Quine, Putnam, and the ‘Quine–Putnam’ Indispensability Argument

Much recent discussion in the philosophy of mathematics has concerned the indispensability argument—an argument which aims to establish the existence of abstract mathematical objects through appealing to the role that mathematics plays in empirical science. The indispensability argument is standardly attributed to W. V. Quine and Hilary Putnam. In this paper, I show that this attribution is mistaken. Quine’s argument for the existence of abstract mathematical objects differs from the argument which many philosophers of mathematics ascribe to him. Contrary to appearances, Putnam did not argue for the existence of abstract mathematical objects at all. I close by suggesting that attention to Quine and Putnam’s writings reveals some neglected arguments for platonism which may be superior to the indispensability argument.

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Remembering the past and thinking about the future: Is it really about time?

In this paper we discuss some literature relating to episodic memory, future episodic thinking and mental time travel in humans and non-human animals. We discuss the concept of mental time travel and argue that the concept relies on subjective phenomena such as consciousness and on this basis is not useful when studying episodic memory and future episodic thinking, particularly in non-human animals. We discuss recent work which emphasizes views of both episodic memory and future thinking which do not rely on such mental time travel and, more importantly, give less prominence to the concept of time. The implications of such a view for research into future thinking in non-human animals are considered.     

Personality,pupils, and purple cows: we have the right answers,but do we have the right questions?

In this article, I consider first the questions about the relation between personality and education that we have, to a large extent, answered, and then the questions that we have yet to answer, and, in large part, even to ask.     

The Pleasant Life, the Engaged Life, and the Meaningful Life: What about the Balanced Life?

Martin Seligman, in his very popular book Authentic Happiness (Seligman 2002), argued that authentic happiness is derived from three major sets of experiences in life, namely experiencing pleasantness regularly (the pleasant life), experiencing a high level of engagement in satisfying activities (the engaged life), and experiencing a sense of connectedness to a greater whole (the meaningful life). In this paper, we maintain that balance in life contributes significantly to subjective well-being. Balance contributes to subjective well-being because of the satisfaction limit that people can derive from a single life domain. People have to be involved in multiple domains to satisfy the full spectrum of human development needs. Different life domains tend to focus on different human developmental needs. More specifically, balance contributes to subjective well-being because subjective well-being can only be attained when both survival and growth needs are met. High levels of subjective well-being cannot be attained with satisfaction of basic needs or growth needs alone. Both needs have to be met to induce subjective well-being.     

Imaging the developing brain: what have we learned about cognitive development?

The human brain undergoes significant changes in both its structural architecture and functional organization across the life span. Advances in neuroimaging techniques over the past decade have allowed us to track these changes safely in the human in vivo. We review the imaging literature on the neurobiology of cognitive development, focusing specifically on cognitive task-dependent changes observed in brain physiology and anatomy across childhood and adolescence. The findings suggest that cortical function becomes fine-tuned with development. Brain regions associated with more basic functions such as sensory and motor processes mature first, followed by association areas involved in top-down control of behavior.     

How Old Are These Bones? Putnam, Wittgenstein and Verification: Cora Diamond

Hilary Putnam has argued against philosophical theories which tie the content of truth-claims closely to the available methods of investigation and verification. Such theories, he argues, threaten our idea of human communication, which we take to be possible between people of different cultures and across periods of time during which methods of investigation change dramatically. Putnam rejects any reading of Wittgenstein which takes him to make a close tie between meaning and method of verification. What strands in Wittgenstein's thought appear to lend support to such a reading? Can we do justice to the role which method of verification does have for Wittgenstein while retaining our hold on the idea that communication between people is possible despite substantial differences in methods of verification and investigation?
Thus it is as if the proof did not determine the sense of the proposition proved; and yet as if it did determine it.
But isn't it like that with any verification of any proposition?     

How Old Are These Bones? Putnam, Wittgenstein and Verification: Steven Gerrard

Hilary Putnam introduced a puzzle about a citizen of the 17th century who speculates that some mysterious bones are over a million years old. I compare this situation, where the speculation is ahead of the method of carbon dating, with speculating about (1) a mathematical theorem before there is a proof, and (2) a riddle before there is an answer. All these cases are helpfully illuminated by Meno's paradox and, especially, Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics. I draw some conclusions about Wittgenstein's methodology both in his philosophy of mathematics and his more general philosophy, focusing on the roles of local perspicuity and changing our way of looking at things.     

