The way we answer questions about what there is crucially depends on the language and the logic in which they are framed. This entry introduces the orthodox view on how to carry out such debates, as was formulated by W. V. O. Quine, as well as a number of influential alternatives. A further issue that is explored is whether disagreement about what there is turns on mind-independent features of reality, or it is an artifact of language.

Philosophers have rightly condemned lookism—that is, discrimination in favor of attractive people or against unattractive people—in education, the justice system, the workplace and elsewhere. Surprisingly, however, the almost universal preference for attractive romantic and sexual partners has rarely received serious ethical scrutiny. On its face, it’s unclear whether this is a form of discrimination we should reject or tolerate. I consider arguments for both views. On the one hand, a strong case can be made that preferring attractive partners is bad. (...) The idea is that choosing partners based on looks seems essentially similar to other objectionable forms of discrimination. (In particular, the preference for attractive partners is arguably both unfair and harmful to a significant degree.) One can try to resist this conclusion in several ways. I consider three possible replies. The first has to do with the possibility of controlling our partner preferences. The second pertains to attractiveness and “good genes”. The last attempts to link certain aspects of attractiveness to a prospective partner’s personality and values. I argue that the first two replies fail conclusively, while the third only amounts to a limited defense of a particular kind of attractiveness preference. So the idea that we should often avoid preferring attractive partners is compelling. (shrink)

The field of AI safety aims to prevent increasingly capable artificially intelligent systems from causing humans harm. Research on moral alignment is widely thought to offer a promising safety strategy: if we can equip AI systems with appropriate ethical rules, according to this line of thought, they'll be unlikely to disempower, destroy or otherwise seriously harm us. Deontological morality looks like a particularly attractive candidate for an alignment target, given its popularity, relative technical tractability and commitment to harm-avoidance principles. I (...) argue that the connection between moral alignment and safe behavior is more tenuous than many have hoped. In general, AI systems can possess either of these properties in the absence of the other, and we should favor safety when the two conflict. In particular, advanced AI systems governed by standard versions of deontology need not be especially safe. (shrink)

We discuss potential biorisks from large language models (LLMs). AI assistants based on LLMs such as ChatGPT have been shown to significantly reduce barriers to entry for actors wishing to synthesize dangerous, potentially novel pathogens and chemical weapons. The harms from deploying such bioagents could be further magnified by AI-assisted misinformation. We endorse several policy responses to these dangers, including prerelease evaluations of biomedical AIs by subject-matter experts, enhanced surveillance and lab screening procedures, restrictions on AI training data, and access (...) controls on biomedical AI. We conclude with a suggestion about future research directions in bioethics. (shrink)

According to a widespread view in metaphysics and philosophy of science, all explanations involve relations of ontic dependence between the items appearing in the explanandum and the items appearing in the explanans. I argue that a family of mathematical cases, which I call “viewing-as explanations”, are incompatible with the Dependence Thesis. These cases, I claim, feature genuine explanations that aren’t supported by ontic dependence relations. Hence the thesis isn’t true in general. The first part of the paper defends this claim (...) and discusses its significance. The second part of the paper considers whether viewing-as explanations occur in the empirical sciences, focusing on the case of so-called fictional models. It’s sometimes suggested that fictional models can be explanatory even though they fail to represent actual worldly dependence relations. Whether or not such models explain, I suggest, depends on whether we think scientific explanations necessarily give information relevant to intervention and control. Finally, I argue that counterfactual approaches to explanation also have trouble accommodating viewing-as cases. (shrink)

The problem of truth in fiction concerns how to tell whether a given proposition is true in a given fiction. Thus far, the nearly universal consensus has been that some propositions are ‘implicitly true’ in some fictions: such propositions are not expressed by any explicit statements in the relevant work, but are nevertheless held to be true in those works on the basis of some other set of criteria. I call this family of views ‘implicitism’. I argue that implicitism faces (...) serious problems, whereas the opposite view is much more plausible than has previously been thought. After mounting a limited defence of explicitism, I explore a difficult problem for the view and discuss some possible responses. (shrink)

