Hume's Reflections on the Identity and Simplicity of Mind1

The article presents a new interpretation of Hume's treatment of personal identity, and his later rejection of it in the “Appendix” to the Treatise. Hume's project, on this interpretation, is to explain beliefs about persons that arise primarily within philosophical projects, not in everyday life. the belief in the identity and simplicity of the mind as a bundle of perceptions is an abstruse belief, not one held by the “vulgar” who rarely turn their minds on themselves so as to think of their perceptions. the author suggests that it is this philosophical observation of the mind that creates the problems that Hume finally acknowledges in the “Appendix.” He is unable to explain why we believe that the perceptions by means of which we observe our minds while philosophizing are themselves part of our minds. This suggestion is then tested against seven criteria that any interpretation of the “Appendix” must meet.     

Practical knowledge and the subjectivity of truth in Kant and Kierkegaard: The cover of skepticism

Kant developed a distinctive method of philosophical argumentation, the method of transcendental argumentation, which continues to have contemporary philosophical promise. Yet there is considerable disagreement among Kant's interpreters concerning the aim of transcendental arguments. On ambitious interpretations, transcendental arguments aim to establish certain necessary features of the world from the conditions of our thinking about or experiencing the world; they are world‐directed. On modest interpretations, transcendental arguments aim to show that certain beliefs have a special status that renders them invulnerable to skeptical doubts; they are belief‐directed. This paper brings Kierkegaard's thesis of the “subjectivity of truth” to bear on these questions concerning the aim of transcendental arguments. I focus on Kant's argument for the postulate of God's existence in his Critique of Practical Reason and show that Kierkegaard's thesis of the subjectivity of truth can help us construe the argument as both belief and world directed. Yet I also argue that Kierkegaard's thesis of the subjectivity of truth can help us understand the source of our dissatisfaction with Kant's transcendental arguments: It can help us understand that dissatisfaction as an expression of what Stanley Cavell calls the “cover of skepticism,” the conversion of metaphysical finitude into intellectual lack.     

Does intention involve belief?

Cognitivists think that intention necessarily involves belief; noncognitivists deny this claim. I argue that both sides of the debate have so far overlooked that the beliefs involved in intention are first‐personal beliefs and therefore relevantly different from ordinary beliefs that stand in need of justification through evidence. This move substantially changes the cognitivist thesis, and in such a way that the noncognitivist objections can be avoided. In Section 2, I lay out the intuitions behind cognitivism and the arguments against it that motivate noncognitivist positions. Section 3 discusses and dismisses Velleman's cognitivist response to these arguments. In Section 4, I introduce the distinction between “ordinary” and “first‐personal beliefs.” In Section 5, I argue that intention invariably involves a first‐personal belief that one will do what one intends to do. Finally, in Section 6, I return to the noncognitivist objections and show how my proposal answers them.     

自省主体对Moore-型信息的处理与融合

The main task is to discuss the issue in belief dynamics in which philosophical beliefs and rational introspective agents incorporate Moorean type new information. First, a brief survey is conducted on Moore’s Paradox, and one of its solutions is introduced with the help of Update Semantics. Then, we present a Dynamic Doxastic Logic (DDL) which revises the belief of introspective agents put forward by Lindström &; Rabinowicz. Next, we attempt to incorporate Moorean type new information within the DEL (DDL) framework, as advised by van Benthem, Segerberg et al. Though we maintain the principle of “the primacy of new information” from the literature on traditional belief revision theory, several unsuccessful ways are also presented. We then conclude that some special kind of success (weak success) can still be found in those revision processes although absolute success does not hold. At last, the relevant problem of “learnability” is re-considered through weak success.     

The folk conception of knowledge

How do people decide which claims should be considered mere beliefs and which count as knowledge? Although little is known about how people attribute knowledge to others, philosophical debate about the nature of knowledge may provide a starting point. Traditionally, a belief that is both true and justified was thought to constitute knowledge. However, philosophers now agree that this account is inadequate, due largely to a class of counterexamples (termed “Gettier cases”) in which a person’s justified belief is true, but only due to luck. We report four experiments examining the effect of truth, justification, and “Gettiering” on people’s knowledge attributions. These experiments show that: (1) people attribute knowledge to others only when their beliefs are both true and justified; (2) in contrast to contemporary philosophers, people also attribute knowledge to others in Gettier situations; and (3) knowledge is not attributed in one class of Gettier cases, but only because the agent’s belief is based on “apparent” evidence. These findings suggest that the lay concept of knowledge is roughly consistent with the traditional account of knowledge as justified true belief, and also point to a major difference between the epistemic intuitions of laypeople and those of philosophers.     

