Results for 'Brian Ball'

721 found
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  1. Monsters and the theoretical role of context.Brian Rabern & Derek Ball - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 98 (2):392-416.
    Kaplan (1989) famously claimed that monsters--operators that shift the context--do not exist in English and "could not be added to it". Several recent theorists have pointed out a range of data that seem to refute Kaplan's claim, but others (most explicitly Stalnaker 2014) have offered a principled argument that monsters are impossible. This paper interprets and resolves the dispute. Contra appearances, this is no dry, technical matter: it cuts to the heart of a deep disagreement about the fundamental structure of (...)
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  2. Counter Closure and Knowledge despite Falsehood.Brian Ball & Michael Blome-Tillmann - 2014 - Philosophical Quarterly 64 (257):552-568.
    Certain puzzling cases have been discussed in the literature recently which appear to support the thought that knowledge can be obtained by way of deduction from a falsehood; moreover, these cases put pressure, prima facie, on the thesis of counter closure for knowledge. We argue that the cases do not involve knowledge from falsehood; despite appearances, the false beliefs in the cases in question are causally, and therefore epistemologically, incidental, and knowledge is achieved despite falsehood. We also show that the (...)
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  3. Indexical Reliabilism and the New Evil Demon.Brian Ball & Michael Blome-Tillmann - 2013 - Erkenntnis 78 (6):1317-1336.
    Stewart Cohen’s New Evil Demon argument raises familiar and widely discussed concerns for reliabilist accounts of epistemic justification. A now standard response to this argument, initiated by Alvin Goldman and Ernest Sosa, involves distinguishing different notions of justification. Juan Comesaña has recently and prominently claimed that his Indexical Reliabilism (IR) offers a novel solution in this tradition. We argue, however, that Comesaña’s proposal suffers serious difficulties from the perspective of the philosophy of language. More specifically, we show that the two (...)
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  4. The Science of Meaning: Essays on the Metatheory of Natural Language Semantics.Derek Ball & Brian Rabern (eds.) - 2018 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    By creating certain marks on paper, or by making certain sounds-breathing past a moving tongue-or by articulation of hands and bodies, language users can give expression to their mental lives. With language we command, assert, query, emote, insult, and inspire. Language has meaning. This fact can be quite mystifying, yet a science of linguistic meaning-semantics-has emerged at the intersection of a variety of disciplines: philosophy, linguistics, computer science, and psychology. Semantics is the study of meaning. But what exactly is "meaning"? (...)
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  5. Mental files and belief: A cognitive theory of how children represent belief and its intensionality.Josef Perner, Michael Huemer & Brian Leahy - 2015 - Cognition 145 (C):77-88.
    We provide a cognitive analysis of how children represent belief using mental files. We explain why children who pass the false belief test are not aware of the intensionality of belief. Fifty-one 3½- to 7-year old children were familiarized with a dual object, e.g., a ball that rattles and is described as a rattle. They observed how a puppet agent witnessed the ball being put into box 1. In the agent’s absence the ball was taken from box (...)
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  6. Philosophy and the Future of AI.R. L. Tripathi - 2024 - Open Access Journal of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence 2 (1):2.
    The article “Philosophy is crucial in the age of AI” by Anthony Grayling and Brian Ball explores the significant role philosophy has played in the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its continuing relevance in guiding the future of AI technologies. The authors trace the historical contributions of philosophers and logicians, such as Gottlob Frege, Kurt Godel, and Alan Turing, in shaping the foundational principles of AI. They argue that philosophical inquiry remains essential, especially in addressing complex issues (...)
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  7. Relativism, metasemantics, and the future.Derek Ball - 2020 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 63 (9-10):1036-1086.
    ABSTRACT Contemporary relativists often see their view as contributing to a semantic/post-semantic account of linguistic data about disagreement and retraction. I offer an independently motivated metasemantic account of the same data, that also handles a number of cases and empirical results that are problematic for the relativist. The key idea is that the content of assertions and beliefs is determined in part by facts about other times, including times after the assertion is made or the belief is formed. On this (...)
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  8. There are no phenomenal concepts.Derek Ball - 2009 - Mind 118 (472):935-962.
    It has long been widely agreed that some concepts can be possessed only by those who have undergone a certain type of phenomenal experience. Orthodoxy among contemporary philosophers of mind has it that these phenomenal concepts provide the key to understanding many disputes between physicalists and their opponents, and in particular offer an explanation of Mary’s predicament in the situation exploited by Frank Jackson's knowledge argument. I reject the orthodox view; I deny that there are phenomenal concepts. My arguments exploit (...)
