Comments on Richard Jeffrey

In this commentary, after first summarizing the three major theses of Jeffrey's paper ‘Probability and Falsification: Critique of the Popper Program’, and sketching out what I take to be his central argument, I criticize Jeffrey on two grounds. The first is that he has failed to explain why his version of Bayesianism provides us with better theories upon which to make decisions; the second is that he has offered a theory about decision-making that by-passes the important question: How can we make more rational decisions?     

Making sense of recommendations

Computer algorithms are increasingly being used to predict people's preferences and make recommendations. Although people frequently encounter these algorithms because they are cheap to scale, we do not know how they compare to human judgment. Here, we compare computer recommender systems to human recommenders in a domain that affords humans many advantages: predicting which jokes people will find funny. We find that recommender systems outperform humans, whether strangers, friends, or family. Yet people are averse to relying on these recommender systems. This aversion partly stems from the fact that people believe the human recommendation process is easier to understand. It is not enough for recommender systems to be accurate, they must also be understood.     

Making sense of risk

Although actuarial risk prediction tools are widely used in the American criminal justice system, the lawyers, judges, and correctional workers who consult these products in making decisions often misunderstand fundamental aspects of how they work and what information they provide. This article suggests that the best way to ensure risk assessment tools are being used in ways that are just and equitable is to ensure that those who use them better understand three key aspects of what information they do – and do not – reveal. Doing so requires clarifying what risk is being predicted, explaining what risk levels signify, and enumerating how risk-related information is and is not relevant to specific criminal justice decisions.     

Making sense of word senses: the comprehension of polysemy depends on sense overlap

Studies of polysemy are few in number and are contradictory. Some have found differences between polysemy and homonymy (L. Frazier & K. Rayner, 1990), and others have found similarities (D. K. Klein & G. Murphy, 2001). The authors investigated this issue using the methods of D. K. Klein and G. Murphy (2001), in whose study participants judged whether ambiguous words embedded in word pairs (e.g., tasty chicken) made sense as a function of a cooperating, conflicting, or neutral context. The ambiguous words were independently rated as having low, moderate, or highly overlapping senses to approximate a continuum from homonymy to metonymic polysemy. The effects of meaning dominance were examined. Words with highly overlapping meanings (e.g., metonymy) showed reduced effects of context and dominance compared with words with moderately or low overlapping meanings (e.g., metaphorical polysemy and homonymy). These results suggest that the comprehension of ambiguous words is mediated by the semantic overlap of alternative senses/meanings.     

Making sense of akrasia

There are two extreme poles in the literature on akrasia. Internalists hold that it’s impossible to act intentionally against your better judgment, because there’s a necessary internal relation between judgment and intentional action. To the contrary, externalists maintain that we can act intentionally against our better judgment, because the will operates independently of judgment. Critics of internalism argue that it fails a realism test—most people seem to think that we can and do act intentionally against our better judgment. And critics of externalism argue that it flirts with incoherence by severing the intimate link between judgment and action. Drawing on resources from phenomenology, the cognitive sciences, analytic action theory, and recent “hybrid models” of skilled action, I argue that one route beyond this theoretical impasse is to understand akrasia as a form of skillful pre-reflective intentional action. This strategy, I argue, preserves the internalist insight that there is indeed an intimate relation between judgment and intentional action; and it also confirms the externalist claim that this relation is defeasible, but it does so without falling into incoherence.     

Making sense of mirror neurons

The discovery of mirror neurons has been hailed as one of the most exciting developments in neuroscience in the past few decades. These neurons discharge in response to the observation of others’ actions. But how are we to understand the function of these neurons? In this paper I defend the idea that mirror neurons are best conceived as components of a sensory system that has the function to perceive action. In short, mirror neurons are part of a hitherto unrecognized “sixth sense”. In this spirit, research should move toward developing a psychophysics of mirror neurons.     

Making sense of memory.

The current work explores how people make recognition and belief judgments in the presence of obvious repetition primes. In two experiments, subjects received a 200-ms prime ("cheetah"), either before or after reading a trivia question ("What is the fastest animal?") but always before being presented with the target answer ("cheetah"). Results showed that repetition priming decreased "old" claims (Recognition--Experiment 1), while it increased truth claims (Belief--Experiment 2). Furthermore, repetition prime placement affected recognition but not belief. Combined, these results suggest that dissociations in memory performance are a natural outcome of task and processing demands and reflect the dynamic, flexible nature of memory.     

