Rationality and Puzzling Beliefs

The author presents and defends a general view about belief, and certain attributions of belief, with the intention of providing a solution to Saul Kripke's puzzle about belief. According to the position developed in the paper, there are two senses in which one could be said to have contradictory beliefs. Just one of these senses threatens the rationality of the believer; but Kripke's puzzle concerns only the other one. The general solution is then extended to certain variants of Kripke's original puzzle, which have to do with belief attributions containing empty names and kind terms.     

Understanding: not know-how

There is considerable agreement among epistemologists that certain abilities are constitutive of understanding-why. These abilities include: constructing explanations, drawing conclusions, and answering questions. This agreement has led epistemologists to conclude that understanding is a kind of know-how. However, in this paper, I argue that the abilities constitutive of understanding are the same kind of cognitive abilities that we find in ordinary cases of knowledge-that and not the kind of practical abilities associated with know-how. I argue for this by disambiguating between different senses of abilities that are too often lumped together. As a consequence, non-reductionists about understanding—those that claim that understanding-why is not reducible to knowledge-that—need to find another way to motivate the view. In the end, the fact that abilities are constitutive of understanding-why does not give us reason to conclude that understanding is a kind of know-how.     

A Puzzle About Reasons and Rationality

According to a guiding idea in metaethics, there is a necessary link between the concept of normative reasons and the concept of practical rationality. This notion brings up two issues: The exact nature of this link, and the nature of rationality. With regard to the first issue, the debate is dominated by a certain standard claim. With regard to the second issue, the debate is dominated by what I will refer to as ‘subjectivism’ and ‘objectivism’ about rationality, where the latter is assumed to be a necessary condition for the existence of categorical reasons. In this paper, it is argued that subjectivism is able capture an ordinary, non-technical, sense of ‘rational’ whereas objectivism is not. The basic reason is that objectivism fails to account for the essential connection between rationality, malfunctioning, and rational criticism. This means that we face a puzzle: While objectivism appears to be a necessary condition for the existence of categorical reasons, it fails to capture a central sense of ‘rational’. It is finally argued that this puzzle can be solved by abandoning the standard claim about the link between reasons and rationality.     

Being of Two Minds (or of One in Two Ways): A New Puzzle for Constitution Views of Personal Identity

According to constitution views of persons, we are constituted by spatially coinciding human animals. Constitution views face an ‘overpopulation' puzzle: if the animal has my brain, there is another thinker where I am. An influential solution to this problem distinguishes between derivative and non-derivative property possession: persons non-derivatively have their personal properties, while inheriting others from their constituters. I will show that this solution raises a new problem, by constructing a puzzle with the absurd result that we instantiate certain properties incompatibly. In setting up the puzzle, I demonstrate the relevance of the bodily awareness and self-awareness literatures to overpopulation puzzles.     

Partial Understanding and Concept Possession: A Dilemma

In the light of partial (mis)understanding, we examine the thesis that concepts are individuated in terms of possession conditions and show that adherents face a fatal dilemma: Either concept‐individuating possession conditions include cases of partially (mis)understood concepts or not. If yes, possession conditions do not individuate concepts. If no, the thesis is too restricted and lacks a minimally satisfactory level of generalization.     

Responsibility and Obligation: Some Kantian Directions

Abstract

This paper asks how we should conceptualize the relationship between responsibility and obligation. Its central concern is the relevance of considerations of obligation to the attribution of responsibility for what we do or bring about. The paper approaches this issue through an examination of Kant’s complex, challenging and instructive theory of responsibility, in which strict obligation plays a pivotal role in attributions of responsibility for the outcomes of our actions. Even if we do not accept Kant’s strongly juridical concept of responsibility, his theory provides insight into the way in which we should see the connection between responsibility and obligation.     

Platonic know‐how and successful action

In Plato's Euthydemus, Socrates claims that the possession of epistēmē (usually construed as knowledge or understanding) suffices for practical success. Several recent treatments suggest that we may make sense of this claim and render it plausible by drawing a distinction between so‐called “outcome‐success” and “internal‐success” and supposing that epistēmē only guarantees internal‐success. In this paper, I raise several objections to such treatments and suggest that the relevant cognitive state should be construed along less than purely intellectual lines: as a cognitive state constituted at least in part by ability. I argue that we may better explain Socrates' claims that epistēmē suffices for successful action by attending to the nature of abilities, what it is that we attempt to do when acting, and what successful action amounts to in the relevant contexts. These considerations suggest that, contrary to several recent treatments, the success in question is not always internal‐success.     

