Whilst the concept of causal powers is central to much post-positivist social science in general, and to critical realism in particular, it has not been significantly developed by critical realists since the initial work of Harré and Madden and Bhaskar in the mid-1970s. To deepen our understanding of powers we need to start with a ‘package’ of related terms. In §1 of the paper I introduce this package, clear up some terminological ambiguity and inconsistency, and focus the discussion upon things, (...) properties and powers. The real problems begin when we try to figure out how things, properties and powers relate to one another. In §2 I introduce and evaluate three possible ontologies: an ontology where powers are primary; an ontology where properties are primary; and an ontology where neither properties, powers are primary, but all emerge to form a unity. The last ontology is defended. §3 deals with ambiguities surrounding three other terms that often crop up when discussing powers, namely, dispositional properties, transfactuals and processes. The net result is a far less ambiguous concept of powers, firmly anchored in an ontology of things, properties and powers as a unity. (shrink)

Hempel first introduced the paradox of confirmation in (Hempel 1937). Since then, a very extensive literature on the paradox has evolved (Vranas 2004). Much of this literature can be seen as responding to Hempel’s subsequent discussions and analyses of the paradox in (Hempel 1945). Recently, it was noted that Hempel’s intuitive (and plausible) resolution of the paradox was inconsistent with his official theory of confirmation (Fitelson & Hawthorne 2006). In this article, we will try to explain how this inconsistency affects (...) the historical dialectic about the paradox and how it illuminates the nature of confirmation. In the end, we will argue that Hempel’s intuitions about the paradox of confirmation were (basically) correct, and that it is his theory that should be rejected, in favor of a (broadly) Bayesian account of confirmation. (shrink)

The paper presents a novel account of nature and genesis of some philosophical problems, which vindicates a new approach to an arguably central and extensive class of such problems: The paper develops the Wittgensteinian notion of ‘philosophical pictures’ with the help of some notions adapted from metaphor research in cognitive linguistics and from work on unintentional analogical reasoning in cognitive psychology. The paper shows that adherence to such pictures systematically leads to the formulation of unwarranted claims, ill-motivated problems, and pointless (...) theories. To do so, the paper proceeds from a case-study on a lastingly influential development in early modern philosophy: the adoption of the doctrine of secondary qualities, and its principal consequences. The findings motivate a new approach to an arguably extensive and important class of philosophical problems: to the problems we raise in the grip of philosophical pictures. (shrink)

RESUMEN: La teoría causal formulada por Kripke y Putnam es la teoría semántica dominante de los términos de género natural y, en especial, de los términos de sustancia. La teoría semántica de los términos de sustancia de Locke ha sido, supuestamente, refutada por aquélla. Según Putnam, la teoría de Locke ha pasado por alto dos importantes contribuciones a la semántica, y principalmente a la referencia, de los términos de sustancia, a saber, la contribución de la sociedad y la del entorno. (...) El objetivo de este artículo es argüir que la teoría de Locke puede incorporar la primera contribución y que alguien que en principio sostuviese una teoría como la de Locke podría verse llevado a aceptar también la segunda contribución.ABSTRACT: The causal theory put forward by Kripke and Putnam is the dominant semantic theory of natural kind terms and especially of substance terms. Locke’s semantic theory of substance terms has supposedly been rebutted by it. Locke’s theory has, according to Putnam, overlooked two significant contributions to the semantics, and mainly to the reference, of substance terms, namely, the contribution of the society and that of the environment. This paper aims to argue that Locke’s theory is able to embrace the first contribution and that someone who initially held a theory like Locke’s could be led to accept also the second one. (shrink)

In their article 'Causes and Explanations: A Structural-Model Approach. Part I: Causes', Joseph Halpern and Judea Pearl draw upon structural equation models to develop an attractive analysis of 'actual cause'. Their analysis is designed for the case of deterministic causation. I show that their account can be naturally extended to provide an elegant treatment of probabilistic causation.

