VAN PRAAG (Paul), Introduction : le Père Henri Bosmans, histo­rien des mathématiques (pp. 7-16). SAUVAGE (Pierre), Notice biographique du Père Henri Bosmans (pp. 17-25). HERMANS (Michel), Henri Bosmans : sa formation et ses réseaux de rela­tions (pp. 27-72). DELANGHE (Richard), Quelques aspects de la vie et de l’œuvre de Paul Mansion (1844-1919) (pp. 73-82). BRIGAGLIA (Aldo), Saccheri vu par Corrado Segre en Italie et par Mansion et Bosmans en Belgique / traduit de l’italien par Bruna GAINO et Patricia RADELET-DE GRAVE (...) (pp. 83-104). MAWHIN (Jean), La tentative belge d’édition des œuvres complètes d’Euler vue par Henri Bos­mans (pp. 105-133). GOLVERS (Noël), Henri Bosmans, s.j., et la mission jésuite en Chine / traduit du néerlandais par Anne-Sophie MEURICE (pp. 135-152). ROMANO (Antonella), Henri Bosmans, jésuite et historien des mathéma­tiques dans la Belgique du premier XXe siècle (pp. 153-168). SAUVAGE (Pierre), Le Père Henri Bosmans et l’historiographie au tournant du XXe siècle (pp. 169-187). RADELET-DE GRAVE (Patricia), Le fonds Henri Bos­mans / avec un ajout de Michel HERMANS (pp. 189-215). MANSION (Paul), Correspondance de Paul Mansion adres­sée à Henri Bosmans / introduction, trans­cription et annotation par Michel HERMANS (pp. 217-251). HEEFFER (Albrecht) – HERMANS (Michel) – STOFFEL (Jean-François), Bibliographie d’Henri Bosmans (pp. 253-298). (shrink)

While psychologists and political scientists have long investigated issues of interest to philosophers, the development of political experimental philosophy has remained limited. This slow progress is surprising, given that political philosophers commonly acknowledge the relevance of empirical data for normative theorizing. In this chapter, we illustrate the importance of empirical data by outlining recent developments in three domains related to theories of justice, where empirical results reinforce or endanger popular philosophical theories. Our first showcase concerns the boundaries of the concept (...) of fairness. While both libertarian thinkers and social egalitarians have united in rejecting the concept of natural injustice, we show that people do consider that unpreventable natural inequalities can be described as unfair. Second, we take the example of impartiality devices, such as the veil of ignorance or the idea of an impartial spectator, to show that such devices are efficient at shifting people’s intuitions in a more impartial manner. Third, we review empirical data on fairness intuitions to show that people conform to a pluralist theory of justice, valuing desert, needs-satisfaction, and equality at the same time. However, distribution according to desert enjoys a privileged position: people mostly care for the satisfaction of basic needs of deserving recipients, and people are willing to tolerate large inequalities in meritocratic contexts. The centrality of desert leads to dilemmas for mainstream egalitarian theorists, as theories that do not recognize the value of desert could fail to find support or legitimacy within the population. (shrink)

I apply Kooi and Tamminga's (2012) idea of correspondence analysis for many-valued logics to strong three-valued logic (K3). First, I characterize each possible single entry in the truth-table of a unary or a binary truth-functional operator that could be added to K3 by a basic inference scheme. Second, I define a class of natural deduction systems on the basis of these characterizing basic inference schemes and a natural deduction system for K3. Third, I show that each of the resulting natural (...) deduction systems is sound and complete with respect to its particular semantics. Among other things, I thus obtain a new proof system for Lukasiewicz's three-valued logic. (shrink)

abstract The moral value of distributive equality constitutes one of the most contentious debates in political philosophy. Following Frankfurt, many philosophers have claimed that the intuitive appeal of equality is illusory and that egalitarian intuitions are fundamentally intuitions about the importance of satisfying basic needs. According to this argument, our intuitions tell us that inequality ceases to matter once a certain threshold has been reached. Despite the widespread appeal to intuitions regarding this issue, few empirical studies have tried to assess (...) whether Frankfurt and his followers are right in claiming the lack of intuitiveness of equality per se. In a series of three experiments, we show that experimental evidence does not allow us to settle the intuitiveness of each theory: laypeople are divided in the consideration of the respective importance of needs and equality. While our results do show that laypeople attach special importance to needs‐fulfilment, it also seems that they are divided when it comes to the importance they grant to equality once needs are fulfilled. No theory is unanimously backed by participants, and it seems that, fundamentally, divisions among philosophers reflect deep divisions among people. (shrink)

