Why more can be less: An inference-based explanation for hyper-subadditivity in bundle valuation

We conceptualize, develop, and test a multiple-item bundle valuation model through which decision makers are able to make inferences about the value of uncertain items based on the value of certain items. Results of four experiments indicate that bundling a low-value certain item with a high-value uncertain item, which are not substitutes, results in a bundle valuation lower than the value of the uncertain item alone. We refer to this highly unexpected and previously unexplained phenomenon as “hyper-subadditivity.” In addition we find that bundling a high-value certain item with a low-value uncertain item leads to superadditivity, even though the items are not complements. Hence, we find that when two objects are bundled together, and one has a more certain value, decision makers use the value of the certain item to infer the value of the less certain item. They might infer that the other (less certain) object must be worth an amount similar to the item with which they are paired. We further demonstrate that reducing uncertainty eliminates these effects, and that direct value inferencing (not simple numeric priming, nor inferences about quality) is the most likely mechanism driving these effects.     

Rights Externalism

Rights externalism is the thesis that a subject's status as a rightholder is secured not on account of it having a certain nature, but on account of it being afforded a certain sort of social recognition. I believe that rights externalism has been given short shrift, largely because a certain objection is widely taken to be a compelling reason for rejecting it. This objection goes roughly as follows. Both in theory and in practice we commonly appeal to the fact that subjects possess certain nonconventional rights (independently of whether these rights have been socially recognized) to criticize immoral social practices, arrangements, and institutions. But if being a rightholder is directly determined by whether subjects have been afforded a certain sort of social recognition, then we cannot appeal to the fact that subjects possess certain nonconventional rights for critical purposes in some instances, namely, in those instances where the relevant social recognition has not been extended. Although this objection is taken by some rights internalists to justify favoring rights internalism over rights externalism, I argue that it does not.     

KINDS AND CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE: IS THERE ANYTHING THAT IT IS LIKE TO BE SOMETHING?

Abstract: In this article I distinguish the notion of there being something it is like to be a certain kind of creature from that of there being something it is like to have a certain kind of experience. Work on consciousness has typically dealt with the latter while employing the language of the former. I propose several ways of analyzing what it is like to be a certain kind of creature and find problems with them all. The upshot is that even if there is something it is like to have certain kinds of experience, it does not follow that there is anything it is like to be a certain kind of creature. Skepticism about the existence of something that it is like to be an F is recommended.     

Propositional structure and truth conditions

This paper presents an account of the manner in which a proposition’s immediate structural features are related to its core truth-conditional features. The leading idea is that for a proposition to have a certain immediate structure is just for certain entities to play certain roles in the correct theory of the brute facts regarding that proposition’s truth conditions. The paper explains how this account addresses certain worries and questions recently raised by Jeffery King and Scott Soames.     

Dispositional Theories of the Colours of Things

Dispositional theories of the colours of objects identify an object’s having a certain colour with its being such that it would produce perceptions of certain kinds in perceivers of certain kinds under certain specified conditions. Without doubting that objects have dispositions to produce perceptions of certain kinds, this paper questions whether the relevant kinds of perceptions, perceivers, and conditions can be specified in a way that (i) does not rely on acceptance of any objects as being coloured in a non-dispositional sense and (ii) secures the necessity of the identity between an object’s having the disposition so specified and its having the colour in question. Accepting any theory that looked as if it succeeded on both these counts would require an explanation of why a parallel identity does not hold for an object’s disposition to produce, e.g., perceptions of shape.     

Epistemic normativity in Kant's “Second Analogy”

In the “Second Analogy,” Kant argues that, unless mental contents involve the concept of causation, they cannot represent an objective temporal sequence. According to Kant, deploying the concept of causation renders a certain temporal ordering of representations necessary, thus enabling objective representational purport. One exegetical question that remains controversial is this: how, and in what sense, does deploying the concept of cause render a certain ordering of representations necessary? I argue that this necessitation is a matter of epistemic normativity: with certain causal presuppositions in place, the individual is obliged to make a judgment with certain temporal contents, on pain of irrationality. To make this normatively obligatory judgment, the subject must place her perceptual representations in a certain order. This interpretation fits Kant's text, his argumentative aims, and his broader views about causal inference, better than rival interpretations can. This result has important consequences for the ongoing debate over the role of normativity in Kant's philosophy of mind.     

