We argue that the logical outcome of the cladistics revolution in biological systematics, and the move towards rankless phylogenetic classification of nested monophyletic groups as formalized in the PhyloCode, is to eliminate the species rank along with all the others and simply name clades. We propose that the lowest level of formally named clade be the SNaRC, the Smallest Named and Registered Clade. The SNaRC is an epistemic level in the classification, not an ontic one. Naming stops at that level (...) because there is no currently acceptable evidence for clades within it, not because no smaller clades exist. Later, included clades may be named. They would then become the SNaRCs, while the original SNaRC would keep its original name. We argue that all theoretical tasks of biology, in evolution and ecology, as well as practical tasks such as conservation assessment, are better approached using this rankless phylogenetic approach. (shrink)

The Bayesian maxim for rational learning could be described as conservative change from one probabilistic belief or credence function to another in response to newinformation. Roughly: ‘Hold fixed any credences that are not directly affected by the learning experience.’ This is precisely articulated for the case when we learn that some proposition that we had previously entertained is indeed true (the rule of conditionalisation). But can this conservative-change maxim be extended to revising one’s credences in response to entertaining propositions or (...) concepts of which one was previously unaware? The economists Karni and Vierø (2013, 2015) make a proposal in this spirit. Philosophers have adopted effectively the same rule: revision in response to growing awareness should not affect the relative probabilities of propositions in one’s ‘old’ epistemic state. The rule is compelling, but only under the assumptions that its advocates introduce. It is not a general requirement of rationality, or so we argue. We provide informal counterexamples. And we show that, when awareness grows, the boundary between one’s ‘old’ and ‘new’ epistemic commitments is blurred. Accordingly, there is no general notion of conservative change in this setting. (shrink)

This Socratic dialogue pitched at introductory philosophy students examines the question of God's existence from atheist and agnostic perspectives.

Ethicists are typically willing to grant that thick terms (e.g. ‘courageous’ and ‘murder’) are somehow associated with evaluations. But they tend to disagree about what exactly this relationship is. Does a thick term’s evaluation come by way of its semantic content? Or is the evaluation pragmatically associated with the thick term (e.g. via conversational implicature)? In this paper, I argue that thick terms are semantically associated with evaluations. In particular, I argue that many thick concepts (if not all) conceptually entail (...) evaluative contents. The Semantic View has a number of outspoken critics, but I shall limit discussion to the most recent--Pekka Väyrynen--who believes that objectionable thick concepts present a problem for the Semantic View. After advancing my positive argument in favor of the Semantic View (section II), I argue that Väyrynen’s attack is unsuccessful (section III). One reason ethicists cite for not focusing on thick concepts is that such concepts are supposedly not semantically evaluative whereas traditional thin concepts (e.g. good and wrong) are. But if my view is correct, then this reason must be rejected. (shrink)

Recent work on interpretability in machine learning and AI has focused on the building of simplified models that approximate the true criteria used to make decisions. These models are a useful pedagogical device for teaching trained professionals how to predict what decisions will be made by the complex system, and most importantly how the system might break. However, when considering any such model it’s important to remember Box’s maxim that "All models are wrong but some are useful." We focus on (...) the distinction between these models and explanations in philosophy and sociology. These models can be understood as a "do it yourself kit" for explanations, allowing a practitioner to directly answer "what if questions" or generate contrastive explanations without external assistance. Although a valuable ability, giving these models as explanations appears more difficult than necessary, and other forms of explanation may not have the same trade-offs. We contrast the different schools of thought on what makes an explanation, and suggest that machine learning might benefit from viewing the problem more broadly. (shrink)

This paper proposes a new Separabilist account of thick concepts, called the Expansion View (or EV). According to EV, thick concepts are expanded contents of thin terms. An expanded content is, roughly, the semantic content of a predicate along with modifiers. Although EV is a form of Separabilism, it is distinct from the only kind of Separabilism discussed in the literature, and it has many features that Inseparabilists want from an account of thick concepts. EV can also give non-cognitivists a (...) novel escape from the Anti-Disentangling Argument. §I explains the approach of all previous Separabilists, and argues that there’s no reason for Separabilists to take this approach. §II explains EV. §III fends off objections. And §IV explains how non-cognitivist proponents of EV can escape the Anti-Disentangling Argument. (shrink)

