In the remainder of this article, we will disarm an important motivation for epistemic contextualism and interest-relative invariantism. We will accomplish this by presenting a stringent test of whether there is a stakes effect on ordinary knowledge ascription. Having shown that, even on a stringent way of testing, stakes fail to impact ordinary knowledge ascription, we will conclude that we should take another look at classical invariantism. Here is how we will proceed. Section 1 lays out some limitations of previous (...) research on stakes. Section 2 presents our study and concludes that there is little evidence for a substantial stakes effect. Section 3 responds to objections. The conclusion clears the way for classical invariantism. (shrink)

Our aim in this entry is to articulate the state of the art in the moral psychology of personal identity. We begin by discussing the major philosophical theories of personal identity, including their shortcomings. We then turn to recent psychological work on personal identity and the self, investigations that often illuminate our person-related normative concerns. We conclude by discussing the implications of this psychological work for some contemporary philosophical theories and suggesting fruitful areas for future work on personal identity.

In the pure powers ontology (PPO), basic physical properties have wholly dispositional essences. PPO has clear advantages over categoricalist ontologies, which suffer from familiar epistemological and metaphysical problems. However, opponents argue that because it contains no qualitative properties, PPO lacks the resources to individuate powers, and generates a regress. The challenge for those who take such arguments seriously is to introduce qualitative properties without reintroducing the problems that PPO was meant to solve. In this paper, I distinguish the core claim (...) of PPO: (i) basic physical properties have dispositional essences, from a hitherto unnoticed assumption: (ii) the dispositional essences of basic physical properties exclusively involve type-causal relations to other basic physical properties. I reject (ii), making room for a structuralist ontology in which all basic physical properties are pure powers, individuated by their places in a causal structure that includes not only other powers, but also physically realized qualitative properties such as shapes, patterns and structures. Such qualities individuate pure powers in the way that non-mental input and output properties individuate realized mental properties in functionalist theories of mind, except that here it is basic physical powers that are individuated by relations to realized non-powers. I distinguish one Platonic and two Aristotelian version of this theory, and argue that the Aristotelian versions require that grounding is not always a relative fundamentality relation, because the powers ground the qualities that individuate them. By considering ontic structural realism, I argue that symmetric grounding is the best way to make sense of relational individuation in structuralist ontologies, and is therefore no additional commitment of the one proposed here. (shrink)

Placeholder essentialism is the view that there is a causal essence that holds category members together, though we may not know what the essence is. Sometimes the placeholder can be filled in by scientific essences, such as when we acquire scientific knowledge that the atomic weight of gold is 79. We challenge the view that placeholders are elaborated by scientific essences. On our view, if placeholders are elaborated, they are elaborated Aristotelian essences, a telos. Utilizing the same kinds of experiments (...) used by traditional essentialists—involving superficial change (study 1), transformation of insides (study 2), acquired traits (study 3) and inferences about offspring (study 4)—we find support for the view that essences are elaborated by a telos. And we find evidence (study 5) that teleological essences may generate category judgments. (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)

This paper asks whether phenomenal intentionality (intentionality that arises from phenomenal consciousness alone) has a relational structure of the sort envisaged in Russell’s theory of acquaintance. I put forward three arguments in favor of a relation view: one phenomenological, one linguistic, and one based on the view’s ability to account for the truth conditions of phenomenally intentional states. I then consider several objections to the relation view. The chief objection to the relation view takes the form of a dilemma between (...) Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions of the properties constitutive of the contents of phenomenally intentional states on this view: the Aristotelian view seems unable to account for all the apparent contents of phenomenally intentional states, but the Platonic view seems to be ontologically unacceptable. I also consider other objections from physicalism, phenomenology, and epistemology. (shrink)

