There seems to be a minimal core that every theory wishing to accommodate the intuition that the future is open must contain: a denial of physical determinism (i.e. the thesis that what future states the universe will be in is implied by what states it has been in), and a denial of strong fatalism (i.e. the thesis that, at every time, what will subsequently be the case is metaphysically necessary).1 Those two requirements are often associated with the idea of an (...) objective temporal flow and the non-reality of the future. However, at least certain ways to frame the “openness” intuition do not rely on any of these. Branching Time Theory (BTT) is one such: it is compatible with the denial that time flow is objective and it is couched in a language with a (prima facie) commitment to an eternalist ontology. BTT, though, urges us to resist certain intuitions about the determinacy of future claims, which arguably do not lead either to physical determinism or to fatalism. Against BTT, supporters of the Thin Red Line Theory (TRL) argue that their position avoids determinism and fatalism, while also representing the fact that there is a future which is “special” because it is the one that will be the case. But starting with Belnap and Green 1994, some have objected to the tenability of TRL, mainly on metaphysical grounds. In particular, those argue that “positing a thin red line amounts to giving up objective indeterminism,”2 and that “has unacceptable consequences, ranging from a mistreatment of actuality to an inability to talk coherently about what would have happened had what is going to happen not taken place.”3 In this paper, we wish to reframe the.. (shrink)

Achille Varzi è uno dei maggiori metafisici viventi. Nel corso degli anni ha scritto testi fondamentali di logica, metafisica, mereologia, filosofia del linguaggio. Ha sconfinato nella topologia, nella geografia, nella matematica, ha ragionato di mostri e confini, percezione e buchi, viaggi nel tempo, nicchie, eventi e ciambelle; e non ha disdegnato di dialogare con gli abitanti di Flatlandia, con Neo e con Terminator. Tra le sue opere principali: Holes and Other Superficialities e Parts and Places. The Structures of Spatial Representation, (...) entrambi scritti insieme a R. Casati per MIT Press; Il mondo messo a fuoco, Laterza; e il suo libro più recente: Le tribolazioni del filosofare, con C. Calosi, per Laterza. -/- Da una giornata all’Università di Urbino nasce questa conversazione a molte voci sulla e con la filosofia di Achille C. Varzi. In un dialogo critico al quale l’Autore si presta con generosità e onestà intellettuale, Andrea Borghini, Francesco Calemi, Claudio Calosi, Elena Casetta, Valeria Giardino, Pierluigi Graziani, Patrizia Pedrini, Daniele Santoro e Giuliano Torrengo lo interrogano e mettono alla prova sui temi affrontati, nel corso degli anni, in campi diversi. Il risultato è un percorso che si snoda attraverso molti mondi, dalla logica alla metafisica, dalla filosofia del linguaggio alla filosofia della matematica, dalla mereologia alla filosofia del tempo, spingendosi in qualche caso oltre i confini del saggio filosofico. (shrink)

The logico-algebraic study of Lewis's hierarchy of variably strict conditional logics has been essentially unexplored, hindering our understanding of their mathematical foundations, and the connections with other logical systems. This work aims to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive logico-algebraic analysis of Lewis's logics. We begin by introducing novel finite axiomatizations for varying strengths of Lewis's logics, distinguishing between global and local consequence relations on Lewisian sphere models. We then demonstrate that the global consequence relation is strongly algebraizable in (...) terms of a specific class of Boolean algebras with a binary operator representing the counterfactual implication; in contrast, we show that the local consequence relation is generally not algebraizable, although it can be characterized as the degree-preserving logic over the same algebraic models. Further, we delve into the algebraic semantics of Lewis's logics, developing two dual equivalences with respect to particular topological spaces. In more details, we show a duality with respect to the topological version of Lewis's sphere models, and also with respect to Stone spaces with a selection function; using the latter, we demonstrate the strong completeness of Lewis's logics with respect to sphere models. Finally, we draw some considerations concerning the limit assumption over sphere models. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to find an answer to the following questions: is it possible to develop a truthmaker semantics for modal statements? And how? The answer to the first question is assumed to be positive and we will focus on seeking the answer to the second one. We believe that the truth-maker semantic account originally developed by Johannes Korbmacher in some unpublished work constitutes a satisfactory answer to the second question. So, we will prove some results on (...) the connections between Korbmacher’s account and already existing logics and we will also extend the framework and the related results to the first-order case. Moreover, we will engage in a philosophical discussion about the nature of truthmakers of modal statements and the way we should conceive of it in the light of this novel modal truthmaker approach. In the end, we will discuss the details of a possible application of the new semantic framework analysed in the thesis. (shrink)

