This paper examines Aristotle’s two famous claims that man is by nature a political animal, and that he is the only animal who possesses speech and reason (logos). Aristotle’s thesis that man is by nature a political animal is inextricably linked with his thesis that the polis exists by nature. This paper examines the argument that Aristotle develops in Pol. I. 2 to support these two theses. It argues a) that the definition of man as an animal who possesses logos (...) is part of this argument, b) that in the chapter Aristotle understands the term “political animal” not in a broad biological sense but in a narrow sense, c) that Aristotle’s thesis that the polis is “by nature prior to the household and to the individual” is not an independent third theorem – as David Keyt and Fred D. Miller claim – but is part of this argument. (shrink)

It is well known that de se (or ‘self-locating’) propositions complicate the standard picture of how we should respond to evidence. This has given rise to a substantial literature centered around puzzles like Sleeping Beauty, Dr. Evil, and Doomsday—and it has also sparked controversy over a style of argument that has recently been adopted by theoretical cosmologists. These discussions often dwell on intuitions about a single kind of case, but it’s worth seeking a rule that can unify our treatment of (...) all evidence, whether de dicto or de se. -/- This paper is about three candidates for such a rule, presented as replacements for the standard updating rule. Each rule stems from the idea that we should treat ourselves as a random sample, a heuristic that underlies many of the intuitions that have been pumped in treatments of the standard puzzles. But each rule also yields some strange results when applied across the board. This leaves us with some difficult options. We can seek another way to refine the random-sample heuristic, e.g. by restricting one of our rules. We can try to live with the strange results, perhaps granting that useful principles can fail at the margins. Or we can reject the random-sample heuristic as fatally flawed—which means rethinking its influence in even the simplest cases. (shrink)

A discussion of three central ideas in action theory; trying to act, doing or acting, one's action causing further consequences.

David Tomasi presents new, groundbreaking research on the science and application of Mind-Body Medicine strategies to improve clinical outcomes in inpatient psychiatry settings. Much more than a list of therapeutic recommendations, this book is a thorough description of how Mind-Body Medicine can be successfully applied, from a therapeutic as well as from an organizational, cost-effective analysis viewpoint, to the full spectrum of psychiatric treatments. Furthermore, this study examines the role of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary treatment teams, with a special focus (...) on the profession and the role of psychotherapists and group therapists, thereby providing solid scientific evidence of the benefits of patient-provider therapeutic alliances. In this sense, this book serves as a guide for professionals and institutions both in the private and the public sphere, to learn effective treatment and management strategies. About the Author Psychotherapist, Researcher, and Philosopher Dr. David Låg Tomasi is the author of Medical Philosophy (ibidem, 2016) and the co-author of Positive Patient Response to a Structured Exercise Program Delivered in Inpatient Psychiatry (Global Advances in Health and Medicine, 2019), the most-read research item from the University of Vermont (Researchgate, 2019). A member of several national and international Academies of Sciences, Dr. Tomasi works in the Inpatient Psychiatry Unit at the UVM Medical Center, and teaches at the University of Vermont and the Community College of Vermont. ---- Ibidem / Columbia University Press. (shrink)

Ideen om at lovbrytere fortjener straff, må legges til grunn dersom vi skal kunne forstå og begrunne strafferetten i Norge og i andre rettsstater. Av noen teoretikere har dette kravet til fortjent straff blitt forstått som et negativt krav, som setter en begrensning på oppnåelsen av straffens formål. Straffen må da være «ikke ufortjent». I denne artikkelen argumenterer jeg for at en slik forståelse av fortjenesteideen er utilstrekkelig. Straff som fortjent må ansees som et positivt, selvstendig formål for strafferetten. Artikkelen (...) ser på norsk rettspraksis og lovforarbeider, og drøfter hvorfor det i norsk strafferett må legges til grunn at det er verdifullt å oppfylle lovbryterens fortjeneste. (shrink)

This article analyzes the gendered representation of military service in the German YouTube series Die Rekruten (DR) (The Recruits), a popular web series produced on behalf of the German armed forces (Bundeswehr) for recruitment purposes, which accompanies 12 navy recruits during their basic training. The article is situated within research on masculinity and the military, in particular military recruitment. It supplements current scholarship by studying a previously neglected case that is of particular interest given Germany’s antimilitarist culture, which should make (...) military recruitment and military public relations more difficult. The article asks how military service is represented in DR, what its discursive effects are, and what role (if any) masculinity plays in this process. We find support for recent feminist research on military masculinities (including in military recruitment) that emphasizes ambiguity and contradiction. What distinguishes the construction of military masculinity in DR from, for example, recruitment advertisements in the United States or the United Kingdom is its markedly civil character. This not only broadens the military’s appeal for a more diverse audience but also increases the legitimacy of the military and its activities. It does so by concealing the violence that has for the past two decades also been a very real part of what the Bundeswehr does. (shrink)

David Hume, a leading Scottish Enlightenment philosopher using empirical investigation, examines and explains his view on human nature, society, and morality in A Treatise of Human Nature (Treatise) and in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (Enquiry). In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Jekyll and Hyde), Robert Louis Stevenson draws from the Enlightenment’s empirical explorations in the study of the individual and society, to tell a story examining human nature.

