Thomas Reid’s philosophy is a philosophy of mind—a Pneumatology in the idiom of 18th century Scotland. His overarching philosophical project is to construct an account of the nature and operations of the human mind, focusing on the two-way correspondence, in perception and action, between the thinking principle within and the material world without. Like his contemporaries, Reid’s treatment of these topics aimed to incorporate the lessons of the scientific revolution. What sets Reid’s philosophy of mind apart is his commitment to (...) a set of intuitive contingent truths he called the principles of common sense. This difference, as this chapter will show, enables Reid to construct an account of mind that resists the temptation to which so many philosophers in his day and ours succumb, i.e., the temptation, in his words, to materialize minds or spiritualize bodies. (shrink)

It is argued that the standard story of human action, as it is standardly naturalistically understood, should be rejected. Rather than seeking an agent amidst the workings of the mind (as in Velleman's "What Happens When Someone Acts"), we need to recognize an agent’s place in the world she inhabits. And in order to do so we have to resist the naturalistic assumptions of the standard causal story.

Some recent work in philosophy of religion addresses what can be called the “axiological question,” i.e., regardless of whether God exists, would it be good or bad if God exists? Would the existence of God make the world a better or a worse place? Call the view that the existence of God would make the world a better place “Pro-Theism.” We argue that Pro-Theism is not implausible, and moreover, many Theists, at least, (often implicitly) think that it is true. That (...) is, many Theists think that various good outcomes would arise if Theism is true. We then discuss work in cognitive science concerning human cognitive bias, before discussing two noteworthy attempts to show that at least some religious beliefs arise because of cognitive bias: Hume’s, and Draper’s and Nichols’s. We then argue that, as a result of certain cognitive biases that result when good outcomes might be at stake, Pro-Theism causes many Theists to inflate the epistemic probability that God exists, and as a result, Theists should lower the probability they assign to God’s existence. Finally, based our arguments, we develop a novel objection to Pascal’s wager. (shrink)

While in medicine, comparison of the data supplied by a clinical syndrome with the data supplied by the biological system is used to arrive at the most accurate diagnosis, the same cannot be said of financial economics: the accumulation of statistical results that contradict the Brownian hypothesis used in risk modelling, combined with serious empirical problems in the practical implementation of the Black-Scholes-Merton model, the benchmark theory of mathematical finance founded on the Brownian hypothesis, has failed to change the Brownian (...) representation, which has endured for more than fifty years despite the extent of its invalidation by experience. Without any statistical foundations, one mathematical representation has become the established approach, acting in the minds of practitioners as a “prenotion” in the sense the word is used by Durkheim, i.e. a “schematic, summary representation” which has produced a kind of spontaneous epistemology. The question arises of the persistence of this mathematical representation, which has been the basis for every financial risk modelling approach: how can its long life be explained? How was this spontaneous epistemology formed, and why did it prove to be so persistent? To address this question and offer an answer, I will test the various dynamics of scientific knowledge used with reference to financial modelling. All these dynamics are specific ways of describing the relationship between knowledge of a phenomenon and the phenomenon itself. Observing that it is impossible for the positivist approach to solve the financial puzzle, I turn to the three principal postpositivist dynamics, developed by Kuhn, Lakatos and Quine. I shall try to make to speak these representations of science for financial research, in order to reflect on the dominance of the Brownian representation in finance. We shall see that none of the epistemologies examined can explain why the Brownian representation continues to be used in mathematical finance research. I shall then propose an alternative hypothesis, concerning a significant pervading mental model that has irrigated both academics and practitioners in the financial sector: the “principle of continuity” introduced into economics by Marshall in. I consider that this principle of continuity has become a “persistent idea” in the form of a viral approach to representations, and I give this persistent idea the metaphorical name of the “Brownian virus”. Then, to explain the spread of this Brownian virus through the financial sector, the contamination of financial practices by this mental representation founded on the principle of continuity, I introduce the concept of the “financial Logos”, a discourse that structures practices and organisations, calculations, prudential regulations and accounting standards, leading to a general financialisation of society from the 1980s onwards. (shrink)

