Simon Cushing conducted the following interview with Elizabeth Anderson on 18 June 2014.

Perry Hendricks’ ‘impairment argument’, which he has defended in this journal, is intended to demonstrate that the generally conceded wrongness of giving a fetus fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) shows that abortion must also be immoral, even if we allow that the fetus is not a rights-bearing moral person. The argument fails because the harm of causing FAS is extrinsic but Hendricks needs it to be intrinsic for it to show anything about abortion. Either the subject of the wrong of causing (...) FAS is a person who does not exist in the case of abortion or the wrong is negligible. (shrink)

If each of the subtypes of autism is defined simply as constituted by a set of symptoms, then the criteria for its observation are straightforward, although, of course, some of those symptoms themselves might be hard to observe definitively. Compare with telling whether or not someone is bleeding: while it might be hard to tell if someone is bleeding internally, we know what it takes to find out, and when we have the right access and instruments we can settle the (...) issue. But matters are not so simple for the autism subtypes. For one thing, how do we settle which symptoms to group together under one heading? One key difference between “autism disorder” and “Asperger’s disorder” is that the former exhibit language delays (sometimes extreme), whereas the latter do not. But is that a sign of genuinely distinct conditions or is that an artifact of the distinct groups of subjects that Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger worked with? And in general, although there are certainly types of behavior that are taken to be indicative of autism, none by itself is taken by diagnosticians to be either necessary or sufficient for a definitive diagnosis for any of the autism subtypes. What is the diagnostician to do? This is not merely an academic issue, as many parents can attest. Are we in a situation, then, that each practitioner has his or her own “pet” signs that are the “real keys” to the diagnosis? That would suggest that the term “autistic” might meet the fate of the outdated term “neurotic,” which turned out to be a pseudo-scientific term for an inexact clumping together of unrelated phenomena. The assumption amongst specialists seems to be that we will reach the point with "autism" that we have with "water": there will be a root essence to autism whose presence or absence settles a diagnosis. If that is to be the case, however, we have to settle the level of application of the concept. Does the term apply to people who exhibit particular behaviors? Or is it possible to exhibit “autistic” behaviors without actually being autistic, because autism is instead a particular feature of the mind (as, for example, in Baron-Cohen’s “impaired theory of mind module” theory, discussed below) which usually but not necessarily has behavioral effects? Or is autism located instead in the brain, perhaps in damage to key areas, which in turn would typically have an effect on modules of the mind? Or perhaps autism is located in genetics or biology, so that some people with damage to the brain caused by accidents so that they exhibit autistic symptoms would not actually be autistic. Conversely, supposing one had an “autistic brain” but showed none of (or not a sufficient number of) the symptoms, would one not be autistic? The assumption is that the genotypes and phenotypes will line up neatly, but if they do not, what happens to the concept “autistic?” (There is an analogy in the philosophy of sex and gender: androgen insensitive individuals tend to self-identify as female and have outward female traits, but have XY chromosomes—should we go with chromosomes or self-identity in assigning sex category?) Finally, the implications for these complications for diagnosis and categorization, with the attendant social and medical implications is discussed. The typical assumption of the medical profession is that autism cannot be “cured.” That assumes that autism is not simply the symptoms. However, at the same time, the tests used to diagnose ASDs work simply from the symptoms (for example, Baron-Cohen’s Sally/Anne test, which ASD children of a certain age almost all fail, but which practically no ASD adult fails). This implies an inherent confusion over the status of the concept. I conclude that attempts to make sense of some true or accurate summary of what it is to be autistic (such as one would find in the DSM) are almost certainly misguided and will vanish into history along with “neurotic.” But as with racial terms, which are similarly shifting and perverse, the term has already passed into the public sphere and will have a lasting and dangerous influence beyond its short scientific shelf-life. (shrink)

Article responds to the criticism of speciesism that it is somehow less immoral than other -isms by showing that this is a mistake resting on an inadequate taxonomy of the various -isms. Criticizes argument by Bonnie Steinbock that preference to your own species is not immoral by comparison with racism of comparable level.

Why Plantinga's updated (2009) version of the Free Will Defense does not work, and consequently the Logical Argument From Evil against the God of Theism is undefeated.

