Daniel Kodaj has recently developed a pro-atheistic argument that he calls “the problem of religious evil.” This first premise of this argument is “belief in God causes evil.” Although this idea that belief in God causes evil is widely accepted, certainly in the secular West, it is sufficiently problematic as to be unsuitable as a basis for an argument for atheism, as Kodaj seeks to use it. In this paper I shall highlight the problems inherent in it (...) in three ways: by considering whether it is reasonable to say that “belief in God” causes evil; whether it is reasonable to say that belief in God “causes” evil; and whether it is reasonable to say that belief in God causes “evil.” In each case I will argue that it is problematic to make such claims, and accordingly I will conclude that the premise “belief in God causes evil” is unacceptable as it stands, and consequently is unable to ground Kodaj’s pro-atheistic argument. (shrink)

Particularists in material-object metaphysics hold that our intuitive judgments about which kinds of things there are and are not are largely correct. One common argument against particularism is the argument from arbitrariness, which turns on the claim that there is no ontologically significant difference between certain of the familiar kinds that we intuitively judge to exist (snowballs, islands, statues, solar systems) and certain of the strange kinds that we intuitively judge not to exist (snowdiscalls, incars, gollyswoggles, the fusion of the (...) my nose and the Eiffel Tower). Particularists frequently respond by conceding that there is no ontologically significant difference and embracing some sort of deflationary metaontology (relativism, constructivism, quantifier variance). I show -- by identifying ontologically significant differences -- that the argument can be resisted without retreating to any sort of deflationary metaontology. (shrink)

Our approach to emotion emphasized three key ingredients. We do not yet have a mature science of emotion, or even a consensus view—in this respect we are more hesitant than Sander, Grandjean, and Scherer or Luiz Pessoa. Relatedly, a science of emotion needs to be highly interdisciplinary, including ecology, psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy. We recommend a functionalist view that brackets conscious experiences and that essentially treats emotions as latent variables inferred from a number of measures. But our version of functionalism (...) is not definitional or ontological. It is resolutely methodological, in good part because it is too early to attempt definitions. (shrink)

Evidence is often taken to be “normative” for doxastic agents. What accounts for the normativity of evidence? According to the view that I'll call “evidential minimalism”, there is a close connection between strong evidence for the truth of p and a normative reason to believe p: evidence is either itself a normative reason for belief, or evidence gives rise to such a reason when certain other minimal conditions are met. In this paper, I argue against evidential minimalism. I will argue (...) that there are cases where: (i) an individual S possesses strong evidence E for the truth of p at time t, (ii) all other minimal conditions for the normativity of E are met at t, (iii) S doesn't believe p at t, yet (iv) S isn't open to any form of criticism on account of (i)–(iii) at t. I will then formulate a plausible linking claim connecting openness to criticism and the existence of normative reasons for belief. The minimalist can either accept or reject this linking claim. I will argue that, either way, the minimalist view falters. (shrink)

This paper defends Priorianism, a theory in the philosophy of time which combines three theses: first, that there is a metaphysical distinction between the present time and non-present times; second, that there are temporary propositions, that is, propositions that change in truth-value simpliciter over time; and third, that there is change over time only if there are temporary propositions. Priorianism is accepted by many Presentists, Growing Block Theorists, and Moving Spotlight Theorists. However, it is difficult to defend the view without (...) appealing to premises that those who reject the view find controversial. My aim in this paper is to defend Priorianism in a way that largely avoids appealing to such premises. I do three things: first (Section 1), I describe the component theses of Priorianism and the relations between them. Next (Section 2), I show how Priorians can respond to the argument that the B-theory implies that there are temporary propositions, and therefore satisfies the Priorian condition for there being change over time. Finally (Section 3), I defend the Priorian thesis that there is change over time only if there are temporary propositions against an alternative principle of change defended by Ross Cameron (The Moving Spotlight, 2015). (shrink)

