Philosophers of science have often favoured reductive approaches to how-possibly explanation. This article identifies three alternative conceptions making how-possibly explanation an interesting phenomenon in its own right. The first variety approaches “how possibly X?” by showing that X is not epistemically impossible. This can sometimes be achieved by removing misunderstandings concerning the implications of one’s current belief system but involves characteristically a modification of this belief system so that acceptance of X does not result in contradiction. The second variety offers (...) a potential how-explanation of X. It is usually followed by a range of further potential how-explanations of the same phenomenon. In recent literature the factual claims implied by the second variety have been downplayed whereas the heuristic role of mapping the space of conceptual possibilities has been emphasized. I will focus especially on this truth-bracketing sense of potentiality when looking closer at the second variety in the paper. The third variety has attracted less interest. It presents a partial how-explanation of X. Typically it aims to establish the existence of a mechanism by which X could be and was generated. The third conception stands out as the natural alternative for the advocate of ontic how-possibly explanations. This article transfers Salmon’s view that explanation-concepts can be broadly divided into epistemic, modal, and ontic to the context of how-possibly explanations. Moreover, it is argued that each of the three above-mentioned varieties of how-possibly explanation occurs in science. To recognize this may be especially relevant for philosophers. We are often misled by the promises of various why-explanation accounts, and seem to have forgotten nearly everything about the diversity of how-possibly explanations. (shrink)

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

It is traditionally assumed that there is only one theory of causality in Hume's writings. In this article it is shown that we can distinguish between an early and mature theory. It is argued that the mature theory, strongly influenced by Newton's physics, accords with the New Hume interpretation by asserting that real causal relations are not accessible to the human mind.

The EU General Data Protection Regulation recognizes the data subject’s consent as one of the legal grounds for data processing. Targeted advertising, based on personal data processing, is a central source of revenue for data controllers such as Google and Facebook. At present, the implementation of consent mechanisms for such advertisements are often not well developed in practice and their compliance with the GDPR requirements can be questioned. The absence of consent may mean an unlawful data processing and a lack (...) of control of the user on his personal data. However, consent mechanisms that do not fully satisfy GDPR requirements can give users a false sense of control, encouraging them to allow the processing of more personal data than they would have otherwise. In this paper, we identify the features, originating from GDPR requirements, of consent mechanisms. For example, the GDPR specifies that a consent must be informed and freely given, among other requirements. We then examine the Ad Consent Mechanism of Facebook that is based on processing of user activity data off Facebook Company Products provided by third parties with respect to these features. We discuss to what extent this consent mechanism respects these features. To the best of our knowledge, our evaluation of Facebook’s Ad Consent Mechanism is the first of its kind. (shrink)

_An ambitious and radically original reading of philosopher Francis Bacon._.

Re-reading Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) in the context of the international politics after the start of the French Revolution in 1789 and before the rise of the Haitian Revolution in 1791 leads to three discoveries in the history of European ideas. First, her reply to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France was advertised, discussed, and rumoured to be the work of a woman in London papers days earlier in November 1790 than previously (...) documented. Second, Wollstonecraft’s first known instances of public reception beyond Britain were in a major Jamaican newspaper from January to March 1791. Thirdly, and most notably, in February 1791, the Kingston Daily Advertiser published a lengthy excerpt from her Rights of Men that called for the abolition of slavery and the realization of justice for the poor and oppressed. Long before Hegel probably developed his master-slave dialectic in response to journalistic accounts of the independence of Haiti in 1804, there was Wollstonecraft’s actual reception in the international news in Jamaica, amid the spread of reports of the rise of slave unrest in the broader post-revolutionary Caribbean. (shrink)

According to the ‘mating intelligence’ theory by evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller, human morality is a system of sexually selected traits which serve as costly signals to the other sex about one’s fitness and readiness to take care for possible offspring. Starting from the standard prediction of evolutionary psychology that sexual selection produces psychological sex differences in human mating strategies, ‘mating intelligence’ theory is analyzed for its compatibility with several psychological theories about sex differences in moral traits like moral reasoning, judgment (...) and orientation. It is argued that the ‘mating intelligence’ theory, as a theory about the the evolution of morality, comes too dangerously close to being unfalsifiable because it embodies some auxiliary hypotheses and vague definitions which make it practically immune to every possible empirical finding concerning sex differences in human moral traits. (shrink)

