The American system of education makes important and sometimes unjustified assumptions that were questioned and criticized nearly a hundred years ago by author and educational theorist Albert Jay Nock. This essay discusses Nock’s theory of American education and finds that certain of these assumptions stand greatly in need of the support of evidence.

It has been a common assumption that words are substances that instantiate or have properties. In this paper, I question the assumption that our ontology of words requires posting substances by outlining a bundle theory of words, wherein words are bundles of various sorts of properties (such as semantic, phonetic, orthographic, and grammatical properties). I argue that this view can better account for certain phenomena than substance theories, is ontologically more parsimonious, and coheres with claims in linguistics.

The use of lexical signs like ‘knowledge’ has consequences. Not only do they have direct psychological resonances, but people ascribe beliefs and act based on their semantics. This paper proposes that such consequences are up for negotiation, and introduces a formal framework from financial theory to suggest constraints on those negotiations and implications of those constraints. The upshot is that changing language will be easier sometimes than others, and philosophers’ projects of linguistic change should be aware of those conditions.

In this paper, I will discuss the relevance of epistemology of disagreement to political disagreement. The two major positions in the epistemology of disagreement literature are the steadfast and the conciliationist approaches: while the conciliationist says that disagreement with one’s epistemic equals should compel one to epistemically “split the difference” with those peers, the steadfast approach claims that one can maintain one’s antecedent position even in the face of such peer disagreement. Martin Ebeling applies a conciliationist approach to democratic deliberations, (...) arguing that deliberative participants ought to pursue full epistemic conciliation when disagreeing with their peers on political questions. I argue that this epistemic “splitting the difference” could make participants vulnerable to certain cognitive biases. We might avoid these biases by paying more attention to the deliberative environment in which disagreement takes place. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Barry Loewer attempts to defend Humeanism about laws of nature from a charge that Humean laws are not adequately explanatory. Central to his defense is a distinction between metaphysical and scientific explanations: even if Humeans cannot offer further metaphysical explanations of particular features of their “mosaic,” that does not preclude them from offering scientific explanations of these features. According to Marc Lange, however, Loewer’s distinction is of no avail. Defending a transitivity principle linking scientific explanantia to (...) their metaphysical grounds, Lange argues that a charge of explanatory inadequacy resurfaces once this intuitive principle is in place. This paper surveys, on behalf of the Humean, three strategies for responding to Lange’s criticism. The ready availability of these strategies suggests that Lange’s argument may not bolster anti-Humean convictions, since the argument rests on premises that those not antecedently sharing these convictions may well reject. The three strategies also correspond to three interesting ways of thinking about relations of grounding linking Humean laws and their instances, all of which are consistent with theses of Humean supervenience, and some of which have been heretofore overlooked. (shrink)

Forcing occurs when a magician influences the audience's decisions without their awareness. To investigate the mechanisms behind this effect, we examined several stimulus and personality predictors. In Study 1, a magician flipped through a deck of playing cards while participants were asked to choose one. Although the magician could influence the choice almost every time (98%), relatively few (9%) noticed this influence. In Study 2, participants observed rapid series of cards on a computer, with one target card shown longer than (...) the rest. We expected people would tend to choose this card without noticing that it was shown longest. Both stimulus and personality factors predicted the choice of card, depending on whether the influence was noticed. These results show that combining real-world and laboratory research can be a powerful way to study magic and can provide new methods to study the feeling of free will. (shrink)

In this paper I outline and defend a new approach to personal-identity—personal-identity non-cognitivism—and argue that it has several advantages over its cognitivist rivals. On this view utterances of personal-identity sentences express a non-cognitive attitude towards relevant person-stages. The resulting view offers a pleasingly nuanced picture of what we are doing when we utter such sentences.

This paper argues for a particular view about in what metaphysical equivalence consists: namely, that any two metaphysical theories are metaphysically equivalent if and only if those theories are strongly hyperintensionally equivalent. It is consistent with this characterisation that said theories are weakly hyperintensionally distinct, thus affording us the resources to model the content of propositional attitudes directed towards metaphysically equivalent theories in such a way that non-ideal agents can bear different propositional attitudes towards metaphysically equivalent theories.

