The aim of this paper is to examine the considerations on stochastic arts in Antiquity and to show how Galen’s analysis concerning the “art of conjecturing” constitutes a preferable alternative to the traditional ways used by philosophers to explain the inherent fallibility in the medical art. By distinguishing the scientific diagnosis from the conjectural one, Galen encompasses all cases relevant to the medical art. The former, because of its general nature, can be theorized. As for the latter, it (...) concerns only the individual and is therefore not likely to enter the theory, except by the method that makes it possible. This paper attempts to outline the modus operandi underlying the technical conjecture in order to illustrate Galen’s deftly developed position on a subject almost exclusively investigated by philosophers until then. (shrink)

In this article, I will consider whether, and in what way, doxastic states can harm. I’ll first consider whether, and in what way, a person’s doxastic state can harm her, before turning to the question of whether, and in what way, it can harm someone else.

There is, of course, The Given: what is given in experience. The ‘Myth Of The Given’ is just a wrong answer to the question ‘What is given?’ This paper offers a brief sketch of three possible right answers. It examines an early account by Charles Augustus Strong of why The Myth is a myth. It maintains that a natural and naturalistic version of empiricism is compatible with the fact that the Myth is a myth. It gives proper place to enactivist (...) considerations. It is ) broadly in line with the Sellarsian view as refined by John McDowell. It meets an important constraint: acknowledging the reality of something that seems at first to lend support to The Myth—i.e. the fact that we can engage in ‘non-inferential self-attribution of … sensations’ —without in any way succumbing to the Myth. (shrink)

Defenders of pragmatic encroachment in epistemology hold that practical factors have implications for a belief’s epistemic status. Paradigm defenders of pragmatic encroachment have held—to state their positions roughly— that whether someone’s belief that p constitutes knowledge depends on the practical reasons that she has (Stanley 2005), that knowing p is necessary and sufficient for treating p as a reason for action (Hawthorne and Stanley 2008), or that knowing p is sufficient for reasonably acting as if p (Fantl and McGrath 2009: (...) 66). Although their defenders may not always pose their theses in the language of practical reasons, the idea of a practical reason is central to each of these views. Yet there remain issues concerning the nature and basis of practical reasons on which defenders of pragmatic encroachment have not taken a position, including—as I will explain—the issue of whether internalism or externalism about reasons is true. It may be thought that the position the defender of pragmatic encroachment takes on this does not make a difference to the truth or falsity of her main thesis. In this chapter, I will show that it does matter, in the sense that her view will generate different verdicts about cases depending on whether she endorses internal- ism or externalism about reasons. Given the role of cases in providing intui- tive support for or against the theory, this, in turn, makes a difference to the plausibility of pragmatic encroachment. (shrink)

I argue against two popular claims. The first is a descriptive, empirical thesis about the nature of ordinary human experience: ‘each of us constructs and lives a “narrative” . . . this narrative is us, our identities’ (Oliver Sacks); ‘self is a perpetually rewritten story . . . in the end, we become the autobiographical narratives by which we “tell about” our lives’ (Jerry Bruner); ‘we are all virtuoso novelists. . . . We try to make all of our material (...) cohere into a single good story. And that story is our autobiography. The chief fictional char- acter . . . of that autobiography is one’s self’ (Dan Dennett). The second is a normative, ethical claim: we ought to live our lives narratively, or as a story; a ‘basic condition of making sense of ourselves is that we grasp our lives in a narrative’ and have an understanding of our lives ‘as an unfolding story’ (Charles Taylor). A person ‘creates his identity [only] by forming an autobiographical narrative – a story of his life’, and must be in possession of a full and ‘explicit narrative [of his life] to develop fully as a person’ (Marya Schechtman). (shrink)

