Our computational metaphysics group describes its use of automated reasoning tools to study Leibniz’s theory of concepts. We start with a reconstruction of Leibniz’s theory within the theory of abstract objects (henceforth ‘object theory’). Leibniz’s theory of concepts, under this reconstruction, has a non-modal algebra of concepts, a concept-containment theory of truth, and a modal metaphysics of complete individual concepts. We show how the object-theoretic reconstruction of these components of Leibniz’s theory can be represented for investigation by means of automated (...) theorem provers and finite model builders. The fundamental theorem of Leibniz’s theory is derived using these tools. (shrink)

In this paper, the authors show that there is a reading of St. Anselm's ontological argument in Proslogium II that is logically valid (the premises entail the conclusion). This reading takes Anselm's use of the definite description "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" seriously. Consider a first-order language and logic in which definite descriptions are genuine terms, and in which the quantified sentence "there is an x such that..." does not imply "x exists". Then, using an ordinary logic (...) of descriptions and a connected greater-than relation, God's existence logically follows from the claims: (a) there is a conceivable thing than which nothing greater is conceivable, and (b) if <em>x</em> doesn't exist, something greater than x can be conceived. To deny the conclusion, one must deny one of the premises. However, the argument involves no modal inferences and, interestingly, Descartes' ontological argument can be derived from it. (shrink)

This paper presents two accounts of how Oedipus might have arrived at the answer to the Sphinx's riddle by proceeding methodically.

It is tempting to interpret Marilyn Strathern as saying that the concept of nature is a social construction, because in her essay “No Nature, No Culture: the Hagen Case” she tells us that the Hagen people do not describe the world using this concept. However, I point out an obstacle to interpreting her in this way, an obstacle which leads me to reject this interpretation. Interpreting her in this way makes her inconsistent. The inconsistency is owing to a commitment that (...) she shares with previous British anthropologists, a commitment which points to an incompatibility between two intellectual traditions. (shrink)

Political philosophers sometimes write of liberal democracies, but which societies, if any, are liberal democracies? John Rawls says that in the public political culture of a liberal democracy, we find the principle that this society should be a fair system of cooperation between free and equal individuals. In this paper, I draw attention to how, if we grant Rawls’s definition, a society can easily be mistaken for a liberal democracy when it is not. I then argue that Andrew March, Gabrielle (...) Badano and Alasia Nuti have not given sufficient evidence for treating various European societies as Rawlsian liberal democracies. (shrink)

This paper disputes a common definition of token identity theory. It also observes that within the philosophical literature there are two significantly different definitions of token identity theory that are commonly used.

This paper contests a standard interpretation of how Descartes comes to the conclusion that he is not his body in the second meditation. I propose an alternative interpretation in its place.

In the sixth chapter of The View from Nowhere, Thomas Nagel aims to identify a form of idealism, to isolate the argument for it and to counter this argument. The position that Nagel takes to be idealist is that what there is must be possibly conceivable by us. In this paper, I show that Nagel has not made a convincing case against this position. I then present an alternative case. In light of this alternative case, we have reason to reject (...) an important example that Nagel offers of a contemporary idealist, namely Donald Davidson. (shrink)

Do individuals in John Rawls’s original position take into account the fallibility of human nature? Some notable commentators on Rawls say that they do or that they should. But this enables us to say that individuals in the original position would not come to an agreement at all.

There are attempts to define torture which say that a person is only being tortured if the pain inflicted upon them is pain that they have not consented to. In this very brief paper, I recommend that we define torture without this condition.

This paper evaluates an argument according to which many anthropologists commit themselves to Cartesian dualism, when they talk about meanings. This kind of dualism, it is argued, makes it impossible for anthropologists to adequately attend to material artefacts. The argument is very original, but it is also vulnerable to a range of objections.

This paper evaluates Jonathan Quong’s attempt to defend a version of political liberalism from the asymmetry objection. I object that Quong’s defence relies on a premise that has not been adequately supported and does not look as if it can be given adequate support.

Does the debate between Rawlsians and liberal perfectionists boil down to the following: for liberal perfectionists, the government should fund aesthetic projects that are in good taste; for Rawlsians, the government should be neutral on the aesthetic value of anything? If so, liberal perfectionists are committed to the view that there is objective aesthetic value. In this paper, I argue that within the Rawlsian system is a thesis that is difficult to reconcile with objectivity about aesthetics.

This paper argues that Rawls must commit himself to non-social human beings to defend his original position procedure.

In her paper ‘An Awkward Relationship: the Case of Feminism and Anthropology’, Marilyn Strathern argues that feminist research cannot produce a paradigm shift in social anthropology. I reconstruct her arguments and evaluate them, revealing that they are insufficient for ruling out this possibility.

