Edited proceedings of an interdisciplinary symposium on consciousness held at the University of Cambridge in January 1978. Includes a foreword by Freeman Dyson. Chapter authors: G. Vesey, R.L. Gregory, H.C. Longuet-Higgins, N.K. Humphrey, H.B. Barlow, D.M. MacKay, B.D. Josephson, M. Roth, V.S. Ramachandran, S. Padfield, and (editorial summary only) E. Noakes. A scanned pdf is available from this web site (philpapers.org), while alternative versions more suitable for copying text are available from https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/245189. -/- Page numbering convention for the pdf (...) version viewed in a pdf viewer is as follows: 'go to page n' accesses the pair of scanned pages 2n and 2n+1. Applicable licence: CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0. (shrink)

European Computing and Philosophy conference, 2–4 July Barcelona The Seventh ECAP (European Computing and Philosophy) conference was organized by Jordi Vallverdu at Autonomous University of Barcelona. The conference started with the IACAP (The International Association for CAP) presidential address by Luciano Floridi, focusing on mechanisms of knowledge production in informational networks. The first keynote delivered by Klaus Mainzer made a frame for the rest of the conference, by elucidating the fundamental role of complexity of informational structures that can be analyzed (...) on different levels of organization giving place for variety of possible approaches which converge in this cross-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary research field. Keynotes by Kevin Warwick about re-embodiment of rats’ neurons into robots, Raymond Turner on syntax and semantics in programming languages, Roderic Guigo on Biocomputing Sciences and Francesco Subirada on the past and future of supercomputing presented different topics of philosophical as well as practical aspects of computing. Vonference tracks included: Philosophy of Information (Patrick Allo), Philosophy of Computer Science (Raymond Turner), Computer and Information Ethics (Johnny Søraker and Alison Adam), Computational Approaches to the Mind (Ruth Hagengruber), IT and Cultural Diversity (Jutta Weber and Charles Ess), Crossroads (David Casacuberta), Robotics, AI & Ambient Intelligence (Thomas Roth-Berghofer), Biocomputing, Evolutionary and Complex Systems (Gordana Dodig Crnkovic and Søren Brier), E-learning, E-science and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (Annamaria Carusi) and Technological Singularity and Acceleration Studies (Amnon Eden). (shrink)

What are the philosophical views of contemporary professional philosophers? We surveyed many professional philosophers in order to help determine their views on 30 central philosophical issues. This article documents the results. It also reveals correlations among philosophical views and between these views and factors such as age, gender, and nationality. A factor analysis suggests that an individual's views on these issues factor into a few underlying components that predict much of the variation in those views. The results of a metasurvey (...) also suggest that many of the results of the survey are surprising: philosophers as a whole have quite inaccurate beliefs about the distribution of philosophical views in the profession. (shrink)

In recent years, metaphysics has undergone what some describe as a revolution: it has become standard to understand a vast array of questions as questions about grounding, a metaphysical notion of determination. Why should we believe in grounding, though? Supporters of the revolution often gesture at what I call the Argument from Explanatoriness: the notion of grounding is somehow indispensable to a metaphysical type of explanation. I challenge this argument and along the way develop a “reactionary” view, according to which (...) there is no interesting sense in which the notion of grounding is explanatorily indispensable. I begin with a distinction between two conceptions of grounding, a distinction which extant critiques of the revolution have usually failed to take into consideration: grounding qua that which underlies metaphysical explanation and grounding qua metaphysical explanation itself. Accordingly, I distinguish between two versions of the Argument from Explanatoriness: the Unexplained Explanations Version for the first conception of grounding, and the Expressive Power Version for the second. The paper’s conclusion is that no version of the Argument from Explanatoriness is successful. (shrink)

Musical works change. Bruckner revised his Eighth Symphony. Ella Fitzgerald and many other artists have made it acceptable to sing the jazz standard “All the Things You Are” without its original verse. If we accept that musical works genuinely change in these ways, a puzzle arises: why can’t I change Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony? More generally, why are some individuals in a privileged position when it comes to changing musical works and other artifacts, such as novels, films, and games? I give (...) a view of musical works that helps to answer these questions. Musical works, on this view, are created abstract objects with no parts. The paradigmatic changes that musical works undergo are socially determined normative changes in how they should be performed. Due to contingent social practices, Bruckner, but not I, can change how his symphony should be performed. Were social practices radically different, I would be able to change his symphony. This view extends to abstract artifacts beyond music, including novels, films, words, games, and corporations. (shrink)