The conciliationist and steadfast approaches have dominated the conversation in the epistemology of disagreement. In this paper, drawing on Jennifer Lackey’s justificationist approach and the casuistry paradigm in medical ethics, I will develop a more contextual epistemology of political disagreement. On this account, a given political disagreement’s scope, domain, genealogy, and consequence can be helpful for determining whether we should respond to that disagreement at the level of our confidence, beliefs, or with policy. Though some may argue that responding with (...) policy is a practical consideration instead of an epistemic matter, I argue that even policy responses to disagreements have an epistemic dimension to them that we should not ignore. (shrink)

This paper has three main sections. The first section provides a general characterisation of presentism, eternalism and growing blockism. It presents a pair of core, defining claims that jointly capture each of these three views. This makes clear the respects in which the different views agree, and the respects in which they disagree, about the nature of time. The second section takes these characterisations and considers whether we really do have three distinct views, or whether defenders of these views are (...) somehow talking past one another when they claim to disagree. The third section looks at the key objections to each view and considers some of the replies that can be made to those objections. The paper concludes by offering some thoughts about how future research might help us resolve the debate between defenders of these three views. (shrink)

David Lewis is a natural target for those who believe that findings in quantum physics threaten the tenability of traditional metaphysical reductionism. Such philosophers point to allegedly holistic entities they take both to be the subjects of some claims of quantum mechanics and to be incompatible with Lewisian metaphysics. According to one popular argument, the non-separability argument from quantum entanglement, any realist interpretation of quantum theory is straightforwardly inconsistent with the reductive conviction that the complete physical state of the world (...) supervenes on the intrinsic properties of and spatio-temporal relations between its point-sized constituents. Here I defend Lewis's metaphysical doctrine, and traditional reductionism more generally, against this alleged threat from quantum holism. After presenting the non-separability argument from entanglement, I show that Bohmian mechanics, an interpretation of quantum mechanics explicitly recognized as a realist one by proponents of the non-separability argument, plausibly rejects a key premise of that argument. Another holistic worry for Humeanism persists, however, the trouble being the apparently holistic character of the Bohmian pilot wave. I present a Humean strategy for addressing the holistic threat from the pilot wave by drawing on resources from the Humean best system account of laws. (shrink)

In medical ethics, business ethics, and some branches of political philosophy (multi-culturalism, issues of just allocation, and equitable distribution) the literature increasingly combines insights from ethics and the social sciences. Some authors in medical ethics even speak of a new phase in the history of ethics, hailing "empirical ethics" as a logical next step in the development of practical ethics after the turn to "applied ethics." The name empirical ethics is ill-chosen because of its associations with "descriptive ethics." Unlike descriptive (...) ethics, however, empirical ethics aims to be both descriptive and normative. The first question on which I focus is what kind of empirical research is used by empirical ethics and for which purposes. I argue that the ultimate aim of all empirical ethics is to improve the context-sensitivity of ethics. The second question is whether empirical ethics is essentially connected with specific positions in meta-ethics. I show that in some kinds of meta-ethical theories, which I categorize as broad contextualist theories, there is an intrinsic need for connecting normative ethics with empirical social research. But context-sensitivity is a goal that can be aimed for from any meta-ethical position. (shrink)

It is possible to wholly exist at multiple spatial locations at the same time. At least, if time travel is possible and objects endure, then such must be the case. To accommodate this possibility requires the introduction of a spatial analog of either relativising properties to times—relativising properties to spatial locations—or of relativising the manner of instantiation to times—relativising the manner of instantiation to spatial locations. It has been suggested, however, that introducing irreducibly spatially relativised or spatially adverbialised properties presents (...) some difficulties for the endurantist. I will consider an objection according to which embracing such spatially relativised properties could lead us to reject mereology altogether in favour of a metaphysics according to which objects are wholly present at every space-time point at which they exist. I argue that although such a view is coherent, there are some good reasons to reject it. Moreover, I argue that the endurantist can introduce spatially relativised or adverbialised properties without conceding that objects lack spatial parts. Such a strategy has the additional advantage that it allows the endurantist not only to explain time travel, but also to reconcile our competing intuitions about cases of fission. (shrink)

Philippine folk dances can be dated back as early as the pre-colonial period which inherited by our forefathers and passed through several generations of Filipinos. These traditional dances are considered treasures of our homeland for they depict the humble beginnings of our native countrymen and serve as a symbol of national identity. The study utilized focused ethnography and was limited on the documentation of the ethnic dance of Ayta Ambala’s tribe, their cultural values along with its cultural heritage situated at (...) Barangay Tubo-Tubo, Dinalupihan, Bataan which were considered unpublished, especially their respective dance patterns or movements. There were ten (10) informants involved in the study. Five (5) were key informants (KIs) who represent the emic perspective while five (5) were general informants (GIs) who represent the etic perspective of the paper. Findings revealed that Dances of Ayta Ambala include: Courtship (Sayaw Magligaw), Ceremonial (Sayaw Talipe), and Occupational (Sayaw Pangangaho). The said dances reflect different activities that are commong among the tribe. It also includes the historical background, costume, time signature, props, structural formation, dance steps, and figures. Although the values are not directly presented, these are still manifesting through the themes of their dances. Included in the cultural values are bravery, respect, and gratitude which are also part of the embodiment of different dances of Ayta Ambala. As observed, the other two emerging themes are also connected to the cultural heritage of Ayta Ambala. This means, their dances mirror their surroundings, their daily activities, and their identity as tribes. The emerging themes on cultural heritage are religious beliefs, courtships, and livelihood. (shrink)

