Debate between Dan Demetriou (Philosophy, Minnesota Morris) and Michael Huemer (Philosophy, Colorado), forthcoming in Problems in Applied Ethics: An Introduction to Contemporary Debates, Steven Cowan, ed. (Bloomsbury). The main essays are 5000 words or fewer; replies are 1500 words or fewer. This penultimate version is published here with permission from the editor.

Epistemologists are engaged, among other things, in the business of formulating epistemic norms. That is, they formulate principles that tell us what we should believe and to what degree of confidence, or how to evaluate such epistemic states. In The End of Epistemology As We Know It, Brian Talbot argues that thus far, most of the theories resulting from these efforts are flawed. In this critical notice I examine three of his arguments.

Gioacchino din Fiore (n. 1135 – d. 30 martie 1202), călugăr cistercian și fondator al Ordinului Florensian din Calabria, a fost unul dintre cei mai influenți teologi și filosofi ai Evului Mediu. Plasat de Dante în Paradis (Cântul XII), Gioacchino este considerat de către unii profet, iar de alții eretic, iar despre ideile sale se afirmă că au influențat atât Ordinul Franciscan, cât și mișcările escatologice medievale și moderne, respectiv teoriile ulterioare ale filosofiei istoriei. Cunoscut în primul rând pentru împărțirea (...) istoriei în trei status-uri, al Tatălui, al Fiului și al Spiritului (Duhului Sfânt), prin care Sfânta Treime se revelează progresiv și pedagogic umanității, călăuzind-o înspre libertate și desăvârșire, sistemul de teologie și filosofie a istoriei dezvoltat de abatele calabrez stă alături de De Civitate Dei a lui Augustin asemenea unui pilon al înțelegerii creștine medievale a sensului istoriei. - Dan Siserman -/- „Din faptul că după Cristos continuă încă o istorie bolnavă și profană, Gioacchino concluzionează că o istorie cu adevărat sfântă și bună trebuie încă să vină. Această istorie însă, recunoaște el cu satisfacție, este acum foarte aproape: într-adevăr, ea a crescut mult timp într-un mod ascuns, dar în curând va trebui să devină vizibilă. În acest eveniment iminent abatele calabrez își plasează bucuria plină de speranță și așteptarea plină de încredere; iar acesta este un fapt care indică un lucru cu adevărat semnificativ: că este cu adevărat posibil să privim spre viitor cu acea speranță plină de bucurie, care cândva își găsise expresia în acel „Marana tha” al primilor creștini, care așteptau plinătatea mântuirii odată cu întoarcerea lui Isus Cristos. Astfel, la Gioacchino, o adevărată așteptare a timpului sfârșitului a fost din nou posibilă – o așteptare care era pe deplin pătrunsă de spiritul speranței. […] După părerea mea, numai cu mari rezerve putem accepta teza conform căreia Gioacchino din Fiore a inițiat procesul de secularizare a speranței escatologice care a condus la conștiința epocală a Renașterii și Modernității. Este corect că odată cu Gioacchino s-a produs o turnură în ceea ce privește speranța escatologică; însă ar trebui să ne ferim să vedem pur și simplu un inițiator al Renașterii într-un astfel de om al contemplației care a profețit o eră monastică și contemplativă a purei interiorități.” – Joseph Ratzinger/Papa Benedict XVI. (shrink)

Such a bewildering and contradictory welter of behaviors and traits are connoted by “honor” and its best equivalents in other languages that analyses of the concept have daunted philosophers, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, historians, and literary scholars for millennia. Is it an external good given — and revoked just as easily — by others? Or does “honor” name an inner good that’s absolutely in our control: our integrity, our very commitment to right conduct? Is honor a central moral virtue — (...) as when we might say that “all was lost, save our honor”? Or is it a good quality that’s not-quite “moral,” or indeed even an antiquated virtue hostile to true morality? Is the honorable man a heroic figure who protects the weak, or one who can be expected to bully the weak, as in the case of “honor killings”? Is honor aristocratic and inegalitarian, and thus a virtue that enables and ennobles what’s essentially oppression? Or is honor a signal virtue of fair-dealing, fair-fighting, and fair competition, as evidenced in sportsmanship? (shrink)

The alleged for-me-ness or mineness of conscious experience has been the topic of considerable debate in recent phenomenology and philosophy of mind. By considering a series of objections to the notion of for-me-ness, or to a properly robust construal of it, this paper attempts to clarify to what the notion is committed and to what it is not committed. This exercise results in the emergence of a relatively determinate and textured portrayal of for-me-ness as the authors conceive of it.

