In On Touching, Derrida commends philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy for ‘taking into account [the] plasticity and technicity “at the heart” of the “body proper.”’ Specifying the meaning of this plasticity and technicity, Derrida writes, the"[s]upplementarity of technical prosthetics originarily spaces out, defers, or expropriates all originary properness: there is no “the” sense of touch, there is no “originary” or essentially originary touching before it." What is ‘proper’ or ‘original’ to the body, it seems, is not any set of properties or (...) capacities – including sensorial or perceptual powers – but rather the ‘plastic and substitutive structure of prosthetics’, the very possibility of the body’s ‘technical’ supplementation. (shrink)

Philosophers of language are increasingly engaging with derogatory terms or slurs. Only few theorists take such language as a starting point for addressing puzzles in philosophy of language with little connection to our real-world problems. This paper aims to show that the political nature of derogatory language use calls for non-ideal theorising as we find it in the work of feminist and critical race scholars. Most contemporary theories of slurs, so I argue, fall short on some desiderata associated with a (...) non-ideal approach. They neglect crucial linguistic or political aspects of morally and politically significant meaning. I argue that a two-stage project is necessary to understand the perniciousness of slurs: accounting for the derogatory content of derogatory terms in general and, additionally, explaining the communicative function of slurs more specifically. I end by showing how inferentialism is well-suited to account for the content of derogatory terms whilst allowing for further explanations of the communicative functions of slurs. (shrink)

There are different narratives on mathematics as part of our world, some of which are more appropriate than others. Such narratives might be of the form ‘Mathematics is useful’, ‘Mathematics is beautiful’, or ‘Mathematicians aim at theorem-credit’. These narratives play a crucial role in mathematics education and in society as they are influencing people’s willingness to engage with the subject or the way they interpret mathematical results in relation to real-world questions; the latter yielding important normative considerations. Our strategy is (...) to frame current narratives of mathematics from a virtue-theoretic perspective. We identify the practice of mathematizing, put forward by Freudenthal’s ‘Realistic mathematics education’, as virtuous and use it to evaluate different narratives. We show that this can help to render the narratives more adequately, and to provide implications for societal organization. (shrink)

In arguing against the likelihood of consciousness in non-human animals, Descartes advances a slippery slope argument that if thought were attributed to any one animal, it would have to be attributed to all, which is absurd. This paper examines the foundations of Thomas Willis’ comparative neuroanatomy against the background of Descartes’ slippery slope argument against animal consciousness. Inspired by Gassendi’s ideas about the corporeal soul, Thomas Willis distinguished between neural circuitry responsible for reflex behaviour and that responsible for cognitively or (...) consciously mediated behaviour. This afforded Willis a non-arbitrary basis for distinguishing between animals with thought and consciousness and those without, a methodology which retains currency for neuroscience today. (shrink)

The text “The Ontology of Knowledge, Logic, Arithmetic, Set Theory, and Geometry” by Jean-Louis Boucon explores a deeply philosophical interpretation of knowledge, its logical structure, and the foundational elements of mathematical and scientific reasoning. -/- Here’s an overview condensed by an AI of the key themes and ideas, summarized into a quite general conceptual structure. These two pages are instructive on their own, but their main purpose is to facilitate the reading of the entire article, allowing the reader to (...) situate in the coherence of the whole both the meaning and the usefulness of each proposed idea. (shrink)

This paper analyses the hidden use of new axioms in set-theoretic practice with a focus on large cardinal axioms and presents a general overview of set-theoretic practices using large cardinal axioms. The hidden use of a new axiom provides extrinsic reasons in support of this axiom via the idea of verifiable consequences, which is especially relevant for set-theoretic practitioners with an absolutist view. Besides that, the hidden use has pragmatic significance for further important sub-groups of the set-theoretic community---set-theoretic practitioners with (...) a pluralist view and set-theoretic practitioners who aim for ZFC-proofs. By describing this, the paper gives a more complete picture of new axioms in set-theoretic practice. These observations, for instance, show that set-theoretic practitioners interested in ZFC-proofs use tools that go beyond ZFC. The analysis is based on empirical data that was collected in an extensive interview study with set-theoretic practitioners. (shrink)

This paper shows that the NMA eluding the knowing subject would be nothing more than a profession of faith. Then it re-introduces the subject with the help of Ontology of Knowledge Using the example of the theory of Relativity it shows the difficulties resulting from the elision of the subject and propose a solution to include the subject into the NMA.