With his bestselling publication, A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking introduced in 1988 a new genre by connecting modern science with the question of the existence of God. In the posthumous publication Brief Answers to the Big Questions, he continues with his quest for the ultimate truth. The current study presents a philosophical analysis of this search in terms of the classical philosophy of Aristotle and Aquinas. Causality is the central concept employed by Hawking. However, its meaning, in the (...) modern scientific and philosophical literature, is limited to temporal causality in contrast to the view of classical philosophy. Only the latter one accepts causality from outside space and time, with other words, a reality transcending the material world. In a quote presented in the discussion, Hawking defines himself as an atheist. After a careful reading of his writings, however, doubts arise about his unbelief. (shrink)

A central problem facing a probabilistic approach to the problem of induction is the difficulty of sufficiently constraining prior probabilities so as to yield the conclusion that induction is cogent. The Principle of Indifference, according to which alternatives are equiprobable when one has no grounds for preferring one over another, represents one way of addressing this problem; however, the Principle faces the well-known problem that multiple interpretations of it are possible, leading to incompatible conclusions. I propose a partial solution to (...) the latter problem, drawing on the notion of explanatory priority. The resulting synthesis of Bayesian and inference-to-best-explanation approaches affords a principled defense of prior probability distributions that support induction. (shrink)

David Lewis is widely regarded as the philosopher who introduced the concept of common knowledge. His account of common knowledge differs greatly from most later accounts in philosophy and economy, with the central notion of his theory being ‘having reason to believe’ rather than ‘knowledge’. Unfortunately, Lewis’s account is rather informal, and the argument has a few gaps. This paper assesses two major attempts to formalise Lewis’s account and argues that these formalisations are missing a crucial aspect of this account. (...) Therefore, a new reconstruction is proposed, which explicitly discusses ‘reasons’ and uses a logic inspired by justification logic. (shrink)

This collection of papers, celebrating the contributions of Swedish logician Dag Prawitz to Proof Theory, has been assembled from those presented at the Natural Deduction conference organized in Rio de Janeiro to honour his seminal research. Dag Prawitz’s work forms the basis of intuitionistic type theory and his inversion principle constitutes the foundation of most modern accounts of proof-theoretic semantics in Logic, Linguistics and Theoretical Computer Science. The range of contributions includes material on the extension of natural deduction with higher-order (...) rules, as opposed to higher-order connectives, and a paper discussing the application of natural deduction rules to dealing with equality in predicate calculus. The volume continues with a key chapter summarizing work on the extension of the Curry-Howard isomorphism, via methods of category theory that have been successfully applied to linear logic, as well as many other contributions from highly regarded authorities. With an illustrious group of contributors addressing a wealth of topics and applications, this volume is a valuable addition to the libraries of academics in the multiple disciplines whose development has been given added scope by the methodologies supplied by natural deduction. The volume is representative of the rich and varied directions that Prawitz work has inspired in the area of natural deduction. (shrink)

В монографии представлены несколько смысловых блоков, связанных с восприятием и интерпретацией человеком исторического бытия. Ранние греческие мыслители пытались получить доступ к исходникам (началам) бытия, и эти интенции легли в основу научного знания, а также привели к появлению метафизики. В классической (и в неклассической) метафизике за основу была принята догма Пифагора и Платона о неизменности подлинной реальности, из чего следовало отрицание бытийного характера времени. Автор монографии отказывается от этой догмы и предлагает стратегию обновления метафизики и перехода ее к новому — постнеклассическому (...) — этапу. Поскольку трансформационный потенциал реальности наиболее явно представлен в историческом становлении, авторская стратегия реализуется в метафизике истории. При этом выявляются начала истории, в каком качестве выступают «дух», «культурно-историческая матрица» и «метафизический проект организации бытия» («онтологический проект»). Исследуются формы и механизмы «работы» человека с прошлым, обсуждаются вопросы, связанные с постижением логики исторического процесса, а также с ролью (творческой) личности в истории. Анализируются причины цивилизационных кризисов и очерчиваются возможные пути их разрешения, предлагается метафизическая интерпретация социальных и военных конфликтов. Завершает исследование рассмотрение трансформации человеческого естества под влиянием информационных, био- и нанотехнологий. (shrink)

