Argues against several influential a priori arguments for individualism in the philosophy of mind that were influential in the 1980s.

It seems natural to choose whether to have a child by reflecting on what it would be like to actually have a child. I argue that this natural approach fails. If you choose to become a parent, and your choice is based on projections about what you think it would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. If you choose to remain childless, and your choice is based upon projections about what you think it (...) would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. This suggests we should reject our ordinary conception of how to make this life-changing decision, and raises general questions about how to rationally approach important life choices. (shrink)

Abstract: This research paper presents a novel approach to predict audit risks using a neural network model. The dataset used for this study was obtained from Kaggle and comprises 774 samples with 18 features, including Sector_score, PARA_A, SCORE_A, PARA_B, SCORE_B, TOTAL, numbers, marks, Money_Value, District, Loss, Loss_SCORE, History, History_score, score, and Risk. The proposed neural network architecture consists of three layers, including one input layer, one hidden layer, and one output layer. The neural network model was trained and validated, achieving (...) an impressive accuracy of 100% and an average error of 0.000015, indicating its robust predictive capability. Moreover, we conducted feature importance analysis to identify the most influential features for predicting audit risk. The key features found to be critical for classifying fraudulent activities in audit risk prediction are Sector_score, PARA_A, SCORE_A, PARA_B, SCORE_B, TOTAL, numbers, marks, Money_Value, District, Loss, Loss_SCORE, History, and History_score. This research contributes to the field of audit risk prediction by demonstrating the effectiveness of a neural network-based approach and highlighting the importance of specific features in detecting fraudulent activities. The findings have significant implications for auditors and organizations seeking to enhance their audit risk assessment processes, ultimately leading to improved financial transparency and fraud detection. (shrink)

Abstract Heart Attack is the Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) which causes the most deaths among CVDs. We collected a dataset from Kaggle website. In this paper, we propose an ANN model for the predicting whether a patient has a heart attack or not that. The dataset set consists of 9 features with 1000 samples. We split the dataset into training, validation, and testing. After training and validating the proposed model, we tested it with testing dataset. The proposed model reached an accuracy (...) of 98.01% on the Heart Disease Dataset. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that, barring a few important exceptions, the phenomenon we refer to using the expression “being moved” is a distinct type of emotion. In this paper’s first section, we motivate this hypothesis by reflecting on our linguistic use of this expression. In section two, pursuing a methodology that is both conceptual and empirical, we try to show that the phenomenon satisfies the five most commonly used criteria in philosophy and psychology for thinking that some affective episode (...) is a distinct emotion. Indeed, being moved, we claim, is the experience of a positive core value (particular object) perceived by the moved subject as standing out (formal object) in the circumstances triggering the emotion. Drawing on numerous examples, we describe the distinctively rich phenomenology characteristic of the experience as well as the far-reaching action-tendencies and functions associated with it. Having thus shown that the candidate emotion seem to satisfy the five criteria, we go on, in section three, to compare it with sadness and joy, arguing that it should not be confused with either. Finally, in section four, we illustrate the explanatory power of our account of “being moved” by showing how it can shed light on, and maybe even justify, the widespread distrust we feel towards the exhibition of ‘sentimentality’. On the whole and if we are right, we have uncovered an emotion which, though never or rarely talked about, is of great interest and no small importance. (shrink)

