Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 115, Issue 3pt3, Page 277-306, December 2015.

I give some reasons to think that perceptual experiences redound on the rational standing of the subject, and explore the consequences of this idea for the global structure of justification.

Affective realism, roughly the hypothesis that you “perceive what you feel”, has recently been put forward as a novel, empirically-backed explanation of police shooting errors. The affective states involved in policing in high-pressure situations result in police officers literally seeing guns even when none are present. The aim of this paper is to (i) unpack the implications of this explanation for assessing police culpability and (ii) determine whether we should take these implications at face value. I argue that while affective (...) realism stands to diminish, if not eliminate, the moral and legal responsibilities of officers who have made shooting errors, the empirical data itself does not directly support such a radical rethink of police culpability. (shrink)

Predictive processing (PP) is now a prominent theoretical framework in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science. This review focuses on PP research with a relatively philosophical focus, taking stock of the framework and discussing new directions. The review contains an introduction that describes the full PP toolbox; an exploration of areas where PP has advanced understanding of perceptual and cognitive phenomena; a discussion of PP's impact on foundational issues in cognitive science; and a consideration of the philosophy of science (...) of PP. The overall picture is that PP is a fruitful framework, with exciting new directions awaiting exploration. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 7, Issue 4, pp 272 - 280 In _Extended Rationality: A Hinge Epistemology_, Annalisa Coliva aims to by-pass traditional sceptical challenges to the possibility of knowledge by arguing that all thinking and knowing ultimately rely on hinge assumptions which are immune from doubt because of their foundational role in the very framework that makes knowledge and rational thought possible. In defending her position Coliva also rejects the relativist challenge that there could be incompatible but equally plausible systems (...) of justification relying on alternative hinges or assumptions. In this response to Coliva, I argue that even if we accept that we need to rely on some core assumptions in order to get the process of rational thought going, the question of the uniqueness of these assumptions remains open. I maintain that Coliva’s two argumentative strategies against the possibility of relativism, one based on empirical considerations and a second relying on considerations from logic do not guarantee the uniqueness of hinge assumptions and the possibility of at least a moderate form of relativism looms large. (shrink)