-/- Extending Human Lifespan: Scientific and Technological Possibilities -/- The quest for extending human lifespan has fascinated humanity for centuries. Advances in genetics, medicine, artificial intelligence, and bioengineering are bringing us closer to significantly prolonging life, potentially even achieving biological immortality. This essay explores various scientific and technological approaches to extending human life, from genetic modifications to mind uploading. -/- 1. Genetic Engineering & Cellular Reprogramming -/- One of the most promising fields in lifespan extension is genetic engineering. Our DNA (...) holds the key to aging, and modifying it could slow or even reverse the aging process. -/- Gene Therapy: Scientists are exploring ways to edit genes associated with aging and longevity, such as the FOXO3 and SIRT genes. CRISPR gene-editing technology allows precise modifications to enhance DNA repair mechanisms and eliminate age-related mutations. -/- Telomere Extension: Telomeres, the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes, shorten with age. Techniques like telomerase activation could extend telomeres, effectively delaying cellular aging. -/- Epigenetic Reprogramming: Aging is influenced by chemical changes in DNA called epigenetic markers. Scientists like Dr. David Sinclair are working on methods to reset these markers, restoring youthful function in cells. -/- 2. Anti-Aging Drugs & Therapies -/- Medical research is identifying compounds that slow aging and enhance longevity. Some of the most promising drugs and therapies include: -/- Senolytics: These drugs target and remove senescent cells, which accumulate with age and contribute to inflammation and tissue damage. Removing them has been shown to extend lifespan in mice. -/- Metformin & Rapamycin: Metformin, a common diabetes drug, has shown promise in reducing cellular stress and extending lifespan. Rapamycin, originally used for transplant patients, has been found to mimic calorie restriction, enhancing longevity in animals. -/- NAD+ Boosters: Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) is a molecule essential for cellular energy production. As we age, NAD+ levels decline, leading to cellular dysfunction. Boosters like NMN and NR are being tested to restore energy metabolism and promote longer lifespans. -/- 3. Regenerative Medicine & Organ Replacement -/- Aging is often associated with organ failure, but regenerative medicine could help replace worn-out body parts. -/- Stem Cell Therapy: Stem cells have the potential to repair or replace damaged tissues, offering a biological rejuvenation strategy. Scientists are investigating methods to grow new skin, bones, and even organs using stem cells. -/- 3D Bioprinting & Artificial Organs: Advances in 3D printing allow researchers to create lab-grown organs, such as artificial hearts, kidneys, and livers, which could replace failing ones without the need for donors. -/- Cloning & Tissue Engineering: Personalized tissue regeneration using a patient’s own cells could eliminate transplant rejection risks. Scientists are also exploring ways to clone healthy organs for transplantation. -/- 4. Enhancing Brain & Cognitive Function -/- Longevity is meaningless without maintaining cognitive function. Neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s pose a significant threat to longevity, but new technologies are emerging to counteract cognitive decline. -/- Neural Implants & Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs): Companies like Neuralink are developing brain implants that could enhance memory, prevent neurological diseases, and even allow direct communication with AI. -/- Cryopreservation: Some futurists believe in cryonics, the process of freezing the brain (or entire body) after death in the hope of future revival using advanced medical technology. -/- AI Integration: Artificial intelligence could assist in decision-making, memory enhancement, and mental health support, preserving cognitive abilities well into old age. -/- 5. Lifestyle & Environmental Optimization -/- While high-tech solutions are promising, natural lifestyle changes have been shown to promote longevity. -/- Diet & Caloric Restriction: Studies indicate that intermittent fasting and calorie restriction can extend lifespan by reducing oxidative stress and inflammation. -/- Exercise & Hormesis: Regular physical activity helps maintain muscle mass, cardiovascular health, and brain function. Hormesis—exposing the body to mild stress, like cold showers or sauna therapy—has also been linked to longevity. -/- Microbiome Optimization: A healthy gut microbiome influences the immune system, metabolism, and overall health. Prebiotics, probiotics, and personalized microbiome therapies could extend lifespan by reducing chronic diseases. -/- 6. Nanotechnology & Molecular Repair -/- Future breakthroughs in nanotechnology may allow precise control over aging processes at the molecular level. -/- Nanomedicine: Tiny robots (nanobots) could patrol the bloodstream, repairing cellular damage, removing toxins, and targeting diseases at the microscopic level. -/- Artificial Blood Cells: Scientists are developing synthetic blood that can enhance oxygen delivery and immune function, potentially extending life. -/- Targeted Drug Delivery: Advanced drug delivery systems using nanoparticles can deliver medication exactly where needed, reducing side effects and increasing effectiveness. -/- 7. Mind Uploading & Post-Biological Life -/- The most radical vision for immortality involves leaving behind the biological body altogether. -/- Whole Brain Emulation: Researchers are exploring the idea of scanning and