I demonstrate that a "speech act" theory of meaning for imperatives is—contra a dominant position in philosophy and linguistics—theoretically desirable. A speech act-theoretic account of the meaning of an imperative !φ is characterized, broadly, by the following claims. -/- LINGUISTIC MEANING AS USE !φ’s meaning is a matter of the speech act an utterance of it conventionally functions to express—what a speaker conventionally uses it to do (its conventional discourse function, CDF). -/- IMPERATIVE USE AS PRACTICAL !φ's CDF is to (...) express a practical (non-representational) state of mind—one concerning an agent's preferences and plans, rather than her beliefs. -/- Opposed to speech act accounts is a preponderance of views which deny that a sentence's linguistic meaning is a matter of what speech act it is used to perform, or its CDF. On such accounts, meaning is, instead, a matter of "static" properties of the sentence—e.g., how it depicts the world as being (or, more neutrally, the properties of a model-theoretic object with which the semantic value of the sentence co-varies). On one version of a static account, an imperative 'shut the window!' might, for instance, depict the world as being such that the window must be shut. -/- Static accounts are traditionally motivated against speech act-theoretic accounts by appeal to supposedly irremediable explanatory deficiencies in the latter. Whatever a static account loses in saying (prima facie counterintuitively) that an imperative conventionally represents, or expresses a picture of the world, is said to be offset by its ability to explain a variety of phenomena for which speech act-theoretic accounts are said to lack good explanations (even, in many cases, the bare ability to offer something that might meet basic criteria on what a good explanation should be like). -/- I aim to turn the tables on static accounts. I do this by showing that speech act accounts are capable of giving explanations of phenomena which fans of static accounts have alleged them unable to give. Indeed, for a variety of absolutely fundamental phenomena having to do with the conventional meaning of imperatives (and other types of practical language), speech act accounts provide natural and theoretically satisfying explanations, where a representational account provides none. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis essay offers a reconfiguration of the possibility‐space of positions regarding the metaphysics and epistemology associated with historical knowledge. A tradition within analytic philosophy from Danto to Dummett attempts to answer questions about the reality of the past on the basis of two shared assumptions. The first takes individual statements as the relevant unit of semantic and philosophical analysis. The second presumes that variants of realism and antirealism about the past exhaust the metaphysical options . This essay argues that both (...) of these assumptions should be rejected. It develops as an alternative an irrealist account of history, a view based in part on work by Leon Goldstein and Ian Hacking. On an irrealist view, historical claims ought to be treated as subject to the same conditions and caveats that apply to any theory of empirical or scientific knowledge. Irrealism argues for pasts as made and not found. The argument emphasizes the priority of classification over perception in the order of understanding and so verification. Because nothing a priori anchors practices of classification, no sense can be attached to claims that some single structure must or does determine what events take place in human history. Irrealism denies to realism the very intelligibility of any imagined view from nowhere, that is, a determinately configured past subsisting sub specie aeternitatis. A plurality of pasts exists because constituting a past always depends to some degree on socially mediated negotiations of a fit between descriptions and experience. (shrink)

This paper considers ten questions that those puzzled by or skeptical of extended cognition have posed. Discussion of these questions ranges across substantive, methodological, and dialectical issues in the ongoing debate over extended cognition, such as whether the issue between proponents and opponents of extended cognition is merely semantic or a matter of convention; whether extended cognition should be treated in the same way as extended biology; and whether conscious mental states pose a special problem for the extended mind thesis. (...) Lethocerus, the giant water bug, will be a recurrent reference point for much of the discussion. (shrink)

This article makes a case for the capacity of "social practice" accounts of agency and freedom to criticize, resist, and transform systemic forms of power and domination from within the context of religious and political practices and institutions. I first examine criticisms that Michel Foucault's analysis of systemic power results in normative aimlessness, and then I contrast that account with the description of agency and innovative practice that pragmatist philosopher Robert Brandom identifies as "expressive freedom." I argue that Brandom can (...) provide a normative trajectory for Foucault's diagnoses of power and domination, helping to resolve its apparent lack of ethical direction. I demonstrate that Foucault, in turn, presents Brandom with insights that might overcome the charges of abstraction and conservatism that his pragmatic inferentialism frequently encounters. The result is a vindication of social practice as an analytical lens for social criticism that is at once both immanent and radical. (shrink)

Kant's notion of ‘discipline’ has received considerable attention from scholars of his philosophy of education, but its role in his theoretical philosophy has been largely ignored. This omission is surprising since his discussion of discipline in the first Critique is not only more extensive and expansive in scope than his other discussions but also predates them. The goal of this essay is to provide a comprehensive reading of the Discipline that emphasizes its systematic importance in the first Critique. I argue (...) that its goal is to establish a set of rules for the use of pure reason that, if followed, will mitigate and perhaps even eliminate our tendency to make judgments about supersensible objects. Since Kant's justification for these rules relies crucially on claims he has defended in the Doctrine of Elements, I argue further that, far from being a dispensable part of the Critique as commentators have tended to claim, the Discipline is, in fact, the culmination of Kant's critique of metaphysics. (shrink)

