Center for Cognitive Sciences

Abstract. In Book I, Part I, Section VII of the Treatise, Hume sets out to settle, once and for all, the early modern controversy over abstract ideas. In order to do so, he tries to accomplish two tasks: (1) he attempts to defend an exemplar-based theory of general language and thought, and (2) he sets out to refute the rival abstraction-based account. This paper examines the successes and failures of these two projects. I argue that Hume manages to articulate a plausible theory of general ideas; indeed, a version of his account has defenders in contemporary cognitive science. But Hume fails to refute the abstraction-based account, and as a result, the early modern controversy ends in a stalemate, with both sides able to explain how we manage to speak and think in general terms. Although Hume fails to settle the controversy, he nevertheless advances it to a point from which we have yet to progress: the contemporary debate over abstract ideas in cognitive science has stalled on precisely this point.

Abstract: It is commonly thought that Hume endorses the claim that causal cognition can be fully explained in terms of nothing but custom and habit. Associative learning does, of course, plays a major role in the cognitive psychology of the Treatise. But Hume recognizes that associations cannot provide a complete account of causal thought. If human beings lacked the capacity to reflect on rules for judging causes and effects, then we could not (as we do) distinguish between accidental and genuine regularities, and Hume could not (as he does) carry out his science of human nature. One might reply that what appears to be rule-governed behavior might emerge from associative systems that do not literally employ rules. But this response fails: there is a growing consensus in cognitive science that any adequate account of causal learning must invoke active, controlled cognitive processes.

Abstract: There are two major puzzles in Hume’s epistemology. The first involves Hume’s fall into despair in the conclusion of Book One of the Treatise. When Hume reflects back upon the results of his research, he becomes so alarmed that he nearly throws his books and papers into the fire. Why did his investigations push him toward such intense skeptical sentiments? What dark discoveries did he make? The second puzzle concerns the way in which Hume emerges from this skeptical crisis and proceeds with his investigations. Why the sudden change of heart? What accounts for the return of hope? Each of these puzzles represents a serious challenge to traditional approaches to Hume’s epistemology. A proper solution to them requires a careful examination of Hume’s claims about the untrustworthiness of our cognitive faculties as well as his strategy for improving their performance.

Abstract: In Book III, Part 2 of the Treatise, Hume presents a natural history of justice. Self-interest clearly plays a central role in his account; our ancestors invented justice conventions, he maintains, for the sake of reciprocal advantage. But this is not what makes his approach so novel and attractive. Hume recognizes that prudential considerations are not sufficient to explain how human beings – with our propensities towards temporal discounting and free-riding – could have established conventions for social exchange and collective action in commercial societies. This leads him to develop an innovative account of the role that emotional aversions play in establishing trust between strategically rational agents.

Abstract: David Hume endorses three statements that are difficult to reconcile: (1) sympathy with those in distress is sufficient to produce compassion toward their plight, (2) adopting the moral point of view often requires us to sympathize with the pain and suffering of distant strangers, but (3) our care and concern is limited to those in our close circle. Hume manages to resolve this tension, however, by distinguishing two types of sympathy. We feel compassion toward those we perceive to be in distress because associative sympathy leads us to mirror their emotions, but our ability to enter into the afflictions of distant strangers involves cognitive sympathy and merely requires us to reflect on how we would feel in their shoes. This hybrid theory of sympathy receives a good deal of support from recent work on affective mirroring and cognitive pretense. Hume’s account should appeal to contemporary researchers, therefore, who are interested in the nature of moral imagination.

Abstract: We must rethink the status of Hume’s science of emotions. Contemporary philosophers typically dismiss Hume’s account on the grounds that he mistakenly identifies emotions with feelings. But the traditional objections to Hume’s feeling theory are not as strong as commonly thought. Hume makes several important contributions, moreover, to our understanding of the operations of the emotions. His claims about the causal antecedents of the indirect passions receive support from studies in appraisal theory, for example, and his suggestions concerning the social dimensions of self-conscious emotions can help guide future research in this field. His dual-component hypothesis concerning the processing of emotions, furthermore, suggests a compromise solution to a recalcitrant debate in cognitive science. Finally, Hume’s proposals concerning the motivational influences of pride, and the conventional nature of emotional display rules, are vindicated by recent work in social psychology.

Abstract: In the Natural History of Religion, Hume attempts to understand the origin of our folk belief in gods and spirits.  These investigations are not, however, purely descriptive.  Hume demonstrates that ontological commitment to supernatural agents depends on motivated reasoning and illusions of control.  These beliefs cannot, then, be reflectively endorsed.  This proposal must be taken seriously because it receives support from recent work on our psychological responses to uncertainty.  It also compares quite favorably with its main competitors in the cognitive science of religion.

