Results for 'Arnon Keren'

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  1. Disagreement, progress, and the goal of philosophy.Arnon Keren - 2023 - Synthese 201 (2):1-22.
    Modest pessimism about philosophical progress is the view that while philosophy may sometimes make some progress, philosophy has made, and can be expected to make, only very little progress (where the extent of philosophical progress is typically judged against progress in the hard sciences). The paper argues against recent attempts to defend this view on the basis of the pervasiveness of disagreement within philosophy. The argument from disagreement for modest pessimism assumes a teleological conception of progress, according to which the (...)
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  2. Trust and belief: a preemptive reasons account.Arnon Keren - 2014 - Synthese 191 (12):2593-2615.
    According to doxastic accounts of trust, trusting a person to \(\varPhi \) involves, among other things, holding a belief about the trusted person: either the belief that the trusted person is trustworthy or the belief that she actually will \(\varPhi \) . In recent years, several philosophers have argued against doxastic accounts of trust. They have claimed that the phenomenology of trust suggests that rather than such a belief, trust involves some kind of non-doxastic mental attitude towards the trusted person, (...)
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  3. Zagzebski on Authority and Preemption in the Domain of Belief.Arnon Keren - 2014 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 6 (4):61-76.
    The paper discusses Linda Zagzebski's account of epistemic authority. Building on Joseph Raz's account of political authority, Zagzebski argues that the basic contours of epistemic authority match those Raz ascribes to political authority. This, it is argued, is a mistake. Zagzebski is correct in identifying the pre-emptive nature of reasons provided by an authority as central to our understanding of epistemic authority. However, Zagzebski ignores important differences between practical and epistemic authority. As a result, her attempt to explain the rationality (...)
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  4. Science and Informed, Counterfactual, Democratic Consent.Arnon Keren - 2015 - Philosophy of Science 82 (5):1284-1295.
    On many science-related policy questions, the public is unable to make informed decisions, because of its inability to make use of knowledge obtained by scientists. Philip Kitcher and James Fishkin have both suggested therefore that on certain science-related issues, public policy should not be decided on by actual democratic vote, but should instead conform to the public’s counterfactual informed democratic decision. Indeed, this suggestion underlies Kitcher’s specification of an ideal of a well-ordered science. This article argues that this suggestion misconstrues (...)
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  5. Kitcher on Well-Ordered Science: Should Science Be Measured against the Outcomes of Ideal Democratic Deliberation?Arnon Keren - 2013 - Theoria 28 (2):233-244.
    What should the goals of scientific inquiry be? What questions should scientists investigate, and how should our resources be distributed between different lines of investigation? Philip Kitcher has suggested that we should answer these questions by appealing to an ideal based on the consideration of hypothetical democratic deliberations under ideal circumstances. The paper argues that we have no reason to adopt this ideal. The paper examines both traditional arguments for democracy and Kitcher's own reasons for adopting this ideal, as presented (...)
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  6. Knowledge on Affective Trust.Arnon Keren - 2012 - Abstracta 6 (S6):33-46.
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  7.  92
    Bringing Thought Experiments Back into the Philosophy of Science.Arnon Levy & Adrian Currie - forthcoming - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science.
    To a large extent, the evidential base of claims in the philosophy of science has switched from thought experiments to case studies. We argue that abandoning thought experiments was a wrong turn, since they can effectively complement case studies. We make our argument via an analogy with the relationship between experiments and observations within science. Just as experiments and ‘natural’ observations can together evidence claims in science, each mitigating the downsides of the other, so too can thought experiments and case (...)
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  8.  52
    Models, Fiction and the Imagination.Arnon Levy - 2024 - In Tarja Knuuttila, Natalia Carrillo & Rami Koskinen (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Scientific Modeling. Routledge.
    Science and fiction seem to lie at opposite ends of the cognitive-epistemic spectrum. The former is typically seen as the study of hard, real-world facts in a rigorous manner. The latter is treated as an instrument of play and recreation, dealing in figments of the imagination. Initial appearances notwithstanding, several central features of scientific modeling in fact suggest a close connection with the imagination and recent philosophers have developed detailed accounts of models that treat them, in one way or another, (...)
