The Planteome project provides a suite of reference and species-specific ontologies for plants and annotations to genes and phenotypes. Ontologies serve as common standards for semantic integration of a large and growing corpus of plant genomics, phenomics and genetics data. The reference ontologies include the Plant Ontology, Plant Trait Ontology, and the Plant Experimental Conditions Ontology developed by the Planteome project, along with the Gene Ontology, Chemical Entities of Biological Interest, Phenotype and Attribute Ontology, and others. The project also provides (...) access to species-specific Crop Ontologies developed by various plant breeding and research communities from around the world. We provide integrated data on plant traits, phenotypes, and gene function and expression from 95 plant taxa, annotated with reference ontology terms. (shrink)

J.L. Schellenberg argues that divine hiddenness provides an argument for the conclusion that God does not exist, for if God existed he would not allow non-resistant non-belief to occur, but non-resistant non-belief does occur, so God does not exist. In this paper, I argue that the stakes involved in theistic considerations put pressure on Schellenberg’s premise that non-resistant non-belief occurs. First, I specify conditions for someone’s being a resistant non-believer. Then, I argue that many people fulfill these conditions because, given (...) some plausible assumptions, there is a very good pragmatic reason to be a theist rather than an atheist. I assume it is more likely that theists go to heaven than atheists, and I argue there is a non-zero probability that one can receive infinite utility and a method of comparing outcomes with infinite utilities in which the probability of each outcome affects the final expected values. Then, I show how this argument entails there is no good reason to think that there are very many non-resistant non-believers. (shrink)

Des branches entières des mathématiques sont fondées sur des liens posés entre les nombres et l’espace : mesure de longueurs, définition de repères et de coordonnées, projection des nombres complexes sur le plan… Si les nombres complexes, comme l’utilisation de repères, sont apparus relativement récemment (vers le XVIIe siècle), la mesure des longueurs est en revanche un procédé très ancien, qui remonte au moins au 3e ou 4e millénaire av. J-C. Loin d’être fortuits, ces liens entre les nombres et l’espace (...) reflèteraient une intuition fondamentale, universelle, façonnée au cours des millénaires par la sélection naturelle, et qui aurait servi de guide et d’inspiration aux mathématiciens au fil des siècles. (shrink)

En général, un agent peut dire ce qu’il est en train de faire sans l’observer au préalable, et il possède une certaine autorité sur ce qu’il en dit. Partant de ce fait, Elizabeth Anscombe a soutenu que la connaissance qu’un agent a de ses actions intentionnelles est un «savoir pratique» (practical knowledge) «sans observation». Cette thèse a été abondamment commentée, critiquée et reprise depuis la publication d’Intention il y a bientôt 70 ans. Ce qui a plus rarement été abordé (...) est l’étonnant parallèle entre ce que dit Anscombe à ce sujet, et certaines descriptions sartriennes de la conscience d’un agent intentionnel. Cet article tâchera de montrer que les pensées respectives de ce drôle de couple philosophique convergent sur l’idée que nous avons la capacité de dire ce que nous sommes en train de faire sans observation ni réflexion préalable. En critiquant une certaine image de l’intériorité de l'esprit, leur objectif commun est de rendre compte de cette conscience de soi toute particulière qui permet aux agents de savoir ce qu’ils font dans et par cette action même. Comment faut-il comprendre le rapport entre ces deux approches ? Sont-elles complémentaires ? Concurrentes ? Nous considérons qu’une réponse simple et tranchée à ces questions n’est pas possible d’avance, exige une étude comparative relativement poussée. Notre hypothèse est que le savoir pratique d’un agent est indissociable d’une certaine expérience de l’engagement pratique dans le monde que décrit Sartre. (shrink)

Pourtant en perte de vitesse depuis les années 1980, les débats ayant trait à la démocratie d’entreprise et au travail démocratique ont connu un regain d’intérêt au cours des dernières années. Intervenant dans le contexte de ces débats, Elizabeth Anderson a ainsi proposé de remobiliser et de redéfinir le concept de « gouvernement privé » afin d’appréhender dans une perspective politique les rapports sociaux en milieu de travail et de montrer en quoi ils constituent un problème. Cet article entend (...) procéder à l’évaluation critique du concept de gouvernement privé. Il se propose de réinscrire le concept au sein de l’égalitarisme relationnel défendu par Anderson, de l’exposer à trois critiques qui permettent d’en saisir la portée et les limites, et de montrer qu’il permet de résoudre certains des problèmes que pose la théorie de la firme dans son appréhension des rapports sociaux en milieu de travail. (shrink)

