Marx thinks that capitalism is exploitative, and that is a major basis for his objections to it. But what's wrong with exploitation, as Marx sees it? (The paper is exegetical in character: my object is to understand what Marx believed,) The received view, held by Norman Geras, G.A. Cohen, and others, is that Marx thought that capitalism was unjust, because in the crudest sense, capitalists robbed labor of property that was rightfully the workers' because the workers and not the capitalists (...) produced it. This view depends on a Labor Theory of Property (LTP), that property rights are based ultimately on having produced something. (A view oddly enough shared with the libertarian right, though the LTP is better support for egalitarian or socialist views; see my From Libertarianism to Egalitarianism, 18 Social Theory & Prac. 259-288 (1992).) -/- I show that the idea that Marx's objection to exploitation is based on injustice or LTP-grounded theft is mistaken. Marx's real objection to exploitation is based on unfreedom, that capitalist relations of production, he thinks, unnecessarily limit human freedom. In the first place Marx is quite clear that he vehemently rejects the concepts of justice, fairness, or rights as bourgeois ideology. It is true that he uses the language of "theft" on occasion, but either a literal interpretation of that language must be abandoned, or his consistent, life-long objection to rights- and justice talk must be given up. Second, the structure, indeed the point, of his analysis of the laws of motion of capitalism, is that capitalists make profits through exploitation of labor -- without cheating -- by the normal "legitimate" operation of the system. Other arguments make the same point. -/- The unfreedom or force-based view, though not necessarily my specific arguments advocated so far is shared by a minority of other writers, such as Nancy Holmstrom and Richard Arneson. What my paper offers that is novel, part from arguments for the foregoing that are different and better than those found elsewhere (although Holmstrom and Arneson are excellent), is an account of in detail of what Marx regards as the real problem with exploitation. -/- I analyze Marx's objection that capitalist exploitation causes unnecessary unfreedom by distinguishing and spelling out three different kinds of freedom that he invokes: classic negative freedom, or noninterference; positive freedom, understood as control over or access to the resources enabling one to exercise one's negative freedom; and "real" freedom, as he puts it, the ability to "give the law to oneself," to regulate one's own activities under rules chosen by oneself, to develop one's capacities by autonomous choice. This puts Marx in the tradition going back through Hegel and Kant to Rousseau, the first express advocate of this idea. The opposite of real freedom, the unfreedom due to lack of autonomy, is alienation. -/- I conclude by stating that I think that justice-based objections to exploitation that avoid Marx's objections to the concept are possible. I do not attempt to spell these out here. I take up that task in my subsequently published paper Relativism, Reflective Equilibrium, and Justice, 17 Legal Stud.,128-168 (1997). -/- The present paper is related to and partly overlaps with my paper In Defense of Exploitation, 11 Econ. & Phil. 49-81 (1995), a critique of John Roemer's equality based account of the nature of exploitation and its wrongness. The research and writing of this paper was financially supported by the philosophy department of The Ohio State University. -/- Keywords: Exploitation, Justice, Unjustice, Theft, Labor Theory of Property, Marx, Freedom, Unfreedom, Rights, Fairness, Critique of Justice, Negative Freedom, Positive Freedom, Real Freedom, Alienation, G.A. Cohen, Norman Geras. (shrink)

A standard problem with the objectivity of social scientific theory in particular is that it is either self-referential, in which case it seems to undermine itself as ideology, or self-excepting, which seem pragmatically self-refuting. Using the example of Marx and his theory of ideology, I show how self-referential theories that include themselves in their scope of explanation can be objective. Ideology may be roughly defined as belief distorted by class interest. I show how Marx thought that natural science was informed (...) by class interest but not therefore necessarily ideology. Capitalists have an interest in understanding the natural world (to a point) so that they can manipulate it for profit. Their survival in the marketplace often depends on their competitive success in doing so. The fact that their interventions into nature, driven by class interest, often succeed, is evidence of the reliability and truth of their natural scientific theories. -/- With social science, capitalists have a partial interest in understanding the world, so that they may maintain their class power, ideological hegemony, and a reasonably stable and self-reproducing economy. Some bourgeois social science, Marx thinks, is therefore vindicated the same way that natural science is, because of, not despite, its success in promoting the class interests that cause it. But the capitalist class, Marx thinks, also has an interest in obfuscating the truth about the social world. It would undermine the stability of capitalism, for example, for the bourgeoisie to adopt what Marx thinks to be the correct social theory, Marxism, and proclaim to the world that capitalism is exploitative and unstable. Capitalism creates a a need for ideological social theories that, driven by class interest, represent capitalism as just, natural, inevitable, and unalterable. If Marxism is correct, while these theories may further capitalist interests, they will not withstand the test of time as capitalist exploitation and instability engenders countersystemic political action. -/- How, then can we know, according to Marx, that Marxism is correct, as applied to itself? In part it is whether it succeeds in further the class interests that cause it. If workers adopt bourgeois theories and Marxism is right, they will find themselves frustrated in pursuit of goals that they have, such as improving their well-being, and if Marxism is wrong, then those theories will help them further their own goals. Similarly with Marxism: if it is right, then workers who adopt it should in the long run have more success in furthering their own goals, and if not, then not. But it is question begging to say that our confidence in the reliability of Marxism is enhanced by its successful promotion of goals that capitalists do not have but (according to Marxism) workers do. To avoid this problem it is necessary to compare the relative success of each sort of theory in promoting the interests and needs that the respective classes have independently of the theory, as well as by the usual criteria of scientific theory choice. -/- Thus the Soviet variant of Marxism was fairly decisively refuted by its failure to generate the support of its own designated constituency necessary to grow and survive. Whether the same is true of other varieties of Marxism or of capitalist social theory, it is, as Zhou En Lai said when asked whether the French Revolution had succeeded, too soon to tell, at least in any definitive way. However, and this is the point of the paper, an objective test of Marxism is possible even though Marxism says that all theory is informed by class interest. The question is whether the interests are in discovering or obfuscating the truth. The point is not limited to Marx, but applies to any self-referential social scientific theory that includes itself in its scope. -/- Keywords: ideology, self-referential theory, self-reference, reliabilism, objectivity, Marx, Marxism, sociology of science, class interest, classes, capitalism, bourgeoisie, workers, working class, social theory of knowledge, confirmation of scientific theory. (shrink)

