Early discussions of ?climate justice? have been dominated by economists rather than political philosophers. More recently, analytical liberal political philosophers have joined the debate. However, the philosophical discussion of climate justice remains in its early stages. This paper considers one promising approach based on human rights, which has been advocated recently by several theorists, including Simon Caney, Henry Shue and Tim Hayward. A basic argument supporting the claim that anthropogenic climate change violates human rights is presented. Four objections to this (...) argument are examined: the ?future persons? objection; the ?risk? objection; the ?collective causation? objection; and the ?demandingness? objection. This critical examination leads to a more detailed specification and defence of the claim that anthropogenic climate change violates human rights. (shrink)

The dominance of the Abrahamic tradition in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion has led some to call for greater exploration of alternatives to the traditional conception of God, such as Pantheism, Ultimism, and Axiarchism. While we think this call for alternatives is important, we go in a different direction. Rather than explore and defend alternative conceptions of God, we defend a range of fairly traditional but non-religious conceptions of God. This range of views, from deism to philosophical theism, enjoys a (...) variety of benefits over its religious competitors and deserves greater attention. (shrink)

Trans and gender-nonconforming people sometimes say that certain gender norms are authentic for them. For example, a trans man might say that abiding by norms of masculinity tracks who he really is. Authenticity is sometimes taken to appeal to an essential, pre-social “inner self.” It is also sometimes understood as a moral notion. Authenticity claims about gender norms therefore appear inimical to two key commitments in feminist philosophy: that all gender norms are socially constructed, and that many domains of gender (...) norms are both morally and prudentially bad. I argue that that this apparent tension is illusory. Concordant with existing trans narratives of authenticity, I articulate an existentialist view that understands authenticity as a socially embedded, constructive project undertaken in a non-ideal social world, rather than a reflective uncovering of a pre-given, essential self. I then show that authenticity and morality can come apart; what is authentic for someone need not be either morally good or good for them. I conclude that the authenticity of gender norms does not cut against the feminist commitments that I identify. This conclusion enables a theoretical space that is both respectful of trans experience and critical of dominant gender norms, an important liberatory goal. (shrink)

This paper examines the culture of domination and oppression that poses a challenge in creating safe spaces. This culture normalizes oppression affecting marginalized groups, particularly women. This culture threatens safe spaces, which hinders women’s participation in society without the fear of being silenced, dismissed, and excluded. But how can we establish safe spaces in a culture where dominant groups control the narrative of society? This paper analyzes the culture of domination in the Philippines using the philosophical lenses of Iris Marion (...) Young, bell hooks, and Judith Butler. Young’s Five Faces of Oppression and hooks’ notion of intersectionality were used to analyze the intricate relationships between oppression’s multiple manifestations and how they affect Filipino Women. Butler's work is also cited to explain how social constructs like gender as performativity shape women’s experiences and actions in different spaces. Finally, this paper suggests creating safe spaces when this oppressive culture persists. (shrink)

The existing research on the role of intellectuals in alleviating suffering has overlooked contributions by prominent Black intellectuals from the United States in the early 1990s. Two roundtable debates co-organised under the auspices of the Boston Review at Harvard and MIT in 1992 and 1993 in response to Eugene Rivers’ essay “On the Responsibility of Intellectuals in the Age of Crack” were central to these contributions, counting a star-studded line-up of Black intellectuals including bell hooks, Cornel West, and Glenn (...) Loury. Participants explore the role of Black intellectuals in the US, debating what they can and should do to combat oppression and domination. In this article, I recover the context of the debates, reconstruct their arguments, and make a case for their major historical and political significance. I comparatively interpret the two roundtables, identifying three major points of convergence. First, participants begin from a Gramscian conception of organic intellectuals, developing this further to defend the need for collective intellectual praxis. Second, the race-class-gender nexus plays a central role in structuring the very possibility of intellectuals affecting social change. Third, these intellectuals subscribe to a significantly pessimistic action paralysis, indicative of the relative powerlessness of intellectual debate in addressing structural oppression. (shrink)

The discourse of ‘the end of ideology’ put forward by Bell in 1960 was centred on the notion that an ideological consensus had been reached, especially in developed countries, and that ideologies were no longer necessary given that economic growth had replaced political growth as the predominant subject of debate. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of real socialism in parallel to the breakup of the USSR, the discourse that liberalism constitutes the dominant and only (...) paradigm rose dramatically in prominence alongside the neoliberal policies implemented following the economic crisis in the 1970s. Undoubtedly, one of the most important works in this trend was the ‘end of history’ thesis put forward by Fukuyama in the 1990s. This study is rooted in the need to reconsider these ‘finalisation’ theses founded on liberalism’s supposed lack of alternatives in the aftermath of the 2007–2008 global financial crisis. Offering a critique of historical economic-political liberalism, it aims to demonstrate the failure of these ending theses, both of which are still accepted and promoted by defenders of neoliberalism. This study employs historical and hermeneutic qualitative research methods. Its most important finding is that neoliberalism cannot be both a political and an economic ‘end’. (shrink)

