On a now orthodox view, humans and many other animals possess a “number sense,” or approximate number system, that represents number. Recently, this orthodox view has been subject to numerous critiques that question whether the ANS genuinely represents number. We distinguish three lines of critique – the arguments from congruency, confounds, and imprecision – and show that none succeed. We then provide positive reasons to think that the ANS genuinely represents numbers, and not just non-numerical confounds or exotic substitutes for (...) number, such as “numerosities” or “quanticals,” as critics propose. In so doing, we raise a neglected question: numbers of what kind? Proponents of the orthodox view have been remarkably coy on this issue. But this is unsatisfactory since the predictions of the orthodox view, including the situations in which the ANS is expected to succeed or fail, turn on the kind of number being represented. In response, we propose that the ANS represents not only natural numbers, but also non-natural rational numbers. It does not represent irrational numbers, however, and thereby fails to represent the real numbers more generally. This distances our proposal from existing conjectures, refines our understanding of the ANS, and paves the way for future research. (shrink)

This is a three-part exchange on the relationship between belief and credence. It begins with an opening essay by Roger Clarke that argues for the claim that the notion of credence generalizes the notion of belief. Julia Staffel argues in her reply that we need to distinguish between mental states and models representing them, and that this helps us explain what it could mean that belief is a special case of credence. Roger Clarke's final essay reflects on the (...) compatibility of the previously discussed views with dualist and monist interpretations of our mental states and our ways of modeling them. (shrink)

It is often claimed that pre-attentive vision has an ‘iconic’ format. This is seen to explain pre-attentive vision's characteristically high processing capacity and to make sense of an overlap in the mechanisms of early vision and mental imagery. But what does the iconicity of pre-attentive vision amount to? This paper considers two prominent ways of characterising pre-attentive visual icons and argues that neither is adequate: one approach renders the claim ‘pre-attentive vision is iconic’ empirically false while the other obscures its (...) ability to do the explanatory work, which motivates positing pre-attentive visual icons in the first place. With this noted, I introduce the notion of an ‘Analogue Map’ and argue that it provides a superior characterisation of pre-attentive vision's iconicity. I then argue that this forces a reassessment of debates which have traditionally presupposed the iconicity of pre-attentive vision, emphasising ramifications for the viability of a format-based perception-thought border. (shrink)

Biological theory demands a clear organism concept, but at present biologists cannot agree on one. They know that counting particular units, and not counting others, allows them to generate explanatory and predictive descriptions of evolutionary processes. Yet they lack a unified theory telling them which units to count. In this paper, I offer a novel account of biological individuality, which reconciles conflicting definitions of ‘organism’ by interpreting them as describing alternative realisers of a common functional role, and then defines individual (...) organisms as essentially possessing some mechanisms that play this role. (shrink)

In his précis of a recent book, Richard Joyce writes, “My contention…is that…any epistemological benefit-of-the-doubt that might have been extended to moral beliefs…will be neutralized by the availability of an empirically confirmed moral genealogy that nowhere…presupposes their truth.” Such reasoning – falling under the heading “Genealogical Debunking Arguments” – is now commonplace. But how might “the availability of an empirically confirmed moral genealogy that nowhere… presupposes” the truth of our moral beliefs “neutralize” whatever “epistemological benefit-of-the-doubt that might have been extended (...) to” them? In this article, I argue that there appears to be no satisfactory answer to this question. The problem is quite general, applying to all arguments with the structure of Genealogical Debunking Arguments aimed at realism about a domain meeting two conditions. The Benacerraf-Field Challenge for mathematical realism affords an important special case. (shrink)

This paper refines a controversial proposal: that core systems belong to a perceptual kind, marked out by the format of its representational outputs. Following Susan Carey, this proposal has been understood in terms of core representations having an iconic format, like certain paradigmatically perceptual outputs. I argue that they don’t, but suggest that the proposal may be better formulated in terms of a broader analogue format type. Formulated in this way, the proposal accommodates the existence of genuine icons in perception, (...) and avoids otherwise troubling objections. (shrink)

