In this paper I examine Grace A. de Laguna’s theory of universals in its historical context and in relation to contemporary debates in analytic metaphysics. I explain the central features of her theory, arguing that her theory should be classified as a form of immanent realism and as a powers ontology. I then show in what ways her theory affords a theory of modality in terms of potentialities and discuss some of its consequences along the way.

David Lewis is typically interpreted as a class nominalist. One consequence of class nominalism, which he embraced, is that the reduction of ordered pairs, triples, etc to unordered sets of sets is conventional. The reaction by his Australian counterparts D.M. Armstrong and Peter Forrest was that Lewis was not being ontologically serious. This chapter evaluates this debate over serious ontology. It is argued that in one sense Lewis is ontologically serious, but that his additional commitment to structuralism about classes should (...) push him to adopt a trope-theoretic account of naturalness, which opens up another way to respond to the charge of not doing serious ontology. This conclusion is supported by certain remarks he makes in his correspondence, thus revealing how his thinking about properties appears to have evolved from property-egalitarianism to a sparse theory of tropes. (shrink)

Trope theory is a leading metaphysical theory in analytic ontology. One of its classic statements is found in the work of Donald C. Williams who argued that tropes qua abstract particulars are the very alphabet of being. The concept of an abstract particular has been repeatedly attacked in the literature. Opponents and proponents of trope theory alike have levelled their criticisms at the abstractness of tropes and the associated act of abstraction. In this paper I defend the concept of a (...) trope qua abstract particular by rejecting arguments that purport to show that tropes should not be understood as abstract and by arguing that the abstractness of tropes plays an indispensable role in one of our more promising trope-theoretic analyses of universals and of concrete objects. (shrink)

In the early twentieth century, many philosophers in America thought that time should be taken seriously in one way or another. George P. Adams (1882-1961) argued that the past, present and future are all real but only the present is actual. I call this theory ‘actualist eternalism’. In this paper, I articulate his novel brand of eternalism as one piece of his metaphysical system and I explain how he argued for the view in light of the best explanations of temporal (...) experience and the present. I argue that his exploitation of analogies between time and modality offer some lessons for current debates about time such as the importance of providing a temporal epistemology. I also extract what I call the temporal boundary problem and argue that it gives rise to an unaddressed challenge for presentists and growing block theorists. (shrink)

In the ontology of music the Aristotelian theory of musical works is the view that musical works are immanent universals. The Aristotelian theory (hereafter Musical Aristotelianism) is an attractive and serviceable hypothesis. However, it is overlooked as a genuine competitor to the more well-known theories of Musical Platonism and nominalism. Worse still, there is no detailed account in the literature of the nature of the universals that the Aristotelian identifies musical works with. In this paper, I argue that the best (...) version of Musical Aristotelianism identifies musical works with structural universals. I first motivate the view by outlining its explanatory benefits. I then argue that Musical Aristotelianism is preferable to Musical Platonism and present a novel account of musical works as structural universals by developing D. M. Armstrong’s theory of structural universals. I discuss the consequences of Musical Aristotelianism with respect to on-going issues in debates about musical works and defend the view against an influential objection, concluding that Musical Aristotelianism is a genuine competitor in debates about the nature of musical works. (shrink)

David Lewis objected to theories that posit necessary connections between distinct entities and to theories that involve a magical grasping of their primitives. In On the Plurality of Worlds, Lewis objected to nondescript ersatzism on these grounds. The literature contains several reconstructions of Lewis’ critique of nondescript ersatzism but none of these interpretations adequately address his main argument because they fail to see that Lewis’ critique is based on broader methodological considerations. I argue that a closer look at his methodology (...) reveals the broader objection he presented against nondescript ersatzism. This objection, I further argue, remains a challenge for the ersatzer who posits structure-less entities as possible worlds. (shrink)

The concept of instantiation is realized differently across a variety of metaphysical theories. A certain realization of the concept in a given theory depends on what roles are specified and associated with the concept and its corresponding term as well as what entities are suited to fill those roles. In this paper, the classic realization of the concept of instantiation in a one-category ontology of abstract particulars or tropes is articulated in a novel way and defended against unaddressed objections.

