This is basically a paper about artistic evaluation and how multiple interpretations can give rise to inconsistent and conflicting meanings. Images like Joel-Peter Witkin’s First Casting for Milo (2004) challenge the viewer to look closely, understand the formal properties at work, and then extract a meaning that ultimately asks, Is the model exploited or empowered? Is Karen Duffy, pictured here, vulnerable and “enfreaked” or is she potentially subversive, transgressive, and perhaps self-empowered? I will offer an argument in agreement with artist/author/ (...) performer Ann Millett-Gallant that favors the latter interpretation, but will augment and complicate the issue by also introducing a pointed question or two taken from a recent analysis by Cynthia Freeland on objectification. I judge the works by photographer Joel-Peter Witkin to be representations of disabled persons who are empowered through agency and pride, but I also worry about the risk of multiple, conflicting interpretations on the part of viewers who do not, or cannot, entertain such enlightened readings. Like second wave feminist views about pornography that depicted women in demeaning ways, or feminist critiques of Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party , Witkin’s photos can be judged as potentially offensive. But they are also objects of beauty—both in terms of aesthetic properties (they are magnificent studies in black and white, shadows, the human body, with many classical references) and because of the feeling of beauty and pride felt by the posers, who become performers of their own beauty and pride. I argue that beauty trumps offensiveness. Pride wins. But I’m not sure that everyone will agree. (shrink)

According to the ancient Greek Stoics, the cosmos regularly transitions between periods of conflagration, during which only fire exists, and periods of cosmic order, during which the four elements exist. This paper examines the cosmogonic process by which conflagrations are extinguished and cosmic orders are restored, and it defends three main conclusions. First, I argue that not all the conflagration’s fire is extinguished during the cosmogony, against recent arguments by Ricardo Salles. Second, at least with respect to the cosmogony, it (...) is not necessary to posit the existence of proto-elements. Third, while scholars such as Salles and David Hahm have argued that Cleanthes held a distinct theory of cosmogony from Zeno and Chrysippus, I argue that each of these Stoics endorse the same cosmogonic theory. (shrink)

Sources for Stoicism present conflicting accounts of the Stoic principles. Some suggest that the principles are inseparable from each other. Others suggest that they are separable. To resolve this apparent interpretive dilemma, I distinguish between the functions of the principles and the bodies that realize those functions. Although the principles cannot separate when realizing their roles, the Stoic theory of blending entails that the bodies that realize those roles are physically separable. I present a strategy for further work on the (...) principles in light of this interpretation. (shrink)

This chapter examines the ancient Stoic theory of the physical composition of pneuma, how its composition relates to pneuma’s many causal roles in Stoic philosophy, and to what extent each of the first three leaders of the Stoic school accepted the claim that pneuma pervades the cosmos. I argue that pneuma is a compound of fire and air. Furthermore, many functions of pneuma can be reduced to the functions of these elements. Finally, it is likely that each of the early (...) Stoics posited a pervasive cosmic pneuma. This paper also explores the nature of pneuma’s tensile movement and offers an account of fire and air’s roles in causing its motion. (shrink)

A sentence in Book 7 of Diogenes Laertius’s Lives states that, according to the Stoics, the four elements are “unqualified substance, i.e. matter.” Scholars have noted that this appears to conflict with the Stoics’ distinction between principles and elements. Different solutions have been proposed, from dismissing the sentence entirely to emending the text. This note proposes a new interpretation according to which the standard reading of the text can be retained.

This chapter investigates the Stoic understanding of impressions, assent, opinion, scientific knowledge, and cognition. By analyzing these concepts, I describe one major difference between the wise Stoic sage and unwise people: the wise person is capable of scientific knowledge and strong assent, while the rest of us are not. I will also interpret the Stoic account of the cognitive impression and describe several ways that the student of Stoicism might make epistemic progress.

This essay interprets Butler’s distinction between identity in the loose and popular sense and in the strict and philosophical sense. Suppose there are different standards for counting the same things. Then what are two distinct things counting strictly may be one and the same thing counting loosely. Within a given standard identity is one-one. But across standards it is many-one. An alternative interpretation using the parts-whole relation fails, because that relation should be understood as many-one identity. Another alternative making identity (...) relative to sort fails, because whole and parts can be of the same sort. (shrink)

We have a much better understanding of physics than we do of consciousness. I consider ways in which intrinsically mental aspects of fundamental ontology might induce modifications of the known laws of physics, or whether they could be relevant to accounting for consciousness if no such modifications exist. I suggest that our current knowledge of physics should make us skeptical of hypothetical modifications of the known rules, and that without such modifications it’s hard to imagine how intrinsically mental aspects could (...) play a useful explanatory role. Draft version of a paper submitted to Journal of Consciousness Studies, special issue responding to Philip Goff’s Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness. (shrink)

What are words? What makes two token words tokens of the same word-type? Are words abstract entities, or are they (merely) collections of tokens? The ontology of words tries to provide answers to these, and related questions. This article provides an overview of some of the most prominent views proposed in the literature, with a particular focus on the debate between type-realist, nominalist, and eliminativist ontologies of words.

