ABSTRACT The individual-community relationship has always been one of the most fundamental topics of social sciences. In sociology, this is known as the micro-macro relationship while in economics it refers to the processes, through which, individual actions lead to macroeconomic phenomena. Based on philosophical discourse and systems theory, many sociologists even use the term "emergence" in their understanding of micro-macro relationship, which refers to collective phenomena that are created by the cooperation of individuals, but cannot be reduced to individual actions. (...) "Emergence" theories attempt to explain the nature of society as a complex system by examining how individuals and their relationships lead to the creation of integrated and macro-social phenomena such as markets, educational systems, cultural beliefs, and shared social practices. As a prelude to activity, every researcher has to answer the question from the methodological point of view, how is it possible to study the behavior of social groups and how can we gain knowledge about the laws related to social groups? Anyone who deals with humanities and social sciences or any reality and phenomenon that affects human beings, inevitably deals with the reality that is emerging. In fact, emergence occurs when one level of reality emerges radically from another level. Examples of emergent levels of reality include how the mind emerges from the body; or the way society emerges from human beings. Therefore, when there is an emerging factor, different scientific disciplines should be used, because it is inevitable to talk about social affairs, psychology and neurobiology, as well as physical and even chemical. -/- INTRODUCTION Since its beginning in the 19th century, sociology has faced the fundamental question of what a social phenomena stands for? At a glance, sociologists deal with the study of social groups, collective behavior, institutions, social structures, social networks, and social dynamics, and ultimately all such phenomena are composed of individuals. Therefore, social phenomena seem to have no independent ontological status, and in this case, sociology is ultimately about reducible individuals. Different approaches about the micro-macro relationship, using the concept of "emergence", argue that although collective phenomena are created by individuals, they cannot be reduced to individual action. The term "emergence" is used to distinguish "emergent results" from " Procedural results". Results are called Procedural that can only be calculated by adding or subtracting the causes that act together. On the contrary, they are emergent outcomes that are qualitatively novel compared to the causes from which they originate. An example of such emergent results is mental characteristics that emerge from neural processes, but are not considered among the characteristics of neural processes of components - which are their origin. Philosophical debates about emergentism and reductionism focus on the mind-brain relationship, but as many philosophers have noted, they can be generalized to apply to any hierarchical set of features. The cognitive revolution reactivated a 19th century controversy between theorists of Identity and dualism. The theorists of Identity believe in reductionist materialism and elimination of metaphysics, according to which the mind is nothing more than the biological, while the dualists believe that the mind and the brain are distinct from each other. Emergence has been considered as a third way between the theories of Identity and dualism. -/- METHODOLOGY Interdisciplinarity Is fundamentally indicated by the dominance of open systems as well as social and emerging systems at different levels. Therefore, as long as we are facing a new emergentism, there will necessarily be different fields and an interdisciplinary method. The commonality of social sciences and cognitive sciences on the issue of emergence provides the possibility of interaction and exchange of concepts between these two for deeper research. Therefore, in this research, apart from the concepts of Subvenience and downward causation, we have used multiple realization and wildly disjunctive, which are used to explain the emerging concept in cognitive sciences, including neurobiology, psychology, and philosophy. For analytical and interdisciplinary approaches, after examining the concepts of subvenience, and wildly disjunctive, Individualistic and collectivist emergentism have been reviewed. And then their adequacy is criticized and evaluated in meeting strong emergence conditions. -/- FINDINGS Philosophers of the mind have been able to define the conditions of irreducibility and downward causation, which are essential for strong emergence, by using the principle of subvenience with the help of multiple realization and wildly disjunctive principles. Therefore, by definition, emergentist individualism suffers from the problem of how to explain downward causality and irreducibility, and emergentist collectivism faces the challenge of reification. The analysis of the challenges facing the two methodological approaches of individualism and collectivism leads us to three unresolved issues about the emerging phenomenon, which are realism, downward causality, and mechanism. Despite the differences in the stances of these two approaches regarding the aforementioned triple problems, individualists and collectivists both agree that some social characteristics are reducible; and some others are irreducible due to their complexity, the determination of which, depends on the case study of the mechanism of emergence of each social characteristic. -/- CONCLUSION An emergence that is consistent with reductionism is called a weak emergence. And strong emergence includes the principle of irreducibility and downward causality. According to strong emergence, the characteristics of social phenomena have downward causal power, which cannot be reduced to the causal forces. The principle of subvenience, together with multiple realization and wildly disjunctive, can provide the conditions of irreducibility and downward causality, which are essential conditions of strong emergence. Based on the philosophical analysis of two methodological approaches, individualist and collectivist, it can be concluded that emergentist individualism suffers from the problem of how to explain downward causality and irreducibility, and reification collectivism faces the challenge of reification. The analysis of the problems faced by these two approaches leads us to three unresolved issues, which are realism, downward causality, and mechanism. individualist emergentists acknowledge the existence of emergent social characteristics, but despite this, they believe that these characteristics are not real but merely analytical constructs that require explanation based on individuals and their mutual actions. But collectivists argue that emergentism yields a categorical ontology and supports social realism. They accept the dependence of social characteristics on individuals, but claim that social entities and structures are ontologically independent. Individualists and collectivists both agree that some social characteristics are reducible; and others are irreducible due to their complexity; and the only way to recognize this is to engage in empirical studies of the mechanisms and temporal processes of "emergence" that create social characteristics. -/- NOVELTY The newness of this compact article is as follows: a) Presenting an interdisciplinary approach using the analysis of philosophy of cognitive sciences, including the philosophy of mind, neurobiology and psychology to formulate the issue of social emergence; b) Criticizing individualist and collectivist methodological approaches to the issue of social emergence and explaining the sufficiency and shortcomings of both in providing weak and strong emerging conditions; c) Explaining and categorizing the challenges facing methodological approaches in explaining the phenomenon of social emergence, in three categories: realism, downward causality, and mechanism. 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Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 34, 260–282. Sawyer, R. K. (2005). Social emergence: societies as complex systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sawyer, R.K. (2003). Nonreductive individualism: Part 2, Social causation. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 33, 203–224. Winch, P. (1993). The idea of a social science and its relation to philosophy‭ (SAMT, Trans.). Tehran, Iran: SAMT. (shrink)

