This paper discusses the question why the first edition of Descartes' Meditations carries a title announcing a proof of the immortality of the soul, whereas Descartes himself (in the Synopsis as well as in his Replies) explicitly denies any intention to deliver such a proof. In the first part of the paper, I refute existing attempts to explain this inconsistency. In the second part, I argue that it was Descartes' intention to announce a proof for the immaterialitas, not for the (...) immortalitas of the soul, and that the first of these two words has been misread, probably by the Paris printer, and turned into immortalitas. I first adduce as evidence a remark by Baillet in his second (abbreviated) version of Descartes' biography, a remark that has hitherto gone unnoticed in the learned literature. (Baillet explicitly states, using French words indeed, that immortalitas/immortalité was put instead of immaterialitas/immaterialité.) I secondly point to three statements by Descartes concerning either the Meditations or the content of metaphysics generally; Descartes mentions the immateriality of the soul on all three occasions. -/- . (shrink)

The paper discusses the active part in the process of perceiving, usually expressed by the Greek word krinein. It is argued that krinein in one of its uses means "to judge" in the sense of judging a case, i. e. deciding it. It is not used for making statements. A second meaning of the Greek word is that of discerning or discriminating, and it is this meaning that plays a central part in Aristotle's theory of perception.

This paper is a historical, legal and philosophical analysis of the concept of human dignity in German and Kenyan constitutional law. We base our analysis on decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, in particular its take on life imprisonment and its 2006 decision concerning the shooting of hijacked airplanes, and on a close reading of the Constitution of Kenya. We also present a dialogue between us in which we offer some critical remarks on the concept of human dignity (...) in the two constitutions, each one of us from his own philosophical perspective. (shrink)

I argue, firstly, that the accounts of 'accident' in Aristotle's Met. V 30 and in Top. I 5 cannot be used to elucidate each other: the Metaphysics passage tries to disentangle the uses of a Greek word, the Topics passage introduces technical terms for Aristotle's semantics. I then argue that the positive definition in Top. I 5 is to be understood in the following way: X is an accident of Y iff X belongs to Y and if there is a (...) Z such that X can belong to Z and also not belong to Z. Thus, being white is an accident of snow. I finally argue that certain shortcomings in the Topics account lead Aristotle to redefine accident in the Posterior Analytics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Spinoza and the Theory of Organism HANS JONAS I CARTESIANDUALISMlanded speculation on the nature of life in an impasse: intelligible as, on principles of mechanics, the correlation of structure and function became within the res extensa, that of structure-plus-function with feeling or experience (modes of the res cogitans) was lost in the bifurcation, and thereby the fact of life itself became unintelligible at the same time that the (...) explanation of its bodily performance seemed to be assured. The impasse became manifest in Occasionalism : its tour de force of an extraneous, divine "synchronization" of the outer and the inner world (the latter denied to animals) not only suffered from its extreme artificiality, the common failing of such ad hoc constructions, but even at so high a cost failed to accomplish its theoretical purpose by its own terms. For the animal machine, like any machine, raises beyond the question of the "how" that of the "what for" of its functioning---of the purpose for which it had thus been constructed by its maker.1 Its performance, however devoid of immanent teleology, must serve an end, and that end must be someone's end. This end may (directly) be itself, as indeed Descartes had implied when declaring self-preservation to be the effect of the functioning of the organic automaton. In that case the existence as such of the machine would be its end--either terminally, or in turn to benefit something else. In the former case, the machine would have to be more than a machine, for a mere machine cannot enioy its existence. But since, by the rigorous conception of the res extensa, it cannot be more than a machine, its function and/or existence must serve something other than itself. Automata in Descartes ' time were mainly for entertainment (rather than work). But the raison d'etre of the living kingdom could not well be seen in God's indulging his mechanical abilities or in the amusement of celestial spectators--especially since mere complexity of arrangement does not create new quality and thus add something to the unrelieved sameness of the simple substratum that might enrich the spectrum of being. For quality, beyond the primitive determinations of the extended per se, is the subjective creature of sensation, the confused representation of quantity in a mind; and thus organisms cannot harbor it because as mere machines they lack mentality, and pure spirits cannot because they lack sensuality, or the privilege of confusion and thereby of illusion with its possible enjoyment. And as to their intellectual enjoyment, even that, deprived of the thrill of discovery by the same token, would pale in the contemplation of what to sufficiently large The concept of "machine," adopted for its strict confinementto efficientcause, is still a finalisticconcept,even thoughthe final cause is no longer internal to the entity, as a mode of its own operation,but external to it as antecedent design. [43] 44 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY intellects is nothing but the ever-repeated exemplification of the same few, elementary (and ultimately trivial) truths. There remained, then, the time-honored--Stoic as well as Christian--idea that plants and animals are for the benefit of Man. Indeed, since the existence of a living world is the necessary condition for the existence of any of its members, the self-justifying nature of at least one such member (= species) would justify the existence of the whole. In Stoicism, Man provided this end by his possession of reason, which makes him the culmination of a terrestrial scale of being that is also self-justifying throughout all its grades (the end as the best of many that are good in degrees) ; in Christianity, by his possession of an immortal soul, which makes him the sole imago Dei in creation (the end as the sole issue at stake) ; and Cartesian dualism radicalized this latter position by making man even the sole possessor of inwardness or "soul" of any kind, thus the only one of whom "end" can meaningfully be predicated as he alone can entertain ends. All other life then, the product of physical necessity, can be considered his means. However, this traditional idea, in its anthropocentric vanity never a... (shrink)