What is commonly referred to as the Adoption Problem is a challenge to the idea that the principles of logic can be rationally revised. The argument is based on a reconstruction of unpublished work by Saul Kripke. As the reconstruction has it, Kripke extends the scope of Willard van Orman Quine's regress argument against conventionalism to the possibility of adopting new logical principles. In this paper we want to discuss the scope of this challenge. Are all revisions of logic subject (...) to the Adoption Problem? If not, are there significant cases of logical revision that are subject to the Adoption Problem? We will argue that both questions should be answered negatively. (shrink)

Realists about possible worlds typically identify possible worlds with abstract objects, such as propositions or properties. However, they face a significant objection due to Lewis (1986), to the effect that there is no way to explain how possible worlds-as-abstract objects represent possibilities. In this paper, I describe a response to this objection on behalf of realists. The response is to identify possible worlds with propositions, but to deny that propositions are abstract objects, or indeed objects at all. Instead, I argue (...) that realists should follow Prior (1971) and others in treating higher-order quantification (e.g. quantification into predicate or sentence position) as a genuine form of quantification in its own right, and so in particular, not to be analysed in terms of first-order quantification over abstract objects. I argue that from this ‘higher-orderist’ perspective, there is a relatively straightforward answer to the question of how possible worlds-as-propositions succeed in representing possibilities. (shrink)

Kripke’s Wittgenstein is standardly understood as a non-factualist about meaning ascription. Non-factualism about meaning ascription is the idea that sentences like “Joe means addition by ‘plus’” are not used to state facts about the world. Byrne and Kusch have argued that Kripke’s Wittgenstein is not a non-factualist about meaning ascription. They are aware that their interpretation is non-standard, but cite arguments from Boghossian and Wright to support their view. Boghossian argues that non-factualism about meaning ascription is incompatible with a deflationary (...) theory of truth. Wright argues that non-factualism about meaning ascription is incoherent. To support the standard interpretation, I’ll respond to each argument in turn. To the degree that my responses are successful, Byrne and Kusch have an unmotivated interpretation of Kripke’s Wittgenstein. Wilson provides a factualist interpretation that is not based on Boghossian and Wright’s arguments. Miller argues for a non-factualist interpretation against Wilson, but I’ll show that Miller’s interpretation faces a dilemma. Miller’s argument cannot be maintained if a coherent interpretation of the skeptical solution is to be provided. I’ll show how this dilemma can be avoided and provide an independent argument against Wilson so that a non-factualist interpretation of the skeptical solution can be maintained. (shrink)

One increasingly popular technique in philosophy might be called the "platitudes analysis": a set of widely accepted claims about a given subject matter are collected, adjustments are made to the body of claims, and this is taken to specify a “role” for the phenomenon in question. (Perhaps the best-known example is analytic functionalism about mental states, where platitudes about belief, desire, intention etc. are together taken to give us a "role" for states to fill if they are to count as (...) mental states.) We then look to our best theory of the world to see where this role is satisfied, if at all. Unfortunately, the platitudes analysis, so characterised, does not seem to help when we are doing fundamental metaphysics—when we want to know what, at base, our world is like (and not merely where things like e.g. the mental would be found in an already-specified ontology). Nevertheless, I will argue that the platitudes analysis, properly understood, does have the materials to help us answer questions in fundamental metaphysics as well. I will explore three different ways it can do so. (shrink)

In this paper, I respond to Frank Hofmann’s reply to my (2022) argument against “evidential minimalism” (EM). According to defenders of EM, there is a close connection between evidence and normative reasons for belief: evidence is either itself, or (under certain “minimal” conditions) gives rise to, a normative reason for belief. In my (2022), I argued against EM by showing that there are cases where: (i) S possesses strong evidence E for the truth of p at time t, (ii) all (...) minimal conditions for the normativity of E are met at t, (iii) S doesn’t believe p at t, yet (iv) S isn’t criticizable on account of (i)-(iii) at t. I then appealed to a linking claim connecting criticizability with the existence of normative reasons for belief. Hofmann’s reply invokes a distinction between two different kinds of epistemic criticism: a strong and a weak form. I will argue that Hofmann’s distinction fails to save EM from my argument. (shrink)