The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) was published in 2013 containing the following changes from the previous edition: gone are the subcategories ‘Autistic Disorder,’ ‘Asperger Syndrome’ and ‘PDD-NOS,’ replaced by the single diagnosis ‘Autism Spectrum Disorder,’ and there is a new category ‘Social Communication Disorder.’ In this paper I consider what kind of reasons would justify these changes if one were (a) a realist about autism, or (b) one were a constructivist. I explore (...) various analyses of autism in the research literature that portray it as essentially either a psychological, neurological or genetic phenomenon, and discuss these by reference to the diagnostic criteria and by analogy with the way we understand race and sex categories. I conclude that no realist reasons are available to justify the changes in the diagnostic criteria, and further, that the only way the changes could be justified is if one takes the position that the DSM categories are social constructs. I conclude by exploring what implications follow from this. (shrink)

Rawls's theory of political obligation attempts to avoid the obvious flaws of a Lockean consent model. Rawls rejects a requirement of consent for two reasons: First, the consent requirement of Locke’s theory was intended to ensure that the liberty and equality of the contractors was respected, but this end is better achieved by the principles chosen in the original position, which order the basic structure of a society into which citizens are born. Second, "basing our political ties upon a principle (...) of obligation would complicate the assurance problem." Instead, Rawls offers a duty-based account, whereby we are duty-bound to support and comply with just institutions that apply to us. A. John Simmons argues that Rawls cannot meet the particularity requirement of establishing political obligation to only one state. I assess the response that this requirement can be met by the political constructivist element of Rawls's theory. I conclude that there are fatal flaws in this response. (shrink)

I begin by sketching the Epicurean position on death - that it cannot be bad for the one who dies because she no longer exists - which has struck many people as specious. However, alternative views must specify who is wronged by death (the dead person?), what is the harm (suffering?), and when does the harm take place (before death, when you’re not dead yet, or after death, when you’re not around any more?). In the second section I outline the (...) most sophisticated anti-Epicurean view, the deprivation account, according to which someone who dies is harmed to the extent that the death has deprived her of goods she would otherwise have had. In the third section I argue that deprivation accounts that use the philosophical tool of possible worlds have the counterintuitive implication that we are harmed in the actual world because counterfactual versions of us lead fantastic lives in other possible worlds. In the final section I outline a neo-Epicurean position that explains how one can be wronged by being killed without being harmed by death and how it is possible to defend intuitions about injustice without problematic appeal to possible worlds. (shrink)

By far the most respected response by theists to the problem of evil is some version of the free will defense, which rests on the twin ideas that God could not create humans with free will without them committing evil acts, and that freedom is of such value that it is better that we have it than that we be perfect yet unfree. If we assume that the redeemed in heaven are impeccable, then the free will defense faces what I (...) call the Heaven Dilemma: either the redeemed in heaven are free, in which case it is false that you cannot be free without doing evil, or they are not, in which case (heaven being better than earth) it is false that we are better off with freedom and evil than without either. James Sennett has tried to defend a view of freedom that effectively allows us to be impeccable in heaven so long as we are not on earth, while claiming that we are free in both. I argue that this view leads to a new dilemma: either there is no point to earth at all, and given its miseries, it is wrong for God to make us pass through it to get to heaven (especially if we face the risk of ending up in hell), or Sennett’s view consigns millions who die tragically young to an eternity of unfreedom. (shrink)

A short play wherein three pregnant (previously) anti-abortion men consider the arguments for and against abortion.

The two justificatory roles of the social contract are establishing whether or not a state is legitimate simpliciter and establishing whether any particular individual is politically obligated to obey the dictates of its governing institutions. Rawls's theory is obviously designed to address the first role but less obviously the other. Rawls does offer a duty-based theory of political obligation that has been criticized by neo-Lockean A. John Simmons. I assess Simmons's criticisms and the possible responses that could be made to (...) them, including those offered by Samuel Freeman. I conclude they rest on a Rawlsian equivocation and ultimately fail. (shrink)

An extended example illustrating various theories of personal identity and imagining how duplicates would confront the argument that neither of them is identical with the original.

Over the past ten years or so, the position of Liberal Nationalism has progressed from being an apparent oxymoron to a widely accepted view. In this paper I sketch the most prominent liberal defenses of nationalism, focusing first on the difficulties of specifying criteria of nationhood, then criticizing what I take to be the most promising, culture-based defense, forwarded by Will Kymlicka. I argue that such an approach embroils one in a pernicious conservatism completely at odds with the global justice (...) concerns that I take to be central to liberalism with its core values of equality and liberty. (shrink)

