It is common parlance among philosophers who inquire into the nature of consciousness to speak of there being something it is like for the subject of a mental state to be in it. The popularity of the ‘what-it-is-like’ phrase stems, in part, from the assumption that it enables us to distinguish, in an intuitive and illuminating way, between conscious and unconscious mental states: conscious mental states, unlike unconscious mental states, are such that there is something it is like for their (...) subjects to be in them. The ‘what-it-is-like’ phrase, however, has not gone unopposed; some very clever philosophers have vigorously disputed it. Peter Hacker, for example, has argued that the phrase should be abandoned because it is ungrammatical, and Paul Snowdon has argued that it should be abandoned because the propositions expressed by its usage are either trivial or false. This paper mounts a case for the claim that neither of these conclusions is warranted. Against Hacker, it is argued that the arguments he produces for the ungrammaticality of the phrase are unpersuasive, and against Snowdon it is argued that he fails to consider a plausible and independently motivated interpretation of the phrase, and that, on this interpretation, the propositions expressed by its usage are non-trivially true. (shrink)

Strawson's discussion of the concept of a person does seem to allow for the possibility of there being immaterial persons. Nevertheless his insistence that the concept of a person is the concept of a type of entity such that both predicates ascribing states of consciousness and predicates ascribing corporeal characteristics … are equally applicable to a single individual of that single type suggests that he is conflating the concept of a human being, in the technical sense of homo sapiens , (...) and the concept of a person. (shrink)

Butler refused to be satisfied with just one leading principle, or rational basis for human action, but in the end settled for three: self-love, to provide for our ‘own private good’; benevolence, to consider ‘the good of our fellow creatures’ ; and conscience, ‘to preside and govern’ over our lives as a whole. By so doing he hoped to ensure a completeness to our ethical scheme, so that nothing would be omitted from our moral deliberations. Yet by so doing he (...) also exposed himself to severe criticism. For any such appeal to a plurality of principles, as Green remarked, is ‘repugnant both to the philosophic craving for unity, and to that ideal of “singleness of heart” which we have been accustomed to associate with the highest virtue’. More specifically, by appealing to a plurality of principles Butler faced the charges of circularity, where the principles come to define and defend each other; inconsistency, where the principles ‘take turns’ at being primary and hence render each other superfluous; and incompleteness, where the ‘primary principle’ is itself undefined or undefended. As the tale has been told Butler stands accused of all three of these errors. (shrink)

Our reading is a passage from John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book III, Chapter II, § 2.When a man speaks to another, it is that he may be understood; and the end of speech is that those sounds, as marks, may make known his ideas to the hearer. … Words being voluntary signs, they cannot be voluntary signs imposed by him on things he knows not. That would be to make them signs of nothing, sounds without signification.

We discuss how analysis of contemporary artworks has shaped philosophical theories about the concept of art, the ontology of art, and artistic media. The rapid expansion, during the contemporary period, of the kinds of things that can count as artworks has prompted a shift toward procedural definitions, which focus on how artworks are selected, and away from definitions that focus exclusively on artworks’ features or effects. Some contemporary artworks challenge the traditional art–ontological dichotomy between physical particulars and repeatable entities whose (...) occurrences are physical particulars. And nontraditional techniques and materials employed in contemporary art violate the boundaries of conventional media, prompting a rethinking of what artistic medium might be. (shrink)

Aristotle argued that there are no true statements of the form. In his lectures on history of philosophy Hegel does not challenge this view and in his Science of Logic expresses admiration for Aristotle's rebuttal of Zeno of Elea's attempt to find such contradictions in his paradoxes of motion. Yet more than once in his logics Hegel insists that everything is contradictory. I approach this problem from two directions. First, Widerspruch often means, and is understood by Hegel to mean, ‘opposition’ (...) rather than ‘contradiction’ in the strict logical sense. Thus Catullus's simultaneous love and hatred of Clodia is a contradiction, but not an Aristotelian, or formal logical, contradiction. I defuse Hegel's occasional suggestions of Aristotelian contradictions in motion and time. Second, I exploit Hegel's tacit rejection of Aristotle's official bivalence account of truth and falsity, in favour of the view that truth is approached by successive improvements in our inevitably imperfect attempts to attain it. In this respect Hegel's procedure is similar to that of Aristotle himself, who characteristically constructs his own view of metaphysics, physics, ethics, etc., from the imperfect, but not flatly false, opinions of his predecessors. ‘The truth is the whole’, that is, the whole sequence of our attempts to reach it. (shrink)