Many of those who accept the universalist thesis that mereological composition is unrestricted also maintain that the folk typically restrict their quantifiers in such a way as to exclude strange fusions when they say things that appear to conflict with universalism. Despite its prima facie implausibility, there are powerful arguments for universalism. By contrast, there is remarkably little evidence for the thesis that strange fusions are excluded from the ordinary domain of quantification. Furthermore, this reconciliatory strategy seems hopeless when applied (...) to the more fundamental conflict between universalism and the intuitions that tell against it. (shrink)

Wie ist es wohl, eine Fledermaus zu sein? Wäre ein rein physikalisches Duplikat von mir nur ein empfindungsloser Zombie? Muss man sich seinem Schicksal ergeben, wenn man sich unfreiwillig als lebensnotwendige Blutwaschanlage eines weltberühmten Violinisten wieder findet? Kann man sich wünschen, der König von China zu sein? Bin ich vielleicht nur ein Gehirn in einem Tank mit Nährflüssigkeit, das die Welt von einer Computersimulation vorgegaukelt bekommt? Worauf beziehen sich die Menschen auf der Zwillingserde mit ihrem Wort 'Wasser', wenn es bei (...) ihnen gar kein H2O gibt? -/- Diese und weitere seltsame Fragen sind das tägliche Brot vieler professioneller Philosophen. Die abstrusen Umstände, die dabei geschildert werden, nennt man "Gedankenexperimente". -/- Was soll die Erörterung dieser Szenarien, die sich so weit von unserem alltäglichen Leben, z.T. außerhalb der Grenzen unserer Wirklichkeit abspielen? Welche Rolle spielen diese "Gedankenexperimente" in der philosophischen Methodologie? Ist diese Rolle überhaupt berechtigt? -/- Das vorliegende Buch gibt Antworten auf diese Fragen. Es stellt sich heraus, dass diese seltsamen Gedankenexperimente nicht nur berechtigte, sondern überaus wichtige Instrumente philosophischen Forschens darstellen. (shrink)

Springer. We find in contemporary culture starkly contrasting estimates of the value of faith. On the one hand, for many people, faith is a virtue or positive human value, something associated with understanding, hope, and love, something to be inculcated, maintained, and cherished. On the other hand, for many people, faith is a vice, something associated with dogmatism, arrogance, and close-mindedness, something to be avoided at all costs. The papers included in this special (double) issue on approaches to faith explore (...) questions about faith in a variety of settings through a diverse range of examples, both secular and religious. The attempt to deepen our understanding of faith in the context of ordinary human relationships (e.g., between parents and children, friends, generals and their armies, business partners, citizens and the state), a commitment to ideals, or the pursuit of significant goals is clearly of general philosophical interest, as is the examination of potential connections between faith and topics such as trust or reliance. (shrink)

We should not be creating conscious, humanoid agents but an entirely new sort of entity, rather like oracles, with no conscience, no fear of death, no distracting loves and hates.

The question of what truths are necessary in the broadest possible sense is a difficult one to answer, as is the question of what the limits are to what is possible. (Most people would see these two questions as different sides of the same coin, of course, since many think the question of what is possible is just the question of what is not necessarily ruled out). We have three general sorts of strategies for determining whether something is necessary (or (...) possible). We can identify it in a class that we were previously sure was a class of things that are necessary – we might show it is a theorem of a logical system that we have confidence in, or that the sentence appears to be true simply in virtue of the meanings of the words, or that it is a true statement involving names or about natural kinds of the “necessary a posteriori” sort discussed by Kripke and Putnam, and there are perhaps other classes of claims which we are prepared to accept are necessary if true.1 Likewise, we might establish the possibility of something occurring by reference to a class of well-established or uncontroversial possibilities: e.g. we are inclined to think that it is possible (in the broadest sense) for an event to occur in the future if one of the same kind has occurred in the past. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders certain of Kierkegaard's criticisms of Hegel's theoretical philosophy in the light of recent interpretations of the latter. The paper seeks to show how these criticisms, far from being merely parochial or rhetorical, turn on central issues concerning the nature of thought and what it is to think. I begin by introducing Hegel's conception of "pure thought" as this is distinguished by his commitment to certain general requirements on a properly philosophical form of inquiry. I then outline Hegel's (...) strategy for resolving a crucial problem he takes himself to face. For his account of the nature of thought depends upon the idea of a form of inquiry in which nothing whatsoever is presupposed; but this idea appears basically paradoxical inasmuch as the mere act of beginning to inquire in a certain way embodies an assumption about how it is appropriate to begin. Turning to Kierkegaard, I consider a key objection to the effect that Hegel's strategy for resolving this paradox depends on the incoherent idea of a purely reflexive act of thinking. Finally, I draw out some central features of the alternative account of "situated" thought and inquiry which Kierkegaard presents as distinctively Socratic. (shrink)

