Philosophical materialists suggest that a person can be identified with their brain. My paper is a critical investigation of this provocative thesis and an analysis of some of the prominent arguments to support this view. My overall argument is that there is more to this issue than some philosophers appear to acknowledge.

Hume’s Treatise, with its celebrated bundle theory of the self, is a significant contribution to the embryonic Newtonian experimental philosophy of the enlightenment. But the theory is inadequate as it stands, as the appendix to the Treatise makes clear. For this account of the self, apparently, rests on contradictory principles — propositions, fortunately, that can be reconciled, according to Hume. My paper is a critical exploration of Hume’s argument for this intriguing suggestion.

Bertrand Russell’s conception of philosophy evolved dramatically in 1911 — the year he fell in love with Lady Ottoline Morrell. For many years Russell had been an ardent advocate of the view that philosophers ought to look for truths that are certain. The co-author of Principia Mathematica altered his commitment to certainty in philosophy in 1911. An analysis of his published views and correspondence from this time strongly suggests that the radical transformation was induced by an epiphany brought about by (...) his emotional entanglement with his lover. (shrink)

Does Hume want to weaken our notion of causality? For some he does. My paper is an attempt to refute this interpretation of Hume. My analysis of the texts is an attempt to show that Hume actually endorses the view that the idea of necessary connection, that is associated with the idea of causality, is important and that this idea does exist. Furthermore, this idea is produced by an interesting impression. This impression is unusual as it is a specific internal (...) impression or determination of the mind. (shrink)

Quine's views on semantic holism and observation statements appear to be incompatible. My paper is an attempt to alleviate this tension.

If the begriffsschrift from Frege does represent the logical form of natural language it either lacks a logical form itself, or its logical form is different to that of natural language. But Frege insists that his notation has a logical form. So the second disjunct holds. This suggests that Frege's notation will generate consequences different to those that can be derived with natural language, with its different logical form. For anyone looking for "a means of avoiding misunderstandings", as Frege does, (...) this would be unpalatable, to say the least. (shrink)

In his The Problems of Philosophy Bertrand Russell presents us with his famous argument for representative realism. After a clear and accessible analysis of sensations, qualities and the multiplicity of perceptions of the qualities of physical objects, Russell concludes with a bold statement: -/- "The real table, if there is one, is not immediately known to us at all, but must be an inference from what is immediately known". -/- My argument and analysis strongly suggests that the conclusion that Russell (...) reaches in his argument is counterintuitive and incoherent. The philosophical statement that he presents on the table, in the opening pages of his famous Problems argument is fundamentally misconstrued, and as it stands, it is logically unacceptable. (shrink)

In his magnum opus, David Hume asserts that a person is “nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.” (Treatise 252) Hume is clearly proud of his bold thesis, as is borne out by his categorical arguments and analyses on the self. Contributions like this will, in his opinion, help establish a new science of human nature, “which will not be inferior in certainty, (...) and will be much superior in utility to any other of human comprehension.” (Treatise xix) Unfortunately for Hume, the bundle theory of the self subsequently elicits substantial criticism and hostility from numerous critics, both philosophical and non-philosophical. As confident as the young Scot is about the merits of his theory when he first proposes it, the sharp critical responses to his thought on the self ultimately compel him to withdraw his controversial views from public scrutiny. The irony is that the author of the bundle theory of the self himself acknowledges that his account of the self is seriously defective. In his appendix to the Treatise, Hume decries the labyrinth that his views on the self have driven him into. Five years in the making, Hume's Labyrinth: A Search for the Self explores in detail both Hume's views on the self and his critical reservations on an account of the self that would subsequently become highly influential in the philosophy of mind. -/- Central to Hume's Labyrinth is the suggestion that a careful analysis of the appendix to the Treatise throws an invaluable light on a number of elements fundamental to Hume's views on the self, not least of which is the role of Berkeley s views on language. While Hume often acknowledges the significance of Berkeley's philosophy in the Treatise, the argument here is that Berkeley's account of terms is the foundation of Hume's philosophy of the mind, with its contentious bundle theory of the self. And when this influence is assayed a new dimension of Hume's views on the self emerges. For now it appears that the bundle theory of the self is nothing but a heuristic device adopted by Hume to help further philosophical investigations into the mind. In short, it turns out that Hume is a pragmatist, intent on presenting an account of the self that researchers interested in the problems of human nature will find useful. (shrink)