In the chapter “Emancipatory Engagement with Oppression: The Perils of Identity in Feminist and Anti-Racist Politics” Oda Davanger argues against basing emancipatory struggles on identity categories. According to Davanger, conceptualizing oppression in terms of different axes, i.e. identity categories, can be harmful to feminist philosophy and ideology since it contri- butes to upholding whiteness and maleness as norms and there- fore fails to “dismantle the system of domination”. In opposition to different versions of identity politics and the analytical and political (...) concept of intersectionality, Davanger complements bell hooks’ notion of imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy with a post-structuralist perspective. Davanger’s answer to feminist and anti-racist struggles based on identity categories is a politics that is built around an “abstract and alienated desire” that makes possible engaging in the struggle for a world without oppression based on identity, regardless of individuals’ own experience of oppression. (shrink)

The Louvre Museum is the largest of the world's art museums by its exhibition surface. These represent the Western art of the Middle Ages in 1848, those of the ancient civilizations that preceded and influenced it (Oriental, Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan and Roman), and the arts of early Christians and Islam. At the origin of the Louvre existed a castle, built by King Philip Augustus in 1190, and occupying the southwest quarter of the current Cour Carrée. In 1594, Henri IV decided (...) to unite the palace of the Louvre with the palace of the Tuileries built by Catherine de Medicis. The Cour Carrée was built by the architects Lemercier and then Le Vau, under the reign of Louis XIII and Louis XIV. The Department of Paintings currently has about 7,500 paintings (of which 3,400 are exposed), covering a period that goes from the Middle Ages to 1848 (date of the beginning of the Second Republic). By including the deposits, the collection is, with 12,660 works, the largest collection of ancient paintings in the world. With rare exceptions, the works after 1848 were transferred to the Musée d'Orsay when it was created in 1986. CONTENTS: Louvre Museum - Variety of exhibited works - The Royal Palace - The collections - - Eastern antiquities - - Arts of Islam - - Egyptian Antiquities - - Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities - - Paintings - - - French school - - - Northern Schools (Flanders, Netherlands, Germany) - - - Italian School - - - Other schools Painting - Definitions - Painting genres - - The landscape - - Still life Paintings - FRANCOIS BOUCHER - - Vulcan presenting arms to Venus for Aeneas - RAPHAEL - - Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione - RUBENS - - Helena Fourment with children - LOUIS DAVID - - Madame Récamier - REMBRANDT - - Portrait of Heindrickje Stoffels - VELAZQUEZ - - Portrait of the Infanta Margarita - SIMONE MEMMI - - Jesus Christ walking on Calvary - JAN STEEN - - The Bad Company - HANS HOLBEIN - - Erasmus - CORREGGIO - - Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine - LANCRET - - Conversation - JAN VAN DER MEER (VERMEER) - - The Lacemaker - VAN DYCK - - Charles I at the Hunt - FRANÇOIS CLOUET - - Elisabeth of Austria (1554-1592), Wife of Charles IX and Queen of France (1570 - 1574) - DELACROIX - - The Barque of Dante - EL GRECO - - Saint Louis, King of France, and a page - REMBRANDT - - Pilgrims at Emmaus (The Supper at Emmaus) - GERARD DAVID - - Marriage at Cana - RAPHAEL - - Portrait of Dona Isabel de Requesens, Vice-Queen of Naples - RUBENS - - La Kermesse (The Village Fête, or Noce de village) - FRANS HALS - - The Gypsy Girl - DECAMPS - - The Sonneurs - HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER - - Anne of Cleves - P. PRUD’HON - - Psyche transported to Heaven - PHILIPPE DE CHAMPAIGNE - - Portrait of Richelieu - LANCRET - - The Autumn - L. DAVID - - Madame Seriziat - COROT - - Recollection of Mortefontaine - LEONARDO DA VINCI - - La belle ferronnière - CORREGGIO - - Venus and Cupid with a Satyr - WATTEAU - - Pilgrimage to Cythera (The Embarkation for Cythera) - NICOLAS POUSSIN - - The Inspiration of the Poet - PRUD’HON - - The Empress Josephine (1763-1814) - FRAGONARD - - The Bathers - H. RIGAUD - - Louis XIV (1638–1715) - TERBURG - - The Concert - LEOPOLD ROBERT - - The Pilgrimage to the Madonna of the Arch - LARGILLIERE - - Family Portrait - MANTEGNA - - Parnassus - MEMLING - - The Virgin and Child between St James and St Dominic - FRAGONARD - - The Music Lesson - JEAN VAN EYCK - - The Virgin of chancellor Rolin - PAOLO VERONESE - - Susannah and the Elders - FRANÇOIS BOUCHER - - Diana leaving her bath - GÉRICAULT - - The Raft of the Medusa - MURILLO - - Assumption of the Virgin - CLAUDE GELLEE (LORRAIN) - - Ulysses returning Chryseis to her father (Marine, setting sun) - INGRES - - Madame Riviere - E. MURILLO - - The Young Beggar - GREUZE - - The Broken Pitcher - PIETER DE HOOCH - - Card players in an opulent interior - POUSSIN - - Et in Arcadia ego - QUENTIN MATSYS - - The moneylender and his wife - ANDREA SOLARIO - - Madonna with the Green Cushion - TITIEN - - Woman with a Mirror - DAVID TENIERS (the Younger) - - The Works of Mercy - LEONARDO DA VINCI - - Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) - Armand Dayot . (shrink)