The information conveyed by varying the dimensions of features in human outline faces

Outline drawings of human faces were presented for rating as to a number of dichotomous attributes, while the dimensions of the four constituent features were varied sysrematically. It was found that people act in a regular and predictable fashion in attributing characterisrics to certain of these features. When independently significant features appear in combination, there is a lawful increase in such characterizing responses. Subsidiary findings related to a halo effect between certain attributes, differential employment of some attributes, and a difference in overall strength of effect between certain features.     

On The Sense and Reference of A Logical Constant

Syntax precedes truth-theoretic semantics when it comes to understanding a logical constant. A constant in a language is logical iff its sense is entirely constituted by certain deductive rules. To be sense-constitutive, deductive rules governing a constant must meet certain conditions; those that do so are sense-constitutive by virtue of understanders' conditional dispositions to feel compelled to accept certain formulae. Acceptance is a cognitive formula-attitude. Since acceptance requires understanding, and a formula can contain more than one occurrence of logical constants, this account involves a 'local holism', but no circularity. I argue that no logical constant is ambiguous between a classical and a constructive sense; but I allow that one constant may have distinct classical and constructive 'semantic values'. A logical constant's sense helps to determine its semantic value, but only together with certain constraints on satisfaction and frustration; it seems that the latter must include 'convention T'-style schemata.     

Is Evidence Normative?

Philosophia - This paper defends the view that in a certain sense evidence is normative. Neither a bit of evidence nor the fact that it is evidence for a certain proposition is a normative fact,...     

I didn't think of that

Consider cases in which an agent simply doesn.t think to do a certain thing, or doesn't think of a crucial consideration favoring doing a certain thing, or intends to do a certain thing but forgets to do it. In such a case, is the agent able to do the thing that she fails to do? Assume that commonly we all-in can do things that we do not do. Here I argue that, given this assumption, in the cases under consideration, too, commonly agents all-in can do the things they fail to do.     

Social skills training with adolescent male offenders: I. Short-term effects

The effect of a social skills training programme consisting of instructions, modelling, role playing, videotaped feedback and social reinforcement, was examined in a multiple baseline design with five adolescent male offenders. Training led to specific improvements in certain target behaviours. It was found that, whereas improvements in the performance of certain skills such as appropriate eye contact could be brought about relatively quickly, certain listening skills proved much harder to train. Where training was effective in producing improvements in the performance of a skill, these changes were generally maintained at two weeks follow-up.     

Representation and Reasoning about Evolutions of the World in the Context of Reasoning about Actions

The first step in reasoning about actions and change involves reasoning about how the world would evolve if a certain action is executed in a certain state. Most research on this assumes the evolution to be only a single step and focus on formulating the transition function that defines changes between states due to actions. In this paper we consider cases where the evolution is more than just a single change between one state and another. This is manifested when the execution of an action may trigger execution of other actions, or when multiple agents act on the environment following certain strategies.     

Cognitive functioning and socio-political ideology A multidimensional and individualized analysis

Abstract.— Relationships between certain cognitive behaviors within a political domain (i.e. Cognitive Differentiation, Cognitive Articulation) and certain dimensions of Socio-Political ideology (General Conservatism, Political-Economic Conservatism, Racism, Religion, Sexual Repression, and Authoritarian Aggression) were studied. Cognitive functioning was sampled via the use of uni- and multidimensional scaling analyses, with the stimuli consisting of Swedish political parties. Socio-Political ideology was defined by: (1) the S, Conservatism Scale and (2) the subjects' political party preferences. The subjects consisted of 105 psychology students from the University of Stockholm. The results showed that: ( a ) there were statistically significant relationships among the various indices of cognitive functioning based upon independent methods of assessment, and ( b ) there were statistically significant relationships between a number of cognitive functioning indices and certain dimensions of Socio-Political ideology. The results are discussed in terms of three hypotheses concerning the connection between Socio-Political ideology and certain forms of cognitive behavior.     

