Andrea Cesalpino is an important figure in the history of science. He demonstrated that blood circulates into heart from veins and from the heart to arteries, paving the way to Harvey’s complete description of blood circulation. Moreover, he was the founder of botany as a systematic discipline, which he based, rather than on the observation of accidental similarities of plants, on the discovery of their vegetative-generative principle. In philosophy, he attempted to conciliate the immortality of the soul (i.e., the (...) form of the body) with the existence of a unique immaterial intellect, which is individuated and multiplied in the singular souls that participate to it. (shrink)

An influential tradition holds that thoughts are public: different thinkers share many of their thoughts, and the same applies to a single subject at different times. This ‘publicity principle’ has recently come under attack. Arguments by Mark Crimmins, Richard Heck and Brian Loar seem to show that publicity is inconsistent with the widely accepted principle that someone who is ignorant or mistaken about certain identity facts will have distinct thoughts about the relevant object—for instance, the astronomer who does not know (...) that Hesperus is Phosphorus will have two distinct thoughts Hesperus is bright and Phosphorus is bright. In this paper, I argue that publicity can be defended if we adopt a relational account on which thoughts are individuated by their mutual relations. I then go on to develop a specific relational theory—the ‘linking account’—and contrast it with other relational views. (shrink)

El kitsch no es solo una categoría que ha definido una de las posibles gramáticas estéticas de la modernidad, sino también una dimensión antropológica que ha tenido diferentes configuraciones en el curso de los procesos históricos. El ensayo ofrece una mirada histórico-crítica sobre las transformaciones que condujeron desde el kitsch de principios del siglo XX hasta el neokitsch contemporáneo: desde la génesis del kitsch hasta su afirmación como una de las manifestaciones más tangibles de la cultura de masas. Integrándose con (...) la estética posmoderna, el kitsch se transforma en neokitsch, una estética que utiliza el kitsch como su propia sintaxis en el complejo escenario de la estética contemporánea. /// -/- Kitsch is not just a category that has defined one of the possible aesthetic grammars of modernity, but also an anthropological dimension that has had different configurations in the course of historical processes. The essay offers a historical-critical look at the transformations that led from the early twentieth century kitsch to the contemporary neokitsch: from the genesis of kitsch to its affirmation as one of the most tangible manifestations of mass culture. Integrating with postmodern aesthetics, kitsch turns into neokitsch, an aesthetic that deliberately uses kitsch as its own syntax in the complex scenario of contemporary aesthetics. (shrink)

The well-known formal semantics of conditionals due to Stalnaker Studies in logical theory, Blackwell, Oxford, 1968), Lewis, and Gärdenfors The logic and 1140 epistemology of scientific change, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1978, Knowledge in flux, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1988) all fail to distinguish between trivially and nontrivially true indicative conditionals. This problem has been addressed by Rott :345–370, 1986) in terms of a strengthened Ramsey Test. In this paper, we refine Rott’s strengthened Ramsey Test and the corresponding analysis of explanatory relations. We (...) show that our final analysis captures the presumed asymmetry between explanans and explanandum much better than Rott’s original analysis. (shrink)

Research on the ethics of algorithms has grown substantially over the past decade. Alongside the exponential development and application of machine learning algorithms, new ethical problems and solutions relating to their ubiquitous use in society have been proposed. This article builds on a review of the ethics of algorithms published in 2016, 2016). The goals are to contribute to the debate on the identification and analysis of the ethical implications of algorithms, to provide an updated analysis of epistemic and normative (...) concerns, and to offer actionable guidance for the governance of the design, development and deployment of algorithms. (shrink)

I respond to Chalmers’ (2006, 2010) objection to the Phenomenal Concept Strategy (PCS) by showing that his objection is faced with a dilemma that ultimately undercuts its force. Chalmers argues that no version of PCS can posit psychological features that are both physically explicable and capable of explaining our epistemic situation. In response, I show that what Chalmers calls ‘our epistemic situation’ admits either of a phenomenal or of a topic-neutral characterization, neither of which supports Chalmers’ objection. On the one (...) hand, if our epistemic situation is characterized phenomenally, then Chalmers’ demand that PCS should explain our epistemic situation is misplaced. PCS can explain our epistemic situation only if there is a reductive explanation of consciousness. But according to PCS, no reductive explanation of consciousness can be given. On the other hand, if our epistemic situation is characterized topic-neutrally, then PCS is not only physically explicable, but it also explains our epistemic situation. Either way, PCS is safe. (shrink)

This paper delves into the use of machine learning-based systems in decision-making processes and its implications for moral responsibility as traditionally defined. It focuses on the emergence of responsibility gaps and examines proposed strategies to address them. The paper aims to provide an introductory and comprehensive overview of the ongoing debate surrounding moral responsibility in automated decision-making. By thoroughly examining these issues, we seek to contribute to a deeper understanding of the implications of AI integration in society.

The paper discusses an objection, put forward by - among others - John McDowell, to Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s non-factualist and relativist view of semantic discourse. The objection goes roughly as follows: while it is usually possible to be a relativist about a given domain of discourse without being a relativist about anything else, relativism about semantic discourse entails global relativism, which in turn entails subjective idealism, which we can reasonably assume to be false. The paper’s first section sketches Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s ideas (...) about semantic discourse and gives a fully explicit formulation of the objection. The second section describes and briefly discusses the formal apparatus needed to evaluate the objection - which is basically equivalent to John MacFarlane’s recent development of David Kaplan’s classic semantic framework. Finally, the third section explains in detail why the objection fails. I show that even though relativism about semantic discourse does entail a form of global relativism, the relativism in question does not entail anything like Berkeleyan or Fichtean idealism. This particular kind of relativism holds that which character (in Kaplan’s sense) is associated to a given utterance depends on what MacFarlane calls “the context of assessment”. (shrink)

In December 2015, Wales became the first country in the UK to move away from an opt-in system in organ procurement. The new legislation introduces the concept of deemed consent whereby a person who neither opt in nor opt out is deemed to have consented to donation. The data released by the National Health Service in July 2017 provide an excellent opportunity to assess this legislation in light of concerns that it would decrease procurement rates for living and deceased donation, (...) as well as sparking an increase in family refusals. None of these concerns have come to pass, with Wales experiencing more registered donors, fewer family refusals and more living donations. However, as the number of actual donors has dropped slightly from a high level, the situation must be monitored closely in the years to come. (shrink)

I will argue firstly that law-statements should be understood as attributing dispositional properties. Second, the dispositions I am talking about should not be conceived as causes of their manifestations but rather as contributors to the behavior of compound systems. And finally I will defend the claim that dispositional properties cannot be reduced in any straightforward sense to non-dispositional (categorical) properties and that they need no categorical bases in the first place.

The history of early analytic philosophy, and especially the work of the logical empiricists, has often been seen as involving antagonisms with rival schools. Though recent scholarship has interrogated the Vienna Circle’s relations with e.g. phenomenology and Neo-Kantianism, important works by some of its leading members are involved in responding to the rising tide of Lebensphilosophie. This paper will explore Carnap’s configuration of the relation between Lebensphilosophie and the overcoming of metaphysics, Schlick’s responses to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, and Neurath’s reaction (...) against Spengler. (shrink)

In this paper I provide an analysis of an anonymous text which appeared at Sondershausen and Mühlhausen in 1687: Initiatio philosophi sive Dubitatio Cartesiana, ad indubiam philosophiam viam monstrans, iuxta mentem Renati des Cartes, Nobilis Galli, utraque methodo explicata, titled after Johannes Clauberg’s homonymous 1655 treatise. It consisted of (1) an abridgement of his Paraphrasis in Renati Des Cartes Meditationes (1658), and (2) a demonstration more geometrico of the necessity of methodical doubt as the beginning of philosophy, partially based on (...) Clauberg’s own 1655 Initiatio. I place the publication of the 1687 text in the context of the attacks on Cartesianism taking place in German areas especially after 1677 and the appearance of Spinoza’s texts, focusing on the ways in which Clauberg’s philosophy was adapted to the rebuking of such attacks and to the re-establishment of a Cartesian presence in Germany. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose a regularity theory of causation. The theory aims to be reductive and to align with our pre‐theoretic understanding of the causal relation. We show that our theory can account for a wide range of causal scenarios, including isomorphic scenarios, omissions, and scenarios which suggest that causation is not transitive.

While contemporary accounts understand esteem and self-esteem as essentially competitive phenomena, early modern natural law theorists developed a conception of justified esteem and self-esteem based on naturally good character traits. This article explores how such a normative conception of esteem and self-esteem is developed in the work of Christian Wolff. Two features make Wolff’s approach distinctive: He uses the analysis of common notions that are expressed in everyday language to provide a foundation for the aspects of natural law on which (...) his conception of natural duties of esteem depends. He develops a non-competitive conception of esteem and self-esteem into a cooperative conception, according to which enhancing the esteem in which others are held is seen as a tool for promoting self-perfection. Wolff’s ideas offer a solution to the well-known problems connected with competitive life-styles, and at the same time assign a central role in moral motivation to the desire of being esteemed and of having high self-esteem. Moreover, due to his emphasis on presenting a philosophical analysis based on common notions, he offers a solution that is meant to be persuasive from the perspective of everyday morality. (shrink)

This article studies Madame de Lambert's early eighteenth-century views on aging, and especially the aging of women, by contextualizing them in a twofold way: It understands them as a response to La Rochefoucauld's skepticism concerning aging, women, and the aging of women; It understands them as being closely connected to a long series of scattered remarks concerning esteem, self-esteem, and honnêteté in Lambert's moral essays. Whereas La Rochefoucauld describes aging as a decline of intellectual, emotional, and physical powers and is (...) suspicious of the mechanisms of esteem and self-esteem, Lambert develops a view of aging as offering the chance to become more independent of the judgment of others, especially the chance for women to become more independent of the judgment of men. As she argues, aging offers women the possibility of cultivating genuinely estimable intellectual and emotional qualities that attract the justified esteem essential for a stable friendship, as well as the opportunity to develop a form of self-esteem that is based on respect for one's own capacities of judgment. (shrink)

In this article, I provide a historical and bibliographical exploration of the handwritten, dictated commentaries (dictata) of Johannes de Raey (1620/1622–1702) on the texts of René Descartes (1596–1650), shedding light on their structure, development, and on their relations with the academic commentaries of Johannes Clauberg (1622–1665) and Christoph Wittich (1625–1687). The study of these commentaries, which are extant as class notes, is important because they conveyed one of the first systematic teachings of Descartes’s ideas and constituted a vehicle for their (...) further dissemination across northern Europe. (shrink)

The paper puts forward a new skeptical solution to Kripke’s Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox, a solution which revolves around the idea that human communication does not require meaning facts - at least as defined by Kripke. After a brief discussion of the paradox, I explain why I think that Kripkenstein’s solution needs revision and argue that the main goal of a skeptical solution to the rule-following paradox should be that of showing that communication does not require meaning. After that, I offer (...) two arguments for the thesis that communication does not require meaning. The first argument instantiates a rather direct strategy and focuses on the description of a concrete case of communication without meaning. The second one is more indirect in that I start by describing a world in which, although there are meaning facts, communication does not depend on them. The paper’s last section deals with the issue of meaning talk. (shrink)

In his discussion of simple esteem—one of the moral entities meant to regulate human actions—Pufendorf invokes a juridical commonplace: the rule that, before evidence to the contrary, we should presume others to be good. This argumentative strategy is an illuminating example for understanding his method of commonplaces. The present paper has three goals: (1) to analyze how Pufendorf adopted from legal humanism the view that presumptions should be based on considerations of what comes about most easily in nature; (2) to (...) show that Pufendorf’s inclusion of ethical aspects in the juridical presumption of goodness is an application of this view of forming presumptions; (3) to argue that Pufendorf did not regard juridical and philosophical commonplaces as expressions of a particular stage of intellectual history but rather as the result of reflection about human needs and abilities. (shrink)

Affirmative action is standardly pursued in relation to admissions to prestigious universities, in hiring for prestigious jobs, and when it comes to being elected to parliament. Central to these forms of affirmative action is that they have to do with competitive goods. A good is competitive when, if we improve A’s chances of getting the good, we reduce B’s chances of obtaining the good. I call this Competitive Affirmative Action. I distinguish this from Non-competitive Affirmative Action. The latter has to (...) do with non-competitive goods, e.g., being granted early parole or freedom from arbitrary arrest. I argue that some of the most prominent objections against affirmative action—in particular, the reverse discrimination objection and the merit objection—speak less against Non-competitive Affirmative Action. And that some of the most prominent arguments in favor of affirmative action, insofar as they justify Competitive Affirmative Action, also justify Non-competitive Affirmative Action. (shrink)

Despite its formative influence on the subsequent emergence of a supposed ‘divide’ between ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ philosophy, the clash between the phenomenological tradition and early analytic philosophy is only a small part of a much broader, complex, and multi-faceted ‘parting of the ways’ between various strands of interwar Germanophone philosophy. It was certainly more than two parties that parted their ways. As Friedman (2000) rightly saw, this ‘parting’ was indeed largely an outcome of the post-war context of Neo-Kantianism’s ‘decline’. The (...) ensuing power vacuum generated clashes between multiple philosophical tendencies vying for the institutionally dominant position previously occupied by the Neo-Kantian schools. This power-struggle included, apart from Cassirer’s last stance in defence of Neo-Kantianism, not only the Logical Empiricists and the various offshoots of the Phenomenological tradition, but also Lebensphilosophie, Philosophical Anthropology, and the Frankfurt School. This paper will trace a path through some of the tendencies involved in the abovementioned ‘parting of the ways’, in an effort to bring some of them back into dialogue. I will focus on exploring one specific facet of Horkheimer’s account of the ‘parting of the ways’, namely his critique of the notion of givenness. The overall goal of the paper will be to set up a dialogue between three parting ways towards givenness: Horkheimer’s polemic against the Logical Empiricist myth of the given, Schlick’s polemic against the Bergsonian myth of the given, and the Bergsonian methodology of intuition. (shrink)

Given the importance of emotions in our everyday lives, it is no surprise that in recent decades the study of emotions has received tremendous attention by a number of different disciplines. Yet despite the many and great advantages that have been made in understanding the nature of emotions, there remains a class of emotional states that is understudied and that demands further elucidation. All contributions to this issue consider either emotions or aspects of emotions that deserve the label ‘neglected’. In (...) doing so, they break new theoretical ground and further our understanding of the nature of the emotions that they consider. The aim of the present paper is to introduce the special issue on neglected emotions by articulating the different ways in which emotions can be said to be neglected. (shrink)

RESUMEN Pocas polémicas en el ámbito de la filosofía de la biología han llevado tanto espacio como la que existen alrededor de la explicación funcional y del lenguaje funcional. Varios de los enfoques principales que han tratado de reconstruir este tipo de explicación y elucidar tal lenguaje, aunque fuertemente heterogéneos, comparten la idea de que el lenguaje funcional no es más que un modo de hablar del cual puede prescindirse, pues, asumen que el lenguaje funcional puede ser definido a partir (...) de (o reducido a) lenguaje no funcional. En consecuencia, la explicación funcional sería reducible a (o equivalente a) explicaciones no funcionales. En este trabajo repasaremos tales enfoques, y trataremos de defender que no funcionan en el siguiente sentido: no pueden dar cuenta de la totalidad de las atribuciones funcionales. En consecuencia, aunque pudieran ser útiles para elucidar o reconstruir algunas áreas de la biología, no cumplen con el objetivo de mostrar que el lenguaje funcional es eliminable. -/- RESUMO Poucas polêmicas no âmbito da filosofia da biologia tiveram tanto espaço como a que existe acerca da explicação funcional e da linguagem funcional. Vários dos principais enfoques que trataram de reconstruir este tipo de explicação e elucidar tal linguagem, ainda que fortemente heterogêneos, compartilham a ideia de que a linguagem funcional não é mais que um modo de falar do qual pode prescindir-se, pois, assumem que a linguagem funcional pode ser definida a partir de (ou reduzida a) linguagem não funcional. Em consequência, a explicação funcional seria reduzível a (ou equivalente a) explicações não funcionais. Neste trabalho repassaremos tais enfoques e trataremos de defender que não funcionam, no seguinte sentido: não podem dar conta da totalidade das atribuições funcionais. Em consequência, ainda que pudessem ser úteis para elucidar ou reconstruir algumas áreas da biologia, não alcançam o objetivo de mostrar que a linguagem funcional é eliminável. (shrink)

This paper considers the argument according to which, because we should regard it as a priori very unlikely that we are among the most important people who will ever exist, we should increase our confidence that the human species will not persist beyond the current historical era, which seems to represent a crucial juncture in human history and perhaps even the history of life on earth. The argument is a descendant of the Carter-Leslie Doomsday Argument, but I show that it (...) does not inherit the crucial flaw in its immediate ancestor. Nonetheless, we are not forced to follow the argument where it leads if we instead significantly decrease our confidence that we can affect the long-run future of humanity. GPI Working Paper No. 1-2019. (shrink)

It is often assumed that we are only blameworthy for that over which we have control. In recent years, however, several philosophers have argued that we can be blameworthy for occurrences that appear to be outside our control, such as attitudes, beliefs and omissions. This has prompted the question of why control should be a condition on blameworthiness. This paper aims at defending the control condition by developing a new conception of blameworthiness: To be blameworthy, I argue, is most fundamentally (...) to deserve to feel guilty. Being blamed by someone else is not necessarily harmful to the wrongdoer. The blame might not be expressed, or the wrongdoer might not care. But to blame oneself necessarily involves suffering. This conception of blameworthiness explains why the control condition should obtain: We are morally blameworthy for A only if A was under our control because to be blameworthy is to deserve to feel guilty, to feel guilty is to suffer, and one deserves to suffer for A only if A was under one’s control. (shrink)

In this paper I argue against readings of Hertz that overly assimilate him into the thought of late 20th century anti-realists and pluralists. Firstly, as is well-known, various images of the same objects are possible according to Hertz. However, I will argue that this envisaged pluralism concerns the situation before all the evidence is considered i. e. before we can decide whether the images are correct and appropriate. Hertz believes in final and decisive battles of the kind he participated in (...) while doing experiments in electrodynamics. Secondly, I will argue that the concept of representation is still quite appropriately applied to important aspects of images, namely when it comes to fundamental physical equations. In this context Hertz explicitly allows that “characteristics of our image, which claim to represent observable relations of things, do really and correctly correspond to them” (Hertz [1894] 1956, 9). A final consideration is Hertz’s consistent appeal to the concept of the hypothesis. I will argue that his use of the concept does not indicate that he contributed to an increasing hypothetization of science, if this trend is understood in a strong sense, i. e. as the belief that the correctness of scientific theories cannot be established for principled reasons. As mentioned, when it comes to experimental evidence Hertz believes in decisive battles. (shrink)

Powers, capacities and dispositions (in what follows I will use these terms synonymously) have become prominent in recent debates in metaphysics, philosophy of science and other areas of philosophy. In this paper I will analyse in some detail a well-known argument from scientific practice to the existence of powers/capacities/dispositions. According to this argument the practice of extrapolating scientific knowledge from one kind of situation to a different kind of situation requires a specific interpretation of laws of nature, namely as attributing (...) dispositions to systems. My main interest will be to discuss what characteristics these dispositions need to have in order to account for the scientific practice in question. I will furthermore assess whether the introduction of dispositions in the context of the extrapolation argument can be described as a ‘revitalization’ or as a ‘return’ to those notions repudiated by early modern philosophers. More particularly I will argue for the following claims: I. In repudiating scholastic terminology, including substantial forms with their causal powers, post-cartesian philosophers focussed on a concept of causation that was much stronger than 21st century conceptions of causation. For this reason alone, whatever ‘causal’ is supposed to mean in today’s causal powers, embracing causal powers is not a simple return to a pre-cartesian notion. II. The dispositions presupposed in scientific practice need not (and should not) be construed in causal terms (whether strong or weak). III. While some early modern philosophers contrasted the characterisation of the natural world in terms of substantial forms (and their causal powers) on the one hand and a mathematical characterization on the other and suggested that these approaches are incompatible, the dispositions postulated by the extrapolation argument to account for scientific practice are themselves characterized in mathematical terms. More precisely: The behaviour the systems are disposed to display is – at least in physics – often characterized in mathematical terms. IV. The dispositions assumed in the law-statements in scientific practice are determinable rather than determinate properties. (shrink)

Sixteenth century pharmacology was still very much under the influence of a distinction going back to ancient medicine: the distinction between effects of medicaments that were taken to be explainable by the elementary qualities, their mutual modification in mixture, and the combination of these modified elementary qualities on the one hand, and the effects of medicaments that were taken not to be explicable in this manner.1 Galen coined the expression that a medicament of the latter kind possesses the capacity of (...) acting "by its whole substance,"2 and the question of how actions of the whole substance could be explicated gave rise to heated controversies in early modern pharmacology. Did Galen just... (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that the Consequence Argument relies on empirical premises. In particular, we show how the argument depends upon assumptions about the character of the laws of nature.

The interpretation of Lewis‘s doctrine of natural properties is difficult and controversial, especially when it comes to the bearers of natural properties. According to the prevailing reading – the minimalist view – perfectly natural properties pertain to the micro-physical realm and are instantiated by entities without proper parts or point-like. This paper argues that there are reasons internal to a broadly Lewisian kind of metaphysics to think that the minimalist view is fundamentally flawed and that a liberal view, according to (...) which natural properties are instantiated at several or even at all levels of reality, should be preferred. Our argument proceeds by reviewing those core principles of Lewis‘s metaphysics that are most likely to constrain the size of the bearers of natural properties: the principle of Humean supervenience, the principle of recombination in modal realism, the hypothesis of gunk, and the thesis of composition as identity. (shrink)

This paper examines the Gricean view that quality maxims take priority over other conversational maxims. It is shown that Gricean conversational implicatures are routinely inferred from utterances that are recognized to be untruthful. It is argued that this observation falsifies Grice’s original claim that hearers assume that speakers are obeying other maxims only if the speaker is assumed to be obeying quality maxims, and furthermore the related claim that hearers assume that speakers are being cooperative only to the extent that (...) they assume they are being truthful. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Varela’s Radical Proposal: How to Embody and Open Up Cognitive Science” by Kristian Moltke Martiny. Upshot: I examine Varela’s relationship with Husserl’s phenomenology, highlighting Varela’s acknowledgment of the pragmatic dimension of its phenomenological reduction. I argue that Varela sees, in some developments of phenomenology, a deconstruction of the subject-object duality and an embodied view of the mind. I also highlight the existential dimension of Varela’s radical proposal, which contributes to further opening up and embodying (...) cognitive science. (shrink)

Earman and Roberts claim that there is neither a persuasive account of the truth-conditions of ceteris paribus laws, nor of how such laws can be confirmed or disconfirmed. I will give an account of the truth conditions of ceteris paribus laws in physics in terms of dispositions. It will meet the objections standardly raised against such an account. Furthermore I will elucidate how ceteris paribus laws can be tested in physics. The essential point is that physics provides methodologies for dealing (...) with disturbing factors. For this reason disturbing factors need not be listed explicitly in law-statements. In virtue of the methodologies it is possible to test how systems would behave if the disturbing factors were absent. I will argue that this suffices to establish the tenability of the dispositional account of ceteris paribus laws. (shrink)

Several attempts have been made to apply the choice-sensitive theory of distributive justice, luck egalitarianism, in the context of health and healthcare. This article presents a framework for this discussion by highlighting different normative decisions to be made in such an application, some of the objections to which luck egalitarians must provide answers and some of the practical implications associated with applying such an approach in the real world. It is argued that luck egalitarians should address distributions of health rather (...) than healthcare, endorse an integrationist theory that combines health concerns with general distributive concerns and be pluralist in their approach. It further suggests that choice-sensitive policies need not be the result of applying luck egalitarianism in this context. (shrink)

Age-based rationing remains highly controversial. This question has been paramount during the Covid-19 pandemic. Analyzing the practices, proposals, and guidelines applied or put forward during the current pandemic, three kinds of age-based rationing are identified: an age-based cut-off, age as a tiebreaker, and indirect age rationing, where age matters to the extent that it affects prognosis. Where age is allowed to play a role in terms of who gets treated, it is justified either because this is believed to maximize benefits (...) from scarce resources or because it is believed to be in accordance with the value of fairness understood as (a) fair innings, where less priority is given to those who have lived a full life or (b) an egalitarian concern for the worse off. By critically assessing prominent frameworks and practices for pandemic rationing, this article considers the balance the three kinds of age-based rationing strike between maximizing benefits and fairness. It evaluates whether elements in the proposals are, in fact, contrary to the justifications of these measures. Such shortcomings are highlighted, and it is proposed to adjust prominent proposals to care for the worse off more appropriately and better consider whether the acquired benefits befalls the young or the old. (shrink)

A widely accepted claim about counterfactuals is that they differ from strict conditionals, that is, there is no adequate representation of them as sentences of the form   . To justify this claim, Stalnaker and Lewis have argued that some fallacious inferences would turn out valid if counterfactuals were so represented. However, their argument has a flaw, as it rests on a questionable assumption about the relation between surface grammar and logical form. Without that assumption, no consequence of the (...) alleged kind is obtained, hence the claim may be rejected. (shrink)

By presenting and synthesizing findings on the character of boredom, the article advances a theoretical account of the function of the state of boredom. The article argues that the state of boredom should be understood as a functional emotion that is both informative and regulatory of one's behavior. Boredom informs one of the presence of an unsatisfactory situation and, at the same time, it motivates one to pursue a new goal when the current goal ceases to be satisfactory, attractive or (...) meaningful. Boredom ultimately promotes both movement and the restoration of the perception that one's activities are meaningful and congruent with one's overall projects. (shrink)

Philosophical Psychology, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page 1-4, Ahead of Print.

In "Essence and Modality", Kit Fine proposes that for a proposition to be metaphysically necessary is for it to be true in virtue of the nature of all objects whatsoever. Call this view Fine's Thesis. This paper is a study of Fine's Thesis in the context of Fine's logic of essence (LE). Fine himself has offered his most elaborate defense of the thesis in the context of LE. His defense rests on the widely shared assumption that metaphysical necessity obeys the (...) laws of the modal logic S5. In order to get S5 for metaphysical necessity, he assumes a controversial principle about the nature of all objects. I will show that the addition of this principle to his original system E5 leads to inconsistency with an independently plausible principle about essence. In response, I develop a theory that avoids this inconsistency while allowing us to maintain S5 for metaphysical necessity. However, I conclude that our investigation of Fine's Thesis in the context of LE motivates the revisionary conclusion that metaphysical necessity obeys the principles of the modal logic S4, but not those of S5. I argue that this constitutes a distinctively essentialist challenge to the received view that the logic of metaphysical necessity is S5. (shrink)

Christian Munthe, David Fumagalli and Erik Malmqvist argue that well-known healthcare resource allocation principles, such as need, prognosis, equal treatment and cost-effectiveness, should be supplemented with a principle of sustainability.1 Employing such a principle would entail that the allocation of healthcare resources should take into account whether a specific allocation causes negative dynamics, which would limit the amount of resources available in the future. As examples of allocation decisions, which may have such negative dynamics, they mention those who cause a (...) lack of vaccines, anti-bioethics resistance and drug shortages. Thus, the overall thought is that we can spend and allocate healthcare resources in a certain way at t1, which means that we will have fewer resources available at a later point, t2. The authors argue that we should include a principle of sustainability to justify allocations, which avoids or diminishes the negative dynamics. The authors argue that existing principles cannot sufficiently include proper regard for how our current decisions affect future allocation decisions and, therefore, the people who need healthcare resources in the future. I am sympathetic to the developed argument and believe that the authors are correct that negative dynamics provide reasons to take our ability to meet future health needs …. (shrink)

I argue that the state of boredom (i.e., the transitory and non-pathological experience of boredom) should be understood to be a regulatory psychological state that has the capacity to promote our well-being by contributing to personal growth and to the construction (or reconstruction) of a meaningful life.

.This paper discusses Aristotle’s thesis and Boethius’ thesis, the most distinctive theorems of connexive logic. Its aim is to show that, although there is something plausible in Aristotle’s thesis and Boethius’ thesis, the intuitions that may be invoked to motivate them are consistent with any account of indicative conditionals that validates a suitably restricted version of them. In particular, these intuitions are consistent with the view that indicative conditionals are adequately formalized as strict conditionals.

This essay provides an analysis of the role of affectivity in Martin Heidegger's writings from the mid to late 1920s. We begin by situating his account of mood within the context of his project of fundamental ontology in Being and Time. We then discuss the role of Befindlichkeit and Stimmung in his account of human existence, explicate the relationship between the former and the latter, and consider the ways in which the former discloses the world. To give a more vivid (...) and comprehensive picture of Heidegger's account of mood, we focus on the experience of anxiety by articulating both its function within fundamental ontology and, relatedly, its revelatory nature. We conclude by considering the place of emotions in Heidegger's thinking from this period. In a companion essay, ‘Affectivity in Heidegger II: Temporality, Boredom, and Beyond’, we complement our present analysis by revisiting the issue of affectivity in terms of Heidegger's discussion of temporality in Division II of Being and Time. We also expand our present discussion by considering the fundamental mood of boredom and other specific moods that Heidegger considers within his later thinking. (shrink)

This paper explores an idea of Stoic descent that is largely neglected nowadays, the idea that an argument is valid when the conditional formed by the conjunction of its premises as antecedent and its conclusion as consequent is true. As it will be argued, once some basic features of our naıve understanding of validity are properly spelled out, and a suitable account of conditionals is adopted, the equivalence between valid arguments and true conditionals makes perfect sense. The account of validity (...) outlined here, which displays one coherent way to articulate the Stoic intuition, accords with standard formal treatments of deductive validity and encompasses an independently grounded characterization of inductive validity. (shrink)

It is sometimes argued that certain sentences of natural language fail to express truth conditional contents. Standard examples include e.g. Tipper is ready and Steel is strong enough. In this paper, we provide a novel analysis of truth conditional meaning using the notion of a question under discussion. This account explains why these types of sentences are not, in fact, semantically underdetermined, provides a principled analysis of the process by which natural language sentences can come to have enriched meanings in (...) context, and shows why various alternative views, e.g. so-called Radical Contextualism, Moderate Contextualism, and Semantic Minimalism, are partially right in their respective analyses of the problem, but also all ultimately wrong. Our analysis achieves this result using a standard truth conditional and compositional semantics and without making any assumptions about enriched logical forms, i.e. logical forms containing phonologically null expressions. (shrink)

This paper will analyze the evolution and the key aspects of René Girard’s critique of the Hegelian “struggle for recognition” and the master-slave dialectic. Through a discussion of Girard’s views on Identity, Difference, Violence, Desire and Negativity, the study will aim to highlight the philosophical uniqueness of the mimetic theory in respect to French Hegelianism and postHegelianism.

Despite great progress in our theoretical and empirical investigations of boredom, a basic issue regarding boredom remains unresolved: it is still unclear whether the construct of boredom is a unitary one or not. By surveying the relevant literature on boredom and arousal, the paper makes a case for the unity of the construct of boredom. It argues, first, that extant empirical findings do not support the heterogeneity of boredom, and, second, that a theoretically motivated and empirically grounded model of boredom (...) (the functional account) supports the view that the construct of boredom is a unitary one. (shrink)