In Measuring the Immeasurable Mind: Where Contemporary Neuroscience Meets the Aristotelian Tradition, Matthew Owen argues that despite its nonphysical character, it is possible to empirically detect and measure consciousness. -/- Toward the end of the previous century, the neuroscience of consciousness set its roots and sprouted within a materialist milieu that reduced the mind to matter. Several decades later, dualism is being dusted off and reconsidered. Although some may see this revival as a threat to consciousness science aimed at measuring (...) the conscious mind, Owen argues that measuring consciousness, along with the medical benefits of such measurements, is not ruled out by consciousness being nonphysical. Owen proposes the Mind-Body Powers model of neural correlates of consciousness, which is informed by Aristotelian causation and a substance dualist view of human nature inspired by Thomas Aquinas, who often followed Aristotle. In addition to explaining why there are neural correlates of consciousness, the model provides a philosophical foundation for empirically discerning and quantifying consciousness. En route to presenting and applying the Mind-Body Powers model to neurobiology, Owen rebuts longstanding objections to dualism related to the mind-body problem. With scholarly precision and readable clarity, Owen applies an oft forgotten yet richly developed historical vantage point to contemporary cognitive neuroscience. (shrink)

It is often assumed that Fichte's aim in Part I of the System of Ethics is to provide a deduction of the moral law, the very thing that Kant – after years of unsuccessful attempts – deemed impossible. On this familiar reading, what Kant eventually viewed as an underivable 'fact' (Factum), the authority of the moral law, is what Fichte traces to its highest ground in what he calls the principle of the 'I'. However, scholars have largely overlooked a passage (...) in the System of Ethics where Fichte explicitly invokes Kant's doctrine of the fact of reason with approval, claiming that consciousness of the moral law grounds our belief in freedom (GA I/5:65). On the reading I defend, Fichte's invocation of the Factum is consistent with the structure of Part I when we distinguish (a) the feeling of moral compulsion from (b) the moral law itself. (shrink)

Owen Ware here develops and defends a novel interpretation of Fichte’s moral philosophy as an ethics of wholeness. While virtually forgotten for most of the twentieth century, Fichte’s System of Ethics is now recognized by scholars as a masterpiece in the history of post-Kantian thought and a key text for understanding the work of later German idealist thinkers. This book provides a careful examination of the intellectual context in which Fichte’s moral philosophy evolved and of the specific arguments he offers (...) in response to Kant and his immediate successors. A distinctive feature of this study is a focus on the foundational concepts of Fichte’s ethics—freedom, morality, feeling, conscience, community—and their connection to his innovative but largely misunderstood theory of drives. By way of conclusion, the book shows that what appears to be two conflicting commitments in Fichte’s ethics—a commitment to the feelings of one's conscience and a commitment to engage in open dialogue with others—are two aspects of his theory of moral perfection. The result is a sharp understanding of Fichte's System of Ethics as offering a compelling resolution to the personal and interpersonal dimensions of moral life. (shrink)

A self-fulfilling prophecy is, roughly, a prediction that brings about its own truth. Although true predictions are hard to fault, self-fulfilling prophecies are often regarded with suspicion. In this article, we vindicate this suspicion by explaining what self-fulfilling prophecies are and what is problematic about them, paying special attention to how their problems are exacerbated through automated prediction. Our descriptive account of self-fulfilling prophecies articulates the four elements that define them. Based on this account, we begin our critique by showing (...) that typical self-fulfilling prophecies arise due to mistakes about the relationship between a prediction and its object. Such mistakes—along with other mistakes in predicting or in the larger practical endeavor—are easily overlooked when the predictions turn out true. Thus we note that self-fulfilling prophecies prompt no error signals; truth shrouds their mistakes from humans and machines alike. Consequently, self-fulfilling prophecies create several obstacles to accountability for the outcomes they produce. We conclude our critique by showing how failures of accountability, and the associated failures to make corrections, explain the connection between self-fulfilling prophecies and feedback loops. By analyzing the complex relationships between accuracy and other evaluatively significant features of predictions, this article sheds light both on the special case of self-fulfilling prophecies and on the ethics of prediction more generally. (shrink)

