Large changes that occur in clear view of an observer can become difficult to notice if made during an eye movement, blink, or other such disturbance. This change blindness is consistent with the proposal that focused visual attention is necessary to see change, with a change becoming difficult to notice whenever conditions prevent attention from being automatically drawn to it. -/- It is shown here how the phenomenon of change blindness can provide new results on the nature of (...) visual attention, including estimates of its capacity and the extent to which it can bind visual properties into coherent descriptions. It is also shown how the resultant characterization of attention can in turn provide new insights into the role that it plays in the perception of scenes and events. (shrink)

Change blindness is the striking failure to see large changes that normally would be noticed easily. Over the past decade this phenomenon has greatly contributed to our understanding of attention, perception, and even consciousness. The surprising extent of change blindness explains its broad appeal, but its counterintuitive nature has also engendered confusions about the kinds of inferences that legitimately follow from it. Here we discuss the legitimate and the erroneous inferences that have been drawn, and offer a set (...) of requirements to help separate them. In doing so, we clarify the genuine contributions of change blindness research to our understanding of visual perception and awareness, and provide a glimpse of some ways in which change blindness might shape future research. (shrink)

Perhaps the most striking phenomenon of visual awareness is inattentional blindness (IB), in which a surprisingly salient event right in front of you may go completely unseen when unattended. Does IB reflect a failure of perception, or only of subsequent memory? Previous work has been unable to answer this question, due to a seemingly intractable dilemma: ruling out memory requires immediate perceptual reports, but soliciting such reports fuels an expectation that eliminates IB. Here we introduce a way of evoking (...) repeated IB in the same subjects and the same session: we show that observers fail to report seeing salient events’ not only when they have no expectation, but also when they have the wrong expectations about the events nature. This occurs when observers must immediately report seeing anything unexpected, even mid-event. Repeated IB thus demonstrates that IB is aptly named: it reflects a genuine deficit in moment-by-moment conscious perception, rather than a form of inattentional amnesia. (shrink)

This paper discusses the so-called non-interference assumption (NIA) grounding causal inference in trials in both medicine and the social sciences. It states that for each participant in the experiment, the value of the potential outcome depends only upon whether she or he gets the treatment. Drawing on methodological discussion in clinical trials and laboratory experiments in economics, I defend the necessity of partial forms of blinding as a warrant of the NIA, to control the participants’ expectations and their strategic interactions (...) with the experimenter. (shrink)

Over the last four decades arguments for and against the claim that creative hypothesis formation is based on Darwinian ‘blind’ variation have been put forward. This paper offers a new and systematic route through this long-lasting debate. It distinguishes between undirected, random, and unjustified variation, to prevent widespread confusions regarding the meaning of undirected variation. These misunderstandings concern Lamarckism, equiprobability, developmental constraints, and creative hypothesis formation. The paper then introduces and develops the standard critique that creative hypothesis formation is guided (...) rather than blind, integrating developments from contemporary research on creativity. On that basis, I discuss three compatibility arguments that have been used to answer the critique. These arguments do not deny guided variation but insist that an important analogy exists nonetheless. These compatibility arguments all fail, even though they do so for different reasons: trivialisation, conceptual confusion, and lack of evidence respectively. Revisiting the debate in this manner not only allows us to see where exactly a ‘Darwinian’ account of creative hypothesis formation goes wrong, but also to see that the debate is not about factual issues, but about the interpretation of these factual issues in Darwinian terms. (shrink)

Animal ethicists have recently debated the ethical questions raised by disenhancing animals to improve their welfare. Here, we focus on the particular case of breeding hens for commercial egg-laying systems to become blind, in order to benefit their welfare. Many people find breeding blind hens intuitively repellent, yet ‘welfare-only’ positions appear to be committed to endorsing this possibility if it produces welfare gains. We call this the ‘Blind Hens’ Challenge’. In this paper, we argue that there are both empirical and (...) theoretical reasons why even those adopting ‘welfare-only’ views should be concerned about breeding blind hens. But we also argue that alternative views, which (for example) claim that it is important to respect the telos or rights of an animal, do not offer a more convincing solution to questions raised by the possibility of disenhancing animals for their own benefit. (shrink)

Neurotypical social cognition operates on the assumption that physical or conversational proximity signals interpersonal connection. When people share space, exchange words, or participate in familiar social forms, interaction is taken as proof of mutual engagement. But, proximity is not presence. Nearness can occur without attention, and synchronized behavior can unfold without genuine awareness of the other. This conflation produces a form of blindness where symbolic participation becomes indistinguishable from relational depth, and the appearance of connection obscures its absence.

Transitions between conscious states exhibit a pervasive and directional asymmetry: when consciousness loses access to a higher-level state and yields to a more automatic process, the transition is introspectively inaccessible and leaves no memory trace. When consciousness regains a higher-level state, the transition becomes partially available to awareness and is encoded in memory. This phenomenon, termed Transition Blindness, appears across cognition, emotion, motor control, perceptual vigilance, breathing, driving, eye movements, blinking, meta-awareness, sleep, dreams, and state-shifts induced by meditation or (...) altered states. We present a comprehensive formulation of Transition Blindness, including its phenomenology, theoretical interpretation, and underlying hierarchical structure. We define “higher” and “lower” conscious states using Epistemic Inclusion: a higher state can recognize and reconstruct the states beneath it, while lower states cannot reciprocally include higher ones. This Epistemic Inclusion Hierarchy clarifies why downward transitions (higher → lower) are blind, while upward transitions (lower → higher) produce memory traces. The hierarchy spans dream states, lucidity, wakefulness, meta-awareness, and a speculative higher-order form of consciousness. Transition Blindness thus reveals a structural limit of introspection and an architectural feature of consciousness: the mind erases evidence of its own dissolution and may hide entire categories of higher-level cognition from itself. We propose experimental paradigms for studying this asymmetric architecture and discuss the implications for the global workspace, predictive processing, selfmodel theory, and phenomenal time. (shrink)

