This paper examines the concept of manifestation process in Kashmir Shaivism from Shiva tattva to Prithvi tattva and their transcendental and immanent predicates (Prakrti and Purusa).This paper also shows that the ultimate reality, Paramshiva, manifests itself into various forms which likely represent the theory of causation. This research paper also provides answer to two questions; First, how ultimate reality with its thirty-six principles or elements manifest in various forms and what types of forms ‘Descent’ attains from the ‘universal self’? Second, (...) how manifestation process takes place from the ‘cosmic self’ (universal consciousness) to a ‘limited self’ (Jiva)? Since, this paper is based on philosophical exploration of manifestation process and contains interpretation and argumentation of Pratyabhijna philosophy only; it excludes manifestation due to Yogas (Upayas) and Karmas. Moreover, it explains the Trika form of reality (Shiva/God, Shakti/World, and Nara/Man) and also the identity between ‘ascent’ and ‘descent’. Manifestation further investigates the union of Shiva and Shakti with Maya and displays its character (Prakashvimarshmaya). This work further tries to describe the contribution of Abhinavagupta in the concept of manifestation. (shrink)

This paper examines the nature of analytical philosophy, its need and the importance in the contemporary world. In this write up I will investigate the role of logic, mind and language in the field of awnalytical philosophy. It further determines the development of clarification of complex statements into simple statements. What makes analytical philosophy unique and what are the major significance that differentiates analytical philosophy from philosophy of mind, philosophy of logic and philosophy of language. Analytical philosophy is the process (...) of analysis in which we proceed from complexity to simplicity and clarity. In analytical philosophy, philosophers are using analytical method to uncover those truths of the world and reality which are covered with linguistic ambiguity. Language plays an important role in analytical philosophy because the clarification and simplification is the business of analytical philosophy. World is made up of facts and facts are expressed and analyzed in language. Language is the representation of the world. I will also show the major contribution of analytical philosophers in explaining atomic world. (shrink)

In economics, thought experiments are frequently justified by the difficulty of conducting controlled experiments. They serve several functions, such as establishing causal facts, isolating tendencies, and allowing inferences from models to reality. In this paper, I argue that thought experiments served a further function in economics: facilitating the quantitative definition and measurement of the theoretical concept of utility, thereby bridging the gap between theory and statistical data. I support my argument by a case study, the “hypothetical experiments” of the Norwegian (...) economist Ragnar Frisch (1895-1973). Frisch aimed to eliminate introspection and a subjective concept of utility from economic reasoning. At the same time, he sought behavioral foundations for economic theory that enabled quantitative reasoning. By using thought experiments to justify his set of choice axioms and facilitating the operationalization of utility, Frisch circumvented the problem of observing utility via actual experiments without eliminating the concept of utility from economic theory altogether. As such, these experiments helped Frisch to empirically support the theory’s most important results, such as the laws of demand and supply, without the input of new empirical findings. I suggest that Frisch’s experiments fulfill the main characteristics of thought experiments. (shrink)

It seems natural to ask why the universe exists at all. Modern physics suggests that the universe can exist all by itself as a self-contained system, without anything external to create or sustain it. But there might not be an absolute answer to why it exists. I argue that any attempt to account for the existence of something rather than nothing must ultimately bottom out in a set of brute facts; the universe simply is, without ultimate cause or explanation.

This essay in the comparative metaphysic of nothingness begins by pondering why Leibniz thought of the converse question as the preeminent one. In Eastern philosophical thought, like the numeral 'zero' (śūnya) that Indian mathematicians first discovered, nothingness as non-being looms large and serves as the first quiver on the imponderables they seem to have encountered (e.g., 'In the beginning was neither non-being nor being: what was there, bottomless deep?' RgVeda X.129). The concept of non-being and its permutations of nothing, negation, (...) nullity, etc., receive more sophisticated treatment in the works of grammarians, ritual hermeneuticians, logicians, and their dialectical adversaries variously across Jaina and Buddhist schools. The present analysis follows the function of negation/the negative copula, nãn, and dialetheia in grammar and logic, then moves onto ontologies of non-existence and extinction and further suggestive tropes that tend to arrest rather than affirm the inexorable being-there of something. After a discussion of interests in being (existence), non-being and nothingness in contemporary metaphysics, the article examines Heidegger’s extensive treatment of nothingness in his 1929 inaugural Freiburg lecture, 'Was ist Metaphysik?', published later as 'What is Metaphysics?' The essay however distances itself from any pretensions toward a doctrine of Metaphysical Nihilism. (shrink)

Many researchers determine the question “Why anything rather than nothing?” as the most ancient and fundamental philosophical problem. Furthermore, it is very close to the idea of Creation shared by religion, science, and philosophy, e.g. as the “Big Bang”, the doctrine of “first cause” or “causa sui”, the Creation in six days in the Bible, etc. Thus, the solution of quantum mechanics, being scientific in fact, can be interpreted also philosophically, and even religiously. However, only the philosophical interpretation is (...) the topic of the text. The essence of the answer of quantum mechanics is: 1. The creation is necessary in a rigorous mathematical sense. Thus, it does not need any choice, free will, subject, God, etc. to appear. The world exists in virtue of mathematical necessity, e.g. as any mathematical truth such as 2+2=4. 2. The being is less than nothing rather than more than nothing. So, the creation is not an increase of nothing, but the decrease of nothing: it is a deficiency in relation of nothing. Time and its “arrow” are the way of that diminishing or incompleteness to nothing. (shrink)

Most scientists and philosophers of science recognize that, when it comes to accepting and rejecting theories in science, considerations that have to do with simplicity, unity, symmetry, elegance, beauty or explanatory power have an important role to play, in addition to empirical considerations. Until recently, however, no one has been able to give a satisfactory account of what simplicity (etc.) is, or how giving preference to simple theories is to be justified. But in the last few years, two different but (...) related accounts have appeared, both of which address the above issues. On the one hand, James McAllister has argued that aesthetic criteria in science reflect scientists' judgements about what kind of theory is most likely to be empirically successful, based on the relative empirical success and failure of different kinds of theories in the past. Scientists employ what McAllister dubs "the aesthetic induction". On the other hand, I have argued that we need to see science as making a hierarchy of metaphysical assumptions about the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, these assumptions asserting less and less as one ascends the hierarchy. One of the more substantial of these assumptions is that the universe is physically comprehensible. The key non-empirical feature a body of fundamental theories in physics must possess to be acceptable is unity. The better such a body of theory exemplifies the metaphysical thesis that the universe is physically comprehensible, in the sense that it has a unified dynamic structure, so the more acceptable such a body of theory is, from this standpoint. This affects not just theoretical physics, but the whole of natural science. In this paper I compare and contrast, and try to assess impartially the relative merits of, these two views. (shrink)

