Lewisian Genuine Realism about possible worlds is often deemed unable to accommodate impossible worlds and reap the benefits that these bestow to rival theories. This thesis explores two alternative extensions of GR into the terrain of impossible worlds. It is divided in six chapters. Chapter I outlines Lewis’ theory, the motivations for impossible worlds, and the central problem that such worlds present for GR: How can GR even understand the notion of an impossible world, given Lewis’ reductive theoretical framework? Since (...) the desideratum is to incorporate impossible worlds into GR without compromising Lewis’ reductive analysis of modality, Chapter II defends that analysis against objections. The rest of the thesis is devoted to incorporating impossible worlds into GR. Chapter III explores GR-friendly impossible worlds in the form of set-theoretic constructions out of genuine possibilia. Then, Chapters IV-VI venture into concrete impossible worlds. Chapter IV addresses Lewis’ objection against such worlds, to the effect that contradictions true at impossible worlds amount to true contradictions tout court. I argue that even if so, the relevant contradictions are only ever about the non-actual, and that Lewis’ argument relies on a premise that cannot be nonquestion- beggingly upheld in the face of genuine impossible worlds in any case. Chapter V proposes that Lewis’ reductive analysis can be preserved, even in the face of genuine impossibilia, if we differentiate the impossible from the possible by means of accessibility relations, understood non-modally in terms of similarity. Finally, Chapter VI counters objections to the effect that there are certain impossibilities, formulated in Lewis’ theoretical language, which genuine impossibilia should, but cannot, represent. I conclude that Genuine Realism is still very much in the running when the discussion turns to impossible worlds. (shrink)

This seminal paper, which marks a turning point of the chemical revolution, is presented for the first time in a complete English translation. In this first half Lavoisier undermines phlogiston chemistry by arguing that his French contemporaries had replaced Stahl’s original theory with radically different systems that conceptualised the phlogiston principle in completely incompatible ways. He refutes their claims by showing that these later models were riddled with inconsistencies as to phlogiston’s weight, its ability to penetrate glass and its role (...) as a source of colour and odour in chemical compounds. (shrink)

The birth of a new science is long, drawn out, and often fairly messy. Comparative psychology has its roots in Darwin’s Descent of Man, was fertilized in academic psychology departments, and has branched across the universities into departments of biology, anthropology, primatology, zoology, and philosophy. Both the insights and the failings of comparative psychology are making their way into contemporary discussions of artificial intelligence and machine learning (Chollett 2019; Lapuschkin et al. 2019; Watson 2019). It is the right time to (...) turn a philosophical lens onto the methodologies of comparative psychology. That is the aim of this Element. -/- Comparative psychology is the umbrella covering the different ways scientists study animal mind and behavior. Comparative psychologists study animal behavior and mentality, including the mechanisms and inner states that allow crows to form hooks, vervet monkeys to give warnings, crabs to make trade-off decisions, and humans to use language. While focus is on the similarities and differences between different species, capacities are often studied in terms of their evolutionary history, development, and current ecological or cultural context. What this entails is that comparative psychologists have a range of different kinds of training, different areas of expertise, and different research questions. One comparative cognition researcher compares children and dogs on causal reasoning abilities (Daphna Buchsbaum), another looks at memory in corvids (Nicola Clayton). An animal behaviorist examines raccoon territories in a city (Suzanne MacDonald). One anthropologist looks at war in wild chimpanzees (John Mitani), another looks at how innovations are adopted in capu- chin monkeys (Susan Perry). One ethologist looks at play in wolves (Marc Bekoff), and another looks at deception in birds (Carolyn Ristau). One biologist looks at male alliances in dolphins (Richard Connor), and another examines economic game performance in apes and monkeys (Sarah Brosnan). An animal welfare scientist studies the effect of enrichment on mink (Georgia Mason). A learning theorist looks at gambling in pigeons (Thomas Zentall). A zoologist studies social learning in bees (Lars Chittka). It is not easy to guess in which department you’ll find a comparative psychologist. -/- This Element aims to examine the methods of comparative psychology, which remains especially concerned about how to study animal minds and behavior without falling prey to fuzzy thinking. Animals can be cute, so humans are often intrinsically drawn to them; and this love of animals is sometimes taken to be at odds with being a careful scientist. The methods of comparative psychology reflect this worry with their special emphases on avoiding bias and on avoiding developing warm relationships with animal subjects. The first two sections analyze three textbooks to examine what young scientists are taught. Section 1 investigates three methodological principles students are taught to follow: Anti-anthropomorphism, Morgan’s Canon, and Anti-anthropocentrism. I argue that the first two principles should be discarded, and that developing relationships with animals should no longer be discouraged, as relationships promote understanding. Building on this critique, in Section 2 I challenge the common prohibition against including animal consciousness in comparative psychology by arguing that it does not harm the science, but promotes it. Setting aside the special prohibitions for comparative psychology, in Section 3 I examine how the quest for objectivity in comparative psychology introduces its own bias and argue that the different disciplines of comparative psychology will introduce different biases; the best scientists can do is identify the sources of bias. The quest to eliminate all bias is a misguided one. Section 4 applies these issues to recent debates in ape cognition research between scientists who work in the field and those who work in the lab, and suggests best practices for integrating knowledge from both sources. -/- I have had the opportunity to work with a number of comparative psychologists in a variety of contexts, including a stint at Lou Herman’s dolphin communication lab in the 1990s, collaborative studies with Peter Verbeek on the child’s theory of mind at the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Child Development, conducting research on orangutan pantomime communication with Anne Russon at her field sites in Borneo, research on rat social learning with Noam Miller at Wilfrid Laurier University, and co-teaching a field course in dolphin communication with Kathleen Dudzinski. As a philosopher of science who has been in the field and in the lab, I have a perspective from which to compare the comparative psychologists. This Element is my attempt to synthesize almost thirty years of experience and thinking about how to study animal minds. (shrink)

