This paper exposes a common mistake concerning the division of linguistic labor. I characterize the mistake as an overgeneralization from natural kind terms; this misleads philosophers about which terms are subject to the division of linguistic labor, what linguistic labor is, how linguistic labor is divided, and how the extensions of non-natural kind terms subject to the division of linguistic labor are determined. I illustrate these points by (...) considering Sally Haslanger’s account of the division of linguistic labor for social kind terms and raising an objection to it. Then, I draw on Tyler Burge’s work to characterize a conception of the division of linguistic labor that avoids the mistaken overgeneralization and grounds 1–4 above in social norms and practices. (shrink)

Clayton and Stevens argue that political liberals should engage with the religiously unreasonable by offering religious responses and showing that their religious views are mistaken, instead of refusing to engage with them. Yet they recognize that political liberals will face a dilemma due to such religious responses: either their responses will alienate certain reasonable citizens, or their engagements will appear disingenuous. Thus, there should be a division of justificatory labour. The duty of engagement should be delegated to religious citizens. (...) In this comment, I will argue that the division of justificatory labour is indefensible. This dilemma can be avoided if politicians and political philosophers correctly use conjecture, a form of discourse that involves non-public reason. As a conditional response, conjecture avoids alienating any reasonable citizens. Also, if conjecture is given in a sincere and open-minded manner, then the problem of disingenuousness can be overcome. My comment concludes that while the engagement of politicians and political philosophers does not necessarily jeopardize overlapping consensus, they should be permitted, or perhaps even required, to engage with the religiously unreasonable due to the natural duty of justice. (shrink)

This article examines two questions about scientists’ search for knowledge. First, which search strategies generate discoveries effectively? Second, is it advantageous to diversify search strategies? We argue pace Weisberg and Muldoon, “Epistemic Landscapes and the Division of Cognitive Labor”, that, on the first question, a search strategy that deliberately seeks novel research approaches need not be optimal. On the second question, we argue they have not shown epistemic reasons exist for the division of cognitive labor, identifying (...) the errors that led to their conclusions. Furthermore, we generalize the epistemic landscape model, showing that one should be skeptical about the benefits of social learning in epistemically complex environments. (shrink)

Discussions of group knowledge typically focus on whether a group’s knowledge that p reduces to group members’ knowledge that p. Drawing on the cumulative reading of collective knowledge ascriptions and considerations about the importance of the division of epistemic labour, I argue what I call the Fragmented Knowledge account, which allows for more complex relations between individual and collective knowledge. According to this account, a group can know an answer to a question in virtue of members of the group (...) knowing parts of that answer, when the whole answer is available to group-level action. I argue that this account explains a swathe of central cases of group knowledge, as well as explaining some central features of group knowledge. (shrink)

In what follows, I appeal to Charles Babbage’s discussion of the division of mental labor to provide evidence that—at least with respect to the social acquisition, storage, retrieval, and transmission of knowledge—epistemologists have, for a broad range of phenomena of crucial importance to actual knowers in their epistemic practices in everyday life, failed adequately to appreciate the significance of socially distributed cognition. If the discussion here is successful, I will have demonstrated that a particular presumption widely held within (...) the contemporary discussion of the epistemology of testimony—a presumption that I will term the personalist requirement—fails to account for those very practices of knowers that I detail here. I will then conclude by suggesting that an alternate account of testimonial warrant, one that has heretofore been underappreciated, ought to be given more serious consideration—in particular because it is well suited to account for those actual practices of knowers that the personalist requirement leaves unrecognized. (shrink)

As the use of algorithmic decision‐making becomes more commonplace, so too does the worry that these algorithms are often inscrutable and our use of them is a threat to our agency. Since we do not understand why an inscrutable process recommends one option over another, we lose our ability to judge whether the guidance is appropriate and are vulnerable to being led astray. In response, I claim that a process being inscrutable does not automatically make its guidance inappropriate. This phenomenon (...) is not restricted to algorithms, and there are many social processes which we should conform to but are similarly unable to judge for ourselves. I provide a framework for how we can depend on inscrutable processes by introducing a distinction between knowing conformity (where I understand what justifies the guidance) from mere conformity (where I merely do what I am told) and showing how mere conformity is often positively valuable because it allows for extended processes that in turn allow us to accomplish more than we could on our own. This is in effect a division of deliberative labour, which I argue is something commonplace but not often recognised, of which algorithmic guidance can be an example. (shrink)

Current theories of the division of cognitive labor are confined to the “context of justification,” assuming exogenous theories. But new theories are made from the same labor that is used for developing existing theories, and if none of this labor is ever allocated to create new alternatives, then scientific progress is impossible. A unified model is proposed in which theories are no longer given but a function of the division of labor in the model (...) itself. The interactions of individuals balancing the exploitation of existing theories and the exploration of new theories results in a robust cyclical pattern. (shrink)