The rational-agent frame of reference for the analysis of corporate strategic decision-making may be expanded to a moral-agent perspective where decision content is seen as comprising both commercial and ethical factors. Relevant factors may then be classified on the basis of the ethical decision principles to which they relate: rational-egoism, self-referential altruism or deontology. This approach is then applied to the problem of decision support for strategic divestment by MNCs.

According to Minkoswki, Einstein's special theory of relativity reveals that ‘space by itself, and time by itself are doomed to fade away into mere shadows’. But perceptual experience represents objects as instantiating shapes like squareness — properties of ‘space by itself’. Thus, STR seems to threaten the veridicality of shape experience. In response to this worry, some have argued that we should analyze the contents of our spatial experiences on the model of traditional secondary qualities. On this picture—defended in recent (...) work by Chalmers —an experience of squareness just represents whatever property usually causes such experiences. This view salvages the veridicality of shape experience, but leaves the nature of the properties we perceive outside our ken. I argue that such a move is unwarranted: STR is compatible with the idea that shape experience acquaints us with the spatial character of our world. In defending this claim, I propose a view on which shape experience presents familiar Euclidean spatial properties veridically, while implicitly representing those properties as instantiated in a particular manner — namely, relative to our own frame of reference. (shrink)

This paper examines Dworkin's rejection of external scepticism about ethics and his rejection of incompatibilist accounts of moral responsibility. I argue that his rejection of external scepticism is defensible, but that he errs in treating the challenge posed by incompatibilist accounts of moral responsibility as a parallel form of external scepticism. Incompatibilism only appears to be an external challenge if we make certain assumptions about the motivations for incompatibilism, and about the relation between moral responsibility and other values. I argue (...) that we ought to reject these assumptions, and can do so consistent with embracing Dworkin's broader philosophical project. (shrink)

Error theorists about color argue that our ordinary judgments ascribing color to material objects are all false. The error theorist proposes that everything that is so, including the fact that material objects appear to us to have color, can best be explained without ever attributing color to objects (for instance, by appealing to surface reflectance properties, the nature of light, the neurophysiology of perceivers, etc.). The appeal of this view stems in significant part from the prevalent thought that such explanations (...) are strongly suggested by our present scientific conception of the world. Recently, however, Barry Stroud has argued that error theorists cannot successfully even acknowledge, let alone explain, all of the facts that error theorists must acknowledge. In this paper, I shall raise an objection to Stroud's argument. I shall conclude by mentioning one way in which we might develop Stroud's general strategy with more success. (shrink)

According to colour irrealism, material objects do not have colour; they only appear to have colour. The appeal of this view, prominent among philosophers and scientists alike, stems in large part from the conviction that scientific explanations of colour facts do not ascribe colour to material objects. To explain why objects appear to have colour, for instance, we need only appeal to surface reflectance properties, properties of light, the neurophysiology of observers, etc. Typically attending colour irrealism is the error theory (...) of ordinary colour judgement: ordinary judgements in which colour is ascribed to a material object are, strictly speaking, false. In this paper, I claim that colour irrealists who endorse the error theory cannot explain how we acquire colour concepts (yellow, green, etc.), concepts they must acknowledge we do possess. Our basic colour concepts, I argue, could not be phenomenal concepts that we acquire by attending to the colour properties of our experience. And, I explain, all other plausible explanations render colour concepts such that our ordinary colour judgements involving them are often true. Given the explanatory considerations upon which the irrealist's position is based, this is a severe problem for colour irrealism. (shrink)

More laws obtain in the world,it appears, than just those of microphysics –e.g. laws of genetics, perceptual psychology,economics. This paper assumes there indeedare laws in the special sciences, and notjust scrambled versions of microphysical laws. Yet the objects which obey them are composedwholly of microparticles. How can themicroparticles in such an object lawfully domore than what is required of them by the lawsof microphysics? Are there additional laws formicroparticles – which seems to violate closureof microphysics – or is the ``more'' (...) acoincidental outcome of microphysics itself? This paper argues that the appearance ofviolation is illusory, and the worry aboutcoincidence misleading. We cannot expect tounderstand the special sciences at the level ofthe microparticles. (shrink)

