Pre- and postmeasures of course knowledge correlated more strongly and consistently with course performance variables (essay quizzes, course project, multiple-choice exams, and total course credit)than did pre- and postmeasures of generic critical thinking. In addition, the total sample (N =126) improved significantly on course knowledge from the pre- to the postassessment but changed minimally on critical thinking. The extent and pattern of change in critical thinking differed somewhat for students making high and low grades in the course. High-grade students achieved (...) significantly more favorable changes on both critical thinking and course knowledge than did the low-grade students. (shrink)

In this important book, Susan Hurley sheds new light on consciousness by examining its relationships to action from various angles. She assesses the role of agency in the unity of a conscious perspective, and argues that perception and action are more deeply interdependent than we usually assume. A standard view conceives perception as input from world to mind and action as output from mind to world, with the serious business of thought in between. Hurley criticizes this picture, and considers (...) how the interdependence of perceptual experience and agency at the personal level (of mental contents and norms) may emerge from the subpersonal level (of underlying causal processes and complex dynamic feedback systems). Her two-level view has wide implications, for topics that include self-consciousness, the modularity of mind, and the relations of mind to world. The self no longer lurks hidden somewhere between perceptual input and behavioral output, but reappears out in the open, embodied and embedded in its environment. Hurley traces these themes from Kantian and Wittgensteinian arguments through to intriguing recent work in neuropsychology and in dynamic systems approaches to the mind, providing a bridge from mainstream philosophy to work in other disciplines. Consciousness in Action is unique in the range of philosophical and scientific work it draws on, and in the deep criticism it offers of centuries-old habits of thought. (shrink)

Hurley here revives a classical idea about rationality in a modern framework, by developing analogies between the structure of personality and the structure of society in the context of contemporary work in philosophy of mind, ethics, decision theory and social choice theory. The book examines the rationality of decisions and actions, and illustrates the continuity of philosophy of mind on the one hand, and ethics and jurisprudence on the other. A major thesis of the book is that arguments drawn from (...) the philosophy of mind may be used to undermine widely-held subjectivist positions in ethics and politico-economic theory. The work is inspired by the philosophies of Wittgenstein and Davidson, but goes on to connect their arguments about interpretation with formal work in decision theory and social choice theory, and with the theory of adjudication. (shrink)

Externalism comes in varieties. While the landscape isn.

I ARGUE THAT WE RECEIVE PLEASURE FROM TRAGEDIES BECAUSE WE ARE PLEASED TO FIND OURSELVES RESPONDING IN AN UNPLEASANT WAY TO HUMAN SUFFERING AND INJUSTICE. THE PLEASURE IS THUS A METARESPONSE, AND REFLECTS FEELINGS WHICH ARE AT THE BASIS OF MORALITY. THIS HELPS EXPLAIN WHY TRAGEDY IS SUPPOSED TO BE A HIGHER ART FORM THAN COMEDY, AND PROVIDES A NEW WAY OF SEEING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MORALITY OF AN ARTWORK AND ITS VALUE.

S. L. Hurley's ambitious work brings these two areas of lively debate into overdue contact with each other.

This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about animal rationality and mental processing in animals. This book discusses the theoretical issues and distinctions that bear on attributions of rationality to animals and draws some contrasts between rationality and certain other traits of animals to determine the relationships between them. It explores the relations between behaviour and the processes that explain behaviour, and the senses in which animal behaviour might be rational in virtue of features other than (...) classical reasoning processes on the human model. -/- . (shrink)

From my Consciousness in Action, ch. 2; see Consciousness in Action for bibligraphy. This chapter revises material from "Kant on Spontaneity and the Myth of the Giving", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1993-94, pp. 137-164, and "Myth Upon Myth", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1996, vol. 96, pp. 253-260.

