This topical collection of Synthese is in honor of Catherine Z. Elgin. The idea for it arose in the context of an international book symposium dedicated to Elgin's latest book, organized by Katherine Dormandy, Christoph Jäger, and myself, which took place at the University of Innsbruck in March 2018. The topical collection comprises fourteen papers addressing a broad array of issues related to True Enough and to Elgin’s work more generally, plus a contribution by Elgin (...) with detailed comments and replies. True Enough is an extraordinarily rich, wide-ranging book; it reflects both the breadth and sharpness of Elgin’s philosophical gaze and exemplifies the impressive variety of her philosophical interests. In this introduction, I give an overview of the topical collection’s content, zooming in on the aspects of Elgin’s work which captured the contributors’ attention. My discussion will not remotely do justice to the complexity of Elgin’s system, but I hope that it will help the reader navigate the topical collection and appreciate how the fourteen papers relate to Elgin’s overall project. (shrink)

The method of reflective equilibrium (MRE) is a method of justification popularized by John Rawls and further developed by Norman Daniels, Michael DePaul, Folke Tersman, and Catherine Z. Elgin, among others. The basic idea is that epistemic agents have justified beliefs if they have succeeded in forming their beliefs into a harmonious system of beliefs which they reflectively judge to be the most plausible. Despite the common reference to MRE as a method, its mechanisms or rules are typically (...) expressed in a metaphorical or simplified manner and are therefore criticized as too vague. Recent efforts to counter this criticism have been directed towards the attempt to provide formal explications of MRE. This paper aims to supplement these efforts by providing an informal working definition of MRE. This approach challenges the view that MRE can adequately be characterized only in the negative as a set of anti-essentialisms. I argue that epistemic agents follow MRE iff they follow four interconnected rules, which are concerned with a minimalistic form of foundationalism, a minimalistic form of fallibilism, a moderate form of holism, and a minimalistic form of rationality. In the critical spirit of MRE, the corresponding working definition is, of course, provisional and revisable. In general, the aim is to contribute to a reflective equilibrium (RE) concerning MRE. If it is successful, this working definition provides a better grasp of the most basic elements of the method and thereby enhances our understanding of it. (shrink)

I provide a theory of the metaphysical foundations of identity: an account what grounds facts of the form a=b. In particular, I defend the claim that indiscernibility grounds identity. This is typically rejected because it is viciously circular; plausible assumptions about the logic of ground entail that the fact that a=b partially grounds itself. The theory I defend is immune to this circularity.

On page 14 of "Reconceptions in Philosophy and Other Arts and Sciences" (section 4 of chapter 1) by Nelson Goodman and Catherine Z. Elgin is written: “Since ‘blue’ and ‘green’ are interdefinable with ‘grue’ and ‘bleen’, the question of which pair is basic and which pair derived is entirely a question of which pair we start with”. This paper points out that an example of interdefinability is also that one about the predicate “grueb”, which is a predicate that (...) applies to an object if the object either is green and examined before time b, or is non-green and not examined before time b. The three predicates “green”, “grueb”, “examined before time b” are interdefinable. According to Goodman, since the predicates “blue” and “green” are interdefinable with the predicates “grue” and “bleen”, “if we can tell which objects are blue and which objects are green, we can tell which ones are grue and which ones are bleen” [pages 12-13 of “Reconceptions in Philosophy and Other Arts and Sciences”]. But , even though the predicates “green” and “examined before time b” are interdefinable, being able to tell if an object is green does not imply being able to tell if an object is examined before time b. The interdefinability among three elements is a type of interdefinability present, for example, also among the logical connectives. Another example of interdefinability is that one about a decidable predicate PD, which is interdefinable with an undecidable predicate PU: therefore even though we can tell whether an object is PD and whether an object is non-PD, we cannot tell whether an object is PU (since PU is an undecidable predicate) and whether an object is non-PU. Although the predicates PD and PU are interdefinable, the possibility to determine whether an object is PD does not imply the possibility to determine whether an object is PU (since PU is an undecidable predicate). Similarly, although the predicates “green” and “grue” are interdefinable, the possibility to determine whether an object is “green” even in absence of temporal information does not imply the possibility to determine whether an object is “grue” even in absence of temporal information. These and other examples about “grue” and “bleen” point out that even in case two predicates are interdefinable, the possibility to apply a predicate P does not imply the possibility to apply a predicate interdefinable with P. And that the possibility to apply the predicate “green” without having temporal information does not imply the possibility to apply the predicate “grue” without having temporal information. According to Goodman, if it is possible to determine if an object is green without needing temporal information, then it is also possible to determine if an object is grue without needing temporal information. But, knowing that an object is both green and grue implies temporal information: in fact, we know by definition that a grue object can only be: 1) either green (in case the object is examined before time t); 2) or blue (in case the object is not examined before time t). Thus, knowing that an object is both grue and green, we know that we are faced with case 1, the case of a grue object that is green and examined before time t. Then the paper points out why the Goodman-Kripke paradox is a paradox about meaning that cannot have repercussions on induction. Finally the paper points out why Hume’s problem is a problem different from Goodman’s paradox and requires a specific treatment. (shrink)

