First impressions suggest the following contrast between perception and memory: perception generates new beliefs and reasons, justification, or evidence for those beliefs; memory preserves old beliefs and reasons, justification, or evidence for those beliefs. In this paper, I argue that reflection on perceptual learning gives us reason to adopt an alternative picture on which perception plays both generative and preservative epistemic roles.

What are intuitions? Stereotypical examples may suggest that they are the results of common intellectual reflexes. But some intuitions defy the stereotype: there are hard-won intuitions that take d...

In Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics, L.W. Sumner defends two significant constraints on one’s theory of welfare: formality and generality. An adequate theory of welfare, claims Sumner, must give a constitutive account of the “good-for” relation. This constitutive account must be sufficiently general that any entity whose status as a welfare subject is uncontroversial falls within its scope. This paper will argue that Sumner’s proposed constraints are particularly significant to utilitarian arguments for the equal moral considerability of non-human animals. In the (...) absence of these constraints, the inconsistency that is alleged to follow from denying moral considerability to non-human animals, while affirming it for humans, fails to obtain. I will focus on Peter Singer’s argument for the equal moral considerability of non-human animals, in order to support the conclusion that questions about the formality and generality of welfare are significant areas of further research for philosophers of animal welfare. (shrink)

In this paper I articulate and defend a view that I call phenomenal dogmatism about intuitive justification. It is dogmatic because it includes the thesis: if it intuitively seems to you that p, then you thereby have some prima facie justification for believing that p. It is phenomenalist because it includes the thesis: intuitions justify us in believing their contents in virtue of their phenomenology—and in particular their presentational phenomenology. I explore the nature of presentational phenomenology as it occurs perception, (...) and I make a case for thinking that it is present in a wide variety of logical, mathematical, and philosophical intuitions. (shrink)

What are intuitions? According to doxastic views, they are doxastic attitudes or dispositions, such as judgments or inclinations to make judgments. According to perceptualist views, they are—like perceptual experiences—pre-doxastic experiences that—unlike perceptual experiences—represent abstract matters as being a certain way. In this paper I argue against doxasticism and in favor of perceptualism. I describe two features that militate against doxasticist views of perception itself: perception is belief-independent and perception is presentational. Then I argue that intuitions also have both features. The (...) upshot is that intuitions are importantly similar to perceptual experiences, and so should not be identified with doxastic attitudes or dispositions. I consider a popular argument from the introspective absence of sui generis intuition experiences in favor of doxasticism. I develop a conception of intuition experiences that helps to defuse this argument. (shrink)

A blindfolded clairvoyant walks into a room and immediately knows how it is arranged. You walk in and immediately see how it is arranged. Though both of you represent the room as being arranged in the same way, you have different experiences. Your experience doesn’t just represent that the room is arranged a certain way; it also visually presents the very items in the room that make that representation true. Call the felt aspect of your experience made salient by this (...) contrast its presentational phenomenology. Many philosophers have observed that perceptual experiences have presentational phenomenology. In this paper I explore its nature, scope, and significance. I argue that in addition to perceptual experiences, presentational phenomenology can be found in intuitive, introspective, imaginative, and recollective experiences. I also argue that presentational phenomenology is epistemologically significant: it plays a central role in explaining why the experiences that have it justify beliefs and give us knowledge. (shrink)

Experiences justify beliefs about our environment. Sometimes the justification is immediate: seeing a red light immediately justifies believing there is a red light. Other times the justification is mediate: seeing a red light justifies believing one should brake in a way that is mediated by background knowledge of traffic signals. How does this distinction map onto the distinction between what is and what isn't part of the content of experience? Epistemic egalitarians think that experiences immediately justify whatever is part of (...) their content. Epistemic elitists deny this and think that there is some further constraint the contents of experience must satisfy to be immediately justified. Here I defend epistemic elitism, propose a phenomenological account of what the further constraint is, and explore the resulting view's consequences for our knowledge of other minds, and in particular for perceptual theories of this knowledge. (shrink)