Nineteen eleven was a tumultuous year for Bertrand Russell, both personally and academically. The intense scholarly activity of 1911 that resulted in an impressive set of diverse academic publications and manuscripts was accompanied by a number of personal entanglements that were equally intense for Russell. Two of these relationships would prove to be especially strained. Late Wednesday afternoon, 18 October 1911, Russell met Ludwig Wittgenstein for the first time. As we know from the numerous accounts available on their relationship, the (...) exchanges between Russell and Wittgenstein were emotionally charged and not always cordial. However, in 1911 a second relationship flourished that would prove equally significant for Russell. The aristocratic English philosopher fell in love with Lady Ottoline Morrell. This relationship would eventually generate a correspondence in excess of 3,400 letters, telegrams and postcards. My paper is an assessment of the impact of Morrell on Russell's thought at the time he completed his classic Problems of Philosophy. In particular, I shall attempt to accomplish two tasks in this paper: -/- (a) In the first place, I shall show that Russell's 1911 view of philosophy appears to be contradictory, especially in regard to his conception of the Self. -/- (b) In the second place, I shall consider the nature and extent of Morrell's influence on Russell's 1911 view of philosophy and suggest that Lady Ottoline has more than a benign influence on Russell's 1911 understanding of the Self. -/- . (shrink)

In the Treatise Hume argues that a person is “nothing but a bundle of perceptions”. But what precisely is the meaning of this bundle thesis of a person? In my paper, an attempt is made to articulate two plausible interpretations of this controversial view and to identify and evaluate a number of problems for this thesis that is central to Hume’s account of the self.

This paper is a critical investigation of Gottlob Frege's and Bertrand Russell's views on the sense or meaning of singular terms. In his famous "On denoting" Russell erects his case on objections that he raises against Frege. I suggest that Russell's criticisms of Frege are seriously misguided, due in large measure to the uneven applications of his terminology when addressing Frege's views.

In the appendix to his Treatise Hume admits that his philosophy of mind is defective. Reluctantly he asserts that his thought has ensnared him in a labyrinth. Referring specifically to the section in the Treatise on personal identity and the self, the young Scot admits that he is “involv’d in such a labyrinth, that, I must confess, I neither know how to correct my former opinions, nor how to render them consistent.” (Treatise 633) My paper is a critical investigation of (...) this characterization of Hume’s predicament. I argue (1) that at best Hume is facing a dilemma, not a labyrinth, and (2) that the dilemma can be solved, and (3) that the resolution to Hume’s problem can be found in his conception of intelligibility. (shrink)

Hume warns his readers that his view on necessity will not be understood by his critics. As he sees it, his view is paradoxical: Necessity is "nothing but an internal impression of the mind, or a determination to carry our thought from one object to another". Recent critics find it difficult to accept Hume's view and have done their best to interpret it in their way. My paper is a critical investigation of the attempts by Pears, Baier and Stoud to (...) "rescue" Hume from his own folly. (shrink)

In his Treatise Hume makes a profound suggestion: philosophical problems, especially problems in metaphysics, are verbal. This view is most vigorously articulated and defended in the course of his investigation of the problem of the self, in the section “Of personal identity.” My paper is a critical exploration of Hume's arguments for this influential thesis and an analysis of the context that informs this 1739 version of the nature of philosophical problems that anticipates the linguistic turn in philosophy. -/- .

The History of Western Philosophy enhanced Russell’s broad reputation among members of the public and helped secure his finances. But the academic community was less enthusiastic about the text and tended to treat it with contempt. My paper is a critical investigation of one of the central chapters of Russell’s History: namely, Russell’s rendition of David Hume’s views on the self. My argument is that Russell’s concise treat­ment of le bon David’s provocative views on the self must be read with (...) great care—otherwise a misunderstanding of Russell’s interpreta­tion is likely to be foisted on this popular and influential twentieth­-century text. (shrink)