I endorse a 12-word metaphysics. [1] Stoff ist Kraft ≈ being is energy. [2] Wesen ist Werden ≈ being is becoming. [3] Sein ist Sosein ≈ being is qualit[ativit]y. [4] Ansichsein ist Fürsichsein ≈ being is mind. [1]–[3] are plausible metaphysical principles and unprejudiced consideration of what we know about concrete reality obliges us to favor [4], i.e. panpsychism or panexperientialism, above all other positive substantive proposals. For [i] panpsychism is the most ontologically parsimonious view, given that the existence of (...) conscious experience is certain and that panpsychism doesn’t posit the existence of any kind of stuff other than conscious experience. [ii] A question also arises about why metaphysicians have posited the existence of something for which there is zero evidence: non-experiential concrete reality. The question is the more pressing because of the silence of physics: physics with its numbers and equations is perfectly silent on the question of the intrinsic non-structural nature of reality. (shrink)

The concept of alienation has been used to capture a specific kind of social ill or malady, and one that philosophers have argued is distinctive of life in modern society. I argue that there is a properly epistemic form of alienation present in modern society that arises due to a conflict between the dynamics of group knowledge and traditional requirements on the intellectual virtue of individuals. As group-based knowledge becomes increasingly widespread in modern society, the conflict with virtue becomes more (...) pervasive, and the virtuous become alienated from fundamental epistemic goods. The aim of this paper is to examine this conflict and to highlight that the ‘social turn’ in epistemology is not free from costs. (shrink)

Suppose that X and Y can’t possibly exist apart in reality; then—by definition—there’s no real distinction between them, only a conceptual distinction. There’s a conceptual distinction between a rectilinear figure’s triangularity and its trilaterality, for example, but no real distinction. In fundamental metaphysics there is no real distinction between an object’s categorical properties and its dispositional properties. So too there is no real distinction between an object and its properties. And in fundamental metaphysics, for X and Y to be such (...) that there is no real distinction between them is for them to be identical. (shrink)

What does it mean to listen to someone respectfully, that is, insofar as they are due recognition respect? This paper addresses that question and gives the following answer: it is to listen in such a way that you are open to being surprised. A specific interpretation of this openness to surprise is then defended.

The shortest form of the Basic Argument against free will and moral responsibility runs as follows: [1] When you act, you do what you do—in the situation in which you find yourself—because of the way you are. [2] If you do what you do because of the way you are, then in order to be fully and ultimately responsible for what you do you must be fully and ultimately responsible for the way you are. But [3] You cannot be fully (...) and ultimately responsible for the way you are. So [4] You cannot be fully and ultimately responsible for what you do. This paper restates the Basic Argument and varies it in several different ways. (shrink)

ABSTRACTMost of Spinoza’s arguments for God’s existence do not rely on any special feature of God, but instead on merely general features of substance. This raises the following worry: those arguments prove the existence of non-divine substances just as much as they prove God’s existence, and yet there is not enough room in Spinoza’s system for all these substances. I argue that Spinoza attempts to solve this problem by using a principle of plenitude to rule out the existence of other (...) substances and that the principle cannot be derived from the PSR, as many claim.Abbreviation: PSR: Principle of Sufficient Reason. (shrink)

In this article I introduce a simple classroom exercise intended to help students better understand Robert Nozick’s famous Wilt Chamberlain thought experiment. I outline the setup and rules of the Basic Version of the Game and explain its primary pedagogical benefits. I then offer several more sophisticated versions of the Game which can help to illustrate the difference between Nozick’s libertarianism and luck egalitarianism.

This paper examines Spinoza’s view on the consistency of mental representation. First, I argue that he departs from Scholastic tradition by arguing that all mental states—whether desires, intentions, beliefs, perceptions, entertainings, etc.—must be logically consistent. Second, I argue that his endorsement of this view is motivated by key Spinozistic doctrines, most importantly the doctrine that all acts of thought represent what could follow from God’s nature. Finally, I argue that Spinoza’s view that all mental representation is consistent pushes him to (...) a linguistic account of contradiction. (shrink)

This paper argues that ability to do otherwise (in the compatibilist sense) at the moment of initiation of action is a necessary condition of being able to act at all. If the argument is correct, it shows that Harry Frankfurt never provided a genuine counterexample to the 'principles of alternative possibilities' in his 1969 paper ‘Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility’. The paper was written without knowledge of Frankfurt's paper.

