The study of biodiversity spans many disciplines and includes data pertaining to species distributions and abundances, genetic sequences, trait measurements, and ecological niches, complemented by information on collection and measurement protocols. A review of the current landscape of metadata standards and ontologies in biodiversity science suggests that existing standards such as the Darwin Core terminology are inadequate for describing biodiversity data in a semantically meaningful and computationally useful way. Existing ontologies, such as the Gene Ontology and others in the Open (...) Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry library, provide a semantic structure but lack many of the necessary terms to describe biodiversity data in all its dimensions. In this paper, we describe the motivation for and ongoing development of a new Biological Collections Ontology, the Environment Ontology, and the Population and Community Ontology. These ontologies share the aim of improving data aggregation and integration across the biodiversity domain and can be used to describe physical samples and sampling processes (for example, collection, extraction, and preservation techniques), as well as biodiversity observations that involve no physical sampling. Together they encompass studies of: 1) individual organisms, including voucher specimens from ecological studies and museum specimens, 2) bulk or environmental samples (e.g., gut contents, soil, water) that include DNA, other molecules, and potentially many organisms, especially microbes, and 3) survey-based ecological observations. We discuss how these ontologies can be applied to biodiversity use cases that span genetic, organismal, and ecosystem levels of organization. We argue that if adopted as a standard and rigorously applied and enriched by the biodiversity community, these ontologies would significantly reduce barriers to data discovery, integration, and exchange among biodiversity resources and researchers. (shrink)

Since the last ice age, when ice enveloped most of the northern continents, the earth has warmed by about five degrees. Within a century, it is likely to warm by another four or five. This revolution in our climate will have immense and mostly harmful effects on the lives of people not yet born. We are inflicting this harm on our descendants by dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We can mitigate the harm a little by taking measures to control (...) our emissions of these gases, and to adapt to the changes by, for instance, building sea walls around coastlines threatened by rising sea levels. But these measures will be very expensive, and the costs will be born by us, the present generation, whereas the benefits will come to future generations. How much should we sacrifice for the sake of the future? Economists and philosophers have independently worked on the question of our responsibility to future generations. This book brings their work together and applies it to global warming. It suggests a programme for future research on the economic and ethical issues. The book is intended for economists, and for philosophers and other social scientists who have a little knowledge of economic methods. (shrink)

I propose a distinction between design intentions, activities and products, as opposed to artistic intentions, activities and artworks. Examples of design products would include a specific type of car (or any other invention or device) as well as closer relatives of art such as decorative wall designs. In order to distinguish artistic from design intentions, I present an example in which two sculptors independently work on a single object to produce two sculptures, which are distinct just because the artistic intentions (...) of the sculptors are distinct. This case is then contrasted with an attempted parallel example for design intentions, which fails to produce two correspondingly distinct design products in spite of the different design intentions of its designers. I argue that this failure occurs because designs are types, for which any single token of a given type could not simultaneously be a token of some other type of the same general kind; whereas the possibility of my sculptural 'double artwork' example shows that such artworks cannot be types. I then further investigate the concept of a design, and conclude by arguing that an extension of my sculptural example shows that literary artworks also cannot be types. (shrink)

English Abstract In Art as Experience, John Dewey decried the estrangement of art from lived human experience, both by artificial conceptual walls and the physical walls that secluded art within museums. Instead he argued that making and enjoying art are crucial organic functions that sustain communities and integrate individuals within their environments. In the 1920’s Diego Rivera became one of the luminaries of the Mexican muralist movement by creating frescoes that were rooted in Mexican life, both in (...) their subject matter and public location. Rivera and the other artists working within the government cultural program guided by José Vasconcelos created murals that boldly expressed the new values of democracy, peaceful revolution, racial equality and cultural pride. This essay explores the deep resonance between Rivera’s most prominent murals from this period and Dewey’s argument that art is a refined and integral feature of human experience. In particular, this essay will examine the great extent to which these men independently came to the common understanding that for people to thrive and grow they need to create and experience art that grows out of and remains rooted in their culture. Without claiming that either thinker influenced the other, this essay argues that their works mutually inform and enrich each other. Both men sought to free art from the museum, but where Dewey urged us tear down the walls that separated art from lived experience, Rivera transformed walls themselves into murals that unified and educated the people of Mexico and restored their culture. (shrink)