Could a Nazi soldier or terrorist be courageous? The Courage Problem asks us to answer this sort of question, and then to explain why people are reluctant to give this answer. The present paper sheds new light on the Courage Problem by examining a controversy sparked by Bill Maher, who claimed that the 9/11 terrorists’ acts were ‘not cowardly.’ It is shown that Maher's controversy is fundamentally related to the Courage Problem. Then, a unified solution to both problems is provided. (...) This solution entails that gutsy people who lack good ends are not courageous. (shrink)

Skeptical puzzles and arguments often employ knowledge-closure principles . Epistemologists widely believe that an adequate reply to the skeptic should explain why her reasoning is appealing albeit misleading; but it’s unclear what would explain the appeal of the skeptic’s closure principle, if not for its truth. In this paper, I aim to challenge the widespread commitment to knowledge-closure. But I proceed by first examining a new puzzle about failing to know—what I call the New Ignorance Puzzle . This puzzle resembles (...) to the Old Ignorance Puzzle , although it does not involve a closure principle. It instead centers on the standard view of ignorance, a highly intuitive principle stating that ignorance is merely a failure to know. In Sects. 2 and 3, I argue that the best way to solve the New Ignorance Puzzle is to reject the standard view of ignorance and to explain away its appeal via conversational implicature. I then use this solution to the New Ignorance Puzzle as a way of explaining why knowledge-closure principles would seem true, and why abominable conjunctions would seem abominable, even if such principles were false . The upshot is a new way of explaining why the skeptic’s reasoning is appealing albeit misleading. (shrink)

While philosophers of mind have devoted abundant time and attention to questions of content and consciousness, philosophical questions about the nature and scope of mental action have been relatively neglected. Galen Strawson’s account of mental action, arguably the most well-known extant account, holds that cognitive mental action consists in triggering the delivery of content to one’s field of consciousness. However, Strawson fails to recognize several distinct types of mental action that might not reduce to triggering content delivery. In this paper, (...) we argue that meditation provides a useful model for understanding a wider range of types of mental action than heretofore recognized. Conclusions yielded by two distinct bodies of current psychological research on meditation and cognition, and meditation and introspection, buttress meditation’s suitability for this role. (shrink)

In “Belief in the Face of Controversy,” Hilary Kornblith argues for a radical form of epistemic modesty: given that there has been no demonstrable cumulativeprogress in the history of philosophy – as there has been in formal logic, math, and science – Kornblith concludes that philosophers do not have the epistemic credibility to be trusted as authorities on the questions they attempt to answer. After reconstructing Kornblith's position, I will suggest that it requires us to adopt a different conception of (...) philosophy's epistemic value. First, I will argue that ‘progress’ has a different meaning in logic, science and philosophy, and that to judge one of these disciplines by the standards appropriate to one of the others obscures the unique epistemic functions of all. Second, I will argue that philosophy is epistemically unique in that it is a non-relativistic but historically determined excavation of foundations. Finally, drawing on Frank Herbert's Dune, I will suggest that Kornblith leaves us with a choice between two epistemic ideals: the hyper-logical ‘Mentat,’ or the historically informed ‘pre-born.’. (shrink)

Personal Health Monitoring (PHM) uses electronic devices which monitor and record health-related data outside a hospital, usually within the home. This paper examines the ethical issues raised by PHM. Eight themes describing the ethical implications of PHM are identified through a review of 68 academic articles concerning PHM. The identified themes include privacy, autonomy, obtrusiveness and visibility, stigma and identity, medicalisation, social isolation, delivery of care, and safety and technological need. The issues around each of these are discussed. The system (...) / lifeworld perspective of Habermas is applied to develop an understanding of the role of PHMs as mediators of communication between the institutional and the domestic environment. Furthermore, links are established between the ethical issues to demonstrate that the ethics of PHM involves a complex network of ethical interactions. The paper extends the discussion of the critical effect PHMs have on the patient’s identity and concludes that a holistic understanding of the ethical issues surrounding PHMs will help both researchers and practitioners in developing effective PHM implementations. (shrink)

