In philosophical aesthetics, discussions on design objects place the notion of Functional Beauty at the fore. Such a philosophical approach can be found in Jane Forsey’s book The Aesthetics of Design that focuses on the notion of function to promote the aesthetic value of design and develops an interpretation of Kantian Dependent Beauty around it. Lucía Jiménez Sánchez has recently put forward several flaws of Functional Beauty accounts. She presented several practical cases as evidence for the narrowness of Functional Beauty (...) accounts. Two cases are presented against Jane Forsey’s theory of Dependent Beauty, holding that it excludes other properties from appreciation that are not necessarily related to functionality, i.e., expres- sive properties. The purpose of this article is to show that these criticisms leveled at Jane Forsey’s proposal for an aesthetic theory of design are unfounded and are based on a misun- derstanding of the structure of judgments of beauty in her system. Despite this, these criticisms highlight the need to clarify the purpose of the aesthetics of design. (shrink)

Permissivism is the thesis that, for some body of evidence and a proposition p, there is more than one rational doxastic attitude any agent with that evidence can take toward p. Proponents of uniqueness deny permissivism, maintaining that every body of evidence always determines a single rational doxastic attitude. In this paper, we explore the debate between permissivism and uniqueness about evidence, outlining some of the major arguments on each side. We then consider how permissivism can be understood as an (...) underdetermination thesis, and show how this moves the debate forward in fruitful ways: in distinguishing between different types of permissivism, in dispelling classic objections to permissivism, and in shedding light on the relationship between permissivism and evidentialism. (shrink)

In discussions of religious disagreement, some epistemologists have suggested that religious disagreement is distinctive. More specifically, they have argued that religious disagreement has certain features which make it possible for theists to resist conciliatory arguments that they must adjust their religious beliefs in response to finding that peers disagree with them. I consider what I take to be the two most prominent features which are claimed to make religious disagreement distinct: religious evidence and evaluative standards in religious contexts. I argue (...) that these two features fail to distinguish religious disagreement in the ways they have been taken to. However, I show that the view that religious disagreement is not a unique form of disagreement makes religious disagreement less, rather than more, worrisome to the theist who would prefer to rationally remain steadfast in her religious beliefs. (shrink)

We provide a novel defense of the possibility of level-splitting beliefs and use this defense to show that the steadfast response to peer disagreement is not, as it is often claimed to be, unnecessarily dogmatic. To provide this defense, a neglected form of moral disagreement is analysed. Within the context of this particular kind of moral disagreement, a similarly neglected form of level-splitting belief is identified and then defended from critics of the rationality of level-splitting beliefs. The chapter concludes by (...) showing that proponents of the steadfast response to peer disagreement can adopt this form of level-splitting belief in the context of these moral disagreements while exemplifying intellectual humility, rather than dogmatism. (shrink)

Most philosophical discussions of disagreement have used idealized disagreements to draw conclusions about the nature of disagreement. I closely examine an actual, non-idealized disagreement in dinosaur paleobiology and show that it can not only teach us about the features of some of our real world disagreements, but can help us to argue for the possibility of reasonable real world disagreement.

Preview: /Review: Brian S. Dixon, Dewey and Design: A Pragmatist Perspective for Design Research, 200 pages./ Brian S. Dixon’s book Dewey and Design provides, as the book’s subtitle declaims, a pragmatist perspective for design research. Design research is an academic field that specifically deals with the design process. Its domain-specific knowledge led to the establishment of design as an independent discipline of study in the second half of the last century. According to Dixon’s description, design research consists of three major (...) areas of investigation: the design process, the artifacts that result from this process, and the relation of these artifacts with the end-user. Dixon exposes the fruitlessness of drawing a clear dividing line, and argues that design research would be better off as a continuous, not necessarily linear, process involving “practically” all three. Concurrently, the author emphasizes the practical aspect of this continuity; on the one hand as a stark contrast to the idea of ​​purely theoretical research, on the other, from a pragmatist viewpoint, intending the knowledge of the world as full of the practical consequences of acting within it. Specifically, the pragmatist slant of Dixon’s proposal is that of John Dewey, centered on the ideas of “an experience,” “inquiry,” and “imagination”; notions aiming at providing “a robust epistemological narrative” for design research. The choice of this perspective necessarily leads Dixon to deal with problems such as the ontology of the specifically creative act of designers, distinct from the artistic one, the communicative potential of industrial artifacts, and their ethical import. (shrink)