Mathematicians often describe the importance of well-developed intuition to productive research and successful learning. But neither education researchers nor philosophers interested in epistemic dimensions of mathematical practice have yet given the topic the sustained attention it deserves. The trouble is partly that intuition in the relevant sense lacks a usefully clear characterization, so we begin by offering one: mature intuition, we say, is the capacity for fast, fluent, reliable and insightful inference with respect to some subject matter. We illustrate the (...) role of mature intuition in mathematical practice with an assortment of examples, including data from a sequence of clinical interviews in which a student improves upon initially misleading covariational intuitions. Finally, we show how the study of intuition can yield insights for philosophers and education theorists. First, it contributes to a longstanding debate in epistemology by undermining epistemicism, the view that an agent’s degree of objectual understanding is determined exclusively by their knowledge, beliefs and credences. We argue on the contrary that intuition can contribute directly and independently to understanding. Second, we identify potential pedagogical avenues towards the development of mature intuition, highlighting strategies including adding imagery, developing associations, establishing confidence and generalizing concepts. (shrink)

Philosophers of science since Nagel have been interested in the links between intertheoretic reduction and explanation, understanding and other forms of epistemic progress. Although intertheoretic reduction is widely agreed to occur in pure mathematics as well as empirical science, the relationship between reduction and explanation in the mathematical setting has rarely been investigated in a similarly serious way. This paper examines an important particular case: the reduction of arithmetic to set theory. I claim that the reduction is unexplanatory. In defense (...) of this claim, I offer evidence from mathematical practice, and I respond to contrary suggestions due to Steinhart, Maddy, Kitcher and Quine. I then show how, even if set-theoretic reductions are generally not explanatory, set theory can nevertheless serve as a legitimate foundation for mathematics. Finally, some implications of my thesis for philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science are discussed. In particular, I suggest that some reductions in mathematics are probably explanatory, and I propose that differing standards of theory acceptance might account for the apparent lack of unexplanatory reductions in the empirical sciences. (shrink)

Mathematicians distinguish between proofs that explain their results and those that merely prove. This paper explores the nature of explanatory proofs, their role in mathematical practice, and some of the reasons why philosophers should care about them. Among the questions addressed are the following: what kinds of proofs are generally explanatory (or not)? What makes a proof explanatory? Do all mathematical explanations involve proof in an essential way? Are there really such things as explanatory proofs, and if so, how do (...) they relate to the sorts of explanation encountered in philosophy of science and metaphysics? (shrink)

We defend a noetic account of intramathematical explanation. On this view, a piece of mathematics is explanatory just in case it produces understanding of an appropriate type. We motivate the view by presenting some appealing features of noeticism. We then discuss and criticize the most prominent extant version of noeticism, due to Inglis and Mejía Ramos, which identifies explanatory understanding with the possession of well-organized cognitive schemas. Finally, we present a novel noetic account. On our view, explanatory understanding arises from (...) meeting specific explanatory objectives. We defend a cluster-concept account of explanatory objectives and identify four important subfamilies within the relevant network of resemblance relations. The resulting view is objectivist (in the sense that it takes explanatory success to be a matter of observer-independent fact), broader in scope than why-question-based accounts, compatible with empirical findings on experts’ explanatory judgments, and capable of generalizing (with appropriate provisos) to scientific explanation as a whole. It thus fulfills Friedman’s half-century-old demand for a general and objectivist theory which accounts for the link between explanation and understanding. (shrink)

In this paper, I try to expatiate on the poetic function of language on the basis of considerations by Jakobson and Waugh. I try to bring in the consideration that pragmatics plays an important role in elucidating the poetic function of language. Contextualism allows us to interpret a poem: referents must be fixed or need not be fixed due to the requirements of the discourse; citations are brought in through pragmatic ways; polyphony is achieved by taking into account the context (...) of previous analyses of a poetic text; the vicinity of a certain word, or concept or line is likely to affect the interpretation of a certain expression; the poetic text can take different forms, from graffiti to discourse at the market place, to discourse between lovers. All these forms of poetic text would not exist if the notion of poetry did not include the idea of semantic/pragmatic compression which is matched, in interpretation, by expansions. (shrink)