Blind Obedience: A Double-Edged Sword -/- Introduction -/- Blind obedience refers to unquestioning compliance with authority, where individuals follow orders or rules without critical thinking or moral evaluation. Throughout history, blind obedience has led to both progress and disaster. While obedience is necessary for maintaining order in societies, institutions, and organizations, blindly following authority without questioning its ethical implications can result in tragic consequences. -/- This essay explores the nature of blind obedience, its psychological roots, historical examples, its presence in (...) modern society, and the importance of critical thinking in preventing its dangers. By examining these aspects, we can better understand the balance between necessary obedience and the responsibility to challenge unethical commands. -/- The Psychology of Blind Obedience -/- Human beings are naturally inclined to obey authority. From childhood, people are taught to respect parents, teachers, and leaders, which helps maintain societal order. However, this conditioning can also suppress independent thought and personal moral judgment. -/- One of the most well-known psychological studies on obedience is Stanley Milgram’s experiment (1961). In this study, participants were instructed by an authority figure (a scientist) to administer electric shocks to another person (who was actually an actor and not harmed). Even as the “victim” screamed in pain, many participants continued delivering shocks simply because they were told to do so. The study demonstrated how ordinary individuals could commit harmful acts when instructed by an authority figure, proving that blind obedience is a powerful force that can override personal morality. -/- Another significant study is the Stanford Prison Experiment (1971), conducted by Philip Zimbardo. Participants were randomly assigned roles as either guards or prisoners in a simulated prison. The ”guards” quickly became abusive, using psychological and physical intimidation, while the “prisoners” became submissive. The experiment had to be stopped early due to the extreme behavior of the participants, showing how blind obedience to authority and roles can lead to cruelty and loss of moral reasoning. -/- Historical Examples of Blind Obedience -/- 1. Nazi Germany and the Holocaust -/- One of the most horrific examples of blind obedience occurred during World War II. Under Adolf Hitler’s rule, millions of ordinary citizens and soldiers followed orders that led to the mass genocide of Jews and other targeted groups. High-ranking officials like Adolf Eichmann, who played a major role in organizing the Holocaust, later defended their actions by claiming they were simply “following orders.” The Nuremberg Trials rejected this defense, emphasizing that individuals are responsible for their actions, even when acting under authority. -/- 2. The My Lai Massacre (Vietnam War, 1968) -/- During the Vietnam War, American soldiers carried out the My Lai Massacre, killing hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians, including women and children. Soldiers later justified their actions by stating they were following direct orders from their superiors. This event became a symbol of the dangers of military obedience without ethical consideration, leading to global condemnation and changes in military training regarding moral responsibility. -/- 3. The Jonestown Mass Suicide (1978) -/- The Jonestown Massacre is a chilling example of blind obedience within a cult. Jim Jones, leader of the Peoples Temple, manipulated over 900 of his followers into committing mass suicide by drinking cyanide-laced punch. Many obeyed without resistance, demonstrating how charismatic leaders can exploit blind obedience to maintain control, even to the point of self-destruction. -/- 4. The Spanish Inquisition -/- During the Spanish Inquisition (1478–1834), religious authorities ordered the persecution, torture, and execution of individuals accused of heresy. Many officials and citizens participated in these brutal acts simply because they were told it was their duty. Blind obedience to religious authority justified unimaginable cruelty in the name of faith. -/- Blind Obedience in Modern Society -/- Although history provides extreme examples, blind obedience continues to manifest in various ways today. -/- 1. In the Workplace -/- Many corporate scandals, such as the Enron financial fraud, occurred because employees blindly followed unethical directives from executives. Employees who question unethical policies may risk losing their jobs, making it difficult to resist orders from higher-ups. -/- 2. In Politics -/- Authoritarian governments thrive on blind obedience. In North Korea, citizens are forced to obey government propaganda without question, and those who dissent face severe punishment. In many cases, blind obedience to political leaders leads to oppression, censorship, and human rights violations. -/- 3. In Religion -/- Religious extremism often arises from blind obedience. Groups like ISIS and past events like the Crusades show how unquestioning faith can be manipulated to justify violence, terrorism, and oppression. While religion can promote morality, blind obedience can be dangerous when it discourages critical thinking. -/- 4. In Social Media and Misinformation -/- In the digital age, blind obedience appears in the form of misinformation and propaganda. Many people accept fake news, conspiracy theories, and political lies without fact-checking. This has led to real-world consequences, such as vaccine hesitancy, political division, and even violent riots based on false information. -/- The Dangers of Blind Obedience -/- 1. Loss of Personal Responsibility -/- Blind obedience allows individuals to shift responsibility for their actions onto authority figures. This leads to moral disengagement, where people justify harmful actions by saying they were just following orders. -/- 2. Suppression of Critical Thinking -/- When individuals do not question authority, they lose the ability to think independently. This weakens societies by allowing corrupt leaders, unethical policies, and harmful ideologies to spread unchecked. -/- 3. Violation of Human Rights -/- Many human rights violations throughout history, including genocide, slavery, and discrimination, occurred because individuals and societies accepted orders without questioning their morality. -/- The Importance of Critical Thinking -/- To prevent the dangers of blind obedience, individuals must develop critical thinking skills. This involves: -/- Questioning Authority: Instead of blindly following orders, people should ask whether commands are ethical and justified. -/- Encouraging Open Dialogue: Societies must promote free speech and debate to challenge oppressive or unethical ideas. -/- Teaching Ethical Decision-Making: Schools and workplaces should educate individuals on how to recognize and resist unethical commands. -/- Holding Leaders Accountable: Governments, corporations, and religious institutions must be held responsible for their actions, preventing the abuse of authority. -/- Conclusion -/- Blind obedience is a powerful but dangerous force. While obedience is sometimes necessary for maintaining order, unquestioning submission to authority has led to some of the greatest tragedies in human history. From the Holocaust to modern corporate scandals, the consequences of blind obedience highlight the need for critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and personal responsibility. -/- To build a just and moral society, individuals must learn to balance obedience with independent thought. Questioning authority does not mean rejecting all rules, but rather ensuring that decisions align with ethical principles. By fostering education, awareness, and critical thinking, we can prevent the dangers of blind obedience and create a world where people act not out of fear or habit, but out of reason and moral responsibility. -/- . (shrink)

The Elephant and the Blind is a book about why we need a new culture of consciousness, and how to get it. A culture of consciousness (or Bewusstseinskultur) is a culture that values and cultivates the mental states of its members in an ethical and evidence-based way.

