Joint attention is a social-cognitive phenomenon in which two or more agents direct their attention together towards the same object. Definitions range from this rather broad conception to more specific definitions which require that, in addition, attention be directed to the same aspect of that object and that agents need to be mutually aware of their jointly attending. Joint attention is an important coordination mechanism in joint action. The capacity for engaging in joint attention, in particular in the sense of (...) this narrower definition, is frequently taken to indicate the presence of theory of mind in the participating agents, and is also implicated in the development of theory of mind. However, the prominence of sensorimotor components in establishing and sustaining episodes of joint attention — e.g., eye and head movements, pointing and vocalizations — suggests that sensorimotor approaches to social interaction may be well-placed to account for important parts of joint attention without invoking theory-of-mind abilities, and may therefore provide a valuable alternative to approaches emphasizing theory of mind. In particular, sensorimotor accounts may explain aspects of joint attention through the dynamics and regularities in the sensorimotor processes that coordinate the activities of the agents. (shrink)

While it is a point of agreement in contemporary republican political theory that property ownership is closely connected to freedom as non-domination, surprisingly little work has been done to elucidate the nature of this connection or the constraints on property regimes that might be required as a result. In this paper, I provide a systematic model of the boundaries within which republican property systems must sit and explore some of the wider implications that thinking of property in these terms may (...) have for republicans. The boundaries I focus on relate to the distribution of property and the application of types of property claims over particular kinds of goods. I develop this model from those elements of non-domination most directly related to the operation of a property regime: (a) economic independence, (b) limiting material inequalities, and (c) the promotion of common goods. The limits that emerge from this analysis support intuitive judgments that animate much republican discussion of property distribution. My account diverges from much orthodox republican theory, though, in challenging the primacy of private property rights in the realization of economic independence. The value of property on republican terms can be realized without private ownership of the means of production. (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)

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)

Hermeneutical injustice is being unjustly prevented from making sense of one’s experiences, identity, or circumstances and/or communicating about them. The literature focusses almost exclusively on whether people have access to adequate conceptual resources. In this paper, we discuss a different kind of hermeneutical struggle caused by stigma. We argue that in some cases of hermeneutic injustice people have access to hermeneutical resources apt to understand their identity but reject employing these due to the stigma attached to the identity. We begin (...) with a reinterpretation of one of the cases discussed in the literature, Edmund White’s novel A Boy’s Own Story. We argue that in this case hermeneutic resources are available but are rejected due to the stigma attached to homosexuality. We then present two analogous kinds of cases: alcohol addiction and being the victim of intimate partner violence. Here, too, hermeneutic injustice occurs because of stigma attached to an identity rather than unavailability of resources. We close by suggesting that these cases may, additionally, involve the wrong of Tightlacing: by meddling with their self-conception, stigma can manipulate individuals into a view of themselves that licenses inappropriate demands on them and makes them complicit in an erasure of their identities. (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)

ABSTRACT. May scientists rely on substantive, a priori presuppositions? Quinean naturalists say "no," but Michael Friedman and others claim that such a view cannot be squared with the actual history of science. To make his case, Friedman offers Newton's universal law of gravitation and Einstein's theory of relativity as examples of admired theories that both employ presuppositions (usually of a mathematical nature), presuppositions that do not face empirical evidence directly. In fact, Friedman claims that the use of such presuppositions is (...) a hallmark of "science as we know it." But what should we say about the special sciences, which typically do not rely on the abstruse formalisms one finds in the exact sciences? I identify a type of a priori presupposition that plays an especially striking role in the development of empirical psychology. These are ontological presuppositions about the type of object a given science purports to study. I show how such presuppositions can be both a priori and rational by investigating their role in an early flap over psychology's contested status as a natural science. The flap focused on one of the field's earliest textbooks, William James's Principles of Psychology. The work was attacked precisely for its reliance on a priori presuppositions about what James had called the "mental state," psychology's (alleged) proper object. I argue that the specific presuppositions James packed into his definition of the "mental state" were not directly responsible to empirical evidence, and so in that sense were a priori; but the presuppositions were rational in that they were crafted to help overcome philosophical objections (championed by neo-Hegelians) to the very idea that there can be a genuine science of mind. Thus, my case study gives an example of substantive, a priori presuppositions being put to use—to rational use—in the special sciences. In addition to evaluating James's use of presuppositions, my paper also offers historical reflections on two different strands of pragmatist philosophy of science. One strand, tracing back through Quine to C. S. Peirce, is more naturalistic, eschewing the use of a priori elements in science. The other strand, tracing back through Kuhn and C. I. Lewis to James, is more friendly to such presuppositions, and to that extent bears affinity with the positivist tradition Friedman occupies. (shrink)

The universality of critical phenomena is best explained by appeal to the Renormalisation Group (RG). Batterman and Morrison, among others, have claimed that this explanation is irreducible. I argue that the RG account is reducible, but that the higher-level explanation ought not to be eliminated. I demonstrate that the key assumption on which the explanation relies – the scale invariance of critical systems – can be explained in lower-level terms; however, we should not replace the RG explanation with a bottom-up (...) account, rather we should acknowledge that the explanation appeals to dependencies which may be traced down to lower levels. (shrink)

Introduction Current treatments for pain have limited benefits and worrying side effects. Some studies suggest that pain is reduced when clinicians deliver positive messages. However, the effects of positive messages are heterogeneous and have not been subject to meta-analysis. We aimed to estimate the efficacy of positive messages for pain reduction. -/- Methods We included randomized trials of the effects of positive messages in a subset of the studies included in a recent systematic review of context factors for treating pain. (...) Several electronic databases were searched. Reference lists of relevant studies were also searched. Two authors independently undertook study selection, data extraction, risk of bias assessment, and analyses. Our primary outcome measures were differences in patient- or observer-reported pain between groups who were given positive messages and those who were not. -/- Results Of the 16 randomized trials (1703 patients) that met the inclusion criteria, 12 trials had sufficient data for meta-analysis. The pooled standardized effect size was −0.31 (95% confidence interval [CI] −0.61 to −0.01, p = 0.04, I2 = 82%). The effect size remained positive but not statistically significant after we excluded studies considered to have a high risk of bias (standard effect size −0.17, 95% CI −0.54 to 0.19, P = 0.36, I2 = 84%). -/- Conclusion Care of patients with chronic or acute pain may be enhanced when clinicians deliver positive messages about possible clinical outcomes. However, we have identified several limitations of the present study that suggest caution when interpreting the results. We recommend further high-quality studies to confirm (or falsify) our result. -/- FUNDING -/- Alexander Mebius research has been funded through the ERC grant "Philosophy of Pharmacology: Safety, Statistical Standards, and Evidence Amalgamation" (GA: 639276). (shrink)

