Does the World Leak Into the Mind? Active Externalism, “Internalism” and Epistemology

One of the arguments for active externalism (also known as the extended mind thesis) is that if a process counts as cognitive when it is performed in the head, it should also count as cognitive when it is performed in the world. Consequently, mind extends into the world. I argue for a corollary: We sometimes perform actions in our heads that we usually perform in the world, so that the world leaks into the mind. I call this internalism. Internalism has epistemological implications: If a process gives us an empirical discovery when it is performed in the world, it will also give us an empirical discovery when it is performed in the head. I look at a simple example that highlights this implication. I then explore the relation between internalism and active externalism in more detail and conclude by comparing internalism with mental modeling.     

第三种生命形式的诞生与科学哲学

美国科学家卡尔·戊斯发现了生命的第三种形式－古生菌域,并将生物分成三大分支,即真核生物域、细菌域和古生菌域。这一理论被称为戊斯革命。但是,他的理论历经艰辛才得到同行的认可,从科学哲学研究的方法论和认识论讨论这一重大发现带给我们有关思维方式和科学评价体系的思考。     

On the general argument against internalism

I respond to John Greco’s argument that all forms of internalism in epistemology are either false or uninteresting. The paper divides into two sections. First, I explain precisely what internalists and externalists in epistemology disagree over. This puts us in a position to assess whether Greco’s argument succeeds. Second, I present Greco’s argument and offer two objections.     

Internalism, active externalism, and nonconceptual content: the ins and outs of cognition

Active externalism (also known as the extended mind hypothesis) says that we use objects and situations in the world as external memory stores that we consult as needs dictate. This gives us economies of storage: We do not need to remember that Bill has blue eyes and wavy hair if we can acquire this information by looking at Bill. I argue for a corollary to this position, which I call 'internalism.' Internalism says we can acquire knowledge on a need-to-know basis by consulting portable, inner analogues of the world. This, however, leads to a dilemma. If the knowledge was stored in memory, it is difficult to see how we could have acquired it by consulting inner analogues, for it would seem that we knew it already. Moreover, if it was stored in memory, we lose the economies of storage that provide much of the rationale for external memory stores and hence for their inner analogues. If, on the other hand, the knowledge was not stored in memory, it is difficult to see how we could have acquired it by consulting inner analogues, for it was not there to be acquired. I propose a solution to this problem that turns on the concept of nonconceptual content, and I relate the solution to Stephen Kosslyn's (1994) architecture of perception and visual mental imagery. Viewed in a broader context, the solution shows that the world leaks into the mind, as well as mind leaking into the world.     

Reliabilism and the Abductive Defence of Scientific Realism

According to the “no-miracles argument” (NMA), truth is the best explanation of the predictive-instrumental success of scientific theories. A standard objection against NMA is that it is viciously circular. In Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth Stathis Psillos has claimed that the circularity objection can be met when NMA is supplemented with a reliabilist approach to justification. I will try to show, however, that scientific realists cannot take much comfort from this policy: if reliabilism makes no qualifications about the domain where inference to the best explanation is reliable, scientific realists flagrantly beg the question. A qualified version of reliabilism, on the other side, does not entitle us to infer the realist conclusion. I conclude, then, that Psillos’s proposal does not make any significant progress for scientific realism.

Non‐Scientific Criteria for Belief Sustain Counter‐Scientific Beliefs

Why is evolutionary theory controversial among members of the American public? We propose a novel explanation: allegiance to different criteria for belief. In one interview study, two online surveys, and one nationally representative phone poll, we found that evolutionists and creationists take different justifications for belief as legitimate. Those who accept evolution emphasize empirical evidence and scientific consensus. Creationists emphasize not only the Bible and religious authority, but also knowledge of the heart. These criteria for belief remain predictive of views about evolution even when taking into account other related factors like religion, political affiliation, and education. Each view is supported by its own internally specified criteria for what constitutes a justified belief. Changing minds may thus require changing epistemic norms.     

Cultural Complexities and Scientific Development

Methodological issues in psychology consist of a key aspect for the scientific development of the discipline. In this paper I elaborate on the reasons why I partially agree with Toomela's ideas, and why I also disagree with some of his arguments. The convergence refers to the need for a radical change concerning the widespread use of methodologies that has been typical of mainstream psychology, which still flavors too positivist and pseudo-quantitative, overlooking the central relevance of theory for scientific development. The divergence resides in Toomela's insistence to oppose what he designates as "the North American" to "the German-Austrian" scientific thinking: from my perspective, the misuse of cultural categories can only lead to misguided and unconstructive dichotomies that entails a naive concept of culture, and do not contribute to scientific development. From a contemporary systemic approach, complex issues deserve more sophisticated analysis.     

