Union Rights and Inequalities.Stephen Bagwell,Skip Mark,MeridithLaVelle &Asia Parker -2023 -Human Rights Review 24 (4):465-483.detailsCompeting arguments surrounding the relationships between inequalities and labor rights have persisted over time. This paper explores whether labor rights increase or decrease two types of wage inequalities: vertical inequality and horizontal inequality. Vertical inequalities reflect inequalities in wealth or income between individuals, while horizontal inequalities reflect inequalities between social, ethnic, economic, and political groups which are usually culturally defined or socially constructed. By broadening the scope beyond traditional indicators of inequality (i.e., vertical inequality) to include horizontal inequality, we test (...) whether government respect for labor rights can help reduce inequality. We find that as labor rights and practices improve, countries see a decrease in horizontal inequality. Furthermore, as stronger protections for labor rights improve within countries, this also serves to reduce individual levels of inequality (i.e., vertical inequality). (shrink)
Theory-Theory and the Direct Perception of Mental States.Jane SuilinLavelle -2012 -Review of Philosophy and Psychology 3 (2):213-230.detailsPhilosophers and psychologists have often maintained that in order to attribute mental states to other people one must have a ‘theory of mind’. This theory facilitates our grasp of other people’s mental states. Debate has then focussed on the form this theory should take. Recently a new approach has been suggested, which I call the ‘Direct Perception approach to social cognition’. This approach maintains that we can directly perceive other people’s mental states. It opposes traditional views on two counts: by (...) claiming that mental states are observable and by claiming that we can attribute them to others without the need for a theory of mind. This paper argues that there are two readings of the direct perception claims: a strong and a weak one. The Theory-theory is compatible with the weak version but not the strong one. The paper argues that the strong version of direct perception is untenable, drawing on evidence from the mirror neuron literature and arguments from the philosophy of science and perception to support this claim. It suggests that one traditional ‘theory of mind’ view, the ‘Theory-theory’ view, is compatible with the claim that mental states are observable, and concludes that direct perception views do not offer a viable alternative to theory of mind approaches to social cognition. (shrink)
Through the eyes of the expert: Evaluating holistic processing in architects through gaze-contingent viewing.Spencer Ivy,Taren Rohovit,MarkLavelle,Lace Padilla,Jeanine Stefanucci,Dustin Stokes &Trafton Drew -2021 -Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 1:1-9.detailsStudies in the psychology of visual expertise have tended to focus on a limited set of expert domains, such as radiology and athletics. Conclusions drawn from these data indicate that experts use parafoveal vision to process images holistically. In this study, we examined a novel, as-of-yet-unstudied class of visual experts—architects—expecting similar results. However, the results indicate that architects, though visual experts, may not employ the holistic processing strategy observed in their previously studied counterparts. Participants (n = 48, 24 architects, 24 (...) naïve) were asked to find targets in chest radiographs and perspective images. All images were presented in both gaze-contingent and normal viewing conditions. Consistent with a holistic processing model, we expected two results: (1) architects would display a greater difference in saccadic amplitude between the gaze- contingent and normal conditions, and (2) architects would spend less time per search than an undergraduate control group. We found that the architects were more accurate in the perspectival task, but they took more time and displayed a lower difference in saccadic amplitude than the controls. Our research indicates a disjunctive conclusion. Either architects are simply different kinds of visual experts than those previously studied, or we have generated a task that employs visual expertise without holistic processing. Our data suggest a healthy skepticism for across-the-board inferences collected from a single domain of expertise to the nature of visual expertise generally. More work is needed to determine whether holism is a feature of all visual expertise. (shrink)
