Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Skepticism
Kinds of Skepticism Selected AbstractsTHE LOCAL NATURE OF MODERN MORAL SKEPTICISMPACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2006DIEGO E. MACHUCA Richard Bett, on the other hand, has argued that the existence of such a contrast is not a necessary condition for espousing that kind of moral skepticism. My purpose in this paper is to show that Bett fails to make a good case against Annas' thesis. To accomplish this, it will be helpful to consider the Pyrrhonean attitude towards morality as expounded in Sextus Empiricus' work. [source] OF HOBBES AND HUME: A REVIEW OF PAUL RUSSELL, THE RIDDLE OF HUME'S TREATISE: SKEPTICISM, NATURALISM AND IRRELIGION1ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY, Issue 1 2009JAMES A. HARRIS First page of article [source] SHALLOW, DEEPER, DEEP: A FEW THOUGHTS ON A SMALL PIECE OF WALTER SINNOTT-ARMSTRONG'S MORAL SKEPTICISMSANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY, Issue 3 2008Jamie Dreier First page of article [source] Houses, Flowers, and Frameworks: Cavell and Mulhall on the Moral of SkepticismEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY, Issue 2 2002Edward Witherspoon First page of article [source] Environmental Skepticism: Ecology, Power, and Public Life , By Peter J. JacquesGOVERNANCE, Issue 3 2010YVES LABERGE No abstract is available for this article. [source] Art Museums, Old Paintings, and Our Knowledge of the PastHISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 2 2001David Carrier Art museums frequently remove old paintings from their original settings. In the process, the context of these works of art changes dramatically. Do museums then preserve works of art? To answer this question, I consider an imaginary painting, The Travels and Tribulations of Piero's Baptism of Christ, depicting the history of display of Piero della Francesca's Baptism of Christ. This example suggests that how Piero's painting is seen does depend upon its setting. According to the Intentionalist, such changes in context have no real influence upon the meaning of Piero's painting, and consequently museums can be said to preserve works of art. According to the Skeptic, if such changes are drastic enough, we can no longer identify the picture's original meaning, and museums thus fail to preserve works of art. Skepticism deserves attention, for such varied influential commentators as Theodore Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Maurice Blanchot, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Martin Heidegger, Hans Sedlmayr, and Paul Valéry hold this pessimistic view of museums. I develop the debate between the Intentionalist and the Skeptic. Ultimately skepticism is indefensible, I argue, because it fails to take account of the continuities in the history of art's display. But Intentionalism is also deficient because it is ahistorical. In presenting the history of Piero's painting, The Travels and Tribulations of Piero's Baptism of Christ shows that we can re-identify the original significance of Piero's work and the recognizable continuities that obtain through its changes. It thus makes sense to claim that at least in certain circumstances art museums can preserve works of art. [source] Skepticism and the Lure of AmbiguityHYPATIA, Issue 3 2006LORRAINE CODE First page of article [source] Museum Skepticism: A History of the Display of Art in Public Galleries by carrier, davidJOURNAL OF AESTHETICS AND ART CRITICISM, Issue 3 2007JEFFREY WILSON No abstract is available for this article. [source] Feminist Epistemology, Contextualism, and Philosophical SkepticismMETAPHILOSOPHY, Issue 5 2009EVELYN BRISTER Abstract: This essay explores the relation between feminist epistemology and the problem of philosophical skepticism. Even though feminist epistemology has not typically focused on skepticism as a problem, I argue that a feminist contextualist epistemology may solve many of the difficulties facing recent contextualist responses to skepticism. Philosophical skepticism appears to succeed in casting doubt on the very possibility of knowledge by shifting our attention to abnormal contexts. I argue that this shift in context constitutes an attempt to exercise unearned social and epistemic power and that it should be resisted on epistemic and pragmatic grounds. I conclude that skepticism is a problem that feminists can and should take up as they address the social aspects of traditional epistemological problems. [source] KINDS AND CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE: IS THERE ANYTHING THAT IT IS LIKE TO BE SOMETHING?METAPHILOSOPHY, Issue 2 2008SIMON J. EVNINE Abstract: In this article I distinguish the notion of there being something it is like to be a certain kind of creature from that of there being something it is like to have a certain kind of experience. Work on consciousness has typically dealt with the latter while employing