This paper presents two systems of natural deduction for the rejection of non-tautologies of classical propositional logic. The first system is sound and complete with respect to the body of all non-tautologies, the second system is sound and complete with respect to the body of all contradictions. The second system is a subsystem of the first. Starting with Jan Łukasiewicz's work, we describe the historical development of theories of rejection for classical propositional logic. Subsequently, we present the two systems of (...) natural deduction and prove them to be sound and complete. We conclude with a ‘Theorem of Inversion’. (shrink)

C.S. Peirce's and Isaac Levi's accounts of the belief-doubt-belief model are discussed and evaluated. It is argued that the contemporary study of belief change has metamorphosed into a branch of philosophical logic where empirical considerations have become obsolete. A case is made for reformulations of belief change systems that do allow for empirical tests. Last, a belief change system is presented that (1) uses finite representations of information, (2) can adequately deal with inconsistencies, (3) has finite operations of change, (4) (...) can do without extra-logical elements, and (5) only licenses consistent beliefs. (shrink)

Quine's holistic empiricist account of scientific inquiry can be characterized by three constitutive principles: *noncontradiction*, *universal revisability* and *pragmatic ordering*. We show that these constitutive principles cannot be regarded as statements within a holistic empiricist's scientific theory of the world. This claim is a corollary of our refutation of Katz's [1998, 2002] argument that holistic empiricism suffers from what he calls the Revisability Paradox. According to Katz, Quine's empiricism is incoherent because its constitutive principles cannot themselves be rationally revised. Using (...) Gärdenfors and Makinson's logic of belief revision based on epistemic entrenchment, we argue that Katz wrongly assumes that the constitutive principles are *statements* within a holistic empiricist's theory of the world. Instead, we show that constitutive principles are best seen as *properties* of a holistic empiricist's theory of scientific inquiry and we submit that, without Katz's mistaken assumption, the paradox cannot be formulated. We argue that our perspective on the status of constitutive principles is perfectly in line with Quinean orthodoxy. In conclusion, we compare our findings with van Fraassen's [2002] argument that we should think of empiricism as a stance, rather than as a doctrine. (shrink)

Standard approaches to ontological simplicity focus either on the number of things or types a theory posits or on the number of fundamental things or types a theory posits. In this paper, I suggest a ground-theoretic approach that focuses on the number of something else. After getting clear on what this approach amounts to, I motivate it, defend it, and complete it.

The branch of philosophical logic which has become known as “belief change” has, in the course of its development, become alienated from its epistemological origins. However, as formal criteria do not suffice to defend a principled choice between competing systems for belief change, we do need to take their epistemological embedding into account. Here, on the basis of a detailed examination of Isaac Levi's epistemology, we argue for a new direction of belief change research and propose to construct systems for (...) belief change that can do without, but do not rule out, selection functions, in order to enable an *empirical* assessment of the relative merits of competing belief change systems. (shrink)

This paper presents a conception of corruption informed by epistemic democratic theory. I first explain the view of corruption as a disease of the political body. Following this view, we have to consider the type of actions that debase a political entity of its constitutive principal in order to assess corruption. Accordingly, we need to consider what the constitutive principle of democracy is. This is the task I undertake in the second section where I explicate democratic legitimacy. I present democracy (...) as a procedure of social inquiry about what ought to be done that includes epistemic and practical considerations. In the third section, I argue that the problem of corruption for a procedural conception of democracy is that the epistemic value of the procedure is diminished by corrupted agents’ lack of concern for truth. Corruption, according to this view, consists in two deformities of truth: lying and bullshit. These deformities corrupt since they conceal private interests under the guise of a concern for truth. In the fourth section, I discuss the difficulties a procedural account may face in formulating solutions to the problem of corruption. (shrink)

The statue and the lump of clay that constitutes it fail to share all of their kind and modal properties. Therefore, by Leibniz’s Law, the statue is not the lump. Question: What grounds the kind and modal differences between the statue and the lump? In virtue of what is it that the lump of clay, but not the statue, can survive being smashed? This is the grounding problem. Now a number of solutions to the grounding problem require that we substantially (...) revise our view of reality. In this paper, I provide a solution to this problem that does not require such a revision. I then show how my solution to the grounding problem can solve a related problem and answer a related question. The upshot is that the solution I offer is not only non-revisionary, but also fruitful. (shrink)

As it is presently employed, grounding permits grounding many things from one ground. In this paper, I show why this is a mistake by pushing for a uniqueness principle on grounding. After arguing in favor of this principle, I say something about it and kinds of grounding, discuss a similar principle, and consider its import on a formal feature of grounding, ontology, and ontological simplicity.