copying a human brain into a digital system. If successful, this would allow a person’s consciousness to continue in a virtual or robotic form. -/- Consciousness Transfer: Some futurists speculate that advanced AI or quantum computing might enable transferring human consciousness into an artificial body, bypassing biological aging altogether. -/- Conclusion: The Future of Human Longevity -/- While full immortality remains theoretical, science is making rapid progress in extending human life and improving quality of life. A combination of genetic engineering, regenerative medicine, AI integration, nanotechnology, and lifestyle optimization may push human lifespan beyond 120 years, potentially even eliminating aging as a cause of death. -/- However, ethical, social, and economic challenges must also be addressed. Who will have access to these life-extending technologies? How will society handle overpopulation and resource distribution? These are critical questions as humanity moves toward a longer and healthier future. -/- . 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"Understanding Scientific Progress constitutes a potentially enormous and revolutionary advancement in philosophy of science. It deserves to be read and studied by everyone with any interest in or connection with physics or the theory of science. Maxwell cites the work of Hume, Kant, J.S. Mill, Ludwig Bolzmann, Pierre Duhem, Einstein, Henri Poincaré, C.S. Peirce, Whitehead, Russell, Carnap, A.J. Ayer, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend, Nelson Goodman, Bas van Fraassen, and numerous others. He lauds Popper for advancing beyond (...) verificationism and Hume’s problem of induction, but faults both Kuhn and Popper for being unable to show that and how their work could lead nearer to the truth." —Dr. LLOYD EBY teaches philosophy at The George Washington University and The Catholic University of America, in Washington, DC "Maxwell's aim-oriented empiricism is in my opinion a very significant contribution to the philosophy of science. I hope that it will be widely discussed and debated." – ALAN SOKAL, Professor of Physics, New York University "Maxwell takes up the philosophical challenge of how natural science makes progress and provides a superb treatment of the problem in terms of the contrast between traditional conceptions and his own scientifically-informed theory—aim-oriented empiricism. This clear and rigorously-argued work deserves the attention of scientists and philosophers alike, especially those who believe that it is the accumulation of knowledge and technology that answers the question."—LEEMON McHENRY, California State University, Northridge "Maxwell has distilled the finest essence of the scientific enterprise. Science is about making the world a better place. Sometimes science loses its way. The future depends on scientists doing the right things for the right reasons. Maxwell's Aim-Oriented Empiricism is a map to put science back on the right track."—TIMOTHY McGETTIGAN, Professor of Sociology, Colorado State University - Pueblo "Maxwell has a great deal to offer with these important ideas, and deserves to be much more widely recognised than he is. Readers with a background in philosophy of science will appreciate the rigour and thoroughness of his argument, while more general readers will find his aim-oriented rationality a promising way forward in terms of a future sustainable and wise social order."—David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer, 2017/2 "This is a book about the very core problems of the philosophy of science. The idea of replacing Standard Empiricism with Aim-Oriented Empiricism is understood by Maxwell as the key to the solution of these central problems. Maxwell handles his main tool masterfully, producing a fascinating and important reading to his colleagues in the field. However, Nicholas Maxwell is much more than just a philosopher of science. In the closing part of the book he lets the reader know about his deep concern and possible solutions of the biggest problems humanity is facing."—Professor PEETER MŰŰREPP, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia “For many years, Maxwell has been arguing that fundamental philosophical problems about scientific progress, especially the problem of induction, cannot be solved granted standard empiricism (SE), a doctrine which, he thinks, most scientists and philosophers of science take for granted. A key tenet of SE is that no permanent thesis about the world can be accepted as a part of scientific knowledge independent of evidence. For a number of reasons, Maxwell argues, we need to adopt a rather different conception of science which he calls aim-oriented empiricism (AOE). This holds that we need to construe physics as accepting, as a part of theoretical scientific knowledge, a hierarchy of metaphysical theses about the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, which become increasingly insubstantial as we go up the hierarchy. In his book “Understanding Scientific Progress: Aim-Oriented Empiricism”, Maxwell gives a concise and excellent illustration of this view and the arguments supporting it… Maxwell’s book is a potentially important contribution to our understanding of scientific progress and philosophy of science more generally. Maybe it is the time for scientists and philosophers to acknowledge that science has to make metaphysical assumptions concerning the knowability and comprehensibility of the universe. Fundamental philosophical problems about scientific progress, which cannot be solved granted SE, may be solved granted AOE.” Professor SHAN GAO, Shanxi University, China . (shrink)