Many students struggle to enter moral debates in a productive way because they automatically think of moral claims as ‘just opinions’ and not something one could productively argue about. Underlying this response are various versions of a muddled distinction between ‘facts’ and ‘opinions.’ This paper outlines a way to help students overcome their use of this distinction, thereby clearing an obstacle to true moral debate. It explains why the fact-opinion distinction should simply be scrapped, rather than merely sharpened. It then (...) proposes a different distinction well suited to replace it. Finally, it outlines an activity which can be used to teach the new distinction, as well as a number of benefits to attempting the whole replacement process. (shrink)

Short version of 'Real materialism', given at Tucson III Conference, 1998. (1) physicalism is true (2) the qualitative character of experience is real, as most naively understood ... so (3) the qualitative character of experience (considered specifically as such) is wholly physical. ‘How can consciousness possibly be physical, given what we know about the physical?’ To ask this question is already to have gone wrong. We have no good reason (as Priestley and Russell and others observe) to think that we (...) know anything about the physical that gives us any reason to find any problem in the idea that consciousness is wholly physical. (shrink)

Plato’s partition argument infers that the soul has parts from the fact that the soul experiences mental conflict. We consider an ambiguity in the concept of mental conflict. According to the first sense of conflict, a soul is in conflict when it has desires whose satisfaction is logically incompatible. According to the second sense of conflict, a soul is in conflict when it has desires which are logically incompatible even when they are unsatisfied. This raises a dilemma: if the mental (...) conflict is supposed to be the latter kind of conflict, then the partition argument is valid but is likely unsound; if it’s supposed to be the former kind, then the partition argument has true premises but is invalid. We explain this dilemma in detail and defend a dispositionalist solution to it. (shrink)

People attribute resistance to bodies in Spinoza's physics. It's not always clear what they mean when they do this, or whether they are entitled to. This article clarifies what it would mean, and examines the evidence for attributing resistance. The verdict: there's some evidence, but not nearly as much as people think.

many things were back to front in 20th century analytic philosophy.

Spinoza reasons about impossibilities on a regular basis. But he also says they're unthinkable and that reasoning is a mental process. How can he do this? The paper defends a linguistic account of counterpossible inferences in Spinoza's geometrical method.

This paper endorses and expounds the widely held view that all experience involves pre-reflective self-consciousness or self-awareness. It argues that pre-reflective self-consciousness does not involve any sort of experience of ‘me-ness’ or ‘mine-ness’, and that all self-consciousness is essentially relational, essentially has the subject as intentional object, essentially involves representation, in particular self-representation, as well as ‘immediate acquaintance’, in particular immediate self-acquaintance; and cannot in one primordial respect involve a mistake on the part of the subject of who it is.

Volume 27, Issue 3, May 2019, Page 652-654.

The argument between Jacques Maritain and Charles de Koninck over the primacy of the common good is well known. Yet, even though Mary Keys has carefully arbitrated this debate, it still remains problematic for Alasdair MacIntyre, particularly because of the role rights play in both Maritain and Catholic Social Thought. I examine Keys’ argument and, in addition, Deborah Wallace’s account of MacIntyre’s criticism of rights in Catholic social thought. I argue, in the end, that what Maritain, and in consequence Keys (...) and Wallace, miss about the common good is its relationship to practical reasoning, and that MacIntyre highlights both that relationship and the role of the common good in human dignity. (shrink)

In this essay I show that Kant intended his anthropology lectures and book, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, to be a Klugheitslehre (theory of prudence). The essay draws on many quotes from these sources to show that Kant wanted to develop a theory of how to use other people for one’s own ends. Although so much of the lectures and book are in conversation with Baumgarten’s empirical psychology, there are enough references to Klugheit (prudence) and klug (clever) action (...) to support this thesis. Prudence is a skill that human beings should develop and hence is not excluded from human life even though it is not the basis of morality. The purpose of Klugheit is to achieve happiness but the means to that happiness involves using other people for one’s own ends. In order to use others as a means to one’s own ends, a person must in someway satisfy the inclinations of the other person so that they cooperate in one’s ends. However it is also possible to dominate another person and use them as well if they are dominated by a passion but this is not prudent since it does not achieve happiness except in the case of a husband and wife. Kant’s distinction between Weltklugheit and Privatklugheit also appears to be confirmed in that he advances the idea that sociable means of gaining the cooperation of others (Privatklugheit) leads to the lasting happiness of a person and to the development of civilization. (shrink)