This study thoroughly investigates the financial behaviors of financially independent, young, single professionals aged 24 to 35 in Balayan, Batangas, amidst a period of global inflation. Focusing on five industries—education, finance, government, healthcare, and retail—the research employs a mixed-methods approach. Quantitative analysis, involving 75 respondents through a 4-point Likert scale survey, is complemented by qualitative insights from in-depth interviews with 5 participants from each industry. The findings from numerical values revealed that demographics did not impact working professionals' saving habits and (...) buying behaviors during the global inflation surge. This suggests that despite differences in age, gender, industry, employment status, and monthly income or salary, all professionals prioritized robust, strong savings and reduced spending to ensure financial stability. The research underscores the significance for professionals in various industries to prioritize specific aspects of personal financial management during the prevailing global inflation surge. The study suggests that, irrespective of industry, working professionals should prioritize specific aspects of personal financial management during the global inflation surge. (shrink)

To improve oneself and grow professionally, career development has been found to be crucial, as it serves as a roadmap for the professional growth of employees. However, a barrier, known as the glass ceiling, hinders the progress of employees, especially those in the LGBTQIA+ community. This study explores the impact of the glass ceiling on the career development of selected LGBTQIA+ individuals, shedding light on the barriers faced by this community in the workplace. The researchers used a qualitative multiple-case study (...) and selected ten (10) LGBTQIA+ participants from large enterprises via the judgmental sampling technique. Through thematic analysis, psychological impact, workplace discomfort, lack of recognition, and career progress challenges emerged as the impacts of the glass ceiling on the participants. Strategies for overcoming glass ceiling barriers, such as resilience, self-reflection, and community support, are identified. Thus, the study found that glass ceilings are really evident in the context of businesses. With this, the proposed advocacy plan in the study suggests interventions like workplace inclusion training, mentorship networks, and seminars on employee rights. Furthermore, it emphasizes the call for ongoing research and advocacy efforts to dismantle barriers and cultivate workplaces that not only embrace diversity but also provide equitable opportunities for career growth. (shrink)

In this paper I consider two related issues raised by Aristotle 's treatment of hearing and sounds. The first concerns the kinds of changes Aristotle takes to occur, in both perceptual medium and sense organs, when a perceiver hears a sounding object. The second issue concerns Aristotle 's views on the nature and location of the proper objects of auditory perception. I argue that Aristotle 's views on these topics are not what they have sometimes been taken to be, and (...) that when rightly understood they compare favourably in many respects with leading contemporary accounts. (shrink)

This study examines the correlation between job descriptions and salaries at Immaculate Conception College of Balayan Inc. (ICCBI), a private Catholic institution devoted to faith-based education. Using qualitative research, a single-case study was conducted with ten (10) participants selected through purposive sampling based on specific criteria. Through face-to-face interviews, data was collected and analyzed using a narrative approach. Thus, it was found out that job descriptions at ICCBI are established through methods like job analysis, role and responsibility approaches, qualifications, and (...) the school manual-based method. Salary determination involves factors such as tenure, educational attainment, performance, teaching loads, experience, and collegial care. Key factors influencing job descriptions include salary differentiation, aligned job descriptions, career development opportunities, and increased duties and responsibilities. Variations in the salary structure are affected by teaching loads, department designations, and educational qualifications. The findings indicate that job descriptions impact employee salaries at the institution, and future research is encouraged to explore identified factors for insights into developing more efficient roles and contributing to organizational effectiveness. With this, the study proposed a strategic plan for future use and implementation. (shrink)

This paper describes one style of functional analysis commonly used in the neurosciences called task-bound functional analysis. The concept of function invoked by this style of analysis is distinctive in virtue of the dependence relations it bears to transient environmental properties. It is argued that task-bound functional analysis cannot explain the presence of structural properties in nervous systems. An alternative concept of neural function is introduced that draws on the theoretical neuroscience literature, and an argument is given to show that (...) this alternative concept of may help to overcome the explanatory limitations of task-bound functional analysis. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider how each of the four main kinds of corrupt person described in Plato's Republic, Books 8-9, first comes to be. Certain passages in these books can give the impression that each person is able to determine, by a kind of rational choice, the overall government of his/her soul. However, I argue, this impression is mistaken. Upon careful examination, the text of books 8 and 9 overwhelmingly supports an alternative interpretation. According to this view, the eventual (...) government of each person’s soul is decided by a struggle for power occurring within the person, among the soul’s parts, the outcome of which is determined by the relative strength and alignment of the competing parties. If this interpretation is correct, Plato adheres more closely to the city-soul analogy in these passages than has sometimes been thought. The ultimate origins of vice in the soul are also seen to lie squarely in upbringing and education, not in a mistaken choice of life. (shrink)