In order to better understand the topic of hope, this paper argues that two separate theories are needed: One for hoping, and the other for hopefulness. This bifurcated approach is warranted by the observation that the word ‘hope’ is polysemous: It is sometimes used to refer to hoping and sometimes, to feeling or being hopeful. Moreover, these two senses of 'hope' are distinct, as a person can hope for some outcome yet not simultaneously feel hopeful about it. I argue that (...) this distinction between hoping and hopefulness is not always observed or fully appreciated in the literature and has consequently caused much confusion. This paper then sketches what theorizing about hope looks like in light of this clarification and discusses some of its implications. (shrink)

Multidimensional concepts are everywhere, and they are important. Examples include moral value, welfare, scientific confirmation, democracy, and biodiversity. How, if at all, can we aggregate the underlying dimensions of a multidimensional concept F to yield verdicts about which things are Fer than which overall? Social choice theory can be used to model and investigate this aggregation problem. Here, we focus on a particularly thorny problem made salient by this social choice-theoretic framework: the underlying dimensions of a given concept might be (...) measurable on different types of scales—e.g., some ordinal and some cardinal. An underappreciated impossibility theorem due to Anna Khmelnitskaya shows that seemingly plausible constraints on aggregation across scale types are inconsistent. This impossibility threatens to render the notion of overall Fness incoherent. We attempt to defuse this threat, arguing that the impossibility depends on an overly restrictive conception of measurement and of how measurement constrains aggregation. Adopting a more flexible—and, we think, more perspicuous—conception of measurement opens an array of possibilities for aggregation across disparate scale types. (shrink)

What is the phenomenology of hope? A common view is that hope has a generally positive and pleasant affective tone. This rosy depiction, however, has recently been challenged. Certain hopes, it has been objected, are such that they are either entirely negative in valence or neutral in tone. In this paper, I argue that this challenge has only limited success. In particular, I show that it only applies to one sense of hope but leaves another sense—one that is implicitly but (...) widely employed in the hope literature—untouched. Moreover, I argue that hope construed in this latter sense is inherently positively valenced. The paper concludes by discussing some of the implications of this defense of hope's positive phenomenology, including the ontological question of whether hope is an emotion. (shrink)

This paper proposes a new framework for thinking about hope, with certain unexpected consequences. Specifically, I argue that a shift in focus from locutions like “x hopes that” and “x is hoping that” to “x is hopeful that” and “x has hope that” can improve our understanding of hope. This approach, which emphasizes hopefulness as the central concept, turns out to be more revealing and fruitful in tackling some of the issues that philosophers have raised about hope, such as the (...) question of how hope can be distinguished from despair or how people can have differing strengths in hope. It also allows us to see that many current accounts of hope, far from being rivals, are actually compatible with one another. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The idea that two words can be instances of the same word is a central intuition in our conception of language. This fact underlies many of the claims that we make about how we communicate, and how we understand each other. Given this, irrespective of what we think words are, it is common to think that any putative ontology of words, must be able to explain this feature of language. That is, we need to provide criteria of identity for (...) word-types which allow us to individuate words such that it can be the case that two particular word-instances are instances of the same word-type. One solution, recently further developed by Irmak, holds that words are individuated by their history. In this paper, I argue that this view either fails to account for our intuitions about word identity, or is too vague to be a plausible answer to the problem of word individuation. (shrink)

It has been widely argued that words are analogous to species such that words, like species, are natural kinds. In this paper, I consider the metaphysics of word-kinds. After arguing against an essentialist approach, I argue that word-kinds are homeostatic property clusters, in line with the dominant approach to other biological and psychological kinds.