For most of their respective existences, reliabilism and evidentialism (that is, process reliabilism and mentalist evidentialism) have been rivals. They are generally viewed as incompatible, even antithetical, theories of justification.1 But a few people are beginning to re-think this notion. Perhaps an ideal theory would be a hybrid of the two, combining the best elements of each theory. Juan Comesana (forthcoming) takes this point of view and constructs a position called “Evidentialist Reliabilism.” He tries to show how each theory (...) can profit by borrowing elements from the other. Comesana concentrates on reliabilism’s problems and how it might be improved by infusions from evidentialism. This paper follows a similar tack. My emphasis, however, is the reverse of Comesana’s. I highlight problems for evidentialism and show how it could benefit by incorporating reliabilist themes. I am not sanguine that evidentialists will see it my way. They might even view my proposals as an insidious attempt to convert evidentialists to reliabilism. Well, I won’t debate the best way to formulate this paper’s recipe. At any rate, it began with the idea (which anteceded my reading of Comesana) of creating a synthesis of reliabilism and evidentialism. It retains significant strands of that idea, although the synthesis theme does not pervade the entire paper. What is mentalist evidentialism? Its original formulation was succinct. (shrink)

Scientists often diverge widely when choosing between research programs. This can seem to be rooted in disagreements about which of several theories, competing to address shared questions or phenomena, is currently the most epistemically or explanatorily valuable—i.e. most successful. But many such cases are actually more directly rooted in differing judgments of pursuit-worthiness, concerning which theory will be best down the line, or which addresses the most significant data or questions. Using case studies from 16th-century astronomy and 20th-century geology (...) and biology, I argue that divergent theory choice is thus often driven by considerations of scientific process, even where direct epistemic or explanatory evaluation of its final products appears more relevant. Broadly following Kuhn’s analysis of theoretical virtues, I suggest that widely shared criteria for pursuit-worthiness function as imprecise, mutually-conflicting values. However, even Kuhn and others sensitive to pragmatic dimensions of theory ‘acceptance’, including the virtue of fruitfulness, still commonly understate the role of pursuit-worthiness—especially by exaggerating the impact of more present-oriented virtues, or failing to stress how ‘competing’ theories excel at addressing different questions or data. This framework clarifies the nature of the choice and competition involved in theory choice, and the role of alternative theoretical virtues. (shrink)

The central aim of this article is to specify the ontological nature of constitutive mechanistic phenomena. After identifying three criteria of adequacy that any plausible approach to constitutive mechanistic phenomena must satisfy, we present four different suggestions, found in the mechanistic literature, of what mechanistic phenomena might be. We argue that none of these suggestions meets the criteria of adequacy. According to our analysis, constitutive mechanistic phenomena are best understood as what we will call ‘object-involving occurrents’. Furthermore, on the (...) basis of this notion, we will clarify what distinguishes constitutive mechanistic explanations from etiological ones. 1 Introduction 2 Criteria of Adequacy 2.1 Descriptive adequacy 2.2 Constitutive–etiological distinction 2.3 Constitution 3 The Ontological Nature of Constitutive Mechanistic Phenomena 3.1 Phenomena as input–output relations 3.2 Phenomena as end states 3.3 Phenomena as dispositions 3.4 Phenomena as behaviours 4 Phenomena as Object-Involving Occurrents 4.1 What object-involving occurrents are and why we need them 4.2 The object in the phenomenon 4.3 The adequacy of option 5 Conclusion. (shrink)

Individuals of many animal species are said to have a personality. It has been shown that some individuals are bolder than other individuals of the same species, or more sociable or more aggressive. In this paper, we analyse what it means to say that an animal has a personality. We clarify what an animal personality is, that is, its ontology, and how different personality concepts relate to each other, and we examine how personality traits are identified in biological practice. Our (...) analysis shows that biologists often study specific personality traits, such as boldness, sociability or aggressiveness, rather than personalities in general. We claim that personality traits are best understood as dispositions and that they are operationally defined in terms of certain sets of behaviours, which are studied in specific experimental set-ups. Furthermore, we develop an integrative philosophical account that specifies and formalises three criteria for identifying personality traits, which are used in biological practice. For an individual animal to have a personality trait it must, first, behave differently than others. Second, these behavioural differences must be stable over a certain time, and third, they must be consistent in different contexts. (shrink)

Abstract: (Indonesian Women Navy=kowal) is part of Indonesian Navy which have the same duties and responsibilities as other naval soldiers. The essence of Kowal's main task is to take part in performing the main tasks of the TNI in which their skills are needed to achieve greater efficiency by remembering his nature and femininity. SWOT is used as a planning tool. However, this analysis has weaknesses. Some of these weaknesses can be avoided, by connecting a SWOT analysis with AHP method. (...) Following the basic steps of the SWOT-AHP, this research presented a case study of defining the strategy for the development of Indonesian Women Navy. The results indicate that development skill with study dikpengiptek strategy was the best strategy that could have been implemented. Based on the research results, the method SWOT-AHP application to determine the best strategy of development women navy resources would be described as follows : (1) reduce the weakness to increase opportunities (WO=0,28), (2) optimizing the strength to reduce the threat (ST=0,26), (3) increasing weakness and reducing threats (WT= 0,23) and (4) optimizing strengths and maximizing opportunities (SO= 0,23). (shrink)

