Mirabile et al. (2024) provide evidence that property valence—i.e., the perceived dangerousness of the ascribed properties—affects the endorsement of generics, an effect we did not observe (Cella et al., 2022). To address this difference, Mirabile et al. re-analyzed our Study 3a data, including the responses from a sample of participants we excluded, questioning the rationale for their exclusion. They further used a Bayesian framework and suggested that the frequentist models we used cannot provide stable estimates for the parameters. This commentary (...) addresses Mirabile et al.’s concerns regarding our methodology. We first discuss our recruitment for Study 3a; we then focus on concerns about our statistical models. (shrink)

The celebrity effect is the well-documented phenomenon in which people ascribe an enhanced worth to artefacts owned by famous individuals. This effect has been attributed to a belief in psychological contagion, the transmission of a person’s essence to an object via contact. We examined people’s judgments of the persisting worth of celebrity-owned artefacts following transformations of their parts/material and found that the celebrity effect was evident only for post-transformation artefacts that were composed of parts/material that had direct physical contact with (...) the celebrity. Insofar as the celebrity effect arises from psychological contagion, the findings suggest that the essence imparted to a celebrity-owned artefact is conceived as akin to a residue deposited in/on the object rather than a germ capable of spreading in an indirect manner to new parts/material added to the object. The results illuminate the nature of psychological contagion and offer insight into how best to preserve the value of historically important artefacts. (shrink)

Generics (e.g., “Ravens are black”) express generalizations about categories or their members. Previous research found that generics about animals are interpreted as broadly true of members of a kind, yet also accepted based on minimal evidence. This asymmetry is important for suggesting a mechanism by which unfounded generalizations may flourish; yet, little is known whether this finding extends to generics about groups of people (heretofore, “social generics”). Accordingly, in four preregistered studies (n = 665), we tested for an inferential asymmetry (...) for generics regarding novel groups of animals versus people. Participants were randomly assigned to either an Implied Prevalence task (given a generic, asked to estimate the prevalence of a property) or a Truth-Conditions task (given prevalence information, asked whether a generic was true or false). A generic asymmetry was found in both domains, at equivalent levels. The asymmetry also extended to properties varying in valence (dangerous and neutral). Finally, there were differences as a function of property valence in the Implied Prevalence task and a small but consistent interaction between domain and prevalence in the Truth-Conditions task. We discuss the implications of these results for the semantics of generics, theoretical accounts of the asymmetry, and the relation between generics and stereotyping. (shrink)

The relentless informational variability in the field of natural sciences, today's need for the training of highly competent, versatile, apologetic future specialists, as well as the low motivation of psychology students to teach natural disciplines, was established by us in the process of their questioning, require the search for new, non-standard solutions in the organization of natural science training of future psychologists in institutions of higher education. We believe that one of the effective ways to solve this problem is the (...) organization of the educational process with the natural scientific training of future psychologists in higher education institutions based on innovation and heuristic. To organize the educational process from the natural science training of future psychologists on the basis of innovation and eurestiality, there is a need to determine such ultra-innovation pedagogical technologies and teaching methods that will meet the requirements of the time, contribute to the formation of psychology students' motivation to study natural sciences and improve the quality and the effectiveness of natural science training. We have characterized pedagogical technologies, namely: coworking technology, barcamp technology, workshop technology, SMART technology, BYOD technology and such innovative methods as: lecture-visualization, video lecture, debates, round table, electronic brain assault, a laboratory experiment and a design-role-playing game, which, in our opinion, will contribute to the implementation of the educational process with the natural science training of future psychologists in higher education institutions based on innovation and heuristic. (shrink)

_In this essay, Hegel attempted to show how Fichte’s Science of Knowledge was an advance from the position of Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason, and how Schelling (and incidentally Hegel himself) had made a further advance from the position of Fichte._.

As the title indicates, Faith and Knowledge deals with the relation between religious faith and cognitive beliefs, between the truth of religion and the truths of philosophy and science. Hegel is guided by his understanding of the historical situation: the individual alienated from God, nature, and community; and he is influenced by the new philosophy of Schelling, the Spinozistic Philosophy of Identity with its superb vision of the inner unity of God, nature, and rational man. Through a brilliant discussion of (...) the philosophies of Kant, Fichte, and other luminaries of the period, Hegel shows that the time has finally come to give philosophy the authentic shape it has always been trying to reach, a shape in which philosophy’s old conflicts with religion on the one hand and with the sciences on the other are suspended once for all. This is the first English translation of this important essay. Professor H. S. Harris offers a historical and analytic commentary to the text and Professor Cerf offers an introduction to the general reader which focuses on the concept of intellectual intuition and on the difference between authentic and inauthentic philosophy. (shrink)

A compilation of all previously published writings on philosophy and the foundations of mathematics from the greatest of the generation of Cambridge scholars that included G.E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Maynard Keynes.

Recent articles in Religious Studies have underscored the questions of whether Buddhism presents any empirical doctrines, and whether, if it does, such doctrines are false or vacuous. In what follows I want to sketch an interpretation of Buddhism according to which it does not offer doctrines which are empirically false, on the one hand, or trivially true on the other. In doing so I take my cue from an earlier, and by now classic, paper by H. H. Price. For the (...) exposition of Buddhism I take the Pali Nikāyas, the single most significant collection of texts in the Buddhist tradition. The particular doctrine which is the focus of discussion here is the kammavāda or ‘karma view’ of early Indian Buddhism, for it is the focus of much of the recent literature cited above and a doctrine which some have thought amenable to statement in empirical terms. (shrink)

Classification of sciences; Moslem scholars; Africa, North.

Festschrift honoring P.F. Strawson; includes contributed articles on his contributions in logic and on logic.