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  9. (1 other version)Does MITE Make Right?: On Decision-Making under Normative Uncertainty.Brian Hedden - 2016 - Oxford Studies in Metaethics 11:102-128.
    We typically have to act under uncertainty. We can be uncertain about the relevant descriptive facts, but also about the relevant normative facts. However, the search for a theory of decision-making under normative uncertainty is doomed to failure. First, the most natural proposal for what to do given normative uncertainty faces two devastating problems. Second, the motivations for wanting a theory of what to do given descriptive uncertainty do not carry over to normative uncertainty. Descriptive facts may be inaccessible even (...)
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  10.  95
    Revisionary Analysis without Meaning Change (Or, Could Women Be Analytically Oppressed?).Derek Ball - 2019 - In Alexis Burgess, Herman Cappelen & David Plunkett (eds.), Conceptual Engineering and Conceptual Ethics. New York, USA: Oxford University Press. pp. 35-58.
    This paper defends a conception of analysis on which analysis can be revisionary of ordinary or expert belief, without thereby changing meaning or replacing one concept with another. On this view, analyses play a role in determining not only what we will go on to mean, but also what we meant all along. The argument appeals to our epistemic engagement with revisionary theorising, focusing on Haslanger's ameliorative accounts of race and gender.
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  11. Metasemantic ethics.Derek Ball - 2020 - Ratio 33 (4):206-219.
    The idea that experts (especially scientific experts) play a privileged role in determining the meanings of our words and the contents of our concepts has become commonplace since the work of Hilary Putnam, Tyler Burge, and others in the 1970s. But if experts have the power to determine what our words mean, they can do so responsibly or irresponsibly, from good motivations or bad, justly or unjustly, with good or bad effects. This paper distinguishes three families of metasemantic views based (...)
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  12. The Ant Trap: Rebuilding the Foundations of the Social Sciences.Brian Epstein - 2015 - New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
    We live in a world of crowds and corporations, artworks and artifacts, legislatures and languages, money and markets. These are all social objects — they are made, at least in part, by people and by communities. But what exactly are these things? How are they made, and what is the role of people in making them? In The Ant Trap, Brian Epstein rewrites our understanding of the nature of the social world and the foundations of the social sciences. Epstein (...)
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  13. The Bayesian and the Dogmatist.Brian Weatherson - 2007 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 107 (1pt2):169-185.
    It has been argued recently that dogmatism in epistemology is incompatible with Bayesianism. That is, it has been argued that dogmatism cannot be modelled using traditional techniques for Bayesian modelling. I argue that our response to this should not be to throw out dogmatism, but to develop better modelling techniques. I sketch a model for formal learning in which an agent can discover a posteriori fundamental epistemic connections. In this model, there is no formal objection to dogmatism.
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  14. (1 other version)Semantics as Measurement.Derek Ball - 2018 - In Derek Ball & Brian Rabern (eds.), The Science of Meaning: Essays on the Metatheory of Natural Language Semantics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 381-410.
    This chapter defends a view of semantics on which developing a semantic theory closely resembles developing a scale of measurement. The view helps explain how semantics has made so much progress despite deep disagreements about the target of semantic theorizing (e.g., between those who maintain that semantics is characterizing something psychological, and those who maintain that it is characterizing something social), how appeals to set-theoretic abstracta make sense despite Benacerraf-style worries and despite the fact that set-theoretic entities fit badly with (...)
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  15. Moral Neuroenhancement.Brian D. Earp, Thomas Douglas & Julian Savulescu - 2017 - In L. Syd M. Johnson & Karen S. Rommelfanger (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Neuroethics. Routledge.
    In this chapter, we introduce the notion of “moral neuroenhancement,” offering a novel definition as well as spelling out three conditions under which we expect that such neuroenhancement would be most likely to be permissible (or even desirable). Furthermore, we draw a distinction between first-order moral capacities, which we suggest are less promising targets for neurointervention, and second-order moral capacities, which we suggest are more promising. We conclude by discussing concerns that moral neuroenhancement might restrict freedom or otherwise “misfire,” and (...)
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  16.  92
    The “Relations of Affect” and “the Spiritual”.Brian Lightbody - 2021 - Philosophy Today 65 (1):163-181.
    In his book Foucault and Religion, Jeremy Carrette presents a compelling argument against Foucault’s genealogical method (what he terms “relations of force”). In brief, Carrette holds that while Foucault’s genealogical method effectively unmasked the origins of “rationality” and “madness,” it was less successful when explaining the materialization of “the spiritual.” Foucault’s analysis of spiritual practices is at best functional and, according to Carrette, fails to explain the psychophysical state of subjects engaged in religious customs. In the following paper, I argue (...)
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  17. Twin-earth externalism and concept possession.Derek Ball - 2007 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (3):457-472.
    It is widely believed that Twin-Earth-style thought experiments show that the contents of a person's thoughts fail to supervene on her intrinsic properties. Several recent philosophers have made the further claim that Twin-Earth-style thought experiments produce metaphysically necessary conditions for the possession of certain concepts. I argue that the latter view is false, and produce counterexamples to several proposed conditions. My thesis is of particular interest because it undermines some attempts to show that externalism is incompatible with privileged access.
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  18. On statistical criteria of algorithmic fairness.Brian Hedden - 2021 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 49 (2):209-231.
    Predictive algorithms are playing an increasingly prominent role in society, being used to predict recidivism, loan repayment, job performance, and so on. With this increasing influence has come an increasing concern with the ways in which they might be unfair or biased against individuals in virtue of their race, gender, or, more generally, their group membership. Many purported criteria of algorithmic fairness concern statistical relationships between the algorithm’s predictions and the actual outcomes, for instance requiring that the rate of false (...)
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  19. Sextus, Montaigne, Hume: Pyrrhonizers.Brian C. Ribeiro - 2021 - Boston: BRILL.
    Brian C. Ribeiro’s _Sextus, Montaigne, Hume: Pyrrhonizers_ invites us to view the Pyrrhonist tradition as involving all those who share a commitment to the activity of Pyrrhonizing and develops fresh, provocative readings of Sextus, Montaigne, and Hume as radical Pyrrhonizing skeptics.
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  20. Brian O’Connor. (2022). El legado filosófico de Theodor W. Adorno (Trad. Leandro Sánchez Marín).O'Connor Brian & Sánchez Marín Leandro - 2022 - Revista Filosofía (UIS) 21 (2):293-303.
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  21. Games, Beliefs and Credences.Brian Weatherson - 2014 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 92 (2):209-236.
    In previous work I’ve defended an interest-relative theory of belief. This paper continues the defence. It has four aims. -/- 1. To offer a new kind of reason for being unsatis ed with the simple Lockean reduction of belief to credence. 2. To defend the legitimacy of appealing to credences in a theory of belief. 3. To illustrate the importance of theoretical, as well as practical, interests in an interest-relative account of belief. 4. To revise my account to cover propositions (...)
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  22.  96
    Cellular Primary Consciousness Theory (CPCT): The Foundation Intelligence of Emergent Phenomena in Closed Systems; in Theory and Practice And Open and Closed Systems Theory (OCST): The Purpose of Meaninglessness.Brian Brown - manuscript
    This paper presents a unified theory of reality, which integrates two interdependent frameworks: Cellular Primary Consciousness Theory (CPCT) and Open and Closed Systems Theory (OCST). Although CPCT and OCST can each stand as individual theories, they are, in this work, combined to form a cohesive explanation of both the mechanics and purpose of the universe. CPCT posits that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of all life, extending to even the simplest cells, rather than being an emergent property exclusive to complex (...)
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  23. Dimensions of Value.Brian Hedden & Daniel Muñoz - 2024 - Noûs 58 (2):291-305.
    Value pluralists believe in multiple dimensions of value. What does betterness along a dimension have to do with being better overall? Any systematic answer begins with the Strong Pareto principle: one thing is overall better than another if it is better along one dimension and at least as good along all others. We defend Strong Pareto from recent counterexamples and use our discussion to develop a novel view of dimensions of value, one which puts Strong Pareto on firmer footing. We (...)
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  24. Racial Justice Requires Ending the War on Drugs.Brian D. Earp, Jonathan Lewis, Carl L. Hart & Walter Veit - 2021 - American Journal of Bioethics 21 (4):4-19.
    Historically, laws and policies to criminalize drug use or possession were rooted in explicit racism, and they continue to wreak havoc on certain racialized communities. We are a group of bioethicists, drug experts, legal scholars, criminal justice researchers, sociologists, psychologists, and other allied professionals who have come together in support of a policy proposal that is evidence-based and ethically recommended. We call for the immediate decriminalization of all so-called recreational drugs and, ultimately, for their timely and appropriate legal regulation. We (...)
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  25. Psychophysical Harmony: A New Argument for Theism.Brian Cutter & Dustin Crummett - forthcoming - Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion.
    This paper develops a new argument from consciousness to theism: the argument from psychophysical harmony. Roughly, psychophysical harmony consists in the fact that phenomenal states are correlated with physical states and with one another in strikingly fortunate ways. For example, phenomenal states are correlated with behavior and functioning that is justified or rationalized by those very phenomenal states, and phenomenal states are correlated with verbal reports and judgments that are made true by those very phenomenal states. We argue that psychophysical (...)
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  26. The Problem of Nomological Harmony.Brian Cutter & Bradford Saad - 2024 - Noûs.
    Our universe features a harmonious match between laws and states: applying its laws to its states generates other states. This is a striking fact. Matters might have been otherwise. The universe might have been stillborn in a state unengaged by its laws. The problem of nomological harmony is that of explaining the noted striking fact. After introducing and developing this problem, we canvass candidate solutions and identify some of their virtues and vices. Candidate solutions invoke the likes of a designer, (...)
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  27. Descriptions which have grown capital letters.Brian Rabern - 2015 - Mind and Language 30 (3):292-319.
    Almost entirely ignored in the linguistic theorising on names and descriptions is a hybrid form of expression which, like definite descriptions, begin with 'the' but which, like proper names, are capitalised and seem to lack descriptive content. These are expressions such as the following, 'the Holy Roman Empire', 'the Mississippi River', or 'the Space Needle'. Such capitalised descriptions are ubiquitous in natural language, but to which linguistic categories do they belong? Are they simply proper names? Or are they definite descriptions (...)
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  28. Time-Slice Rationality.Brian Hedden - 2015 - Mind 124 (494):449-491.
    I advocate Time-Slice Rationality, the thesis that the relationship between two time-slices of the same person is not importantly different, for purposes of rational evaluation, from the relationship between time-slices of distinct persons. The locus of rationality, so to speak, is the time-slice rather than the temporally extended agent. This claim is motivated by consideration of puzzle cases for personal identity over time and by a very moderate form of internalism about rationality. Time-Slice Rationality conflicts with two proposed principles of (...)
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  29. Experimental Philosophical Bioethics and Normative Inference.Brian D. Earp, Jonathan Lewis, Vilius Dranseika & Ivar R. Hannikainen - 2021 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 42 (3-4):91-111.
    This paper explores an emerging sub-field of both empirical bioethics and experimental philosophy, which has been called “experimental philosophical bioethics” (bioxphi). As an empirical discipline, bioxphi adopts the methods of experimental moral psychology and cognitive science; it does so to make sense of the eliciting factors and underlying cognitive processes that shape people’s moral judgments, particularly about real-world matters of bioethical concern. Yet, as a normative discipline situated within the broader field of bioethics, it also aims to contribute to substantive (...)
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  30. One Dogma of Millianism.Derek Ball & Bryan Pickel - 2014 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 88 (1):70-92.
    Millians about proper names typically claim that it is knowable apriori that Hesperus is Phosphorus. We argue that they should claim instead that it is knowable only aposteriori that Hesperus is Hesperus, since the Kripke-Putnam epistemic arguments against descriptivism are special cases of Quinean arguments that nothing is knowable apriori, and Millians have no resources to resist the more general Quinean arguments.
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  31. What are social groups? Their metaphysics and how to classify them.Brian Epstein - 2017 - Synthese 196 (12):4899-4932.
    This paper presents a systematic approach for analyzing and explaining the nature of social groups. I argue against prominent views that attempt to unify all social groups or to divide them into simple typologies. Instead I argue that social groups are enormously diverse, but show how we can investigate their natures nonetheless. I analyze social groups from a bottom-up perspective, constructing profiles of the metaphysical features of groups of specific kinds. We can characterize any given kind of social group with (...)
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  32. (Almost) all evidence is higher-order evidence.Brian Hedden & Kevin Dorst - 2022 - Analysis 82 (3):417-425.
    Higher-order evidence is evidence about what is rational to think in light of your evidence. Many have argued that it is special – falling into its own evidential category, or leading to deviations from standard rational norms. But it is not. Given standard assumptions, almost all evidence is higher-order evidence.
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  33. Seismology of Gimbel’s Isn’t That Clever: Finding Its Faults.Brian Robinson - 2021 - The Philosophy of Humor Yearbook 2 (1):213-222.
    Review and response to Gimbel’s Isn’t That Clever.
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  34.  65
    Beyond Civility & Incivility.Brian C. Barnett - 2024 - Current Events in Public Philosophy Series (Apa Blog).
    In this first installment of a three-part series, I focus on the critique of civility. In so doing, I do not defend incivility. In fact, part of my critique of civility extends equally to incivility. My position is that we must move our normative discourse beyond both the thesis of civility and the antithesis of incivility to a synthesis that reframes the discussion in terms of nonviolence.
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  35. Running risks morally.Brian Weatherson - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 167 (1):141-163.
    I defend normative externalism from the objection that it cannot account for the wrongfulness of moral recklessness. The defence is fairly simple—there is no wrong of moral recklessness. There is an intuitive argument by analogy that there should be a wrong of moral recklessness, and the bulk of the paper consists of a response to this analogy. A central part of my response is that if people were motivated to avoid moral recklessness, they would have to have an unpleasant sort (...)
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  36.  56
    Ahimsic Communication: An Alternative to Civility.Brian C. Barnett - 2024 - Current Events in Public Philosophy Series (Apa Blog).
    When it comes to contentious conversations, the call for civility is commonplace. Rarely do we hear a call for nonviolence in communication. This is unfortunate, since nonviolence is a better standard than civility (a standard I critiqued in part one of this three-part series). Part of the problem is that a framework for communicative nonviolence has not (to my knowledge) been fully developed. Mohandas (“Mahatma”) Gandhi, the “father of nonviolence,” is widely known for nonviolence, but primarily in the realm of (...)
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  37. Consequentialism and Collective Action.Brian Hedden - 2020 - Ethics 130 (4):530-554.
    Many consequentialists argue that you ought to do your part in collective action problems like climate change mitigation and ending factory farming because (i) all such problems are triggering cases, in which there is a threshold number of people such that the outcome will be worse if at least that many people act in a given way than if fewer do, and (ii) doing your part in a triggering case maximises expected value. I show that both (i) and (ii) are (...)
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  38. If I Could Just Stop Loving You: Anti-Love Biotechnology and the Ethics of a Chemical Breakup.Brian D. Earp, Olga A. Wudarczyk, Anders Sandberg & Julian Savulescu - 2013 - American Journal of Bioethics 13 (11):3-17.
    “Love hurts”—as the saying goes—and a certain amount of pain and difficulty in intimate relationships is unavoidable. Sometimes it may even be beneficial, since adversity can lead to personal growth, self-discovery, and a range of other components of a life well-lived. But other times, love can be downright dangerous. It may bind a spouse to her domestic abuser, draw an unscrupulous adult toward sexual involvement with a child, put someone under the insidious spell of a cult leader, and even inspire (...)
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  39. Multidimensional Concepts and Disparate Scale Types.Brian Hedden & Jacob M. Nebel - 2024 - Philosophical Review 133 (3):265-308.
    Multidimensional concepts are everywhere, and they are important. Examples include moral value, welfare, scientific confirmation, democracy, and biodiversity. How, if at all, can we aggregate the underlying dimensions of a multidimensional concept F to yield verdicts about which things are Fer than which overall? Social choice theory can be used to model and investigate this aggregation problem. Here, we focus on a particularly thorny problem made salient by this social choice-theoretic framework: the underlying dimensions of a given concept might be (...)
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  40.  44
    The Power of Ahimsic Communication.Brian C. Barnett - 2024 - Current Events in Public Philosophy Series (Apa Blog).
    In parts one and two of this three-part series, I developed a framework for ahimsic (nonviolent) communication (AC) as an alternative to the standard communicative norm of civility. The framework presented for AC offers various categories of resistance to violence, including nonviolent forms of negotiation, compromise, protest, verbal force, verbal distraction, argumentation, and communicative satyagraha (Gandhian nonviolence applied to communication). I also provided a range of real-life examples of successful AC resistance, including the stories of Derek Black, Daryl Davis, James (...)
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  41. Epistemicism, parasites, and vague names.Brian Weatherson - 2003 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (2):276 – 279.
    John Burgess has recently argued that Timothy Williamson’s attempts to avoid the objection that his theory of vagueness is based on an untenable metaphysics of content are unsuccessful. Burgess’s arguments are important, and largely correct, but there is a mistake in the discussion of one of the key examples. In this note I provide some alternative examples and use them to repair the mistaken section of the argument.
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  42. (1 other version)The Medicalization of Love.Brian D. Earp, Anders Sandberg & Julian Savulescu - 2015 - Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 24 (3):323-336.
    Pharmaceuticals or other emerging technologies could be used to enhance (or diminish) feelings of lust, attraction, and attachment in adult romantic partnerships. While such interventions could conceivably be used to promote individual (and couple) well-being, their widespread development and/or adoption might lead to “medicalization” of human love and heartache—for some, a source of serious concern. In this essay, we argue that the “medicalization of love” need not necessarily be problematic, on balance, but could plausibly be expected to have either good (...)
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  43. Anchoring versus Grounding: Reply to Schaffer.Brian Epstein - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 99 (3):768-781.
    In his insightful and challenging paper, Jonathan Schaffer argues against a distinction I make in The Ant Trap (Epstein 2015) and related articles. I argue that in addition to the widely discussed “grounding” relation, there is a different kind of metaphysical determination I name “anchoring.” Grounding and anchoring are distinct, and both need to be a part of full explanations of how facts are metaphysically determined. Schaffer argues instead that anchoring is a species of grounding. The crux of his argument (...)
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  44. What good are counterexamples?Brian Weatherson - 2003 - Philosophical Studies 115 (1):1-31.
    Intuitively, Gettier cases are instances of justified true beliefs that are not cases of knowledge. Should we therefore conclude that knowledge is not justified true belief? Only if we have reason to trust intuition here. But intuitions are unreliable in a wide range of cases. And it can be argued that the Gettier intuitions have a greater resemblance to unreliable intuitions than to reliable intuitions. Whats distinctive about the faulty intuitions, I argue, is that respecting them would mean abandoning a (...)
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  45. On the Semantics of Email Addresses.Brian Rabern - manuscript
    At the turn of the century, electronic mail emerged as a core mode of communication, fundamentally transforming the way individuals and organizations interact. In this digital age, one ubiquitous representational device is the email address. Given the importance of email addresses in our lives, it is natural to ask: what do email addresses represent? And how do they represent it? Given that email addresses have a semantic interpretation, and that they have a formal syntax, it is reasonable to assume that (...)
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  46. The asymmetric magnets problem.Brian Weatherson - 2006 - Philosophical Perspectives 20 (1):479–492.
    There are many controversial theses about intrinsicness and duplication. The first aim of this paper is to introduce a puzzle that shows that two of the uncontroversial sounding ones can’t both be true. The second aim is to suggest that the best way out of the puzzle requires sharpening some distinctions that are too frequently blurred, and adopting a fairly radical reconception of the ways things are.
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  47. Margins and Errors.Brian Weatherson - 2013 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 56 (1):63-76.
    Recently, Timothy Williamson has argued that considerations about margins of errors can generate a new class of cases where agents have justified true beliefs without knowledge. I think this is a great argument, and it has a number of interesting philosophical conclusions. In this note I’m going to go over the assumptions of Williamson’s argument. I’m going to argue that the assumptions which generate the justification without knowledge are true. I’m then going to go over some of the recent arguments (...)
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  48. Do Judgments Screen Evidence?Brian Weatherson - manuscript
    Suppose a rational agent S has some evidence E that bears on p, and on that basis makes a judgment about p. For simplicity, we’ll normally assume that she judges that p, though we’re also interested in cases where the agent makes other judgments, such as that p is probable, or that p is well-supported by the evidence. We’ll also assume, again for simplicity, that the agent knows that E is the basis for her judgment. Finally, we’ll assume that the (...)
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  49. The Ordinary Concept of True Love.Brian Earp, Daniel Do & Joshua Knobe - 2024 - In Christopher Grau & Aaron Smuts (eds.), "Introduction" for the Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Love. NYC: Oxford University Press.
    When we say that what two people feel for each other is 'true love,' we seem to be doing more than simply clarifying that it is in fact love they feel, as opposed to something else. That is, an experience or relationship might be a genuine or actual instance of love without necessarily being an instance of true love. But what criteria do people use to determine whether something counts as true love? This chapter explores three hypotheses. The first holds (...)
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  50. Can we do without pragmatic encroachment.Brian Weatherson - 2005 - Philosophical Perspectives 19 (1):417–443.
    I consider the problem of how to derive what an agent believes from their credence function and utility function. I argue the best solution of this problem is pragmatic, i.e. it is sensitive to the kinds of choices actually facing the agent. I further argue that this explains why our notion of justified belief appears to be pragmatic, as is argued e.g. by Fantl and McGrath. The notion of epistemic justification is not really a pragmatic notion, but it is being (...)
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