A number of authors have argued that, in order for S to be appropriately held morally responsible for some action or attitude (say, via moral blame), that action or attitude must somehow reflect or express a negative aspect of S’s (“true”, “deep”, or “real”) self. Recently, theorists of “epistemic blame” and “epistemic accountability” have also incorporated certain “self-disclosure” conditions into their accounts of these phenomena. In this paper, I will argue that accounts of epistemic responsibility which require disclosure of an (...) objectionable feature of a person’s self neglect central aspects of our responsibility practices. Specifically, I will argue that we can appropriately hold individuals epistemically responsible for things which do not reflect or express negative aspects of “who they are” in any way. While disclosure of an objectionable feature of (what I will call) a person’s “doxastic self” isn’t altogether irrelevant when it comes to holding that person epistemically responsible, it also isn’t necessary. One lesson I wish to draw is that, insofar as our epistemic responsibility practices are capable of shedding light on the nature of epistemic normativity itself, theorists interested in the latter should be focused on more than just accountability responses which track objectionable features of a person’s self. (shrink)

This is a survey of recent debates concerning the normativity of belief. We explain what the thesis that belief is normative involves, consider arguments for and against that thesis, and explore its bearing on debates in metaethics.

Alan Turing, one of the fathers of computing, warned that Artificial Intelligence (AI) could one day pose an existential risk to humanity. Today, recent advancements in the field AI have been accompanied by a renewed set of existential warnings. But what exactly constitutes an existential risk? And how exactly does AI pose such a threat? In this chapter we aim to answer these questions. In particular, we will critically explore three commonly cited reasons for thinking that AI poses an existential (...) threat to humanity: the control problem, the possibility of global disruption from an AI race dynamic, and the weaponization of AI. (shrink)

Possible worlds have found many applications in contemporary philosophy: from theories of possibility and necessity, to accounts of conditionals, to theories of mental and linguistic content, to understanding supervenience relationships, to theories of properties and propositions, among many other applications. Almost as soon as possible worlds started to be used in formal theories in logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and elsewhere, theorists started to wonder whether impossible worlds should be postulated as well. In many applications, possible worlds (...) face limitations that can be dealt with through postulating impossible worlds as well. This chapter examines some of the uses of impossible worlds, and philosophical challenges theories of impossible worlds face. (shrink)

In this paper, we claim that, if you justifiably believe that you ought to perform some act, it follows that you ought to perform that act. In the first half, we argue for this claim by reflection on what makes for correct reasoning from beliefs about what you ought to do. In the second half, we consider a number of objections to this argument and its conclusion. In doing so, we arrive at another argument for the view that justified beliefs (...) about what you ought to do must be true, based in part on the idea that the epistemic and practical domains are uniform, in a sense we spell out. We conclude by sketching possible implications of our discussion for the debates over what is wrong with akrasia and pragmatic encroachment on justified belief and knowledge. (shrink)

While those who take a "structuralist" approach to racial justice issues are right to call attention to the importance of social practices, laws, etc., they sometimes go too far by suggesting that antiracist efforts ought to focus on changing unjust social systems rather than changing individuals’ minds. We argue that while the “either/or” thinking implied by this framing is intuitive and pervasive, it is misleading and self-undermining. We instead advocate for a “both/and” approach to antiracist moral education that explicitly teaches (...) how social structures influence ideas about race and how ideas about race shape, sustain, and transform social structures. Ideally, antiracist moral education will help people see how social change and moral progress depend on the symbiotic relations between individuals and structures. We articulate a conception of “structure-facing virtue” that exemplifies this hybrid approach to illuminate the pivotal role moral education plays in the fight for racial justice. (shrink)

