On the mereological structure of complex states of affairs

The aim of this paper is to elucidate the mereological structure of complex states of affairs without relying on the problematic notion of structural universals. For this task tools from graph theory, lattice theory, and the theory of relational systems are employed. Our starting point is the mereology of similarity structures. Since similarity structures are structured sets, their mereology can be considered as a generalization of the mereology of ordinary sets. In general, the mereological systems arising from similarity structures turn out to be not Boolean but Heyting systems. Employing Armstrong??s notion of thick particulars, similarity structures are shown to capture the mereological structure of complex ??chemical states of affairs?? such as ??being butane?? or ??being isobutane??; structural universals are not needed.     

Changing minds in a changing world

I defend a general rule for updating beliefs that takes into account both the impact of new evidence and changes in the subject??s location. The rule combines standard conditioning with a ??shifting?? operation that moves the center of each doxastic possibility forward to the next point where information arrives. I show that well-known arguments for conditioning lead to this combination when centered information is taken into account. I also discuss how my proposal relates to other recent proposals, what results it delivers for puzzles like the Sleeping Beauty problem, and whether there are diachronic constraints on rational belief at all.     

The epistemic significance of valid inference

The traditional picture of logic takes it for granted that ??valid arguments have a fundamental epistemic significance??, but neither model theory nor traditional proof theory dealing with formal system has been able to give an account of this significance. Since valid arguments as usually understood do not in general have any epistemic significance, the problem is to explain how and why we can nevertheless use them sometimes to acquire knowledge. It is suggested that we should distinguish between arguments and acts of inferences and that we have to reconsider the latter notion to arrive at the desired explanation. More precisely, the notions should be developed so that the following relationship holds: one gets in possession of a ground for a conclusion by inferring it from premisses for which one already has grounds, provided that the inference in question is valid. The paper proposes explications of the concepts of ground and deductively valid inference so that this relationship holds as a conceptual truth. Logical validity of inference is seen as a special case of deductive validity, but does not add anything as far as epistemic significance is concerned??it resides already in the deductively valid inferences.     

The notion of happiness in early Wittgenstein: towards a non-contentful account of happiness

This paper examines the notion of ‘happiness’ in the writings of the early Wittgenstein as a notion that does not involve any particular content or states of mind. The main question that the paper addresses is how we can retain a non-contentful account of happiness without turning happiness into an abstract notion, isolated from our concrete lives in language. The paper examines two pivotal components of the Wittgensteinian account of happiness: the ‘good exercise of the will’ and the ‘artistic way of seeing’. In both cases, I try to stress their non-contentful dimension, while simultaneously trying to understand them through language. The central concept for such a non-contentful aspect of language is the notion of ‘meaningfulness’. Thus the paper examines the pivotal components of the Wittgensteinian account of happiness in relation to the notion of ‘meaningfulness’: happiness is then explained as seeing a world against the background of possibilities of meaning.     

Exploring the natural foundations of religion

A new cognitive approach to religion is bringing fresh insights to our understanding of how religious concepts are maintained, acquired and used to motivate and direct actions. This approach suggests that seemingly extraordinary thoughts and behaviours can be supported by quite ordinary cognition and may thus be termed 'natural'. Simultaneously, this research is expanding the domain of concepts and causal reasoning in general. This review examines recent research into religious rituals, communication and transmission of religious knowledge, the development of god-concepts in children, and the origins and character of religious concepts in adults. Together, these studies consistently emphasize and support the notion that the cultural phenomena typically labeled as 'religion' may be understood as the product of aggregated ordinary cognition. The new cognitive science of religion should eventually provide a fuller account of the distinctive and apparently extraordinary properties of religion.     

The Ontology of Causal Process Theories

There is a widespread belief that the so-called process theories of causation developed by Wesley Salmon and Phil Dowe have given us an original account of what causation really is. In this paper, I show that this is a misconception. The notion of ??causal process?? does not offer us a new ontological account of causation. I make this argument by explicating the implicit ontological commitments in Salmon and Dowe??s theories. From this, it is clear that Salmon??s Mark Transmission Theory collapses to a counterfactual theory of causation, while the Conserved Quantity Theory collapses to David Fair??s phsyicalist reduction of causation.     