This paper outlines the methodological and empirical limitations of analysing the potential relationship between complex social phenomena such as democracy and inequality. It shows that the means to assess how they may be related is much more limited than recognised in the existing literature that is laden with contradictory hypotheses and findings. Better understanding our scientific limitations in studying this potential relationship is important for research and policy because many leading economists and other social scientists such as Acemoglu and Robinson (...) mistakenly claim to identify causal linkages between inequality and democracy but at times still inform policy. In contrast to the existing literature, the paper argues that ‘structural’ or ‘causal’ mechanisms that may potentially link the distribution of economic wealth and different political regimes will remain unknown given reasons such as their highly complex and idiosyncratic characteristics, fundamental econometric constraints and analysis at the macro-level. Neither new data sources, different analysed time periods nor new data analysis techniques can resolve this question and provide robust, general conclusions about this potential relationship across countries. Researchers are thus restricted to exploring rough correlations over specific time periods and geographic contexts with imperfect data that are very limited for cross-country comparisons. (shrink)

A variation of Fitch’s paradox is given, where no special rules of inference are assumed, only axioms. These axioms follow from the familiar assumptions which involve rules of inference. We show (by constructing a model) that by allowing that possibly the knower doesn’t know his own soundness (while still requiring he be sound), Fitch’s paradox is avoided. Provided one is willing to admit that sound knowers may be ignorant of their own soundness, this might offer a way out of the (...) paradox. (shrink)

Professor Morales’ Coss Dialogue Lecture demonstrates the utility of pragmatism for his work as a social scientist across three projects: 1) field research studying the acephalous and heterogenous social order of Chicago’s Maxwell Street Market; 2) nascent research how unseen religious orders animate the lives of im/migrants and their contributions to food systems; and 3) large-scale longitudinal research on farmers markets using the Metrics + Indicators for Impact (MIFI) toolkit. The first two sections of my paper applaud and build upon (...) Morales’ first two projects, and my extremely brief third section raises some questions about positivist specters that may haunt the MIFI project insofar as it is conceptualized, described, and deployed using the terms favored by mainstream social science. (shrink)

Some intentional attitudes (beliefs, fears, desires, etc.) have a common focus in spite of there being no object at that focus. For example, two beliefs may be about the same witch even when there are no witches, different astronomers had beliefs directed at Vulcan, even though there is no such planet. This relation of having a common focus, whether or not there is an actual concrete object at that focus, is called intentional identity. In the first part of this thesis (...) I develop a new theory of intentional identity, the triangulation theory, and argue that it has significant advantages over the extant theories of intentional identity in the literature. Empty attitudes (attitudes that are not, prima facie, about anything that exists) will serve as useful cases for testing theories of intentional identity. -/- In the second part, I put the theory developed in the first part to work. I use triangulation theoretic tools to shed light on other debates about intentional attitudes. Some issues to which intentional identity are relevant are the debate about the content of intentional attitudes, the issue of whether or not we need to appeal to external constraints on the content of intentional attitudes, how we should understand the agreement and disagreement of attitudes, how we should construe communication and how we ought to solve Kripke’s puzzle about belief. The second part of this thesis also motivates a broadly internalist and individualistic approach to the con-tent of intentional attitudes; it turns out that if we take a closer look at the narrowly construed psychological states of agents we find materials that allow us to make sense of phenomena usually associated with externalist constraints on the content of attitudes (such as causal constraints and eligibility constraints) in a new way. (shrink)

Background: Many people with aphasia and people without brain injury talk to themselves in their heads, i.e., have “inner speech.” Inner speech may be more preserved compared with spoken speech for some people with aphasia and may serve a variety of functions (e.g., emotion regulation), which motivates us to provide a high-fidelity characterization of it. Researchers have used multiple methods to measure this internal phenomenon in the past, which we combine here for the first time in a single study. -/- (...) Aims: We compare performance between individuals with and without aphasia on inner speech tasks that assess inner speech “inthe- moment” to general subjective impressions of inner speech to tease apart the relationship of aphasia severity to inner speech. Methods and Procedures: Twenty people with mild-moderate aphasia and twenty neurotypical controls completed several inner speech tasks, including objective silent rhyme judgements (picture, written, and auditory), subjective reports of inner speech during naming, and subjective rating scales about inner speech experience more generally. -/- Outcomes and Results: In-the-moment inner speech during silent rhyming tasks was associated with aphasia severity only for picture and written rhyming but not auditory rhyming. In-the-moment inner speech reports during silent naming were not associated with aphasia severity, nor were the subjective ratings about general inner speech experience. Individuals with and without aphasia demonstrated a variety of subjective general inner speech experiences, demonstrating heterogeneity of this phenomenon more broadly. -/- Conclusions: Methods of measuring inner speech complement each other and speak to different facets of the inner speech phenomenon, and clinicians and researchers must carefully choose the method(s) that will provide the information about inner speech that they desire. (shrink)