John Searle’s Speech Act Theory enumerates necessary and sufficient conditions for a non-defective act of promising in producing sincere promises. This paper seeks to demonstrate the conjunctive insufficiency of the foregoing conditions due to the inadequacy of the sincerity condition to guarantee predicated acts being fulfillable. Being the definitive condition which contains the psychological state distinct in promises as illocutionary acts, that is the expression of intention (S intends to A), I purport that not all sincere promises are non-defective. To (...) motivate this, I shall explicate Searle’s conception of full blown explicit promises as his basic qualification for the application of the above conditions, and set the line as to how explicit is ‘explicit’? As a response to this insufficiency, I shall propose a condition, as part and parcel of the Propositional Content Clause, that makes up Searle’s felicity conditions for promises, which requires explicitness of the form: “A is fulfillable if A is explicit in form”. A is explicit if and only if 1) A is literal in form, where A can have either 1 basic or multiple meanings, and 2) The meaning of A, whether basic or multiple, with respect to its context is directly stated in the sentence uttered. I call this the Discharge Condition. (shrink)

Ecotage, or the destruction of property for the sake of promoting environmental ends, is beginning to (re)establish itself both as a topic of public discussion and as a radical activist tactic. In response to these developments, a small but growing academic literature questions whether, and if so under what conditions, ecotage can be morally justified. This paper contributes to the literature by arguing that instances of ecotage are pro tanto justified insofar as they are instances of effective and proportionate self- (...) and/or other-defense. Having elucidated and defended its central claim, this paper concludes by briefly considering some other morally relevant features of ecotage that might tell for or against its overall justification in particular cases. (shrink)

This paper defends the idea that phenomenological approaches to self-consciousness can enrich the current analytic philosophy of perception, by showing how phenomenological discussions of minimal self-consciousness can enhance our understanding of the phenomenology of conscious perceptual experiences. As a case study, I investigate the nature of the relationship between naïve realism, a contemporary Anglophone theory of perception, and experiential minimalism (or, the ‘minimal self’ view), a pre-reflective model of self-consciousness originated in the Phenomenological tradition. I argue that naïve realism is (...) not only compatible with, but can be supplemented with experiential minimalism in a novel way. The suggestion is that there are reasons to combine naïve realism and experiential minimalism. My focus here will be on drawing a connection between the notion of minimal self and two core theoretical commitments of naïve realism, relationalism and transparency. (shrink)

How can we have a sense of the presence of ordinary three-dimensional objects (e.g., an apple on my desk, a partially occluded cat behind a picket fence) when we are only presented with some parts of objects perceived from a particular egocentric viewpoint (e.g., the facing side of the apple, the unoccluded parts of the cat)? This paper presents and defends a novel answer to this question by incorporating insights from two prominent contemporary theories of perception, naïve realism and sensorimotor (...) theory. Naïve realism is the view that perception is fundamentally a matter of obtaining a relation of ‘acquaintance’ with some mind-independent entities (e.g., objects, properties, events). Sensorimotor theory holds that perception involves implicit practical understanding or ‘anticipation’ of the covariance between movements and sensory changes. I argue that perceptual presence is best accounted for in terms of the combination of our direct ‘acquaintance’ with some parts of perceived objects and sensorimotor ‘anticipations’ of how the objects would look different depending on some movements and actions. (shrink)

This thesis is about perceptual experience, its subjective character, and how it is essentially structured. It focuses specifically on how the nature of perception is shaped not only by our acquaintance with the world but also by the very structure of experience itself. My central claim is that perceptual consciousness incorporates different aspects, some of which constitute the very way in which experiences are organized, sustained, and structured. Over the course of this thesis, I develop and defend an original account (...) of the nature of perceptual experience by integrating naïve realism, a prominent contemporary Anglophone theory of perception, with insights and ideas from the Phenomenological tradition. In particular, I argue that there are fruitful grounds for combining naïve realism and a phenomenologically grounded account of the essential structural features of experience (‘minimal self’, ‘temporality’, ‘anticipation’). Naïve realism holds that perception is fundamentally a matter of being in direct contact with some mind-independent entities. Proponents of naïve realism often emphasize the ‘object-dependent’ nature of perception. The appeal to the structural features of experience offers us a promising way to delineate the oft-overlooked ‘subject-dependent’ nature of perception and capture the phenomenological richness of our conscious experiential life. This thesis offers a rich, phenomenologically informed account of the nature of perception which in turn places us in a better position to understand the nature of hallucination. The integration of naïve realism and the structural approach to consciousness I develop in this thesis yields a novel solution to the problem of hallucination: structural disjunctivism. According to this view, the ‘partially overlapping’ psychological nature of perception and hallucination is accounted for in terms of their structural similarities and differences. I seek to show how detailed analyses and reflections on the structures of perceptual experience pave the way to reconceive the phenomenological basis of naïve realism. (shrink)