It is often argued that future-directed decisions are effective at shaping our future conduct because they give rise, at the time of action, to a decisive reason to act as originally decided. In this paper, I argue that standard accounts of decision-based reasons are unsatisfactory. For they focus either on tie-breaking scenarios or cases of self-directed distal manipulation. I argue that future-directed decisions are better understood as tools for the non-manipulative, intrapersonal division of deliberative labor over time. A (...) future-directed decision to ϕ gives rise to a defeasible exclusionary reason to ϕ. This reason is grounded on the default authority that is normally granted to one’s prior self as an “expert” deliberator. I argue that this kind of exclusionary reason is the only one that can account for the effectiveness of future-directed decisions at shaping our diachronic agency without violating our autonomy over time. (shrink)

A tacit assumption in the literature devoted to singular thought is that singular thought constitutes a unitary phenomenon, and so a correct account of it must encompass all instances. In this essay, I argue against such a unitary account. The superficial feature of singularity might result from ver y different deep-level phenomena. Following Taylor (2010) and Crane (2013), I distinguish between the referential fitness and the referential success of a thought. I argue that facts responsible for referential fitness (e.g., mental (...) files or individual concepts), as well as facts responsible for referential success (e.g., acquaintance conditions on referential success), are relevant in explaining the data pertaining to a theory of singular thought. What makes this approach particularly attractive is that there are good independent reasons to introduce both kinds of facts in theorizing about thought. (shrink)

Since the publication of Kitcher’s influential paper The Division of Cognitive Labor, some philosophers wondered about these two related issues: (1) which is the optimal distribution of cognitive efforts among rival methods within a scientific community?, and (2) whether and how can a community achieve such an optimal distribution? Though not committing to any specific answer to question (1), I claim that issue (2) does not depend exclusively on an invisible hand like mechanism, since both intra-scientific and extra-scientific (...) institutions may play a major role. Finally, I examine some practical difficulties of reallocating scientists from a method to another, which leads to stress the importance of well-planned training and recruitment. (shrink)

This paper argues that many philosophical theories of meaning idealize our actual language communities and thereby contribute to perpetuating group-based oppression. I focus on externalist theories of language that posit a division of linguistic labor (DoLL), and I argue that the DoLLs they imagine are free of oppression and untouched by its effects. This distorts both basic theoretical assumptions and our ideas about which meanings are to be found in some language community. By thus obscuring oppression and (...) its effects, we prevent ourselves from adequately addressing oppression's effects on the meanings we use to understand and communicate about the world. (shrink)

Women continue to be in charge of most childrearing; men continue to be responsible for most breadwinning. There is no consensus on whether this state of affairs, and the informal norms that encourage it, are matters of justice to be tackled by state action. Feminists have criticized political liberalism for its alleged inability to embrace a full feminist agenda, inability explained by political liberals’ commitment to the ideal of state neutrality. The debate continues on whether neutral states can accommodate two (...) feminist demands: to enact policies aimed at dismantling the feminization of caregiving, especially childrearing, and to compensate women for some of the disadvantages they incur by being primary care-givers. I contribute to this debate with three arguments in support of policies meant to de-gender care-giving and compensate care-givers. The first appeals to equality of opportunity to positions of advantage and justifies policies that prevent or mitigate statistical discrimination and implicit biases. The second draws attention to a possible causal relationship between the specialization of women in early childcare and misogyny; since the latter is incompatible with political liberal justice, it yields the conclusion that political liberals ought to further investigate the causal hypothesis with the aim of establishing or refuting it. The third argument concludes that legitimate childrearing prohibits adults from socializing children or, at least girls, into gender norms; it justifies duties of justice on the side of parents, educators, and economic agents, and state policies meant to offset foreseeable breaches of some of these duties. (shrink)

COVID-19 knows no boundaries, but political responses to it certainly do. Much has been made about how the pandemic has revealed the Hobbesian nature of political power, but this picture of politics occludes from vision the interdependent nature of our current international order. In particular, it overlooks the fact that much of the goods, services, capital, and people that societies rely on in order to function are sourced from outside the domestic state. And, conversely, it overlooks the extent to which (...) the policy responses taken in one state have considerable effects on the options available, and the outcomes suffered, in other jurisdictions. This paper seeks to correct this oversight, by highlighting two duties that states bear towards one another in the context of this crisis, by virtue of their participation in international trade relationships. Trade grounds duties of justice between trade partners by making them dependent upon one another in order to realize their respective duties of domestic justice. This dependence, in turn, grounds a duty of stability, and a duty of accountability. Having explained and argued for these two duties, the paper discusses the implications of taking these two duties seriously in the context of states’ policy responses to the COVID-19 crisis. (shrink)

