Theories of cognitive development must address both the issue of how children bring their knowledge to bear on behavior in-the-moment, and how knowledge changes over time. We argue that seeking answers to these questions requires an appreciation of the dynamic nature of the developing system in its full, reciprocal complexity. We illustrate this dynamic complexity with results from two lines of research on early word learning. The first demonstrates how the child's active engagement with objects and people supports referent selection (...) via memories for what objects were previously seen in a cued location. The second set of results highlights changes in the role of novelty and attentional processes in referent selection and retention as children's knowledge of words and objects grows. Together this work suggests that understanding systems for perception, action, attention, and memory, and their complex interaction, is critical to understand word learning. We review recent literature that highlights the complex interactions between these processes in cognitive development and point to critical issues for future work. (shrink)

Marr's seminal work laid out a program of research by specifying key questions for cognitive science at different levels of analysis. Because dynamic systems theory focuses on time and interdependence of components, DST research programs come to very different conclusions regarding the nature of cognitive change. We review a specific DST approach to cognitive-level processes: dynamic field theory. We review research applying DFT to several cognitive-level processes: object permanence, naming hierarchical categories, and inferring intent, that demonstrate the difference in understanding (...) of behavior and cognition that results from a DST perspective. These point to a central challenge for cognitive science research as defined by Marr—emergence. We argue that appreciating emergence raises questions about the utility of computational-level analyses and opens the door to insights concerning the origin of novel forms of behavior and thought. We contend this is one of the most fundamental questions about cognition and behavior. (shrink)

According to Jones & Love (J&L), Bayesian theories are too often isolated from other theories and behavioral processes. Here, we highlight examples of two types of isolation from the field of word learning. Specifically, Bayesian theories ignore emergence, critical to development theory, and have not probed the behavioral details of several key phenomena, such as the effect.

It is unclear how children learn labels for multiple overlapping categories such as “Labrador,” “dog,” and “animal.” Xu and Tenenbaum suggested that learners infer correct meanings with the help of Bayesian inference. They instantiated these claims in a Bayesian model, which they tested with preschoolers and adults. Here, we report data testing a developmental prediction of the Bayesian model—that more knowledge should lead to narrower category inferences when presented with multiple subordinate exemplars. Two experiments did not support this prediction. Children (...) with more category knowledge showed broader generalization when presented with multiple subordinate exemplars, compared to less knowledgeable children and adults. This implies a U-shaped developmental trend. The Bayesian model was not able to account for these data, even with inputs that reflected the similarity judgments of children. We discuss implications for the Bayesian model, including a combined Bayesian/morphological knowledge account that could explain the demonstrated U-shaped trend. (shrink)

Identifying the referent of novel words is a complex process that young children do with relative ease. When given multiple objects along with a novel word, children select the most novel item, sometimes retaining the word‐referent link. Prior work is inconsistent, however, on the role of object novelty. Two experiments examine 18‐month‐old children's performance on referent selection and retention with novel and known words. The results reveal a pervasive novelty bias on referent selection with both known and novel names and, (...) across individual children, a negative correlation between attention to novelty and retention of new word‐referent links. A computational model examines possible sources of the bias, suggesting novelty supports in‐the‐moment behavior but not retention. Together, results suggest that when lexical knowledge is weak, attention to novelty drives behavior, but alone does not sustain learning. Importantly, the results demonstrate that word learning may be driven, in part, by low‐level perceptual processes. (shrink)

Though we agree with their argument that language is shaped by domain-general learning processes, Christiansen & Chater (C&C) neglect to detail how the development of these processes shapes language change. We discuss a number of examples that show how developmental processes at multiple levels and timescales are critical to understanding the origin of domain-general mechanisms that shape language evolution.

The annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society is aimed at basic and applied cognitive science research. The conference hosts the latest theories and data from the world's best cognitive science researchers. Each year, in addition to submitted papers, researchers are invited to highlight some aspect of cognitive science.

In 1958, economist A. W. Phillips published an article describing what he observed to be the inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment; subsequently, the "Phillips curve" became a central concept in macroeconomic analysis and policymaking. But today's Phillips curve is not the same as the original one from fifty years ago; the economy, our understanding of price setting behavior, the determinants of inflation, and the role of monetary policy have evolved significantly since then. In this book, some of the top (...) economists working today reexamine the theoretical and empirical validity of the Phillips curve in its more recent specifications. The contributors consider such questions as what economists have learned about price and wage setting and inflation expectations that would improve the way we use and formulate the Phillips curve, what the Phillips curve approach can teach us about inflation dynamics, and how these lessons can be applied to improving the conduct of monetary policy. ContributorsLawrence Ball, Ben Bernanke, Oliver Blanchard, V. V. Chari, William T. Dickens, Stanley Fischer, Jeff Fuhrer, Jordi Gali, Michael T. Kiley, Robert G. King, Donald L. Kohn, Yolanda K. Kodrzycki, Jane Sneddon Little, Bartisz Mackowiak, N. Gregory Mankiw, Virgiliu Midrigan, Giovanni P. Olivei, Athanasios Orphanides, Adrian R. Pagan, Christopher A. Pissarides, Lucrezia Reichlin, Paul A. Samuelson, Christopher A. Sims, Frank R. Smets, Robert M. Solow, Jürgen Stark, James H. Stock, Lars E. O. Svensson, John B. Taylor, Mark W. Watson. (shrink)

