Many philosophical debates take for granted that there is such a thing as ‘the’ common-sense conception of the phenomenon of interest. Debates about the nature of perception tend to take for granted that there is a single, coherent common-sense conception of vision, consistent with Direct Realism. This conception is often accorded an epistemic default status. We draw on philosophical and psychological literature on naïve theories and belief fragmentation to motivate the hypothesis that untutored common sense encompasses conflicting Direct Realist and (...) Indirect Realist conceptions: there is no such thing as ‘the’ common-sense conception of vision that could enjoy epistemic default status. To examine this hypothesis, a survey administered an agreement rating task with verbal and pictorial stimuli to lay participants. We found many laypeople simultaneously hold conflicting Direct Realist and Indirect Realist beliefs about vision. Against common assumptions, Direct Realist beliefs are not clearly dominant, and consistent adherence to Direct Realism is not the norm, but the exception. These findings are consistent with recent accounts of belief fragmentation. They forcefully challenge common methodology in philosophical debates about the nature of perception and beyond. (shrink)

What I call "strategic injustice" involves a set of formal and informal regulatory rules and conventions that often lead to grossly unfair outcomes for a class of individuals despite their resistance. My goal in this paper is to provide the necessary conditions for such injustices and for eliminating their instances from our social practices. To do so, I follow Peter Vanderschraaf's analysis of circumstances of justice and expand his account by embedding "asymmetric conflictual coordination games" that summarize fair division problems (...) in a dynamic social network. I use the network effect on such coordination games to explain the emergence of stable exploitative behavior and conventions by a class of individuals even in the presence of restraining efforts by others. I conclude that such unfair conventions are resilient to uncoordinated individual actions and interventions. In fact, maintaining a rough equality itself turns into another coordination problem. Finally, I show that something similar to a social movement that restructures the network of social relations is necessary to solve such coordination problems. (shrink)

In the first part of the paper, I discuss Benatar’s asymmetry argument for the claim that it would have been better for each of us to have never lived at all. In contrast to other commentators, I will argue that there is a way of interpreting the premises of his argument which makes all of them come out true. (This will require one departure from Benatar’s own presentation.) Once we see why the premises are true, we will, however, also realise (...) that the argument trades on an ambiguity that renders it invalid. In the second part of the paper, I consider whether discussions of how best to implement the anti-natalist conclusion crosses a moral barrier. I ask whether we can, independently of any philosophical argument, raise a legitimate moral objection to discussions of how best to end all life on earth. I discuss three views concerning the role of our pre-philosophical views and attitudes in philosophical debates: the external view according to which these attitudes set moral barriers to the content of philosophical debate whilst themselves standing outside this debate; the internal view according to which our intuitions are part of the material for philosophical reflection and play no further role; and the intermediate view according to which our pre-reflective views and attitudes, without themselves requiring philosophical validation, can play an important role when it comes to issues regarding the implementation of philosophical claims. (shrink)

Some of the oldest and deepest questions in philosophy fall under the umbrella of consciousness and mind: What is the mind and how is it related to the body? What provides our thoughts with content? How is consciousness related to the natural world? Do we have distinctive causal powers? Analytic philosophers have made significant progress on these and related problems in the last century. Given the high volume of work on such topics, this chapter is necessarily selective. It offers major (...) touchstones but is slanted in favor of work that touches base with the sciences. The chapter starts by describing the progression of thought on the mind-body problem, from dualism and behaviorism to non-reductive materialism. It then describes the problem of intentionality, with a focus on partial solutions from Dretske and Millikan, ending with a brief discussion of 4E theories of mental content. The section on the problem of consciousness starts with the well-known knowledge and modal arguments before describing some attempted initial solutions, such as eliminative materialism and panpsychism. Finally, there is a brief section on agency and free will, which focuses on the link between free will and consciousness. (shrink)

This essay examines the relation between philosophical questions concerning personal identity and character development in Shaftesbury’s and Hume’s philosophy. Shaftesbury combines a metaphysical account of personal identity with a normative approach to character development. By contrasting Shaftesbury’s and Hume’s views on these issues, I examine whether character development presupposes specific metaphysical views about personal identity, and in particular whether it presupposes the continued existence of a substance, as Shaftesbury assumes. I show that Hume’s philosophy offers at least two alternatives. Moreover, (...) I consider whether and how Hume’s philosophy leaves scope for character development and how he departs from Shaftesbury’s normative project of self-formation. (shrink)

The word excellence is derived from the Latin word excellentia, and it means the quality of being extremely good. Human excellences could be defined as those human qualities that make a person outstanding, exceptional, superior, or, in one word, the best of one's kind in any field of human activities. Frequently, it is synonymously used with the word virtue, narrowly meaning moral excellence.

