The standard, foundationalist reading of Our Knowledge of the External World requires Russell to have a view of perceptual acquaintance that he demonstrably does not have. Russell’s actual purpose in “constructing” physical bodies out of sense-data is instead to show that psychology and physics are consistent. But how seriously engaged was Russell with actual psychology? I show that OKEW makes some non-trivial assumptions about the character of visual space, and I argue that he drew those assumptions from William James’s Principles. (...) This point helps us take a fresh look at the complex relationship between the two men. In light of this surprising background of agreement, I highlight ways their more general approaches to perception finally diverged in ways that put the two at epistemological odds. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell famously argued that causation is not part of the fundamental physical description of the world, describing the notion of cause as “a relic of a bygone age”. This paper assesses one of Russell’s arguments for this conclusion: the ‘Directionality Argument’, which holds that the time symmetry of fundamental physics is inconsistent with the time asymmetry of causation. We claim that the coherence and success of the Directionality Argument crucially depends on the proper interpretation of the ‘ time (...) symmetry’ of fundamental physics as it appears in the argument, and offer two alternative interpretations. We argue that: if ‘ time symmetry’ is understood as the time -reversal invariance of physical theories, then the crucial premise of the Directionality Argument should be rejected; and if ‘ time symmetry’ is understood as the temporally bidirectional nomic dependence relations of physical laws, then the crucial premise of the Directionality Argument is far more plausible. We defend the second reading as continuous with Russell’s writings, and consider the consequences of the bidirectionality of nomic dependence relations in physics for the metaphysics of causation. (shrink)

A supplemental document for "Metalinguistic Gradability".

By a `denoting phrase' I mean a phrase such as any one of the following: a man, some man, any man, every man, all men, the present King of England, the present King of France, the center of mass of the solar system at the first instant of the twentieth century, the revolution of the earth round the sun, the revolution of the sun round the earth. Thus a phrase is denoting solely in virtue of its form. We may distinguish (...) three cases: (1) A phrase may be denoting, and yet not denote anything; e.g., `the present King of France'. (2) A phrase may denote one definite object; e.g., `the present King of England' denotes a certain man. (3) A phrase may denote ambiguously; e.g. `a man' denotes not many men, but an ambiguous man. The interpretation of such phrases is a matter of considerably difficulty; indeed, it is very hard to frame any theory not susceptible of formal refutation. All the difficulties with which I am acquainted are met, so far as I can discover, by the theory which I am about to explain. (shrink)

Published in 1903, this book was the first comprehensive treatise on the logical foundations of mathematics written in English. It sets forth, as far as possible without mathematical and logical symbolism, the grounds in favour of the view that mathematics and logic are identical. It proposes simply that what is commonly called mathematics are merely later deductions from logical premises. It provided the thesis for which _Principia Mathematica_ provided the detailed proof, and introduced the work of Frege to a wider (...) audience. In addition to the new introduction by John Slater, this edition contains Russell's introduction to the 1937 edition in which he defends his position against his formalist and intuitionist critics. (shrink)

Suppose that A explains B. Do A and B need to be true? Provided that we have metaphysical explanation in mind, orthodoxy answers “yes:” metaphysical explanation is factive. This article introduces and defends a non-factive notion of metaphysical explanation. I argue that we need a non-factive notion of explanation in order to make sense of explanationist arguments where we motivate a view by claiming that it offers better explanations than its competitors. After presenting and rejecting some initially plausible rivals, I (...) account for non-factive metaphysical explanation by drawing on existing applications of structural equation models to metaphysical grounding. (shrink)

French text publication of the manuscript of the English article en-titled "Physics, History of" and published by Duhem in Volume 12 of the 1911 "Catholic Encyclopedia".

It is often thought that metaphysical grounding underwrites a distinctive sort of metaphysical explanation. However, it would be a mistake to think that all metaphysical explanations are underwritten by metaphysical grounding. In service of this claim, I offer a novel kind of metaphysical explanation called metaphysical explanation by constraint, examples of which have been neglected in the literature. I argue that metaphysical explanations by constraint are not well understood as grounding explanations.

Can there be grounding without necessitation? Can a fact obtain wholly in virtue of metaphysically more fundamental facts, even though there are possible worlds at which the latter facts obtain but not the former? It is an orthodoxy in recent literature about the nature of grounding, and in first-order philosophical disputes about what grounds what, that the answer is no. I will argue that the correct answer is yes. I present two novel arguments against grounding necessitarianism, and show that grounding (...) contingentism is fully compatible with the various explanatory roles that grounding is widely thought to play. (shrink)