Socioeconomic status refers to the family's social and economic standing in society. It is measured by combining an individual or group's economic and social position, which is often based on income, education, and occupation. It significantly affects academic performance and even one's health status. The pandemic changed the educational system, causing a huge transition from traditional learning methods to online learning. This shift resulted in confusion, burden, and difficulty among students from different walks of life. This study was conducted to (...) determine the academic stress on online learning among nursing students in relation to their economic status and their ability to access technology. The study utilized a quantitative-correlational method aided by a standard questionnaire. Two hundred thirty-six University of Bohol nursing students enrolled in the second semester of SY 2021–2022 were included in the study by random selection. Data revealed a significant correlation between economic status and the level of stress related to academic expectations and a significant correlation between economic status and access to technology after being subjected to the Spearman rho test of correlation. However, no significant correlation was found between access to technology and the respondents' level of academic stress. (shrink)

This article argues, against contemporary experimentalist criticism, that conceptual analysis has epistemic value, with a structure that encourages the development of interesting hypotheses which are of the right form to be valuable in diverse areas of philosophy. The article shows, by analysis of the Gettier programme, that conceptual analysis shares the proofs and refutations form Lakatos identified in mathematics. Upon discovery of a counterexample, this structure aids the search for a replacement hypothesis. The search is guided by heuristics. The heuristics (...) of conceptual analysis are similar to those in other interesting areas of scholarship, and so hypotheses generated by it are of the right form to be applicable to diverse areas. The article shows that the explanationist criterion in epistemology was developed and applied in this way. The epistemic value of conceptual analysis is oblique because it contributes not towards the main purpose of conceptual analysis but towards the reliable development of epistemically valuable hypotheses in philosophy and scholarship. (shrink)

Traditionally, intuitions about cases have been taken as strong evidence for a philosophical position. I argue that intuitions about concept deployment have epistemic value while intuitions about matters of fact have none. I argue this by use of the explanationist criterion which contends that S is justified in believing only those propositions which are part of the best explanation of S’s making the judgements she makes. This criterion accords with scientific practice. Bealer suggests, as a defence of intuition, that naturalists (...) rely on intuition in their arguments against intuition and thus that their arguments are self-undermining. But beliefs based on intuitions about the application of concepts, like ‘justification’ and ‘theory,’ are epistemically justified by the explanationist criterion. It is only intuitions about matters of fact which are rejected. Thus, epistemically-respectable intuitions about concepts are used to undermine intuitions about metaphysics. There is nothing self-undermining about this. (shrink)

"Faithful to the original Danish text and eminently readable, Jech's translation of Fear and Trembling admirably communicates the literary qualities of Kierkegaard's text, as well as his occasional fits of inspiration. Jech displays an unusual sensitivity not only to the literary/linguistic qualities of Kierkegaard’s prose, but also to his (often realized) aspirations to philosophical precision. As presented by Jech, Kierkegaard is not simply a gifted writer and speculative theologian dabbling in philosophy, but a philosopher concerned to limn the optimal role (...) of philosophical reflection, and to do so experimentally, especially with respect to matters of morality and faith. The translation is furthermore supplemented by very helpful explanatory notes that convey Kierkegaard’s own erudition and the multiple influences upon his thinking. The Historical Glossary will become a valuable reference tool for students and scholars of Kierkegaard’s writings. It is likely to play a welcome role in encouraging an improved understanding of what Kierkegaard means when he employs his idiosyncratic categories, allusions, and vocabulary." —Daniel Conway, Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, Texas A&M University. (shrink)

One of the best-known aspects of José Carlos Mariátegui’s philosophy is his concept of a revolutionary myth. What does this revolutionary myth entail, how and why did Mariátegui develop this idea? The following article situates Mariátegui’s thought in both the historical and intellectual context of the 1920’s in order to answer these questions. This is relevant because Mariátegui’s philosophy and his revolutionary myth have influenced several Latin American revolutionaries such as Ernesto Che Guevara and Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path). Mariátegui’s ideas (...) have thus changed the lives and history of Latin Americans and it is important that we neither demonize nor idolize Mariátegui’s intellectual work without first attempting to understand it. (shrink)

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

Kant’s claim that we must postulate the immortality of the soul is polarizing. While much attention has been paid to two standard arguments in its defense (one moral-psychological, the other rational), I contend that a favorite argument of Kant’s from the apogee of his critical period, namely, the teleological argument, deserves renewed attention. This paper reconstructs it and exhibits what makes it unique (though not necessarily superior) in relation to the other arguments. In particular, its form (as third-personal or descriptive, (...) beginning from observations) and related force of assent (as a subjectively universal reflective judgment) set it apart from the other arguments. My goal is to establish that any engagement with Kant’s immortality postulate must include equal consideration of the teleological argument in order to be complete. (shrink)