From Leibniz to Krauss philosophers and scientists have raised the question as to why there is something rather than nothing. Why-questions request a type of explanation and this is often thought to include a deductive component. With classical logic in the background only trivial answers are forthcoming. With free logics in the background, be they of the negative, positive or neutral variety, only question-begging answers are to be expected. The same conclusion is reached for the modal version of the (...) Question, namely ‘Why is there something contingent rather than nothing contingent?’. The categorial version of the Question, namely ‘Why is there something concrete rather than nothing concrete?’, is also discussed. The conclusion is reached that deductive explanations are question-begging, whether one works with classical logic or positive or negative free logic. I also look skeptically at the prospects of giving causal-counterfactual or probabilistic answers to the Question, although the discussion of the options is less comprehensive and the conclusions are more tentative. The meta-question, viz. ‘Should we not stop asking the Question’, is accordingly tentatively answered affirmatively. (shrink)

Peter van Inwagen has given an answer to the question ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’. His answer is: Because there being nothing is as improbable as anything can be: it has probability 0. Here I shall examine his argument for this answer and I shall argue that it does not work because no good reasons have been given for two of the argument’s premises and that the conclusion of the argument does not constitute an answer to the (...) question van Inwagen wanted to answer. (shrink)

My aim here is to answer the question about why is there something rather than nothing by arguing for the existence of some necessary beings (that, as such, couldn’t not exist) – the space, the time, and the natural basic laws – and by showing that the existence of nothingness is logically impossible. I also try to account for the fact that contingent beings arise from necessary beings by distinguishing between necessary existence and necessary arising, as to answer the (...) question about why is there anything contingent at all and to propose a solution to the Dilemma of Contingency. (shrink)

It is sometimes supposed that, in principle, we cannot offer an explanation for why there is something rather than nothing. I argue that this supposition is a mistake, and stems from a needlessly myopic conception of the form explanations can legitimately take. After making this more general point, I proceed to offer a speculative suggestion regarding one sort of explanation which can in principle serve as an answer to the question “why is there something rather than nothing?” The (...) suggestion is that there may be something rather than nothing in virtue of the truth of certain sorts of subjunctive conditionals. (shrink)

Many have argued that the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” (henceforth: the Question) is defective in some way. While much of the literature on the Question rightly attends to questions about the nature and limits of explanation, little attention has been paid to how new work in metaontology might shed light on the matter. In this paper I discuss how best to understand the Question in light of the now common metaontological commitment to quantifiers that vary (...) in metaphysical naturalness. I show that proponents of this view have arguments at their disposal that appear to challenge the metaphysical substantivity of the Question. Then I argue that, not only are there ways to resist these arguments, the arguments do not pose a challenge to the Question if it is construed in a way that makes reference to many quantifiers. Rendering the Question with multiple quantifiers not only allows one to grant the prima facie substantivity of the Question, but allows us to express it in a way that is mode-of-being-neutral and ontology-neutral—an independently desirable aim. (shrink)

Despite being assailed for decades by disability activists and disability studies scholars spanning the humanities and social sciences, the medical model of disability—which conceptualizes disability as an individual tragedy or misfortune due to genetic or environmental insult—still today structures many cases of patient–practitioner communication. Synthesizing and recasting work done across critical disability studies and philosophy of disability, I argue that the reason the medical model of disability remains so gallingly entrenched is due to what I call the “ableist conflation” of (...) disability with pain and suffering. In an effort to better equip healthcare practitioners and those invested in health communication to challenge disability stigma, discrimination, and oppression, I lay out the logic of the ableist conflation and interrogate examples of its use. I argue that insofar as the semiosis of pain and suffering is structured by the lived experience of unwelcome bodily transition or variation, experiences of pain inform the ableist conflation by preemptively tying such variability and its attendant disequilibrium to disability. I conclude by discussing how philosophy of disability and critical disability studies might better inform health communication concerning disability, offering a number of conceptual distinctions toward that end. (shrink)

Let’s call the sentence “why is there something rather than nothing?” the Question. There’s no consensus, of course, regarding which proposed answer to the Question, if any, is correct, but occasionally there’s also controversy regarding the meaning of the Question itself. In this paper I argue that such controversy persists because there just isn’t one unique interpretation of the Question. Rather, the puzzlement expressed by the sentence “why is there something rather than nothing?” varies depending on the (...) ontology implicitly or explicitly endorsed by the speaker. In this paper I do three things. First, I argue that other proposals according to which the Question has one uniquely adequate interpretation are false. Second, I give several examples of the way in which the meaning of the Question can vary depending on the ontology to which it is coupled. Third, I explore the implications of my thesis for the manner in which we should approach future attempts to answer the Question. (shrink)