Gauss’s quadratic reciprocity theorem is among the most important results in the history of number theory. It’s also among the most mysterious: since its discovery in the late 18th century, mathematicians have regarded reciprocity as a deeply surprising fact in need of explanation. Intriguingly, though, there’s little agreement on how the theorem is best explained. Two quite different kinds of proof are most often praised as explanatory: an elementary argument that gives the theorem an intuitive geometric interpretation, due to Gauss (...) and Eisenstein, and a sophisticated proof using algebraic number theory, due to Hilbert. Philosophers have yet to look carefully at such explanatory disagreements in mathematics. I do so here. According to the view I defend, there are two important explanatory virtues—depth and transparency—which different proofs (and other potential explanations) possess to different degrees. Although not mutually exclusive in principle, the packages of features associated with the two stand in some tension with one another, so that very deep explanations are rarely transparent, and vice versa. After developing the theory of depth and transparency and applying it to the case of quadratic reciprocity, I draw some morals about the nature of mathematical explanation. (shrink)

pronominal clitics, pragmatics and propositional attitudes.

This article explores the role of habits in shapingaesthetic normativity. It asserts that standards of value within aesthetic agency are not immutable, objective criteriadetached from personal engagement in appreciationand creation, nor should they be reduced to mere individualsubjective pleasure. The former stance fails to consider theessential expressivity and creativity at the heart of aestheticpractices, while the latter overlooks the normative frameworkthat underpins the significance, validity, and qualityof aesthetic agency. This framework is represented in theestablished rules of taste, the need for (...) aesthetic education,and the dynamics of aesthetic disagreements. Consequently, effective aesthetic normativity requires abalance: practices must be organized structurally aroundvalues that are, to a certain degree, communally shared, yetflexible enough to incorporate the expressive creativity ofindividual appreciation. This article contributes a nuancedexplanation of aesthetic normativity by elucidating the impactof habits on aesthetic practices. (shrink)

Explicatures are not cancellable. Theoretical considerations.

I propose some rules that regiment substitutions of NPs.

Abstract -/- In this paper, I shall deal with quasi-(proper) names, that is expressions like ‘Mum’, ‘Dad’, ‘Grandpa’, ‘Grandma’ in English or ‘Papà’, ‘Mamma’, ‘Nonna’, ‘Nonno’ in Italian. I shall use examples both from English and Italian. Quasi-names are directly referential like proper names, even if they apparently exhibit some conceptual materials, which, however, are not active and are inert. They can be used as vocatives or as arguments of verbs. I called terms like ‘Mum’, ‘Dad’ ‘quasi-names’ because they have (...) certain characteristics of names (but they could also be called ‘indexical names’). They confer significance to an individual. Quasi-names are indexical, although the word ‘I’ does not appear in the proposition expressed. (shrink)

Analysis of Barack Obama's rhetorical strategies.

The experience of Costa Rica highlights the potential for conflicts between the right to health and fair priority setting. For example, one study found that most favorable rulings by the Costa Rican constitutional court concerning claims for medications under the right to health were either for experimental treatments or for medicines that should have low priority based on health gain per unit of expenditure and severity of disease. In order to better align rulings with priority setting criteria, in 2014, the (...) court initiated a reform in its assessment of claims for medicine. This paper assesses this reform’s impact on the fairness of resource allocation. It finds three effects. First, a reduction in successful claims for experimental medication, which is beneficial. Second, an increase in the success rate of medication lawsuits, which is detrimental because most claims are for extremely cost-ineffective medications. Third, a decline in the number of claims for medicine, which is beneficial because it forestalls such low-priority spending. This paper estimates that, taking all three effects into account, the reform has had a modest net positive impact on overall resource allocation. However, it also argues that there is a need for further reforms to lower the number of claims to low-priority medicines that are granted. (shrink)