The paper aims to elucidate in better detail than before the dispute about whether or not dispositional monism—the view that all basic properties are pure powers—entails a vicious infinite regress. Particular focus is on Alexander Bird's and George Molnar's attempts to show that the arguments professing to demonstrate a vicious regress are inconclusive because they presuppose what they aim to prove, notably that powers are for their nature dependent on something else. I argue that Bird and Molnar are mistaken. It (...) is true that dispositional monism is popularly assumed to characterize powers as dependent entities, but this is not what the arguments aim to prove. They merely aim to demonstrate that it would be absurd to assume that all properties are dependent in this way. Finally, it is argued that there is an unresolved tension in Bird's and Molnar's accounts of powers. They characterize them as being for their nature dependent on the manifestations that they are for, and yet ontologically independent of those same manifestations. Until that tension is resolved, their accounts are not equipped to remove the threat of vicious regress. (shrink)

What is it that makes a mental state conscious? Recent commentators have proposed that for Kant, consciousness results from differentiation: A mental state is conscious insofar as it is distinguished, by means of our conceptual capacities, from other states and/or things. I argue instead that Kant’s conception of state consciousness is sensory: A mental state is conscious insofar as it is accompanied by an inner sensation. Interpreting state consciousness as inner sensation reveals an underappreciated influence of Crusius on Kant’s view, (...) solves some long-standing puzzles concerning Kant’s difficult doctrine of self-affection, and sheds light on his theory of inner experience. (shrink)

I offer an epistemic framework for theorising about faith. I suggest that epistemic faith is a disposition to believe or infer according to particular methods, despite a kind of tendency to perceive an epistemic shortcoming in that method. Faith is unjustified, and issues into unjustified beliefs, when the apparent epistemic shortcomings are actual; it is justified when the epistemic worries are unfounded. Virtuous faith is central to a great deal of epistemology. A rational agent will manifest faith in their perceptual (...) abilities, in determining which experts and testifiers to trust, in their a priori reasoning, and in the epistemic capacities that are specific to their social environment. To ignore faith is to ignore a crucial element of our social and individualistic epistemic lives. One exercises faith when one forms beliefs despite a kind of apparent epistemic shortcoming, which may or may not correspond to a genuine weakness in evidential support. For example, standing on a bridge one knows to be safe, despite one's natural but irrational fear, can manifest a kind of epistemic faith. So too can forming perceptual beliefs, or engaging in logical inferences, despite lacking a dialectically satisfying response to skeptical arguments. The same goes for beliefs that are informed by one's ideological stance – these too count as manifestations of faith, and under some circumstances, such faith is epistemically appropriate. One upshot of my project will be that an intuitively appealing neutrality ideal for education and discourse is untenable. I'll conclude with some discussion of practical questions about whether, when, and why it can be worthwhile engaging seriously with people who have radically opposed views and frameworks. (shrink)

What is the difference between the changes in your body that you yourself cause personally, such as the movements of your legs when you walk, or your lips when you speak, and the ones you do not cause personally, such as the contraction of your heart, or your foot bobbing up and down when your legs are crossed? Since the seventeenth century, most philosophers have said that will or intention makes the difference. I reject this answer and propose an alternative (...) that doesn't just apply to animals capable of having intentions, but to all agents with functionally differentiated parts. (shrink)

Dieter Henrich ‘s “Notion of a Deduction” (1989), opened up approaches to both Deductions in terms of legal as opposed to syllogistic reasoning. Since the CpR is shot through with juridical metaphors and analogies, many points of connection suggest themselves. In this paper, I extend and modify Henrich’s approach, in order to extract a particular logic of evidence. I argue that the three syntheses of the A-Deduction correspond to parts of a deductive procedure, and that their names have been chosen (...) to indicate this connection to the reader. Nonetheless, the principal aim of the paper is not to develop and defend these historiographical claims, but to explicate the structure of the logic of evidence in question and link it to Kant’s intended refutation of Hume. Since the procedures Kant describes are part of the law of evidence of many nations and are equally well at work in contemporary information-theory, a precise reconstruction can map directly onto contemporary problems in philosophy, physics, and informatics, without any loss of historical accuracy. (shrink)