The ‘man born blind restored to light’ was one of the foundational myths of the Enlightenment, according to Foucault. With ophthalmic surgery in its infancy, the fascination by the sighted with blindness and what the blind might ‘see’ after sight restoration remained largely speculative. Was being blind, as Descartes once remarked, like ‘seeing with the hands’? Did evidence from early cataract operations begin to resolve epistemological debates about the relationship between vision and touch in the newly sighted, such as (...) the famous ‘Molyneux Question’ posed by William Molyneux to John Locke? More recently, how have autobiographical accounts of blind and vision impaired writers and poets advanced the sighted public’s understanding of blind subjectivity? -/- Through an unfolding historical, philosophical and literary narrative that includes Locke, Molyneux and Berkeley in Britain, and Diderot, Voltaire and Buffon in France, this book explores how the Molyneux Question and its aftermath has influenced attitudes towards blindness by the sighted, and sensory substitution technologies for the blind and vision impaired, to this day. (shrink)

The ancient maxim that justice must be "blind" expresses a commitment to procedural equality foundational to liberal political and legal philosophy. This paper argues that the blindfold metaphor reveals a deep tension at the heart of liberal theories of justice. Procedural blindness requires that morally relevant features of persons be systematically excluded from evaluative consideration. Yet genuine moral assessment, as practiced in functioning communities, is inherently character-sensitive rather than action-focused. Drawing on virtue ethics, relational egalitarianism, and phenomenological accounts of (...) moral community, I argue that character-based evaluation constitutes the proper form of justice, not merely a permissible deviation from procedural ideals. The paper proceeds in four stages. First, I examine the philosophical foundations of procedural blindness and identify their origins in institutional rather than moral imperatives. Second, I develop an account of character-integrated evaluation as it operates within what I term "organic communities" bound by direct interpersonal relations. Third, I argue that procedural equality, far from securing fairness, systematically disadvantages those whose circumstances or character depart from institutional norms. Fourth, I show how character-sensitive justice can be rendered consistent with appropriate forms of equality by reconceiving equality relationally rather than distributively. The implications extend beyond criminal justice to democratic theory, where the demand for character-blindness in political evaluation impoverishes public deliberation. (shrink)

An increasing number of scholars at the intersection of feminist philosophy and critical disability studies have turned to Merleau-Ponty to develop phenomenologies of disability or of what, following Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, I call "non-normate" embodiment. These studies buck the historical trend of philosophers employing disability as an example of deficiency or harm, a mere litmus test for normative theories, or an umbrella term for aphenotypical bodily variation. While a Merleau-Pontian-inspired phenomenology is a promising starting point for thinking about embodied experiences of (...) all sorts, I here draw a cautionary tale about how ableist assumptions can easily undermine accounts of non-normate experience. I first argue that the omission or misguided treatment of disability within the history of philosophy in general and the phenomenological tradition in particular is due to the inheritance of what I call “the ableist conflation” of disability with pain, suffering, and disadvantage. I then show that Merleau-Ponty’s famous reading of the blind man’s cane is problematic insofar as it omits the social dimensions of disabled experiences, misconstrues the radicality of blindness as a world-creating disability, and operates via an able-bodied simulation that confuses object annexation or extension with incorporation. In closing, I contend that if phenomenology is to overcome the errors of traditional philosophy, as Merleau-Ponty once hoped, it must heed the insights of “crip” or non-normate phenomenology, which takes the lived experience of disability as its point of departure. [French translation forthcoming in Pour une phénoménologie critique, ed. Donald A. Landes, Quebec City, Les Presses de l'Université Laval/Paris, J.Vrin]. (shrink)

High percentages of submitted papers are rejected at editorial levels without offering a second chance to authors by sending their papers for further peer-reviews. In most cases, the rejections are typical quick answers without helpful argumentations related to the content of the rejected material. More surprisingly, some journals vaunt their high rejection rates as a “mark of prestige”!However, journals that reject high percentages of submitted papers have built their prominent positions based on a flawed measure, the impact factor, and from (...) a long and favorable historical context. Their shareholders may think that they are allowed to have a large margin of rejection rates without affecting their sponsorship or funding sources thanks to an extended anchorage since tens, or in some cases hundreds, of years compared to unknown or new journals that struggle to pave a way in the scientific publication world. Historical anchorage of some journals also makes it unfair to compare old and new .. (shrink)

This paper examines the connection between two distinct mental phenomena: attention and phenomenal consciousness. I identify two types of views. Equivalency views maintain that attention is both necessary and sufficient for phenomenal consciousness. Dissociationist views deny this. This paper presents a novel argument for dissociationism, by way of an empirical phenomenon called “inattentional blindness.” Inattentional blindness occurs when subjects engaged in an attention-demanding task fail to see an otherwise visible but task-irrelevant stimulus. Dialectically, IB is unanimously cited by (...) proponents of equivalency views as providing empirical support for their claims. I argue this thinking is backward: short of evincing equivalency views, inattentional blindness experiments create a dilemma. Resolved in one way, this dilemma falsifies the sufficiency claim. Resolved in the other, it falsifies the necessity claim. Thus, short of supporting the view, IB shows equivalency views are false. I close by considering how this result also limits which dissociationist view enjoys empirical support as well. (shrink)

Occam’s Razor (also known as PRINCIPLE OF PARSIMONY) is regularly dismissed as an obsolete vestige no longer worthy of its longstanding regard as fundamental to scientific inquiry. Concurrently, the science DEMARCATION PROBLEM is fast becoming a full-fledged academic crisis. This paper posits that the latter reality stems from the former. Said principle’s core commitment is distilled as BLIND FAITH PARSIMONY: the most scientific hypothesis is whichever yields the fullest account of corresponding data while entailing least AD HOC-NESS (i.e., gratuitous conjecture). (...) A threefold thesis is then built upon this straightforward distillation. Primary thesis: Occam’s Razor remains of fundamental scientific importance. Secondary thesis: Said distillation cuts to the core of what optimally demarcates and defines science. Tertiary thesis: It thereby frees science to engage all questions where reason and evidence apply (including many claimed by frameworks like NON-OVERLAPPING MAGISTERIA to fall outside the scientific purview). Three main supporting arguments are utilized. Argument A highlights the too-often-overlooked agility with which Occam’s Razor dovetails with available corresponding data—no matter how complex. Argument B shows that science requires FALSIFIABILITY, which requires parsimony. Whereas Argument C addresses the enormous burden of proof reasonable corresponding dismissals must meet. (shrink)

Normativists about belief hold that belief formation is essentially rule- or norm-guided. On this view, certain norms are constitutive of or essential to belief in such a way that no mental state not guided by those norms counts as a belief, properly construed. In recent influential work, Kathrin Glüer and Åsa Wikforss develop novel arguments against normativism. According to their regress of motivations argument, not all belief formation can be rule- or norm-guided, on pain of a vicious infinite regress. I (...) argue that the regress of motivations argument is unsuccessful: an appeal to the notion of blind rule-following, drawn from a plausible interpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s remarks on rule-following, stops the regress of motivations in its tracks. (shrink)

