Philosophers working in the nascent field of ‘experimental philosophy’ have begun using methods borrowed from psychology to collect data about folk intuitions concerning debates ranging from action theory to ethics to epistemology. In this paper we present the results of our attempts to apply this approach to the free will debate, in which philosophers on opposing sides claim that their view best accounts for and accords with folk intuitions. After discussing the motivation for such research, we describe our methodology of (...) surveying people’s prephilosophical judgments about the freedom and responsibility of agents in deterministic scenarios. In two studies, we found that a majority of participants judged that such agents act of their own free will and are morally responsible for their actions. We then discuss the philosophical implications of our results as well as various difficulties inherent in such research. (shrink)

Despite well-established results in survey methodology, many experimental philosophers have not asked whether and in what way conclusions about folk intuitions follow from people’s responses to their surveys. Rather, they appear to have proceeded on the assumption that intuitions can be simply read off from survey responses. Survey research, however, is fraught with difficulties. I review some of the relevant literature—particularly focusing on the conversational pragmatic aspects of survey research—and consider its application to common experimental philosophy (...) surveys. I argue for two claims. First, that experimental philosophers’ survey methodology leaves the facts about folk intuitions massively underdetermined; and second, that what has been regarded as evidence for the instability of philosophical intuitions is, at least in some cases, better accounted for in terms of subjects’ reactions to subtle pragmatic cues contained in the surveys. (shrink)

Logical realism is a view about the metaphysical status of logic. Common to most if not all the views captured by the label ‘logical realism’ is that logical facts are mind- and language-independent. But that does not tell us anything about the nature of logical facts or about our epistemic access to them. The goal of this paper is to outline and systematize the different ways that logical realism could be entertained and to examine some of the challenges that these (...) views face. It will be suggested that logical realism is best understood as a metaphysical view about the logical structure of the world, but this raises an important question: does logical realism collapse into standard metaphysical realism? It will be argued that this result can be accommodated, even if it cannot be altogether avoided. (shrink)

What are the philosophical views of professional philosophers, and how do these views change over time? The 2020 PhilPapers Survey surveyed around 2000 philosophers on 100 philosophical questions. The results provide a snapshot of the state of some central debates in philosophy, reveal correlations and demographic effects involving philosophers' views, and reveal some changes in philosophers' views over the last decade.

I argue that it is possible and useful for moral philosophy to provide surveyable representations of moral vocabulary. I proceed in four steps. First, I present two dominant interpretations of the concept “surveyable representation”. Second, I use these interpretations as a background against which I present my own interpretation. Third, I use my interpretation to support the claim that Wittgenstein’s “Lecture on Ethics” counts as an example of a surveyable representation. I conclude that, since the lecture qualifies as a surveyable (...) representation, it is possible to provide surveyable representations of moral vocabulary. Fourth, I argue that it is useful for contemporary moral philosophy to provide surveyable representations, because it may help to dissolve problems in current debates. I provide an example of such a debate, namely, the debate between cognitivists and non-cognivitists. (shrink)

A wide variety of ontologies relevant to the biological and medical domains are available through the OBO Foundry portal, and their number is growing rapidly. Integration of these ontologies, while requiring considerable effort, is extremely desirable. However, heterogeneities in format and style pose serious obstacles to such integration. In particular, inconsistencies in naming conventions can impair the readability and navigability of ontology class hierarchies, and hinder their alignment and integration. While other sources of diversity are tremendously complex and challenging, agreeing (...) a set of common naming conventions is an achievable goal, particularly if those conventions are based on lessons drawn from pooled practical experience and surveys of community opinion. We summarize a review of existing naming conventions and highlight certain disadvantages with respect to general applicability in the biological domain. We also present the results of a survey carried out to establish which naming conventions are currently employed by OBO Foundry ontologies and to determine what their special requirements regarding the naming of entities might be. Lastly, we propose an initial set of typographic, syntactic and semantic conventions for labelling classes in OBO Foundry ontologies. Adherence to common naming conventions is more than just a matter of aesthetics. Such conventions provide guidance to ontology creators, help developers avoid flaws and inaccuracies when editing, and especially when interlinking, ontologies. Common naming conventions will also assist consumers of ontologies to more readily understand what meanings were intended by the authors of ontologies used in annotating bodies of data. (shrink)

