Does Philosophy of Action Rest on a Mistake?

Philosophers of action tend to take for granted the concept of basic actions – actions that are done at will, or directly – as opposed to others that are performed in other ways. This concept does foundational work in action theory; many theorists, especially causalists, take part of their task to be showing that normal, complex actions necessarily stem from basic ones somehow. The case for the concept of basic actions is driven by a family of observations and a cluster of closely related anti-infinite regress arguments. I review this case in the work of Arthur Danto, Donald Davidson, and Jennifer Hornsby – three of the most important developers of the concept – and find it lacking. I conclude by sketching the possibility of non-foundationalist action theory.     

Truth in Applicative Theories

We give a survey on truth theories for applicative theories. It comprises Frege structures, universes for Frege structures, and a theory of supervaluation. We present the proof-theoretic results for these theories and show their syntactical expressive power. In particular, we present as a novelty a syntactical interpretation of ID₁ in a applicative truth theory based on supervaluation.     

先秦情欲论

情欲是中国心理学思想史的重要范畴,而先秦情欲论又是这一范畴研究的发端,对后世影响很大。该文从情、欲、情与欲之关系、情欲态度四个方面,探讨了先秦诸子主要是儒、道、墨、法四家的情欲理论,并结合现代心理学和现代人的生活实际进行了初步的评论。     

Individual difference factors and beliefs in medical and political conspiracy theories

This study examined the relationship between a series of individual difference measures and belief in political and medical conspiracy theories. Participants (N = 323) rated 20 conspiracy theories (10 medical, 10 political) and completed a set of questionnaires. Belief in political conspiracies was strongly positively correlated with belief in medical conspiracies. Belief in both conspiracy types was correlated with low self‐esteem, low Conscientiousness, more right‐wing political views, younger age, and greater belief in the benefits of Alternative Medicine. It was also correlated with religiousness and gender. Low Emotional Stability and Agreeableness were also correlated with belief in political conspiracies, and higher education level was correlated with belief in medical conspiracies. The findings generally demonstrated support for a monological belief system. Implications and limitations are discussed.     

Too special to be duped: Need for uniqueness motivates conspiracy beliefs

Adding to the growing literature on the antecedents of conspiracy beliefs, this paper argues that a small part in motivating the endorsement of such seemingly irrational beliefs is the desire to stick out from the crowd, the need for uniqueness. Across three studies, we establish a modest but robust association between the self‐attributed need for uniqueness and a general conspirational mindset (conspiracy mentality) as well as the endorsement of specific conspiracy beliefs. Following up on previous findings that people high in need for uniqueness resist majority and yield to minority influence, Study 3 experimentally shows that a fictitious conspiracy theory received more support by people high in conspiracy mentality when this theory was said to be supported by only a minority (vs. majority) of survey respondents. Together, these findings support the notion that conspiracy beliefs can be adopted as a means to attain a sense of uniqueness.     

Quasi-varieties: A special access

Quasi-equational logic concerns with a completeness theorem, i. e. a list of general syntactical rules such that, being given a set of graded quasi-equations Q, the closure Cl Q = Qeq Fun Q can be derived from by the given rules. Those rules do exist, because our consideration could be embedded into the logic of first order language. But, we look for special (quasi-equational) rules. Suitable rules were already established for the (non-functorial) case of partial algebras in Definition 3.1.2 of [27], p. 108, and [28], p. 102. (For the case of total algebras, see [35].) So, one has to translate these rules to the (functorial) language of partial theories .Surprisingly enough, partial theories can be replaced up to isomorphisms by partial Dale monoids (cf. Section 3), which, in the total case are ordinary monoids.Special issue of Studia Logica: Algebraic Theory of Quasivarieties Presented by M. E. Adams, K. V. Adaricheva, W. Dziobiak, and A. V. Kravchenko     

Qualitative differences between naïve and scientific theories of evolution

Philosophers of biology have long argued that Darwin's theory of evolution was qualitatively different from all earlier theories of evolution. Whereas Darwin's predecessors and contemporaries explained adaptation as the transformation of a species' "essence," Darwin explained adaptation as the selective propagation of randomly occurring mutations within a population. The present study explored the possibility of a parallel between early "transformational" theories of evolution and modern na?ve theories. Forty-two high school and college students and three evolutionary biologists were tested on their understanding of six evolutionary phenomena: variation, inheritance, adaptation, domestication, speciation, and extinction. As predicted, a plurality of participants demonstrated transformational reasoning inconsistent with natural selection. Correlational analyses revealed that participants who demonstrated transformational reasoning were as internally consistent as participants who demonstrated an understanding of natural selection, with the exception of one group of participants who appeared to have assimilated two heuristics--"survival of the fittest" and "acquired traits are not inherited"--into an otherwise transformational framework. These findings suggest that the widespread and early-developing tendency to essentialize biological kinds precludes students from conceptualizing species as populations of individuals differentially affected by the environment.     

British and American children's preferences for teleo-functional explanations of the natural world

Teleological-functional explanations account for objects by reference to their purpose. They are a fundamental aspect of adults' explanatory repertoire. They also play a significant role in children's reasoning although prior findings indicate that, in contrast to adults, young children broadly extend teleological explanation beyond artifacts (e.g. chairs) and biological properties (e.g. eyes) to the properties of non-living natural phenomena (e.g. clouds, rocks). The present study extends earlier work with American children to explore British children's application of teleological explanation. The motivation is that while Britain and America are, culturally, as close to a minimal pair as the global context affords, there are differences in the religiosity of the two nations such that British children might be less inclined to endorse purpose-based explanation. Results reveal that young British children also possess a promiscuous teleology although they differ in the kinds of purposes that they attribute. Additional findings include a replication of earlier effects using a modified task with young American children.     

On medicine, culture, and children's basic interests: a reply to three critics

Margaret Mohrmann, Paul Lauritzen, and Sumner Twiss raise questions about my account of basic interests, liberal theory, and the challenges of multiculturalism as developed in Children, Ethics, and Modern Medicine. Their questions point to foundational issues regarding the justification and limitation of parental authority to make decisions on behalf of children in medical and other contexts. One of the central questions in that regard is whether adults' decisions deserve to be respected, especially when they seem contrary to a child's or adolescent's basic interests. Questions about respect, in turn, focus attention on other's decisions about what seems good for families and children, decisions that may be paternalistic or utilitarian. Such decisions are further complicated by a child's or adolescent's budding autonomy and need for respect and recognition. Pediatric bioethics grounded in an account of a child's basic interests produces a theory of negative and positive rights for assessing adults' actions in relation to children, especially (but not only) when adults demand respect in their expressions of care.     

Ultimate Questions of Science and the Theory of System Relations

Summary  Whenever an adequate theory is found in science, we will still be left with two questions: why this theory rather than some other theory, and how should this theory be interpreted? I argue that these questions can be answered by a theory of system relations. The basic idea is that fundamental characteristics of systems, viz. those arising from the general systemic nature of those systems, cannot be comprehended with the aid of discipline-specific methods. The systems theory required should commence with an analysis of the qualitatively different relations possible between systems, because it is precisely the nature of those relations that determines the basic structures of systems. That the theory of the fundamental system relations and their ontological and epistemological implications is indeed able to provide the answers sought is demonstrated in theoretical physics and Plessner’s analysis of the basic structures of plant, animal and human being.