In this article we focus on three key precepts shared by Confucianism and the African ethic of Ubuntu: the central value of community, the desirability of ethical partiality, and the idea that we tend to become morally better as we grow older. For each of these broad similarities, there are key differences underlying them, and we discuss those as well as speculate about the reasons for them. Our aim is not to take sides, but we do suggest ways that Ubuntu (...) and Confucianism might have something to learn from each other and perhaps come closer. We hope that our preliminary reflections can inspire further debate and thinking on a theme – dialogues between long-standing and large-scale non-Western traditions – that is bound to increase in importance as non-Western societies play a greater role in the global system and as the search continues for a 'global ethic'. (shrink)

Aesthetic hedonism is the view that to be aesthetically good is to please. For most aesthetic hedonists, aesthetic normativity is hedonic normativity. This paper argues that Kant’s third Critique contains resources for a nonhedonic account of aesthetic normativity as sourced in autonomy as self-legislation. A case is made that the account is also Kant’s because it ties his aesthetics into a key theme of his larger philosophy.

Recently, the concept of "gender identity" has enjoyed a great deal of attention in gender metaphysics. This seems to be motivated by the goal of creating trans-inclusive theory, by explaining trans people's genders. In this paper, we aim to unmotivate this project. Notions of "gender identity" serve important pragmatic purposes for trans people, such as satisfying the curiosity of non-trans people, and, relatedly, securing our access to important goods like legal rights and medical care. However, we argue that this does (...) not mean that "gender identity" is a metaphysically substantial thing that deserves extensive theoretical attention. There are reasons to be skeptical of such a concept. We trace the history of "gender identity," primarily to identify its roots in trans-antagonistic medical theory and its connections to the problematic "wrong-body" model--a legacy that has pathologized and flattened trans experience. Moreover, we argue that trans people primarily use "gender identity" to explain ourselves to non-trans people, rather than to discuss ourselves among ourselves. Thus, we urge theorists to resist the urge to substantiate gender identity. Instead, we encourage the development of new and better concepts, ones that attend to the lived realities of trans community and the flourishing gender terms and practices that are constructed there. If these lived realities are taken seriously, there is no need to “explain” trans people’s genders; we can simply see them as they are. (shrink)

Augmented Reality (AR), driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI), is transforming how we interact with the world. Recent technologies, like AI-powered smart glasses, are increasingly blending the physical and digital realms. While AR presents exciting new possibilities, it also raises deeper philosophical questions about what we consider reality.