Cet article parle de la nécessité de repenser la notion de la différence sexuelle après le mal appropriation de celle-ci par « la manif pour tous ». Chaque tentative de former une ontologie fondée sur cette différence risque une favorisation de l’hétéronormativité et de l’essentialisme. En me servant de la philosophie d’Elizabeth Grosz sur Darwin, j’essaie de reformuler la différence sexuelle en des termes positifs et de voir celle-ci comme une notion qui facilite (plutôt que limite) la diversité. Le (...) texte est divisé en deux parties : 1. L’instrumentalisation de la différence sexuelle pour promouvoir l’hétéronormativité, et 2. Repenser une ontologie fondée sur la différence sexuelle. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In his A Conceptual Investigation of Justice, Kyle Johannsen suggests a theory of disability that holds that to have a disability just is to be worse off, sometimes referred to as the ‘medical’ or ‘individual’ model of disability. I argue that Johannsen’s understanding of disability might force some of his key claims into an uncomfortable position. In particular, for his theory to avoid the thrust of Elizabeth Anderson’s criticisms of luck egalitarianism, the assumption of the medical model of (...) disability must be dropped, but this comes at the cost of his criticism of John Rawls’ difference principle. -/- RÉSUMÉ : Dans son livre, A Conceptual Investigation of Justice, Kyle Johannsen semble invoquer une théorie du handicap selon laquelle le fait d’avoir un handicap, c’est être pire qu’une autre personne, un modèle parfois appelé le modèle de handicap «médical» ou «individuel». Je soutiens que la compréhension de Johannsen en matière d’invalidité peut mettre sa theorie dans une position difficile. En particulier, pour que sa théorie évite les critiques d’Elizabeth Anderson sur l’égalitarisme de la chance, l’hypothèse du modèle médical du handicap doit être abandonnée. Cependant, cela se fait au détriment de la critique du principe de différence de John Rawls formulée par Johannsen. (shrink)

Po-etiche che ci accompagnano. La parola, il linguaggio, l'orrore, la speranza e lo stupore: Paul Celan e Ingeborg Bachmann. La voce, il silenzio, la libertà e il linguaggio: dall'arbitrio originario a Emily Dickinson e oltre. Percorsi etici e poetici: da Spinoza a Kafka, passando per P. Ricoeur e fino a Elizabeth Bishop, Marianne Moore, Margherita Guidacci, Nadine Gordimer e Bianca Maria Frabotta .

Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap and Herbert Feig are the most prominent of the positivists to formulate views on the mind-body problem (aside from Hempel’s one-off treatment in 1935). While their views differed from each other and changed over time they were all committed to some form of scientific physicalism, though a linguistic or conceptual rather than ontological form of it. In focus here are their views during the heyday of logical positivism and its immediate aftermath, though some initial scene-setting of (...) Schlick’s and Carnap’s pre-positivist views will help to understand the final opposing positions of Carnap and Feigl. (shrink)

This paper reconciles an inconsistency between the benefits of mind wandering and a prominent conception of attention in philosophy and cognitive psychology, namely, the prioritization view. Since we prioritize the information in a task less if we are doing it while mind wandering compared to solely concentrating on it, why does our performance in the task sometimes improve when we are mind wandering? To explain this, we offer a conception of diffuse attention that generalizes from external to internal forms of (...) attention and captures deep commonalities between the two (Chun et al. 2011). We conceptualize mind wandering as an instance of internal diffuse attention that also induces diffuse attention in other concurrent tasks. Moreover, pace the prioritization view, certain tasks are in fact better performed with diffuse attention, which prioritizes information less than focused attention. Our account of mind wandering as an instance of the more general category of diffuse attention improves upon current leading philosophical views of mind wandering (such as Irving 2016) by better explaining the interaction between mind wandering and other tasks. (shrink)

