Old Foundations for the Logic of Agency and Action

The paper presents an infinite hierarchy of sound and complete axiomatic systems for Two-Dimensional Modal Tense Logic with Historical Necessity, Agents and Acts. A main novelty of these logics is their capacity to represent formally (i) basic action-sentences asserting that such and such an act is performed/omitted by an agent, as well as (ii) causative action-sentences asserting that by performing/omitting a certain act, an agent causes that such and such a state-of-affairs is realized (e.g. comes about/ceases/remains/remains absent). We illustrate how the formal machinery of our systems can be used to reconstruct a number of interesting ideas in the Logic of Agency and Action that have been proposed by authors like von Wright, von Kutschera, Belnap and Segerberg.     

传统中国历史思想中的"时间"与"超时间"概念

在中国文化中,“时间”铭记刻画了人所身处之境况、时势的脉动以及历史中的个人的种种表现,绝非只是对自然事件的机械式载录而已。在传统中国历史思维之中,以永恒典律(如“道”、“理”)或不朽范型(如尧、舜、三代)为标竿,而尝试去存留、体现的实践过程,构成了中国历史上各个时代的具体内容。在中国传统文化中,生命的意义与价值在于领悟历史上存在过的典范,并将这些典范接引、召唤至人们所生存的时代,也因此中国文化中的“时间”概念寓涵了某种的“超时间”特质：中国人对过往历史的学习,其实只是掌握“超时间”的基点,其究极目的在于将典律范型落实于当代时空之中。中国人所认知的“时间”概念与人文关怀紧密相系;历史上的“时代”就是“时间”的会串、整合与界分;所谓“超时间”乃是从各时代中提炼出的典律范型;而经由人们的描摹叙述,“时间”会经由口语及交书而被转化成“历史”。抽象的“超时间”概念实取自“时间”,俯瞰着“时间”的流转,并且贯穿了整部“历史”的发展。本文先论述中国人文主义具有强烈的“天人合一”特质,表现出明显的社会政治取向,一切思想都落实到当下即是的人生与现实。人与自然、超自然的关系在传统中国仍被统纳入“人事”的范畴。本文第一节论证中国史学体现：中国历史意识中,“时间”与“超时间”有其错综复杂的关系：“时间”将确切发生的一桩桩事件织结成全幅的网络,而“超时间”是从网络中凝塑出来的中心意义。第二节论证“时间”如何汇淬成“超时间”,而第三节分析“超时间”必须以“时间”为基础始可形成,最后一节则对中国历史思维的特质作进一步的探讨。     

论司马迁对《周易》的范式践履

司马迁是熟谙《周易》的,这不仅体现在具体的著述行文上,更深层次的是,无论其创作动力、著史宗旨还是史著构架无不深受易理的影响。“发愤著书”所涵寓的奋斗精神、使命感、忧患意识等理性内核实皆本之于《周易》高扬的“自强不息”、“致命遂志”、“居安思患”等精义;“究天人之际,通古今之变,成一家之言”的创作宗旨则是对《周易》作为巫、史、子文化集成典范的自觉践履;《史记》的著述构架更是深受《周易》宇宙生成图式、筮仪范式、“三才”学说及类属意识之浸润。     

Failure to find evidence of stimulus generalization within pictorial categories in pigeons

Pigeons' key pecks were reinforced in the presence of pictures from one of two categories, cats or cars. A single picture associated with reinforcement was used in Experiment 1, and 20 pictures from the same category were associated with reinforcement in Experiment 2. Pigeons then were presented with novel test pictures from the training category and from the other, previously unseen, category. During Session 1 of testing, pigeons pecked no more often at pictures from the reinforced category than at pictures from the previously unseen category. When pigeons were trained with pictures associated with reinforcement or its absence from different categories in Experiment 3, differential responding to novel pictures from different categories appeared during Session 1. These findings argue against a process of automatic stimulus generalization within natural categories and in favor of the position that category distinctions are not made until members of at least two categories are compared with one another.     

Keeping track of what’s right

Abstract

In this paper, we argue that ordinary judgments about core normative topics purport to attribute stable, objective properties and relations. Our strategy is first to analyze the structures and practices characteristic of paradigmatically representational concepts such as concepts of objects and natural kinds. We identify three broad features that ground the representational purport of these concepts. We then argue that core normative concepts exhibit these same features.     