Hume’s account of causation is often regarded a challenge Kant must overcome if the Critical philosophy is to be successful. But from Kant’s time to the present, Hume’s denial of our ability to cognize supersensible objects, a denial that relies heavily on his account of causation, has also been regarded as a forerunner to Kant’s critique of metaphysics. After identifying reasons for rejecting Wayne Waxman’s recent account of Kant’s debt to Hume, I present my own, more modest account of this (...) debt, an account that seeks to unite the two very different pictures of Kant’s relationship to Hume sketched above. (shrink)

Eric Watkins has argued on philosophical, textual, and historical grounds that Kant’s account of causation in the first Critique should not be read as an attempt to refute Hume’s account of causation. In this paper, I challenge the arguments for Watkins’ claim. Specifically, I argue (1) that Kant’s philosophical commitments, even on Watkins’ reading, are not obvious obstacles to refuting Hume, (2) that textual evidence from the “Disciple of Pure Reason” suggests Kant conceived of his account of causation as such (...) a refutation, and (3) that none of Hume’s early German critics provided responses to this account that would have satisfied Kant. Watkins’ reading of Kant’s account of causation is thus more compatible with traditional views about Kant’s relationship to Hume than Watkins believes. (shrink)

There is a tendency in contemporary jurisprudence to regard political authority and, more particularly, legal intervention in human affairs as having no justification unless it can be defended by what Laing calls the principle of modern liberal autonomy (MLA). According to this principle, if consenting adults want to do something, unless it does specific harm to others here and now, the law has no business intervening. Harm to the self and general harm to society can constitute no justification for legal (...) regulation or prohibition. So pervasive is this understanding of legal intervention in human affairs, that it is common now to encounter arguments in favour of permissive laws on, for example, private drug use, pornography, sexual and reproductive choice, based on the idea that to intervene in these areas would constitute a breach of the liberal ideal. The only alternative to modern liberal autonomy is assumed to be radical oppression, in which the State intervenes in the individual’s life to impose unwarranted measures designed to further its own ends. The legacy of Stalin, Hitler and other modern tyrants has undermined conceptual appeals to the common good. So widespread is this liberal assumption in the Western, English-speaking world that critics of the outlook embodied by MLA are customarily regarded with suspicion and charged with paternalism, narrow-mindedness and intolerance. Laing highlights contradictions inherent in the modern liberal tradition. She argues that there is a certain reliance on the notion of the common good within the natural law tradition that is instructive. According to this view, the common good constitutes a mean between two extremes: on the one hand, contemporary liberalism’s over-insistence on radical individual autonomy and, on the other hand, totalitarianism’s over-emphasis on collective social benefit. There is, I will argue, substantial terrain between the conceptual excesses of modern liberalism and oppressive tyranny that needs to be acknowledged and discussed. (shrink)

The paper assessed the nutritional knowledge and cultural food beliefs on dietary practices of pregnant women in Epe Local Government Area, Lagos State, Nigeria. A descriptive research design was adopted for this study. The population of the study consisted of all registered pregnant women in seven (7) antenatal clinics in Epe Local Government Area of Lagos State. A sample size of 270 was drawn using proportionate sampling technique. The collected data were analyzed using frequency, percentage, and the Chi-square test of (...) association. The significance level was set at p < 0.05. The results showed a statistically significant relationship between knowledge of nutrition and dietary practices, χ2 (2) = 78.201, p<0.05. However, there was no statistically significant relationship between cultural food beliefs and dietary practices, χ2 (1) = 1.151, p>0.05. The finding also showed that cultural food beliefs do not influence the dietary practices of pregnant women. The study recommends that the government and health agencies should continuously train health workers on nutritional issues, particularly on how to enhance the nutritional knowledge of expectant pregnant women prior to conception. This will help potential mothers improve their dietary practices. (shrink)

In four experiments, we offer evidence that virtues are often judged as uniquely important for some business practices (e.g., hospital management and medical error investigation). Overall, actions done only from virtue (either by organizations or individuals) were judged to feel better, to be more praiseworthy, to be more morally right, and to be associated with more trustworthy leadership and greater personal life satisfaction compared to actions done only to produce the best consequences or to follow the correct moral rule. These (...) results accord with claims made by some virtue ethicists. The current data contribute to a small but growing body of literature emphasizing both empirical soundness and philosophical rigor in the scientific study of virtue. Results also offer some guidance concerning how businesses, employees, and executives are evaluated and perceived. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. (shrink)

