Self-Knowledge and Rationality

There have been several recent attempts to account for the special authority of self-knowledge by grounding it in a constitutive relation between an agent's intentional states and her judgments about those intentional states. This constitutive relation is said to hold in virtue of the rationality of the subject. I argue, however, that there are two ways in which we have self-knowledge without there being such a constitutive relation between first-order intentional states and the second-order judgments about them. Recognition of this fact thus represents a significant challenge to the rational agency view.     

HOW SOCIAL DOMINANCE ORIENTATION AND JOB STATUS INFLUENCE PERCEPTIONS OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION BENEFICIARIES

This paper examines evaluative judgments about an African-American beneficiary of affirmative action (AA) in two studies. Based on a motivated social cognition model, we test whether the use of AA, social dominance orientation (SDO), and job status jointly influence judgments about the future job performance and career progression of an AA beneficiary. In a sample of 244 undergraduate business students, Study 1 showed that SDO and AA interact to predict job-related performance expectations, and AA and job status interact to predict career progression expectations. Study 2 used a different sample of 190 business undergraduates to test whether the effects of AA, job status, SDO and their interactions on evaluative judgments is mediated by stereotype application. Results showed that different dimensions of stereotypes mediated the relationships between SDO, job status and the AA × SDO interaction.     

Epistemic Circularity Squared? Skepticism about Common Sense

Epistemic circularity occurs when a subject forms the belief that a faculty F is reliable through the use of F. Although this is often thought to be vicious, externalist theories generally don't rule it out. For some philosophers, this is a reason to reject externalism. However, Michael Bergmann defends externalism by drawing on the tradition of common sense in two ways. First, he concedes that epistemically circular beliefs cannot answer a subject's doubts about her cognitive faculties. But, he argues, subjects don't have such doubts, so epistemically circular beliefs are rarely called upon to play this role. Second, following Thomas Reid, Bergmann argues that we have noninferential, though epistemically circular, knowledge that our faculties are reliable. I argue, however, that Bergmann's view is undermined by doubts a subject should have and that there is no plausible explanation for how we can have noninferential knowledge that our faculties are reliable.     

Expanding Community Participation by People with Disabilities: Implications for Counselors

Many people with disabilities are realizing the goal of full participation in community life. Basic beliefs and values have guided the movement from special institutions and other more restrictive settings to life and work in the community. The movement has been sustained by social, political, and technological developments. The future will involve continuing advances in the opening of communities to mainstream activities on the part of people with severe disabilities, given commitment to basic beliefs and effective services from counselors and other professionals.