What are we doing to the earth's climate and what are we going to do about it?

Climatic considerations are critical if our planet is to survive. The environment, and in particular the atmosphere, is particularly sensitive to man. The time has come to act in favor of that which gives us life. This is why, in a field which knows no boundaries, only an international strategy can be effective.     

Which fearful toddlers should we worry about? Context, fear regulation, and anxiety risk

In the current study, the author tested a model of risk for anxiety in fearful toddlers characterized by the toddlers' regulation of the intensity of withdrawal behavior across a variety of contexts. Participants included low-risk 24-month-old toddlers (N = 111) followed longitudinally each year through the fall of their kindergarten year. The key hypothesis was that being fearful in situations that are relatively low in threat (i.e., are predictable and controllable and in which children have many coping resources) is an early precursor to risk for anxiety development as measured by parental and teacher reports of children's anxious behaviors in kindergarten. Results supported the prediction such that it is not how much fear is expressed but when and how the fear is expressed that is important for characterizing adaptive behavior. Implications are discussed for a model of risk that includes the regulation of fear, the role of eliciting context, social wariness, and the importance of examining developmental transitions, such as the start of formal schooling. These findings have implications for the methods used to identify fearful children who may be at risk for developing anxiety-related problems.     

Historical shifts and underlying themes in ideas about rearing young children in the United States: Where have we been? Where are we going?

Common themes in ideas about rearing infants and young children in the United States can be traced from the nation's beginnings to the present day. These themes include a strong concern about child rearing; a belief that human beings are perfectible through better child rearing; an eagerness by parents to listen to the advice of ‘experts’; a belief that infants and young children should be educated in schools or day-care centers by experts, competing with the belief that infants belong at home with their mothers; a commitment to social reform, competing with the conviction that families should be autonomous. These themes provide a background for contemporary research, political controversy, and future discussion concerning how children should be reared. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Future self-appraisals and global self-esteem: Who benefits more from thinking about the future,and why?

People tend to think positively about their future selves. However, it remains unclear to what extent this tendency depends on the positivity of their current self-appraisal. To study this problem, we employed the assumptions of construal level theory, the concept of self-enhancement, and the assumptions of temporal self-appraisal theory, and we examined the role of global self-esteem in the relationship between temporal distance and future self-appraisals measured in absolute (Study 1), comparative temporal (Study 2), or comparative social (Study 3) ways. In all three studies, when assessed in terms of specific dimensions, future self-appraisals increased with temporal distance only in people with low self-esteem, but when assessed in terms of general dimensions, self-appraisals were higher in the distant compared to the near future irrespective of self-esteem level.     

Epistemicism and Nihilism about Vagueness: What’s the Difference?

In this paper I argue, first, that the only difference between Epistemicism and Nihilism about vagueness is semantic rather than ontological, and second, that once it is clear what the difference between these views is, Nihilism is a much more plausible view of vagueness than Epistemicism. Given the current popularity of certain epistemicist views (most notably, Williamson’s), this result is, I think, of interest.     

Achievement emotions in elementary,middle, and high school: How do students feel about specific contexts in terms of settings and subject‐domains?

The present work investigates students' representation of achievement emotions, focusing in context‐specific situations in terms of settings and subject‐domains, as a function of grade level. We involved 527 fourth‐, seventh‐, and eleventh‐graders, who evaluated ten discrete emotions through questionnaires, with reference to verbal language and mathematics, and different settings (class, homework, tests). Confirmatory multitrait‐multimethod analyses indicated higher salience of subject‐domains rather than settings for all the emotions; however, complexity of reality was best explained when also settings were accounted for. Analyses of variance revealed higher intensity of positive emotions for younger students, and the opposite pattern for older students; significant differences for most of the emotions based on the evaluative nature of settings, moderated by class levels; more intense positive emotions for mathematics and more intense negative emotions for Italian. Results are discussed considering their theoretical and applied relevance, corroborating previous literature on domain‐specificity.     

Can we trust the phenomenological interview? Metaphysical,epistemological, and methodological objections

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences - The paper defends the position that phenomenological interviews can provide a rich source of knowledge and that they are in no principled way less...