Recently, several philosophers have defended an explanatory argument that supposedly provides novel empirical grounds for accepting the type identity theory of phenomenal consciousness. They claim that we are justified in believing that the type identity thesis is true because it provides the best explanation for the correlations between physical properties and phenomenal properties. In this paper, I examine the actual role identities play in science and point out crucial shortcomings in the explanatory argument. I show that the supporters of (...) the argument have failed to show that the identity thesis provides a satisfactory explanation for the correlations between physical and phenomenal properties. Hence, the explanatory argument, as it stands, does not provide new grounds for accepting the type identity theory. (shrink)

We explored the relationship between 24 character strengths measured by the Global Assessment of Character Strengths (GACS), which was revised from the original VIA instrument, and moral functioning comprising postconventional moral reasoning, empathic traits and moral identity. Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) was employed to explore the best models, which were more parsimonious than full regression models estimated through frequentist regression, predicting moral functioning indicators with the 24 candidate character strength predictors. Our exploration was conducted with a dataset collected from (...) 666 college students at a public university in the Southern United States. Results showed that character strengths as measured by GACS partially predicted relevant moral functioning indicators. Performance evaluation results demonstrated that the best models identified by BMA performed significantly better than the full models estimated by frequentist regression in terms of AIC, BIC, and cross-validation accuracy. We discuss theoretical and methodological implications of the findings for future studies addressing character strengths and moral functioning. (shrink)

(Report assembled for the Workshop of the AMIA Working Group on Formal Biomedical Knowledge Representation in connection with AMIA Symposium, Washington DC, 2005.) Best practices in ontology building for biomedicine have been frequently discussed in recent years. However there is a range of seemingly disparate views represented by experts in the field. These views not only reflect the different uses to which ontologies are put, but also the experiences and disciplinary background of these experts themselves. We asked six questions (...) related to biomedical ontologies to what we believe is a representative sample of ontologists in the biomedical field and came to a number conclusions which we believe can help provide an insight into the practical problems which ontology builders face today. (shrink)

Mental representations remain the central posits of psychology after many decades of scrutiny. However, there is no consensus about the representational format(s) of biological cognition. This paper provides a survey of evidence from computational cognitive psychology, perceptual psychology, developmental psychology, comparative psychology, and social psychology, and concludes that one type of format that routinely crops up is the language-of-thought (LoT). We outline six core properties of LoTs: (i) discrete constituents; (ii) role-filler independence; (iii) predicate–argument structure; (iv) logical operators; (v) inferential (...) promiscuity; and (vi) abstract content. These properties cluster together throughout cognitive science. Bayesian computational modeling, compositional features of object perception, complex infant and animal reasoning, and automatic, intuitive cognition in adults all implicate LoT-like structures. Instead of regarding LoT as a relic of the previous century, researchers in cognitive science and philosophy-of-mind must take seriously the explanatory breadth of LoT-based architectures. We grant that the mind may harbor many formats and architectures, including iconic and associative structures as well as deep-neural-network-like architectures. However, as computational/representational approaches to the mind continue to advance, classical compositional symbolic structures – that is, LoTs – only prove more flexible and well-supported over time. (shrink)