Why did the white bear return? Obsessive-compulsive symptoms and attributions for unsuccessful thought suppression

The current study examined the nature and consequences of attributions about unsuccessful thought suppression. Undergraduate students with either high (n=67) or low (n=59) levels of obsessive–compulsive symptoms rated attributions to explain their unsuccessful thought suppression attempts. We expected that self-blaming attributions and attributions ascribing importance to unwanted thoughts would predict more distress and greater recurrence of thoughts during time spent monitoring or suppressing unwanted thoughts. Further, we expected that these attributions would mediate the relationship between obsessive–compulsive symptom levels and the negative thought suppression outcomes (distress and thought recurrence). Structural equation models largely confirmed the hypotheses, suggesting that attributions may be an important factor in explaining the consequences of thought suppression. Implications are discussed for cognitive theories of obsessive–compulsive disorder and thought suppression.     

Epistemic closure,assumptions and topics of inquiry

According to the principle of epistemic closure, knowledge is closed under known implication. The principle is intuitive but it is problematic in some cases. Suppose you know you have hands and you know that ‘I have hands’ implies ‘I am not a brain-in-a-vat’. Does it follow that you know you are not a brain-in-a-vat? It seems not; it should not be so easy to refute skepticism. In this and similar cases, we are confronted with a puzzle: epistemic closure is an intuitive principle, but at times, it does not seem that we know by implication. In response to this puzzle, the literature has been mostly polarized between those who are willing to do away with epistemic closure and those who think we cannot live without it. But there is a third way. Here I formulate a restricted version of the principle of epistemic closure. In the standard version, the principle can range over any proposition; in the restricted version, it can only range over those propositions that are within the limits of a given epistemic inquiry and that do not constitute the underlying assumptions of the inquiry. If we adopt the restricted version, I argue, we can preserve the advantages associated with closure, while at the same time avoiding the puzzle I’ve described. My discussion also yields an insight into the nature of knowledge. I argue that knowledge is best understood as a topic-restricted notion, and that such a conception is a natural one given our limited cognitive resources.     

Bermúdez on Self–Consciousness

I argue that José Luis Bermúdez has not shown that there is a paradox in our concept of self–consciousness. The deflationary theory is not a plausible theory of self–consciousness, so its paradoxicality is irrelevant. A more plausible theory, 'the simple theory', is not paradoxical. However, I do think there is a puzzle about the connection between self–consciousness and 'I'–thoughts.     

概念语义与弗雷格迷题消解

弗雷格因同一替换律讨论而提出了涵义与指称的理论,这个理论后来引出了弗雷格迷题。弗雷格迷题的形成有多方原因,直接指称论对弗雷格理论批评是主要原因之一,以至于可以说,这是产生于直接指称论哲学立场的迷题。尽管如此,弗雷格理论确有不足。最重要的是,弗雷格理论只有关于涵义与指称的理论,即只有语言层面的理论,而缺少认知层面的理论。这个不足使得在弗雷格理论基础上解决同一替换律问题难有令人满意的结果,让"迷题"多添了几分"迷"的色彩。这里将给出一个新的方案:在弗雷格理论的基础上,增加有关概念的理论,以概念和内涵、涵义等这些概念的形式刻画为中心,建立可以消解弗雷格迷题的形式语义学,即概念语义。通过概念语义可以在不同层次上对弗雷格迷题的消解给出统一回答。     

What Role for Parental Attributions in Parenting Interventions for Child Conduct Problems? Advances from Research into Practice

The role of parental attributions in parenting interventions has been the subject of intense interest from clinicians and researchers attempting to optimise outcomes in treatments for children with conduct problems. Despite research articulating the many ways parental attributions can influence behavioural parent training (BPT) outcomes, and recognition that addressing parental attributions in treatment is one of the great challenges faced by BPT practitioners, parenting interventions generally do not provide components that explicitly target or focus on changing problematic parental attributions. In this paper, we ask ‘Should parental attributions be included into best practice interventions? If so, how can this be done in a way that improves outcomes without cluttering and complicating the parent training model?’ We review the theoretical and empirical status of our understanding of the role of parental attributions in BPT with reference to three questions: ‘do pre-treatment parental attributions uniquely predict treatment outcomes’; ‘do changes in parental attributions uniquely predict treatment outcomes’; and ‘does targeting parental attributions in BPT affect treatment outcomes’. Our review indicates that existing research supports the importance of focussing on parental attributions for some families in order to maximise treatment outcomes. However, clinical processes for doing this are yet to be identified and specified in a way that would allow for manualised replication and scrutiny in research designs. We finish with a discussion of how these clinical and research challenges could be approached.     

MENTAL HEALTH AND THE GOSPEL: A RESPONSE TO CHRISTOPHER COOK

It is sometimes assumed that when the gospels talk about demon possession they are just using different terminology for what would now be called psychosis or epilepsy. However, these terms come from different discourses that need to be distinguished, but do not need to be kept completely separate. The nature of the relationship between religion and mental health is complex. There is usually a positive correlation, but it is more difficult to be confident about the nature of the causal connection. Poor mental health can become intertwined with religion in a way that drags both down. It is a consistent feature of Jesus' interactions that he encourages people to believe that more is possible than might have been imagined. His impact on the mental health of those around him seems to have been largely a matter of what might now be called positive psychology.     