Philosophers have argued that on the prevailing theory of mind, functionalism, the fact that mental states are multiply realizable or can be instantiated in a variety of different physical forms, at least in principle, shows that materialism or physical is probably false. A similar argument rejects the relevance to psychology of connectionism, which holds that mental states are embodied and and constituted by connectionist neural networks. These arguments, I argue, fall before reductios ad absurdam, proving too much -- they apply (...) as well to genes, which are multiply realizable, but the reduction of which to DNA is one the core cases of scientific reductive explanation, a reduction if anything is. -/- I suggest that psychology, like biology, be what I call "provincialized," abandon claims to universal validity, except as an idealization, and treat different classes of cognizers differently from an an explanatory perspective. This would permit specifies specific, or more precisely, provincial reductions of different psychologies that might be multiply realized if such reductions were available. Connectionism may be the foundation of a reduction of human psychology, and thus biology and connectionism retain their relevance to psychology, and physicalism or materialism is consistent with functionalism. (shrink)

G. A. Cohen defends and Jon Elster criticizes Marxist use of functional explanation. But Elster's mechanical conception of explanation is, contrary to Elster's claims, a better basis for vindication of functional explanation than Cohen's nomological conception, which cannot provide an adequate account of functional explanation. Elster also objects that functional explanation commits us to metaphysically bizarre collective subjects, but his argument requires an implausible reading of methodological individualism which involves an unattractive eliminativism about social phenomena.

Is the family subject to principles of justice? In "A Theory of Justice", John Rawls includes the (monogamous) family along with the market and the government as among the, "basic institutions of society", to which principles of justice apply. Justice, he famously insists, is primary in politics as truth is in science: the only excuse for tolerating injustice is that no lesser injustice is possible. The point of the present paper is that Rawls doesn't actually mean this. When it comes (...) to the family, and in particular its impact on fair equal opportunity, (the first part of the Difference Principle, Rawls' second principle of justice), he abandons the priority of justice. I also argue that he is right to do so. -/- The central argument is simple. As Rawls admits, what family one is raised by profoundly affects one's life chances: a child raised by a family has far greater life chances on every dimension than one raised in a poorer family that may lack books, education, and time to give the child attention. But the prevailing family arrangements in the industrialized West, assigning children to be raised by their biological parents, is guaranteed to perpetuate this injustice. While Rawls says an unjust institution in the basic structure of society, in which he includes the family, must be, "reformed or abolished," he refrains from calling for the reform or abolition of the family. We must simply work around it to compensate for the injustices he admits it involves. And this despite the fact that alternative arrangements involving communal child-rearing (Plato) or assigning children to those best qualified to raise them (Rousseau) are common in the philosophical literature. Moreover, the practice of having children raised by their biological parents is a relatively recent one, at least in the West, where, before the late 18th century, fostering-out or apprenticeship arrangements were normal and expected for both rich and poor for centuries. -/- Much of the paper is devoted to fine-grained textual analysis of Rawls' attempts to avoid the devastating implications of this argument for his theory of justice -- much of which are stated only in the original edition of "A Theory of Justice" and simply deleted, without substitution by anything better, in the second edition. In the end, Rawls has no way out. He cannot keep the priority of justice, fair equality of opportunity, and the monogamous family in which children are raised by their biological parents. As he admits, these are mutually inconsistent. -/- In the final part of the paper, I argue that Rawls should give up on the priority of justice. While child-rearing by the biological parents is a historical anomaly, in the real modern world it would be politically unfeasible to institute Platonic, Rousseauean, or similar legislation that purportedly assigned children to those best able to raise them, regardless of biological relationship. Since Rawls is committed to principles of political stability and feasibility, as he should be, and since ought implies can, such proposals are off the table. I concur with Rawls that we must work around this injustice, even those there are more just arrangements available in principle. But the cost of this -- less high than Rawls suggests -- is abandoning the principle of the priority of justice. Justice is one of a number of considerations that we must or may balance in deciding on the best attainable social relations. It is not a trump. However, this comes a great cost for Rawls: he must also abandon the lexical ordering of principles of justice or, in general, right or good principles of social order, in favor of the messy intuitionist balancing that his theory is designed to avoid. -/- One feature of the paper that is worth independent attention is a discussion of Marx's rejection of justice in the Critique of the Gotha Program, which I explicate, and urge, without adopting it, that it has a great deal more force than is widely understood. (shrink)

A standard natural rights argument for libertarianism is based on the labor theory of property: the idea that I own my self and my labor, and so if I "mix" my own labor with something previously unowned or to which I have a have a right, I come to own the thing with which I have mixed by labor. This initially intuitively attractive idea is at the basis of the theories of property and the role of government of John Locke (...) and Robert Nozick. Locke saw and Nozick agreed that fairness to others requires a proviso: that I leave "enough and as good" for others. The same considerations apply to legitimate acquisition by voluntary exchange, gift, or bequeathal. -/- This sort of argument has been critiqued for the purely hypothetical and counterfactual nature of its premises, for the coherence of the idea of self-ownership, for the notion that mixing what I own with what I do not gives me a right in what I do not rather than wasting what I own, and for the unacceptably cruel and heartless consequences of adopting it, among other reasons. -/- However, I accept the premises and waive (though note) these objections, and formulate a new objection, showing that to give me a right in what I do not own, the labor theory of property requires a commitment to a right to what I need. I distinguish several senses of need and show that the sense of need the argument requires is "use need," the need I have to to use something to exercise my labor on it. This turns out to have a startling counter-intuitive result: the libertarian principle, so understood, turns out to be "to each according to his needs," which Marx identified as the principle of the highest phase of communism as he understood it. If communism is understood as in some sense egalitarian, this argument for libertarianism turns itself inside out into an argument for egalitarian communism. Libertarians therefore cannot use the Labor Theory of Property to defend the positions they typically wish to hold. (shrink)