General-purpose content

In this paper, I consider the objection, raised by Radu Bogdan, that a teleological theory of content is unable to ascribe content to a general-purpose, doxastic system. I begin by giving some attention to the notion of general-purpose representation, and suggest that this notion can best be understood as what I term "interest-independent" representation. I then outline Bogdan's objection in what I take to be its simplest form. I attempt to counter the objection by explaining how a teleologist might ascribe content in a particular case - the case of a perceptual judgement whose content is learned. I reject the idea that the teleologist can appeal to the way in which the subject has used the judgement, or its constituent concepts, in the past, on the grounds that it is possible for the subject to produce judgements and concepts that never help her to satisfy any of her interests. Instead, my account depends on the idea that the process of learning is regulated by a mechanism whose function is to produce a harmony between the information carried by perceptual judgements and the way in which they are used in inference.     

Trust and the doxastic family

This article examines Keith Lehrer??s distinction between belief and acceptance and how it differs from other accounts of belief and of the family of doxastic attitudes. I sketch a different taxonomy of doxastic attitudes. Lehrer??s notion of acceptance is mostly epistemic and at the service of his account of the ??loop of reason??, whereas for other writers acceptance is mostly a pragmatic attitude. I argue, however, that his account of acceptance underdetermines the role that the attitude of trust plays in his analysis of reason.     

Stage theory and proper names

In the contemporary debate about the nature of persistence, stage theory is the view that ordinary objects (artefacts, animals, persons, etc.) are instantaneous and ??persist?? by being suitably related to other instantaneous objects. In this paper I focus on the issue of what stage theorists should say about the semantics of ordinary proper names, like ??Socrates?? or ??London??. I consider the remarks that stage theorists actually make about this issue, present some problems they face, and finally offer what I take to be the best alternative available for them.     

Between proof and truth

We consider two versions of truth as grounded in verification procedures: Dummett??s notion of proof as an effective way to establish the truth of a statement and Hintikka??s GTS notion of truth as given by the existence of a winning strategy for the game associated with a statement. Hintikka has argued that the two notions should be effective and that one should thus restrict one??s attention to recursive winning strategies. In the context of arithmetic, we show that the two notions do not coincide: on the one hand, proofs in PA do not yield recursive winning strategies for the associated game; on the other hand, there is no sound and effective proof procedure that captures recursive GTS truths. We then consider a generalized version of Game Theoretical Semantics by introducing games with backward moves. In this setting, a connection is made between proofs and recursive winning strategies. We then apply this distinction between two kinds of verificationist procedures to a recent debate about how we recognize the truth of G?delian sentences.     

Plotinus on the Inner Sense

Recently, there has been a growing interest in ancient views on consciousness and particularly in their influence on medieval and early modern philosophers. Here I suggest a new interpretation of Plotinus’s account of consciousness which, if correct, may help us to reconsider his role in the history of the notion of the inner sense. I argue that, while explaining how our divided soul can be a unitary subject of the states and activities of its parts, Plotinus develops an original account of consciousness that appeals to an inner sense. In contrast to ‘the outer senses’, which perceive sensible things out there in the world, this sense, for him, perceives the activities of the parts of our soul, thus enabling us to be conscious of them as a single subject. I suggest that Plotinus devises his account of this psychic power in the light of Alexander of Aphrodisias’s interpretation of the Aristotelian ‘common sense’. Since in Alexander the ‘common sense’ enables us to be conscious as a single subject of sensations from different modalities, Plotinus uses it as a model to explain how we can be the conscious subject of all the states and activities of our soul.     

Unwittingly Recapitulating Freud: Searle's Concept of a Vocabulary of the Unconscious

This paper aims to show that the pivotal notion in John Searle's account of the unconscious, despite his representation of Freud's position, is found in Freud's work as part of a very similar view of the issues surrounding the concept of the unconscious. The pivotal notion in question consists in treating the concept of the unconscious as a vocabulary without ontological commitment which Searle claims we must do for the following reason: to reconcile what he considers to be the dualistic concept of the unconscious with an ontology of the mental which recognises no states but conscious states and states of the neurophysiology with the capacity to cause them. The role of the concept in Searle's account is explained. Then his representation of Freud is challenged: firstly, by explicating how Freud accepted that the concept of the unconscious entailed no ontological commitment and, secondly, by showing how this fitted into his wider thinking on how the concept of the unconscious could be understood in terms of a vocabulary, leading ultimately to a justification of the concept of the unconscious in terms of explanatory power. On the basis of this exposition, Searle's charge of dualism against Freud is disputed     

