According to what might be described as ‘humanist’ approaches to epistemology, the fundamental task of epistemology is to investigate the nature, scope and origins of human knowledge. Evidently, what we can know depends upon the nature of our cognitive faculties, including our senses and our understanding. Since there may be significant differences between human cognitive faculties and those of other beings, it would seem that an investigation of the nature, scope and origins of human knowledge must therefore concern itself, in (...) the first instance, with uncovering the structure and operations of the human cognitive apparatus. The most influential versions of humanism in epistemology have also been inclined to insist both that it is contingent that our cognitive faculties are as they are, and that an investigation of these faculties must be largely empirical. An empirical investigation is to be understood, very roughly, as one which relies upon observation and experiment, and to describe such an investigation as naturalistic is to draw attention to the fact that it is presupposed by humanism that the faculties being investigated are a part of the natural world, the world of space, time and causal law. (shrink)

According to what might be described as ‘humanist’ approaches to epistemology, the fundamental task of epistemology is to investigate the nature, scope and origins of human knowledge. Evidently, what we can know depends upon the nature of our cognitive faculties, including our senses and our understanding. Since there may be significant differences between human cognitive faculties and those of other beings, it would seem that an investigation of the nature, scope and origins of human knowledge must therefore concern itself, in (...) the first instance, with uncovering the structure and operations of the human cognitive apparatus. The most influential versions of humanism in epistemology have also been inclined to insist both that it is contingent that our cognitive faculties are as they are, and that an investigation of these faculties must be largely empirical. An empirical investigation is to be understood, very roughly, as one which relies upon observation and experiment, and to describe such an investigation as naturalistic is to draw attention to the fact that it is presupposed by humanism that the faculties being investigated are a part of the natural world, the world of space, time and causal law. (shrink)

Abstract. The modern concept of the inner self containing a private inner world has ancient philosophical and religious roots. These begin with Plato's intelligible world of ideas. In Plotinus, the intelligible world becomes the inner world of the divine Mind and its ideas, which the soul sees by turning “into the inside.” Augustine made the inner world into something merely human, not a world of divine ideas, so that the soul seeking for God must turn in, then up: entering into (...) itself and then looking above itself at the intelligible light of God. In modernity, “ideas” become the immediate object of every act of mental perception, the essential inner objects of the mind's eye. Locke makes the inner space inescapably private, excluding the divine inner light. Postmodern attempts to reconceive the relation of mind and world, rejecting the modern conception of a private inner self, will need to deal with lingering Platonist intuitions about the immediacy of the mind's vision. (shrink)

Four different accounts of the relationship between third-person mindreading and first-person metacognition are compared and evaluated. While three of them endorse the existence of introspection for propositional attitudes, the fourth (defended here) claims that our knowledge of our own attitudes results from turning our mindreading capacities upon ourselves. Section 1 of this target article introduces the four accounts. Section 2 develops the “mindreading is prior” model in more detail, showing how it predicts introspection for perceptual and quasi-perceptual (e.g., imagistic) mental (...) events while claiming that metacognitive access to our own attitudes always results from swift unconscious self-interpretation. This section also considers the model's relationship to the expression of attitudes in speech. Section 3 argues that the commonsense belief in the existence of introspection should be given no weight. Section 4 argues briefly that data from childhood development are of no help in resolving this debate. Section 5 considers the evolutionary claims to which the different accounts are committed, and argues that the three introspective views make predictions that are not borne out by the data. Section 6 examines the extensive evidence that people often confabulate when self-attributing attitudes. Section 7 considers “two systems” accounts of human thinking and reasoning, arguing that although there are introspectableeventswithin System 2, there are no introspectableattitudes. Section 8 examines alleged evidence of “unsymbolized thinking”. Section 9 considers the claim that schizophrenia exhibits a dissociation between mindreading and metacognition. Finally, section 10 evaluates the claim that autism presents a dissociation in the opposite direction, of metacognition without mindreading. (shrink)

Philosophers' reflections on history have been dominated for decades by two themes: representation and memory. On both of these accounts, historical inquiry is divided by a certain gap from what it seeks to find or wants to know, and its activity is seen by philosophers as that of bridging this gap. Against this background, the concept of experience, in spite of its apparent rootedness in the present, can be revived as a means of thinking about our connection to the past. (...) After examining variants on the concept of experience, with special attention to its temporality, I argue in this essay that experience can be said to furnish a connection to the past that underlies both memory and representation. (shrink)