In 1739 Hume bequeathed a bold view of the self to the philosophical community that would prove highly influential, but equally controversial. His bundle theory of the self elicited substantial opposition soon after its appearance in the Treatise of Human Nature. Yet Hume makes it clear to his readers that his views on the self rest on respectable foundations: namely, the views of the highly regarded Irish philosopher, George Berkeley. As the author of the Treatise sees it, his account of (...) the self draws on Berkeley’s conception of language, especially his views on singular terms. But Hume, as impressed as he is with Berkeley’s account of language, deems it necessary to defend this view against possible criticism. In the process Hume modifies Berkeley’s views. My paper is a critical investigation of Hume’s defense of Berkeley on language and an attempt to highlight the extent to which Hume departs from the views of his Irish colleague. -/- . (shrink)

In his Treatise of Human Nature Hume argues for a provocative account of the soul; the soul - or self, as he prefers to call it - is nothing but a bundle of perceptions. But this bold thesis, concedes Hume, gives rise to a predicament concerning two incompatible propositions, or principles as he calls them: one on the nature of perceptions, the other on the capabilities of the mind: "In short, there are two principles, which I cannot render consistent; nor (...) is it in my power to renounce either of them, viz. that all our distinct perceptions are distinct existences, and that the mind never perceives any real connexion among distinct existences". But the situation is not hopeless, thinks Hume. Someone might be able to show that these principles are actually consistent: "Others, perhaps, or myself, upon more mature reflection, may discover some hypothesis, that will reconcile those contradictions". (Treatise 636, my emphasis) My paper is an attempt to throw light on this important component in Hume’s analysis of his account of the self. In the course of our investigation of Hume's suggestion that an hypothesis can resolve his contradiction we will learn more about his conception of a contradiction - ultimately enriching our understanding of his account of the soul. (shrink)

Kant's correspondence with his colleague and zealous disciple, Marcus Herz, was prophetic: only a few will understand the Critique of Pure Reason. Unfortunately, the problems are intractable and the necessary conceptual scheme to deal with the problems requires a "complete change of thinking in this part of human knowledge". But eventually people will "get over the initial numbness" Kant reassures another correspondent, Christian Garve. Fortunately, he suggests, there is a central question at the foundation of his difficult thought - a (...) question that is the key to his ideas. So what is this important question that Kant insists has been "stated clearly enough"? And how clear is it? I explore these issues in my paper. (shrink)

According to Russell, the notation in Principia Mathematica has been designed to avoid the vagueness endemic to our natural language. But what does Russell think vagueness is? My argument is an attempt to show that his views on vagueness evolved and that the final conception he adopts is not coherent. Three phases of his conception of vagueness are identified, the most significant being the view that he articulates on vagueness in his 1923 address to the Jowett Society. My central thesis (...) is that the 1912 conception of vagueness -- what I characterize as "semantic egalitarianism" -- seriously conflicts with the later paradoxical account of vagueness. (shrink)

What is the relationship between Russell's conception of philosophy and that of the author of the Tractatus, Ludwig Wittgenstein? My paper is an attempt to show that Russell and the early Wittgenstein do not share the same conception of philosophy and that the fault lines of their divergent views can be located in The Problems of Philosophy i,e, before the traditionally cited Theory of Knowledge manuscript.

Towards the end of 1911, Russell complains that philosophy has unfortunately not produced a set of religious beliefs that he can rely on in his personal life. Early in his career philosophy had appeared very promising. But the adoption of G.E. Moores's philosophical views put paid to the "last hope of getting any creed out of philosophy". My paper is an attempt to show that Russell ought to celebrate, and not complain about the products of his philosophical endeavours. His correspondence (...) with Lady Ottoline Morrell contains a fascinating methodological hypothesis on the relationship between emotions and understanding: an hypothesis that can be used to produce the religion that Russell is after in 1911. This view will later form the basis of some of Russell's most obscure writings on religion - namely, his work on mysticism. (shrink)

Descartes provides us with an invaluable framework for thinking critically. And his views on personhood can serve both as a guide for critical thinking and as a means to sharpen some of the concepts central to these programs. My paper is an attempt to illustrate the effectiveness of the seventeenth century Cartesian conception of thinking for scholars today who stress critical thinking in the classroom.

Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley used abductive reasoning to draw conclusions about the ionic basis of the action potential. Here we build on that initial proposal. First, we propose that Hodgkin and Huxley’s constitutive abductive reasoning has four features. Second, we argue that Hodgkin and Huxley are not alone in giving such arguments. Tolman, 1948, and Baumgartner, 1960, also gave such arguments. The implication is that such arguments are common enough in science that philosophers of science should pay more (...) attention to them. Third, we propose that constitutive abduction describes a method that scientists use to confirm constitutive hypotheses that is an alternative to the mutual manipulability approach that is familiar in the New Mechanist literature. (shrink)

I consider Ralph Waldo Emerson’s creative appropriation of a philosophical doctrine that helps to make sense of an attitude towards life, its gifts and its burdens, that is often expressed in Puritan diaries. The doctrine, now known as the doctrine of continuous creation, holds that in conserving the world, God re-creates it at every moment, making the same creative effort at each ever-advancing now that God made at the very beginning. Continuous creation was explicitly endorsed by at least one Puritan (...) diarist, Jonathan Edwards, and it helps to explain the intense self-inspection and valiant response to life to which other Puritan diarists (including Emerson's aunt, Mary Moody Emerson) testify. Continuous creation was an important ingredient in the idealism of Edwards and, once translated, it became an important ingredient in the idealism of Emerson. My primary aim to describe Emerson’s creative translation of the doctrine as Edwards understood it, but I also discuss Emerson's relation to the Puritan diary, considered as a literary form. I close by suggesting that for us, a version of the doctrine of continuous creation can perhaps be a source of optimism and an incentive to action, as I believe it was for Emerson. I also comment briefly on Emerson's grateful reliance on text-to-text translations. When Emerson studied translations of sacred texts from around the world, what he heard was not difference and dissent, but agreement: agreement on the very points that united him with Edwards, different as they were in other ways. (shrink)

Groups behave in a variety of ways. To show that this behavior amounts to action, it would be best to fit it into a general account of action. However, nearly every account from the philosophy of action requires the agent to have mental states such as beliefs, desires, and intentions. Unfortunately, theorists are divided over whether groups can instantiate these states—typically depending on whether or not they are willing to accept functionalism about the mind. But we can avoid this debate. (...) I show how a more general view of action captures what is central to action without mentioning mental states, and I argue that a group’s members can fulfill the role in group action that mental states play in our actions. Group behavior is explicable in terms of reasons, regardless of whether the group itself cognizes those reasons. After discussing the kind of reasons at issue and arguing that groups can act in light of them without minds, I assess how this account bears on the question of group responsibility. (shrink)

Abstract: There has recently been controversy over the existence of 'multiple realization' in addition to some confusion between different conceptions of its nature. To resolve these problems, we focus on concrete examples from the sciences to provide precise accounts of the scientific concepts of 'realization' and 'multiple realization' that have played key roles in recent debates in the philosophy of science and philosophy of psychology. We illustrate the advantages of our view over a prominent rival account ( Shapiro, 2000 and (...) 2004 ) and use our work to rebut recent objections to the long-standing claim that psychological properties are multiply realized. For we use scientific evidence, in combination with our more precise theoretical framework, to show that we have strong reason to believe that psychological properties are indeed multiply realized both at the biochemical and neuronal levels. (shrink)

Biologists seems to hold two fundamental beliefs: Organisms are organized into levels and the individuals at these levels differ in their properties. Together these suggest that there will be massive multiple realization, i.e. that many human psychological properties are multiply realized at many neurobiological levels. This paper provides some documentation in support of this suggestion.

C.S. Peirce held what is nowadays called a “commitment view” of assertion. According to this type of view, assertion is a kind of act that is determined by its “normative effects”: by asserting a proposition one undertakes certain commitments, typically to be able to provide reason to believe what one is asserting, or, in Peirce’s words, one “takes responsibility” for the truth of the proposition one asserts. Despite being an early adopter of the view, if Peirce’s commitment view of assertion (...) is mentioned at all in contemporary discussions it is only in passing. His view is, however, far more complex and nuanced than he has been given credit for. My primary goal here, then, is to get a better understanding of Peirce’s version of a commitment view of assertion. I also argue that figuring out the details of Peirce’s theory of assertion can also provide us with a viable way to respond to problems that contemporary commitment views of assertion face. (shrink)