We all know about the vehicle/content distinction (see Dennett 1991a, Millikan 1991, 1993). We shouldn't confuse properties represented in content with properties of vehicles of content. In particular, we shouldn't confuse the personal and subpersonal levels. The contents of the mental states of subject/agents are at the personal level. Vehicles of content are causally explanatory subpersonal events or processes or states. We shouldn't suppose that the properties of vehicles must be projected into what they represent for subject/agents, or vice versa. (...) This would be to confuse the personal and subpersonal levels. (shrink)

Brewer’s Perception and Reason argues, from familiar scenarios of duplicate environments and switching, that a subject’s perceptual experiences must provide reasons for her empirical beliefs. Only perceptual experience can tie reference down to a thing as opposed to its duplicate, and this tying down must be a matter of giving the subject reasons that she can recognize as such. Moreover, such reasons require conceptual contents.

Can we ever claim to understand a work of art or be objective about it? Why have cultures thought it important to separate out a group of objects and call them art? What does aesthetics contribute to our understanding of the natural landscape? Are the concepts of art and the aesthetic elitist? Addressing these and other issues in aesthetics, this important new Oxford Reader includes articles by authors ranging from Aristotle and Xie-He to Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, Michael Baxandall, and Susan (...) Sontag. It focuses on why art and a variety of aesthetics matter to us, and on how perceivers participate in and contribute to the experience of appreciating a work of art. With its multicultural and multidisciplinary scope, this volume shows how anthropology, art history, Chinese theories of painting, and other perspectives both enrich and provide alternatives to classic philosophical accounts of art and the aesthetic. (shrink)

Part 1 reviews the general question of when elimination of an entity orproperty is warranted, as opposed to revision of our view of it. Theconnections of this issue with the distinction between context-drivenand theory-driven accounts of reference and essence are probed.Context-driven accounts tend to be less hospitable to eliminativism thantheory-driven accounts, but this tendency should not be overstated.However, since both types of account give essences explanatory depth,eliminativist claims associated with supposed impossible essences areproblematic on both types of account.Part 2 applies (...) these considerations to responsibility in particular. Theimpossibility of regressive choice or control is explained. It is arguedthat this impossibility does not support the claim that no one is everresponsible on either context-driven or theory-driven accounts of`responsibility''. (shrink)

Late Tokugawa society and the crisis of community -- Before the Kojikiden : the divine age narrative in Tokugawa Japan -- Motoori Norinaga : discovering Japan -- Ueda Akinari : history and community -- Fujitani Mitsue : the poetics off community -- Tachibana Moribe : cosmology and community -- National literature, intellectual history, and the new Kokugaku -- Conclusion : imagined Japan(s).

An ethnographic field study about the informed consent process in investigational drug trials for seriously ill persons with hepatitis C suggests that nurses and physicians referred to these trials as giving treatment, even though they involved placebos. Interview data and informed consent documents contained frequent references to the term `treatment trial' or `treatment'. Although these findings were unexpected and not the original focus of our study, we consider them in the light of an extensive literature on the `therapeutic misconception' that (...) has been described among physicians and patients with AIDS and other serious illnesses. We also suggest that certain organizational and professional characteristics of nursing and medicine reinforce this tendency to refer to the trials as treatment. Implications for further research are provided. (shrink)

Why does it matter whether and how individuals consciously control their behavior? It matters for many reasons. Here I focus on concerns about social influences of which agents are typically unaware on aggressive behavior.

Dandruff is a common scalp condition, which frequently causes psychological distress in those affected. Dandruff is considered to be caused by an interplay of several factors. However, the pathogenesis of dandruff remains under‐investigated, especially with respect to the contribution of the hair follicle. As the hair follicle exhibits unique immune‐modulatory properties, including the creation of an immunoinhibitory, immune‐privileged milieu, we propose a novel hypothesis taking into account the role of the hair follicle. We hypothesize that the changes and imbalance of (...) yeast and bacterial species, along with increasing proinflammatory sebum by‐products, leads to the activation of immune response and inflammation. Hair follicle keratinocytes may then detect these changes in scalp microbiota resulting in the recruitment of leukocytes to the inflammation site. These changes in the scalp skin immune‐microenvironment may impact hair follicle immune privilege status, which opens new avenues into exploring the role of the hair follicle in dandruff pathogenesis. Also see the video abstract here: https://youtu.be/mEZEznCYtNs. (shrink)

Embryo litigation -- Access to ART treatment : insurance and discrimination -- General professional liability litigation -- Paternity and donor insemination -- Maternity and egg donation -- Traditional and gestational surrogacy arrangements -- Posthumous reproduction : access and parentage -- Same-sex parentage and ART -- Genetics (PGD) and ART -- ART-related embryonic stem cell legal developments -- ART-related adoption litigation -- ART-related fetal litigation and abortion-related litigation.