What is it for a belief to wrong someone? Views that have largely shaped the recent literature on doxastic wronging maintain that beliefs that wrong do so in virtue of what is believed. This paper offers some criticisms of these views, as well as a contractualist alternative. On the view I defend here, beliefs can wrong when they stem from inferences licensed by principles to which others would have sufficiently weighty objections. Doxastic wronging, on this account, is not (or is (...) not entirely) a matter of having beliefs with certain kinds of objectionable representational content, but rather a matter of our being unable to morally justify our beliefs to others. (shrink)

Propositionalism is the view that intentional attitudes, such as belief, are relations to propositions. Propositionalists argue that propositionalism follows from the intuitive validity of certain kinds of inferences involving attitude reports. Jubien (2001) argues powerfully against propositions and sketches some interesting positive proposals, based on Russell’s multiple relation theory of judgment, about how to accommodate “propositional phenomena” without appeal to propositions. This paper argues that none of Jubien’s proposals succeeds in accommodating an important range of propositional phenomena, such as the (...) aforementioned validity of attitude-report inferences. It then shows that the notion of a predication act-type, which remains importantly Russellian in spirit, is sufficient to explain the range of propositional phenomena in question, in particular the validity of attitude-report inferences. The paper concludes with a discussion of whether predication act-types are really just propositions by another name. (shrink)

According to Russellianism (or Millianism), the two sentences ‘Ralph believes George Eliot is a novelist’ and ‘Ralph believes Mary Ann Evans is a novelist’ cannot diverge in truth-value, since they express the same proposition. The problem for the Russellian (or Millian) is that a puzzle of Kaplan’s seems to show that they can diverge in truth-value and that therefore, since the Russellian holds that they express the same proposition, the Russellian view is contradictory. I argue that the standard Russellian appeal (...) to “ways of thinking” or “propositional guises” is not necessary to solve the puzzle. Rather than this retrograde concession to Fregeanism, appeal should be made to second-order belief. The puzzle is solved, and the contradiction avoided, by maintaining that both sentences are indeed true in addition to the sentence ‘Ralph (mistakenly) believes that he does not believe Mary Ann Evans/George Eliot is a novelist’. (shrink)

The paper presents a new theory of perceptual demonstrative thought, the property-dependent theory. It argues that the theory is superior to both the object-dependent theory (Evans, McDowell) and the object-independent theory (Burge).

In Making it Explicit Robert Brandom claims that perspectivally hybrid de re attitude ascriptions explain what an agent actually did, from the point of view of the ascriber, whether or not that was what the agent intended to do. There is a well-known problem, however, first brought to attention by Quine, but curiously ignored by Brandom, that threatens to undermine the role of de re ascriptions in the explanation of action, a problem that stems directly from the fact that, unlike (...) de dicto ascriptions, they permit the attribution of inconsistent attitudes to agents. I propose a solution to the problem which I believe is consistent with Brandom’s approach to the nature of intentionality and the explanation of action. (shrink)

Quine introduced a famous distinction between the ‘notional’ sense and the ‘relational’ sense of certain attitude verbs. The distinction is both intuitive and sound but is often conflated with another distinction Quine draws between ‘dyadic’ and ‘triadic’ (or higher degree) attitudes. I argue that this conflation is largely responsible for the mistaken view that Quine’s account of attitudes is undermined by the problem of the ‘exportation’ of singular terms within attitude contexts. Quine’s system is also supposed to suffer from the (...) problem of ‘suspended judgement with continued belief’. I argue that this criticism fails to take account of a crucial presupposition of Quine’s about the connection between thought and language. The aim of the paper is to defend the spirit of Quine’s account of attitudes by offering solutions to these two problems. (shrink)

The identity theory’s rise to prominence in analytic philosophy of mind during the late 1950s and early 1960s is widely seen as a watershed in the development of physicalism, in the sense that whereas logical behaviourism proposed analytic and a priori ascertainable identities between the meanings of mental and physical-behavioural concepts, the identity theory proposed synthetic and a posteriori knowable identities between mental and physical properties. While this watershed does exist, the standard account of it is misleading, as it is (...) founded in erroneous intensional misreadings of the logical positivists’—especially Carnap’s—extensional notions of translation and meaning, as well as misinterpretations of the positivists’ shift from the strong thesis of translation-physicalism to the weaker and more liberal notion of reduction-physicalism that occurred in the Unity of Science programme. After setting the historical record straight, the essay traces the first truly modern identity theory to Schlick’s pre-positivist views circa 1920 and goes on to explore its further development in Feigl, arguing that the fundamental difference between the Schlick-Feigl identity theory and the more familiar and influential Place-Smart-Armstrong identity theory has resurfaced in the deep and seemingly unbridgeable gulf in contemporary philosophy of consciousness between inflationary mentalism and deflationary physicalism. (shrink)