The paper is the final, fifth part of a series of studies introducing the new conceptions of “Hilbert mathematics” and “ontomathematics”. The specific subject of the present investigation is the proper philosophical sense of both, including philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of physics not less than the traditional “first philosophy” (as far as ontomathematics is a conservative generalization of ontology as well as of Heidegger’s “fundamental ontology” though in a sense) and history of philosophy (deepening Heidegger’s destruction of it from (...) the pre-Socratics to the Pythagoreans). Husserl’s phenomenology and Heidegger’s derivative “fundamental ontology” as well as his later doctrine after the “turn” are the starting point of the research as established and well known approaches relative to the newly introduced conception of ontomathematics, even more so that Husserl himself started criticizing his “Philosophy of arithmetic” as too naturalistic and psychological turning to “Logical investigations” and the foundations of phenomenology. Heidegger’s “Aletheia” is also interpreted ontomathematically: as a relation of locality and nonlocality, respectively as a motion from nonlocality to locality if both are physically considered. Aristotle’s ontological revision of Plato’s doctrine is “destructed” further from the pre-Socratics' “Logos” or Heideger’s “Language” (after the “turn”) to the Pythagoreans “Numbers” or “Arithmetics” as an inherent and fundamental philosophical doctrine. Then, a leap to contemporary physics elucidates the essence of ontomathematics overcoming the Cartesian abyss inherited from Plato’s opposition of “ideas” versus “things”, and now unifying physics and mathematics, particularly allowing for the “creation from nothing” instead of the quasi-scientific myth of the “Big Bang”. Furthermore, ontomathematics needs another interpretation of arithmetic, propositional logic and set theory in the foundations of mathematics, where the latter two ones are both identified with Boolean algebra, and the former is considered to be a “half of Boolean algebra” in the exact meaning to be equated to it after doubling by a dual anti-isometric counterpart of Peano arithmetic. That unified algebraic realization of the foundations of mathematics is related to Hilbert mathematics in both “narrow and wide senses” where the latter is isomorphic to the qubit Hilbert space, thus underlying all the physical world by the newly introduced substance of quantum information being physically dimensionless and generalizing classical information measured in bits. The substance of information, whether classical or quantum, visualizes the way of the unification of physics and mathematics by merging their foundations in Hilbert arithmetic and Hilbert mathematics: thus how ontomathetics is a “first philosophy”. The relation of ontomathematics to the Socratic “human problematics”, furthermore being fundamental for Western philosophy in Modernity, is discussed. Ontomathematics implies its “substitution” by abstract information (or by “subjectless choice” relevant to it), thus “obliterating the human outline on the ocean beach sand” (by Michel Foucault’s metaphor). A reflection back from the viewpoint of mathematic to Western philosophy as the philosophy of locality ends the study. (shrink)

Suppose that five minutes ago, to our astonishment, a healthy, full-grown duck suddenly popped into existence on the table in front of us. Suppose further that there was no first time at which the duck existed but rather a last time, T, at which it had yet to exist. Then for each time t at which the duck has existed, there is an explanation of why the duck existed at t: there was a time t’ earlier than t but (...) later than T such that the duck existed at t’, and it was only to be expected that a healthy duck would survive the brief period from t’ to t. But would these explanations remove the mystery? Taken collectively, would they explain why the duck has existed since T rather than never having existed at all? Presumably not. But if not, this seems to discredit the style of explanation offered by Hume and Edwards for the infinite regress they hypothesize of causes and effects. (shrink)

Episodic memory often is conceptualized as a uniquely human system of long-term memory that makes available knowledge accompanied by the temporal and spatial context in which that knowledge was acquired. Retrieval from episodic memory entails a form of first–person subjectivity called autonoetic consciousness that provides a sense that a recollection was something that took place in the experiencer’s personal past. In this paper I expand on this definition of episodic memory. Specifically, I suggest that (a) the core features assumed unique (...) to episodic memory are shared by semantic memory, (b) episodic memory cannot be fully understood unless one appreciates that episodic recollection requires the coordinated function of a number of distinct, yet interacting, “enabling” systems. Although these systems – ownership, self, subjective temporality, and agency – are not traditionally viewed as memorial in nature, each is necessary for episodic recollection and jointly they may be sufficient, and (c) the type of subjective awareness provided by episodic recollection (autonoetic) is relational rather than intrinsic – i.e., it can be lost in certain patient populations, thus rendering episodic memory content indistinguishable from the content of semantic long-term memory. (shrink)

In dialogue with Stephen Hawking, Martin Heidegger, and Thomas Aquinas, I argue that there are three different and compatible ways to understand the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” (1) The scientific way asks about the origin of the cosmos. (2) The transcendental way asks about the origin of experience. (3) The metaphysical way asks about the origin of existence. The questions work independent of each other, so that answering one version of the question does not affect (...) the other two versions. Hawking and Heidegger are therefore mistaken to think that the scientific and transcendental questions render otiose the metaphysical question concerning the origin of existence. (shrink)

Gravitation is interpreted to be an “ontomathematical” force or interaction rather than an only physical one. That approach restores Newton’s original design of universal gravitation in the framework of “The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”, which allows for Einstein’s special and general relativity to be also reinterpreted ontomathematically. The entanglement theory of quantum gravitation is inherently involved also ontomathematically by virtue of the consideration of the qubit Hilbert space after entanglement as the Fourier counterpart of pseudo-Riemannian space. Gravitation can (...) be also interpreted as purely mathematical or logical “force” or “interaction” as a corollary from its ontomathematical (rather than physical) realization. The ontomathematical approach to gravitation is implicit in general relativity equating it to operators in pseudo-Riemannian space obeying the Einstein field equation and also well-known by the “geometrization of physics”. Quantum mechanics shares the same by the separable complex Hilbert space and defining “physical quantity” by the Hermitian operators on it. One can interpret special Minkowski space involved by special relativity and the qubit Hilbert space of quantum information as Fourier counterparts immediately noticing that general relativity means gravitation as the Fourier counterpart of non-Hermitian operators implying non-unitarity and the violation of energy conservation and thus destroying Pauli’s particle paradigm. Since the Standard model obeys it, this explains the impossibility of “quantum gravitation” in any framework conservatively generalizing the Standard model so that it would include gravitation along with electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions. Einstein’s geometrization of gravitation can be continued into a purely mathematical theory of it following Euclid’s realization for geometry to be exhaustively built in a deductive and axiomatic way as well as Riemann’s parametrization of all the class of Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries by “space curvature”, then being generalized to Minkowski space as the operators on pseudo-Riemannian space as the Einstein field equation means gravitation. The transition from mathematical gravitation to logical one can rely on the historical lesson of the pair of Lobachevski’s and Riemann’s approaches now “reversely”, i.e., from the latter to the former. Logical gravitation is linkable to Hegel’s dialectical logic and ontological dialectics abandoning their interpretations as a new zero logic substituting classical propionyl logic. The approach of ontomathematics generalizing that of ontology, traceable even to Aristotle’s reformation of Plato’s doctrine, needs Hegel’s doctrine to be formalized as a first-order logic naturally containing Boolean algebra, isomorphic to both classical propositional logic and set theory being the class of all first-order logics, as a sub-logic along with Peano arithmetic as another sub-logic. The first-order logic at issue is called Hilbert arithmetic and elaborated in detail in other papers. It allows for both self-foundation of mathematics to be internally proved as complete and furthermore, quantum mechanics reinterpreted as quantum information to be included by the qubit Hilbert space interpretable in turn as a dual and physical counterpart of Hilbert arithmetic in a narrow sense, that is, both counterparts constitute Hilbert arithmetic in a wide sense, being mathematical and physical simultaneously and thus overcoming the Cartesian dualism of “body” gapped from “mind” by an abyss. Then, the proper philosophical interpretation of gravitation to be the fundamental ontomathematical force or interaction overcomes the ridiculous belief of the Big Bang wrongly alleged to be a scientific theory. Ontomathematical gravitation suggests an omnipresent and omnitemporal medium of “God’s” creation “ex nihilo” following only the natural necessity of quantum-information conservation particularly and locally manifested as energy conservation. (shrink)