Philosophers of science diverge on the question what drives the growth of scientific knowledge. Most of the twentieth century was dominated by the notion that theories propel that growth whereas experiments play secondary roles of operating within the theoretical framework or testing theoretical predictions. New experimentalism, a school of thought pioneered by Ian Hacking in the early 1980s, challenged this view by arguing that theory-free exploratory experimentation may in many cases effectively probe nature and potentially spawn higher evidence-based theories. Because (...) theories are often powerless to envisage workings of complex biological systems, theory-independent experimentation is common in the life sciences. Some such experiments are triggered by compelling observation, others are prompted by innovative techniques or instruments, whereas different investigations query big data to identify regularities and underlying organizing principles. A distinct fourth type of experiments is motivated by a major question. Here I describe two question-guided experimental discoveries in biochemistry: the cyclic adenosine monophosphate mediator of hormone action and the ubiquitin-mediated system of protein degradation. Lacking underlying theories, antecedent data bases, or new techniques, the sole guides of the two discoveries were respective substantial questions. Both research projects were similarly instigated by theory-free exploratory experimentation and continued in alternating phases of results-based interim working hypotheses, their examination by experiment, provisional hypotheses again, and so on. These two cases designate theory-free, question-guided, stepwise biochemical investigations as a distinct subtype of the new experimentalism mode of scientific enquiry. (shrink)

Hume’s account of contrariety in Book I of the Treatise poses several interpretive puzzles. I consider each in turn and offer a novel interpretation of contrariety based on Hume’s discussion of the passions. That Book II and Book I form a complete chain of reasoning suggests that the way in which passions are related is analogous to the way in which ideas are related in the understanding. I argue that Hume identifies three species of empirical contrariety in Book II: contraries, (...) oppositions, and contradictions. All three species help clarify Hume’s remarks concerning contrariety in Book I. I further identify a second genus I call logical contrariety by drawing on Hume’s discussion of fictitious duration and distance. (shrink)

This paper explores the value of benevolence as a cardinal virtue by analyzing the evolving history of virtue ethics from ancient Greek tradition to emotivism and contemporary thoughts. First, I would like to start with a brief idea of virtue ethics. Greek virtue theorists recognize four qualities of moral character, namely, wisdom, temperance, courage, and justice. Christianity recognizes unconditional love as the essence of its theology. Here I will analyze the transition within the doctrine of virtue ethics in the Christian (...) era and afterward since the eighteenth-century thinkers are immensely inspired by this Christian notion of love consider universal benevolence as the cardinal virtue. Later, Hume introduces an emotivist turn by considering the moral worth of sympathetic emotions in his ethical doctrine. In this paper, I aim to discover the cardinality of the virtue of benevolence following the evolutionary history of virtue ethics. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga (1993a, 1993b, 2000) argues that de jure objections to theism depend on de facto objections: in order to say that belief in God is not warranted, one should first assume that this belief is false. Assuming Plantinga’s epistemology and his de facto/de jure distinction, In this essay, I argue that to show that belief in miracles is not warranted, one must suppose that belief in miracles is always false. Therefore, a person who holds a skeptical position regarding miracles (...) must choose either to find evidence that all of the supposed miracles are false, or admit that one is assuming an areligious commitment as a starting point. (shrink)

Non-naturalism is the view that normative properties are response-independent, irreducible to natural properties, and causally inefficacious. An underexplored question for non-naturalism concerns the metasemantics of normative terms. Ideally, the non-naturalist could remain ecumenical, but it appears they cannot. Call this challenge the metasemantic challenge. This chapter suggests that non-naturalists endorse an epistemic account of reference determination of the sort recently defended by Imogen Dickie, with some modifications. An important implication of this account is that, if correct, a fully fleshed out (...) moral epistemology will simultaneously rebut metasemantic objections to non-naturalism. Thus, both the metasemantic and the more widely discussed epistemological challenges in effect amount to one. Before setting out the positive view, the chapter considers why all of the traditional metasemantic theories cause trouble for the non-naturalist. This includes discussions of teleosemantics, conceptual role semantics, as well as Schroeter and Schroeter’s “connectedness” model. (shrink)

This paper proves a precisification of Hume’s Law—the thesis that one cannot get an ought from an is—as an instance of a more general theorem which establishes several other philosophically interesting, though less controversial, barriers to logical consequence.

Religious fundamentalism remains a significant force in global politics and religion. Despite a range of problems arising from fundamentalism, the beliefs fundamentalists hold can seem quite reasonable. This paper considers whether, in fact, fundamentalist beliefs are rational by drawing on recent ideas in contemporary epistemology. The paper presents a general theory of fundamentalist beliefs in terms of their propositional content and the high credence levels attributed to them. It then explores the way these beliefs are both acquired and retained by (...) applying ideas from the social epistemology of echo chambers and group belief. The paper then considers three accounts of the rationality of belief: evidentialist, reliabilist, and virtue-theoretic. It is argued that fundamentalist beliefs can be reasonable on evidentialist standards, but are nevertheless still problematic on reliabilist and virtue standards, since they are formed in environments that are not truth-conducive and which cultivate intellectual vice. (shrink)

While experimental philosophy has fruitfully applied the tools and resources of psychology and cognitive science to debates within epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics, relatively little work has been done within philosophy of religion. And this isn’t due to a lack of need! Philosophers of religion frequently rely on empirical claims that can be either verified or disproven, but without exploring whether they are. And philosophers of religion frequently appeal to intuitions which may vary wildly according to education level, theological background, etc., (...) without concern for whether or not the psychological mechanisms that underwrite those intuitions are broadly shared or reliable. In this chapter, I explore some of the fruit and possibilities for the emerging field of experimental philosophy of religion. First, in Section 1, I will elucidate some of the historical grounding for experimental philosophy of religion. Then in Section 2, I briefly consider how the tools and resources of experimental philosophy might be fruitfully applied to a seminal topic within philosophy of religion, namely, the problem of evil. In Section 3, we’ll sketch some broader applications of experimental philosophy of religion. (shrink)

