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Despite its long period of dominance, the details of associationism as developed by the British Empiricists in the 18th and 19th centuries are often ignored or forgotten today. Perhaps as a result, modern understandings of Empiricist associationism are often oversimplified. In fact, there is no single core view that can be viewed as definitional, or even weaker, as characteristic, of the tradition. The actual views of associationists in this tradition are much more diverse than any such view would allow, even on fundamental aspects of the concept of association. This paper presents some of the most striking theoretical diversity and most significant discussions within the Empiricist associationist tradition. Recognizing this diversity, Empiricist associationism is best viewed as a project with shared questions and methods rather than a shared substantive theory of mind. This discussion can inform our understanding of the historical tradition, and also inform our current use of association and associationism. The concept of association is more flexible than it is often treated, and even its basic nature and function remain up for debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we consider the importance of trust, in the context of economic institutions, and specifically with respect to questions about market mechanisms and the role of social interactions. We review recent advances in institutional economics closely tied to developments in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, involving extended and enactive cognition. We argue that the analysis of different conceptions of institutional mind extension, in Denzau and North's shared mental models, Clark's extended mind, and a more enactive approach that emphasizes the importance of social interaction and personal relationships, can benefit from Kathrine Hawley's distinction between reliability and trust. Institutional arrangements based solely on the reliability of impersonal mechanisms can lead to a variety of social pathologies and, at the extreme, a form of cognitive atrophy, all of which can undermine the sustainability of institutions. Even if trust comes with risks and some degree of unpredictability, it turns out to be a necessary glue-like ingredient in the constitution of social institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea that (former) patients are experts who could contribute to mental health care practices is gaining traction. Experts-by-Experience are increasingly employed by institutions to contribute to various levels of care, organization and policy-making. However, the success of this movement is hindered by conceptual and epistemological ambiguities. Our goal in this paper is to turn to the rich philosophical literature to start addressing such ambiguities. We first summarize the advantages of and challenges for Experience-based Expertise movement in mental health care. Next, we explicate the theoretical assumptions of this movement by outlining its salient tenets, with a focus on the Dutch mental care system. We point out three challenges of the movement that could be addressed using the insights by recent work in philosophy of mind and philosophy of science, i.e., (i) conceptual problems, (ii) worries about the subjectivity of the contributions of Experts-by-Experience, and (iii) addressing of the conflicts between the Experts-by-Experience and other experts. We conclude by proposing an enactive affordance-based framework as a candidate for clarifying the goals of the Experience-based Expertise movement in a way that avoids the current conceptual and epistemological problems and opens up venues for its growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses abduction to propose a theory of addictive desire that is based on a dual dysfunction in learning and motivation. The theory is termed the Coherent Dual Theory of Addictive Desire (CDT) because it proposes that a dual dysfunction lies at the heart of addictive desire. This paper first lays out CDT in psychological terms. It then focuses on how CDT coheres with both the neurobiology and phenomenology of addictive desire, granting the theory empirical support and more explanatory power. The paper concludes by addressing an objection from opponent process theory. The result is a theory of addictive desire that contains multiple abductive virtues: It is simple, general, testable, and coherent on the levels of neurobiology, psychology, and phenomenology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feeling confused can sometimes lead us to give up on a task, frustrated. What is less emphasized is that confusion may also promote happy (epistemic) endings to our inquiries. It has recently been argued that confusion motivates effortful investigative behaviors which can help us acquire hard-to-get epistemic goods. While the motivational power of confusion and its benefits for learning has been uncovered in recent years, the exact nature of the phenomenon remains obscure. In this paper we attempt to shed light on the nature and epistemic value of an experience we are all familiar with: the experience of being confused at an object, a statement, etc. We first review the psychological literature on confusion, where it is most often considered to be an epistemic emotion. We then propose a refined account of confusion, by drawing on the literature on metacognitive or noetic feelings, both in psychology and in the philosophy of mind. Finally we show how our account may explain findings about the role of the experience of confusion in motivating deeper inquiry into complex problems and bringing about epistemic success in these cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]