First recorded in the 14th century, the analogy of spit-roast meat argues that expecting the Sun to rotate around a strictly immobile Earth would be just as ludicrous as trying to move the fire around the roasting meat. On the contrary, it should be the Earth that spins upon itself in order to glean, from all possible angles, all the benefits of the Sun, just as it is the meat’s responsibility to turn on the spit before the motionless fire for (...) it to be perfectly cooked on all sides. Aimed at demonstrating, in geocentricism, the plausibility of the rotation of the Earth and, in heliocentrism, at supporting the physical reality of this terrestrial rotation, nowadays this analogy barely elicits more than an amused, or even condescending, smile. However, its continued long-term existence and its frequency of use — from the 14th to the 19th century, we found it mentioned by no less than 45 different authors — incited us to finally pay attention to it. We then noticed that beyond its explicitly cosmological scope, it raises, in its own way, the question of the purpose of the natural world: had the latter been conceived based upon humankind, then it is normal, despite what this analogy advocates, that the Sun is at the service of something more important than itself by rotating, to the profit of humankind, around the Earth; conversely, since such an infringement of the rule of common sense, as illustrated by this analogy, can neither be justified nor tolerated, it is up to the Earth to move around the Sun. Tracing the vicissitudes of this analogy, over 6 centuries, is thus not only about reconstructing the largely forgotten history of a presently obsolete analogy, but also about discovering the deeper meaning, henceforth incomprehensible, behind it. In describing how this meaning became progressively lost, one can finally pro­vide an understanding of why, in the present day, we are no longer capable of more than an amused smile when happening upon it! (shrink)

Discussion of the relevance of grounding to substantiveness, theory-choice, and “location problems” in metaphysics.

Physicien théoricien, philosophe de la physique et historien des théo­ries physiques, le savant catholique français Pierre Duhem (1861-1916) a profondément marqué la pensée du vingtième siècle. Chacun connaît le Système du monde, dont les dix volu­mes ont contribué à la redécouverte de la science médiévale, et La théorie physique, qui a notamment donné lieu à la célèbre «thèse Duhem-Quine». Si Clio a donc gardé de Duhem le sou­venir d’un grand historien des sciences et d’un philosophe perspicace de la physique, lui-même (...) cependant n’aspirait qu’à être reconnu comme physicien. Son œuvre est en effet traver­sée par un projet scientifique qui consiste à ordonner et à réunir les diverses branches de la physique sous l’égide de la thermo­dynamique dans le cadre d’une théorie représentative et non explicative du réel. C’est ce projet que Duhem a voulu réaliser dans ses publications scientifiques, exposer dans ses écrits philoso­phiques, et finalement cautionner par ses recherches historiques. Cependant l’investissement toujours plus important de Duhem en histoire des sciences et la présence dans son œuvre de con­sidéra­tions apologétiques et d’écrits patriotiques peuvent don­ner à penser qu’il s’est progressivement détourné de ce projet primordial au profit d’autres préoccupations. De même, les tensions qui, à l’inté­rieur de ce projet scientifique, subsistent entre sa volonté unificatrice et sa revendication phénoménaliste peuvent conduire à une relativi­sation de cette dernière, conçue comme une demande contextuelle, passa­gère et finalement peu significative. Sans ignorer ces préoccu­pations historiques, religieuses ou patriotiques, sans négliger ce con­flit d’intérêt entre les deux parties constitutives du projet duhémien, cette étude entend tout d’abord réaffirmer que ce projet scientifique ne sera jamais ni abandonné, ni amputé. Toutefois, dès lors que sont maintenues la permanence, la prio­rité et l’intégralité de ce projet, trois paradoxes surgissent im­médiatement. Si Duhem se voulait avant tout physicien et souhaitait être reconnu comme tel, par quelle extravagance de l’histoire est-il finalement connu pour ses recherches histori­ques et ses travaux philosophiques et non pour ce qui lui tenait le plus à cœur? S’il ne voulait être qu’un illustre physicien, pourquoi s’est-il acharné, au retour du laboratoire, à exhumer de l’oubli les manuscrits et les théories scientifiques des au­teurs médiévaux? Enfin, s’il voulait vraiment établir une physi­que qui soit unifiée, cohérente et parfaite, pourquoi se prive-t-il du réa­lisme et s’embarrasse-t-il du phénoménalisme? Basée sur la corres­pondance inédite de Duhem, cette étude, centrée plus particu­liè­rement sur ce troisième paradoxe, contribue fina­lement à élucider chacun d’eux. (shrink)

Epistemic invariantism, or invariantism for short, is the position that the proposition expressed by knowledge sentences does not vary with the epistemic standard of the context in which these sentences can be used. At least one of the major challenges for invariantism is to explain our intuitions about scenarios such as the so-called bank cases. These cases elicit intuitions to the effect that the truth-value of knowledge sentences varies with the epistemic standard of the context in which these sentences can (...) be used. In this paper, I will defend invariantism against this challenge by advocating the following, somewhat deflationary account of the bank case intuitions: Readers of the bank cases assign different truth-values to the knowledge claims in the bank cases because they interpret these scenarios such that the epistemic position of the subject in question differs between the high and the low standards case. To substantiate this account, I will argue, first, that the bank cases are underspecified even with respect to features that should uncontroversially be relevant for the epistemic position of the subject in question. Second, I will argue that readers of the bank cases will fill in these features differently in the low and the high standards case. In particular, I will argue that there is a variety of reasons to think that the fact that an error-possibility is mentioned in the high standards case will lead readers to assume that this error-possibility is supposed to be likely in the high standards case. (shrink)

Introduction / St.L. JAKI (pp. 9-19). Présentation / J.-Fr. STOFFEL (p. 21). – L'œuvre de Pierre Duhem (pp. 25-113). Publications post­humes (pp. 115-129). – IIe partie : Les travaux de ses doc­torands. Fernand Caubet (pp. 133-135). Henry Chevallier (pp. 137-141). Émile Lenoble (pp. 143-144). Lucien Marchis (pp. 145-154). Eugène Monnet (pp. 155-156). Henri Pélabon (pp. 157-168). Paul Saurel (pp. 169-172). Albert Turpain (pp. 173-197). – IIIe partie : La litté­rature secondaire. Thèses et mé­moires (pp. 201-202). Livres (pp. 203-205). Biographies (...) et étu­des générales (pp. 207-209). Duhem en perspective (pp. 211-212). Le philosophe de la physique (pp. 213-234). L'histo­rien des théories physiques (pp. 235-243). Le physicien (pp. 245-251). Le croyant (pp. 253-256). Notices nécrologiques (pp. 257-258). Notices de dictionnaires et d'encyclopédies (pp. 259-260). – IVe partie : Index. (shrink)

Many philosophers of science are ontologically committed to a lush rainforest of special science entities ), but are often reticent about the criteria that determine which entities count as real. On the other hand, the metaphysics literature is much more forthcoming about such criteria, but often links ontological commitment to irreducibility. We argue that the irreducibility criteria are in tension with scientific realism: for example, they would exclude viruses, which are plausibly theoretically reducible and yet play a sufficiently important role (...) in scientific accounts of the world that they should be included in our ontology. In this paper, we show how the inhabitants of the rainforest can be inoculated against the eliminative threat of reduction: by demonstrating that they are emergent. According to our account, emergence involves a screening off condition as well as novelty. We go on to demonstrate that this account of emergence, which is compatible with theoretical reducibility, satisfies common intuitions concerning what should and shouldn't count as real: viruses are emergent, as are trouts and turkeys, but philosophically gerrymandered objects like trout-turkeys do not qualify. (shrink)

We argue that C. Darwin and more recently W. Hennig worked at times under the simplifying assumption of an eternal biosphere. So motivated, we explicitly consider the consequences which follow mathematically from this assumption, and the infinite graphs it leads to. This assumption admits certain clusters of organisms which have some ideal theoretical properties of species, shining some light onto the species problem. We prove a dualization of a law of T.A. Knight and C. Darwin, and sketch a decomposition result (...) involving the internodons of D. Kornet, J. Metz and H. Schellinx. A further goal of this paper is to respond to B. Sturmfels’ question, “Can biology lead to new theorems?”. (shrink)

While standard first-order modal logic is quite powerful, it cannot express even very simple sentences like “I could have been taller than I actually am” or “Everyone could have been smarter than they actually are”. These are examples of cross-world predication, whereby objects in one world are related to objects in another world. Extending first-order modal logic to allow for cross-world predication in a motivated way has proven to be notoriously difficult. In this paper, I argue that the standard accounts (...) of cross-world predication all leave something to be desired. I then propose an account of cross-world predication based on quantified hybrid logic and show how it overcomes the limitations of these previous accounts. I will conclude by discussing various philosophical consequences and applications of such an account. (shrink)

Kant’s claim that we must postulate the immortality of the soul is polarizing. While much attention has been paid to two standard arguments in its defense (one moral-psychological, the other rational), I contend that a favorite argument of Kant’s from the apogee of his critical period, namely, the teleological argument, deserves renewed attention. This paper reconstructs it and exhibits what makes it unique (though not necessarily superior) in relation to the other arguments. In particular, its form (as third-personal or descriptive, (...) beginning from observations) and related force of assent (as a subjectively universal reflective judgment) set it apart from the other arguments. My goal is to establish that any engagement with Kant’s immortality postulate must include equal consideration of the teleological argument in order to be complete. (shrink)

Plausibly, how much is at stake in some salient practical task can affect how generously people ascribe knowledge of task-relevant facts. There is a metaphysical puzzle about this phenomenon, and an empirical puzzle. Metaphysically: there are competing theories about when and how practical stakes affect whether it is correct to ascribe knowledge. Which of these theories is the right one? Empirically: experimental philosophy has struggled to find a stakes-effect on people’s knowledge ascriptions. Is the alleged phenomenon just a philosopher’s fantasy? (...) I propose a new psychological account of when and why people’s knowledge ascriptions are sensitive to stakes. My hypothesis is motivated by empirical research on how people’s judgements are sensitive to their social context. Specifically, people’s evaluations are sensitive to their ‘psychological distance’ from the scenarios they are considering. When using ‘fixed-evidence probes’, experimental philosophy has found that what’s at stake for a fictional character in a made-up scenario has little or no effect on how participants ascribe knowledge to them. My hypothesis predicts this finding: the scenarios are too ‘psychologically distant’ to participants. Our empirical puzzle is resolved: the stakes-effect often present in the wild won’t be present in vignette studies. (This illustrates a widespread problem with X-phi vignette studies: if people might judge differently in other social contexts, we can’t generalize from the results of these experiments. That is, vignette studies are of doubtful ‘external validity’.) The hypothesis also resolves our metaphysical puzzle. It predicts that people do not ascribe knowledge in a way deemed correct by any of the standard philosophical views, namely classical invariantism, interest-relative invariantism, and contextualism. Our knowledge ascriptions shift around in the way that’s most useful for social beings like us, and this pattern in our judgements can only be endorsed by a genuinely relativist metaphysics for knowledge. (shrink)

Before committing suicide, Othello says, "Speak of me as I am; . . . speak of one who loved not wisely, but too well." Thinking of his love for Desdemona, we are not likely to agree with his assessment that he loved her "too well," especially if loving well is supposed to require some kind of dependability or concern for her well-being; we would be loath even to grant that he loved her "too much." Othello's love for his wife seems, (...) rather, to have been firmly subordinated to his love for his honor. Perhaps, then, his statement could be saved by saying that it was his honor that he loved too well, and that in devoting himself so completely to it, he did not love wisely. He needed a better way of coordinating his two concerns, one that wouldn't give him cause for regret—a way of loving well that was also wise. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom has it that truth is always evaluated using our actual linguistic conventions, even when considering counterfactual scenarios in which different conventions are adopted. This principle has been invoked in a number of philosophical arguments, including Kripke’s defense of the necessity of identity and Lewy’s objection to modal conventionalism. But it is false. It fails in the presence of what Einheuser (2006) calls c-monsters, or convention-shifting expressions (on analogy with Kaplan’s monsters, or context-shifting expressions). We show that c-monsters naturally (...) arise in contexts, such as metalinguistic negotiations, where speakers entertain alternative conventions. We develop an expressivist theory—inspired by Barker (2002) and MacFarlane (2016) on vague predications and Einheuser (2006) on counterconventionals—to model these shifts in convention. Using this framework, we reassess the philosophical arguments that invoked the conventional wisdom. (shrink)

We develop and defend a new approach to counterlogicals. Non-vacuous counterlogicals, we argue, fall within a broader class of counterfactuals known as counterconventionals. Existing semantics for counterconventionals, 459–482 ) and, 1–27 ) allow counterfactuals to shift the interpretation of predicates and relations. We extend these theories to counterlogicals by allowing counterfactuals to shift the interpretation of logical vocabulary. This yields an elegant semantics for counterlogicals that avoids problems with the usual impossible worlds semantics. We conclude by showing how this approach (...) can be extended to counterpossibles more generally. (shrink)

A counterpossible is a counterfactual with an impossible antecedent. Counterpossibles present a puzzle for standard theories of counterfactuals, which predict that all counterpossibles are semantically vacuous. Moreover, counterpossibles play an important role in many debates within metaphysics and epistemology, including debates over grounding, causation, modality, mathematics, science, and even God. In this article, we will explore various positions on counterpossibles as well as their potential philosophical consequences.

Kant and Fichte developed the concept of a worldview as a way of reflecting on experience as a whole. But what does it mean to form a worldview? And what role did it play in the German Idealist tradition? This paper seeks to answer these questions through a detailed analysis of the form of a philosophical worldview and its historical portent, both of which remain unexplored in the literature. The dearth of attention is partially to blame on Kant’s desultory development (...) of it, as well as its place in Fichte’s understudied lectures on religion. In this paper, I first reconstruct Kant’s conception as the starting point and then trace it to Fichte who went on to evolve it further. Fichte endorses the basic conceptual shape pioneered by Kant, namely, a reflective process of positing an idea and then checking the coherence of necessary judgments relative to it. However, Fichte came to realize that its philosophical function needed expanding. Beyond recognizing the possibility for alternative worldviews, Fichte further fleshed out how worldview creation could lead to human flourishing. The common feature between both thinkers is that the formation of a worldview aims to turn philosophy into a life-orienting exercise. (shrink)

Selon l'interprétation traditionnelle de la révolution coperni­cienne, le géocentrisme est un anthropocentrisme et l'héliocen­trisme, un anthro­­popériphérisme. C'est cette double assimila­tion que cet article entend remettre en question. En effet, le géocentrisme peut être appréhendé comme un théocentrisme, un héliocentrisme, un diablo­centrisme et un anthropofinalisme, mais il n'en reste pas moins, indubitablement, un anthropopéri­phérisme. Le seul «anthropocentra­lisme» qui lui appartienne est un anthropoconceptualisme qui, hors de toute perspective valo­risante, n'est qu'une incapacité à se dé­centrer. Quant à l'hélio­centrisme proprement dit, s'il s'oppose (...) à l'anthropofinalisme des Anciens et à ce qu'il croit être leur anthropo­centralisme, il ne dégénère pas pour autant en un anthropo­péri­phérisme, car, d'une part, il est davantage préoccupé par la centration du So­leil que par la décentration de la Terre et, d'autre part, il par­vient même à s'accom­moder de perspectives franchement anthro­pocentriques. ––– According to the traditional interpretation of the Copernican revolution, the old geocentric system was anthropocentric and the new heliocentric system anthropoperipheric. The double assimilation is what this article wants to call into question. Although a geocentric system can be seen to be theocentric, a heliocentric system can be interpreted as being diabolocentric and anthropofinalist, but also undeniably anthropoperipheric. The only way a heliocentric system can be seen as anthropo­centric is as being anthropoconceptualist. Far from honouring man, this demonstrates an incapacity to see things from a point of view other than man's own. Although a heliocentric system is opposed to the ancient anthropofinality and what was seen as anthropocentrality, it is not necessarily anthropoperipheric. This is firstly because the new system was far more preoccupied with the new centrality of the sun than with the new position of the earth, and secondly because the new system managed to incorporate many aspects of anthropocentrality in her new vision. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that a distinction ought to be drawn between two ways in which a given world might be logically impossible. First, a world w might be impossible because the laws that hold at w are different from those that hold at some other world (say the actual world). Second, a world w might be impossible because the laws of logic that hold in some world (say the actual world) are violated at w. We develop a novel (...) way of modelling logical possibility that makes room for both kinds of logical impossibility. Doing so has interesting implications for the relationship between logical possibility and other kinds of possibility (for example, metaphysical possibility) and implications for the necessity or contingency of the laws of logic. (shrink)

Selon l’interprétation traditionnelle, la révolution copernicienne, en arrachant l’homme de sa position centrale dans le cosmos, lui a infligé une profonde vexation. Si elle dit bien notre désarroi contemporain face à un univers devenu infini, cette inter­pré­tation ne reflète pas suffisamment la complexité historique du passage du géocentrisme à l’héliocentrisme. Aussi convient-il de la remettre en question. Mais pour ce faire, il faut d’abord bien la connaître. Aussi cet article étudie-t-il la phase de structu­ration de cette interprétation (1835-1925), dans le (...) contexte du positivisme, du darwinisme, du marxisme et enfin du freudisme. ––– Según la interpretación tradicional, la revolución copernicana, al sacar al hombre de su ubicación central en el cosmos, le propinó una profunda incomodidad. Esta interpretación corres­ponde a nuestra desazón actual provocada por un universo infinito pero desconoce la complejidad histórica implícita en el tránsito desde el geocentrismo al heliocentrismo. Por ello es necesario volver a plantear el problema, y para hacerlo hay que abordar correctamente el tema. De ahí que el presente artículo estudie el período de estructuración de esta interpretación (1835-1925) en los contextos del positivismo, del darwinismo, del marxismo y finalmente del freudismo. (shrink)

A counteridentical is a counterfactual with an identity statement in the antecedent. While counteridenticals generally seem non-trivial, most semantic theories for counterfactuals, when combined with the necessity of identity and distinctness, attribute vacuous truth conditions to such counterfactuals. In light of this, one could try to save the orthodox theories either by appealing to pragmatics or by denying that the antecedents of alleged counteridenticals really contain identity claims. Or one could reject the orthodox theory of counterfactuals in favor of a (...) hyperintensional semantics that accommodates non-trivial counterpossibles. In this paper, I argue that none of these approaches can account for all the peculiar features of counteridenticals. Instead, I propose a modified version of Lewis’s counterpart theory, which rejects the necessity of identity, and show that it can explain all the peculiar features of counteridenticals in a satisfactory way. I conclude by defending the plausibility of contingent identity from objections. (shrink)

In attempts to compare different distributions with regards to need, so-called “measures of need-based distributive justice” have emerged in recent years. Each of the proposed measures relies on a single dimension of need that is taken into account. This is shown to be problematic since humans experience different kinds of need that appear to be incommensurable. A strategy to deal with this problem is introduced by using multidimensional measures.

Many authors have noted that there are types of English modal sentences cannot be formalized in the language of basic first-order modal logic. Some widely discussed examples include “There could have been things other than there actually are” and “Everyone who is actually rich could have been poor.” In response to this lack of expressive power, many authors have discussed extensions of first-order modal logic with two-dimensional operators. But claims about the relative expressive power of these extensions are often justified (...) only by example rather than by rigorous proof. In this paper, we provide proofs of many of these claims and present a more complete picture of the expressive landscape for such languages. (shrink)

In chapter 3 of Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Kripke’s Wittgenstein offers a “sceptical solution" to the sceptical paradox about meaning developed in chapter 2 (according to which there are no facts in virtue of which ascriptions of meaning such as “Jones means addition by ‘+’” can be true). Although many commentators have taken the sceptical solution to be broadly analogous to non-factualist theories in other domains, such as non-cognitivism or expressivism in metaethics, the nature of the sceptical solution (...) has not been well-understood. The main aim of this paper is to advance our understanding of the nature of the non-factualism about meaning proposed in the sceptical solution. It attempts to outline some desiderata that should be respected by interpretations of the sceptical solution and considers two objections raised against it in Barry Stroud’s paper “Wittgenstein on Meaning, Understanding and Community". It attempts to correct misconstruals of the sceptical solution that have been promulgated by Davidson and some of his followers and suggests that the sceptical solution developed by Kripke’s Wittgenstein is best viewed as a form of quasi-realism about meaning. It ends by outlining what it takes to be the most pressing challenges facing the sceptical solution. (shrink)

Selon l’interprétation traditionnelle, la révolution copernicienne, qui opère le passage du géocentrisme à l’héliocentrisme, aurait détrôné et dévalorisé l’homme, en lui retirant sa position cen­trale, et donc privilégiée, dans le cosmos, pour le reléguer sur une planète devenue analogue aux autres et occupant une place quelconque à l’intérieur du système solaire. Cette inter­prétation ne pèche pas seulement dans sa compréhension de l’héliocentrisme copernicien, mais également dans sa percep­tion du géocentrisme aristotélico-médiéval. Il faut donc dénon­cer sa fausseté générale et, plus encore, (...) lui substituer un autre schéma interprétatif qui, peut-être moins évocateur de notre rapport au monde, soit plus respectueux de la vérité historique. ––– According to the traditional interpretation, the Copernican revo­lution, which brought about the transfer from geocentrism to heliocentrism, is said to have dethroned and devalued man by removing his central and hence privileged position in the cos­mos and by relegating him to a planet now seen as analogous to others occupying an insignificant position within the solar system. This interpretation fails not only in its understanding of Copernican heliocentrism, but also in its percep­tion of Aristo­telian mediaeval geocentrism. It is necessary, therefore, not only to denounce its general falsity, but also to substitute for it a different interpretative scheme which, although it may empha­size less our link with the world, may be more respectful of historical truth. (shrink)

A number of bioethicists have been critical of the power of the family to “veto” a patient’s decision to posthumously donate her organs within opt-in systems of organ procurement. One major objection directed at the family veto is that when families veto the decision of their deceased family member, they do something wrong by violating or failing to respect the autonomy of that deceased family member. The goal of this paper is to make progress on answering this objection. I do (...) this in two stages. First, I argue that the most plausible interpretation of what happens when a person registers as an organ donor in an opt-in system is that she gives her consent to the state to posthumously remove her organs for transplantation purposes. Call this the Authorization Account. Second, given the Authorization Account, I argue by analogy that when families veto an individual’s decision to donate and the individual’s organs are not in the end removed, neither the doctors nor the family violate the individual’s autonomy in any morally objectionable sense. Call this the Nonremoval Thesis. I argue that since the Nonremoval Thesis is true, we do not violate or fail to respect the autonomy of registered donors when we fail to remove their organs because their family has objected. (shrink)

Pattern-based reasons are reasons for action deriving not from the features of our own actions, but from the features of the larger patterns of action in which we might be participating. These reasons might relate to the patterns of action that will actually be carried out, or they might relate to merely hypothetical patterns. In past work, I have argued that accepting merely hypothetical pattern-based reasons, together with a plausible account of how to weigh these reasons, can lead to disastrous (...) consequences. However, in this article, I argue that this problem is not limited to hypothetical pattern-based reasons: it turns out that there are analogous issues for reasons deriving from actual patterns. I then suggest that we can avoid this problem by adopting a different account of the weight of pattern-based reasons. (shrink)

In what is quite possibly the most famous passage of the De revolutionibus, Copernicus implies that nobody could ever place this supreme flaming torch that is the Sun in another or better place than that from which it can illuminate everything simultaneously, namely the centre of this extremely beautiful temple that is our world. Considering the fact that he leaves an interrogatory twist to this argument of convenience, and since he makes this statement without any justification as it seems entirely (...) evident to him, certain Copernicans choose to illustrate this by means of an analogy: if indeed the Sun must be positioned thus, it is because the most appropriate place for the torch intended to illuminate the room is at its centre, and not in one of its corners. Despite the heliosophy of the Renaissance having been shared by both geocentrists and Copernicans alike, this "torch" argument does not appear to have achieved much success: rarely adopted by the Copernican camp, it was even contested by some of them; as for the geocentrists, it held no appeal for them whatsoever. Did this argument of convenience therefore not benefit from the self-evidence attributed to it by Copernicus, and from, in his wake, it's continued support by a good many commentators? As is often the case when it comes to the history of thought, the pseudo-obviousness of this argument is merely the fruit of a blatant anachronism: presenting heliocentrism as the cosmological system that finally grants the Sun its worthy centrality by placing it in the centre of the room and not in a corner, is to ignore the fact that this star of the day already enjoyed, in geocentrism, a centrality esteemed to be perfectly in keeping with both its dignity and its inherent illuminative function. Having lost their grasp on this worldview that no longer belonged to them, the Copernicans thus put forward an argument which, for the geocentrists, is worthless. Yet they could have argued the objective superiority of their centrality over that accorded to the Sun by geocentrism: while the latter is only numerical, on a purely planetary scale, and frankly fictitious, the former is thoroughly spatial, of cosmic proportions and, at least on first approximation, very real. In order to produce arguments of convenience that could carry their own weight, the protagonists of the new cosmology would have benefited from getting to know the world vision of their adversaries a little better instead of addressing them from their own point of view; similarly, instead of treating as an obvious fact that which is only evident to one of the two parties present, historians of scientific thought would also be well advised to have a better understanding of the world vision of those who history now considers as the losers! (shrink)

A central theme of Cheryl Misak’s important new history is that there are two markedly different strands of the pragmatist tradition. One pragmatism traces back to Peirce, she thinks, and it takes seriously the ideals of logical precision, truth, and objectivity. This tradition had its insights carried through later analytic philosophy by figures like C. I. Lewis, Quine, and Davidson, among others. The second pragmatism has its roots in James’s (allegedly) more subjectivistic outlook and after Dewey’s death was revived by (...) Goodman, Rorty, and other so-called “neo-pragmatists.”Misak recommends the Peircean strain because it is “committed to doing justice to the objective dimension of human inquiry” (Misak 2013: 3)... (shrink)

ABSTRACT It has become standard to conceive of metalinguistic disagreement as motivated by a form of negotiation, aimed at reaching consensus because of the practical consequences of using a word with one content rather than another. This paper presents an alternative motive for expressing and pursuing metalinguistic disagreement. In using words with given criteria, we betray our location amongst social categories or groups. Because of this, metalinguistic disagreement can be used as a stage upon which to perform a social identity. (...) The ways in which metalinguistic disagreements motivated in this way diverge in character from metalinguistic negotiations are described, as are several consequences of the existence of metalinguistic disagreements motivated in this way. (shrink)

According to the Copernican myth, geocentrism was a form of anthropocentrism because it showcased humankind as being both the centre and the purpose of the Cosmos, whereas heliocentrism, in dethroning humankind from this privileged position, luckily provided a means to quash this point of view, which was illusory and vain, and that even went against scientific progress. According to the anthropocentric myth, which is a part of it, geocentrism is a form of anthropocentrism, while heliocentrism is really an anti-anthropocentrism and (...) not simply a non-anthropocentrism. This article, in the form of a dialogue, questions these two myths, looking in particular for the causes of their appearance, among which is a guilty anachronism. (shrink)

Recent discussions of emergence in physics have focussed on the use of limiting relations, and often particularly on singular or asymptotic limits. We discuss a putative example of emergence that does not fit into this narrative: the case of phonons. These quasi-particles have some claim to be emergent, not least because the way in which they relate to the underlying crystal is almost precisely analogous to the way in which quantum particles relate to the underlying quantum field theory. But there (...) is no need to take a limit when moving from a crystal lattice based description to the phonon description. Not only does this demonstrate that we can have emergence without limits, but also provides a way of understanding cases that do involve limits. (shrink)

S'étonnant qu'un simple physicien sache traiter des rapports de la physique et de la métaphysique, Edmond Domet de Vorges s'était demandé si Pierre Duhem n'avait pas bénéficié de l'aide de quelque théologien dans l'élaboration de son articulation de ces deux disci­plines. Faisant suite à cette question très perti­nente, cet article liste d'abord les intellectuels catholiques qui étaient en relation avec Duhem avant la publication, en 1893, de son article Physique et métaphysique et qui auraient effec­tivement pu l'aider à concevoir une (...) telle articulation. Se con­sacrant ensuite spécifiquement à l'un d'entre eux, à savoir Maurice Blondel, il étudie les similitudes et divergences existant entre les pensées du physicien bordelais et du philosophe d'Aix pour conclure que Blondel ne peut pas être celui qui aurait inspiré Duhem. À l'appui de cette conclusion, il fait notamment état d'une lettre inédite adressée par Duhem à Ambroise Gar­deil et dans laquelle celui-ci porte un jugement sévère à l'en­droit de son «pauvre ami» Blondel. ––– One might be surprised to find that a simple physician could be able explain with clarity the subtle relationship between physics and metaphysics. It is with this question in mind that Edmond Domet de Vorges asked himself if it might not have been with the aid of theologians that Pierre Duhem was able to find and express his subtle articulation between the two disciplines. Following in the footsteps of this pertinent question, this article begins by listing the catholic intellectuals who were acquain­tances of Pierre Duhem before the publication in 1893 of “Physique et métaphysique”, who may have been able to help him arrive at the relationship between the two sciences expressed in his publication. This line of questioning is followed by a specific study of one of these men, namely Maurice Blondel. The similarities and differences in the opinions of the physician from Bordeaux and the philosopher from Aix are explored with the resulting conclusion that Blondel could not have been he who inspired Duhem. This conclusion can be confirmed by a previously unpublished letter from Duhem to Ambroise Gardeil which contains a very severe judgement with regards to his “poor friend” Blondel. (shrink)

We present a game mechanic called pseudo-visibility for games inhabited by non-player characters (NPCs) driven by reinforcement learning (RL). NPCs are incentivized to pretend they cannot see pseudo-visible players: the training environment simulates an NPC to determine how the NPC would act if the pseudo-visible player were invisible, and penalizes the NPC for acting differently. NPCs are thereby trained to selectively ignore pseudo-visible players, except when they judge that the reaction penalty is an acceptable tradeoff (e.g., a guard might accept (...) the penalty in order to protect a treasure because losing the treasure would hurt even more). We describe an RL agent transformation which allows RL agents that would not otherwise do so to perform some limited self-reflection to learn the training environments in question. (shrink)

In this paper, I will discuss what I will call “skeptical pragmatic invariantism” as a potential response to the intuitions we have about scenarios such as the so-called bank cases. SPI, very roughly, is a form of epistemic invariantism that says the following: The subject in the bank cases doesn’t know that the bank will be open. The knowledge ascription in the low standards case seems appropriate nevertheless because it has a true implicature. The goal of this paper is to (...) show that SPI is mistaken. In particular, I will show that SPI is incompatible with reasonable assumptions about how we are aware of the presence of implicatures. Such objections are not new, but extant formulations are wanting for reasons I will point out below. One may worry that refuting SPI is not a worthwhile project given that this view is an implausible minority position anyway. To respond, I will argue that, contrary to common opinion, other familiar objections to SPI fail and, thus, that SPI is a promising position to begin with. (shrink)

Otto Neurath’s empiricist methodology of economics and his contributions to politi- cal economy have gained increasing attention in recent years. We connect this research with contemporary debates regarding the epistemological status of thought experiments by reconstructing Neurath’s utopias as linchpins of thought experiments. In our three reconstructed examples of different uses of utopias/dystopias in thought experiments we employ a reformulation of Häggqvist’s model for thought experiments and we argue that: (1) Our reformulation of Häggqvist’s model more adequately complies with many (...) uses of thought experiments, especially with the open-ended discussions of utopias and dys- topias in thought experiments. (2) As a strict logical empiricist, Neurath is committed to a strictly empiricist account of thought experiments. John Norton’s empiricist argument view can indeed account for the justifications of empirical beliefs and genuine discoveries targeted by scientific utopianism in three distinct (yet connected) ways, all of which Neur- ath already contemplated: (2.I) Dealing with utopias and thought experiments on a regular basis increases creativity and inventiveness. (2.II) Particular ways of presenting knowl- edge facilitate scientific discovery and social progress. (2.III) The use of utopias in thought experiments can prompt conceptual change and allow access to new phenomena. We con- clude by highlighting that, even though thought experiments support a positive attitude for exploring new social possibilities, Neurath points out that active decisions are unavoidable. The exploration of alternatives and the awareness of a need for decisions in policy discus- sion avert a technocratic outlook in social science. (shrink)

Le Père Ignace Carbonnelle, l'un des principaux fondateurs de la Société scientifique de Bruxelles en 1875 et son secrétaire général depuis cette époque, décède inopinément en 1889 après une quin­zaine d'années durant lesquelles il fut «l'homme fort» de ladite Société. Aussitôt, la Revue des questions scienti­fiques annonce la triste nouvelle, promettant, pour un prochain numéro, une étude détaillée de sa vie et de son œuvre. Elle ne paraîtra jamais, de sorte que sa mort ne fut pas saluée avec l'ampleur qu'on (...) était en droit d'attendre. Et pour cause ! Au ter­me d'une enquête digne d'un roman policier, cette étude révèle que Rome, agacée par l'atomisme de Carbonnelle, profita de sa mort pour rappeler à l'ordre la Société en l'invitant à marcher dans les pas de l'Aquinate. En réponse à cette pressante invi­tation et par un excès de zèle non requis, la Société élut comme président le célèbre thomiste français Edmond Domet de Vor­ges, cependant que le mathématicien Paul Mansion s'attacha d'établir, à partir des publications de Pierre Duhem prônant un retour à une physique des qualités, que la Société se conformait bien, mais à sa manière, aux injonctions romaines. ––– Fr. Ignace Carbonnelle, who founded the Brussels Scientific Society in 1875 and was from this date onwards her Secretary General, passed away suddenly in 1889, after fifteen years during which he was the leading figure of the aforementioned Society. “La Revue des Question scientifique” announced the sad news but promised that their next publication would include a detailed article on the great man and his works. Sadly this article never appeared, meaning that the passing of Fr. Carbonnelle was not marked with the importance which we might have otherwise expected. For what reason, you may well ask? After a detailed investigation, worthy of Agatha Christie herself, it would appear that Rome had been rather alarmed by the “atomism” present in Fr. Carbonnelle's reflections, and had taken the opportunity of his death to invite the Scientific Society to opinions more in line with those of St Thomas. In response to this firmly worded invitation, and with overzealous spontaneity, the Society elected the celebrated French Thomiste Edmond Domet de Vorges as their new President. At the same time the mathematician Paul Mansion relied on the publications of Pierre Duhem, which advocated a stronger adhesion to a physics of an object's qualities, to establish that the Society was, in fact, well aligned with the desires of Rome. (shrink)