In this chapter I sympathetically consider the idea that skepticism is an epistemic virtue. I argue that this depends on whether skepticism is admirable, and articulate three defenses of skepticism as admirable: a Pyrrhonian defense (on which skepticism leads to tranquility), a Cartesian defense (on which skepticism is prophylactic against error), and a liberal defense (on which skepticism counteracts dogmatism and closed-mindedness). I give the liberal defense the most attention: I distinguish skepticism from several species of dogmatism that are sometimes (...) called “skeptical” (e.g. that of “climate change skeptics”), and associate skepticism with political moderation and intellectual independence. (shrink)

Just as bodily actions are things you do with your body, mental actions are things you do with your mind. Both are different from things that merely happen to you. Where does the idea of mental action come from? What are mental actions? And why do they matter in philosophy? These are the three main questions answered in this paper. Section 1 introduces mental action through a brief history of the topic in philosophy. Section 2 explains what it is to (...) be a mental action in terms of intentional action. Section 3 argues that the fact that we can perform mental actions has some striking consequences concerning mental content. Section 4 shows how mental action helps to explain some important facts about self-knowledge and the normativity of thought. The conclusion mentions two further fruitful avenues for philosophical research on mental action. (shrink)

This essay traces the development of the philosophical debates concerning active powers and human agency in eighteenth-century Scotland. I examine how and why Scottish philosophers such as Francis Hutcheson, George Turnbull, David Hume, and Henry Home, Lord Kames, depart from John Locke’s and other traditional conceptions of the will and how Thomas Reid and Dugald Stewart reinstate Locke’s distinction between volition and desire. Moreover, I examine what role desires, passions, and motives play in the writings of these and other Scottish (...) Enlightenment philosophers on human agency and draw attention to their underlying disputes concerning liberty and necessity. I end by reflecting on how classifications of principles of actions changed in eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Scottish philosophy. (shrink)

Many great authors claim that reading literature can expand your phenomenal imagination and allow you to imagine experiences you have never had. How is this possible? Your phenomenal imagination is constrained by your phenomenal concepts, which are in turn constrained by the phenomenology of your own actual past experiences. Literature could expand your phenomenal imagination, then, by giving you new phenomenal concepts. This paper explains how this can happen. Literature can direct your attention to previously unnoticed phenomenal properties of your (...) own past experiences, as brought to mind by involuntary memory. This process gives you the opportunity to notice those phenomenal properties for the first time, and so also to form phenomenal concepts of those properties. Forming a new phenomenal concept strictly expands the range of your phenomenal imagination. It gives you the capacity to imagine more than you could have before, including certain specific kinds of experience that you yourself have never enjoyed firsthand. Literature’s capacity to expand your phenomenal imagination in this way is central to its social, moral, and epistemic value. (shrink)

Do the senses represent causation? Many commentators read Nicolas Malebranche as anticipating David Hume’s negative answer to this question. I disagree with this assessment. When a yellow billiard ball strikes a red billiard ball, Malebranche holds that we see the yellow ball as causing the red ball to move. Given Malebranche’s occasionalism, he insists that the visual experience of causal interaction is illusory. Nevertheless, Malebranche holds that the senses represent finite things as causally efficacious. This experience of creaturely causality explains (...) why Aristotelian philosophers and others struggle to recognize occasionalism’s truth. (shrink)

The question of what ontological insights can be gained from the knowledge of physics (keyword: ontic structural realism) cannot obviously be separated from the view of physics as a science from an epistemological perspective. This is also visible in the debate about 'scientific realism'. This debate makes it evident, in the form of the importance of perception as a criterion for the assertion of existence in relation to the 'theoretical entities' of physics, that epistemology itself is 'ontologically laden'. This is (...) in the form of the assumption that things (or entities) in themselves exist as such and such determined ones (independent of cognition, autonomously). This ontological assumption is not only the basis of our naïve understanding of cognition, but also its indispensable premise, insofar as this understanding is a fundamentally passive, 'receptive' one. Accordingly, just as 'perception' is the foundation, ('objective') description is the aim of cognition, that which cognition is about. In this sense, our idea of cognition and our idea of the things are inseparably linked. Without the ontological premise mentioned we just would not know what cognition is, but it is basically just a kind of image that we have in our minds (an assumption that helps us understand 'cognition'). Epistemology not only shares this basic assumption (which it also shares with metaphysics), but it revolves (unlike metaphysics) entirely around it by making the idea and demand of 'certainty' a condition of 'real' knowledge. As 'certainty' is a subjective criterion this entails the 'remodelling' of the real, holistic cognitive situation (to which metaphysics adheres) into a linear subject-object-relation (which results in the strict 'transcendence' of the objects). And it also establishes, due to its 'expertise' in matters of cognition, the 'primacy of epistemology' over all other sciences. Now, on closer inspection, however, the expertise of epistemology seems not all that dependable, because it basically consists only of paradigms which, from the point of view of the holism of the real cognitive situation itself, are nothing more than relatively simplistic interpretations of this situation. However, we do not yet know what another conception of cognition might look like (which is not surprising given the high rank of the phenomenon of cognition in the hierarchy of phenomena according to their complexity). 'Certainty' as a criterion of cognition is thus excluded from the outset, and thus the linear relational model of cognition appears as what it is, a gross distortion of the real, holistic cognitive situation. The significance of this argumentation with regard to physics is that the linear epistemological model of cognition itself is a major obstacle to an adequate epistemological understanding of physics. This is because it is fixed 'a priori' to an object-related concept of cognition, and to 'description' as the only mode of ('real') cognition. But physics (without questioning our naïve notion of cognition on the level of epistemology) simply works past it and its basic assumptions. Its cognitive concept (alias heuristic) is fundamentally different from that of metaphysics. The acceptance of the real, holistic cognitive situation is, in my opinion, the condition for an adequate understanding of physics' heuristic access to objects, its transcendental, generalizing cognitive concept, as well as its ontological relevance and dimension of its own. (shrink)