It is commonly held that our intuitive judgements about imaginary problem cases are justified a priori, if and when they are justified at all. In this paper I defend this view — ‘rationalism’ — against a recent objection by Timothy Williamson. I argue that his objection fails on multiple grounds, but the reasons why it fails are instructive. Williamson argues from a claim about the semantics of intuitive judgements, to a claim about their psychological underpinnings, to the denial of rationalism. (...) I argue that the psychological claim — that a capacity for mental simulation explains our intuitive judgements — does not, even if true, provide reasons to reject rationalism. (More generally, a simulation hypothesis, about any category of judgements, is very limited in its epistemological implications: it is pitched at a level of explanation that is insensitive to central epistemic distinctions.) I also argue that Williamson’s semantic claim — that intuitive judgements are judgements of counterfactuals — is mistaken; rather, I propose, they are a certain kind of metaphysical possibility judgement. Several other competing proposals are also examined and criticized. (shrink)

I propose a construal of aesthetic value that gives us reason to emphasize some aesthetic practices over others. This construal rests on the existence of a central aesthetic value, namely apprehension-testing intricacy within an appropriate domain. I address three objections: the objection that asks how an aesthetic value based on intricacy can account for the value of minimalism; the objection that asks about the difference between intricacy within a medium and intricacy between media; and the objection that asks about the (...) danger of a regress. I then say that, although this central aesthetic value can in principle allow us to adjudicate between aesthetic practices, we have epistemic limits (about the potential of certain artistic domains to allow for apprehension-testing intricacy) that prevent adjudication in some cases. Even if there is a difference between the vastness of the potential-intricacy-fields somewhere down the line, it is too far for us to see. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate composition models of incarnation, according to which Christ is a compound of qualitatively and numerically different constituents. We focus on three-part models, according to which Christ is composed of a divine mind, a human mind, and a human body. We consider four possible relational structures that the three components could form. We argue that a ‘hierarchy of natures’ model, in which the human mind and body are united to each other in the normal way, and (...) in which they are jointly related to the divine mind by the relation of co-action, is the most metaphysically plausible model. Finally, we consider the problem of how Christ can be a single person even when his components may be considered persons. We argue that an Aristotelian metaphysics, according to which identity is a matter of function, offers a plausible solution: Christ's components may acquire a radically new identity through being parts of the whole, which enables them to be reidentified as parts, not persons. (shrink)

Kant’s doctrine of the Fact of Reason is one of the most perplexing aspects of his moral philosophy. The aim of this paper is to defend Kant’s doctrine from the common charge of dogmatism. My defense turns on a previously unexplored analogy to the notion of ‘matters of fact’ popularized by members of the Royal Society in the seventeenth century. In their work, ‘facts’ were beyond doubt, often referring to experimental effects one could witness first hand. While Kant uses the (...) German equivalent in different contexts, I argue that the scientific analogy opens up a new framework for interpreting his strategy of justification in the Critique of Practical Reason. In the final section, I address a few possible objections to my reading, one of which I anticipate coming from Dieter Henrich and Ian Proops, who have argued that Kant’s Fact of Reason is best understood under a legal analogy. (shrink)

Kant’s arguments for the reality of human freedom and the normativity of the moral law continue to inspire work in contemporary moral philosophy. Many prominent ethicists invoke Kant, directly or indirectly, in their efforts to derive the authority of moral requirements from a more basic conception of action, agency, or rationality. But many commentators have detected a deep rift between the _Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals_ and the _Critique of Practical Reason_, leaving Kant’s project of justification exposed to conflicting (...) assessments and interpretations. In this major re-reading of Kant, Owen Ware defends the controversial view that Kant’s mature writings on ethics share a unified commitment to the moral law’s primacy. Using both close analysis and historical contextualization, Owen Ware overturns a paradigmatic way of reading Kant’s arguments for morality and freedom, situating them within Kant’s critical methodology at large. The result is a novel understanding of Kant that challenges much of what goes under the banner of Kantian arguments for moral normativity today. (shrink)

Hume introduced important innovations concerning the theory of ideas. The two most important are the distinction between impressions and ideas, and the use he made of the principles of association in explaining mental phenomena. Hume divided the perceptions of the mind into two classes. The members of one class, impressions, he held to have a greater degree of force and vivacity than the members of the other class, ideas. He also supposed that ideas are causally dependent copies of impressions. And, (...) unlike Locke and others, Hume makes positive use of the principle of association, both of the association of ideas, and, in a more limited way, of the association of impressions. Such associations are central to his explanations of causal reasoning, belief, the indirect passions (pride and humility, love and hatred), and sympathy. These views about impressions and ideas and the principles of association form the core of Hume’s science of human nature. Relying on them, he attempts a rigorously empirical investigation of human nature. The resulting system is a remarkable but complex achievement. (shrink)