Recently, bioethicists and the UNCRPD have advocated for supported medical decision-making on behalf of patients with intellectual disabilities. But what does supported decision-making really entail? One compelling framework is Anita Silvers and Leslie Francis’ mental prosthesis account, which envisions supported decision-making as a process in which trustees act as mere appendages for the patient’s will; the trustee provides the cognitive tools the patient requires to realize her conception of her own good. We argue that supported decision-making would be better understood (...) as a collaborative process, giving patients with intellectual disabilities the opportunity to make decisions in a respectful relationship with trusted others. We offer an alternative account of supported decision-making where the primary constraint is to protect the patient from domination by the trustee. This is advantageous in its preservation of the prospects for genuine collaboration, for the mental prosthesis approach ultimately reinforces a problematic ideal of isolated patient self-determination. (shrink)

Longtermism is the view that the most urgent global priorities, and those to which we should devote the largest portion of our resources, are those that focus on (i) ensuring a long future for humanity, and perhaps sentient or intelligent life more generally, and (ii) improving the quality of the lives that inhabit that long future. While it is by no means the only one, the argument most commonly given for this conclusion is that these interventions have greater expected goodness (...) per unit of resource devoted to them than each of the other available interventions, including those that focus on the health and well-being of the current population. In this paper, I argue that, even if we grant the consequentialist ethics upon which this argument depends, and even if we grant one of the axiologies that are typically paired with that ethics to give the argument, we are not morally required to choose an option that maximises expected utility; indeed, we might not even be permitted to do so. Instead, I will argue, if the argument's consequentialism is correct, we should choose using a decision theory that is sensitive to risk, and allows us to give greater weight to worse-case outcomes than expected utility theory does. And, I will show, such decision theories do not always recommend longtermist interventions. Indeed, sometimes, they recommend exactly the opposite: sometimes, they recommend hastening human extinction. Many, though not all, will take this as a reductio of the consequentialism or the axiology of the argument. I remain agnostic on the conclusion we should draw. (shrink)

In this article an attempt is made to detect what could have been the dialectical reasons that impelled the Cār-vāka thinker Udbhatabhatta to revise and reformulate the classical materialistic concept of cognition. If indeed according to ancient Cārvākas cognition is an attribute entirely dependent on the physical body, for Udbhatabhatta cognition is an independent principle that, of course, needs the presence of a human body to manifest itself and for this very reason it is said to be a peculiarity of (...) the body. Therefore, Udbhatabhatta seems to de-scribe the cognizing faculty according to a double ontology: it is both a principle and a characteristic, both inde-pendent and dependent. Two philosophical contexts—Vaisesika and Nyāya schools—are here taken into account as possible anti-Cārvāka fault-finding points of view that spured Udbhatabhatta to reconsider the Cārvāka per-spective. Although we do not have so much textual material on this particular aspect of the ancient and medieval philosophical debate in India, it nonetheless can be supposed that Udbhatabhatta’s reformulation of the concept of cognition was a tentative response to the Vaisesika idea that cognition is not an attribute of the body, rather of the mind (which is here supposed to be eternal), and to the Naiyāyika perspective according to which cognition would be an attribute of an everlasting self. In the case of the Nyāya school, fortunately we have at our disposal the criticism put forward by Vātsyāyana against the materialistic conception of cognition during this time. By examining some Vātsyāyana’s objections, it will emerge that Udbhatabhatta’s idea of cognition really seems to have the aspect of a consistent answer to them, from a renewed materialistic point of view. (shrink)

Why is there something rather than nothing? This paper explores one particular argument in favor of the answer that 'the existence of nothing' would amount to a logical contradiction. This argument consists of positing the existence of a novel entity, called a bion, of which all contingent things can be composed yet itself is non-contingent. First an overview of historical attempts to compile a systematic and exhaustive list of answers to the question is presented as context. Then follows an (...) analysis of how the antropic principle would manifest itself in a world that consists of information and at the same time conforms to modal realism. Next, a thought experiment introduces bions as the foundation of such a world, showing how under these circumstances the ultimate origin of all existing things would be explained. The non-contingent nature of bions themselves is subsequently argued via a discussion of the principle of non-contradiction. Finally, this theory centered on the existence of bions is integrated into the worldview of Popperian metaphysics. According to the latter's criteria, I conclude that bion theory provides an integral answer to why there is something rather than nothing. (shrink)

In this Article, I propose a novel law and economics explanation of a deeply puzzling aspect of business organization in market economies. Why are virtually all firms organized as capital-managed and -owned (capitalist) enterprises rather than as labor-managed and -owned cooperatives? Over 150 years ago, J.S. Mill predicted that efficiency and other advantages would eventually make worker cooperatives predominant over capitalist firms. Mill was right about the advantages but wrong about the results. The standard explanation is that capitalist enterprise (...) is more efficient. Empirical research, however, overwhelmingly contradicts this. But employees almost never even attempt to organize worker cooperatives. I critique the explanations of the three leading analysts of the subject (N. Scott Arnold, Henry Hansmann, and Gregory Dow), all of whom offer are different transactions cost accounts, as logically defective and empirically inadequate. I then propose an explanation that has been oddly neglected in the literature, that the rarity of cooperatives is explained by the collective action problem identified by writers such as Mancur Olson. Labor management is a public good that generates the n-person prisoner’s dilemma which gives rational actors the incentive to create it in suboptimal (or no) amounts. I support this by reference to the empirical facts about the origin of existing cooperatives and show that this explanation requires no strong version of a questionable rational choice theory. This explanation is supplemented by the mere exposure or familiarity effect derived from social and cognitive psychology, which turns on the fact that labor managed firms are rare, in part because of the public goods problem, thus unfamiliar, which makes them less attractive and thus more likely to be rare. My account points advocates of labor management towards solutions such as institutional changes in incentives, which, however, themselves involve public goods issues. (shrink)

