In their thought-provoking paper, Legg and Hutter consider a certain abstrac- tion of an intelligent agent, and define a universal intelligence measure, which assigns every such agent a numerical intelligence rating. We will briefly summarize Legg and Hutter’s paper, and then give a tongue-in-cheek argument that if one’s goal is to become more intelligent by cultivating music appreciation, then it is bet- ter to use classical music (such as Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven) than to use more recent pop music. (...) The same argument could be adapted to other media: books beat films, card games beat first-person shooters, parables beat dissertations, etc. We leave it to the reader to decide whether this argument tells us something about classical music, something about Legg-Hutter intelligence, or something about both. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss how Causal Decision Theory should be modified to handle a class of problematic cases involving deterministic laws. Causal Decision Theory, as it stands, is problematically biased against your endorsing deterministic propositions (for example it tells you to deny Newtonian physics, regardless of how confident you are of its truth). Our response is that this is not a problem for Causal Decision Theory per se, but arises because of the standard method for assessing the truth of (...) certain counterfactuals. The truth of deterministic laws is `modally fragile' on the standard semantics for counterfactuals: if determinism is true and you were to do otherwise, the laws would be different. We provide two ways of avoiding this problem: 1) supplement the standard semantics for counterfactuals with impossible worlds, or 2) introduce rigid designators into the description of problematic decision situations. We argue that both of these approaches are well-motivated and can be readily incorporated into Lewisian Causal Decision Theory. (shrink)

Trong 30 năm qua, đặc biệt là những năm gần đây, Việt Nam đã tận dụng thời cơ, thuận lợi, vượt qua nhiều khó khăn; thách thức, thực hiện phát triển bền vững đất nước và đã đạt được những thành tựu to lớn, có ý nghĩa lịch sử. Đất nước đã ra khỏi tình trạng kém phát triển, kinh tế tăng trưởng khá nhanh, đời sống vật chất và tinh thần của người dân được cải thiện. Vị thế của (...) Việt Nam trên trường quốc tế được nâng cao, tạo ra những tiền đề quan trọng để phát triển nhanh, bền vững, nâng cao chất lượng cuộc sống của nhân dân. Tuy nhiên, trong giai đoạn hiện nay, phát triển bền vững Việt Nam đang đứng trước nhiều khó khăn, thách thức lớn có tính chất toàn cầu (khủng hoảng tài chính, năng lượng, vấn đề an ninh lương thực, biến đổi khí hậu,...) cũng như những khó khăn, thách thức chủ quan khác của đất nước (thành tựu đạt được chưa tương xứng với tiềm năng; chất lượng, năng suất, hiệu quả, sức cạnh tranh của nền kinh tế còn thấp; tăng trưởng kinh tế còn dựa nhiều vào các yếu tố phát triển theo chiều rộng, chậm chuyển sang phát triển theo chiều sâu; việc khai thác và sử dụng tài nguyên chưa thật hợp lý và tiết kiệm; các cân đối kinh tế vĩ mô chưa thật vững chắc, bội chi ngân sách, thâm hụt cán cân thương mại còn lớn, lạm phát còn cao; môi trường sinh thái ở nhiều nơi bị ô nhiễm nặng,...). Nhằm cung cấp thêm tài liệu nghiên cứu về vấn đề nêu trên, Nhà xuất bản Chính trị quốc gia - Sự thật xuất bản cuốn sách Bằng chứng cuộc sống - Suy ngẫm về phát triển bền vững Việt Nam của đồng tác giả Bạch Ngọc Chiến và Vương Quân Hoàng. -/- Ngoài phần mở đầu, phụ lục kỹ thuật, tài liệu tham khảo, cuốn sách gồm 5 chương chính: -/- Chương 1. Mạch nguồn; Chương 2. Con người, xã hội và nhà nước; Chương 3. Sức vóc kinh tế; Chương 4. Trí lực quốc dân; Chương 5. Tiến hóa. -/- Với tư duy và phương pháp tiếp cận khoa học, các tác giả dẫn dắt bạn đọc đi từ các quan sát về lịch sử hình thành dân tộc, sự phát triển và hoàn thiện của con người, xã hội, nhà nước trong tiến trình lịch sử đến sự phát triển kinh tế của đất nước ta. Mục tiêu cuối cùng mà các tác giả muốn đề cập là phương pháp và năng lực tổ chức, thiết kế và thực thi những kế hoạch phát triển phù hợp trong điều kiện hạn chế về nguồn lực và đối mặt với những thay đổi của cục diện trong nước và quốc tế. Nội dung cuốn sách cũng giúp làm sáng tỏ nhiều câu hỏi, gợi mở cách nhìn nhận về tương lai phát triển của đất nước. Cuốn sách thể hiện quá trình nghiên cứu công phu, nghiêm túc, nhiều nhận xét có giá trị tham khảo tốt; tuy nhiên có những ý kiến, nhận xét cần tiếp tục được thảo luận. Xin giới thiệu cuốn sách với bạn đọc và mong nhận được ý kiến đóng góp để nội dung cuốn sách được hoàn thiện hơn trong những lần xuất bản sau. -/- Tháng 11 năm 2015 NHÀ XUẤT BẢN CHÍNH TRỊ QUỐC GIA - SỰ THẬT. (shrink)