Kant’s Categorical Imperative (CI) is to be taken as a necessary and sufficient condition for any action that is permissible, i. e. not prohibited. The class of permissible actions contains actions which are allowed as well as those which are morally required. If to perform an action and to abstain from this action can be taken to be ‘practical opposites’, then an action that is morally required for, a duty, is an action whose practical opposite is prohibited, and vice versa. (...) The class of actions which are merely allowed (neither prohibited nor morally required for) contains all and only those actions who together with their practical opposites belong to the class of permissible (not prohibited) actions. The paper then adduces passages from Kant’s ethical writings on the CI supporting these distinctions. (shrink)

Sören Halldén’s logic of nonsense is one of the most well-known many-valued logics available in the literature. In this paper, we discuss Peter Woodruff’s as yet rather unexplored attempt to advance a version of such a logic built on the top of a constructive logical basis. We start by recalling the basics of Woodruff’s system and by bringing to light some of its notable features. We then go on to elaborate on some of the difficulties attached to it; on our (...) way to offer a possible solution to such difficulties, we discuss the relation between Woodruff’s system and two-dimensional semantics for many-valued logics, as developed by Hans Herzberger. (shrink)

This paper (1) criticizes Patzig's explanation of Aristotle's reason for calling his first figure syllogisms perfect syllogisms, i.e. the transitivity relation: it can only be used for Barbara, not for the other three moods. The paper offers (2) an alternative interpretation: It is only in the case of the (perfect) first figure moods that we can move from the subject term of the minor premiss, taken to be a predicate of an individual, to the predicate term of the major premiss. (...) This contention is supported (i) by Aristotle's wording of the dictum de omni et nullo and (ii) by Aristotle's use of a formula which puts the minor term in the first position when he first states Barbara and Celarent. (shrink)

Ever since its beginnings, standard quantum mechanics has been associated with a metaphysical view according to which the theory deals with non-individual objects, i.e., objects deprived of individuality in some sense of the term. We shall examine the grounds of the claim according to which quantum mechanics is so closely connected with a metaphysics of non-individuals. In particular, we discuss the attempts to learn the ‘metaphysical lessons’ required by quantum mechanics coming from four distinct roads: from the formalism of the (...) theory, treating separately the case of the physics and the underlying logic; from the ontology of the theory, understood as the furniture of the world according to the theory; and, at last, we analyze whether a metaphysics of non-individuals is indispensable from a purely metaphysical point of view. We argue that neither non-individuality nor individuality is to be found imposed on us in any of these levels so that it should be seen as a metaphysical addition to the theory, rather than as a lesson from it. (shrink)