The natural name theory, recently discussed by Johnson (2018), is proposed as an explanation of pure quotation where the quoted term(s) refers to a linguistic object such as in the sentence ‘In the above, ‘bank’ is ambiguous’. After outlining the theory, I raise a problem for the natural name theory. I argue that positing a resemblance relation between the name and the linguistic object it names does not allow us to rule out cases where the natural name fails to resemble (...) the linguistic object it names. I argue that to avoid this problem, we can combine the natural name theory with a type-realist metaphysics of language, and hold that the name is natural because the name is an instance of the kind that it names. I conclude by reflecting on the importance of the metaphysics of language for questions in the philosophy of language. (shrink)

Albert Musschenga | : The central question of this article is, Are animals morally responsible for what they do? Answering this question requires a careful, step-by-step argument. In sections 1 and 2, I explain what morality is, and that having a morality means following moral rules or norms. In sections 3 and 4, I argue that some animals show not just regularities in their social behaviour, but can be rightly said to follow social norms. But are the norms they (...) follow also moral norms? In section 5, I contend, referring to the work of Shaun Nichols, that the basic moral competences or capacities are already present in nonhuman primates. Following moral rules or norms is more than just acting in accordance to these norms; it requires being motivated by moral rules. I explain, in section 6, referring to Mark Rowlands, that being capable of moral motivation does not require agency; being a moral subject is sufficient. Contrary to moral agents, moral subjects are not responsible for their behaviour. Stating that there are important similarities between animal moral behaviour and human, unconscious, automatic, habitual behaviour, I examine in section 7 whether humans are responsible for their habitual moral behaviour, and if they are, what then the grounds are for denying that moral animals are responsible for their behaviour. The answer is that humans are responsible for their habitual behaviour if they have the capacity for deliberate intervention. Although animals are capable of intervention in their habitual behaviour, they are not capable of deliberate intervention. | : La question centrale dans cet article est celle de savoir si les animaux sont moralement responsables de ce qu’ils font. Répondre à cette question nécessite une argumentation minutieuse et progressive. Dans les sections 1 et 2, j’explique ce qu’est la moralité, et qu’être doté de moralité signifie de se conformer à des règles ou à des normes morales. Dans les sections 3 et 4, je pose que certains animaux ne se contentent pas de montrer des régularités dans leur comportement social, mais qu’ils suivent aussi véritablement des normes sociales. Toutefois, les normes qu’ils suivent sont-elles morales? Dans la section 5, je prétends, en me référant aux travaux de Shaun Nichols, que les compétences ou capacités morales de base sont déjà présentes chez les primates non humains. Respecter des règles ou des normes morales est bien plus que d’agir conformément à ces normes; cela requiert d’être motivé par des règles morales. Dans la section 6, me référant à Mark Rowlands, j’explique que d’être capable de motivation morale ne nécessite pas d’être un agent moral; le fait d’être un sujet moral suffit. Contrairement aux agents moraux, les sujets moraux ne sont pas responsables de leur comportement. Affirmant qu’il y a de grandes similitudes entre le comportement moral d’un animal et le comportement inconscient, automatique et habituel d’un humain, je me penche, dans la section 7, sur la question de savoir si les humains sont responsables de leur comportement moral habituel, et si tel est le cas, sur quelle base on peut alors nier le fait que les animaux sont eux aussi responsables de leur comportement. La réponse à cette question est que les humains sont responsables de leur comportement habituel s’ils disposent d’une capacité d’intervention réfléchie, délibérée. Bien que les animaux soient capables d’intervenir dans leurs comportements habituels, ils ne peuvent le faire de manière réfléchie, délibérée. (shrink)

Mainstream analytic epistemology regards knowledge as the property of individuals, rather ‎than groups. Drawing on insights from the reality of knowledge production and dissemination ‎in the sciences, I argue, from within the analytic framework, that this view is wrong. I defend ‎the thesis of ‘knowledge-level justification communalism’, which states that at least some ‎knowledge, typically knowledge obtained from expert testimony, is the property of a ‎community and possibly none of its individual members, in that only the community or some ‎members (...) of it collectively possesses knowledge-level justification for its individual members’ ‎beliefs. I address several objections that individuals, qua individuals, have or are able to ‎acquire knowledge-level justification for all the beliefs they obtain from expert testimony. I ‎argue that the problem I identify with individualism is invariant under any specific account of ‎justification, internalist or externalist. ‎. (shrink)