I present a solution to the epistemological or characterisation problem of induction. In part I, Bayesian Confirmation Theory (BCT) is discussed as a good contender for such a solution but with a fundamental explanatory gap (along with other well discussed problems); useful assigned probabilities like priors require substantive degrees of belief about the world. I assert that one does not have such substantive information about the world. Consequently, an explanation is needed for how one can be licensed to act as (...) if one has substantive information about the world when one does not. I sketch the outlines of a solution in part I, showing how it differs from others, with full details to follow in subsequent parts. The solution is pragmatic in sentiment (though differs in specifics to arguments from, for example, William James); the conceptions we use to guide our actions are and should be at least partly determined by preferences. This is cashed out in a reformulation of decision theory motivated by a non-reductive formulation of hypotheses and logic. A distinction emerges between initial assumptions--that can be non-dogmatic--and effective assumptions that can simultaneously be substantive. An explanation is provided for the plausibility arguments used to explain assigned probabilities in BCT. -/- In subsequent parts, logic is constructed from principles independent of language and mind. In particular, propositions are defined to not have form. Probabilities are logical and uniquely determined by assumptions. The problems considered fatal to logical probabilities--Goodman's `grue' problem and the uniqueness of priors problem are dissolved due to the particular formulation of logic used. Other problems such as the zero-prior problem are also solved. -/- A universal theory of (non-linguistic) meaning is developed. Problems with counterfactual conditionals are solved by developing concepts of abstractions and corresponding pictures that make up hypotheses. Spaces of hypotheses and the version of Bayes' theorem that utilises them emerge from first principles. -/- Theoretical virtues for hypotheses emerge from the theory. Explanatory force is explicated. The significance of effective assumptions is partly determined by combinatoric factors relating to the structure of hypotheses. I conjecture that this is the origin of simplicity. (shrink)

Je cherche à explorer comment l'expérience de la temporalité est multiforme et fortement perturbée à l'époque de la pandémie Covid-19 et des politiques de confinement, générant une expérience d'hétérochronie, qui remet en question notre rapport à la vie.

Le but de ce texte est de mettre en évidence les équi­valences entre la façon dont le concept de conatus résout, dans l'Éthique, le problème de l'unité modale complexe. en rendant consis­tant le concept de chose singulière en tant que celle-ci doit être consi­dérée comme un légitime sujet d'attribution d'états, et la façon dont ce même concept dessine le rapport cognitif de l'esprit avec lui-même, rapport par lequel l'esprit se saisit comme sujet de ses états et qui ca­ractérise la notion (...) moderne de subjectivité. Ainsi, en éclairant cet as­pect du concept spinoziste de chose singulière. on comprendra aussi, de façon indirecte, l'une des conditions par lesquelles les choses peuvent, dans la doctrine spinoziste, devenir des objets ou des signes pour la connaissance humaine. (shrink)

The question I want to explore is whether experience supports an antireductionist ontology of time, that is, whether we should take it to support an ontology that includes a primitive, monadic property of nowness responsible for the special feel of events in the present, and a relation of passage that events instantiate in virtue of literally passing from the future, to the present, and then into the past.