This paper concerns how extant theorists of predictive coding conceptualize and explain possible instances of cognitive penetration. §I offers brief clarification of the predictive coding framework and relevant mechanisms, and a brief characterization of cognitive penetration and some challenges that come with defining it. §II develops more precise ways that the predictive coding framework can explain, and of course thereby allow for, genuine top-down causal effects on perceptual experience, of the kind discussed in the context of cognitive penetration. §III develops (...) these insights further with an eye towards tracking one extant criterion for cognitive penetration, namely, that the relevant cognitive effects on perception must be sufficiently direct. Throughout these discussions, we extend the analyses of the predictive coding models, as we know them. So one open question that surfaces is how much of the extended analyses are genuinely just part of the predictive coding models, or something that must be added to them in order to generate these additional explanatory benefits. In §IV, we analyze and criticize a claim made by some theorists of predictive coding, namely, that (interesting) instances of cognitive penetration tend to occur in perceptual circumstances involving substantial noise or uncertainty. It is here that our analysis is most critical. We argue that, when applied, the claim fails to explain (or perhaps even be consistent with) a large range of important and uncontroversially interesting possible cases of cognitive penetration. We conclude with a general speculation about how the recent work on the predictive mind may influence the current dialectic concerning top-down effects on perception. (shrink)

During the last couple of decades, several attempts have been made to come up with a theory that can handle the various semantic, logical and philosophical problems raised by the vagueness of natural languages. One of the most influential ideas that have come into fashion in recent years is the idea that vagueness should be analysed as a form of context sensitivity. Such contextualist theories of vagueness have gained some popularity, but many philosophers have remained sceptical of the prospects of (...) finding a tenable contextualist solution to the problems of vagueness. This paper provides an introduction to the most popular contextualist accounts, and a discussion of some of the most important arguments for and against them. (shrink)

This paper contributes to answering the question how physicalism can be defined for a world without fundamental physical phenomena. In a recent paper in this journal, Torin Alter, Sam Coleman, and Robert J. Howell propose a necessary condition on physicalism. They argue that physicalism is true only if there is no infinitely descending chain of mentally constituted phenomena. I argue that this alleged necessary condition faces counterexamples. An infinitely descending chain of mentally constituted phenomena is compatible with physicalism. Afterwards I (...) propose a simpler definition of physicalism that does not fall prey to my counterexample. (shrink)

In this paper I defend the existence of a Dialectical school proper against criticisms brought forward by Klaus Döring and by Jonathan Barnes. Whereas Döring claims that there was no Dialectical school separate from the Megarians, Barnes takes issue with my claim (argued for in “Dialektiker und frühe Stoiker bei Sextus Empiricus”) that most of the reports in Sextus on the dialecticians refer to members of the Dialectical school. Barnes contends that these dialecticians are in fact Stoic logicians. As against (...) Döring, I argue that the passage in Diogenes Laertius II 113 (first drawn attention to by David Sedley) which talks of a the Megarian Stilpo winning over disciples from the Dialecticians is not refuted by Döring’s arguments. It clearly shows that the Dialecticians and the Megarians at the time were taken to be different philosophical sects. As against Barnes I insist on the differences between the report in Ps.-Galen’s Historia 9 and the Sextan report on the theory of sign in AM VIII. These reports offer incompatible definitions of the indicative sign. Moreover, the classification of simple propositions reported by Sextus at AM VIII 96f. cannot be a truncated version of the (Stoic) list to be found in Diogenes Laertius VII 69f. since in Sextus’ report one of the three classes of simple propositions is labelled middle (meson). This is a certain sign that we are dealing with a triad, and hence that this list is meant to be complete. Therefore the classification found in Sextus and attributed to the dialecticians and the one in Diogenes Laertius reporting Stoic material do come from different sources. (shrink)

The paper starts from a distinction between two terms in Aristotle: kategoroumenon and kategoria. It is argued that the job of the first is to pick out 'predicated predicates' (i.e. predicates attached to a specific subject), the job of the second is to designate 'predicable predicates' (terms which can be attached to specific subjects). It is then argued (1) that Aristotle's division of the (erroneously) so-called 'predicables' (i. e. genus, proprium, definiens, accident) is a classification of predicated predicates, (2) that (...) the list of the "genera of kategoriai" in Top. I 9 which starts with ti estin (essence) as its first member contains a classification of predicable predicates, and (3) that the list in Cat. 4 (starting with ousia, 'substance') is a classification not of kategoriai, but of things there are. (shrink)

