Modal Dispositionalism and the (T) Axiom

Philosophia - Yates has recently argued that modal dispositionalism invalidates the (T) axiom. Both Yates and Allen have advanced responses to the objection: Yates’s response proposes...     

A Spiritual Revolution in Denmark?

ABSTRACT

Based on data from the Danish part of the European Values Study 1981–2008, this article explores the validity of the claim for a spiritual revolution as proposed by Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead. The article suggests an operationalisation of spirituality. The results of the analyses are that religious values—Christian faith as well as spirituality—tend to be stable over an individual’s life course. This suggests that, if there is a spiritual revolution, it must be the product of cohort replacement. If a spiritual revolution is taking place, Christian faith would be expected to decline in younger cohorts while spirituality would increase, but an analysis of cohort support for Christian faith and spirituality from 1981 to 2008 shows that both were constant across cohorts. Thus Danish data contain no indication that a spiritual revolution is taking place or will take place. Finally, we show that, contrary to theoretical expectations, spirituality and Christian faith are strongly correlated. A closer analysis reveals an indirect and more complicated support for parts of the theory since the two variables are explained by different factors and it shows that Christian faith, but not spirituality, is correlated with morality.     

Floridi’s Fourth Revolution and the Demise of Ethics

Luciano Floridi has proposed that we are on the cusp of a fourth revolution in human self-understanding. The information revolution with its prospect of digitally enhancing human beings opens the door to engineering human nature. Floridi has emphasized the importance of making this transition as ethically smooth as possible. He is quite right to worry about ethics after the fourth revolution. The coming revolution, if it unfolds as he envisions, spells the demise of traditional ethical theorizing.     

Book Review

Abstract

Yates, J.F. (Ed.) (1992) Risk-taking behavior. Wiley Series in Human Performance and Cognition. Chichester: Wiley. 345 pp. ISBN: 0-471-95140-4; £17.95 (pbk).     

Reply to Comments on <Emphasis Type="Italic">Science and the Pursuit of Wisdom</Emphasis>

In this article I reply to comments made by Agustin Vicente and Giridhari Lal Pandit on Science and the Pursuit of Wisdom (McHenry 2009). I criticize analytic philosophy, go on to expound the argument for the need for a revolution in academic inquiry so that the basic aim becomes wisdom and not just knowledge, defend aim-oriented empiricism, outline my solution to the human world/physical universe problem, and defend the thesis that free will is compatible with physicalism.     

On the choice between reform and revolution∗

The concepts of social transformation, reform, and revolution are characterized. A typology of revolutions is given and revolutions of the appropriate type are compared with reforms. It is argued that reform and revolution are on a continuum and that there are social transformations that with equal propriety could be called ‘a cluster of radical reforms’ or ‘a revolution’. What is sensibly at issue concerning the choice between reform or revolution is whether in bourgeois democracies it is more reasonable to adopt the piecemeal reformist tactics of liberal reformers or whether a commitment to a revolutionary overthrow of the established order is justified. Arguments for both positions are examined and it is concluded that no general non‐contextual answer can be given.     

Extended functionalism,radical enactivism,and the autopoietic theory of cognition: prospects for a full revolution in cognitive science

Recently, Michael Wheeler (2017) has argued that despite its sometimes revolutionary rhetoric, the so called 4E (embodied-embedded-enacted-extended) cognitive movement, even in the guise of ‘radical’ enactivism (REC), cannot achieve a full revolution in cognitive science. A full revolution would require the rejection of two essential tenets of traditional cognitive science, namely internalism and representationalism. Whilst REC might secure antirepresentationalism, it cannot do the same, so Wheeler argues, with externalism. In this paper, expanding on Wheeler’s analysis (2017), we argue that what compromises REC’s externalism is the persistence of cognitively relevant asymmetries between its purported cognitive systems and the environment. Complementarily, we argue that an antirepresentationalist ancestor of enactivism, the autopoietic theory of cognition, is able to deliver and secure externalism, thus offering the explosive combination (i.e., antirepresentationalism plus externalism) that Wheeler claims us needed for a revolution in cognitive science.     