To be a realist about modality, need one claim that more exists than just the various objects and properties that populate the world—e.g. worlds other than the actual one, or maximal consistent sets of propositions? Or does the existence of objects and properties by itself involve the obtaining of necessities (and possibilities) in re? The latter position is now unpopular but not unfamiliar. Aristotle held that objects have essences, and hence necessarily have certain properties. Recently it has been argued that (...) the identity of any property is tied to the natural laws in which it figures, which entails that the occurrence of properties involves the obtaining of nomological necessities ([24], pp. 206-33 and 234-60; [23]; cf. [25] and [6]). Somewhat less recently, Wittgenstein ([28], p. 168) worried that the reality of at least some properties—precise shades of colors being a prime example—involved the obtaining in re of certain impossibilities. This paper argues that Wittgenstein’s worries were right, and not just concerning some properties, but all properties whatever. That there are objects and properties in the world at all, then, amounts to there obtaining modal states of affairs. This argument supplements, rather than replaces, the others. The position on property incompatibility advanced here actually helps defend Aristotelian essentialism against epistemological objections, or so I have argued ([15]). And while this paper’s position on property incompatibility diverges from the idea that a property’s nomic profile is essential to it—more on this in the next section—it is at least compatible with the thought that the necessity involved in the laws of nature enters into ontology at the ground level. (shrink)

There is, no doubt, a temptation to treat preventions, such as ‘the father’s grabbing the child prevented the accident’, and cases of ‘causation’ by omission, such as ‘the father’s inattention was the cause of the child’s accident’, as cases of genuine causation. I think they are not, and in this paper I defend a theory of what they are. More specifically, the counterfactual theory defended here is that a claim about prevention or ‘causation’ by omission should be understood not as (...) being directly about actual genuine causation but primarily as a counterfactual claim about genuine causation.1 The relation between actual causation and the mere possibility of causation allows my theory to explain both the difference and the similarity between the two notions (causation and prevention/omission). Further, the difference explains certain intuitions we have and the similarity justifies and explains the fact that for practical purposes we usually treat preventions and omissions as if they were genuine causation. Finally, the fact that this counterfactual theory of prevention and omission takes causation as primitive suggests that it is consistent with any theory of causation. This allows us to construct two arguments against what I will call genuinism, the view that cases of prevention and ‘causation’ by omission really are cases of genuine causation. In section II I show that genuinism does not account for the so-called intuition of difference. In section III I outline a number of problems that various theories of causation have with preventions and ‘causation’ by omission. These problems are ipso facto problems for genuinism, whereas I show in section V how the counterfactual theory solves those problems. Further, I answer a genuinist argument based on another type of intuition—the genuinist intuition—by showing why we have that intuition and how it should be handled (section VI). (shrink)

We defend three controversial claims about preference, credence, and choice. First, all agents (not just rational ones) have complete preferences. Second, all agents (again, not just rational ones) have real-valued credences in every proposition in which they are confident to any degree. Third, there is almost always some unique thing we ought to do, want, or believe.

Jonas Olson presents a critical survey of moral error theory, the view that there are no moral facts and so all moral claims are false. Part I explores the historical context of the debate; Part II assesses J. L. Mackie's famous arguments; Part III defends error theory against challenges and considers its implications for our moral thinking.

Metaethical non-naturalists maintain that normative or evaluative properties cannot be reduced to, or otherwise explained in terms of, natural properties. They thus have difficulty explaining what these irreducibly normative properties are supposed to be, other than by saying what they are not. I offer a partial, positive characterization of irreducible normativity in naturalistic terms. At a first pass, it is this: that to attribute a normative property to something is necessarily to commend or condemn that thing, due to the nature (...) of the property attributed. This theory characterizes normativity in terms of the natural phenomenon of performing certain familiar speech acts. The hypothesis does other explanatory work as well: it provides for an account of the "queerness" of normative properties, one superior to other accounts; it explains why metaethical reductionism is bound to fail, in a way friendly to non-naturalism (as opposed to non-cognitivism); and it can help deflect arguments against non-naturalism from the "essential practicality" of normativity. (shrink)