the language of the former. I propose several ways of analyzing what it is like to be a certain kind of creature and find problems with them all. The upshot is that even if there is something it is like to have certain kinds of experience, it does not follow that there is anything it is like to be a certain kind of creature. Skepticism about the existence of something that it is like to be an F is recommended. [source] Common Sense as Evidence: Against Revisionary Ontology and SkepticismMIDWEST STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY, Issue 1 2008THOMAS KELLY First page of article [source] How to Challenge Intuitions Empirically Without Risking SkepticismMIDWEST STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY, Issue 1 2007JONATHAN M. WEINBERG First page of article [source] Skepticism, contextualism, and the epistemic "ordinary"PHILOSOPHICAL FORUM, Issue 1 2002Nancy Daukas First page of article [source] Fallibilism, Contextualism and Second-Order SkepticismPHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS, Issue 4 2010Alexander S Harper Fallibilism is ubiquitous in contemporary epistemology. I argue that a paradox about knowledge, generated by considerations of truth, shows that fallibilism can only deliver knowledge in lucky circumstances. Specifically, since it is possible that we are brains-in-vats (BIVs), it is possible that all our beliefs are wrong. Thus, the fallibilist can know neither whether or not we have much knowledge about the world nor whether or not we know any specific proposition, and so the warrant of our knowledge-claims is much reduced and second-order skepticism is generated. Since this is the case in both skeptical and everyday contexts, contextualism cannot resolve the paradox. [source] I Think, Therefore I May Not Exist: Cavell, Skepticism, and the Melodrama of the Unknown WomanPHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS, Issue 2 2003Ronald L. Hall First page of article [source] Moral Skepticisms , By Walter Sinnott-ArmstrongRELIGIOUS STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 1 2010E. J. Coffman No abstract is available for this article. [source] REPLIES TO HOUGH, BAUMANN AND BLAAUWTHE PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, Issue 232 2008Walter Sinnott-Armstrong I reply to comments by Gerry Hough, Peter Baumann and Martijn Blaauw on my book Moral Skepticisms. The main issues concern whether modest justifiedness is epistemic and how it is related to extreme justifiedness; how contrastivists can handle crazy contrast classes, indeterminacy and common language; whether Pyrrhonian scepticism leads to paralysis in decision-making or satisfies our desires to evaluate beliefs as justified or not; and how contextualists can respond to my arguments against relevance of contrast classes. [source] Evaluating high-performance computers,CONCURRENCY AND COMPUTATION: PRACTICE & EXPERIENCE, Issue 10 2005Jeffrey S. Vetter Abstract Comparisons of high-performance computers based on their peak floating point performance are common but seldom useful when comparing performance on real workloads. Factors that influence sustained performance extend beyond a system's floating-point units, and real applications exercise machines in complex and diverse ways. Even when it is possible to compare systems based on their performance, other considerations affect which machine is best for a given organization. These include the cost, the facilities requirements (power, floorspace, etc.), the programming model, the existing code base, and so on. This paper describes some of the important measures for evaluating high-performance computers. We present data for many of these metrics based on our experience at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and we compare them with published information on the Earth Simulator. We argue that evaluating systems involves far more than comparing benchmarks and acquisition costs. We show that evaluating systems often involves complex choices among a variety of factors that influence the value of a supercomputer to an organization, and that the high-end computing community should view cost/performance comparisons of different architectures with skepticism. Published in 2005 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Problems For Semantic Externalism and A Priori Refutations of Skeptical ArgumentsDIALECTICA, Issue 1 2000Keith Butler Summary A familiar sort of argument for skepticism about the external world appeals to the evidential similarity between what is presumed to be the normal case and the case where one is a brain in a vat (or BIV). An argument from Putnam (1981, ch. 1) has been taken by many to provide an a priori refutation of this sort of skeptical argument. The question I propose to address in this paper is whether Putnam's argument affords us an a priori refutation of skeptical arguments that appeal to the claim that one does not know that one is not a