A framework for representing a specific kind of emergent property instance is given. A solution to a generalized version of the exclusion argument is then provided and it is shown that upwards and downwards causation is unproblematical for that kind of emergence. One real example of this kind of emergence is briefly described and the suggestion made that emergence may be more common than current opinions allow.

At first sight the Aharonov-Bohm effect appears nonlocal, though not in the way EPR/ Bell correlations are generally acknowledged to be nonlocal. This paper applies an analysis of nonlocality to the Aharonov-Bohm effect to show that its peculiarities may be blamed either on a failure of a principle of local action or on a failure of a principle of separability. Different interpretations of quantum mechanics disagree on how blame should be allocated. The parallel between the Aharonov-Bohm effect and violations of Bell inequalities turns out to be so close that a balanced assessment of the nature and significance of quantum nonlocality requires a detailed study of both effects.

An example shows that ‘pairwise preferences’ (certain hypothetical choices) can cycle even when rational. General considerations entail that preferences tout court (certain relations of actual valuations) cannot cycle. A world-bayesian theory is explained that accommodates these two kinds of preference, and a theory for rational actions that would have them maximize and be objects of ratifiable choices. It is observed that choices can be unratifiable either because of troublesome credences or because of troublesome preferences. An appendix comments on a third way in which efforts to maximize can be frustrated.

Millikan (1993) and Wilson (1994) argue, for different reasons, that the essential reference to the environment in adaptationist explanations of behavior makes (psychological) individualism inconsistent with evolutionary psychology. I show that their arguments are based on misinterpretations of the role of reference to the environment in such explanations. By exploring these misinterpretations, I develop an account of explanation in evolutionary psychology that is fully consistent with individualism. This does not, however, constitute a full-fledged defense of individualism, since evolutionary psychology is only one explanatory paradigm among many in psychology.

In this paper I take issue with the doctrine that organisms belong of their very essence to the natural kinds (or biological taxa, if these are not kinds) to which they belong. This view holds that any human essentially belongs to the species Homo sapiens, any feline essentially belongs to the cat family, and so on. I survey the various competing views in biological systematics. These offer different explanations for what it is that makes a member of one species, family, etc. a member of that taxon. Unfortunately, none of them offers an explanation that is compatible with the essentialism in question.

1. Introduction. Attempts to utilize the probability calculus to prove or disprove various inductive or inductive skeptical theses are, I believe, highly problematic. Inductivism and inductive skepticism are substantive (logically consistent) philosophical positions that do not allow of merely formal proofs or disproofs. Often the problems with particular alleged formal proofs of inductive or inductive sceptical theses turn on subtle technical considerations. In the following I highlight such considerations in pointing out the flaws of two proofs, one an alleged proof of an inductive sceptical conclusion due to Karl Popper, the other an alleged proof of an inductivist thesis originally due to Harold Jeffreys and later advocated by John Earman. Surprisingly, in examining Popper's argument it is shown that certain apparently weak premises, often embraced by both inductivists and deductivists, lend themselves to inductive conclusions. However it is argued that those premises are still philosophically substantive and not amenable to a purely formal demonstration. The lesson to be learnt here is twofold. First, we need to be very careful in determining which formal theses entail, and which are entailed by, inductive skepticism and inductivism. Second, we need to take great care in laying out and examining the assumptions presumed in formal arguments directed for and against such formal theses. In a follow up article I will consider various attempts by David Stove and Karl Popper and David Miller to identify the exact content of inductive skepticism and propose a new identification based on the theory of content developed in Gemes 1994. Finally I will compare this new version with that proposed recently in Alberto Mura 1990.

Frances Egan argues that the states of computational theories of vision are individuated individualistically and, as far as the theory is concerned, are not intentional. Her argument depends on equating the goals and explanatory strategies of computational psychology with those of its algorithmic level. However, closer inspection of computational psychology reveals that the computational level plays an essential role in explaining visual processes and that explanations at this level are nonindividualistic and intentional. In conclusion, I sketch an account of content in which content does the sort of explanatory work that Egan denies is possible.

Robert Wilson (1994) maintains that many interesting and fundamental aspects of psychology are non-individualistic because large chunks of psychology depend upon organisms being deeply embedded in some environment. I disagree and present one version of narrow content that allows enough reference to the environment to meet any wide challenge. I argue that most psychologists are already this sort of narrow content theorist and that these narrow content explanations of psychological phenomena meet Wilson's criteria for being a good explanation better than any wide explanation of the same event.

Motor imagery typically involves an experience as of moving a body part. Recent studies reveal close parallels between the constraints on motor imagery and those on actual motor performance. How are these parallels to be explained? We advance a simulative theory of motor imagery, modeled on the idea that we predict and explain the decisions of others by simulating their decision-making processes. By proposing that motor imagery is essentially off-line motor action, we explain the tendency of motor imagery to mimic motor performance. We close by arguing that a simulative theory of motor imagery gives (modest) support to and illumination of the simulative theory of decision-prediction.