This paper examines Nietzsche’s conflicted relation to Epicurus, an important naturalistic predecessor in the ‘art of living’ tradition. I focus in particular on the Epicurean credo “live unnoticed” (lathe biōsas), which advocated an inconspicuous life of quiet philosophical reflection, self-cultivation and friendship, avoiding the public radar and eschewing the larger ambitions and perturbations of political life. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the idea looms largest and is most warmly received in Nietzsche’s middle period writings, where one finds a repeated concern with prudence, withdrawal (...) and concealment, and where the primary emphasis is on private pluralistic experiments in therapeutic self-cultivation among small groups of free spirits. The idea of the Epicurean Garden appeals greatly to Nietzsche at this time as well, and I suggest that Zarathustra’s Blessed Isles are best understood as a friendship community along these lines. However, Nietzsche’s growing impatience with human imperfections and the siren song of great politics eventually lead him away from Epicurus and back to Plato. Beginning with Zarathustra, the paradigm of the modest, hidden helpful philosopher-therapist is replaced by the more ambitious philosopher-legislator who takes upon himself the task of determining the future of humanity. Nonetheless, I argue that we can profit more from the modest, practical insights of Nietzsche’s Epicurean art of living. (full version). (shrink)

This article considers the significance of the Blessed Isles in Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. They are the isolated locale to which Zarathustra and his fellow creators retreat in the Second Part of the book. I trace Zarathustra’s Blessed Isles back to the ancient Greek paradisiacal afterlife of the makarōn nēsoi and frame them against Nietzsche’s Platonic conception of philosophers as “commanders and legislators,” but I argue that they represent something more like a modern Epicurean Garden. Ultimately, I suggest that Zarathustra’s (...) Epicurean impulse toward withdrawal (whether into a sequestered friendship community or mountain solitude) undermines his Platonic attempts at great politics. (shrink)

This comparative examination of Nietzsche and the Islamic philosopher al-Kindi emphasizes their mutual commitment to the recovery of classical Greek and Hellenistic thought and the idea of philosophy as a way of life. Affiliating both thinkers with the Stoic lineage in particular, I examine the ways in which they appropriate common themes such as fatalism, self-cultivation via spiritual exercises, and the banishing of sorrow. Focusing primarily on their respective conceptions of self and nature, I argue that the antipodal worldviews of (...) al-Kindi and Nietzsche can be understood as a bifurcation of Stoic philosophy. (shrink)

This paper initiates a dialogue between classical Islamic philosophy and late modern European thought, by focusing on two peripheral, ‘heretical’ figures within these traditions: Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakariyāʾ al-Rāzī and Friedrich Nietzsche. What affiliates these thinkers across the cultural and historical chasm that separates them is their mutual fascination with, and profound indebtedness to, ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophy. Given the specific themes, concerns and doctrines that they appropriate from this common source, I argue that al-Rāzī and Nietzsche should (...) be read as Epicureans and seen in relation to their predecessor as part of the subterranean tradition of philosophical naturalism. However, while each figure appropriates the philosophy of Epicurus, they ultimately transform it in important ways: al-Rāzī offers us a qualified “Platonic” Epicureanism, while Nietzsche forges a radicalized “Dionysian” Epicureanism. The point of such a comparative examination is twofold. First, analyzing the divergent paths of these “wayward” Epicureans sheds new light on the historical trajectory of naturalism as a philosophical stance (as well as its current prospects and limitations). Second, by initiating a dialogue between the classical Islamic and modern European philosophical traditions, we can better understand the antagonisms and shared concerns between these two horizons, as well as the ambiguities and self-questioning that occur within them. (shrink)