Lingering skepticism about climate change might be due in part to the way climate projections are perceived by members of the public. Variability between scientists’ estimates might give the impression that scientists disagree about the fact of climate change rather than about details concerning the extent or timing. Providing uncertainty estimates might clarify that the variability is due in part to quantifiable uncertainty inherent in the prediction process, thereby increasing people's trust in climate projections. This hypothesis was tested in two (...) experiments. Results suggest that including uncertainty estimates along with climate projections leads to an increase in participants’ trust in the information. Analyses explored the roles of time, place, demographic differences, and initial belief in climate change. Implications are discussed in terms of the potential benefit of adding uncertainty estimates to public climate projections. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to discuss an external whistleblowing event that occurred after all internal whistleblowing through the hierarchy of the organization had failed. It is argued that an organization that does not support those that whistle blow because of violation of professional standards is indicative of a failure of organizational ethics. Several ways to build an ethics infrastructure that could reduce the need to resort to external whistleblowing are discussed. A relational ethics approach is presented as a (...) way to eliminate the negative consequences of whistleblowing by fostering an interdependent moral community to address ethical concerns. (shrink)

The 2008 financial crisis has raised serious ethical questions about behaviors associated with the free market system and the effectiveness of undergraduate business ethics education. We offer opposing interpretations of the crisis, a “Markets Work” and a “Critical” perspective, in order to provide students with an opportunity to examine their ethical assumptions. We frame our discussion around legitimacy; therefore, we utilize an institutional theory lens to frame the processes by which financial organizations are rewarded with social legitimacy for using “proper” (...) structures and following “appropriate” procedures and punished when they do not. By presenting these two opposing narratives of the crisis, we provide a richer framework for discussing the crisis and relating it to the larger issue of corporate malfeasance. We draw upon a wealth of readily available, easily accessible material. We identify films, readings, and provide notes that may use to set the direction and tenor of classroom discussion. (shrink)

The 2008 financial crisis has raised serious ethical questions about behaviors associated with the free market system and the effectiveness of undergraduate business ethics education. We offer opposing interpretations of the crisis, a “Markets Work” and a “Critical” perspective, in order to provide students with an opportunity to examine their ethical assumptions. We frame our discussion around legitimacy; therefore, we utilize an institutional theory lens to frame the processes by which financial organizations are rewarded with social legitimacy for using “proper” (...) structures and following “appropriate” procedures and punished when they do not. By presenting these two opposing narratives of the crisis, we provide a richer framework for discussing the crisis and relating it to the larger issue of corporate malfeasance. We draw upon a wealth of readily available, easily accessible material. We identify films, readings, and provide notes that may use to set the direction and tenor of classroom discussion. (shrink)

The 2008 financial crisis has raised serious ethical questions about behaviors associated with the free market system and the effectiveness of undergraduate business ethics education. We offer opposing interpretations of the crisis, a “Markets Work” and a “Critical” perspective, in order to provide students with an opportunity to examine their ethical assumptions. We frame our discussion around legitimacy; therefore, we utilize an institutional theory lens to frame the processes by which financial organizations are rewarded with social legitimacy for using “proper” (...) structures and following “appropriate” procedures and punished when they do not. By presenting these two opposing narratives of the crisis, we provide a richer framework for discussing the crisis and relating it to the larger issue of corporate malfeasance. We draw upon a wealth of readily available, easily accessible material. We identify films, readings, and provide notes that may use to set the direction and tenor of classroom discussion. (shrink)