The sense of smell occupies a peculiar intermediate position within Aristotle's theory of sense perception: odours, like colours and sounds, are perceived at a distance through an external medium of air or water; yet in their nature they are intimately related to flavours, the proper objects of taste, which for Aristotle is a form of touch. In this paper, I examine Aristotle's claims about odour and smell, especially in De Anima II.9 and De Sensu 5, to see what light they (...) shed on his theory of sense perception more generally. In the first half, I argue that neither of the two most influential recent ways of understanding Aristotle's theory of perception can adequately account for what he says about the sense of smell. In the second half, I offer my own positive account, considering and resolving various puzzles raised by Aristotle's claims about the nature of odour and its relation to flavour. Finally, I conclude that Aristotle's discussions of odour and smell suggest a plausible and interesting way of understanding the relationship, on his view, between ordinary, material changes in the sense organs and the activation of the capacity to perceive, considered merely as such. (shrink)

The discovery of mirror neurons in both primates and humans has led to an enormous amount of research and speculation as to how conscious beings are able to interact so effortlessly among one another. Mirror neurons might provide an embodied basis for passive synthesis and the eventual process of further communalization through empathy, as envisioned by Edmund Husserl. I consider the possibility of a phenomenological and scientific investigation of laughter as a point of connection that might in the future bridge (...) the gap Husserl feared had grown too expansive between the worlds of science and philosophy. Part I will describe some implications of the discovery of mirror neurons. Part II will address Husserl’s concept of embodiment as it relates to neuroscience and empathy. Part III will be a primer to investigating laughter phenomenologically. Part IV will be a continuation of the study of laughter and empathy as possible elements helpful in broadening the scope of what Husserl calls the Life-World. (shrink)

This very short paper provides a panpsychic solution to the Hard Problem of Consciousness. It was presented to the Philosophical Society of the Oxford University Department of Continuing Education (OUDCE) on 18th August 2019, and posted on Twitter (@ATBollands) on the 20th August, 2019. It solves the Hard Problem by 1) making the case for Panpsychism, and 2) solving the Combination Problem (Panpsychism's equivalent of the Hard Problem). -/- The paper aims to be clear, concise, to-the-point and accessible to the (...) general educated reader. It is short on discussion and elaboration, and does not seek to defend its argument against all reasonable objections. However, by keeping its argument to under 2 pages, it ensures the casual reader is not discouraged from taking a look, allowing them to engage with both the Hard Problem and this Short Solution. (shrink)

Understanding the folk notion of free will and moral responsibility is important for a host of applied and theoretical issues in psychology, philosophy, and ethics. The bulk of experimental research has focused on folk intuitions concerning determinism's relation to free will and moral responsibility. However, determinism is a difficult term for many folk to understand. Accordingly researchers often use comprehension questions to identify and exclude large proportions of participants who seem to struggle with relevant concepts. Here, we document some of (...) the cognitive mechanisms involved in folk judgments related to comprehension of determinism, and its relations to free will and moral responsibility. Results provide prescriptions for experimental designs that can increase comprehension, potentially decreasing sampling biases. Theoretical and methodological implications are discussed. (shrink)

This article is a sequel to ‘The Liar Syndrome’. It answers in detail the various criticisms of the latter expressed by Roy T. Cook in his article, ‘Curing the Liar Syndrome’, appearing in SATS/Nordic Journal of Philosophy, 3 (2): 126-141 (2002).

This essay is a response to Patrick Reider’s essay “Sellars on Perception, Science and Realism: A Critical Response.” Reider is correct that Sellars’s realism is in tension with his generally Kantian approach to issues of knowledge and mind, but I do not think Reider’s analysis correctly locates the sources of that tension or how Sellars himself hoped to be able to resolve it. Reider’s own account of idealism and the reasons supporting it are rooted in the epistemological tradition that informed (...) the British empiricists, rather than in the metaphysical reasons that ruled within the German tradition from Leibniz through Hegel that has much more in common with Sellars’s position. Thus, Reider takes Sellars’s notion of picturing to be just another version of the representationalism that has dominated the Anglo-American tradition since Locke, whereas, in my view, because picturing is a non-semantical relation, it is an important ingredient in naturalizing the coherentist theories of the idealists. (shrink)