I explore how rational belief and rational credence relate to evidence. I begin by looking at three cases where rational belief and credence seem to respond differently to evidence: cases of naked statistical evidence, lotteries, and hedged assertions. I consider an explanation for these cases, namely, that one ought not form beliefs on the basis of statistical evidence alone, and raise worries for this view. Then, I suggest another view that explains how belief and credence relate to evidence. My view (...) focuses on the possibilities that the evidence makes salient. I argue that this makes better sense of the difference between rational credence and rational belief than other accounts. (shrink)

The received view in the history of the philosophy of psychology is that the logical positivists—Carnap and Hempel in particular—endorsed the position commonly known as “logical” or “analytical” behaviourism, according to which the relations between psychological statements and the physical-behavioural statements intended to give their meaning are analytic and knowable a priori. This chapter argues that this is sheer legend: most, if not all, such relations were viewed by the logical positivists as synthetic and knowable only a posteriori. It then (...) traces the origins of the legend to the logical positivists’ idiosyncratic extensional or at best weakly intensional use of what are now considered crucially strongly intensional semantic notions, such as “translation,” “meaning” and their cognates, focussing on a particular instance of this latter phenomenon, arguing that a conflation of explicit definition and analyticity may be the chief source of the legend. (shrink)

I defend belief-credence dualism, the view that we have both beliefs and credences and both attitudes are equally fundamental. First, I explain belief, credence, and three views on their relationship. Then, I argue for dualism. I do so first by painting a picture of the mind on which belief and credence are two cognitive tools that we use for different purposes. Finally, I respond to two objections to dualism. I conclude that dualism is a promising view, and one that both (...) epistemologists and philosophers of mind should take seriously. (shrink)

Pascal’s wager is unique among theistic arguments. It does not aim to establish that God exists but instead concludes that you ought to believe in, or wager on, God. In this chapter, I provide an overview of Pascal’s wager and discuss different approaches to the wager. Then, I consider how to motivate a wager for Christianity in particular. I also address common Christian objections to the wager. Finally, I cover the practical importance of Pascal’s wager for both Christians and non-Christians.

Metaphysical orthodoxy maintains that the relation of ontological dependence is irreflexive, asymmetric, and transitive. The goal of this paper is to challenge that orthodoxy by arguing that ontological dependence should be understood as non- symmetric, rather than asymmetric. If we give up the asymmetry of dependence, interesting things follow for what we can say about metaphysical explanation— particularly for the prospects of explanatory holism.

The world of entrepreneurship has historically been linked with taking risks and the potential for significant rewards. However, there persists a notable gender imbalance in the entrepreneurial landscape, wherein women entrepreneurs remain a minority. Women navigating the entrepreneurial path encounter distinct challenges, setting their experiences apart from their male counterparts. In Balayan, Batangas, despite strides towards gender equality, women entrepreneurs continue to face challenges in the entrepreneurial landscape. This qualitative study delves into the experiences of 10 successful female entrepreneurs who (...) met specific criteria. Accordingly, semi-structured interviews are conducted, exploring various aspects of participants' experiences and revealing their motivations, achievements, challenges, and strategies. Thematic analysis reveals the connection between familial, community-driven, and personal motivations that drive these entrepreneurs forward. Despite facing obstacles such as financial constraints and gender biases, they prioritize financial gains and personal growth. With resilience, innovation, and dedication, these women overcome challenges and achieve success, utilizing support networks and online marketing strategies to their advantage. Recommendations include empowering women in entrepreneurship, strengthening support networks, introducing tailored financial literacy programs, and advocating against gender biases. Implement skill development initiatives and provide specialized education in online marketing. Engage in policy advocacy, celebrate success stories, and continuously research challenges and successes. Foster collaborative partnerships between businesses, educational institutions, and communities, and advocate for increased funding opportunities for sustainable growth. This research emphasizes the strength and capabilities of women entrepreneurs in Balayan, Batangas, affirming that "pink doesn't mean weak.". (shrink)

