Check out Mirko Farina’s review of Perception, Action, and Consciousness: Sensorimotor Dynamics and Two Visual Systems in the latest issue of JMB. Here is the full review.
Stigmergy: Special Issue of Cognitive Systems Research
Here is the line-up for the forthcoming special issue of Cognitive Systems Research Marge Doyle and I have just edited. It’s been a long time coming because of the highly technical nature of some of the papers not to mention the various disciplines involved.
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Stigmergy 3.0: From Ants to Economies – Margery Doyle, Cognitive Research Scientist/ Leslie Marsh, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia
Cognitive Stigmergy: A Study of Emergence of Social Structure in Small Groups – Ted Lewis, Professor of Computer Science and Executive Director, Center for Homeland Defense and Security, Naval Postgraduate School
Emergence in Stigmergic and Complex Adaptive Systems: A Formal Discrete Event Systems Perspective – Saurabh Mittal, Founder and Principal Scientist, Dunip Technologies, Tempe, AZ
Stigmergy in Human Practice: Coordination in Construction Work – Lars Rune Christensen, Global Interaction Research Initiative, Technologies in Practice Group, University of Copenhagen
Stigmergic Self-organization and the Improvisation of Ushahidi – Janet Marsden, School of Information Studies, Syracuse University
Stigmergic Dimensions of Online Creative Interaction – Jimmy Secretan, Principal Scientist, Korrelate, Orlando.
Symposium on Pragmatic Encroachment
Two free discussion papers from EPISTEME 9:1
EMPIRICAL TESTS OF INTEREST-RELATIVE INVARIANTISM
Chandra Sekhar Sripada and Jason Stanley
According to Interest-Relative Invariantism, whether an agent knows that p, or possesses other sorts of epistemic properties or relations, is in part determined by the practical costs of being wrong about p. Recent studies in experimental philosophy have tested the claims of IRI. After critically discussing prior studies, we present the results of our own experiments that provide strong support for IRI. We discuss our results in light of complementary findings by other theorists, and address the challenge posed by a leading intellectualist alternative to our view.
PRAGMATIC ENCROACHMENT: IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT KNOWLEDGE
Jeremy Fantl and Matthew McGrath
There is pragmatic encroachment on some epistemic status just in case whether a proposition has that status for a subject depends not only on the subject’s epistemic position with respect to the proposition, but also on features of the subject’s non-epistemic, practical environment. Discussions of pragmatic encroachment usually focus on knowledge. Here we argue that, barring infallibilism, there is pragmatic encroachment on what is arguably a more fundamental epistemic status – the status a proposition has when it is warranted enough to be a reason one has for believing other things.
Update
The second paper co-authored with Dave Hardwick has now been published in Studies in Emergent Order:
Abstract: In a recent paper (Hardwick & Marsh, in press) we examine the recent tensions between the two broadly successful spontaneous orders, namely the Market and Science. We argued for an epistemic pluralism, the view that freedom and liberty (indeed the very concept of liberalism and civil society) exists at the nexus of a manifold of spontaneous forces, and that no single epistemic system should dominate. We also briefly introduced the concept of “iterative” knowledge to characterize the essentially dynamic nature of scientific knowledge. Herein lies a tension. The Market (and perhaps the prevailing culture at large) sees scientific knowledge in cumulative terms, that is, progressing to a conclusion in a linear fashion. This relatively static understanding of medical science as it relates to pharmaceutical studies can have a corrosive effect on the…
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Of the External Senses
This essay is well worth a read. H/T to Brian Glenney for bringing it to my attention (I hang my head in shame for not having read it before).
Why we still need a mark of the cognitive
Here is Fred’s contribution to the Extended Mind CSR special issue:
What makes a process a cognitive process? I’m not just asking for a list of cognitive processes, but for what makes an item on that list a cognitive process. Why should it be on the list? This is a question that has been ignored far too long in the domain of research calling itself cognitive science. It is time to give an answer and that is what I propose in this paper. I contrast my answer with others that have been given and defend the need against some claims in the literature that a mark of the cognitive is not needed.
Steps to a “Properly Embodied” Cognitive Science
Here is a survey paper that I was “action editor” for.
Intersubjectivity and Objectivity in Adam Smith and Edmund Husserl
This is a highly unusual collection worth checking out, co-edited by the very excellent Dagfinn Føllesdal – for the first time here is a work that seriously brings Adam Smith into the orbit of cogsci:
Can we have objective knowledge of the world? Can we understand what is morally right or wrong? Yes, to some extent. This is the answer given by Adam Smith and Edmund Husserl. Both rejected David Hume’s skeptical account of what we can hope to understand. But they held his empirical method in high regard, inquiring into the way we perceive and emotionally experience the world, into the nature and function of human empathy and sympathy and the role of the imagination in processes of intersubjective understanding. The challenge is to overcome the natural constraints of perceptual and emotional experience and reach an agreement that is informed by the facts in the world and the nature of morality. This collection of philosophical essays addresses an audience of Smith- and Husserl scholars as well as everybody interested in theories of objective knowledge and proper morality which are informed by the way we perceive and think and communicate.
Epistemological Problems of Privacy and Secrecy
EPISTEME ’12 coming up very soon.
Science, the Market and Iterative Knowledge
The second paper co-authored with Dave Hardwick has now been published in Studies in Emergent Order:
Abstract: In a recent paper (Hardwick & Marsh, in press) we examine the recent tensions between the two broadly successful spontaneous orders, namely the Market and Science. We argued for an epistemic pluralism, the view that freedom and liberty (indeed the very concept of liberalism and civil society) exists at the nexus of a manifold of spontaneous forces, and that no single epistemic system should dominate. We also briefly introduced the concept of “iterative” knowledge to characterize the essentially dynamic nature of scientific knowledge. Herein lies a tension. The Market (and perhaps the prevailing culture at large) sees scientific knowledge in cumulative terms, that is, progressing to a conclusion in a linear fashion. This relatively static understanding of medical science as it relates to pharmaceutical studies can have a corrosive effect on the practice of medicine and ultimately, we believe, on the proper functioning of the market itself. In this paper we examine this tension in much closer detail by focusing upon the demands of the market, specifically the pharmaceutical industry, and the science upon which it is based. In other words, we expound upon a clash of epistemic value – one (science) that sees knowledge as essentially iterative (dynamic yet tentative) and the other (the Market) that harvests conclusive scientific knowledge (ostensibly as a fixed and firm commodity) functional to its own interests. Clinical Trials that are sharply focused with precisely determined deliverables often manifest this tension in the sharpest of relief. As a means of recovering drug development and testing costs, conclusive assessment is required to avoid creating serious financial problems for the companies themselves not to mention issues in the public interest.
manwithoutqualities 