The internet of things is increasingly spreading into the domain of medical and social care. Internet-enabled devices for monitoring and managing the health and well-being of users outside of traditional medical institutions have rapidly become common tools to support healthcare. Health-related internet of things (H-IoT) technologies increasingly play a key role in health management, for purposes including disease prevention, real-time tele-monitoring of patient’s functions, testing of treatments, fitness and well-being monitoring, medication dispensation, and health research data collection. H-IoT promises many (...) benefits for health and healthcare. However, it also raises a host of ethical problems stemming from the inherent risks of Internet enabled devices, the sensitivity of health-related data, and their impact on the delivery of healthcare. This paper maps the main ethical problems that have been identified by the relevant literature and identifies key themes in the on-going debate on ethical problems concerning H-IoT. (shrink)

The expression of fragility has always been a difficult and complex matter for African Americans, for the discourse of mainstream media is set up to sustain their fragility while at the same time misrecognizing it. Even though the black public sphere split off from the dominant public sphere after the Civil War to enable distinctive forms of expression, the “practiced habits” of which Coates speaks continued in the structures of the dominant discourse. My essay will analyze the structure of America’s (...) indifference to fragility in three parts. In the first section, I will introduce a normative problematic that can track how the hegemonic public sphere uses the rhetoric of formal equality to subordinate and silence African Americans speech while it also opens a space for black speech to be heard rather than dismissed. I then will trace the silencing structures back to the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision of 1954, for this “progressive” decision provided a template for what can be said and cannot be said. The next second section examines how Ralph Ellison thematizes and revises the encounter between the black and dominant public spheres. In the last section of the essay, I analyze the ways that Ta-Nehisi Coates exposes the contemporary forms of these discursive structures. (shrink)

You can demonstrate a subjective quality like redness is different from red light. If you add a device that converts a red signal into a green one, between the retina and the optic nerve, the strawberry will seem green. It’s not about light hitting the retina, it’s about how the signal is processed. In this case, the greenness must be a quality of our conscious knowledge of the strawberry, not of the red light landing on the retina. If you use (...) sufficient, well defined terminology, you can objectively communicate the nature of subjective qualities. For example, even though you know what it is like to see something that is red you cannot know that what happens inside my brain is the same as yours. It may be that “My redness is like your greenness, both of which we call red.” The properties of the red light are the same, but the experience the light produces could be different. What we lack is a universal dictionary to define what “redness” is, and how it differs from “red”. This is because physicists can’t yet answer: “Which of all our descriptions of stuff in the brain, including possible descriptions of yet unknown processes, is a description of redness?” Consciousness isn’t a ‘hard problem’ it is a color problem. Because if you understand color, that model of computation can extend to the rest of consciousness. (shrink)

Debates in feminist political philosophy often focus on what problematic(s) to use in order to understand normative ideals, gendered differences, and their histories. For the purposes of this chapter, I will contrast two important problematics in these debates, the procedural/deliberative politics in the tradition of Critical Theory, represented here by Seyla Benhabib, and the poststructuralist or postmodern politics, represented here by Judith Butler. The goal of the contrast will be to set up the contribution that Gadamer’s work can make to (...) contemporary feminist philosophy. (shrink)

Analytic epistemologists agree that, whatever else is true of epistemic justification, it is distinct from knowledge. However, if recent work by Jonathan Sutton is correct, this view is deeply mistaken, for according to Sutton justification is knowledge. That is, a subject is justified in believing that p iff he knows that p. Sutton further claims that there is no concept of epistemic justification distinct from knowledge. Since knowledge is factive, a consequence of Sutton’s view is that there are no false (...) justified beliefs. <br> Following Sutton, I will begin by outlining kinds of beliefs that do not constitute knowledge but that seem to be justified. I will then be in a position to critically evaluate Sutton’s arguments for his position that justification is knowledge, concluding that he fails to establish his bold thesis. In the course of so doing, I will defend the following rule of assertion: (The JBK-rule) One must: assert p only if one has justification to believe that one knows that p.<br>. (shrink)

We present experimental evidence that people's modes of social interaction influence their construal of truth. Participants who engaged in cooperative interactions were less inclined to agree that there was an objective truth about that topic than were those who engaged in a competitive interaction. Follow-up experiments ruled out alternative explanations and indicated that the changes in objectivity are explained by argumentative mindsets: When people are in cooperative arguments, they see the truth as more subjective. These findings can help inform research (...) on moral objectivism and, more broadly, on the distinctive cognitive consequences of different types of social interaction. (shrink)