The purpose of this survey was to gather individual’s attitudes and feelings towards privacy and the selling of data. A total (N) of 1,107 people responded to the survey. -/- Across continents, age, gender, and levels of education, people overwhelmingly think privacy is important. An impressive 82% of respondents deem privacy extremely or very important, and only 1% deem privacy unimportant. Similarly, 88% of participants either agree or strongly agree with the statement that ‘violations to the right to (...) privacy are one of the most important dangers that citizens face in the digital age.’ The great majority of respondents (92%) report having experienced at least one privacy breach. -/- People’s first concern when losing privacy is the possibility that their personal data might be used to steal money from them. Interestingly, in second place in the ranking of concerns, people report being concerned about privacy because ‘Privacy is a good in itself, above and beyond the consequences it may have.’ -/- People tend to feel that they cannot trust companies and institutions to protect their privacy and use their personal data in responsible ways. The majority of people believe that governments should not be allowed to collect everyone’s personal data. Privacy is thought to be a right that should not have to be paid for. (shrink)

This essay provides an opinionated survey of some recent developments in the literature on ontological dependence. Some of the most popular definitions of ontological dependence are formulated in modal terms; others in non-modal terms (e.g., in terms of the explanatory connective, ‘because’, or in terms of a non-modal conception of essence); some (viz., the existential construals of ontological dependence) emphasise requirements that must be met in order for an entity to exist; others (viz., the essentialist construals) focus on conditions (...) that must be satisfied in order for an entity to be the very entity it is at each time at which it exists; some are rigid, in the sense that they concern a relation between particular entities; others are generic, in the sense that they involve only a relation between an entity and some entities or other, which bear certain characteristics. I identify three potential measures of success with respect to which these different definitions of ontological dependence can be evaluated and consider the question of how well they in fact meet these desiderata. I end by noting that certain challenges face even the most promising essentialist construals of ontological dependence. (shrink)

Suppose that Ann says, “Keith knows that the bank will be open tomorrow.” Her audience may well agree. Her knowledge ascription may seem true. But now suppose that Ben—in a different context—also says “Keith knows that the bank will be open tomorrow.” His audience may well disagree. His knowledge ascription may seem false. Indeed, a number of philosophers have claimed that people’s intuitions about knowledge ascriptions are context sensitive, in the sense that the very same knowledge ascription can seem true (...) in one conversational context but false in another. This purported fact about people’s intuitions serves as one of the main pieces of evidence for epistemic contextualism. (shrink)

The paper is an introduction to geometric algebra and geometric calculus for those with a knowledge of undergraduate mathematics. No knowledge of physics is required. The section Further Study lists many papers available on the web.

In 2018 Academic Placement Data and Analysis ran a survey of doctoral students and recent graduates on the topics of diversity and inclusivity in collaboration with the Graduate Student Council and Data Task Force of the American Philosophical Association. We submitted a preliminary report in Fall 2018 that describes the origins and procedure of the survey [1]. This is our final report on the survey. We first discuss the demographic profile of our survey participants and compare (...) it to the United States general population, its doctoral students, and APA membership, finding several areas of underrepresentation (i.e. gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic, and veteran status). We then discuss the results of questions regarding diversity and inclusivity. We find, for instance, that participant comfort in philosophy depends on gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, disability, and language status and that participants most often mentioned the theme of diversity when asked how philosophy could be more inclusive. Finally, we discuss the results of questions related to graduate program and placement. We find, for example, that underrepresented graduates are both less likely to recommend their graduate program to others and less likely to prefer an academic job. We close by making some recommendations for the APA and for the discipline based on our findings. (shrink)

This is a survey of theories of scientific method which opens the book "After Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend: Recent Issues in Theories of Scientific Method".

