Self-knowledge, Externalism, and Skepticism: Brian P. McLaughlin

In recent years, some philosophers have claimed that we can know a priori that certain external world skeptical hypotheses are false on the basis of a priori knowledge that we are in certain kinds of mental states, and a priori knowledge that those mental states are individuated by contingent environmental factors. Appealing to a distinction between weak and strong a priority, I argue that weakly a priori arguments of this sort would beg the question of whether the skeptical hypothesis under assessment is true, and that the prospect of a sound strongly a priori argument of this sort seems dim.
'It still remains a scandal to philosophy... that the existence of things outside of us... must be accepted merely on faith, and that, if anyone thinks good to doubt their existence, we are unable to counter his doubts by any satisfactory proof.'
(Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason)     

The attentional blink is immune to masking-induced data limits

The attentional blink is the robust finding that processing a masked item (T1) hinders the subsequent identification of a backwards masked second item (T2), which follows soon after the first one. There has been some debate about the theoretically important relation between the difficulty of T1 processing and the ensuing blink. In Experiment 1 we manipulated the difficulty of T1 in such a way as to affect the quality of data without altering the amount of resources allocated to its identification. We found no relation between the accuracy of T1 identification and the blink. In Experiment 2, the same difficulty manipulation was applied to T2, and we observed an additive pattern with the blink. Together, this pattern of results indicates that a data-limited difficulty manipulation does not affect the blink, whether applied to T1 or T2. In Experiment 3 we used an individual differences methodology to show that performance in the traditional 'stream'-like presentation (rapid serial visual presentation) was highly correlated with performance in our modified 'target mask, target mask' paradigm, thus allowing for comparisons beyond the present methodology to much of the previous literature that has used the stream paradigm.     

NON‐VIOLENCE AND NONHUMANS: Foundations for Animal Welfare in the Thought of Mohandas Gandhi and Albert Schweitzer

This essay explores how the principles of ahimsa and reverence for life provide a foundation for animal welfare in the thought of Mohandas Gandhi and Albert Schweitzer, respectively. This exploration unfolds through a consideration of the contextual background of both thinkers, the scope of life to which they apply their respective principles, and both the ethical ramifications and limitations of this application. Within this common framework, the author delineates the striking commonalities and the significant disparities between Gandhi and Schweitzer. This comparison opens a common space within which ecologically‐minded Hindus and Christians can dialogue, augmenting each other's positions by drawing on respected thinkers in their traditions. It also provides an opportunity, within the tensions highlighted at the intersection of Gandhi and Schweitzer's thought, to further construct a foundation for animal welfare in contemporary discussions.