There seems to be a "what it is like" to the experience of the flow of time in any conscious activity of ours. In this paper, I argue that the feeling that time passes should be understood as a phenomenal modifier of our mental life, in roughly the same way as the blurred or vivid nature of a visual experience can be seen as an element of the experience that modifies the way it feels, without representing the world as being (...) in a certain way. I defend my positions against the deflationary view according to which the passing of time does not have a specific phenomenal character, and the representationalist view according to which the feeling of time passing is a feature of the representational content of our experience, like being red or yellow. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to argue that the adoption of an unrestricted principle of bivalence is compatible with a metaphysics that (i) denies that the future is real, (ii) adopts nomological indeterminism, and (iii) exploits a branching structure to provide a semantics for future contingent claims. To this end, we elaborate what we call Flow Fragmentalism, a view inspired by Kit Fine (2005)’s non-standard tense realism, according to which reality is divided up into maximally coherent collections of tensed (...) facts. In this way, we show how to reconcile a genuinely A-theoretic branching-time model with the idea that there is a branch corresponding to the thin red line, that is, the branch that will turn out to be the actual future history of the world. (shrink)

In this paper, we articulate a version of non-standard A-theory—which we call Flow Fragmentalism—in relation to its take on the issue of supervenience of truth on being. According to the Truth Supervenes on Being (TSB) Principle, the truth of past- and future-tensed propositions supervenes, respectively, on past and future facts. Since the standard presentist denies the existence of past and future entities and facts concerning them that do not obtain in the present, she seems to lack the resources to accept (...) both past and future-tensed truths and the TSB Principle. Contrariwise, positions in philosophy of time that accept an eternalist ontology (e.g., B-theory, moving spotlight, and Fine’s and Lipman’s versions of fragmentalism) allow for a “direct” supervenience base for past- and future-tensed truths. We argue that Flow Fragmentalism constitutes a middle ground, which retains most of the advantages of both views, and allows us to articulate a novel account of the passage of time. (shrink)

Ostrich presentists maintain that we can use all the expressive resources of the tensed language to provide an explanation of why true claims about the past are true, without thereby paying any price in terms of ontology or basic ideology. I clarify the position by making a distinction between three kinds of explanation, which has general interest and applicability. I then criticize the ostrich position because it requires an unconstrained version of the third form of explanation, which is out of (...) place in metaphysics. (shrink)

Andrea Cesalpino is an important figure in the history of science. He demonstrated that blood circulates into heart from veins and from the heart to arteries, paving the way to Harvey’s complete description of blood circulation. Moreover, he was the founder of botany as a systematic discipline, which he based, rather than on the observation of accidental similarities of plants, on the discovery of their vegetative-generative principle. In philosophy, he attempted to conciliate the immortality of the soul (i.e., the (...) form of the body) with the existence of a unique immaterial intellect, which is individuated and multiplied in the singular souls that participate to it. (shrink)

Opponents of presentism have often argued that the presentist has difficulty in accounting for what makes true past-tensed propositions true in a way that is compatible with her metaphysical view of time and reality. The problem is quite general and concerns not only strong truth-maker principles, but also the requirement that truth be grounded in reality. In order to meet the challenge, presentists have proposed many peculiar present aspects of the world as grounds for truths concerning the past, such as (...) uninstantiated haecceities, Meinongian non-existents, ersatz times, and dispositional and distributional properties. The main problem with all such solutions is that any explanation of what grounds a TptP that involves the past is eo ipso a better explanation than any that involves only the present. Thus, the quest for an account of grounding for TptP that is compatible with the presentist ontology and ideology is doomed to be explanatorily deficient with respect to eternalism. In a recent article, Ben Caplan and David Sanson have claimed that presentists should change their strategy and, rather than seeking for exotic grounds for TptP, should adopt a more liberal view of explanation. That is, they should allow themselves to resort to “past directed” explanations, even if they do not accept the past in their ontology and ideology. I argue that such a proposal is not compatible with the tenet that there is a substantial distinction between the ideology of such a version of presentism and that of eternalism. Therefore, the presentist cannot endorse such “deflationist” explanations as an easy way out to the problem of the grounding of TptP. (shrink)