Despite confident assertions by science and religion, no one can be absolutely certain what is going on in this drama we call existence. We are haunted by the realization that we are finite, vulnerable, mortal, and perhaps meaningless creatures. The ambiguity in all experience leaves us in a state of fundamental uncertainty, with a buried anxiety underlined by fear of mortality. However, the ability to consider consciousness as a personal creation enables us to appreciate experience for its own sake, despite (...) uncertainty and anxiety. It is the basis of art, and also of tolerance, epistemic responsibility, and the creative ability to think, perceive, and act outside the box. (shrink)

In a well-known paper, Reginald Jackson expresses a sentiment not uncommon among readers of Locke: “Among the merits of Locke’s Essay…not even the friendliest critic would number consistency.”2 This unflattering opinion of Locke is reiterated by Maurice Mandelbaum: “Under no circumstances can [Locke] be counted among the clearest and most consistent of philosophers.”3 The now familiar story is that there are innumerable inconsistencies and internal problems contained in Locke’s Essay. In fact, it is probably safe to say that there is (...) not another canonical, well-respected, and seminal philosopher whose work is so widely thought to be swarming with inconsistencies. I, however, do not think that the common, unflattering view of Locke is accurate as a general view of the Essay. But despite my wishes to the contrary, I do believe that Locke’s chapter ‘Of Identity and Diversity’ (2.27)4 leads to (at least) one intractable problem, a problem that is the subject of this paper. (shrink)

The question of whether a proper phenomenological investigation and analysis requires one to perform the epoché and the reduction has not only been discussed within phenomenological philosophy. It is also very much a question that has been hotly debated within qualitative research. Amedeo Giorgi, in particular, has insisted that no scientific research can claim phenomenological status unless it is supported by some use of the epoché and reduction. Giorgi partially bases this claim on ideas found in Husserl’s writings on phenomenological (...) psychology. In the present paper, I discuss Husserl’s ideas and argue that while the epoché and the reduction are crucial for transcendental phenomenology, it is much more questionable whether they are also relevant for a non-philosophical application of phenomenology. (shrink)

Surprises are important in our everyday lives as well as in our scientific and philosophical theorizing—in psychology, information theory, cognitive-neuroscience, philosophy of science, and confirmation theory. Nevertheless, there is no satisfactory theory of what makes something surprising. It has long been acknowledged that not everything unexpected is surprising. The reader had no reason to expect that there will be exactly 190 words in this abstract and yet there is nothing surprising about this fact. We offer a novel theory that explains (...) when and why an unexpected fact is surprising. We distinguish between descriptive and normative notions of what is surprising; clarify the sense in which surprising facts are unexpected; and, finally, develop and defend the significance account of surprise, according to which a fact is surprising to an agent if and to the extent that it is both unexpected and significant to the agent. Since a surprising fact can be significant to an agent in various ways—personal, moral, epistemic, and aesthetic—surprise is not merely or primarily epistemic. Fitting surprise reflects more than a person’s view of what is; it reflects a person’s view of what is significant. (shrink)

This study investigates the dynamic relationship between knowledge management systems, particularly emphasizing knowledge acquisition and dissemination, and their impact on academic staff's teaching motivation. By employing the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF), data from 676 academic staff at higher education institutions in Vietnam was analyzed, revealing a complex interplay of factors. Notably, positive associations were found between knowledge acquisition, knowledge dissemination, and teaching motivation. However, the interaction effect of knowledge acquisition and knowledge dissemination appeared to be negatively associated with teaching motivation. (...) This suggests the possible existence of a resource curse of knowledge in improving staff’s teaching motivation. It is recommended that the knowledge systems are refined to reduce complexity and that staff are trained with better knowledge processing methods for reducing resource curse risks. (shrink)

The idea that there are some facts that call for explanation serves as an unexamined premise in influential arguments for the inexistence of moral or mathematical facts and for the existence of a god and of other universes. This book is the first to offer a comprehensive and critical treatment of this idea. It argues that calling for explanation is a sometimes-misleading figure of speech rather than a fundamental property of facts.