Conceptual Metaphor Theory makes some strong claims against so-called Classical Theory which spans the accounts of metaphors from Aristotle to Davidson. Most of these theories, because of their traditional literal-metaphorical distinction, fail to take into account the phenomenon of conceptual metaphor. I argue that the underlying mechanism for explaining metaphor bears some striking resemblances among all of these theories. A mapping between two structures is always expressed. Conceptual Metaphor Theory insists, however, that the literal-metaphorical distinction of Classical Theories is empirically (...) wrong. I claim that this criticism is based rather on terminological decisions than on empirical issues. Conceptual Metaphor Theory focusses primarily on conventional metaphors and struggles to extend its mechanism to novel metaphors, whereas Classical Theories focus on novel metaphors and struggle to extend their mechanisms to conventional metaphors. Since all of these theories study metaphors from the synchronic point of view, they are unable to take into account any semantic change. A diachronic perspective is what we need here, one which would allow us to explain the role of metaphor in semantic change and the development of language in general. (shrink)

This paper explores the critical conditions of such semiotic realism that is commonly presumed in the so-called Copenhagen interpretation of biosemiotics. The central task is to make basic biosemiotic concepts as clear as possible by applying C.S. Peirce’s pragmaticist methodology to his own concepts, especially to those that have had a strong influence on the Copenhagian biosemiotics. It appears essential to study what kinds of observation the basic semiotic concepts are derived from. Peirce had two different derivations to the concept (...) of sign, both having a strong logical character. Therefore, it is discussed at length what Peirce’s conception of logic consists of and how logical concepts relate to the concepts of other sciences. It is shown that Peirce had two different perspectives toward sign, the ‘transcendental’ one and the objective one, and only the latter one is executable in biosemiotic applications. Although Peirce’ theory of signs seems to appear as twofold (if not even manifold), it is concluded that the ore conception has been stable. The apparent differences are presumably due to the different perspectives of consideration. Severe limitations for the application of Peirce’s semiotic concepts follow from this analysis that should be taken into account in biosemiotics relying on its Copenhagen interpretation. The first one concerns the ‘interpreter’ of a suggested biosemiotic sign — whether it is ‘we’ (as a ‘meta-agent’) or some genuine biosemiotic ‘object-agent’. Only if the latter one is determinable, some real biosemiotic sign-action may occur. The second one concerns the application of the concept of the object of sign — its use is limited so that a sign has an object if and only if it seeks a true conception about it. This conclusion has drastic further consequences. Most of the genuinely biosemiotic sign-processes do not tend toward truth about anything but toward various practical ends. Therefore, the logical concept of sign, e.g. the one of Peirce’s semeiotic, is an insufficient concept for biosemiotics. In order to establish a sufficient one, Peircean theoretical ethics and esthetics are introduced. It is concluded that they involve simpler and more general but still normative concept of sign — the concept of anticipative or constructive representation that does not represent any object at all. Instead, it is a completely future-oriented representation that guides action. Objective ethics provides the suitable concept of representation, but it appeals to objective esthetics that provides a theory of (local) natural self-normativity. The concepts of objective logic form the special species of objective ethics. The conclusion is that biosemiotics should be based on applied objective ethics and esthetics rather than on (Peircean semeiotic) logic and its metaphysical application. Finally, the physiosemiotic over-generalization of the concept of sign is shortly discussed. It is suggested that it would be more appropriate to rename such controversial generalizations than to adhere to semiotic terminology. Here, again, Peirce appears as a healthy role model with his ‘ethics of terminology’. (shrink)

The inconsistent relation between word frequency and free recall performance and the non-monotonic relation found between the two cannot all be explained by current theories. We propose a theoretical framework that can explain all extant results. Based on an ecological psychology analysis of the free recall situation in terms of environmental and informational resources available to the participants, we propose that because participants’ cognitive system has been shaped by their native language, free recall performance is best understood as the end (...) result of relational properties that preexist the experimental situation and of the way the words from the experimental list interact with those. In addition to this, we borrow from predictive coding theory the idea that the brain constantly predicts “what is coming next” so that it is mainly prediction errors that will propagate information forward. Our ecological psychology analysis indicates there will be “prediction errors” because the word frequency distribution in an experimental word list is inevitably different from the particular Zipf’s law distribution of the words in the language that shaped participants’ brains. We further propose the particular distributional discrepancies inherent to a given word list will trigger, as a function of the words that are included in the list, their order, and of the words that are absent from the list, a surprisal signal in the brain, something that is isomorphic to the concept of Bayesian surprise. The precise moment when Bayesian surprise is triggered will determine to what word of the list that Bayesian surprise will be associated with, and the word the Bayesian surprise will be associated with will benefit from it and become more memorable as a direct function of the magnitude of the surprisal. Two experiments are presented that show a proxy of Bayesian surprise explains the free recall performance and that no effect of word frequency is found above and beyond the effect of that proxy variable. We then discuss how our view can account for all data extant in the literature on the effect of word frequency on free recall. (shrink)