The last twenty-five years or so have seen the emergence of exciting comparative work on Nietzsche and various philosophical traditions beyond the bounds of Europe. So far, however, the emphasis has been primarily on the cultures of India, China and Japan, with an almost exclusive focus on Buddhist, Hindu, Daoist, and Confucian traditions. Surprisingly, little work has been done on Nietzsche and the Islamic tradition. In this paper, I sketch out Nietzsche’s understanding of Islam, the ways in which he uses (...) it as a resource for his critique of Christianity and European modernity and the criticisms he has to make of it as one of the great monotheistic world religions. I then argue for the need to engage Nietzsche with specific Islamic falāsifa of the classical period (9-12th c.) rather than Islam itself, as some recent scholars have attempted to do. Although Nietzsche himself seems to have had no direct familiarity with any of the falāsifa, there are, I argue, many entry points for productive comparison and dialogue. This is at least in part because they share a significant common heritage: both were careful students of classical Greek and Hellenistic thought, and both put the insights they encountered there to work in bold new ways. Indeed, they appropriated, transformed and reanimated Greek ideas in new contexts and towards new ends that their progenitors would scarcely have recognized, and that were often radically challenging to their contemporaries. I focus here on a few select themes—the idea of philosophy as a “way of life,” the ideal of “becoming like God so far as it is possible” and the Platonic figure of the philosopher-ruler, all of which get taken up and re-imagined in radically novel and sometimes antipodal ways. (shrink)

This article re-exams the old tension between the philosopher and the city. Reading Ibn Bājja’s Governance of the Solitary and Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra against the background of Plato’s Republic, I argue that they both embrace several key aspects of Platonic political philosophy: the assumption that philosophical natures can grow spontaneously in sick cities, the ideal of the philosopher legislator and the correlative project of founding a virtuous new regime. Yet in preparation for this final task, each prescribes a regimen (...) of solitude for philosophers, so that they might preserve their own health and autonomy. While this spiritual exercise at first appears merely temporary and provisional—aimed at the cultivation of a philosopher ruler and the eventual establishment of a healthy political regime —I argue that both Ibn Bājja and Zarathustra ultimately abandon their Platonic ambitions and opt instead for the apolitical contemplative life. (shrink)

A vast historical, cultural and philosophical chasm separates the thought of the 10th century Islamic philosopher al-Farabi and Friedrich Nietzsche, the progenitor of postmodernity. However, despite their significant differences, they share one important commitment: an attempt to resuscitate and reappropriate the project of Platonic political philosophy, particularly through their conceptions of the “true philosopher” as prophet, leader, and lawgiver. This paper examines al-Farabi and Nietzsche’s respective conceptions of the philosopher as commander and legislator against the background of their Platonic source, (...) and reflects upon the human cost each thinker is willing to abide in order to establish a regime that would be conducive to the perfectibility and flourishing of the human being. (shrink)

In this essay I examine the tension between Nietzsche's doctrine of amor fati and his political project of Zuchtung. As philosophical naturalist, Nietzsche espouses a love of fate and a respect for necessity and reality. However, as philosophical legislator, he apparently denies the fatality of the human being in his attempts to cultivate or perfect it. I argue that Nietzsche's Zuchtung differs importantly from "idealistic" varieties of legislation in that it both requires and aims at the affirmation of fate. On (...) my reading, Nietzsche's nomothetic project neither contradicts nor undermines his naturalistic project: rather it represents its apotheosis and culmination. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on the figure of the ape in Nietzsche's texts, and how it fits into his putative naturalism. I examine the lowly status and ignoble qualities that he associates with this animal and argue that they betray a residual anthropocentricism profoundly at odds with Nietzsche's dehumanized conception of nature. Accordingly, I suggest a reading of Nietzsche's ape remarks that brings them more into accord with his non-teleological and non-hierarchical conception of species. Ultimately, I argue that a (...) robust, thorough going Nietzschean naturalism would require the affirmation of the ape, including everything it comes to represent for Nietzsche. (shrink)

This paper examines the significance of Epicureanism for Nietzsche’s critique of Christian monotheism and his subsequent attempt to reanimate a kind of this-worldly, affirmative religiosity of immanence. After a brief overview of the pivotal role that Epicurus’ thought plays in the death of God, I focus on Epicurus’ own residual conception of the gods and the ways in which Nietzsche strategically retrieves it and puts it use in his writing. Nietzsche juxtaposes the distant, serene, indifferent Epicurean gods with the omniscient, (...) intrusive, jealous and needy God of middle-Eastern monotheisms. One might say that they constitute a ‘halfway house’ of sorts between Christianity and Nietzsche’s new Dionysian religion of the earth. But they also figure prominently in his own conflicted desire to intervene in the aleatory course of natural history and legislate the the future of humanity: Nietzsche finds he cannot simply look down with “the mocking and aloof eyes” of an Epicurean god upon the degeneration and diminution of the human being under Christian ascetic regimes of cultivation. Ultimately, Nietzsche fails to achieve the divine temperament of the Epicurean gods (looking down from afar on human ignorance, desire and suffering with a noble pathos of distance). Forthcoming 2022. (shrink)