The management of Higher Education Systems has continued to suffer from plethora of concerns and issues, cardinal amongst them, is the application of conventional administrative strategies and leadership patterns, sometimes without appropriate modifications so much so, that the management effectiveness of higher education systems is gradually being eroded. This is evident in the increasing distasteful gamut of multidimensional outcomes arising from the used of dogmatic and stereotype variants of managerial principles or nothing at all, in the circumstance. Given this premise, (...) there is an urgent desire to rejig and re-engineer learning experiences that will culminate into dynamic, goal oriented and robust management packages for higher education systems with results for global acclamations, thereby, chatting new directions to fill this existing gap in the management of higher education systems in Nigeria. With humility, I introduce to you this book titled: Management of Higher Education Systems, a collection of well-researched essays. The essays in this book promises to deliver on the deliverables of its raison d’tre of job specifications and management dynamics of higher education landscape, reflecting on the global realities. This is because scholarly evidences abound, to proof that looking into the National Universities Commission’s Bench Mark Minimum Academic Standard (BMAS) of the curriculum for Educational Management as a discipline, it is obvious, that the BMAS has fallen short of global expectations and appears to be revolving within neo-colonial conventional administrative theorizing, with little or no emphasis on the practical demonstration of acquired skills, competences and capabilities for trained educational administrators, to deal with peculiarities of the moment, especially in the developing world. This felt need pushes for a paradigm shift in our curricula endeavours. It is even worse off, when experiences have continued to show, that there are deficiencies noticeable in the understanding of job requirements of educational managers of higher education systems in Nigeria. -/- It is this gap therefore, that the current effort is geared towards building this literature which seeks to address this lacuna by re-chiseling and retooling educational management practices through equipping this sophisticated discipline with up-to-date information and knowledge that will enhance the full optimaization of the job specifications, of higher educational managers, to bring into a perfect nexus of the man, job and social milieu. It is also in public domain, that managers of higher educational systems with such limitations are very often left with no option than to resort to on -the- job training by bureaucrats, who are in themselves their acolytes ab-initio and who sometimes take over leadership of the organization, owing to the existing gaps that manifest in the knowledge of educational managers, thereby reducing substantive higher education executive head to a titular head or at best ceremonial heads. -/- This book brings together articles and chapters to be published in these directions by researchers, policy makers and practitioners to re-inform, reeducate and reorient higher educational managers on their job expectations. The volume also offers a rich and relevant literature of the dynamic state of higher education in global perspective. While this publication will be freely available online, the essays in this volume are carefully selected and they will provide a basis for thematic and analytical perspectives on the concerns of management of contemporary higher education systems. -/- The book is divided into twelve thematic sections with each addressing the demands of its Kernel, as it is reflected in Historical development of higher education systems and its organs, Gloabilization of higher education, Internationalization and the labour market, Funding of higher education systems, Proliferations of higher education systems, Corruption in higher education systems and the deterioration of its estate, Internationalization and massification, Politics and leadership in higher educational systems, Academic freedom and access to higher education, Academic planning and affiliation relationship of higher education systems, Conflict management in higher education systems, Research and training in higher education systems and Inclusivity in higher education. -/- Another striking feature of this book is in its efforts at globalizing the curriculum of management of higher education and providing opportunity for scholars with different shades of opinion even on same issues but from different perspectives with the hope that it will guarantee overall effectiveness in the management of higher education systems. I recommemd this book to all with passion for the management of diferentiated higher education systems, and invite you to this intellectual feast prepared so deliciously like a meal for the gods. -/- Finally, let me reflect on what may appears to be an aberration in this context, by appreciating all authors who had found time to respond to this academic calling by their various chapter contributions. This singular act is in itself enough justification as show of interest and further demonstration of your continuous determination to address gaps in Nigerian educational landscape. Similarly, my gratitude is equally extended to all members of my editorial team for their thoughtfulness and very constructive criticisms which have shaped these scholarly presentations thereof. May the Almighty God continue to enrich the contents of your cerebrum most intellectually, for the benefit of man but to His glory. -/- The PDF contains just the preliminary pages of the book. You can order the full copy of the book by contacting the editor-in-chief, Professor John A. Undie, FNAEAP, KSM. (shrink)

In recent years, an active research program has emerged that aims to develop a Humean best-system account (BSA) of laws of nature that improves on Lewis’s canonical articulation of the view. Its guiding idea is that the laws are cognitive tools tailored to the specific needs and limitations of creatures like us. While current versions of this “pragmatic Humean” research program fare much better than Lewis’s account along many dimensions, I will argue that they have trouble making sense of (...) certain key features of the practice of fundamental physics. Indeed, these features seem to go against the very idea that laws are useful for agents like us. In my view, Humeans can address these issues by paying more attention to the explanatory role of laws. Following this idea, I will propose an account on which what makes a systematization the best is a kind of explanatory power, understood along the lines of the unificationist theory of explanation. The resulting view, I will argue, can make sense of those features of laws that other pragmatic accounts of laws have trouble explaining. (shrink)

I argue that the best available parent view, in its present formulation, struggles to accommodate for our very weighty duty not to perpetuate historical injustices. I offer an alternative view that reconciles this tension.

Earl Conee and Richard Feldman have recently argued that the evidential support relation should be understood in terms of explanatory coherence: roughly, one's evidence supports a proposition if and only if that proposition is part of the best available explanation of the evidence. Their thesis has been criticized through alleged counterexamples, perhaps the most important of which are cases where a subject has a justified belief about the future. Kevin McCain has defended the thesis against Byerly's counterexample. I argue (...) that McCain's defense is inadequate before pointing toward a more promising solution for explanationism. The Byerly–McCain exchange is important because it casts light on the difficult issues of the standards for justification and the nature of epistemic support. Furthermore, McCain's defense of explanationism about epistemic support represents an important recent development of the burgeoning explanationist program in epistemology and philosophy of science. (shrink)

While recently hyped as a defense against AI plagiarism, oral exams have fallen out of favor in American philosophy departments. They are often perceived as part of an antiquated system where the day-to-day coursework is sharply distinguished from a 100% weighted final exam, with a more oppositional than collaborative student-professor relationship. Such examinations do not lend themselves to blind grading, and also reinforce the existing privilege of students who are confident, fast-spoken, and know what to study. This kind of oral (...) examination is clearly at odds with the contemporary transparent and collaborative process embodied in techniques like specifications grading, with its proven benefits for novice philosophy students in introductory-level courses. I want to defend a rather different role for oral exams. Novice philosophy students need rapid feedback in order to know whether they have correctly understood the expectations embodied in syllabi and rubrics. Six best practices are offered for achieving this goal while minimizing drawbacks. (shrink)