Semantic originalism is a theory of constitutional meaning that aims to disentangle the semantic, legal, and normative strands of debates in constitutional theory about the role of original meaning in constitutional interpretation and construction. This theory affirms four theses: (1) the fixation thesis, (2) the clause meaning thesis, (3) the contribution thesis, and (4) the fidelity thesis. -/- The fixation thesis claims that the semantic content of each constitutional provision is fixed at the time the provision is framed and ratified: (...) subsequent changes in linguistic practice cannot change the semantic content of an utterance. -/- The clause meaning thesis claims that the semantic content is given by the conventional semantic meaning (or original public meaning) of the text with four modifications. The first modification is provided by the publicly available context of constitutional utterance: words and phrases that might be ambiguous in isolation can become clear in light of those circumstances of framing and ratification that could be expected to known to interpreters of the Constitution across time. The second modification is provided by the idea of the division of linguistic labor: some constitutional provisions, such as the natural born citizen clause may be terms of art, the meaning of which are fixed by the usages of experts. The third modification is provided by the idea of constitutional implicature: the constitution may mean things it does not explicitly say. The fourth modification is provided by the idea of constitutional stipulations: the constitution brings into being new terms such as House of Representatives and the meaning of these terms is stipulated by the Constitution itself. -/- The contribution thesis asserts that the semantic content of the Constitution contributes to the law: the most plausible version of the contribution thesis is modest, claiming that the semantic content of the Constitution provides rules of constitutional law, subject to various qualifications. Our constitutional practice provides strong evidence for the modest version of the contribution thesis. -/- The fidelity thesis asserts that we have good reasons to affirm fidelity to constitutional law: virtuous citizens and officials are disposed to act in accord with the Constitution; right acting citizens and officials obey the constitution in normal circumstances; constitutional conformity produces good consequences. Our public political culture affirms the great value of the rule of law. -/- We can summarize semantic originalism as a slogan: The original public meaning of the constitution is the law and for that reason it should be respected and obeyed. The slogan recapitulates each of the claims made by semantic originalism, but it is potentially misleading because it does not clearly distinguish between the semantic claims made by the fixation and clause meaning theses, the legal claim made by the contribution thesis, and the normative claim made by the fidelity thesis. -/- Part I introduces the four theses. Part II is entitled An Opinionated History of Constitutional Originalism, and it provides the context for all that follows. Part III is entitled Semantic Originalism: A Theory of Constitutional Meaning, and it lays out the case for original public meaning as the best nonnormative theory of constitutional content. Part IV is entitled The Normative Implications of Semantic Originalism, and it articulates a variety of normative arguments for originalism. Part V is entitled Conclusion: Semantic Originalism and Living Constitutionalism, and it explores the broad implications of semantic originalism for living constitutionalism and the future of constitutional theory. (shrink)

We present a model of the distribution of labour in science. Such models tend to rely on the mechanism of the invisible hand . Our analysis starts from the necessity of standards in distributed processes and the possibility of multiple standards in science. Invisible hand models turn out to have only limited scope because they are restricted to describing the atypical single-standard case. Our model is a generalisation of these models to J standards; single-standard models such as Kitcher are a (...) limiting case. We introduce and formalise this model, demonstrate its dynamics and conclude that the conclusions commonly derived from invisible hand models about the distribution of labour in science are not robust against changes in the number of standards. (shrink)

This research aimed to assess the general and technical competency of Technical Vocational Education (TVE) teachers in the schools Division of Aklan. It also determined the competency needs and gaps in teaching TVE in the implementation of the program. The study was participated by 118 TVE teachers. Mixed-methods research design using sequential strategy was employed in this study. The Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers was used as guide for assessing the general level of competency while self-assessment guide of TESDA (...) was used to assess the level of technical competency. The quantitative data were used as bases in the conduct of focus group discussions to triangulate the responses in the survey. The general competency level of TVE teachers was described as “highly proficient” while the technical competency level was reported on the “advanced” level. The gaps identified were: (1) teacher-subject mismatch, (2) inadequate skills in applying math and science principles in technical training, (3) struggle in promoting understanding of global labor markets, (4) inability to lead workplace communication (5) lack of content knowledge and pedagogy, (6) lack of competence in assessment and reporting, (7) insufficient trainings related to area of specialization, and (8) expired and unaligned national certificates (nc).The competency needs identified were:(1) activities that would enhance competency, (2) motivation and opportunities to acquire/enhance, and apply competency, and (3) renewed professionalism and rejuvenated teaching advocacy and calling. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into how the proliferation of globalization has impacted labor markets both in a advanced industrialized nations and well as developing nations. Insightful analysis will be drawn from Oatley (2011) on division of labor, Jaumotte & Tytell (2007) on labor compensation, Hahn & Narjoko (2013) on the impact on South Asian Countries, Basu (2016) on wage as a share of GDP and Wallace, Gauchat & Fullerton (2011) on the (...) impact of globalization and labor markets on inequality. (shrink)

The dual labor market theory is one of the primary explanations for the gender differences in earnings. It shows that gender inequality and stereotypes lead to employment of men and women in different segments of the labor market characterized by various incomes. This theory is based on the hypothesis that such markets are divided into segments, which are divided by different rules of conduct for workers and employers. Differences also include production conditions, terms of employment, productivity of employees, (...) and the characteristics of the workers’ jobs. This labor division is related to employee characteristics such as gender, age, and race that define their work environment and lifestyle. (shrink)