Few of Kant’s distinctions have generated as much puzzlement and criticism as the one he draws in the Prolegomena between judgments of experience, which he describes as objectively and universally valid, and judgments of perception, which he says are merely subjectively valid. Yet the distinction between objective and subjective validity is central to Kant’s account of experience and plays a key role in his Transcendental Deduction of the categories. In this paper, I reject a standard interpretation of the distinction, according (...) to which judgments of perception are merely subjectively valid because they are made without sufficient investigation. In its place, I argue that for Kant, judgments of perception are merely subjectively valid because they merely report sequences of perceptions had by a subject without claiming that what is represented by the perceptions is connected in the objects the perceptions are of. Whereas the interpretation I criticize undercuts Kant’s strategy in the Deduction, I argue, my interpretation illuminates it. (shrink)

The question of what ontological insights can be gained from the knowledge of physics (keyword: ontic structural realism) cannot obviously be completely separated from the view of physics as a science from an epistemological perspective. This is also visible in the debate about 'scientific realism'. This debate makes it clear, in the form of the importance of perception as a criterion for the assertion of existence in relation to the 'theoretical entities' of physics, that epistemology itself is 'ontologically loaded'. This (...) is in the form of the assumption that things in themselves (independent of cognition, in an autonomous way) exist as so-and-so determined ones. This ontological assumption is not only the basis of our (naive) conception of knowledge, but also its indispensable premise, insofar as this conception is a fundamentally passive, 'receptive' one. This is true to the full extent of metaphysics, and to a not much lesser extent of epistemology. The interpretation of knowledge in the sense of 'description' seems to be without alternative. In the philosophy of science, this view is reflected in the emphasis on 'objectivity' as the essence of science, in the belief in 'induction' as the traditional method of science, and (ex negativo) in the problem of the 'theory laden nature of observation'. To these paradigms of epistemology, however, a further aggravating factor is added, namely the criterion of 'subjective certainty' as evidence of 'real' knowledge (only meaningful on the basis of the ontological premise mentioned above). Thus, due to its 'expertise' in matters of knowledge, epistemology becomes the 'prima philosophia'. But what is even more important, the real, holistic cognitive situation is transformed into a linear cognitive relationship, with the consequence of the 'transcendence' of the objects. Now, on closer inspection, however, there is not too much in the expertise of epistemology, because it basically consists only of paradigms which, from the point of view of the holism of the real cognitive situation itself, are nothing more than relatively simplistic interpretations of this situation. However, we do not yet know what another conception of knowledge might look like (which is not surprising given the position of the phenomenon of knowledge in the hierarchy of phenomena according to their complexity). 'Certitude' as a criterion of cognition is thus excluded from the outset, and thus the linear relational model of cognition also appears as what it is, a gross distortion of the real, holistic situation of cognition. The significance of this argumentation with regard to physics is that the linear epistemological model of cognition itself is a major obstacle to an adequate epistemological understanding of physics. This is because it is fixed 'a priori' to an object-related concept of knowledge, and to 'description' as the only mode of ('real') knowledge. The acceptance of the real, holistic epistemological situation is therefore, in my opinion, the condition for an adequate understanding of physics' heuristic access to objects, its transcendental, generalizing epistemological concept, as well as its ontological relevance and dimension. (shrink)

Many recent accounts of the ontology of groups, institutions, and practices have touched upon the normative or deontic dimensions of social reality (e.g., social obligations, claims, permissions, prohibitions, authority, and immunity), as distinct from any specifically moral values or obligations. For the most part, however, the ontology of such socio-deontic phenomena has not received the attention it deserves. In what sense might a social obligation or a claim exist? What is the ontological status of such an obligation (e.g., is it (...) an entity in its own right)? And how do people come to have social obligations or permissions in the first place? In this dissertation, I argue that such social-deontic phenomena can be accounted for ontologically in terms of the existence of shared prescriptive representational content that is backed by collectively held dispositions to monitor for compliance, and to punish (sanction, blame, chide, look unfavorably upon) those who fail to comply. (shrink)

Hume maintains that the boundaries of morality are widely drawn in everyday life. We routinely blame characters for traits that we find disgusting, on this account, as well as those which we perceive as being harmful. Contemporary moral psychology provides further evidence that human beings have a natural tendency to moralize traits that produce feelings of repugnance. But recent work also demonstrates a significant amount of individual variation in our sensitivities to disgust. We have sufficient reason to bracket this emotion, (...) therefore, when adopting the general point of view: if we allow idiosyncratic affective responses to shape our fully considered moral judgments, we could no longer reasonably expect spectators with different sensitivities to agree with us. (shrink)