Este trabajo pretende mostrar las líneas generales de la propuesta humeana de una teoría de la evolución de las instituciones en clave utilitarista; en segundo lugar, analizará la objeción interna a esta teoría que supone la existencia de posibles sujetos no cooperadores pero inteligentes, en tercer lugar, intentará también defender dicha teoría de la acusación externa de no tener un auténtico carácter normativo; y al no haber desarrollado el propio Hume con detalle su contestación al problema del conflicto Moral/Racionalidad, tal (...) y como surge en el contexto de su discusión de la Knavery, finalmente, y en cuarto lugar, este trabajo, yendo en un cierto sentido algo más allá de lo propuesto por Hume, ensayará un argumento post-humeano en torno a ese conflicto, basado, por una parte, en el reconocimiento de la multidimensionalidad de la Moral, así como en la paralela aceptación de la necesidad de un ajuste contextual de ésta, asentado sobre consideraciones primaria, que no exclusivamente, utilitaristas. (shrink)

There is a family of metaethical views according to which (i) there are no objectively correct moral standards and (ii) whether a given moral claim is true depends in some way on moral standards accepted by either an individual (forms of subjectivism) or a community (forms of relativism). This chapter outlines the three most important versions of this type of theories: old-fashioned subjectivism and relativism, contextualism and new wave subjectivism and relativism. It also explores the main advantages of these views (...) and the key objections to them. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to sketch an empiricist metaphysics of laws of nature. The key idea is that there are regularities without regularity-enforcers. Differently put, there are natural laws without law-makers _of a distinct metaphysical kind_. This sketch will rely on the concept of a natural pattern and more significantly on the existence of a network of natural patterns in nature. The relation between a regularity and a pattern will be analysed in terms of mereology. Here is the (...) road map. In section 2, I will briefly discuss the relation between empiricism and metaphysics, aiming to show that an empiricist metaphysics is possible. In section 3, I will offer arguments against stronger metaphysical views of laws. Then, in section 4 I will motivate nomic objectivism. In section 5, I will address the question ‘what is a regularity?’ and will develop a novel answer to it, based on the notion of a natural pattern. In section 6, I will raise the question: ‘what is a law of nature?’, the answer to which will be: a law of nature is a regularity that is characterised by the unity of a _natural_ pattern. (shrink)

A 10,000+ word critical overview of analytic philosophy devoted to life's meaning, with some focus on books and more recent works.

I happen to believe that though human experiences are to be characterized as pluralistic they are all rooted in the one reality. I would assume the thesis of pluralism but how could I maintain my belief in the realism? There are various discussions in favor of realism but they appear to stay within a particular paradigm so to be called “internal realism”. In this paper I would try to justify my belief in the reality by discussing a special use of (...) indexicals. I will argue for my indexical realism by advancing the thesis that indexicals can be used as an inter-agentic referential term. Three arguments for the thesis will be presented. The first argument derives from a revision of Kaplan-Kvart’s notion of exportation. Their notions of exportation of singular terms can be analyzed as intra-agentic exportation in the context of a single speaker and theirs may be revised so as to be an inter-agentic exportation in the context of two speakers who use the same indexicals. The second is an argument from the notion of causation which is specifically characterized in the context of inter-theoretic reference. I will argue that any two theories may each say “this” in order to refer what is beyond its own theory. Two theories address themselves to ‘this’ same thing though what ‘this’ represents in each theory turn out to be different objects all together. The third argument is an argument which is based on a possibility of natural reference. Reference is used to be taken mostly as a 3-place predicate: Abe refers an object oi with an expression ej. The traditional notion of reference is constructive and anthropocentric. But I would argue that natural reference is a reference that we humans come to recognize among denumerably many objects in natural states: at a moment mi in a natural state there is a referential relation among objects o1, o2, o3, . . , oj, o j+1, . . which interact to each other as agents of information processors. Natural reference is an original reference which is naturally given and to which humans are passive as we derivatively refer it by using ‘this’. (shrink)

