Robust Virtue Epistemology As Anti‐Luck Epistemology: A New Solution

Robust Virtue Epistemology (RVE) maintains that knowledge is achieved just when an agent gets to the truth through, or because of, the manifestation of intellectual virtue or ability. A notorious objection to the view is that the satisfaction of the virtue condition will be insufficient to ensure the safety of the target belief; that is, RVE is no anti‐luck epistemology. Some of the most promising recent attempts to get around this problem are considered and shown to ultimately fail. Finally, a new proposal for defending RVE as a kind of anti‐luck epistemology is defended. The view developed here turns importantly on the idea that knowledge depends on ability and luck in a way that is gradient, not rigid, and that we know just when our cognitive success depends on ability not rather, but more so, than luck.     

What is it to Depsychologize Psychology?

In this essay, I distinguish two ways of depsychologizing psychology: ‘anti‐psychologism’ and ‘non‐psychologism’. Both positions are responses to the Fregean sharp distinction between the logical and the psychological. But where anti‐psychologism, which I find in John McDowell, attempts to overcome the sharp distinction by arguing that psychological states and their expressions are apt to be articulated into judgments, Stanley Cavell's non‐psychologism, a powerful and neglected alternative, wants to overcome the sharp distinction by abandoning judgment as the paradigm expression of thought and communication.     

Maxwell–Boltzmann Statistics And The Metaphysics Of Modality

Two arguments have recently been advanced that Maxwell-Boltzmann particles areindistinguishable just like Bose–Einstein and Fermi–Dirac particles. Bringing modalmetaphysics to bear on these arguments shows that ontological indistinguishabilityfor classical (MB) particles does not follow. The first argument, resting on symmetryin the occupation representation for all three cases, fails since peculiar correlationsexist in the quantum (BE and FD) context as harbingers of ontic indistinguishability,while the indistinguishability of classical particles remains purely epistemic. The secondargument, deriving from the classical limits of quantum statistical partition functions,embodies a conceptual confusion. After clarifying the doctrine of haecceitism, a thirdargument is considered that attempts to deflate metaphysical concerns altogether byshowing that the phase-space and distribution-space representations of MB-statisticshave contrary haecceitistic import. Careful analysis shows this argument to fail as well,leaving de re modality unproblematically grounding particle identity in the classicalcontext while genuine puzzlement about the underlying ontology remains for quantumstatistics.     

Assessing the distinguishability of models and the informativeness of data

A difficulty in the development and testing of psychological models is that they are typically evaluated solely on their ability to fit experimental data, with little consideration given to their ability to fit other possible data patterns. By examining how well model A fits data generated by model B, and vice versa (a technique that we call landscaping), much safer inferences can be made about the meaning of a model's fit to data. We demonstrate the landscaping technique using four models of retention and 77 historical data sets, and show how the method can be used to: (1) evaluate the distinguishability of models, (2) evaluate the informativeness of data in distinguishing between models, and (3) suggest new ways to distinguish between models. The generality of the method is demonstrated in two other research areas (information integration and categorization), and its relationship to the important notion of model complexity is discussed.     

A Multiphasic Personality Schedule (Minnesota) : I. Construction of the Schedule

Although attempts to demonstrate a relationship between one set of individual differences and the evaluative or behavioral components of an attitude usually have failed, this study examined the possibility that individual differences (i. e., personality) may be important in determining the cognitive component of the attitude (i. e., the rational support offered for the evaluative position or behavior).

Students with idealistic value systems (i.e., justice, egalitarian, humanitarian oriented) endorsed idealistic justifications for their attitudinal position (i.e., pro or anti) toward the war in Vietnam. Pragmatic students (i. e., utilitarian, outcome oriented) endorsed the more pragmatic justifications supporting their attitude toward the war.     