John Rawls recommends a method for evaluating which principles institutions should abide by, known as reflective equilibrium. In this paper, I identify and challenge three assumptions that he makes.

The professor of psychopathology Simon Baron-Cohen is well-known for his thesis that males are on average better at systematizing than empathizing and females are on average better at empathizing than systematizing. In this paper, I note an ambiguity in how he defines systematizing.

This paper presents an objection to John Rawls’s use of the original position method to argue against implementing utilitarian rules. The use of this method is pointless because a small subset of the premises Rawls relies on can be used to infer the same conclusion.

The students’ argument against the possibility of a surprise exam assumes that the following would not occur: the teacher decides to give the exam on a certain day; the teacher believes that the exam would be a surprise on that day; but, actually, the exam would not be a surprise on that day. I give a reason to reject this assumption, and I point out that an attempt to reformulate the surprise exam paradox in order to allow for the assumption (...) does not result in an acceptable argument. (shrink)

Some philosophers assert that astrology is a false theory. The simplest way to argue against all astrology is to identify a proposition that any kind of astrology must be committed to and then show that this proposition is false. In this paper I draw attention to some misconceptions about which propositions are essential to astrology.

Joseph Raz has argued that the problem of the amoralist is misconceived. In this paper, I present three interpretations of what his argument is. None of these interpretations yields an argument that we are in a position to accept.

I present a paradox concerning a person who desires to fail to achieve the goal that matters most to them. I recently encountered a similar paradox, but radical solipsism is a solution to it. This is not a solution to the paradox that I present.

John Rawls’s difference principle says that we should change our economy if doing so is better for the worst-off group, on the condition that certain basic rights are secured. This paper presents a kind of case that challenges the principle. If we modify the principle to cope with the challenge, we open the way to a Sorites paradox.

In the sixth chapter of The View from Nowhere, Thomas Nagel attempts to identify a form of idealism. The position that he deems idealist is that what there is must be possibly conceivable by us. Nagel claims that this position is held by a number of contemporary philosophers. Even if this is so, I justify the view that it is not a form of idealism.

Philosophers and logicians talk of arguments for conclusions. In a recent paper, Jeffrey Goodman identifies a common way of thinking about what an argument is. I propose a definition that is quite different to this common way. I also make two objections to Goodman’s proposed definition.

Some formulations of the surprise paradox involve a pair of unnecessary and controversial assumptions. After casting doubt on these assumptions, I propose a solution to the paradox.

Some political philosophers have judged that it is absurd to think that there can be unintentional consent. In this paper, I present an example of unintentional consent, which I refer to as the adapted boardroom example. I consider reasons for denying that this is an example of unintentional consent, but find that these reasons are unconvincing.

This paper evaluates a form of dualism, which is referred to here as the dualism of conceptual scheme and undifferentiated reality. According to this dualism, although reality appears to be divided into distinct things from the perspective of our system of concepts, it is actually not. I justify the view that this dualism is incoherent.

This paper discusses an explanation, offered by Tim Ingold, for why social and cultural anthropologists have so far paid little attention to the materials from which artefacts are composed. The explanation is that these anthropologists accept a certain argument. According to the argument, what an anthropologist should focus on when examining an artefact is the quality that makes it part of a culture, and this is not the materials from which the artefact is composed. I show that Ingold has not (...) made a compelling case against this argument, but also that it is not sound. (shrink)

I present some objections to traditional literary interpretation and consider subversive interpretation as a solution to these problems. Subversive interpretation may seem more scientific and more democratic than traditional interpretation, but it is open to doubt that it is more democratic.

This paper presents a challenge to the coherence of social constructivism about science. It introduces an objection according to which social constructivism appeals to the authority of science regarding the nature of reality and so cannot coherently deny that authority. The challenge is how to avoid this incoherence.

This paper evaluates an argument for the conclusion that in order to produce a viable objection to a particular error theory, the objection must not be applicable to any error theory. The reason given for this conclusion is that error theories about some discourses are uncontroversial. But the examples given of uncontroversial error theories are not good ones, nor do there appear to be other examples available.

This paper observes that P. F. Strawson’s distinction between descriptive and revisionary metaphysics is a baffling one from the perspective of traditional metaphysics. If one thinks of metaphysics as the study of the fundamental nature of reality, it is bewildering to divide up metaphysics in this way. The paper then tries to show how the distinction is no longer bewildering if we deny that such study is possible.

There is an intuition that the past does not ever change. In their paper ‘The puzzle of the changing past,’ Luca Barlassina and Fabio Del Prete argue that in 2012 the past changed. I show that we are not in a position to accept their argument.

This paper evaluates a definition of anthropology at home formulated by Marilyn Strathern in her book contribution 'The Limits of Auto-Anthropology'. According to the definition, anthropology at home is anthropology carried out in the social context that produced this discipline. I argue that this is not an adequate definition of anthropology at home.