The causes and underlying natures of common mental disorders are, for the most part, quite mysterious. Our best taxonomies acknowledge this poverty of causal knowledge about minds, brains, society, and whatever else, to instead classify psychopathology based on clusters of detectable signs and symptoms: what it is to be, say, depressed, is simply to exhibit the minimum number of typical features for the right amount of time. Nothing in this approach references what causes and maintains a characteristic set of symptoms, (...) and so by conceptualizing disorders as syndromes psychiatry stands in stark contrast to somatic medicine, its close cousin, and other successful sciences that classify... (shrink)

Depressive disorders have been found to be a significant health issue among industrial workers, resulting from work-related factors and causing serious burdens for the workers as well as their employers. Literature on mental health problems of Vietnamese industrial workers has been limited, despite the rapid foreign investment-fueled industrialization process of the country. This study aimed to fill the gap in literature by examining the prevalence of depressive disorders and their potential associated factors among a cohort of Vietnamese industrial workers. A (...) cross-sectional study was conducted in 3 industrial areas in Hanoi and Bac Ninh. A total of 289 workers agreed to participate in the study. Generalized linear mixed models were applied to identify associated factors with depression status of respondents. 38.6% of participants reported suffering depression. Factors found to be positively associated with the possibility of having depression and higher PHQ9 score were long working hours, suffering more health problems, and health hazards exposure at work. Meanwhile, being females, having more children, living with parents, engaging in smoking, and being local workers were found to correlate with lower likelihood of being depressed. The findings suggested the importance of regular health screening, work safety assurance, and social support outside of workplace on the mental health of the workers. (shrink)

Cuối tháng 8-2023, Exxon Mobil, một trong những hãng kinh doanh dầu mỏ lớn nhất thế giới, tổ hợp lớn nhất của nhóm tách ra từ đế chế dầu mỏ Standard Oil của John D. Rockefeller đã công bố một báo cáo buồn về mục tiêu cứu Trái Đất trước hiểm họa biến đổi khí hậu. Báo cáo này đưa ra 2 kết luận tối quan trọng: a) Dầu mỏ và khí đốt vẫn chiếm tới 54% tổng nguồn cung năng (...) lượng của thế giới vào năm 2050; b) Phát thải CO2 vẫn cao gấp 2 lần kịch bản cần thiết mà IPCC đặt ra. Điều này cũng đồng nghĩa với việc thế giới sẽ thất bại trước mục tiêu kìm giữ nhiệt độ tăng thấp hơn 2⁰C. Đánh giá này dựa trên ước lượng thế giới sẽ sản sinh ra 25 tỷ tấn CO2 vào 2050. (shrink)

Can there be grounding without necessitation? Can a fact obtain wholly in virtue of metaphysically more fundamental facts, even though there are possible worlds at which the latter facts obtain but not the former? It is an orthodoxy in recent literature about the nature of grounding, and in first-order philosophical disputes about what grounds what, that the answer is no. I will argue that the correct answer is yes. I present two novel arguments against grounding necessitarianism, and show that grounding (...) contingentism is fully compatible with the various explanatory roles that grounding is widely thought to play. (shrink)

Discussion of the relevance of grounding to substantiveness, theory-choice, and “location problems” in metaphysics.