InThe Methods of EthicsHenry Sidgwick argued against deontology and for consequentialism. More specifically, he stated four conditions for self-evident moral truth and argued that, whereas no deontological principles satisfy all four conditions, the principles that generate consequentialism do. This article argues that both his critique of deontology and his defence of consequentialism fail, largely for the same reason: that he did not clearly grasp the concept W. D. Ross later introduced of a prima facie duty or duty other things equal. (...) The moderate deontology Ross's concept allows avoids many of Sidgwick's objections. And Sidgwick's statements of his own axioms equivocate in exactly the same way for which he criticized deontological ones. Only if they are read as other things equal can they seem intuitive and earn widespread agreement; but that form is too weak to ground consequentialism. And in the form that does yield consequentialism they are neither intuitive nor widely accepted. Sidgwick's arguments against a rival view and for his own were, in multiple ways, unfair. (shrink)

Contrary to a popular reading of his modal epistemology, Berkeley does not hold that inconceivability entails impossibility, and he cannot therefore argue the impossibility of mind-independent matter by appealing to facts about what we cannot conceive. Berkeley is explicit about this constraint on his metaphysical argumentation, and, I argue, does respect it in practice. Popular mythology about the ‘master argument’ notwithstanding, the only passages in which he might plausibly seem to employ the principle that inconceivability entails impossibility are those that (...) argue for the inseparability of primary from secondary qualities. However, an alternative reading of these texts is available that is both consistent with Berkeley's express modal epistemology and credible in its own right. (shrink)

Relevance is a triadic relation between an item, an outcome or goal, and a situation. Causal relevance consists in an item's ability to help produce an outcome in a situation. Epistemic relevance, a distinct concept, consists in the ability of a piece of information (or a speech act communicating or requesting a piece of information) to help achieve an epistemic goal in a situation. It has this ability when it can be ineliminably combined with other at least potentially accurate information (...) to achieve the goal. The relevance of a conversational contribution, premiss relevance and conclusion relevance are species of epistemic relevance thus defined. The conception of premiss relevance which results provides a basis for determining when the various ‘arguments ad’ called fallacies of relevance are indeed irrelevant. In particular, an ad verecundiam appeal is irrelevant if the authority cited lacks expertise in a cognitive domain to which the conclusion belongs, the authority does not exercise its expertise in coming to endorse the conclusion, or the conclusion does not belong to a cognitive domain; otherwise the ad verecundiam is relevant. (shrink)

Here, Hirschmann responds to Marilyn Friedman and Susan J. Brison's comments on The Subject of Liberty: Toward a Feminist Theory of Freedom. She clarifies some aspects of her social construction argument, articulates the role of discourse and its relation to material reality, and explicates the potentially paradoxical case of support for women's choices when those choices produce harm.

Here, Hirschmann responds to Marilyn Friedman and Susan]. Brison's comments on The Subject of Liberty: Toward a Feminist Theory of Freedom. She clarifies some aspects of her social construction argument, articulates the role of discourse and its relation to material reality, and explicates the potentially paradoxical case of support for women's choices when those choices produce harm.

The most important parent of the idea of property in the person is undoubtedly John Locke. In this article, we argue that the origins of this idea can be traced back as far as the third century BCE, to classical Stoicism. Stoic cosmopolitanism, with its insistence on impartiality and the moral equality of all persons, lays the foundation for the idea of self-ownership, which is then given support in the doctrine of oikeiosis and the corresponding belief that nature had made (...) all human beings equal, self-preserving, and self-regarding. On the Stoic account, self-ownership is a natural correlate and consequence of oikeiosis, the natural urge to self-preservation, proprioception, and the individuation that came with it. In recognising that people are separate and individual, and entrusting each individual’s welfare to herself, Zeus appears to make everyone a ‘self-guardian’. We uniquely argue that Locke was directly inspired by these Stoic ideas, which he then develops and incorporates into his own theory. (shrink)

Almost all scholars of the Enlightenment consider Hobbes, Spinoza, and Locke as the founding theorists of the “secular modern state.” In contrast to the widely held view of the modern state, I argue that far from being “secular” it was the product of the sacralization of politics, which resulted from the way these philosophers interpreted the Scriptures as part of their philosophical inquiries. The analysis of the “linguistic turn” in their biblical interpretations reveals how they tried to undermine the power (...) of the Church to claim greater freedoms for the state. Their philosophical inquiries initiated the secularization of the Christian religion and the sacralization of politics as two correlative developments, rather than the secularization of the state per se, as is usually supposed. The philosophical arguments proposed by Hobbes, Spinoza, and Locke helped to resolve the religious battles of Europe’s many confessions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but are still pertinent to our c... (shrink)