The purpose of this study is to assess effects of STS(Science and Technology Studies) education in natural science colleges and engineering colleges. STS is an interdisciplinary study includes ethics, history, sociology, policy of science and technology; its main purpose is elaborating students' social perspectives on science and technology. In Korea, however, there is few studies related to STS education to improve its educational effects. Therefore, this study will do exploratory investigation effects of STS education in moral development and epistemological beliefs (...) from view point of educational psychology; moral development will be assessed by DIT(Defining Issues Test), and epistemological beliefs will be assessed by EBI(Epistemic Beliefs Inventory). The results show that, first, there was significant difference between growth in epistemological beliefs of students who attended STS course for semesters and who did not attend STS course at all or attended just once, second, students who attended historical-social based and interdisciplinary STS courses showed significantly grater growth in moral reasoning than students who attended non STS courses or field specified STS courses such as philosophy of science and technology, From the results of investigation, this study will propose some suggestions to improve STS education in Korea. (shrink)

In 2035 global egg demand will have risen 50% from 1985. Because we are not able to tell in the egg whether it will become a male or female chick, billons of one day-old male chicks will be killed. International research initiatives are underway in this area, and governments encourage the development of an alternative with the goal of eliminating the culling of day-old male chicks. The Netherlands holds an exceptional position in the European egg trade, but is also the (...) only country in the European Union where the downside of the egg sector, the practice of killing day-old male chicks, is a recurrent subject of societal debate. ‘Preventing the killing of young animals’ and ‘in ovo sex determination’ are the two alternative approaches available to solve this problem. It is clear that both approaches solve the problem of killing day-old male chicks, either by keeping them alive or by preventing them from living, but they also raise a lot of new animal welfare-related dilemmas. A thorough analysis was undertaken of these dilemmas and the results are presented in this article. The analysis resulted in an ethical framework based on the two main approaches in bioethics: a consequentialist approach and a deontological approach. This ethical framework was used to develop an online survey administered to ascertain Dutch public opinion about these alternative approaches. The results show that neither alternative will be fully accepted, or accepted by more than half of Dutch society. However, the survey does provide an insight into the motives that are important for people’s choice: food safety and a good treatment of animals. Irrespective of the approach chosen, these values should be safeguarded and communicated clearly. (shrink)

Abstract: Idea mining is an interesting field in the area of information retrieval and it is increasingly becoming important asset for decision makers. Huge volumes of high quality data from various sources such as scanners, mobile phones, loyalty cards, the web, and social media platforms presents enormous opportunity for organization to achieve success in their businesses. It is possible to achieve this by properly analysing data to reveal feature patterns; hence decision makers can capitalize upon the resulting ideas from wealth (...) of information available. Idea mining helps managers to use their time efficiently by grasping ideas from a huge amount of unstructured data with text mining, instead of reading through page by page, it also helps to avoid the danger of overlooking data with useful ideas. The main objective of this survey article is to provide assessment on a number of successful text mining and text classification tools combined with idea mining measures to extract the idea from texts. (shrink)

This survey tries to investigate the truths and deficiencies of prevalent philosophy about Uncertainty Relations (UR) and Quantum Measurements (QMS). The respective philosophy, known as being eclipsed by unfinished controversies, is revealed to be grounded on six basic precepts. But one finds that all the respective precepts are discredited by insurmountable deficiencies. So, in regard to UR, the alluded philosophy discloses oneself to be an unjustified mythology. Then UR appear either as short-lived historical conventions or as simple and limited (...) mathematical formulas, without any essential significance for physics. Such a finding reinforces the Dirac’s prediction that UR “in their present form will not survive in the physics of future”. The noted facets of UR motivate reconsiderations of associated debates on QMS. Mainly one reveals that, properly, UR have not any essential connection with genuine descriptions of QMS. For such descriptions, it is necessary that, mathematically, the quantum observables to be considered as random variables. The measuring scenarios with a single sampling, such are wave function collapse or Schrodinger’s cat thought experiment, are revealed as being useless ¨inventions. We propose to describe QMS as transmission processes for stochastic data. Note that, for existing quantum debates, the above UR–QMS revaluations, offer a few arguments for lucrative parsimony in approaches of matters. The unlucrative aspects of those debates have to be reconsidered too, probably in more or less speculative visions. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented damage to the educational system worldwide. Besides the measurable economic impacts in the short-term and long-term, there is intangible destruction within educational institutions. In particular, teachers – the most critical intellectual resources of any schools – have to face various types of financial, physical, and mental struggles due to COVID-19. To capture the current context of more than one million Vietnamese teachers during COVID-19, we distributed an e- survey to more than 2,500 randomly (...) selected teachers from two major teacher communities on Facebook from 6th to 11th April 2020. From over 373 responses, we excluded the observations which violated our cross-check questions and retained 294 observations for further analysis. This dataset includes: (i) Demographics of participants; (ii) Teachers' perspectives regarding the operation of teaching activities during the pandemic; (iii) Teachers' received support from their schools, government bodies, other stakeholders such as teacher unions, and parents' associations; and (iv) teachers' evaluation of school readiness toward digital transformation. Further, the dataset was supplemented with an additional question on the teachers' primary source of professional development activities during the pandemic. (shrink)