I provide a critical review of Moti Mizrahi's The Relativity of Theory, expounding on the book's strengths and then providing an extended argument that Mizrahi mischaracterizes the epistemic attitude of concern to antirealism about science as well as the practical stakes involved in adopting the antirealist position.

As it emerged from philosophical analyses and cognitive research, most concepts exhibit typicality effects, and resist to the efforts of defining them in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. This holds also in the case of many medical concepts. This is a problem for the design of computer science ontologies, since knowledge representation formalisms commonly adopted in this field (such as, in the first place, the Web Ontology Language - OWL) do not allow for the representation of concepts in terms (...) of typical traits. The need of representing concepts in terms of typical traits concerns almost every domain of real world knowledge, including medical domains. In particular, in this article we take into account the domain of mental disorders, starting from the DSM-5 descriptions of some specific disorders. We favour a hybrid approach to concept representation, in which ontology oriented formalisms are combined to a geometric representation of knowledge based on conceptual space. As a preliminary step to apply our proposal to mental disorder concepts, we started to develop an OWL ontology of the schizophrenia spectrum, which is as close as possible to the DSM-5 descriptions. (shrink)

As it emerged from philosophical analyses and cognitive research, most concepts exhibit typicality effects, and resist to the efforts of defining them in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. This holds also in the case of many medical concepts. This is a problem for the design of computer science ontologies, since knowledge representation formalisms commonly adopted in this field do not allow for the representation of concepts in terms of typical traits. However, the need of representing concepts in terms of (...) typical traits concerns almost every domain of real world knowledge, including medical domains. In particular, in this article we take into account the domain of mental disorders, starting from the DSM-5 descriptions of some specific mental disorders. On this respect, we favor a hybrid approach to the representation of psychiatric concepts, in which ontology oriented formalisms are combined to a geometric representation of knowledge based on conceptual spaces. (shrink)

This paper explores relationships between environment and education after the Covid-19 pandemic through the lens of philosophy of education in a new key developed by Michael Peters and the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia. The paper is collectively written by 15 authors who responded to the question: Who remembers Greta Thunberg? Their answers are classified into four main themes and corresponding sections. The first section, ‘As we bake the earth, let's try and bake it from scratch’, gathers wider (...) philosophical considerations about the intersection between environment, education, and the pandemic. The second section, ‘Bump in the road or a catalyst for structural change?’, looks more closely into issues pertaining to education. The third section, ‘If you choose to fail us, we will never forgive you’, focuses to Greta Thunberg’s messages and their responses. The last section, ‘Towards a new normal’, explores future scenarios and develops recommendations for critical emancipatory action. The concluding part brings these insights together, showing that resulting synergy between the answers offers much more then the sum of articles’ parts. With its ethos of collectivity, interconnectedness, and solidarity, philosophy of education in a new key is a crucial tool for development of post-pandemic education. (shrink)

Greta Thunberg has rapidly become a household name due to her passionate involvement in the youth climate movement. However, Thunberg has also received criticism, among other things for her anger. Is such anger really productive, people ask, or is it harming the cause of climate justice? In this article, I examine that question from a philosophical perspective. I look at two commonly mentioned disadvantages of anger, namely that it is a retributive emotion and that it reduces uptake of one’s (...) message, and I provide some reasons why these might not be disadvantageous after all. Then, I look at four different advantages of anger: its motivational power, its revolutionary potential, its use for community building, and its epistemic value. Each of these points is linked back to the climate movement as it is personified by Greta Thunberg, in order to analyse the anger that is at times very prominent in her activist message. While a definite conclusion about the productivity of Thunberg’s anger is difficult to reach, I conclude that her anger should be listened to regardless, since we have much to learn from it. (shrink)

