Martin Davies

The question posed by Dunn and Kirsner (D&K) is an instance of a more general one: What can we infer from data? One answer, if we are talking about logically valid deductive inference, is that we cannot infer theories from data. A theory is supposed to explain the data and so cannot be a mere summary of the data to be explained. The truth of an explanatory theory goes beyond the data and so is never logically guaranteed by the data. This is not just a point about cognitive neuropsychology, or even about psychology in general. It is a familiar point about all science

Obsessed by the cases where things go wrong, we pay too little attention to the vastly more numerous cases where they go right, and where it is perhaps easier to see that the descriptive content of the expression concerned is wholly at the service of this function [of identifying reference], a function which is complementary to that of predication and contains no element of predication in itself (Strawson [1974], p. 66).An earlier version of the paper was written during an enjoyable year spent as a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne

Essex University, in association with Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Rights, has brought out a timely report highlighting the increasing global criminalisation of the provision of healthcare.1 The report, with a foreword by Professor Dainius Puras, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to health, explores the pressures on medical impartiality arising in large part from both global and national responses to the threat of terrorism. Both international humanitarian law, human rights law and long-established principles of medical ethics—as set out in various declarations of the World Medical Association—establish an absolute principle that all people, regardless of their beliefs, affiliation or status, have rights of access to appropriate healthcare. And this right extends to wounded and sick combatants, as well as civilians, during times of armed conflict. One of the challenges in this area is that in recent years, many conflicts have become ‘asymmetric’. Contemporary conflicts seldom involve opposing state armies. Instead, they increasingly involve irregular combatants, often labelled ‘terrorists’ or ‘insurgents’ by the states they are opposing. In response to these threats, many states have developed sometimes draconian legislation outlawing terrorist groups and those offering support. The danger, outlined in some detail in the report, is that the vital distinction between the impartial provision of medical care and the criminal offence of materially aiding terrorism is lost. In 2016, largely in response to the deliberate targeting of healthcare personnel and facilities in the conflicts disfiguring the greater Middle …

I defend a conception of the relationship between the personal and sub-personal levels as interaction withoutreduction.There are downward inferences from the personal to the sub-personal level but we find upward explanatory gaps when we try to construct illuminating accounts of personal level conditions using just sub-personal level notions. This conception faces several serious challenges but the objection that I consider in this paper says that, when theories support downward inferences from the personal to the sub-personal level, this is the product of an unacceptably • mechanistic view of persons. According to this objection, if we were to focus on persons as conscious rational thinkers and agents then the support for putative downward inferences would be undermined. I consider and reject developments of this objection in response to two arguments for downward inferences

In this paper, I shall defend externalism for the contents of perceptual experience. A perceptual experience has representational properties; it presents the world as being a certain way. A visual experience, for example, might present the world to a subject as containing a surface with a certain shape, lying at a certain distance, in a certain direction; perhaps a square with sides about 30 cm, lying about one metre in front of the subject, in a direction about 20 degrees to the left of straight ahead

Ever so often in the UK, there is a flurry of activity around the information requirements of donor-conceived individuals. In April 2013, it was the launch of a report from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics that brought the issue back to public consciousness.1Since 1991, information about treatment with donor gametes or embryos has been collected by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Since then, over 35 000 donor-conceived individuals have been born through treatment in licensed clinics. Medical information and information about donors’ appearance are collected by clinics, and donors are encouraged to put together a ‘pen portrait’ giving information about themselves for any resulting children. One focus of the new report is on improving the quality and quantity of information available about donors.Traditionally, gamete and embryo donations were practised on an anonymous basis, so that those born as a result of such donation may receive only non-identifying information about the donor when they reach the age of 18. This changed in 2005 when donor anonymity was removed so that anyone donating after that time could be identified to individuals born as a result of the treatment. Those who have donated in the past are also able to reregister as identifiable donors. Much concern was expressed at the time that this would exacerbate the shortage of donors although the Nuffield Council on Bioethics reports that, 8 years on, those clinics that actively recruit donors appear to be successful in finding sufficient donors. The report recommends that the option of anonymous donation should not be reintroduced.A big issue of debate in the UK has been, and continues to be, whether parents should tell their …

Mental simulation is the simulation, replication or re-enactment, usually in imagination, of the thinking, decision-making, emotional responses, or other aspects of the mental life of another person. According to simulation theory, mental simulation in imagination plays a key role in our everyday psychological understanding of other people. The same mental resources that are used in our own thinking, decision-making or emotional responses are redeployed in imagination to provide an understanding of the thoughts, decisions or emotions of another.