The concept of work can be understood as a purposeful human activity, which is focused on the processing of natural goods, items and/or information by using tools to meet tangible and intangible needs. Work is the usage of instruments to support the existence of humankind and the social world. Domestic work refers to work of domestic help, which applies to employees, usually individuals who work and often live in the house of the employer. Emotional labor takes place in the (...) public sphere as a social and economic exchange sold for wages during interactions with customers or coworkers. Emotional labor requires certain emotions to be displayed and expressed in line with organizational aims. (shrink)

In his 1975 paper “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’”, Hilary Putnam famously argued for semantic externalism. Little attention has been paid, however, to the fact that already in 1973, Putnam had presented the idea of the linguistic division of labor and the Twin Earth thought experiment in his comment on Wilfrid Sellars’s “Meaning as Functional Classification” at a conference, and Sellars had replied to Putnam from a broadly inferentialist perspective. The first half of this paper aims to trace (...) the development of Putnam’s semantic externalism, situate his debate with Sellars in it, and reconstruct the two arguments he presented against Sellars. The second half of this paper aims to reconstruct how Sellars replied to Putnam. I argue that Sellars not only accepts the social character of language but also suggests how inferentialists can accommodate the contribution of the world. Sellars’s key idea is that substance terms have a “promissory note aspect” which is to be cashed out in a successor conceptual framework. I reconstruct Sellars’s position as ideal successor externalism, and compare it with temporal externalism. (shrink)

How should we account for the contextual variability of knowledge claims? Many philosophers favour an invariantist account on which such contextual variability is due entirely to pragmatic factors, leaving no interesting context-sensitivity in the semantic meaning of ‘know that.’ I reject this invariantist division of labor by arguing that pragmatic invariantists have no principled account of embedded occurrences of ‘S knows/doesn’t know that p’: Occurrences embedded within larger linguistic constructions such as conditional sentences, attitude verbs, expressions of (...) probability, comparatives, and many others, I argue, give rise to a threefold problem of embedded implicatures. (shrink)

The article explores the problem of preferable technological changes in the context of work. To this end, it addresses the ‘why’ (motives and values) and the ‘how’ (organizational forms) of automation from a normative perspective. Concerning the ‘why,’ automation processes are currently mostly driven by values of economic efficiency. Yet, since automation processes are part of the basic structure of society, as is the division of labor, considerations of justice apply to them. As for the ‘how,’ the article (...) suggests ‘fair hybrid cooperation’ as an alternative ideal to guide automation priorities. It is achieved when the division of labor between humans and machines does not hinder, and preferably enables, workers’ experience of certain primary qualities in their work activity. By analogy with Rawls’ primary goods, these are qualities that it is necessary for every worker to experience in order to pursue their life plans: security, self-direction, self-development, dignity, and recognition. According to this criterion, the tasks to automate first are those hindering these contributive primary qualities. This provides us with a normative vocabulary and a standard to orient automation decisions but also to assess existing organizational forms and envisage alternative cooperative imaginaries. To illustrate how the ideal may play out in the real world, the article concludes with a ‘fair hybrid cooperation test’ and a nurse bots case for meaningful work. (shrink)

There are several linguistic phenomena that, when examined closely, give evidence that people speak through characters, much like authors of literary works do, in everyday discourse. However, most approaches in linguistics and in the philosophy of language leave little theoretical room for the appearance of characters in discourse. In particular, there is no linguistic criterion found to date, which can mark precisely what stretch of discourse within an utterance belongs to a character, and to which character. And yet, (...) without at least tentatively marking the division of labor between the different characters in an utterance, it is absolutely impossible to arrive at an acceptable interpretation of it. As an alternative, I propose to take character use seriously, as an essential feature of discourse in general, a feature speakers and listeners actively seek out in utterances. I offer a simple typology of actions in discourse that draws on this understanding, and demonstrate its usefulness for the analysis of a conversation transcript. (shrink)

This article explores Marx’s contention that the achievement of full personhood and, not just consequently, but simultaneously, of genuine intersubjectivity depends upon the attainment of recognition for one’s place in the social division of labour, recognition which is systematically denied to some individuals and groups of individuals through the capitalist organization of production and exchange. This reading is then employed in a critique of Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition which, it is argued, cannot account for the systematic obstacles faced (...) by some struggles for recognition. (shrink)

This paper begins with a discussion the role of less-than-admirable epistemic emotions in our respectable, indeed admirable inquiries: nosiness, obsessiveness, wishful thinking, denial, partisanship. The explanation for their desirable effect is Mandevillian: because of the division of epistemic labour individual epistemic vices can lead to shared knowledge. In fact it is sometimes essential to it.

