A Zoom discussion about racism and ableism in philosophy.

The editor's introduction discusses Clarence I. Lewis's conceptual pragmatism when compared with post-empiricist epistemology and argues that several Cartesian assumptions play a major role in the work, not unlike those of Logical Positivism. The suggestion is made that the Cartesian legacy still hidden in Logical Positivism turns out to be a rather heavy ballast for Lewis’s project of restructuring epistemology in a pragmatist key. More in detail, the sore point is the nature of inter-subjectivity. For Lewis, no (...) less than for the Logical Positivists at the time of the Protocols Controversy and Husserl in the Cartesian Meditations, this is a problem without a solution. The reason is that all these philosophers are apparently unable to realize that the existence of a plurality of knowing subjects cannot be treated at once both as a speculative problem and a methodological one. Lewis, thanks to his pragmatist approach both comes closer to the right answer and offers an even more naïve unsatisfactory solution to the pseudo-problem under discussion. The fact that he has clear in mind that inter-subjectivity means not only a plurality of linguistic utterances but also a co-existence of different kinds of practical behaviour. Eventually, the very idea of mind, the key-idea in the book, suffers from the above mentioned tension. In fact, if inter-subjective communication and action is considered at a methodological level, the very idea of mind would not need an analysis, and no kind of ‘reflexive’ analysis. Methodology might be limited to a ‘naïve’ level where the existence of the world and a plurality of subjects be taken as a bedrock of uncritically accepted evidence. Philosophical reflection on ultimate evidence, instead, would take a different approach, maybe the one Wittgenstein was putting into practice in the same years when Mind and the world order was written, namely it would be bound to question the very meaning of the idea of ‘mind’ as an undue fiction – the same carried out by Descartes – when he assumed the Cogito to be at once a body of self-evident truths and a thing or substance, the familiar Platonic idea of psyche or soul. (shrink)

In our recent article, together with more than 60 of our colleagues, we outlined a proposal for drug policy reform consisting of four specific yet interrelated strategies: (1) de jure decriminalization of all psychoactive substances currently deemed illicit for personal use or possession (so-called “recreational” drugs), accompanied by harm reduction policies and initiatives akin to the Portugal model; (2) expunging criminal convictions for nonviolent offenses pertaining to the use or possession of small quantities of such drugs (and releasing those serving (...) time for these offenses), while delivering retroactive ameliorative relief; (3) the ultimate legalization and careful regulation of currently illicit drugs; and (4) the delivery of a new “Marshall Plan” focused on community-building initiatives, expanded harm reduction programs, and social and health care support efforts (Earp et al. 2021). We were gratified to see so many thoughtful commentaries on our proposal, and we respond to them in part in this reply. (shrink)

Historically, laws and policies to criminalize drug use or possession were rooted in explicit racism, and they continue to wreak havoc on certain racialized communities. We are a group of bioethicists, drug experts, legal scholars, criminal justice researchers, sociologists, psychologists, and other allied professionals who have come together in support of a policy proposal that is evidence-based and ethically recommended. We call for the immediate decriminalization of all so-called recreational drugs and, ultimately, for their timely and appropriate legal regulation. We (...) also call for criminal convictions for nonviolent offenses pertaining to the use or possession of small quantities of such drugs to be expunged, and for those currently serving time for these offenses to be released. In effect, we call for an end to the “war on drugs.”. (shrink)

Our approach is based on a tri-partite method of integrating psychodynamic hypotheses, cognitive subliminal processes, and psychophysiological alpha power measures. We present ten social phobic subjects with three individually selected groups of words representing unconscious conflict, conscious symptom experience, and Osgood Semantic negative valence words used as a control word group. The unconscious conflict and conscious symptom words, presented subliminally and supraliminally, act as primes preceding the conscious symptom and control words presented as supraliminal targets. With alpha power as a (...) marker of inhibitory brain activity, we show that unconscious conflict primes, only when presented subliminally, have a unique inhibitory effect on conscious symptom targets. This effect is absent when the unconscious conflict primes are presented supraliminally, or when the target is the control words. Unconscious conflict prime effects were found to correlate with a measure of repressiveness in a similar previous study (Shevrin et al., 1992, 1996). Conscious symptom primes have no inhibitory effect when presented subliminally. Inhibitory effects with conscious symptom primes are present, but only when the primes are supraliminal, and they did not correlate with repressiveness in a previous study (Shevrin et al., 1992, 1996). We conclude that while the inhibition following supraliminal conscious symptom primes is due to conscious threat bias, the inhibition following subliminal unconscious conflict primes provides a neurological blueprint for dynamic repression: it is only activated subliminally by an individual's unconscious conflict and has an inhibitory effect specific only to the conscious symptom. These novel findings constitute neuroscientific evidence for the psychoanalytic concepts of unconscious conflict and repression, while extending neuroscience theory and methods into the realm of personal, psychological meaning. (shrink)

It is often argued that the great quantity of evil in our world makes God’s existence less likely than a lesser quantity would, and this, presumably, because the probability that some evils are gratuitous increases as the overall quantity of evil increases. Often, an additive approach to quantifying evil is employed in such arguments. In this paper, we examine C. S. Lewis’ objection to the additive approach, arguing that although he is correct to reject this approach, there is a (...) sense in which he underestimates the quantity of pain. However, the quantity of pain in that sense does not significantly increase the probability that some pain is gratuitous. Therefore, the quantitative argument likely fails. (shrink)

Biological ontologies are used to organize, curate, and interpret the vast quantities of data arising from biological experiments. While this works well when using a single ontology, integrating multiple ontologies can be problematic, as they are developed independently, which can lead to incompatibilities. The Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies Foundry was created to address this by facilitating the development, harmonization, application, and sharing of ontologies, guided by a set of overarching principles. One challenge in reaching these goals was that the (...) OBO principles were not originally encoded in a precise fashion, and interpretation was subjective. Here we show how we have addressed this by formally encoding the OBO principles as operational rules and implementing a suite of automated validation checks and a dashboard for objectively evaluating each ontology’s compliance with each principle. This entailed a substantial effort to curate metadata across all ontologies and to coordinate with individual stakeholders. We have applied these checks across the full OBO suite of ontologies, revealing areas where individual ontologies require changes to conform to our principles. Our work demonstrates how a sizable federated community can be organized and evaluated on objective criteria that help improve overall quality and interoperability, which is vital for the sustenance of the OBO project and towards the overall goals of making data FAIR. Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. (shrink)

Cette note devait introduire à un public anglophone la traduction de la « Lettre de Louis Althusser datée du 18 mars 1966 et adressée au Comité central du PCF », elle est ici enrichie dans une version livrée au public français. Elle apporte le contexte historique et théorique nécessaire à la compréhension des interventions « anti-humanistes » de Louis Althusser qui questionne les choix politiques opérés par le PCF au cours des années 1960. Nulle part ailleurs, dans les écrits publiés (...) d’Althusser, nous ne voyons aussi clairement les enjeux politiques imbriqués dans son projet philosophique, ni comment ce projet évolua progressivement d’une entreprise « théoriciste » à la recherche d’une philosophie en lien plus étroit avec la pratique. Cette lettre nous paraît de la plus haute importance pour les spécialistes de l’œuvre d’Althusser, les historiens de la pensée marxiste, mais aussi plus largement à tous ceux qui s’intéressent à l’importance que peut revêtir le travail d’Althusser dans les débats actuels dans le champ de la philosophie marxiste. (shrink)