Purpose of Review Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is identified from Wuhan, China, and has spread almost worldwide. Recently, the newly identified SARS-CoV-2 has been confirmed to kill millions of people worldwide and is dangerous to society health, survival, and livelihood. The people with cardiovascular problems are noticed as most common patients of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). There is a greater risk of mortality and morbidity in these patients than other patients of COVID-19. In the heart, expressed angiotensin-converting enzyme (...) 2 (ACE2) and response effect of hyperactivity with angiotensin II associated to the renin-angiotensin mechanism are key factors of hypertension, atherosclerosis, and congestive heart failure. -/- Recent Findings Mortality rates have been observed about 10.5% cases in patients with cardiovascular disease; however, a mortality rate of 52% was recorded in patients with heart failure, while 12% recovered ultimately. The occupancy of intense injury controlled by troponin elevation was a noteworthy factor in relation to mortality. Among 187 patients infected with SARS-CoV-2, about 35% were diagnosed with cardiovascular disease (CVD) history and 28% with raised troponin. Troponin elevation was identified more frequently (55%) in patients with cardiovascular diseases. Mortality rate in patients without cardiovascular diseases and normal troponin was 7.6%, normal troponin and cardiovascular disease with 13.3%, augmented troponin and without cardiovascular disease 37.5%, however 69.4% among cardiovascular disease and advanced troponin. -/- Summary The study reflected a significant association of case fatality rate (CFR) to COVID-19 patients with cardiovascular diseases which supposed to be the most common dangerous risk factor and health challenge during the current pandemic situation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper, I present data involving the use of the Romanian slur ‘țigan’, consideration of which leads to the postulation of a sui-generis, irreducible type of use of slurs. This type of use is potentially problematic for extant theories of slurs. In addition, together with other well-established uses, it shows that there is more variation in the use of slurs than previously acknowledged. I explain this variation by construing slurs as polysemous. To implement this idea, I appeal to (...) a rich-lexicon account of polysemy. I show how such a theory can be applied to slurs and discuss several important issues that arise. (shrink)

[my chapter in "Dissident Philosophers: Voices Against the Political Current of the Academy" (2022), T. Allan Hillman and Tully Borland, eds.].

Could God have created a better universe? Well, the fundamental scientific laws and parameters of the universe have to be within a certain miniscule range, for a life-sustaining universe to develop: the universe must be ‘Fine Tuned’. Therefore the ‘embryonic universe’ that came into existence with the ‘big bang’ had to be either exactly as it was or within a certain tiny range, for there to develop a life-sustaining universe. If it is better that there exist a life-sustaining universe than (...) not, then it was better that the embryonic universe was one of this small set of very similar embryonic universes than that it was not. Furthermore, there are no firm grounds for claiming that of this small set of very similar embryonic universes, there is one which would have developed into a universe better than ours. Therefore there are no firm grounds for claiming that God could have created a better universe than ours. (shrink)

The central idea is that the cerebral cortex is a model building machine, where regularities in the world serve as templates for the models it builds. First it is shown how this idea can be naturalized, and how the representational contents of our internal models depend upon the evolutionarily endowed design principles of our model building machine. Current neuroscience suggests a powerful form that these design principles may take, allowing our brains to uncover deep structures of the world hidden behind (...) surface sensory stimulation, the individuals, kinds, and properties that form the objects of human perception and thought. It is then shown how this account solves various problems that arose for previous attempts at naturalizing intentionality, and also how it supports rather than undermines folk psychology. As in the parable of the blind men and the elephant, the seemingly unrelated pieces of earlier theories (information, causation, isomorphism, success, and teleology) emerge as different aspects of the evolved model-building mechanism that explains the intentional features of our kind of mind. (shrink)

Whereas civil discourse is usually thought to be about defusing conflict, this essay argues it may be fruitfully thought of as fighting honorably for what we believe. Thus agonistic honor, which conceives of rightness in terms of fair and respectful contest for status, will be an especially important virtue in contexts—from classrooms to courtrooms to pluralistic democracies in general—where conflict is inevitable and desirable. To motivate this claim, I take a Hobbesian approach. I begin with a rational reconstruction of honor (...) patterned after Hobbes’ rational reconstruction of justice, and imagine honor-equivalents of “rational” individuals in a “state of nature.” I then describe a multi-stage process that culminates in honorable contests among a natural aristocracy. The lessons from this exercise apply to the question of civil discourse: while the "standard model" of civil discourse aims at resolving disagreement by downplaying rivalry and ego, the more realistic agonistic model harnesses these factors to make our civil debates more culturally sustainable. (shrink)