I examine Zarathustra's increasing ambivalence about his role as philosopher-prophet-legislator, connecting the speech "On Passing By" (Z III.7) with his doctrine of amor fati (GS 276) as a pivotal moment in his gradual ascent up the ladder of love/affirmation and consequent overcoming of great politics. Forthcoming 2022.

This paper examines Nietzsche’s conflicted relation to Epicurus, an important naturalistic predecessor in the ‘art of living’ tradition. I focus in particular on the Epicurean credo “live unnoticed” (lathe biōsas), which advocated an inconspicuous life of quiet philosophical reflection, self-cultivation and friendship, avoiding the public radar and eschewing the larger ambitions and perturbations of political life. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the idea looms largest and is most warmly received in Nietzsche’s middle period writings, where one finds a repeated concern with prudence, withdrawal (...) and concealment, and where the primary emphasis is on private pluralistic experiments in therapeutic self-cultivation among small groups of free spirits. The idea of the Epicurean Garden appeals greatly to Nietzsche at this time as well, and I suggest that Zarathustra’s Blessed Isles are best understood as a friendship community along these lines. However, Nietzsche’s growing impatience with human imperfections and the siren song of great politics eventually lead him away from Epicurus and back to Plato. Beginning with Zarathustra, the paradigm of the modest, hidden helpful philosopher-therapist is replaced by the more ambitious philosopher-legislator who takes upon himself the task of determining the future of humanity. Nonetheless, I argue that we can profit more from the modest, practical insights of Nietzsche’s Epicurean art of living. (short version). (shrink)

The author of this unusual and fascinating monograph is an intellectual historian whose interests extend well beyond Nietzsche to encompass Weimar classicism, 20th century analytical psychology and classical Greek and Hellenistic philosophy. Although this may at first sound like a strange juxtaposition, Bishop’s previous studies have made a compelling case that vital aspects of Nietzsche’s thought come sharply into focus when he is read in relation to figures such as Goethe and Schiller on the one hand and Jung on the (...) other, with an eye to certain formative themes and metaphors in the Platonic tradition. What we find when we set these thinkers in dialogue with one another is a distinct intellectual-spiritual lineage predominantly concerned with the possibilities of self-transformation. Bishop’s interpretative approach is perhaps closest to Pierre Hadot in this respect, albeit more oriented towards modern German thought and uniquely informed by Jungian depth psychology. (shrink)

Given its title, one might expect Roy Jackson's Nietzsche and Islam to offer an examination of Nietzsche's views on Islam. Such a volume would be welcome indeed, since with the exception of a short but excellent article by Ian Almond there is a striking lacuna in Nietzsche studies on this particular topic.1 However, while Jackson frequently notes Nietzsche's surprisingly positive assessment of Islam, his concerns here are not so much historical and philological as contemporary and political. The stated aim of (...) the book is twofold: first, to demonstrate (contrary to popular belief) that "Nietzsche is not the standard bearer for atheism" and second, to make the case that his philosophy "has particular relevance for .. (shrink)

This essay argues that the exploration of scepticism and its implications in the work of Stanley Cavell and David Hume bears more similarities than is commonly acknowledged, especially along the lines of what I wish to call “sceptical naturalism.” These lines of similarity are described through the way each philosopher relates the “natural” and “nature” to the universal, the necessary, and the conventional.

A discussion of the different ways in which the Islamicate philosophical tradition has been characterized and categorized in Anglo-European scholarship.

A philosophical examination of 'new wave' as a musical genre, focusing on its developmental history and relation to punk as well as its unique ethos and aesthetic. Forthcoming 2021.

