive Fitness Maximization _5_ Inclusive Fitness with Non-additive Pay-offs _6_ Causal Influences and the Savage– Hamilton Model _6.1_ Reciprocity and partner choice _6.2_ Coercion and manipulation _7_ Conclusion Appendix. (shrink)

In social evolution theory, biological individuals are often represented on the model of rational agents, that is, as if they were ‘seeking’ to maximize their own (expected) reproductive success. In the 1990s, important criticisms of this mode of thinking were made by Brian Skyrms ([1994], [1996]) and Elliott Sober ([1998]), who both argued that ‘rational agent’ models can lead to incorrect predictions when there are positive correlations between individuals’ phenotypes. In this article, I argue that one model of rational choice—namely, (...) Savage’s model ([1954])—can actually be vindicated in evolutionary biology, provided that the pay-offs are computed in inclusive fitness terms. I also show that the use of this model is better avoided when pay-offs are non-additive, or when certain causal influences (due to manipulative behaviours) affect the outcome of natural selection. The result is a partial rehabilitation of this mode of thinking, conditional on both the additivity of the pay-off structure and the absence of any form of manipulation or coercion. 1 Introduction2 When Natural Selection and Rational Deliberation Part Ways3 A Simple Solution: Redefining the Pay-offs in Inclusive Fitness Terms4 Sober on Inclusive Fitness Maximization5 Inclusive Fitness with Non-additive Pay-offs6 Causal Influences and the Savage– Hamilton Model6.1 Reciprocity and partner choice6.2 Coercion and manipulation7 ConclusionAppendix. (shrink)

Our objective is to test an optimality model of human fertility that specifies the behavioral requirements for fitness maximization in order (a) to determine whether current behavior does maximize fitness and, if not, (b) to use the specific nature of the behavioral deviations from fitness maximization towards the development of models of evolved proximate mechanisms that may have maximized fitness in the past but lead to deviations under present conditions. To test the model we (...) use data from a representative sample of 7,107 men living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, between 1990 and 1993. The model we test proposes that low fertility in modern settings maximizes number of grandchildren as a result of a trade-off between parental fertility and next generation fertility. Results do not show the optimization, although the data do reveal a trade-off between parental fertility and offspring education and income.We propose that two characteristics of modern economies have led to a period of sustained fertility reduction and to a corresponding lack of association between income and fertility. The first is the direct link between costs of investment and wage rates due to the forces of supply and demand for labor in competitive economies. The second is the increasing emphasis on cumulative knowledge, skills, and technologies in the production of resources. Together they produce historically novel conditions. These two features of modern economies may interact with evolved psychological and physiological mechanisms governing fertility and parental investment to produce behavior that maximizes the economic productivity of lineages at the expense of fitness. If cognitive processes evolved to track diminishing returns to parental investment and if physiological processes evolved to regulate fertility in response to nutritional state and patterns of breast feeding, we might expect non-adaptive responses when returns from parental investment do not diminish until extremely high levels are reached. With high economic payoffs from parental investment, people have begun to exercise cognitive regulation of fertility through contraception and family planning practices. Those cognitive processes maynot have evolved to handle fitness trade-offs between fertility and parental investment. (shrink)

This chapter explores some general aspects of the tension between one’s role as a believer and one’s role as an appraiser of oneself as a believer in philosophy. The proposal is to replace true belief by knowledge in a principle of charity constitutive of content. Knowledge maximization need not make the ascription of knowledge come too cheap. By contrast, Davidson’s principle of charity gives good marks to an interpretation for having Stone Age people assent to many truths of quantum (...) mechanics, if it happens to fit the compositional structure of their language. Perhaps the underlying worries about knowledge maximization can be captured in a more abstract form. A subtler attempt to extract knowledge from Davidson’s principle of charity exploits beliefs that one knows. Knowledge maximization implies that our ancestors had some primitive knowledge as soon as they had some primitive beliefs; it is not as though archaeology suggests otherwise. (shrink)

