Why?

"Notwithstanding some egregious examples to the contrary, though, a sweep of scientific progress since 1600 seems undeniable. We tend to attribute this to the discovery and invention of new things; but at least as important has been the ability to perceive old things in new ways. The Aristotelians looked at a swinging body, Thomas Kuhn says, and saw something 'falling with difficulty;' Galileo looked at it and saw a pendulum. This aspect of science, which is explanatory and explicatory, sometimes bears a distinct resemblance to philosophical analysis. Cosmologists, for example, conceptualize a galaxy as 'particles making up a continuous and perfect fluid;' economists define a ‘product’ as a 'collection of units that are perfect substitutes to purchasers.'"

Toni Vogel Carey discusses the question of whether philosophy, like science, is progressive. Read about it in the latest online issue of Philosophy Now.

From Wishful Thinking To Positive Action

Did you ever wonder why you felt compelled to help when you see someone suffer? The Hindustan Times reports on studies of altruistic behavior from a physiological perspective. Read about that here.

Knock On Wood

"...magical thinking underlies a vast, often unseen universe of small rituals that accompany people through every waking hour of a day.

The appetite for such beliefs appears to be rooted in the circuitry of the brain, and for good reason. The sense of having special powers buoys people in threatening situations, and helps soothe everyday fears and ward off mental distress. In excess, it can lead to compulsive or delusional behavior. This emerging portrait of magical thinking helps explain why people who fashion themselves skeptics cling to odd rituals that seem to make no sense, and how apparently harmless superstition may become disabling."

The New York Times discusses the psychological study of "magical thinking." Read all about it here.

Picking One's Brain The Hard Way -- Scientific Developments and Electric Probes

"(There are two 'problems' in the study of consciousness), which the philosopher David Chalmers has dubbed the Easy Problem and the Hard Problem. Calling the first one easy is an in-joke: it is easy in the sense that curing cancer or sending someone to Mars is easy." … "The Easy Problem, then, is to distinguish conscious from unconscious mental computation, identify its correlates in the brain and explain why it evolved.
The Hard Problem, on the other hand, is why it feels like something to have a conscious process going on in one's head--why there is first-person, subjective experience. Not only does a green thing look different from a red thing, remind us of other green things and inspire us to say, 'That's green' (the Easy Problem), but it also actually looks green: it produces an experience of sheer greenness that isn't reducible to anything else. As Louis Armstrong said in response to a request to define jazz, 'When you got to ask what it is, you never get to know.'"

Steven Pinker, a psychology professor at Harvard, discusses the latest scientific inquiries into consciousness in his article in Time Magazine.

Gimmie! Gimmie! Please?

"In exploring the morality of economic behavior, they aim to put a more positive spin on Western-style capitalism. They want to demonstrate, in a post-Enron world, that markets are driven not by greed but by positive behavior.

To test their theories, researchers from economics and other disciplines are conducting a variety of studies, including experiments that look at how monkeys work together to get their favorite foods and the effect of business school teachings on values in the boardroom."

Evelyn Iritani writes about a possibly new discipline they are calling the "science of moral behavior." Read all about it in the Los Angeles Times.