Lipsey and Lancaster's "general theory of second best" is widely thought to have significant implications for applied theorizing about the institutions and policies that most effectively implement abstract normative principles. It is also widely thought to have little significance for theorizing about which abstract normative principles we ought to implement. Contrary to this conventional wisdom, I show how the second-best theorem can be extended to myriad domains beyond applied normative theorizing, and in particular to more abstract theorizing about the normative (...) principles we should aim to implement. I start by separating the mathematical model used to prove the second-best theorem from its familiar economic interpretation. I then develop an alternative normative-theoretic interpretation of the model, which yields a novel second best theorem for idealistic normative theory. My method for developing this interpretation provides a template for developing additional interpretations that can extend the reach of the second-best theorem beyond normative theoretical domains. I also show how, within any domain, the implications of the second-best theorem are more specific than is typically thought. I conclude with some brief remarks on the value of mathematical models for conceptual exploration. (shrink)

The paper considers contemporary models of presumption in terms of their ability to contribute to a working theory of presumption for argumentation. Beginning with the Whatelian model, we consider its contemporary developments and alternatives, as proposed by Sidgwick, Kauffeld, Cronkhite, Rescher, Walton, Freeman, Ullmann-Margalit, and Hansen. Based on these accounts, we present a picture of presumptions characterized by their nature, function, foundation and force. On our account, presumption is a modal status that is attached to a claim and has the (...) effect of shifting, in a dialogue, a burden of proof set at a local level. Presumptions can be analysed and evaluated inferentially as components of rule-based structures. Presumptions are defeasible, and the force of a presumption is a function of its normative foundation. This picture seeks to provide a framework to guide the development of specific theories of presumption. (shrink)

I argue that some important elements of the current cosmological model are 'conventionalist’ in the sense defined by Karl Popper. These elements include dark matter and dark energy; both are auxiliary hypotheses that were invoked in response to observations that falsified the standard model as it existed at the time.

Are the special sciences autonomous from physics? Those who say they are need to explain how dependent special science properties could feature in irreducible causal explanations, but that’s no easy task. The demands of a broadly physicalist worldview require that such properties are not only dependent on the physical, but also physically realized. Realized properties are derivative, so it’s natural to suppose that they have derivative causal powers. Correspondingly, philosophical orthodoxy has it that if we want special science properties to (...) bestow genuinely new causal powers, we must reject physical realization and embrace a form of emergentism, in which such properties arise from the physical by mysterious brute determination. In this paper, I argue that contrary to this orthodoxy, there are physically realized properties that bestow new causal powers in relation to their realizers. The key to my proposal is to reject causal-functional accounts of realization and embrace a broader account that allows for the realization of shapes and patterns. Unlike functional properties, such properties are defined by qualitative, non-causal specifications, so realizing them does not consist in bestowing causal powers. This, I argue, allows for causal novelty of the strongest kind. I argue that the molecular geometry of H2O—a qualitative, multiply realizable property—plays an irreducible role in explaining its dipole moment, and thereby bestows novel powers. On my proposal, special science properties can have the kind of causal novelty traditionally associated with strong emergence, without any of the mystery. (shrink)

This paper offers a probabilistic treatment of the conditions for argument cogency as endorsed in informal logic: acceptability, relevance, and sufficiency. Treating a natural language argument as a reason-claim-complex, our analysis identifies content features of defeasible argument on which the RSA conditions depend, namely: change in the commitment to the reason, the reason’s sensitivity and selectivity to the claim, one’s prior commitment to the claim, and the contextually determined thresholds of acceptability for reasons and for claims. Results contrast with, and (...) may indeed serve to correct, the informal understanding and applications of the RSA criteria concerning their conceptual dependence, their function as update-thresholds, and their status as obligatory rather than permissive norms, but also show how these formal and informal normative approachs can in fact align. (shrink)

Animalism—the view that the identity across time of individuals like us consists in the persistence of our animal organisms—does poorly at accounting for our identity-related practical concerns. The reason is straightforward: whereas our practical concerns seem to track the identity of psychological creatures—persons—animalism focuses on the identity of human organisms who are not essentially persons. This lack of fit between our practical concerns and animalism has been taken to reduce animalism’s plausibility (relative to psychological criteria of identity). In this paper, (...) I survey the three leading replies to this challenge, finding them either implausible or incomplete. I will then attempt to construct the only viable response, one that begins by admitting that our practical concerns actually do not consist in a monolithic set; rather, there are distinctly different types of practical concerns, and while some are clearly grounded on psychological relations, some are actually grounded on others, including animalistic and humanistic relations; furthermore, their actual connection to identity is tenuous at best. What these concerns are, how they divide up, and what they are grounded on in each instance—these are the issues it is my second aim in this paper to take up. (shrink)

The old evidence problem affects any probabilistic confirmation measure based on comparing pr(H/E) and pr(H). The article argues for the following points: (1) measures based on likelihood ratios also suffer old evidence difficulties; (2) the less-discussed synchronic old evidence problem is, in an important sense, the most acute; (3) prominent attempts to solve or dissolve the synchronic problem fail; (4) a little-discussed variant of the standard measure avoids the problem, in an appealing way; and (5) this measure nevertheless reveals a (...) different problem for probabilistic confirmation measures, a problem that is unlikely to lend itself to formal solution. (shrink)

