What is (Dis)Agreement?

When do we agree? The answer might once have seemed simple and obvious; we agree that p when we each believe that p. But from a formal epistemological perspective, where degrees of belief are more fundamental than beliefs, this answer is unsatisfactory. On the one hand, there is reason to suppose that it is false; degrees of belief about p might differ when beliefs simpliciter on p do not. On the other hand, even if it is true, it is too vague; for what it is to believe simpliciter ought to be explained in terms of degrees of belief. This paper presents several possible notions of agreement, and corresponding notions of disagreement. It indicates how the findings are fruitful for the epistemology of disagreement, with special reference to the notion of epistemic peerhood.     

Whither (European) evaluation methodology?

Quasi-experimental evaluation methods promised to provide a way of testing and improving solutions to social problems. These methods have been found wanting. Alternative approaches, including “pragmatic evaluation,” “naturalistic evaluation,” and “pluralist evaluation” are also shown to be unsatisfactory. The initial promise of the evaluation movement has been disappointed. Realistic evaluation is advocated as an alternative to existing forms of evaluation. It is rooted in some European traditions in epistemology, ontology, and social theory. It offers a framework within which rigorous outcome evaluations can be undertaken with results that can inform policy and practice. He is president of the Research Committee on Methodology of the International Sociological Association. He is seconded part-time to the Home Office Police Research Group as a research consultant. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the founding conference of the European Evaluation Society, The Hague, 1–2 December, 1994.     

Infants lost in (peripersonal) space?

A significant challenge in developing spatial representations for the control of action is one of multisensory integration. Specifically, we require an ability to efficiently integrate sensory information arriving from multiple modalities pertaining to the relationships between the acting limbs and the nearby external world (i.e. peripersonal space), across changes in body posture and limb position. Evidence concerning the early development of such spatial representations points towards the independent emergence of two distinct mechanisms of multisensory integration. The earlier-developing mechanism achieves spatial correspondence by representing body parts in their typical or default locations, and the later-developing mechanism does so by dynamically remapping the representation of the position of the limbs with respect to external space in response to changes in postural information arriving from proprioception and vision.     

教会(组织)换届换什么?

换届工作是教会（组织）建设的大事,关乎着教会及基督教两会的未来。做好换届工作,是为了更好地传承与创新,使我们的教会得以健康发展。那么换届时应当注意什么,遵循什么原则？本期几位作者谈了自己的看法,提供给各地教会（组织）换届时参考。     

Bayesianism or Biasianism? (author's transl)

Testing hypotheses from a Bayesian viewpoint cannot be regarded as obligatory to all, because conditions for neutrality and objectivity are injured in common. But realizing neutrality and objectivity necessary leads to drop the Bayesian formalism and to create the likelihood as a measure of support. In so far for someone who wished neutral and objective hypotheses testing Bayesian testing is useless.     

Are monkeys aesthetists? Rensch (1957) revisited

Three experiments assessed whether capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) and squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) prefer regular and symmetrical visual patterns. Pictorial representations of faces were included in 1 stimulus set. When the monkeys could pick up and manipulate small cards bearing the stimuli, all preferences expressed by capuchins and most of those expressed by squirrel monkeys were for regular stimuli. Symmetry of the patterns was influential but not essential. Some preferences were also found for faces. When images of the patterns were presented on a touch screen, capuchins continued to express preferences especially for regular and symmetrical stimuli, but they showed some avoidance of faces. Squirrel monkeys responded less discriminatingly to the touch screen stimuli. The findings provide support for B. Rensch's (1957) claim that monkeys prefer visual stimuli that humans find aesthetically pleasing.     

Are Callous Unemotional (CU) Traits Enough?

A guiding question for this special section, sparked by the increasing number of studies on callous –unemotional traits (CU traits) and the DSM-5 Limited Prosocial Emotion (LPE) specifier, is whether CU traits are enough to identify a clinically meaningful subgroup of youth with conduct problems or whether other psychopathic traits contribute. Seven empirical papers and two commentary papers address this question to varying degrees and in different ways with some papers “competing” various models against one another along with other papers investigating distinct correlates of the psychopathy factors. Findings across the papers suggest that there could be benefits to examining the broader construct of psychopathy in addition to examining its underpinning dimensions rather than CU traits alone. Two commentary papers also shed light on the importance of psychopathic traits in children with Conduct Disorder (CD) and provide insights for future work on this topic. It is hoped that the articles and commentary will generate new ideas for research and practice that could have implications for the treatment of those individuals with CD and psychopathic traits.     