This volume includes nineteen articles by scholars from Asia, North America, and Europe on Chinese thinkers from the eleventh to the eighteenth centuries. Included here are intellectual biographies of literati such as Zhou Dunyi, the Cheng brothers, Zhu Xi, Zhang Shi, Hu Hong, Wang Yangming, and Dai Zhen. Essays are arranged chronologically, and most begin with a biographical sketch of their subject. They provide variety rather than uniformity of approach, but all in all these essays are remarkably rich and offer (...) much new material on both familiar and lesser-known thinkers. (shrink)

While feminist philosophy has had much to say on the topic of reason, little has been done to develop a specifically feminist account of the concept. I argue for a virtue account of mind grounded in contemporary approaches to rationality. The evolutionary stance adopted within most contemporary theories of mind implicitly entails a rejection of central elements of Cartesianism. As a result, many accounts of rationality are anti-modern is precisely the sorts of ways that feminists demand. I maintain that a (...) virtue account of rationality can provide a satisfactory answer to Benhabib’s question in Situating of the Self: what concept of reason are we willing to defend? (shrink)

Est-il possible de parler de ce qui n’est pas ou d’y penser sans présupposer une forme d’être pour cela même que nous pensons ne pas exister? La vieille énigme parménidienne, qui hante toujours la philosophie contemporaine, est au cœur non seulement de la philosophie médiévale mais aussi des études médiévales, comme en témoigne le récent ouvrage d’Alain de Libera sur la référence vide. L’objet de cette étude est en comparaison beaucoup plus...

Beyond “A Lecture on Ethics,” Wittgenstein says little on the topic of ethics, despite professing a great respect for ethics. I argue that while Wittgenstein ceases to speak of ethics, his account fits equally within his Tractarian and post-Tractarian writing. On both accounts of language, ethics remains nonsense, but it is not insignificant nonsense. However, because Wittgenstein holds ethics to concern absolute values that are in principle inexpressible, his anti-theoretical conception of ethics fails to offer guidance in how one ought (...) to live. That is, ethics ultimately cannot be show unless it can, in some sense, be said. (shrink)

Feminist philosophy is highly critical of Cartesian, and more broadly Enlightenment, conceptions of rationality. However, feminist philosophers typically fail to address contemporary theories of rationality and to consider how more current thoeories address feminist concerns. I argue that, contrary to their protestations, feminists are “obsessing over an outdated conception of reason” and that even the most suspect of “malestream” philosophers express an understanding of rationality that is closer to feminist concerns than Cartesian ones. I begin by briefly examining key features (...) of Cartesian rationality and discuss how these features are largely rejected by contemporary philosophy and cognitve science. I then discuss how the philosophical accounts of Robert Nozick and Robert Audi refelect this rejection of Cartesian rationality. Finally, I discuss how the views of Nozick and Audi are in line with many feminist concerns, and I argue that feminists need to take seriously some theory of rationality. (shrink)

Although feminists have spilled a great deal of ink criticizing Enlightenment conceptions of rationality, the time has come to consider constructing a positive account. Recent attempts to construct an account of rationality as a virtue concept reflect many feminist complaints concerning Enlightenment rationality, and, thus, I maintain that feminism should take seriously such a conception. Virtue rationality offers a more diverse account of rationality without sacrificing the fundamental normativity of the concept. Furthermore, the narrower concept of reasonableness, promises to provide (...) a ground for distinguishing among better and worse epistemic perspectives, which is a task critical to the success of the feminist project. (shrink)

This article examines the complaint that arbitrary algorithmic decisions wrong those whom they affect. It makes three contributions. First, it provides an analysis of what arbitrariness means in this context. Second, it argues that arbitrariness is not of moral concern except when special circumstances apply. However, when the same algorithm or different algorithms based on the same data are used in multiple contexts, a person may be arbitrarily excluded from a broad range of opportunities. The third contribution is to explain (...) why this systemic exclusion is of moral concern and to offer a solution to address it. (shrink)

