Parenthood is one of the best gifts nature and god has given to humans. Being a parent is a feeling that can be compared to none other but as a baby caretaker a nanny can do this. As a parent, we always strive to provide the best of everything to our children. This however often comes at a price. Mostly it means that both the parents have to be working in order to provide the best facilities (...) and at the same time secure the future of their children and Newborn Baby. Even if one of the parent chooses to sacrifice the career and stay at home, raising a child in a nuclear family set up is still a challenge. -/- This is when an experienced and gentle baby caretaker can be of utmost help. However such caretaker who can be entrusted with the care and security of your child is often hard to find. Especially in cities like NOIDA baby caretaker are available for your service. Well no more. -/- No more is the need to sacrifice your career or professional aspirations. You can peacefully leave to work, entrusting your lovely children in the hands of the baby caretaker. Majority of the time that your child will be spending is with the caretaker and it is therefore absolutely necessary that a baby caretaker possess all the qualities of a good parent. Benevolence, patience, care and attention, all these qualities can be found in the baby caretaker provided by us. Our caretaker ensures the welfare of the child, creating the environment for sound mental, emotional and health development of the children. -/- We need to guarantee that the caretaker has the child's best interest at heart and looks at the security of our child with the same eye as we do. We select the baby caretakers that view this profession as means of contentment and satisfaction in their lives and not just another menial job to earn their livelihood. Children have the inherent need to have somebody always around them in oder to feel secure and wanted, avoiding loneliness and boredom. A Caretaker for baby in Noida not only provides this companion but also ensures that the natural curiosity of a child is kept alive even in the absence of their parents. -/- Big cities with the diverse kind of population, mostly coming to work from various parts of the country, have had some history of violent cases. And that’s why precaution should be taken while hiring Best caretaker in Noida . With thorough background check and verified references, all such apprehensions can be laid to rest.+ . (shrink)

For the general public, there is an intuitive appeal to an animal's living in the wild rather than in captivity. Rarely is it an appeal informed by careful scientific or ethical analysis, however. This paper discusses how animal release projects ought to be conducted, guided by the question, "what are the duties of humans toward animals that are to be released?" It studies the ethical responsibilities of caretakers, practical elements of a responsible release, and proper selection of candidate animals for (...) release, and what marine science tells us about how best these requirements might be achieved. (shrink)

There are three main accounts of the proper function of the low mood system (LMS): the social risk theory, the disease theory, and the propitiousness theory. Adjudicating between these accounts has proven difficult, as there is little agreement in the literature about what a theory of the LMS’s proper function is supposed to explain. In this article, drawing upon influential work on the evolution of other affective systems, such as the disgust system and the fear system, I argue that a (...) theory of the proper function of the low mood system should: (i) account for the reliable, distal causes and effects of the system’s activation, and (ii) explain how having a system that performed such a function increased fitness in ancestral environments. On this basis, I show that the proper function of the low mood system is to limit resource expenditure in relatively unpropitious circumstances, exactly as hypothesised by the propitiousness theory. (shrink)

Attempting to compare scientific theories requires a philosophical model of meaning. Yet different scientific theories have at times—particularly in early chemistry—pre-supposed disparate theories of meaning. When two theories of meaning are incommensurable, we must say that the scientific theories that rely upon them are meta-incommensurable. Meta- incommensurability is a more profound sceptical threat to science since, unlike first-order incommensurability, it implies complete incomparability.

Mental representations remain the central posits of psychology after many decades of scrutiny. However, there is no consensus about the representational format(s) of biological cognition. This paper provides a survey of evidence from computational cognitive psychology, perceptual psychology, developmental psychology, comparative psychology, and social psychology, and concludes that one type of format that routinely crops up is the language-of-thought (LoT). We outline six core properties of LoTs: (i) discrete constituents; (ii) role-filler independence; (iii) predicate–argument structure; (iv) logical operators; (v) inferential (...) promiscuity; and (vi) abstract content. These properties cluster together throughout cognitive science. Bayesian computational modeling, compositional features of object perception, complex infant and animal reasoning, and automatic, intuitive cognition in adults all implicate LoT-like structures. Instead of regarding LoT as a relic of the previous century, researchers in cognitive science and philosophy-of-mind must take seriously the explanatory breadth of LoT-based architectures. We grant that the mind may harbor many formats and architectures, including iconic and associative structures as well as deep-neural-network-like architectures. However, as computational/representational approaches to the mind continue to advance, classical compositional symbolic structures – that is, LoTs – only prove more flexible and well-supported over time. (shrink)

This seminal paper, which marks a turning point of the chemical revolution, is presented for the first time in a complete English translation. In this first half Lavoisier undermines phlogiston chemistry by arguing that his French contemporaries had replaced Stahl’s original theory with radically different systems that conceptualised the phlogiston principle in completely incompatible ways. He refutes their claims by showing that these later models were riddled with inconsistencies as to phlogiston’s weight, its ability to penetrate glass and its role (...) as a source of colour and odour in chemical compounds. (shrink)

1. The Urgent Need for an Intellectual Revolution 2. Two Fundamental Problems 3. Autobiographical Remarks 4. What Kind of Inquiry Can Best Help Life of Value to Flourish? 5. How is Life of Value Possible in the Physical Universe? 6. Connections between the Two Problems .