Perspectivists hold that what you ought to do is determined by your perspective, that is, your epistemic position. Objectivists hold that what you ought to do is determined by the facts irrespective of your perspective. This paper explores an influential argument for perspectivism which appeals to the thought that the normative is action guiding. The crucial premise of the argument is that you ought to φ only if you are able to φ for the reasons which determine that you ought (...) to φ. We show that this premise can be understood in different ways. On one reading, it provides no support for perspectivism. On another reading, the premise lacks support. So, the argument fails. An important upshot of the paper is that the objectivist can embrace the thought about guidance. (shrink)

Kripke maintains that one who stipulatively introduces the term ' one meter' as a rigid designator for the length of a certain stick s at time t is in a position to know a priori that if s exists at t then the length of s at t is one meter. Some (e.g., Soames 2003) have objected to this alleged instance of the contingent a priori on the grounds that the stipulator's knowledge would have to be based in part on (...) substantive metalinguistic knowledge. I examine Soames's argument for the a posteriority of the relevant metalinguistic knowledge, and I argue that its main premise is false. (shrink)

What is consciousness and why is it so philosophically and scientifically puzzling? For many years philosophers approached this question assuming a standard physicalist framework on which consciousness can be explained by contemporary physics, biology, neuroscience, and cognitive science. This book is a debate between two philosophers who are united in their rejection of this kind of "standard" physicalism - but who differ sharply in what lesson to draw from this. Amy Kind defends dualism 2.0, a thoroughly modern version of dualism (...) (the theory that there are two fundamentally different kinds of things in the world: those that are physical and those that are mental) decoupled from any religious or non-scientific connotations. Daniel Stoljar defends non-standard physicalism, a kind of physicalism different from both the standard version and dualism 2.0. The book presents a cutting-edge assessment of the philosophy of consciousness and provides a glimpse at what the future study of this area might bring. (shrink)

Say that the Moving Spotlight Theory (MST) combines the following three theses: A-THEORY : There is an absolute distinction between present and non-present time.

Since nothing about God is passive, and the perception of pain is inherently passive, then it seems that God does not know what it is like to experience pain. Nor would he be able to cause us to experience pain, for his experience would then be a sensation (which would require God to have senses, which he does not). My suggestion is that Berkeley avoids this situation by describing how God knows about pain “among other things” (i.e. as something whose (...) identity is intelligible in terms of the integrated network of things). This avoids having to assume that God has ideas (including pain) apart from his willing that there be perceivers who have specific ideas that are in harmony or not in harmony with one another. (shrink)

Although thought experiments were first discovered as a sui generis methodological tool by philosophers of science (most prominently by Ernst Mach), the tool can also be found – even more frequently – in contemporary philosophy. Thought experiments in philosophy and science have a lot in common. However, in this chapter we will concentrate on thought experiments in philosophy only. Their use has been the centre of attention of metaphilosophical discussion in the past decade, and this chapter will provide an overview (...) of the results this discussion has achieved and point out which issues are still open. (shrink)

Recent advances in the Super Linguistics of pictures have laid the Super Semantic foundation for modelling the phenomena of narrative sequencing and co-reference in pictorial and mixed linguistic-pictorial discourses. We take up the question of how one arrives at the pragmatic interpretations of such discourses. In particular, we offer an analysis of: (i) the discourse composition problem: how to represent the joint meaning of a multi-picture discourse, (ii) observed differences in narrative sequencing in prima facie equivalent linguistic vs pictorial discourses, (...) and (iii) the phenomenon of co-referencing across pictures. We extend Segmented Discourse Representation Theory to spell out a formal Super Pragmatics that applies to linguistic, pictorial and mixed discourses, while respecting the particular ‘genius’ of either medium and computing their distinctive pragmatic interpretations. (shrink)

