Joshua Mugg | Park University (original) (raw)
Papers by Joshua Mugg
Philosophy in review, 2016
Saul, is the result of several conferences held at the University of Sheffield in 2011 and 2012. ... more Saul, is the result of several conferences held at the University of Sheffield in 2011 and 2012. This edited volume brings together established and emerging scholars for novel contributions to this topic. These articles present challenges for those of us thinking about the nature of racism and sexism, but also demonstrate how thinking about racism and sexism impacts philosophy more generally. The contributions in this volume are insightful, (for the most part) well argued, and accessible. Brownstein and Saul's introductory chapter (part of which is adapted from Brownstein's Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article 'Implicit Attitudes') nicely introduces readers to the paradigmatic empirical studies essential to understanding the papers in Implicit Bias and Philosophy Volume 1: Metaphysics and Epistemology, making this volume accessible for students. Another strength of this volume, likely due to the multiple conferences and workshops by the Implicit Bias Project, is the way in which contributors interact with each other's papers, especially when disagreement arises, giving the book a dialogue feel.
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jan 5, 2023
The two-system hypothesis states that there are two kinds of reasoning systems, the first of whic... more The two-system hypothesis states that there are two kinds of reasoning systems, the first of which is evolutionarily old, heuristically (or associatively) based, automatic, fast, and is a collection of independent systems. The second is evolutionarily new, perhaps peculiar to humans, is rule-based, controlled, slow, and is a single token system. Advocates of the two-system hypothesis generally support their claim by an inference to the best explanation: two systems are needed to explain experimental data from the reasoning, heuristics, and biases literature. The best evidence for this claim comes from simultaneous contradictory belief (henceforth SCB) (Sloman 1996, 2002). I argue that Sloman has not provided us with cases of SCB. In each of his examples there is no evidence that the beliefs are held simultaneously. I then offer the outline for an experimental setup that would offer compelling evidence for the existence of SCB and thereby support the two-system hypothesis.
Sophia, 2021
Doxasticism is the view that propositional faith that p entails belief that p. This view has rece... more Doxasticism is the view that propositional faith that p entails belief that p. This view has recently come under fire within analytic philosophy of religion. One common objection is that faith is compatible with doubt in a way that belief is not. One version of this objection, recently employed by Beth Rath (International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 81, 161–169, 2017), is to use a particular story, in this case Jesus Christ’s cry of dereliction, to argue that someone had propositional faith while ceasing to believe. Thus, doxasticism is false. Rath’s approach of analyzing a case from scripture has the advantage of allowing her to provide evidence for the claim that a subject had propositional faith but lost belief. However, I argue that Rath faces a dilemma: on the interpretation of the passage necessary for her argument, either Christ did lose his propositional faith that God was with him, or else he did not lose his belief that God was with him. Either way, she must reject...
Doxasticism is the view that propositional faith entails belief. A common criticism of doxasticis... more Doxasticism is the view that propositional faith entails belief. A common criticism of doxasticism is that faith seems compatible with doubt in a way that belief is not. Thus, it seems possible to have faith without belief, and several non-doxasticist accounts of faith are motivated inter alia by the need to account for this type of doubt. I provide three avenues of response: 1) favored cases of faith without belief beg the question by stipulating faith-that-p-without-beliefthat-p, or if the non-doxasticist provides evidence that there is faith without belief, this evidence points to either 2) no-faith-that-p-because-disbelief-that-p or 3) faith-that-p-with-belief-that-p.
European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 2021
Cognitive scientists claim to have discovered a large number of cognitive biases, which have a te... more Cognitive scientists claim to have discovered a large number of cognitive biases, which have a tendency to mislead reasoners. Might cognitive scientists themselves be subject to the very biases they purport to discover? And how should this alter the way they evaluate their research as evidence for the existence of these biases? In this paper, we posit a new paradox (the ‘Self-Reflexive Bias Paradox’), which bears a striking resemblance to some classical logical paradoxes. Suppose that research R appears to be good evidence for the existence of bias B, but if B exists, then R would have been subject to B. Thus, it seems sensible for the researcher to reject R as good evidence for the existence of B. However, rejecting R for this reason admits the existence of B. We examine four putative cognitive biases and criticisms of them, each of which seem to be subject to self-reflexivity. In two cases, we argue, paradox is avoidable. In the remaining two, we cannot find a way to avoid the paradox, which poses a practical obstacle to scientific inquiry and results in an intriguing theoretical quandary.