*As mentioned in Peter Coy's NYT essay "When Being Good Is Just a Matter of Being Lucky" (2023) -/- ----- -/- How is the problem of free will related to the problem of moral luck? In this essay, I answer that question and outline a new solution to the paradox of moral luck, the source-paradox solution. This solution both explains why the paradox arises and why moral luck does not exist. To make my case, I highlight a few key connections (...) between the paradox of moral luck and two related problems, namely the problem of free will and determinism and the paradox of self-creation. Piecing together intuitions, arguments, and insights from recent work on each of these three problems, I argue that the type of control necessary for moral responsibility can only be had by someone who is a genuine source of his own actions, but the relevant notion of sourcehood admits no coherent characterization. If our commonsense view of moral responsibility is incoherent, it is unsurprising that our commitment to the existence of morally responsible agents commits us to some paradoxical things—e.g. to both the existence and impossibility of moral luck. For more information about this article, please write to gmail account: kristin.mickelson.42. (shrink)

Construing the instantiation of a universal by a particular in terms of my theory of aspects resolves the basic mystery of this "non-relational tie", and gives theoretical unity to the four characteristics of instantiation discerned by Armstrong. Taking aspects as distinct in a way akin to Scotus's formal distinction, I suggest that instantiation is the sharing of an aspect by a universal and a particular--a kind of partial identity. This approach allows me to address Plato's multiple location and One over (...) Many problems, Bradley's problem concerning the instantiation of relations, and the problem of change. (shrink)

Cosmological models that invoke a multiverse - a collection of unobservable regions of space where conditions are very different from the region around us - are controversial, on the grounds that unobservable phenomena shouldn't play a crucial role in legitimate scientific theories. I argue that the way we evaluate multiverse models is precisely the same as the way we evaluate any other models, on the basis of abduction, Bayesian inference, and empirical success. There is no scientifically respectable way to do (...) cosmology without taking into account different possibilities for what the universe might be like outside our horizon. Multiverse theories are utterly conventionally scientific, even if evaluating them can be difficult in practice. (shrink)

Imperatives cannot be true or false, so they are shunned by logicians. And yet imperatives can be combined by logical connectives: "kiss me and hug me" is the conjunction of "kiss me" with "hug me". This example may suggest that declarative and imperative logic are isomorphic: just as the conjunction of two declaratives is true exactly if both conjuncts are true, the conjunction of two imperatives is satisfied exactly if both conjuncts are satisfied—what more is there to say? Much more, (...) I argue. "If you love me, kiss me", a conditional imperative, mixes a declarative antecedent ("you love me") with an imperative consequent ("kiss me"); it is satisfied if you love and kiss me, violated if you love but don't kiss me, and avoided if you don't love me. So we need a logic of three -valued imperatives which mixes declaratives with imperatives. I develop such a logic. (shrink)

Book synopsis: Our mental lives are entwined with the world. There are worldly things that we have beliefs about and things in the world we desire to have happen. We find some things fearsome and others likable. The puzzle of intentionality — how it is that our minds make contact with the world — is one of the oldest and most vexed issues facing philosophers. Many contemporary philosophers and cognitive scientists have been attracted to the idea that our minds represent (...) the world. This book explores an important assumption about representation, namely, that when we represent things in the world, we represent them as having properties, and in this way our representations have "propositional" structure. The contributors examine what the commitment to propositionalism amounts to; illuminate why one might find the thesis attractive ; and consider ways in which one might depart from propositionalism. The hope is that this will lead towards a more complete understanding of how the mind and world are connected. (shrink)

Why does classical equilibrium statistical mechanics work? Malament and Zabell (1980) noticed that, for ergodic dynamical systems, the unique absolutely continuous invariant probability measure is the microcanonical. Earman and Rédei (1996) replied that systems of interest are very probably not ergodic, so that absolutely continuous invariant probability measures very distant from the microcanonical exist. In response I define the generalized properties of epsilon-ergodicity and epsilon-continuity, I review computational evidence indicating that systems of interest are epsilon-ergodic, I adapt Malament and Zabell’s (...) defense of absolute continuity to support epsilon-continuity, and I prove that, for epsilon-ergodic systems, every epsilon-continuous invariant probability measure is very close to the microcanonical. (shrink)

This article investigates the hitherto under-examined relations between affirmative action, paternalism and respect. We provide three main arguments. First, we argue that affirmative action initiatives are typically paternalistic and thus disrespectful towards those intended beneficiaries who oppose the initiatives in question. Second, we argue that not introducing affirmative action can also be disrespectful towards these potential beneficiaries because such inaction involves a failure to adequately recognize their moral worth. Third, we argue that the paternalistic disrespect involved in affirmative action is (...) alleviated when the potential beneficiaries’ preferences against such initiatives are adaptive. We conclude that although there is a relevant sense in which paternalistic affirmative action is disrespectful, it may well be more disrespectful not to pursue such policies. (shrink)

These comments are part of a book symposium on Karen Bennett's book, _Making Things Up_.