BIV. I will develop a negative answer to this question along two related fronts. Along the first front I defend against new criticisms the common position that the externalism on which Putnam's argument is based entails skepticism about the meanings of sentences in our language and the contents of our thoughts. I do not take this to be a refutation of externalism or externalist arguments; rather, I see this as a motivation to locate the difficulty with arguments for externalism. But if externalism is abandoned, of course, the anti-skeptical argument it has widely been taken to support must be abandoned along with it. I will argue, however, that this is not a significant loss, because along a second front I will argue that externalism cannot be given a priori justification; it is therefore ill-suited to ground an a priori refutation of BIV skepticism anyway. [source] DO SUTURE ZONES EXIST?EVOLUTION, Issue 11 2004Nathan G. Swenson Abstract Remington (1968) argued that 13 suture zones exist in North America. Remington defined a suture zone as, "a band of geographic overlap between major biotic assemblages, including some pairs of species or semispecies which hybridize in the zone" (p. 322). Although initially controversial, the idea that suture zones exist has picked up momentum over the past decade, due largely to the phylogeographic work of Hewitt, Avise, and their colleagues. Nevertheless, the reality of suture zones has not yet been subjected to rigorous analysis using statistical and geographic information system (GIS) approaches. To test for the existence of Remington's suture zones, we first identified 117 terrestrial hybrid zones in Canada and the United States through a literature search for the key words "cline,""contact zone,""hybrid zone," and "hybridization" in articles published between 1970 and 2002. The 117 hybrid zones were mapped using a GIS approach and compared with a digitized version of Remington's original suture zone map. Overall, there does appear to be an association between hybrid zones and suture zones, but this association is largely attributable to clustering of hybrid zones in only two of the 13 suture zones recognized by Remington. The results suggest that evolutionary biologists should retain some skepticism toward Remington's suture zones. [source] The Impact of Regulation FD on Institutional Investor InformativenessFINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2010Douglas O. Cook Although there is conflicting evidence and resulting skepticism regarding the value provided by professional investment management, Gibson, Safieddine, and Sonti (2004) document institutional investor informativeness relative to seasoned equity offering (SEO) purchases. We find that Regulation Fair Disclosure's significantly reduces institutional investors' ability to identify mispriced SEO firms. Informativeness is diminished not by investors following analysts who have experienced a reduction in forecasting accuracy, but limiting investors' direct access to private information. This information loss is replaced by reliance on a greater number of public information variables resulting in less consideration for prudence proxies and a liquidity motive and more for higher price momentum. [source] Impact of Visibility and Investment Advisor Credibility on the Valuation Effects of High-Tech Cross-Border AcquisitionsFINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2007Georgina Benou Since foreign high-tech firms exhibit a high level of asymmetric information, there is much investor skepticism surrounding the potential benefits to US firms that acquire them. However, the investor perception may be more favorable when the acquisitions involve more visible targets and advice from investment banks with a strong reputation. Based on a sample of 503 high-tech cross-border acquisitions, bidding-firm shareholders experience positive but statistically insignificant valuation effects overall. However, bidder firms experience positive and significant valuation effects when the foreign high-tech target receives a high level of media attention and when the acquisition is endorsed by a top-tier investment bank. Visibility and credibility enhance the perceived benefits of acquiring foreign targets that have substantial intangible assets and a high level of asymmetric information. [source] Art Museums, Old Paintings, and Our Knowledge of the PastHISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 2 2001David Carrier Art museums frequently remove old paintings from their original settings. In the process, the context of these works of art changes dramatically. Do museums then preserve works of art? To answer this question, I consider an imaginary painting, The Travels and Tribulations of Piero's Baptism of Christ, depicting the history of display of Piero della Francesca's Baptism of Christ. This example suggests that how Piero's painting is seen does depend upon its setting. According