The Social Mind: A Philosophical Introduction.Jane SuilinLavelle -2018 - Routledge.detailsWe spend a lot of time thinking about other people: their motivations, what they are thinking, why they want particular things. Sometimes we are aware of it, but it often occurs without conscious thought, and we can respond appropriately to other people's thoughts in a diverse range of situations. The Social Mind: A Philosophical Introduction examines the cognitive capacities that facilitate this amazing ability. It explains and critiques key philosophical theories about how we think about other people's minds, measuring them (...) against empirical findings from neuroscience, anthropology, developmental psychology and cognitive ethology. Some of the fascinating questions addressed include: How do we think about other people's minds? Do we put ourselves in another's shoes to work out what they think? When do we need to think about another person's thoughts? What kinds of thoughts do we attribute to others? Are they propositional attitudes like beliefs and desires as analytic philosophers have often assumed, or could they be something else? What sorts of neural mechanisms underlie our ability to think about other people's thoughts? How is the ability to think about other minds different for individuals on the autism Spectrum? Is a preoccupation with other people's thoughts a Western phenomenon or is it found in all cultures? How do children learn to think about other minds? Can non-human animals think about other minds? These questions are applied to case studies throughout the book, including mirror neurons, recent research on infant social cognition, false belief tasks, and cross-cultural studies. Covering complex interdisciplinary debates in an accessible and clear way, with chapter summaries, annotated further reading, and a glossary, The Social Mind: A Philosophical Introduction is an ideal entry point into this fast-moving and exciting field. It is essential reading for students of philosophy of mind and psychology, and also of interest to those in related subjects such as cognitive science, social and developmental psychology, and anthropology. (shrink)
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When a Crisis Becomes an Opportunity: The Role of Replications in Making Better Theories.Jane SuilinLavelle -2022 -British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 73 (4):965-986.detailsWhile it is widely acknowledged that psychology is in the throes of a replication ‘crisis’, relatively little attention has been paid to the role theory plays in our evaluation of replications as ‘failed’ or ‘successful’. This paper applies well-known arguments in philosophy of science about the interplay between theory and experiment to a contemporary case study of infants’ understanding of false belief (Onishi and Baillargeon [2005]), and attempts to replicate it. It argues that the lack of consensus about over-arching theories (...) informing both the concepts under study and the methodologies used to track them means that researchers disagree over which experiments constitute replications of the original. The second part of the paper places this specific debate within a broader discussion of the replication crisis as a crisis of ‘theory’, developing work by Muthukrishna and Henrich ([2018]) and Bird ([2018]). Bird argues that the lack of agreed over-arching theories in psychology means that a high rate of replication failure is to be expected; this paper agrees with his diagnosis but challenges his proposal that more replication will resolve the problem. (shrink)
Contrastive explanation and the many absences problem.Jane SuilinLavelle,George Botterill &Suzanne Lock -2013 -Synthese 190 (16):3495-3510.detailsWe often explain by citing an absence or an omission. Apart from the problem of assigning a causal role to such apparently negative factors as absences and omissions, there is a puzzle as to why only some absences and omissions, out of indefinitely many, should figure in explanations. In this paper we solve this ’many absences problem’ by using the contrastive model of explanation. The contrastive model of explanation is developed by adapting Peter Lipton’s account. What initially appears to be (...) only a trivial amendment to Lipton’s Difference Condition enables us both to offer a much more satisfactory solution to the ’many absences problem’ than David Lewis did, and also to explain why explanation in terms of absences and omissions should be so common. (shrink)
The dilemma of Narcissus.LouisLavelle -1973 - New York,: Humanities Press.detailsA profound reading of the Narcissus tale and of the recovery of one's own soul.