The genetic modification of pigs as a source of transplantable organs is one of several possible solutions to the chronic organ shortage. This paper describes existing ethical tensions in xenotransplantation (XTx) that argue against pursuing it. Recommendations for lifelong infectious disease surveillance and notification of close contacts of recipients are in tension with the rights of human research subjects. Parental/guardian consent for pediatric xenograft recipients is in tension with a child’s right to an open future. Individual consent to transplant is (...) in tension with public health threats that include zoonotic diseases. XTx amplifies concerns about justice in organ transplantation and could exacerbate existing inequities. The prevention of infectious disease in source animals is in tension with the best practices of animal care and animal welfare, requiring isolation, ethologically inappropriate housing, and invasive reproductive procedures that would severely impact the well-being of intelligent social creatures like pigs. (shrink)

I defend a one category ontology: an ontology that denies that we need more than one fundamental category to support the ontological structure of the world. Categorical fundamentality is understood in terms of the metaphysically prior, as that in which everything else in the world consists. One category ontologies are deeply appealing, because their ontological simplicity gives them an unmatched elegance and spareness. I’m a fan of a one category ontology that collapses the distinction between particular and property, replacing it (...) with a single fundamental category of intrinsic characters or qualities. We may describe the qualities as qualitative charactersor as modes, perhaps on the model of Aristotelian qualitative (nonsubstantial) kinds, and I will use the term “properties” interchangeably with “qualities”. The qualities are repeatable and reasonably sparse, although, as I discuss in section 2.6, there are empirical reasons that may suggest, depending on one’s preferred fundamental physical theory, that they include irreducibly intensive qualities. There are no uninstantiated qualities. I also assume that the fundamental qualitative natures are intrinsic, although physics may ultimately suggest that some of them are extrinsic. On my view, matter, concrete objects, abstract objects, and perhaps even spacetime are constructed from mereological fusions of qualities, so the world is simply a vast mixture of qualities, including polyadic properties (i.e., relations). This means that everything there is, including concrete objects like persons or stars, is a quality, a qualitative fusion, or a portion of the extended qualitative fusion that is the worldwhole. I call my view mereological bundle theory. (shrink)

Philosophers of experiment have acknowledged that experiments are often more than mere hypothesis-tests, once thought to be an experiment's exclusive calling. Drawing on examples from contemporary biology, I make an additional amendment to our understanding of experiment by examining the way that `wide' instrumentation can, for reasons of efficiency, lead scientists away from traditional hypothesis-directed methods of experimentation and towards exploratory methods.

In this аrtiсlе, thе аuthоr fосusеs оn еluсidаting sоmе philоsоphiсаl аspесts оf intеrсulturаl соmmuniсаtiоn in thе соntеxt оf glоbаlizаtiоn оn thе bаsis оf rесоgnizing thе соntributiоns аnd limitаtiоns оf Wittgеnstеin tо thе birth оf philоsоphy. сulturе study. Thоsе philоsоphiсаl issuеs аrе: thе similаrity in thinking аnd асting оf pеоplе асrоss сulturеs; divеrsity оf сulturеs, wоrldviеws аnd wаys оf lifе. Frоm thе Mаrxist pоint оf viеw, thе аuthоr pоintеd оut аnd сritiсizеd thе limitаtiоns оf Wittgеnstеin's philоsоphiсаl соnсеptiоn; аnd аt thе sаmе (...) timе оffеr аnd еxplаin sоlutiоns tо implеmеnt intеrсulturаl соmmuniсаtiоn in thе соntеxt оf сurrеnt glоbаlizаtiоn. (shrink)

This discussion revises and extends Jonny Anomaly's ‘public goods’ account of public health ethics in light of recent criticism from Richard Dees. Public goods are goods that are both non-rival and non-excludable. What is significant about such goods is that they are not always provided efficiently by the market. Indeed, the state can sometimes realize efficiency gains either by supplying such goods directly or by compelling private purchase. But public goods are not the only goods that the market may fail (...) to provide efficiently. This point to a way of broadening the public goods account of public health to accommodate Dees' counterexamples, without abandoning its distinctive appeal. On the market failures approach to public health ethics, the role of public health is to correct public health-related market failures of all kinds, so far as possible. The underlying moral commitment is to economic efficiency in the sense of Pareto: if we can re-allocate resources in the economy so as to raise the welfare of some without lowering the welfare of any other, we ought to do so. (shrink)