Whether argumentation competencies are associated with the kind of influence opportunities children have in their lives is the focus of this study. The hypothesis is that when children have the opportunity to initiate and evaluate arguments, hear others make and examine arguments, and participate equally in resolving disputes, children are able to develop their argument skills. Four argumentation competencies associated with critical discussions of proposals are identified: creating consensus about problematic situations, advocating proposals, facilitating behavioral commitment, and integrating identities. Second, (...) fourth, and sixth grade children completed tasks that assessed their influence opportunities and argument competencies. Children who perceived themselves to have many collaborative influence opportunities, that is, opportunities in which they could engage in mutual influence, had more highly developed argument competencies than children who did not have such opportunities. As predicted, this relationship occurred with the argument competencies of problem conception, proposal advocacy and facilitating commitment. Measures of non-collaborative influence opportunities were not associated with argument competencies. Together, the results suggest that discussions in which children are given the opportunity to influence and be influenced with arguments may provide the best context for children to develop their argument skills. (shrink)

This book shows the Emersonian arc in environmental ethics and nature writing extending into contemporary discussions of those topics. Dunston connects Emerson’s nature literacy and natural philosophy to contemporary forms of eco-feminism, living systems theory, Native American science, Asian philosophy, and environmental activism.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Beardsley for the Twenty-First CenturySusan L. Feagin (bio)When I was a graduate student in the early 1970s, Nelson Goodman's Languages of Art,1 published originally in 1968, was all the rage, eclipsing Beardsley's monumental Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism as the most important book in the field at the time. Goodman's book veered decidedly away from aesthetics and toward the philosophy of art; insofar as "the aesthetic" remained, (...) it was explained in cognitive terms. However, Beardsley's Aesthetics continued to provide a valuable resource for those of us who took questions about value and evaluation to be central to the philosophical enterprise, even if we chose to focus on the philosophy of art more or less independently of the aesthetic. Beardsley's functionalist account of aesthetic value is adaptable as a framework for understanding artistic value and evaluation, as is his opposition to (what also seemed to me to be) the too-easy ploy of attributing intrinsic value to our experiences of art. I ended up writing my dissertation on general criteria of criticism—with a chapter devoted to Beardsley's views—arguing that once one employs the notion of artworks having a function, general criteria are not needed to provide a logical connection between a work's good-making or bad-making qualities and its value as a work of art.Nevertheless, Beardsley's instrumentalist view that the value of an artwork resides in its capacity to provide an aesthetic experience contains a major structural problem—what I shall call "Beardsley's dilemma," which he continued to struggle with in his later work.2 The problem lies in the tension between the claim that the value of a work resides in its capacity to evoke an experience having a certain phenomenological quality, and the claim that the properties or qualities of the work are valuable not merely as a means for producing such an experience. [End Page 11]Fifty years on, philosophers of art continue to struggle with this dilemma in various guises. Though the nature of aesthetic experience is still a lively topic of debate, it is just as common to find the evocation of emotions and other affective responses—from Aristotelian pity and fear; to anger and pride and horror; to moods such as sadness and melancholy—touted as among the functions of art.3 In the first section of this essay, I describe why understanding Beardsley's dilemma is important if one takes having emotions and other affective responses to art as part of what is valuable about it. Emotions, after all, are typically alleged to be "in us," not in the object; simply jettisoning the concept of aesthetic experience or aesthetic emotion does not make the dilemma go away. In the second section I distinguish between Beardsley's instrumentalism and a noninstrumentalist version of functionalism as two different models for understanding art's value. Noninstrumentalist functionalism involves the idea that the value of a work lies in the activity of appreciating what is (aesthetically or artistically) valuable about it, rather than in an experience that occurs as a result of perceiving the work. Some exercises involving the evaluation of art and nonart objects—exercises that might usefully be undertaken by students using objects of their own choosing—illustrate how functionalism skirts Beardsley's dilemma and better explicates the nature and locus of the values concerned.I: From Aesthetic Experience to Garden-Variety EmotionsThe view that at least some artworks have as part of their function the production of emotions or other affective responses is a contemporary analogue of Beardsley's instrumentalist view that the function of artworks is to provide an aesthetic experience. The contemporary analogue, however, is not committed to the view that all artworks have, in some abstract sense, the same function but only insists, minimally, that it is at least part of the function of some works of art to produce some variety of emotions and other affective responses. That is, producing emotions may be conceived of as part of the function of a work, and a perceiver's having them as part of appreciating its value.Beardsley's dilemma arises when (at... (shrink)