Jerry Fodor deemed informational encapsulation ‘the essence’ of a system’s modularity and argued that human perceptual processing comprises modular systems, thus construed. Nowadays, his conclusion is widely challenged. Often, this is because experimental work is seen to somehow demonstrate the cognitive penetrability of perceptual processing, where this is assumed to conflict with the informational encapsulation of perceptual systems. Here, I deny the conflict, proposing that cognitive penetration need not have any straightforward bearing on the conjecture that perceptual processing is composed (...) of nothing but informationally encapsulated modules, the conjecture that each and every perceptual computation is performed by an informationally encapsulated module, and the consequences perceptual encapsulation was traditionally expected to have for a perception-cognition border, the epistemology of perception and cognitive science. With these points in view, I propose that particularly plausible cases of cognitive penetration would actually seem to evince the encapsulation of perceptual systems rather than refute/problematize this conjecture. (shrink)

1. We sometimes angrily confront, pointedly ostracize, castigate, or denounce those whom we think have committed moral offences. Conduct of this kind may be called blaming behaviour. When genuine,...

It is widely alleged that metaphysical possibility is “absolute” possibility Conceivability and possibility, Clarendon, Oxford, 2002, p 16; Stalnaker, in: Stalnaker Ways a world might be: metaphysical and anti-metaphysical essays, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003, pp 201–215; Williamson in Can J Philos 46:453–492, 2016). Kripke calls metaphysical necessity “necessity in the highest degree”. Van Inwagen claims that if P is metaphysically possible, then it is possible “tout court. Possible simpliciter. Possible period…. possib without qualification.” And Stalnaker writes, “we can agree (...) with Frank Jackson, David Chalmers, Saul Kripke, David Lewis, and most others who allow themselves to talk about possible worlds at all, that metaphysical necessity is necessity in the widest sense.” What exactly does the thesis that metaphysical possibility is absolute amount to? Is it true? In this article, I argue that, assuming that the thesis is not merely terminological, and lacking in any metaphysical interest, it is an article of faith. I conclude with the suggestion that metaphysical possibility may lack the metaphysical significance that is widely attributed to it. (shrink)

Sometimes someone does something morally wrong in clear-eyed awareness that what she is doing is wrong. More commonly, a wrongdoer fails to see that her conduct is wrong. Call the latter behavior unwitting wrongful conduct. It is generally agreed that an agent can be blameworthy for such conduct, but there is considerable disagreement about how one’s blameworthiness in such cases is to be explained, or what conditions must be satisfied for the agent to be blameworthy for her conduct. Many theorists (...) hold that an agent’s blameworthiness for unwitting wrongful conduct must stem from—or trace back to—her blameworthiness for something else. And appeals to tracing in these cases lead some writers to a highly revisionist view, on which people are blameworthy for wrongdoing much less often than we ordinarily think (and our mistake, unfortunately, isn’t about how much wrongdoing there is). In this chapter, I set out the main claims of an argument for such a view and respond to it. I offer grounds for retaining a good many of the judgments that the revisionist would have us reject. The defense rests to a significant extent on commonsense views about the psychological capacities and abilities to act that people ordinarily possess, views that, as far as I can tell, revisionists have not shown to be mistaken. (shrink)

I distinguish several doctrines that economic methodologists have found attractive, all of which have a positivist flavour. One of these is the doctrine that preference assignments in economics are just shorthand descriptions of agents' choice behaviour. Although most of these doctrines are problematic, the latter doctrine about preference assignments is a respectable one, I argue. It doesn't entail any of the problematic doctrines, and indeed it is warranted independently of them.

It has been claimed that naïve realism predicts phenomenological similarities where there are none and, thereby, mischaracterises the phenomenal character of perceptual experience. If true, this undercuts a key motivation for the view. Here, we defend naïve realism against this charge, proposing that such arguments fail (three times over). In so doing, we highlight a more general problem with critiques of naïve realism that target the purported phenomenological predictions of the view. The problem is: naïve realism, broadly construed, doesn’t make (...) phenomenological predictions of the required sort. So, as a result, opponents must resign themselves to attacking specific incarnations of naïve realism, or approach matters quite differently. (shrink)

The blameworthy deserve blame. So runs a platitude of commonsense morality. My aim here is to set out an understanding of this desert claim (as I call it) on which it can be seen to be a familiar and attractive aspect of moral thought. I conclude with a response to a prominent denial of the claim.