People increasingly form beliefs based on information gained from automatically filtered Internet ‎sources such as search engines. However, the workings of such sources are often opaque, preventing ‎subjects from knowing whether the information provided is biased or incomplete. Users’ reliance on ‎Internet technologies whose modes of operation are concealed from them raises serious concerns about ‎the justificatory status of the beliefs they end up forming. Yet it is unclear how to address these concerns ‎within standard theories of knowledge and justification. (...) To shed light on the problem, we introduce a ‎novel conceptual framework that clarifies the relations between justified belief, epistemic responsibility, ‎action, and the technological resources available to a subject. We argue that justified belief is subject to ‎certain epistemic responsibilities that accompany the subject’s particular decision-taking circumstances, ‎and that one typical responsibility is to ascertain, so far as one can, whether the information upon which ‎the judgment will rest is biased or incomplete. What this responsibility comprises is partly determined by ‎the inquiry-enabling technologies available to the subject. We argue that a subject’s beliefs that are ‎formed based on Internet-filtered information are less justified than they would be if she either knew how ‎filtering worked or relied on additional sources, and that the subject may have the epistemic ‎responsibility to take measures to enhance the justificatory status of such beliefs.‎. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically assess different interpretations of Bohmian mechanics that are not committed to an ontology based on the wave function being an actual physical object that inhabits configuration space. More specifically, my aim is to explore the connection between the denial of configuration space realism and another interpretive debate that is specific to Bohmian mechanics: the quantum potential versus guidance approaches. Whereas defenders of the quantum potential approach to the theory claim that Bohmian mechanics is better formulated (...) as quasi-Newtonian, via the postulation of forces proportional to acceleration; advocates of the guidance approach defend the notion that the theory is essentially first-order and incorporates some concepts akin to those of Aristotelian physics. Here I analyze whether the desideratum of an interpretation of Bohmian mechanics that is both explanatorily adequate and not committed to configuration space realism favors one of these two approaches to the theory over the other. Contrary to some recent claims in the literature, I argue that the quasi-Newtonian approach based on the idea of a quantum potential does not come out the winner. (shrink)

We investigated, experimentally, the contention that the folk view, or naïve theory, of time, amongst the population we investigated is dynamical. We found that amongst that population, ~ 70% have an extant theory of time that is more similar to a dynamical than a non-dynamical theory, and ~ 70% of those who deploy a naïve theory of time deploy a naïve theory that is more similar to a dynamical than a non-dynamical theory. Interestingly, while we found stable results across our (...) two experiments regarding the percentage of participants that have a dynamical or non-dynamical extant theory of time, we did not find such stability regarding which particular dynamical or non-dynamical theory of time they take to be most similar to our world. This suggests that there might be two extant theories in the population—a broadly dynamical one and a broadly non-dynamical one—but that those theories are sufficiently incomplete that participants do not stably choose the same dynamical theory as being most similar to our world. This suggests that while appeals to the ordinary view of time may do some work in the context of adjudicating disputes between dynamists and non-dynamists, they likely cannot do any such work adjudicating disputes between particular brands of dynamism. (shrink)

Explores the role of dance education both inside and outside the arts.

Practical reason is the general human capacity for resolving, through reflection, the question of what one is to do. Deliberation of this kind is practical in at least two senses. First, it is practical in its subject matter, insofar as it is concerned with action. But it is also practical in its consequences or its issue, insofar as reflection about action itself directly moves people to act. Our capacity for deliberative self-determination raises two sets of philosophical problems. For one thing, (...) there are questions about how deliberation can succeed in being practical in its issue. What do we need to assume—both about agents and about the processes of reasoning they engage in—to make sense of the fact that deliberative reflection can directly give rise to action? Can we do justice to this dimension of practical reason while preserving the idea that practical deliberation is genuinely a form of reasoning? For another, there are large issues concerning the content of the standards that are brought to bear in practical reasoning. Which norms for the assessment of action are binding on us as deliberating agents? Do these norms provide resources for critical reflection about our ends, or are they exclusively instrumental? Under what conditions do moral norms yield valid standards for reasoning about action? The first set of issues is addressed in sections §§1–3 of the present article, while sections §§4–6 cover the second set of issues. (shrink)

Empirical work has lately confirmed what many philosophers have taken to be true: people are ‘biased toward the future’. All else being equal, we usually prefer to have positive experiences in the future, and negative experiences in the past. According to one hypothesis, the temporal metaphysics hypothesis, future-bias is explained either by our beliefs about temporal metaphysics—the temporal belief hypothesis—or alternatively by our temporal phenomenology—the temporal phenomenology hypothesis. We empirically investigate a particular version of the temporal belief hypothesis according to (...) which future-bias is explained by the belief that time robustly passes. Our results do not match the apparent predictions of this hypothesis, and so provide evidence against it. But we also find that people give more future-biased responses when asked to simulate a belief in robust passage. We take this to suggest that the phenomenology that attends simulation of that belief may be partially responsible for future-bias, and we examine the implications of these results for debates about the rationality of future-bias. (shrink)