I address the questions of whether or not the very existence of heaven provides a motivation for killing. If universalism is true, then anyone killed will end up there, as will the killer. And given that heaven is infinitely better than earth, killing would be, on this view, the greatest gift possible to the “victim.” But if universalism is not true, there is perhaps an even greater incentive to kill one’s loved ones if one knows them to be currently heaven-bound: (...) that is, to save them from the risk of an infinitely terrible fate, that of somehow damning themselves between now and their natural death. This is an issue that we have all surely wondered about: if we’re going to heaven, what’s so bad about death that it must be condemned? But I think there is also a less-discussed problem raised by the very existence of heaven: that the existence of earth is thereby made redundant. What is earth but an annoying antechamber for heaven, one that we all wish we could bypass? I consider various attempts both to forestall the motivation for altruistic killing and to provide a justification for earth as more than a poor version of purgatory, and fail to find any that are truly compelling. I conclude that the existence of earth is therefore itself an argument against the existence of heaven. (shrink)

This book examines autism from the tradition of analytic philosophy, working from the premise that Autism Spectrum Disorders raise interesting philosophical questions that need to be and can be addressed in a manner that is clear, jargon-free, and accessible. The goal of the original essays in this book is to provide a philosophically rich analysis of issues raised by autism and to afford dignity and respect to those impacted by autism by placing it at the center of the discussion.

Culture is a notoriously elusive concept. This fact has done nothing to hinder its popularity in contemporary analytic political philosophy among writers like John Rawls, Will Kymlicka, Michael Walzer, David Miller, Iris Marion Young, Joseph Raz, Avishai Margalit and Bikhu Parekh, among many others. However, this should stop, both for the metaphysical reason that the concept of culture, like that of race, is itself either incoherent or lacking a referent in reality, and for several normative reasons. I focus on the (...) following interconnected points: • The vagueness of the term allows a myriad of candidates to claim rights, and typically to the detriment of increased equality and environmental goals . • Cultural capital cannot be regulated in the way that political capital must be regulated without undermining the cultures supposedly being protected. And the possession of cultural capital is almost never democratically regulated. In particular, granting cultures political status creates intergenerational conflict, rewarding the elders and creating incentives to be conservative and restrict cultural mobility of the younger generation. •The notion of a group owning “its” culture is conceptually suspect and corrupted by the foregoing points about unequal cultural capital. In defending a group’s right to preserve its culture we do not defend equally the rights of the individuals that make it up , and we ignore altogether the rights of those who may be unfairly denied recognition as “members” of the culture. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of essays analyzing different issues concerning the nature, possibility, and desirability of heaven as understood by the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity. and Islam. Topics include whether or not it is possible that a mortal could, upon bodily death, become an inhabitant of heaven without loss of identity, where exactly heaven might be located, whether or not everyone should be saved, or if there might be alternative destinations (including some less fiery versions of Hell). Chapter (...) authors include believers and skeptics, well-known philosophers, and new voices. While some chapters are more challenging than others, all are written in a style that should be accessible to any interested reader. (shrink)

The contemporary political philosopher John Rawls considers himself to be part of the social contract tradition of John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant, but not of the tradition of Locke's predecessor, Thomas Hobbes. Call the Hobbesian tradition interest-based, and the Lockean tradition right-based, because it assumes that there are irreducible moral facts which the social contract can assume. The primary purpose of Locke's social contract is to justify the authority of the state over its citizens despite the fact that (...) those citizens are naturally free and equal. I assume that this task is of central importance to all right-based social contract theories: in chapter one I lay out the general problems faced by all contract theories, and in chapter two, three and four I examine in depth the accounts of political obligation offered by Locke, Rousseau, and Rawls. I conclude that all members of the right-based social contract tradition fail to provide an account of obligation that can explain the bond between a citizen and her state. (shrink)

New philosophical essays on love by a diverse group of international scholars. Topics include contributions to the ongoing debate on whether love is arational or if there are reasons for love, and if so what kind; the kinds of love there may be ; whether love can explain the difference between nationalism and patriotism; whether love is an necessary component of truly seeing others and the world; whether love, like free will, is “fragile,” and may not survive in a deterministic (...) world; and whether or not love is actually a good thing or may instead be a force opposed to morality. Key philosophers discussed include Immanuel Kant, Iris Murdoch, Bernard Williams, Harry Frankfurt, J. David Velleman, Niko Kolodny, Thomas Hurka, Bennett Helm, Alfred Mele and Derk Pereboom. Essays also touch on the treatment of love in literature and popular culture, from Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair to Spike Jonze’s movie her. (shrink)

This paper considers John Doris, Stephen Stich, Alexandra Plakias, and colleagues’ recent attempts to utilize empirical studies of cross-cultural variation in moral judgment to support a version of the argument from disagreement against moral realism. Crucially, Doris et al. claim that the moral disagreements highlighted by these studies are not susceptible to the standard ‘diffusing’ explanations realists have developed in response to earlier versions of the argument. I argue that plausible hypotheses about the cognitive processes underlying ordinary moral judgment and (...) the acquisition of moral norms, when combined with a popular philosophical account of moral inquiry—the method of reflective equilibrium—undercut the anti-realist force of the moral disagreements that Doris et al. describe. I also show that Stich's recent attempt to provide further theoretical support for Doris et al.'s case is unsuccessful. (shrink)