Individual-as-maximizing agent analogies result in a simple understanding of the functioning of the biological world. Identifying the conditions under which individuals can be regarded as fitness maximizing agents is thus of considerable interest to biologists. Here, we compare different concepts of fitness maximization, and discuss within a single framework the relationship between Hamilton’s (J Theor Biol 7:1–16, 1964) model of social interactions, Grafen’s (J Evol Biol 20:1243–1254, 2007a) formal Darwinism project, and the idea of evolutionary stable strategies. (...) We distinguish cases where phenotypic effects are additive separable or not, the latter not being covered by Grafen’s analysis. In both cases it is possible to define a maximand, in the form of an objective function ϕ(z), whose argument is the phenotype of an individual and whose derivative is proportional to Hamilton’s inclusive fitness effect. However, this maximand can be identified with the expression for fecundity or fitness only in the case of additive separable phenotypic effects, making individual-as-maximizing agent analogies unattractive (although formally correct) under general situations of social interactions. We also feel that there is an inconsistency in Grafen’s characterization of the solution of his maximization program by use of inclusive fitness arguments. His results are in conflict with those on evolutionary stable strategies obtained by applying inclusive fitness theory, and can be repaired only by changing the definition of the problem. (shrink)

Revenge appears among a “suite” of social interactions that includes competition, alliance building (a prerequisite for tribal revenge raids), and so forth. Rather than a modular “system” directly reflecting evolutionary fitness constraints, revenge may be (another) social cost-benefit calculation involving potential or actual aggression and proximately controlled by individual personality characteristics and beliefs that can work against fitness.

The article is a reappraisal of the requirement of maximal specificity (RMS) proposed by the author as a means of avoiding "ambiguity" in probabilistic explanation. The author argues that RMS is not, as he had held in one earlier publication, a rough substitute for the requirement of total evidence, but is independent of it and has quite a different rationale. A group of recent objections to RMS is answered by stressing that the statistical generalizations invoked in probabilistic explanations must be (...) lawlike, and by arguing that predicates fit for occurrence in lawlike statistical probability statements must meet two conditions, at least one of which is violated in each of the counterexamples adduced in the objections. These considerations suggest the conception that probabilistic-statistical laws concern the long-run frequency of some characteristic within a reference class as characterized by some particular "description" or predicate expression, and that replacement of such a description by a coextensive one may turn a statement that is lawlike into another that is not. Finally, to repair a defect noted by Grandy, the author's earlier formulation of RMS is replaced by a modified version. (shrink)

Inclusive fitness theory provides conditions for the evolutionary success of a gene. These conditions ensure that the gene is selfish in the sense of Dawkins (The selfish gene, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1976): genes do not and cannot sacrifice their own fitness on behalf of the reproductive population. Therefore, while natural selection explains the appearance of design in the living world (Dawkins in The blind watchmaker: why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design, W. W. Norton, (...) New York, 1996), inclusive fitness theory does not explain how. Indeed, Hamilton’s rule is equally compatible with the evolutionary success of prosocial altruistic genes and antisocial predatory genes, whereas only the former, which account for the appearance of design, predominate in successful organisms. Inclusive fitness theory, however, permits a formulation of the central problem of sociobiology in a particularly poignant form: how do interactions among loci induce utterly selfish genes to collaborate, or to predispose their carriers to collaborate, in promoting the fitness of their carriers? Inclusive fitness theory, because it abstracts from synergistic interactions among loci, does not answer this question. Fitness-enhancing collaboration among loci in the genome of a reproductive population requires suppressing alleles that decrease, and promoting alleles that increase the fitness of its carriers. Suppression and promotion are effected by regulatory networks of genes, each of which is itself utterly selfish. This implies that genes, and a fortiori individuals in a social species, do not maximize inclusive fitness but rather interact strategically in complex ways. It is the task of sociobiology to model these complex interactions. (shrink)

