Explaining and Explaining Away in Cosmology and Theology

Modern cosmology raises two significant questions that potentially relate to theology: does the universe have a beginning, and why is the universe so apparently fine tuned for life? In a significant paper, Mark McCartney and David Glass ask whether science can explain away, or at least explain away in part, such features of the universe in cosmology and other sciences that may alternatively invite a theological explanation. In this paper I argue that two proposals made by cosmologists fail to explain away the universe's beginning, and that science is powerless to explain away the more fundamental question as to why there is a universe at all. I argue similarly that scientific, or quasi-scientific, proposals such as the multiverse fail to explain away the fine tuning.     

Evaluation, Uncertainty and Motivation

Evaluative judgements have both belief-like and desire-like features. While cognitivists think that they can easily explain the belief-like features, and have trouble explaining the desire-like features, non-cognitivists think the reverse. I argue that the belief-like features of evaluative judgement are quite complex, and that these complexities crucially affect the way in which an agent's values explain her actions, and hence the desire-like features. While one form of cognitivism can, it turns out that non-cognitivism cannot, accommodate all of these complexities. The upshot is that that form of cognitivism can explain both features of evaluative judgements, and that non-cognitivism can explain neither.     

青少年的社会支持系统与自尊的关系

采用典型相关分析方法对502名青少年的社会支持系统与自尊的关系进行研究,结果表明,在影响自尊的因素中,有29．8％是可以由青少年所感知的社会支持系统所解释的。母亲、父亲、朋友和教师的肯定与支持、冲突与惩罚、陪伴与亲密及满意度等功能分别可以解释青少年的家庭自尊、整体自尊、学业自尊、人际自尊和外貌自尊的8．5％、8．596、5．8％和7％。而社会支持功能与青少年的利他自尊和运动能力的自尊没有显著相关。     

The New Explanatory Objection Against the Fitting Attitude Account of Value

Philosophia - The explanatory objection against the fitting attitude account of value states that if the properties of attitudes explain fittingness facts, but do not always explain value facts,...     

潮汕话-普通话双言者的词汇习得年龄效应

采用潮汕话-普通话双言者为被试, 通过3个实验, 考察了词汇习得年龄效应。实验1采用汉字命名和图片命名范式, 证实了在双言者的两种语言中都存在词汇习得年龄效应。实验2和实验3分别采用语义范畴判断及声母监控任务, 在语义层面及语音层面检验了双言者的两种语言的词汇习得年龄效应的特点。结果表明, 在语义任务上发现了词汇习得年龄效应, 在语音任务上未发现。整个研究表明, 语义在汉语词汇习得年龄效应产生中具有重要作用, 支持了语义假设。     

Gender gaps in cognitive and social‐emotional skills in early primary grades: Evidence from rural Indonesia

This paper examines the magnitude and source of gender gaps in cognitive and social‐emotional skills in early primary grades in rural Indonesia. Relative to boys, girls score more than 0.17 SD higher in tests of language and mathematics (cognitive skills) and between 0.18 and 0.27 SD higher in measures of social competence and emotional maturity (social‐emotional skills). We use Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition to investigate the extent to which gender differences in early schooling and parenting practices explain these gender gaps in skills. For cognitive skills, differences in early schooling between boys and girls explain between 9% and 11% of the gender gap whereas differences in parenting practices explain merely 3%–5% of the gender gap. This decomposition result is driven largely by children living in villages with high‐quality preschools. In contrast, for social‐emotional skills, differences in parenting styles toward boys and girls explain between 13% and 17% of the gender gap, while differences in early schooling explain only 0%–6% of the gender gap.     

The Rationale of Pillarization: The Case of Minority Movements

Historians and sociologists have put forward several theories to explain the process of pillarization in Western Europe. One hypothesis suggests that the function of pillarization was the emancipation of minorities which suffered social discrimination. According to the political mobilisation hypothesis, pillars were erected to link the members of different constituent organisations to the political party which defended their rights and privileges. Finally, the preservation hypothesis suggests that the religiously pillarized organisational complexes emerged and developed to insulate religious people from a secularised world. The questions the author raises in this article address the extent to which pillars were erected in so-called sects and new religious movements, and the extent to which the functions which explain the emergence of Western European pillarization serve to explain the emergence of pillars in sects and new religious movements. Do we need additional or alternative hypotheses to explain their emergence?     