Stephen Cox writes of the complexities that guided this well-known columnist, literary critic, best-selling novelist, avid reader, and intellectual, Mary Isabel Bowler Patterson, better known as Isabel Paterson or “I.M.P.” This edited collection includes a well-chosen selection of her essays, reviews, and letters. Combining both formal and colloquial prose, Paterson’s writings incorporated quips about such people as Sinclair Lewis and Henry David Thoreau, as well as candid discussions of William F. Buckley, Jr., Buffalo Bill, and Cecil Rhodes. The more (...) than one hundred names mentioned in the collection included such diverse figures as Virginia Woolf, John Pierpont Morgan, H.G. Wells, Henry Hazlitt, and Jasper Elliot Crane. (shrink)

Stephen L. Pepper argues that lawyers and clients often act together in ways that their moral convictions would prevent them from acting individually. In an attempt to address this problem, I explore the nature of the attorney's responsibility to help her client reach autonomous decisions. To do this, I review the work of some prominent medical ethicists on a parallel to Pepper's problem in doctor-patient relationships.

The present dissertation presents an examination of the Carrollian logic through the reconstruction of its syllogistic theory. Lewis Carroll was one of the main responsible for the dissemination of logic during the nineteenth century, but most of his logical writings remained unknown until a posthumous publication of 1977. The reconstruction of the Carrollian syllogistic theory was based on the comparison of the two books on author's logic, "The Game of Logic" and "Symbolic Logic". The analysis of the Carrollian syllogistics (...) starts from a study of the historical context of development of the logic and the developments of syllogistics previous to the contribution of the author. Situated in the historical period of algebraical logic, Carrollian syllogistics is characterized as a conservative extension of the Aristotelian syllogistics, the main innovation is the use of negative terms and the introduction of a diagrammatic method suitable for the representation of negative terms. The diagrammatic method of the Carrollian syllogistics presents advances in relation to the methods of Euler and Venn. The use of negative terms also requires a redefinition of the notion of syllogism, simplifying and expanding the amount of arguments amenable to logical treatment. Carroll does not use four, but only three categorical propositions in his syllogistic, with interpretation of existential presuppositions congruent with a syntactic-existential reading. Carrollian syllogistics uses some techniques found in the work of algebraists of logic and also made the same confusions between notions of "class" and "member" that were common in the period. Convinced of the social utility of logic and dedicated to popularize it, Carroll priorized a creation of new didactics for the teaching of logic in his works, where he can include his diagrammatic method of solving syllogisms. Carroll made only scant considerations of his conception of logic. Based on the small considerations found throughout the study and on the constant claim of the social utility of logic, it is suggested that Carroll is close to the so-called pragmatic position, which considers a logic as an instrument of regulation of discourse. (shrink)

There is more than one way to say that composition is identity. Yi has distinguished the Weak Composition thesis from the Strong Composition thesis and attributed the former to David Lewis while noting that Lewis associates something like the latter with me. Weak Composition is the thesis that the relation between the parts collectively and their whole is closely analogous to identity. Strong Composition is the thesis that the relation between the parts collectively and their whole is identity. (...) Yi is right that Strong Composition does not fully reflect my view. We must recognize further what, borrowing Lewis's characterization, could be called the "stronger, and stranger" Composition thesis, or what I'll call the Stronger Composition thesis for short. On Strong Composition, it is only collectively that the parts are identical with the whole. On Stronger Composition, they are individually identical with it as well. I will explain and motivate this thesis. (shrink)

L.A. Paul calls “deep” the kind of essentialism according to which the essential properties of objects are determined independently of the context. Deep essentialism opposes “shallow essentialism”, of which David Lewis is said to be a prominent advocate. Paul argues that standard forms of deep essentialism face a range of issues (mainly based on an interpretation of Quinean skepticism) that shallow essentialism does not. However, Paul claims, shallow essentialism eliminates the very heart of what motivates essentialism, so it is (...) better to be deep than shallow. Accordingly, she proposes a very sharp novel account of essentialism, which, while attempting to preserve some of the advantages of shallow essentialism over the classical forms of deep essentialism, can be deemed to be deep. In this paper, I compare Paul’s proposal for a kind of deep essentialism with Lewis’s account, as it is presented by Paul. My aim is to show that the differences between the two approaches are not as significant as Paul takes them to be, and that Paul’s account can be taken to be deeper than Lewis’s only at the cost of sacrificing the very idea at the bottom of deep essentialism. This might be taken to suggest that, if Paul is correct in asserting that shallow essentialism is better equipped to address some skeptical challenges, but it is generally preferable to be deep than shallow, then Lewis’s account should be re-evaluated, since, as shallow as it can be, it might be deeper than it looks. (shrink)

This Essay presents law’s evolution as a paradoxical union of the finite and the infinite. At any given point in time, law is a finite body of norms, which can be identified. At the same time, law’s evolution is infinite because rule-mutations that alter those norms are indeterminable. In modern legal systems, law’s evolution occurs under the constraining influence of master texts, which provide normative durability by enshrining the fundamental norms of a legal system and fortifying them against change. Despite (...) this stabilizing role, however, master texts are themselves open to mutations. Therefore, law’s evolution under the constraints of a master text mediates the paradoxical union of law’s finite and infinite nature. (shrink)

ABSTRACT According to David Lewis, alteration is "qualitative difference between temporal parts of something." It follows that moments, since they are simple and lack temporal parts, cannot alter from future to present to past. Here then is another way to put McTaggart's paradox about change in tense. I will appeal to my theory of Aspects to rebut the thought behind this rendition of McTaggart. On my theory, it is possible that qualitatively differing things be numerically identical. I call these (...) differing, numerically identical things "aspects." I will argue that alteration can be a qualitative difference between temporal aspects of something that lacks temporal parts. So a moment can alter in tense. By rejecting Lewis's assumption my theory can solve this version of McTaggart's paradox. (shrink)

David Lewis n’a pas développé de philosophie complète de la religion à proprement parler mais il s’est penché précisément sur différents thèmes religieux comme le rapport entre Dieu et le possible, l’argument ontologique ou la théodicée. Bien que dénuées de toute systématicité, les publications de Lewis sur le religieux défendent un athéisme très argumenté. L'article vise à montrer comment son athéisme s'articule à l'existence d'une pluralité de dieux.

