The structure of tradeoffs in model building

Despite their best efforts, scientists may be unable to construct models that simultaneously exemplify every theoretical virtue. One explanation for this is the existence of tradeoffs: relationships of attenuation that constrain the extent to which models can have such desirable qualities. In this paper, we characterize three types of tradeoffs theorists may confront. These characterizations are then used to examine the relationships between parameter precision and two types of generality. We show that several of these relationships exhibit tradeoffs and discuss what consequences those tradeoffs have for theoretical practice. John Matthewson and Michael Weisberg have contributed equally to this paper.     

Exerting Self‐Control ≠ Sacrificing Pleasure

Self‐control is a prominent topic in consumer research, where it is often conceptualized as the abstinence from hedonic consumption. We examine whether this conceptualization accurately captures consumers’ experiences of self‐control conflicts/failures in light of seminal self‐control theories in economics and psychology. Rejecting that notion, we argue that self‐control failures are choices in violation of superordinate long‐term goals accompanied by anticipated regret, rather than choices of hedonic over utilitarian consumption. This conceptualization has important methodological, theoretical, and practical implications. Methodologically, it highlights the need for experimental paradigms with higher construct validity. Theoretically, it helps elucidate how self‐control is distinct from impatience and self‐regulation. Practically, it provides a rich set of implications for deducing interventions on the individual and public policy level to help consumers exert self‐control.     

Hyped Virtues,Hidden Vices: The Ethics of Icelandic Sports Literature

Ideally, good sports literature illuminates the subtle moral contours of sports reality. We ask in this paper how modern Icelandic literature describes sport-related ethical issues and attitudes. Our findings indicate that, in stark contrast to the rampant egocentrism, individual vice and misconduct blighting Icelandic sports reality, modern Icelandic prose literature typically either ignores this reality or refers to sports as if they were in full harmony with idealised ancient virtues and morals. Our conclusion is that this discrepancy admits of four possible interpretations: that (1) theories about the individualism and egocentricity of modernity do not apply in Iceland and in Icelandic sports; (2) the writers are seriously self-deceived; (3) the writers write their books for the deliberate purpose of deceiving the public; (4) the writers write their books for the deliberate purpose of preaching. Our answer is that, while there may be reason to foreground (4), the explanation lies in a combination of those four factors.     

FORMATION,GRACE, AND PNEUMATOLOGY: Or,Where's the Spirit in Gregory's Augustine?

Eric Gregory's Politics and the Order of Love takes up an audacious project: enlisting Saint Augustine in order to “help imagine a better liberalism.” This article first provides a summary of Gregory's argument, focusing on his emphasis on love as a “motivation” for neighborly care, and hence democratic participation. This involves tracing the theme of motivation in the book, which is tied to his articulation of liberal perfectionism and an emphasis on civic virtue. In conclusion I raise the question of whether his project has ignored a key aspect of Augustine's account of love, namely, the role of the Holy Spirit, thereby demarcating the limits of Gregory's “rational reconstruction” of Augustine.     

The A Posteriori Armchair

A lot of good philosophy is done in the armchair, but is nevertheless a posteriori. This paper clarifies and then defends that claim. Among the a posteriori activities done in the armchair are assembling and evaluating commonplaces; formulating theoretical alternatives; and integrating well-known past a posteriori discoveries. The activity that receives the most discussion, however, is the application of theoretical virtues to choose philosophical theories: the paper argues that much of this is properly seen as a posteriori.     

Evaluating the pilot Narnian Virtues Character Education English Curriculum Project: a study among 11- to 13-year-old students

Abstract

In order to evaluate the impact of the pilot Narnian Virtues Character Education English Curriculum Project, a pilot sample of 86 year 7 and year 8 students (11 to 13 years of age) completed a battery of tests both before and after participating for six weeks in the programme. The battery of tests comprised 12 Narnian Character Virtue Scales (NCVS) (to assess the degree to which students saw themselves as behaving virtuously), the Knowledge Index of Narnian Character Virtues (KINCV) (to assess knowledge of virtues gained during the programme), and established measures of personality, happiness, self-esteem, empathy, and religious affect (as control variables). Mean scores were significantly higher at the end of the programme on the KINCV, but on none of the 12 NCVSs, and on none of the control variables. These data suggest that the Narnian Virtues Character Education English Curriculum Project was successful in enhancing knowledge of virtues but not in changing self-perceived behaviour. These findings are consistent both with the general educational principle that education informs understanding prior to affecting behaviour and also with the expectations of the project – that improving virtue literacy and understanding of virtues precedes the practice of virtues.     

Communicative action,the lifeworlds of learning and the dialogue that we aren't 1

Abstract

The first section of the paper reviews the kind of action which unfolds in Plato's Republic, and argues that, from Book II onwards, its character shifts from a genuine dialogue (communicative action) to a more manipulative kind of intercourse (strategic action). While the former kind of action was characteristic of the educational activities of the historical Socrates, the case is made that this kind of action became largely eclipsed in Western education and superseded by the strategic concerns to which Platonist conceptions of learning gave prominence. The Platonist legacy, it is pointed out, had a decisive impact on Western conceptions of learning, even beyond the Enlightenment. These conceptions were largely custodial rather than emancipatory in character. An argument is presented in thirteen steps in the second section of the paper, to establish the case that the kind of action which properly describes the experience of teaching and learning is that of a cultural courtship. A distinction is drawn between honourable and dishonourable forms of courtship, the honourable being a candidate for defence in universalist terms. The practical import of the distinction is considered. Under the title ‘The Dialogue that we Aren't’, the third section reviews postmodern objections ‐ particularly those of Lyotard ‐ to the kind of argument made in the thirteen steps, and the concluding section considers Habermas’ later theories in relation to my own ‘universalist’ argument.     

荀子对思孟“五行”说批判的再认识

荀子激烈批评思孟"五行"说的原因学界有过多种看法,而其深层、根本的原因却在于在荀子和思孟之间存在思维和哲学基础的根本差异,荀子所持有的是形而上学的二元论,而思孟"五行"说坚持的是天人合一、身心合一的前形而上学的存在论。因为在孟子所因循的子思代表的春秋文化和荀子所站立的战国后期文化之间,知识范型与符号体系发生了巨大的转变。这可以从"五行"说产生和流变的几个阶段中清楚地看到。     

Epistemic Presuppositions and their Consequences

Traditional epistemology has, in the main, presupposed that the primary task is to give a complete account of the concept knowledge and to state under what conditions it is possible to have it. In so doing, most accounts have been hierarchical, and all assume an idealized knower. The assumption of an idealized knower is essential for the traditional goal of generating an unassailable account of knowledge acquisition. Yet we, as individuals, fail to reach the ideal. Perhaps more important, we have epistemic goals not addressed in the traditional approach – among them, the ability to reach understanding in areas we deem important for our lives. Understanding is an epistemic concept. But how we obtain it has not traditionally been a focus. Developing an epistemic account that starts from a set of assumptions that differ from the traditional starting points will allow a different sort of epistemic theory, one on which generating understanding is a central goal and the idealized knower is replaced with an inquirer who is not merely fallible but working from a particular context with particular goals. Insight into how an epistemic account can include the particular concerns of an embedded inquirer can be found by examining the parallels between ethics and epistemology and, in particular, by examining the structure and starting points of virtue accounts. Here I develop several interrelated issues that contrast the goals and evaluative concepts that form the structure of both standard, traditional epistemological and ethical theories and virtue–centered theories. In the end, I sketch a virtue–centered epistemology that accords with who we are and how we gain understanding.