Until recently, an almost perfect parallelism seemed to hold between theories of identity through time and across possible worlds,as every account in the temporal case(endurantism,perdurantism, exdurantism) was mirrored by a twin account in the modal case (trans-world identity, identity-via-parts, identity-via-counterparts). Nevertheless, in the recent literature, this parallelism has been broken because of the implementation in the debate of the relation of location. In particular, endurantism has been subject to a more in-depth analysis, and different versions of it, corresponding to different (...) ways an entity can be located in time, emerged. In this article, we provide a precise map of the conceptions at stake, complete the debate by introducing a version of endurantism not yet considered in the debate — we call transcendentism — and show that it allows us to provide an effective interpretation of the relation of trans-world identity and an intuitive solution in the temporal case. (shrink)

In this paper, we take up an old issue that of pragmemes, broached by Mey and further explored by Capone. It is not easy to define pragmemes and distinguish them sufficiently from speech acts (units of language use broached by Austin and Searle) or from Wittgensteinian language games or from macro speech acts (see van Dijk on macrostructures) or from Goffman’s scripts. The best idea we could develop about pragmemes is that they instantiate the triple articulation of language, proposed by (...) Jock Wong; being essentially composed of phonological-syntactic units, that have a certain content relative to a social situation and to a certain culture, pragmemes express a certain function (or illocutionary force), like, e.g., modifying society or some aspect of it. They are part of a chapter that can be called either “societal pragmatics” or “emancipatory pragmatics,” to use the words by Mey. In fact, knowledge of how language is used to diminish the rights of people and to propagate the “status quo” may be instrumental to give rights and power to ordinary human beings who are oppressed by political and economical structures. -/- . (shrink)

It is often assumed that habits and aesthetic experiences are fundamentally and irreconcilably opposed. Typically, aesthetic experiences are considered to necessitate non-habitual behavior and to provoke unexpected mental states and extraordinary affective sensations. This article challenges this assumption. Moving beyond potential structural analogies between habitual behavior and aesthetic experience, I focus on two key aspects. Firstly, I argue that the experience of beauty and aesthetic experiences in general actually depend on certain habits, specifically those engaged in aesthetic agency and appreciation, (...) which I term «aesthetic habits». Secondly, I propose that habits have an aesthetic origin, as they virtuously evolve and adapt to their environment. This transformative capacity, along with their ability to resonate with specific situational demands, embodies an improvisational quality that should be encouraged, reflecting the inherently unpredictable and uncontrollable nature of aesthetic experience. (shrink)

In the last few decades the role played by models and modeling activities has become a central topic in the scientific enterprise. In particular, it has been highlighted both that the development of models constitutes a crucial step for understanding the world and that the developed models operate as mediators between theories and the world. Such perspective is exploited here to cope with the issue as to whether error-based and uncertainty-based modeling of measurement are incompatible, and thus alternative with one (...) another, as sometimes claimed nowadays. The crucial problem is whether assuming this standpoint implies definitely renouncing to maintain a role for truth and the related concepts, particularly accuracy, in measurement. It is argued here that the well known objections against true values in measurement, which would lead to refuse the concept of accuracy as non-operational, or to maintain it as only qualitative, derive from a not clear distinction between three distinct processes: the metrological characterization of measuring systems, their calibration, and finally measurement. Under the hypotheses that (1) the concept of true value is related to the model of a measurement process, (2) the concept of uncertainty is related to the connection between such model and the world, and (3) accuracy is a property of measuring systems (and not of measurement results) and uncertainty is a property of measurement results (and not of measuring systems), not only the compatibility but actually the conjoint need of error-based and uncertainty-based modeling emerges. (shrink)

attributive/referential. Pragmatic intrusion.

Relationship between default semantics and modularity of mind (in particular mind reading through the principle of Relevance).