Thinking through thinking: Deleuze and “the dogmatic image of thought”

In my philosophical thinking, I have followed many of those influenced by Heidegger and Nietzsche (particularly Derrida, Lacan and Deleuze) who argue that philosophy has been colonised from its inception by a specific understanding of what thinking entails. Deleuze articulates this form of colonisation in terms of the eight postulates of “the dogmatic image of thought”. This article responds to the disconcerting realisation, elicited by three encounters, that despite my “philosophising about” a disruptive thinking in the name of complexity, my practice of thinking remains deeply habituated by “the dogmatic image of thought” and I have yet to begin thinking as “habitual disturbance” and an “adventure of learning”. To show why an effort to think through thinking remains important for philosophy in South Africa, I tie this reflection to specific provocations (a conference theme entitled “Philosophy in/as Translation”; a pointed remark that “there is no African word for ‘identity’”). However, the topic of the provocations should not mislead readers to expect scholarship about general relationships between philosophy, translation and decolonisation, although these terms are entangled. Instead, I focus on “thinking”. I discuss a personal response to the remark regarding the untranslatability of “identity” through the lens of Deleuze’s critique of “the dogmatic image of thought”, and reminded by the conference theme that this response is situated in the South African academic context where issues of decolonisation form the underlying fabric of intellectual work. From out of this entanglement I consider what philosophy’s internal decolonisation might entail.

“Thus, to ‘philosophize’ about being shattered is separated by a chasm from a thinking that is shattered” (Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism”).     

The Effect of New Religious Movement Affiliation and Disaffiliation on Reflexivity and Sense of Self

Challenging the contemporary belief that emotional damage invariably results from new religious movement (NRM) participation, this study shows that membership in and exit from a world‐rejecting NRM may initiate the development of increased reflexivity and a personal sense of self for some former members. Out of a sample of 23 former members, 12 participants were identified who report prior histories of “other‐directedness” and for whom exit from an NRM instigated a shift toward increased independence and individuality. Employing symbolic interactionist theories of self, this article conceptualizes the process through which these participants may be understood to have gained in reflexivity and personal autonomy. Four case studies demonstrate how the identity loss and uncertainty suffered following exit can “shock” former members into self‐awareness and reflexivity, instigating a period of active learning about personal emotions, thoughts, and beliefs that leads to the active construction of a stronger personal self.     

A Slippery Myth: How Learning Style Beliefs Shape Reasoning about Multimodal Instruction and Related Scientific Evidence

The learning style myth is a commonly held myth that matching instruction to a student's “learning style” will result in improved learning, while providing mismatched instruction will result in suboptimal learning. The present study used a short online reasoning exercise about the efficacy of multimodal instruction to investigate the nature of learning styles beliefs. We aimed to: understand how learning style beliefs interact with beliefs about multimodal learning; characterize the potential complexity of learning style beliefs and understand how this short exercise might influence endorsements of learning styles. Many participants who believed in the learning style myth supported the efficacy of multimodal learning, and many were willing to revise their belief in the myth after the exercise. Personal experiences and worldviews were commonly cited as reasons for maintaining beliefs in learning styles. Findings reveal the complexity of learning style beliefs, and how they interact with evidence in previously undocumented ways.     

Belief in free will as an adaptive,ungrounded belief

False beliefs and delusions are usually regarded negatively, especially in psychology and evolutionary biology. Recently, McKay and Dennett (2009b) have argued that there are ungrounded beliefs which confer benefits on individuals even if they are false. I propose to expand this class of beliefs to include the belief that one has free will, and I will defend the claim that this belief is advantageous, even if it is false. One derives one’s belief in control from one’s experience of control, which is generated by a set of cognitive systems termed “control systems.” While the control systems and the interpretive mechanism are useful in and of themselves, the belief in personal free will is adaptive because it directly leads to fitness-increasing behaviors. As such, we have good reason to regard the belief that one has free will as an adaptive, ungrounded belief. This paper will also suggest that further research on the possible distinction between belief in personal free will and belief in general free will may put us in a better position to understand recent, apparently contradictory data on individuals’ beliefs regarding free will and other related phenomena.     