Explaining misattribution

In explaining the attributional error researchers have to explain subjects’ negative behavior. They tend to explain it in internal dispositional terms of personal need or ego weakness. But even if they explain it in situational terms, it remains questionable to what extent they themselves make an attributional error. Are they liable to the self-excepting fallacy, or are they forced to avoid a choice between situational and dispositional terms in explaining misattribution? This problem definitely has certain consequences for the evaluation of the explanatory power of attribution theory as a theory.     

Explaining dubious assertions

David Sosa argues that the knowledge account of assertion is unsatisfactory, because it cannot explain the oddness of what he calls dubious assertions. One such dubious assertion is of the form ‘P but I do not know whether I know that p.’ Matthew Benton has attempted to show how proponents of the knowledge account can explain what’s wrong this assertion. I show that Benton’s explanation is inadequate, and propose my own explanation of the oddness of this dubious assertion. I also explain what’s wrong with other dubious assertions mentioned by Sosa.     

Knowing and Seeing: Responding to Stroud's Dilemma

Abstract: Barry Stroud suggests that when we want to explain a certain kind of knowledge philosophically we feel we must explain it on the basis of another, prior kind of knowledge that does not imply or presuppose any of the knowledge we are trying to explain. If we accept this epistemic priority requirement (EPR) we find that we cannot explain our knowledge of the world in a way that satisfies it. If we reject EPR then we will be failing to make all of our knowledge of the world intelligible all at once. I respond to this dilemma by questioning EPR and arguing that it is, in any case, a requirement that is satisfied by explanations of our knowledge in terms of non‐epistemic seeing. Since non‐epistemic seeing is not a form of knowing, such explanations show how knowledge of the world can come to be out of something that is not knowledge of the world.     

Objective Being and “Ofness” in Descartes

It is generally assumed that Descartes invokes “objective being in the intellect” in order to explain or describe an idea’s status as being “of something.” I argue that this assumption is mistaken. As emerges in his discussion of “materially false ideas” in the Fourth Replies, Descartes recognizes two senses of ‘idea of’. One, a theoretical sense, is itself introduced in terms of objective being. Hence Descartes can’t be introducing objective being to explain or describe “ofness” understood in this sense. Descartes also appeals to a pretheoretical sense of ‘idea of’. I will argue that the notion of objective being can’t serve to explain or describe this “ofness” either. I conclude by proposing an alternative explanation of the role of objective being, according to which Descartes introduces this notion to explain the mind’s ability to attain clear and distinct ideas.     

Testing Target Congruence Theory on Emotional Abuse Victimization Experienced by Heterosexual and LGBQ College Students

Criminological theories traditionally used to explain crime and deviance have now been applied to explain physical intimate partner violence (IPV) experienced by heterosexual and LGBQ victims. Notably missing, however, are studies that test theories that explain why individuals may become victims of emotional abuse by sexual orientation. To this end, we applied target congruence theory to examine the influence of target vulnerability, gratifiability, and antagonism on emotional abuse experienced by college students. Data obtained from two public universities (Heterosexuals=366, LGBQ=113) showed partial support for the theory, with target vulnerability consistently predicting emotional abuse victimization regardless of sexual orientation.     

Dream experience and a revisionist account of delusions of misidentification

Standard accounts of delusion explain them as responses to experience. Cognitive models of feature binding in the face recognition systems explain how experiences of mismatch between feelings of "familiarity" and faces can arise. Similar mismatches arise in phenomena such as déjà and jamais vu in which places and scenes are mismatched to feelings of familiarity. These cognitive models also explain similarities between the phenomenology of these delusions and some dream states which involve mismatch between faces, feelings of familiarity and identities. Given these similarities it makes sense to retain that aspect of the standard account in the face of revisionist arguments that feature binding anomalies which lead to delusions of misidentification are not consciously experienced.     