The mantra that "the best way to predict the future is to invent it" (attributed to the computer scientist Alan Kay) exemplifies some of the expectations from the technical and innovative sides of biomedical research at present. However, for technical advancements to make real impacts both on patient health and genuine scientific understanding, quite a number of lingering challenges facing the entire spectrum from protein biology all the way to randomized controlled trials should start to be overcome. The proposal in (...) this chapter is that philosophy is essential in this process. By reviewing select examples from the history of science and philosophy, disciplines which were indistinguishable until the mid-nineteenth century, I argue that progress toward the many impasses in biomedicine can be achieved by emphasizing theoretical work (in the true sense of the word 'theory') as a vital foundation for experimental biology. Furthermore, a philosophical biology program that could provide a framework for theoretical investigations is outlined. (shrink)

Can compensation repair the moral harm of a previous wrongful act? On the one hand, some define the very function of compensation as one of restoring the moral balance. On the other hand, the dominant view on compensation is that it is insufficient to fully repair moral harm unless accompanied by an act of punishment or apology. In this paper, I seek to investigate the maximal potential of compensation. Central to my argument is a distinction between apologetic compensation and non-apologetic (...) compensation. Apologetic compensation, I argue, is an act that expresses regret and apology by means of some offer of money, goods, or services. Non-apologetic compensation is an act that seeks to restore loss or harm without expressing regret or apology. In the paper, I defend the view that acts of compensation can be apologetic and argue that such apologetic compensation is sufficient for moral repair. (shrink)

In this essay we provide (1) an argument for why ethics should be naturalized, (2) an analysis of why it is not yet naturalized, (3) a defense of ethical naturalism against two fallacies—Hume’s and Moore’s—that ethical naturalism allegedly commits, and (4) a proposal that normative ethics is best conceived as part of human ecology committed to pluralistic relativism. We explain why naturalizing ethics both entails relativism and also constrains it, and why nihilism about value is not an especially worrisome for (...) ethical naturalists. The substantive view we put forth constitutes the essence of Duke Naturalism. (NOTE: This is a slightly modified reprint of Flangan et al 2007 of the same title.). (shrink)

Fogelin’s neo-Pyrrhonism is skepticism about epistemology and philosophy more generally. Philosophical reflection on ordinary epistemic practices leads us to deny the possibility of knowledge and justified belief. However, instead of accepting the dogma that knowledge and justified beliefs are impossible, a neo-Pyrrhonist rejects the philosophical premises that lead to this conclusion. Fogelin argues in particular that contemporary theories of justification cannot avoid dogmatic skepticism, because they are committed to the premises of the skeptical argument deriving from the modes of Agrippa. (...) It is argued against Fogelin that those theories can and typically do deny one or another of the premises and thus can avoid the skeptical conclusion. Neo-Pyrrhonism should rather be defended by arguing that the premises of the Agrippan argument are intuitively plausible and that neo-Pyrrhonism provides the best resolution of the resulting paradox. Only neo-Pyrrhonism both explains the intuitive plausibility of the premises and avoids dogmatic skepticism. (shrink)

In the paper “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme” Donald Davidson argues that we cannot make sense of the claim that there could be conceptual schemes which are different from our own. He argues that conceptual schemes different to our own must be untranslatable into our own language, and further that the idea of untranslatable languages does not make sense. By considering three variants of conceptual relativism which can be developed using the work of Kant, Quine, and Kuhn (...) I aim to make three criticisms of Davidson's arguments: firstly I will argue that Davidson is unable to respond to the claim that the reality which schemes must fit is unknowable; secondly I will argue that Davidson is wrong to represent his opponents as all claiming that distinct conceptual schemes must be untranslatable, and that in fact we can make sense of the idea of distinct conceptual schemes which can be translated; finally, I will argue that Davidson fails to acknowledge the central role interpretivism plays in his arguments, and that this hidden interpretivism both makes much of his argument redundant, and robs them of any power to convince someone who rejects the controversial thesis of interpretivism. (shrink)

The Role of the Notion of Truth in the Project of Kant’s Critical Philosophy [English] The discussion about Kant’s theory of truth usually revolves around his ascription to some version of the coherence or correspondence theory of truth, and the matching criteria of truth. These discussions often deliberate which theory of truth is most appropriate given the critical principles. Instead, this paper aims to exhibit, through the evolution of Kant’s notion of truth in his precritical years and through the project (...) of a transcendental logic, the intrinsic relation between the notion of truth and the very principles of critical philosophy; and to raise again the questions about the definition and the criteria of truth, but in the framework of the question of the possibility of truth. [Español] La discusión en torno a la teoría kantiana de la verdad suele girar alrededor de las preguntas —íntimamente relacionadas entre sí— por la adscripción de Kant a una versión coherentista o correspondentista de la verdad y por los correspondientes criterios de verdad. Estas discusiones suelen ponderar qué teoría de la verdad resulta más adecuada dados ya los principios críticos. En contraste con esto, este trabajo pretende mostrar, a través de la evolución de la noción de verdad del Kant precrítico y del proyecto de una lógica trascendental, la vinculación intrínseca de la noción de verdad con los principios mismos de la filosofía crítica, y replantear las preguntas por la definición y el criterio de verdad en el marco de la pregunta por la posibilidad de la verdad. (shrink)

