Results for 'Alexander Provost'

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  1. Grounding and metametaphysics.Alexander Skiles & Kelly Trogdon - 2020 - In Ricki Bliss & James Miller (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics. New York, NY: Routledge.
    Discussion of the relevance of grounding to substantiveness, theory-choice, and “location problems” in metaphysics.
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  2. Against Grounding Necessitarianism.Alexander Skiles - 2015 - Erkenntnis 80 (4):717-751.
    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 (...)
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  3. Against Conventional Wisdom.Alexander W. Kocurek, Ethan Jerzak & Rachel Etta Rudolph - 2020 - Philosophers' Imprint 20 (22):1-27.
    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 (...)
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  4. A direction effect on taste predicates.Alexander Dinges & Julia Zakkou - 2020 - Philosophers' Imprint 20 (27):1-22.
    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 (...)
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  5. Determinism, Counterfactuals, and Decision.Alexander Sandgren & Timothy Luke Williamson - 2021 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 99 (2):286-302.
    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 (...)
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  6. Teaching Gloria Anzaldúa as an American Philosopher.Alexander Stehn - 2020 - In Margaret Cantú-Sánchez, Candace de León-Zepeda & Norma Elia Cantú (eds.), Teaching Gloria E. Anzaldúa: Pedagogy and Practice for Our Classrooms and Communities. University of Arizona Press. pp. 296-313.
    Many of my first students at Anzaldúa’s alma mater read Borderlands/La Frontera and concluded that Anzaldúa was not a philosopher. Hostile comments suggested that Anzaldúa’s intimately personal and poetic ways of writing were not philosophical. In response, I created “American Philosophy and Self-Culture” using backwards course design and taught variations of it in 2013, 2016, and 2018. Students spend nearly a month exploring Anzaldúa’s works, but only after reading three centuries of U.S.-American philosophers who wrote in deeply personal and literary (...)
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  7. Two Kinds of Logical Impossibility.Alexander Sandgren & Koji Tanaka - 2020 - Noûs 54 (4):795-806.
    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 (...)
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  8. Counterpossibles.Alexander W. Kocurek - 2021 - Philosophy Compass 16 (11):e12787.
    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.
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  9. What is the Sceptical Solution?Alexander Miller - 2020 - Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy 8 (2).
    In chapter 3 of Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Kripke’s Wittgenstein offers a “sceptical solution" to the sceptical paradox about meaning developed in chapter 2 (according to which there are no facts in virtue of which ascriptions of meaning such as “Jones means addition by ‘+’” can be true). Although many commentators have taken the sceptical solution to be broadly analogous to non-factualist theories in other domains, such as non-cognitivism or expressivism in metaethics, the nature of the sceptical solution (...)
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  10. Counterlogicals as Counterconventionals.Alexander W. Kocurek & Ethan J. Jerzak - 2021 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 50 (4):673-704.
    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 (...)
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  11. Identity display: another motive for metalinguistic disagreement.Alexander Davies - 2021 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 64 (8):861-882.
    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. (...)
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  12. The Problem of Molecular Structure Just Is The Measurement Problem.Alexander Franklin & Vanessa Angela Seifert - forthcoming - The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
    Whether or not quantum physics can account for molecular structure is a matter of considerable controversy. Three of the problems raised in this regard are the problems of molecular structure. We argue that these problems are just special cases of the measurement problem of quantum mechanics: insofar as the measurement problem is solved, the problems of molecular structure are resolved as well. In addition, we explore one consequence of our argument: that claims about the reduction or emergence of molecular structure (...)
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  13.  99
    A Policy of No Interest? The Permanent Zero Interest Rate, and the Evils of Capitalism.Alexander Douglas - manuscript
    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 (...)
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  14.  94
    Die Wiener Handelskammer als Lebensretter für die Österreichische Schule der Nationalökonomie.Alexander Linsbichler - 2024 - In Harald Hornacek, Thomas Bohuslav, Fritz Gregshammer, Helmut Naumann & Herbert Pribyl (eds.), 175 Jahre Wirtschaftskammer Wien. Wien: Wirtschaftskammer Wien. pp. 40-47, 123.
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  15. Kant on the Highest Good and Moral Arguments.Alexander T. Englert & Andrew Chignell - forthcoming - In Andrew Stephenson & Anil Gomes (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Kant. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
    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 (...)