In order to make sense of the “blooming, buzzing, confusion” of a world where no two objects or events are ever exactly identical, infants form categories of perceptually distinct items that can be treated equivalently. The study of categorization often arises from one of two motivations: 1) to examine the mechanisms by which infants learn to treat distinct objects/events as equivalent (e.g., how an infant comes to name two different animals DOG?) and 2) to examine the current state of an (...) infant’s knowledge (e.g., does an infant have a category of dog). As an illustration, consider Quinn and colleagues’ 1993 study. After habituating to different dog pictures, 3- and 4-month-olds do not dishabituate to cats. However, after habituating to cats, they do dishabituate to dogs. If we were examining the current state of knowledge, what should we conclude? Unless we want to suggest these infants are participants in Schrödinger’s thought experiment (1935)—they both have and do not have a cat category—we cannot say anything conclusive. Instead the results reveal something important about the mechanisms of categorization. Quinn and colleagues (1993) showed variability between category members affects the exclusivity of the categories infants form. This example demonstrates that studying whether infants have a category misses the crucial point that categories are neither things that people have in their heads nor that exist in the world; but rather categorization is a process (see also Oakes & Madole, 2000; Samuelson & Smith, 2000; Samuelson, Perry, & Warrington, 2007). In addition to these two main motivations, the study of categorization typically utilizes one of two methodologies: 1) looking measures, e.g., habituation and preferential looking, and 2) touching/reaching measures, e.g., sequential touching or manual forced choice measures. What I will argue in this paper is that looking measures 1) too readily lend themselves to interpretations of infants having a category or not, and 2) miss the importance the body and physical context have on development.A temptation of looking Too often the focus of looking measures is the outcome—do infants look longer at one stimulus—without regard for how past experiences and the present context influence infants’ looking (but see, Perone & Spencer, 2013). Interpretations that infants do or do not have a category have proven to be particularly tempting in studies examining infants’ categorization of physical events (see also Haith, 1998). For example, evidence that 3-4-month-old infants habituated to a ball rolling behind an occluder dishabituate to an impossible event—a ball rolling behind an occluder and not stopping at a barrier—has been interpreted as evidence for infants having knowledge of physical laws of solidity (Spelke, Breinlinger, Macomber, & Jacobson, 1992). However, in experiments employing reaching measures, when a ball rolls behind a panel of doors and stops at a barrier to the right of one of the doors, older children fail to select the correct door, instead perseveratively reaching for the same door regardless of the barrier location (Berthier, DeBlois, Poirier, Novak, & Clifton, 2000). This failure makes it difficult to say whether infants have knowledge of physical laws. However, failure can tell us something more interesting about development (Perry, Smith, & Hockema, 2008; Perry, Samuelson, & Spencer, 2009; Keen, 2003). For example, Perry and colleagues (2009) demonstrated changes in children’s ability to align their body and movements with relevant spatial reference frames support search accuracy. When 2-year-olds underwent training with the barrier in a fixed position while the ramp moved, such that the correct door was aligned with midline, they correctly located the object during the standard testing procedure. The context of children’s environment—where their bodies are relative to objects and events in the world—influences where they attend and subsequently remember. Such findings demonstrate that the context of learning is critical to understanding developmental change—findings that would not have been made through looking measures. This realization can be applied to the study of categorization. The widespread use of habituation beginning in the 1980s means that much of our knowledge about infants’ categorization comes from their visual exploration of (often) static images (or occasionally visual stimuli in the context of auditory stimuli). Looking measures offer advantages over touching/reaching measures. They can be used with young infants with poor motor control; and computer displays allow increased precision in stimuli construction and presentation. The ability to conduct experiments with a variety of age groups and with high precision has benefited the study of many developmental phenomena, including categorization. However, looking methods can only tell us about categorization of visual or auditory stimuli. A growing body of evidence suggests that word learning and categorization are often closely tied to other perceptual and sensori-motor aspects of the learning context (see e.g., Perry, Samuelson, & Burdinie, 2014; Samuelson, Smith, Perry, & Spencer, 2011). Additionally, the particular task used to measure categorization matters. For example, researchers investigating basic and superordinate-level categorization discovered infants generally form broader categories (corresponding to adult-defined superordinate-level categories such as animal and vehicle) during touching tasks (see e.g., Mandler & Bauer, 1988; Mandler, Bauer, & McDonough, 1991; Mandler & McDonough, 1993; and see Mandler, 2000 for review) and narrower categories (corresponding to adult-defined basic-level categories such as horse and zebra) during looking tasks (see, e.g., Roberts & Cuff, 1989; Behl-Chadha, 1996; and see Mandler, 2000 for review). Thus, relying solely on looking measures therefore provides an incomplete picture of categorization. Next, I discuss evidence from one particular type of categorization—novel noun generalization—that illustrates an essential role for manual actions in learning. Novel noun generalization: a test case for touchingChildren develop word-learning biases that help them generalize novel names to novel objects. By 2-years-old, children typically generalize names of novel solid objects by similarity in shape (shape bias). By 4-years-old, they typically generalize names of novel nonsolid substances by material (material bias). Researchers debate what generalization by shape or material similarity says about the role of perceptual and conceptual information in children’s category learning (see Samuelson & Bloom, 2008). The attentional learning account proposes biases emerge out of associations between perceptual and linguistic regularities (e.g., Samuelson & Smith, 1999; Yoshida & Smith, 2005; Perry & Samuelson, 2011). On the other hand, knowledge-based accounts argue biases are driven not by lower-level regularities but higher-level knowledge about, e.g., functions and core properties (Hammer & Diesendruck, 2005; Kemler Nelson & 11 Swarthmore College Students, 1995). Importantly, both accounts recognize the effects of context in categorization. For example, children’s tendency to demonstrate the shape bias (Hammer & Diesendruck, 2005) and the material bias (Samuelson & Horst, 2007) varies with the specific stimuli and task used. Context-dependency is not a problem of a task that needs to be removed, however, but a fact of categorization. Categorization is not static, but emerges as prior knowledge is brought to bear in a given context (see e.g., Samuelson et al., 2007). Converging evidence supporting this view also suggests an important role for manual action in categorization. Smith (2005) found that the actions children performed on an object influenced how they generalized its name. When two-year-olds were told a novel object was a “wug” and taught to move it up and down, they generalized the name to an object elongated on the vertical axis rather than one elongated on the horizontal axis. Critically, the child had perform the actions, as children in a condition who watched the experimenter perform the action did not systematically select objects elongated consistent with the movement (Smith, 2005). By examining children’s manual interactions with real, physical objects, these results demonstrate that the actions children perform with objects determine what information they use for categorization. Similarly, Perry and colleagues (2014) found that children’s understanding of nonsolid substances (e.g., pudding) is influenced by context-dependent actions. At home, toddlers primarily learn about nonsolids during mealtimes, when they sit in a highchair and can touch and eat nonsolid foods. When 16-months-olds sat in a highchair in the laboratory, they were more likely to messily touch novel substances than those seated at a table. The messier children were, the more likely they were to generalize names of novel nonsolid substances by material. The highchair is a cue to a context-dependent action pattern supporting attention to material. Critically, children who did not touch the substances failed to generalize novel names by material, suggesting looking is not enough. We would miss important discoveries if we only used looking measures to study children’s novel noun generalization. What the touching method afforded was the ability to see how children learn about material. Together these studies reveal context is not a factor to eliminate from experiments, but instead an inseparable part of categorization. Responses in these studies were measured via touching (which object/substance did the child hand to the experimenter). Nevertheless, contrasting touching (or amount of touching in Perry et al.’s study) with looking during learning revealed children’s manual actions determine the information they use to generalize. Moreover, by showing how critical actions are to learning, these studies provide evidence for the usefulness of employing touching measures in studying categorization.Why touching mattersMandler (2000) proposed an important difference between looking- and touching-based tasks: infants are more interested in and more actively explore objects than static images. Infants develop and explore within a world full of rich multimodal information. Indeed, even adults’ perception of familiar objects is influenced by manual exploration (Lederman & Klatzky, 1990; E. Yee, Chrysikou, Hoffman, & Thompson-Schill, 2013). Embodied cognition theorists posit exploration and the multimodal nature of experiences are critical to development (Smith & Gasser, 2005; Thelen & Smith, 1994). Redundant information across modalities (e.g., visual, haptic) facilitates learning of more abstract information (see Bahrick, Lickliter, & Flom, 2004). Cross-modal redundancy is especially useful for understanding shape and material. As an infant explores a toy, haptic information is integrated with visual information. Over development, exploration changes representation of that toy’s shape, and objects’ shapes in general (e.g., Soska, Adolph, & Johnson, 2010). The ability to recognize an object by its shape, is a critical precursor to developing a shape bias (M. Yee, Jones, & Smith, 2012). As infants explore nonsolids, there is similarly redundant sensory information. Nonsolid substances are particularly difficult to recognize by vision alone (cf Adelson, 2001)—e.g., visual similarity between milk and glue is high, while haptic similarity is low. Over development, exploration increases infants’ ability to learn subtle visual cues associated with different materials—critical for categorization of nonsolids (see also, Perry et al., 2014).Given how important multimodal interactions are to development, we as a field cannot rely on looking measures at the expense of what can be learned studying categorization in the context of real objects. Looking measures focusing only on learning outcomes cannot reveal the processes driving categorization. Nevertheless, looking measures have a place in the study of categorization. As critical as touching is to infants’ development, not every question is a touching question. Studies examining where infants look during learning have provided important insights into what infants glean from a given context and subsequent effects on object perception (Johnson, Slemmer, & Amso, 2004) and categorization (Best, Yim, & Sloutsky, 2013). Studying looking as an exploratory process and not just an index of cognition—whether using eye-tracking or traditional habituation—will be a fruitful complement to studies of manual exploration.ConclusionsCategorization is a critical process by which we make sense of the world. Importantly, when children learn about individual categories, they are also learning higher-order regularities between categories, changing the way they learn categories in the future (e.g., Perry, Samuelson, Malloy, & Schiffer, 2010). Thus, studying children’s categorization is valuable in understanding how knowledge and learning change over time. Given that knowledge is dynamically constructed with information from multiple senses, inseparable from context, and children are developing within a world where they are engaging these senses, we miss something important if we only study categorization using looking measures. As a field, we cannot ignore the richness of children’s everyday actions and experiences; therefore, we must engage a variety of methodologies to understand development and the categorization process. (shrink)