This summary is not exactly the way I would have done it myself but I must admit that my writing is sometimes a challenge to read. So I asked an AI to do this summary expecting that it will give an easily understandable although not totally accurate view on Ontology of Knowledge and from this general understanding help the reader to read the original papers. Jean-Louis Boucon’s works, "Introduction to the Ontology of Knowledge" and "Time, Space, and World as (...) Knowledge," delve into the intricate nature of reality, meaning, and the process of knowing. Boucon challenges traditional dichotomies in philosophy and science, presenting a cohesive framework where the knowing subject and the world are intertwined aspects of a single dynamic reality. His ideas provide a robust foundation for exploring ontological and epistemological questions, including the interpretation of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

The ji 己self is a site, storehouse, or depot of individuated allotment associated with the possession of things and qualities: wholesome and unwholesome desires (yu 欲) and aversions, emotions such as anxiety, and positive values such as humaneness and reverence. Each person's allotment is unique, and its "contents" are collected, measured, reflected on, and then distributed to others. The Analects, Mencius, Xunzi, Daodejing, and Zhuangzi each have their own vision for negotiating the space between self and other. Works as seemingly (...) dissimilar as the Analects and Daodejing both agree that positive qualities located within the self should be shared with others, and that the self can be optimized rather than maximized through sharing, emptying, or clearing. Sommer compares the ji self with other terms for body and person current in classical times. This self is strongly individuated, but it exists primarily in relation to other human beings (ren 人 ). These "others" are almost never one's own kind and are usually people who fall outside one's ascribed familial and social relationships. Negotiations between self and other often reflect apprehension regarding degrees of distance, intimacy, worth, recognition, or understanding (zhi 知) between people. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Virtue, the centerpiece of ancient ethics, has come under attack by virtue skeptics impressed by results of psychology experiments including Milgram's obedience studies. The virtue skeptic argues that experimental findings suggest that character structures are so fragile vis-å-vis situational factors as to be explanatorily superfluous: virtues and robust character traits are a myth, and should be replaced by situation-specific "narrow dispositions" (Gilbert Harman) or "local traits" (John Doris). This paper argues that the virtue skeptics' sweeping claims are ill-founded. First, (...) blending Aristotelian and contemporary insights about virtue, I reach a decision about a reasonable, non-straw definition of "virtue" and of "character trait." Next, I argue that explanations give by Lee Ross and Richard Nisbett for the Milgram findings covertly invoke character traits. Reflection reveals that more robust, cross-situationally consistent traits are needed for explanation of subject behavior, and that it is reasonable to suppose that such traits were in place. (shrink)

This paper focusses on the relationship among structural adjustment policies and practices, the business activities of transnational corporations and what Robert Reich has called the coming irrelevance of corporate nationality. The argument presented is that the force of these combined factors makes environmental sustainability impossible.

A study is reported testing two hypotheses about a close parallel relation between indicative conditionals, if A then B , and conditional bets, I bet you that if A then B . The first is that both the indicative conditional and the conditional bet are related to the conditional probability, P(B|A). The second is that de Finetti's three-valued truth table has psychological reality for both types of conditional— true , false , or void for indicative conditionals and win , lose (...) , or void for conditional bets. The participants were presented with an array of chips in two different colours and two different shapes, and an indicative conditional or a conditional bet about a random chip. They had to make judgements in two conditions: either about the chances of making the indicative conditional true or false or about the chances of winning or losing the conditional bet. The observed distributions of responses in the two conditions were generally related to the conditional probability, supporting the first hypothesis. In addition, a majority of participants in further conditions chose the third option, “void”, when the antecedent of the conditional was false, supporting the second hypothesis. (shrink)

Supra-Bayesianism is the Bayesian response to learning the opinions of others. Probability pooling constitutes an alternative response. One natural question is whether there are cases where probability pooling gives the supra-Bayesian result. This has been called the problem of Bayes-compatibility for pooling functions. It is known that in a common prior setting, under standard assumptions, linear pooling cannot be nontrivially Bayes-compatible. We show by contrast that geometric pooling can be nontrivially Bayes-compatible. Indeed, we show that, under certain assumptions, geometric and (...) Bayes-compatible pooling are equivalent. Granting supra-Bayesianism its usual normative status, one upshot of our study is thus that, in a certain class of epistemic contexts, geometric pooling enjoys a normative advantage over linear pooling as a social learning mechanism. We discuss the philosophical ramifications of this advantage, which we show to be robust to variations in our statement of the Bayes-compatibility problem. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that poet M. Nourbese Philip's Zong! allows us to radically rethink the possibility of historical restitution and recovery. The formal ideas in Zong!, I argue, imply a metaphysical and ontological revolution in the way memory and mnesic traces are to be conceived. The evidentiary status of the voices and narratives that Zong! retrieves cannot be certified by historical-epistemological conceptions of evidence but rather find their warrant in alternative, ontological (or hauntological) registers.