Deepfakes are extremely realistic audio/video media. They are produced via a complex machine-learning process, one that centrally involves training an algorithm on thousands of audio/video recordings of an object or person, S, with the aim of either creating entirely new audio/video media of S or else altering existing audio/video media of S. Deepfakes are widely predicted to have deleterious consequences (principally, moral and epistemic ones) for both individuals and various of our social practices and institutions. In this introduction to the (...) Topical Collection, I first survey existing philosophical research on deepfakes (sections 2 and 3). I then give an overview of the papers that comprise the Collection (section 4). Finally, I conclude with remarks on a line of argument made in a number of papers in the Topical Collection: that deepfakes may cause their own demise (section 5). (shrink)

Nowadays Fog Computing has become a vast research area in the domain of cloud computing. Due to its ability of extending the cloud services towards the edge of the network, reduced service latency and improved Quality of Services, which provides better user experience. However, the qualities of Fog Computing emerge new security and protection challenges. The Current security and protection estimations for cloud computing cannot be straightforwardly applied to the fog computing because of its portability and heterogeneity. So these issues (...) in fog computing arises new research challenges and opportunities. This survey features about existing security concerns for fog computing and new proposed system to tackle some of the issues in fog computing related to security and privacy, thereby enhancing the cloud security. (shrink)

In this paper, I survey some recent literature produced by the established Chinese philosophers who regularly publish in Chinese philosophy journals and work in Mainland China. Specifically, I review the recent research of these philosophers in two areas: Chinese Philosophy and epistemology. In each area, I focus on two topics that have caught the attention of a lot of Chinese philosophers. I argue that the Chinese philosophers’ research on these topics has two prevalent problems: (i) a lot of arguments (...) they make are weak; (ii) they tend not to critically engage with others. I discuss a metaphilosophical objection that weak argumentation and disengagement are not vices of philosophical research. I also try to make sense of (i) and (ii) in terms of some cultural factors. (shrink)

In August 2021, Froese et al. published survey data collected from 2,543 respondents on their subjective experiences living under imposed social distancing measures during COVID-19 (1). The questionnaire was issued to respondents in the UK, Japan, and Mexico. By combining the authors’ expertise in phenomenological philosophy, phenomenological psychopathology, and enactive cognitive science, the questions were carefully phrased to prompt reports that would be useful to phenomenological investigation and theorizing (2–4). These questions reflected the various author’s research interests (e.g., technology, (...) grief, time). Between April 7th and July 31st, 2021, a second questionnaire with the same question set was issued to respondents of the original who had agreed to do a follow-up. This was intended to capture subjective reports of life under social distancing measures a year after the initial survey. By this time–depending on their country of residence and health status–respondents had potentially lived with repeated and prolonged lockdowns and a variety of other restrictions on their social lives. When taken together, Survey I and Survey II provide a cross-cultural and longitudinal dataset that allows for analysis of longer-term impacts of imposed social distancing measures on people’s experiences. For researchers working in diverse disciplines, this dataset offers a rich resource that reflects people’s reactions to the imposition of different social restrictions in different countries and over different time periods. (shrink)

In the theatre, one individual, the artistic director, is saddled with the responsibility of tapping, sieving and blending the skills, talents and vocation of all the other artists into a complete artistic, visual and auditory whole. This is an enormous task which requires ingenuity, creativity and hard-work. All the effort, time, energy and money spent in this endeavour will come to nought if at the end, there is no audience to appreciate the work of all the artists who laboured towards (...) the production. Therefore, the whole idea behind any theatre activity is the presentation to an audience of a unified theatrical effect which has the capacity of arousing them both emotionally and intellectually . It has been observed that the place of the audience in the entire theatre structure and in the making of any theatre cannot be ignored particularly, as the theatre’s major and only target is the audience . The above trend may provoke one into asking what an audience is or what constitutes an audience whom the various artists work for. (shrink)