Sceptics about substantial disputes in ontology often argue that when two philosophers seem to disagree on a quantified claim, they are actually equivocating on the notion of existence that they are using. When temporal elements play a central role, as in the debate between presentists and eternalists, the hypothesis of an equivocation with respect to existence acquires more plausibility. However, the anti-sceptic can still argue that this hypothesis is unjustified.

As far as our experience goes, we live in a dynamic present. Those two phenomenal features of experience—presentness and dynamism—are obviously connected. However, how they are connected is not obvious at all. In this paper, I criticise the view according to which the former can explain the latter, which I call sophisticated representationalism. My criticism will be based on an ambiguity in the notion of tense found in the philosophical literature, that between the perspectival understanding and the dynamic understanding of (...) tenses. The distinction is not just of independent interest, but it has a role in providing indirect evidence for the claim that the feeling of passage of time should be understood in non-representationalist terms. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a problem for the realist with respect to the institutional sphere, and suggest a solution. Roughly, the problem lies in a contradiction that arises as soon as institutional contexts are allowed to influence the institutional profile of objects and events not only in the present, but also in the past. If such “retroactive enactments” are effective, in order to avoid contradiction the realist seems to have to accept the unpleasant conclusion that institutions can create a (...) past that has never been present. I will defend a solution which involves a distinction between temporal and atemporal types of institutional kinds that has, I maintain, independent interest. (shrink)

I criticize Lockwood’s solution to the “paradoxes” of time travel, thus endorsing Lewis’s more conservative position. Lockwood argues that only in the context of a 5D space-time-actuality manifold is the possibility of time travel compatible with the Autonomy Principle (according to which global constraints cannot override what is physically possible locally). I argue that shifting from 4D space-time to 5D space-time-actuality does not change the situation with respect to the Autonomy Principle, since the shift does not allow us to have (...) a coincidence-free local dynamical theory. (shrink)

The present thesis focuses on counterfactuals. Specifically, we will address new questions and open problems that arise for the standard semantic accounts of counterfactual conditionals. The first four chapters deal with the Lewisian semantic account of counterfactuals. On a technical level, we contribute by providing an equivalent algebraic semantics for Lewis' variably strict conditional logics, which is notably absent in the literature. We introduce a new kind of algebra and differentiate between local and global versions of each of Lewis' variably (...) strict conditional logics. We study the algebraic properties of Lewis' logics and the structure theory of our newly introduced algebras. Additionally, we employ a new algebraic construction, based on the framework of Boolean algebras of conditionals, to provide an alternative semantics for Lewisian counterfactual conditionals. This semantic account allows us to establish new truth conditions for Lewisian counterfactuals, implying that Lewisian counterfactuals are definable conditionals, and each counterfactual can be characterized as a modality of a corresponding probabilistic conditional. We further extend these results by demonstrating that each Lewisian counterfactual can also be characterized as a modality of the corresponding Stalnaker conditional. The resulting formal semantic framework is much more expressive than the standard one and, in addition to providing new truth conditions for counterfactuals, it also allows us to define a new class of conditional logics falling into the broader framework of weak logics. On the philosophical side, we argue that our results shed new light on the understanding of Lewisian counterfactuals and prompt a conceptual shift in this field: Lewisian counterfactual dependence can be understood as a modality of probabilistic conditional dependence or Stalnakerian conditional dependence. In other words, whether a counterfactual connection occurs between A and B depends on whether it is "necessary" for a Stalnakerian/probabilistic dependence to occur between A and B. We also propose some ways to interpret the kind of necessity involved in this interpretation. The remaining two chapters deal with the probability of counterfactuals. We provide an answer to the question of how we can characterize the probability that a Lewisian counterfactual is true, which is an open problem in the literature. We show that the probability of a Lewisian counterfactual can be characterized in terms of belief functions from Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence, which are a super-additive generalization of standard probability. We define an updating procedure for belief functions based on the imaging procedure and show that the probability of a counterfactual A > B amounts to the belief function of B imaged on A. This characterization strongly relies on the logical results we proved in the previous chapters. Moreover, we also solve an open problem concerning the procedure to assign a probability to complex counterfactuals in the framework of causal modelling semantics. A limitation of causal modelling semantics is that it cannot account for the probability of counterfactuals with disjunctive antecedents. Drawing on the same previous works, we define a new procedure to assign a probability to counterfactuals with disjunctive antecedents in the framework of causal modelling semantics. We also argue that our procedure is satisfactory in that it yields meaningful results and adheres to some conceptually intuitive constraints one may want to impose when computing the probability of counterfactuals. (shrink)