In the early part of the paper, I attempt to explain a dispute between two parties who endorse the compositionality of language but disagree about its implications: Paul Horwich, and Jerry Fodor and Ernest Lepore. In the remainder of the paper, I challenge the thesis on which they are agreed, that compositionality can be taken for granted. I suggest that it is not clear what compositionality involves nor whether it obtains. I consider some kinds of apparent counterexamples, and compositionalist responses (...) to them in terms of covert indexicality and unspecific meanings. I argue that the last option is the best for most of the cases I consider. I conclude by stressing, as against Horwich and Fodor and Lepore, that the appropriate question concerns the extent to which compositionality obtains in a natural language, rather than whether it obtains or not, so that the answer is essentially messy, requiring detailed consideration of a wide range of examples. (shrink)

Replicability and reproducibility of computational models has been somewhat understudied by “the replication movement.” In this paper, we draw on methodological studies into the replicability of psychological experiments and on the mechanistic account of explanation to analyze the functions of model replications and model reproductions in computational neuroscience. We contend that model replicability, or independent researchers' ability to obtain the same output using original code and data, and model reproducibility, or independent researchers' ability to recreate a model without original code, (...) serve different functions and fail for different reasons. This means that measures designed to improve model replicability may not enhance (and, in some cases, may actually damage) model reproducibility. We claim that although both are undesirable, low model reproducibility poses more of a threat to long-term scientific progress than low model replicability. In our opinion, low model reproducibility stems mostly from authors' omitting to provide crucial information in scientific papers and we stress that sharing all computer code and data is not a solution. Reports of computational studies should remain selective and include all and only relevant bits of code. (shrink)

We need modal imagination in order to extend our conception of reality - and, in particular, of human beings - beyond our immediate experience in the indexical present; and we need to do this in order to preserve the significance of human interaction. To make this leap of imagination successfully is to achieve not only insight but also an impartial perspective on our own and others' inner states. This perspective is a necessary condition of experiencing compassion for others. This is (...) the primary thesis I will try to defend in this discussion. (shrink)

Despite the end of the Cold War and the ascendancy of liberal democracy celebrated by Francis Fukuyama as “the end of history”, a growing number of scholars and political activists point to its inherent shortcomings. However, they have tended to dismiss it on the basis of one or two of its salient weaknesses. While this is a justifiable way to proceed, it denies the searching reader an opportunity to see the broad basis for the growing rejection of liberal democracy among (...) African political theorists. Consequently, in this article, I argue that from an African perspective, the almost hegemonic status of liberal democracy can be challenged on at least five grounds, namely, logical inconsistency, impracticability due to the largely communalistic outlook of many africans, inconsistency between affirmation and action, violation of the right to ethnic identity, and the moral imperative to assert the right to cultural emancipation. -/- I conclude by calling upon African and Africanist political theorists to utilise indigenous African political thought, coupled with emancipatory aspects of political thought from other parts of the world, to design practicable models of democracy for contemporary African states. I further conclude that in order to promote genuine inter-cultural dialogue on democratisation, people from Western cultures ought to acknowledge the equality of all cultures, and to recognise that systems of governance are part and parcel of those cultures. (shrink)

Are living organisms--as Descartes argued--just machines? Or is the nature of life such that it can never be fully explained by mechanistic models? In this thought-provoking and controversial book, eminent geophysicist Walter M. Elsasser argues that the behavior of living organisms cannot be reduced to physico-chemical causality. Suggesting that molecular biology today is at the same point as Newtonian physics on the eve of the quantum revolution, Elsasser lays the foundation for a theoretical biology that points the way toward a (...) natural philosophy of organic life. Explicitly repudiating "vitalism" (the notion that the laws of nature need to be modified when applied to living organisms), Elsasser argues instead that the structural complexity of even a single living cell is "transcomputational"--that is, beyond the power of any imaginable system to compute. Beginning from this insight, Elsasser leads the reader through a step-by-step process that ultimately arrives at the conclusion that living and non-living matter are separated by "a no-man's land of irrationality." Trained in Germany as a physicist, Elsasser first pondered the implications of quantum mechanics for biology as early as 1951. The more closely he studied the inherent complexity of life, the more skeptical he became of the reductionist view of organisms as tiny machines. "An organism," he concluded, "is a source of causal chains which cannot be traced beyond a terminal point because they are lost in the unfathomable complexity of the organism." Like the physicist who works within the bounds of an unfathomable universe, Elsasser argues, the biologist must seek answers within a system that is no less unfathomable. (shrink)

Poverty has traditionally been conceived of as a state of deprivation. To be poor is to lack something essential to human flourishing. How that something is understood—in terms of welfare, resources, or capabilities—and how it is measured—in absolute terms or relative to a social standard—has been the subject of much debate within the development literature. In this paper, I put forward an account of poverty rooted in the philosophy of action. I argue that poverty essentially involves being in a context (...) in which a reasonable agent’s future-directed agency is systemically undermined. Centering this dimension of poverty allows us to attend to aspects of poverty that are easily overlooked on existing accounts. (shrink)