In the present paper we propose a system of propositional logic for reasoning about justification, truthmaking, and the connection between justifiers and truthmakers. The logic of justification and truthmaking is developed according to the fundamental ideas introduced by Artemov. Justifiers and truthmakers are treated in a similar way, exploiting the intuition that justifiers provide epistemic grounds for propositions to be considered true, while truthmakers provide ontological grounds for propositions to be true. This system of logic is then applied both for (...) interpreting the notorious definition of knowledge as justified true belief and for advancing a new solution to Gettier counterexamples to this standard definition. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to introduce a system of dynamic deontic logic in which the main problems related to the de finition of deontic concepts, especially those emerging from a standard analysis of permission in terms of possibility of doing an action without incurring in a violation of the law, are solved. The basic idea is to introduce two crucial distinctions allowing us to differentiate (i) what is ideal with respect to a given code, which fixes the types (...) of action that are abstractly prescribed, and what is ideal with respect to the specific situation in which the agent acts, and (ii) the transitions associated with actions and the results of actions, which can obtain even without the action being performed. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore Bach’s idea (Bach, 2000) that null appositives, intended as expanded qua-clauses, can resolve the puzzles of belief reports. These puzzles are crucial in understanding the semantics and pragmatics of belief reports and are presented in a section. I propose that Bach’s strategy is not only a way of dealing with puzzles, but also an ideal way of dealing with belief reports. I argue that even simple unproblematic cases of belief reports are cases of pragmatic intrusion, (...) involving null appositives, or to use the words of Bach, ‘qua-clauses’. The main difference between my pragmatic approach and the one by Salmon (1986) is that this author uses the notion of conversational implicature, whereas I use the notion of pragmatic intrusion and explicature. From my point of view, statements such as ‘‘John believes that Cicero is clever’’ and ‘‘John believes that Tully is clever’’ have got distinct truth-values. In other words, I claim that belief reports in the default case illuminate the hearer on the mental life of the believer, that includes specific modes of presentation of the referents talked about. Furthermore, while in the other pragmatic approaches, it is mysterious how a mode of presentation is assumed to be the main filter of the believer’s mental life, here I provide an explanatory account in terms of relevance, cognitive effects, and processing efforts. The most important part of the paper is devoted to showing that null appositives are required, in the case of belief reports, to explain certain anaphoric effects, which would otherwise be mysterious. My examples show that null appositives are not necessitated at logical form, but only at the level of the explicature, in line with the standard assumptions by Carston and Recanati on pragmatic intrusion. I develop a potentially useful analysis of belief reports by exploiting syntactic and semantic considerations on presuppositional clitics in Romance. (shrink)

The expressive nature of musical improvisation is dissected, navigatingbetween two predominant theses: The Transparency Thesis (1) which proposes thatexpressiveness in improvisation transparently reflects the musician’s subjectiveaffectivity, and the Objective-Generic Expressiveness Thesis (2) asserting that ithinges only on the musicpractice’s objective components. This article challenges boththeses, arguing against (1) by emphasizing that musical expressivity transcends a merenatural outburst, and counteracting (2) by highlighting that it is not merely anenactment of objective expressive topoi. Introducing a novel perspective through theconceptual pair of (social) (...) Habitusand (individual) habit, a third stance is defended:the specific expressiveness in improvised music is significantly impacted by itsimprovisational quality, whereby the expressiveness emerges from the manipulationand transformation of an expressive Habitus within the musical performance’scontingent situation. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide an intuitive semantics for systems of justification logic which allows us to cope with the distinction between implicit and explicit justifiers. The paper is subdivided into three sections. In the first one, the distinction between implicit and explicit justifiers is presented and connected with a proof-theoretic distinction between two ways of interpreting sequences of sentences; that is, as sequences of axioms in a certain set and as sequences proofs constructed from that set (...) of axioms. In the second section, a basic system of justification logic for implicit and explicit justifiers is analyzed and some significant facts about it are proved. In the final section, an adequate semantics is proposed, and the system is proved to be sound and complete whit respect to it. (shrink)

This chapter argues that quantum indeterminacy can be construed as a merely derivative phenomenon. The possibility of merely derivative quantum indeterminacy undermines both a recent argument against quantum indeterminacy due to David Glick, and an argument against the possibility of merely derivative indeterminacy due to Elizabeth Barnes.