L’auteur analyse la Constitution pastorale sur la présence de l’Église dans le monde contemporain, Gaudium et Spes du II-ème concile du Vatican, relativement au problème de développement de la personne humaine et de l’humanité. A la lumière de l'enseigmement cionciliaire, le progrès est um devoir moral pour l’homme et pour l’humanité, en tant qu’un ordre de la participation à l’oeuvre de la Providence, de la participation à la création de Dieu, en tant qu’un ordre du perfectionnememt personnel de l’homme.En conséquence (...) de l'unité de la nature humaine, le progrès personnel doit être intégral, doit embrasser l’ensemble de l’aspect spirituel et physique de Thomme. La supériorité de l’élément spirituel dans la nature humaine décide pourtant de ce que le progrès spirituel domine le progrès matériel et conditionne le développement général de l’homme et de l’humanité. L’auteur signale ici une convergence de la pensée conciliaire et de la tendance contemporaine de la théorie du développement économique aussi bien chez les économistes que chez les sociologues. On a cité les références des savants suivamts: W. W. Rostow, W. A. Lewis, M. Ginsberg, T. Parsons, D. Riesman, B. F. Hoselitz, R. W. Goldsmith, R. Barre, K. Samuelson, J. L. Lehret, C. S. Belshaw et F. A. Westphalen. Tous ces auteurs attribuent un rôle décisif pour le développement économique, aux facteurs moraux et culturels.Le Il-èrne concile du Vatican reconnait les biens économiques de même que le travail humain la propriété de l’humanité entière. Le progrès, pour être vrai et équitable, doit être universel et embrasser toute l’humanité. La personne humaine est la source des lois morales gouvernant le progrès, aussi bien dans le domaine de la culture que dans celui de l’économie. La seule voie du progrès, ouverte à l'humanité c’est le progrès au service de la personne humaine. L’Église catholique, désire aider l’humanité dans ce progrès, en lui donnant à sa disposition des moyens naturels — les norm es de la loi naturelle, et surnaturels — les sources de la grâce. (shrink)