This Open Access book provides both a broad perspective and a focused examination of cow care as a subject of widespread ethical concern in India, and increasingly in other parts of the world. In the face of what has persisted as a highly charged political issue over cow protection in India, intellectual space must be made to bring the wealth of Indian traditional ethical discourse to bear on the realities of current human-animal relationships, particularly those of humans with cows. Dharma, (...) yoga, and bhakti paradigms serve as starting points for bringing Hindu--particularly Vaishnava Hindu--animal ethics into conversation with contemporary Western animal ethics. The author argues that a culture of bhakti--the inclusive, empathetic practice of spirituality centered in Krishna as the beloved cowherd of Vraja--can complement recently developed ethics-of-care thinking to create a solid basis for sustaining all kinds of cow care communities. (shrink)

Schiller says that “it is only through beauty that man makes his way to freedom.” Here I attempt to defend a claim in the same spirit as Schiller’s but by different means. My thesis is that a person’s autonomous agency depends on their adopting an aesthetic identity. To act, we need to don contingent features of agency, things that structure our practical thought and explain what we do in very general terms but are neither universal nor necessary features of agency (...) as such. Without these things, the question of what to do for any individual would be underdetermined. The problem is that adopting such a contingent form of agency amounts to a restriction on what we can do, and so it is a prima facie threat to our autonomy. I will argue that one way, and indeed the only way, of meeting this challenge lies in aesthetic experience. Granting our capacity for aesthetic pleasure the authority to determine the particularities of our agency is compatible with autonomy because doing so means identifying with one’s capacity for pleasure in free and creative activity. Doing this allows us to be both particular sorts of agents and creatures regulated by the universalizing demands of reason. (shrink)

A comprehensive introduction to the ways in which meaning is conveyed in language. Alan Cruse covers semantic matters, but also deals with topics that are usually considered to fall under pragmatics. A major aim is to highlight the richness and subtlety of meaning phenomena, rather than to expound any particular theory.

Proponents of the no-miracles argument contend that scientific realism is “the only philosophy that doesn’t make the success of science a miracle.” Bas van Fraassen argued, however, that the success of our best theories can be explained in Darwinian terms—by the fact they are survivors of a winnowing process in which unsuccessful theories are rejected. Critics of this selectionist explanation complain that while it may account for the fact we have chosen successful theories, it does not explain why any particular (...) one of those theories succeeds. Against this I defend the claim that if selectionists manage to account for the former, they have no burden to account for the latter; the success of any particular one of our best theories might as well be an extraordinary coincidence. I refer to this enhanced selectionist reply as “coincidentalism” and argue that it is a serious but underappreciated response to the no-miracles argument. More generally, I argue the considerations raised in favor of this response show that versions of the no-miracles argument focusing on the success of particular theories are misguided. (shrink)

My aesthetic judgements seem to make claims on you. While some popular accounts of aesthetic normativity say that the force of these claims is third-personal, I argue that it is actually second-personal. This point may sound like a bland technicality, but it points to a novel idea about what aesthetic judgements ultimately are and what they do. It suggests, in particular, that aesthetic judgements are motions in the collective legislation of the nature of aesthetic activity. This conception is recommended by (...) its ability to explain some important but otherwise recondite features of aesthetic practice and, more importantly, by allowing us to ground the normativity of aesthetic judgement in the familiar normativity of practice. It also offers a more systematic way of understanding the rivalry between the ideals of aesthetic universality and diversity. (shrink)

Recently, there has been growing concern that increased partisanship in news sources, as well as new ways in which people acquire information, has led to a proliferation of epistemic bubbles and echo chambers: in the former, one tends to acquire information from a limited range of sources, ones that generally support the kinds of beliefs that one already has, while the latter function in the same way, but possess the additional characteristic that certain beliefs are actively reinforced. Here I argue, (...) first, that we should conceive of epistemic bubbles and echo chambers as types of epistemically pernicious groups, and second, that while analyses of such groups have typically focused on relationships between individual members, at least part of what such groups epistemically pernicious pertains to the way that members rely on the groups themselves as sources of information. I argue that member reliance on groups results in groups being attributed a degree of credibility that outruns their warrant, a process I call groupstrapping. I argue that by recognizing the groupstrapping as an illicit method of forming and updating beliefs we can make progress on some of the open questions concerning epistemically pernicious groups. (shrink)