Philip Kitcher’s The Ethical Project trios to vindicates ethics through an analysis of its evolutionary and cultural history, a history which in turn, he thinks, supports a particular conception of the role of moral thinking and normative practices in human social life. As Kitcher sees it, that role could hardly be more central: most of what makes human life human, and preferable to the fraught and impoverished societies of the great apes, depends on moral cognition. Prom this view of the (...) role of the ethical project as a social technology, Kitcher derives an account of moral progress and even moral truth: a normative analogue of the idea that truth is the convergence of rational enquiry. To Kitcher’s history, I present an anti-history. Most of what is good about human social life depends on the expansion of our social emotions, not on our capacities to articulate and internalise explicit norms. Indeed, since the Holocene and the origins of complex society, normative thought and normative institutions have been more prominent as tools of exploitation and oppression than as mechanisms of a social peace that balances individual desire with collective co-operation. I argue that the vindication project fails in its own terms: even given Kitcher’s distinctive pragmatic concept of vindication, history debunks rather than vindicates moral cognition. (shrink)

A chapter in an edited volume discussing philosophy and Ted Chiang's short stories. In this chapter, I show how philosophical debates about imaginative resistance and what can/can't be fictionally true influence our interpretation of "Division by Zero.".

Xenophobia is conceptually distinct from racism. Xenophobia is also distinct from nativism. Furthermore, theories of racism are largely ensconced in nationalized narratives of racism, often influenced by the black-white binary, which obscures xenophobia and shelters it from normative critiques. This paper addresses these claims, arguing for the first and last, and outlining the second. Just as philosophers have recently analyzed the concept of racism, clarifying it and pinpointing why it’s immoral and the extent of its moral harm, so we will (...) analyze xenophobia and offer a pluralist account of xenophobia, with important implications for racism. This analysis is guided by the discussion of racism in recent moral philosophy, social ontology, and research in the psychology of racism and implicit attitudes. (shrink)

Part of a book symposium for Peter Langland-Hassan's Explaining Imagination (2020).

Otto Neurath’s empiricist methodology of economics and his contributions to politi- cal economy have gained increasing attention in recent years. We connect this research with contemporary debates regarding the epistemological status of thought experiments by reconstructing Neurath’s utopias as linchpins of thought experiments. In our three reconstructed examples of different uses of utopias/dystopias in thought experiments we employ a reformulation of Häggqvist’s model for thought experiments and we argue that: (1) Our reformulation of Häggqvist’s model more adequately complies with many (...) uses of thought experiments, especially with the open-ended discussions of utopias and dys- topias in thought experiments. (2) As a strict logical empiricist, Neurath is committed to a strictly empiricist account of thought experiments. John Norton’s empiricist argument view can indeed account for the justifications of empirical beliefs and genuine discoveries targeted by scientific utopianism in three distinct (yet connected) ways, all of which Neur- ath already contemplated: (2.I) Dealing with utopias and thought experiments on a regular basis increases creativity and inventiveness. (2.II) Particular ways of presenting knowl- edge facilitate scientific discovery and social progress. (2.III) The use of utopias in thought experiments can prompt conceptual change and allow access to new phenomena. We con- clude by highlighting that, even though thought experiments support a positive attitude for exploring new social possibilities, Neurath points out that active decisions are unavoidable. The exploration of alternatives and the awareness of a need for decisions in policy discus- sion avert a technocratic outlook in social science. (shrink)

In Metaphysical Emergence, Jessica Wilson recognises the problem of higher-level causation as “the most pressing challenge to taking the appearances of emergent structure as genuine” (2021: 39). Then, Wilson states that there are “two and only two strategies of response to this problem” (2021: 40) that lead to Strong and Weak emergence. In this paper, I suggest that there might be an alternative strategy—not opposite, but different in kind—to approach this difficulty. As noticed by Wilson, the problem of higher-level causation (...) was formulated and made central by Jaegwon Kim. However, Kim’s arguments were grounded on distinct metaphysical principles—including Alexander’s Dictum and its analysis in terms of causal powers. Rather than following Kim’s formulation and responding to the problem he raised in his own terms, a different approach may be to question the pertinence of the metaphysical framework in which these arguments were originally grounded. The problem of higher-level causation, in other words, might be less “pressing” if ontological emergence came with a less strict and univocal view of causal novelty and ontological relevance. (shrink)

Jaegwon Kim’s influential exclusion argument attempts to demonstrate the inconsistency of nonreductive materialism in the philosophy of mind. Kim’s argument begins by showing that the three main theses of nonreductive materialism, plus two additional considerations, lead to a specific and familiar picture of mental causation. The exclusion argument can succeed only if, as Kim claims, this picture is not one of genuine causal overdetermination. Accordingly, one can resist Kim’s conclusion by denying this claim, maintaining instead that the effects of the (...) mental are always causally overdetermined. I call this strategy the ‘ overdetermination challenge’. One of the main aims of this paper is to show that the overdetermination challenge is the most appropriate response to Kim’s exclusion argument, at least in its latest form. I argue that Kim fails to adequately respond to the overdetermination challenge, thus failing to prevent his opponents from reasonably maintaining that the effects of the mental are always causally overdetermined. Interestingly, this discussion reveals a curious dialectical feature of Kim’s latest response to the overdetermination challenge: if it succeeds, then a new, simpler and more compact version of the exclusion argument is available. While I argue against the consequent of this conditional, thereby also rejecting the antecedent, this dialectical feature should be of interest to philosophers on either side of this debate. (shrink)