While concerns of the mental being causally excluded by the physical have persistently plagued non-reductive physicalism, such concerns are standardly taken to pose no problem for reductive type physicalism. Type physicalists have the obvious advantage of being able to countenance the reduction of mental properties to their physical base properties by way of type identity, thereby avoiding any causal competition between instances of mental properties and their physical bases. Here, I challenge this widely accepted advantage of type physicalism over non-reductive (...) physicalism in avoiding the causal exclusion of the mental. In particular, I focus on Jaegwon Kim’s influential version of the causal exclusion argument, namely, his supervenience argument. I argue that type physicalism’s advantage is undermined by the following two things: (1) the generalizability of the supervenience argument, and (2) type physicalism’s incompatibility with mental properties at the fundamental level. This involves evaluating the generalization objection to the supervenience argument, probing the metaphysics of physicalism, and showing how (1) and (2) combine in a way that appears underappreciated given the general confidence in type physicalism’s advantage. (shrink)

The semantics of racial slurs has recently become a locus of debate amongst philosophers. While everyone agrees that slurs are offensive, there is disagreement about the linguistic mechanism responsible for this offensiveness. This paper places the debate about racial slurs into the context of a larger issue concerning the interface between semantics and pragmatics, and argues that even on minimalist assumptions, the offensiveness of slur words is more plausibly due to their semantic content rather than any pragmatic mechanism. Finally, I (...) note that slurs make a good test case for expanding our semantic theories beyond the truth conditional tradition of Frege, which will be necessary in order to broaden the types of expressions handled by semantic theories. (shrink)

Recent empirical work on the concept of intentionality suggests that people’s assessments of whether an action is intentional are subject to uncertainty. Some researchers have gone so far as to claim that different people employ different concepts of intentional action. These possibilities have motivated a good deal of work in the relatively new field of experimental philosophy. The findings from this empirical research may prove to be relevant to medical ethics. In this article, we address this issue head on. We (...) first describe a study we conducted on intention ascription. Drawing on recent work in experimental philosophy, we investigated the possibility that the ascription of intentions to clinical actors in clinical settings is influenced by prior judgments about the goodness or badness of the consequences of the action in question. Our study was modeled on experimental studies in other contexts that have shown that people, when presented with a range of scenarios, are more likely to classify a side effect of an action as intended if the side effect is negative or reflects poorly on the actor than if it is positive or reflects well on the actor. We investigated whether this asymmetry in intention ascriptions was also present among physicians who were asked to ascribe intentions to clinical actors in certain well-defined clinical scenarios. After describing the study and its results, we discuss its implications for medical ethics. (shrink)

The chapter presents Anselm’s incompatibilist account of human freedom within the context of his theodicy and presents two arguments against his account. Both arguments aim to show there is a genuine conflict between his account of freedom and the role of God’s grace in making agents just. The first argument, the problem of harmonization, highlights the conflict within the soteriological context where an agent changes from being unjust to being just. The second argument, the problem of just creation, highlights the (...) conflict within the context of the creation of agents prior to the presence of evil. Holding fixed his incompatibilist account and the necessity of divine grace, the upshot of both arguments is that Anselm must endorse a version of Pelagianism. (shrink)

Individual organisms are obvious enough kinds of things to have been taken for granted as the entities that have many commonly attributed biological and psychological properties, both in common sense and in science. The sorts of morphological properties used by the folk to categorize individual animals and plants into common sense kinds (that's a dog; that's a rose), as well as the properties that feature as parts of phenotypes, are properties of individual organisms. And psychological properties, such as believing that (...) taxes are too low, and remembering the last seven digits you read in the phone book, are likewise properties of individual organisms. (shrink)

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.

Carey leaves unaddressed an important evolutionary puzzle: In the absence of a numeral list, how could a concept of natural number ever have arisen in the first place? Here we suggest that the initial development of natural number must have bootstrapped on a material culture scaffold of some sort, and illustrate how this might have occurred using strings of beads.