If science fiction is a genre, then attempts to think about the nature of science fiction will be affected by one’s understanding of what genres are. I shall examine two approaches to genre, one dominant but inadequate, the other better, but only occasionally making itself seen. I shall then discuss several important, interrelated issues, focusing particularly on science fiction : what it is for a work to belong to a genre, the semantics of genre names, the validity of attempts to (...) define genres, and the connections between genre and normativity. One important but neglected clue to the nature of genres lies in the kinds of disagreements they generate over the assignment of works to genres. I conclude by explaining why these disagreements tell us something about the nature of genres, and discussing in some detail two famous cases of disagreement about whether some work or works are science fiction. (shrink)

Many agents have failed to comply with their responsibilities to take the action needed to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change. This pervasive noncompliance raises two questions of nonideal political theory. First, it raises the question of what agents should do when others do not discharge their climate responsibilities. (the Responsibility Question) In this paper I put forward four principles that we need to employ to answer the Responsibility Question (Sections II-V). I then illustrate my account, by outlining four kinds of (...) action that should be undertaken (Section VI). Pervasive noncompliance also raises a second question: Given the lack of progress in combating climate change, should existing governance structures be maintained or changed (and if they should be changed, in what ways)? (the Governance Question). The paper briefly outlines a methodology for addressing this question and outlines what a nonideal response to the existing institutional structures would be (Section VII). It does so with reference to the Paris Agreement, and in particular the creation of a "global stocktake" (Article 14, Paris Agreement) and the "facilitative dialogue" (paragraph 20 of the ‘Adoption of the Paris Agreement’). The aim, then, is to set out an account of a nonideal theory of climate justice. (shrink)

We notice a number of interesting overlaps between the views on personhood of Ifeanyi Menkiti and Marya Schechtman. Both philosophers distance their views from the individualistic ones standard in western thought and foreground the importance of extrinsic or relational features to personhood. For Menkiti, it is ‘the community which defines the person as person’; for Schechtman, being a person is to have a place in person-space, which involves being seen as a person by others. But there are also striking differences. (...) Schechtman sees this aspect as expanding the scope of personhood to infants and those who are severely mentally disabled. Menkiti thinks that there is a line to be drawn at some point between those humans that are persons and those who are not. We consider the cases offered in questioning how the dispute between the two views should be resolved. (shrink)

The reconstruction of Leibniz’s metaphysics that Deleuze undertakes in The Fold provides a systematic account of the structure of Leibniz’s metaphysics in terms of its mathematical foundations. However, in doing so, Deleuze draws not only upon the mathematics developed by Leibniz—including the law of continuity as reflected in the calculus of infinite series and the infinitesimal calculus—but also upon developments in mathematics made by a number of Leibniz’s contemporaries—including Newton’s method of fluxions. He also draws upon a number of subsequent (...) developments in mathematics, the rudiments of which can be more or less located in Leibniz’s own work—including the theory of functions and singularities, the Weierstrassian theory of analytic continuity, and Poincaré’s theory of automorphic functions. Deleuze then retrospectively maps these developments back onto the structure of Leibniz’s metaphysics. While the Weierstrassian theory of analytic continuity serves to clarify Leibniz’s work, Poincaré’s theory of automorphic functions offers a solution to overcome and extend the limits that Deleuze identifies in Leibniz’s metaphysics. Deleuze brings this elaborate conjunction of material together in order to set up a mathematical idealization of the system that he considers to be implicit in Leibniz’s work. The result is a thoroughly mathematical explication of the structure of Leibniz’s metaphysics. This essay is an exposition of the very mathematical underpinnings of this Deleuzian account of the structure of Leibniz’s metaphysics, which, I maintain, subtends the entire text of The Fold. (shrink)

The badness of having conflicting emotions is a familiar theme in academic ethics, clinical psychology, and commercial self-help, where emotional harmony is often put forward as an ideal. Many philosophers give emotional harmony pride of place in their theories of practical reason.1 Here we offer a defense of a particular species of emotional conflict, namely, ambivalence. We articulate an conception of ambivalence, on which ambivalence is unresolved inconsistent desire (§1) and present a case of appropriate ambivalence (§2), before considering two (...) alternative defenses of emotional conflict (§3). We then argue that inconsistent desires can be fitting (§4) and that it can be reasonable not to resolve inconsistent desires (§5), before considering an objection (§6) and concluding the discussion (§7). (shrink)

Eric Olson argues in The Human Animal that thought-experiments involving body-swapping do not in the end offer any support to psychological continuity theories, nor do they pose any threat to his Biological View. I argue that he is mistaken in at least the second claim.