Drawing on the work of John Rawls and Thomas Pogge, I argue that the U.S. is in part responsible for the immigration of Mexicans and Central Americans into the U.S. By seeking to further its national interests through its foreign policies, the U.S. has created economic and politically oppressive conditions that Mexican and Central American people seek to escape. The significance of this project is to highlight the role of the U.S. in illegal immigration so that we may first (...) acknowledge our responsibility in order to seek lasting humane solutions. (shrink)

Wall, G. Locke's attack on innate knowledge.--Harris, J. Leibniz and Locke on innate ideas.--Greenlee, D. Locke's idea of idea.--Aspelin, G. Idea and perception in Locke's essay.--Greenlee, D. Idea and object in the essay.--Mathews, H. E. Locke, Malebranche and the representative theory.--Alexander, P. Boyle and Locke on primary and secondary qualities.--Ayers, M. R. The ideas of power and substance in Locke's philosophy.--Allison, H. E. Locke's theory of personal identity.--Kretzmann, N. The main thesis of Locke's semantic theory.--Woozley, A. D. Some remarks on (...) Locke's account of knowledge.--Laudan, L. The nature and sources of Locke's views on hypotheses. (shrink)

A shortened version of the second chapter of The Sympathy of Things as it was published in The Politics of the Impure (V2_NAI Publishers, 2010). It relates John Ruskin’s “Wall-Veil” to the better-known “Wall-Dress” (Gewand) of Gottfried Semper by understanding both as occurring at the intersection of matter and force. Matter tends to generate patterns in two ways, either downward or upward in dimensions. The first relates to tessellated ornament (cf. Owen Jones); the second to the ribboned ornamentation as (...) we find it in Morris’s work. (shrink)

In an anonymous referee report written in 1945, Church suggested a sweeping argument against verificiationism, the thesis that every truth is knowable. The argument, which was published with due acknowledgement by Fitch almost two decades later, has generated significant attention as well as some interesting successor arguments. In this paper, we present the most important episodes in this intellectual history using the logic that Church himself favoured, and we give reasons for thinking that the arguments are less than decisive. However, (...) we present some new arguments against verificationism that we believe to be dialectically effective. (shrink)

Mark Johnston (2016, 2017) has argued on ethical grounds against a wide variety of "naturalistic" world views, which imply 'in our close vicinity, there are many persisting things all ontologically on a par, very similar in their features and such that they come into being and cease to exist at various times'—'personites', for short. Johnston argues that if personites exist, their intrinsic properties are compatible with their being people and thus having moral status; but since moral status is an intrinsic (...) matter, this implies that personites enjoy the same kind of moral status as people, a conclusion which leads to various bizarre ethical consequences. In response, we defend the view that although personites exist, they lack moral status, and have intrinsic properties (including modal properties) which no person could have. We also isolate a different argument for the moral status of certain personites, based on the claim that they instantiate properties which 'person' could very easily have expressed; we show how this argument can be resisted by adopting a pluralistic semantics, on which predicates like 'person' and 'being with moral status' express many properties even at the actual world. (shrink)

Teaching while managing instructional workload is causal to the teaching-learning process. The study determined the teachers' instructional workload management to the teachers' teaching efficacy. It was conducted in a community college in Tangub City, Misamis Occidental. The descriptive-correlational design was used in the study. There were 15 program heads and 361 students who served as the respondents selected through a stratified random sampling technique. The researcher-made Teachers' Instructional Workload Management and Teachers' Teaching Efficacy Questionnaires were used as research instruments. Mean, (...) Standard Deviation, and Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient were used as statistical tools to analyze the data gathered. Results revealed that the teachers were very good in their instructional workload management. The teachers' teaching efficacy was very high. Some aspects of the teachers' instructional workload management like the preparation of instructional materials influenced the teachers' administration of assessment tasks and classroom management. Their conduct of consultation also influenced the administration of assessment tasks. Moreover, their submission of academic reports influenced the administration of assessment tasks and school resource utilization. The workload management of teachers play a crucial role in shaping teachers' teaching efficacy. It is recommended for teachers to manage their workload proactively since it can impact their teaching efficacy. (shrink)

If Mont Blanc is a vague object, then its vagueness will depend on the context in which reference is made. In a geological context the mountain might include only rock, perhaps together with a certain amount of air in the crevices and tunnels which have been formed beneath its surface. In a context of soil chemistry we might include also a surrounding thin layer of organic matter. In a skiing context we might include some snow. This essay sketches in informal (...) terms the theory of granular partitions, which is designed to do justice to this context-dependence of vagueness by means of what might be described as a contextualized supervaluationism. Granularity and vagueness, it is argued, are two sides of a single coin: what is vague at one level of granularity may appear crisp at another. The resultant theory can be shown to resolve certain problems in our description of perceptual content, for example when John says that he sees the wall, but that he does not see the molecules by which the wall is constituted. (shrink)