The advanced division of cognitive labor generates a set of challenges and opportunities for professional philosophers. In this paper, I re-characterize the nature of synthetic philosophy in light of these challenges and opportunities. In part 1, I’ll remind you of the centrality of the division of labor to Plato’s Republic, and why this is especially salient in his banishment of the poets from his Kallipolis. I’ll then focus on the significance of an easily overlooked albeit rather (...) significant character, Damon, mentioned in that dialogue. I’ll argue that if we take the relationship between Socrates and Damon seriously, we’ll notice that in modeling imperfect polities, Plato inscribes Socrates within the advanced division of cognitive labor who defers to Damon as an expert on a key feature of the art of government. In fact, I’ll argue that in Republic, Plato offers us at least two ways to conceptualize philosophy’s relationship to the sciences, and that he alerts us to the social significance of this. In part 2, I’ll re-introduce my conceptualization of synthetic philosophy and restate it. Back in 2019 I published a short paper on it that went viral and was immediately used by others. Reflection on their use instructed me about an ambiguity in my position. Building on the material in parts 1-2, in part 3, I’ll contrast my account with a number of ways that Philip Kitcher has conceptualized synthetic philosophy in order to make more precise the version promoted here. (shrink)

Some have argued for a division of epistemic labor in which mathematicians supply truths and philosophers supply their necessity. We argue that this is wrong: mathematics is committed to its own necessity. Counterfactuals play a starring role.

The internet has considerably changed epistemic practices in science as well as in everyday life. Apparently, this technology allows more and more people to get access to a huge amount of information. Some people even claim that the internet leads to a democratization of knowledge. In the following text, we will analyze this statement. In particular, we will focus on a potential change in epistemic structure. Does the internet change our common epistemic practice to rely on expert opinions? Does it (...) alter or even undermine the division of epistemic labor? The epistemological framework of our investigation is a naturalist-pragmatist approach to knowledge. We take it that the internet generates a new environment to which people seeking information must adapt. How can they, and how should they, expand their repertory of social markers to continue the venture of filtering, and so make use of the possibilities the internet apparently provides? To find answers to these questions we will take a closer look at two case studies. The first example is about the internet platform WikiLeaks that allows so-called whistle-blowers to anonymously distribute their information. The second case study is about the search engine Google and the problem of personalized searches. Both instances confront a knowledge-seeking individual with particular difficulties which are based on the apparent anonymity of the information distributor. Are there ways for the individual to cope with this problem and to make use of her social markers in this context nonetheless? (shrink)

This research is concerned with understanding the factors behind the trade-off between child labor and child schooling, given the well-documented links between the two. It examines parents' behavior in their decision-making on their children's schooling or practicing child labor. Depending on qualitative research methods including 28 semi-structured interviews and two focus group discussions conducted in the rural areas of Bangladesh in 2020, this study reveals the following: subsistence needs compel households, particularly the ultra-poor and the female-headed, to trade (...) off child labor with schooling; due to higher demand of labor, parents engage their children into work instead of schooling; parents of labor-intensive occupations tend to trade off child labor with schooling; sexual division of labor remains obvious; finally, credit constraints and cultural beliefs have negative impacts on parental decision-making on child schooling. Interventions aiming to reduce child labor and increase schooling in these rural areas must remain mindful of the socio-economic and cultural needs. (shrink)

This text was prompted by a forum discussing the legacy of Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx, twenty-five years after its publication. In this short essay, I explore the book’s influence on the fields of Marxism, post-Marxism, and beyond. With the problematic of heritage and legacy in mind, I raise the questions of sexual difference and dissemination as that which comes to interrupt the genealogical logic of inheritance understood as filiation and reproduction. I show that Derrida’s book, besides questioning reception and (...) influence, yet remains to be read, especially in light of ongoing archival research on Derrida’s numerous engagements with Marx and Marxist thought in a series of unpublished seminars from the 1970s. This is done more specifically through a reading of an unpublished seminar from 1974-1975, dealing with the Marxian concepts of ideology and division of labor – which Derrida interrogates more particularly in relation to sex, sexuality, and sexual differences. This text was published in the section "Ambivalent Promises—Reproductions of the Subject: A Forum on Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx after 25 Years, Part IV", Contexto Internacional, 42 (1), pp. 125-148. (shrink)

The reward system of science is the priority rule. The first scientist making a new discovery is rewarded with prestige, while second runners get little or nothing. Michael Strevens, following Philip Kitcher, defends this reward system, arguing that it incentivizes an efficient division of cognitive labor. I argue that this assessment depends on strong implicit assumptions about the replicability of findings. I question these assumptions on the basis of metascientific evidence and argue that the priority rule systematically discourages (...) replication. My analysis leads us to qualify Kitcher and Strevens’s contention that a priority-based reward system is normatively desirable for science. (shrink)