This paper will argue that there is no such thing as introspective access to judgments and decisions. It won't challenge the existence of introspective access to perceptual and imagistic states, nor to emotional feelings and bodily sensations. On the contrary, the model presented in Section 2 presumes such access. Hence introspection is here divided into two categories: introspection of propositional attitude events, on the one hand, and introspection of broadly perceptual events, on the other. I shall assume that the latter (...) exists while arguing that the former doesn't (or not in the case of judgments and decisions, at least). Section 1 makes some preliminary points and distinctions, and outlines the scope of the argument. Section 2 presents and motivates the general model of introspection that predicts a divided result. Section 3 provides independent evidence for the conclusion that judgments and decisions aren't introspectable. Section 4 then replies to a number of objections to the argument, the most important of which is made from the perspective of so-called "dual systems theories" of belief formation and decision making. The upshot is a limited form of eliminativism about introspection, in respect of at least two core categories of propositional attitude. (shrink)

We contest each other's memory claims all the time. I am concerned with how the contesting of memory claims and narratives may be an integral part of many abusive situations. I use the writings of Otto Weininger and the False Memory Syndrome Foundation to explore a particular strategy of discrediting women as rememberers, making them more vulnerable to sexual harm. This strategy relies on the presentation of women as unable to maintain a stable enough sense of self or identity to (...) be trustworthy testifiers to their own harm. (shrink)

We contest each other's memory claims all the time. I am concerned with how the contesting of memory claims and narratives may be an integral part of many abusive situations. I use the writings of Otto Weininger and the False Memory Syndrome Foundation to explore a particular strategy of discrediting women as rememberers, making them more vulnerable to sexual harm. This strategy relies on the presentation of women as unable to maintain a stable enough sense of self or identity to (...) be trustworthy testifiers to their own harm. (shrink)

Thomas Reid, Adam Ferguson and Dugald Stewart were exponents of the experimental philosophy of mind in the Scottish Enlightenment. The unique character of their philosophical project lies in the adoption of the mind-matter dualism as a necessary condition for the study of mental phenomena. This fact led them to recognize the importance of Descartes, both for being the first to clearly delimit the mental and material realms and for emphasizing the relevance of reflection as an instrument for the study of (...) mind. But at the same time, the Frenchman was also the target of their criticism for dismissing the value of experimentation and appealing to hypotheses to explain natural behaviour. This paper aims to review this group of Scottish philosophers’ views of the mind, explaining, at the same time, the reasons for their ambivalent attitude towards Descartes. In order to make sense of this ambivalence, I will argue that it is useful to bear in mind two different aspects of the methodology that the Scots put forward to study mental phenomena: firstly, the one between analogy and reflection and, secondly, the one between induction and hypothesis making. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ : Dans le Traité 1.4.4, Hume a présenté au nom des philosophes modernes un argument causal qui démontre que nos impressions des qualités secondaires ne ressemblent pas aux qualités des objets eux-mêmes. Les prédécesseurs de Hume n’ont pourtant pas employé d’argument causal, mais l’argument des qualités contraires. Je soutiens que la présentation qu’en a fait Hume n’est pas simplement à mettre au compte d’une différence stylistique «gratuite» mais est une correction importante dans la foulée de ses propres découvertes philosophiques.

ArgumentJohann Heinrich Lambert (1728–1777) developed a very detailed theory of science and experiment. Using Lambert's hygrometric studies, this article provides an introduction to Lambert's theory and its practice. Of special interest is his well-founded theory on the emergence and definition of concepts and his neat eye for heuristics that should ultimately lead to a mathematization of physical phenomena. His use of visualizations in this context is especially remarkable.