In True enough,, Elgin argues against veritism, which is the view that truth is the paramount epistemic objective. Elgin’s argument against veritism proceeds from considering the role that models, idealizations, and thought experiments play in science to the conclusion that veritism is unacceptable. In this commentary, I argue that Elgin’s argument fails as an argument against veritism. I sketch a refutation by logical analogy of Elgin’s argument. Just as one can aim at gold medals and still (...) find approximations to gold, such as silver and bronze medals, to be acceptable and honest achievements in competitive sports, one can aim at full truths as the paramount epistemic objective and still find approximations to truth, such as models and idealizations, to be acceptable and honest achievements in scientific inquiry. (shrink)

An extensive literature about pictorial representation discusses what is involved when a two-dimensional image represents some specific object or type of object. A smaller literature addresses parallel issues in sculptural representation. But little has been said about the role played by the sculptural material itself in determining the meanings of the sculptural work. Appealing to Nelson Goodman and Catherine Elgin’s discussions of literal and metaphorical exemplification, I argue that the material of which a sculpture is constituted plays key (...) roles in what is represented and how it is represented, in part because we have bodily and emotional responses to the real possibilities the sculptural material creates for us. I discuss examples of contemporary artworks by Melvin Edwards, Kara Walker, Willie Cole, Marc Quinn, Ai Weiwei, Janine Antoni, El Anatsui, Zoe Leonard, and others. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the possible thought experimenting qualities of Soren Kierkegaard's novel Fear and Trembling and in which way it can be explanatory. Kierkegaard's preference for pseudonyms, indirect communication, Socratic interrogation, and performativity are identified as features that provide the narrative with its thought experimenting quality. It is also proposed that this literary fiction functions as a Socratic-theological thought experiment due to its influences from both philosophy and theology. In addition, I suggest three functional levels of the fictional (...) narrative that, in different ways, influence its possible explanatory force. As a theoretical background for the investigation, two accounts of literary cognitivism are explored: Noel Carroll's Argument Account and Catherine Elgin's Exemplification Account. In relation to Carroll's proposal, I conclude that Fear and Trembling develops a philosophical argumentation that is dependent on the reader's own existential contribution. In relation to Elgin's thought, the relation between truth and explanatory force is acknowledged. At the end of the article, I argue that it is more accurate to see the explanatory force of Fear and Trembling in relation to its exploratory function. (shrink)

Many contemporary artworks include active matter along with rules for conservation that are designed to either facilitate or prevent that matter’s degradation or decay. I discuss the mechanisms through which actual or potential states of material decay contribute to the work’s expressive import. Nelson Goodman and Catherine Elgin introduce the concepts of literal and metaphorical exemplification, which are critical to expression: a work literally exemplifies a property when it both possesses and highlights that property, and it metaphorically exemplifies (...) a property when the properties it literally exemplifies bring that property powerfully to mind. I argue that the literal exemplification of actual or potential states of decay enhances a work’s expressive power by stimulating our bodily and emotional responses to the physical potential of the work’s active matter. Conservation practices, by affecting the properties the work literally and metaphorically exemplifies, are key to the expressive power of works that employ states of degradation and decay. The argument is illustrated through discussion of works by Zoe Leonard, Marc Quinn, and Kara Walker that literally exemplify actually or potentially decaying materials, as contrasted with works by Ai Weiwei and Sam Taylor-Johnson that represent rather than exemplify decaying materials. (shrink)

To understand something involves some sort of commitment to a set of propositions comprising an account of the understood phenomenon. Some take this commitment to be a species of belief; others, such as Elgin and I, take it to be a kind of cognitive policy. This paper takes a step back from debates about the nature of understanding and asks when this commitment involved in understanding is epistemically appropriate, or ‘acceptable’ in Elgin’s terminology. In particular, appealing to lessons (...) from the lottery and preface paradoxes, it is argued that this type of commitment is sometimes acceptable even when it would be rational to assign arbitrarily low probabilities to the relevant propositions. This strongly suggests that the relevant type of commitment is sometimes acceptable in the absence of epistemic justification for belief, which in turn implies that understanding does not require justification in the traditional sense. The paper goes on to develop a new probabilistic model of acceptability, based on the idea that the maximally informative accounts of the understood phenomenon should be optimally probable. Interestingly, this probabilistic model ends up being similar in important ways to Elgin’s proposal to analyze the acceptability of such commitments in terms of ‘reflective equilibrium’. (shrink)

In this paper, I first outline the view developed in my recent book on the role of idealization in scientific understanding. I discuss how this view leads to the recognition of a number of kinds of variability among scientific representations, including variability introduced by the many different aims of scientific projects. I then argue that the role of idealization in securing understanding distances understanding from truth, but that this understanding nonetheless gives rise to scientific knowledge. This discussion will clarify how (...) my view relates to three other recent books on understanding by Henk de Regt, Catherine Elgin, and Kareem Khalifa. (shrink)

We discuss the social-epistemic aspects of Catherine Elgin’s theory of reflective equilibrium and understanding and argue that it yields an argument for the view that a crucial social-epistemic function of epistemic authorities is to foster understanding in their communities. We explore the competences that enable epistemic authorities to fulfil this role and argue that among them is an epistemic virtue we call “epistemic empathy”.