I present a new problem for the tense realist concerning the evaluation of cross-temporal claims, such as ‘John is now taller than Michael was in 1984’. Time can play two different roles in the evaluation of an utterance of a sentence: either as an element that completes the content expressed by the utterance (the completion role), or as part of the circumstances against which the content is evaluated (the evaluation role). It is this latter role that time plays in the (...) realist view of tenses. I argue that if the content of a cross-temporal sentence is taken at face value (as an ascription of a crosstemporally instantiated relation), time does not play the evaluation role. Therefore, the world of the tense realist seems to leave no room for cross-temporality. (shrink)

Space and time are two obvious candidates as dimensions of reality. Yet, are they the only two dimensions of reality? Famously, David Lewis maintained the doctrine of.

Intelligent defence support systems are confronted with the need to manage ever-increasing floods of data in a way that raises significant challenges because the data are described and presented using different terminologies and formats. How, on this basis, is it possible to reach a common understanding of the information content of these data among people and software agents? How is it possible to ensure that domain knowledge is reused in consistent fashion in a way that makes this information available for (...) integration and analysis? How can we support the identification, selection, composition, and orchestration of services based on such diverse data providing homogeneous support by a service-oriented architecture? This collection is devoted to the use of ontologies to answer questions such as these. (shrink)

I argue that, contrary to an idea to be found in popularizations of time travel, one cannot more easily multiply oneself by taking younger versions of oneself back in time than by travelling back in time on one’s own. The reason is that the suggested multiplication of the traveller is, from a global perspective, only apparent.

Even hard-core metaphysicians should admit that certain disputesmay indeed turn out not tobe substantive. The debate between presentism and eternalism has recently come undersceptical attack. The aim of the paper is to argue that a certain approach to presentism is indeedin danger of succumbing to the sceptic, and thus a no-go for the presentist.

In this paper I present a problem for the conventionalist regarding temporal metrics, and I defend an objectivist position on the ground of its explanatory force. Roughly, the conventionalist has it that there is no fact of the matter with respect to the truth or falsity of judgments of the kind “event e1 lasted as long as event e2”, while the objectivist thinks that they are grounded in objective features of space-time. I argue that, by positing grounds for judgments of (...) relative temporal length, the objectivist gains an explanatory force that the conventionalist position lacks. (shrink)

Every criminal act ought to be matched by a corresponding punishment, or so we may suppose, and every punishment ought to reflect a criminal act. We know how to count punishments. But how do we count crimes? In particular, how does our notion of a criminal action depend on whether the prohibited action is an activity, an accomplishment, an achievement, or a state?

