Mental illness and the mind-brain problem: Delusion,belief and Searle's theory of intentionality

Until recently there has been little contact between the mind-brain debate in philosophy and the debate in psychiatry about the nature of mental illness. In this paper some of the analogies and disanalogies between the two debates are explored. It is noted in particular that the emphasis in modern philosophy of mind on the importance of the concept of action has been matched by a recent shift in the debate about mental illness from analyses of disease in terms of failure of functioning to analyses of illness in terms of failure of action. The concept of action thus provides a natural conduit for two-way exchanges of ideas between philosophy and psychiatry. The potential fruitfulness of such exchanges is illustrated with an outline of the mutual heuristic significance of psychiatric work on delusions and philosophical accounts of Intentionality.     

Technology and Parental Responsibility: The Case of the V-Chip

In this paper, the so-called V-chip is analysed from the perspective of responsibility. The V-chip is a technological tool used by parents, on a voluntary basis, to prevent children from watching violent television content. Since 1997 in the United States, the V-chip is installed in all new televisions sets of 12?? and larger. We are interested in the question whether and how the introduction of the V-chip affects who is to be considered responsible for children. In the debate, it has been argued that the V-chip reduces parents?? responsibility for children, but it has also been argued that it gives parents a tool to exercise their responsibility. It may appear as though all debaters are discussing the same thing and merely have different opinions. However, we argue that there are at least three notions of responsibility underlying these claims and that these should be kept separate. First, arguments on responsibility may refer to responsibility as task distribution. Second, they can refer to responsibility as control. Finally, a thicker concept of parental responsibility understood as a virtue may be referred to. It becomes clear that whereas task distribution changes to some extent and the possibilities for control are increased, only certain parts of parental responsibility as a virtue are affected. The finding that there appear to be different notions of responsibility involved in a debate that prima facie is about one issue, indicates that discussions on other technologies and how they affect responsibility may suffer from the same conceptual lack of clarity.     

Articulation effects in lightness: historical background and theoretical implications

The concept of articulation was first introduced by Katz [1935 The World of Colour (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co)] to refer to the degree of complexity within a field. Katz, who created the basic research methods for studying lightness constancy, found that the greater the degree of articulation within a field of illumination, the greater the degree of constancy. Even though this concept has been largely forgotten, there is much empirical evidence for Katz's principle, and the effects on lightness are very strong. However, when articulation is increased within a framework that does not coincide with a region of illumination, constancy is weakened. Kardos (1934 Zeitschrift für Psychologie Erg?nzungband 23) advanced the concept of co-determination, according to which the lightness of a surface is determined relative to more than one field of illumination. Gilchrist et al (1999 Psychological Review 106 795-834) argue that the fields concept should be replaced by the more operational frameworks concept and that a wide variety of lightness errors can be explained by a modification of the Katz principle: the greater the articulation within a perceptual framework, the stronger the anchoring of lightness values within that framework.     

论现象概念——解析当前物理主义与反物理主义争论的一个焦点

现象概念是当前心灵哲学里物理主义和反物理主义争论的一个焦点,但尚未引起国内学界的重视。本文打算首先分析现象概念引起关注的主要原因。其次,参考最新的研究文献,考察现象概念的三个基本特性(孤立性、指称物在场、首尾相接),概述物理主义和反物理主义围绕现象概念而进行的主要争论。并在此基础之上,归结出一条约束现象概念与其指称之间关系的硬信念原则(hard belief principle,HBP)。最后,简略探讨了围绕现象概念的争论对于我们理解物理概念及其相关问题可能带来的一些影响。     

Contingency and behavior analysis

The concept of contingency is central to theoretical discussions of learned behavior and in the application of learning research to problems of social significance. This paper reviews three aspects of the contingency concept as it has been developed by behavior analysts. The first is the empirical analysis of contingency through experimental studies of both human and nonhuman behavior. The second is the synthesis of experimental studies in theoretical and conceptual frameworks to yield a more general account of contingency and to integrate the concept with other behavioral processes. The third aspect is one of practical considerations in the application of the contingency concept in both laboratory and applied settings.     