Three-dimensionalists , sometimes referred to as endurantists, think that objects persist through time by being “wholly present” at every time they exist. But what is it for something to be wholly present at a time? It is surprisingly difficult to say. The threedimensionalist is free, of course, to take ‘is wholly present at’ as one of her theory’s primitives, but this is problematic for at least one reason: some philosophers claim not to understand her primitive. Clearly the three-dimensionalist would be (...) better off if she could state her theory in terms accessible to all. We think she can. What is needed is a definition of ‘is wholly present at’ that all can understand. in this paper, we offer one. (shrink)

We critique two popular philosophical definitions of intellectual humility: the “low concern for status” and the “limitations-owning.” accounts. Based upon our analysis, we offer an alternative working definition of intellectual humility: the virtue of accurately tracking what one could non-culpably take to be the positive epistemic status of one’s own beliefs. We regard this view of intellectual humility both as a virtuous mean between intellectual arrogance and diffidence and as having advantages over other recent conceptions of intellectual humility. After defending (...) this view, we sketch remaining questions and issues that may bear upon the psychological treatment of intellectual humility such as whether evidence will help determine how this construct relates to general social humility on the one hand, and intellectual traits such as open-mindedness, curiosity, and honesty on the other. (shrink)

Aristotle argued that you need some wealth to live well. The Stoics argued that you could live well with or without wealth. But the Cynics argued that wealth is a hinderance. For the Cynics, a good life consists in self-sufficiency, or being able to rule and help yourself. You accomplish this by living simply and naturally, and by subjecting yourself to rigorous philosophical exercises. Cynics confronted people to get them to abandon extraneous possessions and positions of power to live better. (...) And while the Cynics were experts in living in this way, their ascetic lifestyles made their message curious to some audiences. This paper reflects on Cynic ascetic practices and the ways others perceived them. (shrink)

Most moral theories share certain features in common with other theories. They consist of a set of propositions that are universal, general, and hence impartial. The propositions that constitute a typical moral theory are (1) universal, in that they apply to all subjects designated as within their scope. They are (2) general, in that they include no proper names or definite descriptions. They are therefore (3) impartial, in that they accord no special privilege to any particular agent's situation which cannot (...) be justified under (2) and (3). These three features do not distinguish moral theories from other theories, nor indeed from most general categorical propositions we assert. Yet, in recent years, these features of moral theories have been the target of a certain concerted and sustained criticism, namely, that to be committed to such a moral theory, or to aspire to act in accordance with its requirements, results in what has come to be known as moral alienation. Moral alienation, according to this criticism, consists in (i) viewing one's ground projects from an impersonal, "moral point of view" engendered by one's acceptance of the theory; (ii) being prepared to sacrifice these projects to the requirements of moral principle; and (iii) making such a sacrifice specifically and self-consciously in order to conform to these requirements. Moral alienation is said to manifest itself in one (or both) of two ways, depending on the nature of the project thus susceptible to sacrifice. One may be alienated from oneself, if the project consists of tastes, convictions, or aspirations that are centrally definitive of one's self. In this case one's commitment to the project can be at best conditional on its congruence with one's moral theory. It is claimed that this must make for a rather tepid and unenthusiastic commitment indeed. Alternatively, one may be alienated from others, if the project is an interpersonal relationship such as a friendship, marriage, or collegial relationship. In this case one's responses to the other are motivated by one's awareness of what one's moral theory requires. It is claimed that this obstructs a genuine and unmediated emotional response to the other as such. My aim here will be to argue that this very compelling criticism - call it the moral-alienation criticism - is nevertheless misdirected. The real culprit is not any particular moral theory, but rather a certain familiar personality type that may or may not adopt it. (shrink)

Software piracy is older than the PC and has been the subject of several studies, which have found it to be a widespread phenomenon in general, and among university students in particular. An earlier study by Cohen and Cornwell from a decade ago is replicated, adding questions about downloading music from the Internet. The survey includes responses from 224 students in entry-level courses at two schools, a nondenominational suburban university and a Catholic urban college with similar student profiles. The study (...) found that there has been few if any changes in student opinions regarding the unauthorized duplication of copy- righted materials. Students generally felt that copying commercial software and downloading music from the Internet was acceptable and found that there was no significant correlation between student attitudes and their school’s religious affiliation or lack thereof. Additionally, the study found that a small but significant percentage of respondents considered the other questionable behaviors as ethically acceptable. Finally, the reasons for these attitudes are discussed as well as what colleges can do to correct the situation. (shrink)