4E approaches to affective technology tend to focus on how ‘users’ manage their situated affectivity, analogously to how they help themselves cognitively through epistemic actions or using artefacts and scaffolding. Here I focus on cases where the function of affective technology is to exploit or manipulate the agent engaging with it. My opening example is the cigarette, where technological refinements have harmfully transformed the affective process of consuming nicotine. I proceed to develop case studies of two very different but also (...) harmful affective technologies. Casinos and electronic gambling machines deploy computationally intensive scaffolding to shape the onset and continuation of gambling episodes. High-heeled shoes affectively engineer wearers’ relationships to their own embodied capacities and are predominantly expected to be worn by women. I conclude with a discussion of the need for study of affective technology to focus other-directed applications, some of which will serve competing or antagonistic interests. (shrink)

A number of philosophers endorse, without argument, the view that there’s something it’s like consciously to think that p, which is distinct from what it’s like consciously to think that q. This thesis, if true, would have important consequences for philosophy of mind and cognitive science. In this paper I offer an argument for it, and attempt to induce examples of it in the reader. The argument claims it would be impossible introspectively to distinguish conscious thoughts with respect to their (...) content if there weren’t something it’s like to think them. This argument is defended against several objections. Then I use what I call “minimal pair” experiences—sentences read without and with understanding—to induce in the reader an experience of the kind I claim exists. Further objections are considered and rebutted. (shrink)

We present data and argument to show that in Tetris - a real-time interactive video game - certain cognitive and perceptual problems are more quickly, easily, and reliably solved by performing actions in the world rather than by performing computational actions in the head alone. We have found that some translations and rotations are best understood as using the world to improve cognition. These actions are not used to implement a plan, or to implement a reaction; they are used to (...) change the world in order to simplify the problem-solving task. Thus, we distinguish pragmatic actions ñ actions performed to bring one physically closer to a goal - from epistemic actions - actions performed to uncover information that is hidden or hard to compute mentally. To illustrate the need for epistemic actions, we first develop a standard information-processing model of Tetris-cognition, and show that it cannot explain performance data from human players of the game - even when we relax the assumption of fully sequential processing. Standard models disregard many actions taken by players because they appear unmotivated or superfluous. However, we describe many such actions that are actually taken by players that are far from superfluous, and that play valuable roles in improving human performance. We argue that traditional accounts are limited because they regard action as having a single function: to change the world. By recognizing a second function of action - an epistemic function - we can explain many of the actions that a traditional model cannot. Although, our argument is supported by numerous examples specifically from Tetris, we outline how the one category of epistemic action can be incorporated into theories of action more generally. (shrink)

I insist that I was able to raise my hand, and I acknowledge that a law would have been broken had I done so, but I deny that I am therefore able to break a law. To uphold my instance of soft determinism, I need not claim any incredible powers. To uphold the compatibilism that I actually believe, I need not claim that such powers are even possible. My incompatibilist opponent is a creature of fiction, but he has his prototypes (...) in real life. He is modeled partly after Peter van Inwagen and partly on myself when I first worried about van Inwagen's argument against compatibilism. (shrink)

Critical race theorists and standpoint epistemologists argue that agents who are members of dominant social groups are often in a state of ignorance about the extent of their social dominance, where this ignorance is explained by these agents' membership in a socially dominant group (e.g., Mills 2007). To illustrate this claim bluntly, it is argued: 1) that many white men do not know the extent of their social dominance, 2) that they remain ignorant as to the extent of their dominant (...) social position even where this information is freely attainable, and 3) that this ignorance is due in part to the fact that they are white men. We argue that on Buchak's (2010, 2013) model of risk averse instrumental rationality, ignorance of one's privileges can be rational. This argument yields a new account of elite-group ignorance, why it may occur, and how it might be alleviated. (shrink)

“I don’t want to create painful shoes, but it is not my job to create something comfortable.” – Christian Louboutin. (in Alexander, 2012) Pain is an essential part of the grooming process, and that...

We are quickly passing through the historical moment when people work in front of a single computer, dominated by a small CRT and focused on tasks involving only local information. Networked computers are becoming ubiquitous and are playing increasingly significant roles in our lives and in the basic infrastructure of science, business, and social interaction. For human-computer interaction o advance in the new millennium we need to better understand the emerging dynamic of interaction in which the focus task is no (...) longer confined to the desktop but reaches into a complex networked world of information and computer-mediated interactions. We think the theory of distributed cognition has a special role to play in understanding interactions between people and technologies, for its focus has always been on whole environments: what we really do in them and how we coordinate our activity in them. Distributed cognition provides a radical reorientation of how to think about designing and supporting human-computer interaction. As a theory it is specifically tailored to understanding interactions among people and technologies. In this article we propose distributed cognition as a new foundation for human-computer interaction, sketch an integrated research framework, and use selections from our earlier work to suggest how this framework can provide new opportunities in the design of digital work materials. (shrink)

The objective of this essay is to provide the beginning of a principled classification of some of the ways space is intelligently used. Studies of planning have typically focused on the temporal ordering of action, leaving as unaddressed questions of where to lay down instruments, ingredients, work-in-progress, and the like. But, in having a body, we are spatially located creatures: we must always be facing some direction, have only certain objects in view, be within reach of certain others. How we (...) manage the spatial arrangement of items around us is not an afterthought: it is an integral part of the way we think, plan, and behave. The proposed classification has three main categories: spatial arrangements that simplify choice; spatial arrangements that simplify perception; and spatial dynamics that simplify internal computation. The data for such a classification is drawn from videos of cooking, assembly and packing, everyday observations in supermarkets, workshops and playrooms, and experimental studies of subjects playing Tetris, the computer game. This study, therefore, focuses on interactive processes in the medium and short term: on how agents set up their workplace for particular tasks, and how they continuously manage that workplace. (shrink)