For Jizang (549−623), a prominent philosophical exponent of Chinese Madhyamaka, all things are empty of determinate form or nature. Given anything X, no linguistic item can truly and conclusively be applied to X in the sense of positing a determinate form or nature therein. This philosophy of ontic indeterminacy is connected closely with his notion of the Way (dao), which seems to indicate a kind of ineffable principle of reality. However, Jizang also equates the Way with nonacquisition as a conscious (...) state of freedom from any attachment and definite understanding whatsoever. The issue then becomes pressing as to how we are to understand Jizang's notion of the Way. Does it indicate some metaphysical principle or reality? Is it actually a skilful expedient to lead one to the consummate state of complete spiritual freedom? How is this issue related to Jizang's conception of ontic indeterminacy? In this book chapter, I examine Jizang's key writings in an attempt to clarify his ontological position. (shrink)

This dissertation presents an in-depth investigation into the notion of paradox and its significance for Christian existence in the thought of the Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard. The primary aim of the study is to explore and to develop various expressions of paradox in Kierkegaard’s authorship in order to demonstrate the manner by which Kierkegaard employs paradox as a means of challenging his Christendom contemporaries to exist as authentic Christians, and more specifically to enter into the existential state I (...) am identifying in this project as living within the sacred tension. With this aim in mind, I begin with a discussion of Kierkegaard’s ethico-religious task in response to his Christendom culture and I provide a broad characterization of the notion of sacred tension as the telos of this task. For the majority of the study I then focus on four different expressions of paradox in Kierkegaard’s thought. These four expressions are: paradox that is associated with the faith of Abraham (as presented in Fear and Trembling), paradox that is associated with the nature of the self and the task of selfhood (as presented in The Sickness unto Death), paradox that is associated with the God-man (as presented in Philosophical Fragments, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and Practice in Christianity), and paradox that is associated with Christian love (as presented in Works of Love). In addition to arguing that Kierkegaard employs these expressions of paradox to help usher his contemporaries into a state of sacred tension, I also argue that such sacred tension can be understood in terms of various concrete Christian virtues. In this respect, I claim that Kierkegaard’s ethico-religious task is not merely negative or deconstructive in nature, but rather it is infused with the robust positive content associated with Kierkegaard’s particular understanding of Christianity. Viewing Kierkegaard’s thought and writings in this manner helps to reaffirm the significance of the notion of paradox in Kierkegaard’s thought and to highlight the value of the notion of sacred tension for a reassessment of both Kierkegaard’s existentialism and its contemporary implications. (shrink)

The existence of evil, pain and suffering is considered by many philosophers to be the most vexed question concerning the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient and morally perfect deity. Why would a loving God permit wanton acts of cruelty and misery on the scale witnessed throughout human history? In this essay, Leslie Allan evaluates four common theistic responses to this problem, highlighting the benefits and challenges faced by each approach. He concludes with a critical examination of a theistic defence designed (...) to show that the problem of evil is not a problem at all. (shrink)