I claim that professional philosophers need to seriously rethink how they do philosophy, where they do philosophy, and with whom they do philosophy. My suggestion is that they “leave the shade” of their philosophical bubbles by making their work accessible to each other and to the public and by engaging with thinkers outside of philosophy. I argue that if philosophers do not “leave the shade,” we may witness the decline and even the eradication of the field of philosophy, as we (...) know it. (shrink)

Quantum mechanics portrays the universe as involving non-local influences that are difficult to reconcile with relativity theory. By postulating backward causation, retro-causal interpretations of quantum mechanics could circumvent these influences and accordingly reconcile quantum mechanics with relativity. The postulation of backward causation poses various challenges for the retro-causal interpretations of quantum mechanics and for the existing conceptual frameworks for analyzing counterfactual dependence, causation and causal explanation. In this chapter, we analyze the nature of time, causation and explanation in a local, (...) deterministic retro-causal interpretation of quantum mechanics that is inspired by Bohmian mechanics. This interpretation of quantum mechanics offers a deterministic, local ‘hidden-variables’ model of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment that poses a new challenge for Reichenbach’s principle of the common cause. In this model, the common cause – the state of particles at the emission from the source – screens off the correlation between its effects – the distant measurement outcomes – but nevertheless fails to explain the correlation between the effects. (shrink)

Agent-causal theories of free will, which rely on a non-reductionist account of the agent, have traditionally been associated with libertarianism. However, some authors have recently argued in favor of compatibilist agent-causal accounts. In this essay, I will show that such accounts cannot avoid serious problems of implausibility or incoherence. A careful analysis of the implications of non-reductionist views of the agent (event-causal or agent-causal as they may be) reveals that such views necessarily imply either the denial of the principle of (...) supervenience or the assumption of bottom-level indeterminism. I will contend that the former alternative comes at a high cost, while the latter is quite plausible. Therefore, providing that they accept the condition of the truth of indeterminism, non-reductionist accounts of the agent do not have to contradict our scientific worldview. Interestingly, while they should be taken seriously by anyone who is concerned with the passivity of the agent’s role under a reductionist scenario, non-reductivist accounts end up contributing an extra incompatibilist argument to the free will debate. (shrink)

Um alinhamento responsável à alguma versão do naturalismo filosófico requer a articulação explicita e cuidadosa de um argumento em sua defesa. Em quatro passos, o texto que segue abaixo expande e examina a validade de um argumento que é frequentemente rascunhado em favor do naturalismo. Como veremos, contudo, a versão do naturalismo que esse argumento nos permite é um pouco diferente dos naturalismos filosóficos mais populares.

As a neurodevelopmental condition that affects cognitive functioning, autism has been used as a test case for theories of moral responsibility. Most of the relevant literature focuses on autism’s impact on theory of mind and empathy. Here I examine aspects of autism related to executive function. I apply an account of how we might fail to be reasons responsive to argue that autism can increase the frequency of excuses for transgressive behavior, but will rarely make anyone completely exempt from moral (...) responsibility in general. On this account, although excuses may apply more often to autists than to others, the excuses that apply to autists are just the same excuses that can apply to anyone. (shrink)

The term ‘human nature’ can refer to different things in the world and fulfil different epistemic roles. Human nature can refer to a classificatory nature (classificatory criteria that determine the boundaries of, and membership in, a biological or social group called ‘human’), a descriptive nature (a bundle of properties describing the respective group’s life form), or an explanatory nature (a set of factors explaining that life form). This chapter will first introduce these three kinds of ‘human nature’, together with seven (...) reasons why we disagree about human nature. In the main, this chapter focuses on the explanatory concept of human nature, which is related to one of the seven reasons for disagreement, namely, the scientific authority inherent in the term ‘nature’. I will examine why, in a number of historical contexts, it was attractive to refer to ‘nature’ as an explanatory category, and why this usage has led to the continual contestation of the term within the sciences. The claim is that even if the contents of talk about ‘nature’ varied historically, the term’s pragmatic function of demarcation stayed the same. The term ‘nature’ conveys scientific authority over a territory; ‘human nature’ is a concept used to divide causes, as well as experts, and thereby conquer others who threaten to invade one’s epistemic territory. Analysing this demarcation, which has social as well as epistemic aspects, will help us to understand why the explanatory role has been important and why it is unlikely that people will ever agree on either the meaning or the importance of ‘human nature’ as an explanatory category. (shrink)