Does natural selection favor veridical percepts—those that accurately depict objective reality? Perceptual and cognitive scientists standardly claim that it does. Here we formalize this claim using the tools of evolutionary game theory and Bayesian decision theory. We state and prove the “Fitness-Beats-Truth Theorem” which shows that the claim is false: If one starts with the assumption that perception involves inference to states of the objective world, then the FBT Theorem shows that a strategy that simply seeks to maximize expected- (...) class='Hi'>fitness payoff, with no attempt to estimate the “true” world state, does consistently better. More precisely, the FBT Theorem provides a quantitative measure of the extent to which the fitness-only strategy dominates the truth strategy, and of how this dominance increases with the size of the perceptual space. The FBT Theorem supports the Interface Theory of Perception, which proposes that our perceptual systems have evolved to provide a species-specific interface to guide adaptive behavior, and not to provide a veridical representation of objective reality. (shrink)

This article is about the analogy between inclusive fitness and utility. In behavioral ecology, it is often assumed that individual organisms behave as if they were “striving” to maximize their inclusive fitness—a measure analogue to the kind of utility function that is used to represent the preferences of rational agents. Here, I explore some conceptual puzzles related to this view and question whether the kind of biological utility posited by the advocates of the “maximizing agent analogy” can be (...) adequately interpreted in inclusive fitness terms. (shrink)

This paper discusses the volenti non fit injuria maxim. The volenti maxim states that a person is not wronged by that to which she consents, provided her consent is valid. I will argue, however, that the volenti maxim does not apply to all instances of valid consent. In some cases the consenter is wronged even if his consent is valid. Valid consent can only release others from consent-sensitive duties, not from consent-insensitive duties. If the consentee flouts a consent-insensitive duty the (...) consentee wrongs the consenter and thereby commits a wrong. (shrink)

This is Warrior Yoga, New York Times bestselling author and retired Navy SEAL Commander Mark Divine's latest contribution to mental and physical achievement exercises started with 8 Weeks to SEALFIT and Unbeatable Mind. This is not your average yoga book. Using Coach Divine's signature integrated training curriculum, Warrior Yoga is an intense physical workout designed for both the nation's elite special ops soldiers, and the regular athlete with the heart and mind of a warrior. His tried and true warrior sequences (...) are designed to be simple and flexible. These short, powerful drills can be done from home or on the road to enhance existing workout regimens and cultivate new ones. The sequences are targeted and focused to adapt to any athlete's physical and mental capabilities including those rehabilitating from injuries and suffering from PTSD. Mark's decades of experience with amateur and professional athletes, active and aspiring Navy SEALS, and wounded warriors uniquely qualify him as an expert motivator and teacher. To be a SEALFITTM Yoga Warrior requires a harmonious balance between mental and physical toughness, strength, and agility. Mark's short digestible exercises will help any athlete hone their fitness routine to reach their fullest potential, combining the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of an unbeatable mind and body program. (shrink)

Total Utilitarianism is the view that an action is right if and only if it maximizes the sum total of people’s well-being. A common objection to Total Utilitarianism is that it is insensitive to matters of distributive justice. For example, for a given amount of well-being, Total Utilitarianism is indifferent between an equal distribution and any unequal distribution, and if there would be a tiny gain in well-being by moving from an equal distribution to an unequal, we have a duty (...) to do so. To meet the objection from justice, Fred Feldman has suggested a desert adjusted version of Total Utilitarianism ---‘Justicism’ --- which in addition to the value of wellbeing takes into account factors concerning people’s desert.1 Feldman’s suggestion is novel and interesting but his theory has been severely criticized as a theory of distributive justice.2 In the present paper, I shall try to salvage what I think might be a kernel of truth in Feldman’s suggestion, or at least a kernel that is worthy of further investigation. (shrink)

Jeremy Gwiazda has criticized my claim that God, understood as an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly free person is a person ’of the simplest possible kind’ on the grounds that omnipotence, etc., as spelled out by me are omnipotence, etc., of restricted kinds, and so less simple forms of these properties than maximal forms would be. However, the account which I gave of these properties in ’The Christian God’ (although not in ’The Coherence of Theism’) shows that, when they are defined (...) in certain ways, they all follow from one property of ’pure, limitless, intentional power’. I argue here that a person who has these properties so defined is a person ’of the simplest possible kind’. (shrink)