It is commonly held that Kant ventured to derive morality from freedom in Groundwork III. It is also believed that he reversed this strategy in the second Critique, attempting to derive freedom from morality instead. In this paper, I set out to challenge these familiar assumptions: Kant’s argument in Groundwork III rests on a moral conception of the intelligible world, one that plays a similar role as the ‘fact of reason’ in the second Critique. Accordingly, I argue, there is no (...) reversal in the proof-structure of Kant’s two works. (shrink)

Kant is well known for claiming that we can never really know our true moral disposition. He is less well known for claiming that the injunction "Know Yourself" is the basis of all self-regarding duties. Taken together, these two claims seem contradictory. My aim in this paper is to show how they can be reconciled. I first address the question of whether the duty of self-knowledge is logically coherent (§1). I then examine some of the practical problems surrounding the duty, (...) notably, self-deception (§2). Finding none of Kant's solutions to the problem of self-deception satisfactory, I conclude by defending a Kantian account of self-knowledge based on his theory of conscience (§3). (shrink)

Positive polarity items (PPIs) are generally thought to have the boring property that they cannot scope below negation. The starting point of the paper is the observation that their distribution is significantly more complex; specifically, someone/something-type PPIs share properties with negative polarity items (NPIs). First, these PPIs are disallowed in the same environments that license yet type NPIs; second, adding any NPI-licenser rescues the illegitimate constellation. This leads to the conclusion that these PPIs have the combined properties of yet-type and (...) ever-type NPIs: what appears to be a prohibition is nothing but “halfway licensing”. The paper goes on to propose a unification of the analyses of rescuable PPIs, NPIs, and negative concord, and questions the grounding of polarity sensitivity in the scalar or the referential semantics of the items involved. (shrink)

This chapter examines the place of India in eighteenth-century debates over the chronology of human history. It begins with Voltaire, who strategically praised ancient Brahmanic religion for upholding a pure form of monotheism and an equally pure form of morality. Voltaire’s aim was to upset the primacy assigned to the Mosaic tradition foundational to the Catholic church. The chapter then turns to Herder and his effort to improve upon the historical methods of Voltaire. While Herder is often considered to have (...) developed positive views toward ancient Indian culture, the chapter shows that his commitment to a biblical chronology was consistent throughout his career. (shrink)

In Sect. 2, I will introduce what religious robots are and present examples of such robots. Then, in Sect. 3, I will discuss my project with a NAO robot at the Katholikentag. In Sect. 4, I will discuss anthropological and ethical questions related to religious robots. Thus, I will outline the direction in which research on religious robots can go, where the challenges lie, and highlight two key advantages. Finally, in Sect. 5, I conclude with an outlook for future research (...) on religious robots. - Puzio, Anna: A NAO Robot Performing Religious Practices. In: ET-Studies 15/1 (2024), pp. 129-140. DOI: 10.2143/ETS.15.1.3293070. (shrink)

In this essay we provide (1) an argument for why ethics should be naturalized, (2) an analysis of why it is not yet naturalized, (3) a defense of ethical naturalism against two fallacies—Hume’s and Moore’s—that ethical naturalism allegedly commits, and (4) a proposal that normative ethics is best conceived as part of human ecology committed to pluralistic relativism. We explain why naturalizing ethics both entails relativism and also constrains it, and why nihilism about value is not an especially worrisome for (...) ethical naturalists. The substantive view we put forth constitutes the essence of Duke Naturalism. (shrink)

This book surveys research in quantification starting with the foundational work in the 1970s. It paints a vivid picture of generalized quantifiers and Boolean semantics. It explains how the discovery of diverse scope behavior in the 1990s transformed the view of quantification, and how the study of the internal composition of quantifiers has become central in recent years. It presents different approaches to the same problems, and links modern logic and formal semantics to advances in generative syntax. A unique feature (...) of the book is that it systematically brings cross-linguistic data to bear on the theoretical issues, discussing French, German, Dutch, Hungarian, Russian, Japanese, Telugu (Dravidian), and Shupamem (Grassfield Bantu), and pointing to formal semantic literature involving quantification in around thirty languages. -- -/- 1. What this book is about and how to use it; 2. Generalized quantifiers and their elements: operators and their scopes; 3. Generalized quantifiers in non-nominal domains; 4. Some empirically significant properties of quantifiers and determiners; 5. Potential challenges for generalized quantifiers; 6. Scope is not uniform and not a primitive; 7. Existential scope versus distributive scope; 8. Distributivity and scope; 9. Bare numeral indefinites; 10. Modified numerals; 11. Clause-internal scopal diversity; 12. Towards a compositional semantics of quantifier words. (shrink)