I argue that we can understand the de se by employing the subjective mode of presentation or, if one’s ontology permits it, by defending an abundant ontology of perspectival personal properties or facts. I do this in the context of a discussion of Cappelen and Dever’s recent criticisms of the de se. Then, I discuss the distinctive role of the first personal perspective in discussions about empathy, rational deference, and self-understanding, and develop a way to frame the problem of lacking (...) prospective access to your future self as a problem with your capacity to imaginatively empathize with your future selves. (shrink)

The tripartite account of propositional, fallibilist knowledge that p as justified true belief can become adequate only if it can solve the Gettier Problem. However, the latter can be solved only if the problem of a successful coordination of the resources (at least truth and justification) necessary and sufficient to deliver propositional, fallibilist knowledge that p can be solved. In this paper, the coordination problem is proved to be insolvable by showing that it is equivalent to the ''''coordinated attack'''' problem, (...) which is demonstrably insolvable in epistemic logic. It follows that the tripartite account is not merely inadequate as it stands, as proved by Gettier-type counterexamples, but demonstrably irreparable in principle, so that efforts to improve it can never succeed. (shrink)

It seems natural to choose whether to have a child by reflecting on what it would be like to actually have a child. I argue that this natural approach fails. If you choose to become a parent, and your choice is based on projections about what you think it would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. If you choose to remain childless, and your choice is based upon projections about what you think it (...) would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. This suggests we should reject our ordinary conception of how to make this life-changing decision, and raises general questions about how to rationally approach important life choices. (shrink)

Philosophical discussions of species have focused on multicellular, sexual animals and have often neglected to consider unicellular organisms like bacteria. This article begins to fill this gap by considering what species concepts, if any, apply neatly to the bacterial world. First, I argue that the biological species concept cannot be applied to bacteria because of the variable rates of genetic transfer between populations, depending in part on which gene type is prioritized. Second, I present a critique of phylogenetic bacterial species, (...) arguing that phylogenetic bacterial classification requires a questionable metaphysical commitment to the existence of essential genes. I conclude by considering how microbiologists have dealt with these biological complexities by using more pragmatic and not exclusively evolutionary accounts of species. I argue that this pragmatism is not borne of laziness but rather of the substantial conceptual problems in classifying bacteria based on any evolutionary standard. (shrink)

Moral reasoning traditionally distinguishes two types of evil: moral and natural. The standard view is that ME is the product of human agency and so includes phenomena such as war, torture and psychological cruelty; that NE is the product of nonhuman agency, and so includes natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, disease and famine; and finally, that more complex cases are appropriately analysed as a combination of ME and NE. Recently, as a result of developments in autonomous agents in cyberspace, (...) a new class of interesting and important examples of hybrid evil has come to light. In this paper, it is called artificial evil and a case is made for considering it to complement ME and NE to produce a more adequate taxonomy. By isolating the features that have led to the appearance of AE, cyberspace is characterised as a self-contained environment that forms the essential component in any foundation of the emerging field of Computer Ethics. It is argued that this goes some way towards providing a methodological explanation of why cyberspace is central to so many of CE’s concerns; and it is shown how notions of good and evil can be formulated in cyberspace. Of considerable interest is how the propensity for an agent’s action to be morally good or evil can be determined even in the absence of biologically sentient participants and thus allows artificial agents not only to perpetrate evil but conversely to ‘receive’ or ‘suffer from’ it. The thesis defended is that the notion of entropy structure, which encapsulates human value judgement concerning cyberspace in a formal mathematical definition, is sufficient to achieve this purpose and, moreover, that the concept of AE can be determined formally, by mathematical methods. A consequence of this approach is that the debate on whether CE should be considered unique, and hence developed as a Macroethics, may be viewed, constructively, in an alternative manner. The case is made that whilst CE issues are not uncontroversially unique, they are sufficiently novel to render inadequate the approach of standard Macroethics such as Utilitarianism and Deontologism and hence to prompt the search for a robust ethical theory that can deal with them successfully. The name Information Ethics is proposed for that theory. It is argued that the uniqueness of IE is justified by its being non-biologically biased and patient-oriented: IE is an Environmental Macroethics based on the concept of data entity rather than life. It follows that the novelty of CE issues such as AE can be appreciated properly because IE provides a new perspective. In light of the discussion provided in this paper, it is concluded that Computer Ethics is worthy of independent study because it requires its own application-specific knowledge and is capable of supporting a methodological foundation, Information Ethics. (shrink)

