This paper provides a method for characterizing space events using the framework of conceptual spaces. We focus specifically on estimating and ranking the likelihood of collisions between space objects. The objective is to design an approach for anticipatory decision support for space operators who can take preventive actions on the basis of assessments of relative risk. To make this possible our approach draws on the fusion of both hard and soft data within a single decision support framework. Contextual data is (...) also taken into account, for example data about space weather effects, by drawing on the Space Domain Ontologies, a large system of ontologies designed to support all aspects of space situational awareness. The framework is coupled with a mathematical programming scheme that frames a mathematically optimal approach for decision support, providing a quantitative basis for ranking potential for collision across multiple satellite pairs. The goal is to provide the broadest possible information foundation for critical assessments of collision likelihood. (shrink)

Some time ago, the philosopher Luciano Floridi suggested that Western philosophy, and the mainstream contemporary approach to it traditionally called ‘analytic philosophy’, is in dire need of a reboot. The concern was that the discipline might be in a period of decadence. Analytic philosophy would be benefited by greater internationalization, wider and more transparent decision-making, and the reduction (as much as possible) of conflicts of interest as well as of its current habit of hiring and providing publication opportunities on the (...) basis of contacts, networking, and academic pedigree. If we are right, then we need a reconditioning of the institutional framework of analytic philosophy that adjusts it to the current global and interconnected world. (shrink)

The overall goal of the approach developed in this paper is to estimate the likelihood of a given kinetic kill scenario between hostile spacebased adversaries using the mathematical framework of Complex Conceptual Spaces Single Observation. Conceptual spaces are a cognitive model that provide a method for systematically and automatically mimicking human decision making. For accurate decisions to be made, the fusion of both hard and soft data into a single decision framework is required. This presents several challenges to this data (...) fusion framework. The first is the challenge involved in handling multiple complex terminologies, which is addressed by drawing on a set of Space Domain Ontologies. Another challenge is the complex combinatorics involved when considering all possible feature combinations. This can be mitigated by using integer linear programming optimization that is outlined by the Complex Conceptual Spaces Single Observation mathematical model framework. A third challenge is the complicated physics that is involved in a spacecraft collision that must be addressed to obtain a better understanding of threat assessment. Overcoming these various challenges allows for a quantitative ranking for the potential of a kinetic kill collision across multiple spacecraft pairs. In addition to overcoming these challenges this paper will break down threat assessment into four domains and identify a ranking of threat both for each individual domain and for the four domains combined. Simulation results are shown to verify the developed concepts. (shrink)

Previous work has shown that the Complex Conceptual Spaces − Single Observation Mathematical framework is a useful tool for event characterization. This mathematical framework is developed on the basis of Conceptual Spaces and uses integer linear programming to find the needed similarity values. The work of this paper is focused primarily on space event characterization. In particular, the focus is on the ranking of threats for malicious space events such as a kinetic kill. To make the Conceptual Spaces framework work, (...) the similarity values between the contents of observations on the one hand and the properties of the entities observed on the other needs to be found. This paper shows how to exploit Dempster-Shafer theory to implement a statistical approach for finding these similarities values. This approach will allow a user to identify the uncertainty involved in similarity value data, which can later be propagated through the developed mathematical model in order for the user to know the overall uncertainty in the observation-to-concept mappings needed for space event characterization. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that we find in Kant a more plausible alternative to his transcendental conception of freedom. In the Metaphysics of Morals in particular, we find a naturalistic conception of freedom premised upon a theory of rational self-cultivation. The motivation for a naturalising reading of Kant is two-fold. On the one hand, a naturalistic conception of freedom avoids the charges levelled against Kant’s 'panicky metaphysics', which both forces us to accept an ontologically extravagant picture of the world (...) and the self, and also commits us to understanding freedom in nonspatiotemporal terms, thus excluding the possibility that the process of becoming free is progressive. And second, on a naturalistic reading we can repackage normativity back into Kant’s account of freedom, which has seemed to scholars unacceptably absent. I explain how the process of becoming free, on the naturalistic view, involves cultivating certain 'aesthetic preconditions of the mind’s receptivity to concepts of duty'.1 Happily, these conditions incur no unpalatable ontological penalties; rather, they constitute an achievement of the rational aspect of the self. Pointedly, this is not a self who is free only in virtue of having membership in the noumenal realm. Rather, effortful self-development entails a battle to become practically free, and thereby moral. The primary attraction to this reading of Kant is that it describes freedom as a naturalistic achievement, rather than a metaphysical given. Thus I show that by jettisoning, or at least naturalising, the picture of noumenal selfhood we not only find a theory that is poorer in panicky metaphysics, but much richer in normative force. (shrink)