Motivated by examples, many philosophers believe that there is a significant distinction between states of affairs that are striking and therefore call for explanation and states of affairs that are not striking. This idea underlies several influential debates in metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics, normative theory, philosophy of modality, and philosophy of science but is not fully elaborated or explored. This paper aims to address this lack of clear explanation first by clarifying the epistemological issue at hand. Then it introduces an (...) initially attractive account for strikingness that is inspired by the work of Paul Horwich and adopted by a number of philosophers. The paper identifies two logically distinct accounts that have both been attributed to Horwich and then argues that, when properly interpreted, they can withstand former criticisms. The final two sections present a new set of considerations against both Horwichian accounts that avoid the shortcomings of former critiques. It remains to be seen whether an adequate account of strikingness exists. (shrink)

Philosophers of physics have long debated whether the Past State of low entropy of our universe calls for explanation. What is meant by “calls for explanation”? In this article we analyze this notion, distinguishing between several possible meanings that may be attached to it. Taking the debate around the Past State as a case study, we show how our analysis of what “calling for explanation” might mean can contribute to clarifying the debate and perhaps to settling it, thus demonstrating the (...) fruitfulness of this analysis. Applying our analysis, we show that two main opponents in this debate, Huw Price and Craig Callender, are, for the most part, talking past each other rather than disagreeing, as they employ different notions of “calling for explanation”. We then proceed to show how answering the different questions that arise out of the different meanings of “calling for explanation” can result in clarifying the problems at hand and thus, hopefully, to solving them. (shrink)

In this chapter we focus on the debate over publicly-maintained racist monuments as it manifests in the mid-2010s Anglosphere, primarily in the US (chiefly regarding the over 700 monuments devoted to the Confederacy), but to some degree also in Britain and Commonwealth countries, especially South Africa (chiefly regarding monuments devoted to figures and events associated with colonialism and apartheid). After pointing to some representative examples of racist monuments, we discuss ways a monument can be thought racist, and neutrally categorize removalist (...) and preservationist arguments heard in the monument debate. We suggest that both extremist and moderate removalist goals are likely to be self-defeating, and that when concerns of civic sustainability are put on moral par with those of fairness and justice, something like a Mandela-era preservationist policy is best: one which removes the most offensive of the minor racist monuments, but which focuses on closing the monumentary gap between peoples and reframing existing racist monuments. (shrink)

The argument from retraction (the speech act of “taking back” a previous speech act) has been one of the favorite arguments used by relativists about a variety of natural language expressions (predicates of taste, epistemic modals, moral and aesthetic claims etc.) in support of their view. The main consideration offered is that relativism can, while rival views cannot, account for this phenomenon. For some of those leading the charge, retraction is, in fact, mandatory: a norm of retraction makes it obligatory (...) for an agent to retract a previously unretracted assertion whenever what has been asserted is shown to be currently false. This norm, it is contended, distinguishes (radical) relativism from other views on the market. Recently, several considerations—both from the armchair and based on empirical studies—have been offered to undercut the support retraction has been taken to provide for relativism. In this paper, I engage with both types of considerations and lay out two strategies the radical relativist can follow: weakening the force of the retraction norm and restricting it to certain conditions. I explore how much of the recalcitrant data can be accounted for by each strategy, and show that the best route for the relativist is to adopt a flexible version of the view. Finally, I address the objection from ad-hocness in relation to the flexibility envisaged and put forward a principle based on the notion of the importance of the context of the assertor in a given context of assessment that underlies flexibility. (shrink)

Traditional theism says that the goodness of everything comes from God. Moreover, the goodness of something intrinsically valuable can only come from what has it. Many conclude from these two claims that no creatures have intrinsic value if traditional theism is true. I argue that the exemplarist theory of the divine ideas gives the theist a way out. According to exemplarism, God creates everything according to ideas that are about himself, and so everything resembles God. Since God is wholly good (...) in every way, and since ethical supervenience is true, it follows that creatures have intrinsic value. (shrink)