Despite Kant’s lasting influence on philosophical accounts of moral motivation, many details of his own position remain elusive. In the Critique of Practical Reason, for example, Kant argues that our recognition of the moral law’s authority must elicit both painful and pleasurable feelings in us. On reflection, however, it is unclear how these effects could motivate us to act from duty. As a result, Kant’s theory of moral sensibility comes under a skeptical threat: the possibility of a morally motivating feeling (...) seems incoherent. My aim in this paper is to reconstruct Kant’s theory in a way that overcomes this threat. By way of conclusion, I show how my reconstruction brings a new perspective to a long-standing dispute over intellectualist and affectivist views of moral motivation. (shrink)

This article argues that a person’s well-being at a time and the goodness of her life are two distinct values. It is commonly accepted as platitudinous that well-being is what makes a life good for the person who lives it. Even philosophers who distinguish between well-being at a time and the goodness of a life still typically assume that increasing a person’s well-being at some particular moment, all else equal, necessarily improves her life on the whole. I develop a precise (...) statement of this standard assumption, and then show that it is subject to counterexamples. The possibility of such counterexamples depends only on premises similar to those sometimes invoked to argue that a person’s well-being over a long period is not simply the aggregate well-being of the shorter periods that compose the long period. The refutation of the standard assumption linking well-being and life-goodness entails that these are distinct and sometimes divergent values. As an alternative to the standard assumption, it is proposed that well-being is best understood as an ingredient in a good life. (shrink)

Russian aggression against Ukraine has become one of the most serious challenges for the international security system. One of the regions where Russian propaganda has been spread widely is Latin America. And one of the countries especially influenced by the Russian disinformation in the region is Brazil. The goal of this article is to define characteristics of the Russian propaganda in Latin America regarding Russian aggression against Ukraine, particularly, look at the case of Brazil, trace features of the Kremlin propaganda (...) in this country at the current stage and outline possible ways of countering this propaganda. It can be concluded that Russian propaganda in Latin American and in Brazil, particularly, has several specific characteristics-it is widespread, long-standing and generally supported. Key current narratives concerning the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine include the nuclear threat, calls for peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia and accusing the West of russofobia. Other false narratives include accusing Ukraine of war crimes and provocations, as well as dangers of further “escalation” of the war. Among reasons for common misconceptions about the Russia-Ukraine war in Brazil one can name a simple lack of information and familiarity with the local politics. This gap is partially the result of Ukraine’s insufficient communication with the Latin American and Brazilian audiences and the countries’ lack of interest in each other for many years. In order to counter Russian propaganda in Latin American and Brazil, in particular, Ukraine should enhance its communication and diplomatic efforts, cooperate with the Ukrainian diaspora in the region and consistently deconstruct Russian disinformation narratives. In the long-term perspective, it is worthwhile increasing opportunities to study the Spanish and Portuguese languages and have respective Regional Studies courses at Ukrainian educational institutions. (shrink)

Just as humans can draw conclusions responsibly or irresponsibly, so too can computers. Machine learning systems that have been trained on data sets that include irresponsible judgments are likely to yield irresponsible predictions as outputs. In this paper I focus on a particular kind of inference a computer system might make: identification of the intentions with which a person acted on the basis of photographic evidence. Such inferences are liable to be morally objectionable, because of a way in which they (...) are presumptuous. After elaborating this moral concern, I explore the possibility that carefully procuring the training data for image recognition systems could ensure that the systems avoid the problem. The lesson of this paper extends beyond just the particular case of image recognition systems and the challenge of responsibly identifying a person’s intentions. Reflection on this particular case demonstrates the importance (as well as the difficulty) of evaluating machine learning systems and their training data from the standpoint of moral considerations that are not encompassed by ordinary assessments of predictive accuracy. (shrink)

Joanna Leidenhag’s research monograph Minding Creation: Theological Panpsychism and the Doctrine of Creation argues that theologians should seriously consider and perhaps even support panpsychism. In light of rekindled interest in panpsychism amongst philosophers of mind and a noteworthy minority of cognitive neuroscientists, which comes in the wake of physicalism’s faltering, Leidenhag’s thesis is timely. This work briefly analyzes some key aspects of Minding Creation.