Die Frage ist nicht, ob der Realismus (in Sachen Existenz und Beschaffenheit der Außenwelt) zutrifft, sondern was er besagt – und ob er überhaupt etwas besagt. Moritz Schlick sah guten kognitiven Sinn im Realismus und hielt ihn sogar für verifiziert, ganz im Einklang mit seinem Sinnkriterium. Machte Schlick es sich vielleicht zu einfach? Ja; doch muss man nicht viel an seiner Haltung zum Realismus ändern. Statt die Unabhängigkeit der Welt von einer Entität namens Bewusstsein zu verlangen (wie in der Tradition (...) und bei C.I. Lewis) oder die Unabhängigkeit von unserem Leben (wie bei Schlick), schlage ich vor, auf die Welt-Unabhängigkeit von alltäglichen mentalen Vorgängen zu zielen, in all ihrer Vielfalt. Daher untersuche ich der Reihe nach, wie eine Welt ohne Wahrnehmungen, Gefühle bzw. Gedanken aussähe – und zwar unter den Bedingungen einer leicht aufgelockerten Fassung des Sinnkriteriums. In der Tat lässt sich sagen, welche prinzipiell überprüfbaren Umstände (laut Realismus) in einer durch und durch bewusstlosen Welt vorliegen müssten; es geht also um eine Art Nirwana (natürlich ohne ausdrücklichen Bezug zur fernöstlichen Weisheit). (shrink)

In "Convention and Dickie's Institutional Theory" (British Journal of Aesthetics 1980), Catherine Lord maintains the following thesis: (L) If a work of art is defined as institutional and conventional, then the definition precludes the freedom and creativity associated with art. Lord also maintains that the antecedent of this conditional is false. In this note, I argue that (i) certain confusions and assumptions prevent Lord from showing the antecedent is false, and (ii) even if the antecedent is assumed to be true, (...) there are counterexamples to the entire conditional. With regard to (ii), I will suggest that conventionality is necessary for creativity. [This was my first published paper, written as a graduate student, taken from my University of Illinois at Chicago dissertation written with Professor George Dickie on the topic of conventions, utilitizing David Lewis' definition of "convention."]. (shrink)

Il problema di determinare quali siano i fondamenti dell’etica si riflette direttamente sul dibattito tra le principali etiche normative che si è arricchito, in tempi molto recenti, della teoria morale detta “esemplarista”, proposta da Linda Zagzebski, voce illustre nel panorama della filosofia morale, della conoscenza e della religione analitiche. L’esemplarismo, come ogni altra teoria morale fondazionalista, ha a cuore la questione del fondamento, ma si distingue dalle classiche teorie fondazionaliste sfidando l’idea che tale fondamento possa essere un concetto. Infatti, (...) Zagzebski non fonda la sua teoria su uno dei concetti morali fondamentali (bene, virtù, atto giusto), bensì fa derivare la definizione di tali concetti dall’individuazione di un esemplare morale in “questa o quella” persona. In altre parole, l’esemplarismo trova la sua fondazione non-concettuale in quei soggetti che ammiriamo per la loro eccezionalità morale. Questo contributo intende fornire una breve analisi della proposta esemplarista suddivisa in due parti: nella prima parte, ricostruirò i lineamenti essenziali dell’esemplarismo tentando di definire chi sia l’esemplare e quale sia la struttura portante della teoria esemplarista; la seconda parte, invece, includerà una breve critica della proposta di Zagzebski e alcune riflessioni sui vantaggi e le prospettive di ricerca che essa apre. (shrink)

This article sheds light on moral education from an exemplarist perspective. Following Linda Zagzebski's Exemplarist Virtue Theory, we relate several fundamental exemplarist intuitions to the classical virtue ethical debate over the unity-disunity of the virtues, to endorse a pluralistic exemplar-based approach to moral education ("Empe"). After a few preliminary remarks, we argue that Empe amounts to defending "a prima facie" disunitarist perspective in moral theory, which admits both exemplarity in all respects (moral sainthood) and single-domain exemplarity (moral heroism). Then, (...) we evaluate the effectiveness of heroes and saints for moral education, according to four criteria derived from Empe. This analysis allows us to conclude that moral education should value both kinds of exemplars and, therefore, adopt weaker standards of exemplarity than the unitarist's ones. (shrink)