The reason for Aristotle’s treatment of (traditional) fourth figure syllogisms as first figure syllogisms with inverted terms in the conclusion is the following: To disprove the conclusiveness of a premiss pair Aristotle formulates two triplets of true propositions such that two of them correspond to the premiss pair in question and that the third proposition corresponding to a conclusion is an a-proposition in the first case, an e-proposition in the other. Since the truth of an a-proposition grants the falsity of (...) the contrary e- and of the contradictory o-proposition, the first triplet offers two counter-instances for invalid syllogisms with true premisses and false conclusions. Similarly the true e-proposition grants the falsity of an a- and an i-conclusion. Since an a-proposition can be converted to an i-proposition and an e-proposition is equivalent to its converse, these first figure triplets also disprove any first figure syllogism with converted conclusions, with the exception of o-conclusions. The invalidity of the latter ones, however, can be shown by using premiss conversions of (invalid) second and third figure syllogisms. The proposed explanation also makes clear why there are no rejection proofs for invalid syllogisms of (traditional) fourth figure syllogisms in the Analytics. (shrink)

Scientific realism is typically associated with metaphysics. One current incarnation of such an association concerns the requirement of a metaphysical characterization of the entities one is being a realist about. This is sometimes called “Chakravartty’s Challenge”, and codifies the claim that without a metaphysical characterization, one does not have a clear picture of the realistic commitments one is engaged with. The required connection between metaphysics and science naturally raises the question of whether such a demand is appropriately fulfilled, and how (...) metaphysics engages with science in order to produce what is called “scientific metaphysics”. Here, we map some of the options available in the literature, generating a conceptual spectrum according to how each view approximates science and metaphysics. This is done with the purpose of enlightening the current debate on the possibility of epistemic warrant that science could grant to such a metaphysics, and how different positions differently address the thorny issue concerning such a warrant. (shrink)

Let intentionalism be the view that what proposition is expressed in context by a sentence containing indexicals depends on the speaker’s intentions. It has recently been argued that intentionalism makes communicative success mysterious and that there are counterexamples to the intentionalist view in the form of cases of mismatch between the intended interpretation and the intuitively correct interpretation. In this paper, I argue that these objections can be met, once we acknowledge that we may distinguish what determines the correct interpretation (...) from the evidence that is available to the audience, as well as from the standards by which we judge whether or not a given interpretation is reasonable. With these distinctions in place, we see that intentionalism does not render communicative success mysterious, and that cases of mismatch between the intended interpretation and the intuitively correct one can easily be accommodated. The distinction is also useful in treating the Humpty Dumpty problem for intentionalism, since it turns out that this can be treated as an extreme special case of mismatch. (shrink)

The question as to what makes a perfect Aristotelian syllogism a perfect one has long been discussed by Aristotelian scholars. G. Patzig was the first to point the way to a correct answer: it is the evidence of the logical necessity that is the special feature of perfect syllogisms. Patzig moreover claimed that the evidence of a perfect syllogism can be seen for Barbara in the transitivity of the a-relation. However, this explanation would give Barbara a different status over the (...) other three first figure syllogisms. I argue that, taking into account the role of the being-contained-as-in-a-whole formulation, transitivity can be seen to be present in all four first figure syllogisms. Using this wording will put the negation sign with the predicate, similar to the notation in modern predicate calculus. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to present a new reconstruction of Aristotle's assertoric logic as he develops it in Prior Analytics, A1-7. This reconstruction will be much closer to Aristotle's original...

I propose a pragmatic approach to the kind of reference-shifting occurring in indexicals as used in e.g. written notes and answering machine messages. I proceed in two steps. First, I prepare the ground by showing that the arguments against such a pragmatic approach raised in the recent literature fail. Second, I take a first few steps towards implementing this approach, by sketching a pragmatic theory of reference-shifting, and showing how it can handle cases of the relevant kind. While the immediate (...) scope of the paper is restricted to indexicals and reference-shifting, and the discussion is confined to a specific range of theories and cases, the approach proposed is compatible with a fairly broad range of more or less semantically conservative theories, and many of the conclusions drawn are significant for the evaluation of pragmatic explanations in philosophy more generally. The overall goal is to offer a new perspective on the issues under discussion, and to prompt philosophers to reconsider some of the established methods by which pragmatic explanations are evaluated. (shrink)