V rámci filosofie věd panuje široká shoda na tom, že druhá polovina 20. století složila „labutí píseň" pozitivismu. Milton Friedman a Paul Samuelson, dva klíčoví autoři k metodologii ekonomie v daném časovém období, přitom tento vývoj ve filosofii vědy prý nikdy nereflektovali. Pozitivistická východiska - v prvé řadě v podobě redukcioni- stického přístupu - jsou tudíž stále přítomna ve vlivných teoretických konceptech rozvinutých ekonomy hlavního proudu. Značný počet autorů však v současnosti sdílí náhled, že tyto koncepty v nezanedbatelné míře (...) přispěly k vývoji, jenž ústil ve finanční krizi, vrcholící v letech 2008 a 2009. Předkládaný článek se proto táže, zda to byla právě krize - v níž mnozí spatřují empirické zamítnutí řady pozitivistických konceptů - která napsala „labutí píseň" pozitivismu v ekonomii hlavního proudu. (shrink)

A re-examination of the anonymous Commentary on the Theaetetus, henceforth abbreviated K, is overdue. It may yet prove to be the most important document we possess for plotting the course of pre-Plotinian Platonism, and is by far the largest surviving portion of a pre-Plotinian commentary on a complete work of Plato. It offers us insights into the issues of the first century B.C. which are unparalleled in other extant Middle Platonist works, either because of the subject of the work and (...) its consequent tendency to bring to mind the epistemological debates between Philo of Larissa, Antiochus of Ascalon, and Aenesidemus, or because the author, whom we may call A, is writing at a time comparatively close to those debates. (shrink)

Economies are complex systems in which many entities with various properties and roles interact continuously. The methodological approach started with Leon Walras and Vilfredo Pareto and continued by J.F. Muth, K. J. Arrow, G. Debreu, R. Lucas, and P. Samuelson has been, so far, the fundamental paradigm under which economists work. The traditional approach uses analytically tractable models with a representative perfectly rational agent. In this framework, mathematics has been the main ally of economics. At the same time, economics (...) and finance are experiencing, in recent decades, a new approach that some commentators claim is an attempt at a paradigm shift: from a representative rational agent approach towards a behavioral agent-based approach in which heterogeneous agents are seen as boundedly rational. In this regard, the present paper aims to discuss whether and how Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) is participating in this potential paradigm shift. ABM has gained momentum in recent years thanks to technological advances and the availability of big data. ABM can help address the complexity of economic problems that cannot be solved analytically, allowing researchers to simulate social and relational processes. A critical but non-exhaustive discussion is also devoted to exploring to what extent economics could be on the way to experiencing a paradigmatic change. (shrink)

In a conference paper called "A Non-Euclidean View of California as a Cold Place to Be," Ursula K. Le Guin opens in the following way: "Utopia is uninhabitable. As soon as we reach it, it ceases to be utopia. As evidence of this sad but ineluctable fact, may I point out that we in this room are inhabiting utopia" (1982, 3). Of course, inhabiting an uninhabitable utopia is both a tongue-in-cheek way to pay homage to the excitement of bringing together (...) like minds in the exploration of utopian thinking but also to link utopia with the curse of Lot's wife. This seems to be the central irony discussed at the "Knock at the Door" conference, and one that emerges in Larissa Lai and Sherryl Vint's interview (this volume).... Read More. (shrink)

Norbert M. Samuelson is Harold and Jean Grossman Chair of Jewish Studies at Arizona State University. Trained in analytic philosophy, he has contributed to the professionalization of Jewish philosophy in America and to the field of religion and science.