The expression “The owl of Minerva flies at dusk” is used to convey that philosophers are only able to identify the assumptions that are made within a period of history, a period of which they are part, when that period is coming to an end and those assumptions will soon no longer be made. In this paper, I support a rival view according to which those involved in a historical period can know their assumptions earlier, given appropriate talent and effort.

This paper responds to an argument against a kind of anthropology. According to the argument, if the aim of anthropology is to describe the different worldviews of different groups, then anthropologists should only refer to material artefacts in order to illustrate a worldview; but the interest of artefacts to anthropology goes beyond mere illustration. This argument has been endorsed by key members of the ontological movement in anthropology, who found at least one of its premises in Marilyn Strathern’s writing.

This paper evaluates an argument from Donald Davidson against alternative conceptual schemes. The argument can be divided into two stages. In the first stage it is argued that only pluralities can be organized. In the second stage it is argued that if our conceptual scheme organizes a plurality and someone else’s scheme also organizes that plurality, there must be a set of common concepts, hence someone else’s scheme can never be an alternative scheme to ours. I object to the first (...) stage of the argument. (shrink)

There are some premise-by-premise reconstructions in political philosophy which are flawed, because they omit at least one premise or misword at least one premise. This paper focuses on a reconstruction by Richard Child. The original argument is by Andrea Sangiovanni and is about whether egalitarian values of distributive justice apply both within a state and globally. Child’s reconstruction has been reproduced in a paper by Ian Davis, who approves of it. But I point out five logical problems with the reconstruction.

Interoperability across data sets is a key challenge for quantitative histopathological imaging. There is a need for an ontology that can support effective merging of pathological image data with associated clinical and demographic data. To foster organized, cross-disciplinary, information-driven collaborations in the pathological imaging field, we propose to develop an ontology to represent imaging data and methods used in pathological imaging and analysis, and call it Quantitative Histopathological Imaging Ontology – QHIO. We apply QHIO to breast cancer hot-spot detection with (...) the goal of enhancing reliability of detection by promoting the sharing of data between image analysts. (shrink)

In different papers, David Liggins and Chris Daly tell philosophers what they should not do. There is no sign of them withdrawing any of these prohibitions, but I show that they fail to be consistent when asserting them. The inconsistency concerns when a philosopher should defer to the empirical findings of science.

This paper evaluates the following argument, suggested in the writings of Donald Davidson: if there is such a thing as the given, then there can be alternative conceptual schemes; there cannot be alternative conceptual schemes; therefore there is no such thing as the given.

This paper responds to an ingenious footnote from Robert Nozick’s book Anarchy, State and Utopia. Using a table of four possible situations, Nozick defines what it is to be jealous, envious, begrudging, spiteful and competitive. I deny a claim that Nozick makes for his table, a claim needed for these definitions. I also point out that Nozick fails to capture what he has in mind by jealousy.

David Liggins and Chris Daly have argued against a recent trend in which some philosophical debate or other is said to be settled by claims from a discipline other than philosophy, because claims from that discipline entail a position on the debate and any claims from that discipline have greater authority than any philosophical claims when the aim is to extend our knowledge. They label this trend deferentialism. This paper presents a dilemma for their argument.

This paper assesses an argument against the representationalist tradition in anthropology: the tradition of reporting how a cultural group represents the world. According to the argument, anthropologists working within this tradition cannot take the concepts of those they study seriously. I defend the representationalist tradition against this argument.

The persistence of certain illusions has been used to argue that some theories cannot affect our perceptual experiences. Learning that one of these illusions is an illusion involves accepting theories. Nevertheless, the illusion does not go away. It seems then that these theories cannot affect our perceptual experiences. This paper contests an assumption of this argument: that the only way in which our perceptions can be affected by holding these theories is by the illusion going away.

Avia Pasternak argues for a right that democracies have to sanction other democracies. This paper reconstructs her argument and objects to one of its premises.

The professor of psychopathology Simon Baron-Cohen claims that males are on average stronger at systematizing than empathizing and females are on average stronger at empathizing than systematizing. Systematizing is defined as the drive to construct or understand systems. In this paper, I observe that Baron-Cohen overlooks certain examples of systems, examples which lead to doubts about his claim.

A startling amount of intelligent activity can be controlled without reasoning or thought. By tuning the perceptual system to task relevant properties a creature can cope with relatively sophisticated environments without concepts. There is a limit, however, to how far a creature without concepts can go. Rod Brooks, like many ecologically oriented scientists, argues that the vast majority of intelligent behaviour is concept-free. To evaluate this position I consider what special benefits accrue to concept-using creatures. Concepts are either necessary for (...) certain types of perception, learning, and control, or they make those processes computationally simpler. Once a creature has concepts its capacities are vastly multiplied. (shrink)