Berkeley’s likeness principle is the claim that “an idea can be like nothing but an idea”. The likeness principle is intended to undermine representationalism: the view (that Berkeley attributes to thinkers like Descartes and Locke) that all human knowledge is mediated by ideas in the mind which represent material objects. Yet, Berkeley appears to leave the likeness principle unargued for. This has led to several attempts to explain why Berkeley accepts it. In contrast to ‘metaphysical’ and ‘epistemological’ interpretations available in (...) the literature, in this paper I defend a ‘conceptual’ interpretation. I argue that Berkeley accepts the likeness principle on the basis of (i) his commitment to the transparency of ideas, and (ii) his account of resemblance which he sets out in his works on vision. Thus, I provide an explanation for Berkeley’s reasons for accepting the likeness principle which, appropriately, focuses on his views concerning ideas and likeness. (shrink)

Margaret Macdonald was at the institutional heart of analytic philosophy in Britain in the mid-twentieth century. Yet, her views on the nature of philosophical theories diverge quite considerably from those of many of her contemporaries. In this paper, I focus on her 1953 article ‘Linguistic Philosophy and Perception’, a provocative paper in which Macdonald argues that the value of philosophical theories is more akin to that of poetry or art than science or mathematics. I do so for two reasons. First, (...) because it reveals just how far Macdonald’s meta- philosophical views diverged from those of many of her contemporaries. Second, because the discussion in LPP pre-empts recent literature on the nature of philosophical inquiry and the efficacy of philosophical arguments. Indeed, Macdonald’s paper is just as likely to provoke discussion today as it was in the 1950s. (shrink)

William Molyneux was born in Dublin, studied in Trinity College Dublin, and was a founding member of the Dublin Philosophical Society (DPS), Ireland’s counterpart to the Royal Society in London. He was a central figure in the Irish intellectual milieu during the Early Modern period and – along with George Berkeley and Edmund Burke – is one of the best-known thinkers to have come out of that context and out of Irish thought more generally. In 1688, when Molyneux wrote the (...) letter to Locke in which he posed the now famous question about a man born blind made to see, he was an active member of the DPS and was on familiar terms with several other key figures in Irish philosophy at the time. For the most part, Irish thinkers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries answered “no” to Molyneux’s question of whether a blind man made to see could distinguish, by sight alone, between a cube and a sphere. (shrink)

This paper is a study about Philadelphia’s comprehensive user engagement sites (CUESs) as the authors address and examine issues related to the upcoming implementation of a CUES while seeking solutions for its disputed questions and plans. Beginning with the federal drug schedules, the authors visit some of the medical and public health issues vis-à-vis safe injection facilities (SIFs). Insite, a successful Canadian SIF, has been thoroughly researched as it represents a paradigm for which a Philadelphia CUES can expand upon. Also, (...) the existing criticisms against SIFs are revisited while critically unpackaged and responded to in favor of the establishment. In the main section, the authors propose the layout and services of the upcoming CUES, much of which would be in congruent to Vancouver’s Insite. On the other hand, the CUES would be distinct from Insite, as the authors emphasize, in that it will offer an information center run by individuals in recovery and place additional emphasis on early education for young healthcare professionals by providing them a platform to work at the site. The paper will also briefly investigate the implementation of a CUES site under an ethical scope of the Harm Reduction Theory. Lastly, the authors recommend some strategic plans that the Philadelphia City government may consider employing at this crucial stage. (shrink)

In recent years, bioethical discourse around the topic of ‘genetic enhancement’ has become increasingly politicized. We fear there is too much focus on the semantic question of whether we should call particular practices and emerging bio-technologies such as CRISPR ‘eugenics’, rather than the more important question of how we should view them from the perspective of ethics and policy. Here, we address the question of whether ‘eugenics’ can be defended and how proponents and critics of enhancement should engage with each (...) other. (shrink)

Vigorous debate over the moral propriety of cognitive enhancement exists, but the views of the public have been largely absent from the discussion. To address this gap in our knowledge, four experiments were carried out with contrastive vignettes in order to obtain quantitative data on public attitudes towards cognitive enhancement. The data collected suggest that the public is sensitive to and capable of understanding the four cardinal concerns identified by neuroethicists, and tend to cautiously accept cognitive enhancement even as they (...) recognize its potential perils. The public is biopolitically moderate, endorses both meritocratic principles and the intrinsic value of hard work, and appears to be sensitive to the salient moral issues raised in the debate. Taken together, these data suggest that public attitudes toward enhancement are sufficiently sophisticated to merit inclusion in policy deliberations, especially if we seek to align public sentiment and policy. (shrink)