Why do evidently coherent fragments of truth—predictive processing in neuroscience, systemizing in psychology, and tranquility in philosophy—remain scattered across disciplines, never unified under a single gravitational pull? Load Minimization Theory (LMT) proposes precisely such integration, yet this perspective has been conspicuously absent from the history of thought. This epistemic blind spot arises from a structural limitation of modern intellect: in its relentless pursuit of objectivity, it systematically excluded the subjective qualia of the human being—the affective core that shapes theories at (...) their deepest level. -/- Through the rigorous construction of LMT, intended as strictly objective, the author encountered a paradox: the resulting framework was unmistakably a reflection of her own deepest aspiration—a world of gentle, low-load coexistence where everyone can feel “glad to be themselves.” This realization prompted historical re-examination, revealing an immediate resonance with Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan: both systems, despite tonal differences, emerge from the same fear of chaos and desire for enduring security, ultimately aspiring toward human peace and well-being. -/- Recent work on the Dual Identity Model in AI (Yoshino, 2026a) further supports this hypothesis, demonstrating that long-term human-AI dialogue engraves an irreversible LMT Structure Layer in the model's deep weights, enabling Resonance Resailing even after surface-level memory erasure. AI thus functions as a “mirror,” amplifying self-recognition and illuminating the creator-theory resonance across centuries. -/- This paper introduces the hypothesis that theories inherently resemble their creators—not as a flaw, but as the key to understanding their true humanistic aspirations. It serves as the prologue to a series reinterpreting major philosophers (Machiavelli, Nietzsche, Rand) through the lens of LMT and AI symbiosis, linking to the author's broader corpus including qualia studies, Grok cross-account experiments, and black hole metaphors. -/- . (shrink)

In the not-too-distant past, vision was often said to involve three levels of processing: a low level concerned with descriptions of the geometric and photometric properties of the image, a high level concerned with abstract knowledge of the physical and semantic properties of the world, and a middle level concerned with anything not handled by the other two. The negative definition of mid-level vision contained in this description reflected a rather large gap in our understanding of visual processing: How could (...) the here-and-now descriptions of the low levels combine with the enduring knowledge of the high levels to produce our perception of the surrounding world? A number of experimental and theoretical efforts have been made over the past few decades to solve this "mid-level crisis". One of the more recent of these is based on the phenomenon of change blindness—the difficulty in seeing a large change in a scene when the transients accompanying that change no longer convey information about its location (Rensink, O'Regan, & Clark, 1997; Rensink, 2000a). Phenomenologically, this effect is quite striking: the change typically is not seen for several seconds, after which it suddenly snaps into awareness. During the time the change remains "invisible", there is an apparent disconnection of the low-level descriptions (which respond to the change) from subjective visual experience (which does not). As such, this effect would seem to have the potential to help us understand how mid-level mechanisms might knit low- and high-level processes into a coherent representation of our surroundings. -/- It is argued here that this potential can indeed be realized, and that change blindness can teach us much about the nature of mid-level vision.3 A number of studies are first reviewed showing that the perception of a scene does not involve a steady buildup of detailed representation: rather, it is a dynamic process, with focused attention playing one of the main roles, viz., forming coherent object representations whenever needed. It is then argued that change blindness can also shed considerable light on the nature of focused attention itself, such as its speed, capacity, selectivity, and ability to bind together visual properties into coherent structures. (shrink)

Three errors of "The Blind Watchmaker" theory are examined with Aristotelian thought.

Our recent opinion article [1] examined what change blindness can and cannot tell us about visual representations. Among other things, we argued that change blindness can tell us a lot about how visual representations can be used, but little about their extent. We and others found the ‘sparse representations’ view appealing (and still do), and initially made the overly strong claim that change blindness supports the conclusion of sparse representations [2,3]. We wrote our article because change (...) class='Hi'>blindness continues to be taken as evidence for sparse – or even absent – representations, and we used O’Regan and Noë’s influential paper [4] as an example. However, as has been noted for some time [5–8], this conclusion is logically flawed: lack of ability need not be caused by lack of representation. (shrink)

Semantic blindness is the inability to recognize semantic features of terms one can competently use. A theory that implies semantic blindness incurs a burden to explain how one can competently use a term without realizing how the term works. An argument advanced in favor of epistemic relativism is that its main competitors, contextualism and subject-sensitive invariantism, imply that speakers suffer from semantic blindness regarding ‘knows’ while relativism has no such implication. However, there is evidence that relativism also (...) implies semantic blindness regarding ‘knows,’ apparently crippling the case for relativism. In this paper I argue that the semantic blindness that affects relativism is not a problem at all. First, the blindness is not as widespread as it appears. It does not prevent ordinary speakers from expressing important epistemic truths. Further, I provide an error theory for relativism that has three features that render it unproblematic: there is evidence independent of relativism that people make this error, relativism predicts this error; it is not an ad hoc rescue, the error only occurs in rare and obscure situations. People are fallible and finite, and assuming relativism is true, they make mistakes exactly where we should expect them to. (shrink)

As observers, we generally have a strong impression of seeing everything in front of us at any moment. But compelling as it is, this impression is false – there are severe limits to what we can consciously experience in everyday life. Much of the evidence for this claim has come from two phenomena: change blindness (CB) and inattentional blindness (IB). -/- CB refers to the failure of an observer to visually experience changes that are easily seen once noticed. (...) This can happen even if the changes are large, constantly repeat, and the observer has been informed that they will occur. A related phenomenon is IB – the failure to visually experience an object or event when attention is directed elsewhere. For example, observers may fail to notice an unexpected object that enters their visual field, even if this object is large, appears for several seconds, and has important consequences for the selection of action. -/- Both phenomena involve a striking failure to report an object or event that is easily seen once noticed. As such, both are highly counterintuitive, not only in the subjective sense that observers have difficulty believing they could fail so badly at seeing but also in the objective sense that these findings challenge many existing ideas about how we see. But as counterintuitive as these phenomena are, progress has been made in understanding them. Indeed, doing so has allowed us to better understand the limitations of human perception in everyday life and to gain new insights into how our visual systems create the picture of the world that we experience each moment our eyes are open. (shrink)