In the recent debate about the semantics of perspectival expressions, disagreement has played a crucial role. In a nutshell, what I call “the challenge from disagreement” is the objection that certain views on the market cannot account for the intuition of disagreement present in ordinary exchanges involving perspectival expressions like “Licorice is tasty./no, it’s not.” Various contextualist answers to this challenge have been proposed, and this has led to a proliferation of notions of disagreement. It is now accepted in the (...) debate that there are many notions of disagreement and that the search for a common, basic notion is misguided. In this paper I attempt to find such a basic notion underneath this diversity. The main aim of the paper is to motivate, forge and defend a notion of “minimal disagreement” that has beneficial effects for the debate over the semantics of perspectival expressions. (shrink)

In this paper, I engage with a recent contextualist account of gender terms proposed by Díaz-León, E. 2016. “Woman as a Politically Significant Term: A Solution to the Puzzle.” Hypatia 31 : 245–58. Díaz-León’s main aim is to improve both on previous contextualist and non-contextualist views and solve a certain puzzle for feminists. Central to this task is putting forward a view that allows trans women who did not undergo gender-affirming medical procedures to use the gender terms of their choice (...) to self-identify. My goal is to investigate Díaz-León’s proposal, point out several shortcomings of the view and discuss possible replies on her part. (shrink)

Vere Chappell has pointed out that it is not clear whether Locke has a well-developed ontology or even whether he is entitled to have one.2 Nevertheless, it is clear that Locke believes that there are organisms, and it is clear that he thinks that there are substances. But does he believe that organisms are substances? There are certainly parts of the Essay in which Locke seems unequivocally to state that organisms are substances. For instance, in 2.23.3 Locke uses men and (...) horses as examples of substances. In Locke’s most explicit the account of abstraction, given in 3.3.7-9, organism [vivens] is treated as a sub-species of body and body as a sub-species of substance; so, by transitivity, organism is a kind of substance. Finally, in his discussion of essences in 3.6, Locke uses all of the following organisms as examples of substances: horses, mules, men, sheep, goats, plants, drills, changelings, asses, bulls, cats, and rats. This textual evidence would seem to settle the matter about the ontological status of organisms. However, there are other parts of the Essay in which the ontological status of organisms is less clear, to say the least. In fact, there are texts in which Locke seems to state (or at least to be committed to the.. (shrink)

Non-skeptical robust realists about normativity, mathematics, or any other domain of non- causal truths are committed to a correlation between their beliefs and non- causal, mind-independent facts. Hartry Field and others have argued that if realists cannot explain this striking correlation, that is a strong reason to reject their theory. Some consider this argument, known as the Benacerraf–Field argument, as the strongest challenge to robust realism about mathematics, normativity, and even logic. In this article I offer two closely related accounts (...) for the type of explanation needed in order to address Field's challenge. I then argue that both accounts imply that the striking correlation to which robust realists are committed is explainable, thereby discharging Field's challenge. Finally, I respond to some objections and end with a few unresolved worries. (shrink)

According to the Monist Interpretation of Descartes, there is really only one corporeal substance—the entire extended plenum. Evidence for this interpretation seems to be provided by Descartes in the Synopsis of the Meditations, where he claims that all substances are incorruptible. Finite bodies, being corruptible, would then fail to be substances. On the other hand, ‘body, taken in the general sense,’ being incorruptible, would be a corporeal substance. In this paper, I defend a Pluralist Interpretation of Descartes, according to which (...) there are many corporeal substances. In particular, I show that none of the claims in the Synopsis about incorruptibility and substance entail either that finite bodies are not substances, or that the only corporeal substance is the entire plenum. (shrink)

Do carbon-offsetting schemes morally offset emissions? The moral equivalence thesis is the claim that the combination of emitting greenhouse gasses and offsetting those emissions is morally equivalent to not emitting at all. This thesis implies that in response to climate change, we need not make any lifestyle changes to reduce our emissions as long as we offset them. An influential argument in favor of this thesis is premised on two claims, one empirical and the other normative: (1) When you emit (...) + offset, the net result is the same as that of not emitting. (2) With emissions, the net result is what matters morally. I argue against both premises. The net result of emitting + offsetting is never equivalent to that of not emitting, and even if it were equivalent, the net result is not the only thing that matters morally. My conclusion is that although we should offset our emissions, avoiding emissions is morally preferable. This conclusion supports a stronger claim: that carbon offsets cannot relieve us of our duty to make significant lifestyle changes so as to reduce emissions and thus lesson our contribution to the harms of climate change. (shrink)