This thesis develops a detailed account of the emergence of for all practical purposes continuous, quasi-classical world histories from the discontinuous, stochastic micro dynamics of Minimal Bohmian Mechanics (MBM). MBM is a non-relativistic quantum theory. It results from excising the guiding equation from standard Bohmian Mechanics (BM) and reinterpreting the quantum equilibrium hypothesis as a stochastic guidance law for the random actualization of configurations of Bohmian particles. On MBM, there are no continuous trajectories linking up individual configurations. Instead, individual configurations (...) are actualized independently of each other, carving out the decoherence-induced branching structure of the universal wave function. Yet, by contrast to the Everett interpretation, branches of the universal wave function are not actualized in parallel, i.e. all at the same time. Rather, world branches, on MBM, are actualized sequentially. -/- For an introduction to MBM, the transition from BM to MBM is described, and their empirical equivalence is established. I present the conditions under which MBM can be classified as a primitive ontology (PO) theory, regarded as crucial for the acceptance of a theory as Bohmian by many proponents of BM. While rendering MBM compatible with the PO approach, it must not fall prey to the problem of communication, arising from the two-space reading of BM. -/- The issue of temporal solipsism, identified by Bell as a serious problem for his “Everett (?) theory” – the historic predecessor of MBM – is discussed. I argue that Barbour’s time capsule approach does not provide a satisfactory solution. In particular, his adopting a more than minimal psychophysical parallelism between brain processes and experience of macroscopic change is argued to be reasonable in light of our current best neuroscience, yet problematic for theories relying solely on time capsules, understood as highly structured, individual, internally static configurations. As a solution, I introduce worlds, and world histories, as key concepts in providing a link between MBM’s micro dynamics and macroscopic phenomena. Worlds, other than time capsules, are coarse-grained regions in phase- or configuration space, defined as sets of possible micro states satisfying a relation of sufficient similarity from a macroscopic perspective, with respect to a given micro state. Hence, worlds may overlap. -/- I argue that worlds thus construed are a reasonable option for replacing the disjoint macro regions of phase space, resulting from the usual way of partitioning phase space in the standard framework of Boltzmannian statistical mechanics. This move solves the issue of discontinuous change of macro variables upon the micro state crossing the boundary between different macro regions. -/- I adapt this move for MBM’s discontinuous micro dynamics in configuration space. Issues revolving around the microscopic-macroscopic distinction, particle identity, impenetrability and haecceity in light of the desideratum of particle number conservation, etc., are discussed. I provide a detailed explanation of how overlapping worlds in MBM form world histories, thereby linking up macroscopically distinct worlds. Thus, the problem of temporal solipsism is resolved in a way that is compatible with a more than minimal psychophysical parallelism. (shrink)

A suprise may occur if we use a similar strategy to the Liar's paradox to mathematically formalize "This sentence does not contain the symbol X".

We propose that, for the purpose of studying theoretical properties of the knowledge of an agent with Artificial General Intelligence (that is, the knowledge of an AGI), a pragmatic way to define such an agent’s knowledge (restricted to the language of Epistemic Arithmetic, or EA) is as follows. We declare an AGI to know an EA-statement φ if and only if that AGI would include φ in the resulting enumeration if that AGI were commanded: “Enumerate all the EA-sentences which you (...) know.” This definition is non-circular because an AGI, being capable of practical English communication, is capable of understanding the everyday English word “know” independently of how any philosopher formally defines knowledge; we elaborate further on the non-circularity of this circular-looking definition. This elegantly solves the problem that different AGIs may have different internal knowledge definitions and yet we want to study knowledge of AGIs in general, without having to study different AGIs separately just because they have separate internal knowledge definitions. Finally, we suggest how this definition of AGI knowledge can be used as a bridge which could allow the AGI research community to import certain abstract results about mechanical knowing agents from mathematical logic. (shrink)

Special and General theories of relativity may be considered as the most significant examples of integrative thinking. From these works we see that Albert Einstein attached great importance to how we understand geometry and dimensions. It is shown that physics powered by the new multidimensional elastic geometry is a reliable basis for science integration. Instead of searching for braneworlds (elastic membranes - EM) in higher dimensions we will start by searching them in our 3+1 dimensional world. The cornerstone of the (...) new philosophy is an idea that lower dimensional EMs are an essential component of the living matter, they are responsible for our perceptions, intellect, pattern recognition and high speed signal propagation. According to this theory each EM has both physical and perceptive (psychological) meanings: it exists as our Universe-like physical reality for its inner objects and at the same time it plays perceptive (psychological) role in the external bulk space-time. This philosophy may help us to build up a science which explains not only inanimate, unconscious phenomena, but consciousness as well. (shrink)

Undoubtedly the Penrose-Hameroff Orch OR model may be considered as a good theory for describing information processing mechanisms and holistic phenomena in the human brain, but it doesn’t give us satisfactory explanation of human perception. In this work a new approach explaining our perception is introduced, which is in good agreement with Orch OR model and other mainstream science theories such as string theory, loop quantum gravity and holographic principle. It is shown that human perception cannot be explained in the (...) terms of elementary particles and we should introduce new indivisible holistic objects with geometry based on smooth infinitesimal analysis - elastic membranes. The example of such a membrane is our Universe which is an indivisible whole. It is shown that our perception may be considered as the result of elastic oscillations of two dimensional (2D) elastic membranes with closed topology embedded in our bodies. Only one elastic membrane responsible for its perceptions will correspond to the selected organism, but there may be other membranes, even at the cell level. In other words, reality may be considered as the process of time evolution of holistic energetically very weak macro objects - elastic membranes with the geometry based on smooth infinitesimal analysis. An embedded membrane in this multidimensional world will look different for the external and internal observers: from the outside it will look like a material object with smooth infinitesimal geometry, while from the inside our Universe-like space-time fabric. When interacting with elementary particles and other membranes, a membrane will transform their energy into its elastic energy (a new form of energy) - the energy of stretching of the infinitesimal segments. The theory postulates that these elastic deformations will not be observable from the point of view of the internal observer. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle will work in this physics only from the point of view of the internal observer. For the external observer each embedded elastic membrane may be stretched and even a very small region will become observable. For example, living organisms play the role of internal observers of the Universe, and at the same time they serve as external observers for 2D membranes embedded into our Universe. We can observe our 2D self-membranes through our perceptions, which are encoded in elastic oscillations of the elastic membrane. According to the theory, elastic membranes occupy energetically favorable positions around microtubules involved into Orch OR. The theory not only gives us a really multidimensional holistic picture of reality, but it also provides us with a new method for understanding such phenomena as perception, self-awareness and will. (shrink)