The Intertwinement of Propositional and Doxastic Justification

One important distinction in the debate over the nature of epistemic justification is the one between propositional and doxastic justification. Roughly, while doxastic justification is a property of beliefs, propositional justification is a property of propositions. On a rather common view, which accounts for doxastic justification in terms of propositional justification plus the so-called ‘basing relation’, propositional justification is seen as the prior notion, and doxastic justification is explained in terms of it. According to the opposing view, the direction of explanation needs to be reversed, and doxastic justification should be seen as primary. I distinguish between two notions of priority, and I argue that they give different verdicts with respect to the issue of which notion of justification comes first. The lesson may be taken to be that propositional and doxastic justification are in a relation of intertwinement.     

Cohen on ‘Epistemic’

Stewart Cohen offers a critique of much contemporary epistemology. Epistemologies use the term ‘epistemic’ in order to specify the issues they investigate and about which they disagree. Cohen sees widespread confusion about these issues. The problem, he argues, is that ‘epistemic’ is functioning as an inadequately defined technical term. I will argue, rather, that the troubles come more from non-technical vocabulary, in particular with ‘justification’ and ‘ought’, and generally from the difficulty of explaining normativity. Overall, the message of this paper is that normativity is what’s hard to understand, not the term ‘epistemic.’     

Luther and Justification

In this article, I reflect on Luther's doctrine on justification as it came out in different ways in some of his seminal writings between 1518 and 1538, all represented in volume 2 of The Annotated Luther. Discovering the righteousness of God as something already given to humans opened fundamentally new perspectives to Luther.     

The Spirituality of Justification

The doctrine of justification‐by‐faith has gathered enough dust on its shelf in the museum of antiquated doctrines. When we draw justification‐by‐faith out where we can take a good look at it, it glistens like a mirror. It reflects back to us human beings who we are. We are self‐justifiers. In the name of justice, we perpetrate violence. The pursuit of justice does as much damage as the pursuit of injustice, unfortunately. Like a mirror, justification‐by‐faith reveals who we are and announces that God justifies us by grace. This means we do not have to self‐justify. Liberated from self‐justification, the Christian is free to love for the sake of the beloved.     

Privacy and Justification*

In this paper, I aim to demonstrate the importance of liberal engagement in public debate, in the face of Nagel’s claim that respect for privacy requires liberals to withdraw from their ‘control of the culture’. The paper starts by outlining a pluralist conception of privacy. I then proceed to examine whether there really is liberal cultural control, as Nagel affirms it, and whether such control truly involves a violation of privacy. Moreover, I argue that Nagel’s desire to leave the social and cultural space radically neutral is incompatible with Rawls’ conception of public reason and clashes with the need to justify liberal institutions.*Winner of the inaugural Res Publica Postgraduate Essay Prize, 2005.     

诊疗方案修订迫切需要伦理论证

伦理论证通过对医学诊疗方案的科学性、安全性及患者权益等方面的严格审查控制研究风险,保障临床实践规范进行。充分的伦理论证在保障患者利益的同时,同样保护着医生的权益,是医学科学健康发展的重要保障。在基础研究、新药研发飞速进展的推动下,医学临床研究在蓬勃发展的同时衍生出众多医学伦理问题,亟待引发研究者重视。以精准医学为导向的现代医学所引发的社会、经济等多方面伦理挑战,决定了伦理论证的紧迫性。     

关于医学与理工科学的比较及其结合

生物医学工程是医学与理工科学之间的一门交叉学科,近年发展十分迅速,但理工科学与医学具有非常不同的学科特点,充分认识其间的差异是非常必要和重要的。本文从认识论与方法论的角度讨论了医学研究与理工科学的不同特点及相应的问题,分析了医工结合的主要困难,提出了加强与改进医学与理工科学结合的途径。     

A Pragmatic Case against Pragmatic Scientific Realism

Pragmatic Scientific Realism (PSR) urges us to take up the realist aim or the goal of truth although we have good reason to think that the goal can neither be attained nor approximated. While Newton-Smith thinks that pursuing what we know we cannot achieve is clearly irrational, Rescher disagrees and contends that pursuing an unreachable goal can be rational on pragmatic grounds—if in pursuing the unreachable goal one can get indirect benefits. I have blocked this attempt at providing a pragmatic justification for the realist aim of PSR on precisely the same pragmatic grounds—since there is a competing alternative to PSR, and the alternative can provide whatever indirect benefits PSR can offer while being less risky than it is, prudential reasoning favours the alternative to PSR. This undermines the pragmatic case for the realist aim of science since the instrumentalist alternative does not aim at the truth.     