TWENTIETH-CENTURY ETHICS. AFTER NIETZSCHE -/- Preface This book tells the story of twentieth-century ethics or, in more detail, it reconstructs the history of a discussion on the foundations of ethics which had a start with Nietzsche and Sidgwick, the leading proponents of late-nineteenth-century moral scepticism. During the first half of the century, the prevailing trends tended to exclude the possibility of normative ethics. On the Continent, the trend was to transform ethics into a philosophy of existence whose self-appointed task was (...) that of describing the human condition as consisting of choices, as unavoidable as arbitrary, without any attempt at providing criteria for making such choices. In the Anglo-Saxon countries, the heir of ethics was a philosophy of morality, that is, an analysis of the language of morality that intended to clarify valuations without trying to justify them. 1958 was the year of the normative turn that led to the Rehabilitation of practical philosophy, a turn followed by decades of controversies between distinct kinds of normative ethics: utilitarian, Kantian, virtue ethics. While the controversy was raging, a quiet revolution took place, that of applied ethics which surprisingly dissolved the controversy's very subject matter by providing methods for making convergence possible on intermediate principles even when no agreement was available about first principles. The normative turn and the revolution of applied ethics have led us, at the turn of the century, to a goal that was quite far from the starting point. Instead of scepticism and relativism that was the fashion at the beginning of the century, at the beginning of the third millennium impartial and universal moral arguments seem to hold the spot being supported, if not by a final rational foundation, at least by reasonableness, the most precious legacy of the Enlightenment. -/- ● TABLE OF CONTENTS -/- ● I Anglo-Saxon philosophy: naturalism 1. Dewey beyond evolutionism and utilitarianism 2. Dewey and anti-essentialist moral epistemology 3. Dewey and naturalist moral ontology 4. Dewey and normative ethics of conduct and function 5. Perry and semantic naturalism -/- ● II Anglo-Saxon philosophy: ideal utilitarianism and neo-intuitionism 1. Moore's critique of utilitarian empiricism 2. Moore on the naturalistic fallacy 3. Moore on the nature of intrinsic value 4. Moore on ideal utilitarianism 5. Prichard on the priority of the right over the good 6. Ross's coherentist moral epistemology 7. Ross's moral ontology: realism, pluralism, and non-naturalism 8. Ross's normative ethics of prima facie duties -/- The chapter reconstructs the background of ideas, concerns and intentions out of which Moore's early essays, the preliminary version, and then the final version of Principia Ethica originated. It stresses the role of religious concerns, as well as that of the Idealist legacy. It argues that PE is more a patchwork of somewhat diverging contributions than a unitary work, not to say the paradigm of a new school in Ethics. -/- ●III Anglo-Saxon philosophy: non-cognitivism 1. The Scandinavian School, the Vienna circle and proto-emotivism 2. Wittgenstein and the ineffability of ethics 3. Russell's and Ayer's radical emotivism 4. Stevenson and moderate emotivism 5. Stevenson and the pragmatics of moral language 6. Stevenson and the methods for solving ethical disagreement 7. Hare and prescriptivism The chapter reconstructs first the discussion after Moore. The naturalistic-fallacy argument was widely accepted but twisted to prove instead that the intuitive character of the definition of 'good', its non-cognitive meaning, in a first phase identified with 'emotive' meaning. Alfred Julius Ayer is indicated as a typical proponent of such non-cognitivist meta-ethics. More detailed discussion is dedicated to Bertrand Russell's ethics, a more nuanced and sophisticated doctrine, arguing that non-cognitivism does not condemn morality to arbitrariness and that the project of rational normative ethics is still possible, heading finally to the justification of a kind of non-hedonist utilitarianism. Stevenson's theory, another moderate version of emotivism is discussed at some length, showing how the author comes close to the discovery of the role of a pragmatic dimension of language as a basis for ethical argument. A section reconstructs the discussion from the Forties about Hume's law, mentioning Karl Popper's argument and Richard Hare's early non-cognitivist but non-emotivist doctrine named prescriptivism. -/- ●IV Anglo-Saxon philosophy: critics of non-cognitivism 1. Neo-naturalism and its objections to the naturalistic fallacy argument 2. Objections to Hume's law 3. Clarence Lewis and the pragmatic contradiction 4. Toulmin and the good reasons approach 5. Baier and moral reasons 5. Baier, social moralities and the absolute morality 6. Baier and the moral point of view 7. Baier and the contents of absolute ethics -/- ● V Continental philosophy: the philosophy of values 1. Max Weber and the polytheism of values 2. Phenomenology against psychologism and rationalism 3. Reinach and the theory of social acts 4. Scheler and the material ethics of values 5. Hartmann and the ontology of values 6. Plessner, Gehlen and the Philosophische Anthropologie -/- The chapter illustrates first the idea of phenomenology and the Husserl's project of a phenomenological ethic as illustrated in his 1908-1914 lectures. The key idea is dismissing psychology and trying to ground a new science of the apriori of action, within which a more restricted field of inquiry will be the science of right actions. Then the chapter illustrates the criticism of modern moral philosophy conducted in the 1920 lectures, where the main target is naturalism, understood in the Kantian meaning of primacy of common sense. The third point illustrate is Adolph Reinach's theory of social acts as a key the grounding of norms, a view that sketches the ideas 'discovered' later by Clarence I. Lewis, John Searle, Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas. A final section discusses Nicolai Hartman, who always refused to define himself a phenomenologist and yet developed a more articulated and detailed theory of 'values' – with surprising affinities with George E. Moore - than philosophers such as Max Scheler, who claimed to be Husserl's legitimate heirs. -/- ● VI Continental philosophy: the critics of the philosophy of values 1. Freud, the Superego and Civilization 2. Heidegger on original ethos against ethics 3. Sartre and de Beauvoir on authenticity and ambiguity 4. Adorno and Horkheimer on emancipation and immoralism -/- ●VII Post-liberal theologians and religious thinkers 1. Barth on the autonomy of faith from ethics 2. Developments of Reformed moral theology after Barth 3. Bonhoeffer on the concrete divine command and ethics of penultimate realities 4. Developments of Reformed and Catholic moral theology after world war II 5. Baeck and the transformation of liberal Judaism 6. Rosenzweig against liberal Judaism 7. Buber and religion as the vital lymph of morality 8. Heschel and Judaism as a science of actions -/- The chapter examines the main protagonists of Christian theology and Jewish religious thinking in the twentieth century. It stresses how the main dilemmas of contemporary philosophical ethics lie at the root of the various path of inquiry taken by these thinkers. -/- ● VIII Normative ethics: neo-Utilitarianism 1. The discussion on act and rule utilitarianism 2. Hare on two-tiered preference utilitarianism 3. Harsanyi, Gauthier and rational choice ethics 4. Parfit, utilitarianism and the idea of a person 5. Brandt and indirect conscience utilitarianism -/- The chapter addresses the issue of the complex process of self-transformation Utilitarianism underwent after Sidgwick's and Moore's fatal criticism and the unexpected Phoenix-like process of rebirth of a doctrine refuted. Two examples give the reader a glimpse at this uproarious process. The first is Roy Harrod Wittgensteinian transformation of utilitarianism in pure normative ethics depurated from hedonism as well as from whatsoever theory of the good. This transformation results in preference utilitarianism combined with a 'Kantian' version of rule utilitarianism. The second is Richard Hare's two-level preference utilitarianism, where act utilitarianism plays the function of the eventual rational justification of moral judgments and rule-utilitarianism that of an action-guiding practical device. -/- ● IX Normative ethics: neo-Aristotelianism and virtue ethics 1. Hannah Arendt, action and judgement 2. Hans-Georg Gadamer and phronesis 3. Alasdair MacIntyre on practices, virtues, and traditions 5. Stuart Hampshire on deliberation 6. Bernard Williams and moral complexity 7. Feminist ethics -/- Sect 1 reconstructs the post-war rediscovery of ethics by many German thinkers and its culmination in the Sixties in the movement named 'Rehabilitation of practical philosophy' is described. Heidegger's most brilliant disciples were the promoters of this Rehabilitation. Hans-Georg Gadamer is a paradigmatic example. His reading of Aristotle's lesson I reconstructed, starting with Heidegger's lesson but then subtly subverting its outcome thanks to the recovery of the significant role of the notion of phronesis. Sect 3 discusses the three theses defended by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. It argues that: a) her answer to the question "why should I be moral?" requires a solution of the problem of theodicy, and ignores any attempts to save the moral point of view without recourse to divine retribution; b) her notion of divine law is an odd one more neo-Augustinian than Biblical or Scholastic; c) her image of Kantian ethics and intuitionism is the impoverished image manufactured by consequentialist opponents for polemical purposes and that she seems strangely accept it; d) the difficulty of identifying the "relevant descriptions" of acts is not an argument in favour of an ethics of virtue and against consequentialism or Kantian ethics, and indeed the role of judgment in the latter is a response to the difficulties raised by the case of judgment concerning future action. The chapter gives a short look at further developments in the neo-naturalist current trough a reconstruction of Philippa Foot's and Peter Geach's critiques to the naturalist-fallacy argument and Alasdair MacIntyre's grand reconstruction of the origins and allegedly inevitable failure of the Enlightenment project of an autonomous ethic. -/- ● X Normative ethics: Kantian and rights-based ethics 1. Dialogical constructivism 2. Apel, Habermas and discourse ethics 3. Gewirth and rights-based ethics 4. Nagel on agent-relative reasons 5. Donagan and persons as ends in themselves Parallel to the neo-Aristotelian trend, there was in the Rehabilitation of practical philosophy a Kantian current. This current started with the discovery of the pragmatic dimension of language carried out by Charles Peirce and the Oxford linguistic philosophy. On this basis, Karl-Otto Apel singled out as the decisive proponent of the linguistic and Kantian turn in German-speaking ethics, worked out the performative-contradiction argument while claiming that this was able to provide a new rational and universal basis for normative ethics. The chapter offers an examination of his argument in some detail, followed by a more cursory reconstruction of Jürgen Habermas's elaboration on Apel's theory. -/- ● XI The applied ethics renaissance 1. Elisabeth Anscombe on the atom bomb 2. From medical ethics to bioethics 3. Rawls and public ethics 3. Nozick, Dworkin and further developments of public ethics 5. Sen and the revival of economic ethics -/- The chapter presents the revolution of applied ethics while stressing its methodological novelty, exemplified primarily by Beauchamp and Childress principles approach and then by Jonsen and Toulmin's new casuistry. The chapter argues that Rawls's distinction between a "political" and a "metaphysical" approach to the theory of justice, one central part of ethical theory, is a formulation of the same basic idea at the root of both the principles approach and the new casuistry, both discussed in the following chapter. The idea is that it is possible to reach an agreement concerning positive moral judgments even though the discussion is still open – and in Rawls' view never will be close – on the essential criteria for judgment. -/- ● XII Fin-de-siècle metaethics 1. Deontic logics 2. Anti-realism 3. External realism 4. Internal realism 5. Kantian constructivism -/- The chapter illustrates the fresh start of meta-ethical discussion in the Eighties and Nineties and the resulting new alignments: metaphysical naturalism, internal realism, anti-realism, and constructivism. (shrink)