In this article, I will provide a critical overview of the form of non-deductive reasoning commonly known as “Inference to the Best Explanation” (IBE). Roughly speaking, according to IBE, we ought to infer the hypothesis that provides the best explanation of our evidence. In section 2, I survey some contemporary formulations of IBE and highlight some of its putative applications. In section 3, I distinguish IBE from C.S. Peirce’s notion of abduction. After underlining some of the essential elements (...) of IBE, the rest of the entry is organized around an examination of various problems that IBE confronts, along with some extant attempts to address these problems. In section 4, I consider the question of when a fact requires an explanation, since presumably IBE applies only in cases where some explanation is called for. In section 5, I consider the difficult question of how we ought to understand IBE in light of the fact that among philosophers, there is significant disagreement about what constitutes an explanation. In section 6, I consider different strategies for justifying the truth-conduciveness of the explanatory virtues, e.g., simplicity, unification, scope, etc., criteria which play an indispensable role in any given application of IBE. In section 7, I survey some of the most recent literature on IBE, much of which consists of investigations of the status of IBE from the standpoint of the Bayesian philosophy of science. (shrink)

In Almost Over: Aging, Dying, Dead, Frances Kamm seeks to make sense of people’s widely variant choices about which lives they would choose to continue living. She does this by defending the Prudential Prerogative, which, in analogy to the Moral Prerogative, holds that in a fairly wide range of conditions we are under no intrapersonal rational obligation to choose either to die or to live on. I argue against Kamm's case for the Prudential Prerogative in favor of Life Holism, the (...) view that you ought to live the life that would be best for you as an individual when each potential life is considered as a whole. I argue that the features of the Moral Prerogative that make it an attractive principle do not transfer to the Prudential Prerogative, and that Life Holism can better account for the perspectival and non-summative features of the normative phenomena Kamm wants to capture while retaining a tight connection between reasons and goodness. (shrink)

Seungbae Park argues that Bas van Fraassen’s rejection of inference to the best explanation (IBE) is problematic for his contextual theory of explanation because van Fraassen uses IBE to support the contextual theory. This paper provides a defense of van Fraassen’s views from Park’s objections. I point out three weaknesses of Park’s objection against van Fraassen. First, van Fraassen may be perfectly content to accept the implications that Park claims to follow from his views. Second, even if van Fraassen (...) rejects IBE he may still endorse particular arguments that instantiate IBE. Third, van Fraassen does not, in fact, use IBE to support his contextual theory. (shrink)

William L. Rowe’s argument against divine freedom has drawn considerable attention from theist philosophers. One reply to Rowe’s argument that has emerged in the recent literature appeals to modified accounts of libertarian freedom which have the result that God may be free even if he necessarily actualizes the best possible world. Though in many ways attractive, this approach appears to lead to the damning consequence of modal collapse i.e., that the actual world is the only possible world. But appearances (...) can be deceiving, and in this paper I argue that the threat of modal collapse dissolves when we consider Alvin Plantinga’s critique of the purportedly Leibnizian notion that God can actualize any possible world, and incorporate the implications of this critique into the divine freedom debate. Developing a suggestion by Edward R. Wierenga, I argue first that the modal collapse objection fails within a Molinist context, and then I extend the discussion beyond that context to show that the objection also fails on the assumption that Molinism is false. (shrink)

Me, Gabriel Vacariu, professor at Department of Theoretical Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, Bucharest University, Romania, I declare that I have had the worst promotion during my entire career at this department even if I have had the best CV during my career (since 1998). With this memorandum, I want to find the criteria for the promotion at my department and faculty (from Bucharest University). From what I know, my promotion depends on the will of the chief of the department (...) and of my colleagues. If my colleagues do not want my promotion, I will never be promoted! I emphasize that, in relationship with my colleagues, I have had the worst promotion even if I have had the best CV. (shrink)

Me, Gabriel Vacariu, professor at Department of Theoretical Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, Bucharest University, Romania, I declare that I have had the worst promotion during my entire career at this department even if I have had the best CV during my career (since 1998). With this memorandum, I want to find the criteria for the promotion at my department and faculty (from Bucharest University). From what I know, my promotion depends on the will of the chief of the department (...) and of my colleagues. If my colleagues do not want my promotion, I will never be promoted! I emphasize that, in relationship with my colleagues, I have had the worst promotion even if I have had the best CV. (shrink)

My paper argues that the Nicomachean Ethics endorses kingship (basileia) as the best regime (aristê politeia). In order to justify such a claim, I look at Aristotle’s discussion and rankings of regimes throughout the Ethics, specifically, the discussions of regime division in EN VIII.10, the inculcation of virtue in II.1, ethical habituation in X.9, and the “one regime which is best everywhere according to nature” in V.7.

In this paper, I aim to explore Lewis’s best system analysis and how it can accommodate laws with exceptions. The Best System Account has been introduced to provide an alternative view for both minimalist and counterfactual theories of regularities. Simple regularity theory faces problems in which there is some generalization that seems to be a law or some regularities that are established accidentally. It tries to exclude the accidental generalization from the account. However, the best system analysis (...) can solve the problem of how to distinguish between laws and accidents. (shrink)

Recent work in the philosophy of religion has resurrected Leibniz’s idea that there is a best possible world, perhaps ours. In particular, Klaas Kraay’s [2010] construction of a theistic multiverse and Nevin Climenhaga’s [2018] argument from infinite value theory are novel defenses of a best possible world. I do not think that there is a best world, and show how both Kraay and Climenhaga may be resisted. First, I argue that Kraay’s construction of a theistic multiverse can (...) be resisted from plausible assumptions about set theory. Next, I argue against the value-theoretic assumptions that underlie Climenhaga’s argument and show how to give an infinite value theory where there is no best world. (shrink)