This year's book award committee reviewed thirty nominated books. We identified seven finalists, each well worth our special attention: Milton Fisk's impressive Towards a Healthy Society, Gary Francione's feisty Introduction to Animal Rights, Timothy Gaffaney's engaging Freedom for the Poor, David Ingram's historically insightful Group Rights, Rachel Roth's poignant Making Women Pay, Karen Warren's finely articulated Ecofeminist Philosophy, and the eventual winning entry, Phillip Cole's Philosophies of Exclusion: Liberal Political Theory and Immigration. We're here today to discuss this (...) important book. (shrink)

The theory of embodied cognition can provide HCI practitioners and theorists with new ideas about interac-tion and new principles for better designs. I support this claim with four ideas about cognition: (1) interacting with tools changes the way we think and perceive – tools, when manipulated, are soon absorbed into the body schema, and this absorption leads to fundamental changes in the way we perceive and conceive of our environments; (2) we think with our bodies not just with our brains; (...) (3) we know more by doing than by seeing – there are times when physically performing an activity is better than watching someone else perform the activity, even though our motor resonance system fires strongly during other person observa-tion; (4) there are times when we literally think with things. These four ideas have major implications for interaction design, especially the design of tangible, physical, context aware, and telepresence systems. (shrink)

Working within the broad lines of general consensus that mark out the core features of John Stuart Mill’s (1806–1873) logic, as set forth in his A System of Logic (1843–1872), this chapter provides an introduction to Mill’s logical theory by reviewing his position on the relationship between induction and deduction, and the role of general premises and principles in reasoning. Locating induction, understood as a kind of analogical reasoning from particulars to particulars, as the basic form of inference that is (...) both free-standing and the sole load-bearing structure in Mill’s logic, the foundations of Mill’s logical system are briefly inspected. Several naturalistic features are identified, including its subject matter, human reasoning, its empiricism, which requires that only particular, experiential claims can function as basic reasons, and its ultimate foundations in ‘spontaneous’ inference. The chapter concludes by comparing Mill’s naturalized logic to Russell’s (1907) regressive method for identifying the premises of mathematics. (shrink)

This essay focuses on three recent books on morality and virtue, Michael Slote's 'Morals from Motives', Rosalind Hursthouse's 'On Virtue Ethics', and Philippa Foot's 'Natural Goodness'. Slote proposes an "agent-based" ethical theory according to which the ethical status of acts is derivative from assessments of virtue. Following Foot's lead, Hursthouse aims to vindicate an ethical naturalism that explains human goodness on the basis of views about human nature. Both Hursthouse and Slote take virtue to be morally basic in a way (...) that Foot, to her credit, does not. We argue that all three views face a range of serious difficulties. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a surge in online collaboration between experts and amateurs on scientific research. In this article, we analyse the epistemological implications of these crowdsourced projects, with a focus on Zooniverse, the world’s largest citizen science web portal. We use quantitative methods to evaluate the platform’s success in producing large volumes of observation statements and high impact scientific discoveries relative to more conventional means of data processing. Through empirical evidence, Bayesian reasoning, and conceptual analysis, we show how information (...) and communication technologies enhance the reliability, scalability, and connectivity of crowdsourced e-research, giving online citizen science projects powerful epistemic advantages over more traditional modes of scientific investigation. These results highlight the essential role played by technologically mediated social interaction in contemporary knowledge production. We conclude by calling for an explicitly sociotechnical turn in the philosophy of science that combines insights from statistics and logic to analyse the latest developments in scientific research. (shrink)

[A slightly revised version of this paper has been accepted by the BJPS] More attention has been devoted to providing evolutionary scenarios accounting for the development of beliefs, or belief-like states, than for desires or preferences. Here I articulate and defend an evolutionary rationale for the development of psychologically real preference states. Preferences token or represent the expected values of discriminated states, available actions, or action-state pairings. The argument is an application the ‘environmental complexity thesis’ found in Godfrey-Smith and Sterelny, (...) although my conclusions differ from Sterelny’s. I argue that tokening expected utilities can, under specified general conditions, be a powerful design solution to the problem of allocating the capacities of an agent in an efficient way. Preferences are for efficient action selection, and are a ‘fuel for success’ in the sense urged by Godfrey-Smith for true beliefs. They will tend to be favoured by selection when environments are complex in ways that matter to an organism, and when organisms have rich behavioural repertoires with heterogenous returns and costs. The rationale suggested here is conditional, especially on contingencies in what design options are available to selection and on trade-offs associated with the costs of generating and processing representations of value. The unqualified efficiency rationale for preferences suggests that organisms should represent expected utilities in a comprehensive and consistent way, but none of them do. In the final stages of the paper I consider some of the ways in which design trade-offs compromise the implementation of preferences in organisms that have them. (shrink)