The impact of culture on mindreading.Jane SuilinLavelle -2019 -Synthese 198 (7):6351-6374.detailsThe role of culture in shaping folk psychology and mindreading has been neglected in the philosophical literature. This paper shows that there are significant cultural differences in how psychological states are understood and used by drawing on Spaulding’s recent distinction between the ‘goals’ and ‘methods’ of mindreading to argue that the relations between these methods vary across cultures; and arguing that differences in folk psychology cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to the cognitive architecture that facilitates our understanding of psychological states. (...) The paper concludes that any good account of social cognition must have the conceptual resources to explain how culture affects our understanding of psychological states, and that this explanandum should not be an after-thought but instead a guiding feature for those accounts. (shrink)
(1 other version)Introduction à l'ontologie.LouisLavelle -1947 - Paris,: Presses Universitaires de France.details" Pourquoi y a-t-il quelque chose et non pas plutôt rien? " Telle est sans doute la question la plus célèbre à laquelle l'ontologie, qui se veut précisément la science de l'être en tant qu'être, est censée répondre. Néanmoins cette question est-elle légitime? Nous faisons tous une expérience de l'être, à la fois externe et interne, sous la forme du monde et sous la forme du sujet. En lieu et place du rien nous trouvons toujours quelque chose. AussiLavelle, (...) après Bergson, conteste-t-il la présence contradictoire du néant au sein de l'être : ce dernier est partout présent, et c'est pourquoi l'ontologie lavellienne est résolument optimiste. Dans cet exposé dense et clair, le philosophe dessine le cercle qui lie d'une manière indestructible le renouvellement et la manifestation de chaque chose au moyen de trois concepts : l'être, l'existence et la réalité. Bien qu'univoque, l'être se décline en effet selon un mouvement de donation qui a pour fil conducteur la catégorie charnière de l'existence. Mais la démarche deLavelle ne s'arrête pas là, elle tend à nous montrer que l'articulation des trois notions précédentes doit être elle-même comprise en relation avec les catégories axiologiques que sont le bien, la valeur et l'idéal. L'être est pourLavelle la source de toute positivité, et c'est pourquoi son ontologie, qui comble en même temps notre intellect et notre volonté, renoue par-delà le christianisme avec la grande tradition grecque, en nous proposant les principes d'une sagesse possible ici et maintenant. (shrink)
Mindreading and Social Cognition.Jane SuilinLavelle -2022 - Cambridge University Press.detailsThe cognitive ability to think about other people's psychological states is known as `mindreading'. This Element critiques assumptions that have been formative in shaping philosophical theories of mindreading: that mindreading is ubiquitous, underpinning the vast majority of our social interactions; and that its primary goal is to provide predictions and explanations of other people's behaviour. It begins with an overview of key positions and empirical literature in the debate. It then introduces and motivates the pluralist turn in this literature, which (...) challenges the core assumptions of the traditional views. The second part of the Element uses case studies to further motivate the pluralist framework, and to advocate the pluralist approach as the best way to progress our understanding of social cognitive phenomena. (shrink)
Le mal et la souffrance.LouisLavelle -2000 - Plon.detailsL.Lavelle (1883-1951) convie le lecteur à une réflexion sur des expériences qui sont le propre de toute existence : la souffrance du corps et la provocation du mal dans le monde ; la rencontre avec autrui qui est toujours une aventure, échec ou enrichissement, affinement de la personne ou condamnation à un repli sur soi.