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  9.  50
    Thought Experiments Repositioned.Arnon Levy - forthcoming - In Adrian Currie & Sophie Veigl (eds.), Philosophy of Science: A User's Guide. MIT Press.
    Thought experiments play a role in science and in some central parts of contemporary philosophy. They used to play a larger role in philosophy of science, but have been largely abandoned as part of the field’s “practice turn”. This chapter discusses possible roles for thought experimentation within a practice-oriented philosophy of science. Some of these roles are uncontroversial, such as exemplification and aiding discovery. A more controversial role is the reliance on thought experiments to justify philosophical claims. It is proposed (...)
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  10. Aesthetic Rationality.Keren Gorodeisky & Eric Marcus - 2018 - Journal of Philosophy 115 (3):113-140.
    We argue that the aesthetic domain falls inside the scope of rationality, but does so in its own way. Aesthetic judgment is a stance neither on whether a proposition is to be believed nor on whether an action is to be done, but on whether an object is to be appreciated. Aesthetic judgment is simply appreciation. Correlatively, reasons supporting theoretical, practical and aesthetic judgments operate in fundamentally different ways. The irreducibility of the aesthetic domain is due to the fact that (...)
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  11. The authority of pleasure.Keren Gorodeisky - 2021 - Noûs 55 (1):199-220.
    The aim of the paper is to reassess the prospects of a widely neglected affective conception of the aesthetic evaluation and appreciation of art. On the proposed picture, the aesthetic evaluation and appreciation of art are non-contingently constituted by a particular kind of pleasure. Artworks that are valuable qua artworks merit, deserve, and call for a certain pleasure, the same pleasure that reveals (or at least purports to reveal) them to be valuable in the way that they are, and constitutes (...)
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  12. On Liking Aesthetic Value.Keren Gorodeisky - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 102 (2):261-280.
    According to tradition, aesthetic value is non-contingently connected to a certain feeling of liking or pleasure. Is that true? Two answers are on offer in the field of aesthetics today: 1. The Hedonist answers: Yes, aesthetic value is non-contingently connected to pleasure insofar as this value is constituted and explained by the power of its possessors to please (under standard conditions). 2. The Non-Affectivist answers: No. At best, pleasure is contingently related to aesthetic value. The aim of this paper is (...)
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  13. Aesthetic knowledge.Keren Gorodeisky & Eric Marcus - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 179 (8):2507-2535.
    What is the source of aesthetic knowledge? Empirical knowledge, it is generally held, bottoms out in perception. Such knowledge can be transmitted to others through testimony, preserved by memory, and amplified via inference. But perception is where the rubber hits the road. What about aesthetic knowledge? Does it too bottom out in perception? Most say “yes”. But this is wrong. When it comes to aesthetic knowledge, it is appreciation, not perception, where the rubber hits the road. The ultimate source of (...)
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  14.  64
    Aristotle on Non-substantial Particulars, Fundamentality, and Change.Keren Wilson Shatalov - forthcoming - Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie.
    There is a debate about whether particular properties are for Aristotle non-recurrent and trope-like individuals or recurrent universals. I argue that Physics I.7 provides evidence that he took non-substantial particulars to be neither; they are instead non-recurrent modes. Physics I.7 also helps show why this matters. Particular properties must be individual modes in order for Aristotle to preserve three key philosophical commitments: that objects of ordinary experience are primary substances, that primary substances undergo genuine change, and that primary substances are (...)
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  15. The epistemic imagination revisited.Arnon Levy & Ori Kinberg - 2023 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 107 (2):319-336.
    Recently, various philosophers have argued that we can obtain knowledge via the imagination. In particular, it has been suggested that we can come to know concrete, empirical matters of everyday significance by appropriately imagining relevant scenarios. Arguments for this thesis come in two main varieties: black box reliability arguments and constraints-based arguments. We suggest that both strategies are unsuccessful. Against black-box arguments, we point to evidence from empirical psychology, question a central case-study, and raise concerns about a (claimed) evolutionary rationale (...)