Truthmaker monism is the view that the one and only truthmaker is the world. Despite its unpopularity, this view has recently received an admirable defence by Schaffer :307–324, 2010b). Its main defect, I argue, is that it omits partial truthmakers. If we omit partial truthmakers, we lose the intimate connection between a truth and its truthmaker. I further argue that the notion of a minimal truthmaker should be the key notion that plays the role of constraining ontology and that truthmaker (...) monism is not necessary for an appropriate solution to the problem of finding truthmakers for negative truths. I conclude that we should reject truthmaker monism once and for all. (shrink)

Structural universals are a kind of complex universal. They have been put to work in a variety of philosophical theories but are plagued with problems concerning their compositional nature. In this article, we will discuss the following questions. What are structural universals? Why believe in them? Can we give a consistent account of their compositional nature? What are the costs of doing so?

In this chapter, we introduce the perennial and sometimes sprawling topic of properties, with a brief historical sketch from Ancient to Modern philosophy throughout various cultures and traditions. We argue that the importance of properties can be shown by explaining what explanatory work they can do in philosophical theorising across many areas of philosophy. The chapters in this volume do just that in their specific ways. We also outline the structure of the volume and summarise each Part, first describing the (...) larger context of each Part and then the upshot of each chapter. (shrink)

The revival of analytic metaphysics in the latter half of the twentieth century is typically understood as a consequence of the critiques of logical positivism, Quine’s naturalization of ontology, Kripke’s Naming and Necessity, clarifications of modal notions in logic, and the theoretical exploitation of possible worlds. However, this explanation overlooks the work of metaphysicians at the height of positivism and linguisticism that affected metaphysics of the late twentieth century. Donald C. Williams is one such philosopher. In this paper I explain (...) how Williams’s fundamental ontology and philosophy of time influenced in part the early formation of David Lewis’s metaphysics. Thus, Williams played an important role in the revival of analytic metaphysics. (shrink)

One of the more obscure arguments for Rawls’ difference principle dubbed ‘the Pareto argument for inequality’ has been criticised by G. A. Cohen (1995, 2008) as being inconsistent. In this paper, we examine and clarify the Pareto argument in detail and argue (1) that justification for the Pareto principles derives from rational selfinterest and thus the Pareto principles ought to be understood as conditions of individual rationality, (2) that the Pareto argument is not inconsistent, contra Cohen, and (3) that the (...) kind of bargaining model required to arrive at the particular unequal distribution that the difference principle picks out is a model that is not based on bargaining according to one’s threat advantage. (shrink)

In Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy, C.D. Broad advanced a distinctive ontology of things and processes. He argues that neither things nor processes are reduced to each other but instead are reduced to some further kind of entity: “absolute process.” This paper will present Broad's theory of absolute processes and argue that they are best understood as tropes by developing a version of Donald C. Williams's trope ontology. This process ontology of tropes is then defended against objections in the contemporary metaphysics (...) literature. (shrink)

In the middle of last century metaphysics was widely criticized, ridiculed, and committed to the flames. During this period a handful of philosophers, against several anti-metaphysical trends, defended metaphysics and articulated novel metaphysical doctrines. Donald C. Williams was one of these philosophers. But while his contributions to metaphysics are well known his defence of metaphysics is not and yet it played a key part in the development and revival of metaphysics. In this paper I present his defence of metaphysics in (...) its historical context. I also show how his defence is relevant in response to recent attacks on metaphysics. (shrink)

I apply the notion of truthmaking to the topic of fundamentality by articulating a truthmaker theory of fundamentality according to which some truths are truth-grounded in certain entities while the ones that don't stand in a metaphysical-semantic relation to the truths that do. I motivate this view by critically discussing two problems with Ross Cameron's truthmaker theory of fundamentality. I then defend this view against Theodore Sider's objection that the truthmaking approach to fundamentality violates the purity constraint. Truthmaker theorists can (...) have a trouble-free theory of fundamentality. (shrink)

This chapter by Fisher continues the theme of the relation between Armstrong and Lewis, only Fisher casts the net far wider. He begins by arguing that there were at least two different lines of influence from early twentieth-century behaviourism to the identity theory: one through logical positivism and the other through ordinary language philosophy, the latter involving Place and Smart, and Lewis and Armstrong. It was Armstrong and Lewis who were to have a profound influence on subsequent developments in analytic (...) philosophy, both methodologically and in metaphysics, and it is for this reason that Fisher devotes the rest of his chapter to tracing the origins of their theories of mind and the manner in which the emphases and methodologies deployed in developing their respective theories became the hallmarks of their wider impact on analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Samuel Alexander was one of the first realists of the twentieth century to defend a theory of categories. He thought that the categories are genuinely real and grounded in the intrinsic nature of Space-Time. I present his reduction of the categories in terms of Space-Time, articulate his account of categorial structure and completeness, and offer an interpretation of what he thought the nature of the categories really were. I then argue that his theory of categories has some advantages over competing (...) theories of his day, and finally draw some important lessons that we can learn from his realist yet reductionist theory of categories. (shrink)