Jeremy Gwiazda has criticized my claim that God, understood as an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly free person is a person ‘of the simplest possible kind’ on the grounds that omnipotence etc. as spelled out by me are omnipotence etc. of restricted kinds, and so less simple forms of these properties than maximal forms would be. However the account which I gave of these properties in The Christian God shows that, when they are defined in certain ways, they all follow from (...) one property of ‘pure, limitless, intentional power’. I argue here that a person who has these properties so defined is a person ‘of the simplest possible kind’. (shrink)

The maintenance of cell size homeostasis has been studied for years in different cellular systems. With the focus on ‘what regulates cell size’, the question ‘why cell size needs to be maintained’ has been largely overlooked. Recent evidence indicates that animal cells exhibit nonlinear cell size dependent growth rates and mitochondrial metabolism, which are maximal in intermediate sized cells within each cell population. Increases in intracellular distances and changes in the relative cell surface area impose biophysical limitations on cells, which (...) can explain why growth and metabolic rates are maximal in a specific cell size range. Consistently, aberrant increases in cell size, for example through polyploidy, are typically disadvantageous to cellular metabolism, fitness and functionality. Accordingly, cellular hypertrophy can potentially predispose to or worsen metabolic diseases. We propose that cell size control may have emerged as a guardian of cellular fitness and metabolic activity. Cell size is intimately connected to metabolism and growth rate, which are influenced by mitochondrial activity and biophysical constraints. We discuss that cellular fitness is often cell-size dependent. While the current evidence relies largely on proliferating cells, this connection from cell size to fitness may also help explain metabolic diseases. (shrink)

The implicational fragment of the relevance logic "ticket entailment" is closely related to the so-called hereditary right maximal terms. I prove that the terms that need to be considered as inhabitants of the types which are theorems of $T_\rightarrow$ are in normal form and built in all but one casefrom B, B' and W only. As a tool in the proof ordered term rewriting systems are introduced. Based on the main theorem I define $FIT_\rightarrow$ - a Fitch-style calculus (related to (...) $FT_\rightarrow$ ) for the implicational fragment of ticket entailment. (shrink)

The implicational fragment of the relevance logic "ticket entailment" is closely related to the so-called hereditary right maximal terms. I prove that the terms that need to be considered as inhabitants of the types which are theorems of $T_\rightarrow$ are in normal form and built in all but one casefrom B, B' and W only. As a tool in the proof ordered term rewriting systems are introduced. Based on the main theorem I define $FIT_\rightarrow$ - a Fitch-style calculus for the (...) implicational fragment of ticket entailment. (shrink)

Volume 2 contains both notebooks of "Time Management (Max) I and II" and thereby Gödel’s applied individual ethics, which he received among others through his teacher Heinrich Gomperz. Gödel thus incorporates the ethical ideal of self-perfection into his opus. The volume is prefaced by an introduction to relevant considerations from the ethics of the Stoics as well as ancient dietetics, which provide the philosophical background to understand Gödel’s approach. In addition, editor Eva-Maria Engelen presents how this fits into the context (...) of Gödel’s Philosophical Notebooks. (shrink)

While much research has focused on the effects of ethical and unethical leadership, little is known about how followers come to perceive their leaders as ethical or unethical. In this article, we investigate the co-creation of ethical and unethical leadership perceptions. Specifically, we draw from emerging research on moral congruence in organizational behaviour and empirically investigate the role of congruence in leaders’ and followers’ moral foundations in followers’ perceptions of ethical and unethical leadership. By analysing objective congruence scores from 67 (...) leader–follower dyads by means of polynomial regression with surface response analysis, we find partial support for our theoretically derived predictions. Significant effects were revealed for the fairness, loyalty, and authority moral foundations but not for the care and sanctity moral foundations. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of these findings. (shrink)

This is a thorough treatment of first-order modal logic. The book covers such issues as quantification, equality (including a treatment of Frege's morning star/evening star puzzle), the notion of existence, non-rigid constants and function symbols, predicate abstraction, the distinction between nonexistence and nondesignation, and definite descriptions, borrowing from both Fregean and Russellian paradigms.

