Methods,minds, memory,and kinds

ABSTRACT

The acquisition of a skill, or knowledge-how, on the one hand, and the acquisition of a piece of propositional knowledge on the other, appear to be different sorts of epistemic achievements. Does this difference lie in the nature of the knowledge involved, marking a joint between knowledge-how and propositional knowledge? Intellectualists say no: All knowledge is propositional knowledge. Anti-intellectualists say yes: Knowledge-how and propositional knowledge are different in kind. What resources or methods may we legitimately and fruitfully employ to adjudicate this debate? What is (or are) the right way(s) to show the nature of the knowledge knowers know? Here too there is disagreement. I defend the legitimacy of the anti-intellectualist appeal to cognitive neuroscientific findings against a recent claim that anti-intellectualists conflate the scientific categories of procedural and declarative knowledge with the mental kinds of skill (knowledge-how) and propositional knowledge, respectively. I identify two kinds of arguments for this claim and argue that neither succeeds.     

The Specificity of the Interpersonal‐Psychological Theory of Suicidal Behavior for Identifying Suicidal Ideation in an Online Sample

The interpersonal‐psychological theory of suicidal behavior suggests that the combination of perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness predicts suicidal ideation. However, the specificity of this prediction to suicidal ideation has not been tested. This study examined whether these constructs were consistently associated with different characteristics of suicidal ideation, and whether they were associated with mental health problems more broadly, in an online sample of 1,352 Australian adults. Findings indicated that the interaction between perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness was associated only with suicidal ideation and consistent across multiple characteristics of ideation. The study broadly supported the specificity of the IPTS.     

IS METAPHYSICAL NIHILISM INTERESTING?

Suppose nothing exists. Then it is true that nothing exists. What makes that true? Nothing! So it seems that if nothing existed, then the principle that every truth is made true by something (the truthmaker principle) would be false. So if it is possible that nothing exists, a claim often called ‘metaphysical nihilism’, then the truthmaker principle is not necessary. This paper explores various ways to resolve this conflict without restricting metaphysical nihilism in such a way that it would become trivial and uninteresting.