We argue that animalism is the only materialist account of personal identity that can account for the autonomy that we typically think of ourselves as possessing. All the rival materialist theories suffer from a moral version of the problem of too many thinkers when they posit a human person that overlaps a numerically distinct human animal. The different persistence conditions of overlapping thinkers will lead them to have interests that conflict, which in many cases prevents them both from autonomously forming (...) and acting on the same intentions. These problems are exacerbated by problems of self-reference plaguing the overlapping thinkers. We contend that the impossibility of simultaneous autonomous action by animals and persons provides a reason to favor animalism over Neo-Lockeanism, Four-Dimensionalism, Constitution theory, and brain-size views of the person. We anticipate and reject arguments that the autonomy of the person and the animal can be shown to be compatible by relying upon either the Parfitian thesis that identity isn’t what matters or claiming that animals acquire the interests of the person they constitute. (shrink)

Both Simone Weil and John McDowell analogize value or meaning to sensations such as colour or heat, and this analogy is a strategy for resisting anti‐realism. However, McDowell's analogy tacitly accepts the very dualism which he is criticizing, while Weil's analogy is both more naïve and more radical than his. Like McDowell, Weil argues that virtuous character is the actualization of a second nature, but she emphasizes the role of the body in this process. Fully trained, the agent's body is (...) a transparent medium through which she reads circumstances – and through which the circumstances, clearly perceived, express themselves in action. (shrink)

This essay offers cautionary considerations on what has come to be called “public philosophy.” A conception of philosophy is set forth using Socrates as the paradigm of relentless philosophical questioning. The essay then outlines three types of public philosophy: a philosophy situated in a public setting, a philosophy whose content is modified for a varied public, and a philosophy that functions as normative consensus. The most important of these three is the philosophy modified for the public. The discussion notes examples (...) of public philosophy from the history of philosophy, and examines the contribution of eighteenth‐century philosophers (such as David Hume) to a version of public philosophy. The risks of public philosophy are noted—in particular, that a modified philosophy may substitute the inculcation of belief over the modeling of philosophy. The essay concludes by noting that the university classroom remains an important but forgotten venue of public philosophy. (shrink)

The article proposes a new solution to the long-standing problem of the universality of essences in Spinoza's ontology. It argues that, according to Spinoza, particular things in nature possess unique essences, but that these essences coexist with more general, mind-dependent species-essences, constructed by finite minds on the basis of similarities that obtain among the properties of formally-real particulars. This account provides the best fit both with the textual evidence and with Spinoza's other metaphysical and epistemological commitments. The article offers new (...) readings of how Spinoza understands not just the nature of essence, but also the nature of being, reason, striving, definitions, and different kinds of knowledge. (shrink)

We articulate a view of natural kinds as complex universals. We do not attempt to argue for the existence of universals. Instead, we argue that, given the existence of universals, and of natural kinds, the latter can be understood in terms of the former, and that this provides a rich, flexible framework within which to discuss issues of indeterminacy, essentialism, induction, and reduction. Along the way, we develop a 'problem of the many' for universals.

The question what makes us human is often treated as a question of fact. However, the term 'human' is not primarily used to refer to a particular kind of entity, but as a 'nomen dignitatis' -- a dignity-conferring name. It implies a particular moral status. That is what spawns endless debates about such issues as when human life begins and ends and whether human-animal chimeras are "partly human". Definitions of the human are inevitably "persuasive". They tell us about what is (...) important and how we should live our lives as humans, and thus help us to make sense of what we are. (shrink)

Convinced that the classically undecidable problems of mathematics possess determinate truth values, Gödel issued a programmatic call to search for new axioms for their solution. The platonism underlying his belief in the determinateness of those questions in combination with his conception of intuition as a kind of perception have struck many of his readers as highly problematic. Following Gödel's own suggestion, this article explores ideas from phenomenology to specify a meaning for his mathematical realism that allows for a defensible epistemology.

Review of THEO C. MEYERING, Historical Roots of Cognitive Science : The Rise of a Cognitive Theory of Perception from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century. Boston: Kluwer, xix + 250 pp. $69.00. Examines the author's interpretation of Aristotelian theories of perceptual cognition, early modern theories, and Helmholtz's theory.