In this paper I outline the main features of Karen Bennett’s (Australasian Journal of Philosophy 1–21, 2011) non-classical mereology, and identify its methodological costs. I argue that Bennett’s mereology cannot account for the composition of structural universals because it cannot explain the mereological difference between isomeric universals, such as being butane and being isobutane. I consider responses, which come at costs to the view.

Samuel Alexander was a central figure of the new wave of realism that swept across the English-speaking world in the early twentieth century. His Space, Time, and Deity (1920a, 1920b) was taken to be the official statement of realism as a metaphysical system. But many historians of philosophy are quick to point out the idealist streak in Alexander’s thought. After all, as a student he was trained at Oxford in the late 1870s and early 1880s as British Idealism was beginning (...) to flourish. This naturally had some effect on his philosophical outlook and it is said that his early work is overtly idealist. In this paper I examine his neglected and understudied reactions to British Idealism in the 1880s. I argue that Alexander was not an idealist during this period and should not be considered as part of the British Idealist tradition, philosophically speaking. (shrink)

The famous Cartesian Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) espoused the occasionalist doctrine that ‘there is only one true cause because there is only one true God; that the nature or power of each thing is nothing but the will of God; that all natural causes are not true causes but only occasional causes’ (LO, 448, original italics). One of Malebranche’s well-known arguments for occasionalism, known as, the ‘no necessary connection’ argument (or, NNC ) stems from the principle that ‘a true cause… is (...) one such that the mind perceives a necessary connection between it and its effect’ (LO, 450). The outline of this paper is as follows. I explicitly layout NNC and articulate some of its prima facie strengths (§1). I then critically discuss, what I take to be, the two main arguments against NNC of the Lee-Pyle interpretation (§2). The main conclusion from (§2) is that Malebranche did not abandon NNC in his later works given textual evidence from the Dialogues, contrary to the Lee-Pyle interpretation. In (§3) I discuss in what ways Suárez, Leibniz, Régis and Spinoza all accepted the main premise of NNC. Then, I rebut Steven Nadler’s influential and unchallenged criticism that Malebranche conflated causal and logical necessity, and provide a more accurate interpretation of Malebranche that only commits him to a partial reduction of causal to logical necessity (§4). (shrink)

Trenton Merricks argues for and defends a novel version of primitivism about truth : being true is a primitive monadic but non-intrinsic property. This examination consists of the following triad: a critical discussion of Merricks’ argument for his view, a rejection of his objection against Paul Horwich’s minimalist theory of truth, and a direct objection against his view on the grounds that it entails being true is a mysterious and suspicious property. The conclusion is that Merricks’ primitivism should be rejected.

This paper investigates the role of visual experience in Wittgenstein's work. The specific thesis is that visual experience provides not only diverse illustrative examples of what could be an explanation of meaning, but that it also provides a recurrent metaphor for the whole process of meaning and understanding. Wittgenstein uses a great number of visual examples in his texts. Their diversity may be accounted for by the great diversity of ways in which he attempts to describe the relationship between a (...) word and its meaning. The resultant variety of visual examples may be summarised by what I call the Visual Discontinuity Thesis. However, beneath this diversity there lies a thread of continuity. This is provided by the persistent use of visual experience in the description of the word-meaning relation. This use underlies the projection relationship of the Tractatus and the "seeing-as" relationship of the Investigations. This recurrent visual metaphor may be summarised by what I call the Visual Continuity Thesis. This paper presents the latter thesis in the context of a description of the former. (shrink)