This book concerns the foundations of epistemic modality and hyperintensionality and their applications to the philosophy of mathematics. I examine the nature of epistemic modality, when the modal operator is interpreted as concerning both apriority and conceivability, as well as states of knowledge and belief. The book demonstrates how epistemic modality and hyperintensionality relate to the computational theory of mind; metaphysical modality and hyperintensionality; the types of mathematical modality and hyperintensionality; to the epistemic status of large cardinal axioms, undecidable propositions, (...) and abstraction principles in the philosophy of mathematics; to the modal and hyperintensional profiles of the logic of rational intuition; and to the types of intention, when the latter is interpreted as a hyperintensional mental state. Chapter \textbf{2} argues for a novel type of expressivism based on the duality between the categories of coalgebras and algebras, and argues that the duality permits of the reconciliation between modal and hyperintensional cognitivism and modal and hyperintensional expressivism. I also develop a novel topic-sensitive truthmaker semantics for dynamic epistemic logic, and develop a novel dynamic two-dimensional semantics grounded in two-dimensional hyperintensional Turing machines. Chapter \textbf{3} provides an abstraction principle for epistemic (hyper-)intensions. Chapter \textbf{4} advances a topic-sensitive two-dimensional truthmaker semantics, and provides three novel interpretations of the framework along with the epistemic and metasemantic. Chapter \textbf{5} applies the fixed points of the modal $\mu$-calculus in order to account for the iteration of epistemic states in a single agent, by contrast to availing of modal axiom 4 (i.e. the KK principle). The fixed point operators in the modal $\mu$-calculus are rendered hyperintensional, which yields the first hyperintensional construal of the modal $\mu$-calculus in the literature and the first application of the calculus to the iteration of epistemic states in a single agent instead of the common knowledge of a group of agents. Chapter \textbf{6} advances a solution to the Julius Caesar problem based on Fine's `criterial' identity conditions which incorporate conditions on essentiality and grounding. Chapter \textbf{7} provides a ground-theoretic regimentation of the proposals in the metaphysics of consciousness and examines its bearing on the two-dimensional conceivability argument against physicalism. The topic-sensitive epistemic two-dimensional truthmaker semantics developed in chapters \textbf{2} and \textbf{4} are availed of in order for epistemic states to be a guide to metaphysical states in the hyperintensional setting. -/- Chapters \textbf{8-12} provide cases demonstrating how the two-dimensional hyperintensions of hyperintensional, i.e. topic-sensitive epistemic two-dimensional truthmaker, semantics, solve the access problem in the epistemology of mathematics. Chapter \textbf{8} examines the interaction between my hyperintensional semantics and the axioms of epistemic set theory, large cardinal axioms, the Epistemic Church-Turing Thesis, the modal axioms governing the modal profile of $\Omega$-logic, Orey sentences such as the Generalized Continuum Hypothesis, and absolute decidability. These results yield inter alia the first hyperintensional Epistemic Church-Turing Thesis and hyperintensional epistemic set theories in the literature. Chapter \textbf{9} examines the modal and hyperintensional commitments of abstractionism, in particular necessitism, and epistemic hyperintensionality, epistemic utility theory, and the epistemology of abstraction. I countenance a hyperintensional semantics for novel epistemic abstractionist modalities. I suggest, too, that observational type theory can be applied to first-order abstraction principles in order to make first-order abstraction principles recursively enumerable, i.e. Turing machine computable, and that the truth of the first-order abstraction principle for hyperintensions is grounded in its being possibly recursively enumerable and the machine being physically implementable. Chapter \textbf{10} examines the philosophical significance of hyperintensional $\Omega$-logic in set theory and discusses the hyperintensionality of metamathematics. Chapter \textbf{11} provides a modal logic for rational intuition and provides a hyperintensional semantics. Chapter \textbf{12} avails of modal coalgebras to interpret the defining properties of indefinite extensibility, and avails of hyperintensional epistemic two-dimensional semantics in order to account for the interaction between interpretational and objective modalities and the truthmakers thereof. This yields the first hyperintensional category theory in the literature. I invent a new mathematical trick in which first-order structures are treated as categories, and Vopenka's principle can be satisfied because of the elementary embeddings between the categories and generate Vopenka cardinals in the category of Set in category theory. Chapter \textbf{13} examines modal responses to the alethic paradoxes. I provide a counter-example to epistemic closure for logical deduction. Chapter \textbf{14} examines, finally, the modal and hyperintensional semantics for the different types of intention and the relation of the latter to evidential decision theory. (shrink)

Debates on the practical relevance of ideal theory revolve around Sen's metaphor of navigating a mountainous landscape. In *The Tyranny of the Ideal*, Gerald Gaus presents the most thorough articulation of this metaphor to date. His detailed exploration yields new insight on central issues in existing debates, as well as a fruitful medium for exploring important limitations on our ability to map the space of social possibilities. Yet Gaus's heavy reliance on the navigation metaphor obscures questions about the reasoning by (...) which ideal theories are justified. As a result, Gaus fails to notice the ways in which his theory of the Open Society resembles the ideal theories he aims to dismiss. Ironically, Gaus winds up neglecting the ways in which the Open Society might tyrannize our efforts to realize greater justice. (This article is part of a symposium on Gaus's *The Tyranny of the Ideal*.). (shrink)