We live in a time of advanced technology and social media, where artificial intelligence (AI) shapes our societal perspectives on how we perceive beauty. This concept is greatly significant for human beings, not only because of how it drives us to make decisions but also due to its impacts on many individuals' mental and physical health. As AI continues to advance, it can potentially democratize beauty and make it more accessible for all, yet it still poses a risk of perpetuating (...) harmful stereotypes and unrealistic beauty standards, particularly for women. (shrink)

The essay contends that people are morally responsible for their beliefs if these beliefs stem from rational deliberations and reflect their true selves, even within a deterministic framework. It defines key concepts such as “belief” and examines its origins through John Locke’s theory of mind. This exploration contrasts incompatibilist perspectives, which argue that determinism negates free will and moral responsibility, with compatibilist perspectives, which claim that free will depends on internal conditions rather than alternative possibilities. By examining these approaches, the (...) essay argues that responsibility varies based on the influencing internal and external factors. (shrink)

Philosophers who defend a person’s right, under certain circumstances, to end his own life or to have a physician end it for him typically appeal both to respect for patient autonomy and to considerations of beneficence. Neither autonomy alone nor beneficence alone can ground a persuasive case for euthanasia. I argue, however, that the standard argument for euthanasia is unsound. It is not possible to combine the principles of autonomy and beneficence in such a way as to justify euthanasia for (...) those who request it and are either incurably ill, in irremediable pain, or fearful of future incapacity, while excluding both involuntary euthanasia and assisted death for those who request it despite being neither incurably ill, in irremediable pain nor fearful of future incapacity. (shrink)

Different philosophers from ancient Greek philosophers to contemporary thinkers tried to present unique views on consciousness. But what consciousness actually is remains unknown. Scientists today study neural firing patterns, neurotransmitters, fMRI scans map neural constellations and brain circuits. Yet, the bridge between neurons and the fragrance of rain or the taste of chocolate remains elusive. How does a network of cells conjure the magic of qualia? This makes the hard problem of consciousness. In this situation, emergent illusionism proposes a new (...) paradigm for the hard problem of Consciousness. (shrink)

This chapter begins by sketching an account of morally responsible agency and the general conditions under which it may fail. We discuss how far individuals with psychiatric diagnoses may be exempt from morally responsible agency in the way that infants are, with examples drawn from a sample of diagnoses intended to make dierent issues salient. We further discuss a recent proposal that clinicians may hold patients responsible without blaming them for their acts. We also consider cognitively impaired subjects in the (...) light of related issues in moral and political theory, asking whether they have been unjustly excluded from liberal conceptions of political community due to their presumed lack of agency. (shrink)

As our experience with this special issue shows, climate change is such a multi-faceted problem that interdisciplinary research is a necessity. This is much more easily said than done. In the course of the publication of this special issue there were many lessons to be learned. First of all we saw how the exchange between our authors allowed them to expand the focus of their respective disciplines. Philosophers considered literature from various fields they would not have touched upon in their (...) usual course of inquiry. Scientists and legal scholars became more sensitive to the normative dimensions and justice-related intricacies involved in their research. This enabled all contributors to open up to different vocabularies and standards of research. At the same time, however, several obstacles to the success of this issue emerged as well. For such an endeavor it is necessary to find researchers who are ready to engage with other disciplines and to take up ideas and comments which at first sight might not seem relevant and out of place from their disciplinary perspective. Due to the special format another challenge was to communicate the interdisciplinary character of this special issue to the reviewers and to put the reviews in context accordingly without risking to diminish the disciplinary quality of contributions. For the guest editors this came with a further challenge. We not only had to become familiar with different disciplinary vocabularies and standards of research but also had to judge the quality and relevance of contributions in the light of our overall aim as well as disciplinary standards of quality. (shrink)

We often ascribe possibility to the scenes that are displayed by mental or nonmental sensory images. The paper presents a novel argument for thinking that we are prima facie justified in ascribing metaphysical possibility to what is displayed by suitable visual images, and it argues that many of our imagery‐based ascriptions of metaphysical possibility are therefore prima facie justified. Some potential objections to the arguments are discussed, and some potential extensions of them, to cover nonvisual forms of imagery and nonmetaphysical (...) forms of possibility, are endorsed. (shrink)

One question that leads us into aesthetics is: why does beauty matter? Or, what do aesthetic goods bring to my life, to make it a life that goes well? Or, how does beauty deserve the place we have evidently made for it in our lives? A theory of aesthetic value states what beauty is so as to equip us to answer this question. According to aesthetic hedonism, aesthetic values are properties of items that stand in constitutive relation to pleasure. Contemporary (...) versions of aesthetic hedonism don’t explain what makes aesthetic values aesthetic, but they do explain what makes them normative, stating what makes it the case that aesthetic value facts lend weight to what an agent should do, for the fact that acting yields pleasure is always a reason to act. This book introduces and defends an alternative to aesthetic hedonism. According to the network theory, aesthetic value facts lend weight to its being an achievement for an agent to act. Since agents achieve by acting in coordination with one another, the theory takes seriously the sociality of aesthetic activity. The main argument for the network theory is that it better explains six facts about aesthetic activity than does aesthetic hedonism. The book also discusses the relationship between aesthetic value and pleasure, the point and distinctive character of aesthetic discourse, and the metaphysics of aesthetic value. Two final chapters use the network theory to shed light on how aesthetic value matters to us as individuals and as members of collectives. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a new interpretation of Stoic ontology. I aim to explain the nature of, and relations between, (i) the fundamental items of their physics, bodies; (ii) the incorporeal items about which they theorized no less; and (iii) universals, towards which the Stoic attitude seems to be a bizarre mixture of realism and anti-realism. In the first half of the paper I provide a new model to explain the relationship between those items in (i) and (ii). This (...) model clears up several problems in Stoicism and gives a precise answer to the question of how bodies and incorporeals differ in their mode of being. The second half of the paper considers the vexed issue of the status of those items in (iii), Stoic universals. (shrink)