How should we punish criminal offenders? One prima facie attractive punishment is administering a mandatory neurointervention—interventions that exert a physical, chemical or biological effect on the brain in order to diminish the likelihood of some forms of criminal offending. While testosterone-lowering drugs have long been used in European and US jurisdictions on sex offenders, it has been suggested that advances in neuroscience raise the possibility of treating a broader range of offenders in the future. Neurointerventions could be a cheaper, and (...) more effective method of punishment. They could also be more humane. Nevertheless, in this paper we provide an argument against the use of mandatory neurointerventions on offenders. We argue that neurointerventions inflict a significant harm on an offender that render them a morally objectionable form of punishment in a respect that incarceration is not. Namely, it constitutes an objectionable interference with the offender’s mental states. However, it might be thought that incarceration also involves an equally objectionable interference with the offender’s mental states. We show that even if it were the case that the offender is harmed to the same extent in the same respect, it does not follow that the harms are morally equivalent. We argue that if one holds that intended harm is more difficult to justify than harm that is unintended but merely foreseen, this means neurointerventions could be morally objectionable in a significant respect that incarceration is not. (shrink)

Recent objections to epistemic permissivism have a metaepistemic flavor. Impermissivists argue that their view best accounts for connections between rationality, planning and deference. Impermissivism is also taken to best explain the value of rational belief and normative assessment. These objections pose a series of metaepistemic explanatory challenges for permissivism. In this paper, I illustrate how permissivists might meet their explanatory burdens by developing two permissivist metaepistemic views which fare well against the explanatory challenges.

This paper delves into the character concept as applied to reproduction. Our argument is that the prevailing functional-adaptationist perspective falls short in explaining the evolution of reproductive traits, and we propose an alternative organismal-relational approach that incorporates the developmental and interactive aspects of reproduction. To begin, we define the functional individuation of reproductive traits as evolutionary strategies aimed at enhancing fitness, and we demonstrate how this perspective influences the classification of reproductive characters and modes, the comprehension of shared traits as (...) resulting from conflicts of evolutionary interest between individuals, and the explanation of reproductive diversity. After outlining the shortcomings of this framework, we introduce an organismal-relational approach grounded in evolutionary developmental studies of reproduction. This view provides a revised classification for reproductive characters and modes and offers a new understanding of interorganismal traits that takes into account their inherently relational nature. Lastly, we present the research agenda that emerges from this approach, which addresses the core explanatory gaps left by the adaptationist perspective, including the explanation of reproductive homologies and homoplasies, the developmental constraints associated with the evolution of reproductive modes, and the evolvability of reproductive characters. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to address a well-known dilemma for physicalism. If mental properties are type identical to physical properties, then their causal efficacy is secure, but at the cost of ruling out mentality in creatures very different to ourselves. On the other hand, if mental properties are multiply realizable, then all kinds of creatures can instantiate them, but then they seem to be causally redundant. The causal exclusion problem depends on the widely held principle that realized properties (...) inherit their causal powers from their realizers. While this principle holds for functional realization, it fails on a broader notion of realization that permits the realization of complex qualitative properties such as spatial and temporal patterns. Such properties are best seen as dependent powerful qualities, which have their causal roles in virtue of being the qualities they are, and do not inherit powers from their realizers. Recent studies have identified one such property—neural synchrony—as a correlate of consciousness. If synchrony is also partially constitutive of consciousness, then phenomenal properties are both multiply realizable and causally novel. I outline a version of representationalism about consciousness on which this constitution claim holds. (shrink)

Does it count against a normative theory in political philosophy that it is in some important sense infeasible, that its prescriptions are unlikely to be complied with? Though a positive answer seems plausible, it has proved hard to defend against the claim that this is not how normative theories work - noncompliance shows a problem with the noncomplying agents, not with the normative theory. I think that this line of thought - this defense of Utopianism - wins the battle but (...) loses the war. It’s right about what does and what does not refute a normative theory. It’s wrong in misidentifying the problem. The right way to think about the feasibility worry is as essentially involving multiple agents, and how expected noncompliance by one agent may refute a normative claim addressed at another. Thus understood, feasibility problems may very well refute a theory in political philosophy. In this paper I develop this understanding of the feasibility worry, tie it to more general discussions in normative ethics, and in political philosophy. (shrink)

eSports practice designates a unique set of activities tethered to competitive, virtual environments, or worlds. This correlation between eSports practitioner and virtual world, we argue, is inadequately accounted for solely in terms of something physical or intellectual. Instead, we favor a perspective on eSports practice to be analyzed as a perceptual and embodied phenomenon. In this article, we present the phenomenological approach and focus on the embodied sensations of eSports practitioners as they cope with and perceive within their virtual worlds. (...) By approaching eSports phenomenologically, we uncover ways in which its unique forms of virtual involvement overlap with as well as differentiate themselves from traditional structures of embodiment. (shrink)