El kitsch no es solo una categoría que ha definido una de las posibles gramáticas estéticas de la modernidad, sino también una dimensión antropológica que ha tenido diferentes configuraciones en el curso de los procesos históricos. El ensayo ofrece una mirada histórico-crítica sobre las transformaciones que condujeron desde el kitsch de principios del siglo XX hasta el neokitsch contemporáneo: desde la génesis del kitsch hasta su afirmación como una de las manifestaciones más tangibles de la cultura de masas. Integrándose con (...) la estética posmoderna, el kitsch se transforma en neokitsch, una estética que utiliza el kitsch como su propia sintaxis en el complejo escenario de la estética contemporánea. /// -/- Kitsch is not just a category that has defined one of the possible aesthetic grammars of modernity, but also an anthropological dimension that has had different configurations in the course of historical processes. The essay offers a historical-critical look at the transformations that led from the early twentieth century kitsch to the contemporary neokitsch: from the genesis of kitsch to its affirmation as one of the most tangible manifestations of mass culture. Integrating with postmodern aesthetics, kitsch turns into neokitsch, an aesthetic that deliberately uses kitsch as its own syntax in the complex scenario of contemporary aesthetics. (shrink)

The article argues that AI can enhance the measurement and implementation of democratic processes within political parties, known as Intra-Party Democracy (IPD). It identifies the limitations of traditional methods for measuring IPD, which often rely on formal parameters, self-reported data, and tools like surveys. Such limitations lead to partial data collection, rare updates, and significant resource demands. To address these issues, the article suggests that specific data management and Machine Learning techniques, such as natural language processing and sentiment analysis, can (...) improve the measurement and practice of IPD. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose a regularity theory of causation. The theory aims to be reductive and to align with our pre‐theoretic understanding of the causal relation. We show that our theory can account for a wide range of causal scenarios, including isomorphic scenarios, omissions, and scenarios which suggest that causation is not transitive.

Explanations of the genuine openness of the future often appeal to objective indeterminacy. According to the received view, such indeterminacy is indeterminacy of certain future-tensed state of affairs that presently obtain. We shall call this view the weak indeterminate present, to distinguish it from the view we will defend in this paper, which we dub the strong indeterminate present. According to our view, unsettledness of the future is grounded on the present indeterminacy of some present-tensed state of affairs. In order (...) for an indeterminate present-tensed state of affairs to explain the unsettledness of a future-tensed state of affairs, there has to be a connection between the two. We argue that this connection can only be provided if we look at the internal structure of the relevant state of affairs. Finally, we will suggest that the best background theory to explain the connection are the so-called spontaneous collapse models of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

The moving spotlight account (MS) is a view that combines an eternalist ontology and an A-theoretic metaphysics. The intuition underlying MS is that the present time is somehow privileged and experientially vivid, as if it were illuminated by a moving spotlight. According to MS-theorists, a key reason to prefer MS to B-theoretic eternalism is that our experience of time supports it. We argue that this is false. To this end, we formulate a new family of positions in the philosophy of (...) time, which differ from MS in that, intuitively, they admit a plurality of moving spotlights. We argue that these ‘deviant’ variants of MS cannot be dismissed as conceptually incoherent, and that they are as well-supported by our experience as is MS. One of these variants, however, is consistent with the B-theory. Thus, if our experience of time supports MS, then it supports the B-theory as well. (shrink)

In the luck egalitarian literature, one influential formulation of luck egalitarianism does not specify whether equalities that do not reflect people’s equivalent exercises of responsibility are bad with regard to inequality. This equivocation gives rise to two competing versions of luck egalitarianism: asymmetrical and symmetrical luck egalitarianism. According to the former, while inequalities due to luck are unjust, equalities due to luck are not necessarily so. The latter view, by contrast, affirms the undesirability of equalities as well as inequalities insofar (...) as they are due to luck. The symmetrical view, we argue, is by far the more compelling, both by internal luck egalitarian standards and in light of the external rightist emphasis on choice and responsibility to which luck egalitarianism may partly be seen as a response. Our main case for the symmetrical view is that when some people, against a background of equal opportunities, do not exercise their responsibility to the same degree as others, they cannot justifiably call for equalizing measures to be put in place. Indeed, such measures would be positively unfair. The symmetrical view, accordingly, rejects compensation in such cases, whereas the asymmetrical view, implausibly, enjoins it. We also examine two objections to this argument. First, that this view fails to qualify as genuinely egalitarian, instead collapsing the notion of equality into the notion of desert. Second, that the opposing asymmetrical view, in contrast to the symmetrical view, can draw support from its compatibility with sufficientarian concerns. Both objections are rebutted. We conclude that luck egalitarians are best served by endorsing the symmetrical, luck-neutralizing stance. (shrink)