Books: Consciousness without peer

Abstract

Reconnaissances by Rodney Needham (University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1980)

What the Bible Says About Your Personality by David O. Yates (Harper &; Row Publishers, San Francisco, 1980)

Kiss Sleeping Beauty Good-Bye by Madonnna Kolbenschlag (Doubleday and Co., New York, 1979)     

Descartes' dreams

Abstract: René Descartes is often regarded as the ‘father of modern philosophy’. He was a key figure in instigating the scientific revolution that has been so influential in shaping our modern world. He has been revered and reviled in almost equal measure for this role; on the one hand seen as liberating science from religion, on the other as splitting soul from body and man from nature. He dates the founding of his philosophical methods to the night of 10^th November 1619 and in particular to three powerful dreams he had that night. This article utilizes Descartes' own interpretations of the dreams, supported by biographical material, as well as contemporary neuroscientific and psychoanalytic theory, to reach a new understanding of them. It is argued that the dreams can be understood as depicting Descartes' personal journey from a state of mind‐body dissociation to one of mind‐body deintegration. This personal journey may have implications for a parallel journey from Renaissance to modern culture and from modernity to post‐modern culture.     

The computer revolution and the problem of global ethics

The author agrees with James Moor that computer technology, because it is ‘logically malleable’, is bringing about a genuine social revolution. Moor compares the computer revolution to the ‘industrial revolution’ of the late 18th and the 19th centuries; but it is argued here that a better comparison is with the ‘printing press revolution’ that occurred two centuries before that. Just as the major ethical theories of Bentham and Kant were developed in response to the printing press revolution, so a new ethical theory is likely to emerge from computer ethics in response to the computer revolution. The newly emerging field of information ethics, therefore, is much more important than even its founders and advocates believe.     

Introducing new predicates to model scientific revolution

The notion of necessary new terms (predicates) is proposed. It is shown that necessary new predicates in first‐order logic must be directly, recursively defined. I present a first‐order inductive learning algorithm that introduces new necessary predicates to model scientific revolution in which a new language is adopted. I demonstrate that my learning system can learn a genetic theory with theoretical terms which, after being induced by my system, can be interpreted as either types of genetic properties (dominant or recessive) or genes, depending on the representation of the hypotheses of the same theoretical terms.     

结构实在论评析

The epistemological version of structural realism, proposed by Cao Tianyu, has great influence in the philosophy of science. Syntheses has published a special volume discussing the topic. Cao criticizes anti-realism, as well as the epistemic and ontic versions of structural realism. From the concepts of structure, ontology, and construction, he analyzes the objectivity of scientific theories as having five aspects: construction, historicity, holism, revision, and revolution. This paper systematically analyzes and comments on Cao's structural realism. The author agrees with his criticism of the under-determination thesis, is neutral to his argument against ontological discontinuity, and questions his universal language argument. Translated by Yu Jinlong from Ziran Bianzhengfa Yanjiu 自然辩证法研究 (Studies in Dialectics of Nature), 2006, (11): 34–38     

Distinguishing choice and subjective probability estimation processes: Implications for theories of judgment and for cross-cultural comparisons

Research on subjective probability (SP) often focuses on the difference between the fraction of correct binary choices and the SP that they are correct or on the deviation of the calibration curve from the diagonal. On the assumption that choice and SP judgments reflect different, albeit closely related, processes, it is important to analyze the two sources of data separately. This article uses data collected by Yates, Lee, Shinotsuka, Patalano, and Sieck (1998) from Chinese, Japanese, and Americans to demonstrate the advantages of doing so and to yield new conclusions regarding cross-cultural comparisons of judgment. One new result is that a discrete threshold model with an error term best described the choice data of all groups. From their analyses, Yates et al. (1998) had concluded that the Chinese were more overconfident than the American or Japanese. According to the present results, the Chinese appeared either more overconfident or more underconfident, depending on how the data are analyzed. The dual outcome is a consequence of the greater variability both in their SP judgments and in their binary choices. Additionally, the Chinese participants’ choices and SPs were more responsive to the base rate than were those of the other groups.     