Being robustly committed to state neutrality which does not permit the promotion of liberal-perfectionist ideals and denying that there is anything normatively relevant or ‘special’ about religion leaves liberal-egalitarians embroiled in a paradox. If religion is not special, how and why do liberal states afford it differential treatment (in comparison with non-religious analogues like secular doctrines or deeply-held beliefs of individual conscience)? This paper explores liberal-egalitarian strategies for resolving this paradox with predominant reference to the disaggregation strategy advanced by Cécile (...) Laborde. After discussing the novelty and advantages of disaggregation relative to other liberal-egalitarian strategies, the paper distinguishes between the coverage and the basis in justification of differential treatment to argue that disaggregation does not ultimately succeed in solving the latter. Despite this, reflecting on the clarifications achieved through disaggregation and the deeper issues of justification and justice emerging therefrom, the paper concludes by proposing the need to consider a lateral solution to the paradox and speculating on what this might look like. (shrink)

In “Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions”, Weinberg, Nichols and Stich famously argue from empirical data that East Asians and Westerners have different intuitions about Gettier -style cases. We attempted to replicate their study about the Car case, but failed to detect a cross - cultural difference. Our study used the same methods and case taken verbatim, but sampled an East Asian population 2.5 times greater than NEI’s 23 participants. We found no evidence supporting the existence of cross - cultural difference about (...) the intuition concerning the Gettier car case. Taken together with the failures of both of the existing replication studies, our results provide strong evidence that the purported cross - cultural difference in Gettier intuitions does not exist. (shrink)

Our paper examines Gloria Anzaldúa’s critical appropriation of Mexican philosophical sources, especially in the writing of Borderlands/La Frontera. We demonstrate how Anzaldúa developed a transnational Philosophy of Mexicanness, effectively contributing to what has been recently characterized as the “multi-generational project to pursue philosophy from and about Mexican circumstances” (Vargas). More specifically, we recover “La Mexicana en la Chicana” by paying careful attention to Anzaldúa’s Mexican sources, both those she explicitly cites and those we have discovered while conducting archival research using (...) the Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa Papers from the Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas at Austin. The three sections of our paper: 1) define the terms Mexican and philosophy in conversation with Anzaldúa’s work, 2) examine the Mexican philosophical sources that Anzaldúa cites in Borderlands/La Frontera, and 3) present the other major Mexican philosophical influences on Anzaldúa that we have found in her archive. The eight Mexican philosophical sources we discuss here include: José Vasconcelos (1882-1959), Miguel León-Portilla (1926-2019), Juana Armanda Alegría (1938- ), Octavio Paz (1914-1998), Samuel Ramos (1897-1959), Rosario Castellanos (1925-1974), Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz (1648-1695), and Jorge Carrión (1913-2005). (shrink)

ABSTRACT. May scientists rely on substantive, a priori presuppositions? Quinean naturalists say "no," but Michael Friedman and others claim that such a view cannot be squared with the actual history of science. To make his case, Friedman offers Newton's universal law of gravitation and Einstein's theory of relativity as examples of admired theories that both employ presuppositions (usually of a mathematical nature), presuppositions that do not face empirical evidence directly. In fact, Friedman claims that the use of such presuppositions is (...) a hallmark of "science as we know it." But what should we say about the special sciences, which typically do not rely on the abstruse formalisms one finds in the exact sciences? I identify a type of a priori presupposition that plays an especially striking role in the development of empirical psychology. These are ontological presuppositions about the type of object a given science purports to study. I show how such presuppositions can be both a priori and rational by investigating their role in an early flap over psychology's contested status as a natural science. The flap focused on one of the field's earliest textbooks, William James's Principles of Psychology. The work was attacked precisely for its reliance on a priori presuppositions about what James had called the "mental state," psychology's (alleged) proper object. I argue that the specific presuppositions James packed into his definition of the "mental state" were not directly responsible to empirical evidence, and so in that sense were a priori; but the presuppositions were rational in that they were crafted to help overcome philosophical objections (championed by neo-Hegelians) to the very idea that there can be a genuine science of mind. Thus, my case study gives an example of substantive, a priori presuppositions being put to use—to rational use—in the special sciences. In addition to evaluating James's use of presuppositions, my paper also offers historical reflections on two different strands of pragmatist philosophy of science. One strand, tracing back through Quine to C. S. Peirce, is more naturalistic, eschewing the use of a priori elements in science. The other strand, tracing back through Kuhn and C. I. Lewis to James, is more friendly to such presuppositions, and to that extent bears affinity with the positivist tradition Friedman occupies. (shrink)

Subtractive schooling is a type of pedagogy that subtracts from the student aspects of her identity in order to assimilate and reshape her identity to fit the American mainstream. Here, I question the value of assimilation as it takes place in our public school systems. Currently, immigrant children are often made to feel inadequate for being culturally different. This is detrimental to their development as students given that at their young age they do not yet have the emotional maturity to (...) know that their experience, language and culture are legitimate and valuable. My goal is to shift the focus of subtractive schooling to one that fosters the growth of students through recognition. I suggest that John Dewey’s and Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of recognition is a helpful approach to this problem. Both Dewey and Freire’s pedagogy emphasize recognition as central to their pedagogy. (shrink)

The preface paradox can be motivated by appealing to a plausible inference from an author’s reasonable assertion that her book is bound to contain errors to the author’s rational belief that her book contains errors. By evaluating and undermining the validity of this inference, I offer a resolution of the paradox. Discussions of the preface paradox have surprisingly failed to note that expressions of fallibility made in prefaces typically employ terms such as surely, undoubtedly, and bound to be. After considering (...) what these terms mean, I show that the motivating inference is invalid. Moreover, I argue that a closer consideration of our expressions of fallibility suggest that epistemically responsible authors would not be rational to believe that their books contain errors. I conclude by considering alternative expressions of fallibility that employ terms such as possible and probable, and discuss the role that expressions of fallibility play in conversation. (shrink)