Can Jean Piaget explain the possibility of knowledge?

The purpose of this article is to show that Piaget's use of the equilibrium principle cannot explain the possibility of correct understanding. That is, it cannot explain the possibility of knowledge, as opposed to simple change in belief. To make the argument, I begin by describing Piaget's explanatory model, which is known as the equilibrium principle. I then argue that correct understanding, or knowledge of any x as a case of y, requires a concept of correctness, i.e., the recognition that words and concepts apply under some conditions but not others. I try to show that because he uses the equilibrium principle as a basis for his explanation, Piaget cannot explain how a concept of correctness is acquired. Finally, I argue that to explain the possibility of knowledge, one must show how the conditions for word and concept application are determined by a community of language users. Again, I claim that Piaget's use of the equilibrium model precludes such an account.     

Self-reported Deviant Computer Behavior: A Big-5, Moral Choice,and Manipulative Exploitive Behavior Analysis

Many criminological theories about individual violation can be broadly classified into two groups: (1) those that attempt to explain the violation of personally held conventional norms and values (normative violations) and (2) those that attempt to explain the following of deviant norms and values (cultural deviance). We argue that each set of theories focuses on a unique dependent variable, but that social learning is one example of a theory that explicitly integrates these dependent variables under one explanatory heading. This important difference in what theories are trying to explain has been downplayed in criminology, with potentially serious consequences. The failure to provide accurate, focused measures of the correct dependent variables may have produced empirical findings that are weaker than expected. This article takes a step toward rectifying this important problem. It presents a discussion of the different sets of theories and of the attempt by social learning theory to explain both of behavior; in addition, it spells out the implications for research of this difference.     

Do you see what I see? How social differences influence mindreading

Disagreeing with others about how to interpret a social interaction is a common occurrence. We often find ourselves offering divergent interpretations of others’ motives, intentions, beliefs, and emotions. Remarkably, philosophical accounts of how we understand others do not explain, or even attempt to explain such disagreements. I argue these disparities in social interpretation stem, in large part, from the effect of social categorization and our goals in social interactions, phenomena long studied by social psychologists. I argue we ought to expand our accounts of how we understand others in order to accommodate these data and explain how such profound disagreements arise amongst informed, rational, well-meaning individuals.     

Labeling,Social Learning,and Positive Deviance: A Look at High Achieving Students

High achievers are an intriguing case in that they are often stigmatized by peers as rate-busters and concurrently adulated as positive deviants by their parents and teachers. Theories developed to explain negative deviants have potential to also illuminate positive deviance. High achievers were interviewed and both labeling theory and social learning theory were applied to explain aspects of their experiences.     

Race,social relationships,and mental health

Researchers often assume that the extent, quality, and effectiveness of personal relationships explain why African Americans have relatively good mental health despite experiencing high levels of stress. This study tests this assumption using data from the 1990–1992 National Comorbidity Survey. Few racial differences emerge in patterns of social relationships, and the nature and quality of social relationships do not explain African Americans’ resiliency on mental health. Several aspects of social relationships benefit African Americans’ mental health more than Whites’, but these moderating effects are insubstantial. Hence, the data do not support the assumption. If social relationships help explain the lack of racial differences in mental health, their nature and effects must be more adequately conceptualized.     

Interviewing older adults: validity of self-reports of satisfaction

Respondents in a personal interview study were asked to evaluate several domains of their lives using several different response scales that included both verbal and pictorial response alternatives. Structural equation models were specified to permit estimation of the validity of these survey measures. Across all of the items, the concept factors explain an average of about one half of the total variance, method factors explain about one tenth of the variance, and the remaining one third or so of the variance is unique to each item. Comparisons of the validity of reports by respondents of different ages indicate that method factors explain almost twice as much of the variance in the responses of older respondents as in those of younger respondents.