According to a well-known view in the philosophy of mind, intentional attitudes by their very nature satisfy requirements of rationality (e.g. Davidson 1980; Dennett 1987; Millar 2004). This view (which I shall call Constitutivism) features prominently as the ‘principle of minimal rationality’ in de Sousa’s monograph The Rationality of Emotion (1987). By explicating this principle in terms of the notion of the formal object of an attitude, de Sousa articulates an interesting and original version of Constitutivism, which differs in important (...) respects from other extant versions. In this paper, I explore this version of Constitutivism against the background of recent developments in the theory of rationality and make explicit its ramifications for the long-standing dispute over whether the mind is essentially normative. My focus will be on how to conceive of the form of the rationality requirements that attitudes as such must satisfy according to this principle. I argue that, although de Sousa seems officially to endorse a structuralist conception of rationality, according to which these requirements are requirements of coherence, his considerations on formal objects suggest that they are more aptly conceived in terms of a reasons-responsive conception of rationality. I further argue that which of these two readings we choose makes a significant difference to the prospect of vindicating the essential normativity of mind by invoking the principle of minimal rationality. (shrink)

It is popular to hold that emotions are evaluative. On the standard account, the evaluative character of emotion is understood in epistemic terms: emotions apprehend or make us aware of value properties. As this account is commonly elaborated, emotions are experiences with evaluative intentional content. In this paper, I am concerned with a recent alternative proposal on how emotions afford awareness of value. This proposal does not ascribe evaluative content to emotions, but instead conceives of them as evaluative at the (...) level of intentional mode or attitude. I first argue that this proposal fails to make emotions intelligible as value apprehensions. There are reasons to suppose that emotions do not apprehend value to begin with, but are related to values in a different, non-epistemic sense. I then go on to show that the notion of an evaluative intentional mode can still help elucidate the evaluative character of emotion. I argue that there is a plausible non-epistemic understanding of the view that emotions are evaluative modes. On this account, emotions are not ways of apprehending values, but ways of acknowledging values. (shrink)

A prominent version of emotional cognitivism is the view that emotions are preceded by awareness of value. In a recent paper, Jonathan Mitchell (2019) has attacked this view (which he calls the content-priority view). According to him, extant suggestions for the relevant type of pre-emotional evaluative awareness are all problematic. Unless these problems can be overcome, he argues, the view does not represent a plausible competitor to rivaling cognitivist views. As Mitchell supposes, the view is not mandatory since its core (...) motivations can be accommodated by competing views, too. I argue that Mitchell's case against the content-priority view is unconvincing as it misconceives the principal motivation for the view. As I show, properly reconstructed, this motivation provides a strong case for the indispensability of the view to any adequate cognitivist treatment of emotion. Moreover, Mitchell's survey of candidates for pre-emotional value awareness can be seen to rest on problematic phenomenological assumptions. (shrink)

It is a popular thought that emotions play an important epistemic role. Thus, a considerable number of philosophers find it compelling to suppose that emotions apprehend the value of objects and events in our surroundings. I refer to this view as the Epistemic View of emotion. In this paper, my concern is with a rivaling picture of emotion, which has so far received much less attention. On this account, emotions do not constitute a form of epistemic access to specific axiological (...) aspects of their objects. Instead it proposes that they are ways of taking a stand or position on the world. I refer to this as the Position-Taking View of emotion. Whilst some authors seem sympathetic to this view, this it has so far not been systematically motivated and elaborated. In this paper, I fill this gap and propose a more adequate account of our emotional engagement with the world than the predominant epistemic paradigm. I start by highlighting the specific way in which emotions are directed at something, which I contrast with the intentionality of perception and other forms of apprehension. I then go on to offer a specific account of the valence of emotion and show how this account and the directedness of emotions makes them intelligible as a way of taking a position on something. (shrink)

