Many believe that objective morality requires a theistic foundation. I maintain that there are sui generis objective ethical facts that do not reduce to natural or supernatural facts. On my view, objective morality does not require an external foundation of any kind. After explaining my view, I defend it against a variety of objections posed by William Wainwright, William Lane Craig, and J. P. Moreland.

One of the cornerstones of western theology is the doctrine of divine omnipotence. God is traditionally conceived of as an omnipotent or all-powerful being. However, satisfactory analyses of omnipotence are notoriously elusive. In this paper, I first consider some simple attempts to analyze omnipotence, showing how each fails. I then consider two more sophisticated accounts of omnipotence. The first of these is presented by Edward Wierenga; the second by Thomas Flint and Alfred Freddoso. I argue that both of these accounts (...) fail. Finally, I propose and defend a novel account of omnipotence. (shrink)

I examine the central atheistic argument of Richard Dawkins’s book The God Delusion (“Dawkins’s Gambit”) and illustrate its failure. I further show that Dawkins’s Gambit is a fragment of a more comprehensive critique of theism found in David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Among the failings of Dawkins’s Gambit is that it is directed against a version of the God Hypothesis that few traditional monotheists hold. Hume’s critique is more challenging in that it targets versions of the God Hypothesis that (...) are central to traditional monotheism. Theists and atheists should put away The God Delusion and pick up Hume’s Dialogues. (shrink)

Juan Comesaña and Carolina Sartorio have recently proposed a diagnosis of what goes wrong in apparently illegitimate cases of ‘bootstrapping’ one’s way toexcessively easy knowledge. They argue that in such cases the bootstrapper bases at least one of her beliefs on evidence that does not evidentially support the proposition believed. I explicate the principle that underlies Comesaña and Sartorio’s diagnosis of such cases and show that their account of what goes wrong in such cases is mistaken.

I argue that William Craig’s defence of the moral argument is internally inconsistent. In the course of defending the moral argument, Craig criticizes non-theistic moral realism on the grounds that it posits the existence of certain logically necessary connections but fails to provide an adequate account of why such connections hold. Another component of Craig’s defence of the moral argument is an endorsement of a particular version of the divine command theory. Craig’s version of DCT posits certain logically necessary connections (...) but Craig fails to provide an adequate account of why these connections hold. Thus, Craig’s critique of non-theistic moral realism is at odds with his DCT. Since the critique and DCT are both essential elements of his defence of the moral argument, that defence is internally inconsistent. (shrink)

There have been several calls from LIS researchers for practical or applied research not to ignore the epistemological assumptions underlying the systems and artifacts they design lest they showcase only the dominant theory at a given time. Others have also deplored the "epistemological promiscuity" or "eclecticism" of the field, its incessant borrowing of theories and models from elsewhere and the fact that the field has largely neglected the contributions that philosophy and epistemology could have made in its research. This problem (...) raises that of the boundaries of LIS and is all the more troublesome because boundaries between epistemological theories are fuzzy. Indeed, some epistemological theories share the same basic assumptions or are historically derived from one another. Gathering a wide array of acknowledged theorists in philosophy of science and epistemology, this panel aims to examine how research work in the LIS field can clearly articulate the epistemological assumptions underlying that research and under what constraints this can be achieved. The topic is of prime importance to Information studies as a whole and to ASIST as the scientific flag bearer of information scientists worldwide. (shrink)

The article reviews the book Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe, by Erik J. Wielenberg.

Erik Wielenberg’s new book Robust Ethics: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Godless Normative Realism aims at defending a non-theistic of ‘robust normative realism’: the metaethical view that normative properties exist, and have four features: (1) objectivity, (2) non-naturalness, (3) irreducibility, and (4) causal inertness. In my review I criticize that Wielenberg does not address semantic issues which are crucial both to defending robust normative realism, and to assessing the empirical claims he makes. Moreover, and relatedly, I suggest (...) that Wielenberg’s main psychological and evolutionary claims may be less well-founded than suggested. Despite these worries, however, Robust Ethics is a highly valuable contribution to metaethics. Wielenberg’s writing is extremely accessible, engaging, witty, and clear, he develops various fascinating novel arguments, and skilfully links analytic reflections with the consideration of empirical data. (shrink)

A review of William Lane Craig, Erik J. Wielenberg, and Adam Lloyd Johnson's "A Debate on God and Morality: What is the Best Account of Objective Moral Values and Duties?".