A Plea for a Historical Epistemology of Research

The paper approaches the topic of what a general philosophy of science could mean today from the perspective of a historical epistemology. Consequently, in a first step, the paper looks at the notion of generality in the sciences, and how it evolved over time, on the example of the life sciences. In the second part of the paper, the urgency of a general philosophy of science is located in the history of philosophy of science. Two attempts at the beginning of the twentieth century are particularly highlighted: that of Karl Popper and that of Martin Heidegger. Both of them concentrate, albeit in widely different form, on the phenomenon of research as an open-ended process. This trend is even more pronounced in Gaston Bachelard??s version of a historical epistemology, whose work is taken as a point of reference for a general historical epistemology of research. The paper concludes with a plea to look, with Georges Canguilhem, at the history of the sciences as a laboratory for epistemology.     

A Phenomenology of Emotional Trauma: Around and About the Things Themselves

This paper seeks to provide a noetic analysis of emotional trauma. It highlights three essential features of trauma, as well as one non-essential feature, and attempts to make sense of them phenomenologically. The first essential feature of trauma that the paper considers is the disbelief that pervades traumatic experience. When traumatized, we cannot believe that the traumatic event has taken place. This is because we will, not for the event not to have happened??we cannot will something that is in the past??but to believe that it did not happen so as to shield ourselves from our painful emotional response to it. The second essential feature of trauma is our inability to distinctly categorially intuit the central state of affairs around which our trauma revolves. The traumatic situation is literally unthinkable by us, for it is incongruent with both our expectations regarding the subject of the trauma and our horizon of sense more generally. The third essential feature of trauma is the temporal disorientation that it brings about. Such disorientation arises from our prolonged and single-minded attention to an increasingly complex categorial object: the traumatic situation. Finally, the paper considers a non-essential feature of trauma, namely, how traumatic experience can motivate phenomenological and scientific reactions.     

Conscious Ambivalence

Although ambivalence in a strict sense, according to which a person holds opposed attitudes, and holds them as opposed, is an ordinary and widespread phenomenon, it appears impossible on the common presupposition that persons are either unitary or plural. These two conceptions of personhood call for dispensing with ambivalence by employing tactics of harmonizing, splitting, or annulling the unitary subject. However, such tactics are useless if ambivalence is sometimes strictly conscious. This paper sharpens the notion of conscious ambivalence, such that the above tactics cannot be applied to ordinary moments of explicit and clear ambivalent consciousness. It is shown that such moments reveal ambivalence as an attitude that is part of human life. The argument employs three features of consciousness that together capture its outgoing character (a notion that combines intentionality and self-consciousness). In the last section some of the implications of conscious ambivalence for consciousness and the mind are clarified as the analysis of conscious ambivalence in this paper is compared with Hume’s and John Barth’s phenomenalist conceptions.     

A Strawsonian look at desert

P.F. Strawson famously argued that reactive attitudes and ordinary moral practices justify moral assessments of blame, praise, and punishment. Here we consider whether Strawson's approach can illuminate the concept of desert. After reviewing standard attempts to analyze this concept and finding them lacking, we suggest that to deserve something is to justifiably receive a moral assessment in light of certain criteria – in particular, eligibility criteria (a subject's properties that make the subject principally eligible for moral assessments) and assignment criteria (particulars about the subject, act, and circumstances that justify assessments such as blame in a particular case). Strawson's analysis of the ordinary attitudes and practices of moral assessment hints at these criteria but does not unequivocally ground a notion of desert. Following Strawson's general naturalistic approach, we show that recent psychological research on folk concepts and practices regarding freedom, moral responsibility, and blame illuminates how people actually arrive at moral assessments, thus revealing the very eligibility criteria and assignment criteria we suggest ground a concept of desert. By pushing the Strawsonian line even further than Strawson did, by empirically investigating actual moral practice and folk understandings, we can illuminate desert and lend credence to Strawson's general anti-metaphysical position.     