Both Representation Theorem Arguments and Dutch Book Arguments support taking probabilistic coherence as an epistemic norm. Both depend on connecting beliefs to preferences, which are not clearly within the epistemic domain. Moreover, these connections are standardly grounded in questionable definitional/metaphysical claims. The paper argues that these definitional/metaphysical claims are insupportable. It offers a way of reconceiving Representation Theorem arguments which avoids the untenable premises. It then develops a parallel approach to Dutch Book Arguments, and compares the results. In each case (...) preferencedefects serve as a diagnostic tool, indicating purely epistemic defects. (shrink)

This paper argues that higher-order doubt generates an epistemic dilemma. One has a higher-order doubt with regards to P insofar as one justifiably withholds belief as to what attitude towards P is justified. That is, one justifiably withholds belief as to whether one is justified in believing, disbelieving, or withholding belief in P. Using the resources provided by Richard Feldman’s recent discussion of how to respect one’s evidence, I argue that if one has a higher-order doubt with regards to P, (...) then one is not justified in having any attitude towards P. Otherwise put: No attitude towards the doubted proposition respects one’s higher-order doubt. I argue that the most promising response to this problem is to hold that when one has a higher-order doubt about P, the best one can do to respect such a doubt is to simply have no attitude towards P. Higher-order doubt is thus much more rationally corrosive than non-higher-order doubt, as it undermines the possibility of justifiably having any attitude towards the doubted proposition. (shrink)

This paper seeks to rehabilitate St. Augustine’s widely dismissed response to the alleged incompatibility of divine foreknowledge and free will. This requires taking a fresh look at his analysis in On Free Choice of the Will, and arguing its relevance to the current debate. Along the way, mistaken interpretations of Augustine are rebutted, his real solution is developed and defended, a reason for his not anticipating Boethius’s a temporalist solution is suggested, a favorable comparison with Ockham is made, rival solutions (...) are rejected, and the aporetic nature of the problem is explained. (shrink)

Glymour's "bootstrap" account of confirmation is designed to provide an analysis of evidential relevance, which has been a serious problem for hypothetico-deductivism. As set out in Theory and Evidence, however, the "bootstrap" condition allows confirmation in clear cases of evidential irrelevance. The difficulties with Glymour's account seem to be due to a basic feature which it shares with hypothetico-deductive accounts, and which may explain why neither can give a satisfactory analysis of evidential relevance.

The main appeal of the currently popular "bootstrap" account of confirmation developed by Clark Glymour is that it seems to provide an account of evidential relevance. This account has, however, had severe problems; and Glymour has revised his original account in an attempt to solve them. I argue that this attempt fails completely, and that any similar modifications must also fail. If the problems can be solved, it will only be by radical revisions which involve jettisoning bootstrapping's basic approach to (...) theories. Finally, I argue that there is little reason to think that even such drastic modifications will lead to a satisfactory account of relevance. (shrink)

Why scientists reach an agreement on new experimental methods when there are conflicts of interest about the evidence they yield? I argue that debiasing methods play a crucial role in this consensus, providing a warrant about the impartiality of the outcome regarding the preferences of different parties involved in the experiment. From a contractarian perspective, I contend that an epistemic pre-requisite for scientists to agree on an experimental method is that this latter is neutral regarding their competing interests. I present (...) two medical experiments (on smallpox inoculation and Mesmerism) in which debiasing procedures such as blinding and data tabulation provided warrants of impartiality that made people agree on the experimental design even if they disagreed on the outcome. (shrink)

It is commonly acknowledged that, in order to test a theoretical hypothesis, one must, in Duhem' s phrase, rely on a "theoretical scaffolding" to connect the hypothesis with something measurable. Hypothesis-confirmation, on this view, becomes a three-place relation: evidence E will confirm hypothesis H only relative to some such scaffolding B. Thus the two leading logical approaches to qualitative confirmation--the hypothetico-deductive (H-D) account and Clark Glymour' s bootstrap account--analyze confirmation in relative terms. But this raises questions about the philosophical interpretation (...) of the technical conditions these accounts describe. What does it mean to say that E confirms H "relative to B"? How should we interpret the relation we are trying to analyze? (shrink)

This paper defends the legitimacy of semantical responses to certain skeptical challenges, with a particular focus on Putnam’s treatment of a particular version of Brain-in-Vat skepticism. It argues that while Putnam’s argument does not provide a general reply to Brain-in-Vat skepticism, the general approach it exemplifies is actually crucial in replying to other skeptical challenges that are otherwise hard to rebut.