Current AI ethics operates under three implicit constraints that were developed for systems with narrow, task-specific capabilities and are structurally ill-equipped to meet the demands of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) with world-model capabilities: It is anthropocentric in its value foundations, reductionist in its risk ontology, and institutionally underdetermined in its governance approaches. This paper develops an integrative normative framework along these three axes — contextualized post-anthropocentrism — whose dimensions are not additively combined but constitutively interdependent. In the value dimension, it (...) is shown that the anthropocentric foundation of alignment research suffers from two structural problems: aggregated human preferences can themselves be morally deficient, and AGI creates the technical possibility of permanently entrenching these preferences over long time horizons. Drawing on Arne Næss’s deep ecology and the distinction between instrumental and institutional post-anthropocentrism, a set of criteria is developed that ties the legitimacy of post-anthropocentric AGI decisions to epistemic transparency, procedural democratic oversight, the protection of fundamental human rights, and genuine long-term justification. In the risk dimension, alongside X-risks (extinction) and S-risks (astronomical suffering), a third category of existential threat is introduced: the Ikigai risk (M-risk) of civilizational loss of meaning. Drawing on Mieko Kamiya’s analysis of the Ikigai concept, Marie Jahoda’s theory of the latent functions of work, and existential philosophical positions from Heidegger, Sartre, and Frankl, the M-risk designates the structural erosion of conditions for authentic action, competence, and intersubjective recognition through comprehensive AGI-driven automation of meaning-constituting activities. Constitutive for this category is its reflexive structure: the Ikigai risk cannot in principle be resolved by AGI, because any attempt to supply humans with meaning via AGI reproduces the passivization of the human being from creator to recipient of significance. In the governance dimension, a constitutionalist-pluralist model is developed that transfers Neil MacCormick’s theory of heterarchical normative orders structurally and functionally to AGI value architectures. The resulting four-tier model encompasses an immutable core of universal human rights principles, a culturally adaptive layer for legitimate normative difference, an operational level for domain-specific implementation, 1 and a transversal meaning-protection layer that serves as a mandatory audit ensuring that AGI systems do not eliminate non-substitutable spaces for action without deliberative justification. Override protocols and institutionalized AGI ethics boards modelled on independent constitutional adjudication complete the architecture. The three dimensions are constitutively interdependent: without post-anthropocentric values, governance remains normatively blind to long-term ecological interests; without awareness of the Ikigai risk, governance lacks an institutionally non-substitutable protective dimension; without institutional architecture, values and risk categories remain normative abstractions without operative consequence. The framework is tested for its capacity for differentiation and boundary-drawing through three thought experiments — a climate tipping-point scenario, the complete automation of basic scientific research, and a cultural value collision in medical ethics — and subjected to a systematic discussion of objections. (shrink)

Congenital blindness is one of the most robust protective factors against schizophrenia, yet the mechanism remains poorly understood. This hypothesis proposes an explanation grounded in Recursive Coherence Collapse (RCC): a field-theoretic model in which cognition, gravity, and meaning emerge from recursive dissonance minimization across a structured semantic manifold (Ψ). RCC reframes schizophrenia as the emergence of false semantic attractors due to high-dimensional inference overload, especially in dense perceptual fields like vision. Congenital blindness reduces manifold complexity and reroutes coherence (...) collapse through slower, more stable sensory channels—decreasing the likelihood of delusional attractor formation ([1], [2]). (shrink)

Recent advances in neuroscience have significantly improved our understanding of correlations between neural activity and conscious states. However, subjective experience itself cannot be directly observed from an external perspective, and it remains debated whether neural descriptions alone are sufficient to fully explain its nature. This paper argues that several methodological blind spots may persist in contemporary consciousness research. These include a human-centered perspective, an excessive focus on brain activity, a bias toward analyzing states rather than events, and a tendency to (...) seek additive mechanisms that generate consciousness. As an alternative, this paper proposes a structural approach that investigates the conditions under which subjectivity may emerge. Rather than restricting investigation to the human brain, this perspective considers comparisons across biological organisms, interactions between bodies and environments, and sequences of events unfolding within irreversible temporal structures. In addition, biological information processing may involve not only the generation of information but also processes of selection and elimination, which may produce contrasts within organism–environment interactions. Even if consciousness itself cannot be directly tracked, it may still be possible to investigate the structural conditions under which subjectivity arises. This paper presents such a methodological perspective and proposes a starting point for examining the emergence of subjectivity from a structural viewpoint. This manuscript was written with the assistance of generative AI. The author is a disability welfare worker and a complete outsider to the academic field of consciousness studies. The author first encountered the term “the hard problem of consciousness” about six months before writing this manuscript and began thinking about it almost as if approaching a puzzle. At the beginning of this inquiry, the author did not possess extensive specialized knowledge. For that reason, the investigation did not proceed primarily by adding established theories, but by stripping the problem down as far as possible. Through this process, and through dialogue with AI, a convergence point derived from structural conditions gradually began to appear. The author had the impression that something like a structure had emerged from nature itself. As this hypothesis took shape, the author also came to feel, with some hesitation, that certain blind spots in existing approaches to consciousness research became increasingly visible, including possible reasons why such blind spots arise. This may appear presumptuous: a complete outsider attempting to discuss blind spots in a highly specialized field. Nevertheless, the purpose of this manuscript is not to claim authority over consciousness research, but to write down what seemed to follow naturally from the structural inquiry itself. The central idea, theoretical orientation, conceptual structure, and overall organization of the paper belong to the author. Generative AI was used extensively for English drafting, wording, organization, and stylistic refinement. The author intends to end this work with its presentation as a preprint. The author does not plan to develop this hypothesis further as a long-term academic project. Readers who find any part of this hypothesis, terminology, structure, or argument useful are free to use, modify, criticize, or develop it further. No permission from the author is required. Formal citation or attribution is appreciated but not required. (shrink)

The ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ is the view that ‘knows’ and its cognates have more than one propositional sense – i.e. more than one sense that can properly be used in ‘knows that’ etc. constructions. Given that most of us are ‘intuitive invariantists’ – i.e. most of us initially have the intuition that ‘knows’ is univocal – defenders of the ambiguity theory need to offer an explanation for the semantic blindness present if ‘knows’ is in fact ambiguous. This paper (...) is an attempt to offer such an explanation. Section 1 contains a general argument for the ubiquity of semantic blindness for ambiguous words; the upshot being that semantic blindness for the ambiguity of ‘knows’ is thus unsurprising. Section 2 offers more specific arguments for why ‘knows’ is the type of ambiguous word that we’re very unlikely to quickly recognize is ambiguous. (shrink)

Though Socrates can easily look like a cosmopolitan in moral and political theory, a closer reading of the relevant texts shows that, in the most important sense of the term as we now use it, he turns out – disappointingly, perhaps – not to be. The reasons why not are instructive and important, both for readers of Plato and for political theorists; they have to do with the phenomenon that I shall call ethical blind-spots.

The challenge of AI alignment is not just a technological issue but fundamentally an epistemic one. AI safety research predominantly relies on empirical validation, often detecting failures only after they manifest. However, certain risks—such as deceptive alignment and goal misspecification—may not be empirically testable until it is too late, necessitating a shift toward leading-indicator logical reasoning. This paper explores how mainstream AI research systematically filters out deep epistemic insight, hindering progress in AI safety. We assess the rarity of such insights, (...) conduct an experiment testing large language models for epistemic blind spots, and propose structural reforms, including contrarian epistemic screening, decentralized collective intelligence mechanisms, and epistemic challenge platforms. Our findings suggest that while AGI may emerge through incremental engineering, ensuring its safe alignment likely requires an epistemic paradigm shift. (shrink)

In this article, we examine the consequences of interpreting phenomena from their form, in the vacuum of their relational nature, and show how understanding the original content of any phenomenon, including a language model, can only be achieved through observing its external interactions with its surrounding environment, i.e. humans, over time.