We examine the moderating role of the situational and organizational contexts in determining unethical managerial behavior, applying the case-survey methodology. On the basis of a holistic, multiple-antecedent perspective, we hypothesize that two key constructs, moral intensity and situational strength, help explain contextual moderating effects on relationships between managers’ individual characteristics and unethical behavior. Based on a quantitative analysis of 52 case studies describing occurrences of real-life unethical conduct, we find empirical support for the hypothesized contextual moderating effects of moral (...) intensity and situational strength. By examining these complex contextual moderators, we aim to contribute to organizational ethics research as we shed light on the critical role that context may play in influencing unethical managerial behavior. (shrink)

In this paper, the Author reviewed the typical objections against the claim that brains are computers, or, to be more precise, information-processing mechanisms. By showing that practically all the popular objections are based on uncharitable interpretations of the claim, he argues that the claim is likely to be true, relevant to contemporary cognitive science, and non-trivial.

Ontology is one strategy for promoting interoperability of heterogeneous data through consistent tagging. An ontology is a controlled structured vocabulary consisting of general terms (such as “cell” or “image” or “tissue” or “microscope”) that form the basis for such tagging. These terms are designed to represent the types of entities in the domain of reality that the ontology has been devised to capture; the terms are provided with logical defi nitions thereby also supporting reasoning over the tagged data. Aim: This (...) paper provides a survey of the biomedical imaging ontologies that have been developed thus far. It outlines the challenges, particularly faced by ontologies in the fields of histopathological imaging and image analysis, and suggests a strategy for addressing these challenges in the example domain of quantitative histopathology imaging. The ultimate goal is to support the multiscale understanding of disease that comes from using interoperable ontologies to integrate imaging data with clinical and genomics data. (shrink)

Every day, thousands of polls, surveys, and rating scales are employed to elicit the attitudes of humankind. Given the ubiquitous use of these instruments, it seems we ought to have firm answers to what is measured by them, but unfortunately we do not. To help remedy this situation, we present a novel approach to investigate the nature of attitudes. We created a self-transforming paper survey of moral opinions, covering both foundational principles, and current dilemmas hotly debated in the media. (...) This survey used a magic trick to expose participants to a reversal of their previously stated attitudes, allowing us to record whether they were prepared to endorse and argue for the opposite view of what they had stated only moments ago. The result showed that the majority of the reversals remained undetected, and a full 69% of the participants failed to detect at least one of two changes. In addition, participants often constructed coherent and unequivocal arguments supporting the opposite of their original position. These results suggest a dramatic potential for flexibility in our moral attitudes, and indicates a clear role for self-attribution and post-hoc rationalization in attitude formation and change. (shrink)

The practice of reading both for academic purposes and pleasure is largely agreed to have diminished over the years mainly because of advancements in social media technology. This paper thus examined the reading habits in general among English major students at Sherubtse College, Royal University of Bhutan. For data collection, a questionnaire with nine items was designed and administered to 106 English major students with gender and the year of study as the moderating variables. The questionnaire investigated the students’ general (...) attitudes towards reading, the reasons they read, the average time they spend on reading, the challenges they faced in reading, and the effects of social media on their reading habits. In addition, informal interviews were conducted to verify and triangulate the responses received from the participants. Both these quantitative and qualitative data revealed interesting insights into the reading habits of the students in question. The results are discussed and recommendations provided at the end. (shrink)

The movement called Experimental Philosophy (‘x-Phi’) has now passed its tenth anniversary. Its central insight is compelling: When an argument hinges on accepting certain ‘facts’ about human perception, knowledge, or judging, the evoking of relevant intuitions by thought experiments is intended to make those facts seem obvious. But these intuitions may not be shared universally. Experimentalists propose testing claims that traditionally were intuition-based using real experiments, with real samples. Demanding that empirical claims be empirically supported is certainly reasonable; though experiments (...) are not necessarily the only means available. When experiments are conducted, adequately interpreting their results requires understanding the study’s design (and possibly flaws) that produced them. Experiment-based reports should document the design clearly. If Plato, writing his Meno, replaced accounts of Socrates demonstrating geometry to a slave-boy, with a survey of 100 real boys—some grasping his demonstrations, others not—what conclusions could be reached? Before answering, the reader needs details on key design questions, including (among others): (a) What population are these samples intended to represent? (E.g., ‘all slave boys’?; ‘math-ignorant people’?; ‘everyone’?) (b) What statistical tests were conducted, on what assumptions? (c) How was ‘significance’ of results determined? (d) Was the test instrument’s validity established? For readers wishing to explore x-Phi’s potentials, as contributors or as interpreters of their findings, this paper offers some cautionary considerations. Throughout their literature, examples can be found casting doubt on some experimentalists’ findings, due to design-related issues. Increased awareness of methodological questions would tighten the x-phi literature, going forward . (shrink)