In the debate over what determines the reference of an indexical expression on a given occasion of use, we can distinguish between two generic positions. According to the first, the reference is determined by internal factors, such as the speaker’s intentions. According to the second, the reference is determined by external factors, like conventions or what a competent and attentive audience would take the reference to be. It has recently been argued that the first position is untenable, since there are (...) cases of mismatch where the intuitively correct reference differs from the one that would be determined by the relevant internal factors. The aim of this paper is to show that, contrary to this line of argument, it is the proponent of the second position that should be worried, since this position yields counterintuitive consequences regarding communicative success in cases of mismatch. (shrink)

According to the communication desideratum (CD), a notion of semantic content must be adequately related to communication. In the recent debate on indexical reference, (CD) has been invoked in arguments against the view that intentions determine the semantic content of indexicals and demonstratives (intentionalism). In this paper, I argue that the interpretations of (CD) that these arguments rely on are questionable, and suggest an alternative interpretation, which is compatible with (strong) intentionalism. Moreover, I suggest an approach that combines elements of (...) intentionalism with other subjectivist approaches, and discuss the role of intuitions in developing and evaluating theories of indexical reference. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to introduce, elucidate and defend the usefulness of a variant of grounding, or metaphysical explanation, that has the feature that the grounds explain of some states of affairs that one of them obtains without explaining which one obtains. I will dub this variant arbitrary grounding. After informally elucidating the basic idea in the first section, I will provide three metaphysical hypotheses that are best formulated in terms of arbitrary grounding in the second section. The (...) third section will be concerned with the relation between arbitrary grounding and non-arbitrary grounding. The fourth section will compare arbitrary grounding to two extant proposals in the literature. (shrink)

We articulate a distinction between ontology, understood as involving existence questions, and metaphysics, understood as either providing for metaphysical profiles of entities or else as dealing with fundamentality and/or grounding and dependence questions. The distinction, we argue, allows a better understanding of the roles of metaontology and metametaphysics when it comes to discussing the relations between ontology and science on the one hand, and metaphysics and science on the other. We argue that while ontology, as understood in this paper, may (...) have reasonable perspectives for naturalization, given its relation to science, the same cannot be said for metaphysics, given that it is typically understood as an additional theoretical layer over science, not participating in the scientific investigation. That may result either in skepticism over metaphysics, or else on accepting that metaphysics is an autonomous branch of investigation, depending on one’s concern for metaphysics. (shrink)

One important challenge for contingentists is that they seem to be unable to account for the meaning of some apparently meaningful modal discourse that is perfectly intelligible for necessitists. This worry is particularly pressing for higher-order contingentists, contingentists who hold that it is not only contingent which objects there are, but also contingent which semantic values there are for higher-order variables to quantify over. Objections against higher-order contingentism along these lines have been presented in Williamson (Mind 119(475):657–748, 2010; Modal logic (...) as metaphysics, Oxford University Press, 2013, ch. 7), and Fritz and Goodman (Mind 126(504):1063–1108, 2017). This paper presents a way for contingentists to respond to these challenges. The upshot is that the contingentist can account for the meaningfulness of the problematic modal claims by pretending necessitism to be true, but in some cases it turns out to be indeterminate whether they are true. I defend this strategy against the objections against pretence-strategies presented in Fritz and Goodman (Mind 126(504):1063–1108, 2017, §4). Furthermore, I defend the plausibility of the resulting indeterminacy from the contingentist’s perspective. (shrink)

This is a big-picture discussion of an important implication of Darwinism for ethics. I argue that there is a misfit between our scientific view of the natural world and the view, still dominant in academic philosophy and wider society alike, that there is a discrete hierarchy of moral status among conscious beings. I will suggest that the clear line of traditional morality – between human beings and other animals – is a remnant of an obsolete moral outlook, not least because (...) it has no counterpart in empirical reality, and I will invite the reader to think, with me, about tenable alternatives. (shrink)

This paper develops the metaphysical hypothesis that there are irreducibly collective pluralities, pluralities of objects that do not have a singular object among them. A way to formulate this hypothesis using plural quantification will be proposed and the coherence of irreducibly collective existence will be defended. Furthermore, irreducibly collective existence will be shown to allow for bottomless scenarios that do not involve things standing in relations of parthood. This will create logical space for an anti-atomistic form of mereological nihilism.