Ethnobiology has become increasingly concerned with applied and normative questions about biocultural diversity and the livelihoods of local communities. While this development has created new opportunities for connecting ethnobiological research with ecological and social sciences, it also raises questions about the role of cognitive perspectives in current ethnobiology. In fact, there are clear signs of institutional separation as research on folkbiological cognition has increasingly found its home in the cognitive science community, weakening its ties to institutionalized ethnobiology. Rather than accepting (...) this separation as inevitable disciplinary specialization, this short perspective article argues for a systemic perspective that addresses mutual influences and causal entanglement of cognitive and non-cognitive factors in socio-ecological dynamics. Such an integrative perspective requires a new conversation about cognition in ethnobiology beyond traditional polarization around issues of cognitive universals and cultural relativity. (shrink)

his article develops a framework for addressing racial ontologies in transnational perspective. In contrast to simple contextualist accounts, it is argued that a globally engaged metaphysics of race needs to address transnational continuities of racial ontologies. In contrast to unificationist accounts that aim for one globally unified ontology, it is argued that questions about the nature and reality of race do not always have the same answers across national contexts. In order address racial ontologies in global perspective, the article develops (...) a framework that accounts for both continuities and discontinuities by looking beyond the referents of narrowly defined core concepts. By shifting the focus from narrow concepts to richer conceptions of race, racial ontologies become comparable through globally related but nonetheless distinct mappings between conceptions and property relations. The article concludes by showing how this framework can generate novel insights in case studies from Asia, Europe, and Latin America. (shrink)

This paper discusses ethical issues surrounding Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) of the economic effects of climate change, and how climate economists acting as policy advisors ought to represent the uncertain possibility of catastrophe. Some climate economists, especially Martin Weitzman, have argued for a precautionary approach where avoiding catastrophe should structure climate economists’ welfare analysis. This paper details ethical arguments that justify this approach, showing how Weitzman’s “fat tail” probabilities of climate catastrophe pose ethical problems for widely used IAMs. The main (...) claim is that economists who ignore or downplay catastrophic risks in their representations of uncertainty likely fall afoul of ethical constraints on scientists acting as policy advisors. Such scientists have duties to honestly articulate uncertainties and manage (some) inductive risks, or the risks of being wrong in different ways. (shrink)

Does the Ship of Theseus present a genuine puzzle about persistence due to conflicting intuitions based on “continuity of form” and “continuity of matter” pulling in opposite directions? Philosophers are divided. Some claim that it presents a genuine puzzle but disagree over whether there is a solution. Others claim that there is no puzzle at all since the case has an obvious solution. To assess these proposals, we conducted a cross-cultural study involving nearly 3,000 people across twenty-two countries, speaking eighteen (...) different languages. Our results speak against the proposal that there is no puzzle at all and against the proposal that there is a puzzle but one that has no solution. Our results suggest that there are two criteria—“continuity of form” and “continuity of matter”— that constitute our concept of persistence and these two criteria receive different weightings in settling matters concerning persistence. (shrink)

The chapter challenges hyperbolic claims about the centrality of appreciation of beauty to Buddhism. Within the texts, attitudes are more mixed, except for a form of 'inner beauty' - the beauty found in the expression of virtues or wisdom in forms of bodily comportment. Inner beauty is a stable presence throughout Buddhist history, practices, and art.

Williamson’s “anti-luminosity” argument aims to establish that there are no significant luminous conditions. “Far from forming a cognitive home”, luminous conditions are mere “curiosities”. Even supposing Williamson’s argument succeeds in showing that there are no significant luminous states his conclusion has not thereby been established. When it comes to determining what is luminous, mental events and processes are among the best candidates. It is events and processes, after all, which constitute the stream of consciousness. Judgment, for instance, is plausibly self-conscious. (...) If I am judging then plausibly I must know that I am. Similarly, deliberation is plausibly self-conscious. To be deliberating about some matter I plausibly must know that I am. That one is judging and that one is deliberating are thus plausibly luminous conditions. Furthermore, I argue, Williamson’s anti-luminosity argument fails to speak against this suggestion. This reveals that Williamson’s argument is more limited in scope than has been thought—something likely missed due to a misplaced focus on mental states in the luminosity debate as well as in epistemology and the philosophy of mind more generally. For all Williamson shows, there may be luminous events and processes of a sort apt to constitute a cognitive home. I conclude by considering how the anti-luminosity argument might be reinstated in the judgment case and argue that the natural way to do so fails. (shrink)