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  16. How navigation systems transform epistemic virtues: Knowledge, issues and solutions.Alexander Gillett & Richard Heersmink - 2019 - Cognitive Systems Research 56 (56):36-49.
    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 (...)
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  17. Epistemic Landscapes, Optimal Search, and the Division of Cognitive Labor.Jason McKenzie Alexander, Johannes Himmelreich & Christopher Thompson - 2015 - Philosophy of Science 82 (3):424-453,.
    This article examines two questions about scientists’ search for knowledge. First, which search strategies generate discoveries effectively? Second, is it advantageous to diversify search strategies? We argue pace Weisberg and Muldoon, “Epistemic Landscapes and the Division of Cognitive Labor”, that, on the first question, a search strategy that deliberately seeks novel research approaches need not be optimal. On the second question, we argue they have not shown epistemic reasons exist for the division of cognitive labor, identifying the errors that led (...)
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  18. Otto Neurath's Scientific Utopianism Revisited - A Refined Model for Utopias in Thought Experiments.Alexander Linsbichler & Ivan Ferreira da Cunha - 2023 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie (2):1-26.
    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 (...)
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  19. The dominating effects of economic crises.Alexander Bryan - 2021 - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 24 (6):884-908.
    This article argues that economic crises are incompatible with the realisation of non-domination in capitalist societies. The ineradicable risk that an economic crisis will occur undermines the robust security of the conditions of non-domination for all citizens, not only those who are harmed by a crisis. I begin by demonstrating that the unemployment caused by economic crises violates the egalitarian dimensions of freedom as non-domination. The lack of employment constitutes an exclusion from the social bases of self-respect, and from a (...)
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  20. Pattern-Based Reasons and Disaster.Alexander Dietz - 2023 - Utilitas 35 (2):131–147.
    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 (...)
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  21. Verbal Disagreement and Semantic Plans.Alexander W. Kocurek - 2023 - Erkenntnis.
    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 (...)
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  22. Universality Reduced.Alexander Franklin - 2019 - Philosophy of Science 86 (5):1295-1306.
    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 (...)
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  23. Turning Aboutness About.Alexander Sandgren - 2021 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (1):136-155.
    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 (...)
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  24. Kant's Favorite Argument for Our Immortality: The Teleological Argument.Alexander T. Englert - 2023 - Res Philosophica 100 (3):357-388.
    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, (...)
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  25. On the Substitution of Identicals in Counterfactual Reasoning.Alexander W. Kocurek - 2020 - Noûs 54 (3):600-631.
    It is widely held that counterfactuals, unlike attitude ascriptions, preserve the referential transparency of their constituents, i.e., that counterfactuals validate the substitution of identicals when their constituents do. The only putative counterexamples in the literature come from counterpossibles, i.e., counterfactuals with impossible antecedents. Advocates of counterpossibilism, i.e., the view that counterpossibles are not all vacuous, argue that counterpossibles can generate referential opacity. But in order to explain why most substitution inferences into counterfactuals seem valid, counterpossibilists also often maintain that counterfactuals (...)
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  26. AGI and the Knight-Darwin Law: why idealized AGI reproduction requires collaboration.Samuel Alexander - 2020 - Agi.
    Can an AGI create a more intelligent AGI? Under idealized assumptions, for a certain theoretical type of intelligence, our answer is: “Not without outside help”. This is a paper on the mathematical structure of AGI populations when parent AGIs create child AGIs. We argue that such populations satisfy a certain biological law. Motivated by observations of sexual reproduction in seemingly-asexual species, the Knight-Darwin Law states that it is impossible for one organism to asexually produce another, which asexually produces another, and (...)
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  27. Should explanation be a guide to ground?Alexander Skiles & Kelly Trogdon - 2021 - Philosophical Studies 178 (12):4083-4098.
    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, (...)
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  28. Counteridenticals.Alexander W. Kocurek - 2018 - The Philosophical Review 127 (3):323-369.
    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 (...)
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  29. The Conceptual Origin of Worldview in Kant and Fichte.Alexander T. Englert - 2023 - Journal of Transcendental Philosophy 4 (1):1-24.
    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 (...)
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  30. Emergence without limits: The case of phonons.Alexander Franklin & Eleanor Knox - 2018 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 64 (C):68-78.