Розкрито сутність поняття «рейтинг». Доведено значущість рейтингової оцінки для суб’єктів фінансового ринку, зокрема для страхових компаній, потенційних страхувальників, інвесторів та кредиторів.

Criticism can sometimes provoke defensive reactions, particularly when it implicates identities people hold dear. For instance, feminists told they are upholding rape culture might become angry or upset, since the criticism conflicts with an identity that is important to them. These kinds of defensive reactions are a primary focus of this paper. What is it to be defensive in this way, and why do some kinds of criticism, or implied criticism, tend to provoke this kind of response? What are the (...) connections between defensiveness, identity, and active ignorance? What are the social, political, and epistemic consequences of the tendency to defensiveness? Are there ways to improve the situation? (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 46-48.

This article, based on a socio-cognitive approach, deals with the professional training of student teachers in French agricultural education during their practical work experience. The main objective is to demonstrate that the student teacher’s social interaction with his academic advisor allows him to use and develop his professional knowledge relating to practical matters. Based on a qualitative analysis this study presents the results of an investigation of seven students and six academic advisors. The article studies the interrelations between the nature (...) of the professional knowledges in question and the processes of construction in the work. (shrink)

There are many good reasons to learn about the lives of people who have less social privilege than we do. We might want to understand their circumstances in order to have informed opinions on social policy, or to make our institutions more inclusive. We might also want to cultivate empathy for its own sake. Much of this knowledge is gained through social scientific or humanistic research into others' lives. The entitlement to theorize about or study the lives of marginalized others (...) is often granted under the presumption of academic freedom. This paper will not question whether academic freedom licenses us to do so in the first place ; instead, I will... (shrink)

Material traces of the past are notoriously inscrutable; they rarely speak with one voice, and what they say is never unmediated. They stand as evidence only given a rich scaffolding of interpretation which is, itself, always open to challenge and revision. And yet archaeological evidence has dramatically expanded what we know of the cultural past, sometimes demonstrating a striking capacity to disrupt settled assumptions. The questions we address in Evidential Reasoning are: How are these successes realized? What gives us confidence (...) in the credibility and robustness, the trustworthiness, of the evidential claims based on archaeological data? And, what constitute best practices in building evidential claims, critically scrutinizing them and putting them to work in archaeological contexts? Rather than retreat to abstractions about how how science operates in the ideal, we approach this question by interrogating a number of close-to-the-ground case studies with the aim of teasing out the wisdom embodied in archaeological practice. The cases we consider – of fieldwork, strategies for working with old evidence, and the role of external resources – illuminate the role of various types of inferential scaffolding and bring into focus practice-grounded epistemic norms that we believe serve archaeologists better than the all-or-nothing ideals of truth and objectivity that dominate programmatic debate. (shrink)

Historically, the Vienna Circle and the Dessau Bauhaus were related, with members of each group familiar with the ideas of the other. Peter Galison argues that their projects are related as well, through shared political views and methodological approach. The two main figures that connect the Vienna Circle to the Bauhaus—and the figures upon which Galison focuses—are Rudolf Carnap and Otto Neurath. Yet the connections that Galison develops do not properly capture the common themes between the Bauhaus and Neurath’s philosophical (...) projects. We demonstrate this by considering Neurath’s philosophical commitments. We suggest different connections between Neurath’s projects and the Bauhaus, connections that are both substantive and philosophically interesting. (shrink)