The human factor in information systems is a large vulnerability when implementing cybersecurity, and many approaches, including technical and policy driven solutions, seek to mitigate this vulnerability. Decisions to apply technical or policy solutions must consider how an individual’s values and moral stance influence their responses to these implementations. Our research aims to evaluate how individuals prioritise different ethical principles when making cybersecurity sensitive decisions and how much perceived choice they have when doing so. Further, we sought to use participants’ (...) responses to cybersecurity scenarios to create profiles that describe their values and individual factors including personality. Participants (n = 193) in our study responded to five different ethically sensitive cybersecurity scenarios in random order, selecting their action in that scenario and rating and ranking of the ethical principles (i.e., Beneficence, Non-Maleficence, Justice, Autonomy, Explicability) behind that action. Using participants’ demographics, personality, values, and cyber hygiene practices, we created profiles using machine learning to predict participants’ choices and the principle of most importance to them across scenarios. Further, we found that, generalising, for our participants Autonomy was the most important ethical principle in our scenarios, followed by Justice. Our study also suggests that participants felt they had some agency in their decision making and they were able to weigh up different ethical principles. (shrink)

A formalism is introduced to represent the connective organization of an evolving neuronal network and the effects of environment on this organization by stabilization or degeneration of labile synapses associated with functioning. Learning, or the acquisition of an associative property, is related to a characteristic variability of the connective organization: the interaction of the environment with the genetic program is printed as a particular pattern of such organization through neuronal functioning. An application of the theory to the development of the (...) neuromuscular junction is proposed and the basic selective aspect of learning emphasized. (shrink)

The representational theory of measurement has long been the central paradigm in the philosophy of measurement. Such is not the case anymore, partly under the influence of the critique according to which RTM offers too poor descriptions of the measurement procedures actually followed in science. This can be called the metrological critique of RTM. I claim that the critique is partly irrelevant. This is because, in general, RTM is not in the business of describing measurement procedures, be it in idealized (...) form. To support this claim, I present various cases where RTM can be said to investigate measurement without providing any measurement procedure. Such limit cases lead to a better understanding of the RTM project. They also illustrate some of the questions which the philosophy of measurement can explore, when it is ready to go beyond the metrological viewpoint. (shrink)

An overview and comparison of the major teaching philosophies is discussed to determine their applications in the field of education. In the end, it is important to reflect on how our practices align with our philosophies.

In this paper, I investigate the betting behavior of a decision-maker who can influence the likelihood of the events upon which she is betting. In decision theory, this is best known as a situation of moral hazard. Focusing on a particularly simple case, I sketch the first systematic analysis of moral hazard in the canonical Savage framework. From the results of this analysis, I draw two philosophical conclusions. First, from an observational and a descriptive point of view, there need to (...) be no incompatibility between moral hazard and the Savage framework. This qualifies the incompatibility view, that is ubiquitous in decision theory. Second, in general, moral hazard is not sufficient to overcome the challenges posed by state-dependent utility to the behavioral identification of beliefs. This qualifies the sufficiency view, that is influential in decision theory. These two philosophical conclusions are the main contributions of my paper. (shrink)

In this paper, I introduce the idea that some important parts of contemporary pure mathematics are moving away from what I call the extensional point of view. More specifically, these fields are based on criteria of identity that are not extensional. After presenting a few cases, I concentrate on homotopy theory where the situation is particularly clear. Moreover, homotopy types are arguably fundamental entities of geometry, thus of a large portion of mathematics, and potentially to all mathematics, at least according (...) to some speculative research programs. (shrink)

The paper challenges the assumption, common amongst philosophers, that the reality described in the fundamental theories of microphysics is all the reality we have. It will be argued that this assumption is in fact incompatible with the nature of such theories. It will be shown further that the macro-world of three-dimensional bodies and of such qualitative structures as colour and sound can be treated scientifically on its own terms, which is to say not only from the perspective of psychology but (...) also ontologically. A new sort of emergentist position will be defended, one which yields the basis of a method for describing the perceptually salient macroscopic world in mathematical terms. Broadly, it will be argued that the macroscopic world exists in virtue of certain specific sorts of boundary-patterns in the field of what is captured by the theories of microphysics. (shrink)

