Knowledge and the value of cognitive ability

We challenge a line of thinking at the fore of recent work on epistemic value: the line (suggested by Kvanvig in The value of knowledge and the pursuit of understanding, 2003 and others) that if the value of knowledge is “swamped” by the value of mere true belief, then we have good reason to doubt its theoretical importance in epistemology. We offer a value-driven argument for the theoretical importance of knowledge—one that stands even if the value of knowledge is “swamped” by the value of true belief. Specifically, we contend that even if knowledge itself has no special epistemic value, its relationship to other items of value—cognitive abilities—gives ample reason to locate the concept at the very core of epistemology.     

Negative causation in causal and mechanistic explanation

Instances of negative causation—preventions, omissions, and the like—have long created philosophical worries. In this paper, I argue that concerns about negative causation can be addressed in the context of causal explanation generally, and mechanistic explanation specifically. The gravest concern about negative causation is that it exacerbates the problem of causal promiscuity—that is, the problem that arises when a particular account of causation identifies too many causes for a particular effect. In the explanatory context, the problem of promiscuity can be solved by characterizing the phenomenon to be explained as a contrast between two or more events or non-events. This contrastive strategy also can solve other problems that negative causation presents for the leading accounts of mechanistic explanation. Along the way, I argue that to be effective, accounts of causal explanation must incorporate negative causation. I also develop a taxonomy of negative causation and incorporate each variety of negative causation into the leading accounts of mechanistic explanation.     

Same faces, different labels: Generating the cross-race effect in face memory with social category information

Recognition of own-race faces is superior to recognition of other-race faces. In the present experiments, we explored the role of top-down social information in the encoding and recognition of racially ambiguous faces. Hispanic and African American participants studied and were tested on computer-generated ambiguous-race faces (composed of 50 % Hispanic and 50 % African American features; MacLin & Malpass, Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 7:98–118, 2001). In Experiment 1, the faces were randomly assigned to two study blocks. In each block, a group label was provided that indicated that those faces belonged to African American or to Hispanic individuals. Both participant groups exhibited superior memory for faces studied in the block with their own-race label. In Experiment 2, the faces were studied in a single block with no labels, but tested in two blocks in which labels were provided. Recognition performance was not influenced by the labeled race at test. Taken together, these results confirm the claim that purely top-down information can yield the well-documented cross-race effect in recognition, and additionally they suggest that the bias takes place at encoding rather than testing.     

The Relevance of Age of Onset to the Psychopathology of Social Phobia

The present study aimed to examine the relevance of age of onset to the psychopathology of social phobia using a large clinical sample of 210 patients with social phobia. The two most common periods of onset were during adolescence (ages 14–17) and early childhood (prior to age 10). Structural regression modeling was used to test predictions that early onset social phobia would be associated with greater severity of the disorder, stronger current symptoms of depression and anxiety, greater functional impairment, and more pronounced levels of emotional disorder vulnerabilities (e.g., neuroticism/behavioral inhibition, extraversion, perceptions of control). Logistic regression was used to evaluate relationships between age of onset and the presence of acute and chronic stress at the time of onset. Results showed that earlier age of social phobia onset was associated with stronger current psychopathology, functional impairment, and emotional disorder vulnerabilities, and that later age of onset predicted the presence of an acutely stressful event around the time of disorder emergence. These results are discussed in regard to their clinical implications and congruence with prominent etiological models of the emotional disorders.     

Psychoneuroimmunology and male infertility: A possible link between stress,coping and male immunological infertility

Abstract

This current study investigated a link between stress and coping with some male infertility problems via psychoneuroimmunological theories. The study was carried out on 77 males who came to a fertility clinic for sperm diagnosis. Appraisal and coping with stress reaction to negative life events and to infertility were related to non-sperm cells within the seminal plasma. Those men who had felt strained from external events and from problems of infertility, and had used emotional escape coping strategies, were more prone to have an immunosuppressed reaction, indicated by bacteria within their plasma. Those using task focused control strategies were more prone to have an immunostimulatory reaction, indicated by white blood cells, including in some cases, sperm destroying phagocytes suggesting a possible auto-immunity reaction. When the analyses were done separately on patients with known male fertility problems in comparison with those with unexplained infertility, the two opposing psychoneuroimmunological processes became more pronounced.     

Multiple hydrogen trapping at monovacancies

Novel structures for multiple hydrogen atoms trapped at a monovacancy are discussed. Using atomistic simulations based on semiempirical interatomic potentials and density functional theory, we find low-energy configurations for four, five, and six hydrogen atoms around a monovacancy different than those that have been previously studied in the literature. The energetics of hydrogen binding are compared to results, both theoretical and experimental, previously published in the literature. We argue that up to four hydrogen atoms may be exothermically bound to monovacancy.     

Knowledge: Value on the Cheap

We argue that the so-called ‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ Value Problems for knowledge are more easily solved than is widely appreciated. Pritchard, for instance, has suggested that only virtue-theoretic accounts have any hopes of adequately addressing these problems. By contrast, we argue that accounts of knowledge that are sensitive to the Gettier problem are able to overcome these challenges. To a first approximation, the Primary Value Problem is that of understanding how the property of being knowledge confers more epistemic value on a belief than does the property of being true. The Secondary Value Problem is one of understanding how, for instance, the property of being knowledge confers more epistemic value on a belief than does the property of being jointly true and justified. We argue that attending to the fact that beliefs are continuing states reveals that there is no difficulty in appreciating how knowledge might ordinarily have more epistemic value than mere true belief or mere justified true belief. We also explore in what ways ordinary cases of knowledge might be of distinctive epistemic value. In the end, our proposal resembles the original Platonic suggestion in the Meno that knowledge is valuable because knowledge is somehow tied to the good of truth.