I argue 1) That in his celebrated Is/Ought passage, Hume employs ‘deduction’ in the strict sense, according to which if a conclusion B is justly or evidently deduced from a set of premises A, A cannot be true and B false, or B false and the premises A true. 2) That Hume was following the common custom of his times which sometimes employed ‘deduction’ in a strict sense to denote inferences in which, in the words of Dr Watts’ Logick, ‘the (...) premises, according to the reason of things, do really contain the conclusion that is deduced from them’; that although Hume sometimes uses ‘demonstrative argument’ as a synonym for ‘deduction’, like most of his contemporaries, he generally reserves the word ‘demonstration’ for deductive inferences in which the premises are both necessary and self-evident. 3) That Mr Hume did indeed mean to suggest that deductions from IS to OUGHT were ‘altogether inconceivable’ since if ought represents a new relation or affirmation, it cannot, in the strict sense, be justly deduced from premises which do not really contain it. 4) That in a large and liberal (or perhaps loose and promiscuous) sense Hume does deduce oughts and ought nots from observations concerning human affairs, but that the deductions in question are not inferences, but explanations, since in another sense of ‘deduce’, common in the Eighteenth Century, to deduce B from A is to trace B back to A or to explain B in terms of A; 5) That a small attention to the context of Hume’s remarks and to the logical notions on which they are based would subvert those vulgar systems of philosophy which exaggerate the distinction between fact and value; for just because it is ‘altogether inconceivable’ that the new relation or affirmation OUGHT should be a deduction from others that are entirely different from it, it does not follow that the facts represented by IS and IS NOT are at bottom any different from the values represented by OUGHT and OUGHT NOT. (shrink)

The ongoing explosion of interest in artificial intelligence is fueled in part by recently developed techniques in machine learning. Those techniques allow automated systems to process huge amounts of data, utilizing mathematical methods that depart from traditional statistical approaches, and resulting in impressive advancements in our ability to make predictions and uncover correlations across a host of interesting domains. But as is now widely discussed, the way that those systems arrive at their outputs is often opaque, even to the experts (...) who design and deploy them. Is it morally problematic to make use of opaque automated methods when making high-stakes decisions, like whether to issue a loan to an applicant, or whether to approve a parole request? Many scholars answer in the affirmative. However, there is no widely accepted explanation for why transparent systems are morally preferable to opaque systems. We argue that the use of automated decision-making systems sometimes violates duties of consideration that are owed by decision-makers to decision-subjects, duties that are both epistemic and practical in character. Violations of that kind generate a weighty consideration against the use of opaque decision systems. In the course of defending our approach, we show that it is able to address three major challenges sometimes leveled against attempts to defend the moral import of transparency in automated decision-making. (shrink)

We give two social aggregation theorems under conditions of risk, one for constant population cases, the other an extension to variable populations. Intra and interpersonal welfare comparisons are encoded in a single ‘individual preorder’. The theorems give axioms that uniquely determine a social preorder in terms of this individual preorder. The social preorders described by these theorems have features that may be considered characteristic of Harsanyi-style utilitarianism, such as indifference to ex ante and ex post equality. However, the theorems are (...) also consistent with the rejection of all of the expected utility axioms, completeness, continuity, and independence, at both the individual and social levels. In that sense, expected utility is inessential to Harsanyi-style utilitarianism. In fact, the variable population theorem imposes only a mild constraint on the individual preorder, while the constant population theorem imposes no constraint at all. We then derive further results under the assumption of our basic axioms. First, the individual preorder satisfies the main expected utility axiom of strong independence if and only if the social preorder has a vector-valued expected total utility representation, covering Harsanyi’s utilitarian theorem as a special case. Second, stronger utilitarian-friendly assumptions, like Pareto or strong separability, are essentially equivalent to strong independence. Third, if the individual preorder satisfies a ‘local expected utility’ condition popular in non-expected utility theory, then the social preorder has a ‘local expected total utility’ representation. Fourth, a wide range of non-expected utility theories nevertheless lead to social preorders of outcomes that have been seen as canonically egalitarian, such as rank-dependent social preorders. Although our aggregation theorems are stated under conditions of risk, they are valid in more general frameworks for representing uncertainty or ambiguity. (shrink)

Why do people create extra representations to help them make sense of situations, diagrams, illustrations, instructions and problems? The obvious explanation— external representations save internal memory and com- putation—is only part of the story. I discuss seven ways external representations enhance cognitive power: they change the cost structure of the inferential landscape; they provide a structure that can serve as a shareable object of thought; they create persistent referents; they facilitate re- representation; they are often a more natural representation of (...) structure than mental representations; they facilitate the computation of more explicit encoding of information; they enable the construction of arbitrarily complex structure; and they lower the cost of controlling thought—they help coordinate thought. Jointly, these functions allow people to think more powerfully with external representations than without. They allow us to think the previously unthinkable. (shrink)