Metaphysics or the Science of Spiritual Inwardness.LouisLavelle -1972 -Philosophy Today 16 (1):66-80.detailsWhatever the current philosophic fashion, you always know that Descartes is still alive and well and living in France. The perennial presence of French reflectivephilosophy since the early decades of this cntury is witness to this. LouisLavelle belongs to this tradition known as French spiritualism. The following article is an excellent summary of his thought and of some of the basic characteristics of the whole tradition. Edouard Morot-Sir in a recent book has characterized the present form of this (...) tradition as "a critical consciousness in search of an anthropodicy" . Jean Nabert could just as well have been speaking for LouisLavelle as for himself when he wrote, "the more clear the perception of finitenessbecomes, the sharper becomes the need for a justification which includes a demand for the unconditional. This reciprocal relationship is the very stuff ofself-consciousness" . LouisLavelle's importance for today is that with his philosophy of "consent to being," "freedom," "primary affirmation"and "total presence" he shows us how to avoid the contemporary trap of being caught in the antinomy of transcendence and immanence. An overall presentationof his thought by Wesley Piersol, together with some selections and a bibliography, can be found in the Fall 1965 issue of Philosophy Today. Gilbert Hardy has more recently contributed two studies ofLavelle's philosophy: "LouisLavelle on Freedom and Participation" and "LouisLavelle on the Mystery of Freedom". (shrink)
From Scholarship to Practice: Standardizing Calls to Action in Neuroethics.KyrstinLavelle,Laura Y. Cabrera &Judy Illes -forthcoming -American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience.detailsA significant goal of neuroethics is to offer neuroscientists, health care providers, law- and policy-makers and others, ways of thinking and acting on matters relevant to brain health and conditions that affect the central nervous system. This goal and related calls to action have been derived from theory or empirical work and bring different levels of normative force. To bring the latter in particular to the foreground of discussion, we explored for this Policy Forum different calls to action as they (...) are associated with chosen terminology, the definitions of terms, origins to which they are benchmarked, locations in text, and targeted audiences. We find variability on all of these factors as they appear in the original foundational journals for neuroethics: AJOB Neuroscience and Neuroethics. We recommend that for a field whose very existence relies on uptake of advice, better consistency of language will improve credibility, acceptance, and implementation. (shrink)
Evil and suffering.LouisLavelle -1963 - New York,: Macmillan.detailsIn two essays, first published in book form in 1940, LouisLavelle delves into Evil and Suffering, tracing their relationships with Good and Happiness, the Body and the Spirit, Matter and Spirit. Evil and Suffering is considered a work of moral philosophy. In it,Lavelle leads us to reflect on suffering and how it is inserted in the inner and outer world of the being. From this experience of living suffering, according to the author, the spirit arises. The (...) marks that pain causes in us allows us to transcend what we are to the external world, after understanding ourselves with suffering in the inner world. If suffering is an inherent condition of human life, it remains for him to do his best, face it and overcome it. According toLavelle, it is suffering itself that gives meaning to life; but this is only possible if there is awareness that one suffers, because it is this awareness that awakens the spirit. The author also, through antitheses, tells us that it is in the absence that we find the presence, in the darkness we see the light, in loneliness we find community, in an inner deepening, where we perceive reality. Therefore, suffering connects beings. Pain shapes us, awakens us and makes us better beings if we know how to face it. Reading this book, of incredible spiritual richness, generates in us a dialogue about suffering, in order to transcend it. (shrink)
Two Challenges to Hutto’s Enactive Account of Pre-linguistic Social Cognition.Jane SuilinLavelle -2012 -Philosophia 40 (3):459-472.detailsDaniel Hutto’s Enactive account of social cognition maintains that pre- and non-linguistic interactions do not require that the participants represent the psychological states of the other. This goes against traditional ‘cognitivist’ accounts of these social phenomena. This essay examines Hutto’s Enactive account, and proposes two challenges. The account maintains that organisms respond to the behaviours of others, and in doing so respond to the ‘intentional attitude’ which the other has. The first challenge argues that there is no adequate account of (...) how the organisms respond to the correct aspect of the behaviour in each situation. The second challenge argues that the Enactive account cannot account for the flexibility of pre- and non-linguistic responses to others. The essay concludes that these challenges provide more than sufficient reason to doubt the viability of Hutto’s account as an alternative to cogntivist approaches to social cognition. (shrink)
Politiques des artefacts.SylvainLavelle -2009 -Cités 39 (3):39.detailsDans un article provocateur qui fit date, Langdon Winner posait cette question pour le moins incongrue : « Do artefacts have politics ? » 1. Peter-Paul Verbeek lui a apporté une forme de réponse dans son ouvrage intitulé à dessein : What things do . Cependant,..