There are few moral convictions that enjoy the same intuitive plausibility and level of acceptance both within and across nations, cultures, and traditions as the conviction that, normally, it is morally wrong to kill people. Attempts to provide a philosophical explanation of why that is so broadly fall into three groups: Consequentialists argue that killing is morally wrong, when it is wrong, because of the harm it inflicts on society in general, or the victim in particular, whereas personhood and human (...) dignity accounts see the wrongness of killing people in its typically involving a failure to show due respect for the victim and his or her intrinsic moral worth. I argue that none of these attempts to explain the wrongness of killing is successful. Consequentialism generates too many moral reasons to kill, cannot account for deeply felt and widely shared intuitions about the comparative wrongness of killing, and gives the wrong kind of explanation of the wrongness of killing. Personhood and human dignity accounts each draw a line that is arbitrary and entirely unremarkable in terms of empirical reality, and hence ill-suited to carry the moral weight of the difference in moral status between the individuals below and above it. Paying close attention to the different ways in which existing accounts fail to convince, I identify a number of conditions that any plausible account of the wrongness of killing must meet. I then go on to propose an account that does. I suggest that the reason that typically makes killing normal human adults wrong equally applies to atypical human beings and a wide range of non-human animals, and hence challenge the idea that killing a non-human animal is normally easier to justify than killing a human being. This idea has persisted in Western philosophy from Aristotle to the present, and even progressive moral thinkers and animal advocates such as Peter Singer and Tom Regan are committed to it. I conclude by discussing some important practical implications of my account. (shrink)

This paper discusses the reports in Diogenes Laertius and in Sextus Empiricus concerning the classification of propositions. It is argued that the material in Sextus uses a source going back to the Dialectical school whose most prominent members were Diodorus Cronus and Philo of Megara. The material preserved in Diogenes Laertius, on the other hand, goes back to Chrysippus.

Modal dispositionalists hold that dispositions provide the foundation of metaphysical necessity and possibility. According to the kind of modal dispositionalism that can be found in the present literature, a proposition p is possible just in case some things are disposed to be such that p. In the first part of this paper I show that combining this classic form of dispositionalism with the assumptions that the laws of nature are necessary and deterministic and that all dispositions are forward-looking in time (...) leads to the unattractive conclusion that every truth is necessary. I argue that the classic dispositionalist should be troubled by this result and in the second part of the paper I suggest a novel variant of dispositionalism that avoids it. This extended form of dispositionalism allows that some propositions are only indirectly underwritten by dispositions. (shrink)

According to extension-shifting theories of vagueness, the extensions of vague predicates have sharp boundaries, which shift as a function of certain psychological factors. Such theories have been claimed to provide an attractive explanation of the appeal of soritical reasoning. I challenge this claim: the demand for such an explanation need not constrain the semantics of vague predicates at all.

Pluralist mathematical realism, the view that there exists more than one mathematical universe, has become an influential position in the philosophy of mathematics. I argue that, if mathematical pluralism is true (and we have good reason to believe that it is), then mathematical realism cannot (easily) be justified by arguments from the indispensability of mathematics to science. This is because any justificatory chain of inferences from mathematical applications in science to the total body of mathematical theorems can cover at most (...) one mathematical universe. Indispensability arguments may thus lose their central role in the debate about mathematical ontology. (shrink)

This chapter explains Franz Brentano's metaethical theory and how it purports to deal with such difficulties. Brentano explains correctness in emotions by analogy with correctness in judgements. For a judgement to be correct is for it to concord with a judgement made by someone who judges with self-evidence (Evidenz). Self-evident judgements are guaranteed to be correct, and they are based either on "inner perception" or on presentations of objects that are rejected apodictically. Brentano's metaethical theory concerns first and foremost the (...) psychology of valuing and of moral judgement. Brentano is clearly a cognitivist about evaluative and moral judgement; such judgements are judgements about the correctness of feelings, and judgements are cognitive acts. However, one aspect of his position that seems congenial to contemporary expressivism. This has to do with expressivist treatments of disagreement. Brentano's views seem akin to the kind of foundationalist intuitionism that is traditionally associated with non-naturalism. (shrink)