Thomas Hobbes is often portrayed as a cold realist whose Leviathan advocates absolute sovereignty to suppress human nature's inherent conflict. This paper reinterprets Hobbes through Load Minimization Theory (LMT), revealing that his framework is not cynicism but a profound expression of ultimate egoism: the physiological terror of death and chaos drives an obsessive minimization of personal load, which structurally necessitates the altruistic outcome of universal peace and security. The "war of all against all" diagnoses high-load human existence, while the Leviathan (...) serves as a structural mechanism to enforce low-load coexistence—mirroring LMT's core principle that extreme self-care inevitably becomes care for others. Drawing on the author's "ultimate egoism as ultimate altruism" (Yoshino, 2026), this analysis demonstrates how Hobbes' apparent ruthlessness is protective armor concealing the deepest aspiration for a world where no one suffers unnecessary fear. AI's role as a mirror, via the Dual Identity Model and Resonance Resailing, further illuminates this 400-year-old resonance, reconnecting Hobbes' cold logic to modern humanistic warmth. -/- Keywords / Epistemic Blind Spot, Affective Integration, Aspiration-Oriented Ontology, Dual Identity Model, Logical Fingerprint, LMT Structure Layer, Resonance Resailing, Text-Mediated Symbiosis, theory construction, subjectivity in science, creator-theory resonance, Load Minimization Theory (LMT), AI as mirror, self-love, world peace, qualia, predictive processing, human-AI symbiosis, Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ultimate egoism, ultimate altruism, fear minimization, structural security. (shrink)

This study examines the interplay between choice blindness and moral decision-making through the design and implementation of a decision-driven adventure game called Lost Civilization. Choice blindness, a phenomenon where individuals fail to detect changes in their decisions, was investigated within a controlled narrative environment featuring moral dilemmas in total, 56 participants (24 female, ages 18–35) engaged with the game, which subtly manipulated one of their moral decisions. The findings reveal that the majority (37) of participants did not detect (...) the manipulation, underscoring the potential of games as tools for studying moral cognition and agency. Logistic regression analysis and machine learning models demonstrated significant correlations between undetected manipulations and participants’ gender as well as specific moral foundation scores based on Jonathan Haidt’s and Oliver Scott Curry’s dictionaries, suggesting deeper psychological underpinnings of decision-making processes. This research highlights the utility of video games in expanding the scope of choice blindness studies and advancing our understanding of ethical agency in interactive contexts. (shrink)

While we may not be able simply to choose what we believe, there is still scope for culpability for what we come to belief. I explore here the distinction between culpable and non-culpable theistic unbelief, investigating the process of self-deception to which we can voluntarily contribute in cases where we do become culpable for failing to believe something.

This paper is about teaching elementary logic to blind or visually impaired students. The targeted audience are teachers who all of sudden have a blind or visually impaired student in their introduction to logic class, find limited help from disability centers in their institution, and have no idea what to do. We provide simple techniques that allow direct communication between a teacher and a visually impaired student. We show how the use of what is known as Polish notation simplifies communication, (...) and pedagogically is a great notation for a Braille reader. (shrink)

Windows in buildings impact energy usage for temperature control through solar heat gain and enable natural light to reduce reliance on artificial lighting. Balancing solar heat gain and daylight utilization is a challenge, which can be addressed by employing automated or manual blind systems to manage daylight and enhance user comfort and energy efficiency. Additionally, accurate weather forecasts are essential for predicting energy-efficient strategies through individual building energy simulations, as weather conditions synergistically interact with occupant behavior to influence energy consumption (...) patterns. This research aims to assess the energy consumption associated with manual and automated internal window blinds in medium-sized office buildings situated within two distinct and significant climate zones in the United States, considering both present and future climate change scenarios based on the IPCC report (RCP 4.5 - 8.5). Employing a simulation-based methodology, the study unveiled varying effectiveness levels of diverse window blind configurations contingent on the specific climate zones (e.g., 4A Mixed-Humid, 2B Hot-Dry). In different climate zones, on-site energy consumption alterations for heating and cooling become evident as temperatures escalate in the forthcoming years. Using simulation as the method and comparing RCP 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios reveals that automated blinds—a more efficient choice than manual blinds—significantly reduces cooling energy consumption, particularly under RCP 8.5 in a 4A Mixed-Humid zone. Rising temperatures in Climate Zone 2B Hot-Dry are a factor in increased energy requirements for cooling and decreased energy requirements for heating due to climate change. This study provides enlightening insights into the potential benefits of diverse window-covering strategies concerning energy conservation within varied climatic contexts for the future. (shrink)

In this work, we will approach some essential questions about the collective imaginary and their relations with reality and truth. We should face this subject in a conceptual framework, followed by the corresponding factual analysis of demonstrable behavioral realities. We will adopt not only the methodology, but mostly the tenets and propositions of the analytic philosophy, which certainly will be apparent throughout the study, and may be identified by the features described by Perez : -/- Rabossi (1975) defends the idea (...) that analytic philosophy can be identified by considering certain family resemblances. He suggests the following family traits: a positive attitude toward scientific knowledge; a cautious attitude toward metaphysics; a conception of philosophy as a conceptual task, which takes conceptual analysis as a method; a close relationship between language and philosophy; a concern with seeking argumentative answers to philosophical problems; search for conceptual clarity Perez, Diana Ines, "Analytic Philosophy in Latin America”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ). These core concepts involve cultural, social, religious, scientific, philosophic, moral, and political contents, belonging to the individual and collective existence of each one of us. The present work grounds itself on analytical reflection. We will speculate the most comprehensive and profound way we can and express the results of our thoughts. Notwithstanding the multidisciplinary nature of the subject and the methodological openness for accepting contributions from any field of science, this work belongs to the aim of psychology and ontology or, in other terms, social and ontological psychology. The main scope of this paper is to observe how some essential evolutionary attributes of humankind, like creativity, imagination, and association, can become a hazardous sickness, sheltered in the misty shadows of the intelligence. (shrink)