Scientific realism driven by inference to the best explanation (IBE) takes empirically confirmed objects to exist, independent, pace empiricism, of whether those objects are observable or not. This kind of realism, it has been claimed, does not need probabilistic reasoning to justify the claim that these objects exist. But I show that there are scientific contexts in which a non-probabilistic IBE-driven realism leads to a puzzle. Since IBE can be applied in scientific contexts in which empirical confirmation has not yet (...) been reached, realists will in these contexts be committed to the existence of empirically unconfirmed objects. As a consequence of such commitments, because they lack probabilistic features, the possible empirical confirmation of those objects is epistemically redundant with respect to realism. (shrink)

My interest in this chapter is to investigate this crossroad as applied to mental properties, considered powers. In particular, I scrutinize the possibility of taking the phenomenal property of feeling pain as a complex power or disposition. This possibility comes in handy in discussing panpsychism, the view that the ultimate elements of reality are phenomenal properties, which would ground physical properties as well.

Which political principles should govern global politics? In his new book, Simon Caney engages with the work of philosophers, political theorists, and international relations scholars in order to examine some of the most pressing global issues of our time. Are there universal civil, political, and economic human rights? Should there be a system of supra- state institutions? Can humanitarian intervention be justified?

I explore the process of changes in the observability of entities and objects in science and how such changes impact two key issues in the scientific realism debate: the claim that predictively successful elements of past science are retained in current scientific theories, and the inductive defense of a specific version of inference to the best explanation with respect to unobservables. I provide a case-study of the discovery of radium by Marie Curie in order to show that the observability of (...) some entities can change and that such changes are relevant for arguments seeking to establish the reliability of success-to-truth inferences with respect to unobservables. (shrink)

The main purpose of this paper is to refute the metaphysicians ‘methodological continuation’ argument supporting epistemic realism in metaphysics. This argument aims to show that scientific realists have to accept that metaphysics is as rationally justified as science given that they both employ inference to the best explanation, i.e. that metaphysics and science are methodologically continuous. I argue that the reasons given by scientific realists as to why inference to the best explanation is reliable in science do not constitute a (...) reason to believe that it is reliable in metaphysics. The justification of IBE in science and the justification of IBE in metaphysics are two distinct issues with only superficial similarities, and one cannot rely on one for the other. This becomes especially clear when one analyses the debate about the legitimacy of IBE that has taken place between realists and empiricists. The metaphysician seeking to piggyback on the realist defense of IBE in science by the methodological continuation argument presupposes that the defense is straightforwardly applicable to metaphysics. I will argue that it is, in fact, not. The favoured defenses of IBE in scientific realism make extensive use of empirical considerations, predictive power and inductive evidence, all of which are paradigmatically absent in the metaphysical context. Furthermore, I argue that the metaphysician, even if the realist would concede to the methodological continuation argument, fails to offer any agreed upon conclusions resulting from its application in metaphysics. As a result, the scientific realist is not committed to believing that there is metaphysical knowledge. (shrink)

Philosophy battles with some recurring themes, one of which, maybe the most one, is the complicated relation between identity and otherness. It is a match that struggles to get to the gong: the net that binds the self and the other looks more like a tangle hard to unroll. So, we don’t have the claim to settle it down, but we would like to present some strategies useful to loosen it. We will follow a precise trajectory: we will consider the (...) philosophies of Heidegger and Nancy trying to understand what is about of identity and otherness in their philosophical frameworks. Of course, we don’t want to set sail on a historical trip: our interest is to catch the theoretical suggestions of these philosophies, knowing that they can advise us with prolific thoughts. We’ll basically have two tools: Heidegger’s Being and Time and Nancy’s Being Singular Plural. Even if those two theoretical poles are notoriously opposites, our idea is that a comparative analysis incentivizes important conclusions. Between all that otherness is an unmissable chance of expansion for the subjectivity and, because of this, their relation must be cultivated in the healthiest way. (shrink)