Philosophy has a language problem. A recent study by Schwitzgebel, Huang, Higgins and Gonzalez-Cabrera (2018) found that, in a sample of papers published in elite journals, 97% of citations were to work originally written in English. 73% of this same sample didn’t cite any paper that had been originally written in a language other than English. Finally, a staggering 96% of elite journal editorial boards are primarily affiliated with an Anglophone university. This is consistent with earlier data suggesting that journal (...) submissions from countries that are outside the Anglophone world and Europe have disturbingly low chances of being accepted. The route forward is not entirely clear. What is clear, however, is that this structural disadvantage deserves closer philosophical and empirical attention. We owe this to current and future members of our philosophical community who speak English non-natively. We also need this if we want to make sure philosophy is enriched by a diverse group of thinkers who have a grasp of different languages, and of the cultures strongly associated with them. (shrink)

How do archaeologists make effective use of physical traces and material culture as repositories of evidence? Material Evidence is a collection of 19 essays that take a resolutely case-based approach to this question, exploring key instances of exemplary practice, instructive failures, and innovative developments in the use of archaeological data as evidence. The goal is to bring to the surface the wisdom of practice, teasing out norms of archaeological reasoning from evidence. -/- Archaeologists make compelling use of an enormously diverse (...) range of material evidence, from garbage dumps to monuments, from finely crafted artifacts rich with cultural significance to the inadvertent transformation of landscapes over the long term. Each contributor to Material Evidence identifies a particular type of evidence with which they grapple and considers, with reference to concrete examples, how archaeologists construct evidential claims, critically assess them, and bring them to bear on pivotal questions about the cultural past. -/- Historians, cultural anthropologists, philosophers, and science studies scholars are increasingly interested in working with material "things" as objects of inquiry and as evidence – and they acknowledge on all sides just how challenging this is. One of the central messages of the book is that close analysis of archaeological best practice can yield constructive guidelines for practice that have much to offer practitioners within archaeology and well beyond. (shrink)

Political liberals ask citizens not to appeal to certain considerations, including religious and philosophical convictions, in political deliberation. We argue that political liberals must include a demanding requirement of intellectual modesty in their ideal of citizenship in order to motivate this deliberative restraint. The requirement calls on each citizen to believe that the best reasoners disagree about the considerations that she is barred from appealing to. Along the way, we clarify how requirements of intellectual modesty relate to moral reasons for (...) deliberative restraint. And we argue against attempts to weaken our requirement of intellectual modesty by emphasizing those moral reasons. (shrink)

This paper describes an AFOSR-supported basic research program that focuses on developing a new framework for combining hard with soft data in order to improve space situational awareness. The goal is to provide, in an automatic and near real-time fashion, a ranking of possible threats to blue assets (assets trying to be protected) from red assets (assets with hostile intentions). The approach is based on Conceptual Spaces models, which combine features from traditional associative and symbolic cognitive models. While Conceptual Spaces (...) are revolutionary, they lack an underlying mathematical framework. Several such frameworks have attempted to represent Conceptual Spaces, but by far the most robust is the model developed by Holender. His model utilizes integer linear programming in order to obtain an overall similarity value between observations and concepts that support the formation of hypotheses. This paper will describe a method for building Conceptual Spaces models for threats that utilizes ontologies as a means to provide a clear semantic foundation for this inferencing process; in particular threat ontologies and space domain ontologies are developed and employed in this approach. A space situational awareness use-case is presented involving a kinetic kill scenario and results are shown to assess the performance of this fusion-based inferencing framework. (shrink)

As part of a larger study, predictors of self-blame were investigated in a sample of 149 undergraduate sexual assault survivors. Each participant completed questionnaires regarding their preassault, peritraumatic, and post assault experiences and participated in an individual interview. Results confirmed the central hypothesis that, although several established correlates independently relate to self-blame, only cognitive content and process variables—negative self-cognitions and counterfactual-preventability cognitions—uniquely predict self-blame in a multivariate model.