Quelles sont les principales problématiques en émergence dans l’éthique de la santé publique ces 10 prochaines années? Se hasarder à prédire l’avenir nécessite toujours une certaine dose d’autodérision, mais les fondements des enjeux sur une échéance aussi proche sont en grande partie déjà présents. Ils peuvent être décrits à différents niveaux d’observation. Le premier de ces niveaux est technique : la santé publique recouvre toute une série d’interventions, dont la mise en œuvre rencontre des obstacles qui, pour certains, ont une (...) résonance éthique. Le deuxième niveau est philosophique et politique : la dimension collective des interventions de santé publique mobilise les débats généraux concernant la liberté individuelle d’une part, et la justice distributive d’autre part. Le troisième niveau est systémique : la santé de la population peut en effet être considérée comme une ressource faisant l’objet de tensions politiques dont la visibilité est pour le moment variable. Certes, l’idée que la santé du peuple est une richesse pour la nation remonte au Siècle des lumières (1). Néanmoins, prise dans les débat centrés sur l’individu et la collectivité, l’éthique de la santé publique peine davantage à concevoir parmi ses objets les tensions à l’œuvre entre différentes collectivités, certaines seulement comptant parmi leurs tâches la protection des biens communs dont fait partie la santé publique. (shrink)

Wolfgang Pauli was influenced by Carl Jung and the Platonism of Arnold Sommerfeld, who introduced the fine-structure constant. Pauli’s vision of a World Clock is related to the symbolic form of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes and Plato’s geometric allegory otherwise known as the Cosmological Circle attributed to ancient tradition. With this vision Pauli revealed geometric clues to the mystery of the fine-structure constant that determines the strength of the electromagnetic interaction. A Platonic interpretation of the World Clock and the (...) Cosmological Circle provides an explanation that includes the geometric structure of the pineal gland described by the golden ratio. In his experience of archetypal images Pauli encounters the synchronicity of events that contribute to his quest for physical symmetry relevant to the development of quantum electrodynamics. (shrink)

Open theists argue that God's relationship to time, as conceived in classical theism, is erroneous. They explain that it is contradictory for an atemporal being to act in a temporal universe, including experiencing its temporal successions. Contrary to the atemporalists, redemptive history has shown that God interacts with humans in time. This relational nature of God nullifies the classical notion of God as timelessly eternal. Therefore, it lacks a philosophical and theological basis. Because God is in time, He does not (...) know all future contingencies and, therefore, changes. This study examines open theism's appropriation of the A and B theories of time to the divine-human relationship. The study argues that divine temporality does not solve the tension of divine-human relationships, especially in relation to the future. Further, historical divine temporality does not negate the fact of divine atemporality. It mainly stems from God's choice to create temporal creatures and His relationship with them. Furthermore, if it is not logically and metaphysically contradictory for an omnipresent being to act in space, then it follows that an atemporal being can act in time. Whether time is understood from the metric or psychological point of view, it does not transcend God, and therefore, the limitation it places on human creatures with respect to the future does not apply to God. Lastly, although a few philosophers reject the notion of eternity as timelessly eternal, the doctrine has a philosophical and theological basis in the Scripture. (shrink)

From his initial writings on imagination and memory, to his recent studies of the glance and the edge, the work of American philosopher Edward S. Casey continues to shape 20th-century philosophy. In this first study dedicated to his rich body of work, distinguished scholars from philosophy, urban studies and architecture as well as artists engage with Casey's research and ideas to explore the key themes and variations of his contribution to the humanities. -/- Structured into three major parts, the volume (...) reflects the central concerns of Casey's writings: an evolving phenomenology of imagination, memory, and place; representation and landscape painting and art; and edges, glances, and voice. Each part begins with an extended interview that defines and explains the topics, concepts, and stakes of each of area of research. Readers are thus offered an introduction to Casey’s fascinating body of work, and will gain a new insight into particular aspects and applications of Casey's research. -/- With a complete bibliography and an introduction that at once stresses each of Casey’s areas of research while putting into perspective their overarching themes, this authoritative volume identifies the overall coherence and interconnections of Edward S. Casey's work and his impact in contemporary thought. (shrink)