In this paper, I elaborate on the Strong Nuclear Theory (SNT) of tropes and substances, which I have defended elsewhere, using my metatheory about formal ontology and especially fundamental ontological form. According to my metatheory, for an entity to have an ontological form is for it to be a relatum of a formal ontological relation or relations jointly in an order. The full fundamental ontological form is generically identical to a simple formal ontological relation or relations jointly in an order. (...) Regarding generic identity, I follow Fabrice Correia and Alexander Skiles, who consider it a form of generalized identity as distinguished from numerical identity. The SNT states that for any trope to have the full fundamental ontological form is for it to be a strongly rigidly or generically (existentially) dependent individual simple part. Therefore, the common dichotomous set-up of asking whether tropes are fundamentally properties rather than objects or vice versa is a non-starter to me in formal ontological terms. The elaboration of the SNT also supplies me with the resources to respond to the arguments against tropes by Douglas Ehring, Robert K. Garcia and Herbert Hochberg. Finally, I argue that non-fundamentally but necessarily, every trope is a proper part of a substance and is concrete in the SNT. (You may access the published paper via the external link below.). (shrink)

Formal ontology as a main branch of metaphysics investigates categories of being. In the formal ontological approach to metaphysics, these ontological categories are analysed by ontological forms. This analysis, which we illustrate by some category systems, provides a tool to assess the clarity, exactness and intelligibility of different category systems or formal ontologies. We discuss critically different accounts of ontological form in the literature. Of ontological form, we propose a character- neutral relational account. In this metatheory, ontological forms of entities (...) are their standings in internal relations whose holding is neutral on the character of their relata. These relations are “formal ontological relations”. Entities belong to ontological categories because they stand in the same formal ontological relations. We hold a nominalist relationalism about ontological categories and forms. We conclude by showing that our metatheory is useful for understanding categorial fundamentality/non- fundamentality, different formal ontologies, and for unifying metaphysical questions. (shrink)

This article advances three claims about the bindingness of duties to oneself: (1) To defend duties to oneself, one had better show that they can bind, i.e., provide normative reason to comply. (2) To salvage the bindingness of duties to oneself, one had better construe them as owed to, and waivable by, one's present self. (3) Duties owed to, and waivable by, one's present self can nevertheless bind. In advancing these claims, I partly oppose views recently developed by Daniel Muñoz (...) and Paul Schofield. My arguments at least tentatively suggest three general lessons for moral theory: (a) Bindingness is an essential feature of duties in general. (b) The long sought-after explanation of supererogation is not to be found in waivable duties to oneself. (c) The bindingness of duties is a distinctive normative phenomenon which does not crucially depend on some physical, temporal, or psychological distance between the binding and the bound self. (shrink)

This paper develops a new kind of approach to conspiracy theories – a procedural approach. This approach promises to establish that belief in conspiracy theories is rationally criticisable in general. Unlike most philosophical approaches, a procedural approach does not purport to condemn conspiracy theorists directly on the basis of features of their theories. Instead, it focuses on the patterns of thought involved in forming and sustaining belief in such theories. Yet, unlike psychological approaches, a procedural approach provides a rational critique (...) of conspiracist thought patterns. In particular, it criticises these thought patterns for failing to conform to procedures prescribed by reason. The specific procedural approach that I develop takes its cue from the Kantian notion that reason must be used self-critically. I tentatively suggest that conspiracy theorists fail to engage in the relevant sort of self-critique in at least three ways: they do not critically examine their own motivations, they avoid looking at matters from the point of view of others, and they fail to reflect on the limits of human knowledge. (shrink)

Today, the Internet is a rich source of study materials, and Google Scholar offers free access to a large number of scientific articles. There are excellent research publications available in many more databases. Students have the option of easily copying the material. Reusing, paraphrasing, patchwriting, and ghostwriting without citing the original documents are plagiarism. Plagiarism is increasing in academics, particularly in research. This study aims to study the awareness of plagiarism and to analyze the reasons for plagiarism. The study samples (...) are the student teachers in India. For this study, we used a survey method, and the author prepared a questionnaire to collect data from the student teachers. Study respondents are the student teachers of the Regional Institute of Education Mysore; Purposive sampling was used to select samples. The total number of study respondents is 207. The findings of the study revealed that over 70 per cent of respondents mentioned reasons for plagiarism as lack of relevant literature studying, lack of preparation and time, difficulty checking every piece of work, do not know the manual citation style, lack of knowledge about bibliographic management software and also they stated that getting easily available materials on the internet is also a reason for plagiarism. The study recommends that teachers teach or conduct awareness programs on plagiarism, avoiding plagiarism, citation style, and software. (shrink)