Roemer's attempt to undermine the normative reasons that Marxists have thought exploitation important (domination, alienation, and inequality) is vitiated by several crucial errors. First, Roemer ignores the dimension of freedom which is Marx's main concern and replaces it with an interest in justice, which Marx rejected. This leads him to misconstrue the nature of exploitation as Marx understands it. Second, his procedure for disconnecting these evils from exploitation, or denying their importance, involves the methodological assumption that exploitation must strictly imply (...) these evils. He thus fails to see that exploitation may 'cause' domination, alienation, and inequality; this assumption and the focus on justice also lead him to overlook the sort of alienation that is most important to Marx and the way exploitation, as Marx understands it, does imply coercion. Roemer's alternative conception of exploitation thus fails to capture basic Marxist normative and explanatory concerns. But Roemer's insistence on the importance of justice and the need for an articulated alternative to capitalism are a necessary supplement to a Marxist account. (shrink)

This paper critiques the view, widely held by philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists, that psychological explanation is a matter of ascribing propositional attitudes (such as beliefs and desires) towards language-like propositions in the mind, and that cognitive mental states consist in intentional attitudes towards propositions of a linguistic quasi-linguistic nature. On this view, thought is structured very much like a language. Denial that propositional attitude psychology is an adequate account of mind is therefore, on this view, is tantamount to (...) eliminative materialism, the denial that human beings are thinking beings. -/- I dispute this on the basis of recent work in cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence. Mental models theory, on which thought is better understood as nonpropositional intentional psychology, accords better with the evidence and offers an alternative view to propositional attitude psychology -- one that means that the denial that that is propositional is not eliminative. However, I argue that propositional attitude psychology is a useful idealization, as classical mechanics is of relativity theory, strictly but not radically false, and useful for prediction and indeed, as long as its idealized character is born in mind, for explanation of behavior. (shrink)

THIS PAPER IS THE CO-WINNER OF THE FRED BERGER PRIZE IN PHILOSOPHY OF LAW FOR THE 1999 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BEST PUBLISHED PAPER IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS. -/- The conflict between liberal legal theory and critical legal studies (CLS) is often framed as a matter of whether there is a theory of justice that the law should embody which all rational people could or must accept. In a divided society, the CLS critique of this view is overwhelming: (...) there is no such justice that can command universal assent. But the liberal critique of CLS, that it degenerates into an unpalatable moral relativism on which there is no non-arbitrary basis between a justice that underwrites forms of domination such as slavery and a justice that condemns such forms of domination is equally powerful and compelling. I show that there is a way to harmonize both views that is subject to empirical test. -/- First I show that the most widely accepted and influential formulation of liberal justice, John Rawls' Justice as Fairness, in. e.g, A Theory of Justice, cannot avoid the relativistic challenge because it would not be accepted, as a matter of sociological fact, by real people in a divided society once the "veil of Ignorance" is removed and real people step out from the Original Position. To put it differently, different reflective equilibria are inevitable in a divided society. Given the weight that Rawls properly puts on the realizability of a conception of justice and its stability in practice, this is a fatal objection. There can be no divided society that is "well ordered" in Rawls' sense, governed by a shared conception of justice and known to be so governed. -/- I then turn to the most powerful statement of the CLS view, Milton's Fisk's relativistic account in The State and Justice. For Fisk, justice is a compromise between what the dominant groups can compel and what the the subordinate groups will acquiesce to., There is no one such compromise in any given situation, so the account is in that sense relativistic, but more deeply, it is relativistic in that it offers no non-arbitrary, non-question begging way to choose between the official justice of, e.g., a slaveholding society and and the radical justice of the slaves, which has no place for slaveholders as a group or slavery as an institution.All that Fisk can offer is an arbitrary existential choice: I'm with the slaves. (Or the slaveowners.) Most of us would find this disconcerting or even unacceptable. -/- I show that Fisk's general sort of account can be modified to allow for an non-arbitrary choice. Given general facts about human nature, societies based on domination will produce resistance that over the long run will diminish or eliminate various forms of domination. Through a sort of ratchet effect, rights won will be hard if not impossible to reverse. Societies embodying forms of domination can therefore be compared on dimensions of stability: the more domination, the more resistance, and the less stability. Such societies are inferior on the dimension of justice to more emancipatory society on the terms of both kinds of justice, official and radical. -/- This is not question begging because regimes of domination incorporate stability no less than more emancipatory social orders. The choice between official justice embodying domination and radical justice that does not is not arbitrary because it is based on a shared commitment to long term stability. This offers an empirical test of which social orders are more justice, and a prediction that over time, domination will tend to decrease. (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)