Kant and Fichte developed the concept of a worldview as a way of reflecting on experience as a whole. But what does it mean to form a worldview? And what role did it play in the German Idealist tradition? This paper seeks to answer these questions through a detailed analysis of the form of a philosophical worldview and its historical portent, both of which remain unexplored in the literature. The dearth of attention is partially to blame on Kant’s desultory development (...) of it, as well as its place in Fichte’s understudied lectures on religion. In this paper, I first reconstruct Kant’s conception as the starting point and then trace it to Fichte who went on to evolve it further. Fichte endorses the basic conceptual shape pioneered by Kant, namely, a reflective process of positing an idea and then checking the coherence of necessary judgments relative to it. However, Fichte came to realize that its philosophical function needed expanding. Beyond recognizing the possibility for alternative worldviews, Fichte further fleshed out how worldview creation could lead to human flourishing. The common feature between both thinkers is that the formation of a worldview aims to turn philosophy into a life-orienting exercise. (shrink)

Kant’s accounts of the Highest Good and the moral argument for God and immortality are central features of his philosophy. But both involve lingering puzzles. In this entry, we first explore what the Highest Good is for Kant and the role it plays in a complete account of ethical life. We then focus on whether the Highest Good involves individuals only, or whether it also connects with Kant’s doctrines about the moral progress of the species. In conclusion, we look into (...) three ways of articulating the moral argument for God and immorality that take our commitment to the Highest Good as their point of departure. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyse how GPS-based navigation systems are transforming some of our intellectual virtues and then suggest two strategies to improve our practices regarding the use of such epistemic tools. We start by outlining the two main approaches in virtue epistemology, namely virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism. We then discuss how navigation systems can undermine five epistemic virtues, namely memory, perception, attention, intellectual autonomy, and intellectual carefulness. We end by considering two possible interlinked ways of trying to remedy (...) this situation: [i] redesigning the epistemic tool to improve the epistemic virtues of memory, perception, and attention; and [ii] the cultivation of cognitive diligence for wayfinding tasks scaffolding intellectual autonomy and carefulness. (shrink)

ABSTRACT It has become standard to conceive of metalinguistic disagreement as motivated by a form of negotiation, aimed at reaching consensus because of the practical consequences of using a word with one content rather than another. This paper presents an alternative motive for expressing and pursuing metalinguistic disagreement. In using words with given criteria, we betray our location amongst social categories or groups. Because of this, metalinguistic disagreement can be used as a stage upon which to perform a social identity. (...) The ways in which metalinguistic disagreements motivated in this way diverge in character from metalinguistic negotiations are described, as are several consequences of the existence of metalinguistic disagreements motivated in this way. (shrink)

Kant’s claim that we must postulate the immortality of the soul is polarizing. While much attention has been paid to two standard arguments in its defense (one moral-psychological, the other rational), I contend that a favorite argument of Kant’s from the apogee of his critical period, namely, the teleological argument, deserves renewed attention. This paper reconstructs it and exhibits what makes it unique (though not necessarily superior) in relation to the other arguments. In particular, its form (as third-personal or descriptive, (...) beginning from observations) and related force of assent (as a subjectively universal reflective judgment) set it apart from the other arguments. My goal is to establish that any engagement with Kant’s immortality postulate must include equal consideration of the teleological argument in order to be complete. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that a distinction ought to be drawn between two ways in which a given world might be logically impossible. First, a world w might be impossible because the laws that hold at w are different from those that hold at some other world (say the actual world). Second, a world w might be impossible because the laws of logic that hold in some world (say the actual world) are violated at w. We develop a novel (...) way of modelling logical possibility that makes room for both kinds of logical impossibility. Doing so has interesting implications for the relationship between logical possibility and other kinds of possibility (for example, metaphysical possibility) and implications for the necessity or contingency of the laws of logic. (shrink)

Achieving space domain awareness requires the identification, characterization, and tracking of space objects. Storing and leveraging associated space object data for purposes such as hostile threat assessment, object identification, and collision prediction and avoidance present further challenges. Space objects are characterized according to a variety of parameters including their identifiers, design specifications, components, subsystems, capabilities, vulnerabilities, origins, missions, orbital elements, patterns of life, processes, operational statuses, and associated persons, organizations, or nations. The Space Object Ontology provides a consensus-based realist framework (...) for formulating such characterizations in a computable fashion. Space object data are aligned with classes and relations in the Space Object Ontology and stored in a dynamically updated Resource Description Framework triple store, which can be queried to support space domain awareness and the needs of spacecraft operators. This paper presents the core of the Space Object Ontology, discusses its advantages over other approaches to space object classification, and demonstrates its ability to combine diverse sets of data from multiple sources within an expandable framework. Finally, we show how the ontology provides benefits for enhancing and maintaining longterm space domain awareness. (shrink)