Some analytic philosophers have recently been defending the thesis that there’s “something it’s like” to consciously think a particular thought, which is qualitatively different from what it’s like to be in any other kind of conscious mental state and from what it’s like to think any other thought, and which constitutes the thought’s intentional content. (I call this the “intentional phenomenology thesis”). One objection to this thesis concerns the introspective availability of such content: If it is true that intentional phenomenology (...) is constitutive of intentional content, and that conscious phenomenology is always introspectively available, then it ought to be true that the content of any concept consciously entertained is always introspectively available. But it is not. For example, one can know introspectively that one is thinking that one knows that p without knowing introspectively what the content of the concept of knowledge is. Hence, it cannot be that intentional content is constituted by cognitive phenomenology. -/- I explore three responses to this objection. First, it is not clear that all of the contents of consciousness must be equally available to introspection. The capacities for conscious experience and introspective attention to it are distinct. It is not implausible that the resolving power of the latter might be insufficient to discern all of the fine-grained details of the former, or that its scope might be limited. Second, it is possible that in cases of incomplete accessibility one is entertaining only part of the concept the relevant term expresses in one’s language. In the knowledge case, for example, perhaps one is thinking only that one has justified true belief that p (one’s self-attribution of a thought about knowledge is in fact false). Finally, in such cases one might be consciously entertaining only part of the relevant concept, the rest remaining unconscious, and so unavailable to conscious introspection. I conclude that the objection is not decisive against the intentional phenomenology thesis. (shrink)

Psychological and philosophical studies have extended J. J. Gibson’s notion of affordances. Affordances are possibilities for bodily action presented to us by the objects of our perception. Recent work has argued that we should extend the actions afforded by perception to mental action. I argue that we can extend the notion of affordance itself. What I call ‘Introspective Affordances’ are possibilities for mental action presented to us by introspectively accessible states. While there are some prima facie worries concerning the non-perceptual (...) nature of introspection, I will argue that our internal mental lives share enough commonalities with experiences in our environment to warrant this extension. I will demonstrate the value of introspective affordances by showing how they allow us to explain an underexplored aspect of thought insertion. (shrink)

This is a corrected version of the final proofs. I've fixed a number of typos, and corrected a blunder in chapter 4. In chapter 4 I say that 'this is this' is analytic, and 'this is not this' is antonymous. This is inconsistent with what I say in chapter 5, and not what I actually think. Rather, 'this is this' is taugologous, and 'this is not this' is contradictory. Analyticity and autnonmy are sense properties while tautologousness and contradictoriness are formal (...) logical properties. Heading, ToC and Index updated accordingly. (Oxford will make these corrections in their online version and in future print runs.). (shrink)

In the past few years, a number of philosophers ; Horgan and Tienson 2002; Pitt 2004) have maintained the following three theses: there is a distinctive sort of phenomenology characteristic of conscious thought, as opposed to other sorts of conscious mental states; different conscious thoughts have different phenomenologies; and thoughts with the same phenomenology have the same intentional content. The last of these three claims is open to at least two different interpretations. It might mean that the phenomenology of a (...) thought expresses its intentional content, where intentional content is understood as propositional, and propositions are understood as mind-and language-independent abstract entities. And it might mean that the phenomenology of a thought is its intentional content—that is, that the phenomenology of a thought, like the phenomenology of a sensation, constitutes its content. The second sort of view is a kind of psychologism. Psychologistic views hold that one or another sort of thing—numbers, sentences, propositions, etc.—that we can think or know about is in fact a kind of mental thing. Since Frege, psychologism has been in bad repute among analytic philosophers. It is widely held that Frege showed that such views are untenable, since, among other things, they subjectivize what is in fact objective, and, hence, relativize such things as consistency and truth to the peculiarities of human psychology. The purpose of this paper is to explore the consequences of the thesis that intentional mental content is phenomenological and to try to reach a conclusion about whether it yields a tenable view of mind, thought and meaning. I believe the thesis is not so obviously wrong as it will strike many philosophers of mind and language. In fact, it can be defended against the standard objections to psychologism, and it can provide the basis for a novel and interesting account of mentality. (shrink)

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

Causation is a macroscopic phenomenon. The temporal asymmetry displayed by causation must somehow emerge along with other asymmetric macroscopic phenomena like entropy increase and the arrow of radiation. I shall approach this issue by considering ‘causal inference’ techniques that allow causal relations to be inferred from sets of observed correlations. I shall show that these techniques are best explained by a reduction of causation to structures of equations with probabilistically independent exogenous terms. This exogenous probabilistic independence imposes a recursive order (...) on these equations and a consequent distinction between dependent and independent variables that lines up with the temporal asymmetry of causation. (shrink)

This chapter discusses two different issues about the relationship between legal positivism and robust normativity (understood as the most authoritative kind of normativity to which we appeal). First, the chapter argues that, in many contexts when discussing “legal positivism” and “legal antipositivism”, the discussion should be shifted from whether legal facts are ultimately partly grounded in moral facts to whether they are ultimately partly grounded in robustly normative facts. Second, the chapter explores an important difference within the kinds of arguments (...) that legal philosophers give for the (purported) truth of legal positivism. The difference concerns whether (purportedly) robustly normative facts are appealed to as premises in those arguments or not. (A closely connected issue is whether (purportedly) normative facts that bear one or more important connections to robustly normative facts are appealed to in premises to those arguments.) The chapter argues that thinking about this dividing line helps people better situate the positivist/antipositivist dispute, better understand the space of views in legal philosophy, better evaluate those views, and avoid having merely verbal disputes. (shrink)