to the Intentionalist, such changes in context have no real influence upon the meaning of Piero's painting, and consequently museums can be said to preserve works of art. According to the Skeptic, if such changes are drastic enough, we can no longer identify the picture's original meaning, and museums thus fail to preserve works of art. Skepticism deserves attention, for such varied influential commentators as Theodore Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Maurice Blanchot, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Martin Heidegger, Hans Sedlmayr, and Paul Valéry hold this pessimistic view of museums. I develop the debate between the Intentionalist and the Skeptic. Ultimately skepticism is indefensible, I argue, because it fails to take account of the continuities in the history of art's display. But Intentionalism is also deficient because it is ahistorical. In presenting the history of Piero's painting, The Travels and Tribulations of Piero's Baptism of Christ shows that we can re-identify the original significance of Piero's work and the recognizable continuities that obtain through its changes. It thus makes sense to claim that at least in certain circumstances art museums can preserve works of art. [source] Realizing the Responsibility to ProtectINTERNATIONAL STUDIES PERSPECTIVES, Issue 2 2009Alex J. Bellamy Written prior to the release of the UN Secretary-General's report on implementing the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), this article examines the effort to translate the principle from words into deeds. It begins by noting a post-2005 "revolt" against the principle in which a number of states expressed skepticism about the principle and its use in different settings. This revolt, the article contends, was largely a product of the continuing association between R2P and humanitarian intervention. This association was, in turn, caused by a combination of misplaced commentary and the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty's focus on the intervention question. This article maintains that building consensus on the R2P requires a shift in emphasis and proposes three avenues: clarifying the nature of prevention, developing practical measures, and proposing modest proposals for institutional reform. [source] Psychodynamic and Neurological Perspectives on ADHD: Exploring Strategies for Defining a PhenomenonJOURNAL FOR THE THEORY OF SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR, Issue 4 2001Adam Rafalovich This article is a discourse analysis of two historical inquiries into what clinici-ans today call attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Of primary con-cern in this regard are psychodynamic perspectives towards ADHD symptoms, championed by psychoanalysts and psychologists, and neurological perspectives towards ADHD, which continue to favor a purely physiological approach to understanding the disorder. Those within the psychodynamic camp are inclined to view ADHD as an interactional difficulty between self and social environment - a condition best remedied by psychotherapy. Those within the neurological camp see ADHD as a specific brain process, whose effective treatment depends upon adequate psychopharmacology. This essay argues that both psychodynamic and neurological perspectives towards ADHD have strategized to legitimate one perspective through the expulsion of the other. Within the current era of ADHD nomenclature and treatment it is clear that neurological perspectives dominate the debate. However, neurological perspectives continue to be haunted by a considerable amount of skepticism, both nationally and internationally. Because of this it would be difficult to assert that neurological perspectives, though winning the "legitimation race" in contemporary understandings of ADHD, are entirely monolithic sources of ADHD knowledge. [source] It Ain't Broke: The Past, Present, and Future of Venture CapitalJOURNAL OF APPLIED CORPORATE FINANCE, Issue 2 2010Steven N. Kaplan This article presents a selective history of the U.S. venture capital (VC) industry, a discussion of the current state of the market, and some predictions about where the market is going. There is no doubt that the U.S. venture capital industry has been very successful. The VC model has provided an efficient solution to a difficult problem,that of enabling people with promising ideas but often limited track records to raise capital from outside investors. A large fraction of IPOs, including many of the most successful, have been funded by venture capitalists, and the U.S. VC model has been copied around the world. Armed with this historical perspective, the authors view with skepticism the recent claims that the VC model is broken. In the past, VC investments in companies have represented a remarkably constant 0.15% of the total value of the stock market; and commitments to VC funds, while more variable, have been consistently in