Expertise is traditionally classified into perceptual, cognitive, and motor forms. I argue that the empirical research literature on expertise gives us compelling reasons to reject this traditional classification and accept an alternative. According to the alternative I support there is expertise in forming impressions, which further divides into expertise in forming sensory and intellectual impressions, and there is expertise in performing actions, which further divides into expertise in performing mental and bodily actions. The traditional category of cognitive expertise splits into (...) two--expertise in forming intellectual impressions and expertise in performing mental actions. I consider and address a challenge to my case in favor of adopting this alternative classification of expertise that derives from dual process theories of cognition. (shrink)

Introduction: The Kenyan government has put a spirited reform to ensure all Kenyans get universal healthcare. This has led to restructuring of several entities among them the health insurance industry. This is geared at alleviating the burden of catastrophic expenditure on health from the poor Kenyans. However, insurance uptake remains at less than a quarter of the population with many Kenyans still paying for healthcare out-of-pocket. These out-of-pocket payers often don’t afford the ever-increasing cost of healthcare in Kenya. This study (...) looked at how doctors deal with patients given their modality of payment. Methodology: This was an online based survey that was distributed to Kenyan doctors via email by Kenya Medical Association. The survey sought information from the respondents on how they dealt with patients given their modality of payment. In addition, respondents were asked to provide an example of a case they had dealt with that touched on each payment modality. Results: Respondents gave their experiences where insurance had influenced their clinical decisions. Codes developed from the prose were; “inability to pay”, “harmful to the patient”, “changed the prescription” among others Health insurance played a crucial role whenever respondents made decisions. Top on the list of things that the majority indicated would be considered is insurance status and/or their ability of patients to pay for the services. Conclusion: Respondents are stuck in a limbo; striving to give the best care to patients but limited by the patients’ inability to pay. In explaining their experiences, respondents explain a situation where they intend to offer the best, but patients cannot afford. This especially so for those without health insurance who end up either not getting services or at the very best, get inferior services. (shrink)

Dogmatists and phenomenal conservatives think that if it perceptually seems to you that p, then you thereby have some prima facie justification for believing that p. Increasingly, writers about these views have argued that perceptual seemings are composed of two other states: a sensation followed by a seeming. In this article we critically examine this movement. First we argue that there are no compelling reasons to think of perceptual seemings as so composed. Second we argue that even if they were (...) so composed, this underlying disunity in metaphysical or psychological structure would fall below the threshold of epistemic significance. (shrink)

According to proponents of irreducible cognitive phenomenology some cognitive states put one in phenomenal states for which no wholly sensory states suffice. One of the main approaches to defending the view that there is irreducible cognitive phenomenology is to give a phenomenal contrast argument. In this paper I distinguish three kinds of phenomenal contrast argument: what I call pure—represented by Strawson's Jack/Jacques argument—hypothetical—represented by Kriegel's Zoe argument—and glossed—first developed here. I argue that pure and hypothetical phenomenal contrast arguments face significant (...) difficulties, but that there is a sound glossed phenomenal contrast argument for irreducible cognitive phenomenology. (shrink)

NOTE: this is a substantial revision of a previously uploaded draft. Intuitions are often thought of as inputs to theoretical reasoning. For example, you might form a belief by taking an intuition at face value, or you might take your intuitions as starting points in the method of reflective equilibrium. The aim of this paper is to argue that in addition to these roles intuitions also play action-guiding roles. The argument proceeds by reflection on the transmission of justification through inference. (...) According to inferential internalists, in order to gain justification for believing the conclusion of an argument by inferring it from the premises in that argument one must “see” that the premises support the conclusion. I motivate this view and endorse the idea that one’s “seeing” such a support relation consists of one’s having an intuition. In a number of recent papers, Paul Boghossian has pressed a regress argument against inferential internalism inspired by Lewis Carroll’s dialogue “What the Tortoise Said to Achilles.” I develop a response to Bogossian’s argument according to which intuitions work like mental imperatives and inferences are mental actions performed by obeying them. After developing this response to Boghossian’s argument, I take up the question of what it is in virtue of which intuitions play a guidance role, when they do so. (shrink)