While it is widely acknowledged that knowledge can be acquired via testimony, it has been argued that understanding cannot. While there is no consensus about what the epistemic relationship of understanding consists in, I argue here that regardless of how understanding is conceived there are kinds of understanding that can be acquired through testimony: easy understanding and easy-s understanding. I address a number of aspects of understanding that might stand in the way of being able to acquire understanding through testimony, (...) focusing on understanding ’s paradigmatic form and what it means to say that in order to understand something you need to “grasp” some information or the relationship between bits of information. I argue that in cases of both easy and easy-s understanding, no aspect of understanding stands in the way of it being able to acquire it through testimony. As a result, while not all understanding be acquired through testimony in all instances and for all subjects, this failure of acquisition is only a product of the complexity of the relevant information or one’s unfamiliarity with it, and not a product of the epistemic relationship of understanding. (shrink)

ABSTRACTConventional wisdom holds that there is no lucky knowledge: if it is a matter of luck, in some relevant sense, that one's belief that p is true, then one does not know that p. Here I will argue that there is similarly no lucky understanding, at least in the case of one type of luck, namely environmental luck. This argument has three parts. First, we need to determine how we evaluate whether one has understanding, which requires determining what I will (...) call understanding's evaluative object. I argue that as the evaluative object of knowledge is a belief in a proposition, the evaluative object of understanding is a mental representation of a relational structure. Next, I show that arguments that environmental luck is incompatible with understanding miss the mark by considering cases in which one has a belief in a proposition is lucky to be true, instead of ones in which one's mental representation of a relational structure is lucky to obtain. I agree, then, with those who argue that one can have understanding when one's beliefs are environmentally lucky to be true, but that this compatibility is not relevant when considering the question of whether one can have environmentally lucky understanding. I then present what I take to be a properly constructed case which shows the incompatibility of environmental luck with understanding. (shrink)

When agents insert technological systems into their decision-making processes, they can obscure moral responsibility for the results. This can give rise to a distinct moral wrong, which we call “agency laundering.” At root, agency laundering involves obfuscating one’s moral responsibility by enlisting a technology or process to take some action and letting it forestall others from demanding an account for bad outcomes that result. We argue that the concept of agency laundering helps in understanding important moral problems in a number (...) of recent cases involving automated, or algorithmic, decision-systems. We apply our conception of agency laundering to a series of examples, including Facebook’s automated advertising suggestions, Uber’s driver interfaces, algorithmic evaluation of K-12 teachers, and risk assessment in criminal sentencing. We distinguish agency laundering from several other critiques of information technology, including the so-called “responsibility gap,” “bias laundering,” and masking. (shrink)

It is has been argued that there is a problem with moral testimony: testimony is deferential, and basing judgments and actions on deferentially acquired knowledge prevents them from having moral worth. What morality perhaps requires of us, then, is that we understand why a proposition is true, but this is something that cannot be acquired through testimony. I argue here that testimony can be both deferential as well as cooperative, and that one can acquire moral understanding through cooperative testimony. The (...) problem of moral testimony is thus not a problem with testimony generally, but a problem of deferential testimony specifically. (shrink)

I argue that most counterfactuals are false.

The primary aim of this chapter is to show that several missteps made by others in in their thinking about law as an artefact are due to misconceptions about the role of intentions in understanding law as an artefact. I first briefly recap my own contention that law is a genre of institutionalized abstract artefacts (put forth in The Functions of Law (OUP 2016) and subsequent papers), mostly following Searle’s understanding of institutions and Thomasson’s understanding of public artefacts. I highlight (...) the central place that this theory affords law’s functions, without requiring the theorist to say that possession or performance of the function is either necessary or sufficient for inclusion in the class of law. Some of the most common misunderstandings are exemplified in Brian Leiter’s paper ‘Legal Positivism about the Artifact Law’. He thinks that holding an intentionalist view of artefacts commits the theorist to privileging drafters’ intentions when interpreting law. (It doesn’t.) He also has confusions about the differences between artefact tokens and artefact types leading him to a problematically broad understanding of artefacts. Another problem can be seen in thinking that functional understandings of artefacts are vulnerable to the same problems that arise in functional explanations for biological systems. I go on to consider the work of Luka Burazin and Corrado Roversi, addressing worries that making intentionality central to artefacts implies too much conscious thought is required to make one, noting that several theories of intentionality do not require conscious thought in the execution of intentional action. While those who think a central place for intentionality threatens to leave us unable to explain customary law, this can be dealt with by noting the important distinction between customary rules and customary laws (where the latter requires a decision to enlist public aid in redressing violations). I claim that authors’ intentions are communicated requests for the artefacts’ audiences to see the artefacts as members of their putative kinds. Finally, I address the question of whether or not legal systems are themselves artefacts and institutions, given that they may or may not have been intentionally created. An early lawgiver might have created a legal system by accident in the process of handing down the first laws. I raise the possibility that we might want to impute intentionality to necessary by-products of artefact creation, seeing those by-products as artefacts as well. (shrink)

