Can God Create Abstract Objects? A Reply to Peter van Inwagen

The Platonic theist Peter van Inwagen argues that God cannot create abstract objects. Thus, the quantifier ‘everything’ in traditional statements of the doctrine of creation should be appropriately restricted to things that can enter into causal relations and abstract objects cannot: ‘God is the creator of everything distinct from himself…that can enter into causal relations.’ I respond to van Inwagen arguing that he has provided no good reason for thinking abstract objects must be uncreated. And if this is the case, then there is no good reason to think that God cannot create abstract objects.     

On some recent moves in defence of doxastic compatibilism

According to the doxastic compatibilist, compatibilist criteria with respect to the freedom of action rule-in our having free beliefs. In Booth (Philosophical Papers 38:1–12, 2009), I challenged the doxastic compatibilist to either come up with an account of how doxastic attitudes can be intentional in the face of it very much seeming to many of us that they cannot. Or else, in rejecting that doxastic attitudes need to be voluntary in order to be free, to come up with a principled account of how her criteria of doxastic freedom are criteria of freedom. In two recent papers, Steup (Synthese 188:145–163, 2012; Dialectica 65(4):559–576, 2011) takes up the first disjunct of the challenge by proposing that even though beliefs cannot be practically intentional, they can be epistemically intentional. McHugh (McHugh forthcoming) instead takes up the second disjunct by proposing that the freedom of belief be modelled not on the freedom of action but on the freedom of intention. I argue that both Steup’s and McHugh’s strategies are problematic.     

Putting category learning in order: Category structure and temporal arrangement affect the benefit of interleaved over blocked study

Recent research in inductive category learning has demonstrated that interleaved study of category exemplars results in better performance than does studying each category in separate blocks. However, the questions of how the category structure influences this advantage and how simultaneous presentation interacts with the advantage are open issues. In this article, we present three experiments. The first experiment indicates that the advantage of interleaved over blocked study is modulated by the structure of the categories being studied. More specifically, interleaved study results in better generalization for categories with high within- and between-category similarity, whereas blocked presentation results in better generalization for categories with low within- and between-category similarity. In Experiment 2, we present evidence that when presented simultaneously, between-category comparisons (interleaved presentation) result in a performance advantage for high-similarity categories, but no differences were found for low-similarity categories. In Experiment 3, we directly compared simultaneous and successive presentation of low-similarity categories. We again found an overall benefit for blocked study with these categories. Overall, these results are consistent with the proposal that interleaving emphasizes differences between categories, whereas blocking emphasizes the discovery of commonalities among objects within the same category.     

Philosophical perspectives on ad hoc hypotheses and the Higgs mechanism

We examine physicists’ charge of ad hocness against the Higgs mechanism in the standard model of elementary particle physics. We argue that even though this charge never rested on a clear-cut and well-entrenched definition of “ad hoc”, it is based on conceptual and methodological assumptions and principles that are well-founded elements of the scientific practice of high-energy particle physics. We further evaluate the implications of the recent discovery of a Higgs-like particle at the CERN’s Large Hadron Collider for the charge of ad hocness against the Higgs mechanism.     

Embarrassment and empathy before helping: How internal working models come into play

Prior research has described embarrassment and empathy as predictors of social helping and as self-conscious emotions involving reasoning about the self and others. It remains unclear how cognitive representations of the self and others relate to the two emotions as precursors of social helping. We examined 136 participants’ self-report measures of internal working models as well as dispositional embarrassability, empathic concern, personal distress, and perspective taking. Controlling all the other variables, embarrassability was primarily associated with the model of self and personal distress, whereas empathic concern was primarily associated with the model of others and perspective taking. Moreover, the association between personal distress and embarrassability was moderated by the interaction between models of others and perspective taking. The general proneness to distress arousal was also predicted by the interaction between models of self and others. The findings extended prior research linking internal working models and socio-cognitive emotions associated with helping.     

Clearing Up Client Confusion Regarding the Meaning of Forgiveness: An Aristotelian/Thomistic Analysis With Counseling Implications

Although the construct of forgiveness is popular in research and counseling, there remains considerable confusion surrounding this topic. This article examines the likely errors clients may bring to counseling regarding the meaning of forgiveness. The author uses an Aristotelian/Thomistic perspective to analyze error in understanding forgiveness and concludes that client misunderstanding and the resultant fear of attempting to forgive are oftentimes rooted not in understanding forgiveness itself, but instead in focusing on 1 of 2 vices surrounding that construct. The author recommends bringing this misunderstanding to clients so that they can better decide for themselves whether or not to forgive others.     

EXPLANATORY MODESTY

Although I certainly have differences with some of my commentators, I am grateful for the time, effort, and attention that each has devoted to my book, Why Religion Is Natural and Science Is Not. They have helpfully pointed out features of my positions that need clarification and elaboration. I am also grateful to the editor of Zygon, Willem Drees, for this opportunity to undertake that task here.     

Belief in Conspiracy Theories and Susceptibility to the Conjunction Fallacy

People who believe in the paranormal have been found to be particularly susceptible to the conjunction fallacy. The present research examines whether the same is true of people who endorse conspiracy theories. Two studies examined the association between conspiracist ideation and the number of conjunction violations made in a variety of contexts (neutral, paranormal and conspiracy). Study 1 found that participants who endorsed a range of popular conspiracy theories more strongly also made more conjunction errors than participants with weaker conspiracism, regardless of the contextual framing of the conjunction. Study 2, using an independent sample and a generic measure of conspiracist ideation, replicated the finding that conspiracy belief is associated with domain‐general susceptibility to the conjunction fallacy. The findings are discussed in relation to the association between conspiracism and other anomalous beliefs, the representativeness heuristic and the tendency to infer underlying causal relationships connecting ostensibly unrelated events. © 2014 The Authors. Applied Cognitive Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

The State of Research on Situational Judgment Tests: A Content Analysis and Directions for Future Research

Situational judgment tests (SJTs) have become popular selection methods, with 59 empirical studies having been published since 1990. In contrast to prior narrative reviews or meta-analyses, this study develops (a) a comprehensive structure of SJT features, or “attributes,” (b) uses this structure to quantitatively and qualitatively summarize existing research in a content analysis, and then (c) uses the content analysis to generate directions for future research. The review is organized around a single question: What are the current practices in SJT research? Using this question as a foundation, we focus the content analysis on three significant theoretical and practical themes: (a) SJT development, scoring methods, and uses; (2) types of reliability estimates reported for SJTs, and (3) attributes that enhance or reduce internal consistency reliability.