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Less Theory, More Observation: A Response to Psychology's ‘Theory Crisis’.Jane SuilinLavelle -2024 -Philosophy 99 (4):639-665.detailsThere is a worry within psychology that its researchers experience too many degrees of freedom in formulating their hypotheses, resulting in experiments being designed to test implausible hypotheses which then do not successfully replicate. A popular diagnosis of this problem is that psychological theories are too vaguely specified, and that formalising them will add the constraints necessary to solve the problem. This paper argues for a different strategy, namely, for more theory-lite observational research to be conducted. This appears antithetical to (...) the restraint urged by others, but I argue that it is a necessary precursor to forming well-established foundational theories. I discuss two case studies to support my arguments. (shrink)
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The Compleat Angler: Observations on the Rise of Peisistratos in Herodotos (1.59–64).B. M.Lavelle -1991 -Classical Quarterly 41 (02):317-.detailsThe Acarnanian chrēsmologos Amphilytos spoke the verses to Peisistratos just before the battle of Pallene in 546 b.c. They contain a prediction of imminent victory for Peisistratos and total defeat for the Athenians. The Athenians will be routed and deprived of political self-determination, while the victory will restore to Peisistratos the tyranny from which he was twice forced, ‘rooting’ it once for all. Of course, all of this appears quite evident from the narrative. But as the verses form part of (...) Herodotos' account of Peisistratos' ascent to power they amount to much more, for they constitute penultimate proof of Peisistratos' irresistibility , a recurrent theme in Herodotos' logos, but one which was undoubtedly encouraged by his Athenian sources as a means of explaining how the Athenians were forced to yield the tyranny. Indeed, the theme of irresistibility helps to excuse the Athenians for being overcome; as much of the logos, which is historically quite vague, it is a reaction to fact, not factual itself. (shrink)
Delivering Bad News: How Procedural Unfairness Affects Messengers’ Distancing and Refusals.James J.Lavelle,Robert Folger &Jennifer G. Manegold -2016 -Journal of Business Ethics 136 (1):43-55.detailsDrawing from a social predicament and identity management framework, we argue that procedural unfairness on the part of decision makers places messengers in a dilemma where they attempt to protect their professional image or legitimacy by engaging in refusals and exhibiting distancing behaviors when delivering bad news. Such behaviors however, violate key tenets of fair interpersonal treatment. The results of two experiments supported our hypotheses in samples of experienced managers. Specifically, we found that levels of messengers’ distancing and refusals were (...) greater when the procedures used by decision makers were unfair rather than fair. Additionally, messengers’ perceptions of a predicament mediated these relationships. Implications and future research directions regarding the ethical delivery of bad news in the workplace are discussed. (shrink)
Literatura, reflexão E semelhança. Uma afinidade entre Benjamin E Ricoeur.PatríciaLavelle -2018 -Kriterion: Journal of Philosophy 59 (139):235-253.detailsRESUMO Este artigo constrói uma afinidade entre a noção benjaminiana de “semelhança não sensível” e o “trabalho da semelhança” do qual fala Ricœur a propósito da metáfora. Para isso pressupõe uma referência comum: o princípio kantiano das afinidades, que corresponde ao poder de produzir e de perceber ao mesmo tempo a diferença na identidade e a identidade na diferença, constituindo o modo de funcionamento do esquematismo em geral. Seguindo caminhos diferentes, Benjamin e Ricœur tematizam essa tensão comparativa que caracteriza a (...) imaginação, examinando sua ação na construção poética e na reflexividade que lhe é inerente. ABSTRACT The present article builds na affinity between the Benjamininan notion of “non-sensitive likeness” and the “work of likeness” talked about by Ricœur, regarding the metaphor. For that purpose he presupposes a common reference: Kant’s principle of affinities, which corresponds power of producing and noticing, at the same time, the difference in identity and the identity in difference, thus building the modus operandi of the schamtism in general. Following diverse paths, Benjamin and Ricœur thematize that comparative tension characteristic of imagination also examining its effect in poetic construction and in its inherent reflectivity. (shrink)
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