In this paper I assume that we have some intuitive knowledge—i.e. beliefs that amount to knowledge because they are based on intuitions. The question I take up is this: given that some intuition makes a belief based on it amount to knowledge, in virtue of what does it do so? We can ask a similar question about perception. That is: given that some perception makes a belief based on it amount to knowledge, in virtue of what does it do so? (...) A natural idea about perception is that a perception makes a belief amount to knowledge in part by making you sensorily aware of the concrete objects it is about. The analogous idea about intuition is that an intuition makes a belief amount to knowledge in part by making you intellectually aware of the abstract objects it is about. I expand both ideas into fuller accounts of perceptual and intuitive knowledge, explain the main challenge to this sort of account of intuitive knowledge (i.e. the challenge of making sense of intellectual awareness), and develop a response to it. (shrink)

In a pair of recent essays, William Lane Craig has argued that certain open theist understandings of the nature of the future are both semantically and modally confused. I argue that this is not the case and show that, if consistently observed, the customary semantics for counterfactuals Craig relies on not only undermine the validity of his complaint against the open theist, they actually support an argument for the openness position.

Awareness is a two-place determinable relation some determinates of which are seeing, hearing, etc. Abstract objects are items such as universals and functions, which contrast with concrete objects such as solids and liquids. It is uncontroversial that we are sometimes aware of concrete objects. In this paper I explore the more controversial topic of awareness of abstract objects. I distinguish two questions. First, the Existence Question: are there any experiences that make their subjects aware of abstract objects? Second, the Grounding (...) Question: if an experience makes its subject aware of an abstract object, in virtue of what does it do so? I defend the view that intuitions, specifically mathematical intuitions, sometimes make their subjects aware of abstract objects. In defending this view, I develop an account of the ground of intuitive awareness. (shrink)

Here are four examples of “seeing.” You see that something green is wriggling. You see that an iguana is in distress. You see that someone is wrongfully harming an iguana. You see that torturing animals is wrong. The first is an example of low-level perception. You visually represent color and motion. The second is an example of high-level perception. You visually represent kind properties and mental properties. The third is an example of moral perception. You have an impression of moral (...) properties. The fourth is an example of intuition. You intellectually grasp a general moral truth. Should moral perceptions be thought of as high-level perceptions or as intuitions? Most proponents of moral perception have thought of them as high-level perceptions. I give epistemological and methodological reasons for thinking that at least some are examples of what I call low-level intuitions—experiences in which we both apprehend abstract generalities and apply them to concrete particulars. (shrink)

According to Michael Bergmann’s “intuitionist particularism,” our position with respect to skeptical arguments is much the same as it was with respect to Zeno’s paradoxes of motion prior to our developing sophisticated theories of the continuum. We observed ourselves move, and that closed the case in favor of the ability to move, even if we had no general theory about that ability. We observe ourselves form justified beliefs, and that closes the case in favor of the ability to form justified (...) beliefs, even if we have no general theory about that ability. I think this is a mistake. Our position with respect to skeptical arguments is like our current position with respect to Zeno’s paradoxes. Mathematics shows where Zeno’s reasoning goes wrong and provisions explanations of the ability to move. Epistemology shows where the skeptic’s reasoning goes wrong and provisions explanations of the ability to form justified beliefs. (shrink)

The Gettier Problem is the problem of revising the view that knowledge is justified true belief in a way that is immune to Gettier counter-examples. The “Gettier Problem problem”, according to Lycan, is the problem of saying what is misguided about trying to solve the Gettier Problem. In this paper I take up the Gettier Problem problem. I distinguish giving conditions that are necessary and sufficient for knowledge from giving conditions that explain why one knows when one does know. I (...) argue that the problem with the Gettier Problem is that it requires us to articulate conditions that suffice for knowledge even if those conditions are non-explanatory. After defending this view, I take up two related methodological issues, one about the evidence that can be given in favor of an account of knowledge, and one about the role that investigating justification might play in investigating knowledge. (shrink)