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  16. Evolutionary Debunking Arguments Meet Evolutionary Science.Arnon Levy & Yair Levy - 2020 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 100 (3):491-509.
    Evolutionary debunking arguments appeal to selective etiologies of human morality in an attempt to undermine moral realism. But is morality actually the product of evolution by natural selection? Although debunking arguments have attracted considerable attention in recent years, little of it has been devoted to whether the underlying evolutionary assumptions are credible. In this paper, we take a closer look at the evolutionary hypotheses put forward by two leading debunkers, namely Sharon Street and Richard Joyce. We raise a battery of (...)
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  17. Three kinds of new mechanism.Arnon Levy - 2013 - Biology and Philosophy 28 (1):99-114.
    I distinguish three theses associated with the new mechanistic philosophy – concerning causation, explanation and scientific methodology. Advocates of each thesis are identified and relationships among them are outlined. I then look at some recent work on natural selection and mechanisms. There, attention to different kinds of New Mechanism significantly affects of what is at stake.
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  18. Aesthetic Agency.Keren Gorodeisky - forthcoming - In Luca Ferrero (ed.), Routledge Handbook for the Philosophy of Agency. pp. 456-466.
    Until very recently, there has been no discussion of aesthetic agency. This is likely because aesthetics has traditionally focused not on action, but on appreciation, while the standard approach identifies ‘agency’ with the will, and, more specifically, with the capacity for intentional action. In this paper, I argue, first, that this identification is unfortunate since it fails to do justice to the fact that we standardly attribute beliefs, emotions, desires, and other conative and affective attitudes that aren’t formed ‘at will,’ (...)
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  19. What was Hodgkin and Huxley’s Achievement?Arnon Levy - 2013 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 65 (3):469-492.
    The Hodgkin–Huxley (HH) model of the action potential is a theoretical pillar of modern neurobiology. In a number of recent publications, Carl Craver ([2006], [2007], [2008]) has argued that the model is explanatorily deficient because it does not reveal enough about underlying molecular mechanisms. I offer an alternative picture of the HH model, according to which it deliberately abstracts from molecular specifics. By doing so, the model explains whole-cell behaviour as the product of a mass of underlying low-level events. The (...)
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  20. Model Organisms are Not (Theoretical) Models.Arnon Levy & Adrian Currie - 2015 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 66 (2):327-348.
    Many biological investigations are organized around a small group of species, often referred to as ‘model organisms’, such as the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. The terms ‘model’ and ‘modelling’ also occur in biology in association with mathematical and mechanistic theorizing, as in the Lotka–Volterra model of predator-prey dynamics. What is the relation between theoretical models and model organisms? Are these models in the same sense? We offer an account on which the two practices are shown to have different epistemic characters. (...)
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  21. Must Reasons be Either Theoretical or Practical? Aesthetic Criticism and Appreciative Reasons.Keren Gorodeisky - 2021 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 100 (2):313-329.
    A long debate in aesthetics concerns the reasoned nature of criticism. The main questions in the debate are whether criticism is based on (normative) reasons, whether critics communicate reasons for their audience’s responses, and if so, how to understand these critical reasons. I argue that a great obstacle to making any progress in this debate is the deeply engrained assumption, shared by all sides of the debate, that reasons can only be either theoretical reasons (i.e., those that explain what to (...)
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  22. Causal Order and Kinds of Robustness.Arnon Levy - 2017 - In Snait Gissis, Ehud Lamm & Ayelet Shavit (eds.), Landscapes of Collectivity in the Life Sciences. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. pp. 269-280.
    This paper derives from a broader project dealing with the notion of causal order. I use this term to signify two kinds of parts-whole dependence: Orderly systems have rich, decomposable, internal structure; specifically, parts play differential roles, and interactions are primarily local. Disorderly systems, in contrast, have a homogeneous internal structure, such that differences among parts and organizational features are less important. Orderliness, I suggest, marks one key difference between individuals and collectives. My focus here will be the connection between (...)