Moral Wisdom or Ethical Expertise? (Ⅰ)

在哲学领域,我们应该追求道德智慧,还是追求伦理知识,这是一个颇为重要的问题。“智慧”是哲学的一个组成部分,但它也可能成为“知识炫耀”的根源。正因为如此,哲学探讨有深刻和浅薄之分,有“小聪明”和“大智慧”之别。为了更清楚地说明问题,我们可以到西方哲学的源头——柏拉图和亚里斯多德的著作中去寻求论据。     

How (far) can rationality be naturalized?

The paper shows why and how an empirical study of fast-and-frugal heuristics can provide norms of good reasoning, and thus how (and how far) rationality can be naturalized. We explain the heuristics that humans often rely on in solving problems, for example, choosing investment strategies or apartments, placing bets in sports, or making library searches. We then show that heuristics can lead to judgments that are as accurate as or even more accurate than strategies that use more information and computation, including optimization methods. A standard way to defend the use of heuristics is by reference to accuracy-effort trade-offs. We take a different route, emphasizing ecological rationality (the relationship between cognitive heuristics and environment), and argue that in uncertain environments, more information and computation are not always better (the ??less-can-be-more?? doctrine). The resulting naturalism about rationality is thus normative because it not only describes what heuristics people use, but also in which specific environments one should rely on a heuristic in order to make better inferences. While we desist from claiming that the scope of ecological rationality is unlimited, we think it is of wide practical use.     

天缘?孽缘?——魔术师与特异现象解读(续一)

魔术师里的怀疑者 在公众的心目中,那些熟悉魔术的人长期扮演的角色,是揭露自称有特异功能的骗子。最早的一个例子就是雷纳德·斯格特,他写过一本《搜猎巫师》。该书全盘地批判了对巫术,神灵,天主教,炼金术,神秘主义及预知梦的信仰。斯格特揭示了大量的戏法且曝光了许多自称有超级能力的骗子。但此书被詹姆士一世国王视为异教邪说而焚毁。     

Gaze following: why (not) learn it?

We propose a computational model of the emergence of gaze following skills in infant-caregiver interactions. The model is based on the idea that infants learn that monitoring their caregiver's direction of gaze allows them to predict the locations of interesting objects or events in their environment (Moore & Corkum, 1994). Elaborating on this theory, we demonstrate that a specific Basic Set of structures and mechanisms is sufficient for gaze following to emerge. This Basic Set includes the infant's perceptual skills and preferences, habituation and reward-driven learning, and a structured social environment featuring a caregiver who tends to look at things the infant will find interesting. We review evidence that all elements of the Basic Set are established well before the relevant gaze following skills emerge. We evaluate the model in a series of simulations and show that it can account for typical development. We also demonstrate that plausible alterations of model parameters, motivated by findings on two different developmental disorders - autism and Williams syndrome - produce delays or deficits in the emergence of gaze following. The model makes a number of testable predictions. In addition, it opens a new perspective for theorizing about cross-species differences in gaze following.     

Do dogs (Canis familiaris) understand invisible displacement?

Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) perform above chance on invisible displacement tasks despite showing few other signs of possessing the necessary representational abilities. Four experiments investigated how dogs find an object that has been hidden in 1 of 3 opaque boxes. Dogs passed the task under a variety of control conditions, but only if the device used to displace the object ended up adjacent to the target box after the displacement. These results suggest that the search behavior of dogs was guided by simple associative rules rather than mental representation of the object's past trajectory. In contrast, Experiment 5 found that on the same task, 18- and 24-month-old children showed no disparity between trials in which the displacement device was adjacent or nonadjacent to the target box.     

马克思是反(或非)道德主义者吗?

一些学者依据马克思关于道德是建立在经济基础之上的意识形态的观点,认为马克思是非(或反)道德主义者,这些观点一般来说依据康德的道德理论来否定马克思的道德观,而马克思的道德观是在批判康德的道德观的基础上建立起来的.马克思吸收了亚里士多德主义传统的美德伦理学并把它和康德伦理学结合起来,提出了以人的尊严、自由和自我实现为核心的道德观念,赋予这些概念以自己的独特含义.这也使马克思的道德观在伦理学史具有独特的地位.