MMA fighting in a competition is not necessarily wrong and is often, as far as we can tell, permissible. Our argument has two premises. First, if an act does not infringe on anyone’s moral right or violate another side-constraint, then it is morally permissible. Second, MMA-violence does not infringe on anyone’s moral right or violate another side-constraint. The first premise rested on two assumptions. First, if a person does a wrong act, then he wrongs someone. Second, if one person wrongs (...) a second, then the first infringes on the second’s right. We then looked at Nicholas Dixon’s powerful Kantian argument that MMA fighting is wrong. (shrink)

In this article I offer an interpretation of the fundamental problem of phenomenology in terms of a philosophy of revelation proposing in this way the renewal of the last important development of Western philosophy both in terms of its metaphysical aspiration and scientific relevance. After the general introduction, I outline the philosophical problem of revelation. I show how this philosophy influenced early phenomenology. I explain the underlying subject matter in the history of phenomenology, i.e. the notion of disclosure. I also (...) outline what I term “apocalyptic phenomenology” in order to focus on the understanding of revelation. In this part I offer details of the notion of newness and the appropriate method applied here. Finally, I summarize the scientific relevance of my approach in the context of logic, methodology, disciplinarity with a special emphasis on the study of religion. (shrink)

I propose an approach to naturalized philosophy of science that takes the social nature of scientific practice seriously. I criticize several prominent naturalistic approaches for adopting "cognitive individualism", which limits the study of science to an examination of the internal psychological mechanisms of scientists. I argue that this limits the explanatory capacity of these approaches. I then propose a three-level model of the social nature of scientific practice, and use the model to defend the claim that scientific knowledge is socially (...) produced. (shrink)

For centuries it has been a mainstay of European and American moral thought that keeping promises—and the allied activity of upholding contracts—is one of the most important requirements of morality. On some historically powerful views the obligation to uphold promises or contracts not only regulates private relationships, but also provides the moral foundation for our duty to support and obey legitimate governments. Some theorists believe that the concept of keeping promises has gradually moved to center stage in European moral thought. (...) They see this movement as part of an historical shift from a moral conception in which an individual’s duties are mainly externally imposed and unalterable, to a conception in which duties are largely chosen by the individual. (shrink)

The problem of evil is an ideal topic for experimental philosophy. Suffering--which is at the heart of most prominent formulations of the problem of evil--is a universal human experience and has been the topic of careful reflection for millennia. However, interpretations of suffering and how it bears on the existence of God are tremendously diverse and nuanced. We might immediately find ourselves wondering why (and how!) something so universal might be understood in so many different ways. Why does suffering push (...) some people toward atheism while pushing others toward deeper faith? What cultural, psychological, or sociological differences account for this diversity of responses? And, importantly, what light might this diversity of responses shed on the problem of evil and how it has been formulated by philosophers in recent years? The primary aim of this paper is to highlight how the tools and resources of experimental philosophy might be fruitfully applied to the problem of evil. In the first section, we review some recent work in this area and describe the current state of this emergent body of literature. In the second section, we review the broader and more recent theoretical developments on the problem of evil. Finally, in the final section, we outline some potential areas of future empirical research that we see as especially promising given those developments. (shrink)

In our dealings with young children, we often get them to do or think things by arranging their environments in certain ways; by dissembling, simplifying, or ambiguating the facts in answer to their queries; by carefully selecting the states of affairs, behavior of others, and utterances to which they shall be privy. We rightly justify these practices by pointing out a child's malleability, and the necessity of paying close attention to formative influences during its years of growth. This filtering of (...) influences is necessary, we point out, if children are ever to reach a degree of maturity and inner stability that will enable them to understand and cope adequately with the complexities, contradictions, and difficulties of the world from which we now seek to shield them. Thus a child's eventual state of competence, maturity, and autonomy adequately justifies our current practices of manipulation and selection of his environment: such practices are rightly held to be ultimately in the child's best interests as an adult. There is no future state of things with reference to which the Utilitarian night justify his policy of secrecy and manipulation, and in light of which this policy night eventually be dispensed with and commonly validated, in retrospect, as a means to the worthwhile goal of moral maturity. That is, there is no point at which the attitude of the Utilitarian to the rest of the community can develop past the analogous attitude of the parent towards the child; no point at which the Utilitarian might eventually bear to others a relationship of mutual acknowledgement and respect as mature, autonomous, moral adults. The consistent Utilitarian, then, largely regards himself as if he were the only adult in a community of children. (shrink)