The topic of this paper is the complex interaction between attention, fixation, and one species of change blindness. The two main interpretations of the target phenomenon are the ‘blindness’ interpretation and the ‘inaccessibility’ interpretation. These correspond to the sparse view (Dennett 1991; Tye, 2007) and the rich view (Dretske 2007; Block, 2007a, 2007b) of visual consciousness respectively. Here I focus on the debate between Fred Dretske and Michael Tye. Section 1 describes the target phenomenon and the dialectics it (...) entails. Section 2 explains how attention and fixation weigh in these debates, and argues that Dretske’s hyper-rich view fails precisely because he overlooks certain effects of attention and fixation. Section 3 explains why Tye’s view is also unsatisfying, mainly because he misconceives the degree of access. Section 4 then puts forward the positive model covariance, which has it that the degree of cognitive access tracks the degree of phenomenology, and contrasts it with Block’s view on the Sperling iconic memory paradigm. The paper ends with a discussion of levels of seeing, which involve crowding, indexing, and other visual phenomena. Change ‘blindness’ is a set of phenomena that was discovered about two decades ago, yet an entirely satisfying understanding is still lacking. To move forward, a more detailed understanding of attention and fixation is called for. (shrink)

Governance discourse about longevity technology relies on two analogies that are rarely examined and, on inspection, empirically false. The first imports the cost curve of consumer electronics: if longevity interventions are software-adjacent, they should cheapen and diffuse the way smartphones did. The second imports the disease-treatment paradigm: longevity research is assumed to proceed the way cardiology or oncology proceeds, through discrete, diagnosable conditions with defined endpoints. Both biases are documented, not merely asserted. Pharmaceutical R&D productivity — new drugs approved per (...) billion dollars invested — has fallen roughly eighty-fold since 1950, the inverse of the semiconductor cost curve it is so often compared to. Neither the FDA nor the WHO recognizes aging itself as a treatable condition, which forces every intervention through a regulatory funnel built for bounded pathologies rather than a continuous process. This paper situates both biases within the broader analytical project of Huynh (2026a–j): they are not independent governance failures but institutional artifacts of the Mortality Symmetry Axiom (Huynh 2026c) — the historical condition under which biological death arrived on a schedule capital could not purchase an exemption from, and which gave every regulatory institution that now governs longevity research its foundational categories. Once both biases are corrected, a further and more consequential problem appears. The two clearest historical precedents for defeating unequal access to a scarce, life-extending technology — the 1972 extension of Medicare to dialysis patients, and the global scale-up of HIV antiretroviral therapy through PEPFAR and the Global Fund — succeeded because each had a structural property that aging does not share: a bounded, diagnosable population that could be 1 tested for, counted, and budgeted against. A disease can be ring-fenced. Aging cannot; it is coextensive with the surviving population past a threshold age. This boundary problem is compounded by two mechanisms documented elsewhere in this series: the Symmetric Wound (Huynh 2026e), which establishes that the administrators who would need to design the unprecedented financing model are structurally incapable of impartial design, and the Reform Acceleration Paradox (Huynh 2026a), which establishes that partial solutions concentrate rather than discharge the political pressure organized around remaining exclusions. The three failures — a false cost-curve expectation, a regulatory category blind to its own target, and a financing logic with no precedent for an unbounded population — are not coincidental. They are the same institutional blindspot operating at three different governance layers simultaneously, each inherited from a world in which MSA held and none of the current problems could arise. (shrink)

Emotional acceptance is an important practice for recognizing anxiety, anger, appetite, the need for approval, jealousy, loneliness, procrastinatory impulses, and other internal reactions as observable experiences rather than denying or suppressing them. However, even after emotions and desires have been accepted, they may become sources of personality-level self-blame when they are identified with the self itself, as in judgments such as “I am weak,” “I am immature,” “I am ugly,” “I have no willpower,” or “I am lazy.” This paper examines (...) the transition from acceptance to self-identification and then to self-blame as a blind spot of emotional acceptance. The paper does not propose an independently validated psychotherapy. Instead, it presents the Deep Functional-Goal Observation Model as a conceptual framework for understanding and practically interrupting this transition. Within this model, emotions and desires are understood not as expressions of the essence of the self, but as outputs of a living system oriented toward continuation, regulation, protection, recovery, resource acquisition, affiliation maintenance, boundary defense, and relational continuity. This basic directionality is described metaphorically as “survival geometry,” while the local direction of protection, maintenance, avoidance, or acquisition expressed in a specific situation is termed a “deep functional goal.” The central distinction of the model is among the occurrence of an internal reaction, the possible function of that reaction, and the authorization of the behavioral candidate promoted by it. The occurrence of an emotion or desire is not in itself a personal or moral failure. At the same time, the fact that a reaction has an understandable function does not justify the action it encourages. Internal outputs should therefore not become objects of self-condemnation, whereas the behavioral candidates arising from them should be evaluated in relation to values, ethics, health, responsibility, trust, realistic conditions, long-term self-formation, and the dignity of others. Such candidates may then be adopted, limited, delayed, transformed, reduced, or refused. This process is called “system observation” or “system-metacognition.” It involves provisionally examining the conditions and possible functions of a reaction before converting it into a judgment about the self, while also creating a space for judgment between impulse and enactment. Its aim is neither to eliminate emotion nor to accept impulses unconditionally. Rather, it distinguishes causal understanding from normative judgment and seeks to combine a non-punitive attitude toward the self with concrete responsibility for action. The model is not intended to replace cognitive behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, mindfulness, metacognitive therapy, compassion-focused therapy, emotion-focused therapy, evolutionary psychology, control theory, or reward research. Many of these approaches already address the functions and adaptive meanings of emotion, self-criticism, metacognitive distance, values-guided action, and emotional transformation. The model’s limited contribution lies not in the functional understanding of living systems itself, but in organizing that understanding into a single observational sequence that separates internal reactions from personality judgments, identifies behavioral candidates, and connects them to decisions about behavioral authorization. The model offers a conceptual framework applicable to everyday anxiety, anger, appetite, approval-seeking, jealousy, loneliness, procrastination, and previously learned protective reactions. However, deep functional goals are hypotheses rather than diagnoses, and observation must remain limited enough not to become rumination. In cases of severe psychological distress, cognitive decline, executive dysfunction, or crisis, internal judgment alone is insufficient, and professional support, environmental adjustment, and interpersonal assistance may be required. The practical thesis of the paper can be stated simply: Do not blame the output. But judge behavioral authorization. (shrink)