Samuelson's text was first published in 1948, and it immediately became the authority for the principles of economics courses. The book continues to be the standard-bearer for principles courses, and this revision continues to be a clear, accurate, and interesting introduction to modern economics principles. Bill Nordhaus is now the primary author of this text, and he has revised the book to be as current and relevant as ever.

In this paper, we explore the literature on cognitive heuristics and biases in light of virtue epistemology, specifically highlighting the two major positions—agent-reliabilism and agent-responsibilism —as they apply to dual systems theories of cognition and the role of motivation in biases. We investigate under which conditions heuristics and biases might be characterized as vicious and conclude that a certain kind of intellectual arrogance can be attributed to an inappropriate reliance on Type 1, or the improper function of Type 2, cognitive (...) processes. By the same token, the proper intervention of Type 2 processes results in the virtuous functioning of our cognitive systems. Moreover, the role of motivation in attenuating cognitive biases and the cultivation of certain epistemic habits points to the tenets of agent-responsibilism.. (shrink)

This paper presents Integrated Information Theory (IIT) 4.0. IIT aims to account for the properties of experience in physical (operational) terms. It identifies the essential properties of experience (axioms), infers the necessary and sufficient properties that its substrate must satisfy (postulates), and expresses them in mathematical terms. In principle, the postulates can be applied to any system of units in a state to determine whether it is conscious, to what degree, and in what way. IIT offers a parsimonious explanation of (...) empirical evidence, makes testable predictions, and permits inferences and extrapolations. IIT 4.0 incorporates several developments of the past ten years, including a more accurate translation of axioms into postulates and mathematical expressions, the introduction of a unique measure of intrinsic information that is consistent with the postulates, and an explicit assessment of causal relations. By fully unfolding a system's irreducible cause-effect power, the distinctions and relations specified by a substrate can account for the quality of experience. (shrink)

In the second half of the twentieth century, humanism— namely, the worldview that underpinned Western thought for several centuries—has been severely critiqued by philosophers who highlighted its theoretical and ethical limitations. Inspired by the emergence of cybernetics and new technologies such as robotics, prosthetics, communications, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology, there has been a desire to articulate a new worldview that will fit the posthuman condition. Posthumanism is a description of a new form of human existence in which the (...) boundaries between humans and nature and humans and machines are blurred, as well as a prescription for an ideal situation in which the limitations of human biology are transcended, replaced by machines. The transition from the human condition to the posthuman condition will be facilitated by transhumanism, the project of human enhancement that will ultimately yield the transformation of the human species from the human to the posthuman. As an intellectual movement, transhumanism is still very small, but transhumanist ideas exert deep and broad influence on contemporary culture and society. This essay highlights the religious dimension of transhumanism and argues that it should be seen as a secularist faith: transhumanism secularizes traditional religious themes, concerns, and goals, while endowing technology with religious significance. Science‐Religion Studies is the most appropriate context to explore the cultural significance of transhumanism. (shrink)

What does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others? In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar seeks out people living lives of extreme ethical commitment and tells their deeply intimate stories; their stubborn integrity and their compromises; their bravery and their recklessness; their joys and defeats and wrenching dilemmas. A couple adopts two children in distress. But then they think: If they can change two lives, why not four? Or ten? They adopt twenty. But how do they weigh the (...) needs of unknown children in distress against the needs of the children they already have? Another couple founds a leprosy colony in the wilderness in India, living in huts with no walls, knowing that their two small children may contract leprosy or be eaten by panthers. The children survive. But what if they hadn't? How would their parents' risk have been judged? A woman believes that if she spends money on herself, rather than donate it to buy life-saving medicine, then she's responsible for the deaths that result. She lives on a fraction of her income, but wonders: when is compromise self-indulgence and when is it essential? We honor such generosity and high ideals; but when we call people do-gooders there is skepticism in it, even hostility. Why do moral people make us uneasy? Between her stories, MacFarquhar threads a lively history of the literature, philosophy, social science, and self-help that have contributed to a deep suspicion of do-gooders in Western culture. Through its sympathetic and beautifully vivid storytelling, Strangers Drowning confronts us with fundamental questions about what it means to be human. In a world of strangers drowning in need, how much should we help, and how much can we help? Is it right to care for strangers even at the expense of those we are closest to? Moving and provocative, Strangers Drowning challenges us to think about what we value most, and why. From the Hardcover edition. (shrink)

This paper presents Integrated Information Theory (IIT) 4.0. IIT aims to account for the properties of experience in physical (operational) terms. It identifies the essential properties of experience (axioms), infers the necessary and sufficient properties that its substrate must satisfy (postulates), and expresses them in mathematical terms. In principle, the postulates can be applied to any system of units in a state to determine whether it is conscious, to what degree, and in what way. IIT offers a parsimonious explanation of (...) empirical evidence, makes testable predictions concerning both the presence and the quality of experience, and permits inferences and extrapolations. IIT 4.0 incorporates several developments of the past ten years, including a more accurate formulation of the axioms as postulates and mathematical expressions, the introduction of a unique measure of intrinsic information that is consistent with the postulates, and an explicit assessment of causal relations. By fully unfolding a system’s irreducible cause-effect power, the distinctions and relations specified by a substrate can account for the quality of experience. (shrink)