On the Logical Positivists' Theory of Truth: The Fundamental Problem and a New Perspective

The present article purports to show that the protocol sentence debate, pursued by some leading members of the Vienna Circle in the mid-1930s, was essentially a controversy over the explanation and the real significance of the concept of truth. It is further shown that the fundamental issue underlying the discussions about the concept of truth was the relationship between form and content, as well as between logic/language and the world. R. Carnap was the philosopher who most explicitly and systematically attempted to come to grips with this problem. It is shown that the form-content distinction pervades the three most important phases of Carnap's philosophical development: the structuralist (in Der logische Aufbau der Welt), the syntactical and the semantical. His final semantical stance is essentially determined by the concept of linguistic frameworks. The article purports to demonstrate that this concept cannot be dispensed with in philosophy, but that Carnap failed to work out its ontological implications. Finally, the concept of an internal ontology is briefly delineated. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The social concept of disease

In the discussion of such social questions as “how should alcoholics be treated by society?” and “what kind of people are responsible in the face of the law?”, is “disease” a value-free or value-laden notion, a natural or a normative one? It seems, for example, that by the utterance ‘alcoholism should be classified as a disease’ we mean something like the following: the condition called alcoholism is similar in morally relevant respects to conditions that we uncontroversially label diseases, and therefore we have a moral obligation to consider alcoholism a disease. So there are grounds to think that, in the discussion of social questions, our concept of disease is strongly value-laden. However, it does not follow that the medical concept of disease is likewise value-laden. In this paper I distinguish between the medical and social concepts of disease, arguing that the naturalist-normativist debate is concerned with the former, but not the latter. Therefore, we need not settle the naturalist-normativist debate in order to conclude that the social concept of disease is value-laden.     

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.     

On the Methodology of the Race Debate: Conceptual Analysis and Racial Discourse

The traditional debate about whether race should be eliminated from public discourse is often conducted in significant part by examining whether race is real. Whether race is real, in turn, often comes down to whether racial discourse purports to refer to social or natural kinds, which means that analysis of racial concepts is crucial to the question of racial eliminativism. The dominate theory of conceptual analysis in the race debate is that racial concepts should be analyzed according to how those terms have been used by historical experts. It is argued here that this dominant theory is misguided, and that we should therefore analyze racial concepts according to how they are used in contemporary, folk discourse. In addition, and in contrast to the main rival to the dominant theory, I argue that we should analyze folk racial discourse not from the armchair, but instead through empirical research.     

Health care need: three interpretations

The argument that scarce health care resources should be distributed so that patients in 'need' are given priority for treatment is rarely contested. In this paper, we argue that if need is to play a significant role in distributive decisions it is crucial that what is meant by need can be precisely articulated. Following a discussion of the general features of health care need, we propose three principal interpretations of need, each of which focuses on separate intuitions. Although this account may not be a completely exhaustive reflection of what people mean when they refer to need, the three interpretations provide a starting-point for further debate of what the concept means in its specific application. We discuss combined interpretations, the meaning of grading needs, and compare needs-based priority setting to social welfare maximisation.     

Changing explanatory frameworks in the U.S. government’s attempt to define research misconduct

Nearly two decades of debate have not settled the definition of research misconduct. The literature provides four explanatory frameworks for misconduct. The paper examines these frameworks and maps them onto efforts by the U.S. Public Health Service to define research misconduct and subsequent responses to these efforts by the scientific community. The changing frameworks suggest that closure will not be achieved without an authoritative effort, which may occur through the Research Integrity Panel’s recent attempt to create a government-wide definition.     

