Two problems of easy credit

This paper defends the theory that knowledge is credit-worthy true belief against a family of objections, two instances of which were leveled against it in a recent paper by Jennifer Lackey. Lackey argues that both innate knowledge (if there is any) and testimonial knowledge are too easily come by for it to be plausible that the knower deserves credit for it. If this is correct, then knowledge would appear not to be a matter of credit for true belief. I will attempt to neutralize these objections by drawing a distinction between credit as praiseworthiness and credit as attributability.     

The Impossibility of Local Skepticism

According to global skepticism, we know nothing. According to local skepticism, we know nothing in some particular area or domain of discourse. Unlike their global counterparts, local skeptics think they can contain our invincible ignorance within limited bounds. I argue that they are mistaken. Local skepticism, particularly the kinds that most often get defended, cannot stay local: if there are domains whose truths we cannot know, then there must be claims outside those domains that we cannot know even if they are true. My argument focuses on one popular form of local skepticism, ethical skepticism, but I believe that the argument generalizes to cover other forms as well.

Features of the Expert-System-Shell SPIRIT

The inference process in a probabilistic and conditional environmentunder minimum relative entropy, permits the acquisition of basicknowledge, the consideration of - even uncertain - ad hoc knowledge,and the response to queries. Even if these procedures are wellknown in the relevant literature their realisation for large-scaleapplications needs a sophisticated tool, allowing the communicationwith the user as well as all relevant logical transformationsand numerical calculations. SPIRIT is an Expert-System-Shellfor these purposes. Even for hundreds of – consistent– facts about the involved variables’ dependenciesthe shell automatically generates the corresponding epistemicstate, thus permitting the derivation of conclusions from theacquired knowledge. These conclusions’ reliability orprecision can be checked, inviting the user to enrich the knowledgeby further facts, if desired. Any inconsistencies among providedfacts are detected, and their elimination will be supportedby the shell. Knowledge acquisition can come from provided factsby a knowledge engineer as well as from real world data; inductivelearning supports the use of such data. An important capabilityof the shell is the calculation of impacts upon ideas or conceptsfrom a given stimulus. This paper is a brief survey of theoreticalconcepts and the corresponding features of the system, whichare accompanied by illustrative examples.     

Scepticism and Ordinary Epistemic Practice

It is not unusual for epistemologists to argue that ordinary epistemic practice is a setting within which (infallibilist) scepticism will not arise. Such scepticism is deemed to be an alien invader, impugning such epistemic practice entirely from without. But this paper argues that the suggested sort of analysis overstates the extent to which ordinary epistemic practice is antipathetic to some vital aspects of such sceptical thinking. The paper describes how a gradualist analysis of knowledge can do more justice to what sceptics seek to achieve – while also showing how sceptical thinking can even be part of (and is able to have some muted epistemic impact within) ordinary epistemic practice.

Développer des interventions de prévention et de promotion de la santé fondées sur les données probantes : la Démarche EValuation Action (DEVA)

While scientific knowledge informing how to prevent main public health problems builds up since decades, the gap between professional practice and scientific evidence remains important. Regarding disease prevention and health promotion, professionals – including psychologists – aim at enriching their practice by relying on scientific knowledge. However, barriers to knowledge transfer remain. Here we present the Evaluation-Action Approach (DEVA), which has been created to overcome such barriers and provide an operational tool to practitioners willing to use the best available data. This article describes this new project methodology, which is anchored in the evidence-based paradigm, and has been developed based on methodological tools in French, along with assessment practices from different academic disciplines. It has been pre-tested and improved in an academic context and then tested with practitioners (locally and nationally). The DEVA comprises three stages and twelve steps, four of which are evaluations. These evaluative steps aim at checking whether, at each stage, the best available data are used and that the (working and health) objectives are reached. The DEVA can contribute to the need of methodological innovation and the development of professional and practical skills. This project methodology provides an operating procedure to facilitate knowledge transfer and the development of evidence-based prevention and health promotion interventions.     