In a recent article, ―The Lacuna of Hermeneutics: Notes on the Freedom of Thought, Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback raises an important question regarding the limitations of philosophical hermeneutics to be critical and attentive to the reality of current, concrete socio-political issues. In response, I claim that Gadamerian hermeneutics is well positioned to address current and controversial instances of epistemic injustice. In this article, I focus on the contemporary and controversial example of testimony of those who have been injured by the (...) COVID-19 vaccines. In turning to selections from Gadamer‘s Truth and Method, as well his lectures and essays on health and medicine, I argue that Gadamer‘s emphasis on hermeneutic openness and readiness, as well as an attunement to the linguistic and embodied experience of pain, allow us to consider a responsible approach to testimonies of the vaccine injured. Instead of providing a set of criteria or a particular method for distinguishing true from false testimony, Gadamerian hermeneutics calls for an examination and transformation of one‘s prejudices, especially prejudices which may impede one‘s ability to interpret and understand the subject matter in the first place. (shrink)

This paper advocates for the introduction of poetic inquiry in Nigerian universities as a powerful approach to decolonizing research and reclaiming indigenous ways of knowing. It highlights the need to challenge outdated colonial concepts of higher education that have suppressed poetry and other indigenous forms of exploration and understanding. It argues that the incorporation of poetic inquiry in Nigerian universities can create inclusive and transformative spaces that foster social justice, cultural affirmation, and knowledge decolonization. The paper draws on literature on (...) decolonial and critical pedagogy to argues that poetic inquiry enables researchers to engage with alternative modes of expression and challenge dominant Western-centric paradigms. It underscores the social and political implications of embracing poetry as a means of reimagining narratives and reshaping power dynamics within academia and society at large. By validating and honouring indigenous knowledge systems, poetic inquiry promotes self-determination and cultural revitalization while bridging the gap between academia and the wider community. The paper offers recommendations on how Poetic Inquiry may be integrated into the curriculum of Nigerian universities. (shrink)

Many scientists routinely generalize from study samples to larger populations. It is commonly assumed that this cognitive process of scientific induction is a voluntary inference in which researchers assess the generalizability of their data and then draw conclusions accordingly. We challenge this view and argue for a novel account. The account describes scientific induction as involving by default a generalization bias that operates automatically and frequently leads researchers to unintentionally generalize their findings without sufficient evidence. The result is unwarranted, overgeneralized (...) conclusions. We support this account of scientific induction by integrating a range of disparate findings from across the cognitive sciences that have until now not been connected to research on the nature of scientific induction. The view that scientific induction involves by default a generalization bias calls for a revision of the current thinking about scientific induction and highlights an overlooked cause of the replication crisis in the sciences. Commonly proposed interventions to tackle scientific overgeneralizations that may feed into this crisis need to be supplemented with cognitive debiasing strategies against generalization bias to most effectively improve science. (shrink)

Mathematics is everywhere and yet its objects are nowhere. There may be five apples on the table but the number five itself is not to be found in, on, beside or anywhere near the apples. So if not in space and time, where are numbers and other mathematical objects such as perfect circles and functions? And how do we humans discover facts about them, be it Pythagoras’ Theorem or Fermat’s Last Theorem? The metaphysical question of what numbers are and the (...) epistemological question of how we know about them are central to the philosophy of mathematics. These and related philosophical questions are of particular interest because of mathematics’ unusual status. Mathematics is exceptional in that, on the one hand, it appears unhesitatingly true—no one doubts that 2 + 3 = 5—but on the other, as just noted, it is not about the physical world. This ambivalent status is what gives the philosophy of mathematics its special interest. The philosophy of mathematics is also one of the oldest academic fields, more or less coeval with philosophy itself. But contemporary philosophy of mathematics is rather different from its pre-twentieth-century antecedents, largely for three reasons. The first is that since the seventeenth century, mathematics has become integral to science. Science has over the past few centuries become increasingly mathematical, and indeed the fundamental science of nature, physics, is today recognised as a branch of applied mathematics. The second is that mathematics underwent a transformation in the course of nineteenth century: having started the century as a rather traditional-looking science of quantity it emerged a hundred years later a radically transformed abstract theory of structure. The final factor in the transformation of the philosophy of mathematics is the rise of modern logic. Developed by Frege, Cantor and others in the late nineteenth century, modern logic pervades contemporary mathematics, philosophy and computer science, and has had an immeasurable effect on the philosophy of mathematics. These volumes will collect the major works in this major field, with a focus on the last few decades. The anthology will include technical work, which interprets philosophically significant mathematical results or subfields of mathematics, as well as purely philosophical writing, aimed at those without advanced mathematics. The collection should be of interest to both philosophers and mathematicians, as well as to anyone who is susceptible to wondering what the main intellectual tool used in science, economics and finance, and indeed everyday life is ultimately about. (shrink)

In this work we show that our self-awareness and perception may be successfully explained using two dimensional holistic structures with closed topology embedded into our brains - elastic membranes. These membranes are able to preserve their structure during conscious processes. Their elastic oscillations may be associated with our perceptions, where the frequency of the oscillations is responsible for the perception of different colors, sounds and other stimuli, while the amplitude of the oscillations is responsible for the feeling of a distance. (...) According to the model the squeezed regions of a membrane correspond to the brain zones involved into awareness and attention. The model may be useful for prediction, explanation and interpretation of various conscious phenomena. (shrink)

Some worry that advanced artificial agents may resist being shut down. The Incomplete Preferences Proposal (IPP) is an idea for ensuring that doesn't happen. A key part of the IPP is using a novel 'Discounted REward for Same-Length Trajectories (DREST)' reward function to train agents to (1) pursue goals effectively conditional on each trajectory-length (be 'USEFUL'), and (2) choose stochastically between different trajectory-lengths (be 'NEUTRAL' about trajectory-lengths). In this paper, we propose evaluation metrics for USEFULNESS and NEUTRALITY. We use a (...) DREST reward function to train simple agents to navigate gridworlds, and we find that these agents learn to be USEFUL and NEUTRAL. Our results thus suggest that DREST reward functions could also train advanced agents to be USEFUL and NEUTRAL, and thereby make these advanced agents useful and shutdownable. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between the conspicuous and complicated terms of transcendence and immanence, which may equally be defined as essentially connected, or diametrically opposed. Recent developments in two largely unrelated sets of scholarship— the re-evaluation of secularisation, and the relationship between medieval and modern philosophy—provide a helpful means to arrive at a clearer understanding of this challenging problem. Charles Taylor and Jan Aertesn act as foci for these developments, particularly through their respective concerns with epistemic framing in relation (...) to transcendence and immanence, and the role of transcendentals in medieval philosophy. This examination brings these two concepts together, examining the idea of transcendentals offered by both Aquinas, a thinker of the transcendent frame, and Kant, a thinker of the immanent frame. From this juxtaposition we can offer two contrasting understandings of the relationship between transcendence and immanence from within both the transcendent and immanent frames. Finally, two brief literary examples demonstrate how these two ways of reading transcendence and immanence may be employed in the contextual understanding of religious writing. To understand the unity and division between transcendence and immanence is to better comprehend two primary terms in the study of religion, and to appreciate a fundamental development in the history of religion in the West. (shrink)