Mit großer Wahrscheinlichkeit wird die Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) am 24. September in den Bundestag einziehen. Jüngste Umfragen legen nahe, dass sie sogar drittstärkste Partei werden könnte. Warum findet die AfD so viele Unterstützerinnen und Unterstützer? Mit welchen Argumenten wirbt die AfD für ihren Einzug in den Bundestag? Das Wahlprogramm der AfD zeigt nicht nur, wofür die Partei steht, sondern auch welche Strategie sie bei der Bundestagswahl und darüber hinaus verfolgt. Aus diesem Grund habe ich es argumentationstheoretisch analysiert und die (...) darin enthaltene Argumentation im Detail rekonstruiert. Die wichtigsten Ergebnisse umfassen: Erstens, aus einer rein logischen Perspektive ist die Argumentation der AfD außergewöhnlich klar und stringent. Dies gelingt ihr deshalb, weil sie sich gezielt auf Annahmen stützt, die vereinfachend oder konstruiert sind. Zweitens, das zentrale Thema der „Flüchtlingskrise“ zieht sich beinahe durch die gesamte Argumentation. Es taucht in Argumenten über den Verlust der Leitkultur oder den Verfall der inneren Sicherheit genauso auf wie in Argumenten über die Folgen der Globalisierung oder den demographischen Wandel. Drittens, und dies ist das zentrale Ergebnis der Analyse, die AfD argumentiert nach dem folgenden Muster: Es gibt eine Bedrohung. Nur die AfD kann uns davor bewahren. Also muss die AfD an die Macht kommen. Dies nenne ich das „Kernargument des Populismus“. (shrink)

Some types of solar radiation management (SRM) research are ethically problematic because they expose persons, animals, and ecosystems to significant risks. In our earlier work, we argued for ethical norms for SRM research based on norms for biomedical research. Biomedical researchers may not conduct research on persons without their consent, but universal consent is impractical for SRM research. We argue that instead of requiring universal consent, ethical norms for SRM research require only political legitimacy in decision-making about global SRM trials. (...) Using Allen Buchanan & Robert Keohane's model of global political legitimacy, we examine several existing global institutions as possible analogues for a politically legitimate SRM decision-making body. (shrink)

‘The soul hypothesis’ enjoys near unanimous support in the general population. Among philosophers and scientists, however, belief in the soul is far less common. The purpose of this essay to explain why many philosophers and scientists reject the soul hypothesis and to consider what the non-existence of the soul would entail.

The possibility of social and technological collapse has been the focus of science fiction tropes for decades, but more recent focus has been on specific sources of existential and global catastrophic risk. Because these scenarios are simple to understand and envision, they receive more attention than risks due to complex interplay of failures, or risks that cannot be clearly specified. In this paper, we discuss the possibility that complexity of a certain type leads to fragility which can function as a (...) source of catastrophic or even existential risk. The paper first reviews a hypothesis by Bostrom about inevitable technological risks, named the vulnerable world hypothesis. This paper next hypothesizes that fragility may not only be a possible risk, but could be inevitable,and would therefore be a subclass or example of Bostrom’s vulnerable worlds. After introducing the titular fragile world hypothesis, the paper details the conditions under which it would be correct, and presents arguments for why the conditions may in fact may apply. Finally, the assumptions and potential mitigations of the new hypothesis are contrasted with those Bostrom suggests. (shrink)

This article challenges the view most recently expounded by Emily Jackson that ‘decisional privacy’ ought to be respected in the realm of artificial reproduction (AR). On this view, it is considered an unjust infringement of individual liberty for the state to interfere with individual or group freedom artificially to produce a child. It is our contention that a proper evaluation of AR and of the relevance of welfare will be sensitive not only to the rights of ‘commissioning parties’ to AR (...) but also to public policy considerations. We argue that AR has implications for the common good, by involving matters of human reproduction, kinship, race, parenthood and identity. In this paper we challenge presuppositions concerning decisional privacy. We examine the essential commodification of human life implicit in AR and the systematicity that makes this possible. We address the objection that it is an ethically neutral way of having children and consider the problem of ‘existential debt’. After examining objections to the thesis that AR is illegitimate for reasons of public policy and the common good, we return to the issue of decisional privacy in the light of considerations concerning the legitimate role of the state in matters affecting human reproduction. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide hyperintensional foundations for mathematical platonism. I examine Hale and Wright's (2009) objections to the merits and need, in the defense of mathematical platonism and its epistemology, of the thesis of Necessitism. In response to Hale and Wright's objections to the role of epistemic and metaphysical modalities in providing justification for both the truth of abstraction principles and the success of mathematical predicate reference, I examine the Necessitist commitments of the abundant conception of properties endorsed by (...) Hale and Wright and examined in Hale (2013), and demonstrate how a two-dimensional approach to the epistemology of mathematics is consistent with Hale and Wright's notion of there being non-evidential epistemic entitlement rationally to trust that abstraction principles are true. A choice point that I flag is that between availing of intensional or hyperintensional semantics. The hyperintensional semantic approach that I advance is a topic-sensitive epistemic two-dimensional truthmaker semantics. I countenance a hyperintensional semantics for novel epistemic abstractionist modalities. I suggest that observational type theory can be applied to first-order abstraction principles in order to make abstraction principles recursively enumerable. Epistemic and metaphysical states and possibilities may thus be shown to play a constitutive role in vindicating the reality of mathematical objects and truth, and in providing a conceivability-based route to the truth of abstraction principles as well as other axioms and propositions in mathematics. (shrink)