Faith and belief in The Anti-Christ: A re-evaluation of Nietzsche’s relation to Jesus

This paper re-evaluates the significance of Jesus for Nietzsche by looking at The Anti-Christ. Specifically we will ask whether a re-evaluation of this relation can shed new light on Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity. And we will do this first by surveying the standard interpretations of this issue, as well as the existing literature on The Anti-Christ. Arguing that the latter picks out nothing new regarding a critique of Christianity, we nonetheless suggest that a new criticism can be developed via the discussion of Jesus there. Further, this can be done by looking at the account given of faith and belief in that text. That is, we will explore the status of Jesus for Nietzsche by looking at the origins and development of “faith” as a mode of belief. In particular, we trace the former’s development as a type from a basic mode of faith. As such, we begin by looking at the psychological origins of this kind of belief in “decadence”, and why Nietzsche is critical of this. However, we will then discuss the emergence of a more positive faith in the form of Buddhism, and see how this represents an analogue for Jesus’s faith. Continuing, we will see how Jesus signifies a similar problematic development, but also “overcoming”, of initial decadence faith. And we will argue, also, that this overcoming is rooted in his emphasis on the immediacy of lived experience. Finally though, we will look at how Christianity returns Jesus’s more productive relation to the world again to a primitive mode of faith. In other words, we will see how Christianity converts the fluid, lived, “faith” of Jesus into something again based on transcendent belief. And lastly, we will ask what new light this point sheds on Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity, and his affinity with Jesus the man.     

样例多样性和流畅性信念对类别学习判断的影响

目的:通过三个实验考查样例特征、流畅性和信念对类别学习及其元认知判断的影响。方法:实验1采用2(样例特征)×2(测试类型)的组内设计以检验样例特征的作用; 实验2采用2(样例特征)×2(测试类型)×2(流畅性)的组内设计以检验流畅性的作用; 实验3采用2(样例特征)×2(测试类型)×2(流畅性信念)的混合设计以检验信念对类别学习判断的作用。结果表明:样例特征影响学习成绩、类别学习判断和流畅感; 流畅性不会影响类别学习判断; 原理解释能够有效建立“关于流畅性的信念”,且“关于流畅性的信念”对类别学习判断起作用。即样例多样性和流畅性信念对类别学习判断起作用,支持信念假说。     

Implication and reasoning in mental state attribution: Comments on Jane Heal's theory of co-cognition

Simulation theory explains third-person mental state attribution in terms of an attributor's ability to imaginatively mimic other people's mental processes. Jane Heal's version of simulation theory, which she calls a theory of “co-cognition,” maintains that one can know and can predict others’ beliefs primarily by thinking about what their antecedent beliefs imply. I argue that Heal's account of belief attribution elides crucial differences between reasoning and merely discovering relations among propositions.     

The interaction of cognitive styles and classroom environment in determining first-graders' behavior

This study investigates the importance of two “person” variables, reflection impulsivity and divergent thinking, and one “situation” variable, the classroom climate of first-grade classrooms, for the classroom adaptation of first-graders. Three types of classrooms differing in classroom climate were selected: open, intermediate, and traditional. Subjects were the children (n = 189) in these classrooms. Classroom adaptation variables included self concept, school attendance, and teacher ratings of classroom behavior, overall academic rank, and personal preference. Both main effect and interactional relationships between “person” and “situation” variables and classroom adaptation were hypothesized. Classroom environment was found to affect degree of classroom disturbance manifested by the children with students in open classrooms exhibiting most and students in the intermediate classrooms exhibiting least. Boys in the open classrooms had higher achievement anxiety and lower teacher preference ratings than boys in traditional or intermediate classrooms. Reflective children obtained higher ratings as self-reliant learners and, for boys, reflection was related to low classroom disturbance and high achievement anxiety. Interactional relationships between classroom environment and reflection-impulsivity were also found for boys. Divergent thinking was not related to classroom adjustment for boys. Girls high in divergent thinking were higher in school involvement and achievement anxiety and more preferred by teachers.     

“John thinks that Mary thinks that…” attribution of second-order beliefs by 5- to 10-year-old children

Understanding of second-order belief structures by 5- and 10-year-old children was assessed in acted stories in which two characters (John and Mary) were independently informed about an object's (ice-cream van's) unexpected transfer to a new location. Hence both John and Mary knew where the van was but there was a mistake in John's second-order belief about Mary's belief: “John thinks Mary thinks the van is still at the old place”. Children's understanding of this second-order belief was tested by asking “Where does John think Mary will go for ice cream?” Correct answers could only be given if John's second-order belief was represented, since all shortcut reasoning based on first-order beliefs would have led to the wrong answer. Results suggested unexpected early competence around the age of 6 and 7 years, shown under optimal conditions when inference of second-order beliefs was prompted.     