The topic of this book is 'creation'. It breaks down into discussions of two distinct, but interrelated, questions: what does the universe look like, and what is its origin? The opinions about creation considered by Norbert Samuelson come from the Hebrew scriptures, Greek philosophy, Jewish philosophy, and contemporary physics. His perspective is Jewish, liberal, and philosophical. It is 'Jewish' because the foundation of the discussion is biblical texts interpreted in the light of traditional rabbinic texts. It is 'philosophical' because (...) the subject matter is important in both past and present philosophical texts, and to Jewish philosophy in particular. Finally, it is 'liberal' because the authorities consulted include heterodox as well as orthodox Jewish sources. The ensuing discussion leads to original conclusions about a diversity of topics, including the limits of human reason and religious faith, and the relevance of scientific models to religious doctrine. (shrink)

It’s right there in the Book of Job: “Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward.” Suffering is an inescapable part of the human condition—which leads to a question that has proved just as inescapable throughout the centuries: Why? Why do we suffer? Why do people die young? Is there any point to our pain, physical or emotional? Do horrors like hurricanes have meaning? In Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering, Scott Samuelson tackles that hardest question (...) of all. To do so, he travels through the history of philosophy and religion, but he also attends closely to the real world we live in. While always taking the question of suffering seriously, Samuelson is just as likely to draw lessons from Bugs Bunny as from Confucius, from his time teaching philosophy to prisoners as from Hannah Arendt’s attempts to come to terms with the Holocaust. He guides us through the arguments people have offered to answer this fundamental question, explores the many ways that we have tried to minimize or eliminate suffering, and examines people’s attempts to find ways to live with pointless suffering. Ultimately, Samuelson shows, to be fully human means to acknowledge a mysterious paradox: we must simultaneously accept suffering and oppose it. And understanding that is itself a step towards acceptance. Wholly accessible, and thoroughly thought-provoking, Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering is a masterpiece of philosophy, returning the field to its roots—helping us see new ways to understand, explain, and live in our world, fully alive to both its light and its darkness. (shrink)

The study of intellectual humility is still in its early stages and issues of definition and measurement are only now being explored. To inform and guide the process of defining and measuring this important intellectual virtue, we conducted a series of studies into the implicit theory – or ‘folk’ understanding – of an intellectually humble person, a wise person, and an intellectually arrogant person. In Study 1, 350 adults used a free-listing procedure to generate a list of descriptors, one for (...) each person-concept. In Study 2, 335 adults rated the previously generated descriptors by how characteristic each was of the target person-concept. In Study 3, 344 adults sorted the descriptors by similarity for each person-concept. By comparing and contrasting the three person-concepts, a complex portrait of an intellectually humble person emerges with particular epistemic, self-oriented, and other-oriented dimensions. (shrink)

This volume offers a retrospective of Jonas's life and works by bringing together historians of modern Germany, Judaica scholars, philosophers, bioethicists, ...

Este artículo analiza la controversia sobre lo que entendemos como sentido de justicia en personas autistas desde tres niveles que suelen confundirse. En la Parte I delimita el problema empírico y la forma válida de inferir desde tareas, cuestionarios y hallazgos neurobiológicos, evitando convertir diferencias de juicio moral en diagnósticos de funcionamiento ejecutivo. En la Parte II caracteriza el sentido de justicia como contenido mental-moral fenoménico en primera persona y separa su intencionalidad normativa de lecturas que lo recodifican como rigidez (...) mental. En la Parte III formula el conflicto como un caso de injusticia epistémica, mostrando cómo el DSM-centrismo y el cientificismo experimental degradan datos en primera persona, distorsionan su inteligibilidad e impiden que recursos interpretativos producidos por comunidades autistas adquieran estatus público. El argumento concluye que el sentido de justicia puede entrar al campo como dato pertinente solo bajo condiciones de corrección epistémica que garanticen justicia testimonial, justicia hermenéutica e incorporación contributiva, junto con reducción del impuesto epistémico que hoy desplaza la discusión desde las razones hacia la defensa de identidad, y así eliminar prácticas capacitistas. (shrink)

Jewish Faith and Modern Science address fundamental questions facing many contemporary Jews, including the relevance of traditional beliefs for Jews who are increasingly secular and liberal, and how recent advances in science affect conventional Jewish philosophy. Samuelson assesses the current state of Jewish thought and suggests how it should change to remain relevant in the future.

Una parte de los diagnósticos iniciales de ciclotimia en autistas se explica por un solapamiento real en disregulación emocional y por un encuadre histórico que priorizó categorías del estado de ánimo ante presentaciones dominadas por labilidad, irritabilidad y variaciones de energía, sin una reconstrucción suficiente del desarrollo. Este artículo integra la reconceptualización contemporánea de la ciclotimia como fenómeno de inicio temprano, curso crónico y base temperamental, interpretado en clave neurodesarrollista por su vínculo con la modulación fronto-límbica poniéndola en relación con (...) evidencias sobre camuflaje, sesgos de detección del autismo y diagnósticos erróneos psiquiátricos en la adultez. Se argumenta que la disregulación emocional debe tratarse como dimensión transdiagnóstica y que la decisión categorial requiere criterios adicionales sobre el curso, el acoplamiento a la carga y al contexto, el patrón sueño–energía y los marcadores de transición hacia el colapso. El solapamiento de ciclotimia–TDAH se utiliza como análogo empírico para delimitar mecanismos compartidos de modulación afectivo-conductual sin confundir categorías diagnósticas. Se propone un marco de justicia epistémica y pluralismo epistémico para reglas de admisión de evidencia clínica, y se delimita una agenda de investigación futura desde un enfoque enactivista centrado en dinámicas de acoplamiento y regulación situada. (shrink)