In this article I offer a critical commentary on Jeanine Grenberg’s claim that, by the time of the second Critique, Kant was committed to the view that we only access the moral law’s validity through the feeling of respect. The issue turns on how we understand Kant’s assertion that our consciousness of the moral law is a ‘fact of reason’. Grenberg argues that all facts must be forced, and anything forced must be felt. I defend an alternative interpretation, according to (...) which the fact of reason refers to the actuality of our moral consciousness. (shrink)

Free will skepticism is radical in its core claim that free will is illusory. Criminal law, however, appears to presuppose that persons are free and hence, morally responsible for their actions. So, if free will skepticism is true, our current practices that hold people to account for their wrongs appears unjustified–even immoral. This paper will challenge the free will skeptic’s core claim that free will does not exist and defend current practices of moral responsibility by offering (and defending) a Frankfurtian-compatibilist (...) approach to the topics of free will and determinism. (shrink)

This article addresses three questions about well-being. First, is well-being future-sensitive? I.e., can present well-being depend on future events? Second, is well-being recursively dependent? I.e., can present well-being depend on itself? Third, can present and future well-being be interdependent? The third question combines the first two, in the sense that a yes to it is equivalent to yeses to both the first and second. To do justice to the diverse ways we contemplate well-being, I consider our thought and discourse about (...) well-being in three domains: everyday conversation, social science, and philosophy. This article’s main conclusion is that we must answer the third question with no. Present and future well-being cannot be interdependent. The reason, in short, is that a theory of well-being that countenances both future-sensitivity and recursive dependence would have us understand a person’s well-being at a time as so intricately tied to her well-being at other times that it would not make sense to consider her well-being an aspect of her state at particular times. It follows that we must reject either future-sensitivity or recursive dependence. I ultimately suggest, especially in light of arguments based on assumptions of empirical research on well-being, that the balance of reasons favors rejecting future-sensitivity. (shrink)

There is no question that Fichte's theory of conscience is central to his system of ethics. Yet his descriptions of its role in practical deliberation appear inconsistent, if not contradictory. Many scholars have claimed that for Fichte conscience plays a material role by providing the content of our moral obligations—the Material Function View. Some have denied this, however, claiming that conscience only plays a formal role by testing our moral convictions in any given case—the Formal Function View. My aim in (...) this paper is to offer a new contribution to this debate. I begin by supplying further evidence in support of the view that conscience only plays a formal function in Fichte's ethics. Then I call attention to a deeper problem this view faces, namely, that it invites an infinite regress by making one's conviction a matter of higher-order reflection. The key to overcoming this threat, I argue, lies in Fichte's doctrine of feeling, whereby the criterion of one's conviction lies, not in a cognitive state, but in an affective state. In closing, I discuss the relevance of Fichte's theory for current debates over the nature of moral error and moral deference. (shrink)

Ways of Scope Taking is concerned with syntactic, semantic and computational aspects of scope. Its starting point is the well-known but often neglected fact that different types of quantifiers interact differently with each other and other operators. The theoretical examination of significant bodies of data, both old and novel, leads to two central claims. (1) Scope is a by-product of a set of distinct Logical Form processes; each quantifier participates in those that suit its particular features. (2) Scope interaction is (...) further constrained by the semantics of the interacting operators. The arguments are developed using Minimalist syntax, Generalized Quantify theory, Discourse Representation Theory, and algebraic semantics. The contributors (Beghelli, Ben-Shalom, Doetjes, Farkas, Gutiérrez Rexach, Honcoop, Stabler, Stowell, Szabolcsi and Zwarts) make tightly related theoretical assumptions and focus on related empirical phenomena, which include the direct and inverse scope of quantifiers, distributivity, negation, modal and intensional contexts, weak islands, event-related readings, interrogatives, wh/quantifier interactions, and Hungarian syntax. An introduction to the formal semantics background is provided. Audience: Linguists, philosophers, computational and psycholinguists; advanced undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in these fields. (shrink)