This book gives an account of work that I have done over a period of decades that sets out to solve two fundamental problems of philosophy: the mind-body problem and the problem of induction. Remarkably, these revolutionary contributions to philosophy turn out to have dramatic implications for a wide range of issues outside philosophy itself, most notably for the capacity of humanity to resolve current grave global problems and make progress towards a better, wiser world. A key element of the (...) proposed solution to the first problem is that physics is about only a highly specialized aspect of all that there is – the causally efficacious aspect. Once this is understood, it ceases to be a mystery that natural science says nothing about the experiential aspect of reality, the colours we perceive, the inner experiences we are aware of. That natural science is silent about the experiential aspect of reality is no reason whatsoever to hold that the experiential does not objectively exist. A key element of the proposed solution to the second problem is that physics, in persistently accepting unified theories only, thereby makes a substantial metaphysical assumption about the universe: it is such that a unified pattern of physical law runs through all phenomena. We need a new conception, and kind, of physics that acknowledges, and actively seeks to improve, metaphysical presuppositions inherent in the methods of physics. The problematic aims and methods of physics need to be improved as physics proceeds. These are the ideas that have fruitful implications, I set out to show, for a wide range of issues: for philosophy itself, for physics, for natural science more generally, for the social sciences, for education, for the academic enterprise as a whole and, most important of all, for the capacity of humanity to learn how to solve the grave global problems that menace our future, and thus make progress to a better, wiser world. It is not just science that has problematic aims; in life too our aims, whether personal, social or institutional, are all too often profoundly problematic, and in urgent need of improvement. We need a new kind of academic enterprise which helps humanity put aims-and-methods improving meta-methods into practice in personal and social life, so that we may come to do better at achieving what is of value in life, and make progress towards a saner, wiser world. This body of work of mine has met with critical acclaim. Despite that, astonishingly, it has been ignored by mainstream philosophy. In the book I discuss the recent work of over 100 philosophers on the mind-body problem and the metaphysics of science, and show that my earlier, highly relevant work on these issues is universally ignored, the quality of subsequent work suffering as a result. My hope, in publishing this book, is that my fellow philosophers will come to appreciate the intellectual value of my proposed solutions to the mind-body problem and the problem of induction, and will, as a result, join with me in attempting to convince our fellow academics that we need to bring about an intellectual/institutional revolution in academic inquiry so that it takes up its proper task of helping humanity learn how to solve problems of living, including global problems, and make progress towards as good, as wise and enlightened a world as possible. (shrink)

Approaching Infinity addresses seventeen paradoxes of the infinite, most of which have no generally accepted solutions. The book addresses these paradoxes using a new theory of infinity, which entails that an infinite series is uncompletable when it requires something to possess an infinite intensive magnitude. Along the way, the author addresses the nature of numbers, sets, geometric points, and related matters. The book addresses the need for a theory of infinity, and reviews both old and new theories of infinity. It (...) discussing the purposes of studying infinity and the troubles with traditional approaches to the problem, and concludes by offering a solution to some existing paradoxes. (shrink)

This volume reflects the development and theoretical foundation of a new paradigm for critical thinking based on inquiry. The field of critical thinking, as manifested in the Informal Logic movement, developed primarily as a response to the inadequacies of formalism to represent actual argumentative practice and to provide useful argumentative skills to students. Because of this, the primary focus of the field has been on informal arguments rather than formal reasoning. Yet the formalist history of the field is still evident (...) in its emphasis, with respect to both theory and pedagogy, on the structure and evaluation of individual, de-contextualized arguments. It is our view that such a view of critical thinking is excessively narrow and limited, failing to provide an understanding of argumentation as largely a matter of comparative evaluation of a variety of contending positions and arguments with the goal of reaching a reasoned judgment on an issue. As a consequence, traditional critical thinking instruction is problematic in failing to provide the reasoning skills that students need in order to accomplish this goal. Instead, the goal of critical thinking instruction has been seen largely as a defensive one: of learning to not fall prey to invalid, inadequate, or fallacious arguments. (shrink)

In the book, I provide an account of what it is for an agent to have an ability. According to the Success View, abilities are all about success across possible situations. In developing and applying the view, the book elucidates the relation between abilities on the one hand and possibility, counterfactuals, and dispositions on the other; it sheds light on the distinction between general and specific abilities; it offers an understanding of degrees of abilities; it explains which role intentions and (...) performances play for the having of an ability, how abilities relate to success and failure, and gives an outlook at how the view might be applied to the free will debate and time travel. (shrink)