We contest the unsubstantiated assumption of both materialists and non-materialist that the ontological status they propose applies to all humans and that the competing claim is false for all - ie we reject both the claim of non-materialists that all humans share the same fundamental aspect of having a "non-material consciousness" (nmc), as well as the contrasting claim of materialists that none do (being fully material as according to eliminative materialists/reductive physicalists etc). Instead, the basic proposition of this paper, our (...) ‘ontological conecture’ (OC) - an updated version of our 1998 website article “Mindless Materialists” - is that the central tenets of proponents on both sides are true, but only regarding themselves. A signature feature of nmc is that brains associated to it are capable of knowing of its existence directly, and as a corollary we would propose that if a sophisticated brain does not know it is associated to nmc then most likely this is because it is in fact not so associated. Thus, in accordance with our OC we will consider a brain’s statements on this issue (that it does or does not possess nmc) as not merely its ‘philosophical position’ but as an authoritative statement, a reflection of an ontological fact. Furthermore, we propose that only those who possess nmc are capable of understanding what it is, so that although they are well-qualified to know directly that they themselves possess it, in contrast those who lack nmc and possess only material consciousness (mc) cannot even comprehend what non-materiality means - they will understandably tend to consider it a non-existent absurdity, which contention would be quite correct in a purely-material reality, such as they effectively inhabit. -/- Terminology reflecting ontological status: Since according to our OC those brains which categorize themselves as non-materialists are presumed to indeed be associated to nmc, for usefulness in phraseology we’ll refer to people whose brain is so associated as being nmc’s (not merely “espousing nmc”). Materialists say they are conscious but that theirs is a material consciousness (abbrev: “mc”) , and since according to our OC we accept this self-determination we will refer to them as being “mc’s” or being materialist (not merely “espousing materialism”). -/- Are materialists mindless or are non-materialists delusional? Notoriously, it is impossible to prove that one possesses nmc (which is a sort of corollary to the fact that it is directly self-known) - being non-material, nmc cannot be detected via the scientific method. However just as those with nmc cannot prove they possess it so too one cannot prove or determine via measurement that materialists do not possess it. Nevertheless we feel that our OC is the simplest solution to the conundrum of how there are materialists if a brain can directly sense its associated nmc. In sum, although of course it is impossible to prove that any particular person possesses or lacks nmc, given all the above our OC considers - as stated by the title of this paper - a brain’s self-identification as "materialist" or “non-materialist” (dualist, panpsychist, idealist etc) as reflecting the absence or presence of an associated real non-material awareness/consciousness, rather than merely as a statement of a philosophical stance. An alternative solution is implicit in the above - that all humans possess nmc just that materialists are those whose brains lack the awareness of theirs, or that the brain-aspect which communicates to others has no access to it. -/- Towards developing more constructive dialogue between mc’s/nmc’s, and greater self-confidence and independence among nmc’s in the face of materialist dominance of the intellectual-climate: A large part of the overall paper is devoted to not just pointing out the futility of communication of the sort usually engaged in - ie based on the erroneous underlying assumption that both sides of the debate are ontologically the same - but also suggesting ways to make the debate less frustrating by a recognition of the OC. Greater clarity in discussions can be achieved partly via a deeper understanding of the different meanings the same term might have to nmc’s/mc’s and suggestions relevant the construction of a sort of translation algorithm to utilize in discussions (as a simple example, substituting ‘higher-level cognitive material brain-processes’ for ‘mind’ when that term is used by an mc); by the frank statement by nmc’s engaged in dialogue with mc’s that the existence of nmc is not up for discussion; by learning how the existence of our nmc colors the meaning we give to certain terms in ways we were not aware of, meanings which are absent for mc’s; and in general via the recognition by the nmc that the dialogue is with a person lacking nmc. -/- Perhaps materialists are right: In the interest of ‘reciprocity’, the paper also offers an alternative/opposing view to the central proposition, to the effect that the materialist claim is correct, and it is a defect of brain wiring or structure which is the source of an active illusion of "self-awareness" underlying the philosophical claims of non-materialists. A prospective source of this illusion is offered - an analog of the sense of presence experienced during ‘sleep paralysis’. (shrink)

This paper defends the epistemic account of the normativity of requests. The epistemic account says that a request does not create any reasons and thus does not have any special normative power. Rather, a request gives reasons by revealing information which is normatively relevant. I argue that compared to competing accounts of request normativity, especially those of David Enoch and James H.P. Lewis, the epistemic account gives better answers to cases of insincere requests, is simpler, and does a better (...) job incorporating the importance of relationships. I also defend the epistemic account from three objections: that requests are important because they constitute consent, that requests and wishes must be normatively different, and that some requests do not provide any new information. (shrink)

As the scope of innovative technologies is expanding, their implications and applications are increasingly intersecting with various facets of society, including the deeply rooted traditions of religion. This paper embarks on an exploratory journey to bridge the perceived divide between advancements in technology and faith, aiming to catalyze a dialogue between the religious and scientific communities. The former often views technological progress through a lens of conflict rather than compatibility. By utilizing a technology-centric perspective, we draw metaphorical parallels between (...) the functionalities of new technologies and some theological concepts of Islam. The purpose is not to reinterpret religious concepts but to illustrate how these two domains can coexist harmoniously. This comparative analysis serves as a conversation starter with an intention to mitigate any apprehensions towards technology by highlighting its potential to align with religious concepts. By fostering an environment where technological innovations are seen as tools for enhancement rather than threats to tradition, we contribute to a more inclusive discourse that encourages the religious community to engage with and potentially embrace contemporary technological advancements. (shrink)

Why is there something rather than nothing? Apparently many people regard that question as a challenge to naturalism because they think it’s too fundamental or too sweeping for natural science to answer, even in principle. I argue, on the contrary, that the question has a simple and adequate naturalistic answer: ‘Because there are penguins.’ I then diagnose various confusions underlying the suspicion that the question can’t have such an answer and, more generally, that the question, or else some variant (...) of it, can’t have a naturalistic answer at all. (shrink)

Justiciability sets the boundaries of judicial review and the rule of law. A justiciable issue is that which is appropriate within a judicial forum. That is, where an "independent and impartial body" can remedy rights violations of identifiable claimants, the issue before it is justiciable. If it falls beyond what is judicially determinable, it is 'non-justiciable'. The principle is not fixed, as it does not permanently set the boundaries of that which is appropriate for judicial determination. Rather, it evolves (...) "from context to context," and expands and narrows along what falls within judicial competencies at a particular time. On an elementary level, it is distinct from jurisdiction, as it establishes boundaries of subject matter on policy or constitutional grounds, whereas jurisdiction is grounded in established legal rules. However, questions of jurisdiction can be subsumed under broader questions of justiciability. (shrink)

Like lynching and other mass hysterias, xenophobia exemplifies a contagious, collective wave of energy and hedonic quality that can point toward a troubling unpredictability at the core of political and social systems. While earlier studies of mass hysteria and popular discourse assume that cooler heads (aka rational individuals with their logic) could and should regain control over those emotions that are deemed irrational, and that boundaries are assumed healthy only when intact, affect studies pose individuals as nodes of biosocial networks (...) larger than themselves. Thus rather than suggesting that the individual can only prevent societal harm by gaining command and patrolling the borders of an autonomous self, we embrace the notion that affects can exert a positive and transformative force on a social reality that is resistant to top-down policy intervention and any straightforward moral or logical plea. (shrink)