Journal of Analytic Theology, 2017
The doctrine of the resurrection says that God will resurrect the body that lived and died on ear... more The doctrine of the resurrection says that God will resurrect the body that lived and died on earth—that the post-mortem body will be numerically identical to the pre-mortem body. After exegetically supporting this claim, and defending it from a recent objection, we ask: supposing that the doctrine of the resurrection is true, what are the implications for the mind-body relation? Why would God resurrect the body that lived and died on earth? We compare three accounts of the mind-body relation that have been applied to the doctrine of the resurrection: substance dualism, constitutionalism, and animalism. We argue that animalism offers a superior explanation for the necessity of the resurrection: since human persons just are their bodies, life after death requires resurrection of one’s body. We conclude (by inference to the best explanation) that those endorsing the doctrine of the resurrection should be animalists.
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 2017
Modal Arguments in the philosophy of mind purport to show that the body is not necessary for a hu... more Modal Arguments in the philosophy of mind purport to show that the body is not necessary for a human person’s existence. The key premise in these arguments are generally supported with thought experiments (e.g. I could exist either in some other bodily form or in a disembodied state). I argue that Christians endorsing the Doctrine of the Resurrection have good reason to deny this key premise. Traditional Christianity affirms that eschatological human existence is an embodied existence in the very bodies we inhabited while alive. The raises the Resurrection Question: why would God go through the trouble of resurrecting those bodies? I argue that adequately answering this question requires give up on Modal Arguments within the philosophy of mind.
Faith and Philosophy, 2016
Philosophical Psychology, 2015
The Behavioral and brain sciences, 2014
There are two problems with Cimpian & Salomon's (C&S's) claim that an innate inherence he... more There are two problems with Cimpian & Salomon's (C&S's) claim that an innate inherence heuristic is part of our cognitive makeup. First, some of their examples of inherent features do not seem to accord with the authors' own definition of inherence. Second, rather than posit an inherence heuristic to explain why humans rely more heavily on inherent features, it may be more parsimonious to do so on the basis of aspects of the world itself and our relationship to it.
Philosophical Studies, 2012
Philosophical Psychology, 2018
Iu this paper I defend C.B. Martin's identity theory in which intrinsic properties of concrnt... more Iu this paper I defend C.B. Martin's identity theory in which intrinsic properties of concrnte objects-ari simultaneously qualitative and dispositional. Using three argumentsfnom Syrlney Shoemaker, I demonstrate that therc are epistemic difihculties with ontologically separating dispositional and qualitative properties. I use Prior, ?argetter, an{ Jq9$on as a paradigm casi of such an attempt to separate these two kinds of prope*ies. The diffrculty with Prior et al.'s higber-order account ofdispositions is this: given an asymmetry relation, the qualitative pmperties can vary without necessarily altering the object's dispositions-. Given that our interactiou with arobject is with its dispositions, our lorowledge of objects becomes swerely limited. Therefore, we ought not posit qualitative and dispositional properties as
Simultaneous Contradictory Belief and the Two-System Hypothesis Joshua Mugg (joshuamugg@gmail.com... more Simultaneous Contradictory Belief and the Two-System Hypothesis Joshua Mugg (joshuamugg@gmail.com) Department of Philosophy, 4700 Keele St. Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada criticism of the two-system hypothesis has focused on the kind claim (Samuels 2009; Evans 2011), I argue that Sloman has not provided us with cases of SCB. I then offer an experimental setup that would strongly support the existence of SBC. Abstract The two-system hypothesis states that there are two kinds of reasoning systems, the first of which is evolutionarily old, heuristically (or associatively) based, automatic, fast, and is a collection of independent systems. The second is evolutionarily new, perhaps peculiar to humans, is rule-based, controlled, slow, and is a single token system. Advocates of the two-system hypothesis generally support their claim by an inference to the best explanation: two systems are needed to explain experimental data from the reasoning, heuristics, and biases literature. The best eviden...
