Actualism Doesn’t Have Control Issues: A Reply to Cohen and Timmerman

Recently, Cohen and Timmerman (Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy, 10(3), 1–18, 2016) argue that actualism has control issues. The view should be rejected, they claim, as it recognizes a morally irrelevant distinction between counterfactuals over which agents exercise the same kind of control. Here we reply on behalf of actualism.

     

More is not necessarily better: Examining the nature of the temporal reference memory component in timing

Three experiments compared the timing performance of humans on a modified temporal generalization task with 1, 3, or 5 presentations of the standard duration. In all three experiments subjects received presentations of a standard duration at the beginning of a trial block and then had to judge whether each of a number of comparison stimuli was or was not the standard. The duration of the standard changed between blocks. The three experiments varied the experimental design (between or within subjects), task difficulty (how closely the comparison stimuli were spaced around the standards), and presence or absence of feedback on performance accuracy. Number of presentations of the standard never affected the proportion of identifications of the standard when it was presented, nor other features of the temporal generalization gradients observed. The implications for the operation of reference memories within the scalar timing system were explored via models that made different assumptions about how the individual presentations of the standard were stored and used.     

Eco-Education: Integrating Nature into Counselor Education

ABSTRACT

This consensual qualitative research study investigated the experiences of 10 counselors-in-training after exposure to nature-based interventions during a semester-long human development class. Interview data revealed four central domains: interpersonal impact, intrapersonal impact, whole-group impact, and feedback on nature-based activities. These findings highlight the benefits of eco-education for counselor development.     

The Compatibility of the Structure‐and‐Dynamics Argument and Phenomenal Functionalism about Space

Chalmers argues against physicalism using the premise that no truth about consciousness is deducible a priori from purely structural truths, and later defines what it is for a truth to be structural, which turns out to include spatiotemporal truths. But Chalmers then defines spatiotemporal terms by reference to their role in causing spatiotemporal experiences. Stoljar and Ebbers argue that these definitions allow for the trivial falsification of Chalmers premise about structure and consciousness. I show that this result can be avoided by tweaking the relevant premise, and that this tweak is not ad hoc.