How can conceptual art contribute to political discourse? By the late 1960s, New York conceptual artists like Adrian Piper were faced with this difficult question. Conceptual artistic experiments seemed removed from the anti-war, anti-racist and feminist struggles, while personally many artists became increasingly involved in activism. I revisit the knotty relationship between art and politics through a close analysis of Piper's work in this period. Against the received view, I argue that Piper's early work was remarkably devoid of political concerns, (...) however, I also show how Piper’s later, anti-racist work, crucially derived from the rhetorical strategies, which she had developed earlier. Bridging art historical and philosophical approaches, this investigation culminates in a new philosophical view of the relationship between art and (anti-racist) political discourse: art emerges as a creative form of political rhetoric. (shrink)

It is natural to assume that it can only be morally permissible for consumers to buy meat products if the breeding and killing of animals for the purpose of meat production is morally acceptable. is assumption presupposes a stable and morally relevant connection between the consumption and the production of meat. While both act-consequentialism and the Kantian idea of generalizability initially appear to support that view, neither of them succeeds in establishing a connection of the required kind.

The collaboration of Language and Computing nv (L&C) and the Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science (IFOMIS) is guided by the hypothesis that quality constraints on ontologies for software ap-plication purposes closely parallel the constraints salient to the design of sound philosophical theories. The extent of this parallel has been poorly appreciated in the informatics community, and it turns out that importing the benefits of phi-losophical insight and methodology into application domains yields a variety of improvements. L&C’s LinKBase® (...) is one of the world’s largest medical domain ontologies. Its current primary use pertains to natural language processing ap-plications, but it also supports intelligent navigation through a range of struc-tured medical and bioinformatics information resources, such as SNOMED-CT, Swiss-Prot, and the Gene Ontology (GO). In this report we discuss how and why philosophical methods improve both the internal coherence of LinKBase®, and its capacity to serve as a translation hub, improving the interoperability of the ontologies through which it navigates. (shrink)

According to the B-theory, the passage of time is an illusion. The B-theory therefore requires an explanation of this illusion before it can be regarded as fullysatisfactory; yet very few B-theorists have taken up the challenge of trying to provide one. In this paper I take some first steps toward such an explanation by first making a methodological proposal, then a hypothesis about a key element in the phenomenology of temporal passage. The methodological proposal focuses onthe representational content of the (...) element of experience by virtue of which time seems to pass. The hypothesis involves the claim that the experience of changeinvolves the representation of something enduring, rather than perduring, through any change. (shrink)

One Stoic response to the skeptical indistinguishability argument is that it fails to account for expertise: the Stoics allow that while two similar objects create indistinguishable appearances in the amateur, this is not true of the expert, whose appearances succeed in discriminating the pair. This paper re-examines the motivations for this Stoic response, and argues that it reveals the Stoic claim that, in generating a kataleptic appearance, the perceiver’s mind is active, insofar as it applies concepts matching the perceptual stimulus. (...) I argue that this claim is reflected in the Stoic definition of the kataleptic appearance, and that it respects their more general account of mental representation. I further suggest that, in attributing some activity to the mind in creating each kataleptic appearance, and in claiming that the expert’s mind allows her to form more kataleptic appearances than the amateur, the Stoics draw inspiration from the wax tablet model in Plato’s Theaetetus (190e–196d), where Socrates distinguishes the wise from the ignorant on the basis of how well they match sensory input with its appropriate mental ‘seal’ (σφραγίς). (shrink)

Here I propose an interpretation of the ancient Stoic psychological theory on which (i) the concepts that an adult human possesses affect the content of the perceptual impressions (φαντασίαι αἰσθητικαί) she forms, and (ii) the content of such impressions is exhausted by an ‘assertible’ (ἀξίωμα) of suitable complexity. What leads the Stoics to accept (i) and (ii), I argue, is their theory of assent and belief formation, which requires that the perceptual impression communicate information suitable to serve as the content (...) of belief. In arguing for (i), I reject a rival interpretation on which conceptualization occurs subsequently to the formation of a perceptual impression. In arguing for (ii), I deny that perceptual impressions have two kinds of content: one formulated in an assertible, the other sensory, featuring independently of this assertible. I explore the implications of (i) and (ii) for the Stoic theory of emotions, expertise, and rationality, and argue that they shed new light on the workings of impression, assent, and belief. (shrink)