Respondeat superior is a legal doctrine conferring liability from one party onto another because the latter stands in some relationship of authority over the former. Though originally a doctrine of tort law, for the past century it has been used within the criminal law, especially to the end of securing criminal liability for corporations. Here, I argue that on at least one prominent conception of criminal responsibility, we are not justified in using this doctrine in this way. Firms are not (...) answerable for the crimes committed by their employees, because firms cannot answer as to why the crime was committed; they lack the authority to offer the employee’s reasons for action. Though this rules out respondeat superior as a general principle, I show contexts in which vicarious liability is still appropriate in the criminal law, and I respond to a number of other concerns raised by this picture. (shrink)

In addition to being a founder of American pragmatism, Charles Sanders Peirce was a scientist and an empiricist. A core aspect of his thoroughgoing empiricism was a mindset that treats all attitudes as revisable. His fallibilism seems to require us to constantly seek out new information, and to not be content holding any beliefs uncritically. At the same time, Peirce often states that common sense has an important role to play in both scientific and vital inquiry, and that there cannot (...) be any “direct profit in going behind common sense.” Our question is the following: alongside a scientific mindset and a commitment to the method of inquiry, where does common sense fit in? Peirce does at times directly address common sense; however, those explicit engagements are relatively infrequent. In this paper, we argue that getting a firm grip on the role of common sense in Peirce’s philosophy requires a three-pronged investigation, targeting his treatment of common sense alongside his more numerous remarks on intuition and instinct. By excavating and developing Peirce’s concepts of instinct and intuition, we show that his respect for common sense coheres with his insistence on the methodological superiority of inquiry. We conclude that Peirce shows us the way to a distinctive epistemic position balancing fallibilism and anti-scepticism, a pragmatist common sense position of considerable interest for contemporary epistemology given current interest in the relation of intuition and reason. (shrink)

Emergence is typically discussed in the context of mental properties or the properties of the natural sciences, and accounts of emergence within these contexts tend to look a certain way. The emergent property is taken to emerge instantaneously out of, or to be proximately caused by, complex interaction of colocated entities. Here, however, I focus on the properties instantiated by the elements of certain systems discussed in social ontology, such as being a five-dollar bill or a pawn-movement, and I suggest (...) that these properties emerge in a distinctive way. They emerge in part because of a system that is far beyond and typically before the object that instantiates them. I characterize how emergence occurs in these cases, juxtaposing it with how emergence is typically discussed. I then consider whether their emergence is best framed as weak or strong as these notions are characterized in the literature, and I reveal what debates are central to answering this question. Though I will not resolve these debates, I do show a collection of views that would vindicate these properties as strongly emergent and downwardly causing. (shrink)

So-called “traditional epistemology” and “Bayesian epistemology” share a word, but it may often seem that the enterprises hardly share a subject matter. They differ in their central concepts. They differ in their main concerns. They differ in their main theoretical moves. And they often differ in their methodology. However, in the last decade or so, there have been a number of attempts to build bridges between the two epistemologies. Indeed, many would say that there is just one branch of philosophy (...) here—epistemology. There is a common subject matter after all. In this paper, we begin by playing the role of a “bad cop,” emphasizing many apparent points of disconnection, and even conflict, between the approaches to epistemology. We then switch role, playing a “good cop” who insists that the approaches are engaged in common projects after all. We look at various ways in which the gaps between them have been bridged, and we consider the prospects for bridging them further. We conclude that this is an exciting time for epistemology, as the two traditions can learn, and have started learning, from each other. (shrink)

I argue that a crucial point has been overlooked in the debate over the “numbers problem.” The initial arrangement of parties in the problem can be thought of as chancy, and whatever considerations of fairness recommend the reliance on something like a coin toss in approaching this problem equally recommend treating the initial distribution as a kind of lottery. This fact, I suggest, undermines one of the principal arguments against saving the greater number.