A number of bioethicists have been critical of the power of the family to “veto” a patient’s decision to posthumously donate her organs within opt-in systems of organ procurement. One major objection directed at the family veto is that when families veto the decision of their deceased family member, they do something wrong by violating or failing to respect the autonomy of that deceased family member. The goal of this paper is to make progress on answering this objection. I do (...) this in two stages. First, I argue that the most plausible interpretation of what happens when a person registers as an organ donor in an opt-in system is that she gives her consent to the state to posthumously remove her organs for transplantation purposes. Call this the Authorization Account. Second, given the Authorization Account, I argue by analogy that when families veto an individual’s decision to donate and the individual’s organs are not in the end removed, neither the doctors nor the family violate the individual’s autonomy in any morally objectionable sense. Call this the Nonremoval Thesis. I argue that since the Nonremoval Thesis is true, we do not violate or fail to respect the autonomy of registered donors when we fail to remove their organs because their family has objected. (shrink)

Rational agents face choices, even when taking seriously the possibility of determinism. Rational agents also follow the advice of Causal Decision Theory (CDT). Although many take these claims to be well-motivated, there is growing pressure to reject one of them, as CDT seems to go badly wrong in some deterministic cases. We argue that deterministic cases do not undermine a counterfactual model of rational deliberation, which is characteristic of CDT. Rather, they force us to distinguish between counterfactuals that are relevant (...) and ones that are irrelevant for the purposes of deliberation. We incorporate this distinction into decision theory to develop ‘Selective Causal Decision Theory’, which delivers the correct recommendations in deterministic cases while respecting the key motivations behind CDT. (shrink)

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant states that ideas give us the rule for organizing experience and ideals serve as archetypes or standards against which one can measure copies. Further, he states that ideas and ideals can be practical. Understanding how precisely these concepts should function presents a challenging and understudied philosophical puzzle. I offer a reconstruction of how ideas and ideals might be practical in order to uphold, to my mind, a conceptually worthy distinction. A practical idea, I (...) argue, is best understood as a reference to the categorical imperative (and its various formulations), which guides conduct directly as a rule. A practical ideal, by contrast, I think is a substrate that serves two functions: one that (a) helps us gauge moral deficiencies and another that (b) reveals the potential for moral improvement. In response to well-grounded sceptical concerns, I argue that ideals are indirectly practical in that they ground the possibility to recognise moral states of affairs and be moral in the first place. (shrink)

Traditional debate on the metaphysics of gender has been a contrast of essentialist and social-constructionist positions. The standard reaction to this opposition is that neither position alone has the theoretical resources required to satisfy an equitable politics. This has caused a number of theorists to suggest ways in which gender is unified on the basis of social rather than biological characteristics but is “real” or “objective” nonetheless – a position I term social objectivism. This essay begins by making explicit the (...) motivations for, and central assumptions of, social objectivism. I then propose that gender is better understood as a real kind with a historical essence, analogous to the biologist’s claim that species are historical entities. I argue that this proposal achieves a better solution to the problems that motivate social objectivism. Moreover, the account is consistent with a post-positivist understanding of the classificatory practices employed within the natural and social sciences. (shrink)

Otto Neurath’s empiricist methodology of economics and his contributions to politi- cal economy have gained increasing attention in recent years. We connect this research with contemporary debates regarding the epistemological status of thought experiments by reconstructing Neurath’s utopias as linchpins of thought experiments. In our three reconstructed examples of different uses of utopias/dystopias in thought experiments we employ a reformulation of Häggqvist’s model for thought experiments and we argue that: (1) Our reformulation of Häggqvist’s model more adequately complies with many (...) uses of thought experiments, especially with the open-ended discussions of utopias and dys- topias in thought experiments. (2) As a strict logical empiricist, Neurath is committed to a strictly empiricist account of thought experiments. John Norton’s empiricist argument view can indeed account for the justifications of empirical beliefs and genuine discoveries targeted by scientific utopianism in three distinct (yet connected) ways, all of which Neur- ath already contemplated: (2.I) Dealing with utopias and thought experiments on a regular basis increases creativity and inventiveness. (2.II) Particular ways of presenting knowl- edge facilitate scientific discovery and social progress. (2.III) The use of utopias in thought experiments can prompt conceptual change and allow access to new phenomena. We con- clude by highlighting that, even though thought experiments support a positive attitude for exploring new social possibilities, Neurath points out that active decisions are unavoidable. The exploration of alternatives and the awareness of a need for decisions in policy discus- sion avert a technocratic outlook in social science. (shrink)