Youth politics is celebrated locally, nationally and internationally. In this paper, I argue that such celebration must be deemed unethical. First, I assert that the vitality and sustainability of any democracy is contingent upon the people’s ability to reason and think critically. Second, I make the case that youth politics exerts negative effects on the members’ ability to reason and think critically. Then I approach Norway as a case study, exemplifying how these negative effects may play out. Thus one is (...) faced with the following dilemma: It is regarded ethically imperative to promote political engagement amongst youth, but it is unethical to promote youth politics. (shrink)

This paper delves into the use of machine learning-based systems in decision-making processes and its implications for moral responsibility as traditionally defined. It focuses on the emergence of responsibility gaps and examines proposed strategies to address them. The paper aims to provide an introductory and comprehensive overview of the ongoing debate surrounding moral responsibility in automated decision-making. By thoroughly examining these issues, we seek to contribute to a deeper understanding of the implications of AI integration in society.

Rare diseases pose a particular priority setting problem. The UK gives rare diseases special priority in healthcare priority setting. Effectively, the National Health Service is willing to pay much more to gain a quality-adjusted life-year related to a very rare disease than one related to a more common condition. But should rare diseases receive priority in the allocation of scarce healthcare resources? This article develops and evaluates four arguments in favour of such a priority. These pertain to public values, luck (...) egalitarian distributive justice the epistemic difficulties of obtaining knowledge about rare diseases and the incentives created by a higher willingness to pay. The first is at odds with our knowledge regarding popular opinion. The three other arguments may provide a reason to fund rare diseases generously. However, they are either overinclusive because they would also justify funding for many non-rare diseases or underinclusive in the sense of justifying priority for only some rare diseases. The arguments thus fail to provide a justification that tracks rareness as such. There are no data in this work. (shrink)

In this paper I provide an analysis of an anonymous text which appeared at Sondershausen and Mühlhausen in 1687: Initiatio philosophi sive Dubitatio Cartesiana, ad indubiam philosophiam viam monstrans, iuxta mentem Renati des Cartes, Nobilis Galli, utraque methodo explicata, titled after Johannes Clauberg’s homonymous 1655 treatise. It consisted of (1) an abridgement of his Paraphrasis in Renati Des Cartes Meditationes (1658), and (2) a demonstration more geometrico of the necessity of methodical doubt as the beginning of philosophy, partially based on (...) Clauberg’s own 1655 Initiatio. I place the publication of the 1687 text in the context of the attacks on Cartesianism taking place in German areas especially after 1677 and the appearance of Spinoza’s texts, focusing on the ways in which Clauberg’s philosophy was adapted to the rebuking of such attacks and to the re-establishment of a Cartesian presence in Germany. (shrink)

Research on the ethics of algorithms has grown substantially over the past decade. Alongside the exponential development and application of machine learning algorithms, new ethical problems and solutions relating to their ubiquitous use in society have been proposed. This article builds on a review of the ethics of algorithms published in 2016, 2016). The goals are to contribute to the debate on the identification and analysis of the ethical implications of algorithms, to provide an updated analysis of epistemic and normative (...) concerns, and to offer actionable guidance for the governance of the design, development and deployment of algorithms. (shrink)

This paper offers an argument in favour of a Lewisian version of concretism that maintains both the principle of material inheritance (according to which, if all the parts of an object x are material, then x is material) and the materiality-modality link (that is, the principle that, for every x, if x is material, then x is possible).