Tässä artikkelissa käsittelen Descartesin ikuisten totuuksien välttämättömyyteen liittyvää ongelmaa. Teoksessa Mietiskelyjä ensimmäisestä filosofiasta (1641–1642) Descartes nostaa esiin käsitteen ikuisista totuuksista, käyttäen esimerkkinään kolmiota. Kolmion muuttumattomaan ja ikuiseen luontoon kuuluu esimerkiksi, että sen kolme kulmaa ovat yhteenlaskettuna 180°. Se on totta kolmiosta, vaikka yhtään yksittäistä kolmiota ei olisi koskaan ollutkaan olemassa. Eräät ajattelemieni asioiden piirteet ovat siis Descartesin mukaan ajattelustani riippumattomia. Ikuisia totuuksia ovat ainakin matemaattiset ja geometriset tosiseikat sekä ristiriidan laki. Samoin Descartesin kuuluisa lause “ajattelen, siis olen” lukeutuu ikuisten totuuksien (...) joukkoon. Descartesin ikuiset totuudet olisivatkin siis loogisesti välttämättömiä. Niillä on kyseinen olemus riippumatta ulkoisten kohteiden olemassaolosta tai siitä, ajattelenko niitä lainkaan. Kuitenkin kirjeenvaihdossaan Descartes pitää itsepintaisesti kiinni käsityksestään, että ikuiset totuudet ovat Jumalan vapaasti luomia ja Jumala olisi voinut luoda ne erilailla. Näin ollen luodut ikuiset totuudet eivät tarkkaan ottaen olisikaan välttämättömiä vaan kontingentteja. Ne voisivat olla myös toisella tavalla. Artikkelin alkuun esittelen Descartesin modaalista metafysiikkaa sekä luotujen ikuisten totuuksien kontingenttiudesta seuraavia tulkinnallisia vaikeuksia. Tämän jälkeen pureudun kolmeen erilaiseen ratkaisuyritykseen kommentaarikirjallisuudessa (Frankfurt 1977; Curley 1984 & Bennett 1994) ja osoitan, miksi ne eivät riitä vastaamaan ongelmaan. Lopussa vedän johtopäätöksiä ja luonnostelen mahdollisen ratkaisun. (shrink)

Moral properties are widely held to be response‐dependent properties of actions, situations, events and persons. There is controversy as to whether the putative response‐dependence of these properties nullifies any truth‐claims for moral judgements, or rather supports them. The present paper argues that moral judgements are more profitably compared with theoretical judgements in the natural sciences than with the judgements of immediate sense‐perception. The notion of moral truth is dependent on the notion of moral knowledge, which in turn is best understood (...) as a possible endpoint of theory change for the better. (shrink)

This paper will argue that Hume's notion of the self in Book 2 of the Treatise seems subject to two constraints. First, it should be a succession of perceptions. Second, it should be durable in virtue of the roles that it plays with regard to pride and humility, as well as to normativity. However, I argue that these two constraints are in tension, since our perceptions are too transient to play these roles. I argue that this notion of self should (...) be characterized as a bundle of dispositions to our perceptions, such that these dispositions are durable and counterfactual-supporting. I argue that Hume confused his ‘philosophical’ notion of dispositions, as nothing above and beyond their effects, with the thicker notion of dispositions to which the passions respond—which explains his mistaken commitment to the durability constraint. (shrink)

The nature of learning processes as well as evolutionary considerations suggest that aesthetic judgement is of central importance in the formation of custom. Learning and extrapolation rely on evaluations of non-instrumental features like simplicity, analogy, straightforwardness, and clarity. Further, learning is particularly effective if it is driven by an active desire to uncover new regularities, rather than merely gathering information in a passive way.From an evolutionary perspective, learning has evolved as an adaptation to fast and transitory environmental changes which cannot (...) be effectively traced by the slow and long-term evolutionary processes which take place on the genetic level. The evolutionary raison d’être of learning is to enable the individual to incessantly search for upcoming new regularities, and to act appropriately on them. As learning depends on aesthetic judgement, the evolutionary selection for learning implies an evolutionary molding of an aesthetic sense, and a preference for patterns and patterned action which ultimately leads to the formation of custom and social learning. The paper presents, thus, an evolutionary underpinning for the behavioral tendencies underlying my theory of custom. (shrink)

Contrary to a widespread interpretation, Wittgenstein did not regard credal statements as merely metaphorical expressions of an attitude towards life. He accepted that Christian faith involves belief in God's existence. At the same time he held that although as a hypothesis, God's existence is extremely implausible, Christian faith is not unreasonable. Is that a consistent view? According to Wittgenstein, religious faith should not be seen as a hypothesis, based on evidence, but as grounded in a proto‐religious attitude, a way of (...) experiencing the world or certain aspects of it. A belief in religious metaphysics is not the basis of one's faith, but a mere epiphenomenon. Given further that religious doctrine is both falsification‐transcendent and that religious faith is likely to have beneficial psychological effects, religious doctrine can be exempt from ordinary standards of epistemic support. An unsupported religious belief need not be unreasonable. However, it is hard to see how one could knowingly have such an unsupported belief, as Wittgenstein seems to envisage. How can one believe what, at the same time, one believes is not likely to be true? This, I argue, is the unresolved tension in Wittgenstein's philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Unlike mainstream Cyrenaics, the Annicereans deny that friendship is chosen only because of its usefulness. Instead, the wise person cares for her friend and endures pains for him because of her goodwill and love. Nonetheless, the Annicereans maintain that your own pleasure is the telos and that a friend’s happiness isn’t intrinsically choiceworthy. Their position appears internally inconsistent or to attribute doublethink to the wise person. But we can avoid these problems. We have good textual grounds to attribute to the (...) Annicereans a doctrine of “non-hedonic habits,” which allows them to abandon psychological hedonism while still maintaining hedonism regarding well-being. (shrink)

Even though fatalism has been an intermittent topic of philosophy since Greek antiquity, this paper argues that fate ought to be of little concern to metaphysicians. Fatalism is neither an interesting metaphysical thesis in its own right, nor can it be identified with theses that are, such as realism about the future or determinism.