Vendler’s :161–173, 1979) puzzle about imagination is that the sentences ‘Imagine swimming in that water’ and ‘Imagine yourself swimming in that water’ seem at once semantically different and semantically the same. They seem semantically different, since the first requires you to imagine ’from the inside’, while the second allows you to imagine ’from the outside.’ They seem semantically the same, since despite superficial dissimilarity, there is good reason to think that they are syntactically and lexically identical. This paper sets out (...) the puzzle and offers a novel solution. Our proposal is that, just as there is knowledge-wh, there is also imagining-wh and that the inside/outside distinction Vendler points to is properly understood as a distinction within imagining-wh. In particular, to imagine swimming from the inside is to imagine what it feels like to swim, while to imagine swimming from the outside is to imagine what it looks like to swim. We show that this proposal is well grounded in both the semantics and syntax of ‘imagine.’ We also argue it makes better sense than its rivals of the data Vendler found so puzzling. (shrink)

This chapter discusses different perspectives and trends in social decision making, especially the actual processes used by humans when they make decisions in their everyday lives or in business situations. The chapter uses cognitive psychological techniques to break down these processes and set them in their social context. Most of our decisions are made in a social context and are therefore influenced by other people. If you are at an auction and bidding on a popular item, you will try to (...) guess how long the others will keep in the bidding race. Likewise, when you and another person have to coordinate your decision to win a card game you will also try to think about what the other person know and what s/he will do, so you can adjust your choice. In other words, you are trying to come up with a model of the person and his decision-making process. This involves the capability to think about the thoughts and intentions of others, to put yourself in another person's shoes (perspective taking), and to think recursively about your and another person's over several steps (like in a game of chess). Especially, recursive social reasoning is one of the hallmarks of social decision-making. Whereas observational, competitive and cooperative decision-making can all be seen as trying to maximize the own reward or profit, altruistic decision-making blatantly violates this axiomatic principle of behavioral economics. Yet, altruistic behavior is quite common throughout human society. -/- . (shrink)

Berkeley's doctrine of archetypes explains how God perceives and can have the same ideas as finite minds. His appeal of Christian neo-Platonism opens up a way to understand how the relation of mind, ideas, and their union is modeled on the Cappadocian church fathers' account of the persons of the trinity. This way of understanding Berkeley indicates why he, in contrast to Descartes or Locke, thinks that mind (spiritual substance) and ideas (the object of mind) cannot exist or be thought (...) of apart from one another. It also hints at why Gregory of Nyssa's immaterialism sounds so much like Berkeley's. (shrink)

Resumen: La capacidad unificadora de una teoría científica es un rasgo usualmente contemplado a la hora de evaluar su adecuación. Kitcher ha elucidado satisfactoriamente tal noción mediante su enfoque de los patrones explicativos. Sin embargo, su perspectiva adolece de ciertas carencias. Concretamente, sostendremos que el requisito de rigurosidad de los patrones para evaluar la capacidad unificadora debe ser repensado, pues atenta contra la heterogeneidad característica de las diferentes aplicaciones de teorías unificadoras. A su vez, mostraremos cómo estas dificultades bien pueden (...) ser subsanadas desde el marco del estructuralismo metateórico sin por ello resignar ninguna de las acertadas intuiciones de Kitcher. -/- Palabras clave: Explicación, Kitcher, estructuralismo metateórico, unificación, unificación espuria. -/- Abstract: Kitcher has satisfactorily explicated unification using his particular approach to scientific explanation. However, we believe that his perspective has certain problems, which have been inherited by more recent approaches to the topic. Specifically, the requirement of stringency of patterns that Kitcher proposes to determine the unifying power of an explanatory pattern undermines the typical and peculiar heterogeneity we can find in different applications of unifying theories. We will show how this topic can be better addressed by the perspective built by metatheoretical structuralism without sacrificing any of Kitcher’s correct intuitions. -/- Keywords: Explanation, Kitcher, metatheoretical structuralism, spurious unification, unification. (shrink)

There is a widespread assumption that B-theorists (according to whom there is nothing metaphysically special about the present moment in virtue of which it is present) should interpret the standard tense operators (‘it was the case that’, ‘it will be the case that’) as implicit quantifier-restrictors – so that, for example, an utterance at instant t of the sentence ‘It was the case that there are dinosaurs’ is true just in case there are dinosaurs located at some instant t* earlier (...) than t. However, it is easy to show that this interpretation of the tense operators creates serious problems for B-theorists when combined with certain other relatively uncontroversial B-theoretic assumptions. In this paper, I argue that the best way for B-theorists to respond to these problems is to treat the standard tense operators as redundant when the sentences in their scope are qualitative (i.e. not about any particular individuals). (shrink)