The notion of understanding occupies an increasingly prominent place in contemporary epistemology, philosophy of science, and moral theory. A central and ongoing debate about the nature of understanding is how it relates to the truth. In a series of influential contributions, Catherine Elgin has used a variety of familiar motivations for antirealism in philosophy of science to defend a non- factive theory of understanding. Key to her position are: (i) the fact that false theories can contribute to the (...) upwards trajectory of scientific understanding, and (ii) the essential role of inaccurate idealisations in scientific research. Using Elgin’s arguments as a foil, I show that a strictly factive theory of understanding has resources with which to offer a unified response to both the problem of idealisations and the role of false theories in the upwards trajectory of scientific understanding. Hence, strictly factive theories of understanding are viable notwithstanding these forceful criticisms. (shrink)

This paper considers the medium of videogames from a goodmanian standpoint. After some preliminary clarifications and definitions, I examine the ontological status of videogames. Against several existing accounts, I hold that what grounds their identity qua work types is code. The rest of the paper is dedicated to the epistemology of videogaming. Drawing on Nelson Goodman and Catherine Elgin's works, I suggest that the best model to defend videogame cognitivism appeals to the notion of understanding.

The model-theoretic argument known as Putnam´s paradox threatens our notion of truth with triviality: Almost any world can satisfy almost any theory. Formal argument and intuition are at odds. David Lewis devised a solution according to which the very stucture of the world fixes how it is to be divided into elite classes which determine the reference of any true theory. Three claims are defended: Firstly, Lewis´ proposal must be completed by an account of successful referential intentions. Secondly, contrary to (...) Catherine Elgin´s criticism of Lewis, natural properties corresponding to elite classes may play a role in sound scientific inquiry. Thirdly, despite Bas van Fraassen´s objection that the sceptic cannot consistently maintain doubts about reference, there is a promising sceptical strategy of exploiting Putnam´s results which is answered by Lewis´ account. (shrink)

I provide an analysis of sentences of the form ‘To be F is to be G’ in terms of exact truth-maker semantics—an approach that identifies the meanings of sentences with the states of the world directly responsible for their truth-values. Roughly, I argue that these sentences hold just in case that which makes something F is that which makes it G. This approach is hyperintensional, and possesses desirable logical and modal features. These sentences are reflexive, transitive and symmetric, and, if (...) they are true, then they are necessarily true, and it is necessary that all and only Fs are Gs. I close by defining an asymmetric and irreflexive notion of analysis in terms of the reflexive and symmetric one. (shrink)

Monism is the claim that only one object exists. While few contemporary philosophers endorse monism, it has an illustrious history – stretching back to Bradley, Spinoza and Parmenides. In this paper, I show that plausible assumptions about the higher-order logic of property identity entail that monism is true. Given the higher-order framework I operate in, this argument generalizes: it is also possible to establish that there is a single property, proposition, relation, etc. I then show why this form of monism (...) is inconsistent; because all propositions are identical, p is identical to ~p – and so they have the same truth-value. At least one of the assumptions that generate higher-order monism must be rejected. (shrink)

Sober [2011] argues that some causal statements are a priori true and that a priori causal truths are central to explanations in the theory of natural selection. Lange and Rosenberg [2011] criticize Sober's argument. They concede that there are a priori causal truths, but maintain that those truths are only ‘minimally causal’. They also argue that explanations that are built around a priori causal truths are not causal explanations, properly speaking. Here we criticize both of Lange and Rosenberg's claims.

What role does the concept of naturalness play in the development of scientific knowledge and understanding? Whether naturalness is taken to be an ontological dimension of the world or a cognitive dimension of our human perspective within it, assumptions of naturalness seem to frame both concepts and practices that inform the partitioning of parts and the kinding of kinds. Within the natural sciences, knowledge of what something is as well as how it is studied rely on conceptual commitments. These conceptual (...) commitments shape how entities and processes are categorized _as_ natural depending on how naturalness has been understood within that discipline. In this paper, I explore how commitments to naturalness shape different conceptualizations of what were previously and what are now considered to be fundamental parts in plant morphology. Relying on an historically informed epistemological approach, I trace the origins and development of models of plant morphology from (1) Goethe’s classical LEAF-ROOT-STEM archetype model; (2) Agnes Arber’s revisions to Goethe’s model reconceived in her partial-shoot theory of the leaf; and (3) Rolf Sattler’s proposal for a processual model of plant morphology. These influential models posit ontologically and epistemologically inconsistent conceptualizations of the natural fundamental parts of plants and how they are related to each other. To explain what this inconsistency means for the concept of naturalness and the role it plays in plant morphology, I suggest naturalness might best be conceived of as a contextually bound classificatory concept that is made and remade through its operationalized use within a model, theory, set of practices, or discipline. (shrink)