Several theists, including Linda Zagzebski, have claimed that theism is somehow committed to nonvacuism about counterpossibles. Even though Zagzebski herself has rejected vacuism, she has offered an argument in favour of it, which Edward Wierenga has defended as providing strong support for vacuism that is independent of the orthodox semantics for counterfactuals, mainly developed by David Lewis and Robert Stalnaker. In this paper I show that argument to be sound only relative to the orthodox semantics, which entails vacuism, (...) and give an example of a semantics for counterfactuals countenancing impossible worlds for which it fails. (shrink)

David Lewis has argued that “having an experience is the best way or perhaps the only way, of coming to know what that experience is like”; when an experience is of a sufficiently new sort, mere science lessons are not enough. Developing this Lewisian line, L.A. Paul has suggested that some experiences are epistemically transformative. Until an individual has such an experience it remains epistemically inaccessible to her. No amount of stories and theories and testimony from others can teach (...) her what it is like to have it, nor is she able to achieve this knowledge by way of imaginative projection. It’s this last claim that is the focus of this paper. In particular, I explore the case for the claim that some experiences are in principle imaginatively inaccessible to someone who has not undergone the experience itself or one relevantly similar. As I will suggest, this case is not as strong as is often thought. Close attention to the mechanisms of imagination, and in particular, to cases of skilled imaginers, suggests how techniques of imaginative scaffolding can sometimes be used to give us epistemic access to experiences we have not had, even ones that are radically different from any that we have had before. As a result, considerably fewer experiences remain imaginatively out of reach than proponents of transformative experience would have us believe. Experience may well be the best teacher, but this paper aims to show that imagination comes in a close second. (shrink)

If artworks and their aesthetic properties stand in constitutive relationships to historical context and circumstances, so that some understanding of relevant facts is involved in responding to a work, what becomes of the intuitive view that we see artworks and at least some of their aesthetic properties? This question is raised by arguments in both aesthetics and art history for the historical nature of works of art. The paper argues that the answer needs to take philosophy of perception into account. (...) The principal development that has shaped philosophy of perception in the last thirty years—explaining perceptual experience in terms of contents that represent that such-and-such is the case—is directly relevant to key arguments for the historical nature of art because contents can represent complex kinds and properties. Conceptual realism is especially well-suited for explaining perception of artworks and aesthetic properties because it emphasizes that forms of understanding—in the sense of capacities, abilities and techniques—are involved in perceptual engagement with individual objects and instances of properties. To make this case, the paper examines influential arguments for the historical nature of art and aesthetic properties by Arthur C. Danto and Kendall L. Walton; and examines art-historical discussions by Michael Baxandall, Linda Nochlin and T. J. Clark. The paper argues that the aesthetic properties of an artwork depend on human intentional uses of properties, colours and contours among them, and such uses may themselves be aesthetic. The Wittgensteinian notion of use is contextual and historical, and uses are perceptible. (shrink)

l. There is an antinomy in Hare's thought between Ought-Implies-Can and No-Indicatives-from-Imperatives. It cannot be resolved by drawing a distinction between implication and entailment. 2. Luther resolved this antinomy in the l6th century, but to understand his solution, we need to understand his problem. He thought the necessity of Divine foreknowledge removed contingency from human acts, thus making it impossible for sinners to do otherwise than sin. 3. Erasmus objected (on behalf of Free Will) that this violates Ought-Implies-Can which he (...) supported with Hare-style ordinary language arguments. 4. Luther a) pointed out the antinomy and b) resolved it by undermining the prescriptivist arguments for Ought-Implies-Can. 5. We can reinforce Luther's argument with an example due to David Lewis. 6. Whatever its merits as a moral principle, Ought-Implies-Can is not a logical truth and should not be included in deontic logics. Most deontic logics, and maybe the discipline itself, should therefore be abandoned. 7. Could it be that Ought-Conversationally-Implies-Can? Yes - in some contexts. But a) even if these contexts are central to the evolution of Ought, the implication is not built into the semantics of the word; b) nor is the parallel implication built into the semantics of orders; and c) in some cases Ought conversationally implies Can, only because Ought-Implies-Can is a background moral belief. d) Points a) and b) suggest a criticism of prescriptivism - that Oughts do not entail imperatives but that the relation is one of conversational implicature. 8. If Ought-Implies-Can is treated as a moral principle, Erasmus' argument for Free Will can be revived (given his Christian assumptions). But it does not 'prove' Pelagianism as Luther supposed. A semi-Pelagian alternative is available. (shrink)

J. David Lewis and Richard L. Smith provide a history of pragmatism and Chicago sociology based on the positions of realism and nominalism. This issue is indeed the key to understanding pragmatism’s foundations in Charles Peirce’s original formulation. Lewis and Smith claim that there are two pragmatisms, a realistic one characterized by Peirce and Mead and a nominalistic one (which Lewis and Smith claim has no value) illustrated by James and Dewey. They argue that Chicago sociology, including (...) Herbert Blumer, was under the influence of the nominalistic pragmatism, and that Mead exercised little influence during his lifetime. The argument is based on an ahistorical, a priori "metatheoretical" realism-nominalism distinction that claims to be based on Peirce's discussions of realism and nominalism. Yet the authors support their understanding of realism by appealing to Mead’s discussion of “contact experience,” and claim that Peirce’s realism must be based in non-symbolic “pure resistance.” Ironically, such a view represents the main tenet of nominalism, that only individual particulars are real, and amounts to a denial of Peirce’s category of Thirdness as reducible to the “pure resistance” of Secondness. Lewis and Smith attempt to correct the subjectivist tendencies of symbolic interactionism yet would problematically replace them with an equally subjective view of what constitutes objectivity: individual reaction with an object. American Sociology and Pragmatism tends to present a monistic universe hinging on a nominalistic interpretation of realism, a single-visioned view that places more emphasis on labels than on the substance and pragmatic import of a theorist's thoughts, resulting in serious distortions pro and con. Yet it also has opened up for serious questioning the whole foundations of symbolic interactionism and Mead's place within pragmatism and Chicago sociology. Though the authors claim to be "revisionists," it seems to me that they are also "fundamentalists" in safely preserving Mead at the center of a history they claim he did not significantly influence. In my opinion the ongoing controversy will result in a broader understanding of the antecedents of contemporary symbolic interactionism, one that will call for Mead's now dominating role as the sole representative of pragmatism for many American sociologists to be reevaluated and placed within the context of the quite substantial contributions of Peirce, James, and Dewey. (shrink)