J.M. Coetzee has unquestionably achieved the status of ‘international author’ within dominant conceptions of world literature: his works circulate widely in both English and translation and have been legitimated by the principal arbitrators of the global cultural industry. He has, however, recently positioned himself as ‘an international author, but in a different sense’; that is, as a writer whose internationalism is achieved through his location in ‘the South’. This article considers how Coetzee’s narratives thematize being ‘international’ in this ‘different sense’. (...) It focuses on the pivotal works of Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life (2002) and the opening chapters of Elizabeth Costello: Eight Lessons (2003) while tracking an orientation southward across his oeuvre in allusions to Joseph Conrad, Jorge Luis Borges and, in particular, Pablo Neruda as well as in Coetzee’s repeated turn to littoral settings. These settings open to what the article describes as the ‘blue southern hemisphere’, implicating narrative world-making in the geophysical properties and ‘troubled histories’ that constitute the South and recasting the act of writing from ‘the far edges’ into a planetary perspective that contends with the uncanny nature of settler societies in the southern temperate zone. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza el debate en torno al uso del lenguaje "persona primero" vs. "identidad primero" en el contexto del autismo, argumentando que la dicotomía es una falacia lingüística que fragmenta la identidad autista y socava su dignidad inherente. Se parte de la premisa de que la dignidad humana es inseparable de la identidad personal y, por lo tanto, separar "persona" de "autista" crea una falsa distinción que niega la realidad vivida de las personas autistas. El artículo explora la dignidad (...) ontológica como valor intrínseco e inmutable de la persona, y la dignidad operativa, que se construye a través de las acciones y la participación social. Se argumenta que la identidad autista no es un atributo externo, sino una forma esencial de ser y estar en el mundo, una encarnación autista que impregna todos los niveles de la existencia, desde la función celular hasta la construcción semiótica del yo. Se critica el lenguaje "persona con autismo" por implicar que el autismo es una posesión externa, separable del individuo, lo que lleva a la cosificación y la negación de la dignidad. Se propone que el lenguaje "persona autista" o simplemente "autista" reconoce la integralidad del ser autista y afirma su dignidad inherente. El artículo concluye que el debate no se trata de preferencias lingüísticas, sino de un reconocimiento ontológico que tiene implicaciones directas en la autopercepción, la percepción social y el acceso a los derechos humanos de las personas autistas. (shrink)

Revelation and the God of Israel explores the concept of revelation as it emerges from the Hebrew Scriptures and is interpreted in Jewish philosophy and theology. The first part is a study in intellectual history that attempts to answer the question, what is the best possible understanding of revelation. The second part is a study in constructive theology and attempts to answer the question, is it reasonable to affirm belief in revelation. Here Norbert M. Samuelson focuses on the challenges (...) given from a variety of contemporary academic disciplines, including evolutionary psychology, political ethics, analytic philosophy of religion, and source critical studies of the Bible. This important book offers a unique approach to theological questions and fresh solutions to them and will appeal to those interested in the history of philosophy, religious thought, and Judaism. (shrink)

Este artículo formula un marco teórico-clínico basado en la neurociencia no lineal y la teoría enactiva de la cognición, cuyas implicaciones clínicas se desarrollan desde la filosofía clínica neuroafirmativa, orientado a interpretar el autismo como una trayectoria legítima de organización neurodinámica. Los modelos lineales centrados en la adaptación funcional, la causalidad unidireccional y la cuantificación del déficit operan como mecanismos de violencia epistémica al negar la complejidad autoorganizada del sistema nervioso. En contraste, este enfoque caracteriza el autismo por patrones específicos (...) de sincronización, criticidad y reorganización dinámica, cuya coherencia no puede evaluarse desde parámetros normativos. Expresiones comúnmente clasificadas como síntomas — como la búsqueda de regularidad, la hipersensibilidad o el burnout— son analizadas como estrategias de viabilidad encarnada frente a entornos desestabilizantes. La clínica resultante no aplica criterios de corrección, sino que analiza bajo qué condiciones se conserva la continuidad operativa del sistema sin colapso organizativo. Esta orientación exige una reconfiguración epistemológica que desplaza la evaluación clínica hacia la comprensión situada de las trayectorias neurodinámicas. (shrink)