I am concerned with epistemic closure—the phenomenon in which some knowledge requires other knowledge. In particular, I defend a version of the closure principle in terms of analyticity; if an agent S knows that p is true, then S knows that all analytic parts of p are true as well. After targeting the relevant notion of analyticity, I argue that this principle accommodates intuitive cases and possesses the theoretical resources to avoid the preface paradox. I close by arguing that contextualists (...) who maintain that knowledge attributions are closed within—but not between—linguistic contexts are tacitly committed to this principle’s truth. (shrink)

Apoha, a Sanskrit term meaning exclusion, was used by the late fifth- to early sixth-century Buddhist philosopher Dignā ga as a keystone in his theory of denotation. According to Dignā ga, a word denotes its meaning through the exclusion of what is other (anyā poha). This idea provoked celebration and controversy that would last through the end of Sanskritic Indian Buddhism. In the hands of Dignā ga’s successor Dharmakīrti (seventh century), who developed what became the normative version of this theory, (...) apoha leverages the fact that a causally efficacious real thing is different from everything else to describe how the interaction between living beings and their worlds produces judgements that are either shared or not in accord with the various factors contributing to the judgement’s formation. Dharmakīrti argues that there’s an infinite number of ways that a real thing could be conceptualised since each real thing is different from the infinite expanse of other real things. Acting toward a real thing requires delimiting the scope of what one ignores so that just some of the differences are left over. A living being can afford to ignore the differences between the differences that are left over in this exclusion because these differences don’t impact the specific goal based on which the living being judges an object to be efficacious or not. (shrink)

This paper investigates the metaphysics in higher-order counterfactual logic. I establish the necessity of identity and distinctness and show that the logic is committed to vacuism, which entails that all counteridenticals are true. I prove the Barcan, Converse Barcan, Being Constraint and Necessitism. I then show how to derive the Identity of Indiscernibles in counterfactual logic. I study a form of maximalist ontology which has been claimed to be so expansive as to be inconsistent. I show that it is equivalent (...) to the collapse of the counterfactual into the material conditional---which is itself equivalent to the modal logic TRIV. TRIV is consistent, from which it follows that maximalism is, surprisingly, consistent. I close by arguing that stating the limit assumption requires a higher-order logic. (shrink)

Psychologists and philosophers have argued that the capacity for perseverance or “grit” depends both on willpower and on a kind of epistemic resilience. But can a form of hopefulness in one’s future success also constitute a source of grit? I argue that substantial practical hopefulness, as a hope to bring about a desired outcome through exercises of one’s agency, can serve as a distinctive ground for the capacity for perseverance. Gritty agents’ “practical hope” centrally involves an attention-fuelled, risk-inclined weighting of (...) two competing concerns over action: when facing the decision of whether to persevere, hopeful gritty agents prioritize the aim of choosing a course of action which might go very well over that of choosing a course of action which is very likely to go fairly well. By relying on the notion of a “risk-inclined attentional pattern” as a dimension of gritty agents’ practical hope, we can explain that form of hope’s contribution to their motivation and practical rationality, especially on a risk-weighted expected utility framework. The upshot is a more pluralistic view of the sources of grit. (shrink)

I show that the theory of definition in Definition by Proxy can consistently embrace the principles I show to be inconsistent in Definition.

Hope is often seen as at once valuable and dangerous: it can fuel our motivation in the face of challenges, but can also distract us from reality and lead us to irrationality. How can we learn to “hope well,” and what does “hoping well” involve? Contemporary philosophers disagree on such normative questions about hope and also on how to define hope as a mental state. This article explores recent philosophical debates surrounding the concept of hope and the norms governing hope. (...) It also underlies hope's significance for the philosophy of emotion and the ethics of interpersonal relations. (shrink)

I defend the thesis that friendship can constitutively require epistemic irrationality against a recent, forceful challenge, raised by proponents of moral and pragmatic encroachment. Defenders of the “encroachment strategy” argue that exemplary friends who are especially slow to believe that their friends have acted wrongly are simply sensitive to the high prudential or moral costs of falsely believing in their friends’ guilt. Drawing on psychological work on epistemic motivation (and in particular on the notion of “need for closure”), I propose (...) a different picture of what friendship requires in the doxastic realm. I argue that contrary to what the encroachment strategy suggests, exemplary friends’ belief formation ought not be guided by a concern with accuracy or error avoidance, but instead by a need to avoid a “specific closure” – namely, a need to avoid concluding in their friends’ guilt. I propose that exemplary friendship often generates a defeasible, doxastic obligation to exemplify such a need, despite its inherent corrupting effects on exemplary friends’ epistemic faculties. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with counterfactual logic and its implications for the modal status of mathematical claims. It is most directly a response to an ambitious program by Yli-Vakkuri and Hawthorne (2018), who seek to establish that mathematics is committed to its own necessity. I claim that their argument fails to establish this result for two reasons. First, their assumptions force our hand on a controversial debate within counterfactual logic. In particular, they license counterfactual strengthening— the inference from ‘If A (...) were true then C would be true’ to ‘If A and B were true then C would be true’—which many reject. Second, the system they develop is provably equivalent to appending Deduction Theorem to a T modal logic. It is unsurprising that the combination of Deduction Theorem with T results in necessitation; indeed, it is precisely for this reason that many logicians reject Deduction Theorem in modal contexts. If Deduction Theorem is unacceptable for modal logic, it cannot be assumed to derive the necessity of mathematics. (shrink)

It is the aim of this paper to develop and defend an interpretation of level of scientific discipline within the truth-maker framework. In particular, I exploit the mereological relation of proper parthood, which is integral to truth-maker semantics, in order to provide an account of scientific level.

