COMMUNICATION AND RATIONAL RESPONSIVENESS TO THE WORLD

Abstract:  Donald Davidson has long maintained that in order to be credited with the concept of objectivity – and, so, with language and thought – it is necessary to communicate with at least one other speaker. I here examine Davidson's central argument for this thesis and argue that it is unsuccessful. Subsequently, I turn to Robert Brandom's defense of the thesis in Making It Explicit. I argue that, contrary to Brandom, in order to possess the concept of objectivity it is not necessary to engage in the practice of interpersonal reasoning because possession of the concept is independently integral to the practice of intrapersonal reasoning.     

MORAL REFORM,MORAL DISAGREEMENT,AND ABORTION

Abstract: Bernard Gert argues that legitimate moral disagreement calls for tolerance and moral humility; when there is more than one morally acceptable course of action, then intolerance and what Gert calls “moral arrogance” would be objectionable. This article identifies some possible difficulties in distinguishing moral arrogance from moral reform and then examines Gert's treatment of abortion as a contemporary example of moral disagreement that he characterizes as irresolvable.     

MENTAL IMAGERY AND THE VARIETIES OF AMODAL PERCEPTION

The problem of amodal perception is the problem of how we represent features of perceived objects that are occluded or otherwise hidden from us. Bence Nanay (2010 ) has recently proposed that we amodally perceive an object's occluded features by imaginatively projecting them into the relevant regions of visual egocentric space. In this paper, I argue that amodal perception is not a single, unitary capacity. Drawing appropriate distinctions reveals amodal perception to be characterized not only by mental imagery, as Nanay suggests, but also by genuinely visual representations as well as beliefs. I conclude with some brief remarks on the role of object‐directed bodily action in conferring a sense of unseen presence on an object's occluded features.     

In Search of True Causes:

The present investigation sought to obtain empirical data that either directly supports or refutes the popular assumption that communication is an essential element of effective decision making. Specifically, it reports three phases of study that attempt to determine whether the variance in group decision making is best accounted for by noninteraction or interaction sources. Phase 1 examines the relationship among group member ability, communication opportunity, and decision performance. Phase 2 examines the relationship among group member ability, qualities of group communication, and decision performance. Phase 3 examines the relationship among fulfillment of communication functions requisite to decision-making efficacy, group member ability, and decision performance. In Phase 1, a strong independent main effect for communication opportunity was found; whereas in Phase 2 we discovered classification and explanatory effects for three facets of interaction quality—“evaluation of task-relevant issues,”“goal-directed communication,” and “idea development”—and in Phase 3 no classification or explanatory effects for either of the communication functions examined was found. Open channels of communication and high quality task-oriented discussion that focused on issue evaluation and task accomplishment facilitated group performance in light of the effects of group potential.