In this paper, I introduce the notion of ‘philosophy moves’: prominent tropes featured in contemporary academic philosophy. Moves are more than patterns—they are tools for advancing and enriching philosophical debates. By recognizing these patterns in the philosophical literature, we collect an ensemble of moves for deployment in novel contexts, each with the potential to forge new paths of philosophical investigation through a given topic. The moves featured in this paper are constructive and progressive, with the potential to push past stalemates (...) and open a wider conceptual landscape. Following a presentation of five exemplars taken from the philosophy of biology literature, I show how different moves could be made within a current interdisciplinary debate. Overall, I aim to demonstrate that recognizing these patterns is insightful pedagogically and potentially useful when used as part of one’s philosophical methodology. (shrink)

Humor is unlike other forms of communication because its content is not meant literally. Like acts of play, humor is not intended to be taken at face value. As a consequence, the assumptions and rules that govern normal conversation do not apply. Humor therefore depends upon both the speaker and the audience fully understanding that what was communicated should be treated in this unique way. The play frame refers to this shared understanding about the nature of the communication. Analyzing whether (...) a communication falls within the play frame may help us better understand not only whether the communication can be deemed non-serious or serious, but also whether it can be treated uniquely as merely the speaker’s attempt at play or as a typical instance of literal speech for which the speaker can be deemed ethically responsible. (shrink)

This paper examines some of the methods animals and humans have of adapting their environment. Because there are limits on how many different tasks a creature can be designed to do well in, creatures with the capacity to redesign their environments have an adaptive advantage over those who can only passively adapt to existing environmental structures. To clarify environmental redesign I rely on the formal notion of a task environment as a directed graph where the nodes are states and the (...) links are actions. One natural form of redesign is to change the topology of this graph structure so as to increase the likelihood of task success or to reduce its expected cost, measured in physical terms. This may be done by eliminating initial states hence eliminating choice points; by changing the action repertoire; by changing the consequence function; and lastly, by adding choice points. Another major method for adapting the environment is to change its cognitive congeniality. Such changes leave the state space formally intact but reduce the number and cost of mental operations needed for task success; they reliably increase the speed, accuracy or robustness of performance. The last section of the paper describes several of these epistemic or complementary actions found in human performance. (shrink)

To explore the question of physical thinking – using the body as an instrument of cognition – we collected extensive video and interview data on the creative process of a noted choreographer and his company as they made a new dance. A striking case of physical thinking is found in the phenomenon of marking. Marking refers to dancing a phrase in a less than complete manner. Dancers mark to save energy. But they also mark to explore the tempo of a (...) phrase, or its movement sequence, or the intention behind it. Because of its representational nature, marking can serve as a vehicle for thought. Importantly, this vehicle is less complex than the version of the same phrase danced ‘full-out’. After providing evidence for distinguishing different types of marking, three ways of understanding marking as a form of thought are considered: marking as a gestural language for encoding aspects of a target movement, marking as a method of priming neural systems involved in the target movement, and marking as a method for improving the precision of mentally projecting aspects of the target. (shrink)

Hume introduced important innovations concerning the theory of ideas. The two most important are the distinction between impressions and ideas, and the use he made of the principles of association in explaining mental phenomena. Hume divided the perceptions of the mind into two classes. The members of one class, impressions, he held to have a greater degree of force and vivacity than the members of the other class, ideas. He also supposed that ideas are causally dependent copies of impressions. And, (...) unlike Locke and others, Hume makes positive use of the principle of association, both of the association of ideas, and, in a more limited way, of the association of impressions. Such associations are central to his explanations of causal reasoning, belief, the indirect passions (pride and humility, love and hatred), and sympathy. These views about impressions and ideas and the principles of association form the core of Hume’s science of human nature. Relying on them, he attempts a rigorously empirical investigation of human nature. The resulting system is a remarkable but complex achievement. (shrink)

Cartwright attempts to argue from an analysis of the composition of forces, and more generally the composition of laws, to the conclusion that laws must be regarded as false. A response to Cartwright is developed which contends that properly understood composition poses no threat to the truth of laws, even though agreeing with Cartwright that laws do not satisfy the "facticity" requirement. My analysis draws especially on the work of Creary, Bhaskar, Mill, and points towards a general rejection of Cartwright's (...) view that laws, especially fundamental laws, should be seen as false. (shrink)

Overview of challenges facing philosophical analyses of experience in the face of life with constant connection, social media, and data mining.

An orthodox view in marketing ethics is that it is morally impermissible to market goods to specially vulnerable populations in ways that take advantage of their vulnerabilities. In his signature article “Marketing and the Vulnerable,” Brenkert (Bus Ethics Q Ruffin Ser 1:7–20, 1998) provided the first substantive defense of this position, one which has become a well-established view in marketing ethics. In what follows, we throw new light on marketing to the vulnerable by critically evaluating key components of Brenkert’s general (...) arguments. Specifically, we contend that Brenkert has failed to offer us any persuasive reasons to think that it is immoral to market to the vulnerable in ways that take advantage of their vulnerability. Although Brenkert does highlight the fact that the specially vulnerable are at greater risk of being harmed by already immoral marketing practices (e.g., deception, manipulation), he fails to establish that the specially vulnerable are a unique moral category of market clients or that there are special moral standards that apply to them. Moreover, even if Brenkert’s position were theoretically defensible, the practical implications of his position are far less tenable than he suggests. If our criticisms are sound, then Brenkert and others who endorse his position are seriously mistaken regarding how one can permissibly market products to vulnerable populations, and, in addition, they have improperly categorized certain morally permissible marketing practices as being immoral. (shrink)