The Sure-Thing Principle famously appears in Savage’s axiomatization of Subjective Expected Utility. Yet Savage introduces it only as an informal, overarching dominance condition motivating his separability postulate P2 and his state-independence postulate P3. Once these axioms are introduced, by and large, he does not discuss the principle any more. In this note, we pick up the analysis of the Sure-Thing Principle where Savage left it. In particular, we show that each of P2 and P3 is equivalent to a dominance condition; (...) that they strengthen in different directions a common, basic dominance axiom; and that they can be explicitly combined in a unified dominance condition that is a candidate formal statement for the Sure-Thing Principle. Based on elementary proofs, our results shed light on some of the most fundamental properties of rational choice under uncertainty. In particular they imply, as corollaries, potential simplifications for Savage’s and the Anscombe- Aumann axiomatizations of Subjective Expected Utility. Most surprisingly perhaps, they reveal that in Savage’s axiomatization, P3 can be weakened to a natural strengthening of so-called Obvious Dominance. (shrink)

I first explain the scholastic (Scotist) thesis on the independence of essences Bayle alludes to in the passage of the Continuation des Pensée Diverses where he presents the Stratonicians' and the Chinese philosophers' retorsion. Then, I show that this retorsion applies to the argument of the existence of God based on "aseity", but not to the occasionalist argument based on the "quod nescis" principle. I conclude that materialism (the "Stratonician hypothesis") cannot be, for Bayle, a satisfying system.

I examine the once popular claim according to which interpersonal comparisons of welfare are necessary for social choice. I side with current social choice theorists in emphasizing that, on a narrow construal, this necessity claim is refuted beyond appeal. However, I depart from the opinion presently prevailing in social choice theory in highlighting that on a broader construal, this claim proves not only compatible with, but even comforted by, the current state of the field. I submit that all in all, (...) the most accurate philosophical assessment consists not in flatly rejecting this necessity claim, but in accepting it in a suitably revised form. (shrink)

Chapitre méthodologique d'un livre co-écrit par Éliane Pons et J.-J. Pinto. Ce dernier, pour raisons professionnelles, n'avait indiqué son nom que dans cette partie intitulée "Esquisse d'une psychanalyse scientifique" (allusion respectueuse au titre de Freud "Esquisse d'une psychologie scientifique"), où se trouve expliquée en détail la méthode originale d'analyse de discours inventée et enseignée par lui : l'Analyse des Logiques Subjectives© (A.L.S.©).

The basic axioms or formal conditions of decision theory, especially the ordering condition put on preferences and the axioms underlying the expected utility formula, are subject to a number of counter-examples, some of which can be endowed with normative value and thus fall within the ambit of a philosophical reflection on practical rationality. Against such counter-examples, a defensive strategy has been developed which consists in redescribing the outcomes of the available options in such a way that the threatened axioms or (...) conditions continue to hold. We examine how this strategy performs in three major cases: Sen's counterexamples to the binariness property of preferences, the Allais paradox of EU theory under risk, and the Ellsberg paradox of EU theory under uncertainty. We find that the strategy typically proves to be lacking in several major respects, suffering from logical triviality, incompleteness, and theoretical insularity. To give the strategy more structure, philosophers have developed “principles of individuation”; but we observe that these do not address the aforementioned defects. Instead, we propose the method of checking whether the strategy can overcome its typical defects once it is given a proper theoretical expansion. We find that the strategy passes the test imperfectly in Sen's case and not at all in Allais's. In Ellsberg's case, however, it comes close to meeting our requirement. But even the analysis of this more promising application suggests that the strategy ought to address the decision problem as a whole, rather than just the outcomes, and that it should extend its revision process to the very statements it is meant to protect. Thus, by and large, the same cautionary tale against redescription practices runs through the analysis of all three cases. A more general lesson, simply put, is that there is no easy way out from the paradoxes of decision theory. (shrink)