The dissemination of information in times of crisis or emergency is distinctive since the affected individuals may take, process, and act on information differently. As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted “the right message at the right time from the right person can save lives.” This study elaborates on the principles of crisis and emergency risk communication (CERC) in the realistic narrative, and notes that a successful CERC should be prompt, accurate, veracious, empathetic, respectful, and promote meaningful action. (...) Since pandemics are not only biomedical but also social, political, economic, and cultural incidents, critical communication in the time of a pandemic is of crucial significance. Hence, the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is assessed as a recent and important case study. This pandemic had four chief challenges; including that since the disease is caused by the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus the assumptions about the disease have been revised numerously and rapidly. In addition, the cumulative scale and scope of COVID-19 which is in excess of 627 million confirmed cases, and approximately 6.58 million deaths worldwide remained a strain. Another concern was the overwhelming uncertainty and evolving trajectory of the pandemic about how and when it ends or enters the endemic stage of the outbreak. Finally, the overabundance of amplification and dissemination of both accurate and inaccurate information led to an infodemic. Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, many individuals used the internet as an important resource for seeking health-related information. However, the infodemic and the other aforementioned challenges made distinguishing up-to-date accurate information a more arduous task, and CERC and pandemic-related communication are even more crucial. Hence, a multi-dimensional set of skills is required to overcome these challenges whether amidst or after the pandemic. Therefore, a multi-stakeholder approach towards an overarching and comprehensive metaliteracy that “provides an integrated and inclusive framework to cultivate critical thinking and proficiency in comprehending data, information, visuals and the media” is essential. This study recommends and elaborates on how to incorporate metaliteracy into crisis and risk communication at governmental, organizational, and individual levels. (shrink)

The Urgent Need for an Intellectual Revolution For much of my working life (from 1972 onwards) I have argued, in and out of print, that we need to bring about a revolution in the aims and methods of science – and of academic inquiry more generally. Instead of giving priority to the search for knowledge, academia needs to devote itself to seeking and promoting wisdom by rational means, wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for (...) oneself and others, wisdom thus including knowledge, understanding and technological know-how, but much else besides. A basic task ought to be to help humanity learn how to create a better world. (shrink)

This article proposes a sensory studies methodology for the interpretation of museum objects. The proposed method unfolds in two phases: virtual encounter via an on-line catalog and actual exposure in the context of a handling workshop. In addition to exploring the écart between image and object, the “Sensing Art and Artifacts” exercise articulates a framework for arriving at a multisensory, cross-cultural, interactive understanding of aesthetic value. The case studies presented here involve four objects from the collection of the Hunterian Museum (...) as sensed and interpreted by scholars of psychology, philosophy, sociology, and anthropology. It is proposed that aesthetic judgment in the expanded (cross-cultural) sense contemplated here involves apprehending the museum object through multiple sensory modalities in place of the conventional Western fixation on visible form. (shrink)

Recent work in the philosophy of religion has resurrected Leibniz’s idea that there is a best possible world, perhaps ours. In particular, Klaas Kraay’s [2010] construction of a theistic multiverse and Nevin Climenhaga’s [2018] argument from infinite value theory are novel defenses of a best possible world. I do not think that there is a best world, and show how both Kraay and Climenhaga may be resisted. First, I argue that Kraay’s construction of a theistic multiverse can (...) be resisted from plausible assumptions about set theory. Next, I argue against the value-theoretic assumptions that underlie Climenhaga’s argument and show how to give an infinite value theory where there is no best world. (shrink)

As the opening line of Dickens' classic novel suggests, it is very often the case that people can imagine both better and worse alternatives to their present reality. Although Dickens was writing about events that occurred over two centuries ago, it remains just as true today that we clearly live in neither the best nor the worst of possible worlds. For instance, we can wish for the amelioration of present difficulties in the Middle East yet still take comfort in (...) the fact that the threat of nuclear war has been greatly reduced since the end of the Cold War. On a more mundane level, it is easy for us to imagine how various aspects of our lives, such as our jobs, marriages, or physical fitness, could be both better and worse. Undoubtedly due to the pervasiveness and intrinsically fascinating qualities of this phenomenon of imagining alternatives to reality, there has been a veritable explosion of research in recent years on what have been termed mental simulation and counterfactual thinking processes. This chapter speculates upon and provides evidence for the antecedents and consequences of two types of counterfactuals: upward (it could have been better) and downward (it could have been worse). The importance of studying the antecedents and consequences of counterfactual direction lie in the differential structures, emotions, intentions, inferences, and behavioral consequences of upward versus downward counterfactual thinking. (shrink)

In this essay, I briefly review ten of the best bio flicks of artists. After laying out my criteria for assessing biographical films about artists, I review my ten choices. These films are: The Agony and the Ecstasy; Frida; Local Color; The Moon and Sixpence; Girl with the Pearl Earring; Pollock; Rembrandt; Moulin Rouge; Modigliani; and Lust for Life. For each film, I try to explain the ways in which the directors were able to show the artist’s creative processes (...) and personal challenges. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the compatibility of inference to the best explanation (IBE) with several influential models and accounts of scientific explanation. First, I explore the different conceptions of IBE and limit my discussion to two: the heuristic conception and the objective Bayesian conception. Next, I discuss five models of scientific explanation with regard to each model’s compatibility with IBE. I argue that Kitcher’s unificationist account supports IBE; Railton’s deductive–nomological–probabilistic model, Salmon’s statistical-relevance model, and van Fraassen’s erotetic account (...) are incompatible with IBE; and Salmon’s causal–mechanical model is merely consistent with IBE. In short, many influential models of scientific explanation do not support IBE. I end by outlining three possible conclusions to draw: (1) either philosophers of science or defenders of IBE have seriously misconstrued the concept of explanation, (2) philosophers of science and defenders of IBE do not use the term ‘explanation’ univocally, and (3) the ampliative conception of IBE, which is compatible with any model of scientific explanation, deserves a closer look. (shrink)

According to a traditional view, humans are superior to their non‐human terrestrial companions because they alone are “rational animals.” Although the traditional view is presupposed by our social and legal institutions, it has been called into question by modern science: Darwin himself claimed that humans differ in degree rather than in kind from animals, and recent discoveries in comparative animal cognition have seemed to confirm Darwin's assertion. Sustaining the traditional view in light of these discoveries calls out for a careful (...) comparison of the human mind with its precursors, the vertebrate mind and the mammalian mind. Psychological capacities shared across the animal kingdom are repurposed in humans, rendering humans uniquely capable of rationality. To be rational is to respond appropriately to value. Humans as such are not rational animals, but have the potential to become rational animals. This potential marks a morally relevant difference in kind between humans and non‐human animals. (shrink)

While the substantiation of “best interests” has received much attention, the question of how “the child” is conceptualised to ensure any action taken or decision made is in the particular child’s best interests has been largely neglected. In this paper, I argue that the lack of robust understanding of who “the child” is means that we continue to make many generalisations and category-based assumptions in determining the child’s best interests. In addressing the challenge of doing right by (...) the individual child, I propose a three-step approach based on a theoretical model of the child that avoids presumptions about child-typical needs and insists on an assessment of the child’s individual characteristics, needs, qualities, and circumstances, making it the only conceptualisation fully meeting the child centrism criterion required by children’s rights as determined by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. (shrink)

One recurring criticism of the best interests standard concerns its vagueness, and thus the inadequate guidance it offers to care providers. The lack of an agreed definition of ‘best interests’, together with the fact that several suggested considerations adopted in legislation or professional guidelines for doctors do not obviously apply across different groups of persons, result in decisions being made in murky waters. In response, bioethicists have attempted to specify the best interests standard, to reduce the indeterminacy (...) surrounding medical decisions. In this paper, we discuss the bioethicists’ response in relation to the state's possible role in clarifying the best interests standard. We identify and characterise two clarificatory strategies employed by bioethicists —elaborative and enumerative—and argue that the state should adopt the latter. Beyond the practical difficulties of the former strategy, a state adoption of it would inevitably be prejudicial in a pluralistic society. Given the gravity of best interests decisions, and the delicate task of respecting citizens with different understandings of best interests, only the enumerative strategy is viable. We argue that this does not commit the state to silence in providing guidance to and supporting healthcare providers, nor does it facilitate the abuse of the vulnerable. Finally, we address two methodological worries about adopting this approach at the state level. The adoption of the enumerative strategy is not defeatist in attitude, nor does it eventually collapse into (a form of) the elaborative strategy. (shrink)

This paper draws a distinction between ‘right MacIntyreans’ who are relatively optimistic that MacIntyre’s vision of ethics can be realised in capitalist society, and ‘left MacIntyreans’ who are sceptical about this possibility, and aims to show that the ‘left MacIntyrean’ position is a promising perspective available to business ethicists. It does so by arguing for a distinction between ‘community-focused’ practices and ‘excellence-focused’ practices. The latter concept fulfils the promise of practices to provide us with an understanding of the best (...) work for humankind and highlights the affinities between MacIntyre’s concept of a practice and Marx’s conception of good work as free, creative activity. The paper concludes with a suggestion that we reflect on the best forms of work so that we can strive to ensure the very best activities, those most consonant with our flourishing, one day become available to all. (shrink)

In this essay, we describe practices developed by the philosophy department at the University of Oklahoma to promote fair and inclusive recruitment, application review, and hiring for faculty positions.

Models of idealistic societies pervade the history of political thought from ancient times to the present. How can these models contribute to our thinking about political life in our non-ideal world? Not, as many political theorists have hoped, by performing a normative function -- by giving us reasons to accept particular political principles for the purpose of regulating our thought and behavior. Even still, idealistic models can sharpen our thinking about politics by performing a conceptual function -- by helping us (...) clarify and interpret the concepts we use to describe and evaluate political behavior and institutions. These insights point to a more incisive and judicious approach to political inquiry, in which explanatory and normative modes of thought are tightly intertwined. (The manuscript is under review. I have uploaded the table of contents, chapters 1 and 2, and the bibliography. Chapter summaries are available from my website.). (shrink)

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria pose a serious threat to our health. Our ability to destroy deadly bacteria by using antibiotics have not only improved our lives by curing infections, it also allows us to undertake otherwise dangerous treatments from chemotherapies to invasive surgeries. The emergence of antibiotic resistance, I argue, is a consequence of various iterations of prisoner’s dilemmas. To wit, each participant (from patients to nations) has rational self-interest to pursue a course of action that is suboptimal for all of us. (...) The standard solutions to prisoner’s dilemma look to realign cost-benefit such that individuals’ interests match those of the collective. However, the lack of a global organization to enforce an effective carrot-and-stick system makes it unlikely that we can solve the antibiotic resistance problem this way. I argue that our best chance might be an attempt to teach altruism and convince individuals to act not out of their self-interests. (shrink)

Uncertainty is recognized as a key issue in water resources research, amongst other sciences. Discussions of uncertainty typically focus on tools and techniques applied within an analysis, e.g. uncertainty quantification and model validation. But uncertainty is also addressed outside the analysis, in writing scientific publications. The language that authors use conveys their perspective of the role of uncertainty when interpreting a claim —what we call here “framing” the uncertainty. This article promotes awareness of uncertainty framing in four ways. 1) It (...) proposes a typology of eighteen uncertainty frames, addressing five questions about uncertainty. 2) It describes the context in which uncertainty framing occurs. This is an interdisciplinary topic, involving philosophy of science, science studies, linguistics, rhetoric, and argumentation. 3) We analyze the use of uncertainty frames in a sample of 177 abstracts from the Water Resources Research journal in 2015. This helped develop and tentatively verify the typology, and provides a snapshot of current practice. 4) Provocative recommendations promote adjustments for a more influential, dynamic science. Current practice in uncertainty framing might be described as carefully-considered incremental science. In addition to uncertainty quantification and degree of belief (present in ~5% of abstracts), uncertainty is addressed by a combination of limiting scope, deferring to further work (~25%) and indicating evidence is sufficient (~40%) – or uncertainty is completely ignored (~8%). There is a need for public debate within our discipline to decide in what context different uncertainty frames are appropriate. Uncertainty framing cannot remain a hidden practice evaluated only by lone reviewers. (shrink)

When solving a complex problem in a group, should group members always choose the best available solution that they are aware of? In this paper, I build simulation models to show that, perhaps surprisingly, a group of agents who individually randomly follow a better available solution than their own can end up outperforming a group of agents who individually always follow the best available solution. This result has implications for the feminist philosophy of science and social epistemology.

It is unclear that United States schools are doing sufficient work to identify and protect the interests of their LGB students this analysis, we rely on certain public-health research in social epidemiology to show that discrimination against LGB adolescents imposes morally significant harms to both adolescents and community. We apply "trust” and “social capital” to educational standards and practices as foundations for educational practices that work toward full equality of LGB students in regard to opportunity and other primary social goods.

This paper examines a variety of social scientific studies purporting to demonstrate that transracial adoption is in the best interests of children. Finding flaws in these studies and the ethical and political arguments based upon such scientific findings, we argue for adoption practices and policies that respect the racial and ethnic identities of children of color and their communities of origin.

The distinction between dimensions and units in physics is commonplace. But are dimensions a feature of reality? The most widely-held view is that they are no more than a tool for keeping track of the values of quantities under a change of units. This anti-realist position is supported by an argument from underdetermination: one can assign dimensions to quantities in many different ways, all of which are empirically equivalent. In contrast, I defend a form of dimensional realism, on which some (...) assignments of dimensions to quantities better describe reality than others. The argument I provide is a form of inference to the best explanation. In particular, the technique of dimensional analysis is explanatory, but it is only successful for certain systems of dimensions. Since these dimensional systems support scientific explanations, we have reason to believe that they are real. (shrink)

Memory is everywhere in Blade Runner 2049. From the dead tree that serves as a memorial and a site of remembrance (“Who keeps a dead tree?”), to the ‘flashbulb’ memories individuals hold about the moment of the ‘blackout’, when all the electronic stores of data were irretrievably erased (“everyone remembers where they were at the blackout”). Indeed, the data wiped out in the blackout itself involves a loss of memory (“all our memory bearings from the time, they were all damaged (...) in the blackout”). Memory, and lack of it, permeates place, where from the post-blackout Las Vegas Deckard remembers it as somewhere you could “forget your troubles.” Memory is a commodity, called upon and consumed by the Wallace Corporation, purchased from the memory-maker, Dr Ana Stelline, who constructs and implants “the best memories” in replicants so as to instil in them real human responses. Memory is ubiquitous in Blade Runner 2049, involving humans, replicants, objects, and machines. Even “God,” we are told, “remembered Rachael.” Nowhere, though, is the depiction of memory more important than in the attempt to solve a question of identity. Officer K has a memory of his past. Even though he knows it is an implant, it is a memory he is emotionally attached to, frequently narrating it to Joi, his digital girlfriend. But it is a memory that starts to puzzle and trouble him. When K discovers the remains of a dead replicant, a female NEXUS-7, he uncovers a secret—this replicant was pregnant and died during childbirth, a discovery that could “break the world.” K is charged with hunting down the child and making the problem disappear. Yet as K starts seeking answers to the question of the child’s identity he gets inextricably caught up in the mystery. Is he merely Officer K, or is he Joe, the miracle child of Rachael and Deckard? The answer to this question hinges on K’s memory. But is the memory genuine? Is the memory his? Blade Runner 2049 encourages us to think deeply about the nature of memory, identity, and the relation between them. Indeed, the film does not just serve as a starting point for thinking about philosophical issues related to memory and identity. Rather, as we show in this chapter, the film seems to offer a view on these philosophical issues. Blade Runner 2049 offers us a view of memory as spread out over people, objects, and the environment, and it shows us that memory’s role in questions of identity goes beyond merely accurately recalling one’s past. Identity depends not on memory per se, but partly on what we use memory for. (shrink)

IBE ('Inference to the best explanation' or abduction) is a popular and highly plausible theory of how we should judge the evidence for claims of past events based on present evidence. It has been notably developed and supported recently by Meyer following Lipton. I believe this theory is essentially correct. This paper supports IBE from a probability perspective, and argues that the retrodictive probabilities involved in such inferences should be analysed in terms of predictive probabilities and a priori probability (...) ratios of initial events. The key point is to separate these two features. Disagreements over evidence can be traced to disagreements over either the a priori probability ratios or predictive conditional ratios. In many cases, in real science, judgements of the former are necessarily subjective. The principles of iterated evidence are also discussed. The Sceptic's position is criticised as ignoring iteration of evidence, and characteristically failing to adjust a priori probability ratios in response to empirical evidence. (shrink)

This paper combines two ideas: (1) That the Lewisian best system analysis of lawhood (BSA) can cope with laws that have exceptions (cf. Braddon-Mitchell in Noûs 35(2):260–277, 2001; Schrenk in The metaphysics of ceteris paribus laws. Ontos, Frankfurt, 2007). (2) That a BSA can be executed not only on the mosaic of perfectly natural properties but also on any set of special science properties (cf., inter alia, Schrenk 2007, Selected papers contributed to the sections of GAP.6, 6th international congress (...) of the society for analytical philosophy. Mentis, Paderborn/Münster, 2008; Cohen and Callender in Philos Stud 145:1–34, 2009, Erkenntnis 73:427–447, 2010). Bringing together (1) and (2) results in an analysis of special science ceteris paribus laws. (shrink)

Humean reductionism about laws of nature appears to leave a central aspect of scientific practice unmotivated: If the world’s fundamental structure is exhausted by the actual distribution of non-modal properties and the laws of nature are merely efficient summaries of this distribution, then why does science posit laws that cover a wide range of non-actual circumstances? In this paper, we develop a new version of the Humean best systems account of laws based on the idea that laws need to (...) organize information in a way that maximizes their cognitive usefulness for creature like us. We argue that this account motivates scientific practice because the laws’ applicability to non-actual circumstances falls right out of their cognitive usefulness. (shrink)

In this paper I sketch a liberal studies course designed to explore our fundamental problem of thought and life: How can our human world exist and best flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe? The fundamental character of this problem provides one with the opportunity to explore a wide range of issues. What does physics tell us about the universe and ourselves? How do we account for everything physics leaves out? How can living brains be conscious? If (...) everything occurs in accordance with physical law, what becomes of free will? How does Darwin's theory of evolution contribute to the solution to the fundamental problem? What is the history of thought about this problem? What is of most value associated with human life? What kind of civilized world should we seek to help create? Why is the fundamental problem not a part of standard education in schools and universities? What are the most serious global problems confronting humanity? Can humanity learn to make progress towards as good a world as possible? These are some of the questions that can be tackled as an integral part of exploring the fundamental problem. But the course does not merely wander at random from one issue to another. Taking the fundamental problem as central provides the course with a coherent structure. The course would be conducted as a seminar, and it would respond to queries and suggestions from students. (shrink)

In der Korrespondenz mit Clarke ist Leibniz' Standardargument gegen die Annahme, daß Raum und Zeit absolut seien, daß Gott sich bei der Wahl des zu erschaffenden Universums gezwungen sähe, gegen das Prinzip des zureichenden Grundes zu verstoßen, wenn diese Annahme richtig wäre: Bloße Unterschiede in räumlicher und zeitlicher Hinsicht ergeben keinen Vorteilsunterschied, und da Gott nur aus Vorteilsgründen handelt, sind solche Unterschiede nicht möglich. Leibniz stellt dieses Argument als ausschließlich abhängig vom Prinzip des zureichenden Grundes dar, eine gängige Interpretation ist (...) aber, daß dies Prinzip determinierte Objekte göttlicher Wahl nur dann ergibt, wenn ein ergänzendes Prinzip von Kontingenz hinzutritt. Diese Auslegung muß falsch sein, wenn Leibniz hier authentisch bleibt, und insofern wäre doch das Prinzip des zureichenden Grundes eher als irgendein Prinzip des Besten Leibniz' Prinzip der Kontingenz. (shrink)

In recent years, an active research program has emerged that aims to develop a Humean best-system account (BSA) of laws of nature that improves on Lewis’s canonical articulation of the view. Its guiding idea is that the laws are cognitive tools tailored to the specific needs and limitations of creatures like us. While current versions of this “pragmatic Humean” research program fare much better than Lewis’s account along many dimensions, I will argue that they have trouble making sense of (...) certain key features of the practice of fundamental physics. Indeed, these features seem to go against the very idea that laws are useful for agents like us. In my view, Humeans can address these issues by paying more attention to the explanatory role of laws. Following this idea, I will propose an account on which what makes a systematization the best is a kind of explanatory power, understood along the lines of the unificationist theory of explanation. The resulting view, I will argue, can make sense of those features of laws that other pragmatic accounts of laws have trouble explaining. (shrink)

The underreporting of suspected adverse drug reactions hinders pharmacovigilance. Solutions to underreporting are oftentimes directed at clinicians and health care professionals. However, given the recent rise of public inclusion in medical science, solutions may soon begin more actively involving patients. I aim to offer an evaluative framework for future possible proposals that would engage patients with the aim of mitigating underreporting. The framework may also have value in evaluating current reporting practices. The offered framework is composed of three criteria that (...) are bioethical, social-epistemic, and pragmatic: (i) patients should not be exposed to undue harms, e.g., nocebo effects; (ii) data should be collected, analyzed, and communicated prioritizing pharmacovigilance’s aims, i.e., free from industry bias; and (iii) proposals should account for existing and foreseeable pragmatic constraints like clinician ‘buy in’ and existing reporting infrastructure. Proposals to engage patients in pharmacovigilance that fulfil or address these criteria are preferable to those that do not. (shrink)

Earl Conee and Richard Feldman have recently argued that the evidential support relation should be understood in terms of explanatory coherence: roughly, one's evidence supports a proposition if and only if that proposition is part of the best available explanation of the evidence. Their thesis has been criticized through alleged counterexamples, perhaps the most important of which are cases where a subject has a justified belief about the future. Kevin McCain has defended the thesis against Byerly's counterexample. I argue (...) that McCain's defense is inadequate before pointing toward a more promising solution for explanationism. The Byerly–McCain exchange is important because it casts light on the difficult issues of the standards for justification and the nature of epistemic support. Furthermore, McCain's defense of explanationism about epistemic support represents an important recent development of the burgeoning explanationist program in epistemology and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Hilary Greaves and David Wallace argue that conditionalization maximizes expected accuracy and so is a rational requirement, but their argument presupposes a particular picture of the bridge between rationality and accuracy: the Best-Plan-to-Follow picture. And theorists such as Miriam Schoenfield and Robert Steel argue that it's possible to motivate an alternative picture—the Best-Plan-to-Make picture—that does not vindicate conditionalization. I show that these theorists are mistaken: it turns out that, if an update procedure maximizes expected accuracy on the (...) class='Hi'>Best-Plan-to-Follow picture, it's guaranteed to maximize expected accuracy on the Best-Plan-to-Make picture as well, in which case moving from the former to the latter can't help us avoid the conclusion that conditionalization is a rational requirement. If there's a problem with Greaves and Wallace’s argument, it must lie elsewhere. (shrink)

In this article, I will provide a critical overview of the form of non-deductive reasoning commonly known as “Inference to the Best Explanation” (IBE). Roughly speaking, according to IBE, we ought to infer the hypothesis that provides the best explanation of our evidence. In section 2, I survey some contemporary formulations of IBE and highlight some of its putative applications. In section 3, I distinguish IBE from C.S. Peirce’s notion of abduction. After underlining some of the essential elements (...) of IBE, the rest of the entry is organized around an examination of various problems that IBE confronts, along with some extant attempts to address these problems. In section 4, I consider the question of when a fact requires an explanation, since presumably IBE applies only in cases where some explanation is called for. In section 5, I consider the difficult question of how we ought to understand IBE in light of the fact that among philosophers, there is significant disagreement about what constitutes an explanation. In section 6, I consider different strategies for justifying the truth-conduciveness of the explanatory virtues, e.g., simplicity, unification, scope, etc., criteria which play an indispensable role in any given application of IBE. In section 7, I survey some of the most recent literature on IBE, much of which consists of investigations of the status of IBE from the standpoint of the Bayesian philosophy of science. (shrink)

In science and everyday life, we often infer that something is true because it would explain some set of facts better than any other hypothesis we can think of. But what if we have reason to believe that there is a better way to explain these facts that we just haven't thought of? Wouldn't that undermine our warrant for believing the best available explanation? Many philosophers have assumed that we can solve such underconsideration problems by stipulating that a hypothesis (...) should not only be 'the best' explanation available; rather, it should also be 'good enough'. Unfortunately, however, the only current suggestion for what it might mean to say that an explanation is 'good enough' is, well, not good enough. This paper aims to provide a better account of what is required for an explanatory hypothesis to be considered 'good enough'. In brief, the account holds that a `good enough' hypothesis is one that has gone through a process that I call explanatory consolidation, in which accumulating evidence and failed attempts to formulate better alternatives gradually make it more plausible that the explanation we currently have is better than any other that could be formulated. (shrink)

I argue that the best available parent view, in its present formulation, struggles to accommodate for our very weighty duty not to perpetuate historical injustices. I offer an alternative view that reconciles this tension.

William L. Rowe’s argument against divine freedom has drawn considerable attention from theist philosophers. One reply to Rowe’s argument that has emerged in the recent literature appeals to modified accounts of libertarian freedom which have the result that God may be free even if he necessarily actualizes the best possible world. Though in many ways attractive, this approach appears to lead to the damning consequence of modal collapse i.e., that the actual world is the only possible world. But appearances (...) can be deceiving, and in this paper I argue that the threat of modal collapse dissolves when we consider Alvin Plantinga’s critique of the purportedly Leibnizian notion that God can actualize any possible world, and incorporate the implications of this critique into the divine freedom debate. Developing a suggestion by Edward R. Wierenga, I argue first that the modal collapse objection fails within a Molinist context, and then I extend the discussion beyond that context to show that the objection also fails on the assumption that Molinism is false. (shrink)

Dawes (2013) claims that we ought not to believe but to accept our best scientific theories. To accept them means to employ them as premises in our reasoning with the goal of attaining knowledge about unobservables. I reply that if we do not believe our best scientific theories, we cannot gain knowledge about unobservables, our opponents might dismiss the predictions derived from them, and we cannot use them to explain phenomena. We commit an unethical speech act when we (...) explain a phenomenon in terms of a theory we do not believe. (shrink)

In this paper we apply the popular Best System Account of laws to typical eternal worlds – both classical eternal worlds and eternal worlds of the kind posited by popular contemporary cosmological theories. We show that, according to the Best System Account, such worlds will have no laws that meaningfully constrain boundary conditions. It’s generally thought that lawful constraints on boundary conditions are required to avoid skeptical arguments. Thus the lack of such laws given the Best System (...) Account may seem like a severe problem for the view. We show, however, that at eternal worlds, lawful constraints on boundary conditions do little to help fend off skeptical worries. So with respect to handling these skeptical worries, the proponent of the Best System Account is no worse off than their competitors. (shrink)

My paper argues that the Nicomachean Ethics endorses kingship (basileia) as the best regime (aristê politeia). In order to justify such a claim, I look at Aristotle’s discussion and rankings of regimes throughout the Ethics, specifically, the discussions of regime division in EN VIII.10, the inculcation of virtue in II.1, ethical habituation in X.9, and the “one regime which is best everywhere according to nature” in V.7.

Defenders of Inference to the Best Explanation claim that explanatory factors should play an important role in empirical inference. They disagree, however, about how exactly to formulate this role. In particular, they disagree about whether to formulate IBE as an inference rule for full beliefs or for degrees of belief, as well as how a rule for degrees of belief should relate to Bayesianism. In this essay I advance a new argument against non-Bayesian versions of IBE. My argument focuses (...) on cases in which we are concerned with multiple levels of explanation of some phenomenon. I show that in many such cases, following IBE as an inference rule for full beliefs leads to deductively inconsistent beliefs, and following IBE as a non-Bayesian updating rule for degrees of belief leads to probabilistically incoherent degrees of belief. (shrink)

This paper presents a new problem for the inference rule commonly known as Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE). The problem is that uncertainty about parts of one’s evidence may undermine the inferrability of a hypothesis that would provide the best explanation of that evidence, especially in cases where there is an alternative hypothesis that would provide a better explanation of only the more certain pieces of evidence. A potential solution to the problem is sketched, in which IBE (...) is generalized to handle uncertain evidence by invoking a notion of evidential robustness. (shrink)

Aristotle’s discussions of natural slavery, ‘barbarian kingship’, and the natural characteristics of barbarians or non-Greeks are usually read as calling into question the intellectual, ethical, and political accomplishments of non-Greeks. Such accounts of non-Greek inferiority or inability to self-govern also appear to presuppose a climatic or environmental account that on the whole would imply severe limitations on the possibility of political flourishing for peoples living outside the Greek Mediterranean basin. In light of such accounts, it is somewhat astounding to find (...) Aristotle praising the social and political institutions of Carthage within his discussion of the best constitution in the second book of the Politics. In the 4th century BCE, Carthage (modern day Tunis) was a Phoenician commercial empire that culturally and linguistically was Semitic and clearly non-Greek. That Aristotle contrasts Carthage, a non-Greek polis, favorably with both Sparta and Crete undermines both the claim that Aristotle embraced a categorical opposition between Greeks and non-Greeks and the claim that he was dismissive of the achievements of non-Greeks. (shrink)

The first argument that Hume offers against believing in miracle stories in Part 2 of his essay on miracles relies on social context in a way that makes it difficult to follow. Hume says that there’s never been a miracle story that’s well enough attested with respect to certain criteria of testimonial strength. A little later in the essay, he cites recent miracle stories coming from that Saint Médard cemetery as meeting the criteria to an exceptionally high degree, but even (...) so, he claims that we can dismiss the stories out of hand. The hidden background assumption is that his Protestant readers wouldn’t have been tempted to believe in miracle stories coming from an oppressed Catholic sect. Other examples in Part 2 of the essay work in the same way. Hume praises to the skies the quality of the evidence for an earlier Jansenist miracle, for a miracle involving the restoration of a leg through holy water at a Catholic cathedral, and a miracle at a temple of Serapis knowing that his readers won’t be inclined to believe in any of them. The point is that these miracles are better attested than the miracle stories in the Bible, and if we shouldn’t believe in the better attested stories, then we shouldn’t believe in the worse. This can seem like an appeal to prejudice, but really Hume is doing something subtler. He knows that it’s easier to criticize the irrational beliefs of others, but sees that once we turn the same standards that we use on others on our own beliefs, epistemic progress is possible. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose a novel account of desire reports, i.e. sentences of the form 'S wants p'. Our theory is partly motivated by Phillips-Brown's (2021) observation that subjects can desire things even if those things aren't best by the subject's lights. That is, being best isn't necessary for being desired. We compare our proposal to existing theories, and show that it provides a neat account of the central phenomenon.

While recently hyped as a defense against AI plagiarism, oral exams have fallen out of favor in American philosophy departments. They are often perceived as part of an antiquated system where the day-to-day coursework is sharply distinguished from a 100% weighted final exam, with a more oppositional than collaborative student-professor relationship. Such examinations do not lend themselves to blind grading, and also reinforce the existing privilege of students who are confident, fast-spoken, and know what to study. This kind of oral (...) examination is clearly at odds with the contemporary transparent and collaborative process embodied in techniques like specifications grading, with its proven benefits for novice philosophy students in introductory-level courses. I want to defend a rather different role for oral exams. Novice philosophy students need rapid feedback in order to know whether they have correctly understood the expectations embodied in syllabi and rubrics. Six best practices are offered for achieving this goal while minimizing drawbacks. (shrink)