Gerade weil das Bestehen auf Rangordnungen in der heutigen Gesellschaft anstößig und fremd wirkt, ist es lohnenswert, sich ihnen mit Nietzsche neu zu stellen, der sie als sein Problem bezeichnete. Er richtet sie gezielt gegen die Gleichheit, von der er befürchtet, ihr Anspruch auf Universalität verunmögliche Individualität, Anders-Sein und damit auch alle Größe. Den moralischen Wert der Gleichheit kritisieren heißt nicht, sich von demokratischen Grundprinzipien oder Errungenschaften zu verabschieden. Geklärte Rangverhältnisse reduzieren Komplexität, vereinfachen die Kommunikation, machen Verhalten erwartbar und vereinfachen (...) so die Orientierung. So könnte gerade in den modernen Ausprägungen der Demokratie ein offenerer Umgang mit Rangordnungen zu ihrer Stärkung beitragen. Die Nietzsche-Forschung hat eine Beschäftigung mit dem Begriff bisher weitgehend vermieden. Alberts schließt diese Forschungslücke. Er geht persönlichen, philologischen und philosophischen Anhaltspunkten für Nietzsches Denken nach und untersucht die Perspektiven, die dabei auf verschiedenste Lebensbereiche wie Natur, Religion, Moral, Wissenschaft und Interindividualität eröffnet werden. (shrink)

I argue that Schaffer’s recent defence of Spinozan Monism—the thesis that the cosmos is the only substance, or the only fundamental and integrated thing— fails to establish that the universe is uniquely fundamental. In addition, Schaffer’s own defence of his thesis offers the pluralist about fundamentality a model for responding to Schaffer’s criticism of pluralism.

Endurantism is not inconsistent with the theory of special relativity, or so I shall argue. Endurantism is not committed to presentism, and thus not committed to a metaphysics that is at least prima facie inconsistent with special relativity. Nor is special relativity inconsistent with the idea that objects are wholly present at a time just if all of their parts co-exist at that time. For the endurantist notion of co-existence in terms of which “wholly present” is defined, is not, I (...) will argue, a notion according to which co-existence is transitive. Although an absence of absolute simultaneity presents some problems for the endurantist claim that objects are wholly present whenever they exist, there are a number of ways that the endurantist can respond to this difficulty. Thus, I conclude, considerations pertaining to the theory of special relativity certainly do not rule out endurantism as a metaphysics of persistence. (shrink)

Very roughly, the epistemic objection to the growing block theory (GBT) says that according to that theory there are many past times at which persons falsely believe they are present. Since there is nothing subjectively distinguishable about a situation in which one truly believes one is present, from a situation in which one falsely believes one is present, the GBT is a theory on which we cannot know that we are present. In their articulation and defence of the GBT, Correia (...) and Rosenkranz (C&R) argue that the epistemic objection fails miserably. In what follows I try to unpack their response to the objection, and locate it amongst others. Along the way I flag some confusions I have about how we are to think about the GBT as articulated by C&R. (shrink)

Temporal dynamists argue that we should believe that there exists temporal passage because there being passage is the best explanation for the presence of our temporal phenomenology. Some non-dynamists have countered that the presence of passage makes no difference to our temporal phenomenology, and consequently that temporal phenomenology cannot be evidence that there is passage. This paper attempts to bolster this non-dynamist response by offering new arguments for the claim that the presence of passage makes no difference to our phenomenology.

The anglophone philosophy profession has a well-known problem with gender equity. A sig-nificant aspect of the problem is the fact that there are simply so many more male philoso-phers than female philosophers among students and faculty alike. The problem is at its stark-est at the faculty level, where only 22% - 24% of philosophers are female in the United States (Van Camp 2014), the United Kingdom (Beebee & Saul 2011) and Australia (Goddard 2008).<1> While this is a result of the (...) percentage of women declining at each point through-out the standard career trajectory, recent large-scale studies in the United States (Paxton et al. 2012) and Australia (Goddard et al. 2008) have identified a key drop-off point as the transi-tion between taking introductory classes and majoring in philosophy. So why do dispropor-tionately few female students choose to major in philosophy? (shrink)