In a recent issue of Philosophy East and West Douglas Berger defends a new reading of Mūlamadhyamakakārikā XXIV : 18, arguing that most contemporary translators mistranslate the important term prajñaptir upādāya, misreading it as a compound indicating "dependent designation" or something of the sort, instead of taking it simply to mean "this notion, once acquired." He attributes this alleged error, pervasive in modern scholarship, to Candrakīrti, who, Berger correctly notes, argues for the interpretation he rejects.Berger's analysis, and the reading of (...) the text he suggests is grounded on that analysis, is insightful and fascinating, and certainly generates an understanding of Nāgārjuna's enterprise that is welcome .. (shrink)

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Volume 21, Issue 2, Page 165-189, May 2022. It is generally acknowledged that a certain amount of state intervention in health and health care is needed to address the significant market failures in these sectors; however, it is also thought that the primary rationale for state involvement in health must lie elsewhere, for example in an egalitarian commitment to equalizing access to health care for all citizens. This paper argues that a complete theory of justice in (...) health can be derived from a commitment to correcting market failure, or in other words promoting Pareto-efficiency, in the domain of health. This approach can address familiar problems around access to care, as well as problems related to resource allocation and rationing, the control of health care costs, and the foundations of public health. Egalitarian theories of justice in health cannot make sense of the depth and pervasiveness of state involvement in health and health care; only a theory rooted in the need to correct market failure can. (shrink)

The self can be understood in objective metaphysical terms as a bundle of properties, as a substance, or as some other kind of entity on our metaphysical list of what there is. Such an approach explores the metaphysical nature of the self when regarded from a suitably impersonal, ontological perspective. It explores the nature and structure of the self in objective reality, that is, the nature and structure of the self from without. This is the objective self. I am taking (...) a different approach. In addition to objective reality, which is usually understood and explored from an impersonal, quasi-observational and metaphysically realist perspective, we can also explore the nature and structure of subjective reality. The nature and structure of subjective reality is defined by the nature and structure of first-personal, conscious experience. Subjective reality is as real as objective reality, and a metaphysical realist such as myself can endorse the existence of both kinds of ontology. The mental states that, as experienced from the first-personal or subjective perspective, capture the nature and structure of subjective reality, are included in objective reality. The questions to explore in a subjective ontology of the self concern the nature and structure of the self from the first-personal or subjective perspective, that is, the nature and structure of the self from within. This is the subjective self. (shrink)

Darwinism, especially in the form of the Modern Synthesis, has become one of the most influential theories in the worldwide scientific community. However, due to its often dogmatic interpretation, it is more and more orthodoxical. An increasing number of scientists have come to criticise Darwinism and go beyond it with a systemic approach and an expanded vision of the evolutionary process. As a matter of fact, the discovery of natural genetic engineering mechanisms shows that living cells are able to rewrite (...) their own genetic material at the genomic level, thus leading to evolutionary innovations. This teleological standpoint triggers a paradigm shift that could turn out to be a genuine scientific revolution. (shrink)

James Shaw has written an excellent book on Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations. It manages to provide fresh perspectives on a topic on which it seemed.

Galileo’s Error is a superlative work of public philosophy, particularly as a way of introducing modern academic panpsychism to a broader audience. In this commentary, I reflect on an issue that is prominent, though often with different background concerns, in both academic and popular discourse: what it means to be ‘scientific’ or ‘unscientific’. Panpsychism is not itself a scientific hypothesis, but neither is it (as critics sometimes claim) in conflict with science. Indeed, Goff argues, and I agree, that panpsychism is (...) an eminently scientific worldview, in the sense of a way of viewing reality that accords with and embraces what science reveals. But what exactly it means to ‘accord with and embrace’ science is disputed; this paper tries to untangle some of the threads. (shrink)