As I will use the term, an object is a mereological sum of some things just in case those things compose it simply in virtue of existing. In the first half of this paper, I argue that there are no sums. The key premise for this conclusion relies on a constraint on what, in certain cases, it takes for something to ground, or metaphysically explain, something else. In the second half, I argue that in light of my argument against sums, (...) Universalism, which is perhaps the most widely accepted answer to the Special Composition Question, is false. (shrink)

In this paper, I both propose and discuss a novel account of truthmaking. I begin by showing what truthmaking is not: it is not grounding and it is not correspondence. I then show what truthmaking is by offering an account that appeals both to grounding and what I call ‘deep correspondence’. After I present the account and show that it is an account that unifies, I put it to work by showing how it can overcome an objection to truthmaking, how (...) we can get truthmaking from correspondence, what it says about truthmaker necessitation, and how it can explain a connection between truthmaker maximalism and pluralism about truth. (shrink)

Ang papel na ito ay isang pilosopikong pagsusuri sa konsepto ng espasyo sa Pilipinong pananaw. Ang konsepto ng espasyo sa Pilipinong pananaw ay nagsisilbing dahilan para masabi nating tayo ay nagmamahal sa karunungang nagmula at pinagyaman ng kamalayang Pilipino. Ang konsepto ng espasyo rin ang nagpapatibay sa katwiran na naglalantad sa pangangailangan nang agarang pananaliksik ng karunungang nakaligtaan sa kanluran. Kung ang mga Hapon ay matagumpay na pinagmunihan ang 'espasyo' gamit ang mga konseptong basho, aidagara, at zettai mu tungo sa (...) pagbibigay diin sa pagkamakabayan, ang ‘espasyo’ ay magsisilbing gabay sa mga Pilipino na lumingon sa kanilang pinanggalingan upang bigyan ng linaw ang layunin sa bawat tangkang pagbuo ng masasabing makataong ‘pilosopiya natin’. Tungo sa makataong espasyo sa pag-iral ng tao, nais galugarin ng diskursong ito ang mga sumusunod na paksa: 1] Lugar ay Espasyo; 2] Sa Pagitan ng ‘Ako’ at ng ‘Ikaw’; 3] Espasyo Bilang Bukal ng Kaalaman at pagkatuto; 4] Pagbuo ng Makataong Espasyo at Pagbuwag sa mga Mapang-aping Espasyo; 5] Salaysay ng mga Karanasan Tungo sa paghulma ng Makataong Espasyo; 6] Espasyo ng/para sa mga Peminista?; 7] Sa Pagitan ng Namatay at ng Namatayan; 8] Saan Matatagpuan ang Kapayapaan? (shrink)

Truthmaker says that things, broadly construed, are the ontological grounds of truth and, therefore, that things make truths true. Recently, there have been a number of arguments purporting to show that if one embraces Truthmaker, then one ought to embrace Truthmaker Maximalism—the view that all non-analytic propositions have truthmakers. But then if one embraces Truthmaker, one ought to think that negative existentials have truthmakers. I argue that this is false. I begin by arguing that recent attempts by Ross Cameron and (...) Jonathan Schaffer to provide negative existentials with truthmakers fail. I then argue that the conditional—if one embraces Truthmaker, the one ought to embrace Truthmaker Maximalism—is false by considering worlds where very little, if anything at all, exists. The conclusion is that thinking that negative existentials do not have truthmakers, and therefore rejecting Truthmaker Maximalism, need not worry Truthmaker embracers. (shrink)

In this paper, I advance a lesser known counterfactual principle of grounding in a new kind of way by appealing to properties and the work they do. I then show that this new way of arguing for this principle is superior to another way, describe some of the work this principle can do, defend my use of this principle, and conclude with remarks on why principles like it are needed.