What is the relationship between objects and properties? According to a standard view, there are primitive individuals that ‘instantiate’ or ‘have’ various properties. According to a rival view, objects are mere ‘bundles’ of properties. While there are a number of reasons to be skeptical of primitive individuals, there are also a number of challenges that the bundle theorist faces. The goal of this paper is to formulate a view about the relationship between objects and properties that avoids many of the (...) problems inherent in both of these views. The view I will end up defending implies a particularly radical version of Monism, and it collapses the object-property distinction altogether. (shrink)

Platonists affirm the existence of abstract mathematical objects, and Nominalists deny the existence of abstract mathematical objects. While there are standard arguments in favor of Nominalism, these arguments fail to account for the necessity of Nominalism. Furthermore, these arguments do nothing to explain why Nominalism is true. They only point to certain theoretical vices that might befall the Platonist. The goal of this paper is to formulate and defend a simple, valid argument for the necessity of Nominalism that seeks to (...) precisify the widespread intuition that mathematical objects are somehow ‘spooky’ or ‘mysterious’. (shrink)

A surge of empirical research demonstrating flexible cognition in animals and young infants has raised interest in the possibility of rational decision-making in the absence of language. A venerable position, which I here call “Classical Inferentialism”, holds that nonlinguistic agents are incapable of rational inferences. Against this position, I defend a model of nonlinguistic inferences that shows how they could be practically rational. This model vindicates the Lockean idea that we can intuitively grasp rational connections between thoughts by developing the (...) Davidsonian idea that practical inferences are at bottom categorization judgments. From this perspective, we can see how similarity-based categorization processes widely studied in human and animal psychology might count as practically rational. The solution involves a novel hybrid of internalism and externalism: intuitive inferences are psychologically rational (in the explanatory sense) given the intensional sensitivity of the similarity assessment to the internal structure of the agent's reasons for acting, but epistemically rational (in the justificatory sense) given an ecological fit between the features matched by that assessment and the structure of the agent's environment. The essay concludes by exploring empirical results that show how nonlinguistic agents can be sensitive to these similarity assessments in a way that grants them control over their opaque judgments. (shrink)

Hume's account of the passions is largely neglected because the author's purposes tend to be missed. The passions were accepted by early modern philosophers, of whatever persuasion, as the mental effects of bodily processes. The dualist and the materialist differed over whether reason is a higher power able to judge and control them: thus Descartes affirms, whereas Hobbes denies, this possibility.Hume's account lines up firmly behind Hobbes. Although he shies away from Hobbes's dogmatic physiological claims, he affirms all the key (...) elements of the psychology Hobbes based on them: the nature of the will, the compatibility of freedom and necessity, the subservience of reason to passion, and the motivating power of pleasure and pain. Hume's account is thus best regarded as implicitly materialist. It is not, however, merely disinterested analysis: it aims at criticism of orthodox religious values. The passions are not threats to morality, but virtuous or vicious according to their pleasurable or painful nature. Thus the status of pride and humility is reversed. Hume's account of the passions underpins a rejection of orthodox religious morals, and endorses the values of antiquity — of pagan virtue. (shrink)

The paper argues that Hume's philosophy is best described as sceptical materialism. It is argued that the conjunction is not self-contradictory as long as 'scepticism' is understood in its ancient sense, as the denial of knowledge of the essences of things. It is further argued that scepticism (thus understood) and materialism are natural bedfellows, since a thoroughgoing materialism denies any special status to human rational powers. The content of the "Treatise of Human Nature" is then shown to conform to this (...) understanding: the "Treatise" consistently employs an implicitly materialist faculty psychology in order to arrive at its sceptical standpoint. Finally, it is shown that Hume's philosophy can be understood to be a sceptical rewriting of the dogmatic materialism of Hobbes. (shrink)

This paper demonstrates how Mary Astell's version of Cartesian dualism supports her disavowal of female subordination and traditional gender roles, her rejection of Locke's notion of "thinking matter" as a major premise for rejecting his political philosophy of "social contracts" between men and women, and, finally, her claim that there is no intrinsic difference between genders in terms of ratiocination, the primary assertion that grants her the title of the first female English feminist.

This paper demonstrates how Mary Astell's version of Cartesian dualism supports her disavowal of female subordination and traditional gender roles, her rejection of Locke's notion of “thinking matter” as a major premise for rejecting his political philosophy of “social contracts” between men and women, and, finally, her claim that there is no intrinsic difference between genders in terms of ratiocination, the primary assertion that grants her the title of the first female English feminist.