Debate about legal and policy reform has been haunted by a pernicious confusion about human nature, the idea that it is a set of rigid dispositions, today generally conceived as genetic, that is manifested the same way in all circumstances. Opponents of egalitarian alternatives argue that we cannot depart far from the status quo because human nature stands in the way. Advocates of such reforms too often deny the existence of human nature because, sharing this conception, they think it would (...) prevent changes they deem desirable. Both views rest on deep errors about what it is to have a nature and how genetics works. Human nature, like the nature of anything else, is a set of potentials to behave certain ways in given environments, not a nonsocial genetic something that inevitably produces the same result in any environment. To say that existing inequalities, are due to our genes, inalterable because heritable, ignores that genetic propensities may be differently manifested in different environments. Heritability has meaning only relative to an environment and a population and implies nothing about inevitability. A better sort of inegalitarian argument is that a proposed reform, given our nature, would be too costly even if possible. However, this sort of argument is too rarely supported by evidence and generally ignores the costs of existing inequalities. But egalitarians err in supposing that, if behavior is unconstrained by biology, the status quo is easily alterable. The environment may be extremely hard to change. Legal and policy debate should adopt a correct understanding of human nature as a set of propensities and ask of any proposed reform agreed to be otherwise desirable what and how alterable are its causes, genetic, environmental, or more accurately both. (shrink)

Because anticipated and retrospective regret play important roles in practical deliberation and motivation, better understanding them can illuminate the contours of human agency. However, the possibility of self-ignorance and the fact that we change over time can make regret—especially anticipatory regret—not only a poor predictor of where the agent will be in the future but also an unreliable indicator of where the agent stands. Granting these, this paper examines the way in which prospective and, particularly, retrospective regret can nevertheless yield (...) important insight into the sorts of creatures we are, both generally and individually. The experience of retrospective regret can show a person she values something in a way she did not know or that she is (or was) a different person than she had thought, insights which can factor into forward-looking, or prospective, deliberation. Such instances of revelatory regret reveal something to the agent about herself as agent. I examine two cases of agential self-ignorance. In the first, the experience of regret reveals what the agent values, not only to others but even to the agent himself. In the second, the agent anticipates experiencing regret for an action but does not experience the regret, suggesting that the agent did not value the rejected alternative in the way she thought. Anticipatory regret is forward-looking and can play an important role in practical deliberation. But insofar as anticipatory regret flows from one’s imperfect judgment and prospection about oneself, retrospective regret can be an important corrective in helping the agent understand her own standpoint. (shrink)

In "Mathematical Truth", Paul Benacerraf articulated an epistemological problem for mathematical realism. His formulation of the problem relied on a causal theory of knowledge which is now widely rejected. But it is generally agreed that Benacerraf was onto a genuine problem for mathematical realism nevertheless. Hartry Field describes it as the problem of explaining the reliability of our mathematical beliefs, realistically construed. In this paper, I argue that the Benacerraf Problem cannot be made out. There simply is no intelligible problem (...) that satisfies all of the constraints which have been placed on the Benacerraf Problem. The point generalizes to all arguments with the structure of the Benacerraf Problem aimed at realism about a domain meeting certain conditions. Such arguments include so-called "Evolutionary Debunking Arguments" aimed at moral realism. I conclude with some suggestions about the relationship between the Benacerraf Problem and the Gettier Problem. (shrink)

Pangunahing layunin ng papel na ito ang patunayan na mayroong konsepto ng sarili sa kamalayang Pilipino at gamitin ang pag-unawa rito sa pagtugon sa mga suliraning nakapalibot sa pilosopiyang Pilipino. Abala ang unang bahagi sa pagpapatibay ng pagkameron ng sarili at paglalahad ng depinisyon at mukha nito sa pamamagitan ng pagsagot sa mga sumusunod na katanungan: “Mayroon bang Sarili?” at “Ano ang Sarili?” Nakatungtong ang pagpapatibay at paglalahad na ito sa metalinggwistikal na pagsusuri ni Leonardo Mercado at pagmumuni sa meron (...) ni Roque Ferriols. Mapapansin sa paglalarawan sa sarili ang pagkamangha ni Mercado sa konsepto ng kasarinlan salungat sa kalayaan. Ang pagtuon ni Mercado sa kasarinlan ang tulay patungo sa pagsagot sa mga paratang sa pilosopiyang Pilipino. Sinasabi ni Noel Pariñas na imposible ang pagkakaroon ng pilosopiyang Pilipino habang naniniwala naman si Rolando Gripaldo na Kanluranin ito. Naging inspirasyon ng papel na ito ang “balangkas ng dekolonisasyon” ng peministang si Kelly Agra sa pagtugon sa dalawang suliraning inihayag ni Pariñas at Gripaldo. Kung kaya’t ipinakikita ng papel na ito na mahahalagang sangkap ang ating pag-unawa sa sarili at kasarinlan sa pagpapasimula ng dekolonisasyon at maging sa pagbibigay kaganapan mismo sa kasarinlan. Higit sa lahat, pinalilitaw ng buong diskursong ito ang hindi napapansing kahalagahan at implikasyon ng pagsasaliksik tungkol sa sarili; kalakip nito ang hangad na mas marami pang mga palaisip at mag-aaral ang magtangka na sumisid sa mga hindi kilalang mga sangkap ng pilosopiyang Pilipino habang nakikilahok sa proseso ng dekolonisasyon ng Pilipinong kaisipan. (shrink)

Margaret MacDonald (1907–56) was a central figure in the history of early analytic philosophy in Britain due to both her editorial work as well as her own writings. While her later work on aesthetics and political philosophy has recently received attention, her early writings in the 1930s present a coherent and, for its time, strikingly original blend of common-sense and scientific philosophy. In these papers, MacDonald tackles the central problems of philosophy of her day: verification, the problem of induction, and (...) the relationship between philosophical and scientific method. MacDonald’s philosophy of science starts from the principle that we should carefully analyse the elements of scientific practice (particularly its temporal features) and the ways that scientists describe that practice. That is, she applies the techniques of ordinary language philosophy to actual scientific language. MacDonald shows how ‘scientific common-sense’ is inconsistent with both of the dominant schools of philosophy of her day. Bringing MacDonald back into the story of analytic philosophy corrects the impression that in early analytic philosophy, there are fundamental dichotomies between the style of Moore and Wittgenstein, on the one hand, and the Vienna Circle on the other. (shrink)

ABSTRACT One simple but relatively neglected solution to the notorious coincidence puzzle of the statue and the piece of clay claims that the property of being a statue is a phase sortal property that the piece of clay instantiates temporarily. I defend this view against some standard objections, by reinforcing it with a novel counterpart-theoretic account of identity under a sortal. This proposal does not require colocation, four-dimensionalism, eliminativism, deflationism, or unorthodox theses about classical identity.