This paper analyses the phenomenon of strange, rigid beliefs through the lens of predictive processing (PP). By “strange, rigid beliefs” I refer to abstract beliefs about the world for which, according to a rational and scientific worldview, there is no evidence available, yet which people struggle to abandon even when challenged with strong counterarguments or counterevidence. Following recent PP accounts of delusion formation, I show that one explanation for such strangely persistent beliefs can be a breakdown of the predictive machinery (...) itself. However, given how common strange, rigid beliefs are, I argue that there must be another kind of explanation too – one that does not presuppose a malfunction of the prediction engine. This will lead me to develop an alternative account that I will call “hijacking beliefs”. Using the example of supernatural beliefs, I will argue that certain abstract beliefs, when adopted under the right circumstances, are especially hard to dislodge for a predictive mind, as they are evidentially self-protective. Such beliefs may be consistent with a wide range of experiences and therefore hard to falsify, and might also bias future perception, action, and model-updating in ways that make them immune to rational revision. (shrink)

A strength of liberal political institutions is their ability to accommodate pluralism, both allowing divergent comprehensive doctrines as well as constructing the common ground necessary for diverse people to live together. A pressing question is how far such pluralism extends. Which comprehensive doctrines are simply beyond the pale and need not be accommodated by a political consensus? Rawls attempted to keep the boundaries of reasonable disagreement quite broad by infamously denying that political liberalism need make reference to the concept of (...) truth, a claim that has been criticized by Joseph Raz, Joshua Cohen, and David Estlund. In this paper, we argue that these criticisms fail due to the fact that political liberalism can remain non-committal on the nature of truth, leaving the concept of truth in the domain of comprehensive doctrines while still avoiding the issues raised by Raz, Cohen, and Estlund. Further substantiating this point is the fact that Rawls would, and should, include parties in the overlapping consensus whose views on truth may be incoherent. Once it is seen that political liberalism allows such incoherence to reasonable parties, it is clear that the inclusion of truth and the requirement of coherence urged by Raz, Cohen, and Estlund requires more of reasonable people than is necessary for a political consensus. (shrink)

Imagine that only the state can meet the need for housing but decides not to do so. Unsurprisingly, participants in a vignette experiment deem this scenario unjust. Hence, justice ratings increase when the living situation improves. To a lesser extent, this also holds beyond the need threshold, understood as the minimum amount necessary for a decent life. Surprisingly, however, the justice evaluation function is highly convex below this point. The resulting S-shaped curve is akin to the value function in prospect (...) theory, with the need threshold providing the point of reference and inflection. A control treatment without needs-information supports this interpretation. Needs-information furthermore compresses the perceived injustice of arbitrary inequality. As in prospect theory, such reference dependency suggests biases in judgment and decision making. A consequence may be that the lot of the poorest in society does not receive the attention it would otherwise get. (shrink)

For more than one decade, Andy Clark has defended the now-famous extended mind thesis, the idea that cognitive processes leak into the world. In this paper I analyse Clark’s theoretical justification for the thesis: explanatory simplicity. I argue that his way of justifying the thesis leads into contradiction, either at the level of propositional attitude ascriptions or at the theoretical level. I evaluate three possible strategies of dealing with this issue, concluding that they are all likely to fail and that (...) therefore, as regards explanatory simplicity, the burden of proof is on Clark’s side. The paper divides into two main sections: in “Simplicity and Coherence”, I define the two concepts that are important in this context (simplicity and explanatory coherence). In “How to Cope with Coherence”, these two concepts are applied to the central thought experiment, the Inga/Otto case. It will be shown that justifying the extended mind thesis by reference to simplicity may cause trouble, because ‘extended’ behavioural descriptions are likely to yield rather complicated explanations. (shrink)

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

Significant associations have been found between specific human leukocyte antigen (HLA) alleles and organ transplant rejection, autoimmune disease development, and the response to infection. Traditional searches for disease associations have conventionally measured risk associated with the presence of individual HLA alleles. However, given the high level of HLA polymorphism, the pattern of amino acid variability, and the fact that most of the HLA variation occurs at functionally important sites, it may be that a combination of variable amino acid sites shared (...) by several alleles (shared epitopes) are better descriptors of the actual causative genetic variants. Here we describe a novel approach to genetic association analysis in which genes/proteins are broken down into smaller sequence features and then variant types defined for each feature, allowing for independent analysis of disease association with each sequence feature variant type. We have used this approach to analyze a cohort of systemic sclerosis patients and show that a sequence feature composed of specific amino acid residues in peptide binding pockets 4 and 7 of HLA-DRB1 explains much of the molecular determinant of risk for systemic sclerosis. (shrink)

The comprehension of anaphoric relations may be guided not only by discourse, but also syntactic information. In the literature on online processing, however, the focus has been on audible pronouns and descriptions whose reference is resolved mainly on the former. This paper examines one relation that both lacks overt exponence, and relies almost exclusively on syntax for its resolution: adjunct control, or the dependency between the null subject of a non-finite adjunct and its antecedent in sentences such as Mickey talked (...) to Minnie before ___ eating. Using visual world eyetracking, we compare the time course of interpreting this null subject and overt pronouns (Mickey talked to Minnie before he ate). We show that when control structures are highly frequent, listeners are just as quick to resolve reference in either case. When control structures are less frequent, reference resolution based on structural information still occurs upon hearing the non-finite verb, but more slowly, especially when unaided by structural and referential predictions. This may be due to increased difficulty in recognizing that a referential dependency is necessary. These results indicate that in at least some contexts, referential expressions whose resolution depends on very different sources of information can be resolved approximately equally rapidly, and that the speed of interpretation is largely independent of whether or not the dependency is cued by an overt referring expression. (shrink)