We have recently proposed a diagnosis of what goes wrong in cases of ‘easy-knowledge.’ Erik Wielenberg argues that there are cases of easy knowledge thatour proposal cannot handle. In this note we reply to Wielenberg, arguing that our proposal does indeed handle his cases.

Logical pluralism is the view that there is more than one correct logic. Most logical pluralists think that logic is normative in the sense that you make a mistake if you accept the premisses of a valid argument but reject its conclusion. Some authors have argued that this combination is self-undermining: Suppose that L1 and L2 are correct logics that coincide except for the argument from Γ to φ, which is valid in L1 but invalid in L2. If you accept (...) all sentences in Γ, then, by normativity, you make a mistake if you reject φ. In order to avoid mistakes, you should accept φ or suspend judgment about φ. Both options are problematic for pluralism. Can pluralists avoid this worry by rejecting the normativity of logic? I argue that they cannot. All else being equal, the argument goes through even if logic is not normative. (shrink)

The concept of ecosystem services is a way of visualizing the instrumental value that nature has for human beings. Most ecosystem services can be performed by more than one species. This fact is sometimes used as an argument against the preservation of species. However, even though substitutability does detract from the instrumental value of a species, it also adds option value to it. The option value cannot make a substitutable species as instrumentally valuable as a non-substitutable species, but in many (...) cases, it can add enough value to make the species more valuable than the projects that threaten its existence. (shrink)

Maintaining systems of military plans is critical for military effectiveness, but is also challenging. Plans will become obsolete as the world diverges from the assumptions on which they rest. If too many ad hoc changes are made to intermeshed plans, the ensemble may no longer lead to well-synchronized and coordinated operations, resulting in the system of plans becoming itself incoherent. We describe in what follows an Adaptive Planning process that we are developing on behalf of the Air Force Research Laboratory (...) (Rome) with the goal of addressing problems of these sorts through cyclical collaborative plan review and maintenance. The interactions of world state, blue force status and associated plans are too complex for manual adaptive processes, and computer-aided plan review and maintenance is thus indispensable. We argue that appropriate semantic technology can 1) provide richer representation of plan-related data and semantics, 2) allow for flexible, non-disruptive, agile, scalable, and coordinated changes in plans, and 3) support more intelligent analytical querying of plan-related data. (shrink)

Jennifer Hornsby has defended the Reasons-Knowledge Thesis : the claim that \-ing because p requires knowing that p, where the ‘because’ at issue is a rationalising ‘because’. She defends by appeal to the thought that it provides the best explanation of why the subject in a certain sort of Gettier case fails to be in a position to \ because p. Dustin Locke and, separately, Nick Hughes, present some modified barn-façade cases which seem to constitute counterexamples to and undermine Hornsby’s (...) way of motivating it by rendering their alternative Reasons-Explanation Thesis a better explanation of Hornsby’s datum. This paper defends and Hornsby’s argument for it against those objections. First, I point out that their supposedly intuitive verdict about the relevant barn-façade cases is not as intuitive as they think. Second, I point out that even if we share the intuition: we have strong reason to doubt the verdict anyway. And finally, I point out that since is independently implausible, the two problems can be tackled anyway. (shrink)

According to standard comparativist views, death is bad insofar as it deprives someone of goods she would otherwise have had. In The Ethics of Killing, Jeff McMahan argues against such views and in favor of a gradualist account according to which how bad it is to die is a function of both the future goods of which the decedent is deprived and her cognitive development when she dies. Comparativists and gradualists therefore disagree about how bad it is to die at (...) different ages. In this paper I examine two prominent criticisms of gradualism and show that both misconstrue McMahan. I develop a related criticism that seems to show that a gradualist cannot coherently relate morbidity and mortality. This criticism also fails, but has an instructive implication for how policy-makers setting priorities for health care investments should regard choices between life-saving interventions and interventions against non-fatal diseases in the very young. (shrink)