I introduce a new approach to fission puzzles called the Diversified Approach that proceeds by distinguishing different kinds of fission and assimilating each kind to a different ordinary phenomenon, such as breaking apart, replication, or part loss. To illustrate this approach, I apply it to the case of amoebic fission. The upshot is a novel account of amoebic fission according to which the dividing amoeba ceases to exist because it breaks apart. After developing this solution and highlighting some of its (...) advantages, I discuss briefly how the Diversified Approach can be extended to other varieties of fission. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that the criteria of identity over time for ordinary objects entail that such objects are permanent members of certain sortal kinds. The sortal kinds in question have come to be known as substance sortal kinds. But in this article, I defend a criterion of identity that is suited to phasalism, the view that alleged substance sortals are in fact phase sortals. The criterion I defend is a sortal‐weighted version of a change‐minimizing criterion first discussed by Eli Hirsch. (...) I present this criterion and then argue that it withstands attempts to show that it is inferior to non‐phasalist rivals. (shrink)

A common misunderstanding of the selected effects theory of function is that natural selection operating over an evolutionary time scale is the only functionbestowing process in the natural world. This construal of the selected effects theory conflicts with the existence and ubiquity of neurobiological functions that are evolutionary novel, such as structures underlying reading ability. This conflict has suggested to some that, while the selected effects theory may be relevant to some areas of evolutionary biology, its relevance to neuroscience is (...) marginal. This line of reasoning, however, neglects the fact that synapses, entire neurons, and potentially groups of neurons can undergo a type of selection analogous to natural selection operating over an evolutionary time scale. In the following, I argue that neural selection should be construed, by the selected effect theorist, as a distinct type of function-bestowing process in addition to natural selection. After explicating a generalized selected effects theory of function and distinguishing it from similar attempts to extend the selected effects theory, I do four things. First, I show how it allows one to identify neural selection as a distinct function-bestowing process, in contrast to other forms of neural structure formation such as neural construction. Second, I defend the view from one major criticism, and in so doing I clarify the content of the view. Third, I examine drug addiction to show the potential relevance of neural selection to neuroscientific and psychological research. Finally, I endorse a modest pluralism of function concepts within biology. (shrink)

When speakers utter conflicting moral sentences, it seems clear that they disagree. It has often been suggested that the fact that the speakers disagree gives us evidence for a claim about the semantics of the sentences they are uttering. Specifically, it has been suggested that the existence of the disagreement gives us reason to infer that there must be an incompatibility between the contents of these sentences. This inference then plays a key role in a now-standard argument against certain theories (...) in moral semantics. In this paper, we introduce new evidence that bears on this debate. We show that there are moral conflict cases in which people are inclined to say both that the two speakers disagree and that it is not the case at least one of them must be saying something incorrect. We then explore how we might understand such disagreements. As a proof of concept, we sketch an account of the concept of disagreement and an independently motivated theory of moral semantics which, together, explain the possibility of such cases. (shrink)

Mechanisms, in the prominent biological sense of the term, are historical entities. That is, whether or not something is a mechanism for something depends on its history. Put differently, while your spontaneously-generated molecule-for-molecule double has a heart, and its heart pumps blood around its body, its heart does not have a mechanism for pumping, since it does not have the right history. My argument for this claim is that mechanisms have proper functions; proper functions are historical entities; so, mechanisms are (...) historical entities, too. This thesis runs against the mainstream new mechanist way of thinking about mechanisms, where mechanisms are generally thought of in an ahistorical way. After arguing for this thesis, I draw out some consequences for philosophy of science and metaphysics. (shrink)

Benedict de Spinoza is one of the most controversial and enigmatic thinkers in the history of philosophy. His greatest work, Ethics (1677), developed a comprehensive philosophical system and argued that God and Nature are identical. His scandalous Theological-Political Treatise (1670) provoked outrage during his lifetime due to its biblical criticism, anticlericalism, and defense of the freedom to philosophize. Together, these works earned Spinoza a reputation as a singularly radical thinker. -/- In this book, Steinberg and Viljanen offer a concise and (...) up-to-date account of Spinoza’s thought and its philosophical legacy. They explore the full range of Spinoza’s ideas, from politics and theology to ontology and epistemology. Drawing broadly on Spinoza’s impressive oeuvre, they have crafted a lucid introduction for readers unfamiliar with this important philosopher, as well as a nuanced and enlightening study for more experienced readers. (shrink)

How does Aristotle think about sentences like ‘Every x is y’ in the Prior Analytics? A recently popular answer conceives of these sentences as expressing a mereological relationship between x and y: the sentence is true just in case x is, in some sense, a part of y. I argue that the motivations for this interpretation have so far not been compelling. I provide a new justification for the mereological interpretation. First, I prove a very general algebraic soundness and completeness (...) result that unifies the most important soundness and completeness results to date. Then I argue that this result vindicates the mereological interpretation. In contrast to previous interpretations, this argument shows how Aristotle’s conception of predication in mereological terms can do important logical work. (shrink)

In his recent book Error Theory: History, Critique, Defence, Jonas Olson attempts to revive the argument from queerness originally made famous by J.L. Mackie. In this paper, we do three things. First, we eliminate four untenable formulations of the argument. Second, we argue that the most plausible formulation is one that depends crucially upon considerations of parsimony. Finally, we evaluate this formulation of the argument. We conclude that it is unproblematic for proponents of moral non-naturalism—the target of the argument from (...) queerness. (shrink)

We argue that the evil-god challenge is not an additional challenge for theists above and beyond the (much older) gap problem. One version of the evil-god challenge is merely a specific instance of the gap problem, and another is dependent on that specific instance of the gap problem. Therefore, the various solutions to the gap problem that theists have developed double as responses to the evil-god challenge, placing the evil-god challenge in a more vulnerable position than has been supposed.