The Normativity of Meaning: Guidance and Justification

Abstract

The thesis that meaning is normative has come under much scrutiny of late. However, there are aspects of the view that have received comparatively little critical attention which centre on meaning’s capacity to guide and justify linguistic action. Call such a view ‘justification normativity’ (JN). I outline Zalabardo’s (1997) account of JN and his corresponding argument against reductive-naturalistic meaning-factualism and argue that the argument presents a genuine challenge to account for the guiding role of meaning in linguistic action. I then present a proposal regarding how this challenge may be met. This proposal is then compared to recent work by Ginsborg (2011; 2012), who has outlined an alternative view of the normativity of meaning that explicitly rejects the idea that meanings guide and justify linguistic use. I outline how Ginsborg utilises this notion of normativity in order to provide a positive account of what it is to mean something by an expression which is intended to serve as a response to Kripke’s semantic sceptic. Finally, I argue that Ginsborg’s response to the sceptic is unsatisfactory, and that, insofar as it is able to preserve our intuitive view of meaning’s capacity to guide linguistic action, my proposal is to be preferred.     

The Two Faces of Evidentialism

In this paper I hope to demonstrate two different (and seemingly independent) ways of interpreting the tenets of evidentialism and show why it is important to distinguish between them. These two ways correspond to those proposed by Feldman (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 60, 667–695, 2000, Evidentialism: Essays in epistemology, Oxford University Press, 2004) and Adler (Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 23, 267–285, 1999, Beliefs own ethics, MIT Press, 2002). Feldman’s way of interpreting evidentialism makes evidentialism a principle about epistemic justification, about what we ought to believe. Adler’s, on the other hand, makes evidentialism a principle about how we come to believe, what it is, broadly speaking, rational for us to believe. Having identified this difference, I consider two complaints levied against evidentialism, namely what I call the threshold problem and what I call the availability problem, and hope to show that: (a) only an independent, bracketed justification principle of evidentialism can deal with those problems; (b) the rationality principle of evidentialism is not in fact independent from the justification principle; (c) the rationality principle is hard to motivate; and that (d) in the final analysis the argument for the justification principle depends on the rationality principle. I thus conclude that although it may be convenient for evidentialists to treat these two principles as independent, such an independence cannot be maintained.

新型冠状病毒肺炎试验性治疗的伦理辩护

虽已开展瑞德西韦、抗疟药磷酸氯喹、血浆疗法等临床研究,但迄今无任何新型冠状病毒肺炎的特效疗法。为最大程度确保患者及时获得治疗的权利,可借鉴抗击埃博拉疫情经验,新型冠状病毒肺炎患者的试验性治疗可在伦理上得到辩护。应确保试验性治疗的科学性,包括前期安全性和有效性数据,不同治疗方案的优先次序及持续评估。也从透明性、公平分配、知情同意和评估风险受益等考虑其伦理性。可从利益冲突管理、严密监测、确保数据完整性和社会参与等方面监管试验性治疗。以期为未来突发传染病的疫情防控提供借鉴意义。     

Supporting development of the epistemology of inquiry

A sixth-grade class investigated the ecologies of two local retention ponds over the course of one school year. In this context, instruction assisted development as students designed models of the pond in one-gallon jars and attempted to stabilize these jars in sustainable ecosystems that could be used to study questions about the ponds. Unintended outcomes (e.g., algal blooms, bacteria colonies) became opportunities to learn how aquatic systems function. Efforts to model aquatic functioning were complemented by weekly research meetings that served as a forum for conjecture and test of relations between evidence and questions. At the end of the year students responded to individual interviews about their understandings of ecology and research design, along with their beliefs about the epistemology of inquiry. Results suggest that participation in carefully crafted, extended investigations transformed students’ views of the goals and purposes of inquiry and of the nature of science.     

非法人体试验的实质化犯罪证成与刑法规制

同一社会的法律法规整体中,不同性质的法对行为违法性的评价始终是一致的。《民法典》的问世,将人格权独立成编。人格权的独立成编不仅彰显了国家对公民的生命权、身体权、健康权的法律保护,亦体现了法律对现代医学科学时代人格权新型权利内容的特别维护。刑法应当积极回应非法人体试验这一社会现实,准确把握刑事法律的国际趋势,科学构建刑法体系,完善人体试验法律秩序,保护受试者的合法权益,推动医学研究的良性发展。