This paper aims to develop an understanding of how the culture industry still operates in the postcolonial era. To this end, the first part of this paper will look at Adorno and Horkheimer’s reading of modernity, touching on how instrumental reasoning can lend itself to barbarism, along with an exposition of Adorno’s analysis of the culture industry. The second part will present decolonial theory, its critique of European modernity and, particularly, its focus on neo-imperialism. This theory will then be put (...) alongside critical theory, analyzing their differences concerning racial issues and how their critique of capitalism may represent a meeting point between the two theories. Finally, the conclusion will consider all previous elements to explain the connection between the Culture industry and its current strategy in former colonial areas. (shrink)

A pressing problem for many non-realist1 theories concerning various specific subject matters is the challenge of making sense of our ordinary propositional attitude claims related to the subject in question. Famously in the case of ethics, to take one example, we have in ordinary language prima facie ascriptions of beliefs and desires involving moral properties and relationships. In the case, for instance, of “Jason believes that Kylie is virtuous”, we appear to have a belief which takes Kylie to be a (...) certain way. If Jason desires that Kylie acts as she ought, he appears to have a desire which has as its content that Kylie perform actions of a certain sort (i.e. the actions that she ought to perform). However, for non-cognitivists in ethics who reject the idea that sentences such as “Kylie is virtuous” or “Kylie acts as she ought” are in the business of making truth-apt claims, or representing that certain moral features are possessed by objects or events, or even, in extreme cases, that such claims express propositions at all, the semantic analysis of the example propositional attitude claims made about Jason will have to be non-standard. (This is merely an application of the well-known “Frege-Geach problem” (see Geach 1965) to the case of embedding moral vocabulary in propositional-attitude ascriptions.). (shrink)

Berkeley's immaterialism has more in common with views developed by Henry More, the mathematician Joseph Raphson, John Toland, and Jonathan Edwards than those of thinkers with whom he is commonly associated (e.g., Malebranche and Locke). The key for recognizing their similarities lies in appreciating how they understand St. Paul's remark that in God "we live and move and have our being" as an invitation to think to God as the space of discourse in which minds and ideas are identified. This (...) way of speaking about God, adapted by Karl Barth and Paul Tillich, opens up new ways to think about the relation between God and finite minds. (shrink)

To say that a philosophical dispute is ‘merely verbal’ seems to be an important diagnosis. If that diagnosis is correct for a particular dispute, then the right thing to do would be to declare that dispute to be over. The topic of what the disputing parties were fighting over was just a pseudo-problem (thus not really a problem), or at least – if there is a sense in which also merely verbal disputes indicate some problem, for example, insufficient clarity of (...) terminology – this problem is not substantial, or not as substantial as the disputing parties believed their problem initially to be. In this paper I will try to clarify what it means if we diagnose that two arguing parties are having a merely verbal dispute. (shrink)

The overarching thesis of this essay is that despite the etymological relationship between the word ‘philosophy’ and wisdom—the word ‘philosophos’, in Greek, means ‘lover of wisdom’—and irrespective of the longstanding tradition of identifying philosophers with ‘wise men’—mainline philosophy, historically, has had little interest in wisdom and has been preoccupied primarily with knowledge. Philosophy, if we are speaking of the mainline tradition, has had and continues to have more in common with the natural and social sciences than it does with the (...) humanities and liberal arts. In advancing this thesis, I divide the history of philosophy into three competing traditions: the mainline tradition of philosophy and two philosophical ‘countercultures,’ one conservative the other radical. At issue between these rival traditions is precisely the relative significance of knowledge and wisdom and their respective places in inquiry. I also provide an account of the distinction between knowledge and wisdom—which I argue is greater than has perhaps been appreciated—and between the natural and applied sciences, on the one hand, and the humanities and liberal arts on the other. (Published Online February 27 2006). (shrink)