In terms of validity in Kripke frames, a modal formula expresses a universal monadic second-order condition. Those modal formulae which are equivalent to first-order conditions are called elementary. Modal formulae which have a certain persistence property which implies their validity in all canonical frames of modal logics axiomatized with them, and therefore their completeness, are called canonical. This is a survey of a recent and ongoing study of the class of elementary and canonical modal formulae. We summarize main ideas (...) and results, and outline further research perspectives. (shrink)

Nowadays, the economic and social nature of contemporary business organizations chiefly banks binds them to face with the sheer volume of data and information and the key to commercial success in this area is the proper use of data for making better, faster and flawless decisions. To achieve this goal organizations requires strong and effective tools to enable them in automating task analysis, decision-making, strategy formulation and risk prediction to prevent bankruptcy and fraud .Business Intelligence is a set of skills, (...) technologies and application systems used to collect, store, analyze and create effective access to the task to help organizations better understand the business context and make accurate decision timely and respond quickly toward inflation, rate fluctuations and the market price. In this paper we review recent literature in the search for trends in business intelligence applications for the banking industry and its challenges and finally some articles that comprise this special issue are introduced and characterized in terms of business intelligence research framework. (shrink)

The purposes of this study were to adapt Employee Aptitude Survey (EAS) test into Indonesian version and establish its psychometric properties especially for career counseling. Senior High School students in Yogyakarta (N=471) were test with EAS Indonesian version in three stages study design. Psychometric analysis supported item characteristics and reliability. Mean of item difficulty index for each subtest range from 0,467 to 0,622. The item selection based on item discrimination index ≥ 0,300. Reliability coefficients range from 0,533 to 0,973 (...) for each subtes. (shrink)

While cloud computing is picking up prevalence, assorted security and protection issues are rising that block the quick reception of this new computing worldview. Furthermore, the improvement of cautious arrangements is lingering behind. To guarantee a safe and reliable cloud environment it is fundamental to distinguish the impediments of existing arrangements and imagine headings for future research. In this paper, we have reviewed basic security and protection challenges in cloud computing, arranged different existing arrangements, looked at their qualities and constraints, (...) and imagined future research headings. (shrink)

Philosophy, that most misunderstood of intellectual pursuits, is often mocked; and no part of philosophy is as often mocked as metaphysics. The image of the ‘speculative metaphysician’ dreaming up abstract pictures of the world has been held up for ridicule by poets, playwrights, novelists, journalists as well as by other philosophers. The Logical Positivists in the first half of the 20th Century rejected all metaphysical speculations as ‘meaningless’ since they could not be verified by scientific experiment; in the later part (...) of the century, Wittgenstein criticised systematic metaphysics as being a kind of intellectual disease resulting from our reading false pictures of the world into the grammar of our language. The common suspicion underlying many of these attacks is that ultimately, all metaphysics is a kind of nonsense, and that metaphysicians don’t really know what they are talking about. This suspicion is not new. Nicolas-Sébastien Chamfort commented in 1796, ‘I am tempted to say of metaphysicians what Scaliger used to say of the Basques: they are said to understand one another, but I don’t believe a word of it.’ Some contemporary philosophers may agree. (shrink)

Why is there female under-representation among philosophy majors? We survey the hypotheses that have been proposed so far, grouping similar hypotheses together. We then propose a chronological taxonomy that distinguishes hypotheses according to the stage in undergraduates’ careers at which the hypotheses predict an increase in female under-representation. We then survey the empirical evidence for and against various hypotheses. We end by suggesting future avenues for research.