Future avenues for education and neuroenhancement

Education, in epistemological terms, presents an arena in which the development of knowledge and its transmission frame fundamentally distinct assignments: in social contexts knowledge exchange is prioritised to equip individuals as knowers; in theoretical contexts, an understanding of knowing as a state of mind is the primary objective. Distinguishing between education and its institutionalised product –the school–, this paper reviews the notion that today's modern classroom settings limit the applicability of neuroscience research by focusing on equipping individuals as knowers. In contrast, educational research has become increasingly grounded in brain sciences, with future premises examining artificial intelligence technologies (AI) targeted at enhancing learning and memory based on an understanding of the nature of knowing. Taking into account this bifurcation between education and school, this paper examines how the paths of educational, neuroscience, and AI research cross beyond school-enabled learning. This is contemplated across three sections. The first section examines the historical basis of the bifurcation between education and schooling. The second reviews the potential impacts of current neuroscience knowledge on educational implementations. The third discusses how and why neuroscience and AI technologies could be pertinent to educational discourse in the future.     

Representations from the Past: Social Relations and the Devolution of Social Representations

Psychological life is subject to the influence of a constructed and potentially reconstituted past, as well as to future anticipated outcomes and expectations. Human behaviour occurs along a temporal trajectory that marks the projects individuals adopt in their quests of human action. Explanations of social behaviour are limited insofar as they exclude a historical concern with human purpose. In this paper, we draw on Bartlett??s notion of collective remembering to argue that manifest social relations are rooted in past events that give present behaviours meaning and justification. We further propose an epidemiological time-series framework for social representations, that are conceptualised as evolving over time and that are subject to a ??ratchet effect?? that perpetuates meaning in a collective. We argue that understanding forms of social behaviour that draw on lay explanations of social relations requires a deconstructive effort that maps the evolutionary trajectory of a representational project in terms of its adaptation over time. We go on to illustrate our proposal visiting data that emerged in an inquiry investigating Maltese immigrants?? perspectives towards their countries of settlement and origin. This data reveals an assimilationist acculturation preference amongst the Maltese in Britain that seems incongruous with the current climate of European integration and Maltese communities in other countries around the world. We demonstrate that a historical concern with regard to this apparent behaviour helps explain how Maltese immigrants to Britain opt for certain forms of intercultural relations than others that are normally preferable. We demonstrate that these preferences rely on an evolved justification of the Maltese getting by with foreign rulers that other scholars have traced back to the medieval practice of chivalry.     

Looking Through Ulanowicz’s “Third Window”

After a ??very personal?? introduction, and a reference to how accurate indeed is the use of the ??new window?? metaphor by Ulanowicz and about what ??can be seen through it??, the article dwells into the evolution of our understanding about the most general sources??material and/or non-material??of change and transformation; in order to examine further the item about the ways through which ??information?? can be a source of change and transformation also in pre-biotic processes, where commonly it is not taken into account. Thus, the article argues the convergence between Ulanowicz??s and the Author??s treatments of??non only biotic??networks of configuration of processes (a central theme in Ulanowicz??s book). Finally, the article pays attention to how Ulanowicz??s vision through his ??new Third Window??, can indeed help us transcend the non desirable division of contemporary culture into two isolated compartments (science and technology versus the humanities and ethics), which has contributed not only to the globalization of communications, transactions, knowledge and so on, but also to the globalization of multiple crisis of different sort that need to be solved if we want ??a better world to be possible??.     

The Importance of Being Experienced: An Aristotelian Perspective on Experience and Experience-Based Learning

??The importance of being experienced?? plays a central part in the ethical philosophy of Aristotle. An experienced person is a person who has acquired a coping skill, an appropriate attitude and a sense of situation. According to Aristotle the soul and the body are interdependent, which indicates a close connection between human activity, human cognition and human character. By insisting on the primacy of action, Aristotle changes the educational focal point from an epistemological discussion of knowledge to an ethical discussion of practice. The paper discusses what Aristotle can offer contemporary education in relation to his understanding of experience. The frame of the discussion is organised according to the three notable elements that are contained in Aristotle??s notion of ??the importance of being experienced??: a practice, an appropriate hexis or character and a sense of the situation. As a background for and framing of the discussion, the paper will outline some of the many variants as well as substantial differences of the notion of experience and experience-based learning and categorise them in three different understandings.