Achieving space situational awareness requires, at a minimum, the identification, characterization, and tracking of space objects. Leveraging the resultant space object data for purposes such as hostile threat assessment, object identification, and conjunction assessment presents major challenges. This is in part because in characterizing space objects we reference a variety of identifiers, components, subsystems, capabilities, vulnerabilities, origins, missions, orbital elements, patterns of life, operational processes, operational statuses, and so forth, which tend to be defined in highly heterogeneous and sometimes inconsistent (...) ways. The Space Domain Ontologies are designed to provide a consensus-based realist framework for formulating such characterizations in a way that is both consistent and computable. Space object data are aligned with classes and relations in a suite of ontologies built around the existing Space Object Ontology. They are stored in a dynamically updated Resource Description Framework triple store, which can be queried to support space situational awareness and the needs of spacecraft operators and analysts. This paper provides an overview of the Space Domain Ontologies and their development and use. It presents the motivation for and advantages of the Space Domain Ontologies, including the benefits they provide for enhancing and maintaining long-term space situational awareness. (shrink)

Fine is widely thought to have refuted the simple modal account of essence, which takes the essential properties of a thing to be those it cannot exist without exemplifying. Yet, a number of philosophers have suggested resuscitating the simple modal account by appealing to distinctions akin to the distinction Lewis draws between sparse and abundant properties, treating only those in the former class as candidates for essentiality. I argue that ‘sparse modalism’ succumbs to counterexamples similar to those originally posed by (...) Fine, and fails to capture paradigmatic instances of essence involving abundant properties and relations. (shrink)

Pattern-based reasons are reasons for action deriving not from the features of our own actions, but from the features of the larger patterns of action in which we might be participating. These reasons might relate to the patterns of action that will actually be carried out, or they might relate to merely hypothetical patterns. In past work, I have argued that accepting merely hypothetical pattern-based reasons, together with a plausible account of how to weigh these reasons, can lead to disastrous (...) consequences. However, in this article, I argue that this problem is not limited to hypothetical pattern-based reasons: it turns out that there are analogous issues for reasons deriving from actual patterns. I then suggest that we can avoid this problem by adopting a different account of the weight of pattern-based reasons. (shrink)

Grounding and explanation are said to be intimately connected. Some even maintain that grounding just is a form of explanation. But grounding and explanation also seem importantly different—on the face of it, the former is ‘worldy’ or ‘objective’ while the latter isn’t. In this paper, we develop and respond to an argument to the effect that there is no way to fruitfully address this tension that retains orthodox views about grounding and explanation but doesn’t undermine a central piece of methodology, (...) namely that explanation is a guide to ground. (shrink)

In this paper, I will discuss what I will call “skeptical pragmatic invariantism” as a potential response to the intuitions we have about scenarios such as the so-called bank cases. SPI, very roughly, is a form of epistemic invariantism that says the following: The subject in the bank cases doesn’t know that the bank will be open. The knowledge ascription in the low standards case seems appropriate nevertheless because it has a true implicature. The goal of this paper is to (...) show that SPI is mistaken. In particular, I will show that SPI is incompatible with reasonable assumptions about how we are aware of the presence of implicatures. Such objections are not new, but extant formulations are wanting for reasons I will point out below. One may worry that refuting SPI is not a worthwhile project given that this view is an implausible minority position anyway. To respond, I will argue that, contrary to common opinion, other familiar objections to SPI fail and, thus, that SPI is a promising position to begin with. (shrink)

This is an introduction to the volume "Explanation Beyond Causation: Philosophical Perspectives on Non-Causal Explanations", edited by A. Reutlinger and J. Saatsi (OUP, forthcoming in 2017). -/- Explanations are very important to us in many contexts: in science, mathematics, philosophy, and also in everyday and juridical contexts. But what is an explanation? In the philosophical study of explanation, there is long-standing, influential tradition that links explanation intimately to causation: we often explain by providing accurate information about the causes of the (...) phenomenon to be explained. Such causal accounts have been the received view of the nature of explanation, particularly in philosophy of science, since the 1980s. However, philosophers have recently begun to break with this causal tradition by shifting their focus to kinds of explanation that do not turn on causal information. The increasing recognition of the importance of such non-causal explanations in the sciences and elsewhere raises pressing questions for philosophers of explanation. What is the nature of non-causal explanations - and which theory best captures it? How do non-causal explanations relate to causal ones? How are non-causal explanations in the sciences related to those in mathematics and metaphysics? This volume of new essays explores answers to these and other questions at the heart of contemporary philosophy of explanation. The essays address these questions from a variety of perspectives, including general accounts of non-causal and causal explanations, as well as a wide range of detailed case studies of non-causal explanations from the sciences, mathematics and metaphysics. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom has it that truth is always evaluated using our actual linguistic conventions, even when considering counterfactual scenarios in which different conventions are adopted. This principle has been invoked in a number of philosophical arguments, including Kripke’s defense of the necessity of identity and Lewy’s objection to modal conventionalism. But it is false. It fails in the presence of what Einheuser (2006) calls c-monsters, or convention-shifting expressions (on analogy with Kaplan’s monsters, or context-shifting expressions). We show that c-monsters naturally (...) arise in contexts, such as metalinguistic negotiations, where speakers entertain alternative conventions. We develop an expressivist theory—inspired by Barker (2002) and MacFarlane (2016) on vague predications and Einheuser (2006) on counterconventionals—to model these shifts in convention. Using this framework, we reassess the philosophical arguments that invoked the conventional wisdom. (shrink)