This paper aims to contribute to the analysis of the nature of mathematical modality and hyperintensionality, and to the applications of the latter to absolute decidability. Rather than countenancing the interpretational type of mathematical modality as a primitive, I argue that the interpretational type of mathematical modality is a species of epistemic modality. I argue, then, that the framework of two-dimensional semantics ought to be applied to the mathematical setting. The framework permits of a formally precise account of the priority (...) and relation between epistemic mathematical modality and metaphysical mathematical modality. The discrepancy between the modal systems governing the parameters in the two-dimensional intensional setting provides an explanation of the difference between the metaphysical possibility of absolute decidability and our knowledge thereof. I also advance a topic-sensitive epistemic two-dimensional truthmaker semantics, if hyperintensional approaches are to be preferred to possible worlds semantics. I examine the relation between two-dimensional hyperintensional states and epistemic set theory, providing two-dimensional hyperintensional formalizations of the modal logic of ZFC, large cardinal axioms, $\Omega$-logic, and the Epistemic Church-Turing Thesis. (shrink)

This essay endeavors to define the concept of indefinite extensibility in the setting of category theory. I argue that the generative property of indefinite extensibility for set-theoretic truths in category theory is identifiable with the Grothendieck Universe Axiom and the elementary embeddings in Vopenka's principle. The interaction between the interpretational and objective modalities of indefinite extensibility is defined via the epistemic interpretation of two-dimensional semantics. The semantics can be defined intensionally or hyperintensionally. By characterizing the modal profile of $\Omega$-logical validity, (...) and thus the generic invariance of mathematical truth, modal coalgebras are further capable of capturing the notion of definiteness for set-theoretic truths, in order to yield a non-circular definition of indefinite extensibility. (shrink)

The sensorimotor theory is an influential account of perception and phenomenal qualities that builds, in an empirically supported way, on the basic claim that conscious experience is best construed as an attribute of the whole embodied agent's skill-driven interactions with the environment. This paper, in addition to situating the theory as a response to certain well-known problems of consciousness, develops a sensorimotor account of why we are perceptually conscious rather than not.

This essay aims to provide a modal logic for rational intuition. Similarly to treatments of the property of knowledge in epistemic logic, I argue that rational intuition can be codified by a modal operator governed by the modal $\mu$-calculus. Via correspondence results between fixed point modal propositional logic and the bisimulation-invariant fragment of monadic second-order logic, a precise translation can then be provided between the notion of 'intuition-of', i.e., the cognitive phenomenal properties of thoughts, and the modal operators regimenting the (...) notion of 'intuition-that'. I argue that intuition-that can further be shown to entrain conceptual elucidation, by way of figuring as a dynamic-interpretational modality which induces the reinterpretation of both domains of quantification and the intensions and hyperintensions of mathematical concepts that are formalizable in monadic first- and second-order formal languages. Hyperintensionality is countenanced via a topic-sensitive epistemic two-dimensional truthmaker semantics. (shrink)

This essay provides a novel account of iterated epistemic states. The essay argues that states of epistemic determinacy might be secured by countenancing iterated epistemic states on the model of fixed points in the modal $\mu$-calculus. Despite the epistemic indeterminacy witnessed by the invalidation of modal axiom 4 in the sorites paradox -- i.e. the KK principle: $\square$$\phi$ $\rightarrow$ $\square$$\square$$\phi$ -- a hyperintensional epistemic $\mu$-automaton permits fixed points to entrain a principled means by which to iterate epistemic states and account (...) thereby for necessary conditions on self-knowledge. The hyperintensional epistemic $\mu$-calculus is applied to the iteration of the epistemic states of a single agent instead of the common knowledge of a group of agents, and is thus a novel contribution to the literature. (shrink)

When the United States Supreme Court used the expression “with all deliberate speed” in the case Brown v. Board of Education, it did so presumably because of its vagueness. Many jurists, economists, linguists, and philosophers accordingly assume that vagueness can be strategically used to one’s advantage. Roy Sorensen has cast doubt on this assumption by strictly differentiating between vagueness and generality. Indeed, most arguments for the value of vagueness go through only when vagueness is confused with generality. Sorensen claims that (...) vagueness – correctly understood – has no function in law inter alia because judges lie systematically when confronted with borderline cases. I argue that both claims are wrong. First, judges do not need to resort to lying when adjudicating borderline cases, and even if they had to, this would not render vagueness useless. Secondly, vagueness has several important functions in law such as the reduction of decision costs and the delegation of power. Although many functions commonly attributed to the vagueness of legal expressions are in fact due to their generality or other semantic properties, vagueness has at least these two functions in law. (shrink)

This paper targets a series of potential issues for the discussion of, and modal resolution to, the alethic paradoxes advanced by Scharp (2013). I proffer four novel extensions of the theory, and detail six issues that the theory faces. I provide a counter-example to epistemic closure for reductio proofs.