ABSTRACTBenjamin Vaughan had a passion for anonymity. This is the first attempt to provide a full list of his many and significant contributions to intellectual life and letters in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. No attempt has been made to unveil Vaughan’s scientific writings, and only two of his productions after emigrating to the United States are here included, in both cases because they relate to his earlier writings. After coming to the United States, Vaughan renounced further involvement (...) in the affairs of Europe. (shrink)

Among the great western philosophers, David Hume enjoys at present as high and honoured a position as any, especially with the attention he has drawn in 2011, which marked the three-hundredth anniversary of his birth. The general drift of the accounts of Hume’s philosophical ideas has tended over the past few dozen years and more to be extremely positive and typically celebratory. Admirers of the man—widely regarded as the very model of the philosophical life—and of his philosophical views, are legion. (...) Hume’s works are pored over endlessly, and his interpreters generally vie with one another for the degrees of subtlety and acuity which they elaborate from those texts. At earlier times, Hume was often read and assessed much more negatively. In his own day, primary focus was on his scepticism and irreligion. Several nineteenth-century critics, including John Stuart Mill, T. H. Green, and L. A. Selby-Bigge, saw a brilliant, yet massively inconsistent, Hume. I this essay I review and discuss their criticism of Hume, from which he emerges, nonetheless, a philosophical giant. (shrink)

Kant's reasoning in his special metaphysics of nature is often opaque, and the character of his a priori foundation for Newtonian science is the subject of some controversy. Recent literature on the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science has fallen well short of consensus on the aims and reasoning in the work. Various of the doctrines and even the character of the reasoning in the Metaphysical Foundations have been taken to present insuperable obstacles to accepting Kant's claim to ground Newtonian science. (...) Gordon Brittan and Gerd Buchdahl, amongst others, have argued that Kant's stated aims in this case are not to be taken at face value, and that prior ontological commitments play a hidden but central role in Kant's special metaphysics. ;Michael Friedman has shown how Kant's stated aims can be taken seriously with his ingenious reconstruction of the Metaphysical Foundations as a demonstration of the a priori basis for our thinking bodies to be in true motion and in absolute space. However, Friedman does not address the issue of matter theory--despite the importance of the issue to Kant. I argue that a strict reading of both the stated aims and doctrines of the Metaphysical Foundations is possible, since much of Kant's reasoning about the empirical concept of matter can be explained by his views on how the construction of empirical concepts is possible. ;Kant's quasi-mathematical constructions are pivotal in Friedman's interpretation. Constructibility is Kant's criterion of acceptability for the concepts of natural science. Yet Kant notoriously fails to construct the dynamical concept of matter, and accepts this failure with an equally notorious complacency. I argue that Kant's criteria of empirical concept construction, apart from any prior ontological commitments, are enough to generate his views on matter. Kant's failure to construct the requisite concept of matter can be ascribed to a missing law of nature, a law of the relation of forces the discovery of which Kant thought imminent. I conclude that matter theory is central to the Metaphysical Foundations, but that this does not undermine Kant's stated aim of giving the a priori ground of Newtonian science. (shrink)

ABSTRACTBenjamin Vaughan had a passion for anonymity and Kenneth E. Carpenter’s is the first attempt to provide a full list of his many and significant contributions to intellectual life and letters in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, up to his emigration to North America in 1797. This is an introduction to Carpenter’s important research.