Logical information theory is the quantitative version of the logic of partitions just as logical probability theory is the quantitative version of the dual Boolean logic of subsets. The resulting notion of information is about distinctions, differences and distinguishability and is formalized using the distinctions of a partition. All the definitions of simple, joint, conditional and mutual entropy of Shannon information theory are derived by a uniform transformation from the corresponding definitions at the logical level. The purpose of this paper (...) is to give the direct generalization to quantum logical information theory that similarly focuses on the pairs of eigenstates distinguished by an observable, i.e., qudits of an observable. The fundamental theorem for quantum logical entropy and measurement establishes a direct quantitative connection between the increase in quantum logical entropy due to a projective measurement and the eigenstates that are distinguished by the measurement. Both the classical and quantum versions of logical entropy have simple interpretations as “two-draw” probabilities for distinctions. The conclusion is that quantum logical entropy is the simple and natural notion of information for quantum information theory focusing on the distinguishing of quantum states. (shrink)

The Brock-Rosen problem has been one of the most thoroughly discussed objections to the modal fictionalism bruited in Gideon Rosen’s ‘Modal Fictionalism’. But there is a more fundamental problem with modal fictionalism, at least as it is normally explained: the position does not resolve the tension that motivated it. I argue that if we pay attention to a neglected aspect of modal fictionalism, we will see how to resolve this tension—and we will also find a persuasive reply to the Brock-Rosen (...) objection. Finally, I discuss an alternative reading of Rosen, and argue that this position is also able to fend off the Brock-Rosen objection. (shrink)

A striking feature of the latest version of Dennett’s ‘big picture’ of the evolution of life and mind is frequent reference to ‘affordances’. An affordance is, roughly, a possibility for action for a creature in an environment. Given more than one possibility for action, a good question is: what will the creature actually do? I argue that affordances pose a problem of selection, and that a good general solution to this problem of mind-design is to implement a system of preferences.

This article seeks to get clear on an important feature of a theistic way of life: namely, the appeal to ‘deep desires’ as part of an ethical and spiritual life-orientation. My main thesis is that such appeals should primarily be seen as pertaining to our acquired second nature and the space of meaning it makes possible, rather than first nature or innateness. To appeal to the ‘depth’ of a desire, on this account, is to say something about its normative importance: (...) it is something of profound significance for our human fulfilment about which we ought to be concerned, and it correlates with the normative ‘height’ of the object of desire. Thus, our deepest desire correlates with what is seen as the highest or most worthy object of our desire (or love), which the theist claims is God. This view is contrasted with subjectivist accounts where desires are seen as ‘deep’ in that they structure our identity. My account affirms that deep desires structure our identity, but they do so because of their perceived objective normative importance. I also seek to show how we should affirm Alasdair MacIntyre's claim that ‘the deepest desire of every [human] being, whether they acknowledge it or not, is to be at one with God’. (shrink)

This paper revisits some of the arguments in Richard Rorty’s Achieving Our Country, twenty years after the book first appeared. Not only are many of Rorty’s diagnoses and predictions eerily prescient in the wake of the rise of Donald Trump to the US presidency, but there is also perceptive political advice in Rorty’s book that I argue the contemporary American Left would do well to heed. While many post-election commentators have tended to read Achieving Our Country as an admonishment of (...) so-called “identity politics” in favor of an “old Left” politics of redistribution and economic justice, I argue that the main distinction on which the analysis in Achieving Our Country hangs is between what Rorty calls “real politics” and “cultural politics”, a conclusion that is confirmed, I argue, by examining the three concrete suggestions for the American Left that together form the core positive argument in Rorty’s book. (shrink)

