The Moral-Psychology of the Common Agent – A Reply to Ido Geiger

Ido Geiger's paper ‘What it is the Use of the Universal Law Formula of the Categorical Imperative?’ is part of a growing trend in Kant scholarship, which stresses the significance of the rational competence of ordinary human beings. I argue that this approach needs to take into account that the common agent is an active reasoner who has the means to find out what she ought to do. The purpose of my paper is to show how universality already figures in the active reasoning of pre-theoretical agents in the form of a common universalization test. I present textual evidence for this test, and argue that this conception does not present pre-theoretical moral cognition in an overly intellectualistic or mechanistic way. Finally, I discuss how, on the pre-theoretical level, universalization relates to humanity or a rational agent's special status. Universalization is present to common agents in the form of procedures or questions that we ask ourselves, humanity as an awareness of certain particularly blatant violations of duty. These two different modes of cognition of duty are reflected in two different formulae of the Categorical Imperative.     

Aiming at the good

This paper shows how we can plausibly extend the guise of the good thesis in a way that avoids intellectualist challenge, allows animals to be included, and is consistent with the possibility of performing action under the cognition of their badness. The paper also presents some independent arguments for the plausibility of this interpretation of the thesis. To this aim, a teleological conception of practical attitudes as well as a cognitivist account of arational desires is offered.     

Heterogeneous Fibring of Deductive Systems Via Abstract Proof Systems

Fibring is a meta-logical constructor that applied to two logicsproduces a new logic whose formulas allow the mixing of symbols.Homogeneous fibring assumes that the original logics are presentedin the same way (e.g via Hilbert calculi). Heterogeneous fibring,allowing the original logics to have different presentations(e.g. one presented by a Hilbert calculus and the other by asequent calculus), has been an open problem. Herein, consequencesystems are shown to be a good solution for heterogeneous fibringwhen one of the logics is presented in a semantic way and theother by a calculus and also a solution for the heterogeneousfibring of calculi. The new notion of abstract proof systemis shown to provide a better solution to heterogeneous fibringof calculi namely because derivations in the fibring keep theconstructive nature of derivations in the original logics. Preservationof compactness and semi-decidability is investigated.     

Socratic Proofs

Journal of Philosophical Logic - Our aim is to express in exact terms the old idea of solving problems by pure questioning. We consider the problem of derivability: “Is A derivable from...     

Phronesis, Poetics, and Moral Creativity

At least since Aristotle, phronesis (practical wisdom) and poetics (making or creating) have been understood as essentially different activities, one moral the other (in itself) non-moral. Today, if anything, this distinction is sharpened by a Romantic association of poetics with inner subjective expression. Recent revivals of Aristotelian ethics sometimes allow for poetic dimensions of ethics, but these are still separated from practical wisdom per se. Through a fresh reading of phronesis in the French hermeneutical phenomenologist Paul Ricoeur, I argue that phronesis should be viewed as at least in part poetic at its very core. That is, phronesis deals with the fundamentally tragic human situation of moral incommensurability, and it responds to this by making or creating new moral meaning. Such a poetics of practical wisdom helps phronesis stand up to significant and important critiques made of it by a range of modernists and post-modernists, pointing a way forward for some important contemporary moral debates.     

Reasoning under Scarcity

Practical deliberation consists in thinking about what to do. Such deliberation is deemed rational when it conforms to certain normative requirements. What is often ignored is the role that an agent's context can play in so-called ‘failures’ of rationality. In this paper, I use recent cognitive science research investigating the effects of resource-scarcity on decision-making and cognitive function to argue that context plays an important role in determining which norms should structure an agent's deliberation. This evidence undermines the view that the norms of ‘ideal’ rationality are necessary and universal requirements on deliberation. They are a solution to the problems faced by cognitively limited agents in a context of moderate scarcity. In a context of severe scarcity, the problems faced by cognitively limited agents are different and require deliberation structured by different norms. Agents reason rationally when they use the norms best suited to their context and cognitive capacities.     

The Uses of Argument in Mathematics

Stephen Toulmin once observed that ‘it has never been customary for philosophers to pay much attention to the rhetoric of mathematical debate’ [Toulmin et al., 1979, An Introduction to Reasoning, Macmillan, London, p. 89]. Might the application of Toulmin’s layout of arguments to mathematics remedy this oversight? Toulmin’s critics fault the layout as requiring so much abstraction as to permit incompatible reconstructions. Mathematical proofs may indeed be represented by fundamentally distinct layouts. However, cases of genuine conflict characteristically reflect an underlying disagreement about the nature of the proof in question.     

小学数学教师职业知识的结构与内在关系

本研究以小学数学分数起始教学为媒介,通过自编的小学数学教师职业知识测验,考察了162名小学数学教师在学科知识、一般教育学知识和教育实践知识等三类知识上的表现,并据此探讨了这三类职业知识间的相互关系。研究结果表明,自编的小学数学职业知识测验具有良好的信度和结构效度,教师的学科知识和一般教育学知识能显著地预测其教育实践知识。     

效应量：估计、报告和解释

鉴于心理学界对效应量（effect size,ES）的日渐重视,本文集中探讨了标准差异型和关联强度型ES指标的计算公式及使用条件,并说明关联强度型指标在SPSS软件中的操作。其次,强调ES估计结果的两个报告原则,即明确指出所计算的是何种ES指标,尽可能地呈现ES的置信区间。在ES的解释方面,建议研究者结合具体情况综合权衡结果的实际重要性,而非机械援引各种所谓＂小＂、＂中＂、＂大＂的ES判定准则。