The Gettier Intuition from South America to Asia

This article examines whether people share the Gettier intuition (viz. that someone who has a true justified belief that p may nonetheless fail to know that p) in 24 sites, located in 23 countries (counting Hong-Kong as a distinct country) and across 17 languages. We also consider the possible influence of gender and personality on this intuition with a very large sample size. Finally, we examine whether the Gettier intuition varies across people as a function of their disposition to engage in “reflective” thinking

Behavioral Circumscription and the Folk Psychology of Belief: A Study in Ethno-Mentalizing

Is behavioral integration (i.e., which occurs when a subjects assertion that p matches her non-verbal behavior) a necessary feature of belief in folk psychology? Our data from nearly 6,000 people across twenty-six samples, spanning twenty-two countries suggests that it is not. Given the surprising cross-cultural robustness of our findings, we suggest that the types of evidence for the ascription of a belief are, at least in some circumstances, lexicographically ordered: assertions are first taken into account, and when an agent sincerely asserts that p, non-linguistic behavioral evidence is disregarded. In light of this, we take ourselves to have discovered a universal principle governing the ascription of beliefs in folk psychology

The Ship of Theseus Puzzle

Does the Ship of Theseus present a genuine puzzle about persistence due to conflicting intuitions based on “continuity of form” and “continuity of matter” pulling in opposite directions? Philosophers are divided. Some claim that it presents a genuine puzzle but disagree over whether there is a solution. Others claim that there is no puzzle at all since the case has an obvious solution. To assess these proposals, we conducted a cross-cultural study involving nearly 3,000 people across twenty-two countries, speaking eighteen different languages. Our results speak against the proposal that there is no puzzle at all and against the proposal that there is a puzzle but one that has no solution. Our results suggest that there are two criteria—“continuity of form” and “continuity of matter”— that constitute our concept of persistence and these two criteria receive different weightings in settling matters concerning persistence

De Pulchritudine non est Disputandum? A cross-cultural investigation of the alleged intersubjective validity of aesthetic judgment

Since at least Hume and Kant, philosophers working on the nature of aesthetic judgment have generally agreed that common sense does not treat aesthetic judgments in the same way as typical expressions of subjective preferences—rather, it endows them with intersubjective validity, the property of being right or wrong regardless of disagreement. Moreover, this apparent intersubjective validity has been taken to constitute one of the main explananda for philosophical accounts of aesthetic judgment. But is it really the case that most people spontaneously treat aesthetic judgments as having intersubjective validity? In this paper, we report the results of a cross-cultural study with over 2,000 respondents spanning 19 countries. Despite significant geographical variations, these results suggest that most people do not treat their own aesthetic judgments as having intersubjective validity. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for theories of aesthetic judgment and the purpose of aesthetics in general.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Nothing at Stake in Knowledge