In men and women sexual arousal culminates in orgasm, with female orgasm solely from sexual intercourse often regarded as a unique feature of human sexuality. However, orgasm from sexual intercourse occurs more reliably in men than in women, likely reflecting the different types of physical stimulation men and women require for orgasm. In men, orgasms are under strong selective pressure as orgasms are coupled with ejaculation and thus contribute to male reproductive success. By contrast, women's orgasms in intercourse are highly (...) variable and are under little selective pressure as they are not a reproductive necessity. The proximal mechanisms producing variability in women's orgasms are little understood. In 1924 Marie Bonaparte proposed that a shorter distance between a woman's clitoris and her urethral meatus (CUMD) increased her likelihood of experiencing orgasm in intercourse. She based this on her published data that were never statistically analyzed. In 1940 Landis and colleagues published similar data suggesting the same relationship, but these data too were never fully analyzed. We analyzed raw data from these two studies and found that both demonstrate a strong inverse relationship between CUMD and orgasm during intercourse. Unresolved is whether this increased likelihood of orgasm with shorter CUMD reflects increased penile–clitoral contact during sexual intercourse or increased penile stimulation of internal aspects of the clitoris. CUMD likely reflects prenatal androgen exposure, with higher androgen levels producing larger distances. Thus these results suggest that women exposed to lower levels of prenatal androgens are more likely to experience orgasm during sexual intercourse. . (shrink)

An observation of Hume’s has received a lot of attention over the last decade and a half: Although we can standardly imagine the most implausible scenarios, we encounter resistance when imagining propositions at odds with established moral (or perhaps more generally evaluative) convictions. The literature is ripe with ‘solutions’ to this so-called ‘Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance’. Few, however, question the plausibility of the empirical assumption at the heart of the puzzle. In this paper, we explore empirically whether the difficulty we (...) witness in imagining certain propositions is indeed due to claim type (evaluative v. non-evaluative) or whether it is much rather driven by mundane features of content. Our findings suggest that claim type plays but a marginal role, and that there might hence not be much of a ‘puzzle’ to be solved. (shrink)

Common notions of comparative philosophy tend to be strongly configured by the East-West axis. This essay suggests ways of seeing Latin American liberation philosophy as a form of comparative philosophy and an important Latin American thinker as being relevant for East-West political philosophy. The essay focuses on the Peruvian activist and intellectual, José Mariátegui, who is widely regarded to have been a leading Marxist, liberatory, and decolonial figure in 20th century Latin America. Like many “Third World” intellectuals of the interwar (...) years, Mariátegui had an interest in decolonization struggles in Asia and wrote with some consistency on this subject and in ways that bear significantly upon key themes in his political theory. Since very little of this has received commentary, this essay begins a discussion of Mariátegui's decolonial experimentation with ideas about Asia, decolonization, and indigenous cultural forms, like those of the Incas and Confucians. After some preliminary discussion of Euro.. (shrink)

I develop a new reading of Frege’s argument for the indefinability of truth. I concentrate on what Frege literally says in the passage that contains the argument. This literal reading of the passage establishes that the indefinability argument is an arguably sound argument to the following conclusion: provided that the Fregean conception of judgment—which has recently been countered by Hanks—is correct and that truth is a property of truth-bearers, a vicious infinite regress is produced. Given this vicious regress, Frege chooses (...) to reject that truth is a property of truth-bearers. Frege’s choice leads to a unique version of the Fregean conception of judgment. His unique conception of judgment can cope with Hanks’s recent criticisms against the Fregean conception. (shrink)

My dissertation proposes a novel interpretation of Kant’s doctrine of transcendental idealism as presented in the Critique of Pure Reason. I aim to give a consensus interpretation by overcoming past errors in interpreting this doctrine. I support my interpretation through a textual exegesis of the Critique of Pure Reason with a special focus on the direct and indirect proofs of transcendental idealism. Transcendental idealism is the doctrine that objects of our experience, space, and time, when taken as they would be (...) outside our possible experience, are nothing but mere representations. However, this does not make them into illusions. This is because Kant takes objects of our experience, space, and time to be empirically real. Empirical realism is the doctrine that objects of our experience, space, and time, when taken within our possible experience, exist independently of us. Yet, their empirical reality is not grounded in things in themselves, about whose existence Kant is agnostic. Instead, the reality of objects of our experience, space, and time depend on a standard of empirical reality that differs from the standard of transcendental reality. This separate standard of empirical reality allows Kant to hold transcendental idealism and empirical realism at the same time. Finally, while not strictly part of the doctrine of transcendental idealism, I answer the question of the relation of appearances and things in themselves. The distinction between appearances and things in themselves is a metaphysical distinction between two different ways of being, i.e., objectivity, properties, existence, reality. Yet, this is a metaphysical distinction within the same concept of an object. Thus, appearances and things in themselves are the same object conceptually that is determined metaphysically in two different ways. (shrink)