How many minds do you have? If you are a normal human, I think only one, but a number of dual-pro... more How many minds do you have? If you are a normal human, I think only one, but a number of dual-process theorists have disagreed. As an explanation of human irrationality, they divide human reasoning into two: Type-1 is fast, associative, and automatic, while Type-2 is slow, rule-based, and effortful. Some go further in arguing that these reasoning processes constitute (or are partly constitutive of) two minds. In this paper, I use the Star Trek 'Trill' species to illuminate the condition for the existence of "two minds in one brain" (Evans 2010, 3). After carefully outlining the two dominate versions of dual-process theory (default-interventionism, espoused by Evans, Stanovich, and Kahneman, and parallel-competitive theory, espoused by Sloman, Frankish, and Carruthers) and contrasting each with a one-system alternative, I argue that these three views should be understood as existing on a continuum: there are some theories that could plausibly be characterized as either one-system or default-interventionist, and the distinction between default-interventionism and parallelcompetitive theory is not as clean-cut as usually assumed. I then argue, using the conceptual claims I defended using the science fiction cases, that default-interventionist dual-process theory is not compatible with the claim that humans have two minds (contra Evans and Stanovich).
European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 2021
Cognitive scientists claim to have discovered a large number of cognitive biases, which have a te... more Cognitive scientists claim to have discovered a large number of cognitive biases, which have a tendency to mislead reasoners. Might cognitive scientists themselves be subject to the very biases they purport to discover? And how should this alter the way they evaluate their research as evidence for the existence of these biases? In this paper, we posit a new paradox (the 'Self-Reflexive Bias Paradox'), which bears a striking resemblance to some classical logical paradoxes. Suppose that research R appears to be good evidence for the existence of bias B, but if B exists, then R would have been subject to B. Thus, it seems sensible for the researcher to reject R as good evidence for the existence of B. However, rejecting R for this reason admits the existence of B. We examine four putative cognitive biases and criticisms of them, each of which seem to be subject to self-reflexivity. In two cases, we argue, paradox is avoidable. In the remaining two, we cannot find a way to avoid the paradox, which poses a practical obstacle to scientific inquiry and results in an intriguing theoretical quandary.
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly
Doxasticism is the view that propositional faith entails belief. A common criticism of doxasticis... more Doxasticism is the view that propositional faith entails belief. A common criticism of doxasticism is that faith seems compatible with doubt in a way that belief is not. Thus, it seems possible to have faith without belief, and several non-doxasticist accounts of faith are motivated inter alia by the need to account for this type of doubt. I provide three avenues of response: 1) favored cases of faith without belief beg the question by stipulating faith-that-p-without-beliefthat-p, or if the non-doxasticist provides evidence that there is faith without belief, this evidence points to either 2) no-faith-that-p-because-disbelief-that-p or 3) faith-that-p-with-belief-that-p.
Philosophy in review, 2016
Saul, is the result of several conferences held at the University of Sheffield in 2011 and 2012. ... more Saul, is the result of several conferences held at the University of Sheffield in 2011 and 2012. This edited volume brings together established and emerging scholars for novel contributions to this topic. These articles present challenges for those of us thinking about the nature of racism and sexism, but also demonstrate how thinking about racism and sexism impacts philosophy more generally. The contributions in this volume are insightful, (for the most part) well argued, and accessible. Brownstein and Saul's introductory chapter (part of which is adapted from Brownstein's Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article 'Implicit Attitudes') nicely introduces readers to the paradigmatic empirical studies essential to understanding the papers in Implicit Bias and Philosophy Volume 1: Metaphysics and Epistemology, making this volume accessible for students. Another strength of this volume, likely due to the multiple conferences and workshops by the Implicit Bias Project, is the way in which contributors interact with each other's papers, especially when disagreement arises, giving the book a dialogue feel.