This paper offers a new interpretation of Kant's relationship with skepticism in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. My position differs from commonly held views in the literature in two ways. On the one hand, I argue that Kant's relationship with skepticism is active and systematic (contrary to Hill, Wood, Rawls, Timmermann, and Allison). On the other hand, I argue that the kind of skepticism Kant is interested in does not speak to the philosophical tradition in any straightforward sense (...) (contrary to Forster and Guyer). On my reading, Kant takes up a skeptical method in the Groundwork as a way of exposing certain obstacles in our ordinary and philosophical thinking about morality. The central obstacle he is interested in is practical in character, arising from a natural tendency we have to rationalize against the moral law. In attempting to resolve this tendency, I argue, the Groundwork turns out to have a profoundly educative task. (shrink)

The concept of respect for persons is often rejected as a basis for understanding forgiveness. As many have argued, to hold your offender responsible for her actions is to respect her as a person; but this kind of respect is more likely to sustain, rather than dissolve, your resentment toward her (Garrard & McNaughton 2003; 2011; Allais 2008). I seek to defend an alternative view in this paper. To forgive, on my account, involves ceasing to identify your offender with her (...) wrongdoing, and this requires a corresponding affective change on your behalf. While there are different ways this may happen, I argue that respect for your offender as a person can play a significant role in the process. (shrink)

While anthropogenic species extinctions can be considered morally problematic for a range of reasons, they can also be described as a problem of interspecies justice. That is the focus of this paper in which we argue that human-caused species extinctions can be integrated within a non-anthropocentric account of reparative justice that is significantly similar to how reparation is understood within political theory at large. An account such as this faces a series of difficulties, such as how to make right past (...) injustices against victims that do not exist any longer and which belonged to species now extinct. For that purpose, we offer an argument in favour of symbolic forms of reparation in the form of, amongst other things, the preservation and restoration of habitat to materially repair the interspecies justice relationship; as well as monuments and education to honour the nonhuman dead. (shrink)

One of the most controversial issues to emerge in recent studies of Fichte concerns the status of his normative ethics, i.e., his theory of what makes actions morally good or bad. Scholars are divided over Fichte’s view regarding the ‘final end’ of moral striving, since it appears this end can be either a specific goal permitting maximizing calculations (the consequentialist reading defended by Kosch 2015), or an indeterminate goal permitting only duty-based decisions (the deontological reading defended by Wood 2016). While (...) I think each interpretive position contains an element of truth, my aim in this paper is to defend a third alternative, according to which Fichte’s normative ethics presents us with a unique form of social perfectionism. (shrink)

The right to withdraw from participation in research is recognized in virtually all national and international guidelines for research on human subjects. It is therefore surprising that there has been little justification for that right in the literature. We argue that the right to withdraw should protect research participants from information imbalance, inability to hedge, inherent uncertainty, and untoward bodily invasion, and it serves to bolster public trust in the research enterprise. Although this argument is not radical, it provides a (...) useful way to determine how the right should be applied in various cases. (shrink)

Following media-theoretical studies that have characterized digitization as a process of all-encompassing cybernetization, this paper will examine the timely and critical potential of Günther Anders’s oeuvre vis-à-vis the ever-increasing power of cybernetic devices and networks. Anders has witnessed and negotiated the process of cybernetization from its very beginning, having criticized its tendency to automate and expand, as well as its circular logic and ‘integral power’, including disruptive consequences for the constitution of the political and the social. In this vein, Anders’s (...) works, particularly his magnum opus Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen [The Obsolescence of Man], sheds new light on the technologically organized milieus of the contemporary digital regime and also highlights a new form of cybernetic ‘conformism’. The goal of the essay is therefore, not only to emphasize the contemporary nature of Anders’s thought but also to use it to frame a critique of current neo-technocratic and, ultimately, post-political concepts, such as ‘algorithmic regulation’, ‘smart states’, ‘direct technocracy’, and ‘government as platform’. This essay argues that cybernetic capitalism is causing what Anders terms ‘ Unfestgelegtheit’ to disappear; that is, we are losing the originary possibility of technologically (re-)structuring our world in alternative ways, particularly given the determinist character of current technologies. (shrink)