(For English, scroll down) Der Text präsentiert drei miteinander verbundene Thesen. (1) Philosophie der Musik modifiziert philosophische Grundbegriffe. (2) Eine gemeinsame Eigenschaft in der Vielfalt der Musikformen liegt im Effekt einer Wahrnehmungsveränderung: oft subtil, unterschwellig und zuweilen als ekstatisch erlebte Selbst- und Welt-Transformation. (3) Strenggenommen nehmen wir nicht Töne wahr, sondern a) unsere Hör-Physiologie wandelt Schwingungsfrequenzen ab circa 18 Hz in Tonhöhen um und damit Zeit-Organisation in ein Raum-Äquivalent. (Musik mit tiefen Tönen an der Grenze zur Wahrnehmung, etwa mittels großer (...) Orgelpfeifen in Kathedralen oder Ton-Anlagen in Nachtclubs, inszeniert genau diesen physiologischen Umschlag, mit potentiellen Transzendenz-Effekten.) b) Wir nehmen einfache Frequenzverhältnisse wie 1:2, 2:3 etc. als (relativ) konsonant wahr, komplexere Verhältnisse als (relativ) dissonant. Die Folge: c) Musikhören verbindet uns mit physikalischem Verhalten von Materie, einschließlich unserer selbst. Hierin gründen rare, musikalisch herausgehobene Eindrücke von Erkenntnis und Enthüllung: das Universum betreffend und unsere Stellung in ihm. -/- The text presents three related claims. (1) Music as a topic of philosophy alters key philosophical concepts; (2) In spite of their vast cultural, historical and contextual differences, all forms of music share the effect of a transformation of perception: ranging from subtle and subliminal to the (rare) experience of ecstatic world- and self-transformations; (3) Strictly speaking, we do not perceive sounds. Rather, a) our hearing-physiology translates frequencies (impulses) of more than 18 Hz into pitch and thus temporal events into quasi-spatial perceptions. Compositions containing very deep sounds (e.g. in cathedrals or in night-clubs) stage exactly this physiological conversion: with potentially ‘transcendence’-like effects. b) We hear simple frequency-ratios such as 1:2, 2:3, 3:4 etc. as (relative) consonances and more complex ones as (relative) dissonances. Thus, c) musical compositions make laws of physical behaviour of matter affectively perceptible. This allows for the occasional impression of musical revelations: regarding the universe, its laws, and our place in it. -/- . (shrink)

What is it for two people to think of an object, natural kind or other entity under the same mode of presentation (MOP)? This has seemed a particularly difficult question for advocates of the Mental Files approach, the Language of Thought, or other ‘atomistic’ theories. In this paper I propose a simple answer. I first argue that, by parallel with the synchronic intrapersonal case, the sharing of a MOP should involve a certain kind of epistemic transparency between the token thoughts (...) of the two thinkers. I then explain how shared words help bring about this transparency. Finally, I show how this account can be extended for thoughts expressed using demonstratives or indexicals. (shrink)

This is an expanded and revised discussion of the argument briefly put forward in my 'A New Problem for the A-Theory of Time', where it is claimed that it is impossible to experience real temporal passage and that no such phenomenon exists. In the first half of the paper the premises of the argument are discussed in more detail than before. In the second half responses are given to several possible objections, none of which were addressed in the earlier paper. (...) There is also some discussion of some related epistemic arguments against the passage of time given by Huw Price and David Braddon-Mitchell along with objections raised against them recently by Tim Maudlin and Peter Forrest respectively. (shrink)

Following recent arguments that cultural practices in wild animal populations have important conservation implications, we argue that recognizing captive animals as cultural has important welfare implications. Having a culture is of deep importance for cultural animals, wherever they live. Without understanding the cultural capacities of captive animals, we will be left with a deeply impoverished view of what they need to flourish. Best practices for welfare should therefore require concern for animals’ cultural needs, but the relationship between culture and welfare (...) is also extremely complex, requiring us to rethink standard assumptions about what constitutes and contributes to welfare. (shrink)

Within collective epistemology, there is a class of theories that understand the epistemic status of collective attitude ascriptions, such as ‘the college union knows that the industrial action is going to plan’, or ‘the jury justifiedly believes that the suspect is guilty’, as saying that a sufficient subset of group member attitudes have the relevant epistemic status. In this paper, I will demonstrate that these summativist approaches to collective epistemology are incompatible with epistemic permissivism, the doctrine that a single body (...) of evidence may rationalize multiple doxastic attitudes. In particular, I will make use of epistemic permissivism to provide a general recipe for generating so-called divergence cases, which demonstrate situations in which rationality requires group-level and member-level attitudes to diverge. I will call this class of cases permissive divergence cases. While other divergence cases have been discussed in the literature, permissive divergence cases prove themselves to be less susceptible to many of the worries raised against their competitors, while being directly built on an often-defended epistemological thesis. (shrink)