Over the last few decades, multiple studies have examined the understanding of participants in clinical research. They show variable and often poor understanding of key elements of disclosure, such as expected risks and the experimental nature of treatments. Did the participants in these studies give valid consent? According to the standard view of informed consent they did not. The standard view holds that the recipient of consent has a duty to disclose certain information to the profferer of consent because valid (...) consent requires that information to be understood. The contents of the understanding and disclosure requirements are therefore conceptually linked. In this paper, we argue that the standard view is mistaken. The disclosure and understanding requirements have distinct grounds tied to two different ways in which a token of consent can be rendered invalid. Analysis of these grounds allows us to derive the contents of the two requirements. It also implies that it is sometimes permissible to enroll willing participants who have not understood everything that they ought to be told about their clinical trials. (shrink)

The Precautionary Principle is both celebrated and criticized. It has become an important principle for decision making, but it is also subject to criticism. One problem that is often pointed out with the principle is that is not clear what it actually says and how to use it. I have taken on this problem by performing an analysis of some of the most influential formulations of the principle in an attempt to identify the core ideas behind it, with the purpose (...) of producing a formulation of the principle that is clear and practically applicable. It was found that what is called the Precautionary Principle is not a principle that tells us what do to achieve extra precaution or how to handle situations when extra precaution is called for. Instead, it was found to be a list of circumstances that each justify extra precaution. An analysis of some of the most common and influential formulations of the Precautionary Principle identified four such circumstances: (1) When we deal with important values that tend to be systematically downplayed by traditional decision methods – such as human health and the environment. (2) When we suspect that the decision might lead to irreversible and severe consequences and the values at stake are also irreplaceable, (3) When timing is at least as important as being right. (4) When it is more important to avoid false negatives than false positives. This interpretation of the Precautionary Principle does not say anything about what kind of actions to take when extra precaution is called for, but it does provide a clear and practically useful list of circumstances that call for extra precaution and that is not subject to the most common objections to the Precautionary Principle. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to use philosophy and, in particular ethical theory, to identify and explore some potential conflicts.

Neutral monism is a position in metaphysics defended by Mach, James, and Russell in the early twentieth century. It holds that minds and physical objects are essentially two different orderings of the same underlying neutral elements of nature. This paper sets out some of the central concepts, theses and the historical background of ideas that inform this doctrine of elements. The discussion begins with the classic neutral monism of Mach, James, and Russell in the first part of the paper, then (...) considers recent neo-Russellian versions in the second half. The chances for a revival of neutral monism are probably slight; its key ideas and starting points lie far from those in contemporary philosophy of mind. A better route might be through the philosophy of science and a deeper understanding of causation. (shrink)

Denna artikel är den första i en serie om två artiklar som introducerar astrobiologins filosofi. Detta är ett förhållandevis nytt och i Sverige nästan okänt forskningsfält som dock befinner sig i snabb tillväxt internationellt. Ämnet presenteras här i form av exempel på några centrala frågeställningar inom området. I den här artikeln presenteras några frågeställningar hemmahörande i teoretisk filosofi.

Denna artikel är den andra i en serie om två artiklar som introducerar astrobiologins filosofi. Detta är ett förhållandevis nytt och i Sverige nästan okänt forskningsfält som dock befinner sig i snabb tillväxt internationellt. Ämnet presenteras här i form av exempel på några centrala frågeställningar inom området. I den här artikeln presenteras några frågeställningar hemmahörande i praktisk filosofi.

There are important structural similarities in the way that animals and humans engage in unreflective activities, including unreflective social interactions in the case of higher animals. Firstly, it is a form of unreflective embodied intelligence that is ‘motivated’ by the situation. Secondly, both humans and non-human animals are responsive to ‘affordances’ (Gibson 1979); to possibilities for action offered by an environment. Thirdly, both humans and animals are selectively responsive to one affordance rather than another. Social affordances are a subcategory of (...) affordances, namely possibilities for social interaction offered by an environment: a friend’s sad face invites comforting behavior, a person waiting for a coffee machine can afford a conversation, and an extended hand affords a handshake. I will review recent insights in the nature of the bodily intentionality characteristic of unreflective action. Such ‘motor intentionality’ can be characterized as “our direct bodily inclination to act in a situated, environmental context” (Kelly 2005, p. 106). Standard interpretations of bodily intentionality see grasping an object as the paradigmatic example of motor intentionality. I will discuss the implications of another, novel perspective that emphasizes the importance of unreflective switches from one activity to another (Rietveld 2004) and understands bodily intentionality in terms of adequate responsiveness to a field of relevant affordances. In the final section I will discuss some implications for cognitive neuroscientists who use empirical findings related to the ‘mirror neuron system’ as a starting point for a theory of motor intentionality and social cognition. (shrink)