Let F be a fact in virtue of which an agent, S, is blameworthy for performing an act of A-ing. We advance a slightly qualified version of the following thesis: -/- (Reason) F is (at some time) a reason for S to feel guilty (to some extent) for A-ing. -/- Leaving implicit the qualification concerning extent, we claim as well: -/- (Desert) S's having this reason suffices for S’s deserving to feel guilty for A-ing. -/- We also advance a third (...) thesis connecting desert of feeling guilty with the fittingness of this response. -/- In light of our three theses, we address several claims that have been made regarding responsibility and desert. We take issue with the divorce of desert from responsibility. We find acceptable a claim regarding blameworthiness and reason to induce guilt, and we defend the idea that it is noninstrumentally good that one who is blameworthy be subject to a fitting feeling of guilt. We argue against a view on which desert of blame has a teleological dimension. (shrink)

Joint actions often require agents to track others’ actions while planning and executing physically incongruent actions of their own. Previous research has indicated that this can lead to visuomotor interference effects when it occurs outside of joint action. How is this avoided or overcome in joint actions? We hypothesized that when joint action partners represent their actions as interrelated components of a plan to bring about a joint action goal, each partner’s movements need not be represented in relation to distinct, (...) incongruent proximal goals. Instead they can be represented in relation to a single proximal goal – especially if the movements are, or appear to be, mechanically linked to a more distal joint action goal. To test this, we implemented a paradigm in which participants produced finger movements that were either congruent or incongruent with those of a virtual partner, and either with or without a joint action goal (the joint flipping of a switch, which turned on two light bulbs). Our findings provide partial support for the hypothesis that visuomotor interference effects can be reduced when two physically incongruent actions are represented as mechanically interdependent contributions to a joint action goal. (shrink)

Holly Smith has done more than anyone to explore and defend the importance of usability for moral theories. In Making Morality Work, she develops a moral theory that is almost universally usable. But not quite. In this article, I argue that no moral theory is universally usable, in the sense that is most immediately relevant to action, even by agents who know all the normative facts. There is no moral theory knowledge of which suffices to settle deliberation about what to (...) do. However, this is unsurprising if the question of what to do is not a question of fact. One upshot of the discussion is that the search for a universally usable moral theory is misconceived. Another is that, contra Smith (341), agents who are radically uncertain need not lack autonomy. (shrink)

Set-theoretic pluralism is an increasingly influential position in the philosophy of set theory (Balaguer [1998], Linksy and Zalta [1995], Hamkins [2012]). There is considerable room for debate about how best to formulate set-theoretic pluralism, and even about whether the view is coherent. But there is widespread agreement as to what there is to recommend the view (given that it can be formulated coherently). Unlike set-theoretic universalism, set-theoretic pluralism affords an answer to Benacerraf’s epistemological challenge. The purpose of this paper is (...) to determine what Benacerraf’s challenge could be such that this view is warranted. I argue that it could not be any of the challenges with which it has been traditionally identified by its advocates, like of Benacerraf and Field. Not only are none of the challenges easier for the pluralist to meet. None satisfies a key constraint that has been placed on Benacerraf’s challenge. However, I argue that Benacerraf’s challenge could be the challenge to show that our set-theoretic beliefs are safe – i.e., to show that we could not have easily had false ones. Whether the pluralist is, in fact, better positioned to show that our set-theoretic beliefs are safe turns on a broadly empirical conjecture which is outstanding. If this conjecture proves to be false, then it is unclear what the epistemological argument for set-theoretic pluralism is supposed to be. (shrink)

Hohwy (Hohwy 2016, Hohwy 2017) argues there is a tension between the free energy principle and leading depictions of mind as embodied, enactive, and extended (so-called ‘EEE1 cognition’). The tension is traced to the importance, in free energy formulations, of a conception of mind and agency that depends upon the presence of a ‘Markov blanket’ demarcating the agent from the surrounding world. In what follows I show that the Markov blanket considerations do not, in fact, lead to the kinds of (...) tension that Hohwy depicts. On the contrary, they actively favour the EEE story. This is because the Markov property, as exemplified in biological agents, picks out neither a unique nor a stationary boundary. It is this multiplicity and mutability– rather than the absence of agent-environment boundaries as such - that EEE cognition celebrates. (shrink)