Epistemic permissivism is the thesis that the evidence can rationally permit more than one attitude toward a proposition. Pascal’s wager is the idea that one ought to believe in God for practical reasons, because of what one can gain if theism is true and what one has to lose if theism is false. In this paper, I argue that if epistemic permissivism is true, then the defender of Pascal’s wager has powerful responses to two prominent objections. First, I argue that (...) if permissivism is true, then permissivism is true about theistic belief. Second, I show how epistemic permissivism about theistic belief dispels two objections to Pascal’s wager: the objection that wagering is impossible, and the objection that wagering is epistemically impermissible. (shrink)

It is not always obvious for even well-trained researchers to appreciate their peer’s scientific pursuits. In many cases, research results obtained from strenuous work processes could even be regarded as “useless knowledge”. -/- Only in very few places on this planet had the notion of useless knowledge been respected and sought after. That’s the famous IAS of Princeton University powered by the conception of the usefulness of useless knowledge of Abraham Flexner. That’s why brilliant scientists such as Albert Einstein, Kurt (...) Godel, and John von Neumann were among its first recruited members. -/- Our team has for many years now gone through various research problems. Still, it is difficult for even experienced and highly accomplished researchers to identify the type of IAS “useless knowledge” problems. But we never stopped trying. -/- Our latest try has led to the informational entropy-based definition of value. At first, it sounded weird for one to ponder the long-existing notion of value, which is used on a daily basis by everybody on Earth. In short, kind of... useless. But gradually, we have come to an understanding that the very familiarity of the word “value” has long obscured our question of its nature. -/- So, a bit about this newly minted definition is here for your perusal. (shrink)

The current study is conducted to examine the following research question: What are the factors associated with the sensitivity towards the air quality rating index to reduce outdoor activities?

In this paper, I argue that the relationship between belief and credence is a central question in epistemology. This is because the belief-credence relationship has significant implications for a number of current epistemological issues. I focus on five controversies: permissivism, disagreement, pragmatic encroachment, doxastic voluntarism, and the relationship between doxastic attitudes and prudential rationality. I argue that each debate is constrained in particular ways, depending on whether the relevant attitude is belief or credence. This means that epistemologists should pay attention (...) to whether they are framing questions in terms of belief or in terms of credence and the success or failure of a reductionist project in the belief-credence realm has significant implications for epistemology generally. (shrink)

The current study is conducted to examine the following research questions: 1) How is engaging children with nature interactions associated with their pro-environmental behaviors? 2) Is the association between engaging children with nature interactions and their pro-environmental behaviors conditional on the children’s sex? 3) Is the association between engaging children with nature interactions and their pro-environmental behaviors conditional on the children’s grades? 4) Is the association between engaging children with nature interactions and their pro-environmental behaviors conditional on the children’s family (...) income? 5) Is the association between engaging children with nature interactions and their pro-environmental behaviors conditional on the frequency of environmental discussion with parents? (shrink)

The current study is conducted to examine the following research questions: 1) How are gender, age, and income associated with trying space tourism? 2) How are gender, age, and income associated with the intention to try space tourism when conditional on the level of immersiveness in information on social media?

The current study is conducted to examine the following research questions: 1) How are health information-seeking ability and e-health literacy associated with illness response capability? 2) How are health information-seeking ability and e-health literacy associated with the frequency of health checkups?

Thanks to the Internet, Information Communication Technology (ICT), and international transportation, the world has become more globalized than ever. In such an era, people are required to obtain high tolerance and inclusiveness levels. For the young generation to survive and thrive, equipping them with a mindset with high tolerance and inclusiveness is essential while they are schooling. The current study has two objectives: Examine whether discussions with parents about cultural-historical knowledge and social skills and participation in multicultural school events improve (...) children’s and youth’s tolerance toward different viewpoints; Examine whether discussions with parents about cultural-historical knowledge and social skills and participation in multicultural school events improve children’s and youth’s general inclusiveness. (shrink)

The current study is conducted to examine the following research questions: 1) Is the relationship between the enjoyment of and connection to the coastal environment and the visitors’ mental health and perceived general health conditional on the duration of daily visits to the coast in the previous year? 2) Is the relationship between the enjoyment of and connection to the coastal environment and the visitors’ mental health and perceived general health conditional on the duration of stay visits to the coast (...) in the previous year? (shrink)