The Will to Make‐Believe: Religious Fictionalism,Religious Beliefs,and the Value of Art

I explore some of the reasons why, under specific circumstances, it may be rational to make‐believe or imagine certain religious beliefs. Adopting a jargon familiar to certain contemporary philosophers, my main concern here is to assess what reasons can be given for adopting a fictionalist stance towards some religious beliefs. My understanding of fictionalism does not involve solely a propositional attitude but a broader stance, which may include certain acts of pretence. I also argue that a plausible reason to be fictionalist about a specific set of religious beliefs and practices has to do with the value of some artistic creations; namely, those that require the adoption of a religious point of view for their understanding.     

Higher-Order Contingentism,Part 3: Expressive Limitations

Two expressive limitations of an infinitary higher-order modal language interpreted on models for higher-order contingentism – the thesis that it is contingent what propositions, properties and relations there are – are established: First, the inexpressibility of certain relations, which leads to the fact that certain model-theoretic existence conditions for relations cannot equivalently be reformulated in terms of being expressible in such a language. Second, the inexpressibility of certain modalized cardinality claims, which shows that in such a language, higher-order contingentists cannot express what is communicated using various instances of talk of ‘possible things’, such as ‘there are uncountably many possible stars’.     

Comparison between two opposite homicidal syndromes (Syndrome e vs. limbic psychotic trigger reaction)

Two syndromes with opposite kinds of homicidal acts also implicate opposite activation of frontal lobe and limbic systems. I. Fried's “Syndrome E” refers to planned, ideologically-motivated mass murders, committed in groups and accompanied by “elation.” Implicated are heightened functioning of certain frontal lobe regions with certain reduced limbic involvement . In contrast, A. A. Pontius' “Limbic Psychotic Trigger Reaction” delineates unplanned, motiveless homicidal acts (so far 17 cases) committed by a single loner with flat affect, implicating a partial limbic seizure hyperactivation with fleeting psychosis and brief secondary dysfunctioning of certain frontal regions.     

Evidence

Conclusion We can now see, perhaps, what merits if any this definition has. It ties in the concept of evidence with that of law, and requires us to support our claim that some fact (or statement) is evidence for another by pointing out the science, and within it the law (or what meets the tests of being acceptable as such) whose existence alone justifies us in assuming that a certain conditional statement qualifies as acceptable as nomological. Whoever claims that a certain fact is evidence for another is required to justify his assumption that there exists a certain law. That in some sense there are such justifiable assumptions is clear from the existence of natural sciences and technologies based upon them. But it will turn out that in many cases it is impossible, as of a given moment, to make out a case for the claim that a certain conditional statement, required to support the view that a certain fact is evidence for another, is nomological. In such cases we are able to draw a clear line between what someone may think or claim is evidence, and what we have reasonable grounds for accepting as such. In short the concept offers us a principle of demarcation between justified and unjustified claims for the evidential nature of facts (or statements) offered as such. If this is not a very impressive achievement still it is not wholly contemptible, considering the confusion that prevails among many people concerning the question of evidence.     

Characterizing hallucination epistemically

According to the epistemic theory of hallucination, the fundamental psychological nature of a hallucinatory experience is constituted by its being ‘introspectively indiscriminable’, in some sense, from a veridical experience of a corresponding type. How is the notion of introspective indiscriminability to which the epistemic theory appeals best construed? Following M. G. F. Martin, the standard assumption is that the notion should be construed in terms of negative epistemics: in particular, it is assumed that the notion should be explained in terms of the impossibility that a hallucinator might possess a certain type of knowledge on a certain basis. I argue that the standard assumption is mistaken. I argue that the relevant notion of introspective indiscriminability is better construed in terms of positive epistemics: in particular, I argue that the notion is better explained by reference to the fact that it would be rational for a hallucinator positively to make a certain type of judgement, were that judgement made on a certain basis.     

Siding with Euthyphro: Response-Dependence and Conferred Properties

Abstract: I argue that a response-dependence account of a concept can yield metaphysical results, and not merely epistemological or semantical results, which has been a prevalent view in the literature on response-dependence. In particular, I show how one can argue for a conferralist account of a certain property by arguing that the concept of the property is response-dependent, if certain assumptions are made.