The logic of justification provides an in-depth analysis of the epistemic states of an agent. This paper aims at solving some of the problems to which the common interpretation of the operators of justification logic is subject by providing a framework in which a crucial distinction between potential and explicit justifiers is exploited. The paper is subdivided into three sections. The first section offers an introduction to a basic system LJ of justification logic and to the problems concerning its interpretation. (...) In the second section, three new systems of justification logic are introduced and characterised with respect to an appropriate semantics. The final section shows why the highlighted problems do not afflict the new systems and how it is possible to interpret LJ in the new framework. (shrink)

Fitch's Paradox and the Paradox of the Knower both make use of the Factivity Principle. The latter also makes use of a second principle, namely the Knowledge-of-Factivity Principle. Both the principle of factivity and the knowledge thereof have been the subject of various discussions, often in conjunction with a third principle known as Closure. In this paper, we examine the well-known Surprise Examination paradox considering both the principles on which this paradox rests and some formal characterisations of the surprise notion, (...) crucial in this paradox. Standard formalizations of the Surprise Examination paradox in modal logic do not seem, at first glance, to depend on either factivity or knowledge-of-factivity, but we will argue that both factivity and knowledge-of-factivity play a key implicit role in the paradox. Namely, they are implicitly, perhaps unintentionally, used in order to simplify the definition of surprise. We analyze modal logical formalizations of three versions of the paradox concluding that the Surprise Examination paradox is the result of two flaws: the assumption of knowledge-of-factivity, and the over-simplification of the definition of "surprise" accordingly. By fixing these two flaws, the Surprise Examination paradox vanishes. (shrink)

The paper is an introduction to the third issue of the Journal for the Philosophy of Language, Mind and the Arts. The authors give an account of the theories that have most enriched the study of images since the second half of the twentieth century: analytical philosophy and visual culture studies. A distinction is made between the two philosophical traditions. On the one hand, in particular within the context of analytic philosophy, images have been studied as single entities in relationship (...) with both a referent and the perceptual or interpretive abilities of an observer. On the other hand, thanks in particular to the iconographic tradition inaugurated by Aby Warburg, images have been analyzed in their multiplicity, in their mutual relationship, both synchronically and diachronically. (shrink)

Languages involving modalities and languages involving vagueness have each been thoroughly studied. On the other hand, virtually nothing has been said about the interaction of modality and vagueness. This paper aims to start filling that gap. Section 1 is a discussion of various possible sources of vague modality. Section 2 puts forward a model theory for a quantified language with operators for modality and vagueness. The model theory is followed by a discussion of the resulting logic. In Section 3, the (...) framework will permit us to address a puzzle raised by Elizabeth Barnes and Robert Williams. (shrink)

This paper is an example of how contextual information interacts with the interpretation of noun phrases (NPs) in discourse. When we encounter an NP escorted by the definite article or a proper name, the expectation is triggered that the speaker is referring to some referent x that the hearer can normally identify. Strawson and Russell have agreed that a referent must be associated with a definite description so that the assertion containing it can be said to be true. In the (...) case where a description does not refer to anything, the assertion is considered by Russell to be false, while Strawson says that the issue of truth or falsity does not arise. In this paper, we examine a case in which contextual information interacts with the interpretation of NPs in discourse and the hearer is not expected to identify a referent when hearing a proper name. In this case, the issue of truth or falsity does not arise, because the hearer does not identify the referent. In fact, s/he does not intend for the discourse to about a referent at all. These situations are primarily represented by sentences uttered during the course of a grammar lecture, in which the lecturer is explaining a rule of language and does not focus on external reality. The hearers are aware of this focus and do not process the NP (in general a proper name) to identify a specific referent. This discourse is of three types, which will be discussed at the end of this paper. -/- Keywords: reference; pragmeme; presupposition; fictional discourse; exemplification acts. (shrink)