The subject of this paper is the epistemology of identity: a general theory of knowledge, evidence and justification for the claim that one thing is identical to another. Although identity figures significantly in our epistemic lives, this is a topic that, to the best of my knowledge, has gone entirely unexplored. Initial attempts to integrate such an epistemology into existing theories of evidence---many of which are tailor-made for contingent propositions---are confounded by the necessity of identity. I defend a restricted form (...) of skepticism according to which the only knowable identity claims are trivial. (shrink)

The account of natural kinds as stable property clusters is premised on the possibility of separating the epistemic value of natural kinds from their underlying metaphysics. On that account, the co-instantiation of any sub-cluster of the properties associated with a given natural kind raises the probability of the co-instantiation of the rest, and this clustering of property instantiation is invariant under all relevant counterfactual perturbations. We argue that it is not possible to evaluate the stability of a cluster of properties (...) without taking stock of the metaphysical picture used to account for that stability. Thus, even on the stable property cluster account, the epistemic value of natural kinds remains partly grounded in their metaphysical status. (shrink)

The Identity of Indiscernibles is the principle that objects cannot differ only numerically. It is widely held that one interpretation of this principle is trivially true: the claim that objects that bear all of the same properties are identical. This triviality ostensibly arises from haecceities (properties like \textit{is identical to a}). I argue that this is not the case; we do not trivialize the Identity of Indiscernibles with haecceities, because it is impossible to express the haecceities of indiscernible objects. I (...) then argue that this inexpressibility generalizes to all of their trivializing properties. Whether the Identity of Indiscernibles is trivially true ultimately turns on whether we can quantify over properties that we cannot express. (shrink)

Many metaphysicians posit primitives. These vary with respect to the theoretical work that they perform, but are all undefinable in more basic terms. I argue against the existence of metaphysical primitives on the grounds that, if they existed, they would be essentially primitive. However, if primitives were essentially primitive, then they would have an essence. Because they are primitive, they lack an essence, which undermines the original supposition that they are primitive. I close by mentioning some implications this has both (...) for metaphysicians and for metaphysics more generally. (shrink)

Mainstream philosophy has seen a recent flowering in discussions of intellectualism which revisits Gilbert Ryle’s famous distinction between ‘knowing how’ and ‘knowing that’, and challenges his argument that the former cannot be reduced to the latter. These debates so far appear not to have engaged with pragmatist philosophy in any substantial way, which is curious as the relation between theory and practice is one of pragmatism’s main themes. Accordingly, this paper examines the contemporary debate in the light of Charles Peirce’s (...) habit-based epistemology. We argue both that knowing-that can be understood as a particularly sophisticated form of knowing-how, and that all bodily competencies—if sufficiently deliberately developed—can be analysed as instantiating propositional structure broadly conceived. In this way, intellectualism and anti-intellectualism are seen to be not opposed, and both true, although Peirce’s original naturalistic account of propositional structure does lead him to reject what we shall call ‘linguistic intellectualism’. (shrink)

This paper consists of an investigation of three debates concerning propositional identity: the tension between structured propositions and higher-order logic, the principle Only Logical Circles, and Kaplan’s Paradox. The literature at large has mistaken the consequences of each of these debates. Structuralists are not committed to the claim that identical properties have different extensions; rather, they are committed to existence monism. Only Logical Circles does not preclude the identification of green in terms of grue; some further (and, as of yet, (...) undisclosed) principle is required for that result. And Kaplan’s Paradox does not count against the possible-worlds conception of propositions; it applies to every account of propositions whatsoever. (shrink)

I take some initial steps toward a theory of real definition, drawing upon recent developments in higher-order logic. The resulting account allows for extremely fine- grained distinctions (i.e., it can distinguish between any relata that differ in their syntactic structure, while avoiding the Russell-Myhill problem). It is the first account that can consistently embrace three desirable logical principles that initially appear to be incompatible: the Identification Hypothesis (if F is, by definition, G then F is the same as G), Irreflexivity (...) (there are no reflexive definitions) and Leibniz’s Law. Additionally, it possesses the resources to resolve the paradox of analysis. (shrink)

Many metaphysicians maintain that there is a close connection between essence and modality; if an object a necessarily bears property F , then it is metaphysically necessary that Fa (or, perhaps, it is metaphysically necessary that Fa if a exists). Recently, Leech (Forthcoming) has argued that this connection lacks an adequate explanation. In particular, she argues that identity doesn't explain the link between essence and modality. In contrast, I argue that identity provides the resources to undermine Leech’s explanatory demand.