Much philosophical work has examined both imperatival and non-imperatival forms of address that aim to motivate others to action. But one such kind of address has received relatively little attention: begging. This is partly surprising as begging, both as an individual act and as a widespread social practice, raises acute, yet difficult to articulate, moral and political concerns. In this paper, I identify a central form of the phenomenon which constitutively involves communicating one’s relative powerlessness as a means of motivating (...) one’s target to act. I argue that this form of begging is present in a number of cases that animate many of our pre-theoretic normative worries about begging. I argue that when begging of this kind is bad for the beggar herself, this is so because either (i) the invoked powerlessness is bad for the beggar and thereby gives the action a negative evaluative meaning, or (ii) the invoked powerlessness is good/neutral, but the act of begging precludes or replaces valuable ways of interacting that the parties have reasons to care about in the context. In a slogan, the badness of begging revolves around power and helplessness. (shrink)

In the semantic debate about perspectival expressions – predicates of taste, aesthetic and moral terms, epistemic modals, etc. – intuitions about armchair scenarios (e.g., disagreement, retraction) have played a crucial role. More recently, various experimental studies have been conducted, both in relation to disagreement (e.g., Cova, 2012; Foushee and Srinivasan, 2017; Solt, 2018) and retraction (e.g., Knobe and Yalcin, 2014; Khoo, 2018; Beddor and Egan, 2018; Dinges and Zakkou, 2020; Kneer 2021; 2022; Almagro, Bordonaba Plou and Villanueva, 2023; Marques, 2024), (...) with the aim of establishing a more solid foundation for semantic theorizing. Both these types of data have been used to argue for or against certain views (e.g., contextualism, relativism). In this paper, I discern a common thread in the use of these data and argue for two claims: i) which perspective is adopted by those judging the armchair scenarios put forward and by the participants in experimental studies crucially matters for the viability of the intended results; ii) failure to properly attend to this puts recent experimental work at risk. Finally, I consider the case of cross-linguistic disagreement and retraction and assess their importance for the semantic debate about perspectival expressions, as well as for the claim that perspective matters in putting forward the data on which decisions about the right semantic view are made. (shrink)

According to cognitive psychologists, moral decision-making is a dual-process phenomenon involving two types of cognitive processes: explicit reasoning and implicit intuition. Moral development involves training and integrating both types of cognitive processes through a mix of instruction, practice, and reflection. Serious games are an ideal platform for this kind of moral training, as they provide safe spaces for exploring difficult moral problems and practicing the skills necessary to resolve them. In this article, we present Morality Play, a model for the (...) design of serious games for ethical expertise development based on the Integrative Ethical Education framework from moral psychology and the Lens of the Toy model for serious game design. (shrink)

This paper proposes the feasibility of a second-order approach in cosmology. It is intended to encourage cosmologists to rethink standard ideas in their field, leading to a broader concept of self-organization and of science itself. It is argued, from a cognitive epistemology perspective, that a first-order approach is inadequate for cosmology; study of the universe as a whole must include study of the scientific observer and the process of theorizing. Otherwise, concepts of self-organization at the cosmological scale remain constrained by (...) unacknowledged assumptions and biases. Examples of limiting notions are discussed in the context of alternatives. To include the role of the theorist does not mean reducing science to subjective or sociological terms. On the contrary, second-order science would provide a more complete portrait of nature. The work of cosmologist Lee Smolin is discussed as a candidate example of second-order cosmology. (shrink)

My topic in this paper will be Hume’s claim that we have no idea of a vacuum. I offer a novel interpretation of Hume’s account of our ideas of extension that makes it clear why those ideas cannot include any ideas of vacuums, and I distinguish my interpretation from prominent readings offered by other Hume scholars. An upshot of Hume’s account, I will argue, is his commitment to a remarkable and distinctly Humean view I call “perceptual relationism.” Perceptual relationism is (...) a fundamental characteristic of Hume’s “universe of the imagination,” and a manifestation of just how “loose and separate” the constituents of that inner universe are. Once we understand perceptual relationism and its entailments, we are in a better position to understand the rest of Hume’s sometimes puzzling remarks on space and the vacuum. (shrink)

Over the last thirty years there have been a number of attempts to analyse the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties in terms of the facts about naturalness. This article discusses the three most influential of these attempts, each of which involve David Lewis. These are Lewis's 1983 analysis, his 1986 analysis, and his joint 1998 analysis with Rae Langton.