In its original form, Nozick’s experience machine serves as a potent counterexample to a simplistic form of hedonism. The pleasurable life offered by the experience machine, its seems safe to say, lacks the requisite depth that many of us find necessary to lead a genuinely worthwhile life. Among other things, the experience machine offers no opportunities to establish meaningful relationships, or to engage in long-term artistic, intellectual, or political projects that survive one’s death. This intuitive objection finds some support in (...) recent research regarding the psychological effects of phenomena such as video games or social media use. After a brief discussion of these problems, I will consider a variation of the experience machine in which many of these deficits are remedied. In particular, I’ll explore the consequences of a creating a virtual world populated with strongly intelligent AIs with whom users could interact, and that could be engineered to survive the user’s death. The presence of these agents would allow for the cultivation of morally significant relationships, and the world’s long-term persistence would help ground possibilities for a meaningful, purposeful life in a way that Nozick’s original experience machine could not. While the creation of such a world is obviously beyond the scope of current technology, it represents a natural extension of the existing virtual worlds provided by current video games, and it provides a plausible “ideal case” toward which future virtual worlds will move. While this improved experience machine would seem to represent progress over Nozick’s original, I will argue that it raises a number of new problems stemming from the fact that that the world was created to provide a maximally satisfying and meaningful life for the intended user. This, in turn, raises problems analogous in some ways to the problem(s) of evil faced by theists. In particular, I will suggest that it is precisely those features that would make a world most attractive to potential users—the fact that the AIs are genuinely moral agents whose well-being the user can significantly impact—that render its creation morally problematic, since they require that the AIs inhabiting the world be subject to unnecessary suffering. I will survey the main lines of response to the traditional problem of evil, and will argue that they are irrelevant to this modified case. I will close by considering by consider what constraints on the future creation of virtual worlds, if any, might serve to allay the concerns identified in the previous discussion. I will argue that, insofar as the creation of such worlds would allow us to meet morally valuable purposes that could not be easily met otherwise, we would be unwise to prohibit it altogether. However, if our processes of creation are to be justified, they must take account of the interests of the moral agents that would come to exist as the result of our world creation. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to critically examine the objections of John Locke’s contemporaries against the theory of substance or substratum. Locke argues in Essay that substratum is the bearer of the properties of a particular substance. Locke also claims that we have no knowledge of substratum. But Locke’s claim about our ignorance as to what substratum is, is contentious. That is, if we don’t know what substratum is, then what is the point of proposing it as a bearer (...) of properties? This question underlies the criticism Locke’s contemporaries raise against the notion of substratum. In section I, I lay out the context for Locke’s theory of substratum by pointing out his main motivation in proposing his theory. In section II, I give a brief analysis of the theory of substratum. In section III, I discuss the objections of Locke’s contemporaries against the theory of substratum.1 I focus on Edward Stillingfleet, Lee Henry, G. W. Leibniz and John Sergeant. In section IV, I conclude that there is no warrant to dismiss Locke’s theory of substance. (shrink)

En Menipo o Necromancia, el encuentro entre el filósofos cínico Menipo de Gádara y su interlocutor sirve como marco para que este relate su peripecia infernal. En la obra no se especifica dónde tiene lugar dicho encuentro; no obstante, pensamos que el samosatense incluye un sutil juego literario mediante el cual el auditorio podría identificar el escenario de dicho encuentro con la polis beocia de Tebas.

This chapter both explains the origins of emotivism in C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, R. B. Braithwaite, Austin Duncan-Jones, A. J. Ayer and Charles Stevenson (along with the endorsement by Frank P. Ramsey, and the summary of C. D. Broad), and looks at MacIntyre's criticisms of emotivism as the inevitable result of Moore's attack on naturalistic ethics and his ushering in the fact/value, which was a historical product of the Enlightenment.

State of art paper on the topic causation, around the problem of the nature of causation. Central theories of contemporary philosophical literature are discussed and analysed, namely, regularity theories of Hume and Mackie, counterfactual theories of Lewis, probabilistic theories of Reichenbach, Lewis and Menzies and causal processes theories of Salmon and Dowe.

The first part of this paper shows that Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA)--also in its most recent forms as presented in Ragin (2000, 2008)--, does not correctly analyze data generated by causal chains, which, after all, are very common among causal processes in the social sciences. The incorrect modeling of data originating from chains essentially stems from QCA’s reliance on Quine-McCluskey optimization to eliminate redundancies from sufficient and necessary conditions. Baumgartner (2009a,b) has introduced a Boolean methodology, termed Coincidence Analysis (CNA), that (...) is related to QCA, yet, contrary to the latter, does not eliminate redundancies by means of Quine-McCluskey optimization. The second part of the paper applies CNA to chain-generated data. It will turn out that CNA successfully detects causal chains in small-N data. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a two level account of moral thinking that, unlike other accounts, does justice to three very plausible propositions that seem to form an inconsistent triad: (1) People can be morally virtuous without the aid of philosophy. (2) Morally virtuous people non-accidentally act for good reasons, and work out what it is that they ought to do on the basis of considering such reasons. (3) Philosophers engaged in the project of normative ethics are (...) not wasting their time when they search after highly general moral principles which could not be discovered or be justifiably accepted through non-philosophical thinking, and which specify the good reasons that virtuous people act on, as well as provide a criterion or criteria for determining what it is that people ought to do. (shrink)

This paper is the most complete presentation of my views on deterministic causation. It develops the deterministic theory in perfect parallel to my theory of probabilistic causation and thus unites the two aspects. It also argues that the theory presented is superior to all regularity and all counterfactual theories of causation.