An inquiry on the training needs in Mathematics was conducted to Laura Vicuña Center - Palawan (LVC-P) learners. Specifically, this aimed to determine their level of performance in numbers, measurement, geometry, algebra, and statistics, identify the difficulties they encountered in solving word problems and enumerate topics where they needed coaching. -/- To identify specific training needs, the study employed a descriptive research design where 36 participants were sampled purposively. The data were gathered through a problem set test and focus group (...) discussion. Findings revealed that LVC-P learners had an unsatisfactory performance in numbers, measurement, and statistics while alarmingly poor in geometry and algebra. They also faced difficulties in remembering, understanding, applying, and analyzing mathematical concepts when solving problems. Further, the learners were able to name certain topics subjected to tutorials. -/- The above facts and observations suggest that learners of LVC-P have urgent training needs in Mathematics. It is recommended that the Western Philippines University - College of Education RDE Unit continue its research, development, and extension services to LVC-P. More importantly, the results of this inquiry regarding the training needs of the learners will serve as bases for conducting an extension project and development program for LVC-P. Series of tutorial sessions is deemed necessary to address the needs and difficulties of the learners. (shrink)

This article proposes an alternative approach to social epistemology – a comprehensive approach. It argues that the dominant approaches to social epistemology, which it identifies as communitarian and veritistic, are inadequate. It observes that the nature of the emphasis that the communitarian approach places on the epistemic community foster mindless tolerance in epistemology, which makes the pursuit of the cognitive goal of truth difficult to attain. It also observes that the veritistic approach that seeks to refocus social epistemology on the (...) pursuit of the cognitive goal of obtaining truth does this at the expense of the affective goals of social epistemology. To overcome the inadequacies of the communitarian and the veritistic approaches and to ensure that social epistemology effectively pursues its cognitive and affective goals, this article offers the comprehensive approach. This approach absorbs the virtues of the communitarian and the veritistic approaches while avoiding their errors. Hence, it thrives on a view of truth that posits an objective and a subjective dimension of truth. The objective dimension ensures that the community only fosters and never impedes social epistemological projects such that social epistemology continues to pursue the cognitive goal of truth. The subjective dimension guarantees that the concern for truth does not lead to the neglect or abandonment of the pursuit of the affective goals of social epistemology. The rationale behind this approach is that for social epistemological projects and practices to remain truly epistemological and social, they must always take into consideration the cognitive and affective features of knowledge and knowers. (shrink)

This paper argues that the behaviorist label yields a caricature of Ryle's position in The Concept of Mind that cannot be adequately fleshed out by reference to the larger corpus of Rylean texts. On the interpretation of Ryle that I offer here, he is best characterized as an "ontological agnostic." Ryle's aim, I believe, is to develop a nondenotational theory of meaning for mental-conduct terms--a theory of meaning which does not presuppose any metaphysical or ontological theory and, hence, does not (...) presuppose behaviorism. (shrink)

In “The Zygote Argument is Invalid: Now What?” (2015), Kristin Mickelson published an objection to the Zygote Argument that she first presented in 2012 as workshop comments on a draft of Mele's "Manipulation, Moral Responsibility, and Bullet-Biting" (2013). Assuming that the phrase "determinism precludes free will" means something like determinism-related causal factors are what prevent people from acting freely when determinism is true, Mele's original Zygote Argument was invalid. At the workshop, Mickelson presented Mele with two options to address the (...) problem, a premise-preserving option and a conclusion-preserving option. That is, Mele could change the conclusion of the original argument to the negative, non-explanatory thesis entailed by its original two premises, or find a way to add premises that would support the positive, explanatory conclusion of the original argument (which, notably, is the conclusion that Pereboom supports using best-explanation reasoning in his Four-Case Argument). Mickelson used this as an opportunity to explain the key contribution that best-explanation reasoning makes to manipulation arguments -- and why the best variant of the manipulation argument might conclude that incompatibilism is FALSE. In response to Mickelson's objection, Mele changed the conclusion of the argument before "Manipulation, Moral Responsibility, and Bullet-Biting" went to print, choosing Mickelson's proposal to change its conclusion over the suggestion to change its premises. However, Mele failed to mention Mickelson's invalidity objection in print and that he changed the conclusion of his argument as a direct response to it; nor did Mele mention the costs that Mickelson outlined for the premise-preserving solution that he adopted or the benefits of a conclusion-preserving solution. At the same time, Mele began using the term 'incompatibilism' to pick out the negative, non-explanatory claim supported by the newly revised Zygote Argument--and also started to claim (without providing evidence) that those who use the term 'incompatibilism' to denote the explanatory claim deterministic causal factors *make it the case* that no one acts freely when determinism is true" is guilty of using the term in a nonstandard and nontraditional way that he had "never had any use for"--failing to mention that he clearly used the term in this explanatory sense in his 2005 critique of the Four-Case Argument, which is to be expected give that Derk Pereboom uses the explanatory definition (as do Kadri Vihvelin, Carolina Sartorio, and *most* other contributors to the free-will literature). In THIS reply essay, Mickelson responds to an attempt by Gabriel De Marco (FSU, advisor Alfred Mele) to defend the original Zygote Argument from Mickelson's 2012/2015 critique. Unfortunately, both of De Marco's proposed "solutions" are non-starters. The first is a non-starter because De Marco merely repeats the premise-preserving solution that Mickelson offered to Mele in 2012 and that Mele adopted in print in 2013. In other words, De Marco took credit for the premise-preserving solution to the invalidity objection that Mickelson developed (although he does *redescribe* Mickelson's solution in his own idiosyncratic jargon) and Mele had already adopted in print. De Marco's second solution is a non-starter because it is constituted by a patently invalid argument. Contrary to De Marco's proposal, it's not true that the conjunction of possibilism and incompossibilism deductively entails the positive, diagnostic claim that deterministic causal factors beyond one's control preclude (destroy, undermine, is antagonistically relevant to) free will when determinism is true. *My thanks to the editors of Philosophia for publishing this reply when PhilStudies would not. (shrink)