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Jan 5, 2023
The two-system hypothesis states that there are two kinds of reasoning systems, the first of whic... more The two-system hypothesis states that there are two kinds of reasoning systems, the first of which is evolutionarily old, heuristically (or associatively) based, automatic, fast, and is a collection of independent systems. The second is evolutionarily new, perhaps peculiar to humans, is rule-based, controlled, slow, and is a single token system. Advocates of the two-system hypothesis generally support their claim by an inference to the best explanation: two systems are needed to explain experimental data from the reasoning, heuristics, and biases literature. The best evidence for this claim comes from simultaneous contradictory belief (henceforth SCB) (Sloman 1996, 2002). I argue that Sloman has not provided us with cases of SCB. In each of his examples there is no evidence that the beliefs are held simultaneously. I then offer the outline for an experimental setup that would offer compelling evidence for the existence of SCB and thereby support the two-system hypothesis.
Sophia, 2021
Doxasticism is the view that propositional faith that p entails belief that p. This view has rece... more Doxasticism is the view that propositional faith that p entails belief that p. This view has recently come under fire within analytic philosophy of religion. One common objection is that faith is compatible with doubt in a way that belief is not. One version of this objection, recently employed by Beth Rath (International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 81, 161–169, 2017), is to use a particular story, in this case Jesus Christ’s cry of dereliction, to argue that someone had propositional faith while ceasing to believe. Thus, doxasticism is false. Rath’s approach of analyzing a case from scripture has the advantage of allowing her to provide evidence for the claim that a subject had propositional faith but lost belief. However, I argue that Rath faces a dilemma: on the interpretation of the passage necessary for her argument, either Christ did lose his propositional faith that God was with him, or else he did not lose his belief that God was with him. Either way, she must reject...
Doxasticism is the view that propositional faith entails belief. A common criticism of doxasticis... more Doxasticism is the view that propositional faith entails belief. A common criticism of doxasticism is that faith seems compatible with doubt in a way that belief is not. Thus, it seems possible to have faith without belief, and several non-doxasticist accounts of faith are motivated inter alia by the need to account for this type of doubt. I provide three avenues of response: 1) favored cases of faith without belief beg the question by stipulating faith-that-p-without-beliefthat-p, or if the non-doxasticist provides evidence that there is faith without belief, this evidence points to either 2) no-faith-that-p-because-disbelief-that-p or 3) faith-that-p-with-belief-that-p.
European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 2021
Cognitive scientists claim to have discovered a large number of cognitive biases, which have a te... more Cognitive scientists claim to have discovered a large number of cognitive biases, which have a tendency to mislead reasoners. Might cognitive scientists themselves be subject to the very biases they purport to discover? And how should this alter the way they evaluate their research as evidence for the existence of these biases? In this paper, we posit a new paradox (the ‘Self-Reflexive Bias Paradox’), which bears a striking resemblance to some classical logical paradoxes. Suppose that research R appears to be good evidence for the existence of bias B, but if B exists, then R would have been subject to B. Thus, it seems sensible for the researcher to reject R as good evidence for the existence of B. However, rejecting R for this reason admits the existence of B. We examine four putative cognitive biases and criticisms of them, each of which seem to be subject to self-reflexivity. In two cases, we argue, paradox is avoidable. In the remaining two, we cannot find a way to avoid the paradox, which poses a practical obstacle to scientific inquiry and results in an intriguing theoretical quandary.
Journal of Analytic Theology, 2017
The doctrine of the resurrection says that God will resurrect the body that lived and died on ear... more The doctrine of the resurrection says that God will resurrect the body that lived and died on earth—that the post-mortem body will be numerically identical to the pre-mortem body. After exegetically supporting this claim, and defending it from a recent objection, we ask: supposing that the doctrine of the resurrection is true, what are the implications for the mind-body relation? Why would God resurrect the body that lived and died on earth? We compare three accounts of the mind-body relation that have been applied to the doctrine of the resurrection: substance dualism, constitutionalism, and animalism. We argue that animalism offers a superior explanation for the necessity of the resurrection: since human persons just are their bodies, life after death requires resurrection of one’s body. We conclude (by inference to the best explanation) that those endorsing the doctrine of the resurrection should be animalists.