In an ideal democracy, people from all walks of life would come together to talk meaningfully and respectfully about politics. But we do not live in an ideal democracy. In contemporary democracies, which are marked by deep social divisions, different groups for the most part avoid talking to each other. And when they do talk to each other, their speech often seems to be little more than a vehicle for rage, hatred, and deception. -/- Democratic Speech in Divided Times argues (...) that we should nevertheless not give up on the ideal of democratic public speech. Drawing on the resources of political theory, epistemology, and philosophy of language, this book develops a sustained account of the norms that should govern public discourse in deeply divided circumstances. Should we try to find common ground when we talk to our political opponents, even though they seem unreasonable? Should we refrain from expressing anger, if we want to get things done? How can we use our speech to fight hate speech and disinformation? And is it even possible to speak to 'the other side,' in settings where different groups dislike one another, live apart from one another, and don't know much about one another? By tackling these questions, Lepoutre demonstrates that, when governed by the right set of norms, public speech can be a powerful force for good even amidst profound social divisions. (shrink)

Traditional approaches describe ethical decision-making of leaders as driven by conscious deliberation and analysis. Accordingly, existing approaches of ethically-oriented leader development usually focus on the promotion of deliberative ethical decision-making, based on normative knowledge and moral reasoning. Yet, a continually growing body of research indicates that a considerable part of moral functions involved in ethical decision-making is automatic and intuitive. In this article, we discuss the implications of this moral intuition approach for the domain of ethically-oriented leader development. Specifically, we (...) introduce a conceptual model and develop a set of theoretical propositions, suggesting that the moral intuition perspective significantly contributes to effective ethically-oriented leader development. The discussion examines theoretical implications and practical applications of the presented propositions and outlines directions for future research. (shrink)

Human activity is permeated by norms of all sorts: moral norms provide the 'code' for what we ought to do, norms of logic regulate how we ought to reason, scientific norms set the standards for what counts as knowledge, legal norms determine what is lawfully permitted and what isn't, aesthetic norms establish canons of beauty and shape artistic trends and practices, and socio-cultural norms provide criteria for what counts as tolerable, just, praiseworthy, or unacceptable in a community or milieu. Given (...) the diversity of norm-governed phenomena prevailing in our everyday experience, it is not surprising that the question of normativity has recently generated important debates in philosophy. However, the more specific question concerning the nature and function of 'norms in perceptual experience' has received comparatively little attention. This volume brings together scholars from philosophy of mind, philosophy of perception, and phenomenology to explore this question. (shrink)

Microbial systems biology has made enormous advances in relating microbial physiology to the underlying biochemistry and molecular biology. By meticulously studying model microorganisms, in particular Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, increasingly comprehensive computational models predict metabolic fluxes, protein expression, and growth. The modeling rationale is that cells are constrained by a limited pool of resources that they allocate optimally to maximize fitness. As a consequence, the expression of particular proteins is at the expense of others, causing trade‐offs between cellular (...) objectives such as instantaneous growth, stress tolerance, and capacity to adapt to new environments. While current computational models are remarkably predictive for E. coli and S. cerevisiae when grown in laboratory environments, this may not hold for other growth conditions and other microorganisms. In this contribution, we therefore discuss the relationship between the instantaneous growth rate, limited resources, and long‐term fitness. We discuss uses and limitations of current computational models, in particular for rapidly changing and adverse environments, and propose to classify microbial growth strategies based on Grimes's CSR framework. (shrink)

Public opinion research has shown that voters accept many falsehoods about politics. This observation is widely considered troubling for democracy—and especially participatory ideals of democracy. I argue that this influential narrative is nevertheless flawed, because it misunderstands the nature of political understanding. Drawing on philosophical examinations of scientific modelling, I demonstrate that accepting falsehoods within one’s model of political reality is compatible with—and indeed can positively enhance—one’s understanding of that reality. Thus, the observation that voters accept many political falsehoods does (...) not necessarily establish that they lack political understanding. I then address three worries: that voters cannot generally engage in such political modelling; that political modelling obscures facts that are crucial to political understanding; and that successful political modelling would require knowing that one’s model contains falsehoods. My responses reveal how, going forward, we should measure political ignorance; and they highlight the standing importance of participatory democracy. (shrink)