The paper examines the relationships between the contents of imaginative episodes and the mental images that often play a central role within them. It considers, for example, whether the presence of mental imagery is required for a mental episode to count as an imagining.

Kripkean examples of necessary a posteriori truths clearly provide a challenge to attempts to connect facts about possibility to facts about what people can conceive. The paper argues for a general principle connecting imaginability under certain special circumstances to possibility; it also discusses some of the issues raised by the resulting position.

Why do we tend to ascribe possibility to what we can imagine? One strategy for answering that question involves the thought that, just as sensory episodes often involve its seeming to us as though the world is certain ways, so imaginings involve its seeming to us that what we have imagined is possible. This chapter argues that while some imaginings do feature appearances of possibility, very many others do not; and it explores the broader relevance of its conclusions for modal (...) epistemology. (shrink)

Williamson has argued against scepticism concerning our metaphysically modal knowledge, by arguing that standard patterns of suppositional reasoning to counterfactual conclusions provide reliable sources of correct ascriptions of possibility and necessity. The paper argues that, while Williamson’s claims relating to necessity may well be right, he has not provided adequate reasons for thinking that the familiar modes of counterfactual reasoning to which he points generalise to provide a decent route to ascriptions of possibility. The paper also explores another path to (...) ascriptions of possibility that may be extracted from Williamson’s ideas, before briefly considering the general status of counterfactual reasoning in relation to our knowledge of possibilities. (shrink)

This Paper Offers A New Interpretation of Phaedo 96a–103a. Plato has devoted the dialogue up to this point to a series of arguments for the claim that the soul is immortal. However, one of the characters, Cebes, insists that so far nothing more has been established than that the soul is durable, divine, and in existence before the incarnation of birth. What is needed is something more ambitious: a proof that the soul is not such as to pass out of (...) existence. According to Socrates’s initial response to Cebes at 95e8–96a1, giving such a demonstration requires a thorough investigation into “the reason for coming to be and passing away in general” (ὅλως γὰϱ δεῖ πεϱὶ γενέσεως ϰαὶ Φθοϱᾶς τὴν αἰτίαν διαπϱαγματεύσασθαι .. (shrink)

Philosophy of Education in South Africa during the latter half of the 20th century was characterised by three ideological strands. The first was known as ‘Fundamental Pedagogics’, the second ‘Liberalism’, and the third ‘Liberation Socialism’ (i.e., Marxism/Freire). When apartheid formally ended in 1994 these strands lost their impetus and faded from educational debates, arguably because of the disappearance of apartheid itself, as the locus relative to which these ideological strands positioned themselves. This paper characterises these three positions and some of (...) their major proponents and ideas, and then present an overview of where philosophy of education in South Africa is now, nearly 30 years after apartheid. I suggest that since 1994 the strong, competing philosophical and ideological commitments that informed philosophy of education during apartheid have significantly dissipated, and have not been meaningfully replaced. Instead, education policy and curriculum are now arguably underpinned by neo-liberal concerns, and the results have been, and continue to be, an unmitigated disaster for schooling in South Africa. Part of the reason for this is because philosophy of education is much diminished, and no longer directly meaningfully contributes to, and informs, educational discourse, policy, teacher training and curriculum in South African schooling. (shrink)