Many philosophers sympathetic with a Humean understanding of laws of nature have thought that, in the final analysis, the fundamental laws will include not only the traditional dynamical equations, but also two additional principles: the Past Hypothesis and the Statistical Postulate. The former says that the universe began in a particular very-low-entropy macrostate M(0), and the latter posits a uniform probability distribution over the microstates compatible with M(0). Such a view is arguably vindicated by the orthodox Humean Best System (...) Account (BSA). However, I argue here that recent developments of the BSA render the Past Hypothesis otiose. In particular, the trend among Humeans toward a more pragmatic view of laws — according to which the best system is the one that is maximally effective at helping creatures like us amplify our information about the world — does not support the idea that the Past Hypothesis is a law of nature. (shrink)

Defenders of Inference to the Best Explanation claim that explanatory factors should play an important role in empirical inference. They disagree, however, about how exactly to formulate this role. In particular, they disagree about whether to formulate IBE as an inference rule for full beliefs or for degrees of belief, as well as how a rule for degrees of belief should relate to Bayesianism. In this essay I advance a new argument against non-Bayesian versions of IBE. My argument focuses (...) on cases in which we are concerned with multiple levels of explanation of some phenomenon. I show that in many such cases, following IBE as an inference rule for full beliefs leads to deductively inconsistent beliefs, and following IBE as a non-Bayesian updating rule for degrees of belief leads to probabilistically incoherent degrees of belief. (shrink)

The concept of the best of all possible worlds is widely considered to be incoherent on the grounds that, for any world that might be termed the best, there is always another that is better. I note that underlying this argument is a conviction that the goodness of a world is determined by a single kind of good, the most plausible candidates for which are not maximizable. Against this I suggest that several goods may have to combine to (...) determine the goodness of a world, and because of logical conflicts between them, the goods can be optimized to give a genuine best of all possible worlds. (shrink)

In science and everyday life, we often infer that something is true because it would explain some set of facts better than any other hypothesis we can think of. But what if we have reason to believe that there is a better way to explain these facts that we just haven't thought of? Wouldn't that undermine our warrant for believing the best available explanation? Many philosophers have assumed that we can solve such underconsideration problems by stipulating that a hypothesis (...) should not only be 'the best' explanation available; rather, it should also be 'good enough'. Unfortunately, however, the only current suggestion for what it might mean to say that an explanation is 'good enough' is, well, not good enough. This paper aims to provide a better account of what is required for an explanatory hypothesis to be considered 'good enough'. In brief, the account holds that a `good enough' hypothesis is one that has gone through a process that I call explanatory consolidation, in which accumulating evidence and failed attempts to formulate better alternatives gradually make it more plausible that the explanation we currently have is better than any other that could be formulated. (shrink)

Dawes (2013) claims that we ought not to believe but to accept our best scientific theories. To accept them means to employ them as premises in our reasoning with the goal of attaining knowledge about unobservables. I reply that if we do not believe our best scientific theories, we cannot gain knowledge about unobservables, our opponents might dismiss the predictions derived from them, and we cannot use them to explain phenomena. We commit an unethical speech act when we (...) explain a phenomenon in terms of a theory we do not believe. (shrink)

Hilary Greaves and David Wallace argue that conditionalization maximizes expected accuracy and so is a rational requirement, but their argument presupposes a particular picture of the bridge between rationality and accuracy: the Best-Plan-to-Follow picture. And theorists such as Miriam Schoenfield and Robert Steel argue that it's possible to motivate an alternative picture—the Best-Plan-to-Make picture—that does not vindicate conditionalization. I show that these theorists are mistaken: it turns out that, if an update procedure maximizes expected accuracy on the (...) class='Hi'>Best-Plan-to-Follow picture, it's guaranteed to maximize expected accuracy on the Best-Plan-to-Make picture as well, in which case moving from the former to the latter can't help us avoid the conclusion that conditionalization is a rational requirement. If there's a problem with Greaves and Wallace’s argument, it must lie elsewhere. (shrink)

I argue that deflationary theories of truth reveal an important lesson for the broader theory of truth: although the notion of truthmaking has played an essential role in many traditional theories of truth, it can be separated from and survive the rejection of substantive theories of truth. I argue that many of the traditional substantive theories of truth are unified in defining truth in terms of the ontological grounds that are needed to account for truth. Deflationists reject the idea that (...) a theory of truth needs such metaphysical implications, but in so doing they need not rule out the possibility of developing an independently motivated theory of truthmaking. I argue that deflationists can and should embrace truthmaker theory, once it is shorn from its connection to the traditional project of defining truth. (shrink)

There is a broad philosophical consensus that both children’s and prospective parents’ interests are relevant to the justification of a right to parent. Against this view, I argue that it is impermissible to sacrifice children’s interests for the sake of advancing adults’ interest in childrearing. Therefore, the allocation of the moral right to parent should track the child’s, and not the potential parent’s, interest. This revisionary thesis is moderated by two additional qualifications. First, parents lack the moral right to exclude (...) others from associating with the child. Second, children usually come into the world as part of a relationship with their gestational mother; often, this relationship deserves protection. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the compatibility of inference to the best explanation (IBE) with several influential models and accounts of scientific explanation. First, I explore the different conceptions of IBE and limit my discussion to two: the heuristic conception and the objective Bayesian conception. Next, I discuss five models of scientific explanation with regard to each model’s compatibility with IBE. I argue that Kitcher’s unificationist account supports IBE; Railton’s deductive–nomological–probabilistic model, Salmon’s statistical-relevance model, and van Fraassen’s erotetic account (...) are incompatible with IBE; and Salmon’s causal–mechanical model is merely consistent with IBE. In short, many influential models of scientific explanation do not support IBE. I end by outlining three possible conclusions to draw: (1) either philosophers of science or defenders of IBE have seriously misconstrued the concept of explanation, (2) philosophers of science and defenders of IBE do not use the term ‘explanation’ univocally, and (3) the ampliative conception of IBE, which is compatible with any model of scientific explanation, deserves a closer look. (shrink)