The nonvisual self-touch rubber hand paradigm elicits the compelling illusion that one is touching one’s own hand even though the two hands are not in contact. In four experiments, we investigated spatial limits of distance and alignment on the nonvisual self-touch illusion and the well-known visual rubber hand illusion. Common procedures and common assessment methods were used. Subjective experience of the illusion was assessed by agreement ratings for statements on a questionnaire and time of illusion onset. The nonvisual self-touch illusion was diminished though never abolished by distance and alignment manipulations, whereas the visual rubber hand illusion was more robust against these manipulations. We assessed proprioceptive drift, and implications of a double dissociation between subjective experience of the illusion and proprioceptive drift are discussed

The rubber hand paradigm is used to create the illusion of self-touch, by having the participant administer stimulation to a prosthetic hand while the Examiner, with an identical stimulus , administers stimulation to the participant’s hand. With synchronous stimulation, participants experience the compelling illusion that they are touching their own hand. In the current study, the robustness of this illusion was assessed using incongruent stimuli. The participant used the index finger of the right hand to administer stimulation to a prosthetic hand while the Examiner used a paintbrush to administer stimulation to the participant’s left hand. The results indicate that this violation of tactile expectations does not diminish the illusion of self-touch. Participants experienced the illusion despite the use of incongruent stimuli, both when vision was precluded and when visual feedback provided clear evidence of the tactile mismatch

Inattentional blindness studies have shown that an unexpected object may go unnoticed if it does not share the property specified in the task instructions. Our aim was to demonstrate that observers develop an attentional set for a property not specified in the task instructions if it allows easier performance of the primary task. Three experiments were conducted using a dynamic selective-looking paradigm. Stimuli comprised four black squares and four white diamonds, so that shape and colour varied together. Task instructions specified shape but observers developed an attentional set for colour, because we made the black–white discrimination easier than the square–diamond discrimination. None of the observers instructed to count bounces by squares reported an unexpected white square, whereas two-thirds of observers instructed to count bounces by diamonds did report the white square. When attentional set departs from task instructions, you may fail to see what you were told to look for

A simple experimental paradigm creates the powerful illusion that one is touching one’s own hand even when the two hands are separated by 15 cm. The participant uses her right hand to administer stimulation to a prosthetic hand while the Examiner provides identical stimulation to the participant’s receptive left hand. Change in felt position of the receptive hand toward the prosthetic hand has previously led to the interpretation that the participant experiences self-touch at the location of the prosthetic hand, and experiences a sense of ownership of the prosthetic hand. Our results argue against this interpretation. We assessed change in felt position of the participant’s receptive hand but we also assessed change in felt position of the participant’s administering hand. Change in felt position of the administering hand was significantly greater than change in felt position of the receptive hand. Implications for theories of ownership are discussed

Doctors and medical students in the UK have voted in support of the decriminalisation of abortion for women who self-administer abortions and healthcare professionals who provide abortions within the context of their clinical practice. Abortion should be treated as a medical issue rather than a criminal one. ### Background to the vote The vote took place at the end of June during the British Medical Association’s Annual Representative Meeting, where representatives of doctors and medical students from across the British Isles gathered to set BMA policy through democratic procedures. Representatives considered the issue of decriminalisation during a 2-hour debate, where diverse and opposing viewpoints were heard. The debate was informed by a neutral discussion paper that was published by the BMA in February, which provided a guide to some of the key legal and ethical issues raised by the debate around decriminalisation.1 The BMA’s new policy only relates to whether abortion should or should not be a criminal offence; the policy does not address the broader issue of when and how abortion should be available. The BMA has established policy on these issues which remains unchanged.2 ### The law on abortion Induced abortion is currently a crime throughout the British Isles. There are, however, a range of exceptions to the crime laid out in statute and/or common law, for example, in England, Scotland and Wales, under the Abortion Act 1967. Any healthcare professionals operating within those defined exceptions, which include grounds for authorising an abortion and procedural requirements, can lawfully carry out an abortion as a clinical procedure. Outside these defined exceptions, the criminal offences potentially apply both to those who participate in carrying out abortions for others, including doctors, nurses and midwives, and to women who carry out abortions on themselves. For example, healthcare professionals who do not follow procedural requirements can attract criminal sanctions …

Ever so often in the UK, there is a flurry of activity around the information requirements of donor-conceived individuals. In April 2013, it was the launch of a report from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics that brought the issue back to public consciousness.1Since 1991, information about treatment with donor gametes or embryos has been collected by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority . Since then, over 35 000 donor-conceived individuals have been born through treatment in licensed clinics. Medical information and information about donors’ appearance are collected by clinics, and donors are encouraged to put together a ‘pen portrait’ giving information about themselves for any resulting children. One focus of the new report is on improving the quality and quantity of information available about donors.Traditionally, gamete and embryo donations were practised on an anonymous basis, so that those born as a result of such donation may receive only non-identifying information about the donor when they reach the age of 18 . This changed in 2005 when donor anonymity was removed so that anyone donating after that time could be identified to individuals born as a result of the treatment. Those who have donated in the past are also able to reregister as identifiable donors. Much concern was expressed at the time that this would exacerbate the shortage of donors although the Nuffield Council on Bioethics reports that, 8 years on, those clinics that actively recruit donors appear to be successful in finding sufficient donors. The report recommends that the option of anonymous donation should not be reintroduced.A big issue of debate in the UK has been, and continues to be, whether parents should tell their …

Consciousness is, perhaps, the aspect of our mental lives that is the most perplexing for both psychologists and philosophers. Daniel Dennett has described it as 'both the most obvious and the most mysterious feature of our minds' and attempts at definition often seem to move in circles. Thomas Nagel famously remarked that 'without consciousness the mind-body problem would be much less interesting. With consciousness it seems hopeless.'. These observations might suggest that consciousness - indefinable and mysterious - falls outside the scope of rational enquiry, defying both scientific and philosophical investigation. In reality, however, the topic has been a focus of psychological investigation since William James and is increasingly vital in philosophical research. This book illustrates the various, interdisciplinary approaches to the problem, providing both pointers to a solution and a summary of the key positions.