Inexact Knowledge with Introspection

Standard Kripke models are inadequate to model situations of inexact knowledge with introspection, since positive and negative introspection force the relation of epistemic indiscernibility to be transitive and euclidean. Correlatively, Williamson’s margin for error semantics for inexact knowledge invalidates axioms 4 and 5. We present a new semantics for modal logic which is shown to be complete for K45, without constraining the accessibility relation to be transitive or euclidean. The semantics corresponds to a system of modular knowledge, in which iterated modalities and simple modalities are not on a par. We show how the semantics helps to solve Williamson’s luminosity paradox, and argue that it corresponds to an integrated model of perceptual and introspective knowledge that is psychologically more plausible than the one defended by Williamson. We formulate a generalized version of the semantics, called token semantics, in which modalities are iteration-sensitive up to degree n and insensitive beyond n. The multi-agent version of the semantics yields a resource-sensitive logic with implications for the representation of common knowledge in situations of bounded rationality.     

Relativizing utterance-truth?

In recent years, some people have held that a radical relativist position is defensible in some philosophically interesting cases, including future contingents, predicates of personal taste, evaluative predicates in general, epistemic modals, and knowledge attributions. The position is frequently characterized as denying that utterance-truth is absolute. I argue that this characterization is inappropriate, as it requires a metaphysical substantive contention with which moderate views as such need not be committed. Before this, I also offer a more basic, admittedly less exciting alternative characterization of the position, in terms of departing from the Kaplan–Lewis–Stalnaker two-dimensional framework.     

精神科医师医疗干涉权的伦理限度

精神科医师特殊干涉权,因精神科领域医疗活动的行为、对象及医师权利具有特殊性,同时符合伦理学的不伤害原则和公正原则,这也是医师自主权的合理运用,因此具有合理性.但是在社会实践中,干涉权由于经常被扩张化而侵犯了患者的利益.由此提出干涉权必须坚持人道主义精神的、坚持医学伦理学的基本原则以及技术规范.     

‘Our way of life is worth defending’: testing a model of attitudes towards superordinate group membership through a study of Scots' attitudes towards Britain

This research used a survey design (N = 227) to investigate Scottish people's support or opposition to independence from Britain. It was hypothesised that political attitudes towards supra‐national bodies are not a direct function of the degree of ingroup (Scottish) identification, but are moderated by the extent to which the expression of ingroup identity is seen as being undermined within the larger entity. This feeling of identity undermining is assumed to arise from perceptions of incompatibility with the outgroup and ingroup powerlessness within the common group. The results provided support for these hypotheses. Only for those participants who had high feelings of identity undermining did identification lead to stronger separatist attitudes. Moreover, incompatibility with the outgroup and ingroup powerlessness predicted feelings of identity undermining while this latter mediated their impact on attitudes to being part of Britain. These findings underline the importance of taking into account (a) the contents ascribed to identities and their relations, and (b) the practical ability to pursue a way of live based on these contents in order to understand the way identity processes shape attitudes towards superordinate groups. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The combined effects of goal type and cognitive ability on performance

We tested the combined effects of goal type and cognitive ability on task performance using a moderately complex task. Business students (N = 105) worked on a 24 min class scheduling task. The results showed that participants with higher cognitive ability benefited more from the setting of a performance goal as opposed to a learning goal. The reverse pattern was true for participants with lower cognitive ability. Performance goals were more effective for participants with higher cognitive ability vis-à-vis those with lower cognitive ability. The correlation between goal commitment and performance was positive and significant as was the correlation between cognitive ability and performance.     

克隆人的尊严是如何被先天贬损的?——兼向翟振明教授请教

在反对生殖性克隆的诸种理由中,尊严论证是最具有说服力的道德主张.反对生殖性克隆的基本共识是,基因组被他人预先决定会导致克隆人的尊严被贬损.尊严论证需要解决的核心问题就是基因被决定为什么会导致尊严被贬损.一般情况下,纯粹工具性的克隆意图,会导致克隆者将自己的自由意志强加于克隆的自由意志之上,从而导致自由意志主体间的对等性的破缺,使克隆人的尊严在原初意义上就被贬损.但是上述情况不能涵盖所有的克隆意图,在其他情况下,克隆人的尊严是因为自由意志的实现受到限制而被侵犯的.     

Memory issues pertaining to social marketing messages about behavior enactment versus non-enactment

This article examines efficiency issues pertaining to social marketing messages about behavior enactment (e.g., smoker) vs. non-enactment (e.g., nonsmoker). Building on a wealth of psycholinguistics research, we posit that underlying differences in the processing and storage of word concepts with affixal negations affect learning and memory for these concepts (i.e., associations with non-enactment concepts will be harder to learn and remember than associations with enactment concepts). Two experiments support our predictions, suggesting that messages about enactment will demonstrate superior efficiency. Implications of study findings are discussed in terms of possibilities for improving the efficiency of social marketing messages about non-enactment.     

Challenging Christianity: Leo Tolstoy and religious education

The religious thought of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy is a well documented but often overlooked example of unorthodox Christianity. This paper uses the example of Tolstoy’s religious thinking to question the integrity of the current representation of Christianity in UK schools. It also uses Tolstoy’s criticism of orthodox Christianity to suggest a possible consequence of the existing depiction of Christianity on students’ understanding and attitudes.     

Skill transfer through goal-driven representation mapping

In this paper, we present an approach to transfer that involves analogical mapping of symbols across different domains. We relate this mechanism to Icarus, a theory of the human cognitive architecture. Our system can transfer skills across domains hypothesizing maps between representations, improving performance in novel domains. Unlike previous approaches to analogical transfer, our method uses an explanatory analysis that compares how well a new domain theory explains previous solutions under different mapping hypotheses. We present experimental evidence that the new mechanism improves transfer over Icarus’ basic learning processes. Moreover, we argue that the same features which distinguish Icarus from other architectures support representation mapping in a natural way and operate synergistically with it. These features enable our analogy system to translate a map among concepts into a map between skills, and to support transfer even if two domains are only partially analogous. We also discuss our system’s relation to other work on analogy and outline directions for future research.