This paper proposes that we should think of epistemic agents as having, as one of their intellectual activities, a gatekeeping task: To decide in light of various criteria which ideas they should consider and which not to consider. When this task is performed with excellence, it is conducive to the acquisition of epistemic goods such as truth and knowledge, and the reduction of falsehoods. Accordingly, it is a worthy contender for being an intellectual virtue. Although gatekeeping may strike one simply (...) as the virtue of open- mindedness, I argue that it is not; gatekeeping does not favor a characteristic disposition to be willing to consider novel or opposing ideas. In fact, being told that an agent is excellent at gatekeeping reveals nothing about how frequently she considers or refuses to consider ideas. This paper will introduce and motivate the notion of gatekeeping, and offer some preliminary arguments in support of its candidacy as an intellectual virtue. (shrink)

This article examines whether it is possible to uphold one form of deflationism towards metaphysics, ontological pluralism, whilst maintaining metaphysical realism. The focus therefore is on one prominent deflationist who fits the definition of an ontological pluralist, Eli Hirsch, and his self-ascription as a realist. The article argues that ontological pluralism is not amenable to the ascription of realism under some basic intuitions as to what a “realist” position is committed to. These basic intuitions include a commitment to more than (...) a stuff-ontology, and a view that realism carries with it more than a rejection of idealism. This issue is more than merely terminological. The ascription of realism is an important classification in order to understand what sorts of entities can be the truthmakers within a given theory. “Realism” is thus an important term to understand the nature of the entities that a given theory accepts into its ontology. (shrink)

The article examines the role of ethnic favoritism in maldistribution of national resources in Kenya and discusses two broad proposals for attacking such corruption. Evidence drawn from research in Kenya disproves the view of Chabal and Daloz, who argue that Africans prefer to distribute goods according to ethnic ties, and shows that frustration with the lack of alternatives to such a system, rather than enthusiasm for it, drives cooperation with corrupt maldistribution. One solution to the problem is to decentralize government (...) so that resources are retained locally. A second solution is to attack the culture of appropriation and push for a fair evaluation of needs and the equitable distribution of national resources to where they are needed most. Drawing on the ideas of Hannah Arendt, the article proposes a modified federalism where government is small enough to enlist the help and support of locals but powerful enough to provide funds to impoverished sectors of the country. (shrink)

This paper addresses the ontological status of the ontological categories as defended within E.J. Lowe’s four-category ontology (kinds, objects, properties/relations, and modes). I consider the arguments in Griffith (2015. “Do Ontological Categories Exist?” Metaphysica 16 (1):25–35) against Lowe’s claim that ontological categories do not exist, and argue that Griffith’s objections to Lowe do not work once we fully take advantage of ontological resources available within Lowe’s four-category ontology. I then argue that the claim that ontological categories do not exist has (...) no undesirable consequences for Lowe’s brand of realism. (shrink)

: New genetic technologies continue to emerge that allow us to control the genetic endowment of future children. Increasingly the claim is made that it is morally "irresponsible" for parents to fail to use such technologies when they know their possible children are at risk for a serious genetic disorder. We believe such charges are often unwarranted. Our goal in this article is to offer a careful conceptual analysis of the language of irresponsibility in an effort to encourage more care (...) in its use. Two of our more important sub-claims are: A fair judgment of genetic irresponsibility necessarily requires a thick background description of the specific reproductive choice; and there is no necessary connection between an act's being morally wrong and its being irresponsible. These are distinct judgments requiring distinct justifications. (shrink)