I examine two startling claims attributed to some philosophers associated with Megara on the Isthmus of Corinth, namely: Ml. Something possesses a capacity at t if and only if it is exercising that capacity at t. M2. One can speak of a thing only by using its own proper A6yor;. In what follows, I will call the conjunction of Ml and M2 'Megaricism' .1 The lit­ erature on ancient philosophy contains several valuable discussions of Ml and M2 taken individually .2 (...) But there is no discussion of them together, much less of their logical relations. I intend to remedy that lack, and to show why it is a lack worth remedying. My aims are both philosophical and historical. Inevitably, in saying anything new and interesting about Megaric views, I will be adopting assumptions scarcely free from controversy, and indulging in quite a bit of charitable recon­ struction. But the resulting picture is of considerable interest. For it explains why, although Ml and M2 seem to have little to do with one another, it is in fact small wonder that anyone who held one would hold the other, for, as I attempt to show, they entail each other. It explains why the Megarics are associated in the primary literature with the names of such diverse philosophical ancestors as Parmenides and Protagoras. And it explains why, although they are both false, Ml and M2 were claims taken seriously by both Plato and Aristotle, who in developing their own views on modality and language saw reason to mention Megaricism, and to argue against it. (shrink)

(Open Access article, freely available to download from publisher's site.) Our visual experiences of objects as located in external space, and as having definite three-dimensional shapes, are closely linked to our implicit expectations about what things will look like from alternative viewpoints. What sorts of contents do these expectations involve? One standard answer is that they relate to what things will look like to us upon changing our positions. And what sorts of mental representations do the expectations call upon? A (...) standard answer is that they involve our powers of visual imagery; this answer requires us to allow for the possibility of unconscious visual imagery, however. The current paper presents an alternative model of the contents of our implicit visual expectations, one that regards them as wholly nonreflexive. It also argues that, once we ascribe the relevant contents to the expectations, there is no longer any reason for holding that they involve our powers of visual imagery. (shrink)

Visualizings, the simplest imaginings which employ visual imagery, have certain characteristic features; they are perspectival, for instance. Also, it seems that some but not all of our visualizings are imaginings of seeings. But it has been forcefully argued, for example by M.G.F. Martin and Christopher Peacocke, that all visualizings are imaginings of visual sensations. I block these arguments by providing an account of visualizings which allows for their perspectival nature and other features they typically have, but which also explains how (...) we can visualize things without thereby imagining visual sensations. (shrink)

This paper discusses the representation and explanation of relationships between phenomena that are important in psychiatric contexts. After a general discussion of complexity in the philosophy of science, I distinguish zooming-out approaches from zooming-in approaches. Zooming-out has to do with seeing complex mental illnesses as abstract models for the purposes of both explanation and reduction. Zooming-in involves breaking complex mental illnesses into simple components and trying to explain those components independently in terms of specific causes. Connections between existing practice and (...) zooming-out are drawn, and zooming-in is criticised. (shrink)

The addition of "actually" operators to modal languages allows us to capture important inferential behaviours which cannot be adequately captured in logics formulated in simpler languages. Previous work on modal logics containing "actually" operators has concentrated entirely upon extensions of KT5 and has employed a particular modeltheoretic treatment of them. This paper proves completeness and decidability results for a range of normal and nonnormal but quasi-normal propositional modal logics containing "actually" operators, the weakest of which are conservative extensions of K, (...) using a novel generalisation of the standard semantics. (shrink)

Interpreters of Hume on causation consider that an advantage of the ‘quasi-realist’ reading is that it does not commit him to scepticism or to an error theory about causal reasoning. It is unique to quasi-realism that it maintains this positive epistemic result together with a rejection of metaphysical realism about causation: the quasi-realist supplies an appropriate semantic theory in order to justify the practice of talking ‘as if’ there were causal powers in the world. In this paper, I problematise the (...) quasi-realist reading of Hume on causation by showing how quasi-realism does not speak to inductive scepticism. I also offer evidence that Hume takes inductive scepticism to result from his theory of causation, and that his scepticism is tied to his rejection of metaphysical causal realism. (shrink)

This project has been supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council (project number CS170100008); the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science; and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. ACOLA collaborates with the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences and the New Zealand Royal Society Te Apārangi to deliver the interdisciplinary Horizon Scanning reports to government. The aims of the project which produced this report are: 1. Examine the transformative role that artificial intelligence may play in (...) different sectors of the economy, including the opportunities, risks and challenges that advancement presents. 2. Examine the ethical, legal and social considerations and frameworks required to enable and support broad development and uptake of artificial intelligence. 3. Assess the future education, skills and infrastructure requirements to manage workforce transition and support thriving and internationally competitive artificial intelligence industries. (shrink)