A recurring theme dominates recent philosophical debates about the nature of conscious perception: naïve realism’s opponents claim that the view is directly contradicted by empirical science. I argue that, despite their current popularity, empirical arguments against naïve realism are fundamentally flawed. The non-empirical premises needed to get from empirical scientific findings to substantive philosophical conclusions are ones the naïve realist is known to reject. Even granting the contentious premises, the empirical findings do not undermine the theory, given its overall philosophical (...) commitments. Thus, contemporary empirical research fails to supply any new argumentative force against naïve realism. I conclude that, as philosophers of mind, we would be better served spending a bit less time trying to wield empirical science as a cudgel against our opponents, and a bit more time working through the implications of each other’s views – something we can accomplish perfectly well from the comfort of our armchairs. (shrink)

This book explores the idea that all of logic can be reduced to two very simple rules that are sensitive to logical polarity. The authors show that this idea has profound consequences for our understanding of the nature of human inferential capacities, and for some of the key issues in contemporary linguistics.

Epistemic defeat is standardly understood in either evidentialist or responsibilist terms. The seminal treatment of defeat is an evidentialist one, due to John Pollock, who famously distinguishes between undercutting and rebutting defeaters. More recently, an orthogonal distinction due to Jennifer Lackey has become widely endorsed, between so-called doxastic (or psychological) and normative defeaters. We think that neither doxastic nor normative defeaters, as Lackey understands them, exist. Both of Lackey’s categories of defeat derive from implausible assumptions about epistemic responsibility. Although Pollock’s (...) evidentialist view is superior, the evidentialism per se can be purged from it, leaving a general structure of defeat that can be incorporated in a reliabilist theory that is neither evidentialist nor responsibilist in any way. (shrink)

Although the relationship of part to whole is one of the most fundamental there is, this is the first full-length study of this key concept. Showing that mereology, or the formal theory of part and whole, is essential to ontology, Simons surveys and critiques previous theories--especially the standard extensional view--and proposes a new account that encompasses both temporal and modal considerations. Simons's revised theory not only allows him to offer fresh solutions to long-standing problems, but also has far-reaching consequences for (...) our understanding of a host of classical philosophical concepts. (shrink)

Peter Ludlow presents the first book on the philosophy of generative linguistics, including both Chomsky's government and binding theory and his minimalist ...

Children from various countries have been acknowledged and studied for their ability to philosophize, while, unfortunately, Filipino children have not received similar recognition. In this paper, I make a rather unpopular claim that Filipino children can and already are doing philosophy in their efforts to make sense of their existential conditions. “Doing philosophy” here refers to the act of being perplexed by one's own or other people's experiences and making an effort to comprehend them. Filipino children, are a vast and (...) diverse group, coming from various backgrounds, speaking different or even multiple languages, and representing rich cultures and unique circumstances. This diversity adds richness to the wide array of experiences from which existential questions can emerge. However, to truly comprehend the philosophical thinking of Filipino children, they need opportunities and guidance to explore their existential questions and solutions, regardless of how tentative or rudimentary these may seem to adults. Without such opportunities, it remains unclear to what extent their thinking engages with philosophical themes and issues. This not only offers Filipino adults a view of children’s inner worlds but also brings fresh perspectives to commonly held assumptions. (shrink)

A complex approach to Martin Buber’s oeuvre requires a consideration of both his dialogical and pre-dialogical writings. The latter include in some cases emphases that differ substantially from the emphases promulgated in Ich und Du. I will focus on three essays from the final stage of Buber’s pre-dialogical period which contain reflections on the fighting individual. The comparison with Ernst Jünger’s reflections on the same motif will show the intellectual proximity between the two authors and will help us understand how (...) Buber’s thought was positioned shortly before his dialogical turn. While after this turn Buber and Jünger could be easily seen as polar opposites, this is not the case when we juxtapose their early reflections on the fighting individual in World War I. There are striking similarities which I denote as a homology, as there is no evidence of influence in either direction. The presented analysis provides an insight into Buber’s controversial pre-dialogical positions as well as into the more general processing of the World War I experience in Germanophone philosophy. (shrink)

