Sex Object vs. Athlete: Boys’ and Men’s Responses Toward Sexualized Male Athletes

Using a between-participants experimental paradigm, the present study investigated U.S. adolescent boys’ (n = 96) and college men’s (n = 194) attitudes toward media images of male athletes as well as their thoughts about the athletes. Participants viewed either sexualized (i.e., skin exposed, sexual pose) or performance (i.e., in uniform and in action poses on the field/court) images of male athletes. They then rated the athletes’ competence, esteem, and sexual appeal and completed a writing task about their reactions to the images. Male viewers rated the sexualized athletes lower in competence and esteem and higher in sexual appeal compared to the performance athletes. These results have implications for advocacy efforts calling for less sexualization in today’s media environment. 

     

Moral Responsibility and the Irrelevance of Physics: Fischer’s Semi-compatibilism vs. Anti-fundamentalism

The paper argues that it is possible for an incompatibilist to accept John Martin Fischer’s plausible insistence that the question whether we are morally responsible agents ought not to depend on whether the laws of physics turn out to be deterministic or merely probabilistic. The incompatibilist should do so by rejecting the fundamentalism which entails that the question whether determinism is true is a question merely about the nature of the basic physical laws. It is argued that this is a better option for ensuring the irrelevance of physics than the embrace of semi-compatibilism, since there are reasons for supposing that alternate possibilities are necessary for moral responsibility, despite Fischer’s claims to the contrary. There are two distinct reasons for supposing that alternate possibilities might be necessary for moral responsibility—one of which is to do with fairness, the other to do with agency itself. It is suggested that if one focuses on the second of these reasons, Fischer’s arguments for supposing that alternate possibilities are unnecessary for moral responsibility can be met by the incompatibilist. Some possible reasons for denying that alternate possibilities are necessary for the existence of agency are then raised and rejected.

Reasoning about knowledge: Children’s evaluations of generality and verifiability

In a series of experiments, we examined 3- to 8-year-old children’s (N = 223) and adults’ (N = 32) use of two properties of testimony to estimate a speaker’s knowledge: generality and verifiability. Participants were presented with a “Generic speaker” who made a series of 4 general claims about “pangolins” (a novel animal kind), and a “Specific speaker” who made a series of 4 specific claims about “this pangolin” as an individual. To investigate the role of verifiability, we systematically varied whether the claim referred to a perceptually-obvious feature visible in a picture (e.g., “has a pointy nose”) or a non-evident feature that was not visible (e.g., “sleeps in a hollow tree”). Three main findings emerged: (1) young children showed a pronounced reliance on verifiability that decreased with age. Three-year-old children were especially prone to credit knowledge to speakers who made verifiable claims, whereas 7- to 8-year-olds and adults credited knowledge to generic speakers regardless of whether the claims were verifiable; (2) children’s attributions of knowledge to generic speakers was not detectable until age 5, and only when those claims were also verifiable; (3) children often generalized speakers’ knowledge outside of the pangolin domain, indicating a belief that a person’s knowledge about pangolins likely extends to new facts. Findings indicate that young children may be inclined to doubt speakers who make claims they cannot verify themselves, as well as a developmentally increasing appreciation for speakers who make general claims.     

Epistemicism and Nihilism about Vagueness: What’s the Difference?

In this paper I argue, first, that the only difference between Epistemicism and Nihilism about vagueness is semantic rather than ontological, and second, that once it is clear what the difference between these views is, Nihilism is a much more plausible view of vagueness than Epistemicism. Given the current popularity of certain epistemicist views (most notably, Williamson’s), this result is, I think, of interest.     

Ockham’s razor and reasoning about information flow

What is the minimal algebraic structure to reason about information flow? Do we really need the full power of Boolean algebras with co-closure and de Morgan dual operators? How much can we weaken and still be able to reason about multi-agent scenarios in a tidy compositional way? This paper provides some answers.     

