COHEN TO THE RESCUE!

Cohen seeks to rescue the concept of justice from those, among whom he includes Rawls, who think that correct fundamental moral principles are fact‐sensitive. Cohen argues instead that any fundamental principles of justice, and fundamental moral principles generally, are fact‐insensitive and that any fact‐sensitive principles can be traced back to fact‐insensitive ones. This paper seeks to clarify the nature of Cohen's argument, and the kind of fact‐insensitivity he has in mind. In particular, it distinguishes between internal and external fact‐sensitivity – that is, whether facts are referenced in the content of the principle, or must otherwise be the case in order for the principle to apply at all. Cohen himself seems likely to endorse internally fact‐sensitive fundamental principles. This leads to a discussion of Cohen's Platonism about moral principles and the extent to which his arguments cover all its rivals. 1     

Kant's Fact of Reason as Source of Normativity

In The Sources of Normativity, Christine M. Korsgaard argues that unconditional obligation can be accounted for in terms of practical identity. My argument in this paper is that practical identity cannot play this foundational role. More specifically, I interpret Korsgaard's argument as beginning with something analogous to Kant's fact of reason, viz. with the fact that our minds are reflective. I then try to show that her determination of this fact is inadequate and that this causes the argument concerning practical identity to fail. Finally, I argue that a conception of the fact of reason more in line with what I take to be Kant's own is necessary to account for unconditional obligation.     

Reply to Garrett

The paper contains four arguments to show that experiences don't represent. The first argument appeals to the fact that an experience can't occur without what the experience is of; the second appeals to the fact we can have an experience without having any awareness of what it is of, the third argument appeals to the fact that long experiences, such as the experience of being kidnapped, don't represent anything; and the fourth appeals to the fact that experiences often leave physical traces. The author rebuts several arguments for the conclusion that experiences represent. The author also considers some of the pitfalls involved in stipulating that experiences represent in a technical sense of “experience” or “represent”.     

Lexical representation of fact and opinion

This research investigated the lexical properties underlying comprehension that a word represents fact or opinion. In Experiment 1 subjects reliably identified words as either fact or opinion. Bivariate correlations and multiple regression showed that fact/opinion judgments were predicted primarily by ratings of the ease of verifiability of a word's referent and secondarily by the word's literalness, but not by several other lexical attributes: abstractness-concreteness, vagueness-preciseness, and evaluation. Experiment 2 extended the results of the first experiment to an implicit fact/opinion judgment, i.e., the identification of headlines as originating from a newspaper's front page (presumably based primarily upon fact) or from the editorial page (presumably based upon opinion). The headline judgments, also made reliably by subjects, were predicted by the same variables found significant in the first experiment, i.e., by verifiability and literalness, but not by the other lexical properties. Thus, the results of both experiments indicate that the identification of a word as representing fact or opinion is rooted in a word's verifiability and literalness.     

Is It a Name or a Fact? Disambiguation of Reference Via Exclusivity and Pragmatic Reasoning

Adults reason by exclusivity to identify the meanings of novel words. However, it is debated whether, like children, they extend this strategy to disambiguate other referential expressions (e.g., facts about objects). To further inform this debate, this study tested 41 adults on four conditions of a disambiguation task: label/label, fact/fact, label/fact, and fact/label (Scofield & Behrend, 2007 ). Participants also provided a verbal explanation for their referent selections to tease apart the underlying processes. Results indicated that adults successfully discerned the target object in the label/label and label/fact condition, yet not the remaining two conditions. Verbal reports indicated that the strategy utilized to disambiguate differed depending upon communicative context. These findings confirm that the tendency to reason by exclusivity becomes restricted to word‐learning situations with growing linguistic and communicative experience.     

Throwing spatial light: on topological explanations in Gestalt psychology

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences - It is a well-known fact that mathematics plays a crucial role in physics; in fact, it is virtually impossible to imagine contemporary physics without it....     

Why the debate about composition is factually empty (or why there’s no fact of the matter whether anything exists)

I argue in this paper that the debate over composition is factually empty; in other words, I argue that there’s no fact of the matter whether there are any composite objects like tables and rocks and cats. Moreover, at the end of the paper, I explain how my argument is suggestive of a much more general (and much more radical) conclusion, namely, that there’s no fact of the matter whether there are any material objects at all. Roughly speaking, the paper proceeds by arguing that (a) if there were a fact of the matter about whether composite objects exist, then it would be either a necessary fact or a contingent fact, and (b) both of these alternatives are implausible.     

Reasoning from inconsistency to consistency

This article presents a theory of how individuals reason from inconsistency to consistency. The theory is based on 3 main principles. First, individuals try to construct a single mental model of a possibility that satisfies a current set of propositions, and if the task is impossible, they infer that the set is inconsistent. Second, when an inconsistency arises from an incontrovertible fact, they retract any singularly dubious proposition or any proposition that is inconsistent with the fact; otherwise, they retract whichever proposition mismatches the fact. A mismatch can arise from a proposition that has only mental models that conflict with the fact or fail to represent it. Third, individuals use their causal knowledge-in the form of models of possibilities-to create explanations of what led to the inconsistency. A computer program implements the theory, and experimental results support each of its principles.     