This article aims to provide a response to the problem of suffering through an explication of a new theodicy termed the Exemplarist Theodicy. This specific theodicy will be formulated in light of the moral theory provided by Linda Zagzebski, termed the Exemplarist Moral Theory, the notion of transformative experience, as explicated by L.A. Paul, Havi Carel and Ian James Kidd, and the virtue-theoretic approach to suffering proposed by Michael Brady, which, in combination with some further precisifying philosophical concepts—namely, compensation, (...) total empathy, and infinitely valuable connections—will provide us with a possible, morally sufficient reason for why God allows individuals to experience suffering. (shrink)

L. Gazziero, « Machiavelli », in M. Lewis and D. Rose (ed.), The Bloomsbury Italian Philosophy Reader, London, Bloomsbury, 2022, p. 51-58 Confusion verging on chaos aptly describes Italian politics between any two points in time. That being said, the amount of outright violence, political backstabbing and social upheaval Machiavelli had to put up with - as a successful bureaucrat and diplomat first (1498-1512), and later as a disgraced citizen (1512-27) is, with few if any exceptions, virtually unmatched in (...) the history of Italian philosophy. At any rate, it is conspicuous enough to put him in a league of his own (among political thinkers). All the more so since, in Machiavelli's own words, his claim to originality rested on a return to the things themselves and the 'real truth' they convey through experience, as opposed to the traditional proclivity towards speculation regarding 'imaginary things', most notably by portraying fanciful characters and devising political regimes that can only exist on paper. Indeed, philosophers had long been lecturing- either in flawless syllogistic fashion or in vivid rhetorical style - both rulers and subjects on how they should behave and interact. However, they had taken little notice of how they actually go about their business. Alternatively, what does unbiased, direct observation of the present and extensive, informed reading of the past teach us about the ways of the world? (shrink)

L. Gazziero, « Dante », in M. Lewis and D. Rose (ed.), The Bloomsbury Italian Philosophy Reader, London, Bloomsbury, 2022, p. 29-42: Even if Dante's work involves a fair amount of autobiographical material and occasionally fashions itself as a record of personal experiences, his writings reveal surprisingly few facts about his life. With one exception though, etc.

Identifying the necessary and sufficient conditions for individuating and classifying diseases is a matter of great importance in the fields of law, ethics, epidemiology, and of course, medicine. In this paper, I first propose a means of achieving this goal, ensuring that no two distinct disease-types could correctly be ascribed to the same disease-token. I then posit a metaphysical ontology of diseases—that is, I give an account of what a disease is. This is essential to providing the most effective means (...) of interfering with disease processes. Following existing work in the philosophy of medicine and epidemiology (primarily Christopher Boorse; Caroline Whitbeck; Alexander Broadbent), philosophy of biology (Joseph LaPorte; D.L. Hull), conditional analyses of causation (J.L. Mackie; David Lewis), and recent literature on dispositional essentialism (Stephen Mumford and Rani Anjum; Alexander Bird), I endorse a dispositional conception of disease. Following discussion of various conceptions of disease-identity, their relations to the clinical and pathological effects of the diseases in question, and how diseases are treated, I conclude (i) that diseases should be individuated by their causes, and (ii) that diseases are causal processes best seen as simultaneously acting sequences of mutually manifesting dispositions. (shrink)

À propos de la possibilité de voyager dans le temps sur la base de plusieurs ouvrages spécialisés, notamment ceux de Nicholas J. J. Smith (« Time Travel »), William Grey (« Troubles with Time Travel »), Ulrich Meyer (« Explaining causal loops »), Simon Keller and Michael Nelson (« Presentists should believe in time-travel »), Frank Arntzenius and Tim Maudlin (« Time Travel and Modern Physics »), et David Lewis (« The Paradoxes of Time Travel »). L'article commence par (...) une Introduction dans laquelle je fais une brève présentation du voyage dans le temps et poursuit par une Histoire du concept de voyage dans le temps, les principaux aspects physiques du voyage dans le temps, y compris les voyages dans le temps dans le passé dans la relativité générale et la physique quantique , et les voyages dans le temps dans le futur, puis une présentation du Paradoxe du grand-père abordé dans presque toutes les œuvres spécialisées, suivie d’une section consacrée à la Philosophie du voyage dans le temps et d’une section dans laquelle j’analyse les Boucles causales pour le voyage dans le temps. Je termine mon travail avec Conclusions, dans laquelle je maintiens mes opinions personnelles sur le voyage dans le temps et la Bibliographie sur laquelle repose le travail. -/- TABLE: -/- Abstract Introducere Istoria conceptului de călătorie în timp Paradoxul bunicului Filosofía călătoriei în timp Buclele cauzale Concluzii Note Bibliografie -/- DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.27116.51841. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Drawing inspiration from Fred Dretske, L. S. Carrier, John A. Barker, and Robert Nozick, we develop a tracking analysis of knowing according to which a true belief constitutes knowledge if and only if it is based on reasons that are sensitive to the fact that makes it true, that is, reasons that wouldn’t obtain if the belief weren’t true. We show that our sensitivity analysis handles numerous Gettier-type cases and lottery problems, blocks pathways leading to skepticism, and validates the (...) epistemic closure thesis that correct inferences from known premises yield knowledge of the conclusions. We discuss the plausible views of Ted Warfield and Branden Fitelson regarding cases of knowledge acquired via inference from false premises, and we show how our sensitivity analysis can account for such cases. We present arguments designed to discredit putative counterexamples to sensitivity analyses recently proffered by Tristan Haze, John Williams and Neil Sinhababu, which involve true statements made by untrustworthy informants and strange clocks that sometimes display the correct time while running backwards. Finally, we show that in virtue of employing the paradox-free subjunctive conditionals codified by Relevance Logic theorists instead of the paradox-laden subjunctive conditionals codified by Robert Stalnaker and David Lewis. (shrink)