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  23. Evolutionary debunking of (arguments for) moral realism.Arnon Levy & Itamar Weinshtock Saadon - 2023 - Synthese 201 (5):1-22.
    Moral realism is often taken to have common sense and initial appearances on its side. Indeed, by some lights, common sense and initial appearances underlie all the central positive arguments for moral realism. We offer a kind of debunking argument, taking aim at realism’s common sense standing. Our argument differs from familiar debunking moves both in its empirical assumptions and in how it targets the realist position. We argue that if natural selection explains the objective phenomenology of moral deliberation and (...)
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  24. Models, Fictions, and Realism: Two Packages.Arnon Levy - 2012 - Philosophy of Science 79 (5):738-748.
    Some philosophers of science – the present author included – appeal to fiction as an interpretation of the practice of modeling. This raises the specter of an incompatibility with realism, since fiction-making is essentially non-truth-regulated. I argue that the prima facie conflict can be resolved in two ways, each involving a distinct notion of fiction and a corresponding formulation of realism. The main goal of the paper is to describe these two packages. Toward the end I comment on how to (...)
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  25. Information in Biology: A Fictionalist Account.Arnon Levy - 2010 - Noûs 45 (4):640-657.
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  26. Game Theory, Indirect Modeling, and the Origin of Morality.Arnon Levy - 2011 - Journal of Philosophy 108 (4):171-187.
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  27. Rationally Agential Pleasure? A Kantian Proposal.Keren Gorodeisky - 2018 - In Lisa Shapiro (ed.), Pleasure: a History. Oxford University Press. pp. 167-194.
    The main claim of the paper is that, on Kant's account, aesthetic pleasure is an exercise of rational agency insofar as, when proper, it has the following two features: (1) It is an affective responsiveness to the question: “what is to be felt disinterestedly”? As such, it involves consciousness of its ground (the reasons for having it) and thus of itself as properly responsive to its object. (2) Its actuality depends on endorsement: actually feeling it involves its endorsement as an (...)
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  28. Unity in Variety: Theoretical, Practical and Aesthetic Reason in Kant.Keren Gorodeisky - 2019 - In Konstantin Pollok & Gerad Gentry (eds.), The Imagination in German Idealism and Romanticism. New York: Cambridge University Press.
    The main task of the paper is to explore Kant’s understanding of what unites the three kinds of judgment that he regards as the signature judgments of the three fundamental faculties of the mind--theoretical, practical and aesthetic judgments--in a way that preserves their fundamental differences. I argue that these are differences in kind not only in degree; or, in the terms I motivate in the paper, differences in form. Thus, I aim to show that (1) the Romantic unity of knowing, (...)
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  29. Evolutionary models and the normative significance of stability.Arnon Levy - 2018 - Biology and Philosophy 33 (5-6):33.
    Many have expected that understanding the evolution of norms should, in some way, bear on our first-order normative outlook: How norms evolve should shape which norms we accept. But recent philosophy has not done much to shore up this expectation. Most existing discussions of evolution and norms either jump headlong into the is/ought gap or else target meta-ethical issues, such as the objectivity of norms. My aim in this paper is to sketch a different way in which evolutionary considerations can (...)
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  30. Value First: Comments on Mohan Matthen’s ‘The Pleasure of Art’.Keren Gorodeisky - 2017 - Australasian Philosophical Review 1 (1):79-84.
    While I welcome Mohan Matthen’s insistence that art is connected to aesthetic pleasure, I worry about his commitment to viewing pleasure as prior to, and constitutive of, the value of art. I raise my reservations by (i) dispelling his criticism of the reversed explanatory direction, and (ii) showing problems for his commitment. As an alternative, I offer an account of pleasure that explains it in terms of the independent value of art—an account that is free of the problems Matthen raises (...)
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  31. ’No Poetry, No Reality:’ Schlegel, Wittgenstein, Fiction and Reality.Keren Gorodeisky - 2014 - In Dalia Nassar (ed.), The Relevance of Romanticism. pp. 163-185.