Most recent philosophical theories of consciousness account for it in terms of representation, the bulk of the debate revolving around whether (suitably) representing something is sufficient for consciousness (as per first-order representationalism) or some further (meta-)representation is needed (as per higher-order representationalism and self-representationalism). In this paper, I explore an alternative theory of consciousness, one that aims to explain consciousness not in terms of representation but in terms of the epistemically and metaphysically direct relation of acquaintance. I call this the (...) Inner Acquaintance Theory of consciousness (IAT). Roughly, on IAT, what makes a mental state conscious is its subject being acquainted with it. Though not wholly unprecedented, IAT is still at the fringe of consciousness debates and remains largely underexplored. The main goal of this paper is to take some steps toward developing the details of IAT, illustrate its potential explanatory power, and put it forward as a plausible alternative to representational theories, with the hope that this will contribute to shifting IAT closer to the center of the debate. Here is how I proceed. In §2 I introduce a notion—inner awareness—that is crucial both to contextualize and to understand IAT. In §3 I provide some preliminary motivation for exploring IAT. In §4 I explain the notion of acquaintance and illustrate some of the features that are typically attributed to it in the literature. The details of IAT are then shaped through four main decision points. I address them in §§5-8, where I suggest a particular choice at each decision point, thereby progressively building up a view that I consider particularly promising. (shrink)

This paper examines the distinction between self-love and self-conceit in Kant's moral psychology. It motivates an alternative account of the origin of self-conceit by drawing a parallel to what Kant calls transcendental illusion.

Do the new sciences of well-being provide knowledge that respects the nature of well-being? This book written from the perspective of philosophy of science articulates how this field can speak to well-being proper and can do so in a way that respects the demands of objectivity and measurement.

‘The Union of Cause and Effect in Aristotle : Physics III 3’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 32, pp. 205-232, May 2007.: I argue that Aristotle introduced a unique realist account of causation, which has not hitherto been appreciated in the history of philosophy: causal realism without a causal relation. In his account, cause and effect are unified by the ectopic actualization of the agent’s potentiality in the patient. His solution consists in the introduction of a property that belongs to (...) one subject but is realized in another subject on whose state this realization depends. I identify and analyze the multiple ontological dependencies between the causal state of the agent and that of the patient during their causal activity. (shrink)

_Kant’s Reason_ (2023) is an excellent study that develops an original set of interpretive claims and shows their relevance for contemporary theories of rationality. At the core of Karl Schafer’s project is the following thesis: that Kant’s account of reason is unified as a power of comprehension in both its theoretical and practical activities. The aim of my paper is to examine this thesis against Kant’s doctrine of the Highest Good. In §1, I question some claims Schafer makes about the (...) Highest Good. Then, in §2 and §3, I consider how we might develop a more detailed reading of this doctrine along the lines of Schafer’s project. §4 concludes. (shrink)

Enjoying great popularity in decision theory, epistemology, and philosophy of science, Bayesianism as understood here is fundamentally concerned with epistemically ideal rationality. It assumes a tight connection between evidential probability and ideally rational credence, and usually interprets evidential probability in terms of such credence. Timothy Williamson challenges Bayesianism by arguing that evidential probabilities cannot be adequately interpreted as the credences of an ideal agent. From this and his assumption that evidential probabilities cannot be interpreted as the actual credences of human (...) agents either, he concludes that no interpretation of evidential probabilities in terms of credence is adequate. I argue to the contrary. My overarching aim is to show on behalf of Bayesians how one can still interpret evidential probabilities in terms of ideally rational credence and how one can maintain a tight connection between evidential probabilities and ideally rational credence even if the former cannot be interpreted in terms of the latter. By achieving this aim I illuminate the limits and prospects of Bayesianism. (shrink)

Modifying the descriptive and theoretical generalizations of Relativized Minimality, we argue that a significant subset of weak island violations arise when an extracted phrase should scope over some intervener but is unable to. Harmless interveners seem harmless because they can support an alternative reading. This paper focuses on why certain wh-phrases are poor wide scope takers, and offers an algebraic perspective on scope interaction. Each scopal element SE is associated with certain operations (e.g., not with complements). When a wh-phrase scopes (...) over some SE, the operations associated with that SE are performed in its denotation domain. The requisite operations may or may not be available in a domain, however. We present an empirical analysis of a variety of wh-phrases. It is argued that the wh-phrases that escape all weak islands (i.e., can scope over any intervener) are those that range over individuals, the reason being that all Boolean operations are defined for their domain. Collectives, manners, amounts, numbers, etc. all denote in domains with fewer operations and are thus selectively sensitive to scopal interveners—a “semantic relativized minimality effect”. (shrink)

It is commonly held that since non-human animals are not persons, they are not objects of due regard and care in the same way that humans are. But how might we begin to think about recognizing animals as persons? This chapter attempts to reconstruct an answer by drawing on the resources of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra (the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, 200-400 CE). Animals are persons from the perspective of this tradition, and so animals are proper objects of due regard and care. (...) According to classical Yoga philosophy, however, this form of recognition is not easy to attain. The discerning insight that allows one to “see” the personhood of other living beings requires a discipline of attention, one that constitutes the practice of yoga itself. (shrink)