The growing proportion of elderly people in society, together with recent advances in robotics, makes the use of robots in elder care increasingly likely. We outline developments in the areas of robot applications for assisting the elderly and their carers, for monitoring their health and safety, and for providing them with companionship. Despite the possible benefits, we raise and discuss six main ethical concerns associated with: (1) the potential reduction in the amount of human contact; (2) an increase in the (...) feelings of objectification and loss of control; (3) a loss of privacy; (4) a loss of personal liberty; (5) deception and infantilisation; (6) the circumstances in which elderly people should be allowed to control robots. We conclude by balancing the care benefits against the ethical costs. If introduced with foresight and careful guidelines, robots and robotic technology could improve the lives of the elderly, reducing their dependence, and creating more opportunities for social interaction. (shrink)

Divine Simplicity has it that God is absolutely simple. God exhibits no metaphysical complexity; he has neither proper parts nor distinct intrinsic properties. Recently, Jeffrey Brower has put forward an account of divine simplicity that has it that God is the truthmaker for all intrinsic essential predications about him. This allows Brower to preserve the intuitive thought that God is not a property but a concrete being. In this paper, I provide two objections to Brower’s account that are meant to (...) show that whatever merits this account of divine simplicity has, plausibility is not one of them. (shrink)

What is Comparative Philosophy? -/- Synkretic: Journal of Indo-pacific Philosophy.

Disgust has been a perennial feature of art from medieval visions of hell to postmodern travesties. The purpose of this chapter is to chart various ways in which disgust functions in artworks both in terms of content and style, canvassing cases in which the content and/or style is literally disgusting in contrast to cases where the disgust serves to characterize the content, often for moral or political or broader cultural purposes.

"Ontology" focuses on three ways ground and ontology are said to relate. One way involves ground's ability to provide a safe and sane way of admitting certain kinds of things in our theories. Another way involves ground's ability to show how we should measure ontological simplicity. And a third way involves ground's ability to restrict what things or kinds of things can depend on other things or kinds.

The heart of Aristotelian Logic is the square of opposition. This study engaged on further [re]investigation and meta-logical analysis of the validity of the square of opposition. Further, in this paper, it has been modestly established, with greater clarity, the exposition of the strengths, more than the presentation of the defects, loopholes and weaknesses, of the Aristotelian Logic in a descriptive and speculative manner. The unconcealment of the breakdown of the square of opposition marked a rupture and the opening of (...) avenues of alternative reasoning. The critical and analytical exposition of the loopholes of the square of opposition led to a realization that things around us could have been and still be different; and there could have been better alternative reasoning than what we have called, adopted, and worshipped [Greek] logic. Results show that the downfall of the oppositional relationships in the square of opposition provided a proof of the logical illusion of Aristotle or the loophole of Traditional Logic. The laws of opposition, that have been considered the measures of logically deductive inferences, are practically almost totally logical deceptions. By implication, if the laws of subcontrariety, contrariety, and subalternation [and may be contradiction] have collapsed, the square of opposition has also collapsed; hence, Aristotle‟s square of opposition is a fallacy. This means that the square of opposition has errors and in itself an error. (shrink)

We created Justice: The Game, an educational, role-immersion game designed to be used in philosophy courses. We seek to describe Justice in sufficent detail so that it is understandable to readers not already familiar with role-immersion pedagogy. We hope some instructors will be sufficiently interested in using the game. In addition to describing the game we also evaluate it, thereby highlighting the pedagogical potential of role-immersion games designed to teach political philosophy. We analyze the game by drawing on our observations (...) as designers and playtesters of Justice, along with feedback from students obtained in focus-groups conducted shortly after playtesting ended. We present evidence that Justice, compared to conventional instructional methods alone, plausibly enhances student learning of philosophical skills and content by requiring them to practice those skills and put their content-area knowledge to use in a highly-motivating and engaging context. (shrink)

In Necessary Existence, Pruss and Rasmussen give an argument for a necessary being employing a modest causal principle. Here I note that, when applied to highly general and fundamental matters, the principle may well be false (or at least not so obvious).

In a 2014 paper in this journal, I put forward two objections to a version of divine simplicity I call ‘Divine Truthmaker Simplicity’. James Beebe and Timothy Pawl have come to Divine Truthmaker Simplicity’s defense. In this paper, I respond to Beebe and Pawl, consider an overlooked way of defending Divine Truthmaker Simplicity, and conclude by outlining an alternative account of God’s simplicity.