“I Believe in Cusk”: The Effect of Explicit Belief Statements on Children’s Reality Status Judgments and Beliefs about Consensus

Children learn about the world through others’ testimony, and much of this knowledge likely comes from parents. Furthermore, parents may sometimes want children to share their beliefs about topics on which there is no universal consensus. In discussing such topics, parents may use explicit belief statements (e.g., “Evolution is real”) or implicit belief statements (e.g., “Evolution happened over millions of years”). But little research has investigated how such statements affect children’s beliefs. In the current study, 4- to 7-year-olds (N = 102) were shown videos of their parent providing either Explicit (“Cusk is real”) or Implicit (“I know about cusk”) belief testimony about novel entities. Then, children heard another speaker provide either Denial (“Cusk isn’t real”) or Neutral (“I’ve heard of cusk”) testimony. Children made reality status judgments and consensus judgments (i.e., whether people agree about the entity’s existence). Results showed that explicit and implicit belief statements differentially influenced children’s beliefs about societal consensus when followed by a denial: explicit belief statements prevented children from drawing the conclusion that there is societal consensus that the entity does not exist. This effect was not related to age, indicating that children as young as 4 use these cues to inform consensus judgments. On the reality status task, there was an interaction with age, showing that only 4-year-olds were more likely to believe in an entity after hearing explicit belief statements. These findings suggest that explicit belief statements may serve as important sources of both children’s beliefs about novel entities and societal consensus.     

Concepts of bounded agency in education,work, and the personal lives of young adults

This paper traces the development of a series of Anglo‐German studies on how young adults experience control and exercise personal agency as they pass through periods of transition in education and training, work, unemployment, and in their personal lives. The overarching aim has been to develop an extended dialogue between ideas and evidence to explore the beliefs and actions associated with life‐chances under differing structural and cultural conditions. What kinds of beliefs and perspectives do people have on their future possibilities? How far do they feel in control of their lives? How does people's belief in what is possible for them (their personal horizons developed within cultural and structural influences) determine their behaviours and what they perceive to be “choices”? This research contributes to the re‐conceptualization of agency as a process in which past habits and routines are contextualized and future possibilities envisaged in the contingencies of the present moment. The paper concludes by explaining the concept of “bounded agency” as an alternative to “structured individualization” as a way of understanding the experiences of people in changing social landscapes.     

Measurements, Morality, and the Politics of “Normal” Infant Growth

Although the birth and early life of an infant is similar throughout the world, meanings ascribed to infants differ according to cultural values and beliefs. This essay describes how scholars and healers have come to see the infant as distinct from other types of people, and what implications this distinction carries for how health care is practiced. The first portion of this essay explores how understanding of the infant, particularly the well-accepted notion of “normal” infant growth and development, came to prominence. Drawing from the history of medicine, philosophical thought and colonial practice, this essay demonstrates that the roots of thinking about the infant in terms of his growth are deep and well-defined in North American and European ideologies. The second portion of this essay describes the practical applications and political implications of beliefs about the “normal” infant. In the arena of applied health, policy makers measure infant growth in light of assumptions about the “normal.” A case study of indigenous populations in Irian Jaya, Indonesia, shows that these measurements are highly political. Here government health officials create and manipulate statistics to ensure that indigenous infant health is represented as being below “normal.” The “normal” infant can thus be understood as a subtle and effective construct which, in Irian Jaya, at the least, is used to assimilate indigenous people into the nation-state.     

The Wretchedness of Belief

In Culture and Value Wittgenstein remarks that the truly “religious man” thinks himself to be, not merely “imperfect” or “ill,” but wholly “wretched.” While such sentiments are of obvious biographical interest, in this paper I show why they are also worthy of serious philosophical attention. Although the influence of Wittgenstein's thinking on the philosophy of religion is often judged negatively (as, for example, leading to quietist and/or fideist‐relativist conclusions) I argue that the distinctly ethical conception of religion (specifically Christianity) that Wittgenstein presents should lead us to a quite different assessment. In particular, his preoccupation with the categorical nature of religion suggests a conception of “genuine” religious belief which disrupts both the economics of eschatological‐salvationist hope, and the traditional ethical precept that “ought implies can.” In short, what Wittgenstein presents is a sketch of a religion without recompense.