Utopia and history. Some remarks about Nikolai Berdjaev’s struggle with history

The article deals with the philosophy of Nikolai Berdjaev (1874–1948), which he formulated between The Philosophy of Inequality (written in 1918, but published in 1923) and The New Middle-Ages (1924). Berdjaev’s philosophy is analyzed in the context of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and its aftermath. The other point of reference is the crisis of culture and civilisation, which affected the West in the inter-war period. Berdjaev’s position has been interpreted in view of the archetypal myth of the struggle of the two principles, the principle of order (cosmos) and the forces of destruction (chaos). This myth is tied to the millenialist world view. Berdjaev took an anti-utopian stance. He juxtaposed the utopian-revolutionary principle with the hierarchical-creative one. From this position he criticized among others democracy, liberalism and socialism. In the midst of the crisis of the 1920s he remarked the possibility of spiritual rejuvenation putting forward the concept of the New Middle-Ages. One can say that at that time Berdjaev’s philosophy evolved within the conservative-creative framework, from the utopia of conservatism to the utopia of ‘free creativity’.     

Perceptual comparisons through the mind’s eye

Memory & Cognition - Four experiments tested a theory of memory and cognition which assumes that verbal and nonverbal information are processed in functionally distinct LTM systems. Subjects...     

Frege’s Anti-Psychologism about Logic : the Relationship between Logic and Judgment

Philosophia - Frege is an anti-psychologist about logic who takes logic to be sharply distinguished from psychology. However, Frege also takes judgment, which seems to be a subject of psychology,...     

What’s positive and negative about generics: a constrained indexical approach

Philosophical Studies - Nguyen argues that only his radically pragmatic account and Sterken’s indexical account can capture what we call the positive data. We present some new data, which we...     

Proof vs Provability: On Brouwer’s Time Problem

Is a mathematical theorem proved because provable, or provable because proved? If Brouwer’s intuitionism is accepted, we’re committed, it seems, to the latter, which is highly problematic. Or so I will argue. This and other consequences of Brouwer’s attempt to found mathematics on the intuition of a move of time have heretofore been insufficiently appreciated. Whereas the mathematical anomalies of intuitionism have received enormous attention, too little time, I’ll try to show, has been devoted to some of the temporal anomalies that Brouwer has invited us to introduce into mathematics.     

A Window Into Richard M. Zaner’s Clinical Ethics

This essay introduces a thematic issue focused on the contributions to clinical ethics and the philosophy of medicine by Richard M. Zaner. We consider the apparent divorce of Zaners philosophical roots from his recent narrative immersions into the blooming, buzzing confusions of clinical-moral lifeworlds. Our considerations of the Zanerian context and origins of the clinical encounter introduce the fundamental questions faced by Zaner and his commentators in this issue, questions about the role of ethics consultants, moral authority, and clinical truths.     

Cross-lagged relations between kindergarten teachers’ causal attributions, and children’s interest value and performance in mathematics

The present study investigated mathematics performance and related interest value as the antecedents and consequences of teachers?? causal attributions concerning children??s academic outcomes during their kindergarten year. Sixty-nine children (5?C6?years old at the baseline) and their teachers were examined twice during the kindergarten year. Children were tested in mathematics performance and interviewed about their interest value. Teachers rated their causal attributions in the fall and spring. The results showed that the higher the interest value in mathematics children showed, the more the teacher attributed their success to ability and effort. Teachers?? ability attributions for success, in turn, contributed to an increase in children??s interest value in mathematics. Moreover, attributing children??s success and failure to external causes decreased children??s mathematics-related interest value.     

Worries about Pritchard’s safety

I take issue with two claims that Duncan Pritchard makes in his recent book, Epistemic Luck. The first concerns his safety-based response to the lottery problem; the second his account of the relationship between safety and intellectual virtue.     

Vendler’s puzzle about imagination

Synthese - Vendler’s (Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale 84(2):161–173, 1979) puzzle about imagination is that the sentences ‘Imagine swimming in that water’ and...     

Libertarianism vs. Marxism: Reflections on G. A. Cohen‘s Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality

Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality is G.A. Cohens attempt to rescue something of the socialist outlook on society from the challenge of libertarianism, which Cohen identifies with the work of Robert Nozick in his famous book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Sympathizing with the leading idea that a person must belong to himself, and thus be unavailable for forced redistribution of his efforts, Cohen is at pains to reconcile the two. This cannot be done – they are flatly contrary. Moreover, equality is a nonsense principle, calling for such things as equal distribution of natural resources. But resources, as goods, are not natural: all require work to utilize. The only thing exchanged on markets is services, and estimates of value received are relevantly made only by those party to the exchanges in question. Imposition from above on voluntary exchange can only be socially counterproductive.