Abstract: In ‘A Dialogue’, Hume offers an important reply to the moral skeptic.  Skeptics traditionally point to instances of moral diversity in support of the claim that our core values are fixed by enculturation.  Hume argues that the skeptic exaggerates the amount of variation in moral codes, however, and fails to adopt an indulgent stance toward attitudes different from ours.  Hume proposes a charitable interpretation of moral disagreement, moreover, which traces it back to shared principles of human nature.  Contemporary philosophers attempt to locate examples of moral variability that cannot be accommodated in this way.  But they are no more successful than their predecessors.  Moral skeptics have not found a single case of moral diversity that is resistant to the Humean strategy.

Abstract: The aesthetic skeptic maintains that it is futile to dispute about taste.  A work of art might appear beautiful to one person but repellent to another, and there is no rational basis for adjudicating these conflicting verdicts.  Hume argues that the skeptic, however, moves too quickly.  The crucial question is whether qualified critics will agree on their evaluations, and the skeptic fails to provide sufficient evidence that their judgments will diverge.  We have reason to expect that a critical consensus will emerge over time, moreover, since our core aesthetic values are based on principles of human nature.  Skeptics might doubt that there is a natural foundation for taste, but this proposal is supported by recent work in experimental aesthetics and cognitive literary theory.

Hume maintains that the boundaries of morality are widely drawn in everyday life. We routinely blame characters for traits that we find disgusting, on this account, as well as those which we perceive as being harmful. Contemporary moral psychology provides further evidence that human beings have a natural tendency to moralize traits that produce feelings of repugnance. But recent work also demonstrates a significant amount of individual variation in our sensitivities to disgust. We have sufficient reason to bracket this emotion, therefore, when adopting the general point of view: if we allow idiosyncratic affective responses to shape our fully considered moral judgments, we could no longer reasonably expect spectators with different sensitivities to agree with us.

Predictive processing (PP) is a paradigm in computational and cognitive neuroscience that has recently attracted significant attention across domains, including psychology, robotics, artificial intelligence and philosophy. It is often regarded as a fresh and possibly revolutionary paradigm shift, yet a handful of authors have remarked that aspects of PP seem reminiscent of the work of 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant. To date there have not been any substantive discussions of how exactly PP links back to Kant. In this article, I argue that several core aspects of PP were anticipated by Kant (1996/1787) in his works on perception and cognition. Themes from Kant active in PP include: (1) the emphasis on " top-down " generation of percepts; (2) the role of " hyperpriors " ; (3) the general function of " generative models " ; (4) the process of " analysis-by-synthesis " and (5) the crucial role of imagination in perception. In addition to these, I also point out that PP echoes Kant's general project in that it aims to explain how minds track causal structure in the world using only sensory data, and that it uses a reverse-engineer or " top-down " method of analysis. I then locate a possible source of Kant's influence on PP by tracing the paradigm back to Hermann von Helmholtz, who saw himself as providing a scientific implementation of Kant's conclusions. I conclude by arguing that PP should not be regarded as a new paradigm, but is more appropriately understood as the latest incarnation of an approach to perception and cognition initiated by Kant and refined by Helmholtz.

Blastocyst complementation combined with gene editing is an emerging approach in the field of regenerative medicine that could potentially solve the worldwide problem of organ shortages for transplantation. In theory, blastocyst complementation can generate fully functional human organs or tissues, grown within genetically engineered livestock animals. Targeted deletion of a specific gene(s) using gene editing to cause deficiencies in organ development can open a niche for human stem cells to occupy, thus generating human tissues. Within this review, we will focus on the pancreas, liver, heart, kidney, lung, and skeletal muscle, as well as cells of the immune and nervous systems. Within each of these organ systems, we identify and discuss (i) the common causes of organ failure; (ii) the current state of regenerative therapies; and (iii) the candidate genes to knockout and enable specific exogenous organ development via the use of blastocyst complementation. We also highlight some of...

NEURO-ONCOLOGY • NOVEMBER 2017 for community control vs. 0.48 [0.25-0.91], p=.02 for MRI control). As a measure of health care access, cases and MRI controls had similar flu vaccine rates, but dissimilar rates with community controls. CONCLUSION: Epidemiologic assessment of glioma risks requires specific attention to case ascertainment and control selection. Different control groups draw different conclusions. Community controls appear susceptible to detection bias. Using a more stringent control group, our study findings uphold prior reports of inverse association between asthma and the risk of glioma.