Physical reality is all the reality we have, and so physical theory in the standard sense is all the ontology we need. This, at least, was an assumption taken almost universally for granted by the advocates of exact philosophy for much of the present century. Every event, it was held, is a physical event, and all structure in reality is physical structure. The grip of this assumption has perhaps been gradually weakened in recent years as far as the sciences of (...) mind are concerned. When it comes to the sciences of external reality, however, it continues to hold sway, so that contemporary philosophers B even while devoting vast amounts of attention to the language we use in describing the world of everyday experience B still refuse to see this world as being itself a proper object of theoretical concern. Here, however, we shall argue that the usual conception of physical reality as constituting a unique bedrock of objectivity reflects a rather archaic view as to the nature of physics itself and is in fact incompatible with the development of the discipline since Newton. More specifically, we shall seek to show that the world of qualitative structures, for example of colour and sound, or the commonsense world of coloured and sounding things, can be treated scientifically (ontologically) on its own terms, and that such a treatment can help us better to understand the structures both of physical reality and of cognition. (shrink)

This paper examines the preference-based approach to the identification of beliefs. It focuses on the main problem to which this approach is exposed, namely that of state-dependent utility. First, the problem is illustrated in full detail. Four types of state-dependent utility issues are distinguished. Second, a comprehensive strategy for identifying beliefs under state-dependent utility is presented and discussed. For the problem to be solved following this strategy, however, preferences need to extend beyond choices. We claim that this a necessary feature (...) of any complete solution to the problem of state-dependent utility. We also argue that this is the main conceptual lesson to draw from it. We show that this lesson is of interest to both economists and philosophers. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to clarify the role of category theory in the foundations of mathematics. There is a good deal of confusion surrounding this issue. A standard philosophical strategy in the face of a situation of this kind is to draw various distinctions and in this way show that the confusion rests on divergent conceptions of what the foundations of mathematics ought to be. This is the strategy adopted in the present paper. It is divided into 5 (...) sections. We first show that already in the set theoretical framework, there are different dimensions to the expression foundations of. We then explore these dimensions more thoroughly. After a very short discussion of the links between these dimensions, we move to some of the arguments presented for and against category theory in the foundational landscape. We end up on a more speculative note by examining the relationships between category theory and set theory. (shrink)

LEITE (Fábio Rodrigo) – STOFFEL (Jean-François), Introduction (pp. 3-6). BARRA (Eduardo Salles de O.) – SANTOS (Ricardo Batista dos), Duhem’s analysis of Newtonian method and the logical priority of physics over metaphysics (pp. 7-19). BORDONI (Stefano), The French roots of Duhem’s early historiography and epistemology (pp. 20-35). CHIAPPIN (José R. N.) – LARANJEIRAS (Cássio Costa), Duhem’s critical analysis of mecha­ni­cism and his defense of a formal conception of theoretical phy­sics (pp. 36-53). GUEGUEN (Marie) – PSILLOS (Stathis), Anti-­scepticism and epistemic (...) humility in Pierre Duhem’s philosophy of science (pp. 54-72). LISTON (Michael), Duhem : images of science, historical continuity, and the first crisis in physics (pp. 73-84). MAIOCCHI (Roberto), Duhem in pre-war Italian philos­ophy : the reasons of an absence (pp. 85-92). HERNÁNDEZ MÁRQUEZ (Víctor Manuel), Was Pierre Duhem an «esprit de finesse» ? (pp. 93-107). NEEDHAM (Paul), Was Duhem justified in not distinguishing between physical and chemical atomism ? (pp. 108-111). OLGUIN (Roberto Estrada), «Bon sens» and «noûs» (pp. 112-126). OLIVEIRA (Amelia J.), Duhem’s legacy for the change in the historiography of science : An analysis based on Kuhn’s writings (pp. 127-139). PRÍNCIPE (João), Poincaré and Duhem : Resonances in their first epistemological reflec­tions (pp. 140-156). MONDRAGON (Damián Islas), Book review of «Pierre Duhem : entre física y metafísica» (pp. 157-159). STOFFEL (Jean-François), Book review of P. Duhem : «La théorie physique : son objet, sa structure» / edit. by S. Roux (pp. 160-162). STOFFEL (Jean-François), Book review of St. Bordoni : «When historiography met epistemology» (pp. 163-165). (shrink)

It is popular to hold that our primary epistemic access to specific response-dependent properties like the fearsome or admirable (or so-called ‘affective properties’) is constituted by the corresponding emotion. I argue that this view is incompatible with a widely held meta-ethical view, according to which affective properties have deontic force. More specifically, I argue that this view cannot accommodate for the requirement that deontic entities provide guidance. If affective properties are to guide the formation of the corresponding emotion, our primary (...) access to them cannot be provided by that same emotion. (shrink)