When should you engage with difficult arguments against your cherished controversial beliefs? The primary conclusion of this book is that your obligations to engage with counterarguments are more limited than is often thought. In some standard situations, you shouldn't engage with difficult counterarguments and, if you do, you shouldn't engage with them open-mindedly. This conclusion runs counter to aspects of the Millian political tradition and political liberalism, as well as what people working in informal logic tend to say about argumentation. (...) -/- Not all misleading arguments wear their flaws on their sleeve. Each step of a misleading argument might seem compelling and you might not be able to figure out what's wrong with it. Still, even if you can't figure out what's wrong with an argument, you can know that it's misleading. One way to know that an argument is misleading is, counterintuitively, to lack expertise in the methods and evidence-types employed by the argument. When you know that a counterargument is misleading, you shouldn't engage with it open-mindedly and sometimes shouldn't engage with it at all. You shouldn't engage open-mindedly because you shouldn't be willing to reduce your confidence in response to arguments you know are misleading. And you sometimes shouldn't engage closed-mindedly, because to do so can be manipulative or ineffective. -/- In making this case, Jeremy Fantl discusses echo chambers and group polarization, the importance in academic writing of a sympathetic case for the opposition, the epistemology of disagreement, the account of open-mindedness, and invitations to problematic academic speakers. (shrink)

Collection of papers presented at the First Budapest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy.

According to David Chalmers, the hard problem of consciousness consists of explaining how and why qualitative experience arises from physical states. Moreover, Chalmers argues that materialist and reductive explanations of mentality are incapable of addressing the hard problem. In this chapter, I suggest that Chalmers’ hard problem can be usefully distinguished into a ‘how question’ and ‘why question,’ and I argue that evolutionary biology has the resources to address the question of why qualitative experience arises from brain states. From this (...) perspective, I discuss the different kinds of evolutionary explanations (e.g., adaptationist, exaptationist, spandrel) that can explain the origins of the qualitative aspects of various conscious states. This argument is intended to clarify which parts of Chalmers’ hard problem are amenable to scientific analysis. (shrink)

In Seminar XVII, entitled The reverse side of psychoanalysis, Jacques Lacan presents his famous theorem of the four discourses. In this rereading I propose to demonstrate that Lacan’s theorem entails a transferable dialectical method for studying processes of knowledge production, enabling contemporary scholars to develop a diagnostic of the present, notably scholars interested in issues such as the vicissitudes of knowledge production under capitalism, the crisis of the university and the proliferation of electronic gadgets. In short, I will argue that (...) Lacan’s theorem of the four discourses entails a dialectical diagnostic of technoscientific knowledge during late capitalism. First, the four discourses will be briefly outlined, emphasising the extent to which they entail, albeit in an ambivalent manner, a return or detour to the logic of Hegel. Subsequently, each discourse will be presented in more detail, emphasising how they allow us to come to terms with the current status of technoscientific knowledge. Special attention will be given to the political backdrop of the seminar: the crisis of the university. Finally, I will discuss the historical dimension, outlining both the predecessor of the four discourses and their current predicament under neoliberal/capitalist conditions. (shrink)

Essence and causation are fundamental in metaphysics, but little is said about their relations. Some essential properties are of course causal, as it is essential to footprints to have been caused by feet. But I am interested less in causation's role in essence than the reverse: the bearing a thing's essence has on its causal powers. That essencemight make a causal contribution is hinted already by the counterfactual element in causation; and the hint is confirmed by the explanation essence offers (...) of something otherwise mysterious, namely, how events exactly alike in every ordinary respect, like the bolt'ssuddenly snapping and its snapping per se, manage to disagree in what they cause. Some prior difference must exist between these events to make their causal powers unlike. Paradoxically, though, it can only be in point of a property, suddenness, which both events possess in common. Only by postulating a difference in themanner — essential or accidental — of the property's possession is the paradox resolved. Next we need an account of causation in which essence plays an explicit determinative role. That account, based on the idea that causes should becommensurate with their effects, is thatx causesy only if nothing essentially poorer would have done, and nothing essentially richer was needed. (shrink)