Natural theology in the light of logic,semantics, and metaphysics

In recent Anglophone theology, there has been a renewed interest in the concept of analogia entis. Several theologians from various confessional backgrounds have discussed the meaning of this concept and revisited the earlier debate between Karl Barth, Erich Przywara and Hans Urs von Balthasar that took place almost one hundred years ago. Barth famously took the concept as the doctrine that prevented him from ever becoming a Catholic. Recent debate has charted the possibility of reinterpreting the older debate and overcoming misunderstandings across confessional borders. The first reason for the discussion is thus ecumenical, while the second reason is providing the Christian Churches with a tool that helps them to stand against the tides of secularism. I argue that analogia entis is not likely going to provide us new opportunities in ecumenism, yet it may help us to unearth and understand both some confessional differences and common concerns.     

The Significance of the Concept of Disease for Justice in Health Care

In this paper, I want to scrutinise the value of utilising the concept of disease for a theory of distributive justice in health care. Although many people believe that the presence of a disease-related condition is a prerequisite of a justified claim on health care resources, the impact of the philosophical debate on the concept of disease is still relatively minor. This is surprising, because how we conceive of disease determines the amount of justified claims on health care resources. Therefore, the severity of scarcity depends on our interpretation of the concept of disease. I want to defend a specific combination of a theory of disease with a theory of distributive justice. A naturalist account of disease, together with sufficientarianism, is able to perform a gate-keeping function regarding entitlements to medical treatment. Although this combination cannot solve all problems of justice in health care, it may inform rationing decisions as well.     

Understanding software technology

Software is a difficult technology to understand strategically. Many frameworks developed for strategic technology analysis are specific to physical technologies. This paper analyzes two frameworks, the cascade model of technology evolution and the concept of technology potency. Modifications to the cascade model are proposed that make it more compatible with software. Difficulties with the concept of technology potency when applied to software are illustrated and directions for further research are pointed out. Richard A. Howey is a senior consultant at Watson Wyatt Worldwide where he applies data warehousing and other advanced analytical software technologies to satisfy the information needs of human resources management professionals. He has over twenty-six years of experience in information systems as a software developer, project manager, and consultant. In addition to his professional activities, he is currently a graduate student at the University of Minnesota where he is pursuing a Master of Science degree in management of technology.     

Formalization and the Objects of Logic

There is a long-standing debate whether propositions, sentences, statements or utterances provide an answer to the question of what objects logical formulas stand for. Based on the traditional understanding of logic as a science of valid arguments, this question is firstly framed more exactly, making explicit that it calls not only for identifying some class of objects, but also for explaining their relationship to ordinary language utterances. It is then argued that there are strong arguments against the proposals commonly put forward in the debate. The core of the problem is that an informative account of the objects formulas stand for presupposes a theory of formalization; that is, a theory that explains what formulas may adequately substitute for an inference in proofs of validity. Although such theories are still subject to research, some consequences can be drawn from an analysis of the reasons why the common accounts featuring sentences, propositions or utterances fail. Theories of formalization cannot refer to utterances qua expressions of propositions; instead they may refer to sentences and rely on additional information about linguistic structure and pragmatic context.     

The dual role of ‘emergence’ in the philosophy of mind and in cognitive science

The concept of emergence is widely used in both the philosophy of mind and in cognitive science. In the philosophy of mind it serves to refer to seemingly irreducible phenomena, in cognitive science it is often used to refer to phenomena not explicitly programmed. There is no unique concept of emergence available that serves both purposes.     

Situationism and the Concept of a Situation

Abstract: The concept of a situation underlying the debate between moral situationists and dispositionists conceals various underexplored complexities. Some of those issues have been engaged recently in the so‐called psychology of situations, but they have been slow to receive attention in mainstream philosophy. I invoke various distinctions among situations, and show how situationists have selectively chosen certain types of situations that, for conceptual reasons, skew the argument in their favour. I introduce the concept of a ‘virtue‐calibrated situation’, and argue that if the person–situation debate is to move forward in philosophy as it has in psychology, it must focus on such situations. I bring to bear evidence from analytic and continental philosophy, as well as from social and personality psychology.