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. BIBLIOGRAPHY Beckermann, A., Flohr, H., & Kim, J. (eds.) (1992). Emergence or reduction? Essays on the prospects of nonreductive physicalism. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Bhaskar, R. (1979). The possibility of Naturalism. New York: Routledge. Bhaskar, R., Danermark, B. & Price, L. (2018). Interdisciplinarity and wellbeing: A critical realist general theory of interdisciplinarity. London and New York: Routledge. Blau, P.M. (1981). Introduction: diverse views of social structure and their common denominator. In Blau, P.M. & Merton, R.K. (eds.), Continuity in Structural Inquiry (pp. 1–23). Beverly Hills: Sage. Blau, P.M. (1987). Microprocess and macrostructure. In K.S. Cook (ed.), Social Exchange Theory (pp. 83–100). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Brooks, R.A., & Maes, P. (eds). (1994). Artificial life IV; proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Clark, A. (1997). Being there: Putting brain, body, and world together again. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Coleman, J. S. (1987). Microfoundations and macrosocial behavior. In: J. C. Alexander, B. Giesen, R. Munch, & Neil J. Smelser (Eds.). The Micro-Macro Link (pp. 153–73). Berkeley: University of California. Coleman, J. S. (1990). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Elster, J. (1985). Making sense of Marx. New York: Cambridge University Press. Fodor, J.A. (1974). Special sciences (Or: The disunity of science as a working hypothesis). Synthese, 28(2), 97–115. Fodor, J.A. (1989). Making mind matter more. Philosophical Topics, 17, 59-79. Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hempel, C.G. (1965). Aspects of scientific explanation and other essays in the philosophy of science. New York: The Free Press. Horgan, T. (1993). From supervenience to superdupervenience: meeting the demands of a material world. Mind, 102, 555-586. Humphreys, P. (1997). How properties emerge”. Philosophy of Science, 64, 1-17. Kim, J. (1999). Making sense of emergence. Philosophical Studies, 95, 3–36. Kincaid, H. (1997). Individualism and the unity of science. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Lewis, D.K. (1986). The plurality of worlds. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nigel, G., & Conte, R. (eds.) (1995). Artificial societies; The computer simulation of social life. London: UCL Press. O’Connor, T. (1994). Emergent properties. American Philosophical Quarterly, 31, 91-104. Popper, K.R. (1968). Conjectures and refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. New York: Harper & Row. Sawyer, R. K. (2001). Emergence in sociology: contemporary philosophy of mind and some implications for sociological theory. American Journal of Sociology, 107, 551-585. Sawyer, R. K. (2004). The mechanisms of emergence. 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)

I argue that there are at least two concepts of law of nature worthy of philosophical interest: strong law and weak law. Strong laws are the laws investigated by fundamental physics, while weak laws feature prominently in the “special sciences” and in a variety of non-scientific contexts. In the first section, I clarify my methodology, which has to do with arguing about concepts. In the next section, I offer a detailed description of strong laws, which I claim satisfy four criteria: (...) (1) If it is a strong law that L then it also true that L; (2) strong laws would continue to be true, were the world to be different in some physically possible way; (3) strong laws do not depend on context or human interest; (4) strong laws feature in scientific explanations but cannot be scientifically explained. I then spell out some philosophical consequences: (1) is incompatible with Cartwright’s contention that “laws lie” (2) with Lewis’s “best-system” account of laws, and (3) with contextualism about laws. In the final section, I argue that weak laws are distinguished by (approximately) meeting some but not all of these criteria. I provide a preliminary account of the scientific value of weak laws, and argue that they cannot plausibly be understood as ceteris paribus laws. (shrink)

In this article, on the basis of analysis of the classical definition of a miracle (from D.Hume to C.S.Lewis and R. Swinburne) and the nonclassical one (J.L. Marion and J.P.Manussakis), the phenomenological and the etymological aspects of a miracle are examined.Taking into consideration the historical development of the concept of a miracle, the author proves the connections between contemplation, miracle and novelty. They are necessary for the constituting of religious experience. Faith itself, in theological sense, is not determinative for (...) religious experience.It has sense only when it is integrated into contemplation. True religious experience is based on the art of contemplation which helps a human being to look with astonishment. The author argues that phenomenological approach to a miracle combined with the etymological analysis is a valuable method for the study of a miracle in the context of the history of philosophy. (shrink)

La logica modale è nata per studiare i ragionamenti su ciò che è possibile e ciò che è necessario. Negli ultimi decenni, a partire dal lavoro di logici e filosofi quali Rudolf Carnap, Saul Kripke e David Lewis, la sua applicazione è stata progressivamente estesa ad altri ambiti, quali il ragionamento sul tempo, sulla conoscenza e sui sistemi di norme. Queste ricerche hanno condotto a un complesso e intrigante dialogo con alcune fondamentali branche della filosofia: la metafisica, l’epistemologia, la (...) filosofia del linguaggio. Lo scopo del volume è offrire una panoramica di questo dialogo al contempo accessibile e rigorosa, pensata sia per gli studenti di un corso universitario, sia per il lettore non specialista. Se da un lato tutte le necessarie nozioni tecniche sono rese accessibili ai non addetti ai lavori, dall'altro si restituisce un'immagine fedele delle sfide concettuali che la ricerca in questi settori è oggi chiamata ad affrontare. (shrink)

Questo articolo divulgativo è stato pubblicato il 24 marzo 2021 sulla rivista l'Indiscreto. Le waifu sono personaggi di opere di finzione, per lo più anime, verso i quali molti giovani maschi provano una forta attrazione, fino all'ossessione. Perché delle opere di fantasia suscitano tali sentimenti, che sembrano presupporre il trattare gli eventi osservati come se fosser reali? Questo è il paradosso della fiction. In un certo senso, la teoria della controparte di D. K. Lewis potrebbe essere utilizzato per affermare (...) che, in effetti, i personaggi delle opere di finzione sono reali. Alla fine, però, rifiuto tale interpretazione, sostenendo, invece, che i personaggi di finzione sono versioni alternative di persone reali, e che i sentimenti che si provano sono rivolti a tali persone reali, o comunque a chi può aver realmente vissuto eventi analoghi. (shrink)