the 0.10% to 0.20% range. Both of these percentages have continued to hold in recent years. And despite the relatively low number of IPOs, the returns to VC funds this decade have largely maintained their historical relationship to the overall stock market. To be sure, VC investment and returns continue to be subject to boom-and-bust cycles. But if the recent period has most of the features of a bust, the authors view today's historically low level of commitments to U.S. VC funds as a fairly reliable indicator of relatively high expected returns for the 2009 and (probably) 2010 vintage years. Perhaps the most promising future role for venture capital, as the authors suggest in closing, is to increase the productivity of the corporate research and development function through various kinds of partnerships and outsourcing arrangements. [source] SIX CHALLENGES IN DESIGNING EQUITY-BASED PAYJOURNAL OF APPLIED CORPORATE FINANCE, Issue 3 2003Brian J. Hall The past two decades have seen a dramatic increase in the equitybased pay of U.S. corporate executives, an increase that has been driven almost entirely by the explosion of stock option grants. When properly designed, equity-based pay can raise corporate productivity and shareholder value by helping companies attract, motivate, and retain talented managers. But there are good reasons to question whether the current forms of U.S. equity pay are optimal. In many cases, substantial stock and option payoffs to top executives,particularly those who cashed out much of their holdings near the top of the market,appear to have come at the expense of their shareholders, generating considerable skepticism about not just executive pay practices, but the overall quality of U.S. corporate governance. At the same time, many companies that have experienced sharp stock price declines are now struggling with the problem of retaining employees holding lots of deep-underwater options. This article discusses the design of equity-based pay plans that aim to motivate sustainable, or long-run, value creation. As a first step, the author recommends the use of longer vesting periods and other requirements on executive stock and option holdings, both to limit managers' ability to "time" the market and to reduce their incentives to take shortsighted actions that increase near-term earnings at the expense of longer-term cash flow. Besides requiring "more permanent" holdings, the author also proposes a change in how stock options are issued. In place of popular "fixed value" plans that adjust the number of options awarded each year to reflect changes in the share price (and that effectively reward management for poor performance by granting more options when the price falls, and fewer when it rises), the author recommends the use of "fixed number" plans that avoid this unintended distortion of incentives. As the author also notes, there is considerable confusion about the real economic cost of options relative to stock. Part of the confusion stems, of course, from current GAAP accounting, which allows companies to report the issuance of at-the-money options as costless and so creates a bias against stock and other forms of compensation. But, coming on top of the "opportunity cost" of executive stock options to the company's shareholders, there is another, potentially significant cost of options (and, to a lesser extent, stock) that arises from the propensity of executives and employees to place a lower value on company stock and options than well-diversified outside investors. The author's conclusion is that grants of (slow-vesting) stock are likely to have at least three significant advantages over employee stock options: ,they are more highly valued by executives and employees (per dollar of cost to shareholders); ,they continue to provide reasonably strong ownership incentives and retention power, regardless of whether the stock price rises or falls, because they don't go underwater; and ,the value of such grants is much more transparent to stockholders, employees, and the press. [source] EVIDENCE THAT GREATER DISCLOSURE LOWERS THE COST OF EQUITY CAPITALJOURNAL OF APPLIED CORPORATE FINANCE, Issue 4 2000Christine A. Botosan The effect of corporate disclosure on the cost of equity capital is a matter of considerable interest and importance to both corporations and the investment community. However, the relationship between disclosure level and cost of capital is not well established and has proved difficult for researchers to quantify. As described in this article, the author's 1997 study (published in The Accounting Review) was the first to measure and detect a direct relationship between disclosure and cost of capital. After examining the annual reports of 122 manufacturing companies, the author concluded that companies providing more extensive disclosure had a lower (forward-looking) cost of equity capital (measured using Value Line forecasts with an EBO valuation