We develop and defend a new approach to counterlogicals. Non-vacuous counterlogicals, we argue, fall within a broader class of counterfactuals known as counterconventionals. Existing semantics for counterconventionals, 459–482 ) and, 1–27 ) allow counterfactuals to shift the interpretation of predicates and relations. We extend these theories to counterlogicals by allowing counterfactuals to shift the interpretation of logical vocabulary. This yields an elegant semantics for counterlogicals that avoids problems with the usual impossible worlds semantics. We conclude by showing how this approach (...) can be extended to counterpossibles more generally. (shrink)

A counterpossible is a counterfactual with an impossible antecedent. Counterpossibles present a puzzle for standard theories of counterfactuals, which predict that all counterpossibles are semantically vacuous. Moreover, counterpossibles play an important role in many debates within metaphysics and epistemology, including debates over grounding, causation, modality, mathematics, science, and even God. In this article, we will explore various positions on counterpossibles as well as their potential philosophical consequences.

What is the highest good actually good for in Kant’s third Critique? While there are well-worked out answers to this question in the literature that focus on the highest good’s practical importance, this paper argues that there is an important function for the highest good that has to do exclusively with contemplation. This important function becomes clear once one notices that coherent [konsequent] thinking, for Kant, was synonymous with "bündiges" thinking, and that both are connected with the highest good in (...) the third Critique’s moral proof for God’s existence. I show that the original meaning of "bündig," which is from the carpentry trade and has been forgotten, illuminates the stakes of the highest good in Kant’s system. For us, as proverbial carpenters of reason, coherence is essential for the intellectual activity of constructing a philosophical worldview in his transcendental idealism. I motivate the reading further by showing how this function can neatly reconstruct Kant’s proof for God’s existence in the third Critique. I conclude by sketching Kant’s reasons for why the project of creating a coherent worldview grounded in the highest good is worth the labor costs. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore a fundamental but under-appreciated distinction between two ways of understanding the desire-satisfaction theory of well-being. According to proactive desire satisfactionism, a person is benefited by the acquisition of new satisfied desires. According to reactive desire satisfactionism, a person can be benefited only by the satisfaction of their existing desires. I first offer an overview of this distinction. I then canvass several ways of developing a general formulation of desire satisfactionism that would capture the reactive view, (...) and argue that all come with significant costs. (shrink)

In his recent article entitled ‘Can We Believe the Error Theory?’ Bart Streumer argues that it is impossible (for anyone, anywhere) to believe the error theory. This might sound like a problem for the error theory, but Streumer argues that it is not. He argues that the un-believability of the error theory offers a way for error theorists to respond to several objections commonly made against the view. In this paper, we respond to Streumer’s arguments. In particular, in sections 2-4, (...) we offer several objections to Streumer’s argument for the claim that we cannot believe the error theory. In section 5, we argue that even if Streumer establishes that we cannot believe the error theory, this conclusion is not as helpful for error theorists as he takes it to be. (shrink)

Near the end of 'Naming the Colours', Lewis (1997) makes an interesting claim about the relationship between linguistic and mental content; we are typically unable to read the content of a belief off the content of a sentence used to express that belief or vice versa. I call this view autonomism. I motivate and defend autonomism and discuss its importance in the philosophy of mind and language. In a nutshell, I argue that the different theoretical roles that mental and linguistic (...) content play suggest these kinds of content should be understood as sensitive to different things. (shrink)

The recent literature abounds with accounts of the semantics and pragmatics of so-called predicates of personal taste, i.e. predicates whose application is, in some sense or other, a subjective matter. Relativism and contextualism are the major types of theories. One crucial difference between these theories concerns how we should assess previous taste claims. Relativism predicts that we should assess them in the light of the taste standard governing the context of assessment. Contextualism predicts that we should assess them in the (...) light of the taste standard governing the context of use. We show in a range of experiments that neither prediction is correct. People have no clear preferences either way and which taste standard they choose in evaluating a previous taste claim crucially depends on whether they start out with a favorable attitude towards the object in question and then come to have an unfavorable attitude or vice versa. We suggest an account of the data in terms of what we call hybrid relativism. (shrink)