It is shown that one common formulation of Stalnaker's semantics for conditionals is incomplete: it has no sound and (strongly) complete proof system. At first, this seems to conflict with well-known completeness results for this semantics (e.g., Stalnaker and Thomason 1967; Stalnaker 1970 and Lewis 1973, ch. 6). As it turns out, it does not: these completeness results rely on another closely-related formulation of the semantics that is provably complete. Specifically, the difference comes down to how the Limit Assumption is (...) stated. I close with some remarks about what this means for the logic of conditionals. (shrink)

When we ask a decision maker to express her preferences, it is typically assumed that we are eliciting a pre-existing set of preferences. However, empirical research has suggested that our preferences are often constructed on the fly for the decision problem at hand. This paper explores the ramifications of this empirical research for our understanding of instrumental rationality. First, I argue that these results pose serious challenges for the traditional decision-theoretic view of instrumental rationality, which demands global coherence amongst all (...) of one's beliefs and desires. To address these challenges, I first develop a minimal notion of instrumental rationality that issues in localized, goal-relative demands of coherence. This minimal conception of instrumental rationality is then used to offer a more sophisticated account of the global aspects of instrumental rationality. The resulting view abandons all-or-nothing assessments of rationality and allows us to evaluate decision makers as being rational to varying degrees. My aim is to propose a theory that is both psychologically and normatively plausible. (shrink)

Kant uses ‘wish’ as a technical term to denote a strange species of desire. It is an instance in which someone wills an object that she simultaneously knows she cannot bring about. Or in more Kantian garb: it is an instance of the faculty of desire’s (or will’s) failing insofar as a desire (representation) cannot be the cause of the realization of its corresponding object in reality. As a result, Kant originally maintained it to be antithetical to morality, which deals (...) with ‘ought implies can’. However, Kant’s notion of wish is not static. On the contrary, I argue in this article that Kant re-evaluated the capacity to wish as (to some extent) causally efficacious and, further, of moral relevance. This re-evaluation has not been discussed in the literature, yet has been lurking in plain sight in a subtle but decisive shift evident in two versions of a footnote from the *Critique of the Power of Judgement* (KU). (shrink)

A counteridentical is a counterfactual with an identity statement in the antecedent. While counteridenticals generally seem non-trivial, most semantic theories for counterfactuals, when combined with the necessity of identity and distinctness, attribute vacuous truth conditions to such counterfactuals. In light of this, one could try to save the orthodox theories either by appealing to pragmatics or by denying that the antecedents of alleged counteridenticals really contain identity claims. Or one could reject the orthodox theory of counterfactuals in favor of a (...) hyperintensional semantics that accommodates non-trivial counterpossibles. In this paper, I argue that none of these approaches can account for all the peculiar features of counteridenticals. Instead, I propose a modified version of Lewis’s counterpart theory, which rejects the necessity of identity, and show that it can explain all the peculiar features of counteridenticals in a satisfactory way. I conclude by defending the plausibility of contingent identity from objections. (shrink)

This article examines whether Nietzschean agonistic democracy theory can be a plausible alternative to Chantal Mouffe’s model. Agonistic democracy theory has Carl Schmitt or Nietzsche as its philosophical source. In the case of Mouffe, she constructed her model based on Schmitt. However, her Schmitt-based model is vulnerable to four criticisms. First, the distinction between ‘worthy opponents’ and ‘enemy’ is ambiguous. Second, it is inconsistent to simultaneously claim ‘the ontological fundamentality of antagonism’ and ‘agonism without antagonism.’ Third, her agonism can not (...) capture the pluralistic world, since it is trapped in the telos of self-preservation. Fourth, there are no theoretical factors to maintain her agonism, and there is no explanation for the degree of conflict that can sustain her model. Unlike Mouffe, Nietzschean like Connolly and Owen provides agonistic democracy theories based on Nietzsche. After analyzing and reconstructing Nietzsche’s text and Nietzschean’s discussions, I will argue that the Nietzschean model can overcome some thresholds of Mouffe’s model. (shrink)

In his Critique of Pure Reason Immanuel Kant presents four anti- nomies. In his attempt to solve the first of these antinomies he examines and analyzes"thesis" and "antithesis" more thoroughly and employs the terms `part', `whole' and `boundary' in his argumentation for their validity. According to Kant, the whole problem surrounding the antinomy was caused by applying the concept of the world to nature and then using both terms interchangeably. While interesting, this solution is still not that much more than (...) a well thought out idea if it does not also include an adequate formal explication. Since the aforementioned terms all have counterparts in modern mereotopology, a discipline that has seen significant progress in recent times, we will apply these concepts to Kant's analysis in an attempt to evaluate Kant's solution in light of modern analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Herder’s earliest philosophical writing, the essay fragment Versuch über das Sein, explores the concept of Being (Sein) in dialogue with Kant’s pre-critical Der einzig mögliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseins Gottes. In this often critically omitted work, Herder arrives at a number of insights that would be determinative for the development of his later thought. This examination details Herder’s concept of Being as the transcendent ground of predication, his contention that Being can never be experienced directly, and his consequent (...) conclusion that the shape of philosophical inquiry should not be one of abstract speculation, but instead one of non-foundational, historically aware, empirical observation. This consideration then briefly addresses how the concept of Being informs Herder’s philosophy of science, history, language and religion. (shrink)

Miller has recently argued that the standard liberal and moderate positions on abortion are incapable of grounding the claim that ‘all non-disabled adult humans are equal’. The reason, he claims, is such accounts base the intrinsic moral worth of a human being on some property (or set of properties) which comes in degrees. In contrast, he argues that moral equality must reside in some binary property, such as the property of being human. In this paper, I offer three criticisms of (...) Miller’s position. (shrink)