Predicting the suicide attempts of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth

In this study predictors of serious suicide attempts among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) youth were examined. Three groups were compared: youth who reported no attempts, youth who reported attempts unrelated to their sexual orientation, and youth whose attempts were considered related to their sexual orientation. About one third of respondents reported at least one suicide attempt; however, only half of the attempts were judged serious based on potential lethality. About half of all attempts were related to youths' sexual orientation. Factors that differentiated youth reporting suicide attempts and those not reporting attempts were greater childhood parental psychological abuse and more childhood gender-atypical behavior. Gay-related suicide attempts were associated with identifiability as LGB, especially by parents. Early openness about sexual orientation, being considered gender atypical in childhood by parents, and parental efforts to discourage gender atypical behavior were associated with gay-related suicide attempts, especially for males. Assessment of past parental psychological abuse, parental reactions to childhood gender atypical behavior, youths' openness about sexual orientation with family members, and lifetime gay-related verbal abuse can assist in the prediction of suicide attempts in this population.     

Criteria for indefeasible knowledge: John Mcdowell and ‘epistemological disjunctivism’

Duncan Pritchard has recently defended a view he calls ‘epistemological disjunctivism’, largely inspired by John McDowell. I argue that Pritchard is right to associate the view with McDowell, and that McDowell’s ‘inference-blocking’ argument against the sceptic succeeds only if epistemological disjunctivism is accepted. However, Pritchard also recognises that epistemological disjunctivism appears to conflict with our belief that genuine and illusory experiences are indistinguishable (the ‘distinguishability problem’). Since the indistinguishability of experiences is the antecedent in the inference McDowell intends to block, I suggest that his argument rests on an inconsistent set of premises. In support of this, I show that Pritchard’s response to the distinguishability problem is incompatible with the conclusion of the ‘inference-blocking’ argument, and that the response available in McDowell’s work relies on a mistaken conception of fallibility. Either McDowell must deny the sceptic’s premise that perceptual experiences are indistinguishable, or he must give up his conclusion that perceptual warrant can be indefeasible.     

Apologia pro Vita‐Fabula Sua: Defending Narrativity and How We Make Sense of Our Lives

This paper attempts to provide a defence for a narrative theory of the self in the face of criticisms from the anti‐narrative camp. It begins by addressing certain uncontroversial premises that both pro‐ and the anti‐narrative camps might be thought to agree on: the status of humans as homo significans or meaning‐makers, the natural form‐finding tendency and certain desiderata for significance and value that we possess, and the raw material of life and its constituents that we proceed from. Whereas the pro‐narrative camp seeks to provide the narrative theory of the self as a valid argument for how we proceed from the raw material of life and undifferentiated experience and these desiderata and tendencies (i.e.: the premises) to a conception of both selfhood and moral responsibility (i.e.: the conclusion), the anti‐narrative camp holds the conclusion to be false and the narrative theory of the self to be invalid. The Parfitian view holds the conception of the self to be ultimately false, whereas the Strawsonian view holds both the conception of the self and the conception of moral responsibility to be ultimately false. The grounds they provide, however, tend to be metaphysical in nature, demonstrating that they have fundamentally misunderstood how the narrative theory of the self functions as a semantic thesis. I will demonstrate certain defects in the metaphysical arguments that anti‐narrativists like Parfit and Strawson have made against what is essentially a semantic thesis about how we make sense of our lives. I will also attempt to shore up the semantic thesis in other relevant aspects.     

Relationships between redundancy analysis,canonical correlation,and multivariate regression

This paper attempts to clarify the nature of redundancy analysis and its relationships to canonical correlation and multivariate multiple linear regression. Stewart and Love introduced redundancy analysis to provide non-symmetric measures of the dependence of one set of variables on the other, as channeled through the canonical variates. Van den Wollenberg derived sets of variates which directly maximize the between set redundancy. Multivariate multiple linear regression on component scores (such as principal components) is considered. The problem is extended to include an orthogonal rotation of the components. The solution is shown to be identical to van den Wollenberg's maximum redundancy solution.This research was supported in part by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency contract 68-02-3402. The author gratefully acknowledges the stimulation of Maurice Tatsuoka and Beth Dawson-Saunders in first interesting him in redundancy analysis, as well as a useful change suggested by Warren Sarle.     