Koriat & Goldsmith's abstract correspondence metaphor is unlikely to prove useful to memory science. It aims to motivate and inform the investigation of everyday memory, but that movement has prospered without it. The irrelevance of its competitor – the more concrete storehouse metaphor – as a guiding force in memory research presages a similar fate for the correspondence perspective.

In moral epistemology, the method of reflective equilibrium is often characterized in terms of intuitions or understood as a method for justifying intuitions. An analysis of reflective equilibrium and current theories of moral intuitions reveals that this picture is problematic. Reflective equilibrium cannot be adequately characterized in terms of intuitions. Although the method presupposes that we have initially credible commitments, it does not presuppose that they are intuitions. Nonetheless, intuitions can enter the process of developing a reflective equilibrium and, if (...) the process is successful, be justified. Since the method of reflective equilibrium does not essentially involve intuitions, it does not constitute a form of intuitionism in any substantial sense. It may be classified as intuitionist only in the minimal sense of not reducing justification to a matter of inference relations alone. (shrink)

Williams (1970) argues that our intuitions about personal identity vary depending on how a given thought experiment is framed. Some frames lead us to think that persistence of self requires persistence of one's psychological characteristics; other frames lead us to think that the self persists even after the loss of one's distinctive psychological characteristics. The current paper takes an empirical approach to these issues. We find that framing does affect whether or not people judge that persistence of psychological characteristics is (...) required for persistence of self. Open-ended, abstract questions about what is required for survival tend to elicit responses that appeal to the importance of psychological characteristics. This emphasis on psychological characteristics is largely preserved even when participants are exposed to a concrete case that yields conflicting intuitions over whether memory must be preserved in order for a person to persist. Insofar as our philosophical theory of personal identity should be based on our intuitions, the results provide some support for the view that psychological characteristics really are critical for persistence of self. (shrink)

Whether morality has rational authority is an open question insofar as we can seriously entertain conceptions of morality and practical reason according to which it need not be contrary to reason to fail to conform to moral requirements. Doubts about the authority of morality are especially likely to arise for those who hold a broadly prudential view of rationality. It is common to think of morality as including various other-regarding duties of cooperation, forbearance, and aid. Most of us also regard (...) moral obligations as authoritative practical considerations. But heeding these obligations appears sometimes to constrain the agent's pursuit of his own interests or aims. If we think of rationality in prudential terms–as what would promote the agent's own interests–we may wonder whether moral conduct is always rationally justifiable. Indeed, we do not need to think of rationality in exclusively prudential terms to raise this worry. The worry can arise even if there are impartial reasons–that is, nonderivative reasons to promote the welfare of others. (shrink)

I begin with an explication of “thought experiment”. I then clarify the role that intuitions play in thought experiments by addressing two important issues: the informativeness of thought experiments and the legitimacy of the method of thought experiments in philosophy and the natural sciences. I defend a naturalistic account of intuitions that provides a plausible explanation of the informativeness of thought experiments, which, in turn, allows thought experiments to be reconstructed as arguments. I also specify criteria for distinguishing bad “intuition (...) pumps” from legitimate thought experiments. These criteria help us to avoid being seduced by the dangerous suggestive power of misleading intuitions. (shrink)

I begin with an explication of "thought experiment". I then clarify the role that intuitions play in thought experiments by addressing two important issues: (1) the informativeness of thought experiments and (2) the legitimacy of the method of thought experiments in philosophy and the natural sciences. I defend a naturalistic account of intuitions that provides a plausible explanation of the informativeness of thought experiments, which, in turn, allows thought experiments to be reconstructed as arguments. I also specify criteria for distinguishing (...) bad "intuition pumps" from legitimate thought experiments. These criteria help us to avoid being seduced by the dangerous suggestive power of misleading intuitions. (shrink)

I distinguish two ways of explaining our capacity for ‘transparent’ knowledge of our own present beliefs, perceptions, and intentions: an inferential and a reflective approach. Alex Byrne (2011) has defended an inferential approach, but I argue that this approach faces a basic difficulty, and that a reflective approach avoids the difficulty. I conclude with a brief sketch and defence of a reflective approach to our transparent self-knowledge, and I show how this approach is connected with the thesis that we must (...) distinguish between a kind of self-knowledge that is of oneself as agent and another kind that is of oneself as patient. (shrink)