The Title Principle is seen by a number of commentators as crucial to Hume’s resolution of skeptical doubts in THN 1.4.7, thus providing an answer to Kemp Smith’s (1941) famous worry regarding the tension between Hume’s skepticism and his naturalism. However, I will argue that in the Enquiry, Hume rejects both the Title Principle and the role of the passions in his epistemology. Those who think that neither the Title Principle nor the passions play a significant role in THN 1.4.7 (...) will likely take this as grist for their mills. But for those who endorse such interpretations, my argument presents an interpretive burden to provide some explanation as to why Hume might have become dissatisfied with this epistemic framework, abandoning it in his later work. Having raised this interpretive burden, my paper also seeks to bear it by providing such an explanation. (shrink)

This article investigates Hume's account of mental transparency. In this article, I will endorse Qualitative Transparency – that is, the thesis that we cannot fail to apprehend the qualitative characters of our current perceptions, and these apprehensions cannot fail to be veridical – on the basis that, unlike its competitors, it is both weak enough to accommodate the introspective mistakes that Hume recognises, and yet strong enough to make sense of his positive employments of mental transparency. Moreover, Qualitative Transparency is (...) also philosophically satisfying in providing good philosophical reason for why the mental states that are incorrigible should in fact be so. (shrink)

Wie ist es wohl, eine Fledermaus zu sein? Wäre ein rein physikalisches Duplikat von mir nur ein empfindungsloser Zombie? Muss man sich seinem Schicksal ergeben, wenn man sich unfreiwillig als lebensnotwendige Blutwaschanlage eines weltberühmten Violinisten wieder findet? Kann man sich wünschen, der König von China zu sein? Bin ich vielleicht nur ein Gehirn in einem Tank mit Nährflüssigkeit, das die Welt von einer Computersimulation vorgegaukelt bekommt? Worauf beziehen sich die Menschen auf der Zwillingserde mit ihrem Wort 'Wasser', wenn es bei (...) ihnen gar kein H2O gibt? -/- Diese und weitere seltsame Fragen sind das tägliche Brot vieler professioneller Philosophen. Die abstrusen Umstände, die dabei geschildert werden, nennt man "Gedankenexperimente". -/- Was soll die Erörterung dieser Szenarien, die sich so weit von unserem alltäglichen Leben, z.T. außerhalb der Grenzen unserer Wirklichkeit abspielen? Welche Rolle spielen diese "Gedankenexperimente" in der philosophischen Methodologie? Ist diese Rolle überhaupt berechtigt? -/- Das vorliegende Buch gibt Antworten auf diese Fragen. Es stellt sich heraus, dass diese seltsamen Gedankenexperimente nicht nur berechtigte, sondern überaus wichtige Instrumente philosophischen Forschens darstellen. (shrink)

Philosophy becomes speculative when it raises questions about the ultimate nature of being and thought. What does it mean to be? What does it mean to think? How are being and thought related? What does it mean to ask these questions? These questions have occupied a central place in philosophy throughout history, but have led a shadow existence in twentieth-century thought, which has cut the tie between reason and these fundamental questions, leaving the questions in the twilight, and reason instrumentalised. (...) A.N. Whitehead (1861-1947), one of the founders of analytic philosophy and co-author (with Bertrand Russell) of Principia Mathematica, is one of the few contemporary thinkers to have developed an explicit speculative philosophy. Unsurprisingly, his philosophy has played a marginal role in academic debates. In this study, the methodological foundation of Whitehead’s speculative thought is reconstructed. On the basis of a systematic and historical examination of the nature of the question of being, Whiteheads ontology of the event as the passage into novelty emerges in its full scope, allowing the reader to understand why and to what extent Whitehead has walked a different path than other contemporary thinkers. His philosophy contains a conception of reason that is not alien to newness and creativity while being more than procedural or pragmatic, and a mode of understanding existence that brings out the acuteness of freedom, value and legitimacy, as well as the unity of things, of thought and nature. In order to show what is really happening in this philosophy, the received interpretation of Whitehead’s ontology is radically dismantled. The central thought, that to be means to happen, is explained in a process of reiteration and gradual clarification, examining traditional philosophical problems in metaphysics and epistemology (on topics like: nature and matter, knowledge, categorical structure, freedom and necessity, truth and meaning, modality) from its perspective. What emerges is a philosophy in which the temporality of being, when taken seriously, changes the status of familiar problems and dualisms and offers possibilities for thought, which previously did not exist. Whitehead “hears” the classical questions of philosophy in a new way. Beyond the trenches of twentieth-century philosophy, Whitehead’s speculative thinking contains many elements that will be of value to those studying the foundations of thought today and looking for new directions. In a time when the dualism of nature and man is maintained cynically in our economies and dismantled, but only in a biologistic fashion and therefore only seemingly, as a cover-up, in science and philosophy, Whitehead’s new and creative way of hearing, and answering, old questions about ultimate concerns, when understood properly, is more up to date than ever before. (shrink)