Alexander Raven Thomson was a British fascist philosopher, active from 1932 to 1955. I outline Thomson’s Spenglerian views on civilization and decline. I argue that Thomson in his first book is an orthodox Spenglerian who accepts that decline is inevitable and thinks that it is morally required to destroy civilization in its final stages. I argue that this suffers from conceptual issues which may have caused Thomson’s change to a revised form of Spenglerianism, which is more authentically fascist. This (...) authentically fascist view is then seen to fall prey into the problem inherent in the very idea of permanent rebirth. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss two attempts to challenge mainstream liberal education, by Hannah Arendt and by contemporary Israeli philosopher Hanan Alexander. Arendt and Alexander both identify problems in liberal-secular modern politics and present alternatives based on reconnecting politics and education to tradition. I analyze their positions and bring them into a dialogue that suggests a complex conception of education that avoids many of the pitfalls of modern liberal thought. First, I outline Arendt and Alexander’s educational views (...) and discuss their similarities, arguing that both may be understood as opposed to the modern attempt to adopt a «view from nowhere» at the world. Next, I suggest that Alexander’s view may benefit from adopting Arendt’s conceptions of tradition and authority. In the consecutive section, I argue that Alexander sheds light on significant problems in Arendt’s approach to education, problems his understanding of critical dialogue can help solve. The succeeding section joins the two views together to form an approach I call «critical traditionalism», and examines it against prevailing approaches to political education. I conclude by pointing to an important point overlooked by both Arendt and Alexander, namely the need for internal political struggle within each tradition. (shrink)

Alexander Bird (2001; 2002; 2007) offers a powerful argument showing that, regardless of whether necessitarianism or contingentism about laws is true, salt necessarily dissolves in water. The argument is that the same laws of nature that are necessary for the constitution of salt necessitate the solubility of salt. This paper shows that Bird’s argument faces a serious objection if the possibility of emergentism – in particular, C. D. Broad’s account – is taken into account. The idea is (roughly) that (...) some emergent laws in some possible worlds may disrupt the solubility of salt without disrupting its constitution. (shrink)

[Does the gymnosophist’s reply to Alexander’s question on the origin of time indeed reflect an Indian doctrine?] The episode of Alexander’s interview with the gymnosophists has come down to us in several versions, among which the one in Plutarch’s Vita Alexandri is the most renowned. In this connection, the question arises whether the solutions given by the naked philosophers to the puzzles propounded by Alexander can be shown to reflect genuine Indian doctrines. Challenging Dumézil’s reply in the (...) affirmative, the author contends that they cannot. While most questions and answers are scarcely relevant to the investigation, as being of little (if any) philosophical import, the analysis concentrates on the more significant ones, and especially on the solution offered to the question as to which of the two — day or night — came first. According to Dumézil, the gymnosophist’s answer reported by Plutarch, i. e. that the day came first, by one day, reflects the vedic doctrine of the primeval cosmogonic role of Dawn and Light. Against this may be argued in the first place that such doctrine does not enjoy any prominent status in the Vedas themselves — quite to the contrary, it stands up disadvantegeously to many all-important texts, such as the Nāsadīyasūkta, which assign the primeval status to Darkness — and cannot therefore be regarded as being specifically Indian any more than its opposite. Secondly, it is shown that the Greek tradition is at great variance on this very point, to the extent that all logically conceivable solutions (i. e., precedence of day by one day / day by one night / night by one day / night by one night) are represented in some version or other. This inconsistency appears to stem from the fact that no particular doctrine (Indian or whatever) was envisaged; according to the present author, we have reason to believe that the gymnosophist’s reply was rather meant to set off by means of a paradox the sheer impossibility of a solution (all four alternatives being equivalent to that effect). This interpretation is reinforced by the gymnosophist’s own remark confessing the aporetical nature of his reply, and finally by a further recourse to paradox — this time a variant of the well-known “paradox of the liar” — which the author lays bare in the otherwise inexplicable dénouement of the anecdote. (shrink)

Stephen Mumford and Alexander Bird disagree about which properties are powers and, correspondingly, about the extent of the philosophical work to which powers may be put. Unfortunately, there is an important respect in which these authors are talking past each other and so the reason for their disagreement remains obscured. I highlight what has gone wrong in their recent exchange, attempt to clear up the confusion and pinpoint the true source of their disagreement. My hope is to redirect the (...) efforts of these authors and their followers onto more pressing foundational issues in the metaphysics of powers. (shrink)

One of the main objections against effective altruism is the so-called institutional critique, according to which the EA movement neglects interventions that affect large-scale institutions. Alexander Dietz has recently put forward an interesting version of this critique, based on a theoretical problem affecting act-utilitarianism, which he deems as potentially conclusive against effective altruism. In this article I argue that his critique is not as promising as it seems. I then go on to propose another version of the institutional critique. (...) In contrast to Dietz's version, it targets not the core principles of effective altruism but rather some important methodological assumptions made in EA research, namely diminishing marginal returns and low-hanging fruits. One key conclusion is that it may be time for critics of effective altruism to shift their attention from the theoretical core principles of effective altruism towards the methodological tools actually employed in practice by the EA movement. (shrink)

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

In “Accepting Moral Responsibility for the Actions of Autonomous Weapons Systems—a Moral Gambit” (2022), Mariarosaria Taddeo and Alexander Blanchard answer one of the most vexing issues in current ethics of technology: how to close the so-called “responsibility gap”? Their solution is to require that autonomous weapons systems (AWSs) may only be used if there is some human being who accepts the ex ante responsibility for those actions of the AWS that could not have been predicted or intended (in such (...) cases, the human being takes what the authors call the “moral gambit”). The authors then propose several institutional safeguards to implement in order to ensure that the moral gambit is taken in a fair and just way. This paper explores this suggestion in the context of the institutional settings within which AWSs are most likely to be deployed. It raises some concerns as to the feasibility of Taddeo and Blanchard’s proposal, in light of the recent empirical work on the incentive structures likely to exist within militaries. It then presents a potential problem that may arise in case the accountability mechanisms are successfully implemented. (shrink)