A recent empirical study claims to show that the answer to Molyneux’s question is negative, but, as John Schwenkler points out, its findings are inconclusive: Subjects tested in this study probably lacked the visual acuity required for a fair assessment of the question. Schwenkler is undeterred. He argues that the study could be improved by lowering the visual demands placed on subjects, a suggestion later endorsed and developed by Kevin Connolly. I suggest that Connolly and Schwenkler both underestimate the difficulties (...) involved in rectifying the study they seek to fix. The problem is that the experimental paradigm under consideration fails to account for the role that rational inference plays in newly sighted subjects’ ability or inability to recognize spatial properties across modalities. Since answering Molyneux’s question requires establishing whether spatial properties can be recognized, across modalities, by newly sighted subjects without recourse to rational inference, this is a problem. Indeed, it is a problem that may be worsened by Schwenkler and Connolly’s suggestions regarding the lowering of visual demands on subjects in cross-modal matching tasks. (shrink)

I argue that analogue mental representations possess a canonical decomposition into privileged constituents from which they compose. I motivate this suggestion, and rebut arguments to the contrary, through reflection on the approximate number system, whose representations are widely expected to have an analogue format. I then argue that arguments for the compositionality and constituent structure of these analogue representations generalize to other analogue mental representations posited in the human mind, such as those in early vision and visual imagery.

It is widely agreed that the intelligibility of modal metaphysics has been vindicated. Quine's arguments to the contrary supposedly confused analyticity with metaphysical necessity, and rigid with non-rigid designators.2 But even if modal metaphysics is intelligible, it could be misconceived. It could be that metaphysical necessity is not absolute necessity – the strictest real notion of necessity – and that no proposition of traditional metaphysical interest is necessary in every real sense. If there were nothing otherwise “uniquely metaphysically significant” about (...) metaphysical necessity, then paradigmatic metaphysical necessities would be necessary in one sense of “necessary”, not necessary in another, and that would be it. The question of whether they were necessary simpliciter would be like the question of whether the Parallel Postulate is true simpliciter – understood as a pure mathematical conjecture, rather than as a hypothesis about physical spacetime. In a sense, the latter question has no objective answer. In this article, I argue that paradigmatic questions of modal metaphysics are like the Parallel Postulate question. I then discuss the deflationary ramifications of this argument. I conclude with an alternative conception of the space of possibility. According to this conception, there is no objective boundary between possibility and impossibility. Along the way, I sketch an analogy between modal metaphysics and set theory. (shrink)

Logical monism is the view that there is ‘One True Logic’. This is the default position, against which pluralists react. If there were not ‘One True Logic’, it is hard to see how there could be one true theory of anything. A theory is closed under a logic! But what is logical monism? In this article, I consider semantic, logical, modal, scientific, and metaphysical proposals. I argue that, on no ‘factualist’ analysis (according to which ‘there is One True Logic’ expresses (...) a factual claim, rather than an attitude like approval), does the doctrine have both metaphysical and methodological import. Metaphysically, logics abound. Methodologically, what to infer from what is not settled by the facts, even the normative ones. I conclude that the only interesting sense in which there could be One True Logic is noncognitive. The same may be true of monism about normative areas, like moral, epistemic, and prudential ones, generally. (shrink)

I discuss the structure of genealogical debunking arguments. I argue that they undermine our mathematical beliefs if they undermine our moral beliefs. The contrary appearance stems from a confusion of arithmetic truths with (first-order) logical truths, or from a confusion of reliability with justification. I conclude with a discussion of the cogency of debunking arguments, in light of the above. Their cogency depends on whether information can undermine all of our beliefs of a kind, F, without giving us direct reason (...) to doubt that our F-beliefs are modally secure. (shrink)