The COVID-19 crisis opened up discussions on using online tools and platforms for academic work, e.g. for research (management) events that were originally designed as face-to-face interactions. As social scientists working in the domain of responsible research and innovation (RRI), we draft this paper to open up a dialogue on Responsible online Research and Innovation (RoRI), and deliberate particular socioethical opportunities and challenges of the onlineification in collaborative theoretical and empirical research. An RRI-inspired ‘going online’ approach would mean, we suggest, (...) trying to make academic events and research activities more inclusive, researchers’ attitude to their work more reflective and suggest processes that are more responsive to societal needs and ethical concerns. For such systematic reflection, we suggest using the RRI-heuristic provided by Owen et al., and applying the dimensions of ‘Anticipation, Inclusion, Reflection and Responsiveness’ (AIRR) in order to identify and reflect on the dilemmas involved in ‘going online’ in one’s research. (shrink)

According to Darwall’s Second-Personal Account, moral obligations constitutively involve relations of authority and accountability between persons. Darwall takes this account to lend support to Kant’s moral theory. Critics object that the Second-Personal Account abandons central tenets of Kant’s system. I respond to these critics’ three main challenges by showing that they rest on misunderstandings of the Second-Personal Account. Properly understood, this account is not only congenial to Kant’s moral theory, but also illuminates aspects of that theory which have hitherto received (...) scant attention. In particular, it motivates a fresh perspective on the relationship between respect, persons, and the law. (shrink)

On Chang's voluntarist account of commitments, when we commit to φ, we employ the 'normative powers' of our will to give ourselves a reason to φ that we would otherwise not have had. I argue that Chang's account, by itself, does not have sufficient conceptual resources to reconcile the normative significance of commitments with their alleged fundamentally volitional character. I suggest an alternative, second-personal account of commitment, which avoids this problem. On this account, the volitional act involved in committing is (...) one of holding ourselves accountable, thus putting us under to a pro tanto obligation to ourselves. The second-personal account implies that there is an interesting link between commitment and morality. (shrink)

F. H. Bradley’s relation regress poses a difficult problem for metaphysics of relations. In this paper, we reconstruct this regress argument systematically and make its presuppositions explicit in order to see where the possibility of its solution or resolution lies. We show that it cannot be answered by claiming that it is not vicious. Neither is one of the most promising resolutions, the relata-specific answer adequate in its present form. It attempts to explain adherence (relating), which is a crucial component (...) of the explanandum of Bradley’s relation regress, in terms of specific adherence of a relational trope to its relata. Nevertheless, since we do not know the consequences and constituents of a trope adhering to its specific relata, it remains unclear what specific adherence is. It is left as a constitutively inexplicable primitive. The relata-specific answer only asserts against Bradley. This negative conclusion highlights the need for a metaphysical account of the constitution of the holding of adherence. (shrink)

We show that five important elements of the ‘nomological package’— laws, counterfactuals, chances, dispositions, and counterfactuals—needn’t be a problem for the Growing-Block view. We begin with the framework given in Briggs and Forbes (in The real truth about the unreal future. Oxford studies in metaphysics. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012 ), and, taking laws as primitive, we show that the Growing-Block view has the resources to provide an account of possibility, and a natural semantics for non-backtracking causal counterfactuals. We show (...) how objective chances might ground a more fine-grained concept of feasibility, and furnished a places in the structure where causation and dispositions might fit. The Growing-Block view, thus understood, provides the resources to explain the close link between modality and tense, so that it predicts modal change as time passes. This account lets us capture not only what the future might hold for us, and also what might have been. (shrink)

Initial responses to questionnaires used to assess participants' understanding of informed consent for malaria vaccine trials conducted in the United States and Mali were tallied. Total scores were analyzed by age, sex, literacy (if known), and location. Ninety-two percent (92%) of answers by United States participants and 85% of answers by Malian participants were correct. Questions more likely to be answered incorrectly in Mali related to risk, and to the type of vaccine. For adult participants, independent predictors of higher scores (...) were younger age and female sex in the United States, and male sex in Mali. Scores in the United States were higher than in Mali (P = 0.005). Despite this difference participants at both sites were well informed overall. Although interpretation must be qualified because questionnaires were not intended as research tools and were not standardized among sites, these results do not support concerns about systematic low understanding among research participants in developing versus developed countries. (shrink)