This article explores the Foucauldian analysis of the linkage between temporality and politics, addressing mainly two loci of Foucault’s production: the assessment of the post-WWII ordoliberal experience in The Birth of Biopoliticsand the Iran reportage for “Corriere Della Sera”. The article emphasizes the relevance of Foucault’s assessment of ordoliberal Germany for contemporary studies on neoliberalism and inscribes Foucault in a wider tradition of thought on the relevance of history and temporality for the comprehension of political dynamics. In TBoB, Foucault offered (...) a prescient analysis of neoliberal temporality and its de-politicizing effects. In his view, ordoliberal theorists and politicians sought to ground political legitimacy in the economy itself, giving birth to a political-economic “double circuit” which did away with history and made political consensus “permanent” and automatic. The connection between neoliberalism, the re-structuring of state sovereignty, and temporality will be highlighted. Furthermore, by analyzingthe almost-coeval Iranian reportages and the eulogy for Clavel, the article further investigates Fou-cault’s reflection on the link between temporality, politics,and subjectivation processes. If the anal-ysis of ordoliberal temporality in TBoB describes a linkage between de-temporalization and de-politicization, the reportages will be highlighted as a possible “pars construens” –as a way to reinstate the possibility of political action through the appeal to different ways to experience tem-porality. The article concludes that Foucault’s sparse comments on temporality can be read as an attempt, albeit not fully developed, not only to envision the de-politicizing effects of marketization but also to envisage new, re-politicizing modes of experiencing temporality and history. (shrink)

The purpose of the present paper is to provide a way of understanding systems of logic of essence by introducing a new semantic framework for them. Three central results are achieved: first, the now standard Fitting semantics for the propositional logic of evidence is adapted in order to provide a new, simplified semantics for the propositional logic of essence; secondly, we show how it is possible to construe the concept of necessary truth explicitly by using the concept of essential truth; (...) finally, Fitting semantics is adapted in order to present a simplified semantics for the quantified logic of essence. (shrink)

Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) has drawn attention to the technology’s transformative potential, including what some see as its prospects for causing large-scale harm. We review two influential arguments purporting to show how AI could pose catastrophic risks. The first argument — the Problem of Power-Seeking — claims that, under certain assumptions, advanced AI systems are likely to engage in dangerous power-seeking behavior in pursuit of their goals. We review reasons for thinking that AI systems might seek power, that (...) they might obtain it, that this could lead to catastrophe, and that we might build and deploy such systems anyway. The second argument claims that the development of human-level AI will unlock rapid further progress, culminating in AI systems far more capable than any human — this is the Singularity Hypothesis. Power-seeking behavior on the part of such systems might be particularly dangerous. We discuss a variety of objections to both arguments and conclude by assessing the state of the debate. (shrink)

Philosophers distinguish between having a property essentially and having it accidentally. The way the distinction has been drawn suggests that it is modal in character, and so that it can be captured in terms of necessity, or cognate notions. The present chapter takes the suggestion at face value by considering a number of modal characterizations of the essential/accidental distinction that have been articulated and discussed since the early 20th century, as well as some of the challenges that they face.

In this paper, I distinguish between linguistic and non-linguistic presuppositions. I also propose that we should be interested in conversational presuppositions, which could also be called speaker-meant presuppositions or speaker's presuppositions. I also distinguish between potential and actual presuppositions. I propose that, in some cases, presuppositions can be conversationally implicated and cancellation is possible. I specify what the hard cases are and I try to explain them through ontological considerations. I try to reduce the hard cases through (a) the notion (...) that all actual presuppositions are speaker-meant; (b) the distinction between ontological and linguistic presuppositions; and (c) the uncontroversial notion that even ontological presuppositions are susceptible to semantic under-determination that has to be tackled though pragmatic intrusion. Pragmatic intrusion for presuppositional cases, however, cannot really amount to completing or expanding or in any case computing an explicature in an ordinary sense, as explicatures have to do with truth-conditions and aim to create propositionally complete forms that are truth-evaluable, unlike propositional fragments or schemata that are usually expressed in sentences (; , 2012). They are processes similar to explicatures, but since presuppositions are only pre-conditions for an utterance's being true or false (; Macagno; 2016; ; ), we cannot say that these processes are completely like those of explicatures. Nevertheless, they are pragmatically-motivated, even if hard to cancel. (See on lack of cancellability or on entrenched meanings.) This more or less brings my approach in line with contextualism (even if I accept semantic invariantism, along the lines of or (Invariantism is also shared by , in a form that is compatible with her contextualism.)). (shrink)