Collaboration is increasingly popular across academia. Collaborative work raises certain ethical questions, however. How will the fruits of collaboration be divided? How will the work for the collaborative project be split? In this paper, we consider the following question in particular. Are there ways in which these divisions systematically disadvantage certain groups? -/- We use evolutionary game theoretic models to address this question. First, we discuss results from O'Connor and Bruner (unpublished). In this paper, we show that underrepresented groups in (...) academia can be disadvantaged in such situations by dint of their small numbers. Second, we present novel results exploring how the hierarchical structure of academia can lead to bargaining disadvantage. We investigate models where one actor has a higher baseline of academic success, less to lose if collaboration goes south, or greater rewards for non-collaborative work. We show that in these situations, the less powerful partner is disadvantaged in bargaining over collaboration. (shrink)

Spinoza's Ethics self-consciously follows the example of Euclid and other geometers in its use of axioms and definitions as the basis for derivations of hundreds of propositions of philosophical si...

Moral grandstanding is a pervasive feature of public discourse. Many of us can likely recognize that we have engaged in grandstanding at one time or another. While there is nothing new about the phenomenon of grandstanding, we think that it has not received the philosophical attention it deserves. In this essay, we provide an account of moral grandstanding as the use of public discourse for moral self-promotion. We then show that our account, with support from some standard theses of social (...) psychology, explains the characteristic ways that grandstanding is manifested in public moral discourse. We conclude by arguing that there are good reasons to think that moral grandstanding is typically morally bad and should be avoided. (shrink)

APPENDIX: The data emerging from the clinical and brain studies described above suggest that, in the case of OCD, there are two pertinent brain mechanisms that are distinguishable both in terms of neuro-dynamics and in terms of the conscious experiences that accompany them. These mechanisms can be characterized, on anatomical and perhaps evolutionary grounds, as a lower-level and a higher-level mechanism. The clinical treatment has, when successful, an activating effect on the higher-level mechanism, and a suppressive effect on the lower-level (...) one. (shrink)

Byerly has proposed a novel solution to the gap problem for cosmological arguments. I contend that his strategy can be used to strengthen a wide range of other theistic arguments as well, and also to stitch them together into a cumulative case for theism. I illustrate these points by applying Byerly’s idea about cosmological arguments to teleological arguments.

It is often assumed that when one party felicitously rejects an assertion made by an- other party, the first party thinks that the proposition asserted by the second is false. This assumption underlies various disagreement arguments used to challenge contex- tualism about some class of expressions. As such, many contextualists have resisted these arguments on the grounds that the disagreements in question may not be over the proposition literally asserted. The result appears to be a dialectical stalemate, with no independent (...) method of determining whether any particular instance of disagreement is over the proposition literally asserted. In this paper, I propose an independent method for assessing whether a disagreement is about what’s literally asserted. Focusing on epistemic modals throughout, I argue that this method provides evidence that some epistemic modal disagreements are in fact not over the proposition literally asserted by the utterance of the epistemic modal sentence. This method provides a way to break the stalemate, and reveals a new data point for theories of epistemic modals to predict—that is, how there can be such modal disagreements. In the rest of the paper, I motivate a general theory of how to predict these kinds of disagreements, and then offer some brief remarks about how contextualist, relativist, and expressivist theories of epistemic modals might accommodate this new data point. (shrink)

The physical realm is causally closed, according to physicalists like me. But why is it causally closed, what metaphysically explains causal closure? I argue that reductive physicalists are committed to one explanation of causal closure to the exclusion of any independent explanation, and that as a result, they must give up on using a causal argument to attack mind–body dualism. Reductive physicalists should view dualism in much the way that we view the hypothesis that unicorns exist, or that the Kansas (...) City Royals won the 2003 World Series: false, but not objectionable in any distinctively causal way. My argument turns on connections between explanation, counterfactuals, and inductive confirmation. (shrink)

This is the general introduction to the edited collection "A companion to Experimental Philosophy".

I present Ned Markosian's episodic account of identity under a sortal, and then use it to sketch a new model of the Trinity. I show that the model can be used to solve at least three important Trinitarian puzzles: the traditional ‘logical problem of the Trinity’, a less-discussed problem that has been dubbed the ‘problem of triunity’, and a problem about the divine processions that has been enjoying increased attention in the recent literature.

Symposium on Nietzsche's Constructivism (Routledge, 2018), replies to Adler, Cabrera, Doyle, Migotti, Sinhababu, Pedersen.

Perhaps the most fundamental disagreement concerning Nietzsche's view of metaphysics is that some commentators believe Nietzsche has a positive, systematic metaphysical project, and others deny this. Those who deny it hold that Nietzsche believes metaphysics has a special problem, that is, a distinctively problematic feature that distinguishes metaphysics from other areas of philosophy. In this paper, I investigate important features of Nietzsche's metametaphysics in order to argue that Nietzsche does not, in fact, think metaphysics has a special problem. The result (...) is that, against a long-standing view held in the literature, we should be reading Nietzsche as a metaphysician. (shrink)