This article approaches the field of business ethics from a Nietzschean vantage point, which means explaining the weakness of the field by means of providing an etiological account of the values esteemed by the decadent business ethicists therein. I argue that such business ethicists have wandered from their immanent philosophical ground to act as scientists, business persons, and preaching-moralists as a way of evading their human self-contradictions. In actuality, this fleeing exacerbates them into a sickness of self-idolatry and selfloathing. I (...) bring in Nietzsche's approach to the value of truth and his ascetic priest figure to get to the origin of this problem. Moreover, I attend throughout to delimiting the field of business ethics as that branch of ethics that can be taught in business schools. Indeed, the article itself is a movement in this direction, being inherently and intentionally philosophical. (shrink)

The existence of an idea of a missing shade of blue contradicts Hume's first principle that simple ideas all derive from corresponding simple impressions. Hume dismisses the exception to his principle as unimportant. Why does he do so? His later account of distinctions of reason suggests a systematic way of dealing with simple ideas not derived from simple impressions. Why does he not return to the problem of the missing shade, having offered that account? Several suggestions as to Hume's solution (...) of the problem of the missing shade (not all appealing to distinctions of reason) are explored with an eye both to their adequacy as Humean solutions and their value as clues to his dismissal of the problem. Hypotheses concerning the latter perplexity are formulated and discussed as well. Senses in which the missing shade of blue is or may be a red herring are identified. In course, this author names Hume's missing shade marjorie grene. Historians of philosophy will want to adopt this nomenclature. (shrink)

Pyrrhonism is the view that we should suspend all our beliefs in order to be rational and reach peace of mind. One of the main objections against this view is that it makes action impossible. One cannot suspend all beliefs and act normally at once. Yet, the question is: What is it about actions that they require beliefs? This issue has hardly been clarified in the literature. This is a bad situation, for if the objection fails and it turns out (...) that the Pyrrhonists found a way to secure peace of mind, we better know the details. In the following, I take up this systematic query and show how the objection can be made precise. Despite Sextus Empiricus? ingenious appearance/reality distinction, which is to ensure Pyrrhonism in this, I eventually argue that a life by appearances is quite unlike a normal life. (shrink)

The paper considers the Quinean heritage of the argument for the indeterminacy of translation. Beyond analyzing Quine’s notion of stimulus meaning, the paper discusses two Kripkean argument’s against the Quinean claim that dispositions can provide the basis for an account of meaning: the Normativity Argument and the Finiteness Argument. An analogy between Kripke’s arguments and Hume’s argument for epistemological skepticism about the external world will be drawn. The paper shows that the answer to Kripke’s rule-following skepticism is analogous to the (...) answer to Humean skepticism: our use of concepts is more basic than, and presupposed by, the statement of the skeptical problem itself. (shrink)

This paper proposes an analysis of statements about universals according to which such statements assert nothing more than that the evidence we’d take to confirm them obtains, where this evidence is understood to consist solely of patterns in the behavior of particulars that cannot be explained by other regularities in the way things behave. On this analysis, to say that a universal exists is simply to say that there is such a pattern in the behavior of certain particulars, and for (...) any predicate F that is presumed to correspond to a universal, to say that a particular is F is simply to say that its behavior exhibits a pattern of this sort. I argue that there is no theoretical work that we want postulations and ascriptions of universals to do that they’d be unfit for if analyzed in this way, and consequently that there is no reason to treat such statements as asserting anything more than what the proposed analysis suggests. (shrink)

This discussion is grounded in Aristotelian–Thomistic realism and takes the position that nursing is a practical science. As an exposition of the title statement, distinctions are made between opinion and truth, and the speculative, productive and practical sciences. Sources of opinion and truth are described and a discussion follows that truth can be achieved through knowing principles and causes of the natural kind behind phenomena. It is proposed that humans are the natural kind behind nursing phenomena. Thus, human nature provides (...) proper principles (the truth) of nursing practice. (shrink)

In this paper I adduce a new argument in support of the claim that IBE is an autonomous form of inference, based on a familiar, yet surprisingly, under-discussed, problem for Hume’s theory of induction. I then use some insights thereby gleaned to argue for the claim that induction is really IBE, and draw some normative conclusions.