While the substantiation of “best interests” has received much attention, the question of how “the child” is conceptualised to ensure any action taken or decision made is in the particular child’s best interests has been largely neglected. In this paper, I argue that the lack of robust understanding of who “the child” is means that we continue to make many generalisations and category-based assumptions in determining the child’s best interests. In addressing the challenge of doing right by (...) the individual child, I propose a three-step approach based on a theoretical model of the child that avoids presumptions about child-typical needs and insists on an assessment of the child’s individual characteristics, needs, qualities, and circumstances, making it the only conceptualisation fully meeting the child centrism criterion required by children’s rights as determined by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. (shrink)

Christian apologists, like Willian Lane Craig and Stephen T. Davis, argue that belief in Jesus’ resurrection is reasonable because it provides the best explanation of the available evidence. In this article, I refute that thesis. To do so, I lay out how the logic of inference to the best explanation (IBE) operates, including what good explanations must be and do by definition, and then apply IBE to the issue at hand. Multiple explanations—including (what I will call) The Resurrection (...) Hypothesis, The Lie Hypothesis, The Coma Hypothesis, The Imposter Hypothesis, and The Legend Hypothesis—will be considered. While I will not attempt to rank them all from worst to best, what I will reveal is how and why The Legend Hypothesis is unquestionably the best explanation, and The Resurrection Hypothesis is undeniably the worst. Consequently, not only is Craig and Davis’ conclusion mistaken, but belief in the literal resurrection of Jesus is irrational. In presenting this argument, I do not take myself to be breaking new ground; Robert Cavin and Carlos Colombetti have already presented a Bayesian refutation of Craig and Davis’ arguments. But I do take myself to be presenting an argument that the average person (and philosopher) can follow. It is my goal for the average person (and philosopher) to be able to clearly understand how and why the hypothesis “God supernaturally raised Jesus from the dead” fails utterly as an explanation of the evidence that Christian apologist cite for Jesus’ resurrection. (shrink)

A common argument for atheism runs as follows: God would not create a world worse than other worlds he could have created instead. However, if God exists, he could have created a better world than this one. Therefore, God does not exist. In this paper I challenge the second premise of this argument. I argue that if God exists, our world will continue without end, with God continuing to create value-bearers, and sustaining and perfecting the value-bearers he has already created. (...) Given this, if God exists, our world—considered on the whole—is infinitely valuable. I further contend that this theistic picture makes our world's value unsurpassable. In support of this contention, I consider proposals for how infinitely valuable worlds might be improved upon, focusing on two main ways—adding value-bearers and increasing the value in present value-bearers. I argue that neither of these can improve our world. Depending on how each method is understood, either it would not improve our world, or our world is unsurpassable with respect to it. I conclude by considering the implications of my argument for the problem of evil more generally conceived. (shrink)

I argue that law is not best considered an essentially contested concept. After first explaining the notion of essential contestability and disaggregating the concept of law into several related concepts, I show that the most basic and general concept of law does not fit within the criteria generally offered for essential contestation. I then buttress this claim with the additional explanation that essential contestation is itself a framework for understanding complex concepts and therefore should only be applied when it (...) is useful to gain a greater understanding of uses of the concept to which it is applied (adducing criteria for making such judgments of usefulness). With that in mind, I then show that applying the appellation of essential contestation to the concept of law does not helpfully illuminate the most general concept of law (usually of most interest to legal philosophers) and therefore it should not be used, while allowing that it might be more useful for the related concept of the rule of law. (shrink)

Contemporary Humeans treat laws of nature as statements of exceptionless regularities that function as the axioms of the best deductive system. Such ‘Best System Accounts’ marry realism about laws with a denial of necessary connections among events. I argue that Hume’s predecessor, George Berkeley, offers a more sophisticated conception of laws, equally consistent with the absence of powers or necessary connections among events in the natural world. On this view, laws are not statements of regularities but the most (...) general rules God follows in producing the world. Pace most commentators, I argue that Berkeley’s view is neither instrumentalist nor reductionist. More important, the Berkeleyan Best System can solve some of the problems afflicting its Humean rivals, including the problems of theory choice and Nancy Cartwright’s ‘facticity’ dilemma. Some of these solutions are available in the contemporary context, without any appeal to God. Berkeley’s account deserves to be taken seriously in its own right. (shrink)

De Ray argues that relying on inference to the best explanation (IBE) requires the metaphysical belief that most phenomena have explanations. I object that instead the metaphysical belief requires the use of IBE. De Ray uses IBE himself to establish theism that God is the cause of the metaphysical belief, and thus he has the burden of establishing the metaphysical belief independently of using IBE. Naturalism that the world is the cause of the metaphysical belief is preferable to theism, (...) contrary to what de Ray thinks. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the question what a continuant is, in the context of a very interesting suggestion recently made by Rowland Stout, as part of his attempt to develop a coherent ontology of processes. Stout claims that a continuant is best thought of as something that primarily has its properties at times, rather than atemporally—and that on this construal, processes should count as continuants. While accepting that Stout is onto something here, I reject his suggestion that we (...) should accept that processes are both occurrents and continuants; nothing, I argue, can truly occur or happen, which does not have temporal parts. I make an alternative suggestion as to how one might deal with the peculiar status of processes without jettisoning a very natural account of occurrence; and assess the consequences for the category of continuant. (shrink)