Prime Matter Pluralism (PMP) states that while the prime matter of all terrestrial bodies is the same, there is a unique prime matter for each celestial body. Prime matters are distinct in virtue of being in potentiality to different forms. Steven Baldner argues that although Thomas Aquinas endorsed PMP in Summa theologiae I, he ultimately rejected it in his De caelo commentary and De substantiis separatis. Besides exegetical evidence for this claim, Baldner presents a philosophical objection to PMP: according to (...) PMP, distinct prime matters are restricted in their respective potentialities; such restriction requires form, however; therefore, prime matter is not pure potentiality. Since prime matter is pure potentiality, PMP is false. Pace Baldner, I argue that Aquinas endorses PMP as heartily in the later works as in STh I. Moreover, he resisted substantially the same objection to PMP as Baldner’s several times. In particular, Aquinas repeatedly rejected the claim that the restriction of prime matter’s potentiality requires form. In that case, when Aquinas calls prime matter “pure potentiality,” he means that it is formless of itself, not that it is in potentiality to any form whatsoever. (shrink)

Supervision of teachers is essential for ensuring effective educational practices, fostering professional development, and achieving student success. The study determined the relationship of program heads' supervisory practices to the teachers’ teaching efficacy. It was conducted in a community college in Tangub City, Misamis Occidental. The descriptive-correlational design was used in the study. There were 146 faculty and 361 students who served as the respondents selected through a stratified random sampling technique. The adapted Program Heads’ Supervisory Practices and researcher-made Teachers’ Teaching (...) Efficacy Questionnaires were used as research instruments. Mean, Standard Deviation, and Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient were used as statistical tools to analyze the data gathered. Results revealed that the program heads were good in their supervisory practices. The teachers’ teaching efficacy was very high. The program heads’ supervisory practices did not influence the teacher’s teaching efficacy. The strategies employed by program heads in their supervisory roles do not always translate into improved teaching efficiency. The study's findings indicate that program heads need to adopt more responsive and tailored supervisory practices that directly address the specific needs of teachers to enhance teaching efficacy. This may involve integrating targeted professional development focused on practical classroom strategies and fostering peer collaboration to share best practices. Program heads may prioritize open communication and continuous feedback mechanisms to better align their supervisory approaches with the realities of classroom instruction, ensuring that support translates into improved teaching efficiency. (shrink)

The supervision of teachers is essential for ensuring effective teaching methods, ongoing professional growth, and student success. This study explored the experiences of program heads in supervising teachers. It was conducted in a local college in Tangub City, Misamis Occidental. The phenomenological design was used in the study. Eleven program heads served as the participants selected through the purposive sampling technique. The Interview Guide was used as the research instrument. Moustakas' transcendental phenomenology of data analysis was utilized to analyze the (...) data gathered. Results revealed the following main themes: the critical role of supervision in advancing teacher development and educational excellence, mutual learning and growth, the role of program heads in teacher supervision, overcoming challenges in teacher supervision, and effective communication strategies. Supervision improves teaching and learning quality, which supports professional development. The complex nature of supervisory roles requires adaptive strategies and strong support networks. It is recommended for program heads and teachers to establish open communication to help address the challenges encountered during supervision. (shrink)

Metacognitive skills are essential to be developed by the students to help improve their academic performance. This study was conducted with the aim of determining whether the use of problem-solving strategies can increase students' metacognitive skills. Students of the Mathematics in the World course offered at a local college in the Philippines were selected to participate in this study. Using an independent sample t-test, results revealed that students who were the recipients of problem-solving strategies scored statistically higher in formal examinations (...) compared to those students who were taught using conventional strategies. The researchers concluded that students who were taught using the problem-solving strategy enhanced their metacognitive skills based on their scores in the test of metacognitive skills during the post-test. The researchers suggested that teachers should incorporate problem-solving strategies into their lessons since this research demonstrates this to be an effective strategy for enhancing students' metacognitive skills essential to their learning. (shrink)