We advance a theory of inductive reasoning based on similarity, and test it on arguments involving mammal categories. To measure similarity, we quantified the overlap of neural activation in left Brodmann area 19 and the left ventral temporal cortex in response to pictures of different categories; the choice of of these regions is motivated by previous literature. The theory was tested against probability judgments for 40 arguments generated from 9 mammal categories and a common predicate. The results are interpreted in (...) the context of Hume’s thesis relating similarity to inductive inference. (shrink)

This paper reviews and defends Wittgenstein’s examination of the notion of introspecting psychological states and his critique of introspectionism, in the sense of using reflective awareness as a tool for philosophical or psychological investigation. Its focus is on inner psychological states, like pains or thoughts—it provisionally excludes perceptual states from this category. It approaches the philosopher’s concept of introspection through an analysis of concepts of awareness and self-awareness. It identifies at least two different forms of self-awareness, just one of which (...) is attention to conscious processes. It sides with those who deny that any self-awareness is perception. It outlines and evaluates the primary objections Wittgenstein made to the notion that we can find out about the nature of our mental states through introspection. These objections involve, inter alia, the privacy of psychological states and the inherent fallibility of judgments based on introspective awareness. The critique motivates more cautious and effective psychological investigation of mental states, including proper use of subjects’ introspective reports, and a conceptual approach to the philosophy of mind. Wittgenstein’s reflections prefigure much later views about the problematic nature of introspective knowledge; yet, Wittgenstein receives virtually no mention or credit for this work from contemporary writers. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a surge in online collaboration between experts and amateurs on scientific research. In this article, we analyse the epistemological implications of these crowdsourced projects, with a focus on Zooniverse, the world’s largest citizen science web portal. We use quantitative methods to evaluate the platform’s success in producing large volumes of observation statements and high impact scientific discoveries relative to more conventional means of data processing. Through empirical evidence, Bayesian reasoning, and conceptual analysis, we show how information (...) and communication technologies enhance the reliability, scalability, and connectivity of crowdsourced e-research, giving online citizen science projects powerful epistemic advantages over more traditional modes of scientific investigation. These results highlight the essential role played by technologically mediated social interaction in contemporary knowledge production. We conclude by calling for an explicitly sociotechnical turn in the philosophy of science that combines insights from statistics and logic to analyse the latest developments in scientific research. (shrink)

The debate over free will has pittedlibertarian insistence on open alternativesagainst the compatibilist view that authenticcommitments can preserve free will in adetermined world. A second schism in the freewill debate sets rationalist belief in thecentrality of reason against nonrationalistswho regard reason as inessential or even animpediment to free will. By looking deeperinto what motivates each of these perspectivesit is possible to find common ground thataccommodates insights from all those competingviews. The resulting metacompatibilist view offree will bridges some of the differencesbetween (...) compatibilists and incompatibilists aswell as between rationalists andnonrationalists, and results in a free willtheory that is both more philosophicallyinclusive and more firmly connected tocontemporary research in psychology andbiology. (shrink)

According to the evolutionary sceptic, the fact that our cognitive faculties evolved radically undermines their reliability. A number of evolutionary epistemologists have sought to refute this kind of scepticism. This paper accepts the success of these attempts, yet argues that refuting the evolutionary sceptic is not enough to put any particular domain of beliefs – notably scientific beliefs, which include belief in Darwinian evolution – on a firm footing. The paper thus sets out to contribute to this positive justificatory project, (...) underdeveloped in the literature. In contrast to a ‘wholesale’ approach, attempting to secure justification for all of our beliefs on the grounds that our belief-forming mechanisms evolved to track truth, we propose a ‘piecemeal’ approach of assessing the reliability of particular belief-forming mechanisms in particular domains. This stands in contrast to the more familiar attempt to transfer warrant obtained for one domain to another by showing how one is somehow an extension of the other. We offer a naturalist reply to the charge of circularity by appealing to reliabilist work on the problem of induction, notably Peter Lipton's distinction between self-certifying and non-self-certifying inductive arguments. We show how, for scientific beliefs, a non-self-certifying argument might be made for the reliability of our cognitive faculties in that domain. We call this strategy Humean Bootstrapping. (shrink)

In accordance to Adam Smith’s moral view, “sympathy” could be understood as a process of psychological and emotional empathy by which we reach to comprehend the other’s position. That process is moving from a position of subjective criteria to the maturity of an impartial perspective, respectful of the values implicit in human relations and we know through our feelings. Adam Smith’s contribution is fundamental for a new proposal of ethics of sympathy.