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 2017
Modal Arguments in the philosophy of mind purport to show that the body is not necessary for a hu... more Modal Arguments in the philosophy of mind purport to show that the body is not necessary for a human person’s existence. The key premise in these arguments are generally supported with thought experiments (e.g. I could exist either in some other bodily form or in a disembodied state). I argue that Christians endorsing the Doctrine of the Resurrection have good reason to deny this key premise. Traditional Christianity affirms that eschatological human existence is an embodied existence in the very bodies we inhabited while alive. The raises the Resurrection Question: why would God go through the trouble of resurrecting those bodies? I argue that adequately answering this question requires give up on Modal Arguments within the philosophy of mind.
Faith and Philosophy, 2016
Philosophical Psychology, 2015
The Behavioral and brain sciences, 2014
There are two problems with Cimpian & Salomon's (C&S's) claim that an innate inherence he... more There are two problems with Cimpian & Salomon's (C&S's) claim that an innate inherence heuristic is part of our cognitive makeup. First, some of their examples of inherent features do not seem to accord with the authors' own definition of inherence. Second, rather than posit an inherence heuristic to explain why humans rely more heavily on inherent features, it may be more parsimonious to do so on the basis of aspects of the world itself and our relationship to it.
Philosophical Studies, 2012
Philosophical Psychology, 2018
Iu this paper I defend C.B. Martin's identity theory in which intrinsic properties of concrnt... more Iu this paper I defend C.B. Martin's identity theory in which intrinsic properties of concrnte objects-ari simultaneously qualitative and dispositional. Using three argumentsfnom Syrlney Shoemaker, I demonstrate that therc are epistemic difihculties with ontologically separating dispositional and qualitative properties. I use Prior, ?argetter, an{ Jq9$on as a paradigm casi of such an attempt to separate these two kinds of prope*ies. The diffrculty with Prior et al.'s higber-order account ofdispositions is this: given an asymmetry relation, the qualitative pmperties can vary without necessarily altering the object's dispositions-. Given that our interactiou with arobject is with its dispositions, our lorowledge of objects becomes swerely limited. Therefore, we ought not posit qualitative and dispositional properties as
Simultaneous Contradictory Belief and the Two-System Hypothesis Joshua Mugg (joshuamugg@gmail.com... more Simultaneous Contradictory Belief and the Two-System Hypothesis Joshua Mugg (joshuamugg@gmail.com) Department of Philosophy, 4700 Keele St. Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada criticism of the two-system hypothesis has focused on the kind claim (Samuels 2009; Evans 2011), I argue that Sloman has not provided us with cases of SCB. I then offer an experimental setup that would strongly support the existence of SBC. Abstract The two-system hypothesis states that there are two kinds of reasoning systems, the first of which is evolutionarily old, heuristically (or associatively) based, automatic, fast, and is a collection of independent systems. The second is evolutionarily new, perhaps peculiar to humans, is rule-based, controlled, slow, and is a single token system. Advocates of the two-system hypothesis generally support their claim by an inference to the best explanation: two systems are needed to explain experimental data from the reasoning, heuristics, and biases literature. The best eviden...
How many minds do you have? If you are a normal human, I think only one, but a number of dual-pro... more How many minds do you have? If you are a normal human, I think only one, but a number of dual-process theorists have disagreed. As an explanation of human irrationality, they divide human reasoning into two: Type-1 is fast, associative, and automatic, while Type-2 is slow, rule-based, and effortful. Some go further in arguing that these reasoning processes constitute (or are partly constitutive of) two minds. In this paper, I use the Star Trek 'Trill' species to illuminate the condition for the existence of "two minds in one brain" (Evans 2010, 3). After carefully outlining the two dominate versions of dual-process theory (default-interventionism, espoused by Evans, Stanovich, and Kahneman, and parallel-competitive theory, espoused by Sloman, Frankish, and Carruthers) and contrasting each with a one-system alternative, I argue that these three views should be understood as existing on a continuum: there are some theories that could plausibly be characterized as either one-system or default-interventionist, and the distinction between default-interventionism and parallelcompetitive theory is not as clean-cut as usually assumed. I then argue, using the conceptual claims I defended using the science fiction cases, that default-interventionist dual-process theory is not compatible with the claim that humans have two minds (contra Evans and Stanovich).