The present study examined relationships among counterfactual thinking, perceived control, and depressive symptoms. Undergraduate participants, grouped according to nondepressed, mild–to–moderately depressed, and severely depressed symptom categories, described potentially repeatable negative academic events and then made upward counterfactuals about those events. Whereas participants endorsing mild–to–moderate depressive symptom levels generated more counterfactuals about controllable than uncontrollable aspects of the events they described, participants endorsing severe levels of depressive symptoms generated counterfactuals that were less controllable, less reasonable, and more characterological in nature. Furthermore, (...) controllable (relative to uncontrollable) counterfactual thinking enhanced retrospective control perceptions for less depressed participants, but depleted control perceptions for more depressed participants. Discussion focuses on the possibility that whereas controllable counterfactual thinking may be functional for nondepressed individuals, it may be less functional, if not dysfunctional, with increasingly depressed symptoms. (shrink)

This investigation focused on relationships among sexual assault, self-blame, and sexual revictimization. Among a female undergraduate sample of adolescent sexual assault victims, those endorsing greater self-blame following sexual assault were at increased risk for sexual revictimization during a 4.2-month follow-up period. Moreover, to the extent that sexual assault victims perceived nonconsensual sex is permitted by law, they were more likely to blame themselves for their own assaults. Discussion focuses on situating victim-based risk factors within sociocultural context.

Reducing prejudice is a critical research agenda, and never before has counterfactual priming been evaluated as a potential prejudice-reduction strategy. In the present experiment, participants were randomly assigned to imagine a pleasant interaction with a homosexual man and then think counterfactually about how an incident of sexual discrimination against him might not have occurred (experimental condition) or to imagine a nature scene (control condition). Results demonstrated a significant reduction in sexual prejudice from baseline levels in the counterfactual simulation group. Importantly, (...) whereas intergroup anxiety and motivation to control prejudice were not predictive factors, number of counterfactual thoughts generated independently predicted variance in prejudice reduction. Mechanisms for, and implications of, prejudice-reduction strategies including counterfactual thinking are discussed. (shrink)

The current economic/political system, neoliberalism, has touched every aspect of life globally. The doctrine of neoliberalism consists of three central propositions, that the market is real and part of the natural universal law; that unlimited economic growth is both possible and even desirable; and that human nature is coincident with market values and based solely on self-interest. All three of these propositions are seriously flawed and have caused immense human suffering and staggering environmental destruction. This paper is a reminder of (...) the failures of neoliberal policy and an appeal for change to a new institutional arrangement in which development trumps economic growth. This position is in contrast to Francis Fukuyama’s end-of-history thesis. He alleges there are no economic/political ideologies to compete with neoliberalism, the “TINA principle: There Is No Alternative”: the West has won. It is time to reintroduce Henry David Thoreau’s, and to a lesser extent, Adam Smith’s moral economies. Both have encourgaging insights, often overlooked by current academic economists, which could figure prominently in the conception of a new economy. (shrink)

Psychological eudaimonism is the view that we are constituted by a desire to avoid the harmful. This entails that coming to see a prospective or actual object of pursuit as harmful to us will unseat our positive evaluative belief about that object. There is more than one way that such an 'unseating' of desire may be caused on an intellectualist picture. This paper arbitrates between two readings of Socrates' 'attack on laziness' in the Meno, with the aim of constructing a (...) model of moral education based on PE's implied moral psychology. In particular, we argue against the view that when we come to see - through prudential reasoning - that our blatant evaluative beliefs and desires disserve eudaimonism, we will no longer perceive their intentional objects as choice-worthy. We suggest, instead, that it is by experiencing shame that we cease to see the intentional objects of our evaluative beliefs and desires as worthy of pursuit. This form of 'hydraulic education' bypasses reason-responsiveness altogether. As such, it only allows for practical norms to be derived from the nature of agency indirectly, namely by enabling the use of discursive practical reasoning. (shrink)