I develop an expressivist account of verbal disagreements as practical disagreements over how to use words rather than factual disagreements over what words actually mean. This account enjoys several advantages over others in the literature: it can be implemented in a neo-Stalnakerian possible worlds framework; it accounts for cases where speakers are undecided on how exactly to interpret an expression; it avoids appeals to fraught notions like subject matter, charitable interpretation, and joint-carving; and it naturally extends to an analysis of (...) metalinguistic negotiations. (shrink)

A counteridentical is a counterfactual with an identity statement in the antecedent. While counteridenticals generally seem non-trivial, most semantic theories for counterfactuals, when combined with the necessity of identity and distinctness, attribute vacuous truth conditions to such counterfactuals. In light of this, one could try to save the orthodox theories either by appealing to pragmatics or by denying that the antecedents of alleged counteridenticals really contain identity claims. Or one could reject the orthodox theory of counterfactuals in favor of a (...) hyperintensional semantics that accommodates non-trivial counterpossibles. In this paper, I argue that none of these approaches can account for all the peculiar features of counteridenticals. Instead, I propose a modified version of Lewis’s counterpart theory, which rejects the necessity of identity, and show that it can explain all the peculiar features of counteridenticals in a satisfactory way. I conclude by defending the plausibility of contingent identity from objections. (shrink)

Epistemic invariantism, or invariantism for short, is the position that the proposition expressed by knowledge sentences does not vary with the epistemic standard of the context in which these sentences can be used. At least one of the major challenges for invariantism is to explain our intuitions about scenarios such as the so-called bank cases. These cases elicit intuitions to the effect that the truth-value of knowledge sentences varies with the epistemic standard of the context in which these sentences can (...) be used. In this paper, I will defend invariantism against this challenge by advocating the following, somewhat deflationary account of the bank case intuitions: Readers of the bank cases assign different truth-values to the knowledge claims in the bank cases because they interpret these scenarios such that the epistemic position of the subject in question differs between the high and the low standards case. To substantiate this account, I will argue, first, that the bank cases are underspecified even with respect to features that should uncontroversially be relevant for the epistemic position of the subject in question. Second, I will argue that readers of the bank cases will fill in these features differently in the low and the high standards case. In particular, I will argue that there is a variety of reasons to think that the fact that an error-possibility is mentioned in the high standards case will lead readers to assume that this error-possibility is supposed to be likely in the high standards case. (shrink)

Kant uses ‘wish’ as a technical term to denote a strange species of desire. It is an instance in which someone wills an object that she simultaneously knows she cannot bring about. Or in more Kantian garb: it is an instance of the faculty of desire’s (or will’s) failing insofar as a desire (representation) cannot be the cause of the realization of its corresponding object in reality. As a result, Kant originally maintained it to be antithetical to morality, which deals (...) with ‘ought implies can’. However, Kant’s notion of wish is not static. On the contrary, I argue in this article that Kant re-evaluated the capacity to wish as (to some extent) causally efficacious and, further, of moral relevance. This re-evaluation has not been discussed in the literature, yet has been lurking in plain sight in a subtle but decisive shift evident in two versions of a footnote from the *Critique of the Power of Judgement* (KU). (shrink)

The willful ignorance doctrine says defendants should sometimes be treated as if they know what they don't. This book provides a careful defense of this method of imputing mental states. Though the doctrine is only partly justified and requires reform, it also demonstrates that the criminal law needs more legal fictions of this kind. The resulting theory of when and why the criminal law can pretend we know what we don't has far-reaching implications for legal practice and reveals a pressing (...) need for change. (shrink)

When we think about ethics, we normally focus on a particular sort of agent: the individual person. Some philosophers have argued that we should rethink the limits of what counts as an ethically relevant unit of agency by expanding outward, and claiming that groups of people can have normative reasons for action. In this paper, I explore whether we can go in the other direction. Are there sub‐personal beings who count as agents with their own reasons for action? In particular, (...) might the temporal parts of persons, beings like “me‐in‐my‐twenties,” be thought of as normative agents? This idea, I argue, has deep attractions, and deep, but surmountable, challenges. And if we do accept this idea, I argue, this can indirectly help to support the case for thinking that groups can have reasons for action. (shrink)