European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 2021
Cognitive scientists claim to have discovered a large number of cognitive biases, which have a te... more Cognitive scientists claim to have discovered a large number of cognitive biases, which have a tendency to mislead reasoners. Might cognitive scientists themselves be subject to the very biases they purport to discover? And how should this alter the way they evaluate their research as evidence for the existence of these biases? In this paper, we posit a new paradox (the 'Self-Reflexive Bias Paradox'), which bears a striking resemblance to some classical logical paradoxes. Suppose that research R appears to be good evidence for the existence of bias B, but if B exists, then R would have been subject to B. Thus, it seems sensible for the researcher to reject R as good evidence for the existence of B. However, rejecting R for this reason admits the existence of B. We examine four putative cognitive biases and criticisms of them, each of which seem to be subject to self-reflexivity. In two cases, we argue, paradox is avoidable. In the remaining two, we cannot find a way to avoid the paradox, which poses a practical obstacle to scientific inquiry and results in an intriguing theoretical quandary.
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly
Doxasticism is the view that propositional faith entails belief. A common criticism of doxasticis... more Doxasticism is the view that propositional faith entails belief. A common criticism of doxasticism is that faith seems compatible with doubt in a way that belief is not. Thus, it seems possible to have faith without belief, and several non-doxasticist accounts of faith are motivated inter alia by the need to account for this type of doubt. I provide three avenues of response: 1) favored cases of faith without belief beg the question by stipulating faith-that-p-without-beliefthat-p, or if the non-doxasticist provides evidence that there is faith without belief, this evidence points to either 2) no-faith-that-p-because-disbelief-that-p or 3) faith-that-p-with-belief-that-p.
by Brownstein and Saul, is the result of several conferences held at the University of Sheffield ... more by Brownstein and Saul, is the result of several conferences held at the University of Sheffield in 2011 and 2012. This edited volume brings together established and emerging scholars for novel contributions to this topic. These articles present challenges for those of us thinking about the nature of racism and sexism, but also demonstrate how thinking about racism and sexism impacts philosophy more generally. The contributions in this volume are insightful, (for the most part) well argued, and accessible.
Synopsis (from Wikipedia): "The lost-and-found box in a kindergarten playground is home to Lou, a... more Synopsis (from Wikipedia): "The lost-and-found box in a kindergarten playground is home to Lou, a creature made from the assorted unclaimed items (whose name is made up of the three missing letters on the box). Every day after recess, Lou picks up the toys that the children leave behind; the next day, he sets them in the lost in found box for their owners to find.
How can we asking meaningful philosophy questions? Here is activity to do with your kids at home ... more How can we asking meaningful philosophy questions? Here is activity to do with your kids at home to get started on that question. This exercise was originally developed by Joe Oyler.
Want to do some philosophical activities at home with your kids? This will get you started.
What is art? When does something become art? Is a frame part of art? Let's think about it togethe... more What is art? When does something become art? Is a frame part of art? Let's think about it together using The Dot!
On facilitating a Community of Inquiry discussion using Zoom.
An Indiana University Kokomo Press Release of my Philosophy for Children Project.
Draft for Virtual Meeting of Society for Philosophy and Psychology 2021
Spinozan theories of human reasoning (STHR) maintain that it is impossible to consider p without ... more Spinozan theories of human reasoning (STHR) maintain that it is impossible to consider p without accepting p, and that acceptance and rejection are accomplished by distinct cognitive systems. I argue against direct experimental work for STHR, against an inference to the best explanation for STHR, and offer positive reasons against STHR.