In a 2004 paper, “Hume’s Missing Shade of Blue Reconsidered from a Newtonian Perspective,” Eric Schliesser argues that Hume’s well-known discussion of the missing shade of blue “reveals considerable ignorance of Newton’s achievement in optics,” and that Hume has failed to assimilate the lessons taught by Newton’s optical experiments. I argue in this paper, contrary to Schliesser, that Hume’s views on color are logically and evidentially independent of Newton’s results. In developing my reading, I will argue that Schliesser accepts an (...) overly broad interpretation of the implications of Newton’s experimental results, and takes inadequate account of Hume’s disciplined methodological restrictions on the kinds of experiential evidence that are to be admitted in building the foundations of his science of human nature. (shrink)

This paper is a warning that objections based on thought experiments can be misleading because they may elicit judgments that, unbeknownst to the judger, have been seriously skewed by psychological biases. The fact that most people choose not to plug in to the Experience Machine in Nozick’s (1974) famous thought experiment has long been used as a knock-down objection to hedonism because it is widely thought to show that real experiences are more important to us than pleasurable experiences. This paper (...) argues that the commonplace choice to remain in reality when offered a life in the Experience Machine is best explained by status quo bias – the irrational preference for things to remain the same. An alternative thought experiment, empirical evidence, and discussion of how psychological biases can affect our judgments are provided to support this argument. (shrink)

In the debate between contextualism and relativism about predicates of taste, the challenge from disagreement (the objection that contextualism cannot account for disagreement in ordinary exchanges involving such predicates) has played a central role. This paper investigates one way of answering the challenge consisting on appeal to certain, less focused on, uses of predicates of taste. It argues that the said thread is unsatisfactory, in that it downplays certain exchanges that constitute the core disagreement data. Additionally, several arguments to the (...) effect that the exchanges in question don’t amount to disagreement are considered and rejected. (shrink)

Reductive, naturalistic psychosemantic theories do not have a good track record when it comes to accommodating the representation of kinds. In this paper, I will suggest a particular teleosemantic strategy to solve this problem, grounded in the neurocomputational details of the cerebral cortex. It is a strategy with some parallels to one that Ruth Millikan has suggested, but to which insufficient attention has been paid. This lack of attention is perhaps due to a lack of appreciation for the severity of (...) the problem, so I begin by explaining why the situation is indeed a dire one. One of the main tasks for a naturalistic psychosemantic theory is to describe how the extensions of mental representations are determined. (Such a theory may also attempt to account for other aspects of the “meaning” of mental representations, if there are any.) Some mental representations, e.g. the concept of water, denote kinds (I shall be assuming this is non-negotiable). How is this possible? Unfortunately, I haven’t the space to canvass all the theories out there and show that each one fails to accommodate the representation of kinds, but I will point out the major types of problems that arise for the kinds of theories that, judging by the literature, are considered viable contenders.1 In general, the theories either attempt and fail to account for the representation of kinds, or they fall back on something like an intention to refer to a kind – not exactly the most auspicious move for a reductive theory. There are a number of problems that prevent non-teleosemantic theories from explaining how it is possible to represent kinds. A concept of a kind K must.. (shrink)

In the debate between relativism and contextualism about various expressions, the Operator Argument, initially proposed by Kaplan , has been taken to support relativism. However, one widespread reaction against the argument has taken the form of arguing against one assumption made by Kaplan: namely, that certain natural language expressions are best treated as sentential operators. Focusing on the only extant version of the Operator Argument proposed in connection to predicates of personal taste such as “tasty” and experiencer phrases such as (...) “for Anna” ), in this paper I investigate whetherthe reasons offered by Cappelen and Hawthorne against various assumptions of the argument failing in the case of modal, temporal, locationaland precisional expressions transfer to the case of experiencer phrases to undercut support for relativism about predicates of personal taste. My aim is to show that they don’t. Thus, I first show that their considerations against experiencer phrases such as “for Anna” being sentential operators are not decisive. Second, I show that even if granting that such experiencer phrases are not sentential operators, a suitably modified version of the Operator Argument can be defended from the objections they raise. (shrink)