Judgments about the validity of at least some elementary inferential patterns(say modus ponens) are a priori if anything is. Yet a number of empirical conditions mustin each case be satisfied in order for a particular inference to instantiate this or that inferentialpattern. We may on occasion be entitled to presuppose that such conditions aresatisfied (and the entitlement may even be a priori), yet only experience could tell us thatsuch was indeed the case. Current discussion about a perceived incompatibility betweencontent externalism (...) and first-person authority exemplifies how damaging the neglect ofsuch empirical presuppositions of correct reasoning can be. An externalistic view of mentalcontent is ostensibly incompatible with the assumption that a rational subject should beable to avoid inconsistency no matter what the state of her empirical knowledge may be.That fact, however, needs not be taken (as it often is) as a reductio of externalism: alternatively,we may reject that assumption, adding to the agenda of a philosophical investigationof rationality an examination of the vicissitudes of logical luck. I offer an illustrationand defense of that alternative. (shrink)

Review of E. J. Lowe's monograph A Survey of Metaphysics (OUP 2002).

I demonstrate that analogies, both explicit and implicit, between Wittgenstein’s discussion of rituals, aesthetics, and psychoanalysis (and, indeed, his own philosophical methodology) suggest that he entertained the idea that Freud’s psychoanalytic project, when understood correctly—that is, as a descriptive project rather than an explanatory-hypothetical one—provides a “surveyable representation” (übersichtliche Darstellung) of certain psychological facts (as opposed to psychological concepts). The consequences of this account are that it offers an explanation of Wittgenstein’s admiration for and self-perceived affinity to Freud, as well (...) as of his apparent “know-nothing approach” to empirical psychology. (shrink)

This article is a critical survey of the debate over the value of the social discount rate, with a particular focus on climate change. The ma- jority of the material surveyed is from the economics rather than from the philosophy literature, but the emphasis of the survey itself is on founda- tions in ethical and other normative theory rather than highly technical details. I begin by locating the standard approach to discounting within the overall landscape of ethical theory, (...) and explaining the assumptions and simplifications that are needed in order to arrive at the model that is standard in the discounting literature. The article then covers the general theory of the Ramsey equation and its relationship to observed interest rates, arguments for and against a positive rate of pure time preference, the consumption elasticity of utility, and the effect of various sorts of uncertainty on the discount rate. Finally, it turns specifically to the ap- plication of this debate to the case of climate change, focussing on the recent controversy over the low discount rate used in the Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change. (shrink)

To explore social media use in New Zealand, a sample of 1001 adults aged 18 and over were surveyed in November 2021. Participants were asked about the frequency of their use of different social media platforms (text message included). This report describes how often each of the nine social media sites and apps covered in the survey are used individually on a daily basis. Differences based on key demographics, i.e., age and gender, are tested for statistical significance, and findings (...) summarised. (shrink)

This paper examines the responses to advanced and transformative technologies in military literature, attenuates the conclusions of earlier work suggesting that there is an “ignorance of transhumanism” in the military, and updates the current layout of transhuman concerns in military thought. The military is not ignorant of transhuman issues and implications, though there was evidence for this in the past; militaries and non-state actors increasingly use disruptive technologies with what we may call transhuman provenance.

Online hate speech has been a topic of public concern and research interest for some time. Initially the focus of this centred on the proliferation of online groups and websites promoting and distributing discriminatory content. Since the introduction of more interactive tools and platforms in the mid-2000s that enabled new and faster ways of disseminating content in a relatively anonymous fashion, concerns about online hate speech becoming a pervasive behavior have increased. Current research and analysis acknowledge the complex nature of (...) online hate, the mediating role of technology and the influence of other contextual factors (e.g. social or political events). However, despite the growing attention on the topic, New Zealand-based research looking at personal experiences and/or exposure to online hate is surprisingly absent. This study seeks to address this gap. It builds on existing international research on young people’s experiences to explore those of the adult New Zealand population based on a nationally representative sample. The research instrument used for this study was an online survey. (shrink)

The aim of this survey was to explore the attitudes towards gender selection, focusing on people who were affected by infertility and also familiar with advanced technologies such as the internet. Although this survey is based almost exclusively on answers from women, it seems reasonable to conclude that a widely available service for preconception sex selection for non-medical reasons would not cause a severe gender imbalance in Germany.