Lo scopo dell’elaborato è presentare il problema della causalità del mentale e cercare di dare una soluzione fisicalista al problema che possa includere anche i qualia, da sempre considerati come l’ultima difesa a favore dell’irriducibilità della mente al fisico. Il primo capitolo ha il compito di trovare la teoria metafisica del mentale migliore che riesca sia a rendere conto della causalità del mentale e sia a resistere all’argomento di Kim. Dopo aver esposto in dettaglio l’argomento di Kim sono affrontati i (...) limiti della teoria dell’identità di tipo, in particolare viene esposta la critica di Hilary Putnam conosciuta come “realizzabilità multipla”. Come alternativa all’identità di tipo sono state analizzate le due principali varianti del funzionalismo, ovvero quello del ruolo e quello dell’occupante, e infine quest’ultimo è risultato avere maggiori vantaggi teorici. Sono stati esposti i problemi del funzionalismo e in particolare il problema dell’incapacità del linguaggio funzionalista di rendere conto dei qualia. A tal proposito è stato esposto l’argomento del “cervello-cinese” di Ned Block e ne sono stati individuati i limiti mostrando che la conclusione dell’argomento non può essere data per scontata. Per quest’ultimo motivo è stato elaborato un esperimento mentale volto a mostrare l’incapacità del linguaggio fisicalista nel descrivere qualia, e ne sono stati mostrati i vantaggi teorici rispetto all’esperimento mentale di Block; anche se un cervello-cinese presentasse qualia, un linguaggio funzionalista non potrebbe descriverli. Nel secondo capitolo è esposto il problema del “gap esplicativo” elaborato da Levine, utilizzato spesso a supporto di posizioni non riduzioniste. È stato esposto e analizzato l’esperimento mentale degli “zombie filosofici” di David Chalmers volto a dimostrare che i qualia non sono riducibili a qualcosa di fisico. È stato poi elaborato un altro esperimento mentale volto a mostrare che almeno intuitivamente, i qualia sembrano essere necessari per il darsi di alcuni comportamenti umani e che se l’esperimento mentale degli zombie prevede l’assenza di qualia allora la fisica di quel mondo dovrebbe essere in grado di predeterminare tutti i comportamenti degli zombie. Si è mostrato che così facendo si ammetterebbe la concepibilità di un mondo-zombie fisicamente predeterminato, e dunque anche la possibilità metafisica. È stata analizzata questa intuizione attraverso un’analisi controfattuale incentrata sulla somiglianza tra mondi possibili secondo la teoria dei controfattuali di Lewis, mostrando che un controfattuale del tipo “se non ci fossero qualia, allora alcuni comportamenti non potrebbero darsi” risulta vero. Infine viene proposto un argomento che dovrebbe mostrare, che se effettivamente i qualia sono necessari per alcuni tipi di comportamenti, allora l’esperimento mentale degli zombie non può funzionare. Se la fisica del mondo zombie deve permettere il realizzarsi di azioni che nel mondo attuale avverrebbero solo per la presenza di qualia, allora un mondo-zombie è possibile solo se si includono nella fisica di quel mondo anche i qualia. Questo mostra che seppure i qualia non possono essere descritti da un linguaggio fisicalista possono essere compresi in una metafisica fisicalista. (shrink)

Second part of the translation into Spanish of David Lewis' "New Work for a Theory of Universals", corresponding to the last sections of the original paper. || Segunda parte de la traducción al español del trabajo de David Lewis "New Work for a Theory of Universals", correspondiente a últimas secciones del artículo original. Artículo original publicado en: Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 61, No. 4, Dec. 1983, pp. 343-377.

Recent years have seen fresh impetus brought to debates about the proper role of statistical evidence in the law. Recent work largely centres on a set of puzzles known as the ‘proof paradox’. While these puzzles may initially seem academic, they have important ramifications for the law: raising key conceptual questions about legal proof, and practical questions about DNA evidence. This article introduces the proof paradox, why we should care about it, and new work attempting to resolve it.

Recent work takes both philosophical and scientific progress to consist in acquiring factive epistemic states such as knowledge. However, much of this work leaves unclear what entity is the subject of these epistemic states. Furthermore, by focusing only on states like knowledge, we overlook progress in intermediate cases between ignorance and knowledge—for example, many now celebrated theories were initially so controversial that they were not known. -/- This paper develops an improved framework for thinking about intellectual progress. Firstly, I argue (...) that we should think of progress relative to the epistemic position of an intellectual community rather than individual inquirers. Secondly, I show how focusing on the extended process of inquiry (rather than the mere presence or absence of states like knowledge) provides a better evaluation of different types of progress. This includes progress through formulating worthwhile questions, acquiring new evidence, and increasing credence on the right answers to these questions. I close by considering the ramifications for philosophical progress, suggesting that my account supports rejecting the most negative views while allowing us to articulate different varieties of optimism and pessimism. (shrink)

What is it to be mentally healthy? In the ongoing movement to promote mental health, to reduce stigma, and to establish parity between mental and physical health, there is a clear enthusiasm about this concept and a recognition of its value in human life. However, it is often unclear what mental health means in all these efforts and whether there is a single concept underlying them. Sometimes, the initiatives for the sake of mental health are aimed just at reducing mental (...) illness, thus implicitly identifying mental health with the absence of diagnosable psychiatric disease. More ambitiously, there are high-profile proposals to adopt a positive definition, identifying mental health with psychic or even overall well-being. We argue against both: a definition of mental health as mere absence of mental illness is too thin, too undemanding, and too closely linked to psychiatric value judgments, while the definition in terms of well-being is too demanding and potentially oppressive. As a compromise, we sketch out a middle position. On this view, mental health is a primary good, that is, the psychological preconditions of pursuing any conception of the good life, including well-being, without being identical to well-being. (shrink)

Recently, the practice of deciding legal cases on purely statistical evidence has been widely criticised. Many feel uncomfortable with finding someone guilty on the basis of bare probabilities, even though the chance of error might be stupendously small. This is an important issue: with the rise of DNA profiling, courts are increasingly faced with purely statistical evidence. A prominent line of argument—endorsed by Blome-Tillmann 2017; Smith 2018; and Littlejohn 2018—rejects the use of such evidence by appealing to epistemic norms that (...) apply to individual inquirers. My aim in this paper is to rehabilitate purely statistical evidence by arguing that, given the broader aims of legal systems, there are scenarios in which relying on such evidence is appropriate. Along the way I explain why popular arguments appealing to individual epistemic norms to reject legal reliance on bare statistics are unconvincing, by showing that courts and individuals face different epistemic predicaments (in short, individuals can hedge when confronted with statistical evidence, whilst legal tribunals cannot). I also correct some misconceptions about legal practice that have found their way into the recent literature. (shrink)

I argue that traditional views on which beliefs are subject only to purely epistemic assessment can reject demographic profiling, even when based on seemingly robust evidence. This is because the moral failures involved in demographic profiling can be located in the decision not to suspend judgment, rather than supposing that beliefs themselves are a locus of moral evaluation. A key moral reason to suspend judgment when faced with adverse demographic evidence is to promote social equality—this explains why positive profiling is (...) dubious, along with more familiar cases of negative profiling, and why profiling is suspect even when no particular action is at stake. My suspension-based view, while compatible with revisionary normative positions, does not presuppose them. Philosophers of all stripes can reject demographic profiling both in thought and deed. (shrink)

Should we use the same standard of proof to adjudicate guilt for murder and petty theft? Why not tailor the standard of proof to the crime? These relatively neglected questions cut to the heart of central issues in the philosophy of law. This paper scrutinises whether we ought to use the same standard for all criminal cases, in contrast with a flexible approach that uses different standards for different crimes. I reject consequentialist arguments for a radically flexible standard of proof, (...) instead defending a modestly flexible approach on non-consequentialist grounds. The system I defend is one on which we should impose a higher standard of proof for crimes that attract more severe punishments. This proposal, although apparently revisionary, accords with a plausible theory concerning the epistemology of legal judgments and the role they play in society. (shrink)

Jury science is fraught with difficulty. Since legal and institutional hurdles render it all but impossible to study live criminal jury deliberation, researchers make use of various indirect methods to evaluate jury performance. But each of these methods are open to methodological criticism and, strikingly, some of the highest-profile jury research programmes in recent years have reached opposing conclusions. Uncertainty about jury performance is an obstacle for legal reform—ongoing debates about the ‘justice gap’ for complainants of sexual offences has rendered (...) these problems stark. This paper proposes a way to advance the debate. (shrink)