In this paper I develop a version of universalism that is non-mereological. Broadly speaking, non-mereological universalism is the thesis that for any arbitrary set of objects and times, there is a persisting object which, at each of those times, will be constituted by those of the objects that exist at that time. I consider two general versions of non-mereological universalism, one which takes basic simples to be enduring objects, and the other which takes simples to be instantaneous objects. This yields (...) three versions of endurantism, of which I ultimately defend the version I call universalist endurantism. Universalist endurantism is the thesis that (i) for any arbitrary set S of instantaneous simples that exist at the same instant, there exists a fusion of the members of S, and (ii) for any arbitrary set S* of instantaneous fusions each of which exist at a different instant, there exists an enduring object O that is constituted by those fusions at those instants. Universalist endurantism is ‘non-mereological’ in that the relation that holds between instantaneous fusions and persisting objects is not the part/whole relation, but rather, is the relation of constitution, thus allowing that the persisting objects are three rather than four dimensional. I argue that universalist endurantism not only has the various benefits of mereological universalism in allowing vagueness to be explicated as semantic indeterminacy, but in addition allows the endurantist to hold that some properties are genuinely intrinsic and are exemplified simpliciter. (shrink)

What distinguishes causation from grounding? One suggestion is that causation, but not grounding, occurs over time. Recently, however, counterexamples to this simple temporal criterion have been offered. In this paper, we situate the temporal criterion within a broader framework that focuses on two aspects: locational overlapping in space and time and the presence of intermediaries in space and time. We consider, and reject, the idea that the difference between grounding and causation is that grounding can occur without intermediaries. We go (...) on to use the fact that grounding and causation both involve intermediaries to develop a better temporal criterion for distinguishing causation from grounding. The criterion is this: when a cause and effect are spatially disjoint, there is always a chain of causal intermediaries between the cause and the effect that are extended in time. By contrast, when the grounds and the grounded are spatially disjoint, there is always a chain of grounding intermediaries, but the chain need not be extended in time, it can be purely spatial. The difference between grounding and causation, then, is that causation requires time for chaining in a way that grounding does not. (shrink)

Amie Thomasson’s Easy Ontology program is influential and attractive, but faces criticism for being too easy in a way that undercuts its realism by failing to recognize objects which don’t fall under known kinds and generating spurious and duplicative objects by mere conceptual engineering. We suggest that restricting the Easy Ontology program to artifacts avoids these difficulties. We also propose an Easy Ontology-inspired analysis of artifact which cuts through the major extant objections to existing analyses. As Thomasson suggests, our special (...) authorial role with regard to artifacts grants us privileged knowledge of them, which both disarms objections to Easy Ontology and allows a very easy ontology for artifacts. Easy Ontology and artifacts are made for each other. (shrink)

The entry provides an overview of the type-token distinction, including a comparison to other nearby distinctions.

Philosophers have recently argued, against a prevailing orthodoxy, that standards of knowledge partly depend on a subject’s interests; the more is at stake for the subject, the less she is in a position to know. This view, which is dubbed “Pragmatic Encroachment” has historical and conceptual connections to arguments in philosophy of science against the received model of science as value free. I bring the two debates together. I argue that Pragmatic Encroachment and the model of value-laden science reinforce each (...) other. Drawing on Douglas’ argument about the indispensability of value judgments in science, and psychological evidence about people’s inability to objectively reason about what they care about, I introduce a novel argument for Pragmatic Encroachment. (shrink)

Recent work in personal identity has emphasized the importance of various conventions, or ‘person-directed practices’ in the determination of personal identity. An interesting question arises as to whether we should think that there are any entities that have, in some interesting sense, conventional identity conditions. We think that the best way to understand such work about practices and conventions is the strongest and most radical. If these considerations are correct, persons are, on our view, conventional constructs: they are in part (...) constituted by certain conventions. A person exists only if the relevant conventions exist. A person will be a conscious being of a certain kind combined with a set of conventions. Some of those conventions are encoded in the being itself, so requiring the conventions to exist is requiring the conscious being to be organized in a particular way. In most cases the conventions in question are settled. There is no dispute about what the conventions are, and thus no dispute about which events a person can survive. These are cases where we take the conventions so much for granted, that it is easy to forget that they are there, and that they are necessary constituents of persons. Sometimes though, conventions are not settled. Sometimes there is a dispute about what the conventions should be, and thus a dispute about what events a person can survive. These are the traditional puzzle cases of personal identity. That it appears that conventions play a part in determining persons’ persistence conditions only in these puzzle cases is explained by the fact that only in these cases are the conventions unsettled. Settled or not though, conventions are necessary constituents of persons. (shrink)

People are ‘biased toward the future’: all else being equal, we typically prefer to have positive experiences in the future, and negative experiences in the past. Several explanations have been suggested for this pattern of preferences. Adjudicating among these explanations can, among other things, shed light on the rationality of future-bias: For instance, if our preferences are explained by unjustified beliefs or an illusory phenomenology, we might conclude that they are irrational. This paper investigates one hypothesis, according to which future-bias (...) is explained by our having a phenomenology that we describe, or conceive of, as being as of time robustly passing. We empirically tested this hypothesis and found no evidence in its favour. Our results present a puzzle, however, when compared with the results of an earlier study. We conclude that although robust passage phenomenology on its own probably does not explain future-bias, having this phenomenology and taking it to be veridical may contribute to future-bias. (shrink)