Jennifer Lackey ('Testimonial Knowledge and Transmission' The Philosophical Quarterly 1999) and Peter Graham ('Conveying Information, Synthese 2000, 'Transferring Knowledge' Nous 2000) offered counterexamples to show that a hearer can acquire knowledge that P from a speaker who asserts that P, but the speaker does not know that P. These examples suggest testimony can generate knowledge. The showpiece of Lackey's examples is the Schoolteacher case. This paper shows that Lackey's case does not undermine the orthodox view that testimony cannot generate (...) knowledge. This paper explains why Lackey's arguments to the contrary are ineffective for they misunderstand the intuitive rationale for the view that testimony cannot generate knowledge. This paper then elaborates on a version of the case from Graham's paper 'Conveying Information' (the Fossil case) that effectively shows that testimony can generate knowledge. This paper then provides a deeper informative explanation for how it is that testimony transfers knowledge, and why there should be cases where testimony generates knowledge. (shrink)

Robert Audi’s Seeing, Knowing, and Doing argues that knowledge does not entail justification, given a broadly externalist conception of knowledge and an access internalist conception of justification, where justification requires the ability to cite one’s grounds or reasons. On this view, animals and small children can have knowledge while lacking justification. About cases like these and others, Audi concludes that knowledge does not entail justification. But the access internalist sense of “justification” is but one of at least two ordinary senses (...) of the term. On a broader or looser sense, “justification” means “being in the right” where that involves meeting a standard or norm. I argue that the beliefs of animals and small children can then meet standards or norms associated with truth and knowledge such that their beliefs may count as justified in this broader or looser sense. I then question whether knowledge fails to entail justification on this broader sense. (shrink)

While Philosophy for/with Children (P4wC) provides a better alternative to the usual ‘banking’ model of education, questions have been raised regarding its applicability in non-western contexts. Despite its adherence to the ideals of democratic dialogue, not all members of a Community of Inquiry (COI) will be disposed to participate in the inquiry, not because they are incapable of doing so, but because they are positioned inferiorly within the group thereby affecting their efforts to speak out on topics that are meaningful (...) to them. In this article, I claim that it is essential to integrate positionality in P4wC research/practice. Aside from its role in helping a practitioner/researcher choose the appropriate method and materials that match the unique contexts of children, it also increases one’s awareness of the subtle forms of epistemic injustice that could leak in the COI, as well as the other subtle ways in which children are marginalized. In this regard, a P4wC researcher/practitioner must have a higher degree of sensitivity towards her positionality as this inevitably gets entangled with the positionality of children. I present some ‘areas’ in which the importance of positionality in the COI manifests, namely, restructuring classroom power relations, navigating a multi-ethnic classroom, facilitating meaning-making, and modeling reflective thinking. (shrink)

Similarly to other accounts of disease, Christopher Boorse’s Biostatistical Theory (BST) is generally presented and considered as conceptual analysis, that is, as making claims about the meaning of currently used concepts. But conceptual analysis has been convincingly critiqued as relying on problematic assumptions about the existence, meaning, and use of concepts. Because of these problems, accounts of disease and health should be evaluated not as claims about current meaning, I argue, but instead as proposals about how to define and use (...) these terms in the future, a methodology suggested by Quine and Carnap. I begin this article by describing problems with conceptual analysis and advantages of “philosophical explication,” my favored approach. I then describe two attacks on the BST that also question the entire project of defining “disease.” Finally, I defend the BST as a philosophical explication by showing how it could define useful terms for medical science and ethics. (shrink)

In this paper, we focus on Berkeley's reasons for accepting the ‘resemblance thesis’ which entails that for one thing to represent another those two things must resemble one another. The resemblance thesis is a crucial premise in Berkeley's argument from the ‘likeness principle’ in §8 of the Principles. Yet, like the ‘likeness principle’, the resemblance thesis remains unargued for and is never explicitly defended. This has led several commentators to provide explanations as to why Berkeley accepts the resemblance thesis and (...) why he also takes his opponents to do so too. We provide a contextual answer to this question, focusing on epistemological discussions concerning resemblance and representation in Early Modern Irish Philosophy. We argue that the resemblance thesis is implicit in early responses to William Molyneux's famous example of the ‘man born blind made to see’ and trace the ‘Molyneux man’ thought experiment as it is employed by Irish thinkers such as William King and Berkeley himself. Ultimately, we conclude that Berkeley's acceptance of the resemblance thesis can be explained by the Irish intellectual climate in which he was writing. (shrink)