This MPhil dissertation presents a novel account of teleological explanations in biology. I outline the “shorthand approach” to such explanations, on which they are taken to convey implicit evolutionary explanations. “Selected effects” accounts of teleological explanation dominate recent literature, but they struggle to accommodate teleological explanations of complex traits built through cumulative selection. I articulate the general notion of a landscape explanation, which, applied to biology, explains the evolution of complex features in a population by citing salient features of the (...) population’s fitness landscape. I show that such explanations lend themselves to a teleological shorthand. I close with remarks concerning when a teleological explanation of a trait is legitimate, and why teleological language strikes us as appropriate when we give evolutionary explanations. (shrink)

States of affairs are entities like snow’s being white. This dissertation encompasses two projects. First, I provide a historical survey of the concept of state of affairs as it has been used in the history of ontology. Second, I provide a novel conceptual account of states of affairs.

The debate over whether free will and determinism are compatible is controversial, and produces wide scholarly discussion. This paper argues that recent studies in experimental philosophy suggest that people are in fact “natural compatibilists”. To support this claim, it surveys the experimental literature bearing directly or indirectly upon this issue, before pointing to three possible limitations of this claim. However, notwithstanding these limitations, the investigation concludes that the existing empirical evidence seems to support the view that most people have compatibilist (...) intuitions. (shrink)

Summary Background Self-binding directives instruct clinicians to overrule treatment refusal during future severe episodes of illness. These directives are promoted as having potential to increase autonomy for individuals with severe episodic mental illness. Although lived experience is central to their creation, service users’ views on self-binding directives have not been investigated substantially. This study aimed to explore whether reasons for endorsement, ambivalence, or rejection given by service users with bipolar disorder can address concerns regarding self-binding directives, decision-making capacity, and human (...) rights. Methods This study used qualitative data from an internet-based survey distributed to the mailing list of the UK charity Bipolar UK, which contained multiple closed and open questions on advance decision-making in bipolar disorder. Quantitative analysis of a closed question about self-binding directives had already demonstrated endorsement amongst a very high proportion of participants with bipolar disorder who completed the survey. We conducted thematic analysis of responses from those participants who answered a subsequent open question about reasons for their view. Research was co-produced within a multi-disciplinary team, with clinical, legal, and ethical expertise, and lived experience of bipolar disorder. Ideas and methodologies associated with all these areas of expertise were used in the analysis of these reasons and to gain insight into the thoughts of individuals with bipolar disorder about self-binding directives and associated issues. Findings Between Oct 23 and Dec 5, 2017, 932 individuals with a self-reported clinical diagnosis of bipolar disorder completed the internet survey, with 565 (154 men; 400 women; 11 transgender or other) providing free text answers to the open question. A large majority of respondents endorsed self-binding directives, nearly all describing a determinate shift to types of distorted thinking and decision-making when unwell as their key justification. Responses indicating ambivalence were dominated by logistical concerns about the drafting and implementation of self-binding directives, while those who rejected self-binding directives also cited logistical concerns, validity of their thinking when unwell, and potential contravention of human rights. Interpretation This study is, to our knowledge, the first large study of reasons why mental health service users might endorse or reject the use of self-binding directives. The findings provide empirical support for introducing self-binding directives into mental health advance decision-making practice and policy and may help to address enduring ethical concerns surrounding possible implementation of the directive while a person retains decision-making capacity. The opinions expressed here in responses given by multiple service users with bipolar disorder challenge a prominent view within international disability rights debates that involuntary treatment and recognition of impaired mental capacity constitute inherent human rights violations. Funding The Wellcome Trust . (shrink)

I demonstrate that analogies, both explicit and implicit, between Wittgenstein’s discussions of rituals, aesthetics, and aspect-perception, have important payoffs in terms of understanding his notion of a “surveyable representation” (übersichtliche Darstellung) as it applies to phenomena that are not exclusively grammatical in nature. In particular, I argue that a surveyable representation of certain anthropological and aesthetic facts allows us to see, qua form of aspect-perception, internal relations and formal connections, so that the inner nature of a ritual or the solution (...) of an aesthetic puzzle is exhibited. This particular form of seeing both explains why Wittgenstein thought that hypothetical explanations about the origins of a ritual are irrelevant to appreciating its meaning and elucidates his understanding of rituals, which involves seeing “internal relations” and “formal connections.” The upshots of the account for work in anthropology are discussed. (shrink)