Mysterianism has become a popular stance in philosophy of consciousness and other philosophical subdisciplines. The aim of this paper is to show that mysterianism is not justified, mainly because its inclination to epistemic defeatism and the misunderstanding of the division of epistemic labour. In the first part, I will present the history of mysterianism in the 19th and 20th century philosophy. Then, in the second part, I will point out how epistemic defeatism is founded in the unwarranted philosophical futurology. (...) The third part will deal with the division of labour in society, language and knowledge. Because of the division of epistemic labour, the understanding is distributed among numerous agents without possibility of individual comprehension. Finally, I will coin the term “ignorance illusion” that plays the central role in the mysterians’ worldview. (shrink)

The demarcation of pseudoscience has been one of the most important philosophical tasks since the 1960s. During the 1980s, an atmosphere of defeatism started to spread among philosophers of science, some of them claimed the failure of the demarcation project. I defend that the more auspicious approach to the problem might be through the intellectual character of epistemic agents, i.e., from the point of view of vice epistemology. Unfortunately, common lists of undesirable character features are usually based on a priori (...) reasoning, and therefore might be considered artificial or too vague. When we base our position on contemporary behavioural sciences, we can see that the epistemic character of believers in pseudoscience is for the most part determined by two related factors. Firstly, these epistemic agents show a higher level of cognitive laziness. By this I mean an inability or unwillingness to engage in reflective thinking and a reluctance to account for counterevidence. Secondly, they yield more easily to metacognitive overconfidence. This can be broadly understood as so-called “knowledge illusion”, the inability to recognize one’s own intellectual limits. The deficiency usually stems from a misunderstanding of the division of cognitive labour and of the agent’s role in epistemic society. I find the proposed epistemological approach to pseudoscience crucial. Only if we understand the descriptive aspects of the problem, can we think of normative solutions to it. (shrink)

The increasing demand for transparency in AI has recently come under scrutiny. The question is often posted in terms of “epistemic double standards”, and whether the standards for transparency in AI ought to be higher than, or equivalent to, our standards for ordinary human reasoners. I agree that the push for increased transparency in AI deserves closer examination, and that comparing these standards to our standards of transparency for other opaque systems is an appropriate starting point. I suggest that a (...) more fruitful exploration of this question will involve a different comparison class. We routinely treat judgments made by highly trained experts in specialized fields as fair or well-grounded even though—by the nature of expert/layperson division of epistemic labor—an expert will not be able to provide an explanation of the reasoning behind these judgments that makes sense to most other people. Regardless, laypeople are thought to be acting reasonably—and ethically—in deferring to the judgments of experts that concern their areas of specialization. I suggest that we reframe our question regarding the appropriate standards of transparency in AI as one that asks when, why, and to what degree it would be ethical to accept opacity in AI. I argue that our epistemic relation to certain opaque AI technology may be relevantly similar to the layperson’s epistemic relation to the expert in certain respects, such that the successful expert/layperson division of epistemic labor can serve as a blueprint for the ethical use of opaque AI. (shrink)

The ideas that law is (or can be regarded as) a legal system, and that law evolves over time in adaptation to its context, are two of the most widely shared and presupposed ideas in contemporary legal theory. However, even if much interest has been dedicated in legal theory and legal dogmatics to the evolution of specific legal concepts or institutions, as well as legal norms in particular, not so much attention has been dedicated to the evolution of legal systems (...) in themselves. In this chapter, I will try to offer an overview of the evolution of the concept of legal system and critically analyse whether an evolutionary theory of legal systems - i.e., a theory about the evolution of legal systems - can be reconstructed and laid down for the analysis both of the past, the present, and the future of legal systems. (shrink)

All disciplines must define their basic units and core processes. In evolutionary biology, the core process is natural selection and the basic unit of selection and adaptation is the individual. To operationalize the theory of natural selection we must count individuals, as they are the bearers of fitness. While canonical individuals have often been taken to be multicellular organisms, the hierarchy of life shows that new kinds of individuals have evolved. A variety of criteria have been used to define biological (...) individuality. Some criteria rely on the presence/absence of a particular property while others advocate an approach that reflects the process of natural selection. The plethora of approaches to classifying individuality has resulted in confusion regarding how to study individuality in a given taxon. (shrink)

My primary aim in this article is to provide a philosophical account of the unity of hallucinations, which can capture both perceptual hallucinations (which are subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions) and non-perceptual hallucinations (all others). Besides, I also mean to clarify further the division of labour and the nature of the collaboration between philosophy and the cognitive sciences. Assuming that the epistemic conception of hallucinations put forward by M. G. F. Martin and others is largely on the right track, I (...) will focus on two main tasks: (a) to provide a satisfactory phenomenology of the subjective character of perceptions and perceptual hallucinations and (b) to redress the philosophers’ neglect of non-perceptual hallucinations. More specifically, I intend to apply one of the central tenets of the epistemic conception—that hallucinations can and should be positively characterised in terms of their phenomenological connections to perceptions—to non-perceptual hallucinations as well. That is, I will try to show that we can positively specify the class of non-perceptual hallucinations by reference to the distinctive ways in which we first-personally experience them and perceptions in consciousness. The task of saying more about their underlying third-personal nature may then be left to the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