Empirical studies of the social lives of non-human primates, cetaceans, and other social animals have prompted scientists and philosophers to debate the question of whether morality and moral cognition exists in non-human animals. Some researchers have argued that morality does exist in several animal species, others that these species may possess various evolutionary building blocks or precursors to morality, but not quite the genuine article, while some have argued that nothing remotely resembling morality can be found in any non-human species. (...) However, these different positions on animal morality generally appear to be motivated more by different conceptions of how the term “morality” is to be defined than by empirical disagreements about animal social behaviour and psychology. After delving deeper into the goals and methodologies of various of the protagonists, I argue that, despite appearances, there are actually two importantly distinct debates over animal morality going on, corresponding to two quite different ways of thinking about what it is to define “morality”, “moral cognition”, and associated notions. Several apparent skirmishes in the literature are thus cases of researchers simply talking past each other. I then focus on what I take to be the core debate over animal morality, which is concerned with understanding the nature and phylogenetic distribution of morality conceived as a psychological natural kind. I argue that this debate is in fact largely terminological and non-substantive. Finally, I reflect on how this core debate might best be re-framed. (shrink)

The nature of experience has been held to be a major reason for accepting the A-theory of time. I argue, however, that experience does not favour the A-theory over the B-theory; and that even if the A-theory were true it would not be possible to perceive the passage of time. The main argument for this draws on the constraint that a satisfactory theory of perception must explain why phenomenal characters map uniquely onto perceived worldly features. Thus, if passage is perceived, (...) it must be explained what makes one phenomenal character rather than another a perception of passage; and it must also be explained why that phenomenal character is a perception of passage rather than of some other feature of the world. I argue that no such explanation can be given, and consequently that passage cannot be perceived. I conclude that the A-theory is rendered unintelligible, and should therefore be rejected. (shrink)

Imagine that you are a farmer living in Kenya. Though you work hard to sell your produce to foreign markets you find yourself unable to do so because affluent countries subsidize their own farmers and erect barriers to trade, like tariffs, thereby undercutting you in the marketplace. As a consequence of their actions you languish in poverty despite your very best efforts. Or, imagine that you are a peasant whose livelihood depends on working in the fields in Indonesia and you (...) are forcibly displaced from your land by a biofuels company because corrupt government officials have stolen the land and sold it to the company. Or, suppose that you work on the coast of Bangladesh but find that increasingly you are unable to cope with salination resulting from sealevel rise – a product of anthropogenic climate change. These, I believe, are cases of global injustice. My question is: What are those who bear the brunt of global injustice entitled to do to secure their, and other people’s, entitlements? Often people focus on the duties of the affluent to respect and uphold the rights of the disadvantaged. This is understandable. But there is a striking omission. Rarely do people analyze, or even mention, what those who lack their entitlements are entitled to do to secure their own rights. This is my focus in this paper. More specifically, I examine what agents are entitled to do to change the underlying social, economic and political practices and structures in a more just direction. (shrink)

Eco-Rational Education proposes an educational response to climate change, environmental degradation, and desctructive human relations to ecology through the delivery of critical land-responsive environmental education. -/- The book argues that education is a powerful vehicle for both social change and cultural reproduction. It proposes that the prioritisation and integration of environmental education across the curriculum is essential to the development of ecologically rational citizens capable of responding to the environmental crisis and an increasingly changing world. Using philosophical analysis, particularly environmental (...) philosophy, pragmatism, and ecofeminism, the book develops an understanding of contemporary issues in education, especially inquiry-based learning as pedagogy, diversifying knowledge, environmental and epistemic justice, climate change education, and citizenship education. -/- Eco-Rational Education will be of interest to researchers and post-graduate students of social and political philosophy, educational philosophy, as well as environmental philosophy, ethics, and teacher education. (shrink)

This paper considers the question of whether chimpanzees possess at least a primitive sense of normativity: i.e., some ability to internalize and enforce social norms—rules governing appropriate and inappropriate behaviour—within their social groups, and to make evaluations of others’ behaviour in light of such norms. A number of scientists and philosophers have argued that such a sense of normativity does exist in chimpanzees and in several other non-human primate and mammalian species. However, the dominant view in the scientific and philosophical (...) literature is that psychological capacities for social norms evolved uniquely in the human lineage, after our last common ancestor with chimpanzees and bonobos. After reviewing some of the existing evidence for normative capacity in chimpanzees, I defend the thesis of chimpanzee normativity against three key theoretical objections that have been presented in the literature, each of which have played a part in motivating the dominant sceptical position. I argue that, while we still have much to learn about the nature and extent of the normative capacities of other animals, there is strong prima facie evidence for social norms and normative evaluation in chimpanzees and the main theoretical objections to chimpanzee normativity are not at all compelling. (shrink)

Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 115, Issue 3pt3, Page 211-233, December 2015.