The many definitions of sophistry at the beginning of Plato’s Sophist have puzzled scholars just as much as they puzzled the dialogue’s main speakers: the Visitor from Elea and Theaetetus. The aim of this paper is to give an account of that puzzlement. This puzzlement, it is argued, stems not from a logical or epistemological problem, but from the metaphysical problem that, given the multiplicity of accounts, the interlocutors do not know what the sophist essentially is. It transpires that, in (...) order to properly account for this puzzle, one must jettison the traditional view of Plato’s method of division, on which divisions must be exclusive and mark out relations of essential predication. It is then shown on independent grounds that, although Platonic division in the Sophist must express predication relations and be transitive, it need not be dichotomous, exclusive, or express relations of essential predication. Once the requirements of exclusivity and essential predication are dropped, it is possible to make sense of the reasons that the Visitor from Elea and Theaetetus are puzzled. Moreover, with this in hand, it is possible to see Plato making an important methodological point in the dialogue: division on its own without any norms does not necessarily lead to the discovery of essences. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that the intelligibility of modal metaphysics has been vindicated. Quine's arguments to the contrary supposedly confused analyticity with metaphysical necessity, and rigid with non-rigid designators.2 But even if modal metaphysics is intelligible, it could be misconceived. It could be that metaphysical necessity is not absolute necessity – the strictest real notion of necessity – and that no proposition of traditional metaphysical interest is necessary in every real sense. If there were nothing otherwise “uniquely metaphysically significant” about (...) metaphysical necessity, then paradigmatic metaphysical necessities would be necessary in one sense of “necessary”, not necessary in another, and that would be it. The question of whether they were necessary simpliciter would be like the question of whether the Parallel Postulate is true simpliciter – understood as a pure mathematical conjecture, rather than as a hypothesis about physical spacetime. In a sense, the latter question has no objective answer. In this article, I argue that paradigmatic questions of modal metaphysics are like the Parallel Postulate question. I then discuss the deflationary ramifications of this argument. I conclude with an alternative conception of the space of possibility. According to this conception, there is no objective boundary between possibility and impossibility. Along the way, I sketch an analogy between modal metaphysics and set theory. (shrink)

This article presents phenomenological meta-analysis of Tymieniecka's phenomenology of life with regard to its strategies of knowledge. The novelty of phenomenology of life consists in special orientation of direct intuition of Tymieniecka's insight. The analysis suggests that the positioning of the direct intuition differes from philosopher to philosopher. Even though this perspective pays attention to individual differences in philosophical thinking, this view has to be distinguished froll1 psychologism as criticized by Husser!. and rather, seen as a development of Husserl 's (...) lheory of direct intuition. A framework for such analysis can be also found in Islamic philosophies of Suhrawardi and Ibn 'Arabi, who introduced the concepts of individual predisposition, modes of knowledge, and self-knowledge mediated by knowledge by presence. These concepts can be applied to understanding of the origins of philosophical insight. The paper examines in depth the workings of direct, or presentive, intuition in Tymieniecka's descriptions of the phenomenal field of life, and of life per se as a dynamic object. It demonstrates the dialogical nature of interrogation, and the sentience of logos as a horizon of philosophical inquiry. Finally, the paper introduces the concept of process phenomenology, and suggests directions of future research with regard to phenomenology of imagination. (shrink)

This paper argues that the Islamic metaphysical vision finds its Western philosophical counterpart in Anna-Teresa Tymienecka's Phenomenology of Life. Comparative analysis of the main categories and strategies of knowledge in Islamic metaphysics and the Phenomenology of Life demonstrates obvious similarities, but also significant distinctions whereby the systems can be viewed as complementary. Tymieniecka’s philosophy begins with epoché on preceding philosophical knowledge, while Islamic philosophy begins with revelation. Tymieniecka uses presuppositionless phenomenological direct intuition combined with reflective analysis, while Sufi metaphysics combines (...) logic, intuitio,n and reliance on the experience attained in states of mystical perception. Unification of Reality and realization of truth in the Phenomenology of Life is attained via phenomenological intuition of life in all forms of experience, and in Islam, via certainty attained in religious experiences of unveiling. Due to its refocusing on the dynamic moments of the ontopoiesis of life, Tymieniecka’s ontology serves as a possible solution to the problems incurred by the more static metaphysical vision of Reality in Sufism. (shrink)

The phasalist solution to the classic puzzle of the statue and the piece of clay only works for some coincidence puzzles and not others. To address this limitation of phasalism, I develop a novel approach to coincidence puzzles that permits different kinds of coincidence puzzles to be solved in different ways, provided that each solution satisfies certain constraints inspired by the phasalist solution to the statue puzzle. I apply my approach to four different kinds of coincidence puzzles, and I argue (...) that it is no less plausible than rival approaches in the literature. (shrink)

John Martin Fischer has argued that Molinism does not constitute a response to the argument that divine foreknowledge is incompatible with human freedom. I argue that T. Ryan Byerly’s recent work on the mechanics of foreknowledge sheds light on this issue. It shows that Fischer’s claim is ambiguous, and that it may turn out to be false on at least one reading, but only if the Molinist can explain how God knows true counterfactuals of freedom.

Mainstream teleosemantics is the view that mental representation should be understood in terms of biological functions, which, in turn, should be understood in terms of selection processes. One of the traditional criticisms of teleosemantics is the problem of novel contents: how can teleosemantics explain our ability to represent properties that are evolutionarily novel? In response, some have argued that by generalizing the notion of a selection process to include phenomena such as operant conditioning, and the neural selection that underlies it, (...) we can resolve this problem. Here, we do four things: we develop this suggestion in a rigorous way through a simple example, we draw on recent neurobiological research to support its empirical plausibility, we defend the move from a host of objections in the literature, and we sketch how the picture can be extended to help us think about more complex “conceptual” representations and not just perceptual ones. (shrink)