Everyone thinks they know who Prince Zuko is and can be. His father, Fire Lord Ozai, and sister, Azula, think him weak, disobedient, and undeserving of the crown. His Uncle Iroh thinks him good, if troubled, but ultimately worthy of his faith. The kids initially think him a villain, but eventually come to see him as a person – neither monster nor saint – someone who can choose to go in a new way. Zuko himself shows great ambivalence between these (...) conflicting stories about who he is, though each one helps to craft his own self-understanding. In this paper, we apply Hilde Lindemann’s narrative account of the self to explore the ways that others “hold” Zuko in one identity or “let him go” from others. According to Lindemann, our personal identities consist of the first- and third-person stories that cluster around significant acts, relationships, and commitments in our lives. Our identities are fundamentally relational, formed by the interaction between our own self-conception and the ways in which others see us. As such, others’ stories can enable or prevent us from imaginatively projecting ourselves into a particular future. This can lead us to becoming trapped in our identities; without the possibility of being perceived differently by others, we might find ourselves unable to try different ways of being or acting. The converse is also true, in that others can open up new possible identities by seeing things in us that we have trouble seeing in ourselves. If others in our moral community see us as wicked, beyond redemption and unable to repair our wrongs, we are held in the role of the villain and might come to live into that role without question. Zuko’s story is a perfect illustration of Jean Harvey’s reminder that, “it is just not true that once a thief, always a thief” and that agents can choose to go in a new way, can choose to change. How does Zuko change? We argue that Zuko’s redemption is enabled by those in his moral community holding him in identities in which he is a good person, capable and deserving of care, friendship, and love. While the identity he has in relation to his father and sister closes down many possible futures, his uncle Iroh in particular persists in holding him in an identity in which he is loved and worthy of love. And in doing so - in holding this space for him - Iroh opens up a way for Zuko to exercise agency and choose to become a different kind of person than the one he thought he was destined to be. (shrink)

This article joins a growing body of scholarship on political parties in arguing that democratic party politics should be concerned with avoiding the problem of factionalism. But existing responses to this problem have relied too heavily on conceptual distinctions between parties and factions. The dangers of factionalism cannot, in practice, be separated from the celebrated benefits of party politics. Both are rooted in the same aspects of social psychology. Consequently, I argue that we should understand the ideal of non-factionalism as (...) the management of a set of chronic and ineradicable concerns about how group conflict can undermine the specific forms of political unity appropriate for a liberal democracy. This ideal is negative: focused on avoiding pathological forms of party politics rather than conforming to a particular positive model. It is also plural, encompassing several related normative concerns. And it is systemic - assessed at the level of party systems. (shrink)

The potential for Large Language Models (LLMs) to attain technological singularity—the point at which artificial intelligence (AI) surpasses human intellect and autonomously improves itself—is a critical concern in AI research. This paper explores the feasibility of current LLMs achieving singularity by examining the philosophical and practical requirements for such a development. We begin with a historical overview of AI and intelligence amplification, tracing the evolution of LLMs from their origins to state-of-the-art models. We then proposes a theoretical framework to assess (...) whether existing LLM technologies could satisfy the conditions for singularity, with a focus on Recursive Self-Improvement (RSI) and autonomous code generation. We integrate key component technologies, such as Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) and Direct Preference Optimization (DPO), into our analysis, illustrating how these could enable LLMs to independently enhance their reasoning and problem-solving capabilities. By mapping out a potential singularity model lifecycle and examining the dynamics of exponential growth models, we elucidate the conditions under which LLMs might self-replicate and rapidly escalate their intelligence. We conclude with a discussion of the ethical and safety implications of such developments, underscoring the need for responsible and controlled advancement in AI research to mitigate existential risks. Our work aims to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on the future of AI and the critical importance of proactive measures to ensure its beneficial development. (shrink)

In this article, from the 2009 Oxford University Press collection Epistemic Value, I criticize existing accounts of epistemic normativity by Alston, Goldman, and Sosa, and then offer a new view.

This paper advances normative theorizing about political parties by highlighting concerns arising from recent empirical scholarship on marginal partisanship, affective polarization, and identity convergence. These phenomena challenge the ideal of healthy partisanship as characterized in recent democratic theory, and point toward a new theoretical agenda. I argue that democratic theorists' current focus on the virtues of mature partisanship has obscured essential questions about the scope of partisanship as an ideal and about processes of partisan socialization and mobilization.

This study investigates Phillipe Lacoue-Labarthe's claim in "The Caesura of the Speculative" that Hölderlin is a "modern" writer. Its aim is to establish what is at stake in this claim and to evaluate whether it can be substantiated. In Chapter One I discuss the relationship between tragedy and philosophy. I show that the uneasy relationship between philosophy and the arts is premised upon Plato's understanding and judgement of mimesis. I contrast Plato and Aristotle's treatment of poetry by examining how they (...) understand the mimetic process. In Chapter Two I focus on Hölderlin's understanding of the relationship between Ancient Greece and 18th Century Germany. After discussing the background to Hölderlin's work I provide detailed readings of two texts, The Perspective from which We Have to Look at Antiquity, (1799) and the first letter to Böhlendorff, dating from 1801. I argue that in these texts Hölderlin, through his acknowledgement of the divided nature of Greek culture, offers a unique understanding of the relationship between Greece and Germany which isolates him from his contemporaries. In Chapters Three and Four, I examine Hölderlin's understanding of tragedy. After establishing the centrality of the aesthetic presentation for Hölderlin's project I examine the "poetological" writings which date from 1798-1800. I give a close analysis of the implications of Hölderlin's statement that the tragic "is the metaphor of an intellectual intuition" which occurs in the text On the Difference of the Poetic Modes, (1800), showing why the tragic form is central to Hölderlin's poetological project. To illustrate the problems inherent in this project, in Chapter Four I examine Hölderlin's attempts to write a tragic drama which corresponds to his theoretical beliefs. I discuss the two theoretical texts - The Ground to Empedocles and Becoming in Dissolution - which accompany Hölderlin's drama Empedocles. In analysing these texts I argue that there is an inherent tension between the presuppositions of the theory and the way they can be realised in the drama. In Chapter Five, I turn to Hölderlin's final work, his project to translate Sophocles' tragedies. Through close analysis of the theoretical Remarks which accompany the translations, I show how Hölderlin's theoretical and poetological interests in Greece and Tragedy are brought together through this project. I argue that these texts give an insight into the problems which confront Hölderlin's poetological project. However, simultaneously, these texts provide an alternative way of understanding the function of the tragic form. In this discussion I show how the questions concerning the status of dramatic mimesis and the "mimetic" relation between Greece and Germany coincide in the analysis of Sophocles' dramas. In conclusion I return briefly to the questions that I raised in the introduction concerning the status of tragedy in the present time, and assess the accuracy of the claim that Hölderlin is a "modern" thinker. (shrink)

Ever since 1988, Vietnam has successfully diversified and multilateralised its relationships, whilst placing a strong degree of focus on integration into the international political economy. This multidirectional foreign policy is designed to contribute to a peaceful international environment and a stable domestic one in order to promote economic growth and build up the aggregate strength of the country. At the same time, it is designed to boost the country’s autonomy, protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as hedge against (...) potential threats. This multidirectional foreign policy has contributed significantly to the economic reformist agenda, formally initiated at the 1986 Sixth Party Congress, otherwise known as Doi Moi. Additionally, it has boosted Vietnam’s international profile and reversed the diplomatic isolation it faced as the Cold War came to a close. As such, multidirectionalism has become a fundamental aspect of the Doi Moi process. This thesis traces the learning process since multidirectionalism’s inception and argues that this learning process, along with the economic benefits reaped, have evolved into positive memories for the Vietnamese Communist Party. This means multidirectionalism continues to be reinforced and as a result, these memories shape Vietnam’s continued expansion of that policy. Additionally, this thesis also offers a conceptual definition to the term multidirectionalism as well as explores the mechanisms through which Vietnam implements this policy. (shrink)

Ever since 1988, Vietnam has successfully diversified and multilateralised its relationships, whilst placing a strong degree of focus on integration into the international political economy. This multidirectional foreign policy is designed to contribute to a peaceful international environment and a stable domestic one in order to promote economic growth and build up the aggregate strength of the country. At the same time, it is designed to boost the country’s autonomy, protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as hedge against (...) potential threats. This multidirectional foreign policy has contributed significantly to the economic reformist agenda, formally initiated at the 1986 Sixth Party Congress, otherwise known as Doi Moi. Additionally, it has boosted Vietnam’s international profile and reversed the diplomatic isolation it faced as the Cold War came to a close. As such, multidirectionalism has become a fundamental aspect of the Doi Moi process. This thesis traces the learning process since multidirectionalism’s inception and argues that this learning process, along with the economic benefits reaped, have evolved into positive memories for the Vietnamese Communist Party. This means multidirectionalism continues to be reinforced and as a result, these memories shape Vietnam’s continued expansion of that policy. Additionally, this thesis also offers a conceptual definition to the term multidirectionalism as well as explores the mechanisms through which Vietnam implements this policy. (shrink)

We show that five important elements of the ‘nomological package’— laws, counterfactuals, chances, dispositions, and counterfactuals—needn’t be a problem for the Growing-Block view. We begin with the framework given in Briggs and Forbes (in The real truth about the unreal future. Oxford studies in metaphysics. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012 ), and, taking laws as primitive, we show that the Growing-Block view has the resources to provide an account of possibility, and a natural semantics for non-backtracking causal counterfactuals. We show (...) how objective chances might ground a more fine-grained concept of feasibility, and furnished a places in the structure where causation and dispositions might fit. The Growing-Block view, thus understood, provides the resources to explain the close link between modality and tense, so that it predicts modal change as time passes. This account lets us capture not only what the future might hold for us, and also what might have been. (shrink)

The thesis of this article is that there has never been any ground for the controversy between the doctrine of free will and determinism, that it is based upon a misapprehension, that the two assertions are entirely consistent, that one of them strictly implies the other, that they have been opposed only because of our natural want of the analytical imagination. In so saying I do not tamper with the meaning of either phrase. That would be unpardonable. I mean free (...) will in the natural and usual sense, in the fullest, the most absolute sense in which for the purposes of the personal and moral life the term is ever employed. I mean it as implying responsibility, merit and demerit, guilt and desert. I mean it as implying, after an act has been performed, that one " could have done otherwise " than one did. I mean it as conveying these things also, not in any subtly modified sense but in exactly the sense in which we conceive them in life and in law and in ethics. These two doctrines have been opposed because we have not realised that free will can be analysed without being destroyed, and that determinism is merely a feature of the analysis of it. And if we are tempted to take refuge in the thought of an "ultimate ", an "innermost" liberty that eludes the analysis, then we have implied a deterministic basis and constitution for this liberty as well. For such a basis and constitution lie in the idea of liberty. -/- The thesis is not, like that of Green or Bradley, that the contending opinions are reconciled if we adopt a certain metaphysic of the ego, as that it is timeless, and identifies itself with a desire by a " timeless act". This is to say that the two are irreconcilable, as they are popularly supposed to be, except by a theory that delivers us from the conflict by taking us out of time. Our view on the contrary is that from the natural and temporal point of view itself there never was any need of a reconciliation but only of a comprehension of the meaning of terms. (The metaphysical nature of the self and its identity through time is a problem for all who confront memory, anticipation, etc.; it has no peculiar difficulties arising from the present problem.) -/- I am not maintaining that determinism is true; only that it is true insofar as we have free will. That we are free in willing is, broadly speaking, a fact of experience. That broad fact is more assured than any philosophical analysis. It is therefore surer than the deterministic analysis of it, entirely adequate as that in the end appears to be. But it is not here affirmed that there are no small exceptions, no slight undetermined swervings, no ingredient of absolute chance. All that is here said is that such absence of determination, if and so far as it exists, is no gain to freedom, but sheer loss of it; no advantage to the moral life, but blank subtraction from it. -- When I speak below of "the indeterminist" I mean the libertarian indeterminist, that is, him who believes in free will and holds that it involves indetermination. (shrink)

We report the results of a study that investigated the views of researchers working in seven scientific disciplines and in history and philosophy of science in regard to four hypothesized dimensions of scientific realism. Among other things, we found that natural scientists tended to express more strongly realist views than social scientists, that history and philosophy of science scholars tended to express more antirealist views than natural scientists, that van Fraassen’s characterization of scientific realism failed to cluster with more standard (...) characterizations, and that those who endorsed the pessimistic induction were no more or less likely to endorse antirealism. (shrink)

In this paper I interrogate the notion of `debunking conspiracy theories’, arguing that the term `debunk’ carries with it pejorative implications, given that the verb `to debunk’ is commonly understood as `to show the wrongness of a thing or concept’. As such, the notion of `debunking conspiracy theories’ builds in the notion that such theories are not just wrong but ought to be shown as being wrong. I argue that we should avoid the term `debunk’ and focus on investigating conspiracy (...) theories. Looking at recent research work in epistemology on conspiracy theory, I argue that the best way to avoid talk of `debunking’ conspiracy theories is by working with a non-pejorative definition of `conspiracy theory’, and forming communities of inquiry which allow us to investigate the warrant of such theories without the prejudice associated with working with a pejorative definition. (shrink)

The COVID-19 crisis opened up discussions on using online tools and platforms for academic work, e.g. for research (management) events that were originally designed as face-to-face interactions. As social scientists working in the domain of responsible research and innovation (RRI), we draft this paper to open up a dialogue on Responsible online Research and Innovation (RoRI), and deliberate particular socioethical opportunities and challenges of the onlineification in collaborative theoretical and empirical research. An RRI-inspired ‘going online’ approach would mean, we suggest, (...) trying to make academic events and research activities more inclusive, researchers’ attitude to their work more reflective and suggest processes that are more responsive to societal needs and ethical concerns. For such systematic reflection, we suggest using the RRI-heuristic provided by Owen et al., and applying the dimensions of ‘Anticipation, Inclusion, Reflection and Responsiveness’ (AIRR) in order to identify and reflect on the dilemmas involved in ‘going online’ in one’s research. (shrink)

A remarkable feature of the philosophical work on conspiracy theory theory has been that most philosophers agree there is nothing inherently problematic about conspiracy theories (AKA the thesis of particularism). Recent work, however, has challenged this consensus view, arguing that there really is something epistemically wrong with conspiracy theorising (AKA generalism). Are particularism and generalism incompatible? By looking at just how much particularists and generalists might have to give away to make their theoretical viewpoints compatible, I will argue that particularists (...) can accept many of the concerns that motivate generalism because generalism can never be about ‘all’ conspiracy theories without being either ahistorical or apolitical. In the end generalist critiques are best seen as useful guidelines or considerations for the appraising of particular conspiracy theories. (shrink)

A common strategy unites much that philosophers have written about the virtues. The strategy can be traced back at least to Aristotle, who suggested that human beings have a characteristic function or activity, and that the virtues are traits of character which enable humans to perform this kind of activity excellently or well. The defining feature of this approach is that it treats the virtues as functional concepts, to be both identified and justified by reference to some independent goal or (...) end which they enable people to attain. Some recent philosophers seem to have hoped that by following this perfectionist strategy, we might attain a more convincing account of our moral practices than rule-based theories of ethics have been able to provide. (shrink)

The role of intuition in Kant’s account of experience receives perennial philosophical attention. In this essay, I present the textual case that Kant also makes extensive reference to what he terms “images” that are generated by the imagination. Beyond this, as I argue, images are fundamentally distinct from empirical and pure intuitions. Images and empirical intuitions differ in how they relate to sensation, and all images (even “pure images”) actually depend on pure intuitions. Moreover, all images differ from intuitions in (...) their structure or format. I then turn to a question that naturally arises on the resulting view: if the imagination produces images, and if images are fundamentally distinct from intuitions, then how do intuitions relate to the imagination? I outline reasons for thinking that intuitions and their essential features do not depend on the imagination at all. Though this essay does not decisively argue for this thesis, the resulting view provides a clear account of the distinction between the senses and the imagination in Kant’s theory of sensibility. (shrink)