I discuss the quantum mechanical theory of consciousness and freewill offered by Stapp (1993, 1995, 2000, 2004). First I show that decoherence-based arguments do not work against this theory. Then discuss a number of problems with the theory: Stapp's separate accounts of consciousness and freewill are incompatible, the interpretations of QM they are tied to are questionable, the Zeno effect could not enable freewill as he suggests because weakness of will would then be ubiquitous, and the holism of measurement in (...) QM is not a good explanation of the unity of consciousness for essentially the same reason that local interactions may seem incapable of accounting for it. (shrink)

This paper concerns a puzzle about the interaction of epistemic modals and future tense. In cases of predictable forgetfulness, speakers cannot describe their future states of mind with epistemic modals under future tense, but promising theories of epistemic modals do not predict this. In §1, I outline the puzzle. In §2, I argue that it undermines a very general approach to epistemic modals that draws a tight connection between epistemic modality and evidence. In §3, I defend the assumption that tense (...) can indeed scope over epistemic modals. In §4, I outline a new way of determining the domain of quantification of epistemic modals: epistemic modals quantify over the worlds compatible with the information accumulated within a certain interval. Information loss can change which interval is relevant for determining the domain. In §5, I defend the view from some objections. In §6, I explore the connections between my view of epistemic modality and circumstantial modality. (shrink)

This article explores the figure of Socrates as a religious reformer along the lines of McPherran's studies. Particular attention is paid to the conception of providence as expressed in the accounts of Socrates by Xenophon.

Locke’s property rights are now usually understood to be both fundamental and strictly negative. Fundamental because they are thought to be basic constraints on what we may do, unconstrained by anything deeper. Negative because they are thought to only protect a property holder against the claims of others. Here, I argue that this widespread interpretation is mistaken. For Locke, property rights are constrained by the deeper ‘fundamental law of nature,’ which involves positive obligations to those in need and confines the (...) right to excess property within circumstances where it is not needed to preserve human life. (shrink)

Richard Kraut's neo-Aristotelian account of well-being, Developmentalism, aspires to explain not only which things are good for us but why those things are good for us. The key move in attempting to make good on this second aspiration involves his claim that our ordinary intuitions about what is good for a person can be successfully explained and systematized by the idea that what benefi ts a living thing develops properly that living thing's potentialities, capacities, and faculties. I argue that Kraut's (...) understanding of such proper development plays no serious constraining role in shaping the details of the account. If this is correct, Developmentalism lacks the potential to explain or vindicate the intuitions about what is good for us that it champions. In effect, Kraut offers us a list of things that he claims benefits a person, but he lacks a theory of what those things have in common such that they benefit him. (shrink)

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)

In this essay I build on John Cottingham’s suggestion that we need an epistemology of involvement (or receptivity), as opposed to an epistemology of detachment, if we are properly to understand the world in religious terms. I also refer to these as ‘engaged’ and ‘disengaged’ stances. I seek to show how the spiritual practice of an ‘active’ or ‘engaged’ love is integral to the sort of epistemology of involvement through which we come to a religious understanding of the world. Such (...) an understanding is one that gives proper recognition to the sacred or reverence-worthy character of the world. I discuss how a religiously-inflected language of love and the practice it informs can transfigure the world for us and enable its sacred or reverence-worthy character to come into view (supposing it is there in any case). I also seek to show how this is connected to a process of spiritual formation (or Bildung). (shrink)

How Heidegger criticizes and "locates" science, and some problems with what he is trying to do.

Scholars have rejected Wilfrid Sellars’ argument for an ontology of absolute processes on the grounds that it relies on a dubious and dogmatic appeal to the homogeneity of color. Borrowing from Rosenthal’s recent defense, but ultimate rejection of homogeneity, I defend this claim of on Sellarsian/Kantian transcendental grounds, and reconstruct the remainder of his argument. I argue that Sellars has good reason to suppose that homogeneity is a necessary condition of any possible experience, including indirect experience of theoretical-explanatory posits, and (...) therefore good reason to hold that Reductive Materialism, as he conceives it, is an untenable account of color. The remainder of his argument aims to answer the question of what the metaphysical relation is between the state of an experiencing subject that we take color to be and the colorless microphysical particles that we take to constitute that subject. After rejecting Substance Dualism, Epiphenomenalism, and Wholistic or Emergent Materialism as explanatorily inadequate, Sellars proposes that both color-states and micro-physical particles should be understood as manifestations of an underlying ontology on absolute processes. (shrink)