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

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

Reductive representationalism is the view that the qualitative properties associated with conscious experience are properties of the objects of the experience, and not of the experience itself. A prima facie problem for this view arises from dreams and hallucinations, in which qualitative properties are experienced but not instantiated in external objects of perception. I argue that representationalist attempts to solve it by appeal to actually uninstantiated properties are guilty of an absurdity akin to that which Ryle accused Descartes of in (...) the latter’s doctrine of immaterial substance. (shrink)

This chapter examines how epistemic norms could be social norms, with a reliance on work on the philosophy and social science of social norms from Bicchieri (on the one hand) and Brennan, Eriksson, Goodin and Southwood (on the other hand). We explain how the social ontology of social norms can help explain the rationality of epistemic cooperation, and how one might begin to model epistemic games.

This paper examines the philosophical significance of the consequence relation defined in the $\Omega$-logic for set-theoretic languages. I argue that, as with second-order logic, the hyperintensional profile of validity in $\Omega$-Logic enables the property to be epistemically tractable. Because of the duality between coalgebras and algebras, Boolean-valued models of set theory can be interpreted as coalgebras. In Section \textbf{2}, I demonstrate how the hyperintensional profile of $\Omega$-logical validity can be countenanced within a coalgebraic logic. Finally, in Section \textbf{3}, the philosophical (...) significance of the characterization of the hyperintensional profile of $\Omega$-logical validity for the philosophy of mathematics is examined. I argue (i) that $\Omega$-logical validity is genuinely logical, and (ii) that it provides a hyperintensional account of formal grasp of the concept of `set'. Section \textbf{4} provides concluding remarks. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to create dialectical space for a hitherto under-discussed option in the philosophy of conspiracy theories. The extant literature on the topic almost exclusively assumes that conspiracy theories are a type of explanation. The typical mental attitude towards explanations is belief, a representational attitude that can be assessed as true, false, warranted or unwarranted. I call models based on this assumption alethic models. Alethic models can’t pick out conspiracy theories as a distinct class of mental (...) attitudes without latching onto their negative epistemic properties. The extant literature therefore finds itself in an unfortunate situation. It either has to presume that conspiracy theories are epistemically defective in general (generalism). Or it has to deny that conspiracy theories are a distinct class of mental attitudes. Conspiracy theories are then nothing more than theories, theories about conspiracies, and should be assessed on a case-by-case basis (particularism). Instead, this paper motivates the research program of narrative models. According to narrative models, conspiracy theories are first and foremost stories – structured fictions. And their relevant mental attitudes are the attitudes of fiction – make-believe and imagination. Fictions are not subjects to epistemic norms. They are neither rational nor irrational. Narrative models can therefore pick out conspiracy theories as a distinct class of mental attitudes without labeling them as defective in general. In addition, they are able to explain certain features of conspiracy discourse particularly well, and they offer new perspectives on the popularity of conspiracy theories and the means of intervention we have at our disposal. (shrink)

Corruptionism is the view that following physical death, the human being ceases to exist but their soul persists in the afterlife. Survivalism holds that both the human being and their soul persist in the afterlife, as distinct entities, with the soul constituting the human. Each position has its defenders, most of whom appeal both to metaphysical considerations and to the authority of St Thomas Aquinas. Corruptionists claim that survivalism violates a basic principle of any plausible mereology, while survivalists tend to (...) reject the principle, though without as much detail as one would like. In this paper I examine both the key exegetical issues and the mereological question, arguing that Aquinas cannot be shown to have supported the principle in question, and that the principle should be rejected on independent grounds. If correct, some key planks in support of survivalism are established, with others to await further examination. (shrink)

No natural language has contrafactive attitude verbs. Because factives are universal across natural languages, this means that there is a major asymmetry between contrafactives and factives. We previously hypothesised that this asymmetry arises partly because the meaning of contrafactives is significantly harder to learn than that of factives. Here we test this hypothesis by using a production-oriented computational experiment that overcomes two limitations of our previous experiments. We find that our results do not support our previous hypothesis.

This paper challenges the soundness of the two-dimensional conceivability argument against the derivation of phenomenal truths from physical truths in light of a hyperintensional, ground-theoretic regimentation of the ontology of consciousness. The regimentation demonstrates how ontological dependencies between truths about consciousness and about physics cannot be witnessed by epistemic constraints, when the latter are recorded by the conceivability—i.e., the epistemic possibility—thereof. Generalizations and other aspects of the philosophical significance of the hyperintensional regimentation are further examined.

"Based on extensive research in primary and secondary sources and on field research in Ghana, including more than 40 interviews, and applying her formidable expertise in African history, philosophy, historical anthropology and religious studies, Dr Louise Müller has produced a superb analysis of the history and transformation of the roles of chieftaincy in the religious institutions, rituals and ideas among the Asante." David E. Skinner, Professor of History - African and Islamic Studies. (Santa Clara University, USA .