The complexity that we observe in nature can often be explained in terms of cooperative behavior. For example, the major transitions of evolution required the emergence of cooperation among the lower-level units of selection, which led to specialization through division-of-labor ultimately resulting in spontaneous order. There are two aspects to address explaining how such cooperation is sustained: how free-riders are prevented from free-riding on the benefits of cooperative tasks, and just as importantly, how those social benefits arise. We (...) review these problems from an economic perspective, and highlight how ideas from economics can help us to better understand how the benefits of social interactions arise, how they are sustained, and how they affect the underlying social dilemmas. (shrink)

The gendered division of labour in combination with the feminisation of international migration contribute to shortages of care, a phenomenon often called ‘care drain’. I argue that this phenomenon is an issue of global gender justice. I look at two methodological challenges and favourably analyse the suggestions that care drain studies should include the effects of fathers’ and other male caregivers’ migration and, in some cases, the effects of migration within national borders. I also explain why care drain is (...) a problem of distributive justice, by looking at the background conditions that result in much of the care-givers’ migration. (shrink)

In a study drawing from both evolutionary biology and the social sciences, evidence and argument is assembled in support of the comprehensive appli- cation of selfish gene theory to the human population. With a focus on genes giving rise to characteristically-human cooperation (“cooperative genes”) in- volving language and theory of mind, one may situate a whole range of pat- terned behaviour—including celibacy and even slavery—otherwise seeming to present insuperable difficulties. Crucially, the behaviour which tends to propa- gate the cooperative genes (...) may be “at cost” to the genes of some who may be party to the cooperation itself. Explanatory insights are provided by Trivers’ parent-offspring conflict theory, Lack’s principle, and Hamilton’s kin selec- tion mechanism. A primary observation is that cooperation using language and theory of mind is itself interdependent with full human conceptualization of a world of objects and of themselves as embodied beings. Human capaci- ties inhering in, or arising out of, the ability to cooperate are also responsible for a vitally important long-term process, the domestication of animals and p- lants. The approach illuminates the difference between animal and human sexual behaviour, and the emergence of kinship systems. Again, recent pat- terns of population growth become much more explicable. It is argued that the gene is the single controlling replicator; the notion of the meme as a sec- ond independent replicator is flawed. (shrink)

American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars (1962) once said that “the aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense hang together in the broadest possible sense.” My main question is this: within the context of contemporary sustainability science, how does the concept of ‘sustainability’ in the broadest possible sense of the concept hang together in the broadest possible sense? I will answer this question by advancing two new explicative definitions of sustainability that jointly constitute a (...) unifying concept of sustainability. This meta-level concept accommodates most of the central meanings conventionally assigned to ‘sustainability’ by sustainability scientists and scholars, offers a useful division of labor between scientists and scholars, and makes explicit value judgements commonly associated with the concept of sustainability. (shrink)

Feminist philosophers have long emphasized the ways in which women’s oppression takes a variety of forms depending on complex combinations of factors. These include women’s objectification, dehumanization and unjust gendered divisions of labour caused in part by sexist ideologies regarding women’s social role. This paper argues that feminized artificial intelligence (feminized AI) poses new and important challenges to these perennial feminist philosophical issues. Despite the recent surge in theoretical and empirical attention paid to the ethics of AI in general, a (...) strikingly small portion of this work has considered the impact of feminized AI in particular. Our aim is thus to draw attention to the new and pressing ethical challenges posed by feminized AI. Doing so is crucial not just to understanding the impact of these increasingly ubiquitous technologies, but also to our understanding of longstanding feminist philosophical concerns and efforts to ameliorate them. (shrink)

It is widely acknowledged in the literature in social epistemology that knowledge has a social dimension: we are epistemically dependent upon one another for most of what we know. Our knowledge can be, and very often is, grounded on the epistemic achievement of somebody else. But what about epistemic aims other than knowledge? What about understanding? Prominent authors argue that understanding is not social in the same way in which knowledge is. Others can put us in the position to understand, (...) but when we understand something, this accomplishment is to be credited mainly if not entirely to us, as it is due to the successful exercise of our own cognitive abilities. In this paper, I show that the social dimension of understanding closely resembles the social dimension of knowledge. I distinguish between three different ways in which a subject can depend upon another subject for (either the acquisition or the possession of) a certain epistemic good. I then argue that all these kinds of epistemic dependence apply to knowledge and understanding alike. If I am right, understanding is not (always) an achievement to be (mainly) credited to the single epistemic agent who understands. (shrink)