This article offers a prolegomenon for an African feminist philosophy. The prompt for this as an interrogation of Oluwole’s claim that an African feminist philosophy cannot develop until identifiable African worldviews that guide the relationship between men and women have been established. She argues that until there is general agreement about the nature of African philosophy itself, African feminist philosophy will remain impoverished. I critique this claim, unpacking Oluwole’s argument, and examine the contested nature of both African and Western philosophy. (...) Drawing from the work of Mignolo and decolonial thinking, I then argue for the possibility of “epistemic disobedience” concerning the emergence of an African feminist philosophy. Engaging with precolonial African examples which disrupt modern normative gender assumptions and looking at the project of decoloniality, I issue a call for an African feminist philosophy unfettered by the falsely universal claims of modernity/coloniality. My call is for an African feminist philosophy from African loci of enunciation, rooted in the epistemes and experiences of African women. (shrink)

Some philosophers—for example, Husserl, Alva Noë and Susanna Siegel—have claimed that the contents of visual sensations standardly include references to the later visual episodes that one would have under certain conditions. The current paper claims that there are no good reasons for accepting that view. Instead, it is argued that the conscious phenomena which have been cited as manifesting the presence within visual contents of references to ways that things would look in the course of later visual sensations are better (...) explained in another manner: in terms of references within the contents of ordinary visual sensations to ways that things actually then look from various perspectives. (shrink)

The paper examines the relationships between the contents of imaginative episodes and the mental images that often play a central role within them. It considers, for example, whether the presence of mental imagery is required for a mental episode to count as an imagining.

This article discusses Heidegger’s interpretation of Parmenides given in his last public lecture ‘The Principle of Identity’ in 1957. The aim of the piece is to illustrate just how original and significant Heidegger’s reading of Parmenides and the principle of identity is, within the history of Philosophy. Thus the article will examine the traditional metaphysical interpretation of Parmenides and consider G.W.F. Hegel and William James’ account of the principle of identity in light of this. It will then consider Heidegger’s contribution, (...) his return to and re-interpretation of Parmenides in his last lecture. Heidegger will, through the Parmenidean claim that ‘Thinking and Being are one’ deconstruct the traditional metaphysical understanding of the principle of identity, and in its place offer a radically different conception of how our relationship, our ‘belonging together’ with Being can be understood. (shrink)

[Open Access.] Perceptual experiences have presentational phenomenology: we seem to encounter real situations in the course of visual experiences, for instance. The current paper articulates and defends the claim that the contents of at least some perceptual experiences are inherently presentational. On this view, perceptual contents are not always forceless in the way that, say, the propositional content that 2 + 2 = 4 is generally taken to be, as a content that may be asserted or denied or merely supposed; (...) rather, there are perceptual contents such that any mental state or episode which has the relevant content must be one in which things seem to the given subject to be a certain way. Intuitive motivation for the view is presented and an explanatory line of argument in support of it is developed: it is argued that the recognition of inherently presentational perceptual contents allows us to explain certain representational limitations to which ordinary visualizations and other forms of perceptual mental imagery are subject. Some potential objections to the position are explored, leading to further elaboration of it. (shrink)

Comment on "The ethical 'elephant' in the death penalty 'room'". Arguments in defense of the death penalty typically fall into one of two groups. Consequentialist arguments point out beneficial aspects of capital punishment, normally focusing on deterrence, while non-consequentialist arguments seek to justify execution independently of its effects, for example, by appealing to the concept of retribution. Michael Keane's target article "The ethical 'elephant' in the death penalty 'room'" should, we believe, be read as an interesting new consequentialist defense of (...) physician involvement in capital punishment. (shrink)

What role should legislation or policy play in avoiding the complications of in-vitro fertilization? In this article, we focus on single versus double embryo transfer, and assess three arguments in favour of mandatory single embryo transfer: risks to the mother, risks to resultant children, and costs to society. We highlight significant ethical concerns about each of these. Reproductive autonomy and non-paternalism are strong enough to outweigh the health concerns for the woman. Complications due to non-identity cast doubt on the extent (...) to which children are harmed. Twinning may offer an overall benefit rather than burden to society. Finally, including the future health costs for children in reproductive policy is inconsistent with other decisions. We conclude that mandatory single embryo transfer is not justified and that a number of countries should reconsider their current embryo transfer policy. (shrink)

According to a rights forfeiture theory of punishment, liability to punishment hinges upon the notion that criminals forfeit their rights against hard treatment. In this paper, I assume the success of rights forfeiture theory in establishing the permissibility of punishment but aim to develop the view by considering how forfeited rights might be reclaimed. Built into the very notion of proportionate punishment is the idea that forfeited rights can be recovered. The interesting question is whether punishment is the sole means (...) for reclaiming forfeited rights. I argue for a pluralistic theory of rights reclamation, according to which, there are multiple ways by which a wrongdoer can recapture her forfeited rights. In particular, I argue that offering remorseful compensation is a valid means by which a wrongdoer might partially, or fully, reclaim her right against punishment. (shrink)

