January 2012 – manwithoutqualities

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January 31, 2012Cheng-hung Tsai, epistemology, knowing how knowing that, oakeshott, ryle

The metaepistemology of knowing-how

Here’s a recent KH paper I came across. I made a stab at this topic a few years back.

January 30, 2012adam smith, austrian economics, behavioral economics, Deirdre McCloskey, empathy, sympathy

The New Theories of Moral Sentiments

Here is an article in the WSJ on Deirdre McCloskey. I had the honour and pleasure to meet Deirdre some 18 months ago at a conference on behavioral economics in San Diego. She was absolutely delightful. Everything you wanted to know about Deirdre but were afraid to ask . . . can be found here. Austrian…

January 30, 2012conservatism, David Eagleman, evolution, evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, Jesse Prinz, liberalism, moral philosophy, moral psychology, neural correlates, neurobiology, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, plasticity, political philosophy, roger scruton, Susan Greenfield

Nature, nurture and liberal values

Roger Scruton weighs in on the nature/nurture debate via a threefold review. (Image another Steve Pyke portrait). Roger Scrutonsteve pyke

January 29, 2012Andy Clark, brain science, cognition, cognitive science, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, philosophy of mind

Andy Clark – “Do Thrifty Brains Make Better Minds?”

I’ve just come across this article by Andy with a follow-up here. Some recent work in computational and cognitive neuroscience suggests that it is indeed the frugal use of our native neural capacity (the inventive use of restricted “neural bandwidth,” if you will) that explains how brains like ours so elegantly make sense of noisy…

January 28, 2012happiness, neural correlates, neurobiology, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, shimon edelman

The neuroscience of happiness

Here’s an interview with Shimon Edelman whose The Happiness of Pursuit: What Neuroscience Can Teach Us About the Good Life has just been published. CognitionCognitive scienceEmbodied cognition

January 27, 2012brain, brain science, cognitive science, consciousness, Eliminative Materialism, folk psychology, moral philosophy, moral psychology, neural correlates, neural networks, neurobiology, neuron, neurophilosophy, Neurophysics, neuroscience, patricia churchland, paul churchland, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science

Patricia Churchland

Having missed Pat Churchland’s talk at NEI this past October, it was great that she was in town for a full week of speaking engagements not to mention interviews and other demands being made on her time (and she is supposedly retired!). It was a pleasure to meet her (finally!) having followed her work over the…

January 25, 2012dance, embodied cognition, embodiment, Enacted, enaction, enactivism, situated cognition, Sylvie Guillem

Enaction and Dance

Here is a recent paper freely available. And in the video below is my favourite (the greatest) dancer – she talks about her craft. Here are some previous dance-related/cognition postings. CognitionCognitive scienceEmbodied cognitionPhilosophy of mind

January 21, 2012aesthetics, mishima, nationalism, paul schrader, philosophy and literature

Mishima

One of my favourite philosophically orientated novelists is Mishima. I can’t attest to the reliability of this bio-sketch but it’s a start. There is not much scholarly literature on Mishima but here is an appreciation in, of all places, the British Journal of Psychiatry. Paul Schrader made a superb attempt at expressing Mishima’s thinking (insofar as…

January 20, 2012cognition, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, extended mind, externalism, forensic science, forensics, Itiel Dror, Roger Koppl, social epistemology, testimony

Ignorance is Bliss

Here’s an article in The Economist that my colleague, Roger Koppl, who has done terrific work in the field of forensic evidence, alerted me to. The article mentions Itiel Dror who I’ve been in correspondence with though Roger. I know Itiel’s work through his co-edited Cognition Distributed. Here is his co-authored “extended mind” chapter. Forensic scienceScience in Society

January 19, 2012censorship, freedom of speech, internet, liberalism, S.O.P.A.

Freedom of Speech

Given that issues of freedom of speech are in the news here is a philosophical take on the notion of Freedom of Speech.