The counterfactual comparative account of harm faces problems in cases that involve overdetermination and preemption. An influential strategy for dealing with these problems, drawing on a suggestion made by Derek Parfit, is to appeal to _plural harm_—several events _together_ harming someone. We argue that the most well-known version of this strategy, due to Neil Feit, as well as Magnus Jedenheim Edling’s more recent version, is fatally flawed. We also present some general reasons for doubting that the overdetermination and preemption problems (...) for the counterfactual comparative account can be satisfactorily solved by appealing to plural harm. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly influential in most people’s lives. This raises many philosophical questions. One is what responsibility we have as individuals to guide the development of AI in a desirable direction. More specifically, how should this responsibility be distributed among individuals and between individuals and other actors? We investigate this question from the perspectives of five principles of distribution that dominate the discussion about responsibility in connection with climate change: effectiveness, equality, desert, need, and ability. Since much (...) is already written about these distributions in that context, we believe much can be gained if we can make use of this discussion also in connection with AI. Our most important findings are: (1) Different principles give different answers depending on how they are interpreted but, in many cases, different interpretations and different principles agree and even strengthen each other. If for instance ‘equality-based distribution’ is interpreted in a consequentialist sense, effectiveness, and through it, ability, will play important roles in the actual distributions, but so will an equal distribution as such, since we foresee that an increased responsibility of underrepresented groups will make the risks and benefits of AI more equally distributed. The corresponding reasoning is true for need-based distribution. (2) If we acknowledge that someone has a certain responsibility, we also have to acknowledge a corresponding degree of influence for that someone over the matter in question. (3) Independently of which distribution principle we prefer, ability cannot be dismissed. Ability is not fixed, however and if one of the other distributions is morally required, we are also morally required to increase the ability of those less able to take on the required responsibility. (shrink)

We propose to understand social affordances in the broader context of responsiveness to a field of relevant affordances in general. This perspective clarifies our everyday ability to unreflectively switch between social and other affordances. Moreover, based on our experience with Deep Brain Stimulation for treating obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients, we suggest that psychiatric disorders may affect skilled intentionality, including responsiveness to social affordances.

Virtual heritage has been explained as virtual reality applied to cultural heritage, but this definition only scratches the surface of the fascinating applications, tools and challenges of this fast-changing interdisciplinary field. This book provides an accessible but concise edited coverage of the main topics, tools and issues in virtual heritage. -/- Leading international scholars have provided chapters to explain current issues in accuracy and precision; challenges in adopting advanced animation techniques; shows how archaeological learning can be developed in Minecraft; they (...) propose mixed reality is conceptual rather than just technical; they explore how useful Linked Open Data can be for art history; explain how accessible photogrammetry can be but also ethical and practical issues for applying at scale; provide insight into how to provide interaction in museums involving the wider public; and describe issues in evaluating virtual heritage projects not often addressed even in scholarly papers. -/- The book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in museum studies, digital archaeology, heritage studies, architectural history and modelling, virtual environments. (shrink)

We argue that there is a conflict among classical theism's commitments to divine simplicity, divine creative freedom, and omniscience. We start by defining key terms for the debate related to classical theism. Then we articulate a new argument, the Aloneness Argument, aiming to establish a conflict among these attributes. In broad outline, the argument proceeds as follows. Under classical theism, it's possible that God exists without anything apart from Him. Any knowledge God has in such a world would be wholly (...) intrinsic. But there are contingent truths in every world, including the world in which God exists alone. So, it's possible that God contingently has wholly intrinsic knowledge. But whatever is contingent and wholly intrinsic is an accident. So, God possibly has an accident. This is incompatible with classical theism. Finally, we consider and rebut several objections. (shrink)

A look at the dynamical concept of space and space-generating processes to be found in Kant, J.F. Herbart and the mathematician Bernhard Riemann's philosophical writings.