    Recent discussions of emergence in physics have focussed on the use of limiting relations, and often particularly on singular or asymptotic limits. We discuss a putative example of emergence that does not fit into this narrative: the case of phonons. These quasi-particles have some claim to be emergent, not least because the way in which they relate to the underlying crystal is almost precisely analogous to the way in which quantum particles relate to the underlying quantum field theory. But there (...)
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  31. Private Investigators and Public Speakers.Alexander Sandgren - 2023 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 9 (1):95-113.
    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 (...)
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  32. Scientific Platonism.Alexander Paseau - 2007 - In Mary Leng, Alexander Paseau & Michael D. Potter (eds.), Mathematical Knowledge. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. pp. 123-149.
    Does natural science give us reason to believe that mathematical statements are true? And does natural science give us reason to believe in some particular metaphysics of mathematics? These two questions should be firmly distinguished. My argument in this chapter is that a negative answer to the second question is compatible with an affirmative answer to the first. Loosely put, even if science settles the truth of mathematics, it does not settle its metaphysics.
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  33. Introduction: Scientific Explanation Beyond Causation.Alexander Reutlinger & Juha Saatsi - 2018 - In Alexander Reutlinger & Juha Saatsi (eds.), Explanation Beyond Causation: Philosophical Perspectives on Non-Causal Explanations. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
    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 (...)
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  34. Logic talk.Alexander W. Kocurek - 2021 - Synthese 199 (5-6):13661-13688.
    Sentences about logic are often used to show that certain embedding expressions are hyperintensional. Yet it is not clear how to regiment “logic talk” in the object language so that it can be compositionally embedded under such expressions. In this paper, I develop a formal system called hyperlogic that is designed to do just that. I provide a hyperintensional semantics for hyperlogic that doesn’t appeal to logically impossible worlds, as traditionally understood, but instead uses a shiftable parameter that determines the (...)
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  35. Primitivism About Intrinsicality.Alexander Skiles - 2014 - In Robert M. Francescotti (ed.), Companion to Intrinsic Properties. Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 221-252.
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  36. Making desires satisfied, making satisfied desires.Alexander Dietz - 2023 - Philosophical Studies 180 (3):979-999.
    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, (...)
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  37. The material conditions of non-domination: Property, independence, and the means of production.Alexander Bryan - 2023 - European Journal of Political Theory 22 (3):425-444.
    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 (...)
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  38. Pregnancy, Parthood and Proper Overlap: A Critique of Kingma.Alexander Geddes - 2023 - Philosophical Quarterly 73 (2):476-491.
    Elselijn Kingma argues that, in cases of mammalian placental pregnancy, the foster (roughly, the post-implantation embryo/foetus) is part of the gravida (the pregnant organism). But she does not consider the possibility of proper overlap. I show that this generates a number of serious problems for her argument and trace the oversight to a quite general issue within the literature on biological individuality. Doing so provides an opportunity to pull apart and clarify the relations between some importantly distinct questions concerning organismality (...)
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  39. On the Renormalization Group Explanation of Universality.Alexander Franklin - 2018 - Philosophy of Science 85 (2):225-248.
    It is commonly claimed that the universality of critical phenomena is explained through particular applications of the renormalization group. This article has three aims: to clarify the structure of the explanation of universality, to discuss the physics of such RG explanations, and to examine the extent to which universality is thus explained. The derivation of critical exponents proceeds via a real-space or a field-theoretic approach to the RG. Building on work by Mainwood, this article argues that these approaches ought to (...)
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  40. Measuring the intelligence of an idealized mechanical knowing agent.Samuel Alexander - 2020 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science 12226.
    We define a notion of the intelligence level of an idealized mechanical knowing agent. This is motivated by efforts within artificial intelligence research to define real-number intelligence levels of compli- cated intelligent systems. Our agents are more idealized, which allows us to define a much simpler measure of intelligence level for them. In short, we define the intelligence level of a mechanical knowing agent to be the supremum of the computable ordinals that have codes the agent knows to be codes (...)
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  41. Was James Psychologistic?Alexander Klein - 2016 - Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy 4 (5).
    As Thomas Uebel has recently argued, some early logical positivists saw American pragmatism as a kindred form of scientific philosophy. They associated pragmatism with William James, whom they rightly saw as allied with Ernst Mach. But what apparently blocked sympathetic positivists from pursuing commonalities with American pragmatism was the concern that James advocated some form of psychologism, a view they thought could not do justice to the a priori. This paper argues that positivists were wrong to read James as offering (...)