Cet article se base sur des résultats d’enquête récents montrant que, chez des adolescents marocains âgés de dix à dix-huit ans, les manifestations de pensée critique dialogique se si-tuent majoritairement dans une « perspective épistémologique » appelée « relativisme » par un modèle développemental élaboré dans les quinze dernières années avec la méthode de la théorie ancrée. Pour comprendre ces résultats de recherche, qui contrastent avec ceux obte-nus auprès d’adolescents québécois et français appartenant aux mêmes groupes d’âge, nous décrivons, dans (...) un premier temps, le modèle développemental dans lequel ils prennent sens. Nous illustrons ensuite les manifestations de « perspective épistémologique relativiste » chez les adolescents marocains à l’aide d’extraits de verbatim. Les élèves ont tendance à se décen-trer de leur vécu personnel, à se représenter le point de vue d’autrui en général et à co-construire des points de vue convergents avec les pairs. Dans un deuxième temps, prenant appui sur une approche de la représentation sociale en tant que « scène », et sur la littérature touchant aux rôles des aînés dans les sociétés africaines, nous éclairons ces résultats de re-cherche par l’analyse d’une représentation sociale fréquemment mobilisée par les jeunes Ma-rocains interviewés : celle de la hiérarchie des âges et du devoir d’écoute envers les plus âgés. L’analyse de cette « scène » met en lumière des attitudes sociales inculquées aux adolescents en contexte culturel marocain, susceptibles de favoriser le développement d’une « perspective épistémologique relativiste » en matière de pensée critique dialogique. (shrink)

Take “legal reality” to be the part of reality that actual legal thought and talk is dis- tinctively about, such as legal institutions, legal obligations, and legal norms. Our goal is to explore whether legal reality is disunified. To illustrate the issue, consider the possibility that an important metaphysical thesis such as positivism is true of one part of legal reality (legal institutions), but not another (legal norms). We offer two arguments that suggest that legal reality is disunified: one concerns (...) the heteroge- neity of different entities that are part of legal reality; the other concerns variation within legal thought and talk. We then show that taking the possibility of the disunity of legal reality seriously has important upshots for how we think about the positivist and antipositivist traditions, the debate between them, and their relation to other parts of legal theory, such as critical legal theory and legal realism. (shrink)

Modal ontological arguments are often claimed to be immune to the flqqperfect islandfrqq objection of Gaunilo, because necessary existence does not apply to material, contingent things. But Gaunilo’s strategy can be reformulated: we can speak of non-contingent beings, like quasi-Gods or evil God. The paper is intended to show that we can construct ontological arguments for the existence of such beings, and that those arguments are equally plausible as theistic modal argument. This result does not show that this argument is (...) fallacious, but it shows that it is dialectically ineffective as an argument for theism. (shrink)

By focusing on the exchange between Descartes and Hobbes on how the self is related to its activities, Berkeley draws attention to how he and Hobbes explain the forensic constitution of human subjectivity and moral/political responsibility in terms of passive obedience and conscientious submission to the laws of the sovereign. Formulated as the language of nature or as pronouncements of the supreme political power, those laws identify moral obligations by locating political subjects within those networks of sensible signs. When thus (...) juxtaposed with Hobbes, Berkeley can be understood as endorsing a theologically inflected version of deontological ethics in which moral laws are linked directly to the constitution of the self. (shrink)

This paper offers a novel interpretation of Descartes's conception of freedom that resolves an important tension at the heart of his view. It does so by appealing to the important but overlooked distinction between possessing a power, exercising a power, and being in a position to exercise a power.

In several essays I have argued that Berkeley maintains the same basic notion of spiritual substance throughout his life. Because that notion is not the traditional (Aristotelian, Cartesian, or Lockean) doctrine of substance, critics (e.g., John Roberts, Tom Stoneham, Talia Mae Bettcher, Margaret Atherton, Walter Ott, Marc Hight) claim that on my reading Berkeley either endorses a Humean notion of substance or has no recognizable theory of substance at all. In this essay I point out how my interpretation does not (...) assume that Berkeley adopts a bundle theory of mind, but instead redefines what it means for a simple substance to be the principle by which ideas are perceived. (shrink)