I propose that metaphysical study is initially indifferent to the truth of Metaphysical Realism about Metaphysics (MRM) and Metaphysical Realism and does not presuppose them. Metaphysical Realism is a metaphysical doctrine the truth of which cannot be settled logically prior to metaphysical investigation. MRM presupposes Metaphysical Realism and therefore, one should not hold MRM uncritically. An epistemological consequence of this is that arguments against the possibility of cognition about metaphysically real entities (by e.g., Hume) are not arguments against the epistemic (...) legitimacy of metaphysics without further arguments for MRM. This paper is also a case study of the philosophical significance of having rich enough acquaintance with the history of philosophy, the recent history included. (shrink)

According to standard trope nominalism, there are simple tropes that do not have parts or multiply distinct aspects. Douglas Ehring’s reductio ad absurdum against this standard view concludes that there are no simple tropes. In this paper, we provide a response to Ehring defending the standard view. Ehring’s argument may be refuted by (1) distinguishing the ontological form of tropes from their contribution to the ontological content of the world, and (2) construing tropes as having primitive identity. At the same (...) time, standard trope nominalism is elaborated on by distinguishing between ontological form and content, for which there are also independent reasons. (shrink)

IPCC SPECIAL REPORT ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND LAND (SRCCL) -/- Chapter 3: Climate Change and Land: An IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems.

This paper is the first trope-theoretical reply to E. J. Lowe’s serious dilemma against trope nominalism in print. The first horn of this dilemma is that if tropes are identity dependent on substances, a vicious circularity threatens trope theories because they must admit that substances are identity dependent on their constituent tropes. According to the second horn, if the trope theorist claims that tropes are identity independent, she faces two insurmountable difficulties. (1) It is hard to understand the ontological dependence (...) of tropes on substances. (2) The identity-conditions of tropes cannot be determinate, which threatens the determination of the identity-conditions of substances. Our reply to the first horn of Lowe’s dilemma is to deny the identity dependence of tropes. Yet we can avoid the second horn because our theory can explain the ontological dependence of tropes on substances and the fully-determined identity-conditions of both tropes and substances. (shrink)

Transoral laser microsurgery applies to the piecemeal removal of malignant tumours of the upper aerodigestive tract using the CO2 laser under the operating microscope. This method of surgery is being increasingly popularised as a single modality treatment of choice in early laryngeal cancers (T1 and T2) and occasionally in the more advanced forms of the disease (T3 and T4), predomi- nantly within the supraglottis. Thomas Kuhn, the American physicist turned philosopher and historian of science, coined the phrase ‘paradigm shift’ in (...) his groundbreaking book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. He argued that the arrival of the new and often incompatible idea forms the core of a new paradigm, the birth of an entirely new way of thinking. This article discusses whether Steiner and col- leagues truly brought about a paradigm shift in oncological surgery. By rejecting the principle of en block resection and by replacing it with the belief that not only is it oncologically safe to cut through the substance of the tumour but in doing so one can actually achieve better results, Steiner was able to truly revolutionise the man- agement of laryngeal cancer. Even though within this article the repercussions of his insight are limited to the upper aerodigestive tract oncological surgery, his willingness to question other peoples’ dogma makes his contribution truly a genuine paradigm shift. (shrink)

In this paper, we discern different types of possible relations. We focus on the distinction between internal and external relations and their various possible sub-types. In the first section, we present what is nowadays more or less the standard distinction between internal and external relations. In the second section, we make two contributions to the literature of internal relations: a new taxonomy of internal relations and a novel distinction between formal and material ontological relations. In the third section, we discuss (...) three distinctions among external relations, in particular the distinction between relata-specific and relata-unspecific relations. We argue that relata-specific external relations are a promising but incomplete solution to the vexed problem of Bradley’s relation regress. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue for a novel three-dimensionalist solution to the problem of persistence, i.e. cross-temporal identity. We restrict the discussion of persistence to simple substances, which do not have other substances as their parts. The account of simple substances employed in the paper is a trope-nominalist strong nuclear theory, which develops Peter Simons' trope nominalism. Regarding the distinction between three dimensionalism and four dimensionalism, we follow Michael Della Rocca's formulation, in which 3D explains persistence in virtue of same (...) entities and 4D in virtue of distinct entities. SNT is a 3D'ist position because it accounts for the persistence of simple substances in virtue of diachronically identical ‘nuclear’ tropes. The nuclear tropes of a simple substance are necessary for it and mutually rigidly dependent but distinct. SNT explains qualitative change by tropes that are contingent to a simple substance. We show that it avoids the standard problems of 3D: temporal relativization of ontic predication, Bradley's regress and coincidence, fission and fusion cases. The temporal relativization is avoided because of the analysis of temporary parts that SNT gives in terms of temporal sub-location, which is atemporal part–whole relation. (shrink)