WikiSilo is a tool for theorizing across interdisciplinary fields such as Cognitive Science, and provides a vocabulary for talking about the problems of doing so. It can be used to demonstrate that a particular cognitive theory is complete and coherent at multiple levels of discourse, and commensurable with and relevant to a wider domain of cognition. WikiSilo is also a minimalist theory and methodology for effectively doing science. WikiSilo is simultaneously similar to and distinct, as well as integrated and separated (...) from Wikipedia™. This paper will introduce the advantages of WikiSilo for use in the Cognitive Sciences. (shrink)

One of the central tasks of a theory of argumentation is to supply a theory of appraisal: a set of standards and norms according to which argumentation, and the reasoning involved in it, is properly evaluated. In their most general form, these can be understood as rational norms, where the core idea of rationality is that we rightly respond to reasons by according the credence we attach to our doxastic and conversational commitments with the probative strength of the reasons we (...) have for them. Certain kinds of rational failings are so because they are manifestly illogical – for example, maintaining overtly contradictory commitments, violating deductive closure by refusing to accept the logical consequences of one’s present commitments, or failing to track basing relations by not updating one’s commitments in view of new, defeating information. Yet, according to the internal and empirical critiques, logic and probability theory fail to supply a fit set of norms for human reasoning and argument. Particularly, theories of bounded rationality have put pressure on argumentation theory to lower the normative standards of rationality for reasoners and arguers on the grounds that we are bounded, finite, and fallible agents incapable of meeting idealized standards. This paper explores the idea that argumentation, as a set of practices, together with the procedures and technologies of argumentation theory, is able to extend cognition such that we are better able to meet these idealized logical standards, thereby extending our responsibilities to adhere to idealized rational norms. (shrink)

I want to expand the pragmatist view of probability advocated by Roberto Torretti, drawing on the propensity approach. In the first part, I will show how the concept of mathematical expectation originally formalized an Aristotelian principle of justice. In the second half, I will present the game-theoretic approach to probability developed by Shafer and Vovk, showing how it allows us to interpret the original normativity of mathematical expectations. I will finally discuss how this latter view contributes to a pragmatist understanding (...) of probability, as Torretti advocates, although with broader foundations than the physical symmetries of standard propensities. (shrink)

Animal research has long been a source of biomedical aspirations and moral concern. Examples of both hope and concern are abundant today. In recent months, as is common practice, monkeys have served as test subjects in promising preclinical trials for an Ebola vaccine or treatment 1 , 2 , 3 and in controversial maternal deprivation studies. 4 The unresolved tension between the noble aspirations of animal research and the ethical controversies it often generates motivates the present issue of the Cambridge (...) Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. As editors of this special section, we hope that these original and timely articles will push the professional discussion of animal research ethics in a positive direction that will benefi t research scientists and others interested in moral problems in animal research. We also look forward to a day when animal research will genuinely meet both appropriate scientifi c and appropriate ethical criteria—criteria that themselves can be improved by critical scrutiny. Animal research—that is, the use of live animals as experimental subjects in biomedical and behavioral fi elds of learning—has been deeply entrenched for well over half a century. One signal development was the enactment in the late 1930s of federal product safety legislation in the United States and other nations that required animal testing of food, drugs, and medical devices prior to use by human subjects or consumers. 5 Another development was the publication of codes of research ethics that called for animal research prior to human research. The Nuremberg Code, published by an American military tribunal in 1947–48 after scrutiny of Nazi medical atrocities, stated that experiments involving the use of human subjects should be " based on the results of animal experimentation. " 6 The Declaration of Helsinki, fi rst published in 1964, reaffi rmed this assumption and added, rather imprecisely, that " the welfare of animals used for research must be respected. " 7 Against the background of such statements, the institutionalization and widespread acceptance of animal research in the twentieth century rested on two basic assumptions, one factual and one moral. The factual assumption was that animal research is suffi ciently reliable as a basis for predicting the effects of drugs, products, and other materials on human beings that animal trials can be expected to yield signifi cant scientifi c conclusions and medical benefi ts to humanity. (shrink)

I distinguish between a _metaphysical_ problem generated by the argument for theological fatalism, and a _theological_ problem posed by the argument. Some responses to the argument, including ones associated with Boethius, Aquinas and Ockham, address only the theological problem. Even if such responses succeed in showing that God's foreknowledge doesn't threaten human freedom, they fail to take the full measure of the argument for theological fatalism, since the metaphysical problem remains to be solved.

A discussion of Sosa's Knowing Full Well. The authors focus on the understood place and significance of animal and reflective knowledge.

A discussion of the relation of dialectical transitions in Hegel's speculative logic to changes in categories and grammar in the empirical historical languages.