This dissertation investigates the plausibility of metaethical relativism, or more specifically, what I call “moral truth-value relativism”: the idea that the truth of a moral statement or belief depends on who utters or has it, or who assesses it. According to the most prevalent variants of this view in philosophical literature – “standard relativism” – the truth-values are relative to people’s moralities, often understood as some subset of their affective or desirelike attitudes. Standard relativism has two main contenders: absolutism – (...) the view that the truth-values of moral statements and beliefs do not vary in that way – and non-cognitivism – the view that moral judgements do not have truth-values, since they express affective or desire-like attitudes rather than beliefs. Almost the entire dissertation concerns the plausibility of standard relativism in contrast to absolutism. Part 1 examines first the two main arguments for standard relativism: that it accounts for the connection between moral judgements and motivation (chapter 2), and for the prevalence of diversity of moral opinion (chapter 3). Then the most common objection is considered: that it is inconsistent with the existence of genuine moral disagreements (chapter 4). I argue that these arguments are inconclusive. Both relativism and absolutism can account for the features discussed. Part 2 focuses on the fact that different people have different strongly held intuitions about the relative or absolute nature of morality. I argue that given a common methodological approach in philosophy and metaethics, which takes such intuitions as evidence of correct analyses, this difference in intuitions suggests that neither a relativist nor absolutist analysis can be correct for everyone’s moral judgements. I argue that this result holds both given semantic internalism (chapter 6) and given semantic externalism (chapter 7). To get one single analysis of everyone’s moral judgements we would have to abandon the intuitionbased methodology. In chapter 8, however, I argue that we can maintain this methodology if we accept analysis pluralism, the view that different analyses hold for different people’s moral judgements. (shrink)

Philosophers have often claimed that general ideas or representations have their origin in abstraction, but it remains unclear exactly what abstraction as a psychological process consists in. We argue that the Lockean aspiration of using abstraction to explain the origins of all general representations cannot work and that at least some general representations have to be innate. We then offer an explicit framework for understanding abstraction, one that treats abstraction as a computational process that operates over an innate quality space (...) of fine-grained general representations. We argue that this framework has important philosophical implications for the nativism-empiricism dispute, for questions about the acquisition of unstructured representations, and for questions about the relation between human and animal minds. (shrink)

What account of evaluative expressions, such as ‘is beautiful’, ‘is generous’ or ‘is good’, should a Fregean adopt? Given Frege’s claim that predicates can have both a sense and a reference in addition to their extension, an interesting range of only partially explored theoretical possibilities opens to Frege and his followers. My intention here is to briefly present these putative possibilities and explore one of them, namely David Wiggins’ claim that evaluative predicates refer to non-natural concepts and have a sense (...) which is sentiment-involving. In order to defend this claim against objections which aim at showing that evaluative concepts do not really exist, I shall suggest that our awareness of evaluative concepts involves affective (or emotive) states. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the relationship between nature and eth- ics, particularly by considering nature as a convention, the result of a so- cial agreement, which is based on the criterion of social utility. In order to analyse this relationship, my assumption takes into consideration three pathways: evolutionary ethics, with reference to Paul Rée; error theo- ry, with reference to John Mackie; and the concept of commodification, with reference to Ralph W. Emerson. I try to connect these perspectives in order (...) to re-define the concepts of judgment and objectivity, showing that both can be viewed as standard or criteria of evaluation according to specific context and needs. My final aim is to show that Emerson’s concept of commodification corroborates the interpretation of nature in relation with the concept of social utility. (shrink)