According to most scholars, in the Parts of Animals Aristotle frequently provides explanations in terms of material necessity, as well as explanations in terms of that-for-the-sake-of-which, i.e., final causes. In this paper, I argue that we misunderstand both matter and the way that Aristotle explains things using necessity if we interpret Aristotle as explaining things in terms of material necessity. Aristotle does not use the term “matter” very frequently in his detailed discussions of animal parts; when he does use it, (...) he typically identifies blood as matter. I argue that this is because blood is, for Aristotle, what properly nourishes and grows the other parts of the body and he views nourishment and growth as types of coming-to-be. The second half of the paper turns to necessity as a cause in the Parts of Animals. I argue that in the Parts of Animals Aristotle is not interested in distinguishing between what Aristotle elsewhere treats as very different types of necessity. (shrink)

Kant’s argument in the First Analogy for the permanence of substance has been cast as consisting of a simple quantifierscope mistake. Kant is portrayed as illicitly moving from a premise such as (1) at all times, there must exist some substance, to a conclusion such as (2) some particular substance must exist at all times. Examples meant to show that Kant makes this mistake feature substances coming into and out of existence, but doing so at overlapping times. I argue that (...) Kant offers an argument against this kind of example in the following passage. Kant’s claim is that, were substances to be created and destroyed as in the example, the appearances would then be related to two different times, in which existence flowed side by side, which is absurd. For there is only one time, in which all different times must not be placed simultaneously but only one after another (A188–9/B231–32). (shrink)

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 provides the foundation for a new predictive theory of animal learning that is based upon a simple logical model. The knowledge of experimental subjects at a given time is described using logical equations. These logical equations are then used to predict a subject’s response when presented with a known or a previously unknown situation. This new theory suc- cessfully anticipates phenomena that existing theories predict, as well as phenomena that they cannot. It provides a theoretical account for phenomena (...) that are beyond the domain of existing models, such as extinction and the detection of novelty, from which “external inhibition” can be explained. Examples of the methods applied to make predictions are given using previously published results. The present theory proposes a new way to envision the minimal functions of the nervous system, and provides possible new insights into the way that brains ultimately create and use knowledge about the world. (shrink)

Abstract: For most people, mobile phones and various forms of personal information technology (PIT) have become standard equipment for everyday life. Recent theorists such as Sherry Turkle raise psychological and philosophical questions about the impact of such technologies and practices, but deeper further philosophical work is needed. This paper takes a pragmatic approach to examining the effects of PIT practices upon experience. After reviewing several main issues with technology raised by Communication theorists, the paper looks more deeply at Turkle’s analysis (...) of technology's impacts upon solitude and conversation. Because Turkle only raises but doesn’t pursue the philosophical dimensions of these issues, the work on experience of John Dewey, William James, and John J. McDermott is utilized to provide concepts and methods by which PIT’s effects might be judged. Finally, pragmatist aesthetics is introduced and consulted as a source of constructive ideals which might guide future amelioration of PIT’s more significant drawbacks. (shrink)

Divine simplicity is central to Thomas Aquinas’s philosophy of God. Most important for Aquinas is his view that God’s existence (esse) is identical to God’s essence; for everything other than God, there is a distinction between existence and essence. However, recent developments in analytic philosophy about the nature of existence threaten to undermine what Aquinas thought regarding divine simplicity. In the first chapter of this dissertation, I trace Aquinas’s thinking on divine simplicity through the various texts he wrote regarding the (...) matter. I establish that it is crucial for Aquinas that God is identical to his existence. But, is it even coherent to talk about “a thing’s existence?” In Chapter Two I summarize the arguments of C.J.F. Williams that existence is not a real property that individuals have and that predicating the word “exists” after the name of an individual produces linguistic gibberish. After considering, and rejecting, in Chapter Three attempts by some philosophers to refute Williams’s arguments, I turn, in Chapter Four, to a more detailed account of what Aquinas means by esse, the Latin word often rendered in English as “existence.” The conclusion that I come to is that Aquinas does not mean by esse what contemporary philosophers have usually meant by “existence.” Rather, he understands esse to be the act by which anything can be anything at all, instead of there being nothing whatsoever. In the final chapter, I turn to implications of this for Aquinas’s views of divine simplicity, showing that rather than being incoherent, Aquinas’s thinking on esse points toward the unfathomable mystery that is God. (shrink)