Este artículo trata el nexo TDAH–TEA–TUD como un problema explicativo sobre transiciones, no como etiquetado, contabilidad de comorbilidad ni suma aditiva de diagnósticos. El explanandum queda definido como un cambio de régimen dentro de un sistema acoplado cerebro–cuerpo–entorno, donde el consumo puede produ-cir estabilización local de corto plazo y, a la vez, desorganización acumulativa de largo plazo. La contribución central es conceptual y neurofilosófica: reemplaza una gramática modular (fallo de una función interna) por una gramática dinámica (mul-tiestabilidad, umbrales, dependencia de (...) historia e histéresis) para representar por qué la progresión hacia dependencia no se capta mediante variación gradual ni mediante un rasgo individual estático. El argumento integra tres estratos de evi-dencia con roles inferenciales distintos: (i) arquitectura genética compartida y dife-renciadora como restricción sobre hipótesis admisibles sin reificación causal; (ii) material cualitativo en diagnóstico dual como evidencia de estructura temporal me-diante bucles de vida cotidiana que fijan el fenómeno objetivo; y (iii) asociaciones específicas por sustancia y por perfil como restricciones de heterogeneidad sobre trayectorias. Además, el artículo incluye un programa de investigación de filosofía experimental (x-phi) para controlar sesgos de credibilidad y “anclajes” explicativos en agentes epistémicos concretos, impidiendo que el vocabulario neurobiológico opere como explanans genérico. El resultado es un modelo integrativo con criterios explícitos de refutación conceptual y de comparabilidad, orientado a disciplinar la inferencia y a reencuadrar la intervención clínica en términos de variables de con-trol, condiciones de contorno y bucles de realimentación situados. (shrink)

Sometimes it seems like you need a PhD just to open a book of philosophy. We leave philosophical matters to the philosophers in the same way that we leave science to scientists. Scott Samuelson thinks this is tragic, for our lives as well as for philosophy. In _The Deepest Human Life_ he takes philosophy back from the specialists and restores it to its proper place at the center of our humanity, rediscovering it as our most profound effort toward understanding, (...) as a way of life that anyone can live. Exploring the works of some of history’s most important thinkers in the context of the everyday struggles of his students, he guides us through the most vexing quandaries of our existence—and shows just how enriching the examined life can be. Samuelson begins at the beginning: with Socrates, working his most famous assertion—that wisdom is knowing that one knows nothing—into a method, a way of approaching our greatest mysteries. From there he springboards into a rich history of philosophy and the ways its journey is encoded in our own quests for meaning. He ruminates on Epicurus against the sonic backdrop of crickets and restaurant goers in Iowa City. He follows the Stoics into the cell where James Stockdale spent seven years as a prisoner of war. He spins with al-Ghazali first in doubt, then in the ecstasy of the divine. And he gets the philosophy education of his life when one of his students, who authorized a risky surgery for her son that inadvertently led to his death, asks with tears in her eyes if Kant was right, if it really is the motive that matters and not the consequences. Through heartbreaking stories, humanizing biographies, accessible theory, and evocative interludes like “On Wine and Bicycles” or “On Zombies and Superheroes,” he invests philosophy with the personal and vice versa. The result is a book that is at once a primer and a reassurance—that many have trod the earth before us, and they have insights into our very souls. (shrink)

Michael L. Morgan is Emeritus Chancellor Professor at Indiana University and the Grafstein Visiting Chair in Jewish Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He has written extensively on ancient Greek philosophy, modern Jewish philosophy, and post-Holocaust theology and ethics.

This review essay critically examines three recent books on the digitalization and datafication of humanitarian action: #Help, Humanitarian Extractivism, and Technocolonialism. Each monograph offers a compelling analysis of the myriad ways that humanitarians’ use of digital technologies has reshaped governance and the international order, created new risks, and exacerbated power imbalances. Fundamentally, each book concludes that the various transformations technology has wrought in humanitarianism are, at best, unintended, inconsistent, or unfulfilled in their impact and, at worst, deeply problematic. Setting aside (...) the books’ contributions, each leaves out two important elements. First, in selecting examples, the authors leave mostly unanswered the question of what, if any, positive impacts data and technology have had on or for humanitarian response and those whom it is intended to help. Second, each is mostly silent with regard to practical steps that can be taken to address its critiques, with only Technocolonialism offering three broad avenues for reform. In the context of the current crisis in the humanitarian sector, with the closure of USAID and dramatic declines in funding, there is a need for pragmatic options for the future that, by necessity, involve a creative reimagining of the digital infrastructures underpinning the humanitarian response. (shrink)

. John Caiazza presents the current technoculture as the latest development in the ongoing conflict of science and religion that began with Tertullian in the third century. I argue that his presentation is historically inaccurate, because for most of Western history science and religion interacted with and cross‐fertilized each other. Contrary to Caiazza's misleading presentation, Western thought did not follow the dichotomous model polemically posed by Tertullian. I take issue with Caiazza's portrayal of postmodernism and his claim that technology is (...) the foundation of an inherently secularist culture. I conclude by highlighting certain ethical challenges engendered by the prevalence of new technologies and present the dialogue of science and religion as uniquely qualified to address these challenges. (shrink)

It seems to me that the critical questions that science and natural philosophy raise for Jewish theology are the following: Does God evolve? Does the universe have or even need an interpretation, specifically with reference to the fact that most of the universe most of the time is uninhabitable, and there may be many more than one universe? Does the universe need a beginning? What is distinctive about human consciousness, intelligence, and ethics in the light of evidence for evolution from (...) all of the life sciences? Finally, will both life and the universe end?These questions are not only modern. They contain all the primary issues that have dominated rabbinic thought. That agenda can be summarized in six topics: How should we model what we believe about (1) God, (2) the world, and (3) the human being; and how should we understand the relations between them, that is, between (4) God and the world (or, creation), (5) God and the human (or, revelation), and (6) the human and the world (or, redemption)? In this paper I focus on the fourth issue, creation. My answer is presented in detail in my Judaism and the Doctrine of Creation(Samuelson 1994). Here I shall summarize my conclusions there concerning science, Jewish texts, and the correlation between them. (shrink)