I argue that phenomenal externalism is preferable to phenomenal internalism on the basis of externalism's explanatory power with respect to qualitative character. I argue that external qualities, namely, external physical properties that are qualitative independent of consciousness, are necessary to explain qualitative character, and that phenomenal externalism is best understood as accepting external qualities while phenomenal internalism is best understood as rejecting them. I build support for the claim that external qualities are necessary to explain qualitative character on the basis (...) of a model of color perception as a certain sort of information filter by which perceivers gain access to external qualities. (shrink)

According to Hempel's paradox, evidence (E) that an object is a nonblack nonraven confirms the hypothesis (H) that every raven is black. According to the standard Bayesian solution, E does confirm H but only to a minute degree. This solution relies on the almost never explicitly defended assumption that the probability of H should not be affected by evidence that an object is nonblack. I argue that this assumption is implausible, and I propose a way out for Bayesians. Introduction Hempel's (...) paradox, the standard Bayesian solution, and the disputed assumption Attempts to defend the disputed assumption Attempts to refute the disputed assumption A way out for Bayesians Conclusion. (shrink)

This paper argues against common views that at least in many cases Robert Nozick is not forced to deny common closure principles. More importantly, Nozick does not – despite first (and second) appearances and despite his own words – deny closure. On the contrary, he is defending a more sophisticated and complex principle of closure. This principle does remarkably well though it is not without problems. It is surprising how rarely Nozick’s principle of closure has been discussed. He should be (...) seen not so much as a denier of closure than as someone who’s proposing an alternative, more complex principle of closure. (shrink)

Current debate and policy surrounding the use of genetic editing in humans often relies on a binary distinction between therapy and human enhancement. In this paper, we argue that this dichotomy fails to take into account perhaps the most significant potential uses of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing in humans. We argue that genetic treatment of sporadic Alzheimer’s disease, breast- and ovarian-cancer causing BRCA1/2 mutations and the introduction of HIV resistance in humans should be considered within a new category of genetic protection (...) treatments. We find that if this category is not introduced, life-altering research might be unnecessarily limited by current or future policy. Otherwise ad hoc decisions might be made, which introduce a risk of unforeseen moral costs, and might overlook or fail to address some important opportunities. (shrink)

This chapter states the contrast between presumptivism about testimonial warrant (often called anti-reductionism) and strict reductionism (associated with Hume) about testimonial warrant. Presumptivism sees an analogy with modest foundationalism about perceptual warrant. Strict reductionism denies this analogy. Two theoretical frameworks for these positions are introduced to better formulate the most popular version of persumptivism, a competence reliabilist account. Seven arguments against presumptivism are then stated and critiqued: (1) The argument from reliability; (2) The argument from reasons; (3) the argument from (...) positive reasons; (4) the argument from negative reasons; (5) the argument from agency; (6) the argument from psychological force; and (7) the argument from gullibility. If presumptivm is false, it is not for any of these arguments. (shrink)

According to Marr's theory of vision, computational processes of early vision rely for their success on certain "natural constraints" in the physical environment. I examine the implications of this feature of Marr's theory for the question whether psychological states supervene on neural states. It is reasonable to hold that Marr's theory is nonindividualistic in that, given the role of natural constraints, distinct computational theories of the same neural processes may be justified in different environments. But to avoid trivializing computational explanations, (...) theories must respect methodological solipsism in the sense that within a theory there cannot be differences in content without a corresponding difference in neural states. (shrink)

Ernest Sosa and others have proposed a safety condition on knowledge: If S knows p, then in the nearest (non-actual) worlds in which S believes p, p is true.1 Colloquially, this is the idea that knowing requires not being easily mistaken. Here, I will argue that like another condition requiring a counterfactual relation between a subject’s belief and the world, viz. Robert Nozick’s sensitivity condition, safety leads, in certain cases, to the unacceptable result that knowledge is not closed under known (...) implication. (shrink)