In this paper, I evaluate three views of philosophical pragmatism’s practical implications for academic and non-academic or public discourses, as well as offer my own view of those implications. The first view is that of George Novack. In an underappreciated tract, Pragmatism versus Marxism, the American Trotskyite and union organizer launched a vicious attack on John Dewey’s career as a professional philosopher. He alleged that Dewey’s ideas were inaccessible to all but a small community of fellow academicians. While Novack (...) conceded that Dewey’s philosophical inquiries had a cross-pollinating influence on other academic fields, he doubted that the beneficial products of those inquiries traveled far beyond the walls of the so-called ‘ivory tower.’ Larry Hickman offers a second view. He understands Dewey’s claim in Experience and Nature that philosophy serves as a “liaison officer” to mean that philosophers should provide a common lexicon that translates between the languages of distinct disciplines. In other words, for Dewey, the role of philosophy, including philosophical pragmatism, is to facilitate interdisciplinarity. Since interdisciplinary sharing is usually confined to academic discourse, Novack’s challenge is perfectly compatible with Hickman’s interpretation of Dewey’s ‘liaison officer’ claim. Both Novack and Hickman are mistaken, though in different degrees and for different reasons. The third, and more promising, view is advanced by Robert Talisse. He cites the life and works of Sidney Hook, one of Dewey’s better-known students, as an exemplary case of a pragmatist who consistently realized his pragmatic commitments in public discourse. The most important reason for qualifying Hickman’s interpretation of Dewey’s ‘liaison officer’ claim is that the measure of pragmatism’s value is not solely the ability of pragmatists to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration, but their ability to also insert their ideas into public discourse. In my view, philosophical pragmatists, and philosophers generally, should both facilitate interdisciplinarity in academic discourse and introduce philosophical notions into public discourse—that is, serving in the dual capacity of interdisciplinary scholar and public intellectual. (shrink)

Computation and Metacognitive skills are essential sub-skills under the domain of Critical Thinking which is a 21 st Century Skill. Having acquired these skills can greatly help students to have a better performance in the Mathematics course. The purpose of this study was to determine whether computation and metacognitive skills are significant predictors of students' performance in Mathematics. Students from four sections of the course Mathematics in the Modern World which was offered during the first semester of the academic year (...) 2018-2019 were selected as the participants of this study which was conducted at Gov. Alfonso D. Tan College, Tangub City, Misamis Occidental, Philippines. The results of this study showed that students' scores in computation and metacognitive test of skills significantly correlate with the students' performance in Mathematics in terms of Grade Point Average (GPA) and a positive direct relationship has been established. Using the Regression Analysis, the result revealed that both computation and metacognitive skills of the students were significant predictors of their performance in Mathematics. These research outcomes affirm that if students acquire these skills, they tend to perform better in Mathematics. This suggests that teachers are encouraged to be more strategic in training the students to acquire and develop computation and metacognitive skills by administering various mathematical problems that encourage students to think critically. (shrink)

(Winner of The Res Publica Essay Prize) This article defends a moderate version of state perfectionism by using Gerald Gaus’s argument for liberal neutrality as a starting point of discussion. Many liberal neutralists reject perfectionism on the grounds of respect for persons, but Gaus has explained more clearly than most neutralists how respect for persons justifies neutrality. Against neutralists, I first argue that the state may promote the good life by appealing to what can be called “the qualified judgments about (...) the good life,” which have not been considered by liberal perfectionists including Joseph Chan and Steven Wall. Then I clear up several possible misunderstandings of these judgments, and argue that: (a) moderate perfectionism does not rely on controversial rankings of values and is committed to promoting different valuable ways of life by pluralistic promotion; and (b) moderate perfectionism requires only an indirect form of coercion in using tax money to support certain moderate perfectionist measures, which is justifiable on the grounds of citizens’ welfare. Thus, I maintain that moderate perfectionism does not disrespect citizens, and is not necessarily unfair to any particular group of people. It is, in fact, plausible and morally important. The defence of moderate perfectionism has practical implications for the state’s policies regarding art development, drug abuse, public education, and so on. (shrink)

The target of our paper is to articulate the grounds that legitimize the foundation of an African Traditional Religion as a distinct religious enterprise with its own philosophical fundamentals as well as its own tenets and framework. In this paper, we engage the relevant concepts that are crucial to the success to any paper that attempts to demonstrate the reality of African Traditional Religion (henceforth, ATR): specifically, we will engage the questions of the existence of a Supreme Being, the problem (...) of evil, and the structure of a properly ATR theodicy. (shrink)