In a recent issue of Philosophy East and West Douglas Berger defends a new reading of Mūlamadhyamakakārikā XXIV : 18, arguing that most contemporary translators mistranslate the important term prajñaptir upādāya, misreading it as a compound indicating "dependent designation" or something of the sort, instead of taking it simply to mean "this notion, once acquired." He attributes this alleged error, pervasive in modern scholarship, to Candrakīrti, who, Berger correctly notes, argues for the interpretation he rejects.Berger's analysis, and the reading of (...) the text he suggests is grounded on that analysis, is insightful and fascinating, and certainly generates an understanding of Nāgārjuna's enterprise that is welcome .. (shrink)

Debates over the reality of race often rely on arguments about the connection between race and science—those who deny that race is real argue that there is no significant support from science for our ordinary race concepts; those who affirm that race is real argue that our ordinary race concepts are supported by scientific findings. However, there is arguably a more fundamental concern here: How should we define race concepts in the first place? The reason I claim that this definitional (...) question is more fundamental is that our handling of the underlying definitional problem often determines the scientific support our ordinary race concepts need, and importantly the likelihood of finding such support. In short, the defini- tional question, “How do we define race?” often undercuts the question of whether race is scientifically meaningful. (shrink)

Sayre finds deep connections between collection and division, the two kinds of measure distinguished in the Statesman, the conceptions of Limit and Unlimited in the Philebus, and the Dyad that Aristotle reports was a key principle in the "unwritten teachings." The Stranger's dialectical account of statesmanship practices due measure; by "cutting down the middle," the Stranger shows how Forms — understood as Limits as, in turn, "numbers in the sense of measures" — "mark off a middle ground between [the] extremes (...) [implied by] the Unlimited" and, thus, preserve the mean. I suggest a number of critical reconfigurations of these seminal insights. (shrink)

The field of value alignment, or more broadly machine ethics, is becoming increasingly important as artificial intelligence developments accelerate. By ‘alignment’ we mean giving a generally intelligent software system the capability to act in ways that are beneficial, or at least minimally harmful, to humans. There are a large number of techniques that are being experimented with, but this work often fails to specify what values exactly we should be aligning. When making a decision, an agent is supposed to maximize (...) the expected utility of its value function. Classically, this has been referred to as happiness, but this is just one of many things that people value. -/- In order to resolve this issue, we need to determine a set of human values that represent humanity's interests. Although this problem might seem intractable, research shows that people of various cultures and religions actually share more in common than they realize. In this book we review world religions, moral philosophy and evolutionary psychology to elucidate a common set of shared values. We then show how these values can be used to address the alignment problem and conclude with problems and goals for future research. -/- The key audience for this book will be researchers in the field of ethics and artificial intelligence who are interested in, or working on this problem. These people will come from various professions and include philosophers, computer programmers and psychologists, as the problem itself is multi-disciplinary. (shrink)

While recently hyped as a defense against AI plagiarism, oral exams have fallen out of favor in American philosophy departments. They are often perceived as part of an antiquated system where the day-to-day coursework is sharply distinguished from a 100% weighted final exam, with a more oppositional than collaborative student-professor relationship. Such examinations do not lend themselves to blind grading, and also reinforce the existing privilege of students who are confident, fast-spoken, and know what to study. This kind of oral (...) examination is clearly at odds with the contemporary transparent and collaborative process embodied in techniques like specifications grading, with its proven benefits for novice philosophy students in introductory-level courses. I want to defend a rather different role for oral exams. Novice philosophy students need rapid feedback in order to know whether they have correctly understood the expectations embodied in syllabi and rubrics. Six best practices are offered for achieving this goal while minimizing drawbacks. (shrink)

This article offers comprehensive criticism of the Turing test and develops quality criteria for new artificial general intelligence (AGI) assessment tests. It is shown that the prerequisites A. Turing drew upon when reducing personality and human consciousness to “suitable branches of thought” re-flected the engineering level of his time. In fact, the Turing “imitation game” employed only symbolic communication and ignored the physical world. This paper suggests that by restricting thinking ability to symbolic systems alone Turing unknowingly constructed “the wall” (...) that excludes any possi-bility of transition from a complex observable phenomenon to an abstract image or concept. It is, therefore, sensible to factor in new requirements for AI (artificial intelligence) maturity assessment when approaching the Tu-ring test. Such AI must support all forms of communication with a human being, and it should be able to comprehend abstract images and specify con-cepts as well as participate in social practices. (shrink)

This article outlines the debate between realists and nominalists concerning linguistic kinds or types. It also discusses the questions of how many linguistic kinds should we be committed to (if any), and whether the distinction between kinds of linguistic objects, and kinds of linguistic properties.