Zygon®, Volume 57, Issue 1, Page 114-140, March 2022.

In this issue of CQ we introduce a new feature, in which noted bioethicists are invited to reflect on vital current issues. Our first invitee, John Harris, will subsequently assume editorship of this section.

The author applies an economic theory of ordinary knowledge—street-level epistemology—to the popular understanding of science. Street-level theory is essentially economic and pragmatic. If it is very costly to learn something, you are less likely to learn it. If you need to know it, you are more likely to find out about it (although what you find out might be wrong). For most of what you know, you essentially rely on others as sources (some of these others might be "experts," but (...) many are not). In general, the ordinary person does not need to know modern physics and cannot be expected to. But most of us generally need medical knowledge on occasion, and we can be expected to go in quest of it. Our primary task in seeking medical knowledge, however, is to settle on whom we count as relevant experts. Key Words: knowledge • epistemology • scientific knowledge • ordinary knowledge. (shrink)

IntroductionIssues in public policy have been challenging and remaking moral theory for two centuries. Such issues force us to question fundamental principles of ethics while they cast doubt on our ability to generalize from traditional intuitions. No issue poses more remarkable difficulties for moral theory than nuclear weapons policy. Because the consequences of their deployment and therefore possible use could be grievous beyond those of any previously conceivable human action, these weapons frame the conflict between outcome-based, especially utilitarian, and action-based (...) deontological moral theories more acutely than perhaps any other we have faced. Just because nuclear weapons may bring about the most grievous outcome imaginable, they elevate concern with outcomes over concern with actions. More generally, they wreak havoc with the focus on the morality of individual choices and actions, set limits to the notion of intention and the doctrine of double effect, call into question the so-called just-war theory, and overwhelm the intuitionist basis of much of ethical reasoning. (shrink)

Richard Whately’s views of arguments involving authority are very different in his Elements of Rhetoric and his Elements of Logic. This essay begins by documenting these differences and wondering why they are. It then proceeds to take a broader and more historical view of Whately’s discussions of authority and finds him occupying an important developmental ground between his predecessor Locke and contemporary views of the argument from authority. In fact, some of the things we now think are important in a (...) good argument from authority are anticipated by Whately. (shrink)

I compare Locke's views on the nature and powers of the self with E. J. Lowe's view, ‘non-Cartesian substance dualism’. Lowe agrees with Locke that persons have a power to choose or not to choose. Lowe takes this power to be non-causal. I argue that this move does not obviously succeed in evading the notorious interaction problem that arises for all forms of substance dualism, including those of Locke and Descartes. However, I am sympathetic to Lowe's attempt to give a (...) metaphysical account of a robust sort of agency that would explain how human beings might be genuinely autonomous. (shrink)

While some countries are moving toward legalization, euthanasia is still criticized on various fronts. Most importantly, it is considered a violation of the medical ethics principle of non-maleficence, because it actively seeks a patient’s death. But, medical ethicists should consider an ethical alternative to euthanasia. In this article, we defend cryocide as one such alternative. Under this procedure, with the consent of terminally-ill patients, their clinical death is induced, in order to prevent the further advance of their brain’s deterioration. Their (...) body is then cryogenically preserved, in the hope that in the future, there will be a technology to reanimate it. This prospect is ethically distinct from euthanasia if a different criterion of death is assumed. In the information-theoretic criterion of death, a person is not considered dead when brain and cardiopulmonary functions cease, but rather, when information constituting psychology and memory is lost. (shrink)

Abstract:There is evidence that children learn both proper names and count nouns from the outset of lexical development. Furthermore, children's first proper names are typically words for people, whereas their first count nouns are commonly terms for other objects, including artifacts. I argue that these facts represent a challenge for two well‐known theoretical accounts of object word learning. I defend an alternative account, which credits young children with conceptual resources to acquire words for both individual objects and object categories, and (...) conceptual biases to construe some objects (notably people) as individuals in their own right and most other objects as instances of their category. (shrink)

It has recently been proposed that the framework of semantic relativism be put to use to describe mental content, as deployed in some of the fundamental operations of the mind. This programme has inspired in particular a novel strategy of accounting for the essential egocentricity of first-personal or de se thoughts in relativist terms, with the advantage of dispensing with a notion of self-representation. This paper is a critical discussion of this strategy. While it is based on a plausible appeal (...) to cognitive economy, the relativist theory does not fully account for the epistemic profile that distinguishes de se thinking, as some of its proponents hope to do. A deeper worry concerns the reliance of the theory on a primitive notion of “centre” that hasn’t yet received enough critical attention, and is ambiguous between a thin and a rich reading. I argue that while the rich reading is required if the relativist analysis of the de se is to achieve its most ambitious aims, it also deprives the theory of much of its explanatory power. (shrink)