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  42. On the Concept of a Notational Variant.Alexander W. Kocurek - 2017 - In Alexandru Baltag, Jeremy Seligman & Tomoyuki Yamada (eds.), Logic, Rationality, and Interaction (LORI 2017, Sapporo, Japan). Springer. pp. 284-298.
    In the study of modal and nonclassical logics, translations have frequently been employed as a way of measuring the inferential capabilities of a logic. It is sometimes claimed that two logics are “notational variants” if they are translationally equivalent. However, we will show that this cannot be quite right, since first-order logic and propositional logic are translationally equivalent. Others have claimed that for two logics to be notational variants, they must at least be compositionally intertranslatable. The definition of compositionality these (...)
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  43. Does Chance Undermine Would?Alexander W. Kocurek - 2022 - Mind 131 (523):747-785.
    Counterfactual scepticism holds that most ordinary counterfactuals are false. The main argument for this view appeals to a ‘chance undermines would’ principle: if ψ would have some chance of not obtaining had ϕ obtained, then ϕ □→ ψ is false. This principle seems to follow from two fairly weak principles, namely, that ‘chance ensures could’ and that ϕ □→ ψ and ϕ ⋄→ ¬ ψ clash. Despite their initial plausibility, I show that these principles are independently problematic: given some modest (...)
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  44. Criminally Ignorant: Why the Law Pretends We Know What We Don't.Alexander Sarch - 2019 - New York, NY, USA: Oup Usa.
    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 (...)
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  45. How a Kantian Ideal Can Be Practical.Alexander T. Englert - 2022 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 65.
    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 (...)
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  46. Causal graphs and biological mechanisms.Alexander Gebharter & Marie I. Kaiser - 2014 - In Marie I. Kaiser, Oliver R. Scholz, Daniel Plenge & Andreas Hüttemann (eds.), Explanation in the special science: The case of biology and history. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 55-86.
    Modeling mechanisms is central to the biological sciences – for purposes of explanation, prediction, extrapolation, and manipulation. A closer look at the philosophical literature reveals that mechanisms are predominantly modeled in a purely qualitative way. That is, mechanistic models are conceived of as representing how certain entities and activities are spatially and temporally organized so that they bring about the behavior of the mechanism in question. Although this adequately characterizes how mechanisms are represented in biology textbooks, contemporary biological research practice (...)
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  47. Emerging into the Rainforest: Emergence and Special Science Ontology.Alexander Franklin & Katie Robertson - manuscript
    Many philosophers of science are ontologically committed to a lush rainforest of special science entities ), but are often reticent about the criteria that determine which entities count as real. On the other hand, the metaphysics literature is much more forthcoming about such criteria, but often links ontological commitment to irreducibility. We argue that the irreducibility criteria are in tension with scientific realism: for example, they would exclude viruses, which are plausibly theoretically reducible and yet play a sufficiently important role (...)
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  48. The Space Domain Ontologies.Alexander P. Cox, C. K. Nebelecky, R. Rudnicki, W. A. Tagliaferri, J. L. Crassidis & B. Smith - 2021 - In Alexander P. Cox, C. K. Nebelecky, R. Rudnicki, W. A. Tagliaferri, J. L. Crassidis & B. Smith (eds.), National Symposium on Sensor & Data Fusion Committee.
    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 (...)
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  49. Concern and the Structure of Action: The Integration of Affect and Understanding.Alexander Albert Jeuk - 2019 - Humana.Mente Journal of Philosophical Studies 35 (35):249-270.
    I develop a theory of action inspired by a Heideggerian conception of concern, in particular for phenomenologically-inspired Embodied Cognition (Noë 2004; Wheeler 2008; Rietveld 2008; Chemero 2009; Rietveld and Kiverstein 2014). I proceed in three steps. First, I provide an analysis that identifies four central aspects of action and show that phenomenologically-inspired Embodied Cognition does not adequately account for them. Second, I provide a descriptive phenomenological analysis of everyday action and show that concern is the best candidate for an explanation (...)
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  50. Collective Reasons and Agent-Relativity.Alexander Dietz - 2022 - Utilitas 34 (1):57-69.
    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 (...)
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