According to the structured theory of propositions, if two sentences express the same proposition, then they have the same syntactic structure, with corresponding syntactic constituents expressing the same entities. A number of philosophers have recently focused attention on a powerful argument against this theory, based on a result by Bertrand Russell, which shows that the theory of structured propositions is inconsistent in higher order-logic. This paper explores a response to this argument, which involves restricting the scope of the claim that (...) propositions are structured, so that it does not hold for all propositions whatsoever, but only for those which are expressible using closed sentences of a given formal language. We call this restricted principle Closed Structure, and show that it is consistent in classical higher-order logic. As a schematic principle, the strength of Closed Structure is dependent on the chosen language. For its consistency to be philosophically significant, it also needs to be consistent in every extension of the language which the theorist of structured propositions is apt to accept. But, we go on to show, Closed Structure is in fact inconsistent in a very natural extension of the standard language of higher-order logic, which adds resources for plural talk of propositions. We conclude that this particular strategy of restricting the scope of the claim that propositions are structured is not a compelling response to the argument based on Russell’s result, though we note that for some applications, for instance to propositional attitudes, a restricted thesis in the vicinity may hold some promise. (shrink)

It has recently been suggested that politically motivated cognition leads progressive individuals to form beliefs that underestimate real differences between social groups and to process information selectively to support these beliefs and an egalitarian outlook. I contend that this tendency, which I shall call ‘egalitarian confirmation bias’, is often ‘Mandevillian’ in nature. That is, while it is epistemically problematic in one’s own cognition, it often has effects that significantly improve other people’s truth tracking, especially that of stigmatized individuals in academia. (...) Due to its Mandevillian character, egalitarian confirmation bias isn’t only epistemically but also ethically beneficial, as it helps decrease social injustice. Moreover, since egalitarian confirmation bias has Mandevillian effects especially in academia, and since progressives are particularly likely to display the bias, there is an epistemic reason for maintaining the often-noted political majority of progressives in academia. That is, while many researchers hold that diversity in academia is epistemically beneficial because it helps reduce bias, I argue that precisely because political diversity would help reduce egalitarian confirmation bias, it would in fact in one important sense be epistemically costly. (shrink)

The Principal Principle (PP) says that, for any proposition A, given any admissible evidence and the proposition that the chance of A is x%, one's conditional credence in A should be x%. Humean Supervenience (HS) claims that, among possible worlds like ours, no two differ without differing in the spacetime-point-by-spacetime-point arrangement of local properties. David Lewis (1986b, 1994a) has argued that PP contradicts HS, and the validity of his argument has been endorsed by Bigelow et al. (1993), Thau (1994), Hall (...) (1994), Strevens (1995), Ismael (1996), Hoefer (1997), and Black (1998). Against this consensus, I argue that PP might not contradict HS: Lewis's argument is invalid, and every attempt – within a broad class of attempts – to amend the argument fails. (shrink)

Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (d. 925), a doctor known not only for his medical expertise but also for his notorious philosophical ideas, has not yet been given due credit for his ideas on the ethical treatment of animals. This paper explores the philosophical and theological background of his remarks on animal welfare, arguing that al-Rāzī did not (as has been claimed) see animals as possessing rational, intellectual souls like those of humans. It is also argued that al-Rāzī probably did not, as (...) is usually believed, endorse human-animal transmigration. His ethical stance does not in any case depend on shared characteristics of humans and animals, but rather on the need to imitate God’s providence and mercy. (shrink)

We explore some possibilities for developing epistemic logic using truthmaker semantics. We identify three possible targets of analysis for the epistemic logician. We then list some candidate epistemic principles and review the arguments that render some controversial. We then present the classic Hintikkan approach to epistemic logic and note—as per the ‘problem of logical omniscience’—that it validates all of the aforementioned principles, controversial or otherwise. We then lay out a truthmaker framework in the style of Kit Fine and present six (...) different ways of extending this semantics with a conditional knowledge operator, drawing on notions of implication and content that are prominent in Fine’s work. We demonstrate that different logics are thereby generated, bearing on the aforementioned epistemic principles. Finally, we offer preliminary observations about the prospects for each logic. (shrink)