Isaac Levi targets an implicit tension in C.S. Peirce’s epistemology, one that exists between the need to always be open-minded and aware of our propensity to make mistakes so that we do not “block the road of inquiry,” and the need to treat certain beliefs as infallible and to doubt only in a genuine way so that inquiry can proceed in the first place. Attempts at alleviating this tension have typically involved interpreting Peirce as ascribing different normative standards to different (...) areas of inquiry. I argue here that such “double-standard” interpretations face significant problems. I offer instead an interpretation of Peirce on which the differences between different areas of inquiry are descriptive rather than normative. Such a view resolves Levi’s tension while interpreting Peirce as consistently subscribing to one normative standard for all inquiry. (shrink)

While social epistemologists have recently begun addressing questions about whether groups can possess beliefs or knowledge, little has yet been said about whether groups can properly be said to possess understanding. Here I want to make some progress on this question by considering two possible accounts of group understanding, modeled on accounts of group belief and knowledge: a deflationary account, according to which a group understands just in case most or all of its members understand, and an inflationary account, according (...) to which a group’s understanding does not depend solely on whether its members understand. I argue that both accounts face problems. The deflationary account has two such problems: aggregation problems that are familiar from discussions of group belief, and the problem of different bases, wherein members possess understanding for different but consistent reasons. The inflationary account faces what I call the problem of distributed grasping: while it is widely accepted that understanding requires a kind of “grasping”, it is hard to make sense of how this requirement could be met at the group level while not necessarily being met by any individual member. Despite its problems, I make a case for the inflationary account. This will require addressing the problem of distributed grasping: to do this, I propose a different way of thinking about the grasping relation at the group level, such that it is constituted by a dependency relationship between members. (shrink)

In this chapter, we defend an explanationist version of proper functionalism. After explaining proper functionalism’s initial appeal, we note two major objections to proper functionalism: creatures with no design plan who appear to have knowledge (Swampman) and creatures with malfunctions that increase reliability. We then note how proper functionalism needs to be clarified because there are cases of what we call warrant-compatible malfunction. We then formulate our own view: explanationist proper functionalism, which explains the warrant-compatible malfunction cases and helps to (...) block the above objections. We also advance a positive argument for explanationist proper functionalism. (shrink)

A perennial problem in social epistemology is the problem of expert testimony, specifically expert testimony regarding scientific issues: for example, while it is important for me to know information pertaining to anthropogenic climate change, vaccine safety, Covid-19, etc., I may lack the scientific background required to determine whether the information I come across is, in fact, true. Without being able to evaluate the science itself, then, I need to find trustworthy expert testifiers to listen to. A major project in social (...) epistemology has thus become determining what the markers of trustworthiness are that laypersons can appeal to in order to identify and acquire information from expert testifiers. At the same time, the ways in which we acquire scientific information has changed significantly, with much of it nowadays being acquired in online environments. While much has been said about the potential pitfalls of seeking information online, little has been said about how the nature of seeking information online should make us think about the problem of expert testimony. Indeed, it seems to be an underlying assumption that good markers of trustworthiness apply equally well when seeking information from expert testifiers in online and offline environments alike, and that the new challenges and opportunities presented by online environments merely affects the methods by which we can acquire evidence of said trustworthiness. Here I argue that in making this assumption one risks failing to account for how unique features of the ways in which we acquire information online affect how we evaluate the trustworthiness of experts. Specifically, I argue for two main claims: first, that the nature of information-seeking online is such that the extent to which information is susceptible to manipulation is a dominant marker of trustworthiness; second, as a result, one will be more likely to seek out a particular kind of expert testifier in online environments, what I call a cooperative as opposed to preemptive expert. The result is that criteria for expert trustworthiness may look significantly different when acquiring information online as opposed to offline. (shrink)