In this essay, I look at some extraordinary actors who never got their due—actors who had distinguished careers, but never won an Academy Award for acting. I review the work of: Joseph Cotten; Orson Welles; Edward G. Robinson; Cary Grant; James Mason; Richard Burton; Claude Rains; Alan Ladd: Robert Mitchum; and Fred MacMurray. In each case, I explore the actor’s best work, what made his acting outstanding, and offer possible explanations why he was not so honored.

In this paper, we propose a novel account of desire reports, i.e. sentences of the form 'S wants p'. Our theory is partly motivated by Phillips-Brown's (2021) observation that subjects can desire things even if those things aren't best by the subject's lights. That is, being best isn't necessary for being desired. We compare our proposal to existing theories, and show that it provides a neat account of the central phenomenon.

Lipsey and Lancaster's "general theory of second best" is widely thought to have significant implications for applied theorizing about the institutions and policies that most effectively implement abstract normative principles. It is also widely thought to have little significance for theorizing about which abstract normative principles we ought to implement. Contrary to this conventional wisdom, I show how the second-best theorem can be extended to myriad domains beyond applied normative theorizing, and in particular to more abstract theorizing about (...) the normative principles we should aim to implement. I start by separating the mathematical model used to prove the second-best theorem from its familiar economic interpretation. I then develop an alternative normative-theoretic interpretation of the model, which yields a novel second best theorem for idealistic normative theory. My method for developing this interpretation provides a template for developing additional interpretations that can extend the reach of the second-best theorem beyond normative theoretical domains. I also show how, within any domain, the implications of the second-best theorem are more specific than is typically thought. I conclude with some brief remarks on the value of mathematical models for conceptual exploration. (shrink)

In this paper I will try to outline a Metaphysics of Perception that takes for granted one of the central thesis of the metaphysical doctrine called Indirect Realism. Firstly, I will introduce the central thesis of Indirect Realism and then a special version of the Causal Theory of Perception that modifies in some fundamental respect one of the most influential version of Causal Theory of Perception designed by William Child.

I develop and defend a maximizing theory of moral motivation: I claim that consequentialists should recommend only those desires, emotions, and dispositions that will make the outcome best. I advance a conservative account of the motives that are possible for us; I say that a motive is an alternative if and only if it is in our psychological control. The resulting theory is less demanding than its competitors. It also permits us to maintain many of the motivations that we (...) value most, including our love for those most important to us. I conclude that we are closer to meeting morality’s demands on our character than has been appreciated. (shrink)

An influential suggestion about the relationship between Bayesianism and inference to the best explanation holds that IBE functions as a heuristic to approximate Bayesian reasoning. While this view promises to unify Bayesianism and IBE in a very attractive manner, important elements of the view have not yet been spelled out in detail. I present and argue for a heuristic conception of IBE on which IBE serves primarily to locate the most probable available explanatory hypothesis to serve as a working (...) hypothesis in an agent’s further investigations. Along the way, I criticize what I consider to be an overly ambitious conception of the heuristic role of IBE, according to which IBE serves as a guide to absolute probability values. My own conception, by contrast, requires only that IBE can function as a guide to the comparative probability values of available hypotheses. This is shown to be a much more realistic role for IBE given the nature and limitations of the explanatory considerations with which IBE operates. (shrink)

Numerous philosophers allege that the "general theory of second best" (Lipsey and Lancaster, 1956) poses a challenge to the Target View, which asserts that real world reform efforts should aim to establish arrangements that satisfy the constitutive features of ideal just states of affairs. I demonstrate two claims that are relevant in this context. First, I show that the theory of second best fails to present a compelling challenge to the Target View in general. But, second, the theory (...) of second best requires ideal theorists to undertake certain kinds of causal and comparative analyses that are typically thought to lie beyond the borders of conventional ideal theory. (shrink)

I consider the current best interests of patients who were once thought to be either completely unaware (to be in PVS) or only minimally aware (MCS), but who, because of advanced fMRI studies, we now suspect have much more “going on” inside their minds, despite no ability to communicate with the world. My goal in this chapter is twofold: (1) to set out and defend a framework that I think should always guide thinking about the best interests of (...) highly cognitively compromised patients, and then (2) to defend a particular conclusion that applies to this specific patient population. The framework requires us to ask two questions: Is the individual suffering? Is the individual gaining any benefit from life? There must be benefit of some sort for life to be worth preserving, and the benefit must outweigh any suffering (if there is suffering present). I then argue it would be best overall to allow these patients to die. Either these patients are not really very aware at all, in which case they are most likely not suffering, but not benefiting from life either, or they are mentally intact enough to make benefit a theoretical possibility, but in fact they are not benefiting because they cannot communicate with anyone. Such patients would most likely suffer. As there is no way currently to address their suffering, we should allow them to die. No matter the truth about their cognitive lives, death would either be a neutral event, or a blessing. (shrink)