How seriously should we take the idea that the mind employs mental files? Goodman and Gray (2022) argue that mental filing – a thinker rationally treating her cognitive states as being about the same thing – can be explained without files. Instead, they argue that the standard commitments of mental file theory, as represented by Recanati’s indexical model, are better seen in terms of a relational representational feature of object representations, which in turn is based on the epistemic links a (...) thinker bears to objects. This paper argues that this revision is misguided. Neither the representational property nor any basic role for epistemic links are needed for an adequate explanatory theory that makes use of the image of a mental filing system. A better alternative to the indexical model does posit files, albeit as causal-functional entities. This makes additional representational features redundant, and shows that epistemic links play a secondary role. (shrink)

Many philosophical theories of causation are egalitarian, rejecting a distinction between causes and mere causal conditions. We sought to determine the extent to which people's causal judgments discriminate, selecting as causes counternormal events—those that violate norms of some kind—while rejecting non-violators. We found significant selectivity of this sort. Moreover, priming that encouraged more egalitarian judgments had little effect on subjects. We also found that omissions are as likely as actions to be judged as causes, and that counternormative selectivity appears to (...) apply equally to actions and omissions. (shrink)

The approximate number system (ANS) enables organisms to represent the approximate number of items in an observed collection, quickly and independently of natural language. Recently, it has been proposed that the ANS goes beyond representing natural numbers by extracting and representing rational numbers (Clarke & Beck, 2021a). Prior work demonstrates that adults and children discriminate ratios in an approximate and ratio-dependent manner, consistent with the hallmarks of the ANS. Here, we use a well-known “connectedness illusion” to provide evidence that (...) these ratio-dependent ratio discriminations are (a) based on the perceived number of items in seen displays (and not just non-numerical confounds), (b) are not dependent on verbal working memory, or explicit counting routines, and (c) involve representations with a part-whole (or subset-superset) format, like a fraction, rather than a part-part format, like a ratio. These results vindicate key predictions of the hypothesis that the ANS represents rational numbers. (shrink)

Some explanations in social science, psychology and biology belong to a higher level than other explanations. And higher explanations possess the virtue of abstracting away from the details of lower explanations, many philosophers argue. As a result, these higher explanations are irreplaceable. And this suggests that there are genuine higher laws or patterns involving social, psychological and biological states. I show that this ‘abstractness argument’ is really an argument schema, not a single argument. This is because the argument uses the (...) ‘is lower than’ relation, and this relation admits of different readings. I then suggest four rigorous definitions of the ‘is lower than’ relation, and show that the abstractness argument’s prospects are much brighter for some of these definitions than for others. To show this, I evaluate the so-called ‘disjunctive threat’ to the abstractness argument. (shrink)

This chapter develops the idea that the germ-soma split and the suppression of individual fitness differences within the corporate entity are not always essential steps in the evolution of corporate individuals. It illustrates some consequences for multilevel selection theory. It presents evidence that genetic heterogeneity may not always be a barrier to successful functioning as a higher-level individual. This chapter shows that levels-of-selection theorists are wrong to assume that the central problem in transitions is always that of minimizing within-group competition. (...) Evidence of intralevel conflict does not qualify as evidence against the existence of a higher level of selection. (shrink)

Accounts of moral responsibility commonly focus on responsibility for actions and their consequences. But we can be responsible as well for omitting to act or refraining from acting, and for consequences of these. And since omitting and refraining are not in every case performing an action, an account of responsibility for actions will not apply straightforwardly to these cases. This paper advances proposals concerning responsibility for omitting, refraining, and their consequences. Providing such an account is complicated by the fact that (...) cases of omitting or refraining are quite varied. (shrink)

I discuss methodology in epistemology. I argue that settling the facts, even the epistemic facts, fails to settle the questions of intellectual policy at the center of our epistemic lives. An upshot is that the standard methodology of analyzing concepts like knowledge, justification, rationality, and so on is misconceived. More generally, any epistemic method that seeks to issue in intellectual policy by settling the facts, whether by way of abductive theorizing or empirical investigation, no matter how reliable, is inapt. The (...) argument is a radicalization of Moore’s Open Question Argument. I conclude by considering the ramifications of this conclusion for the debate surrounding “Modal Security”, a proposed necessary condition on undermining defeat. (shrink)