Kant takes the idea of autonomy of the will to be his distinctive contribution to moral philosophy. However, this idea is more nuanced and complicated than one might think. In this chapter, I sketch the rough outlines of Kant’s idea of autonomy of the will while also highlighting contentious exegetical issues that give rise to various possible interpretations. I tentatively defend four basic claims. First, autonomy primarily features in Kant’s account of moral agency, as the condition of the possibility of (...) moral obligation. Second, autonomy amounts to a metaphysical property as well as a normative principle and a psychological capacity. Third, although there is legitimate scholarly disagreement about whether or not autonomy involves self-legislation of the moral law, there is good reason to believe it underwrites an ‘inside-out’ (as opposed to ‘outside-in’) conception of the relationship between the will and moral requirements. Fourth, persons have dignity because their autonomy makes them members in the set of beings over whom the categorical imperative requires us to universalise our maxims, not because autonomy is an independently important property. (shrink)

In his book “Minds and Computers: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence”, Matt Carter presents a comprehensive exploration of the philosophical questions surrounding artificial intelligence (AI). Carter argues that the development of AI is not merely a technological challenge but fundamentally a philosophical one. He delves into key issues like the nature of mental states, the limits of introspection, the implications of memory decay, and the functionalist framework that allows for the possibility of AI. Carter contrasts functionalism with (...) reductive materialism, highlighting how the former accommodates the concept of artificial minds. He also emphasizes the significance of computationalism, which combines functionalism with computational theory to provide a robust explanation for mental processes. The book further discusses formal systems, the role of register machines in computation, and the inherent challenges in AI research, particularly in developing natural language processing systems. Carter’s work underscores the limitations of current computational models of cognition while remaining hopeful that advances in neuroscience may lead to stronger AI systems in the future. (shrink)

Title in English translation: Metametaphysics - with and without Categories. A comment paper on An Introduction to Metametaphysics by Tuomas Tahko. Ehdotan artikkelissa uutta olevan ja sen muodon välistä erottelua. Erottelun avulla voidaan antaa täsmällinen käsitys ontologisen kategorian käsitteestä ja metafysiikan tutkimuskohteesta. Argumentoin myös, että metafysiikan epistemologiaa ja semantiikkaa sekä metafyysistä selitttämistä pitää lähestyä kategorianäkökulmasta. Artikkeli on kommentti Tuomas Tahkon oppikirjaan An Introduction to Metametaphysics.

The most prominent theories of rights, the Will Theory and the Interest Theory, notoriously fail to accommodate all and only rights-attributions that make sense to ordinary speakers. The Kind-Desire Theory, Leif Wenar’s recent contribution to the field, appears to fare better in this respect than any of its predecessors. The theory states that we attribute a right to an individual if she has a kind-based desire that a certain enforceable duty be fulfilled. A kind-based desire is a reason to want (...) something which one has simply in virtue of being a member of a certain kind. Rowan Cruft objects that this theory creates a puzzle about the relation between rights and respect. In particular, if rights are not grounded in aspects of the particular individuals whose rights they are, how can we sustain the intuitive notion that to violate a right is to disrespect the right-holder? I present a contractualist account of respect which reconciles the Kind-Desire Theory with the intuition that rights-violations are disrespectful. On this account, respect for a person is a matter of acknowledging her legitimate authority to make demands on the will and conduct of others. And I argue that kind-based desires authorize a person to make demands even if they do not correspond to that person’s well-being or other non-relational features. (shrink)

While it is uncontroversial that Kantian constructivism has implications for normative ethics, its status as a metaethical view has been contested. In this article, I provide a characterisation of metaethical Kantian constructivism that withstands these criticisms. I start by offering a partial defence of Sharon Street’s practical standpoint characterisation. However, I argue that this characterisation, as presented by Street, is ultimately incomplete because it fails to demonstrate that the claims of Kantian constructivism constitute a distinctive contribution to metaethics. I then (...) try to complete the practical standpoint characterisation by elaborating on Christine Korsgaard’s suggestion that metaethical Kantian constructivism takes up a position on the source of morality’s normativity. (shrink)