Many philosophers hold that stakes affect ordinary knowledge ascriptions. Here’s a version of a pair of cases aimed at supporting this: Bob and his wife are driving home on Friday and considering whether to stop at the bank to deposit a check. The lines at the bank are very long and so Bob considers coming back on Saturday. In the low stakes version, nothing of importance hinges on whether the check is deposited; in the high stakes version, it is very important that the check be deposited. Bob’s wife asks whether the bank will be open on Saturday. Bob says he drove past the bank last Saturday, and it was open. However, his wife points out that banks sometimes change their hours. Bob says “I know the bank will be open tomorrow”. In the low stakes case, many philosophers maintain that Bob does indeed know that the bank will be open; in the high stakes case, these philosophers maintain that Bob is ignorant – his statement that he knows the bank will be open tomorrow is false. These philosophers also maintain that this pattern of judgments is what we would expect from competent speakers confronted with this and similar cases (e.g., Cohen, 1999, 2013; DeRose, 1992, 2009; Fantl and McGrath, 2002; Nagel, 2008; Rysiew, 2001; Stanley, 2005). Though many philosophers agree that stakes play a role in ordinary knowledge ascriptions, there is disagreement about what explains this. One view, epistemic contextualism, holds that “to know” is a context sensitive verb and that the truth conditions for knowledge ascriptions can vary across conversational contexts (e.g., DeRose, 2009). For instance, Bob’s statement “I know the bank will be open tomorrow” can be true in low stakes contexts and false in high stakes contexts. Another view, interest-relative invariantism, denies that “to know” is a context sensitive verb and that the truth conditions for knowledge ascriptions vary according to conversational contexts. Instead, cases like the Bank cases show that practical factors—i.e., stakes—play a distinctive role in determining whether the knowledge relation obtains (e.g., Stanley, 2005). Yet another alternative, which we’ll call classical invariantism, denies that “to know” is a context sensitive verb and that practical factors, such as stakes, play a direct role in determining whether the knowledge relation obtains. Instead, stakes affect knowledge ascriptions only by affecting our assessment of factors that have traditionally been taken to constitute or be necessary for knowledge, such as e.g., belief, quality of evidence, etc. (e.g., Bach, 2005; Weatherson, 2005; Ganson, 2007; Nagel, 2008). If this is right, then the role of stakes in knowledge ascriptions fails to motivate such surprising views as epistemic contextualism or interest-relative invariantism. Naturally, epistemic contextualists and interest-relative invariantists deny this, claiming that even when the factors that have traditionally been taken to constitute or be necessary for knowledge are held fixed, stakes continue to play a role in ordinary knowledge ascriptions (e.g., DeRose, 2009; Lawlor, 2013). So we see a dispute over what best explains the role of stakes in ordinary knowledge ascriptions. It is thus extremely surprising that a wide range of empirical evidence suggests that ordinary knowledge ascriptions fail to display any sensitivity to stakes (e.g., Buckwalter, 2010; Buckwalter and Schaffer, 2015; Feltz and Zarpentine, 2010; May, Sinnott-Armstrong, Hull, and Zimmerman, 2010; Turri, forthcoming; though see e.g., Pinillos, 2012; Pinillos and Simpson, 2014; Sripada and Stanley, 2012). If stakes really do not play any role in ordinary knowledge ascriptions, one of the main motivations for epistemic contextualism and interest relative invariantism would be undermined. Perhaps these different explanations of the role of stakes in ordinary knowledge ascription are born out of nothing more than a myth (Schaffer and Knobe, 2009). If so, classical invariantism about knowledge might be best supported—not because it provides the best explanation of the role of stakes in ordinary knowledge ascriptions, but rather because the failure of stakes to play a role in ordinary knowledge ascription would undercut an important motivation for its two competitors, epistemic contextualism and interest-relative invariantism. These radical alternatives to classical invariantism, lacking evidence in support of one of their important motivations, should perhaps then fall. Classical invariantism would stand. In the remainder of this article, we’ll disarm an important motivation for epistemic contextualism and interest-relative invariantism. We’ll accomplish this by presenting a stringent test of whether there is a stakes effect on ordinary knowledge ascription. Having shown that, even on a stringent way of testing, stakes fail to impact ordinary knowledge ascription, we will conclude that we should take another look at classical invariantism. Here is how we will proceed. Section 1 lays out some limitations of previous research on stakes. Section 2 presents our study and concludes that there is little evidence for a substantial stakes effect. Section 3 responds to objections. The conclusion clears the way for classical invariantism

Le système conceptuel, à l'interface entre le langage, le raisonnement et l'espace qualitatif (vers un modèle de représentations éphémères)

PALAISEAU-Polytechnique (914772301) / SudocNANTES-UFR Lettres - Philosophie (441092211) / SudocSudocFranceF

Semantic abilities evolved as well - Electronic commentary on M. Arbib: 'From monkey-like action recognition to human language'

jld-04072901International audienceThe evolutionary story proposed in the target paper makes no difference between semantic representations underlying language and more general cognitive representations, at work in perception and action, which humans share with apes and probably other mammals. Though semantic representations supporting language are grounded in perception, some of them, specifically predicative structures, should rather be considered a distinctive feature of human communication system. Any evolutionary scenario about language should explain how human minds evolved to form the kind of thoughts that are communicated through language

Object recognition is not predication - Commentary on James R. Hurford: 'The neural basis of predicate-argument structure'

jld-03031001International audiencePredicates involved in language and reasoning are claimed to radically differ from categories applied to objects. Human predicates are the cognitive result of a contrast between perceived objects. Object recognition alone cannot generate such operations as modification and explicit negation. The mechanism studied by Hurford constitutes at best an evolutionary prerequisite of human predication ability

A deeper semantic role for the mirror system

Below are links to the 15 supplemental commentaries on the target article, "From monkey-like action recognition to human language: An evolutionary framework for neurolinguistics " by Michael A. Arbib