When we perceive an object, we perceive the object from a perspective. As a consequence of the perspectival nature of perception, when we perceive, say, a circular coin from different angles, there is a respect in which the coin looks circular throughout, but also a respect in which the coin's appearance changes. More generally, perception of shape and size properties has both a constant aspect—an aspect that remains stable across changes in perspective—and a perspectival aspect—an aspect that changes depending on (...) one's perspective on the object. How should we account for the perspectival aspect of spatial perception? We present a framework within which to discuss the perspectival aspect of perception and put forward three desiderata that any account of the perspectival aspect of perception should satisfy. We discuss views on which the perspectival aspect of perception is analyzed in terms of constitutively mind-dependent appearance properties as well as views on which the perspectival aspect of perception is analyzed in terms of representations of mind-independent perspectival properties. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill has not been considered, for the most part, a useful contributor to debates about either the of individuals in social groups or to the resolution of conflicts between diverse social groups. But Mill's attempt to combine the role of the with the theory of social science requires him to situate the social scientific inquirer in a contingent, historical, and cultural social group and to consider both the prospects and difficulties the diversity of cultural groups presents. By examining (...) the role of and in Mill's thought, Mill's position on the just treatment of diverse groups emerges. Because of the threat posed to liberty and critical rationality by any dominant group, Mill attempts to develop institutional arrangements that prevent any group becoming dominant and that embody critical rationality. A concrete example of such an institutional arrangement is found, somewhat surprisingly, in Mill's India policy. (shrink)

The importance of John Locke's discussion of persons is undeniable. Locke never explicitly tells us whether he thinks persons are substances or modes, however. We are thus left in the dark about a fundamental aspect of Locke's view. Many commentators have recently claimed that Lockean persons are modes. In this paper I swim against the current tide in the secondary literature and argue that Lockean persons are substances. Specifically I argue that what Locke says about substance, power, and agency commits (...) him to the claim that persons are substances. I consider the passages mode interpreters cite and show why these passages do not imply that Lockean persons are modes. I also respond to two objections anyone who thinks Lockean persons are substances must address. I show that a substance reading of Locke on persons can be sympathetic and viable. I contend that with a clearer understanding of the ontological status of Lockean persons we can gain a firmer grasp of what Locke's picture of persons looks like. Finally, once we are armed with a better understanding of Locke on substance, mode, and personhood, we can pave the way toward a more nuanced description of the early modern debate over personal identity. (shrink)

John Locke discusses the notions of identity and diversity in Book 2, Chapter 27 of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. At the beginning of this much-discussed chapter, Locke posits the place-time-kind principle. According to this principle, no two things of the same kind can be in the same place at the same time . Just what Locke means by this is unclear, however. So too is whether this principle causes problems for Locke, and whether these problems can be resolved. This (...) is significant because the place-time-kind principle is foundational to Locke's discussion of identity. Moreover, the place-time-kind principle stands at the center of a number of lively and long-standing debates in Locke scholarship. These include the debates over the ontological status of Lockean persons, and whether Locke is a relative identity theorist, to name just two. In this paper, I offer a survey of how Locke's place-time-kind principle has been interpreted in the secondary literature. The aim of this taxonomy is to clarify where the differences between competing interpretations lie, and additionally show just how challenging it is to determine which reading is best. (shrink)

In this paper I propose to continue the analysis of the appeal to authority begun at the last OSSA conference. I proceed by examining the well-documented use of the appeal made by the ancient Roman advocate, Cicero. The fact that Cicero expressed his opinion was expectably sufficient to give his auditors--responsible citizens all--reason to do as he desired. But why? The resolution of this puzzle points to a strong sense in which arguments can be called rhetorical , for the rational (...) force of Cicero's authority depends necessarily on what he says. (shrink)