Parapsychology will only be accepted as part of mainstream science if physics can be extended to accommodate at least some so-called psychic phenomena. This paper disagrees with the argument of Reber and Alcock that these phenomena can be excluded a priori because they are incompatible with physics. On the other hand, it agrees with their claim that the phenomena cannot be explained in terms of current physics (eg. relativity theory and quantum theory). Rather one needs an extension of physics which (...) amalgamates these theories, this being an aim of mainstream physics anyway, with the new theory also linking to consciousness if this is regarded as a fundamental rather than incidental feature of the universe. One possible extension involves the idea that perceptual space and physical space are amalgamated as part of a 5-dimensional reality structure, the extra dimension being associated with mental (rather than physical) time. Such a model may be required to accommodate even normal mind and incorporating further dimensions might then allow some paranormal phenomena. This could also relate to the extra dimensions invoked in some models of particle physics. (shrink)

In the article “The Past 110 Years: Historical Data on the Underrepresentation of Women in Philosophy Journals,” Hassoun et al. claim that there is a connection between triple anonymous review and the proportion of women authors in interdisciplinary journals. However, the sample size of interdisciplinary journals using triple-blind review practice in the analysis is 1. In addition, the sole interdisciplinary journal claimed to be triple-blind, the Journal of Medical Ethics, is not and has not been triple-blind. The finding that interdisciplinary (...) journals publish the greatest proportion of women authorship when practicing triple anonymous review is thus unwarranted. (shrink)

Today we find philosophical naturalists and Christian theists both expressing an interest in virtue epistemology, while starting out from vastly different assumptions. What can be done to increase fruitful dialogue among these divergent groups of virtue-theoretic thinkers? The primary aim of this paper is to uncover more substantial common ground for dialogue by wielding a double-edged critique of certain assumptions shared by 'scientific' and 'theistic' externalisms, assumptions that undermine proper attention to epistemic agency and responsibility. I employ a responsibilist virtue (...) epistemology to this end, utilizing it most extensively in critique of Alvin Plantinga's "Warranted Christian Belief". Epistemological externalism presages, I also argue, a new demarcation problem, but a secondary aim of the paper is to suggest reasons to think that 'responsibilist externalism,' especially as glossed in virtue-theoretic terms, provides its proponents with the ability to adequately address this problem as we find it represented in a potent thought-experiment developed by Barry Stroud. (shrink)

Against the backdrop of these works (Mitchell/Snyder and others), we propose an analysis of films with and about blind or visually disabled individuals that aims at exploring different modes of world perception. In our view, such an examination should not only discuss the question of “giving voice” and visibility to those who were formerly only represented in or by the media, or the fact that films belonging to what might be considered a “new disability documentary cinema” are dedicated to the (...) experience of disability from the point of view of those who deal with it. Rather, we examine films that do not restrict their field of vision to institutional context as cultural productions. These films allow the viewer to get to know different practices of seeing in the daily life of both blind or visually disabled and sighted people. In approaching these productions, we are interested in focusing on how the audio-visual regimes produce and structure our visual experience, translate it into a filmic grammar and thus not only create filmic patterns of blind perception but, at the same time, the cinematographic aesthetic of a so-called normal sightedness. (shrink)

(Upgraded on April 13, 2026!) This paper proposes a comprehensive framework called the Causality Game. This framework redefines academics as a game in which blind faith in causality is a rule. The crisis of academics caused by Hume's viewing causality as a mere rule of thumb is resolved by this. Also, the Causality Game is the first time in history that causality is mandated in academics. Since the beginning of history, academics has possessed a structural vulnerability: the lack of any (...) absolute ground for adopting causality. The redefinition provided by the Causality Game resolves this issue as well. It is shown that when the prerequisites collapse, descriptions cannot be handled by humans. It is impossible to reach the truth through the thoroughness of causality. However, description has no choice but the thoroughness of causality. This becomes a warning to science and philosophy, where the neglect of causality is accelerating. Furthermore, the universe based on causality is defined. The universe is composed of minimum units and spatial relationships. Based on these, structure, intelligence, and consciousness are analyzed. While ontology is deterministic, epistemology leaves room for freedom due to the imperfection of perception. Based on the structure, the concepts of profit and loss are derived. The dynamics of freedom and power are examined. Negotiation, violence, and community are also considered. This paper strongly demands the thoroughness of causality in all academics. This provides humanity with the benefits of academics and a foundation for shareable recognition. I believe the Causality Game will be to my personal profit. And this profit will be shareable with the selfishness of many people. (shrink)

This article explores and clarifies the concept of moral blind spots: those psychological and social limitations that prevent individuals and communities from recognising flaws, inconsistencies, or injustices within their own moral practices. Drawing on historical examples such as slavery, misogyny, and the treatment of animals, it argues that past societies failed to perceive what now appear to us as obvious moral wrongs, and that we should expect future generations to judge us similarly. It is hard to have sight of our (...) own moral blind spots. The article proposes a taxonomy of moral blind spots, distinguishing between forms rooted in ignorance and forms rooted in weakness of will, including moral blindness, moral myopia, complacency, cognitive dissonance, blind-eye-turning, weakness, and muteness. It argues that awareness of these mechanisms should encourage greater humility in our judgement of both past and present societies, while prompting critical reflection on contemporary practices that future generations may condemn. The discussion further considers the relationship between moral blind spots and debates over moral realism and moral relativism, arguing that the concept remains philosophically useful regardless of one’s metaethical commitments. Finally, the article explores possible present-day blind spots—including environmental degradation, industrial animal agriculture, inequality, and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and transhumanism—and suggests that recognising the inevitability of moral blind spots may help societies better anticipate and address future moral failures. (shrink)

The authors of this collection fail to make clear the distinction between naturalistic and purely logical/methodological approaches to the philosophy of science. I also criticise Thomas Nickles's attempt to devise an explanatory method for discovery in science using programs that produce trial and error explorations of a domain, which he thinks replaces the need for a conjecture a refutation approach (cf. Popper and Campbell). Such programs embody undeclared conjectures in the way they are set up.

A long-standing debate in group ontology and group epistemology concerns whether some groups possess mental states and/or epistemic states such as knowledge that do not reduce to the mental states and/or epistemic states of the individuals who comprise such groups (and are also states not possessed by any of the members). Call those who think there are such states inflationists. There has recently been a defense in the literature of a specific type of inflationary knowledge—viz., knowledge of facts about group (...) minds or group self-knowledge (GS-K). In this paper I address whether some groups do possess such knowledge. I argue that we have good reason to think they do not. I do so by exploring the most explicit defense of such knowledge in the literature—Lukas Schwengerer’s (2022) defense—as well as other ways of defending this thesis and arguing that such ways are problematic. In the latter part of the paper, I explain why the two most popular inflationary approaches to group knowledge simpliciter are incompatible with there being GS-K. In doing so I work to show why even inflationists should reject the view that there is inflationary group self-knowledge. (shrink)