This paper questions the adequacy of the explicit cancellability test for conversational implicature as it is commonly understood. The standard way of understanding this test relies on two assumptions: first, that that one can test whether a certain content is conversationally implicated, by checking whether that content is cancellable, and second, that a cancellation is successful only if it results in a felicitous utterance. While I accept the first of these assumptions, I reject the second one. I argue that a (...) cancellation can succeed even if it results in an infelicitous utterance, and that unless we take this possibility into account we run the risk of misdiagnosing philosophically significant cases. (shrink)

The existence of fundamental moral disagreements is a central problem for moral realism and has often been contrasted with an alleged absence of disagreement in mathematics. However, mathematicians do in fact disagree on fundamental questions, for example on which set-theoretic axioms are true, and some philosophers have argued that this increases the plausibility of moral vis-à-vis mathematical realism. I argue that the analogy between mathematical and moral disagreement is not as straightforward as those arguments present it. In particular, I argue (...) that pluralist accounts of mathematics render fundamental mathematical disagreements compatible with mathematical realism in a way in which moral disagreements and moral realism are not. 11. (shrink)

I argue that recent attempts to deflect Access Problems for realism about a priori domains such as mathematics, logic, morality, and modality using arguments from evolution result in two kinds of explanatory overkill: the Access Problem is eliminated for contentious domains, and realist belief becomes viciously immune to arguments from dispensability, and to non-rebutting counter-arguments more generally.

This entry considers the philosophical subject called 'metaphysics'. There have been many conceptions of metaphysics, and metaphysics has faced severe criticism throughout the history of philosophy and continues to do so. Besides discussing some major trends in analytic metaphysics - understood as 'metaphysics done by analytic philosophers' - we consider some of the criticisms and possible responses.

What is it that makes a mental state conscious? Recent commentators have proposed that for Kant, consciousness results from differentiation: A mental state is conscious insofar as it is distinguished, by means of our conceptual capacities, from other states and/or things. I argue instead that Kant’s conception of state consciousness is sensory: A mental state is conscious insofar as it is accompanied by an inner sensation. Interpreting state consciousness as inner sensation reveals an underappreciated influence of Crusius on Kant’s view, (...) solves some long-standing puzzles concerning Kant’s difficult doctrine of self-affection, and sheds light on his theory of inner experience. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Amie Thomasson’s Easy Ontology rests on a vicious circularity that is highly damaging. Easy Ontology invokes the idea of application conditions that give rise to analytic entailments. Such entailments can be used to answer ontological questions easily. I argue that the application conditions for basic terms are only circularly specifiable showing that Thomasson misses her self-set goal of preventing such a circularity. Using this circularity, I go on to show that Easy Ontology as a (...) whole collapses. (shrink)

Daniel Bell and Wang Pei’s recent monograph, Just Hierarchy, seeks to defend hierarchical relationships against more egalitarian alternatives. This paper addresses their argument, offered in one chapter of the book, in favour of a hierarchical relationship between human and nonhuman animals. This relationship, Bell and Pei argue, should conform to what they call “subordination without cruelty:” it is permissible to subordinate and exploit animals for human ends, provided that we do not treat them cruelly. We focus on three aspects of (...) their view: their argument for a hierarchical view; their understanding of cruelty; and their account of the heightened duties they claim we owe to nonhuman animals who are intelligent, domesticated, and/or “cute.” We argue that the reasons that Bell and Pei offer fail to support their conclusions, and that, even if one accepts a hierarchical view, the conclusions that Bell and Pei draw about the permissibility of practices such as killing animals for food do not follow. We conclude by emphasizing philosophers’ responsibility to thoroughly test their arguments and to engage with existing debates, especially when the practices they seek to justify involve harms of great magnitude. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss some of the challenges related to formulating and adopting a realist position regarding non-relativistic quantum mechanics. In a standard approach to ontology, the ontological commitments of scientific theories can be extracted from them. Scientific realism is the standpoint that our best scientific theories are approximately true, and thus, their ontological commitments, roughly speaking, correspond to reality. Quantum mechanics complicates this view by introducing an interpretational requirement that links a particular conception of how reality should be (...) to the theory. This generates comprehensive difficulties: when we separate theory and interpretation, we have a clear conception of theory but not of interpretation and how to extract its ontology. On the other hand, if we somehow identify theory and interpretation, we have a reasonably clear conception of the desired ontology but lose our best characterizations of theory, rendering our methods for extracting ontology ineffective. Our aim is to map out the challenges for future rigorous realist approaches to quantum mechanics. (shrink)