formula that derives from the dividend discount model). For companies with extensive analyst coverage, differences in disclosure do not appear to affect cost of capital. But for companies with small analyst followings, differences in disclosure do appear to matter. Among this group of companies, the firms judged to have the highest level of disclosure had a cost of equity capital that was nine-percentage points lower than otherwise similar firms with a minimal level of disclosure. Closer analysis of some of the specific disclosure practices also suggests that, for small firms with limited analyst coverage, there are benefits to providing more forward-looking information, such as forecasts of sales, profits, and capital expenditures, and enhanced disclosure of key non-financial statistics, such as order backlogs, market share, and growth in units sold. In closing, the article also discusses an interesting new study (by Lang and Lundholm) that suggests there is an important distinction between effective corporate disclosure and "hyping the stock." The findings of this study show that while higher levels of disclosures are associated with higher stock prices, sudden increases in the frequency of disclosure are viewed with skepticism. [source] FGF and FGFR signaling in chondrodysplasias and craniosynostosisJOURNAL OF CELLULAR BIOCHEMISTRY, Issue 5 2005P.J. Marie Abstract The first experimental mouse model for FGF2 in bone dysplasia was made serendipitously by overexpression of FGF from a constitutive promoter. The results were not widely accepted, rightfully drew skepticism, and were difficult to publish; because of over 2,000 studies published on FGF-2 at the time (1993), only a few reported a role of FGF-2 in bone growth and differentiation. However, mapping of human dwarfisms to mutations of the FGFRs shortly, thereafter, made the case that bone growth and remodeling was a major physiological function for FGF. Subsequent production of numerous transgenic and targeted null mice for several genes in the bone growth and remodeling pathways have marvelously elucidated the role of FGFs and their interactions with other genes. Indeed, studies of the FGF pathway present one of the best success stories for use of experimental genetics in functionally parsing morphogenetic regulatory pathways. What remains largely unresolved is the pleiotropic nature of FGF-2. How does it accelerate growth in one cell then stimulate apoptosis or retard growth for another cell in the same type of tissue? Some of the answers may come through distinguishing the FGF-2 protein isoforms, made from alternative translation start sites, these appear to have substantially different functions. Although we have made substantial progress, there is still much to be learned regarding FGF-2 as a most complex, enigmatic protein. Studies of genetic models in mice and human FGFR mutations have provided strong evidence that FGFRs are important modulators of osteoblast function during membranous bone formation. However, there is some controversy regarding the effects of FGFR signaling in human and murine genetic models. Although significant progress has been made in our understanding of FGFR signaling, several questions remain concerning the signaling pathways involved in osteoblast regulation by activated FGFR. Additionally, little is known about the specific role of FGFR target genes involved in cranial bone formation. These issues need to be addressed in future in in vitro and in vivo approaches to better understand the molecular mechanisms of action of FGFR signaling in osteoblasts that result in anabolic effects in bone formation. J. Cell. Biochem. © 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Culture and Identity-Protective Cognition: Explaining the White-Male Effect in Risk PerceptionJOURNAL OF EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 3 2007Dan M. Kahan Why do white men fear various risks less than women and minorities? Known as the "white-male effect," this pattern is well documented but poorly understood. This article proposes a new explanation: identity-protective cognition. Putting work on the cultural theory of risk together with work on motivated cognition in social psychology suggests that individuals selectively credit and dismiss asserted dangers in a manner supportive of their cultural identities. This dynamic, it is hypothesized, drives the white-male effect, which reflects the risk skepticism that hierarchical and individualistic white males display when activities integral to their cultural identities are challenged as harmful. The article presents the results of an 1,800-person study that confirmed that cultural worldviews interact with the impact of gender and race on risk perception in patterns that suggest cultural-identity-protective cognition. It also discusses the implications of these findings for risk regulation and communication. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||