Understanding and Treating Pain in Ethnically Diverse Patients

A revolution has taken place during the past 25 years in the understanding and treatment of chronic pain. Psychologists have contributed tremendously to this revolution. However, the primary psychological models of pain treatment have failed to adequately integrate the empirical findings and theoretical understanding of the role of ethnic factors. The goal of this paper is to address this problem by demonstrating the importance of understanding ethnic factors in treating pain, providing an overview of ethnic factors in pain, and proposing guidelines for Clinical Psychologists who treat pain patients from ethnically diverse backgrounds.     

In defense of naturalism

History and the modern sciences are characterized by what is sometimes called a “methodological naturalism” that disregards talk of divine agency. Some religious thinkers argue that this reflects a dogmatic materialism: a non-negotiable and a priori commitment to a materialist metaphysics. In response to this charge, I make a sharp distinction between procedural requirements and metaphysical commitments. The procedural requirement of history and the sciences—that proposed explanations appeal to publicly-accessible bodies of evidence—is non-negotiable, but has no metaphysical implications. The metaphysical commitment is naturalistic, but is both a posteriori and provisional, arising from the fact that for more than 400 years no proposed theistic explanation has been shown capable of meeting the procedural requirement. I argue that there is nothing to prevent religious thinkers from seeking to overturn this metaphysically naturalistic stance. But in order to do so they would need to show that their proposed theistic explanations are the best available explanations of a range of phenomena. Until this has been done, the metaphysical naturalism of history and the sciences remains defensible.     

How to Design the Infosphere: the Fourth Revolution, the Management of the Life Cycle of Information, and Information Ethics as a Macroethics

The paper reconstructs the read thread that links the information revolution, the information concept and information ethics in Floridi’s philosophy of information. In doing so, it acknowledges the grand attempt but doubts whether this attempt is up to the state of affairs concerning the actual point human history has reached. It contends that the information age is rather conceivable as a critical stage in which human evolution as a whole is at stake. The mastering of this crisis depends on an appropriate shaping of Information and Communication Technologies which requires ethical considerations. In this respect, Floridi’s notion of the fourth revolution, his assumption of the management of the life cycle of information, and his ontocentric macroethics will be discussed in the light of the term “scientific-technological revolution”, the idea of a noogenesis, a new way of thinking and new weltanschauung, the concept of friction in social and physical aspects, the concept of collective intelligence and its application to the Internet and last, but not least, the vision of a Global Sustainable Information Society.     

The Otherness of Children as a Hint of an Outside: Michel Foucault,Richard Yates and Karl Barth on Suburban Life

Abstract

The essay shows how the ordinary life of children might save suburbia from itself. Disenchanted with contemporary existence, temptations of ideality tend to both vilify and verify suburban life as banal, yet to the extent that suburban life means life with children, profound possibilities subsist in that strange world. The argument unfolds in three parts. Beginning with Michel Foucault, the author shows how power courses through every form of life, colonizing depth such that desire reveals power's most fundamental expression. Secondly, Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road exemplifies power's machinations as Yates compassionately portrays the tragedy of belittling ordinary life. Finally, the author turns to Karl Barth in order to resituate Foucault's account of immanence within a larger horizon where children might be embraced as the aleatory play of difference of God's peace and patience.     

Asian Risk Seeking and Overconfidence1

Weber & Hsee (1998) proposed the “cushion effect” as an explanation of the higher risk taking observed in some East Asian samples, relative to Western samples. Yates, Lee, & Shinotsuka (1992 ) proposed that the overconfidence observed in most Asian countries, relative to Western countries, reflects differences in the number of arguments typically recruited in those countries. This study examined the 2 seemingly separated domains of research: risk taking and overconfidence. It compared individual and collective (both family and group) decisions among Chinese in Singapore. This permitted tests of both the cushion and the argument recruitment hypotheses. The overall results obtained no support for the cushion effect and partial support for the argument recruitment hypotheses.     

A Case that the Field of Psychotherapy Is Closed-Minded to Revolutionary New Ideas

The case is that, with regard to revolutionary new ideas, the field of psychotherapy (a) has a glaring absence of indicators of open-mindedness; (b) is distinctly and conspicuously closed-minded; (c) this closed-mindedness is extreme, and differentiates the field from many other fields; and (d) the field is essentially barricaded against knowing that it is so conspicuously closed-minded. The fanciful and unrealistic revolution would be for the field to become open-minded. Invitations are extended to any psychotherapists with a spark of open-minded possibilities.