The Stoics are famously committed to the thesis that only bodies are, and for this reason they are rightly called “corporealists.” They are also famously compared to Plato’s earthborn Giants in the Sophist, and rightly so given their steadfast commitment to body as being. But the Stoics also notoriously turn the tables on Plato and coopt his “dunamis proposal” that being is whatever can act or be acted upon to underwrite their commitment to body rather than shrink from it as (...) the Giants do. The substance of Stoic corporealism, however, has not been fully appreciated. This paper argues that Stoic corporealism goes beyond the dunamis proposal, which is simply an ontological criterion for being, to the metaphysics of body. This involves, first, an account of body as metaphysically simple and hence fundamental; second, an account of body as malleable and continuous, hence fit for blending (krasis di’ holou) and composition. In addition, the metaphysics of body involves a distinction between this composition relation seen in the cosmology, and the constitution relation by which the four-fold schema called the Stoic Categories proceeds, e.g. the relation between a statue and its clay, or a fist and its underlying hand. It has not been appreciated that the cosmology and the Categories are distinct — and complementary — explanatory enterprises, the one accounting for generation and unity, the other taking those individuals once generated, and giving a mereological analysis of their identity and persistence conditions, kinds, and qualities. The result is an elegant division of Plato’s labor from the Battle of Gods and Giants. On the one hand, the Stoics rehabilitate the crude cosmology of the Presocratics to deliver generation and unity in completely corporeal terms, and that work is found in their Physics. On the other hand, they reform the Giants and “dare to corporealize,” delivering all manner of predication (from identity to the virtues), and that work is found in Stoic Logic. Recognizing the distinctness of these explanatory enterprises helps dissolve scholarly puzzles, and harmonizes the Stoics with themselves. (shrink)

What does social justice require in contemporary societies? What are the requirements of social democracy? Who and where are the individuals and groups that can carry forward agendas for progressive social transformation? What are we to make of the so-called new social movements of the last thirty years? Is identity politics compatible with egalitarianism? Can cultural misrecognition and economic maldistribution be fought simultaneously? What of the heritage of Western Marxism is alive and dead? And how is current critical social theory (...) to approach these and other questions? Much of the most productive work done in recent social theory has revolved around such issues, in particular, around those concerning the relationship between the politics of recognition and the politics of distribution. After the intense theoretical focus over the last fifteen years or so on the issues of recognition politics—multiculturalism, multi-nationalism, identity politics, group-differentiated rights, the accommodation of difference, and so on—some social theorists have worried that attention has been diverted from important issues of distributive equality—systematic impoverishment, increasing material inequality, ‘structural’ unemployment, the growth of oligarchic power, global economic segmentation, and so on. While some critics seem to have adopted a blunt ‘it’s the economy, stupid’ line of criticism,1 others have attempted to develop an overarching, integrative theoretical framework adequate to the diverse issues concerning both economic and cultural justice. For example, Axel Honneth proposes that a suitably developed and normatively robust theory of intersubjective recognition can adequately integrate an analysis of apparently diverse contemporary struggles: those for a just division of labor and hence, a fair distribution of resources and opportunities, as well as those for a culture free of identity-deforming disrespect and denigration. (shrink)

For Kant, ‘reflection’ is a technical term with a range of senses. I focus here on the senses of reflection that come to light in Kant's account of logic, and then bring the results to bear on the distinction between ‘logical’ and ‘transcendental’ reflection that surfaces in the Amphiboly chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason. Although recent commentary has followed similar cues, I suggest that it labours under a blind spot, as it neglects Kant's distinction between ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ (...) general logic. The foundational text of existing interpretations is a passage in Logik Jäsche that appears to attribute to Kant the view that reflection is a mental operation involved in the generation of concepts from non-conceptual materials. I argue against the received view by attending to Kant's division between ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ general logic, identifying senses of reflection proper to each, and showing that none accords well with the received view. Finally, to take account of Kant's notio.. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the question of the scope of justice, in a not unusual distributive, egalitarian, and universalistic framework. Part I outlines some central features of the egalitarian theory of justice I am proposing. According to such a conception, justice is – at least prima facie – immediately universal, and therefore global. It does not morally recognize any judicial boundaries or limits. Part II examines whether, even from a universalistic perspective, there are moral or pragmatic grounds for rejecting (...) or limiting the global scope of justice. In particular, I scrutinize five universalistic objections: (1) the principle of “moral division of labor”; (2) the connection between cooperation and distributive justice; (3) the primacy of democracy; (4) the dangers of a world state; and (5) political‐pragmatic reasons. I intend to show that these objections cannot undermine the strong normative claims of global justice. At the most, political‐pragmatic reasons speak in favor of initially striving for somewhat less, in order to receive more general backing. (shrink)

Recent feminist critiques of development have questioned some fundamental assumptions of feminist political theory; such critiques have also been successful in subverting long-held assumptions of conventional economic development. Viewed in the context of women’s subordination in third world countries, a redefinition of development must not only be about economic growth, but ensure a redistribution of resources, challenge the gender-based division of labour and also seek to provide for an egalitarian basis in social arrangements. Further, as this article argues, any (...) starting point for feminist critiques of development must also seek to link the end of gender oppression to multiple theories of justice – a justice not juridical but one that recognises the cultural membership of women in the community. (shrink)