Are demands for equality motivated by envy? Nietzsche, Freud, Hayek, and Nozick all thought so. Call this the Envy Objection. For egalitarians, the Envy Objection is meant to sting. Many egalitarians have tried to evade the Envy Objection.. But should egalitarians be worried about envy? In this paper, I argue that egalitarians should stop worrying and learn to love envy. I argue that the persistent unwillingness to embrace the Envy Objection is rooted in a common misunderstanding of the nature of (...) the charge, what it reveals, and what can be said in response to it. I develop what Bernard Williams might call a vindicatory genealogy of envy, thereby allowing us to see that envy, rather than undermining egalitarian intuitions, can in fact play a distinct justificatory role (when it is fitting), which undermines the Envy Objection. (shrink)

Why is there something rather than nothing? I don't know. But I give an argument that qualia exist *necessarily*. The *possibility* of the existence of red qualia requires actual red qualia to specify what the possibility is a possibility *of*.

The potential to collect brain data more directly, with higher resolution, and in greater amounts has heightened worries about mental and brain privacy. In order to manage the risks to individuals posed by these privacy challenges, some have suggested codifying new privacy rights, including a right to “mental privacy.” In this paper, we consider these arguments and conclude that while neurotechnologies do raise significant privacy concerns, such concerns are—at least for now—no different from those raised by other well-understood data collection (...) technologies, such as gene sequencing tools and online surveillance. To better understand the privacy stakes of brain data, we suggest the use of a conceptual framework from information ethics, Helen Nissenbaum’s “contextual integrity” theory. To illustrate the importance of context, we examine neurotechnologies and the information flows they produce in three familiar contexts—healthcare and medical research, criminal justice, and consumer marketing. We argue that by emphasizing what is distinct about brain privacy issues, rather than what they share with other data privacy concerns, risks weakening broader efforts to enact more robust privacy law and policy. (shrink)

In much of the current academic and public discussion, conspiracy theories are portrayed as a negative phenomenon, linked to misinformation, mistrust in experts and institutions, and political propaganda. Rather surprisingly, however, philosophers working on this topic have been reluctant to incorporate a negatively evaluative aspect when either analyzing or engineering the concept conspiracy theory. In this paper, we present empirical data on the nature of the concept conspiracy theory from five studies designed to test the existence, prevalence and exact (...) form of an evaluative dimension to the ordinary concept conspiracy theory. These results reveal that, while there is a descriptive concept of conspiracy theory, the predominant use of conspiracy theory is deeply evaluative, encoding information about epistemic deficiency and often also derogatory and disparaging information. On the basis of these results, we present a new strategy for engineering conspiracy theory to promote theoretical investigations and institutional discussions of this phenomenon. We argue for engineering conspiracy theory to encode an epistemic evaluation, and to introduce a descriptive expression—such as ‘conspiratorial explanation’—to refer to the purely descriptive concept conspiracy theory. (shrink)

Conspiracy theories are rather a popular topic these days, and a lot has been written on things like the meaning of _conspiracy theory_, whether it’s ever rational to believe conspiracy theories, and on the psychology and demographics of people who believe conspiracy theories. But very little has been said about why people might be led to posit conspiracy theories in the first place. This paper aims to fill this lacuna. In particular, I shall argue that, in open democratic societies, (...) citizens justifiably presuppose that the epistemic authorities—journalists, academics, scientists, and so on—are engaged in a good faith pursuit of the truth. This presupposition generates certain normative expectations on the behaviors of the epistemic authorities—they ought to be open to new evidence, possess a healthy degree of skepticism, be willing to engage with opponents, and so on. So, when an epistemic authority is presented with some putatively anomalous data or an alternative hypothesis for some event or phenomena, people expect the epistemic authority to respond in a way that is consonant with these norms. In some instances, however, the epistemic authorities do not respond in this way and instead are dogmatic, dismissive, and engage in _ad hominem_. From the point of view of the citizen, there’s a tension here between how the epistemic authorities ought to behave and how they have, in fact, behaved which is best resolved either by taking the epistemic authorities less seriously or by positing a conspiracy theory. Put another way, the failure of the epistemic authorities to adhere to the norms by which we take them to be governed when presented with apparent anomalies or alternative hypotheses is one reason for which one might initially posit a conspiracy theory. (shrink)

This paper is a companion piece to my earlier paper “Fallibilism and Concessive Knowledge Attributions”. There are two intuitive charges against fallibilism. One is that it countenances the truth (and presumably acceptability) of utterances of sentences such as “I know that Bush is a Republican, though it might be that he is not a Republican”. The second is that it countenances the truth (and presumably acceptability) of utterances of sentences such as “I know that Bush is a Republican, even though (...) I’m not certain that he is”, or “I know that Bush it a Republican, even though it isn’t certain that he is.” In “Fallibilism and Concessive Knowledge Attributions”, I argue that fallibilism in epistemology does not countenance the truth of utterances of sentences such as “I know that Bush is a Republican, though it might be that he is not a Republican”. In this paper, I argue that there are independent reasons for thinking that utterances of sentences such as “I know that Bush is a Republican, though I’m not certain that he is” and “I know that Bush is a Republican, though it’s not certain that he is” are unassertible. More specifically, I argue that these are simply instances of Moore’s Paradox, such as “Dogs bark, but I don’t know that they do.” The right account of Moore’s Paradox does not involve the falsehood of the semantic content of the relevant utterances, but rather their pragmatic unacceptability. So the anti-fallibilist intuitions turn out to have pragmatic, rather than semantic import, and therefore do not tell against the truth of fallibilism. Fallibilism in epistemology is often thought to be theoretically desirable, but intuitively problematic. My purpose with these two papers is to show that fallibilism is not intuitively problematic. (shrink)