Grete Hermann’s essay “Die naturphilosophischen Grundlagen der Quantenmechanik” has received much deserved scholarly attention in recent years. In this paper, I follow the lead of Elise Crull who sees in Hermann’s work the general outlines of a neo-Kantian interpretation of quantum theory. In full support of this view, I focus on Hermann’s central claim that limited spatio-temporal, and even analogically causal, representations of events exist within an overall relational structure of entangled quantum mechanical states that defy any unified spatio-temporal description. (...) In my view, Hermann also advances an important transcendental argument that perspectival spatio-temporal representations of nature have their foundations in general relational networks that are not spatio-temporal. The key point is that the adoption of a perspectival system within the general network induces the representation but only for that context. These ideas are consistent with a perspectival subject–object principle in Kant and also with Weyl’s work on Lie groups and their representations. (shrink)

Extension is probably the most general natural property. Is it a fundamental property? Leibniz claimed the answer was no, and that the structureless intuition of extension concealed more fundamental properties and relations. This paper follows Leibniz's program through Herbart and Riemann to Grassmann and uses Grassmann's algebra of points to build up levels of extensions algebraically. Finally, the connection between extension and measurement is considered.

The central issue here concerns whether Being as explored by Martin Heidegger in Being and Time is constituted spatiotemporally. As such this project has two interlinked objectives. One objective is to supply conceptually plausible answers to Heidegger’s unanswered questions regarding the temporality of Being, which he raised at the very end of Being and Time. In response I argue that each individual human being is constituted as a Space-Time-Event-Motion (STEM) containment-field embodied entity. Heidegger situates Dasein (human existence) in a temporal (...) stream moving towards the nothingness of death but all the while separating being and time as two distinct phenomena rather than coexistent. I demonstrate why this was a crucial error in Heidegger’s thinking. The second objective deals with the sense of authentic being developed by Heidegger. The spatiotemporal nature of one’s life for Heidegger is understood from the standpoint of Being-in-the-world, as an engaged participant, coexistent with the world, so that contextually it is through this engagement in recognition of this facticity or thrownness that one comes to recognise one’s own authentic self. Somewhat problematic is the coexistent phenomenological recognition that one does not live in isolation and as such one may question what of the contingent, constraining and influencing factors that shape one’s sense of self particularly against the backdrop of self-other relations. This project is situated methodologically within Process Philosophy, and it is from this perspective that draws attention to the role of human agency in which individuals are spatiotemporally construed in terms of Space-Time-Event-Motion (STEM) entities. (shrink)

We have argued that the counterfactual comparative account of harm and benefit (CCA) violates the plausible adequacy condition that an act that would harm an agent cannot leave her much better off than an alternative act that would benefit her. In a recent paper in this journal, however, Neil Feit objects that our argument presupposes questionable counterfactual backtracking. He also argues that CCA proponents can justifiably reject the condition by invoking so-called plural harm and benefit. In this reply, we argue (...) that Feit’s lines of criticism are both unsuccessful. (shrink)

Logical pluralism is the view that there is more than one correct logic. This very general characterization gives rise to a whole family of positions. I argue that not all of them are stable. The main argument in the paper is inspired by considerations known as the “collapse problem”, and it aims at the most popular form of logical pluralism advocated by JC Beall and Greg Restall. I argue that there is a more general argument available that challenges all variants (...) of logical pluralism that meet the following three conditions: that there are at least two correct logical systems characterized in terms of different consequence relations, that there is some sort of rivalry among the correct logics, and that logical consequence is normative. The hypothesis I argue for amounts to conditional claim: If a position satisfies all these conditions, then that position is unstable in the sense that it collapses into competing positions. (shrink)

This chapter explores the foundation and content of the duty to respect persons. The authors argue that it is best understood as a duty to recognize people’s rights. Respect for persons therefore has specific implications for how competent and non-competent persons ought to be treated in research. For competent persons it underlies the obligation to obtain consent to many research procedures. The chapter gives an analysis of the requirements for obtaining valid consent. It then considers respect for persons as it (...) relates to four common topics: the therapeutic misconception, research with children and adolescents, the use of deception in research, and research on competent adults without their consent. (shrink)

Belief storage is often modeled as having the structure of a single, unified web. This model of belief storage is attractive and widely assumed because it appears to provide an explanation of the flexibility of cognition and the complicated dynamics of belief revision. However, when one scrutinizes human cognition, one finds strong evidence against a unified web of belief and for a fragmented model of belief storage. Using the best available evidence from cognitive science, we develop this fragmented model into (...) a nascent theory of the cognitive architecture of belief storage. (shrink)