Number Nativism is the view that humans innately represent precise natural numbers. Despite a long and venerable history, it is often considered hopelessly out of touch with the empirical record. I argue that this is a mistake. After clarifying Number Nativism and distancing it from related conjectures, I distinguish three arguments which have been seen to refute the view. I argue that, while popular, two of these arguments miss the mark, and fail to place pressure on Number Nativism. Meanwhile, a (...) third argument is best construed as a challenge: rather than refuting Number Nativism, it challenges its proponents to provide positive evidence for their thesis and show that this can be squared with apparent counterevidence. In response, I introduce psycholinguistic work on The Tolerance Principle (not yet considered in this context), propose that it is hard to make sense of without positing precise and innate representations of natural numbers, and argue that there is no obvious reason why these innate representations couldn’t serve as the basis for mature numeric conception. (shrink)

The preface paradox does not show that it can be rational to have inconsistent beliefs, because preface writers do not have inconsistent beliefs. I argue, first, that a fully satisfactory solution to the preface paradox would have it that the preface writer's beliefs are consistent. The case here is on basic intuitive grounds, not the consequence of a theory of rationality or of belief. Second, I point out that there is an independently motivated theory of belief – sensitivism – which (...) allows such a solution. I sketch a sensitivist account of the preface writer's doxastic state. (shrink)

Part of our ordinary conception of our freedom is the idea that commonly when we act—and often even when we don’t act—it is up to us whether we do this or that. This paper examines efforts to spell out what must be the case for this idea to be correct. Several claims regarding the basic metaphysics of agential powers are considered; they are found not to shed light on the issue. Thinking about agents’ psychological capacities provides some illumination, though the (...) idea of freedom remains puzzling. (shrink)

Disproof of heaven? -- Brain and gods -- The rational stance -- Reason and belief in God -- Against naturalism -- Atheism, inference, and IQ -- Atheism, autism, and intellectual humility -- Googling God -- Inference, intuition, and rationality.

Should high‐income countries engage in solar geoengineering research and possible deployment? On the assumption that the speed of the energy transition will be insufficient to abate catastrophic climate impacts, research into solar geoengineering begins to look like a technically and socially feasible route to mitigate such impacts. But on the assumption that a rapid and relatively just energy transition is still within the realm of political possibility, research into solar geoengineering looks more like an ideological tool designed to divert time (...) and resources from less risky climate solutions. At the heart of debates over solar geoengineering, then, is disagreement over what political actors can be expected to do in the future. In this article, I argue that both objectors to and proponents of solar geoengineering research often make background assumptions regarding expected future actions that are either (a) inaccurate or (b) inconsistent. I propose an account of expected future actions that avoids these problems and sketch what the debate over solar geoengineering looks like with these assumptions in place. (shrink)

Although we are morally responsible for things of various kinds, what we bear direct responsibility for are certain exercises of our agency (and perhaps some omissions of these). Theorists disagree about what kind of agency is in this respect the source of our responsibility. Some hold that it is agency the exercises of which are actions. Others say that it is agency exercised in forming reasons-responsive attitudes on the basis of our take on reasons (or value). With attention to the (...) relation of moral responsibility to moral obligation, I argue for the first of these views. (shrink)

Previous claims to have resolved the two-envelope paradox have been premature. The paradoxical argument has been exposed as manifestly fallacious if there is an upper limit to the amount of money that may be put in an envelope; but the paradoxical cases which can be described if this limitation is removed do not involve mathematical error, nor can they be explained away in terms of the strangeness of infinity. Only by taking account of the partial sums of the infinite series (...) of expected gains can the paradox be resolved. (shrink)

How do axioms, or first principles, in ethics compare to those in mathematics? In this companion piece to G.C. Field's 1931 "On the Role of Definition in Ethics", I argue that there are similarities between the cases. However, these are premised on an assumption which can be questioned, and which highlights the peculiarity of normative inquiry.

I this article, I introduce the notion of pluralism about an area, and use it to argue that the questions at the center of our normative lives are not settled by the facts -- even the normative facts. One upshot of the discussion is that the concepts of realism and objectivity, which are widely identified, are actually in tension. Another is that the concept of objectivity, not realism, should take center stage.

Several philosophers claim that the phenomenology of one’s own agency conflicts with standard causal theories of action, couched in terms of causation by mental events or states. Others say that the phenomenology is prima facie incompatible with such a theory, even if in the end a reconciliation can be worked out. Here it is argued that the type of action theory in question is consistent with what can plausibly be said to be presented to us in our experience of our (...) agency. Several routes to a claim that there is nevertheless a prima facie incompatibility are examined, and all are found wanting. The phenomenology of agency, it is argued, is no threat to a standard causal theory of action. (shrink)

This paper argues for a treatment of belief as essentially sensitive to certain features of context. The first part gives an argument that we must take belief to be context-sensitive in the same way that assertion is, if we are to preserve appealing principles tying belief to sincere assertion. In particular, whether an agent counts as believing that p in a context depends on the space of alternative possibilities the agent is considering in that context. One and the same doxastic (...) state may amount to belief that p in one context but not another. The second part of the paper gives a formal treatment of doxastic states, according to which belief is context-sensitive along just these lines. The model is applied to characterize (but not to refute) skeptical arguments. (shrink)

We take it for granted that commonly we act freely and we are generally morally responsible for what we do when we so act. Can there be such a thing as freely omitting to act, or freely refraining or forbearing, and can we be similarly responsible for omitting, refraining, and forbearing? This paper advances a view of freely omitting to act. In many cases, freedom in omitting cannot come to the same thing as freedom in acting, since in many cases (...) omitting to do a certain thing is not a matter of performing an action of any sort. There are nevertheless important similarities. It is argued, further, that we should view responsibility for omitting to act as capable of being basic or underived, not needing to derive from one’s responsibility for prior actions. Finally, brief consideration is given to a proposal concerning what is required for responsibility for omitting to do a certain thing. (shrink)

Free will is often said—by compatibilists and incompatibilists alike—to be a power (or complex of powers) of agents. This paper offers proposals for, and examines the prospects of, a powers-conception of free will that takes the powers in question to be causal dispositions. A difficulty for such an account stems from the idea that when one exercises free will, it is up to oneself whether one wills to do this or that. The paper also briefly considers whether a powers-conception that (...) invokes powers of a different kind, such as agent-causal or noncausal powers, might fare better with respect to this problem. (shrink)

Buchanan and Powell hope to rescue optimism about moral perfectibility from the ’received view’ of human evolution, by tweaking our view of the innate character of morality. I argue that their intervention is hampered by an unnecessary commitment to nativism, by gender bias within the received view, and by liberal presuppositions.

The concept of the subject, of what Hegel calls absolute negativity, already appears early in the logic of being.1 Absolute negativity, negation of the negation, occurs throughout the logic as identity in difference understood as self-identification under different descriptions. First, the subject refers to itself merely under an incomplete description. Secondly, it refers to something other than itself under a second description which is logically required by the first. (For example, the description of being in general requires some determinate description (...) of being in particular). But this second description is dialectically excluded by the assumption that the first description is complete. Thirdly, the subject negates its negation of the other. It discovers itself in the other, under the other description, and thus comes to refer to itself less incompletely. This is Hegel in the analytic mode. (shrink)

Visual illusions of number provide a means of investigating the rules and principles through which approximate number representations are formed. Here, we investigated the developmental trajectory of an important numerical illusion – the connectedness illusion, wherein connecting pairs of items with thin lines reduces their perceived number without altering continuous attributes of the collections. We found that children as young as 5 years of age are affected by the illusion and that the magnitude of the effect increased into adulthood. Moreover, (...) individuals with greater numerical acuity exhibited stronger connectedness illusions after controlling for age. Overall, these results suggest the approximate number system expects to enumerate over bounded wholes and doing so is a signature of its optimal functioning. (shrink)

Some explanations are relatively abstract: they abstract away from the idiosyncratic or messy details of the case in hand. The received wisdom in philosophy is that this is a virtue for any explanation to possess. I argue that the apparent consensus on this point is illusory. When philosophers make this claim, they differ on which of four alternative varieties of abstractness they have in mind. What’s more, for each variety of abstractness there are several alternative reasons to think that the (...) variety of abstractness in question is a virtue. I identify the most promising reasons, and dismiss some others. The paper concludes by relating this discussion to the idea that explanations in biology, psychology and social science cannot be replaced by relatively micro explanations without loss of understanding. (shrink)