Although the Baphomet drawn by Eliphas Lévi is one of the most famous esoteric images worldwide, very little is known about its context of emergence. It is well established that it has to be seen as a symbolic representation of Lévi’s magnetistic-magical concept of the Astral Light, but the historical background of this meaning remains largely obscure. This article demonstrates that a historical contextualization of the Baphomet leads to an understanding of its meaning that is significantly different from prevalent interpretations. (...) It will firstly be shown that the formation of Lévi’s historical narrative can only be comprehended in the light of his radical socialist writings from the 1840s. It will then be discussed which sources he used to elaborate and re-signify this narrative. Secondly, it will be investigated how Lévi developed his magical theory in the 1850s by focusing on the contexts of “spiritualistic magnetism,” Spiritism, and Catholicism. This analysis will show that the Baphomet should be seen as more than a symbolization of Lévi’s magical theory. It is the embodiment of a politically connoted tradition of “true religion” which would realize a synthesis of religion, science, and politics. (shrink)

Vernacular religion connected with the clan was expected to adapt in the context of globalisation and the vanishing ideals of traditional societies. But at the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries a revival of European ‘paganism’ has appeared. A return to vernacular beliefs is not only happening in the mass religious mind of some Eastern European and Asian people, but also in the romantic mythologemes which are being created by national elites. Lithuanians, who were Christianised in the fourteenth century (...) – the last nation in the Baltic region to undergo this process – recall their heathen roots; Ukrainians revive their rodnoverie – indigenous beliefs – in an attempt to resist the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. Apart from this there are other pre-Christian faith organisations in Latvia, Estonia, Germany and England. The traditions of the pre-Christian societies attract people through their apparent proximity to communal peasant culture. Followers of some of these beliefs are interested in popularising Viking mythology. The activities of druids and adherents of the Northern European Asatru religion revive ancient festivals and ceremonies. The popularisation of these movements can be seen as an attempt to resist an encroachment of the modern, globalised, urbane society. (shrink)

David Hume has traditionally been regarded as a skeptic, perhaps the most formidable in the history of Western philosophy. Since the publication of Norman Kemp Smith's Philosophy of David Hume in 1941, however, there has been an increasing tendency to downplay the skeptical dimension of Hume's philosophy, in some cases to the point of denying that Hume is a serious skeptic, or even a skeptic at all. Much of the motivation for a nonskeptical reading of Hume comes from recognition of (...) his endorsement of empirical science and his own project of founding a "science of man." Recent scholarship has, in my opinion correctly, recognized Hume as a constructive rather than a purely destructive thinker. Yet this recognition has, in my opinion incorrectly, gone hand in hand with a tendency to overlook or deny the skeptical side of Hume's thought. In this work, I address the issue of Hume's skepticism. I believe that though the issue of Hume's skepticism is more complicated than is suggested by some of those who interpret him as a skeptic, nevertheless the traditional view is more true to Hume's texts than is a nonskeptical interpretation. I argue, on the basis of a reading of the Treatise of Human Nature and Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, that Hume is a serious theoretical skeptic with regard to much of our alleged knowledge. In saying that Hume is a serious theoretical skeptic I mean that Hume's skeptical pronouncements are in general sincere, not ironic, Hume's skepticism extends to a large part of our alleged knowledge, and Hume's skepticism is a result of his substantive philosophical views. In saying that Hume is a serious theoretical skeptic I mean that though Hume doesn't prescribe eschewal of beliefs that are not rationally justified, he thinks that much of our alleged knowledge essentially involves beliefs that cannot be rationally justified and that hence much of our alleged knowledge is not knowledge at all. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article draws attention to the reception that François Fénelon's Télémaque (1699) received in England in the first half of the eighteenth century. It overturns the historiographical assumption that the Jacobites were the leading disseminators of this continental bestseller on the other side of the Channel. Even though in the English intellectual context Télémaque's framework was unorthodox, many staunch supporters of the Glorious Revolution were fascinated by the book's portrayal of a virtuous king who respects laws, rights and liberties, (...) and sacrifices himself to improve the wellbeing of his subjects. Moderate Whigs - who included several Huguenot refugees - capitalised on the poem's esprit du roi in order both to celebrate the English kings and to construct the ‘Myth of Louis XIV' as an example of how a sovereign should not rule. The study of the book's reception thus presents a somewhat emblematic case study from which to view the genesis of ‘Englishness', that of an ideological discourse largely based on a process of overturning. In addition, the Télémaque responded to the thirst for ‘useful Knowledge' that distinguished the advocates of ‘politeness' and, not least, its mild pedagogical approach rendered it a precious resource for the ‘moderation’ of the youth. (shrink)