The subtraction argument, originally put forward by Thomas Baldwin (1996), is intended to establish Metaphysical Nihilism, the thesis that there could have been no concrete objects. Some modified versions of the argument have been proposed in order to avoid some difficulties faced by the original argument. In this paper I shall concentrate on two of those versions, the so-called subtraction argument* (presented and defended in Rodriguez-Pereyra 1997, 2000, 2002), and Efird and Stoneham’s recent version of the argument (Efird and Stoneham (...) 2005). I shall defend the subtraction argument* from Alexander Paseau’s (2006) objection that because a crucial premise of the subtraction argument* may have no plausibility independent from Metaphysical Nihilism, the subtraction argument* is not suasive. Although Paseau focuses on the subtraction argument*, I shall point out that Efird and Stoneham could reply to Paseau’s objection in the same way. Thus there are (at least) two suasive versions of the subtraction argument that establish Metaphysical Nihilism. But are those two arguments equally good? I shall argue that the subtraction argument* is preferable to Efird and Stoneham’s argument. (shrink)

Aristotle says that ὑπαρχειν has as many senses as ‘to be true’ (PrA. , A, 36, 48b2-9) and as many ways as there are different categories. (PrA., A, 37, 49a6-9) This may mean that for every ‘is’ there is a ὑπαρχειν. Τhe reason is that Aristotle uses ὑπαρχειν in converse direction of ‘is’. The equal statement of ‘A is B’ with ὑπαρχειν is ‘B ὑπαρχει to A.’ Allen Bāck points to the difference between the use of the verb with dative (...) case and its use with a subject alone in Greek language. When it is used with the dative, it retains its basic meaning, that is, ‘be already present’ or ‘exist really.’ ‘So to say that P belongs to S is to say that P exists in S, or, if you like, that P has its being in S.’ He believes that Aristotle uses this construction to insist that primary substances alone are the fundamental being and all other things only are ‘in’ substances. Thus, when the verb is used with the dative, it expresses dependent substance relation. But when it is used with a subject alone, e.g. in ‘S ὑπάρχει,’ it expresses that the subject really exists. (OI., 17a24 and 17b2) Thus, while it is the subject which is said to be the predicate, it is the predicate which ὑπάρχει to the subject. The formula of ‘τὸ Α ὑπάρχει τῷ Β’ is equivalent to ‘τὸ Β ἐστι Α.’ He uses the word for the predication of a category on substance (e.g. Met., α, 993b24-25; Met., Z, 1029a15-16; Cat., 5, 3b24-25), the predication of secondary substance on primary substance (e.g. Met., Z, 1038b21-23; Cat., 5, 2a14-19), the predication of primary substance on nothing else but itself (e.g. Met., Z, 1040b23-24), the belonging of a verb to the subject, the belonging of axioms to a single science (Met., 1005a22-23) , the belonging of PNC to all things that are (Met., IV, 3) , in the sense of really existing (Cael. 297b22, Met., 1041b4. Cf. B503, 125-126) or merely in the sense of the predication of a predicate on a subject (e.g. OI., I, 5, 17a22-24) and especially and much more repeatedly than anywhere else in his discussion of syllogism. (e.g. PrA., A, 36, 48a40-b2; PrA., B, 22, 67b28-30; PrA., A, 24a26-28) It is also used in some related senses like mere belonging (e.g. Met., A, 989a10-14; K, 1060a9-10) or to be there. (So., B, 5, 417b23-26) Some of its derived forms are also used by Aristotle. For example, ἐνυπαρχον in the sense of the thing that is ‘in’ something; (e.g. Met., A, 991a13-16; Met., Z, 1038b29-33 and 1039a3-5) ὑπερέχον in the sense of that which contains and ὑπερεχόμενον in the sense of that which is contained in something else. (e.g. Met., Δ, 1020b26-28) In a sense, the extent of the application of ὑπαρχειν is wider than ‘is’ since it is not restricted to the nominative form in which ‘is’ is used but is applicable to other cases as well: ‘For ‘That does not belong to this’ does not always mean that ‘This is not that’ but sometimes that ‘this is not of that’ or ‘for that.’ (PsA., A, 36, 48b28-33) Allen Bāck (B503, 124) points that in the Prior Analytics Aristotle uses ‘ὑπάρχει τῷ’ and ‘κατηγορεῖσθαι κατά’ interchangeably. (e.g. at 25b37-26a4) Referring to its converse construction in respect of μετέχει (if A belongs to B, then B participates in A) as a probable reason that it may have Platonist foundations. But the question is: why does Aristotle uses this construction (B belongs to A) instead of simply saying A is B? Alexander of Aphrodisias (Apr 54.21-29) wonders why Aristotle had to adhere to such artificial language, entirely unnatural for ordinary speakers of Greek. As Jonathan Barnes points out, all the three formulas of ‘τὸ Α ὑπάρχει τῷ Β,’ ‘τὸ Α κατηγορεῖται κατὰ τοῦ Β’ and ‘τὸ Α λέγεται κατὰ τοῦ Β’ are artificial in the sense that no Greek who wanted to say that pleasure was good would normally have expressed himself by way of any of them.’ Bāck thinks Aristotle may have used it ‘to stress the primacy of primary substances as the ultimate subjects.’ He also mentions the probability that it may be to emphasize that the terms are being coupled in predication without any existence condition, a suggestion he is not himself inclined with. Robin Smith notes for Aristotle that ‘belonging to’ construction is wider than ‘predicated of’ construction because it can be used for cases that cannot easily be treated as categorical sentences. While predication is restricted to cases in which the subject term is in the nominative case, belonging can indicate, as he quotes Mignucci (480-481), ‘any possible grammatical construction for a predicative relation’ . (shrink)