Determination of fact and opinion: A critical reading problem

This study set out to discover whether readers can make accurate judgments about fact and opinion paragraphs standing alone and the parts of the text the readers consider in making their judgments about the factual quality of a paragraph. An experiment was designed to try to address the above problems. For this experiment two forms of a questionnaire were devised. The first form contained introductory paragraphs taken from newspapers. The second form contained the same paragraphs along with the headlines for these paragraphs. The subjects were asked to do two things: first, rate the paragraphs for fact/opinion on a 7-point semantic differential scale; second, underline the words used to make fact/opinion determinations. It was found that readers can judge paragraphs standing alone for fact/opinion. Also, headlines are significant factors in determining fact/opinion. In the second part of the experiment, it was found that readers use specific types of words to help in deciding whether a text is fact or opinion. Furthermore, the evidence seems to indicate that readers use both text and context in making these determinations.     

Understanding Brute Facts

Brute facts are facts that have no explanation. If we come to know that a fact is brute, we obviously don’t get an explanation of that fact. Nevertheless, we do make some sort of epistemic gain. In this essay, I give an account of that epistemic gain, and suggest that the idea of brute facts allows us to distinguish between the notion of explanation and the notion of understanding.I also discuss Eric Barnes’ (1994) attack on Friedman’s (1974) version of the unification theory of explanation. The unification theory asserts that scientific understanding results from minimizing the number of brute facts that we have to accept in our view of the world. Barnes claims that the unification theory cannot do justice to the notion of being a brute fact, because it implies that brute facts are gaps in our understanding of the world. I defend Friedman’s theory against Barnes’ critique.     

The Unity of a Tractarian Fact

It is not immediately clear from Wittgenstein’s Tractatus how to connect his idea there of an object with the logical ontologies of Frege and Russell. Toward clarification on this matter, this paper compares Russell’s and Wittgenstein’s versions of the thesis of an atomic fact that it is a complex composition. The claim arrived at is that whilst Russell (at times at least) has one particular of the elements of a fact – the relation – responsible for the unity of the whole, for Wittgenstein the unity of a fact is the product of copulative powers inherent in all its elements. All kinds of constituents of Tractarian facts – all kinds (forms) of object – are, to use Fregean terminology, unsaturated.     

Imagine Math Facts Improves Multiplication Fact Fluency in Third-Grade Students

Math fact fluency is foundational for later mathematics education. Unfortunately, many students across the nation continue to struggle with these core skills. Computer-assisted instruction may be a potentially valuable tool for improving math fact fluency due to its ability to differentiate instruction at the student level, provide added practice opportunities, and improve student interest and motivation. However, research is currently lacking to demonstrate the effectiveness of many computer-assisted interventions. One such program is Timez Attack by Imagine Math Facts, a multiplication fact fluency training program for elementary-age students. Using a multiple baseline across groups design, we sought to determine the effectiveness of Timez Attack in improving math fact fluency in third-grade students. We randomly assigned 63 students to three study groups and regularly assessed for multiplication fact fluency for 12 weeks. Compared to baseline averages, all three study groups demonstrated improved multiplication fact fluency following the onset of the intervention phase. Further, performance during a follow-up maintenance phase demonstrated persistence of learning. The results of this study suggest that Timez Attack may be an effective computer-assisted instruction option for improving multiplication fact fluency in elementary-age students.     

Primary and secondary qualities: An essay in epistemology

It seems almost a truism to say that colour is a sensation; and yet Young, by honestly recognizing this elementary truth, established the first consistent theory of colour. So far as I know, Thomas Young was the first who, starting from the well-known fact that there are three primary colours, sought for the explanation of this fact, not in the nature of light, but in the constitution of man. (James Clerk Maxwell, p. 267.)It is doubtless scientific to disregard certain aspects when we work; but to urge that therefore such aspects are not fact, and that what we use without them is an independent real thing-this is barbarous metaphysics. (F. H. Bradley, p. 15.)     

More on the Motive of Duty

A number of neo-Kantians have suggested that an act may be morally worthy even if sympathy and similar emotions are present, so long as they are not what in fact motivates right action–so long as duty, and duty alone, in fact motivates. Thus, the ideal Kantian moral agent need not be a cold and unfeeling person, as some critics have suggested. Two objections to this view need to be answered. First, some maintain that motives cannot be present without in fact motivating. Such non-motivating reasons, it is claimed, are incoherent. Second, if such motives are not in fact motivating, then nonetheless the moral agent's performance of right action will be objectionably cold and unfeeling. While the first objection is not compelling, since the alternative according to which all motives in fact motivate but differ in strength suffers from the very same problems attributed to the neo-Kantian view, the second has force, and any account of moral worth must make room for motives such as sympathy actually motivating right action.     