This paper’s main aim is to illuminate how climate activism—which seeks to address the collective existential crisis that is climate change—uniquely intersects with the individual existential crisis that is one’s own death. Addressing climate change seems to minimally require more cooperation and less environmentally unfriendly behavior. However, in virtue of the way discussions on climate change can make nature’s vulnerability—and, relatedly, our own mortality—psychologically salient, climate discourse is capable of engendering existential anxiety. This poses problems for climate activism, as attenuating (...) existential anxiety often relies on forms of self-esteem striving capable of undermining cooperation and exacerbating environmentally unfriendly behavior. I take these problems to have implications for a certain style of discourse made famous by Greta Thunberg: climate shaming. Because of shame’s potential to induce moral maturation/motivational revision, some take climate shaming to be a justified strategy for promoting climate activism. Yet empirical research suggests that climate shaming may often catalyze various self-esteem striving behaviors that lead to the exact opposite of climate shaming’s intended effect(s). In my view, this is because of climate shaming’s problematic potential to engender existential anxiety. If so, climate activists have good reason to abandon the climate shaming strategy. (shrink)

Humans face wide ranging and global challenges in the Anthropocene, the most prominent of which is anthropogenic climate change. One initial pivot towards sustainability, particularly in my home country of the United States, has been to rely heavily on technological innovation powered most obviously by engineers. Using the climate activist Greta Thunberg's speech at the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference as my inspiration, I try to show how some of the technology based solutions only entrench what I call (...) the “Bestance” mentality, that is, the fundamental stance or orientation toward the natural world in the Anthropocene wherein all entities show up as mere resources. Upon showing the various ways in which traditional ethical approaches and environmental philosophical approaches have proved unhelpful in navigating the challenges of the Anthropocene, I try to demonstrate and how a Heideggerian ecophenomenological approach can help us not only understand how the world appears to many of us in the Anthropocene, but also what a more graceful way of being might look like in Heidegger's concept of “dwelling.” Using specific examples of current technologies pervasively normalized in the United States, including hydraulic fracturing, horizontal drilling, desalination, and artificial nitrogen based fertilization, I use Heidegger's philosophical concepts to show how the land, sea, and air can show up as Bestand in the Anthropocene, that is, merely materials on hand to be manipulated in order to serve human interests. (shrink)

A political philosopher dissects the duties and dilemmas of the unelected spokesperson, from Martin Luther King, Jr., to Greta Thunberg. -/- Political representation is typically assumed to be the purview of formal institutions and elected officials. But many of the people who represent us are not senators or city councilors—think of Martin Luther King, Jr., or Malala Yousafzai or even a neighbor who speaks up at a school board meeting. Informal political representatives are in fact ubiquitous, often powerful, and (...) some bear enormous responsibility. In Speaking for Others, political philosopher Wendy Salkin develops the first systematic conceptual and moral analysis of informal political representation. -/- Salkin argues that informal representation can be a political lifeline, particularly for oppressed and marginalized groups that are denied representation in formal political institutions. Yet informal political representatives exert outsized influence over the ways these groups’ interests are understood by the public, without the represented having much recourse to hold them accountable. And many informal political representatives are selected not by the groups they represent but by outsiders, sticking these groups with representatives they would not choose but cannot shake. The role of informal political representatives is therefore fraught with moral questions. What exactly are their duties and to whom are they owed? Should they be members of the groups they represent? When is informal representation permissible and when is it best avoided? -/- Informal political representation is taking place all around us. In fact, you yourself may be an informal political representative without knowing it. Speaking for Others explores the tensions central to this pervasive yet underexamined practice, bringing light to both its perils and its promise. (shrink)

Fans of arthouse cinema may lament that über-indie idol Greta Gerwig sold out to mainstream cinema with her foray into Barbie. Yet for every film snob who refuses to watch Barbie, innumerable other...