    Friedrich Schlegel’s remarks about poetry and reality are notoriously baffling. They are often regarded as outlandish, or “poetically exaggerated” statements, since they are taken to suggest that there is no difference between poetry and reality or to express the view that there is no way out of linguistic and poetic constructions (Bowie). I take all these responses to be mistaken, and argue that Schlegel’s remarks are philosophical observations about a genuine confusion in theoretical approaches to the distinction between fiction and (...)
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  32. Schematizing without a Concept? Imagine that!Keren Gorodeisky - 2013 - In Stefano Bacin, Alfredo Ferrarin, Claudio La Rocca & Margit Ruffing (eds.), Kant und die Philosophie in weltbürgerlicher Absicht. Akten des XI. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses. Boston: de Gruyter. pp. 59-70.
    The aim of this paper is to elucidate what Kant describes as the "free lawfulness of the imagination" in judgments of beauty in aesthetic terms, as called for by the distinctive nature of beauty. I argue that the aesthetic activity of the imagination differs from the theoretical activity of the imagination, and that the difference between the two has an aesthetic ground in terms of the special form of beautiful objects and the special value of beauty. In contrast to the (...)
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  33. Do Bayesian Models of Cognition Show That We Are (Bayes) Rational?Arnon Levy - forthcoming - Philosophy of Science:1-13.
    According to [Bayesian] models” in cognitive neuroscience, says a recent textbook, “the human mind behaves like a capable data scientist”. Do they? That is to say, do such model show we are rational? I argue that Bayesian models of cognition, perhaps surprisingly, do not and indeed cannot, show that we are Bayesian-rational. The key reason is that such models appeal to approximations, a fact that carries significant implications. After outlining the argument, I critique two responses, seen in recent cognitive neuroscience. (...)
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  34. What, If anything, Is Biological Altruism?Topaz Halperin & Arnon Levy - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
    The study of biological altruism is a cornerstone of modern evolutionary biology. Associated with foundational issues about natural selection, it is often supposed that explaining altruism is key to understanding social behavior more generally. Typically, biological altruism is defined in purely effects-based, behavioral terms – as an interaction in which one organism contributes fitness to another, at its own expense. Crucially, such a definition isn’t meant to rest on psychological or intentional assumptions. We show that, appearances and official definitions notwithstanding, (...)
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  35. The Debunking Challenge to Realism: How Evolution (Ultimately) Matters.Levy Arnon & Yair Levy - 2016 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy (1):1-8.
    Evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs) have attracted extensive attention in meta-ethics, as they pose an important challenge to moral realism. Mogensen (2015) suggests that EDAs contain a fallacy, by confusing two distinct forms of biological explanation – ultimate and proximate. If correct, the point is of considerable importance: evolutionary genealogies of human morality are simply irrelevant for debunking. But we argue that the actual situation is subtler: while ultimate claims do not strictly entail proximate ones, there are important evidential connections between (...)
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  36. Book Review of "Torts, Egalitarianism and Distributive Justice" by Tsachi Keren-Paz. [REVIEW]Nicole A. Vincent - 2008 - Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy 33:199-204.
    In "Torts, Egalitarianism and Distributive Justice" , Tsachi Keren-Paz presents impressingly detailed analysis that bolsters the case in favour of incremental tort law reform. However, although this book's greatest strength is the depth of analysis offered, at the same time supporters of radical law reform proposals may interpret the complexity of the solution that is offered as conclusive proof that tort law can only take adequate account of egalitarian aims at an unacceptably high cost.
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  37. A Completenesss Theorem for a 3-Valued Semantics for a First-order Language.Christopher Gauker - manuscript
    This document presents a Gentzen-style deductive calculus and proves that it is complete with respect to a 3-valued semantics for a language with quantifiers. The semantics resembles the strong Kleene semantics with respect to conjunction, disjunction and negation. The completeness proof for the sentential fragment fills in the details of a proof sketched in Arnon Avron (2003). The extension to quantifiers is original but uses standard techniques.
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