This article presents a critical analysis of two influential readings of Kant’s Second Analogy, namely, Gerd Buchdahl’s “modest reading” and Michael Friedman’s “strong reading.” After pointing out the textual and philosophical problems with each, I advance an alternative reading of the Second Analogy argument. On my reading, the Second Analogy argument proves the existence of necessary and strictly universal causal laws. This, however, does not guarantee that Kant has a solution for the problem of induction. After I explain why the (...) empirical lawfulness of nature does not guarantee the empirical uniformity of nature, I examine the modal status of empirical laws in Kant and argue contra Buchdahl and Friedman that empirical laws express two different kinds of necessity that are not reducible to each other. -/- . (shrink)

In this article , I first engage in some conceptual clarification of what the words "imagine," "imagining," and "imagination" can mean. Each has a constructive sense, an attitudinal sense, and an imagistic sense. Keeping the senses straight in the course of cognitive theorizing is important for both psychology and philosophy. I then discuss the roles that perceptual memories, beliefs, and genre truth attitudes play in constructive imagination, or the capacity to generate novel representations that go well beyond what's prompted by (...) one's immediate environment. (shrink)

This essay argues that there are theoretical benefits to keeping distinct—more pervasively than the literature has done so far—the psychological states of imagining that p versus believing that in-the-story p, when it comes to cognition of fiction and other forms of narrative. Positing both in the minds of a story’s audience helps explain the full range of reactions characteristic of story consumption. This distinction also has interesting conceptual and explanatory dimensions that haven’t been carefully observed, and the two mental state (...) types make distinct contributions to generating emotional responses to stories. Finally, the differences between the mental states illuminate how a given story can be both shared with others and at the same time experienced as personal. (shrink)

The paper is concerned with the epistemological status of testimony and the question of what may confer justification on true testimonial beliefs and enable us to call such beliefs knowledge. In particular, it addresses certain anti-reductionist arguments in the epistemology of testimony and their incompatibility with the grammatical categories of egophoricity (conjunct/disjunct marking) and evidentiality (information source marking) present in the architecture of natural languages. First, the tradition of epistemological individualism and its rationale are discussed, as well as certain attempts (...) within this tradition to include testimony-based beliefs in the body of legitimate and rational beliefs. The next section is concerned with the anti-reductionist approach to testimonial beliefs and some arguments supporting ‘the credulity principle’ grounded in Thomas Reid's philosophy of common sense. The last two sections show how the anti-reductionist argumentation is threatened with an insoluble dilemma when considered in the context of languages with the grammatical categories of egophoricity (conjunct/disjunct marking) and evidentiality (information source marking). Special attention is paid to the justificatory role of egophoric and evidential marking; how these grammatical categories may influence the process of belief formation, and consequently, how this bears upon the nature of justification for testimonial beliefs. The final conclusion of the paper is that the anti-reductionist claim concerning the directness and non-inferential nature of testimonial knowledge is bound to meet objections grounded in the structure of many natural languages. This leads to a paradox: in discussion with reductionism, anti-reductionists do seek support for their arguments in common sense beliefs reflected in everyday language, and, on the other hand, their claims are incompatible with the linguistic data found in a number of natural languages. (shrink)