Age-based rationing remains highly controversial. This question has been paramount during the Covid-19 pandemic. Analyzing the practices, proposals, and guidelines applied or put forward during the current pandemic, three kinds of age-based rationing are identified: an age-based cut-off, age as a tiebreaker, and indirect age rationing, where age matters to the extent that it affects prognosis. Where age is allowed to play a role in terms of who gets treated, it is justified either because this is believed to maximize benefits (...) from scarce resources or because it is believed to be in accordance with the value of fairness understood as (a) fair innings, where less priority is given to those who have lived a full life or (b) an egalitarian concern for the worse off. By critically assessing prominent frameworks and practices for pandemic rationing, this article considers the balance the three kinds of age-based rationing strike between maximizing benefits and fairness. It evaluates whether elements in the proposals are, in fact, contrary to the justifications of these measures. Such shortcomings are highlighted, and it is proposed to adjust prominent proposals to care for the worse off more appropriately and better consider whether the acquired benefits befalls the young or the old. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to defend the general tenet that time travelers cannot change the past within B-theoretical models of time, independently of how many temporal dimensions there are. Baron Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 98, 129–147 offered a strong argument intended to reach this general conclusion. However, his argument does not cover a peculiar case, i.e. a B-theoretical one-dimensional model of time that allows for the presence of internal times. Loss Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 96, 1–11 used the latter model (...) to argue that time travelers can change the past within such model. We show a way to debunk Loss’s argument, so that the general tenet about the impossibility of changing the past within B-theoretical models is maintained. (shrink)

The book is divided into three parts. The first, containing three papers, focuses on the characterization of the central tenets of previii sentism (by Neil McKinnon) and eternalism (by Samuel Baron and Kristie Miller), and on the ‘sceptical stance’ (by Ulrich Meyer), a view to the effect that there is no substantial difference between presentism and eternalism. The second and main section of the book contains three pairs of papers that bring the main problems with presentism to the fore and (...) outlines its defence strategy. Each pair of papers in this section can be read as a discussion between presentists and eternalists, wherein each directly responds to the arguments and objections offered by the other. This is a discussion that is sometimes absent in the literature, or which is at best carried out in a fragmented way. The first two papers of the section deal with the problem of the compatibility of Special Relativity Theory (SRT) and presentism. SRT is often considered to be a theory that contradicts the main tenet of presentism, thereby rendering presentism at odds with one of our most solid scientific theories. Christian Wüthrich’s paper presents arguments for the incompatibility of the two theories (SRT and presentism) within a new framework that includes a discussion of further complications arising from the theory of Qauantum Mechanics. Jonathan Lowe’s paper, by contrast, develops new general arguments against the incompatibility thesis and replies to Wüthrich’s paper. The second pair of papers focuses on the problem that presentists face, in providing grounds for past tensed truths. In the first (by Matthew Davidson), new arguments are provided to defend the idea that the presentist cannot adequately explain how what is now true about the past is grounded, since for the presentist the past is completely devoid of ontological ground. The second paper (by Brian Kierland) takes up the challenge of developing a presentist explanation of past truths, beginning by outlining some existing views in the literature before advancing an original proposal. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the role of the imagination in creativity, using aphantasia as a case study. It first distinguishes between imagination and mental imagery, before giving an overview of what we know about aphantasia to date, focusing in particular on findings pertaining to creativity, imagination, and memory. It then turns to the role of the imagination in creativity, agreeing with philosophers that the imagination plays an essential role in creativity, which allows individuals to imagine a multitude of possibilities. This (...) view is then supplemented with a theory of the neuro-cognitive underpinnings of the imagination, whereby both the imagination and memory are supported by the same neural network – the default mode network. Finally, the chapter argues that this fuller picture allows us to understand the creative abilities of people with aphantasia, thoroughly resisting the thought that they might generally be unimaginative or uncreative. (shrink)

I show that there are good reasons to think that some individuals without any capacity for consciousness should be counted as welfare subjects, assuming that desire-fulfilment is a welfare good and that any individuals who can accrue welfare goods are welfare subjects. While other philosophers have argued for similar conclusions, I show that they have done so by relying on a simplistic understanding of the desire-fulfilment theory. My argument is intended to be sensitive to the complexities and nuances of contemporary (...) developments of the theory, while avoiding highly counter-intuitive implications of previous arguments for the same conclusion. (shrink)

Laws are supposed to tell us how physical systems actually behave. The analysis of an important part of physical practice--abstraction--shows, however, that laws describe the behavior of physical systems under very special circumstances, namely when they are isolated. Nevertheless, laws are applied in cases of non-isolation as well. This practice requires an explanation. It is argued that one has to assume that physical systems have dispositions. I take these to be innocuous from an empiricist's standpoint because they can--at least in (...) principle--be measured. Laws can be applied whenever such a disposition is present, they describe how the physical system would behave if the disposition were manifest. (shrink)