Recent methodological debates regarding the place of feasibility considerations in normative political theory are hindered for want of a rigorous model of the feasibility frontier. To address this shortfall, I present an analysis of feasibility that generalizes the economic concept of a production possibility frontier and then develop a rigorous model of the feasibility frontier using the familiar possible worlds technology. I then show that this model has significant methodological implications for political philosophy. On the Target View, a political ideal (...) presents a long-term goal for morally progressive reform efforts and, thus, serves as an important reference point for our specification of normative political principles. I use the model to show that we can- not reasonably expect that adopting political ideals as long-term reform objectives will guide us toward the realization of morally optimal feasible states of affairs. I conclude by proposing that political philosophers turn their attention to the analysis of actual social failures rather than political ideals. (shrink)

Constitutivists hope to locate the foundations of ethics in the nature of action. They hope to find norms that are constitutive of agency. Recently David Enoch has argued that even if there are such norms, they cannot provide the last word when it comes to normativity, since they cannot tell us whether we have reason to be agents rather than shmagents. I argue that the force of the shmagency objection has been considerably overestimated, because philosophers on both sides of (...) the debate have failed to grasp the true source of the authority of agency’s constitutive norm. Some constitutivists believe that this authority is rooted in the inescapability of agency. Yet agency is not, in fact, inescapable. What actually grounds the authority of agency’s constitutive norm is the fact that there is no standpoint outside of agency from which we can intelligibly ask normative questions. (shrink)

Quietist Moral Realists accept that there are moral facts and properties, while aiming to avoid many of the explanatory burdens thought to fall on traditional moral realists. This chapter examines the forms that Quietist Moral Realism has taken and the challenges it has faced, in order to better assess its prospects. The best hope, this chapter argues, lies in a pragmatist approach that distinguishes the different functions of diverse areas of discourse. This paves the way for a form of Quietism (...) that does not simply remain quiet about the explanatory demands of metaethics, but rather is able to diagnose where they go wrong. By combining a neopragmatic analysis of the discourse with an easy approach to ontology, , we can develop a form of Quietist Moral Realism that is far stronger than critics of quietism have appreciated. (shrink)

Some theorists argue that rather than advocating a principle of educational equality as a component of a theory of justice in education, egalitarians should adopt a principle of educational adequacy. This paper looks at two recent attempts to show that adequacy, not equality, constitutes justice in education. It responds to the criticisms of equality by claiming that they are either unsuccessful or merely show that other values are also important, not that equality is not important. It also argues that (...) a principle of educational adequacy cannot be all there is to justice in education. (shrink)

Rather infamously, Kit Fine provided a series of counter-examples which purport to show that the modalist program of analysing essence in terms of metaphysical necessity is fundamentally misguided. Several would-be modalists have since responded, attempting to save the position from this Finean Challenge. This paper evaluates and rejects a trio of such responses, from Della Rocca, Zalta, and Gorman. But I’m not here arguing for Fine’s conclusion – ultimately, this is a fight amongst friends, with Della Rocca, Zalta, Gorman, (...) and I all wanting to be modalists, but disagreeing on the details. As such, while my primary aim is to show what’s wrong with this trio, the secondary aim is demonstrating how what’s right about them in fact pushes one towards my own sparse modalist account. So while the primary conclusion of this paper is negative, the secondary, positive, conclusion is that modalists shouldn’t give up hope – plausible responses to Fine are still out there. (shrink)

We perceive smells as perduring complex entities within a distal array that might be conceived of as smellscapes. However, the philosophical orthodoxy of Odor Theories has been to deny that smells are perceived as having a distal location. Recent challenges have been mounted to Odor Theories’ veracity in handling the timescale of olfactory perception, how it individuates odors as a distal entities, and their claim that olfactory perception is not spatial. The paper does not aim to dispute these criticisms. (...) class='Hi'>Rather, what will be shown is that Molecular Structure Theory, a refinement of Odor Theory, can be further developed to handle these challenges. The theory is further refined by focusing on distal perception that requires considering the perceptual object as mereologically complex persisting odor against a background scene conceived of as a smellscape. What will be offered is an expansion of Molecular Structure Theory to account for distal smell perception within natural environments. (shrink)

Some claim that Composition as Identity (CI) entails Mereological Essentialism (ME). If this is right, then we have an effective modus tollens against CI: ME is clearly false, so CI is, too. Rather than deny the conditional, I will argue that a CI theorist should embrace ME. I endorse a theory of modal parts such that ordinary objects are spatially, temporally, and modally extended. Accepting modal parts is certainly beneficial to CI theorists, but it also provides elegant solutions to (...) the traditional puzzles of constitution, making it a competitive move in its own right. (shrink)

I argue that sports clubs should be punished for bad behaviour by their fans in a way that affects the club’s sporting success: for example, we are justified in imposing points deductions and competition disqualifications on the basis of racist chanting. This is despite a worry that punishing clubs in such a way is unfair because it targets the sports team rather than the fans who misbehaved. I argue that this belies a misunderstanding of the nature of sports clubs (...) and of the nature of sporting success. Further, I argue that fans should want to be held responsible in such a way because it vindicates the significant role that they play in the life of their club. (shrink)

Husserl introduces a phenomenological concept called “motivation” early in the First Investigation of his magnum opus, the Logical Investigations. The importance of this concept has been overlooked since Husserl passes over it rather quickly on his way to an analysis of the meaningful nature of expression. I argue, however, that motivation is essential to Husserl’s overall project, even if it is not essen- tial for defining expression in the First Investigation. For Husserl, motivation is a relation between mental acts (...) whereby the content of one act make some fur- ther meaningful content probable. I explicate the nature of this relation in terms of “evidentiary weight” and differentiate it from Husserl’s notion of Evidenz, often translated as “self-evidence”. I elucidate the importance of motivation in Husserl’s overall phenomenological project by focusing on his analyses of thing-perception and empathy. Through these examples, we can better understand the continuity between the Logical Investigations and Husserl’s later work. (shrink)

The rather unrestrained use of second-order logic in the neo-logicist program is critically examined. It is argued in some detail that it brings with it genuine set-theoretical existence assumptions and that the mathematical power that Hume’s Principle seems to provide, in the derivation of Frege’s Theorem, comes largely from the ‘logic’ assumed rather than from Hume’s Principle. It is shown that Hume’s Principle is in reality not stronger than the very weak Robinson Arithmetic Q. Consequently, only a few (...) rudimentary facts of arithmetic are logically derivable from Hume’s Principle. And that hardly counts as a vindication of logicism. (shrink)