Team Reasoning and Collective Intentionality

Different versions of the idea that individualism about agency is the root of standard game theoretical puzzles have been defended by Regan 1980, Bacharach (Research in Economics 53: 117–147, 1999), Hurley (Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26: 264–265, 2003), Sugden (Philosophical Explorations 6(3):165–181, 2003), and Tuomela 2013, among others. While collectivistic game theorists like Michael Bacharach provide formal frameworks designed to avert some of the standard dilemmas, philosophers of collective action like Raimo Tuomela aim at substantive accounts of collective action that may explain how agents overcoming such social dilemmas would be motivated. This paper focuses on the conditions on collective action and intention that need to be fulfilled for Bacharach’s “team reasoning” to occur. Two influential approaches to collective action are related to the idea of team reasoning: Michael Bratman’s theory of shared intention and Raimo Tuomela’s theory of a we-mode of intending. I argue that neither captures the “agency transformation” that team reasoning requires. That might be an acceptable conclusion for Bratman but more problematic for Tuomela, who claims that Bacharach’s results support his theory. I sketch an alternative framework in which the perspectival element that is required for team reasoning - the ‘we-perspective’ - can be understood and functionally characterized in relation to the traditional distinction between mode and content of intentional states. I claim that the latter understanding of a collective perspective provides the right kind of philosophical background for team reasoning, and I discuss some implications in relation to Tuomela’s assumption that switching between individual and collective perspectives can be a matter of rational choice

Proprietary Reasons and Joint Action

Some of the reasons one acts on in joint action are shared with fellow participants. But others are proprietary: reasons of one’s own that have no direct practical significance for other participants. The compatibility of joint action with proprietary reasons serves to distinguish the former from other forms of collective agency; moreover, it is arguably a desirable feature of joint action. Advocates of “team reasoning” link the special collective intention individual participants have when acting together with a distinctive form of practical reasoning that purports to put individuals in touch with group or collective reasons. Such views entail the surprising conclusion that one cannot engage in joint action for proprietary reasons. Suppose we understand the contrast between minimal and robust forms of joint action in terms of the extent to which participants act on proprietary reasons as opposed to shared reasons. Then, if the team reasoning view of joint intention and action is correct, it makes no sense to talk of minimal joint action. As soon as the reason for which one participates is proprietary, then one is not, on this view, genuinely engaged in joint action

Phenotypic rescue of a Drosophila model of mitochondrial ANT1 disease

Peer reviewe

Constraint rule-based programming of norms for electronic institutions

Peer reviewedPostprin

Epistemic Dependence and Collective Scientific Knowledge

I argue that scientific knowledge is collective knowledge, in a sense to be specified and defended. I first consider some existing proposals for construing collective knowledge and argue that they are unsatisfactory, at least for scientific knowledge as we encounter it in actual scientific practice. Then I introduce an alternative conception of collective knowledge, on which knowledge is collective if there is a strong form of mutual epistemic dependence among scientists, which makes it so that satisfaction of the justification condition on knowledge ineliminably requires a collective. Next, I show how features of contemporary science support the conclusion that scientific knowledge is collective knowledge in this sense. Finally, I consider implications of my proposal and defend it against objections. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

A practical comparison of methods for detecting transcription factor binding sites in ChIP-seq experiments

Background: Chromatin immunoprecipitation coupled with massively parallel sequencing (ChIPseq)is increasingly being applied to study transcriptional regulation on a genome-wide scale. Whilenumerous algorithms have recently been proposed for analysing the large ChIP-seq datasets, theirrelative merits and potential limitations remain unclear in practical applications.Results: The present study compares the state-of-the-art algorithms for detecting transcriptionfactor binding sites in four diverse ChIP-seq datasets under a variety of practical research settings.First, we demonstrate how the biological conclusions may change dramatically when the differentalgorithms are applied. The reproducibility across biological replicates is then investigated as aninternal validation of the detections. Finally, the predicted binding sites with each method arecompared to high-scoring binding motifs as well as binding regions confirmed in independent qPCRexperiments.Conclusions: In general, our results indicate that the optimal choice of the computationalapproach depends heavily on the dataset under analysis. In addition to revealing valuableinformation to the users of this technology about the characteristics of the binding site detectionapproaches, the systematic evaluation framework provides also a useful reference to thedevelopers of improved algorithms for ChIP-seq data

Exploring students’ procedural flexibility in three countries

BackgroundIn this cross-national study, Spanish, Finnish, and Swedish middle and high school students’ procedural flexibility was examined, with the specific intent of determining whether and how students’ equation-solving accuracy and flexibility varied by country, age, and/or academic track. The 791 student participants were asked to solve twelve linear equations, provide multiple strategies for each equation, and select the best strategy from among their own strategies.ResultsOur results indicate that knowledge and use of the standard algorithm for solving linear equations is quite widespread across students in all three countries, but that there exists substantial within-country variation as well as between-country variation in students’ reliance on standard vs. situationally appropriate strategies. In addition, we found correlations between equation-solving accuracy and students’ flexibility in all three countries but to different degrees.ConclusionsAlthough it is increasingly recognized as an important construct of interest, there are many aspects of mathematical flexibility that are not well-understood. Particularly lacking in the literature on flexibility are studies that explore similarities and differences in students’ repertoire of strategies for solving algebra problems across countries with different educational systems and curricula. This study yielded important insights about flexibility and can push the field to explore the extent that within- and between-country differences in flexibility can be linked to differences in countries’ educational systems, teaching practices, and/or cultural norms around mathematics teaching and learning

Which One Is the “Best”: a Cross-national Comparative Study of Students’ Strategy Evaluation in Equation Solving

This cross-national study examined students’ evaluation of strategies for solving linear equations, as well as the extent to which their evaluation criteria were related to their use of strategies and/or aligned with experts’ views about which strategy is the best. A total of 792 middle school and high school students from Sweden, Finland, and Spain participated in the study. Students were asked to solve twelve equations, provide multiple solving strategies for each equation, and select the best strategy among those they produced for each equation. Our results indicate that students’ evaluation of strategies was not strongly related to their initial preferences for using strategies. Instead, many students’ criteria were aligned with the flexibility goals, in that a strategy that takes advantages of task context was more highly valued than a standard algorithm. However, cross-national differences in strategy evaluation indicated that Swedish and Finnish students were more aligned with flexibility goals in terms of their strategy evaluation criteria, while Spanish students tended to consider standard algorithms better than other strategies. We also found that high school students showed more flexibility concerns than middle school students. Different emphases in educational practice and prior knowledge might explain these cross-national differences as well as the findings of developmental changes in students’ evaluation criteria