The demarcation of pseudoscience has been one of the most important philosophical tasks since the 1960s. During the 1980s, an atmosphere of defeatism started to spread among philosophers of science, some of them claimed the failure of the demarcation project. I defend that the more auspicious approach to the problem might be through the intellectual character of epistemic agents, i.e., from the point of view of vice epistemology. Unfortunately, common lists of undesirable character features are usually based on a priori (...) reasoning, and therefore might be considered artificial or too vague. When we base our position on contemporary behavioural sciences, we can see that the epistemic character of believers in pseudoscience is for the most part determined by two related factors. Firstly, these epistemic agents show a higher level of cognitive laziness. By this I mean an inability or unwillingness to engage in reflective thinking and a reluctance to account for counterevidence. Secondly, they yield more easily to metacognitive overconfidence. This can be broadly understood as so-called “knowledge illusion”, the inability to recognize one’s own intellectual limits. The deficiency usually stems from a misunderstanding of the division of cognitive labour and of the agent’s role in epistemic society. I find the proposed epistemological approach to pseudoscience crucial. Only if we understand the descriptive aspects of the problem, can we think of normative solutions to it. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the debate on online trust addressing the problem of whether an online environment satisfies the necessary conditions for the emergence of trust. The paper defends the thesis that online environments can foster trust, and it does so in three steps. Firstly, the arguments proposed by the detractors of online trust are presented and analysed. Secondly, it is argued that trust can emerge in uncertain and risky environments and that it is possible to trust online identities when (...) they are diachronic and sufficient data are available to assess their reputation. Finally, a definition of trust as a second-order property of first-order relation is endorsed in order to present a new definition of online trust. According to such a definition, online trust is an occurrence of trust that specifically qualifies the relation of communication ongoing among individuals in digital environments. On the basis of this analysis, the paper concludes by arguing that online trust promotes the emergence of social behaviours rewarding honest and transparent communications. (shrink)

Radical skepticism is the view that we know nothing or at least next to nothing. Nearly no one actually believes that skepticism is true. Yet it has remained a serious topic of discussion for millennia and it looms large in popular culture. What explains its persistent and widespread appeal? How does the skeptic get us to doubt what we ordinarily take ourselves to know? I present evidence from two experiments that classic skeptical arguments gain potency from an interaction between two (...) factors. First, people evaluate inferential belief more harshly than perceptual belief. Second, people evaluate inferential belief more harshly when its content is negative (i.e., that something is not the case) than when it is positive (i.e., that something is the case). It just so happens that potent skeptical arguments tend to focus our attention on negative inferential beliefs, and we are especially prone to doubt that such beliefs count as knowledge. That is, our cognitive evaluations are biased against this specific combination of source and content. The skeptic sows seeds of doubt by exploiting this feature of our psychology. (shrink)

(2013). The modal breadth of consciousness. Philosophical Psychology. ???aop.label???. doi: 10.1080/09515089.2013.776476.

Throughout his whole work, Wittgenstein seizes on a distinction between logical and physical possibility, and impossibility. Despite this continuity and although, Wittgenstein brings in this distinction in various contexts and from different vantage points, he often solely brushes over it without elaborating in detail. In the so-called Big Typescript, however, he dedicates himself not only to the distinction between logical and physical possibility but also to the distinction between logical possibility and impossibility in particular investigations. In the course of these (...) investigations, another aspect arises and is tossed and turned repeatedly by Wittgenstein – namely, the place of “imaginability” in these considerations. On the basis of three focussed chapters in the Big Typescript, I argue that “imaginability” as an utterance of the form “being able to imagine ‘what it would be like’” can be allocated the place of a criterion for logical possibility. To this end, I will first outline the chapters 96., 27. and 26. in one section each. Although in these chapters, Wittgenstein only indicates rather than claiming explicitly “imaginability” to be a criterion for logical possibility, I will discuss in the last section how this conclusion can be drawn by combining the results of the previous sections. (shrink)

In this paper, I critique two conceptions of mechanisms, namely those put forth by Stuart Glennan (Erkenntnis 44:49–71, 1996; Philosophy of Science 69:S342–S353, 2002) and Machamer et al. (Philosophy of Science 67:1–25, 2000). Glennan’s conception, I argue, cannot account for mechanisms involving negative causation because of its interactionist posture. MDC’s view encounters the same problem due to its reificatory conception of activities—this conception, I argue, entails an onerous commitment to ontological dualism. In the place of Glennan and MDC, I propose (...) a “modified conception” of mechanisms, which (a) obviates the problem of negative causation by reinterpreting MDC’s activities according to a “descriptivist” account, and (b) avoids MDC’s problem by postulating a monistic ontology of entities. Thus, by solving these problems, my modified conception offers a cogent, more adequate alternative to Glennan’s and MDC’s conceptions of mechanisms. (shrink)