This paper argues that a necessary condition on inferential knowledge is that one knows all the propositions that knowledge depends on. That is, I will argue in support of a principle I call the Knowledge from Knowledge principle: (KFK) S knows that p via inference or reasoning only if S knows all the propositions on which p depends. KFK meshes well with the natural idea that (at least with respect to deductively valid or induc- tively strong arguments) the epistemic status (...) of one’s belief in the conclusion of an argument is a function of the epistemic status of the attitudes one has to the premises of that argument. One gets what one puts in: S’s belief in the conclusion C of an argument A has epistemic status E for S only if S’s belief in each of the premises C depends on also has epistemic status E.1 This is compatible, of course, with the epistemic status of S’s conclusion being greater than the epistemic status of the premises on which the conclusion of her reasoning depends. Furthermore, even though KFK applies more straightforwardly to non-suppositional inferences, we can also plausibly apply the principle to sup- positional reasoning if we treat S’s assuming for the sake of argument that p,2 as S assuming for the sake of argument that she knows that p.3 Although extremely plausible, philosophers have failed to present a concerted case in support of KFK. Most of their energy goes to articulating and/or defending some form of closure principle for knowledge.4 What is more, recently versions of this principle have been dismissed as problematic but I think without the reasons in its support been fully appreciated. This paper is an e fort to change the current state of affairs. Its focus is positive, however: my goal is to make the best case I can in support of KFK.5 To that end, the paper presents the reasons we have to accept KFK (§1), consid- ers an objection to the principle (§2), and situates the principle in the broader normative context of knowledge norms (§3). (shrink)

Shaftesbury’s major work Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times was one of the most influential English works in the eighteenth century. This paper focuses on his contributions to debates about persons and personal identity and shows that Shaftesbury regards metaphysical questions of personal identity as closely connected with normative questions of character development. I argue that he is willing to accept that persons are substances and that he takes their continued existence for granted. He sees the need to supplement metaphysical (...) debates of personal identity and believes that we have to turn to the character that is realized by a substance if we want to understand who we are. For Shaftesbury persons have a particular character, can act, and govern themselves. I propose that Shaftesbury’s approach to persons has a developmental dimension, which is meant to encourage personal development and improvement of character. The developmental dimension can be understood as an intellectual journey that invites us to search for our true self, to develop our character, and to seek happiness, which ultimately involves understanding our place as persons in the order of the universe. I show that my developmental interpretation is preferable to other existing interpretations. (shrink)

John Locke has been widely understood to hold that belief is under one's direct control. This doxastic voluntarism appears to be implicit in his evidentialism, his doxastic moralism, and his postulation of an ability to suspend assent. I argue, first, that interpreting Locke as a doxastic voluntarist is untenable—at odds with his conception of knowledge, probable assent, and religious belief. I also claim that interpreting Locke as a voluntarist fails to cohere with his understanding of the intellect's relation to the (...) will. Although Passmore's voluntarist interpretation does not capture Locke's conception of doxastic control, there is a narrow sense in which Locke allows room for direct control of belief. (shrink)

This paper aims to reconstruct Francis Hutcheson's thinking about liberty. Since he does not offer a detailed treatment of philosophical questions concerning liberty in his mature philosophical writings I turn to a textbook on metaphysics. We can assume that he prepared the textbook during the 1720s in Dublin. This textbook deserves more attention. First, it sheds light on Hutcheson's role as a teacher in Ireland and Scotland. Second, Hutcheson's contributions to metaphysical disputes are more original than sometimes assumed. To appreciate (...) his independent thinking, I argue, it is helpful to take the intellectual debates in Ireland into consideration, including William King's defence of free will and discussions of Shaftesbury's views in Robert Molesworth's intellectual circle. Rather than taking a stance on the philosophical disputes about liberty, I argue that Hutcheson aims to shift the focus of the debates towards practical questions concerning control of desire, cultivation of habits, and character development. (shrink)

Koriat & Goldsmith's distinction between encoding processes and metamnemonic decision processes is theoretically and practically important, as is their methodology for separating the two. However, their accuracy measure is a conditional statistic, subject to the unfathomable selection effects that have hindered analogous measures in the past. We also find their arguments concerning basic and applied research mostly beside the point.