Reductionism relies on expectations that it is possible to make sense of the whole by studying its parts, whereas emergentism considers that program to be unattainable, partly due to the existence of emergent properties. The emergentist holistic stance is particularly relevant in biology and cognitive neuroscience, where interactions amongst system components and environment are key. Here we consider Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy as providing important insights to metaphysics of science in general, and to the reductionism vs. emergentism debate in particular. (...) An appraisal of Whitehead's perspective reveals a difficulty shared by both approaches, referred to him as “simple location”: the commitment to the idea that the nature of things is exhausted by their intrinsic or internal properties, and does not take into account relations or dynamic interactions denoting “togetherness.” In a word, that things are simply where they are. Whitehead criticizes this externalist ontological perspective in which each interacting element exists, and can be thought, without essential reference to other elements. The aim of this work is to uncover such a stance, particularly in the context of dynamical systems, and to show its shortcomings. We propose an alternative relational approach based on Whitehead's notion of “internal relations,” which we explicate and illustrate with several examples. Our work aims to criticize the notion of simple location, even in the framework of emergentist accounts, so as to contribute to a “relational turn” that will conceive “inter-identities” as “intra-identities” in which interactants are not enduring substances, but internally related processes. In sum, we argue that the notion of internal relations has a strong theoretical power to overcome some fundamental difficulties in the study of life and mind. (shrink)

What method should we use to determine the nature of perceptual experience? My focus here is the Kantian thought that transcendental arguments can be used to determine the nature of perceptual experience. I set out a dilemma for the use of transcendental arguments in the philosophy of perception, one which turns on a comparison ofthe transcendental method with the first-personal method of early analytic philosophy, and with the empirical methods of much contemporary philosophy of mind. The transcendental method can avoid (...) this dilemma only if it commits to our possessing a capacity for imaginative reflection, one which is capable of identifying certain formal properties of experience.This result indicates some of the commitments which must be made if transcendental arguments are to be used in the philosophy of perception, and it has implications for those views that take the philosophy of perception to be autonomous of the empirical science of perception. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉLes qualia n'existent pas. La différence phénoménologique entre voir et imaginer, c'est que les propositions auxquelles l'expérient commence à croire dans le premier cas sont uniquement considérées dans le second. Nous pouvons savoir «quel effet cela fait d’être une chauve-souris» en sachant que leur faculté d’écholocation les informe non-inférentiellement des formes, grandeurs, et distances directionnelles des surfaces à proximité. Toutefois, les termes désignant les qualités secondes (comme les couleurs) sont les noms des propriétés-types qu'ils désignent, et dérivent causalement d'un «baptême» (...) verbal; les expérients ne peuvent donc connaître le caractère des expériences de couleur sans étudier la physiologie du cerveau. (shrink)

RésuméLocke a apporté des changements significatifs à plusieurs points de sa psychologie morale au fil des cinq premières editions de l'Essay.Je ferai valoir qu'en acceptant une certaine liberté de la volonté (willing) dans sa correspondance avec van Limborch (1702) et en concédant une certaine «liberté eu égard à la volonté» dans la cinquième édition de l'Essay(1706), Locke ne comprometpas la cohérence de sa position définitive, contenue dans la cinquième édition, ces libertés étant distinctes du genre de libre arbitre qu'il rejette (...) à maintes reprises. Je tenterai de souligner la continuité de la pensée de Locke sur la liberté humaine en faisant appel à sa théorie de la liberté de pensée, qui n'a cessé d'évoluer dés la première édition. (shrink)

Although several passages in Berkeley are related to the question whether two or more finite substances can simultaneously perceive numerically identical sensible ideas, it is only in TDHP (247–8) that he addresses the question explicitly and in some detail. Yet, Berkeley’s less than straightforward reply is notoriously difficult to pin down. Some commentators take Berkeley to be endorsing a clear‐cut positive reply, whereas others have him giving an emphatically negative one; others hold that for Berkeley there is no fact of (...) the matter that determines an answer one way or the other. I argue that all three readings find some justification at one point or another in the passage, and all hold a kernel of truth. Yet, none of them can be taken unrestrictedly because Philonous’s considered position is disjunctive: either there is no problem at all, or, if there is one (thus warranting a negative reply to the public status of sensible ideas), it makes equally against ‘materialism’ and immaterialism. I argue that the passage can be given an overall interpretation that explains why Berkeley is entitled to hold that there is some truth in each direction. I propose answers to the questions (a) why Berkeley thinks there may nevertheless be a problem after all, and (b) if so, why he can yet legitimately feel entitled to let it rest, that is, why he remains confident, within the philosophical context of his day, that his philosophy does not lead to solipsism. (shrink)