In an attempt to critically examine the effects of the abrupt shift from the traditional classroom-based education to distance education in the Philippines, this paper articulates pedagogical concepts that are necessary for a transformative and humanizing academic modalities despite the departure from the old approaches due to the unexpected rise of the new normal in education. I discuss a deconstructive, revolutionary, and inclusive pedagogy that aims to renew certain approaches in order to prevent educational paralysis and give way to alternative (...) avenues that best fit the current and future situations notwithstanding the challenges that this pluralistic age poses to every academic site. (shrink)

The dearth of resources inherent in the study of Logic effected and affected by lack of reading materials, the financial constraints characteristic of the plight of students, the utter difficulty in teaching the subject shorthanded by write-then-explain method, made possible this undertaking. This text is a compilation of scholarly works by noted logicians that have made their way through publication. This work pales in comparison to their works and no deliberate efforts were made to water-down portions of their book that (...) were not included herein. I beg one favor of my readers that this endeavor should not be interpreted as mimicry, instead as compilation with the purpose of putting together brilliant works for enlightenment of the young. Mere mention of the names of the authors that I have used in this project is not even Commensurate to the efforts they have laid. Notwithstanding this fact, it is out of deference and admiration that pages for bibliography are allotted. It is fervently prayed for that this work will ease the difficulty of comprehension on the part of students and likewise facilitate instruction because of its rudimentary and comprehensive substance. (shrink)

The purpose of the study was to determine the demographic profiles in terms of age, sex, years in teaching, type of school and ethnicity, SOGIE, perception about the workplace climate in terms of the different gender prejudices faced by secondary science teachers at City of Dasmariñas, Cavite; the study aims to identify if there is a significant difference between perceptions of the participants about the gender prejudices when grouped according to demographic profile; determine if there is a substantial relationship between (...) SOGIE and perceptions about the gender prejudices. This study developed an action plan to promote awareness and make schools SOGIE-sensitive; the research design was quantitative, and an online questionnaire was the data-gathering tool. Descriptive statistics used were mean, median, and standard error; the second level was for relational statistics using Chi-square statistics, Mann-Whitney statistics, and Kruskal-Walli’s statistics. The study revealed that most science teachers in Dasmariñas City, Cavite, were female and young professionals. Science teachers at the secondary level have a diverse SOGIE; in addition, there is zero visibility for transgender people and intersex people. Generally, the secondary schools in the City of Dasmariñas, Cavite, are unsafe for people with diverse SOGIE, especially for transgender and intersex people. The study suggests that the action plan proposed in this study should be adopted by schools to address the issues of gender prejudices and to promote awareness of SOGIE. (shrink)

Dialectics of Pedagogy: Implications of Paulo Freire's Philosophy of Transformative Education.

the proclivity of many people to classify human acts as good or bad calls into mind the import of ETHICS. The penchant for classification warrants the evaluation of the bases for saying that one is bad or good action. Normally, human act is ethical if it is in accordance with what one would relatively expect in view of the events or the circumstances and unethical if the action is not called for by the circumstances, or a person whose behavior is (...) disorderly and inconsistent. The same observations harbor on perception rather than on paradigms and frameworks which ethicists have somehow perfected to classify bad behavior into one division and good behavior into another. The study of ETHICS will therefore increase proficiency at least in moral decision making. Likewise, knowledge of the course will give students certain techniques for evaluating others’ action as moral or immoral, including their own. ETHICS is the science of action but the action herein alluded to is not the action that concerns those that are unconscious and spontaneous. Action here is that resulting from intellect and will herein referred to as human act. ETHICS is both a theoretical and a practical discipline. The language of ethics refers to rights, duties, and values. One of the goals of ethics is to explore the nature of moral experience, its universality, and its diversity. Another is to provide intellectual analysis of values, and value conflicts in order to define man’s duties. Also, it is oriented toward the determination of right decisions. In order to do that, it is necessary to go step by step, analyzing, first, the facts of the case, second, the values at stake, and third, the duties. In short, ETHICS has the very practical purpose of helping us to choose, decide, and act morally. It should enable us to discover defects in the action of others and to avoid defects in our own action. (shrink)

Student evaluations of teaching (SETs) have been used, researched, and debated for many decades. It is a common practice in higher education institutions, with the supposed purpose of improving course quality and effectiveness, but with unintended consequences of encouraging and motivating poor teaching and causing grade inflation. There is strong evidence that SET “effectiveness” does not measure teaching effectiveness. This paper reviews empirical research examining common concerns about the usefulness (positive and negative) and accuracy of SETs. The findings reveal that (...) student satisfaction relates to their anticipated/expected grades in their courses; hence, they want to get good grades and their instructors want to get a good rating of SET, and this results in grade inflation. The key points are that SETs (1) allow students to speak their “mind”, (2) have no compelling correlation between quality of teaching and learning effectiveness, (3) reward easy, less demanding, and lazy teachers with a positive rating, (4) are biased against gender, attractiveness, ethnicity, race, etc., (5) are weaponized against “some” faculty members, and (6) are like asking convicts awaiting sentencing to evaluate the judge or jurors who convicted them. (shrink)

Supra-Bayesianism is the Bayesian response to learning the opinions of others. Probability pooling constitutes an alternative response. One natural question is whether there are cases where probability pooling gives the supra-Bayesian result. This has been called the problem of Bayes-compatibility for pooling functions. It is known that in a common prior setting, under standard assumptions, linear pooling cannot be nontrivially Bayes-compatible. We show by contrast that geometric pooling can be nontrivially Bayes-compatible. Indeed, we show that, under certain assumptions, geometric and (...) Bayes-compatible pooling are equivalent. Granting supra-Bayesianism its usual normative status, one upshot of our study is thus that, in a certain class of epistemic contexts, geometric pooling enjoys a normative advantage over linear pooling as a social learning mechanism. We discuss the philosophical ramifications of this advantage, which we show to be robust to variations in our statement of the Bayes-compatibility problem. (shrink)

This summary is not exactly the way I would have done it myself but I must admit that my writing is sometimes a challenge to read. So I asked an AI to do this summary expecting that it will give an easily understandable although not totally accurate view on Ontology of Knowledge and from this general understanding help the reader to read the original papers. Jean-Louis Boucon’s works, "Introduction to the Ontology of Knowledge" and "Time, Space, and World as (...) Knowledge," delve into the intricate nature of reality, meaning, and the process of knowing. Boucon challenges traditional dichotomies in philosophy and science, presenting a cohesive framework where the knowing subject and the world are intertwined aspects of a single dynamic reality. His ideas provide a robust foundation for exploring ontological and epistemological questions, including the interpretation of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

The basic axioms or formal conditions of decision theory, especially the ordering condition put on preferences and the axioms underlying the expected utility formula, are subject to a number of counter-examples, some of which can be endowed with normative value and thus fall within the ambit of a philosophical reflection on practical rationality. Against such counter-examples, a defensive strategy has been developed which consists in redescribing the outcomes of the available options in such a way that the threatened axioms or (...) conditions continue to hold. We examine how this strategy performs in three major cases: Sen's counterexamples to the binariness property of preferences, the Allais paradox of EU theory under risk, and the Ellsberg paradox of EU theory under uncertainty. We find that the strategy typically proves to be lacking in several major respects, suffering from logical triviality, incompleteness, and theoretical insularity. To give the strategy more structure, philosophers have developed “principles of individuation”; but we observe that these do not address the aforementioned defects. Instead, we propose the method of checking whether the strategy can overcome its typical defects once it is given a proper theoretical expansion. We find that the strategy passes the test imperfectly in Sen's case and not at all in Allais's. In Ellsberg's case, however, it comes close to meeting our requirement. But even the analysis of this more promising application suggests that the strategy ought to address the decision problem as a whole, rather than just the outcomes, and that it should extend its revision process to the very statements it is meant to protect. Thus, by and large, the same cautionary tale against redescription practices runs through the analysis of all three cases. A more general lesson, simply put, is that there is no easy way out from the paradoxes of decision theory. (shrink)

A study is reported testing two hypotheses about a close parallel relation between indicative conditionals, if A then B , and conditional bets, I bet you that if A then B . The first is that both the indicative conditional and the conditional bet are related to the conditional probability, P(B|A). The second is that de Finetti's three-valued truth table has psychological reality for both types of conditional— true , false , or void for indicative conditionals and win , lose (...) , or void for conditional bets. The participants were presented with an array of chips in two different colours and two different shapes, and an indicative conditional or a conditional bet about a random chip. They had to make judgements in two conditions: either about the chances of making the indicative conditional true or false or about the chances of winning or losing the conditional bet. The observed distributions of responses in the two conditions were generally related to the conditional probability, supporting the first hypothesis. In addition, a majority of participants in further conditions chose the third option, “void”, when the antecedent of the conditional was false, supporting the second hypothesis. (shrink)

As a philosophy of mathematics, strict finitism has been traditionally concerned with the notion of feasibility, defended mostly by appealing to the physicality of mathematical practice. This has led the strict finitists to influence and be influenced by the field of computational complexity theory, under the widely held belief that this branch of mathematics is concerned with the study of what is “feasible in practice”. In this paper, I survey these ideas and contend that, contrary to popular belief, complexity theory (...) is not what the ultrafinitists think it is, and that it does not provide a theoretical framework in which to formalize their ideas —at least not while defending the material grounds for feasibility. I conclude that the subject matter of complexity theory is not proving physical resource bounds in computation, but rather proving the absence of exploitable properties in a search space. (shrink)

It is popular to hold that emotions are evaluative. On the standard account, the evaluative character of emotion is understood in epistemic terms: emotions apprehend or make us aware of value properties. As this account is commonly elaborated, emotions are experiences with evaluative intentional content. In this paper, I am concerned with a recent alternative proposal on how emotions afford awareness of value. This proposal does not ascribe evaluative content to emotions, but instead conceives of them as evaluative at the (...) level of intentional mode or attitude. I first argue that this proposal fails to make emotions intelligible as value apprehensions. There are reasons to suppose that emotions do not apprehend value to begin with, but are related to values in a different, non-epistemic sense. I then go on to show that the notion of an evaluative intentional mode can still help elucidate the evaluative character of emotion. I argue that there is a plausible non-epistemic understanding of the view that emotions are evaluative modes. On this account, emotions are not ways of apprehending values, but ways of acknowledging values. (shrink)

This thesis focuses on Abelard’s solution to the problem of understanding universals as presented in the Tractatus de Intellectibus. He examines this issue by asking what is understood when we consider the term ‘man’, a problem I call the ‘homo intelligitur [man is understood]’ problem. This is an important question, since earlier in the Treatise, Abelard states that understandings paying attention [attendens] to things otherwise than they are are empty, and thus, cannot be true. The challenge is therefore to explain (...) how understandings about universals, such as genera and species, can be sound, given that Abelard is a nominalist and, as such, does not believe in the existence of universal entities. His own answer to the problem is that such understandings attend to natures. However, since natures are, on his view, nothing more than the individuals they belong to, it is unclear how his solution is intended to work. I propose two ways to understand Abelard’s solution to the ‘homo intelligitur’ problem, identifying their respective merits and drawbacks. The first one is to treat ‘nature’ as meaning ‘status’. I explore this solution in Chapters 2 and 3, and conclude that while it has the advantage of establishing links between De Intellectibus and previous logical works by Abelard, it has some significant drawbacks, most notably that it is unclear how we can have epistemic access to status given that status are not things, which renders unclear how the criteria for the soundness of understandings can be met. The second one involves treating natures as referring to behaviors typical of members of a given genus or species. These behaviors come from the particular essential forms possessed by individuals, i.e. their differentiae understood as analogous to nuclear tropes in Peter Simons’ trope theory. I conclude that this solution is more intuitive than the first one and has the advantage of not depending on a specific interpretation of the evolution of Abelard’s thought. However, it is unclear how to treat behaviors and regularities in his ontology. (shrink)

A prominent version of emotional cognitivism is the view that emotions are preceded by awareness of value. In a recent paper, Jonathan Mitchell (2019) has attacked this view (which he calls the content-priority view). According to him, extant suggestions for the relevant type of pre-emotional evaluative awareness are all problematic. Unless these problems can be overcome, he argues, the view does not represent a plausible competitor to rivaling cognitivist views. As Mitchell supposes, the view is not mandatory since its core (...) motivations can be accommodated by competing views, too. I argue that Mitchell's case against the content-priority view is unconvincing as it misconceives the principal motivation for the view. As I show, properly reconstructed, this motivation provides a strong case for the indispensability of the view to any adequate cognitivist treatment of emotion. Moreover, Mitchell's survey of candidates for pre-emotional value awareness can be seen to rest on problematic phenomenological assumptions. (shrink)

I examine the once popular claim according to which interpersonal comparisons of welfare are necessary for social choice. I side with current social choice theorists in emphasizing that, on a narrow construal, this necessity claim is refuted beyond appeal. However, I depart from the opinion presently prevailing in social choice theory in highlighting that on a broader construal, this claim proves not only compatible with, but even comforted by, the current state of the field. I submit that all in all, (...) the most accurate philosophical assessment consists not in flatly rejecting this necessity claim, but in accepting it in a suitably revised form. (shrink)

It is a popular thought that emotions play an important epistemic role. Thus, a considerable number of philosophers find it compelling to suppose that emotions apprehend the value of objects and events in our surroundings. I refer to this view as the Epistemic View of emotion. In this paper, my concern is with a rivaling picture of emotion, which has so far received much less attention. On this account, emotions do not constitute a form of epistemic access to specific axiological (...) aspects of their objects. Instead it proposes that they are ways of taking a stand or position on the world. I refer to this as the Position-Taking View of emotion. Whilst some authors seem sympathetic to this view, this it has so far not been systematically motivated and elaborated. In this paper, I fill this gap and propose a more adequate account of our emotional engagement with the world than the predominant epistemic paradigm. I start by highlighting the specific way in which emotions are directed at something, which I contrast with the intentionality of perception and other forms of apprehension. I then go on to offer a specific account of the valence of emotion and show how this account and the directedness of emotions makes them intelligible as a way of taking a position on something. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the decision-theoretic status of risk attitudes. I start by providing evidence showing that the risk attitude concepts do not play a major role in the axiomatic analysis of the classic models of decision-making under risk. This can be interpreted as reflecting the neutrality of these models between the possible risk attitudes. My central claim, however, is that such neutrality needs to be qualified and the axiomatic relevance of risk attitudes needs to be re-evaluated accordingly. Specifically, (...) I highlight the importance of the conditional variation and the strengthening of risk attitudes, and I explain why they establish the axiomatic significance of the risk attitude concepts. I also present several questions for future research regarding the strengthening of risk attitudes. (shrink)

The representational theory of measurement has long been the central paradigm in the philosophy of measurement. Such is not the case anymore, partly under the influence of the critique according to which RTM offers too poor descriptions of the measurement procedures actually followed in science. This can be called the metrological critique of RTM. I claim that the critique is partly irrelevant. This is because, in general, RTM is not in the business of describing measurement procedures, be it in idealized (...) form. To support this claim, I present various cases where RTM can be said to investigate measurement without providing any measurement procedure. Such limit cases lead to a better understanding of the RTM project. They also illustrate some of the questions which the philosophy of measurement can explore, when it is ready to go beyond the metrological viewpoint. (shrink)

The curious case of Bronze Age Pervert (BAP, for short), of unfortunate name, or “handle,” in his world. Author of the self-published Bronze Age Mindset (2018), BAP is present in 4Chan discussion threads and on YouTube, and he produces weekly subscription-only podcasts with approximately 6,500 paying clients (I am among them). He was banned from Twitter but reinstated in December 2022, and he now has over 100,000 followers. A Google search turns up scores of articles addressing or discussing his work, (...) all written in palatable forms. But BAP’s own subjects and rhetoric are for adults only. Who is BAP, what does he espouse, and what compels the attention of orthodox Catholics? (shrink)

Est-il possible de parler de ce qui n’est pas ou d’y penser sans présupposer une forme d’être pour cela même que nous pensons ne pas exister? La vieille énigme parménidienne, qui hante toujours la philosophie contemporaine, est au cœur non seulement de la philosophie médiévale mais aussi des études médiévales, comme en témoigne le récent ouvrage d’Alain de Libera sur la référence vide. L’objet de cette étude est en comparaison beaucoup plus...

This paper investigates the notion of ‘distributed cognition’—the idea that entities external to one’s organic brain participate in one’s overall cognitive functioning—and the challenges it poses to the notion of personhood. Related to this is also a consideration of the ever-increasing ways in which neuroprostheses replace and functionally replicate organic parts of the brain. However, the literature surrounding such issues has tended to take an almost exclusively physicalist approach. The common assumption is that, given that non-physicalist theories (chiefly, dualism, and (...) hylomorphism) postulate some form of immaterial ‘soul’, then they are immune from the challenges that these advances in cognitive science pose. The first aim of this paper, therefore, is to argue that this is not the case. The second aim of this paper is to attempt to elucidate a route available for the non-physicalists that will allow them to accept the notion of distributed cognition. By appealing to an Aristotelian framework, I propose that the non-physicalist can accept the notion of distributed cognition by appealing to the notion of ‘unitary life’ which I introduce, as well as to Aristotle’s dichotomy between active and passive mind. (shrink)