Psychological and socio-demographic variables associated with sexual risk behavior for sexually transmitted infections/HIV

New diagnoses of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV are rising in the adult population. The main objective of this study was to analyze whether knowledge of STIs/HIV, worry about STIs/HIV and pregnancy, and self-efficacy to refuse sex are predictors of sexual risk behaviors among Spanish young and adults. The study sample was composed of 1,106 young and adults of both sexes aged between 17 and 55 years. Results showed that being single, homosexual, having been tested for HIV, having previously contracted an STI, having a college education and earning a monthly income of €900 or more were the characteristics associated with higher scores in knowledge of STIs/HIV. Self-efficacy to refuse sex predicted most vaginal and anal sexual behaviors (i.e., age at vaginal and anal sex initiation and the number of couples that have remained vaginal sex). We also found that participants with greater knowledge of STIs/HIV reported older age at vaginal sex initiation and higher condom use in the first vaginal sexual contact. We consider that these findings can be useful for the development of STI/HIV prevention programs.     

The Automaton Self: Defensive organisation,psychodynamics and treatment approaches

Abstract

This paper is not primarily concerned with the content of theory and what we then, in the light of this and of our own experience, say to our clients. Rather, it is concerned with the nature of this knowledge that we are using and that the client in turn uses and experiences in the counselling.

How, or the way in which, we know, defines our knowledge as much as the actual content of that knowledge. The paper delineates two fundamental ways of knowing. One is our ordinary practical and rational way of understanding reality and is usually about achieving some goal – this is what I am calling the product side of counselling: the other is concerned with our more immediate first-hand experiential knowing of ourselves and our world.

The paper opens with a definition of these two kinds of knowledge, product and process, and presents some clinical material to show how these different ways of knowing can have a real effect on the counselling. It then moves on to the question of why counselling trainings are becoming increasingly concerned with product knowledge, and ends with a discussion of how Freud himself was constantly using both ways of knowing as if they were the same, without understanding the implications of this for therapeutic practice.     

Emotion-specific load disrupts concomitant affective processing

Findings in the neuroimaging literature suggest that separate brain circuitries are involved when individuals perform emotional compared to nonemotional working memory (WM) tasks. Here we test this hypothesis with behavioural measures. We predicted that the conceptual processing of affect would be disrupted more by concurrent affective than nonaffective load. Participants performed a conceptual task in which they verified affective versus sensory properties of concepts, and a second, concurrent, working memory (n-back) task in which the target stimuli were facial expressions. Results revealed that storing and updating affective (as compared with identity) features of facial expressions altered performance more for affective than for sensory properties of concepts. The findings are supportive of the ideas that affective resources exist and that these resources are specifically used during the processing and representation of affective properties of objects and events.     

Generation,intentionality of processing at encoding and retrieval,and age-related associative deficits

This research tested age-related differences in the retrieval of self-generated new associations under conditions that required intentional or incidental processing. Under intentional or incidental encoding conditions, young and older adults generated new associations by producing a response to a two-letter stem paired with a cue/prime word (e.g., throne–mo_____). Memory for these new associations was tested under intentional or incidental retrieval conditions by pairing the word stem with the previous cue/prime word, its homophone partner, or a prime/cue not previously presented. Results indicated equivalent priming and cueing effects for both age groups in all conditions. These results suggest that generation of new associations can eliminate age-related associative deficits, even under intentional encoding and retrieval conditions that typically disadvantage older adults.     

Logical Knowledge

It seems obvious that our beliefs are logically imperfect in two ways: they are neither deductively closed nor logically consistent. But this common-sense truism has been judged erroneous by some philosophers in the light of various arguments. In defence of common sense I consider and rebut interpretative arguments for logical perfection and show that the assumption espoused by common sense is theoretically superior, and capable - unlike its rival - of accounting for the informativeness of mathematics. Finally, I suggest that common sense opens the way to genuine disputes about the correct logic.