Abstract According to Russellianism, the content of a Russellian thought, in which a person ascribes a monadic property to an object, can be represented as an ordered couple of the object and the property. A consequence of this is that it is not possible for a person to believe that a is F and not to believe b is F, when a=b. Many critics of Russellianism suppose that this is possible and thus that Russellianism is false. Several arguments for this (...) claim are criticized and it is argued that Russellians need not appeal to representational notions in order to defeat them. Contrary to popular opinion, the prospects for a pure Russellianism, a Russellianism without representations, are in fact very good. (shrink)

The current study is conducted to examine the following research questions: 1) How are information trustworthiness, usefulness, and immersiveness associated with the general intention to try space tourism? 2) Does the uncertainty of information (proxied by information trustworthiness) moderate the associations between information usefulness, immersiveness, and the general intention to try space tourism?

Many evidentialists are impermissivists. But there’s no in-principle reason for this. In this paper, I examine and motivate permissivist evidentialism. Not only are permissivism and evidentialism compatible but there are unique benefits that arise for this combination of views. In particular, permissivist evidentialism respects the importance of evidence while capturing its limitations and provides a plausible and attractive explanation of the relationship between the epistemic and non-epistemic. Permissivist evidentialism is thus an attractive option in logical space that hasn’t received enough (...) attention. (shrink)

The current study is conducted to examine the following research questions: 1) How is engaging children with nature associated with their environmental awareness? 2) How is engaging children with nature associated with their environmental protection participation?

This paper argues for an account of the relation between thought ascription and the explanation of action according to which de re ascriptions and de dicto ascriptions of thought each form the basis for two different kinds of action explanations, nonrationalizing and rationalizing ones. The claim that de dicto ascriptions explain action is familiar and virtually beyond dispute; the claim that that de re ascriptions are explanatory of action, however, is not at all familiar and indeed has mostly been denied (...) by philosophers. I explain how de re ascriptions enter into non-rationalizing explanations of action and how attention to their distinctive explanatory nature reveals flaws in an alternative “dual-component” view about action explanation. (shrink)

Belief-credence dualism is the view that we have both beliefs and credences and neither attitude is reducible to the other. Pragmatic encroachment is the view that practical stakes can affect the epistemic rationality of states like knowledge or justified belief. In this paper, I argue that dualism offers a unique explanation of pragmatic encroachment cases. First, I explain pragmatic encroachment and what motivates it. Then, I explain dualism and outline a particular argument for dualism. Finally, I show how dualism can (...) explain the intuitions that underlie pragmatic encroachment. My basic proposal is that in high-stakes cases, it is not that one cannot rationally believe that p; instead, one ought not to rely on one's belief that p. One should rather rely on one's credence in p. I conclude that we need not commit ourselves to pragmatic encroachment in order to explain the intuitiveness of the cases that motivate it. (shrink)

Faith is a trusting commitment to someone or something. Faith helps us meet our goals, keeps our relationships secure, and enables us to retain our commitments over time. Faith is thus a central part of a flourishing life. -/- This article is about the philosophy of faith. There are many philosophical questions about faith, such as: What is faith? What are its main components or features? What are the different kinds of faith? What is the relationship between faith and other (...) similar states, such as belief, trust, knowledge, desire, doubt, and hope? Can faith be epistemically rational? Practically rational? Morally permissible? -/- This article addresses these questions. It is divided into three main parts. The first is about the nature of faith. This includes different kinds of faith and various features of faith. The second discusses the way that faith relates to other states. For example, what is the difference between faith and hope? Can someone have faith that something is true even if they do not believe it is true? The third discusses three ways we might evaluate faith: epistemically, practically, and morally. While faith is not always rational or permissible, this section covers when and how it can be. The idea of faith as a virtue is also discussed. (shrink)

A question of recent interest in epistemology and philosophy of mind is how belief and credence relate to each other. A number of philosophers argue for a belief-first view of the relationship between belief and credence. On the belief-first view, what it is to have a credence just is to have a particular kind of belief, that is, a belief whose content involves probabilities or epistemic modals. Here, I argue against the belief-first view: specifically, I argue that it cannot account (...) for agents who have credences in propositions they barely comprehend. I conclude that, however credences differ from beliefs, they do not differ in virtue of adding additional content to the believed proposition. (shrink)