Making sense of divorce grief

The various models of divorce recovery put forward by researchers have previously been divided into two general categories. The first focuses on emotional or affective stages, while the second describes the recovery in terms of behavior/event dimensions. These two approaches are now integrated by recognizing that the behavior/event stages represent specific psycho/social losses in the life of the divorcing person. Stages of grief, therefore, may arise repeatedly in response to the different losses. These emotional stages may reappear with varying intensity, depending on the varying amount of importance of each loss to the individual. The complex interaction between sequential losses and responding emotional stages is described. Erikson's thematic theory of development and the Tennessee Self Concept Scale are offered as helpful tools for clarifying the meaning of emotions and needs which appear to spiral back and forth within the individual's experience.Mr. Hagemeyer is co-author, with Sue Richards, ofMinistry to the Divorced, to be released by Zondervan in June, 1986, and is a D.Min. candidate at Western Theological Seminary, Holland, MI. He is the former Director of Good News Community, a ministry to single adults in Grand Rapids. He may be addressed at 2377 Post Drive, Belmont, MI 49306.     

School shootings: Making sense of the senseless

School shootings have altered the patina of seclusion and safety that once characterized public and higher education. Callous and brutal, school shootings seem to make no sense. However, case comparisons and anecdotal reports are beginning to show patterns that provide clues for understanding both the individual factors motivating shooting events and the characteristics of schools where shootings have occurred. We describe these factors and characteristics as the bases for six prevention strategies: (a) strengthening school attachment, (b) reducing social aggression, (c) breaking down codes of silence, (d) establishing screening and intervention protocols for troubled and rejected students, (e) bolstering human and physical security, and (6) increasing communication within educational facilities and between educational facilities and local resources.     

Making sense: The work of Eugene Gendlin

This and the following papers were presented at a symposium organized by David M. Levin honoring the work of Eugene Gendlin at meetings of the Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences, Boston, October, 1992.     

Harm inflation: Making sense of concept creep

ABSTRACT

“Concept creep” is the gradual semantic expansion of harm-related concepts such as bullying, mental disorder, prejudice, and trauma. This review presents a synopsis of relevant theoretical advances and empirical research findings on the phenomenon. It addresses three fundamental questions. First, it clarifies the characterisation of concept creep by refining its theoretical and historical dimensions and presenting studies investigating the change in harm-related concepts using computational linguistics. Second, it examines factors that have caused concept creep, including cultural shifts in sensitivity to harm, societal changes in the prevalence of harm, and intentional meaning changes engineered for political ends. Third, the paper develops an account of the consequences of concept creep, including social conflict, political polarisation, speech restrictions, victim identities, and progressive social change. This extended analysis of concept creep helps to understand its mixed implications and sets a multi-pronged agenda for future research on the topic.     

Making sense of powerful qualities

According to the powerful qualities view, properties are both powerful and qualitative. Indeed, on this view the powerfulness of a property is identical to its qualitativity. Proponents claim that this view provides an attractive alternative to both the view that properties are pure powers and the view that they are pure qualities. It remains unclear, however, whether the claimed identity between powerfulness and qualitativity can be made coherent in a way that allows the powerful qualities view to constitute this sort of alternative. I argue here that this can be done, given a particular conception of both the qualitativity and powerfulness of properties. On this conception, a property is qualitative just in the sense that its essence is fixed independently of any distinct properties, and it is powerful just if its essence grounds its dispositional role.

     

Making sense of ourselves: self-narratives and personal identity

Some philosophers take personal identity to be a matter of self-narrative. I argue, to the contrary, that self-narrative views cannot stand alone as views of personal (or numerical) identity. First, I consider Dennett’s self-narrative view, according to which selves are fictional characters—abstractions, like centers of gravity—generated by brains. Neural activity is to be interpreted from the intentional stance as producing a story. I argue that this is implausible. The inadequacy is masked by Dennett’s ambiguous use of ‘us’: sometimes ‘us’ refers to real human beings, and sometimes ‘us’ refers to selves or fictional characters. Second, I consider Schechtmann’s view that self-narratives create persons (in the sense that she calls ‘characterization’ or personality. I argue that the sense in which a self-narrative creates a person cannot stand on its own: a person must already exist (in the sense of numerical identity) in order for there to be a self-narrative. Finally, I offer my own account of persons.     

Making sense of abstract events: Building event schemas

Everyday events, such as making a bed, can be segmented hierarchically, with the coarse level characterized by changes in the actor’s goals and the fine level by subgoals (Zacks, Tversky, &; Iyer, 2001). Does hierarchical event perception depend on knowledge of actors’ intentions? This question was addressed by asking participants to segment films of abstract, schematic events. Films were novel or familiarized, viewed forward or backward, and simultaneously described or not. The participants interpreted familiar films as more intentional than novel films and forward films as more intentional than backward films. Regardless of experience and film direction, however, the participants identified similar event boundaries and organized them hierarchically. An analysis of the movements in each frame revealed that event segments corresponded to bursts of change in movement features, with greater bursts for coarse than for fine units. Perceiving event structure appears to enable event schemas, rather than resulting from them.