I argue that by considering Kant’s engagement with previous theorists of natural right, we can gain a clearer understanding of how he transformed the discipline from its foundations. To do this, I focus my analysis on Kant’s (critical) reception of two models of natural right with which he was very familiar: one from Alexander Baumgarten’s Elements of First Practical Philosophy [Initia philosophiae practicae primae], the other from Gottfried Achenwall’s Natural Law [Ius naturae]. The Initia served as a basis for (...) Kant’s lectures on moral philosophy for over three decades and may thus be considered as having played an important role in shaping his practical philosophy as a whole. Achenwall’s Ius naturae was the textbook that Kant employed in his lectures on natural right for over two decades. I argue that Kant distances himself from previous models of natural right in three main regards: the identification of moral laws with laws of nature, the normative connection between the principles of right and a natural end, and the place of God as the author of moral laws. I then briefly discuss what Kant retains of Baumgarten’s and Achenwall’s models of natural right. Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals preserves the view that a rational doctrine of right belongs to a broader systematic doctrine that comprehends the entire system of duties. I address the question of the division of the Sittenlehre into two branches and claim that, whereas Kant did not consider Baumgarten’s answer to the problem of distinguishing juridical from ethical principles to be satisfactory, he found a key piece of his own resolution in Achenwall’s Ius naturae, namely the definition of right as a power to coerce. (shrink)

Metaphysics as an independent discipline has a surprisingly short history. Until the early eighteenth century, many, perhaps even most, writers on “metaphysics” primarily had the eponymous work of Aristotle in mind. In the writings of the early eighteenth-century German rationalists—Christian Wolff and Alexander Baumgarten—we find a conception of metaphysics that is no longer necessarily tied to Aristotle’s great work. But metaphysics as a discipline was not blessed with longevity, as a dozen years or so before Louis XVI it was (...) condemned to the guillotine by Kant’s first critique. The fate of metaphysics after the Kantian revolution is a story that still needs to be told, but it would be fair to say, I think, that for the past two centuries engagement with heavy metaphysical concepts such as eternity has been taken to be either a form of backwardness (religious or otherwise) or a kind of eccentricity. Luckily, things seem to have changed somewhat over the past twenty years. Suddenly, for example, we are seeing debates about monism appear in mainstream journals. (This could hardly be imagined in the 1970s or 1980s.) The emergence of interest in metaphysical monism as well as the persistent engagement with the philosophy of modality may open a window of opportunity through which eternity could again take her rightful seat as a fundamental notion of metaphysics. (shrink)

This article shows the origin of the famous Aristotelian expression τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι in everyday language. The expression is analysable in τὸ εἶναι and τί ἦν, and this part is the core of the common language question τουτὶ τί ἦν; or τουτὶ τί ἦν τὸ πρᾶγμα; always in imperfect form. This question is often found in Aristophanes’ comedies, which represent common Attic language. The imperfect ἦν is noted as a common Attic form indicating the present already by early comentators (...) of Aristotle as Alexander of Aphrodisias, the scholia to Aristophanes, later by Budaeus, but also in the modern Greek Lexikon of D. Demetrakos. Therefore not the imperfect is the problem, by mere embarrassement it was called "philosophic." The situations in the Aristophanean comedies, in which the question occurs, show that the thing about which somebody asks, is present, in front of the speaker, that it is an individual thing and something absolutly unexspected. The questioner will ask "What on the whole is this?" He asks about the first ground of being of the thing. The term τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι quotes only the use of εἶναι in this question in common language (like many other terms are quotations as τὸ τί ἐστίν; τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα etc.) and may be paraphrased by "Think of ’to be’ as you use it in the question ’What at all is this?’ " See also my article: Sonderegger (2001). Zur Sprachform des Ausdrucks to ti en einai. Rheinisches Museum Für Philologie 144:113–122. -/- The consequences of this linguistic finding can be found in my comments on Metaphysik Z and Metaphysics Λ (English version from 2020). (shrink)

There have been attempts to subsume Charles Darwin's theory of evolution under either one of two distinct intellectual traditions: early Victorian natural science and its descendants in political economy (as exemplified by Herschel, Lyell, or Malthus) and the romantic approach to art and science emanating from Germany (as exemplified by Humboldt and Goethe). In this paper, it will be shown how these traditions may have jointly contributed to the design of Darwin's theory. The hypothesis is that their encounter created a (...) particular tension in the conception of his theory which first opened up its characteristic field and mode of explanation. On the one hand, the domain of the explanandum was conceived of under a holistic and aesthetic view of nature that, in its combination with refined techniques of observation, was deeply indebted to Humboldt in particular. On the other hand, Darwin fashioned explanations for natural phenomena, so conceived, in order to identify their proper causes in a Herschelian spirit. The particular interaction between these two traditions in Darwin, it is concluded, paved the way for a transfer of the idea of causal laws to animate nature while salvaging the romantic idea of a complex, teleological and harmonious order of nature. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

What is the relation between science and ideology? Are they incompatible, complementary or the same thing? Should science avoid "contamination" from ideology? Is there an only way to do science? Does anyone of them lead to the same results and give us the same worldview? We will focus on the figure of Alexander Bogdanov, Russian physician and philosopher, in order to discuss these and other relevant topics. His theories gave birth to what may be called later "the theory of (...) two sciences", which entitles this work. (shrink)

Recent work has argued that there may be cases where no attitude – including withholding – is rationally permissible. In this paper, I consider two such epistemic dilemmas, John Turri’s Dilemma from Testimony and David Alexander’s Dilemma from Doubt. Turri presents a case where one’s only evidence rules out withholding (without warranting belief or disbelief). Alexander presents a case where higher order doubt means one must withhold judgment over whether withholding judgment is rational. In both cases, the authors (...) conclude that no doxastic attitude is warranted. In this paper, I argue against the possibility of these epistemic dilemmas. I argue that withholding cannot be irrational in either case. But meditating on the dilemmas gives us an important – and overlooked – insight into the nature of rational withholding. First, rational withholding is a function of evidence failing to sufficiently support belief or disbelief. As a result, withholding is not symmetrical to belief and disbelief. Second, there can be two distinct grounds for rational withholding. First, propositional withholding, which arises when our evidence does not support belief or disbelief in p. And second, doxastic withholding, which arises when we cannot determine whether our evidence supports belief or disbelief in p. Accepting two grounds of rational withholding licenses a kind of Weak Permissivism. But this Weak Permissivism should not be troubling to anyone. (shrink)

What is the relation between science and ideology? Are they incompatible, complementary or the same thing? Should science avoid “contamination” from ideology? Is there an only way to do science? Does anyone of them lead to the same results and give us the same worldview? We will focus on the figure of Alexander Bogdanov, Russian physician and philosopher, in order to discuss these and other relevant topics. His theories gave birth to what may be called later “the theory of (...) two sciences”, which entitles this work. (shrink)