How promising is Bitcoin as a currency? This paper discusses four claims on the advantages of Bitcoin: a more stable currency than state-backed ones; a secure and efficient payment system; a credible alternative to the central management of money; and a better protection of transaction privacy. We discuss these arguments by relating them to their philosophical roots in libertarian and neoliberal theories, and assess whether Bitcoin can effectively meet these expectations. We conclude that despite its advocates’ enthusiasm, there are good (...) reasons to doubt that Bitcoin can fulfill its promises and act as a functioning currency, rather than as a mere speculative asset. (shrink)

Jeremy Waldron, among others, has forcefully argued that public hate speech assaults the dignity of its targets. Without denying this claim, I contend that it fails to establish that bans, rather than counterspeech, are the appropriate response. By articulating a more refined understanding of counterspeech, I suggest that counterspeech constitutes a better way of blocking hate speech’s dignitarian harm. In turn, I address two objections: according to the first, which draws on contemporary philosophy of language, counterspeech does not block enough (...) hate speech; according to the second, counterspeech blocks too much speech. Although these objections should qualify our optimism regarding counterspeech, I demonstrate that each can be turned, with even greater force, against hate speech bans. (shrink)

Selected contributions to the symposium on "Mirror neurons and the evolution of brain and language" held on July 5-8, 2000 in Delmenhorst, Germany.

This is the introduction to the symposium on Maxime Lepoutre, Democratic Speech in Divided Times (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021). The symposium contains articles by Paul Billingham, Rachel Fraser, and Michael Hannon, and a response by the author.

According to an influential objection, which Martha Nussbaum has powerfully restated, expressing anger in democratic public discourse is counterproductive from the standpoint of justice. To resist this challenge, this article articulates a crucial yet underappreciated sense in which angry discourse is epistemically productive. Drawing on recent developments in the philosophy of emotion, which emphasize the distinctive phenomenology of emotion, I argue that conveying anger to one’s listeners is epistemically valuable in two respects: first, it can direct listeners’ attention to elusive (...) morally relevant features of the situation; second, it enables them to register injustices that their existing evaluative categories are not yet suited to capturing. Thus, when employed skillfully, angry speech promotes a greater understanding of existing injustices. This epistemic role is indispensable in highly divided societies, where the injustices endured by some groups are often invisible to, or misunderstood by, other... (shrink)

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 48, Issue 1, Page 40-78, Winter 2020.

During the Zimbabwean crisis, millions crossed through the apartheid-era border fence, searching for ways to make ends meet. Maxim Bolt explores the lives of Zimbabwean migrant labourers, of settled black farm workers and their dependants, and of white farmers and managers, as they intersect on the border between Zimbabwe and South Africa. Focusing on one farm, this book investigates the role of a hub of wage labour in a place of crisis. A close ethnographic study, it addresses the complex, shifting (...) labour and life conditions in northern South Africa's agricultural borderlands. Underlying these challenges are the Zimbabwean political and economic crisis of the 2000s and the intensified pressures on commercial agriculture in South Africa following market liberalization and post-apartheid land reform. But, amidst uncertainty, farmers and farm workers strive for stability. The farms on South Africa's margins are centers of gravity, islands of residential labour in a sea of informal arrangements. (shrink)

Bilattices, due to M. Ginsberg, are a family of truth value spaces that allow elegantly for missing or conflicting information. The simplest example is Belnap’s four-valued logic, based on classical two-valued logic. Among other examples are those based on finite many-valued logics, and on probabilistic valued logic. A fixed point semantics is developed for logic programming, allowing any bilattice as the space of truth values. The mathematics is little more complex than in the classical two-valued setting, but the result provides (...) a natural semantics for distributed logic programs, including those involving confidence factors. The classical two-valued and the Kripke/Kleene three-valued semantics become special cases, since the logics involved are natural sublogics of Belnap’s logic, the logic given by the simplest bilattice. (shrink)