This article distinguishes between Machian empiricism and the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle and associated philosophers. Mach's natural philosophy was a first order attempt to reform and reorganize physics, not a second order reconstruction of the "language" of physics. Mach's elements were not sense data but realistic events in the natural world and in minds, and Mach admitted unobserved elements as part of his world view. Mach's critique of metaphysics was far more subtle and concerned the elimination of sensory (...) visual imagery from natural science, leaving only concrete elements and functions, very much an inspiration to the young Einstein and Heisenberg and a useful engine of theory construction in physics. (shrink)

We describe a prototype ontology-driven information system (ODIS) that exploits what we call Portion of Reality (POR) representations. The system takes both sensor data and natural language text as inputs and composes on this basis logically structured POR assertions. The goal of our prototype is to represent both natural language and sensor data within a single framework that is able to support both axiomatic reasoning and computation. In addition, the framework should be capable of discovering and representing new kinds of (...) situations and thematic roles, (e.g., roles such as agent, patient and instrument), based on new compositions of existing representations. We applied our prototype in an intelligence analysis use case to test the hypothesis that a framework of this sort can produce usefully structured information from combined natural language and sensor data inputs. We further tested our hypothesis by adding an enhanced US Air Force ontology framework to our ODIS in order to (1) process a collection of sensor data, intel reports, and mission plans; (2) build composite POR representations from these data; and (3) machine analyze the fused results to infer mission threats. (shrink)

William James' Radical Empiricist essays offer a unique and powerful argument for direct realism about our perceptions of objects. This theory can be completed with some observations by Kant on the intellectual preconditions for a perceptual judgment. Finally James and Kant deliver a powerful blow to the representational theory of perception and knowledge, which applies quite broadly to theories of representation generally.

New Atheists and Anti-Theists (such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hutchins) affirm that there is a strong connection between being a traditional theist and being a religious fundamentalist who advocates violence, terrorism, and war. They are especially critical of Islam. On the contrary, I argue that, when correctly understood, religious dogmatic belief, present in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, is progressive and open to internal and external criticism and revision. Moreover, acknowledging that human knowledge is finite and that (...) humans are fallible and have much to learn, dogmatic religious believers accept that they ought to value and seek to acquire moral and intellectual virtues, including the virtues of temperance and reasonability. (shrink)

This paper, for two upcoming volumes, makes what I consider to be the definitive textual case for finally rejecting the phenomenalist interpretation of Ernst Mach's works, and his customary association with the Vienna Circle, in favor of a stronger realistic neutral monist reading connecting him to James, Russell and the American realist movement and today's neutral monism (for example my 2014). I hope that this reading will eventually supplant the previously mistaken view of Mach's work and that his views of (...) science and philosophy of space and time can be revised as well. (shrink)

A look at Mach's work on monocular stereoscopy with relation to Mach Bands and the sensation of space.

This paper for an upcoming journal volume examines Grete Hermann's Naturphilosophischen Grundlagen der Quantenmechanik (1935) and the relative context, or perspectival, interpretation of standard quantum mechanics found therein. I find an argument for the emergence of limited spatio-temporal and retrocausal stories, from a chosen experimental perspective, within a larger set of entangled systems not subject to a spatio-temporal interpretation. This argument can be read in reverse as giving some of the necessary preconditions of spatio-temporal representations as based upon perspectival relations, (...) carrying on a Kantian transcendental argument on one hand, and on the other hand, looking forward to Weyl's use of symmetry groups, Lie algebras and their representations in quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Smell 'sensations' are among the most mysterious of conscious experiences, and have been cited in defense of the thesis that the character of perceptual experience is independent of the physical events that seem to give rise to it. Here we review the scientific literature on olfaction, and we argue that olfaction has a distinctive profile in relation to the other modalities, on four counts: in the physical nature of the stimulus, in the sensorimotor interactions that characterize its use, in the (...) structure of its intramodal distinctions and in the functional role that it plays in people's behaviour. We present two thought experiments in which we detail what would be involved in transforming sounds into smells, and also smells into colours. Through these thought-experiments, we argue that the experiential character of smell derives precisely from the structural features of olfaction, and that an embodied account of olfactory phenomenology is called for. (shrink)

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