Saul Kripke proposed a skeptical challenge that Romina Padró defended and popularized by the name of the Adoption Problem. The challenge is that, given a certain definition of adoption, there are some logical principles that cannot be adopted—paradigmatic cases being Universal Instantiation and Modus Ponens. Kripke has used the Adoption Problem to argue that there is an important sense in which logic is not revisable. In this essay, I defend two independent claims. First, that the Adoption Problem does not entail (...) that logic is never revisable in the sense that Kripke addresses. Second, that, to assess whether an agent can revise their logic in the sense that Kripke addresses, it is best to consider a different definition of adoption, according to which Universal Instantiation and Modus Ponens are sometimes adoptable. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss two issues addressed by Stanley in How Propaganda Works: the status of slurs (Section 1) and the notion of positive propaganda (Section 2). In particular, in Section 1 we argue contra Stanley that code words like ‘welfare’ are crucially different from slurs in that the association between the lexical item and an additional social meaning is not as systematic as it is for slurs. In this sense, slurs bring about a special kind of propagandistic effect, (...) even if it typically concerns informal contexts rather than public debates. In Section 2, we consider positive propaganda and its relation to emotional effects. For Stanley, positive propaganda relies on the production of emotional effects, feature which risks to erode rational debates even if there is a good purpose behind. Instead, we argue that positive propaganda can work with no appeal to emotions. To this end, we focus on the use of ‘she’ as the default personal pronoun in academic writing and suggest that this measure can count as positive propaganda which rather than eroding rational debates by relying on emotional effects, closely resembles affirmative action aimed at counterbalance a pre-existing form of injustice and inequality. (shrink)

In this discussion note, I defend four claims: (1) The interpretation of Leibniz's theory of simple substances as a philosophy of panpsychism has no direct support from Leibniz's texts. (2) According to Leibniz there is a perfect continuity between perceptions of different degrees of distinctness. (3) Nevertheless, due to the reflective structure of sensation, there is a discontinuity between the perceptions of bare simple substances and sensations, which are characteristic of souls. (4) Finally, Leibniz's principle of continuity leaves room for (...) this kind of discontinuity between different kinds of simple substances. (shrink)

This paper employs some outcomes (for the most part due to David Lewis) of the contemporary debate on the metaphysics of dispositions to evaluate those dispositional analyses of meaning that make use of the concept of a disposition in ideal conditions. The first section of the paper explains why one may find appealing the notion of an ideal-condition dispositional analysis of meaning and argues that Saul Kripke’s well-known argument against such analyses is wanting. The second section focuses on Lewis’ work (...) in the metaphysics of dispositions in order to call attention to some intuitions about the nature of dispositions that we all seem to share. In particular, I stress the role of what I call "Actuality Constraint". The third section of the paper maintains that the Actuality Constraint can be used to show that the dispositions with which ideal-condition dispositional analyses identify my meaning addition by "+" do not exist (in so doing, I develop a suggestion put forward by Paul Boghossian). This immediately implies that ideal-condition dispositional analyses of meaning cannot work. The last section discusses a possible objection to my argument. The point of the objection is that the argument depends on an illicit assumption. I show (1) that, in fact, the assumption in question is far from illicit and (2) that even without this assumption it is possible to argue that the dispositions with which ideal-condition dispositional analyses identify my meaning addition by "+" do not exist. (shrink)

Affirmative action continues to divide. My aim in this paper is to present participants in the debate with a new distinction, namely one between negative and positive affirmative action. Whereas positive affirmative action has to do with certain goods, such as a place at a prestigious university or a job at a prestigious company, negative affirmative action has to do with certain bads, such as a firing or a sentence. I then argue that some of the most prominent arguments in (...) favor of affirmative action speak at least as much in favor of negative as positive affirmative action. At the same time, at least one of the most prominent arguments put forward against affirmative action speak less against negative affirmative action. Thus, the paper should redraw the battle lines in the affirmative action debate. (shrink)