An influential critique of anger holds that anger comes at an important epistemic cost. In particular, feeling angry typically makes risk less visible to us. This is anger’s ‘red mist.’ These epistemic costs, critics suggest, arguably outweigh the epistemic benefits commonly ascribed to anger. This essay argues that the epistemic critique of anger is importantly misleading. This is not because it underestimates anger’s epistemic benefits, but rather because it overlooks the fact that anger’s red mist performs a crucial moral function. (...) By concealing risk, the red mist helps protect the dignity and self-respect of those who live under severe and unchosen risk. This function is vitally important in non-ideal circumstances, where many are unjustly subjected to dignity-impairing risk. And it is irreplaceable, in that it cannot readily be performed by other political emotions, such as hope. Beyond providing a novel defence of anger, this argument has a broader upshot. Anger’s red mist reveals that ignorance is not always problematic in politics. Accordingly, it should not be treated—as has standardly been the case—as an unmitigated political evil. In the first instance, our efforts are better spent ascertaining when ignorance is a problem, and when, instead, it performs a felicitous function. (shrink)

Faced with hate speech, oppressed groups can use their own speech to respond to their verbal oppressors. This “counterspeech,” however, sometimes itself takes on a hateful form. This paper explores the moral standing of such “hateful counterspeech.” Is there a fundamental moral asymmetry between hateful counterspeech, and the hateful utterances of dominant or oppressive groups? Or are claims that such an asymmetry exists indefensible? I argue for an intermediate position. There _is_ a key moral asymmetry between these two forms of (...) speech. But, this asymmetry notwithstanding, hateful counterspeech is capable of enacting serious harms—and so, contrary to what many legal theorists have argued, it is in principle an appropriate object of legal regulation. I begin by considering the central argument for thinking that hateful counterspeech is not seriously troubling. This argument holds that oppressed groups lack authority—and, by extension, “speaker power.” Yet this argument, I suggest, sits in tension with the fact that low-status members of dominant groups can, through their utterances, seriously harm members of oppressed groups. Philosophers of language have developed sophisticated arguments to explain this last phenomenon: they have argued that speaker power is relativised to particular jurisdictions; that it can be acquired dynamically in local settings; and that it is socially dispersed. I argue that, in light of these arguments, it appears that hateful counterspeech, too, can generate serious harms. Nevertheless, I show that this conclusion is compatible with recognising a crucial moral asymmetry between hateful counterspeech and the hate speech of oppressors. (shrink)

A new semantics is presented for the logic of proofs (LP), [1, 2], based on the intuition that it is a logic of explicit knowledge. This semantics is used to give new proofs of several basic results concerning LP. In particular, the realization of S4 into LP is established in a way that carefully examines and explicates the role of the + operator. Finally connections are made with the conventional approach, via soundness and completeness results.

Ignorant speech, which spreads falsehoods about people and policies, is pervasive in public discourse. A popular response to this problem recommends countering ignorant speech with more speech, rather than legal regulations. However, Mary Kate McGowan has influentially argued that this ‘counterspeech’ response is flawed, as it overlooks the asymmetric pliability of conversational norms: the phenomenon whereby some conversational norms are easier to enact than subsequently to reverse. After demonstrating that this conversational ‘stickiness’ is an even broader concern for counterspeech than (...) McGowan suggests—it applies not just to oppressive or hateful speech, but also to ordinary policy-related misinformation—I argue that a more sophisticated account of counterspeech can nevertheless overcome it. First, the stickiness objection overlooks the distinction between ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ counterspeech. Instead of directly negating a distorted proposition, positive counterspeech affirms a correct proposition that is inconsistent with the falsehoods at hand. This, I contend, allows it to counter ignorant speech without triggering the properties that render it sticky. Second, the stickiness objection presupposes an unrefined conception of counterspeech’s temporality. Counterspeech should be understood as a diachronic process, which not only follows, but also pre-empts, ignorant utterances. Drawing on speech-act theories of silencing, I argue that pre-emptive counterspeech can condition the conversational context so as to prevent subsequent ignorant utterances from enacting sticky conversational norms. Thus, this theoretically-refined conception of counterspeech helps appreciate how verbal responses might overcome the stickiness of conversational norms; and, in doing so, it reveals that this stickiness need not provide reasons to prefer legal remedies to counterspeech. (shrink)