ABSTRACT: Abstract Most modern knowledge is not science. The physical sciences have successfully validated theories to infer they can be used universally to predict in previously unexperienced circumstances. According to the conventional conception of science such inferences are falsified by a single irregular outcome. And verification is by the scientific method which requires strict regularity of outcome and establishes cause and effect. -/- Medicine, medical research and many “soft” sciences are concerned with individual people in complex heterogeneous populations. These populations (...) cannot be tested to demonstrate strict regularity of outcome in every individual. Neither randomised controlled trials nor observational studies in medicine are science in the conventional conception. Establishing and using medical and other “soft science” theories cannot be scientific. It requires conceptually different means: requiring expert judgement applying all available evidence in the relevant available factual matrix. -/- The practice of medicine is observational. Prediction of outcomes for the individual requires professional expertise applying available medical knowledge and evidence. Expertise in any profession can only be acquired through experience. Prior cases are the fundament of knowledge and expertise in medicine. Case histories, studies and series can provide knowledge of extremely high reliability applicable to establishing reliable general theories and falsifying others. Their collation, study and analysis should be a priority in medicine. Their devaluation as evidence, the failure to apply their lessons, the devaluation of expert professional judgement and the attempt to emulate the scientific method are all historic errors in the theory and practice of modern medicine. (shrink)

In this paper I examine parallels between C.S. Peirce's most mature account of signs and contemporary philosophy of language. I do this by first introducing a summary of Peirce's final account of Signs. I then use that account of signs to reconstruct Peircian answers to two puzzles of reference: The Problem of Cognitive Significance, or Frege's Puzzle; and The Same-Saying Phenomenon for Indexicals. Finally, a comparison of these Peircian answers with both Fregean and Direct Referentialist approaches to the puzzles highlights (...) interesting parallels and important differences between Peirce's final account of signs, and the concepts used in analytic philosophy of language. (shrink)

Although the index is one of the best known features of Peirce's theory of signs there is little appreciation of Peirce's theory of the index amongst contemporary philosophers of language. Amongst Peirce scholars, the value placed on Peirce's account is greater, but is largely based on Thomas Goudge's paper, "Peirce's Index" (Goudge, 1965). Despite marking a crucial milestone in our comprehension of Peirce's theory, our understanding of indices and indexical reference has grown markedly over the last forty years. Time has (...) now come, then, to develop the work that Goudge began and to provide a full analysis of Peirce's account that makes its value to the philosophy of language clear. I undertake this enterprise here. (shrink)

The aim of this dissertation is to offer and defend a correspondence theory of truth. I begin by critically examining the coherence, pragmatic, simple, redundancy, disquotational, minimal, and prosentential theories of truth. Special attention is paid to several versions of disquotationalism, whose plausibility has led to its fairly constant support since the pioneering work of Alfred Tarski, through that by W. V. Quine, and recently in the work of Paul Horwich. I argue that none of these theories meets the correspondence (...) intuition---that a true sentence or proposition in some way corresponds to reality---despite the explicit claims by each to capture this intuition. I distinguish six versions of the correspondence theory, and defend two against traditional objections, standardly taken as decisive against them, and show, plainly, that these two theories capture the correspondence intuition. Due to the importance of meeting this intuition, only these two theories stands a chance of being a satisfactory theory of truth. I argue that the version of the correspondence theory incorporating a simple semantic representation relation is preferable to its rival, for which the representation relation is complex. I present and argue for a novel version of this correspondence theory according to which truth is a correspondence property sensitive to semantic context. One consequence of this context-sensitivity is that an ungrounded sentence does not express a proposition. In addition to accounting for the similarity between the Liar and Truth-Teller sentences, this theory of truth is immune to the Liar Paradox, including empirical versions. It is argued that the Liar Paradox is devastating to all of the other theories above, and even formal theories of truth designed to solve it, such as the revision and vagueness theories. Customized versions of the Liar Paradox besetting this theory are handled by its context-sensitivity, and by enforcing the distinction between truth and truth value. This same pair of considerations also yields solutions to Lob's Paradox and Grelling's Paradox. Arguments similar to those given to defend this correspondence theory show that with one minor alteration, Kripke's fixed point theory may be used to model this correspondence notion of truth. (shrink)

One feature of language is that we are able to make mistakes in our use of language. Amongst other sorts of mistakes, we can misspeak, misspell, missign, or misunderstand. Given this, it seems that our metaphysics of words should be flexible enough to accommodate such mistakes. It has been argued that a nominalist account of words cannot accommodate the phenomenon of misspelling. I sketch a nominalist trope-bundle view of words that can.