Recently, Brian Ellis came up with a neat and novel idea about laws of nature, which at first I misunderstood. Then I participated, with Brian Ellis and Caroline Lierse, in writing a joint paper, “The World as One of a Kind: Natural Necessity and Laws of Nature” (Ellis, Bigelow and Lierse, forthcoming). In this paper, the Ellis idea was formulated in a different way from that in which I had originally interpreted it. Little weight was placed on possible worlds or (...) individual essences. Much weight rested on natural kinds. I thought Ellis to be suggesting that laws of nature attribute essential properties to one grand individual, The World. In fact, Ellis is hostile towards individual essences for any individuals at all, including The World. He is comfortable only with essential properties of kinds, rather than individuals. The Ellis conjecture was that laws of nature attribute essential properties to the natural kind of which the actual world is one (and presumably the only) member. (shrink)

Does having an initially high level of justified confidence in a belief vindicate remaining steadfast in the face of disagreement? According to one prominent view in the literature, namely Jennifer Lackey's justificationist position, the answer is yes so long as one also has personal information that provides a symmetry-breaker. In this article, I raise a problem for the justificationist view. On the most straightforward reading of the justificationist position, personal information always provides a symmetry-breaker in a peer dispute over a (...) belief in which one has high justified confidence. However, this position is implausibly strong because it renders epistemically permissible a dogmatic attitude in a relevant set of peer disagreements. Alternatively, weaker readings of the view fail to provide a perspicuous account of when high justified confidence matters in a disagreement. (shrink)

This article evaluates the following four theses about bodily experience and self-consciousness: Descartes's thesis ; Kant's thesis ; Locke's thesis ; and Merleau-Ponty's thesis. I argue that they are all true.

In his Letter on the Blind, Denis Diderot describes, based on mathematical physics, a method for evaluating hypotheses in situations where certainty cannot be reached. This article's thesis is that the author of the Letter extends this method to metaphysical questions of finalism and idealism. Diderot presents each pair of antagonistic positions (finalism-antifinalism and idealism-realism) in such a way that readers are invited to carefully weigh the arguments and to choose the one that appears to be the best, or most (...) probable, position. (shrink)

Koriat and Goldsmith clearly show the need for an alternative to the storehouse metaphor; however, the alternative metaphor they choose – the correspondence metaphor – is problematic. A more suitable one is the capacity metaphor.

The article elaborates an original intertwined reading of republican theory, deliberative democracy and political equality. It argues that republicans, deliberative democrats and egalitarian scholars have not paid sufficient attention to a number of features present in these bodies of scholarships that relate them in mutually beneficial ways. It shows that republicanism and deliberative democracy are related in mutually beneficial ways, it makes those relations explicit, and it deals with potential objections against them. Additionally, it elaborates an egalitarian principle underpinning the (...) resulting model that I label Equality of Access and Deliberation. The upshot of these considerations is a novel and mutually reinforcing interrelated three-tiered theoretical and institutional proposal. (shrink)

Koriat & Goldsmith raise important questions about memory, but there is need for caution: first, if we define accuracy by output measures, there is a danger that a perfectly accurate memory can be nearly useless. Second, when we focus on correspondence, there is a danger that syntactic correspondence will be mistaken for historical truth.

The abductivist reply to skepticism is the view that commonsense explanations of the patterns and regularities that appear in our sensory experiences should be rationally preferred to skeptical explanations of those same patterns and regularities on the basis of explanatory considerations. In this article I critically examine Laurence BonJour’s rationalist version of the abductivist position. After explaining why BonJour’s account is more defensible than other versions of the view, I argue that the notion of probability he relies upon is deeply (...) problematic, that he incorporates an implausible double-standard concerning a priori and a posteriori justification, and that his view is vulnerable to skepticism about the a priori. I suggest that some of these problems are due to idiosyncratic commitments BonJour makes and that abductivists would be better off without them. I conclude with some suggestions about how to improve BonJour’s abductivist response to skepticism. (shrink)

African perspectives on personhood and personal identity and their relation to those of the West have become far more central in mainstream Western discussion than they once were. Not only are African traditional views with their emphasis on the importance of community and social relations more widely discussed, but that emphasis has also received much wider acceptance and gained more influence among Western philosophers. Despite this convergence, there is at least one striking way in which the discussions remain apart and (...) that is on a point of method. The Western discussion makes widespread use of thought experiments. In the African discussion, they are almost entirely absent. In this article, we put forward a possible explanation for the method of thought experiment being avoided that is based on considerations stemming from John Mbiti’s account of the traditional African view of time. These considerations find an echo in criticism offered of the method in the Western debate. We consider whether a response to both trains of thought can be found that can further bring the Western and African philosophical traditions into fruitful dialogue. (shrink)