John Schellenberg has advanced the hiddenness argument against God’s existence, based on the idea that an all-loving God would seek personal relationships. This paper develops a reply to Schellenberg’s argument by examining the notion of moral impurity, as understood by Paul the Apostle. Paul conceptualized moral impurity as a causal state that transfers from person to person, like a contagious disease. He also believed that moral impurity precludes divine-human relationship. The goal of this paper is to develop these ideas into (...) a problem for one Schellenberg’s key premises. (shrink)

This entry addresses the question of whether justice is thick, thin, or neither. It discusses three main ways of understanding the difference between thick and thin – Williams’ 1985 distinction, the Continuum Approach, and Hare’s distinction. The question of how to classify justice turns out to be a problem for Williams’ 1985 distinction. If the Continuum Approach is correct, it’s far from clear why it would matter whether a given concept is classified as thick, thin, or neither. Hare’s distinction, on (...) the other hand, allows for a strong case to be made for the claim that “justice” is thick. And if “justice” is thick, in Hare’s sense, then there are at least two potential implications. The first is that justice might be a genuine value property, assuming it’s impossible for “just” to have a value-neutral counterpart. The second is that there might be intractable intercultural disagreements about what things are just. (shrink)

The doctrine of penal substitution claims that it was good (or required) for God to punish in response to human sin, and that Christ received this punishment in our stead. I argue that this doctrine’s central factual claim—that Christ was punished by God—is mistaken. In order to punish someone, one must at least believe the recipient is responsible for an offense. But God surely did not believe the innocent Christ was responsible for an offense, let alone the offense of human (...) sin. So, the central factual claim is mistaken. In the final section, I show that this critique of penal substitution does not apply to the closely-related Anselmian satisfaction theory. (shrink)

In this paper, I present an alternative account of action that improves upon what has come to be known as the standard story. The standard story depicts actions as events that are caused by and made intelligible through the appropriate combinations of the agent’s beliefs, desires, decisions, intentions and other motivational factors. I argue that the standard story is problematic because it depicts the relation between the agent and their bodily actions as causally mediated by their motivational factors. On the (...) alternative account that I present, whenever an agent performs a bodily action, they do so by exerting a distinctive kind of effort so as to initiate, sustain, and control their own bodily capacities, an essential feature of bodily action that is absent from the standard story. (shrink)

Richard Holton has presented an important criticism of two prominent accounts of action, a criticism that employs a notion of strength of will. Holton claims that these well-known accounts of action cannot explain cases in which an agent adheres to the dictates of a previous resolution in spite of a persistent desire to the contrary. In this chapter, I present an explanation and defense of Holton’s criticism of these accounts of action, and then I argue that while Holton highlights a (...) crucial deficiency in both, his own explanation of strength of will is problematic. (shrink)

In this paper I compare two different approaches to the supposed distinction between the mental and the physical: 1. Brentano's theory of `Intentionality', which, in its early formulation, proposes a true distinction between physical objects and the objects of thought; and 2. Dennett's `Intentional Systems Theory', which is an attempt to naturalise the mind and to reduce mental phenomena such as beliefs and desires to simple physical systems.

This article explores the Simulated Universe argument with particular reference to Nick Bostrom’s formulation. After providing an exposition of the argument, I address two problems and conclude that we reject the possibility that we exist in a simulation.

Over recent years there has been a growing movement pushing for the inclusion of Philosophy in schools.[1] As a subject, Philosophy is broad. It can be separated into many sub-disciplines such as Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Mind, Ethics, and Philosophy of Science, to name a few. These sub-disciplines reduce back to three broad pillars of Philosophy: Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Axiology. Regardless of where one’s philosophical interest sits, the essential skill set remains the same. This is the ability to reason. (...) Philosophers produce rationally convincing arguments and critically assess the arguments of others. In this fictional dialogue Socrates meets with Allison Fells, the Principal of Western Heights School, to discuss the inclusion of Philosophy in the school curriculum. Socrates has been running a successful Philosophy club at school and believes that students would benefit through the extension of the club into the regular school curriculum. Socrates argues that Philosophy equips students with the skill set needed to live the good life. (shrink)

For Wittgenstein, all aspects of the human mind are inescapably dependent upon the use of language. A cartesian view would maintain that thoughts and representation are possible without language, but Wittgenstein does not agree. In this paper I will describe Wittgenstein's theories of consciousness and representation. One of the central goals for Wittgenstein was to account for meaning. Wittgenstein offers two accounts of human consciousness. I will describe the early view, which was contained in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I will then (...) explain his later thoughts. Although Wittgenstein changed his mind and refuted his early work, there is a central claim in all of Wittgenstein's work. (shrink)

Higher-order thought theories (or HOT theories) state that a mental state is conscious only when it is accompanied by a higher-order thought (HOT). -/- The thought that makes a state conscious is not conscious in itself, but having that thought is what make the state of which it is about conscious. If there is no HOT about a mental state, then that state is not a conscious state. On this view, a state can only be a conscious state if we (...) are aware of that state, or, have a HOT about that state. -/- Fred Dretske, on the otherhand, believes that mental states can be conscious without the subject being aware of those states. For Dretske, what makes a mental state conscious is not the subject's awareness of the state, rather, it is the way in which the state makes the subject conscious of something in the world. When we look at an object, we are not conscious of our experience of looking at the object, we are conscious of the object itself. -/- In this paper, I will suggest that HOT theories lead to a cluttered picture of the mind. I will then offer Dretske's account of consciousness as an alternative to the HOT theories. My goal will be to show that Dretske's model of consciousness should be the preferred option. (shrink)

Fan culture has grown immensely over the past few years. People are constantly looking up to celebrities and personalities as role models for their fashion, identity, and success. During the stage of adolescence, it is normal for teenagers to admire well- known people and form fan attachments as part of their identity formation. However, this admiration of a specific media figure can be associated with one's personality, cognitive processes, and psychological well-being. Thus, the current study aims to investigate the correlation (...) between celebrity admiration and the self-esteem of 238 Filipino male teenagers. The research instruments, namely Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS) and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) were both utilized through google forms. Results have shown high scores on celebrity admiration and the normal range of self-esteem of the participants. Using Pearson’s r correlation coefficient, it was found that celebrity admiration and self-esteem of Filipino male teenagers have a significant relationship that exists in a negative direction. (shrink)

This article argues that common intuitions regarding (a) the specialness of ‘use-novel’ data for confirmation and (b) that this specialness implies the ‘no-double-counting rule’, which says that data used in ‘constructing’ (calibrating) a model cannot also play a role in confirming the model’s predictions, are too crude. The intuitions in question are pertinent in all the sciences, but we appeal to a climate science case study to illustrate what is at stake. Our strategy is to analyse the intuitive claims in (...) light of prominent accounts of confirmation of model predictions. We show that on the Bayesian account of confirmation, and also on the standard classical hypothesis-testing account, claims (a) and (b) are not generally true; but for some select cases, it is possible to distinguish data used for calibration from use-novel data, where only the latter confirm. The more specialized classical model-selection methods, on the other hand, uphold a nuanced version of claim (a), but this comes apart from (b), which must be rejected in favour of a more refined account of the relationship between calibration and confirmation. Thus, depending on the framework of confirmation, either the scope or the simplicity of the intuitive position must be revised. (shrink)

This appears in a supplementary issue of the Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, entitled "Ancient Approaches to Plato's Timaeus.".

When speaking of the philosophical importance of James’s late style, critics and philosophers have taken two broad approaches. One route, exemplified by Martha Nussbaum, attributes this style to the sensitivity of the characters. The other, exemplified by Robert Pippin, attributes the writing’s complexity to the ambiguities of the moral codes during this period of history. In my reading, James’s texts address a more general problem of modernity, which is the flattening of the lifeworld (Lebenswelt) by disengaged approaches to both epistemology (...) and morality, the reduction of the lifeworld to the environment (Umwelt). James’s works open an ontological dimension to the question of language and normativity, a question that modernity’s moral languages—whether based on deontology, utility, or virtue—fail to articulate. His texts interrogate what normativity is rather than just portraying the sensitivity of the characters or uncertainty of the historical moment, although both of those readings are certainly justified. (shrink)

Abstract: There has been an ongoing dispute between defenders of world disclosure (understood here in a loosely Heideggerian sense) and advocates of normative debate. I will take up a recent confrontation between Charles Taylor and Robert Brandom over this question as my point of departure for showing how world disclosure can expand the range of normative argument. I begin by distinguishing pre-reflective disclosure—the already interpreted, structured world in which we find ourselves—from reflective disclosure—the discrete intervention of a particular utterance or (...) text. I discuss Taylor’s notion of social imaginaries as a way of thematizing our pre-reflective background and Talal Asad’s critique of Taylor to show how this background can be one space of argument. I then develop my own understanding of reflective disclosure, of which Taylor gives an indequate account, developing my argument with help of literature, including a close analysis of Susan Glaspell short story “A Jury of Her Peers.” This story illustrates how world disclosure can make normative arguments without confining itself to Brandom’s or Habermas’s idea of the exchange of reasons. (shrink)

Debates in feminist political philosophy often focus on what problematic(s) to use in order to understand normative ideals, gendered differences, and their histories. For the purposes of this chapter, I will contrast two important problematics in these debates, the procedural/deliberative politics in the tradition of Critical Theory, represented here by Seyla Benhabib, and the poststructuralist or postmodern politics, represented here by Judith Butler. The goal of the contrast will be to set up the contribution that Gadamer’s work can make to (...) contemporary feminist philosophy. (shrink)

Olympe de Gouges is known primarily for La Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne (1791), which is her response to the Declaration of the Rights of Man, adopted in 1789 by the National Assembly. Carol Sherman's book, Reading Olympe de Gouges, turns our attention away from normative principles of La Déclaration and directs it toward the ways that de Gouges's other texts challenge the normativity of the dominant social imaginaries of the time. Sherman’s book is required (...) reading for anyone wanting to participate in the debates about whether de Gouges deserves a place the Panthéon, but also in broader discussions about the history of feminism and the French Revolution. (shrink)

Purpose. To determine the potential of deforming broaching for the improvement of efficiency of cutter chisels in the mining industry. Methodology. The study of the application of the technological process of deforming broaching was carried out based on the experimental research into conditions of assembly of press couplings corresponding to cutting rock-destroying tools, the working surface of which is reinforced with solid-alloy inserts. Findings. Based on the conducted research, a new process of assembling the crowns of cutter chisels with the (...) use of deforming broaching was developed. Originality. It was determined that the range of angles of inclination of generatrix of the working cone of the deforming element and the roll-treading lip of the insert, which are necessary for efficient machining and pressing in crowns of cutters, is 4–16°. It was proven that the “solid alloy-steel” press couplings for cutter chisels will have the maximum bearing capacity at total tension a/d0 ≤ 3 %. It was found that it is necessary to foresee the following distribution of tensions: to perform 2 % of deformation by preliminary deforming broaching, and 1 % ‒ by pressing in an insert Practical value. The use of deforming broaching makes it possible to increase the strength of fastening the inserts of cutter chisels by 2 times, to reduce specific consumption of the tool by 4.4 times, and to increase the average drilling rate by 4 times. (shrink)

We address Steel’s Programme to identify a ‘preferred’ universe of set theory and the best axioms extending ZFC by using his multiverse axioms MV and the ‘core hypothesis’. In the first part, we examine the evidential framework for MV, in particular the use of large cardinals and of ‘worlds’ obtained through forcing to ‘represent’ alternative extensions of ZFC. In the second part, we address the existence and the possible features of the core of MV_T (where T is ZFC+Large Cardinals). (...) In the last part, we discuss the hypothesis that the core is Ultimate-L, and examine whether and how, based on this fact, the Core Universist can justify V=Ultimate-L as the best (and ultimate) extension of ZFC. To this end, we take into account several strategies, and assess their prospects in the light of MV’s evidential framework. (shrink)

In information societies, operations, decisions and choices previously left to humans are increasingly delegated to algorithms, which may advise, if not decide, about how data should be interpreted and what actions should be taken as a result. More and more often, algorithms mediate social processes, business transactions, governmental decisions, and how we perceive, understand, and interact among ourselves and with the environment. Gaps between the design and operation of algorithms and our understanding of their ethical implications can have severe consequences (...) affecting individuals as well as groups and whole societies. This paper makes three contributions to clarify the ethical importance of algorithmic mediation. It provides a prescriptive map to organise the debate. It reviews the current discussion of ethical aspects of algorithms. And it assesses the available literature in order to identify areas requiring further work to develop the ethics of algorithms. (shrink)

Le problème de l’induction (humien) a récemment été abordé par Steel dans son article de 2010. Celui-ci soutient que les théories d’apprentissage formelles permettent de justifier logiquement le principe de l’induction, ce dernier assurant la fiabilité logique des méthodes. Cette proposition a été critiquée par Howson en 2011, ce dernier mettant en doute la possibilité même qu’une méthode puisse être logiquement fiable. Bien que Steel ait offert une réponse à cette critique, il n’y répond pas directement. Dans le (...) présent article, une réponse frontale à celle-ci est offerte en s’inspirant des pratiques de tests d’hypothèses en sciences biologiques. Pour ce faire, une règle de construction des ensembles d’hypothèses est proposée, règle offrant une justification logique au fait qu’une méthode convergera nécessairement vers la vérité. Cet amendement étant cohérent avec l’ensemble de la proposition de Steel, il est ainsi possible d’affirmer que sa thèse est renforcée par cette proposition. (shrink)

Language of thought theories fall primarily into two views. The first view sees the language of thought as an innate language known as mentalese, which is hypothesized to operate at a level below conscious awareness while at the same time operating at a higher level than the neural events in the brain. The second view supposes that the language of thought is not innate. Rather, the language of thought is natural language. So, as an English speaker, my language of thought (...) would be English. -/- My goal is to defend the second view. My methodology will see the project broken down into three major areas. First I will show that human thinking requires a language of thought, after which I will highlight some problems with assuming that this language is innate and hidden. Included in this section will be a small introduction to the compatibility problem. The compatibility problem offers some obvious difficulties for mentalese theories and these will be discussed. The next stage of the project will focus on evidence that can be put forward in support of the claim that natural language is the language of thought. Our most direct source of evidence comes from introspection, and this will play a dominant role in the discussion. The final part of the thesis will involve an examination of the principle arguments that have been put forward against the idea that natural language is the language of thought. My goal will be to show that these arguments do not entail the existence of mentalese, nor do they show that natural language is not the language of thought. I will provide answers to the arguments, and will explain the phenomena they point to in terms of natural language being the language of thought. (shrink)

This special issue on what some regard as a crisis of replicability in cognitive science (i.e. the observation that a worryingly large proportion of experimental results across a number of areas cannot be reliably replicated) is informed by three recent developments. -/- First, philosophers of mind and cognitive science rely increasingly on empirical research, mainly in the psychological sciences, to back up their claims. This trend has been noticeable since the 1960s (see Knobe, 2015). This development has allowed philosophers to (...) draw on a wider range of relevant resources, but it also makes them vulnerable to relying on claims that may not survive further scrutiny. If we have reasons to believe that a large proportion of findings in the psychological sciences cannot be reliably replicated, this would be a problem for philosophers who use such findings in their work. Second, philosophers are increasingly designing and carrying out their own experiments to back up claims, or to test claims earlier made from the armchair, for example, on the perceived permissibility of diverting trolleys or on the nature of free will. This growing field of experimental philosophy has diversified the intellectual field in philosophy, but may also be vulnerable to issues of replicability that philosophers did not face before. -/- Third, the recent evidence of apparently widespread non-replicability in the social sciences (and other fields) has forced philosophers of science to grapple with long standing questions from their field from a new perspective. To what extent does replicability matter for theory construction? How do the notions of replicability and scientific progress interact? How can normative insights from philosophy of science be used in order to improve scientific practice? -/- It is with these three developments in mind—the increasing importance of empirically-informed philosophy, of experimental philosophy, and of philosophy of science around replicability—that this special issue has been conceived. (shrink)

My primary aim is to defend a nonreductive solution to the problem of action. I argue that when you are performing an overt bodily action, you are playing an irreducible causal role in bringing about, sustaining, and controlling the movements of your body, a causal role best understood as an instance of agent causation. Thus, the solution that I defend employs a notion of agent causation, though emphatically not in defence of an account of free will, as most theories of (...) agent causation are. Rather, I argue that the notion of agent causation introduced here best explains how it is that you are making your body move during an action, thereby providing a satisfactory solution to the problem of action. (shrink)

I argue that the Standard View of ignorance is at odds with the claim that knowledge entails truth. In particular, if knowledge entails truth then we cannot explain away some apparent absurdities that arise from the Standard View of ignorance. I then discuss a modified version of the Standard View, which simply adds a truth requirement to the original Standard View. I show that the two main arguments for the original Standard View fail to support this modified view.

Despite recent controversies surrounding the principle that knowledge entails truth (KT), this paper aims to prove that the principle is true. It offers a proof of (KT) in the following sense. It advances a deductively valid argument for (KT), whose premises are, by most lights, obviously true. Moreover, each premise is buttressed by at least two supporting arguments. And finally, all premises and supporting arguments can be rationally accepted by people who don’t already accept (KT).

The Gettier problem has stymied epistemologists. But, whether or not this problem is resolvable, we still must face an important question: Why does the Gettier problem arise in the first place? So far, philosophers have seen it as either a problem peculiar to the concept of knowledge, or else an instance of a general problem about conceptual analysis. But I would like to steer a middle course. I argue that the Gettier problem arises because knowledge is a thick concept, and (...) a Gettier-like problem is just what we should expect from attempts at analyzing a thick concept. Section 2 is devoted to establishing the controversial claim that knowledge is thick, and, in Sect. 3, I show that there is a general problem for analyzing thick concepts of which the Gettier problem is a special instance. I do not take a stand on whether the Gettier problem, or its general counterpart, is resolvable. My primary aim is to bring these problems into better focus. (shrink)

A term expresses a thick concept if it expresses a specific evaluative concept that is also substantially descriptive. It is a matter of debate how this rough account should be unpacked, but examples can help to convey the basic idea. Thick concepts are often illustrated with virtue concepts like courageous and generous, action concepts like murder and betray, epistemic concepts like dogmatic and wise, and aesthetic concepts like gaudy and brilliant. These concepts seem to be evaluative, unlike purely descriptive concepts (...) such as red and water. But they also seem different from general evaluative concepts. In particular, thick concepts are typically contrasted with thin concepts like good, wrong, permissible, and ought, which are general evaluative concepts that do not seem substantially descriptive. When Jane says that Max is good, she appears to be evaluating him without providing much description, if any. Thick concepts, on the other hand, are evaluative and substantially descriptive at the same time. For instance, when Max says that Jane is courageous, he seems to be doing two things: evaluating her positively and describing her as willing to face risk. Because of their descriptiveness, thick concepts are especially good candidates for evaluative concepts that pick out properties in the world. Thus they provide an avenue for thinking about ethical claims as being about the world in the same way as descriptive claims. -/- Thick concepts became a focal point in ethics during the second half of the twentieth century. At that time, discussions of thick concepts began to emerge in response to certain disagreements about thin concepts. For example, in twentieth-century ethics, consequentialists and deontologists hotly debated various accounts of good and right. It was also claimed by non-cognitivists and error-theorists that these thin concepts do not correspond to any properties in the world. Dissatisfaction with these viewpoints prompted many ethicists to consider the implications of thick concepts. The notion of a thick concept was thought to provide insight into meta-ethical questions such as whether there is a fact-value distinction, whether there are ethical truths, and, if there are such truths, whether these truths are objective. Some ethicists also theorized about the role that thick concepts can play in normative ethics, such as in virtue theory. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the interest in thick concepts had spread to other philosophical disciplines such as epistemology, aesthetics, metaphysics, moral psychology, and the philosophy of law. -/- Nevertheless, the emerging interest in thick concepts has sparked debates over many questions: How exactly are thick concepts evaluative? How do they combine evaluation and description? How are thick concepts related to thin concepts? And do thick concepts have the sort of significance commonly attributed to them? This article surveys various attempts at answering these questions. (shrink)

In this modern Socratic dialogue, Socrates discusses the nature of punishment with a friend who believes that criminals are dealt with too softly. Socrates argues that retributive punishment is unjust.

In this paper, I aim to make two general points. First, I claim that the discussions in Repetti (2017) assume different, sometimes conflicting, notions of free will, so the guiding question of the book is not as clear as it could be. Second, according to Buddhist tradition, the path to enlightenment requires rejecting the delusional belief in the existence of a persisting self. I claim that if there is no persisting self, there are no intentional actions; and, if there are (...) no intentional actions, there is no hope for Buddhist enlightenment. Thus, rejecting the allegedly delusional belief in a persisting self has disastrous consequences, both for the existence of intentional action and for Buddhist soteriology. (shrink)