The relationship between phonological processing and arithmetic in children with learning disabilities

Phonological processing skills have not only been shown to be important for reading skills, but also for arithmetic skills. Specifically, previous research in typically developing children has suggested that phonological processing skills may be more closely related to arithmetic problems that are solved through fact retrieval (e.g., remembering the solution from memory) than procedural computation (e.g., counting). However, the relationship between phonological processing and arithmetic in children with learning disabilities (LDs) has not been investigated. Yet, understanding these relationships in children with LDs is especially important because it can help elucidate the cognitive underpinnings of math difficulties, explain why reading and math disabilities frequently co-occur, and provide information on which cognitive skills to target for interventions. In 63 children with LDs, we examined the relationship between different phonological processing skills (phonemic awareness, phonological memory, and rapid serial naming) and arithmetic. We distinguished between arithmetic problems that tend to be solved with fact retrieval versus procedural computation to determine whether phonological processing skills are differentially related to these two arithmetic processes. We found that phonemic awareness, but not phonological memory or rapid serial naming, was related to arithmetic fact retrieval. We also found no association between any phonological processing skills and procedural computation. These results converge with prior research in typically developing children and suggest that phonemic awareness is also related to arithmetic fact retrieval in children with LD. These results raise the possibility that phonemic awareness training might improve both reading and arithmetic fact retrieval skills.

Research Highlights

• Relationships between phonological processing and various arithmetic skills were investigated in children with learning disabilities (LDs) for the first time.
• We found phonemic awareness was related to arithmetic involving fact retrieval, but not to arithmetic involving procedural computation in LDs.
• The results suggest that phonemic awareness is not only important to skilled reading, but also to some aspects of arithmetic.
• These results raise the question of whether intervention in phonemic awareness might improve arithmetic fact retrieval skills.

     

Facts as Social Action in Political Debates about the European Union

This article focuses on the argumentative role of making factual claims and counterclaims in broadcast political debates. Despite the rise of “post‐truth politics,” this article argues that orientations to issues of “fact” and “truth” are a live and controversial matter when debating the European Union. Using Discursive Psychology (DP), the analysis is on how politicians use fact‐based (counter)claims in multiparty interactions, in the form of debates about the United Kingdom and the European Union. Three types of factual challenges are presented to illustrate the rhetorical function of claims: challenging the essence of an argument, providing another fact to recontextualize the preceding fact and using hypothetical scenarios to undermine facts. The analysis demonstrates that the use of facts is a highly strategic, argumentative, matter. This study, understood against a backdrop of the rise of post‐truth politics, highlights that concepts of “fact” and “truth” are not done away with; rather they are an argumentative resource and need to be understood in their fragmentary and rhetorical context.     

The Contribution of Executive Function to Source Memory Development in Early Childhood

Age-related differences in episodic memory judgments assessing recall of fact information and the source of this information were examined. The role of executive function (EF) in supporting early episodic memory ability was also explored. Four- and 6-year-old children were taught 10 novel facts from two different sources (experimenter or puppet), and memory for both fact and source information was later tested. Measures of working memory, inhibitory control, and set shifting were obtained to produce an indicator of children's EF. Six-year-olds recalled more fact and source information than did 4-year-olds. Regression analyses revealed that age, language ability, and EF accounted for unique variance in children's fact recall and source recall performance. These findings suggest a link between episodic memory and EF, and we propose that developmental investigations should further explore this association.     

A partial resolution of the paradox of interference: The role of integrating knowledge

It has been noted that models of memory that posit retrieval interference imply that the more one knows about a topic, the harder it is to retrieve any one of these facts. Smith, Adams, and Schorr (Cognitive Psychology, 1978, 10, 438–464) regard this to be a paradox and postulate that people use world knowledge to integrate various facts about a concept and thereby avoid interference. Exploring this issue further in two experiments we discovered that integration of facts alleviates interference only when a person can perform his memory task by simply making a consistency judgment and can avoid the need to retrieve a specific fact. When foils force subjects to retrieve the specific assertion, the interference occurs among integrated facts as among unrelated facts. It appears that, when possible, subjects will judge whether they have seen a fact simply by judging if it is related to (consistent with) a theme they have studied. In other words, people judge themes rather than facts. Consistent with this interpretation, we found interference among themes; that is, the more themes were associated with a concept, the greater the interference.     

EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONTEXTUALISM AND THE PROBLEM OF MORAL LUCK

Abstract: We have a strong intuition that a person's moral standing should not be affected by luck, but the fact is that we do blame a morally unfortunate person more than her fortunate counterpart. This is the problem of moral luck. I argue that the problem arises because account is not taken of the fact that the extension of the term ‘blame’ is contextually determined. Loosely speaking, the more likely an act is to have an undesirable consequence, the more its agent is to blame. But how likely a consequence is depends on which possibilities of harm we take to be relevant.