Non-psychological weakness of will: self-control,stereotypes, and consequences

Prior work on weakness of will has assumed that it is a thoroughly psychological phenomenon. At least, it has assumed that ordinary attributions of weakness of will are purely psychological attributions, keyed to the violation of practical commitments by the weak-willed agent. Debate has recently focused on which sort of practical commitment, intention or normative judgment, is more central to the ordinary concept of weakness of will. We report five experiments that significantly advance our understanding of weakness of will attributions by showing that the ordinary concept of weakness of will is less thoroughly psychological than the philosophical debate has assumed. We begin by showing that a sizable minority of people attribute weakness of will even in the absence of a violated commitment (Experiment 1). We then show that weakness of will attributions are sensitive to two important non-psychological factors. First, for actions stereotypically associated with weakness of will, the absence of certain commitments often triggers weakness of will attributions (Experiments 2–4). Second, the quality of an action’s outcome affects the extent to which an agent is viewed as weak-willed: actions with bad consequences are more likely to be viewed as weak-willed (Experiment 5). Our most important finding is that the ordinary concept of weakness of will is sensitive to two non-psychological factors and is thus much broader than philosophers have thus far imagined. We conclude by suggesting a two-tier model that unites our findings with traditional philosophical theorizing about weakness of will.     

Practical Know‐Wh

The central and paradigmatic cases of knowledge discussed in philosophy involve the possession of truth. Is there in addition a distinct type of practical knowledge, which does not aim at the truth? This question is often approached through asking whether states attributed by “know‐how” locutions are distinct from states attributed by “know‐that”. This paper argues that the question of practical knowledge can be raised not only about some cases of “know‐how” attributions, but also about some cases of so‐called “know‐wh” attributions; and that certain features of this practical knowledge‐wh put pressure on the standard analysis of know‐wh.     

Cognitive Development Masks Support for Attributional Style Models of Depression in Children and Adolescents

Attributional style models of depression in adults (Abramson et al. 1989, 1978) have been adapted for use with children; however, most applications do not consider that children's understanding of causal relations may be qualitatively different from that of adults. If children's causal attributions depend on children's level of cognitive development, then support for attributional models of depression in young people will vary with cognitive development. In this paper, a new measure of cognitive development, the Peabody Causal Reasoning Test (PCRT), is introduced to assess children's understanding of ability versus effort, task difficulty, and luck as causal factors. Analyses revealed that in 8- to 16-year-old children, failure to control for level of cognitive development suppressed empirical support for cognitive diathesis-stress models of depression. Statistically controlling for measures of cognitive development strengthened support for this model.     

Holistic Versus Analytic Thinking Explains Collective Culpability Attribution

Classical attribution theories of behavioral responsibility attribution emphasize that individuals should not be blamed for their mere association with a wrongdoer. Nonetheless, perceivers sometimes blame the wrongdoer's associates for the wrongdoer's misdeed even when those associates are not causally connected to the wrongdoing. In an experiment conducted in Singapore, we found that collective culpability attributions result from holistic thinking—the tendency to attribute causal connectedness between discrete entities or events. Activating holistic thinking enhanced perceptions of causal impacts of distal events and facilitated collective culpability attributions. We discuss these results in terms of their implications for understanding the nature of collective culpability and research on holistic thinking.     

Knowing how,basic actions,and ways of doing things

This paper investigates whether we can know how to do basic actions, from the perspective according to which knowing how to do something requires knowledge of a way to do it. A key argument from this perspective against basic know-how is examined and is found to be unsound, involving the false premise that there are no ways of doing basic actions. However, a new argument along similar lines is then developed, which contends that there are no ways of doing basic actions in any sense that matters for acquiring knowledge-how. This requires coming to a deeper understanding of ways of doing things than has hitherto been sought, which should be useful for further theorizing in this area. It is concluded that analyses of knowing-how in terms of knowledge of ways are inconsistent with the common assumption that there is basic know-how.     

A new member of the family? The continuum of being,artificial intelligence,and the image of God

Abstract

Are the scientific and religious definitions of life irreconcilable or do they overlap in significant areas? What is life? Religion seems to imply that there is a qualitative distinction between human beings and the rest of creation; however, there is a strong tradition in Christianity and in Eastern thought that suggests that the natural world also has a relationship with God. Human dominion over other parts of creation exists, but does not obviate this connection, nor give humans a circle unto themselves. The concept of humans being created in the image of God can be used to explain why we might believe humans are in a circle unto themselves, yet we can expand this concept to include artificially intelligent computers, a new potential member of the cognitive family. Our quest for artificial intelligence tells us both what we value in our humanity, and how we might extend that valuation to the rest of creation.