In this article, I aim to do two things: first, introduce Juche, the official philosophy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“North Korea”), and second, defend Juche against Alzo David-West’s allegation that it is a nonsensical philosophy. I organize David-West’s complaints into two major strands—that Juche’s axiom is too vague to be of philosophical use and that Juche makes too stark a distinction between human vs. everything else—and offer responses to both strands. My goal isn’t to defend the regime, (...) but to present its ideology in the most charitable way so its merits and demerits can be seen more clearly in future engagements. (shrink)

Infallibilism leads to skepticism, and fallibilism is plagued by the threshold problem. Within this narrative, the pragmatic turn in epistemology has been marketed as a way for fallibilists to address the threshold problem. In contrast, pragmatic versions of infallibilism have been left unexplored. However, I propose that going pragmatic offers the infallibilist a way to address its main problem, the skeptical problem. Pragmatic infallibilism, however, is committed to a shifty view of epistemic certainty, where the strength of a subject’s epistemic (...) state can vary depending upon the practical context. Pragmatic views of epistemic strength are quite radical so the argumentative goal of my discussion is to argue for its plausibility, thereby arguing for the plausibility of pragmatic infallibilism. To do so, I discuss the role that the framing of decision problems and the construction of our deliberative attitudes have in our theories of rational choice. And I explore a way in which these necessary components of a normative theory of rationality can be used to motivate pragmatic views of evidential support. Finally, since the plausibility of our pragmatic account will depend upon the plausibility of a constructive account of rational choice, I conclude by comparing the adequacy of the constructive account with orthodox Bayesian and knowledge-based accounts. (shrink)

Kant’s accounts of the Highest Good and the moral argument for God and immortality are central features of his philosophy. But both involve lingering puzzles. In this entry, we first explore what the Highest Good is for Kant and the role it plays in a complete account of ethical life. We then focus on whether the Highest Good involves individuals only, or whether it also connects with Kant’s doctrines about the moral progress of the species. In conclusion, we look into (...) three ways of articulating the moral argument for God and immorality that take our commitment to the Highest Good as their point of departure. (shrink)

This paper argues that the standard formulations of the question of how consciousness emerges, both synchronically and diachronically, from the physical world necessarily use a concept of the physical without either a clear grasp of the concept or an understanding of the necessary conditions of its possibility. This concept will be elucidated and some of the necessary conditions of its possibility explored, clarifying the place of the mental and the physical as abstractions from the totality of an agent engaged in (...) the life world. The notion of a disruption or breakdown in the agent’s normal engagements in the world will play a key role in the argument, which in turn provides a transcendental underpinning to recent enactive and embodied theories of mind by exploring some of the necessary conditions of being an agent in the world. (shrink)

A variation of Fitch’s paradox is given, where no special rules of inference are assumed, only axioms. These axioms follow from the familiar assumptions which involve rules of inference. We show (by constructing a model) that by allowing that possibly the knower doesn’t know his own soundness (while still requiring he be sound), Fitch’s paradox is avoided. Provided one is willing to admit that sound knowers may be ignorant of their own soundness, this might offer a way out of the (...) paradox. (shrink)

Considering questions at the intersection of time and fiction deepens our understanding of fiction, introduces new questions for philosophy of time, and brings analytic philosophy in discussion with narratology. Philosophers debate whether fictional time can be tensed, whether fictional time can branch, repeat, pause, rewind, or skip and whether fictional time travel is possible. Much of the way we answer these questions will depend on our overall commitment to the nature of fiction. It’s also unclear what, if anything, we can (...) learn about the metaphysics of time from fiction. This chapter will introduce readers to discussions that are shaping the debates in this domain. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to clarify the role wrong plays in Hegel ’s system of right, as both a form of freedom and the transition to morality. Two approaches will be examined to explore wrong in practical philosophical terms: First, one could take the transition to be descriptive in nature. The transition describes wrong as a realized fact of the human condition that one inherits from the outset. Second, one could see it as prescriptive. Actual wrongdoing would be (...) essential for the subject’s progression to becoming moral. Though both are most likely the case, emphasis is given to the latter since it represents the actualization of potential. Furthermore, it will be suggested that wrong plays a similar role as that which alienation does in the Phenomenology of Spirit; both bridge the will as abstract personality with the moral point of view. (shrink)

ABSTRACT. Associationist psychologists of the late 19th-century premised their research on a fundamentally Humean picture of the mind. So the very idea of mental science was called into question when T. H. Green, a founder of British idealism, wrote an influential attack on Hume’s Treatise. I first analyze Green’s interpretation and criticism of Hume, situating his reading with respect to more recent Hume scholarship. I focus on Green’s argument that Hume cannot consistently admit real ideas of spatial relations. I then (...) argue that William James’s early work on spatial perception attempted to vindicate the new science of mind by showing how to avoid the problems Green had exposed in Hume’s empiricism. James’s solution involved rejecting a basic Humean assumption—that perceptual experience is fundamentally composed of so-called minima sensibilia, or psychological atoms. The claim that there are no psychological atoms is interesting because James supported it with experimental data rather than (as commentators typically suppose) with introspective description or a priori argument. James claimed to be the real descendant of British empiricism on grounds that his anti-atomistic model of perception fortified what Green had perhaps most wanted to demolish—the prospect of using empirical, scientific methods in the study of mind. (shrink)