In a recent paper, Alexander argues that relaxing the requirement that sound knowers know their own soundness might provide a solution to Fitch’s paradox and introduces a suitable axiomatic system where the paradox is avoided. In this paper an analysis of this solution is proposed according to which the effective move for solving the paradox depends on the axiomatic treatment of the ontic modality rather than the limitations imposed on the epistemic one. It is then shown that, once the ontic (...) modality is standardly introduced, the paradox still follows and, in addition, some puzzling consequences arise. (shrink)

Models are indispensable tools of scientific inquiry, and one of their main uses is to improve our understanding of the phenomena they represent. How do models accomplish this? And what does this tell us about the nature of understanding? While much recent work has aimed at answering these questions, philosophers' focus has been squarely on models in empirical science. I aim to show that pure mathematics also deserves a seat at the table. I begin by presenting two cases: Cramér’s random (...) model of the prime numbers and the function field model of the integers. These cases show that mathematicians, like empirical scientists, rely on unrealistic models to gain understanding of complex phenomena. They also have important implications for some much-discussed theses about scientific understanding. First, modeling practices in mathematics confirm that one can gain understanding without obtaining an explanation. Second, these cases undermine the popular thesis that unrealistic models confer understanding by imparting counterfactual knowledge. (shrink)

semantic minimalism and moderte contextualism.

The concept of knowledge can be modelled in epistemic modal logic and, if modelled by using a standard modal operator, it is subject to the problem of logical omniscience. The classical solution to this problem is to distinguish between implicit and explicit knowledge and to construe the knowledge operator as capturing the concept of implicit knowledge. In addition, since a proposition is said to be implicitly known just in case it is derivable from the set of propositions that are explicitly (...) known by using a certain set of logical rules, the concept of implicit knowledge is definable on the basis of the concept of explicit knowledge. In any case, both implicit and explicit knowledge are typically characterized as factive, i.e. such that it is always the case that what is known is also true. The aim of the present paper is twofold: first, we will develop a dynamic system of explicit intersubjective knowledge that allows us to introduce the operator of implicit knowledge by definition; secondly, we will show that it is not possible to hold together the following two theses: (1) the concept of implicit knowledge is definable along the lines indicated above and (2) the concept of implicit knowledge is factive. (shrink)

Can political sovereignty still be theoretically and practically useful in tackling climate change in a socially fair way? The global nature of climate change unequivocally demands a high degree of international coordination. Traditionally viewed as an impediment to effective climate action, sovereignty has been criticised for fostering nationalistic and isolationist tendencies that obstruct global environmental cooperation. This paper challenges the prevailing “sovereignty-as-enemy” thesis and argues for a nuanced reappraisal of sovereignty as a potentially valuable asset in addressing the climate crisis. (...) This paper posits that sovereignty can be a critical tool for promoting decisive and equitable climate policies by examining its historical and theoretical underpinnings and complex relationship with neoliberal globalisation. The argument is rooted in a multidisciplinary literature comprising critiques of the neoliberal economy and globalisation model, the erosion of states’ sovereign prerogatives, critiques of neoliberal environmentalism, the interaction between trade and climate regimes, and the intellectual history of sovereignty. The public-private dichotomy is identified as a significant feature of sovereignty in times of climate change. Keywords:sovereignty, climate politics, neoliberal globalisation, public-private divide. (shrink)

A truthmaker solution to the Gettier problems is based on the idea that knowledge can be defined as justified true belief provided that the source of one’s justification is suitably connected with what makes the believed proposition true. Different developments of this basic intuition have been recently criticized on the basis of a series of arguments aiming at showing that no truthmaker theory can allow us to solve Gettier problems, since the very idea underlying such solution is ineffective. In this (...) paper, I discuss the criticism to the truthmaker solution I consider most promising and show how it can be successfully addressed. (shrink)