Since the release of ChatGPT, there has been a lot of debate about whether AI systems pose an existential risk to humanity. This paper develops a general framework for thinking about the existential risk of AI systems. We analyze a two-premise argument that AI systems pose a threat to humanity. Premise one: AI systems will become extremely powerful. Premise two: if AI systems become extremely powerful, they will destroy humanity. We use these two premises to construct a taxonomy of ‘survival (...) stories’, in which humanity survives into the far future. In each survival story, one of the two premises fails. Either scientific barriers prevent AI systems from becoming extremely powerful; or humanity bans research into AI systems, thereby preventing them from becoming extremely powerful; or extremely powerful AI systems do not destroy humanity, because their goals prevent them from doing so; or extremely powerful AI systems do not destroy humanity, because we can reliably detect and disable systems that have the goal of doing so. We argue that different survival stories face different challenges. We also argue that different survival stories motivate different responses to the threats from AI. Finally, we use our taxonomy to produce rough estimates of ‘P(doom)’, the probability that humanity will be destroyed by AI. (shrink)

I argue against the orthodox view of the relationship between propositional and doxastic justification. The view under criticism is: if p is propositionally justified for S in virtue of S's having reason R, and S believes p on the basis of R, then S's belief that p is doxastically justified. I then propose and evaluate alternative accounts of the relationship between propositional and doxastic justification, and conclude that we should explain propositional justification in terms of doxastic justification. If correct, this (...) proposal would constitute a significant advance in our understanding of the sources of epistemic justification. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to identified the origin and essence of Western individualism. Methods of research. I used the methodology of post-nonclassical metaphysics of history, as well as the methods of epistemological polytheism and comparative. Results. The first sprouts of individualism can be detected in Greek poleis. It is the crisis of the polis system in Ancient Greece that predetermined the disappointment of the Greeks in the old collectivist ideals. Roman collectivism quite naturally got along with ideas about (...) civil liberties and the dignity of an individual citizen. The idea of citizenship was brought to the theoretical perfection by moving it beyond the boundaries of city walls. The Christian ideal is not a self-sufficient person, but the community of believers. It is the weakening of the church’s position and the strengthening of the influence of Antiquity that led to the formation of the Western style of thinking, which became the basis of the new European civilizational project. John Locke rethought the Hobbesian “Roman” theory of the social contract, thereby laying the foundations of liberalism, and hence of individualism. However, radically changing the hierarchical society, even the shaken revolution and the restoration of the Stuarts, no theoretical work could not. But in the New World, free from class barriers, Locke’s ideas found a much more fertile soil. Conclusions. The Western version of individualism emerges as a civilizational ideal at the junction of two completely different paradigms — the Ancient (Greek and Roman) and the Christian. Being present in the “body” of the West, individualism could not access its code. The latter was guarded by numerous barriers, among which the Catholic collectivism and the class divisions of hierarchical society were the most powerful guards. In American society, security barriers were significantly weaker, which allowed individualism to develop in the United States. Then American individualism returned to Europe and is now perceived as an integral element of Western civilization. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is threefold. First, I seek to trace a brief history of the concept of catholicity within the Reformed tradition and offer this historical context as an explanation for its resistance to traditional conceptions of the Church. Second, I will show how Georges Florovsky’s work “The Boundaries of the Church,” offers a better point of reference for Orthodox dialogue with Churches of the Reformed Tradition than other Orthodox ecclesiologies, such as those based solely on St. Cyprian’s (...) model, and the ecclesiology of N. Afanassieff. Last, I will use John Calvin’s ideas on the church in Institutes of the Christian Religion to show that certain contemporary Reformed ecclesiologies do not take into consideration the early Calvinist emphasis on catholicity. Using the early Christological controversies of Monophysitism and Nestorianism and applying them to ecclesiology, I will illustrate how both the traditionalist Orthodox and evangelical Reformed views of the Church are weak, make extreme claims on the nature of the Church, and must come closer to the center for dialogue. There is hope if doctrinal agreement could be made in two areas— the existence of the Church, at least to some degree, outside the formal walls of any given denominational, canonical structure in a “charismatic” sense, and the intrinsic unity of the Church as a catholic reality. Both these statements must be affirmed for the sides to agree, though agreement must not come at the expense of doctrinal suicide for either tradition. (shrink)

Is knowledge justified true belief? Most philosophers believe that the answer is clearly ‘no’, as demonstrated by Gettier cases. But Gettier cases don’t obviously refute the traditional view that knowledge is justified true belief (JTB). There are ways of resisting Gettier cases, at least one of which is partly successful. Nevertheless, when properly understood, Gettier cases point to a flaw in JTB, though it takes some work to appreciate just what it is. The nature of the flaw helps us better (...) understand the nature of knowledge and epistemic justification. I propose a crucial improvement to the traditional view, relying on an intuitive and independently plausible metaphysical distinction pertaining to the manifestation of intellectual powers, which supplements the traditional components of justification, truth and belief. (shrink)