Direct evidence that an apparent splitting pattern of gamma particles in Ni alloys is a stage of coalescence

High-resolution electron microscopy is used to determine the translation order domains of gamma particles in arrangements formed during Ostwald ripening in the alloy Ni-12at.%Al. Such arrangements have been often identified with the operation of a mechanism of particle splitting in the late stages of the coarsening process, that is when the elastic strain contribution becomes predominant. It is shown that the translation order domains are not identical in such a particle array. This leads to the conclusion that particle splitting is not necessarily the mechanism responsible for the formation of such characteristic particle arrangements. Instead, particle migration can also be considered to be the responsible mechanism for the formation of such a correlated gamma-particle spatial distribution observed in Ni-based alloys.     

Holistic face processing can be independent of gaze behaviour: Evidence from the composite face illusion

People tend to perceive identical top halves (i.e. above the nose) of two face stimuli as being different when they are aligned with distinct bottom halves. This composite face illusion is generally considered as the most compelling evidence that facial features are integrated into a holistic representation. Here, we recorded eye‐movements during the composite face illusion in a delayed matching task of top halves of faces. Behavioural results showed a strong composite face effect, participants making more mistakes and taking longer time to match two identical top halves of faces when they were aligned (vs. misaligned) with different bottom halves. Importantly, fixation sites and eye‐movements were virtually identical when the top and bottom parts were aligned (composite illusion) or misaligned (no illusion), indicating that holistic face processing can be independent of gaze behaviour. These findings reinforce the view that holistic representations of individual faces can be extracted early on from information at a relatively coarse scale, independently of overt attention.     

Conventionalism,scientific discovery and the sociology of knowledge*

In this paper the basic aim of the so‐called ‘strong programme’ in the sociology of knowledge is examined. The ‘strong programme’ is considered (and rightly so) as an extreme version of the anti‐realist view of science. While the problem of scientific realism has normally been dealt with from the point of view of the ‘context of justification’ of theories, the paper focuses on the issues raised by law‐discovery. In this context Herbert Simon's views about the existence of a ‘logic of scientific discovery’ are discussed and criticized. The main thesis of the paper is that if the structure of both discovery and prediction is properly understood, then the basic anti‐realist claims become untenable. A fortiori, the ‘strong programme’ appears to be unable to explain some basic features of the structure of science.     

Inhibition of return in static and dynamic displays

Inhibition of return (IOR) causes people to be slower to return their attention to a recently attended object (object-based IOR) or location (location-based IOR). In attempts to separately measure the two components, moving stimuli have been used that permit the dissociation of the attended object from its location when it was attended. The implicit assumption has been that both object- and locationbased components of IOR will operate whenever the cued object and cued location are identical. We show here that although this assumption may be true in a static display, it appears to be unwarranted when moving stimuli are involved: Very little IOR is observed when a cued object moves away from, and then subsequently returns to, its initial location. Thus, the processes that underlie IOR operate very differently in static versus dynamic scenes.     

A physical critique of physical causation

The conserved quantities theory of causation (CQTC) attempts to use physics as the basis for an account of causation. However, a closer examination of the physics involved in CQTC reveals several critical failures. Some of the conserved quantities in physics cannot be used to distinguish causal interactions. Other conserved quantities cannot always be the properties of fields or particles. Finally, CQCT does not account for causal interactions that are static. I would like to thank Fred Kronz, Cory Juhl, Joshua Dever, and two anonymous referees for their many helpful suggestions and comments.     