Given the ever-present subject of consciousness wherever consciousness is, it is peculiar that consciousness researchers often mention mental states as if they are conscious independently of being the conscious states of someone [1, p. 132]. We refer to visual perceptions that become conscious, when in reality no one has ever studied mere conscious visual perceptions. What are studied are visual perceptions belonging to conscious human or animal subjects; it is the subjects who are conscious of visual stimuli, not the visual (...) perceptions. I do not know all the reasons why conscious subjects are rarely mentioned in consciousness science, but one could be pragmatic. Explaining the mysterious jump from the nonconscious nuts and bolts of neurons to the aurora borealis of consciousness is a hard problem. But it is an easy problem compared to explaining the emergence of a single conscious subject from the human brain’s 86 billion neurons [cf. 5]. Perhaps it is more practically realistic to solve the less hard problem before attempting to solve the harder hard problem. On the other hand, if we ignore a necessary condition for the presence of consciousness, our explanations of it could be plagued by inadequacy. And how can we explain our whole data set regarding consciousness if we neglect the most fundamental aspect of the data? (shrink)

Politics, and in particular the question of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, is currently dealt with rather through fiction and art, and much less through genuine political actions, is a strong sign of the failure of politics as a positive, voluntaristic political project. Rap /hip hop music, the most naturally political art, does not have the political agenda anymore. The particular history or Israeli rap illustrates this process in a striking way, embodying the recent evolution of the Israeli society. The country was (...) established on a political project and previously unknown social generosity. Yet, the economical and geopolitical context of Israel, as well as increasingly difficult relationship with Palestinians, made its citizens surprisingly uninterested in rethinking the political project of the country. Individual preoccupations, also economical, family and friends’ problems, started to occupy the central place in art and in daily life in Israel, and politics has been definitively associated to corruption and self-interest of an elite. Rap reflects this evolution, is its condensed version. (shrink)

The philosophical debate around moods has mainly focused on whether and how their seeming recalcitrance to representationalist treatment can be overcome by accommodating moods’ apparent undirectedness through a peculiar representational structure. Through these theoretical efforts, though, most theorists have taken a double wrong turn (or so I argue), by maintaining that (i) (if directed,) moods are outwardly directed (i.e., directed toward something external to and independent of the subject’s mind) and (ii) moods are discrete mental states (on a par with (...) emotions, perceptual experiences, thoughts, etc.). By pointing at three as yet overlooked phenomenological features of moods—subjective salience, undetachability, and globality—I suggest that moods are (i) inwardly oriented (i.e., they pertain to the subjective aspect of experience and, if directed at all, they are directed toward one’s experiences) and (ii) structural features of consciousness (rather than discrete mental states). I thus explore a new approach to the nature of mood experience, one that aims to do justice to those phenomenological features: I call this the “ways of inner awareness” view. On this view, moods are ways of being aware of one’s own experiences. Different versions of the view may be developed, depending on various metaphysical commitments. I do not defend or recommend, here, any specific version. The aim of the paper is to motivate the general ways-of-inner-awareness approach to mood and hint at some possible ways it may be elaborated. (shrink)

"When we imagine the future of reproductive technology, it is usually a future of more and more choice. A future where it is increasingly possible to exorcise yourself from many of the risks that have thus far been inextricable from the process of bringing someone into being. In a way, I felt as if I were living involuntarily within this future. But it was a half-formed, incomplete future, where I was left terrified in a range of new ways, but not (...) quite protected. A time on the brink of knowledge, but without knowledge.". (shrink)

Introspective knowledge by acquaintance is knowledge we have by being directly aware of our phenomenally conscious states. In this paper, I argue that introspective knowledge by acquaintance is a sui generis kind of knowledge: it is irreducible to any sort of propositional knowledge and is wholly constituted by a relationship of introspective acquaintance. My main argument is that this is the best explanation of some epistemic facts about phenomenal consciousness and introspection. In particular, it best explains the epistemic asymmetry between (...) a subject who has never had a certain phenomenal state and one who has. I also consider two theoretical objections to my claim: an objection from disunity and an objection from mysteriousness. I show that these objections can be answered and that introspective knowledge by acquaintance being sui generis remains a live option on the table. (shrink)