I argue that an individual has aspects numerically identical with it and each other that nonetheless qualitatively differ from it and each other. This discernibility of identicals does not violate Leibniz's Law, however, which concerns only individuals and is silent about their aspects. They are not in its domain of quantification. To argue that there are aspects I will appeal to the internal conflicts of conscious beings. I do not mean to imply that aspects are confined to such cases, but (...) the best way to start is to recognize them experientially. We can feel the conflicts within ourselves. In doing so we can feel some of our aspects. I will try to enhance our understanding of the concept of aspect by listing and formalizing some principles for its use. After that I will argue that all sorts of individual things have aspects, not just people who are conflicted. (shrink)

Hobbes believed that the state of nature would be a war of all against all. Locke denied this, but acknowledged that in the absence of government, peace is insecure. In this paper, I analyse both accounts of the state of nature through the lens of classical and experimental game theory, drawing especially on evidence concerning the effects of punishment in public goods games. My analysis suggests that we need government not to keep wicked or relentlessly self-interested individuals in line, but (...) rather to maintain peace among those who disagree about morality. (shrink)

Locke's definition of miracles in “A Discourse of Miracles” is widely cited by scholars as evidence of his subjectivism on the matter. According to this interpretation, Locke held it to be sufficient that an event seems to be a violation of the laws of nature for it to count as a miracle. Nothing supernatural need actually occur. The principal aim of this article is to argue that Locke can and ought to be read as an objectivist about miracles. A subjectivist (...) reading falls short in two crucial respects: It undermines the function of miracles as evidence for divine revelation, so central to his account, and is at odds with his consistent and explicitly objective use of the term, as an event that necessarily involves a violation of the laws of nature. Indeed, it is from their objective nature that Locke thinks miracles derive their evidential force. A key part of my argument lies in distinguishing between ontological and epistemological issues concerning miracles and demonstrating how this distinction is present throughout his work on the matter. Ultimately, I conclude that what is often interpreted as Locke's subjectivism about miracles is his privileging of these epistemic issues. (shrink)

Philosophers have debated whether the advance directives of Alzheimer’s patients should be enforced, even if patients seem content in their demented state. The debate raises deep questions about the nature of human autonomy and personal identity. But it tends to proceed on the assumption that the advance directive’s terms are clear, whereas in practice they are often vague or ambiguous, requiring the patient’s healthcare proxy to make difficult judgment calls. This practical wrinkle raises its own, distinct but related, philosophical question: (...) what criteria may the proxy bring to bear when making such interpretive judgments on which the patient’s life may depend? After defending a general policy of enforcing advance directives on normative (rather than metaphysical) grounds, I argue that when advance directives are vague, a patient’s proxy may permissibly make her own fresh evaluation of the patient’s life as a whole and, in so doing, consider how the patient’s character as a demented person contributes or fails to contribute to that life. (shrink)

It has long been widely agreed that some concepts can be possessed only by those who have undergone a certain type of phenomenal experience. Orthodoxy among contemporary philosophers of mind has it that these phenomenal concepts provide the key to understanding many disputes between physicalists and their opponents, and in particular offer an explanation of Mary’s predicament in the situation exploited by Frank Jackson's knowledge argument. I reject the orthodox view; I deny that there are phenomenal concepts. My arguments exploit (...) the sort of considerations that are typically used to motivate externalism about mental content. Although physicalists often appeal to phenomenal concepts to defend their view against the knowledge argument, I argue that this is a mistake. The knowledge argument depends on phenomenal concepts; if there are no phenomenal concepts, then the knowledge argument fails. (shrink)

Quantitative losses of memory content imply replicative processing; correspondence losses imply reconstructive processing. Research should focus on the relationship between these processes by obtaining accuracy- and quantity-based indicators of memory within the same framework. This approach will also yield information about the effects of task and individual-difference variables on loss and distortion, as well as the time course of each process.