Polger on the Illusion of Contingent Identity

Abstract

Thomas Polger has argued in favour of the mind–brain type‐identity theory, the view that mental states or processes are type‐identical to states of the central nervous system. Acknowledging that the type‐materialist must respond to Kripke’s modal anti‐materialist argument, Polger insists that Kripke’s argument rests on dubious assumptions concerning the identity conditions of brain states. In brief, Polger claims that one knows that x and y are non‐identical when one knows the identity conditions for both x and y. Replace x and y with ‘brain states’ and ‘sensations’ and it follows that one can know that brain states and sensations are non‐identical only if one knows the identity conditions for brain states. But according to Polger, we do not know the identity conditions for brain states. Hence, we should not be so confident that brain states and sensations are non‐identical after all. But Polger’s account is terribly flawed. Ironically, if Polger’s scepticism is warranted, then Polger himself has no good reasons to be a type‐materialist. But more importantly, Polger’s scepticism regarding the identity conditions of brain states is deeply defective. We do, I submit, understand the identity conditions of brain states. In the end, I submit, Kripke is safe from Polger.     

Philosophy,Early Modern Intellectual History,and the History of Philosophy

Historians of philosophy are increasingly likely to emphasize the extent to which their work offers a pay‐off for philosophers of un‐historical or anti‐historical inclinations; but this defence is less familiar, and often seems less than self‐evident, to intellectual historians. This article examines this tendency, arguing that such arguments for the instrumental value of historical scholarship in philosophy are often more problematic than they at first appear. Using the relatively familiar case study of René Descartes' reading of his scholastic and Aristotelian contemporaries, the article attempts to problematize this notion of pay‐off from an historian's perspective.     

Even When You Win You Lose: Targeted Parents' Perceptions of Their Attorneys

The author attempts to deal with three important issues in relation to child sex abuse allegations. These are (1) some potential signs in the behavior of children who might have suffered sexual abuse; (2) how an evaluation of an allegedly sex abused child can be carried out; (3) the possible long term affects on a child who has suffered from being sexually abused. The complexity of drawing the right conclusions are considered when there are false positives due to the overlap of evidence between sexually abused and non abused children.     

Temporal Variation in Adolescent Suicide Attempts

The purpose of this study was to examine the association between adolescent suicide attempts and temporal cycles in a multiethnic population. Medical records at two hospitals in the state of Hawaii were reviewed for all adolescents (ages 12–18) admitted for suicide attempts during the years 1987–1991. Results showed 296 adolescents attempted suicide, and as hypothesized, temporal factors were associated with the attempts. A significant increase in attempts was found during the afternoon/evening and on Mondays and Tuesdays, transition points between home and school. The results are discussed and implications for delivery and temporal theory development considered.     

Categorizing sources of risk and the estimated magnitude of risk

The social perception of risk is considered a multidimensional task, yet little attention has been paid to the cognitive components that organize sources of risk, despite their having been discovered in various research studies. This study attempts to concretely analyze the cultural dimension involved in those processes. In the first phase, we tried to discover to what extent sources of risk are organized into the same categories by people from different countries. In order to do so, two groups of participants were formed: 60 Spanish psychology students and 60 Chilean psychology students classified 43 sources of risk into different groups according to the criteria they found appropriate. The two samples classified risk into identical groups: acts of violence, drugs, electricity and home appliances, household chemicals, chemicals in the environment, public construction projects, transportation, sports, and natural disasters. In a second study, 100 Spanish and 84 Chilean students were asked to evaluate the magnitude of the damage incurred by 17 sources of risk. In both groups, it was observed that the evaluation of damage resulting from each source of risk was affected by its category.     

A classification and review of cooperation procedures

The definition of cooperation allows many procedural variations, as revealed by examination of the cooperation literature which includes procedures differing so greatly that it is surprising that all of them are considered under the same topic. This paper attempts to provide a framework for organizing that literature by (1) indicating some procedural dimensions along which cooperation procedures can be classified, (2) classifying and reviewing briefly the research at the extremes of these procedural dimensions, and (3) indicating the behavioral effects that are necessary to demonstrate control by the various cooperation procedures.