I like the view that the fundamental facts are logically simple, not complex. However, some universal generalizations and negations may appear fundamental, because they cannot be explained by logically simple facts about particulars. I explore a natural reply: those universal generalizations and negations are true because certain logically simple facts—call them —are the fundamental facts. I argue that this solution is only available given some metaphysical frameworks, some conceptions of metaphysical explanation and fundamentality. It requires a ‘fitting’ framework, according to (...) which metaphysical theories explain the aptness of representations in terms of how things are fundamentally. Fitting frameworks conceive of the fundamental facts as those that are metaphysically ‘real’; call them the ‘facts-in-reality’. Moreover, we must take as primary a plural notion of the facts-in-reality, not the singular notion of a fact-in-reality. By contrast, a metaphysics that grounds facts is incompatible with my strategy for keeping the fundamental facts logically simple. (shrink)

Proponents of evidence-based medicine have argued convincingly for applying this scientific method to medicine. However, the current methodological framework of the EBM movement has recently been called into question, especially in epidemiology and the philosophy of science. The debate has focused on whether the methodology of randomized controlled trials provides the best evidence available. This paper attempts to shift the focus of the debate by arguing that clinical reasoning involves a patchwork of evidential approaches and that the emphasis on evidence (...) hierarchies of methodology fails to lend credence to the common practice of corroboration in medicine. I argue that the strength of evidence lies in the evidence itself, and not the methodology used to obtain that evidence. Ultimately, when it comes to evaluating the effectiveness of medical interventions, it is the evidence obtained from the methodology rather than the methodology that should establish the strength of the evidence. (shrink)

Could it be true that even though we as a group ought to do something, you as an individual ought not to do your part? And under what conditions, in particular, could this happen? In this article, I discuss how a certain kind of case, introduced by David Copp, illustrates the possibility that you ought not to do your part even when you would be playing a crucial causal role in the group action. This is because you may have special (...) agent-relative reasons against participating that are not shared by the group as a whole. I defend the claim that these are indeed cases in which you ought not to do your part in what the group ought to do. I then argue that we can expect these cases to produce a troubling kind of rational conflict. (shrink)

Jason Bowers and Meg Wallace have recently argued that those who hold that every individual instantiates a ‘haecceity’ are caught up in a Euthyphro-style dilemma when confronted with familiar cases of fission and fusion. Key to Bowers and Wallace’s dilemma are certain assumptions about the nature of metaphysical explanation and the explanatory commitments of belief in haecceities. However, I argue that the dilemma only arises due to a failure to distinguish between providing a metaphysical explanation of why a fact holds (...) vs. a metaphysical explanation of what it is for a fact to hold. In the process, I also shed light on the explanatory commitments of belief in haecceities. (shrink)

There are two families of influential and stubborn puzzles that many theories of aboutness (intentionality) face: underdetermination puzzles and puzzles concerning representations that appear to be about things that do not exist. I propose an approach that elegantly avoids both kinds of puzzle. The central idea is to explain aboutness (the relation supposed to stand between thoughts and terms and their objects) in terms of relations of co-aboutness (the relation of being about the same thing that stands between the thoughts (...) and terms themselves). (shrink)

The kinds of real or natural kinds that support explanation and prediction in the social sciences are difficult to identify and track because they change through time, intersect with one another, and they do not always exhibit their properties when one encounters them. As a result, conceptual practices directed at these kinds will often refer in ways that are partial, equivocal, or redundant. To improve this epistemic situation, it is important to employ open-ended classificatory concepts, to understand when different research (...) programs are tracking the same real kind, and to maintain an ongoing commitment to interact causally with real kinds to focus reference on those kinds. A tempting view of these non-idealized epistemic conditions should be avoided: that they signal an ontological structure of the social world so plentiful that it would permit ameliorated classificatory schemes to achieve their normative aims regardless of whether they defer to real-kind classificatory schemes. To ground these discussions, the essay appeals to an overlooked convergence in the systematic naturalistic frameworks of Richard Boyd and Ruth Millikan. (shrink)

In 1937 Joan Robinson proposed that “when capitalism is rightly understood, the rate of interest will be set at zero and the major evils of capitalism will disappear”. A permanent zero rate would abolish capitalist profit except in limited cases, leaving nearly all output to be claimed by labour as wages. It would allow capital to be allocated on the basis of prospective social benefit rather than short-term profitability and a collateral basis that favours the wealthy. It would remove some (...) of the economic pressure to use resources unsustainably. So why not do this? I argue that the few available philosophical arguments for positive interest rates are unsatisfactory. Those who want a just and sustainable form of capitalism should target net zero for the interest rate. (shrink)