The Laboratory Revisited

UK science policy now includes ‘upstream public engagement’ as an element in the responsible development of nanotechnology. This paper explores different understandings of the term upstream engagement before discussing in more detail a laboratory-based collaboration between social science and nanoscience aimed at exploring the social dimensions of nanotechnology. The paper concludes that concern with defining what counts as ‘upstream’ can obscure more critical questions about how to make public, and therefore accountable, deliberations about the interrelated social and technical aspects of nanoscience.     

Knowledge and the Internal Revisited1

In “Knowledge and the Social Articulation of the Space of Reasons,” Robert Brandom reads my “Knowledge and the Internal” as sketching a position that, when properly elaborated, opens into his own social‐perspectival conception of knowledge (and of objectivity in general). But this depends on taking me to hold that there cannot be justification for a belief sufficient to exclude the possibility that the belief is false. And that is exactly what I argued against in “Knowledge and the Internal.” Seeing that P constitutes falsehood‐excluding justification for believing that P. That should seem common sense, but it is made unavailable by the inferentialist conception of justification that Brandom takes for granted. So far from realizing my aims, Brandom's social‐perspectival conception of knowledge is squarely in the target area of my argument in “Knowledge and the Internal,” which I restate here so as to bring that out.     

Community Research: The Lost Art of Unobtrusive Methods1

The use of unobtrusive methods, with special reference to community‐oriented research, is a lost art, despite their strong recommendation by Webb, Campbell, Schwartz, & Sechrest (1966) as means of supplementing reactive measures. The decline of unobtrusive measures seems to be related to the increased popularity and adherence to the doctrine of informed consent, the decrease in use of deception as a method, and the effort to conceptualize research subjects as cooperative participants. While the distaste for unobtrusive methods seems to reflect increased sensitivity toward ethics in research, the collection of partially reliable and partially valid knowledge continues, with considerable reliance on reactive measures.     

The Knower Paradox Revisited

Philosophical Studies -     

The Preface Paradox Revisited

The Preface Paradox has led many philosophers to believe that, if it isassumed that high probability is necessary for rational acceptability, the principleaccording to which rational acceptability is closed under conjunction (CP)must be abandoned. In this paper we argue that the paradox is far less damaging to CP than is generally believed. We describe how, given certain plausibleassumptions, in a large class of cases in which CP seems to lead tocontradiction, it does not do so after all. A restricted version of CP canthus be maintained.     

The Discrimination Argument Revisited

The first explicit argument for the incompatibility of externalism in the philosophy of mind and a priori self-knowledge is Boghossian’s discrimination argument. In this essay, I oppose the third premise of this argument, trying to show by means of a thought experiment that possessing the “twater thought” is not an alternative, a fortiori not a relevant alternative, to having the “water thought.” I then examine a modified version of Boghossian’s argument. The attempt is made to substantiate the claim that the standard incompatibilist support for its second premise is untenable. Furthermore, a third Boghossian-style argument is rejected on the ground that either its second premise cannot be warranted in the way suggested by incompatibilists or its third premise is mistaken because having the “twater thought” instead of the “water thought” is not relevant. Finally, it is argued that the discrimination argument cannot be saved by invoking closure. The upshot of my discussion is that a compatibilist can dismiss Boghossian-style arguments for incompatibilism without having to deal with fundamental issues concerning self-knowledge and the nature of slow switching.     

The Probabilities of Conditionals Revisited

According to what is now commonly referred to as “the Equation” in the literature on indicative conditionals, the probability of any indicative conditional equals the probability of its consequent of the conditional given the antecedent of the conditional. Philosophers widely agree in their assessment that the triviality arguments of Lewis and others have conclusively shown the Equation to be tenable only at the expense of the view that indicative conditionals express propositions. This study challenges the correctness of that assessment by presenting data that cast doubt on an assumption underlying all triviality arguments.     

The Future Similarity Objection Revisited

David Lewis has long defended an analysis of counterfactuals in terms of comparative similarity of possible worlds. The purpose of this paper is to reevaluate Lewis’s response to one of the oldest and most familiar objections to this proposal, the future similarity objection.     

The Relatively Happy Fish Revisited

The anecdote of Zhuangzi and Hui Shi's brief discussion on a bridge above the Hao river gives us a nice piece of reasoning in ancient Chinese texts that may serve as a platform for a productive philosophical exchange between the East and the West. The present study examines Hansen's inferential analysis of Zhuangzi and Hui Shi's discussion in this spirit. It is argued that Hansen's analysis founders. To do justice to both Hui Shi and Zhuangzi, the present study proposes that we apply the logic developed in the later Mohist text, the Lesser Pick, to an analysis of their discussion. The re-analysis shows that the intricate dialectic of the reasoning in which Zhuangzi and Hui Shi engage, neatly accords with the pattern of discourse expounded in the Lesser Pick, and gives us global insight into Zhuangzi's final statement in the anecdote, which is notoriously recondite, or confusing.     

The Art of Bridging Revisited

The importance of connecting group member to member is highlighted in this article. Basically, its value is in finding creative ways to join members together. The article highlights the importance of emotional communication. I look at similarities with other group therapists, particularly exploring those between Ormont and Yalom. It is the goal of this article to highlight how this technique can be of importance for all group therapists. Clinical examples of connecting members from beginning to intermediate and advanced levels are highlighted. A selected literature review is included.     

The Argument From Scale Revisited

ABSTRACT

Several philosophers and scientists have claimed that modern cosmology forces us to think that humans are insignificant from the cosmic point of view. This argument for atheism derived from the scale of the universe became popular in the twentieth century, but its roots are long. Interestingly, it has not typically been considered as a very strong anti-theistic argument, and the size of the universe has also been used as proof for theism. This article offers a brief overview of how the argument from scale has been used in the past, and then discusses modern versions of it.     

The Happy-Productive Worker Thesis Revisited

Despite extensive research on the subject spanning over 70 years, uncertainty still remains as to whether happier workers are in fact more productive. This study combined longitudinal prospective and experience sampling methods to examine the relationship between happiness and self-reported productivity among Directors employed in the public and private sectors. Analyses at a trait level suggested happy people were more productive. Similarly, at the state level of analysis, people were more productive when they were happier. Among the happiness indicators examined (job satisfaction, quality of work life, life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect) positive affect was most strongly, but not exclusively, tied to productivity at both the state and trait levels. Discussion focuses on reconciling a long history of mixed findings regarding the happy-productive worker thesis.

The Mentality of Apes Revisited

Although early comparative psychology was seriously marred by claims of our species'supremacy, the residual backlash against these archaic evolutionary views is still being felt, even though our understanding of evolutionary biology is now sufficiently advanced to grapple with possible cognitive specializations that our species does not share with closely related species. The overzealous efforts to dismantle arguments of human uniqueness have only served to show that most comparative psychologists working with apes have yet to set aside the antiquated evolutionary "ladder." Instead, they have only attempted to pull chimpanzees up to the ladder's highest imaginary rung — or perhaps, to pull humans down to an equally imaginary rung at the height of the apes. A true comparative science of animal minds, however, will recognize the complex diversity of the animal kingdom, and will thus view Homo sapiens as one more species with a unique set of adaptive skills crying out to be identified and understood.