Colonialism’s legacy in South Africa includes persistent economic inequality which, since the country’s universities charge fees, bars many from higher education, perpetuating the marginalisation of those previously disadvantaged by the apartheid regime. In 2015-6, country-wide unrest raged across university campuses, as students protested the yearly cycle of tuition increases under the slogan #FeesMustFall, demanding “free, decolonised education”. Protests ended in December 2017 when the government announced a sliding-scale payment policy alleviating the economic burden for poorer students. This paper sets the (...) #FMF movement and its twin demands within the context of decoloniality, and argues that while free education has been achieved, imagining and implementing decolonised education for South Africa in an increasingly globalised world is a more challenging, elusive goal. (shrink)

Images are double agents. They receive information from the world, while also projecting visual imagination onto the world. As a result, mind and world tug our thinking about images, or particular kinds of images, in contrary directions. On one common division, world traces itself mechanically in photographs, whereas mind expresses itself through painting.1 Scholars of photography disavow such crude distinctions: much recent writing attends in detail to the materials and processes of photography, the agency of photographic artists, and the social (...) determinants of the production and reception of photographs. As such writing makes plain, photographs cannot be reduced to mechanical traces.2 Yet background conceptions of photography as trace or index persist almost by default, as no framework of comparable explanatory power has yet emerged to replace them. A conception of photography adequate to developments in recent scholarship is long overdue. Rather than constructing such a conception top-down, as philosophers are wont to do, this paper articulates it by examining selected works by James Welling.3 There are several reasons for this: Welling’s practice persistently explores the resources and possibilities of photography, the effect of these explorations is to express a particular metaphysics of the mind’s relation to its world, and appreciating why this metaphysics is aptly expressed by exploring photography requires a revised conception of what photography is. In as much as it provides a framework for a richer interpretation of Welling, the new conception is also capable of underwriting a wide range of critical and historical approaches to photography. (shrink)

(Open Access.) Quantifiers frequently figure in works of fiction. But occurrences of quantificational expressions within fictions seem no more inevitably to be associated with real domains than uses of names within fictions seem inevitably to be associated with existing referents. The paper outlines some philosophical puzzles resulting from this apparent lack of associated domains, puzzles that are broadly analogous to more familiar ones raised by the apparently nonreferential nature of many fictional names. The paper argues, in the light of an (...) important disanalogy between quantifiers and names, that the quantificational puzzles are substantive, in that they cannot be resolved merely by appealing to the possibility of empty domains. It then argues that, despite the cited parallels between occurrences of quantifiers and names within fictions, promising treatments of fictional names do not always straightforwardly generalise to provide accounts of the quantificational phenomena: the quantificational puzzles are therefore not only substantive but also distinctive. The paper provides further testament to the depth and interest of the problems involving content that are generated by fiction, by identifying a very wide range of previously neglected cases, while also helping to situate within a broader context the notoriously hard philosophical challenges posed by fictional names. (shrink)

Public reason liberalism is the political theory which holds that coercive laws and policies are justified when and only when they are grounded in reasons of the public. The standard interpretation of public reason liberalism, consensus accounts, claim that the reasons persons share or that persons can derive from shared values determine which policies can be justified. In this paper, I argue that consensus approaches cannot justify fair educational policies and preserving cultural goods. Consensus approaches can resolve some controversies about (...) teaching values in the educational system, such as curriculum choice. But they cannot determine which culture goods, e.g., architecture, artwork, or language ought to be preserved in the education system. Consensus approaches cannot fairly resolve competing claims about these kinds of disputes. -/- I propose that convergence accounts of public reason, which allow individuals to draw on their own comprehensive doctrines in limited ways, can remedy these weaknesses in the mainline public reason tradition. The convergence approach can justify a pluralist state that can advance valuable community goods. John Henry Newman’s advocacy of liberal arts education finds resonance in other cultures, notably among Confucians, illustrating that there can be a shared moral vision and inquiry into the good life across deep substantive disagreements about educational values and policies, once we expand our notion of justification to be more inclusive. (shrink)

Cooperation among arts scholars is thought to be hampered by the division of research on the arts into two cultures, one scientific, one humanistic. This paper proposes an alternative model for research into the arts wherein multiple levels of explanation focussed on well-bounded phenomena integrate research across academic disciplines. Two case studies of research that fits the model are presented.