Ecological Psychology and Enactivism both challenge representationist cognitive science, but the two approaches have only begun to engage in dialogue. Further conceptual clarification is required in which differences are as important as common ground. This paper enters the dialogue by focusing on important differences. After a brief account of the parallel histories of Ecological Psychology and Enactivism, we cover incompatibility between them regarding their theories of sensation and perception. First, we show how and why in ecological theory perception is, crucially, (...) not based on sensation. We elucidate this idea by examining the biological roots of work in the two fields, concentrating on Gibson and Varela and Maturana. We expound an ecological critique of any sensation-based approach to perception by detailing two topics: classic retinal image theories and perception in single-celled organisms. The second main point emphasizes the importance of the idea of organism-environment mutuality and its difference from structural coupling of sensations and motor behavior. We point out how ecological - phenomenological methods of inquiry grow out of mutualism and compare Gibson’s idea of visual kinesthesis to Merleau-Ponty’s idea of the lived body. Third, we conclude that Ecological Psychology and varieties of Enactivism are laying down different paths to pursue related goals. Thus, convergence of Ecological Psychology and Enactivism is not possible given their conflicting assumptions, but cross-fertilization is possible and desirable. (shrink)

Ethnobotanical research provides ample justification for comparing diverse biological nomenclatures and exploring ways that retain alternative naming practices. However, how (and whether) comparison of nomenclatures is possible remains a subject of discussion. The comparison of diverse nomenclatural practices introduces a suite of epistemic and ontological difficulties and considerations. Different nomenclatures may depend on whether the communities using them rely on formalized naming conventions; cultural or spiritual valuations; or worldviews. Because of this, some argue that the different naming practices may not (...) be comparable if the ontological commitments employed differ. Comparisons between different nomenclatures cannot assume that either the naming practices or the object to which these names are intended to apply identifies some universally agreed upon object of interest. Investigating this suite of philosophical problems, I explore the role grey nomenclatures play in classification. ‘Grey nomenclatures’ are defined as those that employ names that are either intentionally or accidentally non-Linnaean. The classification of the lichen thallus (a symbiont) has been classified outside the Linnaean system by botanists relying on the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN). But, I argue, the use of grey names is not isolated and does not occur exclusively within institutionalized naming practices. I suggest, ‘grey names’ also aptly describe nomenclatures employed by indigenous communities such as the Samí of Northern Finmark, the Sherpa of Nepal, and the Okanagan First Nations. I pay particular attention to how naming practices are employed in these communities; what ontological commitments they hold; for what purposes are these names used; and what anchors the community’s nomenclatural practices. Exploring the history of lichen naming and early ethnolichenological research, I then investigate the stakes that must be considered for any attempt to preserve, retain, integrate, or compare the knowledge contained in both academically formalized grey names and indigenous nomenclatures in a way that preserves their source-specific informational content. (shrink)

Pursuing difficult long-term goals typically involves encountering substantial evidence of possible future failure. If decisions to pursue such goals are serious only if one believes that one will act as one has decided, then some of our lives’ most important decisions seem to require belief against the evidence. This is the puzzle of difficult action, to which I offer a solution. I argue that serious decisions to φ do not have to give rise to a belief that one will φ, (...) but can instead be accompanied by a hope to φ. Hope can motivate and rationalize the various actions that we associate with serious commitment. It can also account for the existence of special pressures to adopt an agential stance toward one’s future. Because hope can be cognitively rational when belief is not, there is no problematic tension between the ideal of epistemic rationality and the phenomenon of difficult action. (shrink)

A commonly raised criticism against celebrity culture is that it celebrates people who become famous without any connection to their skills, talents or achievements. A culture in which people become famous simply for being famous is criticized for being shallow and inauthentic. In this paper we offer a defence of celebrity by arguing against this criticism. We begin by outlining what we call the Talent Argument: celebrity is a negative cultural phenomenon because it creates and sustains fame without any connection (...) to the accomplishments that arise from an expression of talent or skill. By appealing to the metaphysics of talent and skill, we argue against the Talent Argument and propose that being a celebrity requires the skills that are necessary to acquire and maintain one’s status as a celebrity. A celebrity is more likely to be talented and successful in their expression of these skills, and even celebrities who are ‘famous for being famous’ will often display talents and skills that give rise to their fame. This means that those who critique celebrity culture should not do so by appealing to the Talent Argument. We show how our account of celebrity, talent and skill works to reject both the strong version of the Talent Argument, as well as a weaker and more plausible version of the argument we call the Valuable Talents argument. We conclude by noting that our analysis has demonstrated the need to explore more closely the kinds of skills that are necessary to cultivate celebrity status. This allows for a more nuanced understanding of what a celebrity is, and the values that are attached to celebrity culture. (shrink)

A conspicuous feature of contemporary modelling practices is the use of the same mathematical forms and modelling methods across different scientific domains. This model transfer raises many philosophical questions concerning, for example, the exact object of transfer, the relationship between the model and the target domain, the specific challenges such transfer confronts, and the ways in which model transfer relates to scientific progress. While the interest in studying model transfer has increased among philosophers of science in recent years, the phenomenon (...) has not yet received its due attention. The literature is scattered and much of it has addressed questions around the factors that might explain model transfer, such as whether the different target phenomena to which a model is applied eventually prove to be structurally and dynamically similar, or whether they have to share more fundamental ontological features that explain the interdisciplinary success of distinct models. This chapter surveys the existing literature on model transfer with the main goal of highlighting the main findings of existing discussions and pointing out open issues whose discussion would improve our understanding of this highly relevant phenomenon in science. (shrink)