In the APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy, Lauren Freeman (2014) advocates that faculty turn their classrooms into “safe spaces” as a method for increasing the diversity of philosophy majors. The creation of safe spaces is meant to make women and minority students “feel sufficiently comfortable” and thereby increase the likelihood that they pursue philosophy as a major or career. Although I agree with Freeman’s goal, I argue that philosophers, and faculty in general, should reject the call for turning classrooms (...) into “safe spaces.” I begin by distinguishing extra-curricular safe spaces from the classroom as a safe space. I then argue that although faculty should not object to extra-curricular safe spaces, they should reject curricular ones. I argue that the classroom as a safe space is currently an impractical and inappropriate goal given the nature of academic philosophy, and that encouraging students to think of classrooms as safe/unsafe does not facilitate learning. Nonetheless, I agree with Freeman that faculty should take steps to ensure that students from all backgrounds have the tools they need to be successful in the classroom. I further argue that faculty calls for safe spaces creates confusion concerning the educative environment one should expect to find at the majority of America universities. (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)

Some theorists are suspicious of normative political theology because they believe it undermines critical rationality. In my view, these theorists neglect theological traditions that resist dogmatism through intensified critique. Because authoritarian dogma is not unique to religion, theology offers sophisticated techniques that may be useful for those who are not themselves religious. A normative theology that intensifies critique represents a valuable resource for political reflection, and not only for the faithful.

Much of the recent discussion in progressive circles [e.g., Stiglitz; Galbraith; Piketty] has focused the obscene mal-distribution of wealth and income as if that was "the" problem in our economic system. And the proposed redistributive reforms have all stuck to that framing of the question. To put the question in historical perspective, one might note that there was a similar, if not more extreme, mal-distribution of wealth, income, and political power in the Antebellum system of slavery. Yet, it should be (...) obvious to modern eyes that redistributions in favor of the slaves, while leaving the institution of owning workers intact, would not address the root of the problem. The system of slavery was eventually abolished in favor of the system we have today which differs in two important respects: the workers are only rented, hired, or employed ; and the rental relationship between employer and employee is voluntary. Today, the root of the problem is the whole institution for the voluntary renting of human beings, the employment system itself, not the terms of the contract or the accumulated consequences in the form of the mal-distribution of income and wealth. (shrink)

A reply to Melissa Lane's "Antianarchia: interpreting political thought in Plato" In these comments I focus on how to think of antianarchia as an element of Plato's political thought, and in doing so raise some methodological questions about how to read Plato’s dialogues, focusing on what is involved in attributing views to Plato in general.

When I was first studying Hegel I encountered quite divergent readings of his views on religion. The teacher who first presented Hegel to me was a Jesuit, Quentin Lauer at Fordham University, who read Hegel as a Christian theologian providing a better metaphysical system for understanding the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation. When I studied at Yale, Kenley Dove read Hegel as the first thoroughly atheistic philosopher, who presented the conditions of thought without reference to any foundational absolute being. (...) Meanwhile, also at Yale, John Findlay read us a deeply Neo-Platonic Hegel who taught about absolute forms held in a cosmic mind. In giving my own reading I want to talk about the ways Hegel redefines both metaphysics and religion. I would like to approach these issues by way of the medieval controversy over double truth, which was a previous conflict between religion and science. (shrink)

In both ethics and epistemology an important question is whether justification is a fully internal or a partly external matter. In view of analogies between relevant considerations in each area, I recommend distinguishing, as basic and independent subjects of normative status, (i) people and (ii) what they do. Evaluations of subjects, on one hand, and of their beliefs and actions, on the other, are less intimately related than is presupposed. This helps resolve internalism/externalism controversies in both domains. An important related (...) advantage of the distinction is its effect on our understanding of normative luck, both moral and epistemic. (shrink)

From Hegel's philosophy of nature, this essay develops a critique of economic models and market society, based on Hegel's notion of what it takes for a formally described system to be embodied and real.

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)