This paper examines whether atheists, who believe that God does not exist, can have faith. Of course, atheists have certain kinds of faith: faith in their friends, faith in certain ideals, and faith in themselves. However, the question we’ll examine is whether atheists can have theistic faith: faith that God exists. Philosophers tend to fall on one of two extremes on this question: some, like Dan Howard-Snyder (2019) and Imran Aijaz (2023), say unequivocally no; others, like Robert Whitaker (2019) and (...) Sam Lebens (2023), say unequivocally yes. Here, I take a middle position: I argue that atheists can have action-focused theistic faith (faith in how they act) but not attitude-focused theistic faith (faith in what attitudes they have). (shrink)

Sometimes epistemologists theorize about belief, a tripartite attitude on which one can believe, withhold belief, or disbelieve a proposition. In other cases, epistemologists theorize about credence, a fine-grained attitude that represents one’s subjective probability or confidence level toward a proposition. How do these two attitudes relate to each other? This article explores the relationship between belief and credence in two categories: descriptive and normative. It then explains the broader significance of the belief-credence connection and concludes with general lessons from the (...) debate thus far. (shrink)

What gender are you? And in virtue of what? These are questions of gender categorization. Such questions are increasingly at the core of many contemporary debat.

The literature on faith has largely focused on the relationship between faith and belief, specifically the question: does faith entail belief? At the same time, it’s also widely held that faith involves a desire or pro-attitude, but more attention has been paid to the specifics of faith’s doxastic component than to faith’s affective component. This paper focuses on the relationship between faith and desire. I’ll argue that faith is weakly positive: while faith may not always involve a flat-out desire, faith (...) necessarily involves a positive desire-like attitude. (shrink)

When are we obligated to believe someone? To what extent are people authorities about their own experiences? What kind of harm might we enact when we doubt? Questions like these lie at the heart of many debates in social and feminist epistemology, and they’re the driving issue behind a key conceptual framework in these debates—gaslighting. But while the concept of gaslighting has provided fruitful insight, it's also proven somewhat difficult to adjudicate, and seems prone to over-application. In what follows, I (...) argue that Katherine Hawley's theory of trust can provide a useful alternative lens for looking at contested testimony. To do this, I focus on a particularly complex—but increasingly popular—application of gaslighting: the physician/patient relationship, and the idea of ‘medical gaslighting’. I argue that, even though patients can experience harm when they are disbelieved, there are nevertheless good reasons for physicians not to trust patients about at least some of their own narratives. (shrink)

This chapter defends the account of metaphysical indeterminacy of Barnes and Williams against Eklund's objections.

Attempts to unify Marxist and feminist social critique have been vexed by the fact that ‘patriarchy’ predates the advent of capitalism (its transhistorical status). Feminists within the Marxist, socialist, and materialist traditions have responded to this point by either granting patriarchy a certain autonomy relative to capitalism (the ‘dual/triple systems’ approach), or by suggesting that patriarchal relations have a foundational and necessary status in the history of capitalist development (which we term the ‘origins-subsistence’ approach). This paper offers an alternative account (...) of the relationship between capitalism and the transhistorical status of ‘patriarchy’. In aid of a ‘unitary theory’ of Marxist Feminism, we argue that the transhistorical status of patriarchy is better understood through an application of Marx’s concepts of formal and real subsumption. A modified version of these concepts can illuminate not only capitalist appropriation of antecedent social and economic forms, but also its capacity to produce new forms of gendered exploitation and oppression. (shrink)

This paper argues that Twin Earth twins belong to the same psychological natural kind, but that the reason for this is not that the causal powers of mental states supervene on local neural structure. Fodor’s argument for this latter thesis is criticized and found to rest on a confusion between it and the claim that Putnamian and Burgean type relational psychological properties do not affect the causal powers of the mental states that have them. While it is true that Putnamian (...) and Burgean type relational psychological properties do not affect causal powers, it is false that no relational psychological properties do. Examples of relational psychological properties that do affect causal powers are given and psychological laws are sketched that subsume twins in virtue of them instantiating these relational properties rather than them sharing the narrow contents of their thoughts. (shrink)

Elizabeth Schechter explores the implications of the experience of people who have had the pathway between the two hemispheres of their brain severed, and argues that there are in fact two minds, subjects of experience, and intentional agents inside each split-brain human being: right and left. But each split-brain subject is still one of us.