We discuss the philosophical implications of formal results showing the con- sequences of adding the epsilon operator to intuitionistic predicate logic. These results are related to Diaconescu’s theorem, a result originating in topos theory that, translated to constructive set theory, says that the axiom of choice (an “existence principle”) implies the law of excluded middle (which purports to be a logical principle). As a logical choice principle, epsilon allows us to translate that result to a logical setting, where one can (...) get an analogue of Diaconescu’s result, but also can disentangle the roles of certain other assumptions that are hidden in mathematical presentations. It is our view that these results have not received the attention they deserve: logicians are unlikely to read a discussion because the results considered are “already well known,” while the results are simultaneously unknown to philosophers who do not specialize in what most philosophers will regard as esoteric logics. This is a problem, since these results have important implications for and promise signif i cant illumination of contem- porary debates in metaphysics. The point of this paper is to make the nature of the results clear in a way accessible to philosophers who do not specialize in logic, and in a way that makes clear their implications for contemporary philo- sophical discussions. To make the latter point, we will focus on Dummettian discussions of realism and anti-realism. Keywords: epsilon, axiom of choice, metaphysics, intuitionistic logic, Dummett, realism, antirealism. (shrink)

En el presente texto se defenderá la idea según la cual, la filosofía y el filosofar están intrínsecamente ligados. Se partirá de un caso paradigmático, el caso de la filosofía analítica. A partir de su definición,se pretenderá mostrar que las características más sobresalientes de dicha corriente están fundamentalmente ligadas al acto de filosofar.Por medio de dicho ejemplo, se desea mostrar que enseñar la filosofía consiste en enseñar a filosofar, y que por lo tanto una no puede ser separada de la (...) otra. Aprender a filosofar es entonces, aprender a ver un problema detrás de cada página de un texto filosófico, una argumentación detrás de cada problema y finalmente, una verdad detrás de cada argumentación. El precio a pagar por dicha separación es bastante alto, se podría hablar de épocas de decadencia intelectual. (shrink)

Are moral terms semantically plastic—that is, would very slight changes in our patterns of use have shifted their meanings? This is a delicate question for moral realists. A 'yes' answer seems to conflict with the sorts of intuitions that support realism; but a 'no' answer seems to require a semantics that involves hefty metaphysical commitments. This tension can be illustrated by thinking about how standard accounts of vagueness can be applied to the case of moral terms, and also by considering (...) how realists should respond to the Moral Twin Earth problem. After presenting the puzzle, I will argue that moral realists can accept the semantic plasticity of moral expressions while accounting for contrary intuitions in a way that is nearly cost-free. (shrink)

Moral error theorists often claim to be strongly anti‑metaphysical in their moral scepticism and atheistic naturalists. This paper argues that pre‑ cisely this becomes a problem for them, when their metaethical and ontologi‑ cal commitments clash. I first outline how the known arguments against error theory face a problematic, yet rarely considered trade‑off : either they are very strong, then they are also very demanding in their assumptions or they are less demanding in their assumptions but rather weak in their (...) conclusions. In re‑ sponse to this challenge I then develop a new argument against error theory that exploits an overlooked inconsistency in the error theorists’ standard line of argumentation. I conclude that the implications of this inconsistency are less of a problem for fictionalist error theorists, but will render any eliminativism based on error theory circular. (shrink)

Artikkelissa analysoidaan ja kehitetään Simo Knuuttilan käsitystä uskon ja järjen välisestä suhteesta. Knuuttilan presuppositioteoriaksi nimeämässä käsityksessä todetaan olevan puutteita, joihin artikkelissa tarjotaan parannusehdotuksia.

Although the importance, both historically and systematically, of the seventeenth century distinction between primary and secondary qualities is commonly recognised, there is no consensus on its exact nature. Apparently, one of the main difficulties in its interpretation is to tell the constitutive from the argumentative elements. In this paper, we focus on the primary-secondary quality distinctions drawn by Boyle and Locke. We criticise, more specifically, MacIntosh’s analysis of them. On the one hand, MacIntosh attributes too many different primary-secondary quality distinctions (...) to Boyle and Locke. On the other hand, he forbears to attribute a particular primary-secondary quality distinction to them, which, at least in the case of Boyle, differs genuinely from his main distinction between the mechanical affections of matter and all of matter’s other qualities. (shrink)