Philosophical expertise under the microscope

Recent experimental studies indicate that epistemically irrelevant factors can skew our intuitions, and that some degree of scepticism about appealing to intuition in philosophy is warranted. In response, some have claimed that philosophers are experts in such a way as to vindicate their reliance on intuitions—this has become known as the ‘expertise defence’. This paper explores the viability of the expertise defence, and suggests that it can be partially vindicated. Arguing that extant discussion is problematically imprecise, we will finesse the notion of ‘philosophical expertise’ in order to better reflect the complex reality of the different practices involved in philosophical inquiry. On this basis, we offer a new version of the expertise defence that allows for distinct types of philosophical expertise. The upshot of our approach is that wholesale vindications or rejections of the expertise defence are shown to be unwarranted; we must instead turn to local, piecemeal investigations of philosophical expertise. Lastly, in the spirit of taking our own advice, we exemplify how recent developments from experimental philosophy lend themselves to this approach, and can empirically support one instance of a successful expertise defence

UM Campus Recreation to Host Third Annual Color My College 5-K

Event benefits Special Olympics Mississipp

Annual Awards Program Honors UM Faculty and Students

HEADWAE recognizes academic achievement, contributions to higher learnin

UM Student Lands Dream Internship with Discovery Channel

Bella Gonzalez will spend summer creating graphic content and marketing material

Application of Floating Pedal Regenerative Braking for a Rear-Wheel-Drive Parallel-Series Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle with an Automatic Transmission

As the world continues to move further away from our reliance on fossil fuels, hybrid vehicles are becoming ever more popular. Braking is a system on both hybrid and normal vehicles that involves a significant amount of power and energy. A hybrid can recapture some of that energy using regenerative braking. In this thesis, a method is devised to blend hydraulic and regenerative braking in the most effective manner. A MATLAB Simulink model was built to simulate a parallel-series plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. The model allows for the implementation of a regenerative brake controller that utilizes floating pedal regen, custom shift logic, and brake pedal blended regen. The floating pedal controller activates regenerative braking when the driver releases the accelerator pedal. This is done by remapping the pedal based on vehicle speed, gear position, and wheel torques. The custom shift logic utilizes the motor rpm and efficiencies curves to determine when to shift the transmission. The brake pedal regen is added to the hydraulic braking based on brake pedal position. This regenerative brake controller can recharge the battery by 2% SOC during one deceleration event from 130 kph to 20 kph, while maintaining a comfortable deceleration rate less than 3m/sec^2

The Roscoe Perry House Site: A Long-Term Prehistoric Occupation in the Hudson Valley

This report analyzes the stored collection of artifacts excavated from a historic house overlooking the Rondout Creek and the Hudson River. This is a multicomponent site. It contains fifteen archaeological phases ranging from the Early Archaic to the Contact Period

The epistemology of inquiry : individuals, groups & institutions

Inquiring—roughly, the attempt to answer a question—is one of the most common intellectual undertakings. This thesis is comprised of a set of four essays that investigate the epistemology of inquiry. The first essay looks at one key epistemic state with which we end inquiry, viz understanding; the second essay examines collective inquiry; the third essay considers the normative role of curiosity in motivating inquiry; and the fourth essay discusses inquiry in the legal system. These essays will advance our understanding of what motivates inquiry, the mental states involved in inquiring, the sorts of norms that govern inquiry, and what continuities and discontinuities there are between how individuals and various types of collective inquire into different types of question