Freedom is a necessary prerequisite for living, as most existentialists emphasized. A prominent existentialist, Sartre, fully appreciated the importance of freedom in helping humans lead authentic lives. In his philosophical magnum opus, Being and Nothingness, he boldly contends that human beings possess absolute freedom, meaning they are not determined by external factors or pre-existing essence, and are therefore responsible for creating their 'own' meaning and purpose in life. Admittedly, Sartre claims that man's freedom is tied to responsibility. He proposed the (...) notion of freedom and responsibility as a moral compass for leading an authentic existence. This critical analysis explores Sartre's notion of existential freedom, focusing on its philosophical conceptions, implications, and deficiencies. This paper will properly understand Jean-Paul Sartre's notion of freedom and responsibility, starting by defining freedom in the way Sartre wants us to conceive it. This paper will examine some of the objections raised by Alvin Plantinga against Sartre's philosophy of freedom. And finally, this paper will also analyze Sartre's notion of freedom and responsibility and reveal its incompatibilities with universal morality. By critically evaluating Sartre's concept of existential freedom, this analysis aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of his existentialist philosophy and stimulate further dialogue on the nature and implications of human freedom. (shrink)

Aron Gurwitsch made two main contributions to phenomenology. He showed how to import Gestalt theoretical ideas into Husserl’s framework of constitutive phenomenology. And he explored the light this move sheds on both the overall structure of experience and on particular kinds of experience, especially perceptual experiences and conscious shifts in attention. The primary focus of this paper is the overall structure of experience. I show how Gurwitsch’s Gestalt theoretically informed phenomenological investigations provide a basis for defending what I will call (...) Phenomenal Holism, the view that all the parts of a total phenomenal state metaphysically depend on it. To illustrate how the ideas developed along the way can be used in advancing work on the phenomenology of particular kinds of experience, I draw on them in defending Husserl’s view that we can be aware of abstract objects against a phenomenological objection. (shrink)

Phenomenal holism is the thesis that some phenomenal characters can only be instantiated by experiences that are parts of certain wholes. The first aim of this paper is to defend phenomenal holism. I argue, moreover, that there are complex intellectual experiences (intellectual gestalts)—such as experiences of grasping a proof—whose parts instantiate holistic phenomenal characters. Proponents of cognitive phenomenology believe that some phenomenal characters can only be instantiated by experiences that are not purely sensory. The second aim of this paper is (...) to defend cognitive phenomenology. I argue that reflection on intellectual gestalts provides a basis for developing a case for cognitive phenomenology that is immune to many of the worries that beset more familiar arguments for cognitive phenomenology. (shrink)

According to the most popular non-skeptical views about intuition, intuitions justify beliefs because they are based on understanding. More precisely: if intuiting that p justifies you in believing that p it does so because your intuition is based on your understanding of the proposition that p. The aim of this paper is to raise some challenges for accounts of intuitive justification along these lines. I pursue this project from a non-skeptical perspective. I argue that there are cases in which intuiting (...) that p justifies you in believing that p, but such that there is no compelling reason to think this is because your intuition is based on your understanding of the proposition that p. (shrink)

According to current methodological orthodoxy philosophers rely on intuitions about thought experiments to refute general claims about the nature of knowledge, freedom, thought, reference, justice, beauty, etc. Philosophers working under the banner of ‘negative experimental philosophy’ have criticized more traditional philosophers for relying on this method. They argue that intuitions about thought experiments are influenced by factors that are irrelevant to the truth of their contents. Cappelen and Deutsch defend traditional philosophy against this critique by rejecting the picture of philosophical (...) methodology it presupposes: philosophers do not really rely on intuitions. In this paper, I defend methodological orthodoxy by arguing that philosophers must rely on intuitions somewhere and that they do in fact often rely on intuitions about thought experiments. I also argue in favor of a reply to the negative experimental critique that is similar to at least part of Deutsch’s own. (shrink)

In a previous issue of Philosophia Christi, Kirk MacGregor responded to an essay of mine in which I argued for a neo-Molinist account of open theism. The argument demonstrated how, given standard counterfactual semantics, one could derive an “open future square of opposition,” that is, a depiction of the logical relations that hold between future-tense statements from an open theistic standpoint. Conceding the validity of the argument, MacGregor nevertheless sought to deny its soundness by criticizing both its conclusion and the (...) Stalnaker-Lewis semantics on which the argument was based. In this paper, I argue that MacGregor’s reasons for rejecting the open future square, as well as his Molinist alternative to the Stalnaker-Lewis semantics, are uncompelling. (shrink)