The notion of Simulative Reasoning in the study of propositional attitudes within Artificial Intelligence (AI) is strongly related to the Simulation Theory of mental ascription in Philosophy. Roughly speaking, when an AI system engages in Simulative Reasoning about a target agent, it reasons with that agent’s beliefs as temporary hypotheses of its own, thereby coming to conclusions about what the agent might conclude or might have concluded. The contrast is with non-simulative meta-reasoning, where the AI system reasons within a detailed (...) theory about the agent’s (conjectured) reasoning acts. The motive within AI for preferring Simulative Reasoning is that it is more convenient and efficient, because of a simplification of the representations and reasoning processes. The chapter discusses this advantage in detail. It also sketches the use of Simulative Reasoning in an AI natural language processing system, ATT-Meta, that is currently being implemented. This system is directed at the understanding of propositional attitude reports. In ATT-Meta, Simulative Reasoning is yoked to a somewhat independent set of ideas about how attitude reports should be treated. Central here are the claims that (a) speakers often employ commonsense (and largely metaphorical) models of mind in describing agents’ attitudes, (b) the listener accordingly needs often to reason within the terms of such models, rather than on the basis of any objectively justifiable characterization of the mind, and (c) the commonsense models filter the suggestions that Simulative Reasoning comes up with concerning target agents’ reasoning conclusions. There is a yet tighter connection between the commonsense models and the Simulative Reasoning. It turns out that Simulative Reasoning can be rationally reconstructed in terms of a more general type of reasoning about the possibly-counterfactual “world” that the target agent believes in, together with an assumption that that agent has a faithful representation of the world. In the ATT-Meta approach, the reasoner adopts that assumption when it views the target agent through a particular commonsense model (called IDEAS-AS-MODELS). (shrink)

The computational argument for individualism, which moves from computationalism to individualism about the mind, is problematic, not because computationalism is false, but because computational psychology is, at least sometimes, wide. The paper provides an early, or perhaps predecessor, version of the thesis of extended cognition.

This paper presents gesture as an element of aesthetic experience of musical work. It focuses on specific dialectics of gesture in musical works as that which is visual or highlighted and at the same that which speaks to the listener. The difficulty in describing what constitute musical expressive gesture is there to guide us. The gesture stands in way of recognizing meaning and providing communication but at the same time that, which speaks to the listener is the most secluded, intimate (...) part of musical experience. (shrink)

I teach Philosophy of Science at a four-year state university located in the southeastern United States with a strong college of education. This means that the Philosophy of Science class I teach attracts large numbers of students who will later become science teachers in Georgia junior high and high schools—the same schools that recently began including evolution "warning" stickers in science textbooks. I am also a faculty member in a department combining Religious Studies and Philosophy. This means Philosophy of Science (...) is often expected to provide dialogue, debate, and bridge-building on the issues of creationism and evolution. I am expected to provide a welcoming atmosphere to all the religious perspectives that the students bring to class, but at the same time I feel responsible for giving them a serious respect for evolution. This tension between religious tolerance and secular science education has had important consequences in American schools, most notably with the issue of Intelligent Design Theory (ID) in the classroom. (shrink)

This paper argues that luck egalitarianism, especially in the guise of equality of opportunity for welfare, is in tension with the ideal of fair equality of opportunity in three ways. First, equal opportunity for welfare is compatible with a caste system in employment that is inconsistent with open competition for positions. Second, luck egalitarianism does not support hiring on the basis of qualifications. Third, amending luck egalitarianism to repair this problem requires abandoning fair access to qualifications. Insofar as luck egalitarianism (...) cannot support fair equality of opportunity, it cannot do justice to the claims of the disabled. Indeed, in the absence of fair equality of opportunity, disabled people are likely to be marginalized. (shrink)

In his article untitled Messages in Art Jerrold Levinson discusses the idea of a message behind a work of art. He argues that despite certain disclaimers put forward by artists it is „hard to deny that artworks (...) very often do have messages, and far from inexpressible ones”. From given examples it would seem that Levinson assumes that musical work just as other artworks sometimes generate messages and that in order for a work of music to be successful in expression (...) this message should be comprehensible and certainly not incoherent. The author of this paper draws on Levinson's “Messages in Art” as well as his “Music as Narrative and Music as Drama” to explore further the issues mentioned above. In particular the author argues that seeing musical works through the message it may generate is somewhat reductive and that musical work as well as other artworks are prone to abiding by an aesthetic code and therefore even when they allow for interpretation in terms of messages or morals these messages are incoherent or vague at best. (shrink)

The paper offers a model of Kant's claim that unity of consciousness entails objectivity of experience. This claim has nothing especially to do with thought, language or the categories but is a general truth about arbitrary signaling systems of the sort modeled in the paper. In conclusion I draw some consequences for various forms of idealism.

A leading semiotician, Thomas A. Sebeok (1920-2001), developed a useful typology which the author uses to analyze national and subnational flags, exploring them as signals, icons, indexes, and symbols and using extensively illustrations.

Luke, steeped in the Old Testament, makes clear that to understand what God was doing in Christ, one has to know Scripture; and especially the Book of Isaiah.