In the first book of the Prior Analytics, Aristotle sets out, for the first time in Greek philosophy, a logical system. It consists of a deductive system (I.4-22), meta-logical results (I.23-26), and a method for finding and giving deductions (I.27-29) that can apply in “any art or science whatsoever” (I.30). After this, Aristotle compares this method with Plato’s method of division, a procedure designed to find essences of natural kinds through systematic classification. This critical comparison in APr I.31 raises an (...) interpretive puzzle: how can Aristotle reasonably juxtapose two methods that differ so much in their aims and approach? What can be gained by doing so? Previous interpreters have failed to show how this comparison is legitimate or what important point Aristotle is making. The goal of this paper is to resolve the puzzle. In resolving this puzzle we not only learn more about the relationship be- tween division and the syllogistic in Aristotle. We will also learn something about the motivation for the syllogistic itself, by seeing the role that it plays in his philosophy of science. (shrink)

In this paper, I take up one of Wang Yangming’s most audacious philosophical claims, which is that an achievement that is entirely concerned with correcting one’s own inner states, called “establishing sincerity” (licheng 立誠) can help one to fully grasp (jin 盡) all ethically pertinent matters, including those that would seem to require some ability to know or track facts about the wider world (e.g., facts about people very different from ourselves, facts about the needs of plants and animals). Wang (...) makes a claim to this effect in some of his letters and recorded discussions. -/- I begin with a brief, historical reconstruction of what Wang means by “establishing sincerity” and then turn to two sets of controversies regarding his audacious claim. The first has to do with how we should understand the proposal that establishing sincerity helps or positions a person to fully grasp all ethically significant concerns. On the interpretation of Chen Lai 陳來, Wang doesn’t think that establishing sincerity is sufficient by itself to have this grasp, only that it lays a necessary psychological foundation for all attempts to do so, so that it leaves much more work to do. I largely agree with Chen’s reading but find it isn’t strong enough to capture what’s most important and controversial about Wang’s view. On my stronger reading, Wang doesn’t just think that establishing sincerity provides a necessary foundation for a complete grasp, he also thinks that it describes the most difficult and demanding step or part of the process – the other steps come much more naturally and easily. The second set of controversies has to do with whether we can preserve Wang’s core account of virtuous moral agency without his strong ethical nativism, according to which we have an inherent capacity and disposition to track what is ethically important or salient about people and things very much unlike ourselves. I consider some arguments and interpretations of Wang’s thought that might allow us to bypass his nativist presuppositions, and conclude that they do not succeed. Even if we cannot accept his ethical nativism, however, there is a range of important ethical norms for which Wang’s prescriptions are powerful and prudent. The result of this study, I hope, will be an account of Wang’s thought which better positions us to see what parts are (and are not) worth bringing to ongoing debates about the nature of ethics, moral knowledge, and moral virtue. (shrink)

I argue that not all context dependent expressions are alike. Pure (or ordinary) indexicals behave more or less as Kaplan thought. But quasi indexicals behave in some ways like indexicals and in other ways not like indexicals. A quasi indexical sentence φ allows for cases in which one party utters φ and the other its negation, and neither party’s claim has to be false. In this sense, quasi indexicals are like pure indexicals (think: “I am a doctor”/“I am not a (...) doctor” as uttered by different individuals). In such cases involving a pure indexical sentence, it is not appropriate for the two parties to reject each other’s claims by saying, “No.” However, in such cases involving a quasi indexical sentence, it is appropriate for the par- ties to reject each other’s claims. In this sense, quasi indexicals are not like pure indexicals. Drawing on experimental evidence, I argue that gradable adjectives like “rich” are quasi indexicals in this sense. e existence of quasi indexicals raises trouble for many existing theories of context dependence, including standard contextualist and relativist theories. I propose an alternative semantic and pragmatic theory of quasi indexicals, negotiated contextualism, that combines insights from Kaplan 1989 and Lewis 1979. On my theory, rejection is licensed with quasi indexicals (even when neither of the claims involved has to be false) because the two utterances involve conflicting proposals about how to update the conversational score. I also adduce evidence that conflicting truth value assessments of a single quasi indexical utterance exhibit the same behavior. I argue that negotiated contextualism can account for this puzzling property of quasi indexicals as well. (shrink)

I present and defend the generalized selected effects theory (GSE) of function. According to GSE, the function of a trait consists in the activity that contributed to its bearer’s differential reproduction, or differential retention, within a population. Unlike the traditional selected effects (SE) theory, it does not require that the functional trait helped its bearer reproduce; differential retention is enough. Although the core theory has been presented previously, I go significantly beyond those presentations by providing a new argument for GSE (...) and defending it from a recent objection. I also sketch its implications for teleosemantics and philosophy of medicine. (shrink)

This chapter presents a re-understanding of the contents of our analog magnitude representations (e.g., approximate duration, distance, number). The approximate number system (ANS) is considered, which supports numerical representations that are widely described as fuzzy, noisy, and limited in their representational power. The contention is made that these characterizations are largely based on misunderstandings—that what has been called “noise” and “fuzziness” is actually an important epistemic signal of confidence in one’s estimate of the value. Rather than the ANS having noisy (...) or fuzzy numerical content, it is suggested that the ANS has exquisitely precise numerical content that is subject to epistemic limitations. Similar considerations will arise for other analog representations. The chapter discusses how this new understanding of ANS representations recasts the learnability problem for number and the conceptual changes that children must accomplish in the number domain. (shrink)

ABSTRACTRecent debate over the semantics and pragmatics of epistemic modals has focused on intuitions about cross-contextual truth-value assessments. In this paper, we advocate a different approach to evaluating theories of epistemic modals. Our strategy focuses on judgments of the incompatibility of two different epistemic possibility claims, or two different truth value assessments of a single epistemic possibility claim. We subject the predictions of existing theories to empirical scrutiny, and argue that existing contextualist and relativist theories are unable to account for (...) the full pattern of observed judgments. As a way of illustrating the theoretical upshot of these results, we conclude by developing a novel theory of epistemic modals that is able to predict the results. (shrink)