By a reasoned change in logic I mean a change in the logic with which you make inferences that is based on your evidence. An argument sourced in recently published material Kripke lectured on in the 1970s, and dubbed the Adoption Problem by Birman (then Padró) in her 2015 dissertation, challenges the possibility of reasoned changes in logic. I explain why evidentialists should be alarmed by this challenge, and then I go on to dispel it. The Adoption Problem rests on (...) a failure to distinguish between logical principles such as Universal Instantiation and Modus Ponens which might or might not govern your inferences with superficially similar laws which must govern your cognitive architecture. (shrink)

This paper is a result of a remarks delivered at the 2014 conference of the Florida Philosophical Association during a book symposium on Elijah Chudnoff's Intuition.

There is a felt difference between following an argument to its conclusion and keeping up with an argument in your judgments while failing to see how its conclusion follows from its premises. In the first case there’s what I’m calling an inferential seeming, in the second case there isn’t. Inferential seemings exhibit a cluster of functional and normative characteristics whose integration in one mental state is puzzling. Several recent accounts of inferring suggest inferential seemings play a significant role in the (...) process, but none provides a fully satisfactory understanding of inferential seemings themselves. In this paper I critically examine theoretical options on offer in the existing literature, then develop an alternative view. I discuss implications for recent debates about general principles governing inference, such as Fumerton’s Principle of Inferential Justification and Boghossian’s Taking Condition. (shrink)

Reflection on the possibility of cases in which experience is cognitively penetrated has suggested to many that an experience's etiology can reduce its capacity to provide prima facie justification for believing its content below a baseline. This is epistemic downgrade due to etiology, and its possibility is incompatible with phenomenal conservatism. I develop a view that explains the epistemic deficiency in certain possible cases of cognitive penetration but on which there is no epistemic downgrading below a baseline and on which (...) etiology plays no explanatory role. This view is not phenomenal conservatism exactly, but it does capture what’s right about phenomenal conservatism. (shrink)

Reflectance physicalists define reflectance as the intrinsic disposition of a surface to reflect finite-duration light pulses at a given efficiency per wavelength. I criticize the received view of dispositional reflectance (David R. Hilbert’s) for failing to account for what I call “harmonic dispersion,” the inverse relationship of a light pulse's duration to its bandwidth. I argue that harmonic dispersion renders reflectance defined in terms of light pulses an extrinsic disposition. Reflectance defined as the per-wavelength efficiency to reflect the superimposed, infinite-duration, (...) Fourier harmonics of pulses can be an intrinsic disposition of surfaces. This conclusion raises questions about mathematical realism, about which I nevertheless remain neutral. (shrink)

The position of this paper is that the political developments in Nigeria has bearing with Protagoras’ “man is the measure”. This dictum simply implies humanism. It is based on this that this work posits that humanism is what underlies and informs the political developments in Nigeria. Hence, it is argued that all the political eras in Nigeria have the well-being of human beings as their impetus. Thus, this work is premised on the need to meet up with the welfare of (...) Nigerians, in which its failure has resulted in the political developments experienced within the Nigerian-nation states. This conclusion is reached through critical analysis and evaluation. (shrink)

Perceptually secured knowledge consists of beliefs that amount to knowledge just because they are based on suitable perceptual states. Relationism about the ground of perceptually secured knowledge is the view that if a perceptual state can make a belief based on it amount to knowledge, then it can do that because it constitutes an appropriate kind of relational state, e.g., a state of perceptual acquaintance. I explore the prospects of both maintaining that some beliefs amount to perceptually secured knowledge and (...) developing a relationist account of their ground. (shrink)

It may seem that when you have an emotional response to a perceived object or event that makes it seem to you that the perceived source of the emotion possesses some evaluative property, then you thereby have prima facie, immediate justification for believing that the object or event possesses the evaluative property. Call this view ‘dogmatism about emotional justification’. We defend a view of the structure of emotional awareness according to which the objects of emotional awareness are derived from other (...) experiences such as bodily sensation, inner awareness, sensory perception, memory, and imagination. On this basis, we argue that dogmatism about emotional justification is an untenable position, regardless of whether the special feature of an immediate justifier that makes it an immediate justifier is its presentational phenomenology or its evidence insensitivity. (shrink)

Abstract: Leadership quality is treated as both a specialized role and a social influence process and today’s business environment requires executives who are able to operate on a global scale. Talent development includes mobility between business units domestically and abroad. It is essential that job shifts and production structure be fundamentally aligned because developing large pool of talent could lead to oversupply and the developed team would simply have no place to go. The study was focused to establish effects of (...) talent development practices on leadership quality of financial sector regulatory institutions in Kenya through explanatory and cross-sectional survey design. A total population of 636 employees in the six financial sector regulatory institutions in Kenya were targeted. Stratified random sampling was embraced thus deriving 127 employees as the sample population. Both primary and secondary data was used where Primary data was collected using questionnaires which was analysed used SPSS software and presented as percentages, frequencies, means, charts and standard deviations. The study established that employee assessment, employee sourcing, leadership grooming and employee development programmes affect leadership quality. Human resource department needs to step up and play a critical role on employees’ talent development. There is need for management to have employee assessment on regular basis as this will help in identifying the skills they have and those they require, hence improving leadership quality. Over and above, the management need to have clear policies on employee assessment, sourcing, development and leadership grooming with an aim of improving. (shrink)

The literature on mathematics suggests that intuition plays a role in it as a ground of belief. This article explores the nature of intuition as it occurs in mathematical thinking. Section 1 suggests that intuitions should be understood by analogy with perceptions. Section 2 explains what fleshing out such an analogy requires. Section 3 discusses Kantian ways of fleshing it out. Section 4 discusses Platonist ways of fleshing it out. Section 5 sketches a proposal for resolving the main problem facing (...) Platonists—the problem of explaining how our experiences make contact with mathematical reality. (shrink)

What is the epistemic significance of taking a veridical perceptual experience at face value? To first approximations, the Minimal View says that it is true belief, and the Maximal View says that it is knowledge. I sympathetically explore the prospects of the Maximal View.

This chapter focuses on the relationship between consciousness and knowledge, and in particular on the role perceptual consciousness might play in justifying beliefs about the external world. We outline a version of phenomenal dogmatism according to which perceptual experiences immediately, prima facie justify certain select parts of their content, and do so in virtue of their having a distinctive phenomenology with respect to those contents. Along the way we take up various issues in connection with this core theme, including the (...) possibility of immediate justification, the dispute between representational and relational views of perception, the epistemic significance of cognitive penetration, the question of whether perceptual experiences are composed of more basic sensations and seemings, and questions about the existence and epistemic significance of high-level content. In a concluding section we briefly consider how some of the topics pursued here might generalize beyond perception. (shrink)

With his 1998 book, In Nature’s Interests? Gary Varner proved to be one of our most original and trenchant of environmental ethicists. Here, in the first of a promised two volume set, he makes his mark on another field, animal ethics, leaving an even deeper imprint. Thoroughly grounded in the relevant philosophical and scientific literatures, Varner is as precise in analysis as he is wide-ranging in scope. His writing is clear and rigorous, and he explains philosophical nuances with extraordinary (...) economy of expression. Never one to add an unnecessary clause to a sentence, Varner nonetheless constructs a formidable edifice while always dealing fairly with the authors he criticizes. His explication of the properties and moral status of what he calls near-persons is a crucial addition to the discussion of personhood initiated by Parfit in Reasons and Persons and subsequently applied to animals by McMahan in The Ethics of Killing. The comparison to McMahan is intentional for, to my mind, Varner vies with him as the most important animal ethicist since Singer and Regan. (shrink)

To teach the ethics of science to science majors, I follow several teachers in the literature who recommend “persona” writing, or the student construction of dialogues between ethical thinkers of interest. To engage science majors in particular, and especially those new to academic philosophy, I recommend constructing persona dialogues from Henri Poincaré’s essay, “Ethics and Science”, and the non-theological third chapter of Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment, Laudato si. This pairing of interlocutors offers two advantages. The first is that (...) science students are likely to recognize both names, since Poincaré appears in undergraduate mathematics and physics textbooks, and because Francis is an environmentalist celebrity. Hence students show more interest in these figures than in other philosophers. The second advantage is that the third chapter of Laudato si reads like an implicit rebuttal of Poincaré’s essay in many respects, and so contriving a dialogue between those authors both facilitates classroom discussion, and deserves attention from professional ethicists in its own right. In this paper, I present my own contrived dialogue between Francis and Poincaré, not for assigning to students as a reading, but as a template for an effective assignment product, and as a crib sheet for educators to preview the richly antiparallel themes between the two works. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Plantinga’s (1993, 2000, 2011) Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN). While there has been much discussion about Plantinga’s use of probabilities in the argument, I contend that insufficient attention has been paid to the question of how we are to interpret those probabilities. In this paper, I argue that views Plantinga defends elsewhere limit the range of interpretations available to him here. The upshot is that the EAAN is more limited in its applicability than Plantinga alleges.

Thought experiments figure prominently in contemporary epistemology. Beyond that humdrum observation, controversy abounds. The aim of this paper is to make progress on two fronts. On the descriptive front, the aim is to illuminate what the practice of using thought experiments involves. On the normative front, the aim is to illuminate what the practice of using thought experiments should involve. Thought experiments result in judgments that are passed on to further philosophical reasoning. What are these judgments? What is the point (...) of making them? What basis do we have for making them? A conception of thought experiments includes answers to these three questions. My thesis is that epistemologists should use thought experiments in accordance with a conception of them organized around the idea of explanation. My case for endorsing the thesis rests on the fruitfulness of the interventions in current debates about the content, point, and basis of thought experiment judgments that it suggests. (shrink)

In the debate over whether mathematical facts, properties, or entities explain physical events (in what philosophers call “extra-mathematical” explanations), Aidan Lyon’s (2012) affirmative answer stands out for its employment of the program explanation (PE) methodology of Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit (1990). Juha Saatsi (2012; 2016) objects, however, that Lyon’s examples from the indispensabilist literature are (i) unsuitable for PE, (ii) nominalizable into non-mathematical terms, and (iii) mysterious about the explanatory relation alleged to obtain between the PE’s mathematical explanantia and (...) physical explananda. In this paper, I propose a counterexample to Saatsi’s objections. My counterexample is Frank Jackson’s (1998a) program explanation for color experience, which I argue needs recasting as an extra-mathematical PE due to its implicit reliance on reflectance, a property that suffers conceptual regress unless redefined with Fourier harmonics. Pace Saatsi, I argue that this recast example is an authoritative PE, non-nominalizable, and minimally esoteric. Important for the indispensability debate at large, moreover, is that my counterexample reifies Fourier harmonics without the Enhanced Indispensability Argument (an argument to which Lyon applies PE as a premise). Indispensabilists have long overlooked the conditionalization of a limited mathematical realism on property realism, and my counterexample to Saatsi exploits this conditionalization. (shrink)

Gary Comstock considers whether it is ethically justified to pursue genetically modified (GM) crops and foods. He first considers intrinsic objections to GM crops that allege that the process of making GMOs is objectionable in itself. He argues that there is no justifiable basis for the objections — i.e. GM crops are not intrinsically ethically problematic. He then considers extrinsic objections to GM crops, including objections based on the precautionary principle, which focus on the potential harms that may result (...) from the adoption of GM organisms. He argues that these concerns have some merit. However, they do not justify giving up GM crops altogether. Instead, they require that GM crops be developed carefully and with appropriate oversight. Comstock then presents the positive case for GM crops that he endorses. It is based on three considerations: (i) the right of people to choose to adopt GM technology; (ii) the balance of likely benefits over harms to consumers and the environment from GM technology; and (iii) the wisdom of encouraging discovery, innovation, and careful regulation of GM technology. (shrink)

I argue for the moral relevance of a category of individuals I characterize as far-persons. Following Gary Varner, I distinguish near-persons, animals with a " robust autonoetic consciousness " but lacking an adult human's " biographical sense of self, " from the merely sentient, those animals living "entirely in the present." I note the possibility of a third class. Far-persons lack a biographical sense of self, possess a weak autonoetic consciousness, and are able to travel mentally through time a (...) distance that exceeds the capacities of the merely sentient. Far-persons are conscious of and exercise control over short-term cognitive states, states limited by their temporal duration. The animals in question, human and nonhuman, consciously choose among various strategies available to them to achieve their ends, making them subjects of what I call "lyrical experience:" brief and potentially intense pleasures and pains. But their ends expire minute-by-minute, not stretching beyond, I say metaphorically, the present hour. I conclude by discussing the moral status of far-persons. (shrink)

A properly programmed artificially intelligent agent may eventually have one duty, the duty to satisfice expected welfare. We explain this claim and defend it against objections.

Political development is basically a process that is concerned with the improvement of institutions, attitudes and values that form the political system of a society or nation. In Nigeria, a critical assessment has revealed that despite the nation’s abundant human and natural resources, her citizens are subjected to abject poverty. Thus, this paper sets study is to assess the level of political development in the country and give reasons for establishing strong institutions. This paper concludes that the nation’s political development (...) is hampered by factors like imposition of unrealistic policies on citizens and poor assessment/implementation of such policies, problem of socio-economic inequalities, historical challenge, corruption and mismanagement of resources and lack of credible leadership among others. This work, adopting a method of critical analysis, concludes that in order to tackle these setbacks and ensure sustainable political development in the nation there is urgent need for strong institutions.. (shrink)

Gettier’s paper, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?,” is widely taken to be a paradigm example of the sort of philosophical methodology that has been so hotly debated in the recent literature. Reflection on it motivates the following four theses about that methodology: (A) Intuitive judgments form an epistemically distinctive kind. (B) Intuitive judgments play an epistemically privileged role in philosophical methodology. (C) If intuitive judgments play an epistemically privileged role in philosophical methodology, then their role is to be taken as (...) given inputs into generally accepted forms of reasoning. (D) Philosophical methodology is reasonable. Negative experimental philosophers have empirically challenged (D). Radical responses to their challenge include Williamson’s rejection of (A) and Cappelen and Deutsch’s rejection of (B). Here I follow traditionalists in maintaining (A), (B), and (D), but suggest questioning (C), which has largely been taken as a fixed point in the literature. (shrink)

I respond to Ned Block’s claim that it is ridiculous to suppose that consciousness is a cultural construction based on language and learned in childhood. Block is wrong to dismiss social constructivist theories of consciousness on account of it being ludicrous that conscious experience is anything but a biological feature of our animal heritage, characterized by sensory experience, evolved over millions of years. By defending social constructivism in terms of both Julian Jaynes’ behaviorism and J.J. Gibson’s ecological psychology, I draw (...) a distinction between the experience or what-it-is-like of nonhuman animals engaging with the environment and the secret theater of speechless monologue that is familiar to a linguistically competent human adult. This distinction grounds the argument that consciousness proper should be seen as learned rather than innate and shared with nonhuman animals. Upon establishing this claim, I defend the Jaynesian definition of consciousness as a social–linguistic construct learned in childhood, structured in terms of lexical metaphors and narrative practice. Finally, I employ the Jaynesian distinction between cognition and consciousness to bridge the explanatory gap and deflate the supposed hard problem of consciousness. (shrink)

Hartry Field argues that conservative rather than true mathematical sentences facilitate deductions in nominalist (i.e., abstracta-free) science without prejudging its empirical outcomes. In this paper, I identify one branch of mathematics as nonconservative, for its indispensable role in enabling nominalist language about a fundamental scientific property, in a fictional scientific community. The fundamental property is electromagnetic reflectance, and the mathematics is Fourier analysis, which renders reflectance ascribable, and nominalist reflectance claims utterable, by this community. Using a recent characterization of conservativeness (...) by Kenneth Boyce, I argue that infinitudes can be rendered inherently mathematical and non-nominalizable in the fictional community, and that rendering infinitudes inherently mathematical for all real communities would yield a convincing counterexample to Fieldian conservativeness. (shrink)