Discussions of psychiatric nosology focus on a few popular examples of disorders, and on the validity of diagnostic criteria. Looking at Anorexia Nervosa, an example rarely mentioned in this literature, reveals a new problem: the DSM has a strict taxonomic structure, which assumes that disorders can only be located on one branch. This taxonomic assumption fails to fit the domain of psychopathology, resulting in obfuscation of cross-category connections. Poor outcomes for treatment of Anorexia may be due to it being pigeonholed (...) as an Eating Disorder, when a disturbance of body perception may be a more central symptom than food restriction. This paper explores the possibility of restructuring the DSM taxonomy to allow for a pluralist classification of disorders. This change could improve treatment and research without requiring any changes to diagnostic criteria. (shrink)

Charles Peirce's diagrammatic logic — the Existential Graphs — is presented as a tool for illuminating how we know necessity, in answer to Benacerraf's famous challenge that most ‘semantics for mathematics’ do not ‘fit an acceptable epistemology’. It is suggested that necessary reasoning is in essence a recognition that a certain structure has the particular structure that it has. This means that, contra Hume and his contemporary heirs, necessity is observable. One just needs to pay attention, not merely to individual (...) things but to how those things are related in larger structures, certain aspects of which relations force certain other aspects to be a certain way. (shrink)

This paper addresses some apparent philosophical tensions between realism and enactivism by means of Charles Peirce’s pragmatism. Enactivism’s Mind-Life Continuity thesis has been taken to commit it to some form of anti-realist ‘world-construction’ which has been considered controversial. Accordingly, a new realist enactivism is proposed by Zahidi (_Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences,_ _13_(3), 461–475, 2014 ), drawing on Ian Hacking’s ‘entity realism’, which places subjects in worlds comprised of the things that they can successfully manipulate. We review this attempt, and (...) argue that whilst Zahidi rightly urges enactivists towards ‘internal realism’, he cannot sustain a non-negotiable aspect of realism that is crucial for scientific progress – the claim that multiple subjects inhabit _the same world_. We explore Peirce’s pragmatism as an alternative solution, foregrounding his distinction between existence and reality, and his inquiry-based account of cognition. These theoretical innovations, we argue, fruitfully generalize Zahidi’s _manipulation-based_ enactivist realism to a richer, _inquiry-based_ enactivist realism. We explore how this realism’s pan-species monism about truth encourages and supports the investigation of non-human animal cognition, and conclude by considering some implications of our discussion for long-standing realism debates within pragmatism. (shrink)

Philosophical discussion of truthmaking has flourished in recent times, but what exactly does it mean to ‘make’ a truth-bearer true? I argue that ‘making’ is a concept with modal force, and this renders it a problematic deployment for truthmaker theorists with nominalist sympathies, which characterises most current theories. I sketch the outlines of what I argue is a more genuinely realist truthmaker theory, which is capable of answering the explanatory question: In virtue of what does each particular truthmaker make its (...) particular truthbearer(s) true? I do this by drawing on recent work by Frederik Stjernfelt on Charles Peirce’s account of the proposition as having a ‘particular double structure’, according to which a proposition not only depicts certain characters of an object, it also depicts itself claiming those characters to pertain to the object. This double structure, I shall argue, also resolves important issues in analytic philosophers’ truthmaker theory, including the proper distinction between reference and truthmaking, and a dilemma concerning an infinite regress of truthmaking. (shrink)

Enactivism has influentially argued that the traditional intellectualist ‘act-content’ model of intentionality is insufficient both phenomenologically and naturalistically, and minds are built from world-involving bodily habits – thus, knowledge should be regarded as more of a skilled performance than an informational encoding. Radical enactivists have assumed that this insight must entail non-representationalism concerning at least basic minds. But what if it could be shown that representation is itself a form of skilled performance? I sketch the outline of such an account (...) from the perspective of Peirce’s pragmatist semiotics, which theorises signs as habits of associating specific cues with appropriate acts and schemas of ensuing experience. Within this framework, I argue, a naturalistic account of propositional structure can be constructed which transcends the symbolic – and in some instances even the linguistic – sphere, and offers new insights regarding the Information Processing Challenge, and the Hard Problem of Content. (shrink)

We often form intentions to resist anticipated future temptations. But when confronted with the temptations our resolutions were designed to withstand, we tend to revise our previous evaluative judgments and conclude that we should now succumb—only to then revert to our initial evaluations, once temptation has subsided. Some evaluative judgments made under the sway of temptation are mistaken. But not all of them are. When the belief that one should now succumb is a proper response to relevant considerations that have (...) newly emerged, can acting in line with one’s previous intention nonetheless be practically rational? To answer this question, I draw on recent debates on the nature of higher-order evidence and on what rationally responding to such evidence involves. I propose that agents facing temptation often have evidence of “deliberative unreliability”, which they ought to heed even when it is “misleading” (that is, even when their evaluative judgments are in fact proper responses to the relevant considerations then available). Because evidence of deliberative unreliability can “dispossess” agents of normative reasons for evaluative judgments and actions that they would otherwise have, being continent despite judging that one should now succumb can often be more rational than giving in. (shrink)