This chapter examines a common objection to sex robots: the symbolic-consequences argument. According to this argument sex robots are problematic because they symbolise something disturbing about our attitude to sex-related norms such as consent and the status of our sex partners, and because of the potential consequences of this symbolism. After formalising this objection and considering several real-world uses of it, the chapter subjects it to critical scrutiny. It argues that while there are grounds for thinking that sex robots could (...) symbolically represent a troubling attitude toward women (and maybe children) and the norms of interpersonal sexual relationships, the troubling symbolism is going to be removable in many instances and reformable in others. What will ultimately matter are the consequences of the symbolism but these consequences are likely to be difficult to ascertain. This may warrant an explicitly experimental approach to the development of this technology. (shrink)

Many philosophers favour the simple knowledge account of assertion, which says you may assert something only if you know it. The simple account is true but importantly incomplete. I defend a more informative thesis, namely, that you may assert something only if your assertion expresses knowledge. I call this 'the express knowledge account of assertion', which I argue better handles a wider range of cases while at the same time explaining the simple knowledge account's appeal. §1 introduces some new data (...) that a knowledge account of assertion well explains. §2 explains the simple knowledge account's advantage over two of its main competitors. §3 presents a problem for the simple account and offers a solution, which is to adopt the express knowledge account. §4 encapsulates the case for the express knowledge account, and offers a unifying vision for the epistemology of belief and assertion. §5 answers an objection. §6 briefly sums up. Even those who ultimately reject my conclusion can still benefit from the new data presented in §1, and learn an important lesson from the problem discussed in §3, which demonstrates a general constraint on an acceptable account of the norm of assertion. (shrink)

Epistemic reasons are mental states. They are not propositions or non-mental facts. The discussion proceeds as follows. Section 1 introduces the topic. Section 2 gives two concrete examples of how our topic directly affects the internalism/externalism debate in normative epistemology. Section 3 responds to an argument against the view that reasons are mental states. Section 4 presents two problems for the view that reasons are propositions. Section 5 presents two problems for the view that reasons are non-mental facts. Section 6 (...) argues that reasons are mental states. Section 7 responds to objections. (shrink)

In this essay I show how to reconcile epistemic invariantism with the knowledge account of assertion. My basic proposal is that we can comfortably combine invariantism with the knowledge account of assertion by endorsing contextualism about speech acts. My demonstration takes place against the backdrop of recent contextualist attempts to usurp the knowledge account of assertion, most notably Keith DeRose's influential argument that the knowledge account of assertion spells doom for invariantism and enables contextualism's ascendancy.

This paper presents a puzzle about justification and withholding. The puzzle arises in a special case where experts advise us to not withhold judgment. My main thesis is simply that the puzzle is genuinely a puzzle, and so leads us to rethink some common assumptions in epistemology, specifically assumptions about the nature of justification and doxastic attitudes. Section 1 introduces the common assumptions. Section 2 presents the puzzle case. Section 3 assesses the puzzle case. Section 4 explains the choice we're (...) faced with. Sections 5 and 6 consider and reject some proposed solutions, and in the process refine and clarify the choice we're faced with. Section 7 considers and rejects a miscellany of different proposed solutions. (shrink)

According to the Self-Location Thesis, one’s own location can be among the things that visual experience represents, even when one’s body is entirely out of view. By contrast, the Minimal View denies this, and says that visual experience represents things only as "to the right", etc., and never as "to the right of me". But the Minimal View is phenomenologically inadequate: it cannot explain the difference between a visual experience of self-motion and one of an oppositely moving world. To show (...) this, I argue (i) that these experiences are different in an important respect, (ii) that this difference is genuinely experiential, (iii) that it is visual, (iv) that it is not purely phenomenal, and (v) that it cannot be identified with anything other than the apparent motion of the self. So the Self-Location Thesis is upheld: reports of one’s own motion can correspond to aspects of visual experiences every bit as basic to their contents as the apparent motion or rest of the things one has in view. (shrink)

I consider a serious objection to the knowledge account of assertion and develop a response. In the process I introduce important new data on prompting assertion, which all theorists working in the area should take note of.

“There are no gaps in logical space,” David Lewis writes, giving voice to sentiment shared by many philosophers. But different natural ways of trying to make this sentiment precise turn out to conflict with one another. One is a *pattern* idea: “Any pattern of instantiation is metaphysically possible.” Another is a *cut and paste* idea: “For any objects in any worlds, there exists a world that contains any number of duplicates of all of those objects.” We use resources from model (...) theory to show the inconsistency of certain packages of combinatorial principles and the consistency of others. (shrink)

Some have argued for a division of epistemic labor in which mathematicians supply truths and philosophers supply their necessity. We argue that this is wrong: mathematics is committed to its own necessity. Counterfactuals play a starring role.

Intuitively, the knowledge of one’s own intentional actions is different from the knowledge of actions of other sorts, including those of other people and unintentional actions of one's own. But how are we to understand this phenomenon? Does it pertain to all actions, under every description under which they are known? If so, then how is this possible? If not, then how should we think about cases that are exceptions to this principle? This paper is a critical survey of recent (...) attempts to answer these questions. I consider views under three headings: "special source" views, which hold that the knowledge of one's intentional actions has a non-perceptual source; "special domain" views, which hold that some but not all aspects of one's intentional actions are known in a special way; and "special character" views, which hold that the knowledge of intentional actions is special not because of where it comes from, but because of some other respect in which it is different in kind from the knowledge of other things. (shrink)

Is it possible to misidentify the object of an episode of bodily awareness? I argue that it is, on the grounds that a person can reasonably be unsure or mistaken as to which part of his or her body he or she is aware of at a given moment. This requires discussing the phenomenon of body ownership, and defending the claim that the proper parts of one’s body are at least no less ‘principal’ among the objects of bodily awareness than (...) is the body as a whole. I conclude with some reasons why this should lead us to think that bodily awareness, unlike introspection, is a form of perception. (shrink)

I argue that you can have a priori knowledge of propositions that neither are nor appear necessarily true. You can know a priori contingent propositions that you recognize as such. This overturns a standard view in contemporary epistemology and the traditional view of the a priori, which restrict a priori knowledge to necessary truths, or at least to truths that appear necessary.

We think we have lots of substantial knowledge about the future. But contemporary wisdom has it that indeterminism prevails in such a way that just about any proposition about the future has a non-zero objective chance of being false.2, 3 What should one do about this? One, pessimistic, reaction is scepticism about knowledge of the future. We think this should be something of a last resort, especially since this scepticism is likely to infect alleged knowledge of the present and past. (...) One anti-sceptical strategy is to pin our hopes on determinism, conceding that knowledge of the future is unavailable in an indeterministic world. This is not satisfying either: we would rather not be hostage to empirical fortune in the way that this strategy recommends. A final strategy, one that we shall explore in this paper, is one of reconciliation: knowledge of a proposition is compatible with a subject’s belief having a non-zero objective chance of error.4 Following Williamson, we are interested in tying knowledge to the presence or absence of error in close cases, and so we shall explore the connections between knowledge and objective chance within such a framework. We don’t want to get tangled up here in complications involved in attempting to formulate a necessary and sufficient condition for knowledge in terms of safety. Instead, we will assume the following rough and ready necessary condition: a subject knows P only if she could not easily have falsely believed P.5 Assuming that easiness is to be spelt.. (shrink)

Eleanor Knox has argued that our concept of spacetime applies to whichever structure plays a certain functional role in the laws (the role of determining local inertial structure). I raise two complications for this approach. First, our spacetime concept seems to have the structure of a cluster concept, which means that Knox's inertial criteria for spacetime cannot succeed with complete generality. Second, the notion of metaphysical fundamentality may feature in the spacetime concept, in which case spacetime functionalism may be uninformative (...) in the absence of answers to fundamental metaphysical questions like the substantivalist/relationist debate. (shrink)

According to the common view, conscientious objection is grounded in autonomy or in ‘freedom of conscience’ and is tolerated out of respect for the objector's autonomy. Emphasising freedom of conscience or autonomy as a central concept within the issue of conscientious objection implies that the conscientious objector should have an independent choice among alternative beliefs, positions or values. In this paper it is argued that: (a) it is not true that the typical conscientious objector has such a choice when they (...) decide to act upon their conscience and (b) it is not true that the typical conscientious objector exercises autonomy when developing or acquiring their conscience. Therefore, with regard to tolerating conscientious objection, we should apply the concept of autonomy with caution, as tolerating conscientious objection does not reflect respect for the conscientious objector’s right to choose but rather acknowledges their lack of real ability to choose their conscience and to refrain from acting upon their conscience. This has both normative and analytical implications for the treatment of conscientious objectors. (shrink)

Argumentations are at the heart of the deductive and the hypothetico-deductive methods, which are involved in attempts to reduce currently open problems to problems already solved. These two methods span the entire spectrum of problem-oriented reasoning from the simplest and most practical to the most complex and most theoretical, thereby uniting all objective thought whether ancient or contemporary, whether humanistic or scientific, whether normative or descriptive, whether concrete or abstract. Analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and function of argumentations are described. Perennial philosophic (...) problems, epistemic and ontic, related to argumentations are put in perspective. So much of what has been regarded as logic is seen to be involved in the study of argumentations that logic may be usefully defined as the systematic study of argumentations, which is virtually identical to the quest of objective understanding of objectivity. (shrink)

In this paper I refute the chief arguments for cultural relativism, meaning the moral (not the descriptive) theory that goes by that name. In doing this I walk some oft-trodden paths, but I also break new ones. For instance, I take unusual pains to produce an adequate formulation of cultural relativism, and I distinguish that thesis from the relativism of present-day anthropologists, with which it is often conflated. In addition, I address not one or two, but eleven arguments for cultural (...) relativism, many of which contribute to its popularity but receive scant attention from its critics. To elicit the failings of these arguments I deploy a host of pertinent but often neglected distinctions. (shrink)

After a short preface, the first of the three sections of this paper is devoted to historical and philosophic aspects of categoricity. The second section is a self-contained exposition, including detailed definitions, of a proof that every mathematical system whose domain is the closure of its set of distinguished individuals under its distinguished functions is categorically characterized by its induction principle together with its true atoms (atomic sentences and negations of atomic sentences). The third section deals with applications especially those (...) involving the distinction between characterizing a system and axiomatizing the truths of a system. (shrink)

Robust technological enhancement of core cognitive capacities is now a realistic possibility. From the perspective of neutralism, the view that justifications for public policy should be neutral between reasonable conceptions of the good, only members of a subset of the ethical concerns serve as legitimate justifications for public policy regarding robust technological enhancement. This paper provides a framework for the legitimate use of ethical concerns in justifying public policy decisions regarding these enhancement technologies by evaluating the ethical concerns that arise (...) in the context of testing such technologies on nonhuman animals. Traditional issues in bioethics, as well as novel concerns such as the possibility of moral status enhancement, are evaluated from the perspective of neutralism. (shrink)

This paper applies speech-act theory to craft a new response to Pyrrhonian skepticism and diagnose its appeal. Carefully distinguishing between different levels of language-use and noting their interrelations can help us identify a subtle mistake in a key Pyrrhonian argument.

The chapter introduces the edited collection Robot Sex: Social and Ethical Implications. It proposes a definition of the term 'sex robot' and examines some current prototype models. It also considers the three main ethical questions one can ask about sex robots: (i) do they benefit/harm the user? (ii) do they benefit/harm society? or (iii) do they benefit/harm the robot?

The vision of natural kinds that is most common in the modern philosophy of biology, particularly with respect to the question whether species and other taxa are natural kinds, is based on a revision of the notion by Mill in A System of Logic. However, there was another conception that Whewell had previously captured well, which taxonomists have always employed, of kinds as being types that need not have necessary and sufficient characters and properties, or essences. These competing views employ (...) different approaches to scientific methodologies: Mill’s class-kinds are not formed by induction but by deduction, while Whewell’s type-kinds are inductive. More recently, phylogenetic kinds (clades, or monophyletic-kinds) are inductively projectible, and escape Mill’s strictures. Mill’s version represents a shift in the notions of kinds from the biological to the physical sciences. (shrink)

Plato is associated with the idea that the body holds us back from knowing ultimate reality and so we should try to distance ourselves from its influence. This sentiment appears is several of his dialogues including Theaetetus where the flight from the physical world is compared to becoming like God. In some major dialogues of Plato's later career such as Philebus and Laws, however, the idea of becoming like God takes a different turn. God is an intelligent force that tries (...) to create order in the physical world. I argue that likeness to God in these dialogues involves imitating God's effort by trying to order our bodies, souls, and societies as intelligence directs. Becoming like Plato's God is not to abandon the world. It is to improve it. (shrink)

Spinoza’s claims about true ideas are central to the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect. It is therefore worth trying to reconstruct what he means when he says that an idea is true. I argue that the three leading interpretations – correspondence, coherence, and causal – don’t explain key passages. I then propose a new interpretation. Roughly, I propose that an idea is true if and only if it represents an essence and was derived in the right kind of (...) way by the intellect from an innate idea of one’s own essence. In the final section I sketch why I believe this interpretation extends to his claims about truth and adequacy in the Ethics. (shrink)