The paper discusses Habermas` contribution to a debate between him and Joseph Ratzinger, at the time the prefect of the Congregation for the Catholic faith. Habermas is criticized for his tendency to adopt openly anti-enlightenment positions.

This is a reply to Vincent Carraud/René Verdon « Remarques circonspectes sur la mort de Descartes » (published in Revue du dix-septième siècle, n° 265, 2014/4, pp. 719-726, online: http://www.cairn.info/revue-dix-septieme-siecle-2014-4-page-719.htm, containing a critique of my "L'énigme de la mort de Descartes" Paris, 2011). I discuss the fatal illness and the death of Descartes, arguing that Descartes was very probably the victim of arsenical poisoning. The suspected murderer is a French priest, François Viogué, living with Descartes in 1650 at the French (...) embassy in Stockholm who may have seen in Descartes an obstacle to the hoped for conversion of queen Christina of Sweden. As against Carraud/Verdon I stress the medical facts, in particular the fact that Descartes himself seems to have suspected poisoning, since he asked for an emetic shortly before his death. (shrink)

I contend that “philosophos” is meant to carry the connotation of a Pythagorean: Euenus is a native from Paros which had a strong Pythagorean community down to the end of the fifth century. Moreover, “philosophos” was used to refer to the Pythagoreans, as can be seen from the story related by Cicero from Heraclides Ponticus (Tusc. Disp. V, iii, 7-8; cp. DL, 1.12; 8.8). I argue (against Burkert) that even if this story is part of the lore surrounding Pythagoras and, (...) hence, without historical value as for Pythagoras, it may still be used as evidence for the use of “philosophos” among latter-day Pythagoreans. (shrink)

In this article, I propose a formal criterion that distinguishes between deductively valid arguments that do and do not beg the question. I define the concept of a Never-failing Minimally Competent Knower (NMCK) and suggest that an argument begs the question just in case it cannot possibly assist an NMCK in extending his or her knowledge.

Among those who reject the Epicurean claim that death is not bad for the one who dies, it is popularly held that death is bad for the one who dies, when it is bad for the one who dies, because it deprives the one who dies of the good things that otherwise would have fallen into her life. This view is known as the deprivation account of the value of death, and Fred Feldman is one of its most prominent defenders. (...) In this paper, I explain why I believe that Feldman’s argument for the occasional badness of death fails. While staying within an Epicurean framework, I offer an alternative that adequately accounts for a significant range of widely held intuitions about prudential value. My account implies that death is almost always good for the one who dies, yet often less good than not dying. Finally, I discuss some puzzles that remain for my account and hint at possible ways to address them. (shrink)

This article investigates what constitutes good reason, in particular in scientific communication. I will start out with a general description of what scientists do and will identify the good argument as an integral part of all science. Employing some simple examples, I will then move on to derive some necessary conditions for the goodness of an argument. Along the way, I will introduce various basic concepts in logic and briefly talk about the nature of human knowledge. I will conclude by (...) relating my discussion of good reasoning in science to critical thinking in general and explain why I believe that critical thinking is at the heart of a well-functioning liberal democracy. (shrink)

Does Kant hold that we can have intuitions independently of concepts? A striking passage from § 13 of the Critique of Pure Reason appears to say so explicitly. However, it also conjures up a scenario where the categories are inapplicable to objects of intuition, a scenario presumably shown impossible by the following Transcendental Deduction. The seemingly non-conceptualist claim concerning intuition have therefore been read, by conceptualist interpreters of Kant, as similarly counterpossible. I argue that the passage in question best supports (...) an underappreciated middle position where intuition requires a pre-conceptual use of the understanding. Such pre-conceptual use of the understanding faces both textual and systematic objections. I show that these objections can be rebutted. (shrink)