We undeniably live in an information age—as, indeed, did those who lived before us. After all, as the cultural historian Robert Darnton pointed out: ‘every age was an age of information, each in its own way’ (Darnton 2000: 1). Darnton was referring to the news media, but his insight surely also applies to the sciences. The practices of acquiring, storing, labeling, organizing, retrieving, mobilizing, and integrating data about the natural world has always been an enabling aspect of scientific work. Natural (...) history and its descendant discipline of biological taxonomy are prime examples of sciences dedicated to creating and managing systems of ordering data. In some sense, the idea of biological taxonomy as an information science is commonplace. Perhaps it is because of its self-evidence that the information science perspective on taxonomy has not been a major theme in the history and philosophy of science. The botanist Vernon Heywood once pointed out that historians of biology, in their ‘preoccupation with the development of the sciences of botany and zoology… [have] diverted attention from the role of taxonomy as an information science’ (Heywood 1985: 11). More specifically, he argued that historians had failed to appreciate how principles and practices that can be traced to Linnaeus constituted ‘a change in the nature of taxonomy from a local or limited folk communication system and later a codified folk taxonomy to a formal system of information science [that] marked a watershed in the history of biology’ (ibid.). A similar observation could be made about twentieth-century philosophy of biology, which mostly skipped over practical and epistemic questions about information management in taxonomy. The taxonomic themes that featured in the emerging philosophy of biology literature in the second half of the twentieth century were predominantly metaphysical in orientation. This is illustrated by what has become known as the ‘essentialism story’: an account about the essentialist nature of pre- Darwinian taxonomy that used to be accepted by many historians and philosophers, and which stimulated efforts to document and interpret shifts in the metaphysical understanding of species and (natural) classification (Richards 2010; Winsor 2003; Wilkins 2009). Although contemporary debates in the philosophy of taxonomy have moved on, much discussion continues to focus on conceptual and metaphysical issues surrounding the nature of species and the principles of classification. Discussions centring on whether species are individuals, classes, or kinds have sprung up as predictably as perennials. Raucous debates have arisen even with the aim of accommodating the diversity of views: is monism, pluralism, or eliminativism about the species category the best position to take? In addition to these, our disciplines continue to interrogate what is the nature of these different approaches to classification: are they representational or inferential roles of different approaches to classification (evolutionary taxonomy, phenetics, phylogenetic systematics)? While there is still much to learn from these discussions—in which we both actively participate—our aim with this topical collection has been to seek different entrypoints and address underexposed themes in the history and philosophy of taxonomy. We believe that approaching taxonomy as an information science prompts new questions and can open up new philosophical vistas worth exploring. A twenty-first century information science turn in the history and philosophy of taxonomy is already underway. In scientific practice and in daily life it is hard to escape the imaginaries of Big Data and the constant threats of being ‘flooded with data’. In the life sciences, these developments are often associated with the socalled bioinformatics crisis that can hopefully be contained by a new, interdisciplinary breed of bioinformaticians. These new concepts, narratives, and developments surrounding the centrality of data and information systems in the biological and biomedical sciences have raised important philosophical questions about their challenges and implications. But historical perspectives are just as necessary to judge what makes our information age different from those that preceded us. Indeed, as the British zoologist Charles Godfray has often pointed out, the piles of data that are being generated in contemporary systematic biology have led to a second bioinformatics crisis, the first being the one that confronted Linnaeus in the mid-18th century (Godfray 2007). Although our aim is to clear a path for new discussions of taxonomy from an information science-informed point of view, we continue where others in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science have already trod. We believe that an appreciation of biological taxonomy as an information science raises many questions about the philosophical, theoretical, material, and practical aspects of the use and revision of biological nomenclatures in different local and global communities of scientists and citizen scientists. In particular, conceiving of taxonomy as an information science directs attention to the temporalities of managing an accumulating data about classified entities that are themselves subject to revision, to the means by which revision is accomplished, and to the semantic, material, and collaborative contexts that mediate the execution of revisions. (shrink)

According to a traditional interpretation of Kierkegaard, he endorses a strong form of direct doxastic voluntarism on which we can, by brute force of will, make a “leap of faith” to believe propositions that we ourselves take to be improbable and absurd. Yet most leading Kierkegaard scholars now wholly reject this reading, instead interpreting Kierkegaard as holding that the will can affect what we believe only indirectly. This paper argues that Kierkegaard does in fact endorse a restricted, sophisticated, and plausible (...) version of direct doxastic voluntarism. On Kierkegaard’s view, when we take ourselves to be in an epistemically permissive situation, we have the ability to form outright beliefs (but not credences) at will in virtue of our ability to voluntarily 1) open or close inquiry and 2) determine our attitude towards epistemic risk. (shrink)