Moral supervenience

Abstract

It is widely held, even among nonnaturalists, that the moral supervenes on the natural. This is to say that for any two metaphysically possible worlds w and w′, and for any entities x in w and y in w′, any isomorphism between x and y that preserves the natural properties preserves the moral properties. In this paper, I put forward a conceivability argument against moral supervenience, assuming non-naturalism. First, I argue that though utilitarianism may be true, and the trolley driver is permitted to kill the one to save the five, there is a conceivable scenario that is just like our world in all natural respects, yet at which deontology is true, and the trolly driver is not permitted to kill the one to save the five. I then argue that in the special case of morality, it is possible to infer from the conceivability of such a scenario to its possibility. It follows that supervenience is false.     

Is a bad will a weak will? Cognitive dispositions modulate folk attributions of weakness of will

In line with recent efforts to empirically study the folk concept of weakness of will, we examine two issues in this paper: (1) How is weakness of will attribution (WWA) influenced by an agent’s violations of best judgment and/or resolution, and by the moral valence of the agent’s action? (2) Do any of these influences depend on the cognitive dispositions of the judging individual? We implemented a factorial 2?×?2?×?2 between-subjects design with judgment violation, resolution violation, and action valence as independent variables, and measured participants’ cognitive dispositions using Frederick’s Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT). We conclude that intuitive and reflective individuals have two different concepts of weakness of will. The study supports this claim by showing that: (1) the WWA of intuitive subjects is influenced by the action’s (and probably also the commitment’s) moral valence, while the WWA of reflective subjects is not; (2) judgment violation plays a small role in the WWA of intuitive subjects, while reflective subjects treat resolution violation as the only relevant trait. Data were collected among students at two different universities. All subjects (N?=?710) answered the CRT. A three-way ANOVA was first conducted on the whole sample and then on the intuitive and reflective groups separately. This study suggests that differences in cognitive dispositions can significantly impact the folk understanding of philosophical concepts and thus suggests that analysis of folk concepts should take cognitive dispositions into account.     

Three decades of Cognition & Emotion: A brief review of past highlights and future prospects

Over the past three decades, Cognition & Emotion has been one of the world’s leading outlets for emotion research. In this article, we review past highlights of and future prospects for the journal. Our tour of history covers three periods: The first period, from 1987 to 1999, was a pioneering era in which cognitive theories began to be applied to the scientific analysis of emotion. The second period, from 2000 to 2007, was characterised by a sharp increase in the number of empirical research papers, a lot of which were concerned with automatic processing biases and their implications for clinical psychology. During the third period, from 2008 to 2017, a new focus emerged on self-regulatory processes and their implications for emotion. We then turn to the present profile of Cognition & Emotion and introduce our new editorial team. Finally, we consider how the journal’s future success can be continued and increased by a) providing authors with fast and high-quality feedback; b) offering attractive publication formats, including the newly introduced Registered Reports for pre-registered studies; and c) consolidating key methodological paradigms with reproducible findings.     

Graph‐Theoretic Properties of Networks Based on Word Association Norms: Implications for Models of Lexical Semantic Memory

We compared the ability of three different contextual models of lexical semantic memory (BEAGLE, Latent Semantic Analysis, and the Topic model) and of a simple associative model (POC) to predict the properties of semantic networks derived from word association norms. None of the semantic models were able to accurately predict all of the network properties. All three contextual models over‐predicted clustering in the norms, whereas the associative model under‐predicted clustering. Only a hybrid model that assumed that some of the responses were based on a contextual model and others on an associative network (POC) successfully predicted all of the network properties and predicted a word's top five associates as well as or better than the better of the two constituent models. The results suggest that participants switch between a contextual representation and an associative network when generating free associations. We discuss the role that each of these representations may play in lexical semantic memory. Concordant with recent multicomponent theories of semantic memory, the associative network may encode coordinate relations between concepts (e.g., the relation between pea and bean, or between sparrow and robin), and contextual representations may be used to process information about more abstract concepts.     

Resolving the Paradox of Phenomenology through Kant's Aesthetics: Between Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze

Commentators have claimed that the philosophies of Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze converge upon a spatial field of sensation which is prior to representation. This essay will contest these readings by showing that, for Deleuze, the pre-representational spatial field of intensity is fundamentally split from thought. This “gap” between sensation and thought is, for Deleuze, fundamentally temporal, in that thought is continually open and passive to being violated and transformed by the sensible and the sensible is continually being pushed beyond itself by a certain kind of thought. This violent exchange across the gap between thought and sensibility is found, by Deleuze, in Kant's notion of the aesthetic idea. On the contrary, for Merleau-Ponty, Kant's aesthetics imply a non-conceptual “ground” shared by both thought and sensibility. By contrasting these two readings of Kant's aesthetics, this paper reveals the basic divergence between the philosophies of Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty.