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)

Laws are supposed to tell us how physical systems actually behave. The analysis of an important part of physical practice--abstraction--shows, however, that laws describe the behavior of physical systems under very special circumstances, namely when they are isolated. Nevertheless, laws are applied in cases of non-isolation as well. This practice requires an explanation. It is argued that one has to assume that physical systems have dispositions. I take these to be innocuous from an empiricist's standpoint because they can--at least in (...) principle--be measured. Laws can be applied whenever such a disposition is present, they describe how the physical system would behave if the disposition were manifest. (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.

An important argument against prohibiting organ sales is that it removes the best option available to individuals in dire circumstances. However, this line of reasoning fails to recognise that selling a kidney on a regulated market is only the best option in a very narrow comparison, where a regulated organ market is compared with banning organ sales. Once we acknowledge this narrowness, selling a kidney is not the best option. This paves the way for a distributive justice-based critique of the (...) ‘best option’ argument for organ markets, which illuminates that organ markets should be compared with a broader set of alternatives. If providing the option of selling a kidney is not the best option, but rather the best option we are willing to provide, and one which means that many people will remain in poverty and unjust circumstances, then this reflects poorly on those societies willing to offer only this option and not a better one. (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)

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)

Most event-referring expressions are vague; it is utterly difficult, if not impossible, to specify the exact spatiotemporal location of an event from the words that we use to refer to it. We argue that in spite of certain prima facie obstacles, such vagueness can be given a purely semantic (broadly supervaluational) account.

This chapter focuses on the role of the imagination in creativity, using aphantasia as a case study. It first distinguishes between imagination and mental imagery, before giving an overview of what we know about aphantasia to date, focusing in particular on findings pertaining to creativity, imagination, and memory. It then turns to the role of the imagination in creativity, agreeing with philosophers that the imagination plays an essential role in creativity, which allows individuals to imagine a multitude of possibilities. This (...) view is then supplemented with a theory of the neuro-cognitive underpinnings of the imagination, whereby both the imagination and memory are supported by the same neural network – the default mode network. Finally, the chapter argues that this fuller picture allows us to understand the creative abilities of people with aphantasia, thoroughly resisting the thought that they might generally be unimaginative or uncreative. (shrink)

I show that there are good reasons to think that some individuals without any capacity for consciousness should be counted as welfare subjects, assuming that desire-fulfilment is a welfare good and that any individuals who can accrue welfare goods are welfare subjects. While other philosophers have argued for similar conclusions, I show that they have done so by relying on a simplistic understanding of the desire-fulfilment theory. My argument is intended to be sensitive to the complexities and nuances of contemporary (...) developments of the theory, while avoiding highly counter-intuitive implications of previous arguments for the same conclusion. (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)

Among the various motivations that may lead to the idea that truth is relative in some non-conventional sense, one is that the idea helps explain how there can be ‘‘ faultless disagreements’’, that is, situations in which a person A judges that p, a person B judges that not-p, but neither A nor B is at fault. The line of argument goes as follows. It seems that there are faultless disagreements. For example, A and B may disagree on culinary matters (...) without either A or B being at fault. But standard semantics has no room for such a case, so there is something wrong with standard semantics. The best way to amend it is to add a new parameter that is relevant to the truth or falsity of what A and B judge, presumably, something related to personal taste. The aim of the paper is to show that this line of argument is flawed. It is true that standard semantics has no room for faultless disagreements. But there is nothing wrong with this, for it should not be assumed that such disagreements exist. (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)

Nicolaus Taurellus (1547-1606) developed a detailed critique of Cesalpino’s cardiocentric physiology, challenging the causal roles that Cesalpino ascribed to the heart, blood, vital spirits and vital heat in the origin of sensitive powers. He also rejected Cesalpino’s view that a cardiocentric physiology of sensation could be used as an analogy to explain in what sense the universe could be understood as being animated. The central point of Taurellus’s critique is that Cesalpino’s treatment of vital heat implies a theory of divine (...) immanence. On first sight, this critique may seem to rest on a misinterpretation since there are passages in which Cesalpino describes the relation between the causal role of vital heat and divine causation as an analogy. However, Taurellus draws attention to some aspects of Cesalpino’s thought that have not found much attention from commentators: Cesalpino’s account of divine self-reflection as a principle of final causation inherent in animals, and his account of divine self-reflection as a principle of final causation inherent in the heavens. (shrink)

According to a view called 'nihilism', sentences containing vague expressions cannot strictly speaking be true or false, because they lack definite truth conditions. While most theorists of vagueness tend to regard nihilism as a hopeless view, a few isolated attempts have been made to defend it. This paper aims to develop such attempts in a new direction by showing how nihilism, once properly spelled out, can meet three crucial explanatory challenges that respectively concern truth, assertibility, and communication.

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)

There seems to be a minimal core that every theory wishing to accommodate the intuition that the future is open must contain: a denial of physical determinism (i.e. the thesis that what future states the universe will be in is implied by what states it has been in), and a denial of strong fatalism (i.e. the thesis that, at every time, what will subsequently be the case is metaphysically necessary).1 Those two requirements are often associated with the idea of an (...) objective temporal flow and the non-reality of the future. However, at least certain ways to frame the “openness” intuition do not rely on any of these. Branching Time Theory (BTT) is one such: it is compatible with the denial that time flow is objective and it is couched in a language with a (prima facie) commitment to an eternalist ontology. BTT, though, urges us to resist certain intuitions about the determinacy of future claims, which arguably do not lead either to physical determinism or to fatalism. Against BTT, supporters of the Thin Red Line Theory (TRL) argue that their position avoids determinism and fatalism, while also representing the fact that there is a future which is “special” because it is the one that will be the case. But starting with Belnap and Green 1994, some have objected to the tenability of TRL, mainly on metaphysical grounds. In particular, those argue that “positing a thin red line amounts to giving up objective indeterminism,”2 and that “has unacceptable consequences, ranging from a mistreatment of actuality to an inability to talk coherently about what would have happened had what is going to happen not taken place.”3 In this paper, we wish to reframe the.. (shrink)

In this paper I provide a commentary on and edition of the unpublished and apparently incomplete Medicina contracta of the Flemish philosopher Arnold Geulincx (1624– 1669). This short treatise, dating to c. 1668–1669, was not included in the edition of Geulincx’s works edited by J.P.N. Land, on the ground of its apparent unoriginality. However, it reveals the attempt, by Geulincx, to develop a medicine based on a new account of disease (intended in Cartesian-Platonic terms of the impossibility of the mind (...) using the body through animal spirits), and integrating avant-garde solutions typ- ical of iatrochemistry (in particular those of Franciscus Sylvius) and iatromechanics. The text, which I also consider in the light of Geulincx’s disputations in physiology, is moreover revelatory of his ongoing efforts in understanding the nature of respiration and its related diseases and conditions, such as apoplexy, and of his progressive, albeit not uncritical acceptance of Cartesianism. (shrink)

In this chapter, I introduce three different types of AI-based moral enhancement proposals discussed in the literature – substitutive enhancement, value-driven enhancement, and value-open moral enhancement. I analyse them based on the following criteria: effectiveness, examining whether they bring about tangible moral changes; autonomy, assessing whether they infringe on human autonomy and agency; and developmental impact, considering whether they hinder the development of natural moral skills. This analysis demonstrates that no single approach to AI enhancement can satisfy all proposed criteria, (...) suggesting a need for pluralism in devising AI-based enhancement tools. The most advisable approach to AI-based enhancement is to explore and develop a variety of tools that cater to the diverse needs of users and address different weaknesses in moral decision-making. (shrink)

This article discusses Du Châtelet’s challenging claim that entertaining illusions, especially illusions of being esteemed by posterity, is conducive to happiness. It does so by taking a contextualizing approach, contrasting her views with some Epicurean aspects of the views on illusions and happiness in Bernard de Fontenelle and Julien Offray de La Mettrie. I will argue for three claims: (1) Du Châtelet’s comparison between self-related illusions and illusions in the theater is vulnerable to objections deriving from some distinctions that Fontenelle’s (...) poetics draws between the role of illusions in the theater and the role of illusions in real life. (2) Examining Fontenelle’s analysis of the detrimental effects of self-related illusions indicates several respects in which Du Châtelet has underestimated the ambivalent nature of illusions. (3) Du Châtelet’s view that illusions are akin to sensations that are favorable to us problematically generalizes La Mettrie’s insight that some acts of the imagination have a quasi-perceptual nature. (shrink)

People often discriminate based on negative or positive stereotypes about others. Important examples of this are highlighted by the theory of ambivalent sexism. This theory distinguishes sexist stereotypes that are negative (hostile sexism) from those that are positive (benevolent sexism). While both forms of sexism are considered wrong towards women, hostile sexism seems intuitively worse than benevolent sexism. In this article, we ask whether the difference between discriminating based on positive vs. negative stereotypes in itself makes a morally relevant difference. (...) We suggest that it does not. By examining a number of prominent accounts of what makes discrimination wrong, we defend the Moral Irrelevance View according to which stereotype valence is irrelevant to the moral evaluation of discrimination, all else equal. (shrink)

Victims of oppressive (e.g., sexist, racist or ableist) structures sometimes internalize the unjust norms that prevail in society. This can cause these victims to develop preferences or make deci-sions that seem bad for them. Focusing on such cases, we ask: is self-discrimination disrespectful? We show that some of the most sophisticated respect theories fail to provide any clear guidance. Specifically, we show that the widely recognized view that respect has two dimensions—an interest dimension and an autonomy dimension—delivers completely opposite verdicts (...) depending on how these two dimensions (and the relation between them) are specified. A main takeaway point is that we need to distinguish between at least four different respect-based views. Whether self-discrimination caused by internalized oppression is disrespectful depends on which view one supports. (shrink)

After the attempt at collaboration between the Frankfurt School and the Vienna Circle failed in the late 1930s, Adorno stood at the forefront of critical theory’s polemics against ‘positivism’. Given these later polemical exchanges, some of the tendencies common to both movements have remained overlooked. Among these is their opposition to the phenomenological tradition. This paper focusses on certain features common to Schlick’s and Adorno’s critical responses to Husserl. The Machians, including Adorno’s supervisor Hans Cornelius, were targeted by Husserl’s onslaught (...) against psychologism in 1900. The young Schlick’s Machian background had motivated his contribution to the Psychologismusstreit, in the context of which he launched a series of objections against Husserl’s ‘independence theory of truth’. Adorno’s later doctoral dissertation under Cornelius was also motivated by the effort to defend his master against Husserl’s objections. Schlick’s criticisms intensified in later works, where Husserl’s epistemology of intuition is seen as yet another instance of the widespread confusion between knowledge and acquaintance. Schlick’s warnings against Husserl’s turn towards the irrationalist fashions of his day find their echo in Adorno’s ‘Metakritik’. Apart from their broad agreement in how they understand Husserl’s positioning within his context, Schlick and Adorno also develop a similar criticism of Husserl’s account of intuition as failing in its aspiration to discover unmediated givenness, which it confuses with mediated conceptual knowledge. Unfortunately, while Adorno explicitly acknowledges Schlick’s critique of Husserl, he also misconstrues it as a scientistic rejection of metaphysical nonsense, thus failing to acknowledge the proximity to his approach. (shrink)

This paper employs some outcomes (for the most part due to David Lewis) of the contemporary debate on the metaphysics of dispositions to evaluate those dispositional analyses of meaning that make use of the concept of a disposition in ideal conditions. The first section of the paper explains why one may find appealing the notion of an ideal-condition dispositional analysis of meaning and argues that Saul Kripke’s well-known argument against such analyses is wanting. The second section focuses on Lewis’ work (...) in the metaphysics of dispositions in order to call attention to some intuitions about the nature of dispositions that we all seem to share. In particular, I stress the role of what I call "Actuality Constraint". The third section of the paper maintains that the Actuality Constraint can be used to show that the dispositions with which ideal-condition dispositional analyses identify my meaning addition by "+" do not exist (in so doing, I develop a suggestion put forward by Paul Boghossian). This immediately implies that ideal-condition dispositional analyses of meaning cannot work. The last section discusses a possible objection to my argument. The point of the objection is that the argument depends on an illicit assumption. I show (1) that, in fact, the assumption in question is far from illicit and (2) that even without this assumption it is possible to argue that the dispositions with which ideal-condition dispositional analyses identify my meaning addition by "+" do not exist. (shrink)

El propósito de este artículo es proporcionar algunas pistas sobre el problema de la naturaleza en la filosofía de Heidegger y mostrar por qué su manera de abordar la naturaleza resulta problemática. Problemática, puesto que, al estar obsesionado por evitar elaboraciones naturalistas de los fenómenos que le conciernen, Heidegger solo se centra en una aproximación existencial a la naturaleza y pone el foco en la forma en que esta se hace manifiesta al Dasein. Esto no le permite elaborar una reflexión (...) filosófica sobre la naturaleza consistente con las ciencias de su época (salvo en algunas contadas ocasiones) y le impide dar un peso suficiente en su obra a la naturaleza. -/- . (shrink)

In this paper I take a look at what I take to be the best argument for dispositions. According to this argument we need dispositions in order to understand certain features of scientific practice. I point out that these dispositions have to be continuously manifestable. Furthermore I will argue that dispositions are not the causes of their manifestations. However, dispositions and causation are closely connected. What it is to be a cause can best be understood in terms of counterfactuals that (...) are based on dispositions. (shrink)

According to what may be called the Debt Model, blameworthiness is defined in terms of deserved suffering. The Debt Model has a significant implication: one is less blameworthy if one has experienced some of the suffering one deserves, and no longer blameworthy once one has experienced the full amount of suffering one deserves. Blameworthiness, according to the Debt Model, is not forever. In recent papers, Clarke (2022) and Howard (2022) independently criticize the Debt Model and argue for the opposite conclusion: (...) if one is blameworthy, one will remain blameworthy forever. In this paper, I respond to this criticism as well as a recent argument against the Debt Model from Tierney (2022). I then present a prima facie case for the Debt Model. I argue that Clarke’s attempt to accommodate the intuitions elicited by this and similar cases has unwelcome implications. I will end the paper with some remarks about what roles we want our conceptions of blameworthiness to play. If Clarke’s account were right, the fact that an agent is blameworthy would play a far less significant role in our moral life than we often tend to assume. The Debt Model, I will suggest, makes better sense of our blaming practices. (shrink)

Adolf Loos is one of the few figures that Wittgenstein explicitly named as an influence on his thought. Loos’s influence has been debated in the context of determining Wittgenstein’s relation to modernism, as well as in attempts to come to terms with his work as an architect. This paper looks in a different direction, examining a remark in which Wittgenstein responded to Heidegger’s notorious pronouncement that ‘the Nothing noths’ by reference to Loos’s critique of ornamentation. Wittgenstein draws a parallel between (...) the requirement to start philosophy with an inarticulate sound and the need, in certain cultural periods, to highlight the borders of tablecloths using lace. Paying heed to Wittgenstein’s remark sheds further light on a Loosian influence at work in his thinking about modern civilization, both in his well-known ‘Lectures on Aesthetics’ and in the earlier notes from his 1930 lectures at Cambridge. (shrink)

This paper raises some questions about the formalization of sentences containing ‘if’ or similar expressions. In particular, it focuses on three kinds of sentences that resemble conditionals in some respects but exhibit distinctive logical features that deserve separate consideration: whether-or-not sentences, biscuit conditionals, and concessive conditionals. As will be suggested, the examples discussed show in different ways that an adequate formalization of a sentence must take into account the content expressed by the sentence. This upshot is arguably what one should (...) expect on the view that logical form is determined by truth conditions. (shrink)

This paper argues that most of the alleged straight solutions to the sceptical paradox which Kripke ascribed to Wittgenstein can be regarded as the first horn of a dilemma whose second horn is the paradox itself. The dilemma is proved to be a by‐product of a foundationalist assumption on the notion of justification, as applied to linguistic behaviour. It is maintained that the assumption is unnecessary and that the dilemma is therefore spurious. To this end, an alternative conception of the (...) justification of linguistic behaviour is outlined, a conception that vindicates some of the insights behind Kripke's Wittgenstein's sceptical solution of the paradox. This alternative conception is defended against two objections (both familiar from McDowell's works): (1) that it would imply that for the linguistic community there is no authority, no standard to meet and, therefore, no possibility of error and (2) that it would lead to a kind of idealism. (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 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)

This paper offers a reconstruction of the interpretations of Descartes's ideas of place and motion by Dutch Cartesians (Henricus Regius, Johannes de Raey, Johannes Clauberg, and Christoph Wittich). It does so by focusing on the reading of Descartes's Principia philosophiae (1644) offered, in particular, by the dictated commentaries on it. It is shown how such commentaries bring to the light new potential Aristotelian-Scholastic sources of Descartes, and the different ways Dutch Cartesians brought to the fore, also with the help of (...) such sources, the rationale of the Cartesian text: in doing so, they constituted a philosophical school. (shrink)

The search for an agreement between Aristotle’s and Descartes’ philosophy was aimed at making Cartesian physics acceptable in the Dutch universities by showing its consistency with Aristotelian thought. Their agreement is defended by Johannes De Raey in the Clavis philosophiae naturalis (1654), where he interprets the Corpus Aristotelicum from a Cartesian standpoint. Those Aristotelian positions which are inconsistent with Descartes’ are treated as erroneous. The Scholastic positions, moreover, are considered as distant from the true Aristotelian philosophy rediscovered by Descartes.

Traditionally, consistency is the only criterion for the quality of a theory in logic-based approaches to reasoning about actions. This work goes beyond that and contributes to the metatheory of actions by investigating what other properties a good domain description should have. We state some metatheoretical postulates concerning this sore spot. When all postulates are satisfied we call the action theory modular. Besides being easier to understand and more elaboration tolerant in McCarthy’s sense, modular theories have interesting properties. We point (...) out the problems that arise when the postulates about modularity are violated, and propose algorithmic checks that can help the designer of an action theory to overcome them. (shrink)

This paper tries to get a grip on two seemingly conflicting intuitions about reductionism in quantum mechanics. On the one hand it is received wisdom that quantum mechanics puts an end to ‘reductionism’. Quantum-entanglement is responsible for such features of quantum mechanics as holism, the failure of supervenience and emergence. While I agree with these claims I will argue that it is only part of the story. Quantum mechanics provides us with thorough-going reductionist explanations. I will distinguish two kinds of (...) micro-explanation (or micro-‘reduction’). I will argue that even though quantum-entanglement provides an example for the failure of one kind of micro-explanation it does not affect the other. Contrary to a recent paper by Kronz and Tiehen I claim that the explanation of the dynamics of quantum mechanical systems is just as reductionist as it used to be in classical mechanics. (shrink)

The paper discusses definitions of and arguments for non-reductive physicalism (and argues that the term is a mis-nomer).

Gabriel Bonnot de Mably (1709–1785) adopts the republican commonplace that social esteem is the suitable reward for civic virtue. At the same time, he emphasizes that distorted imagination makes it difficult to discern what is good for human beings. This combination of views is puzzling because distorted imagination seems to impair the ability to recognize what deserves to be esteemed. I will argue that the coherence of Mably’s position is due to his emphasis on factors explaining distorted imagination that do (...) not derive from human nature but, rather, from external factors. One such factor is historiography. Historians’ distorted imaginations can mislead readers’ imaginations and make them ready to esteem despotic regimes and a politics of conquest. But such pathologies of the imagination can be cured through historiography that is informed by the positive experiences arising from ancient and early modern republican constitutions and the negative experiences arising from ancient and early modern despotic regimes. In Mably’s view, republican historiography is one of the factors capable of modifying the imagination of citizens and, hence, their conceptions of what deserves social esteem. (shrink)

The paper discusses various conceptions of determinism.

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)

ABSTRACTThe question of how common usage could be constitutive for the meaning of linguistic expressions has been discussed by Renaissance philosophers such as Lorenzo Valla, and it also played an important role in Renaissance theories of juridical interpretation. An aspect of the analysis of common usage in Renaissance theories of juridical interpretation that concerns the role of presumption has not yet found much attention. Renaissance jurists such as Simone de Praetis, Nicolaus Everardus, and Aimone de Cravetta saw that both the (...) usage of Latin by practitioners of law and the vernacular common usage of ordinary people often differed from the technical definition of legal concepts as laid down by ancient jurists or modern legislators. In some cases, they ascribed both to Latin and to vernacular common usage the power of changing the meaning of juridical terms. Still, they were aware of the fact that matters of common usage involve always a degree of uncertainty. The methodological notion of presumption is one of the concepts that figured most prominently in Renaissance approaches to the problem of uncertainty, and, in particular, it was applied in the analysis of meaning-change of legal concepts through common usage. (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)

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.

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.

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)

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)

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.