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Results for 'Marcel C. LaFollette'
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- The Central Dogma as a Thesis of Causal Specificity.Marcel Weber - 2006 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 28 (4):595-610.I present a reconstruction of F.H.C. Crick's two 1957 hypotheses "Sequence Hypothesis" and "Central Dogma" in terms of a contemporary philosophical theory of causation. Analyzing in particular the experimental evidence that Crick cited, I argue that these hypotheses can be understood as claims about the actual difference-making cause in protein synthesis. As these hypotheses are only true if restricted to certain nucleic acids in certain organisms, I then examine the concept of causal specificity and its potential to counter claims about (...)
- Aspectos da reprodução em bovinos.Deivid Marcel Souza da Silva - 2021 - Dissertation, Centro Universitário - AgesRESUMO A bovinocultura sempre esteve atrelada ao desenvolvimento do Brasil e, pensando no avanço, as exigências da máxima eficiência nos sistemas de criação foi pautada na forma de como conseguir realizar a reprodução de bovinos com ênfase na eficiência econômica e reprodutiva. O objetivo deste trabalho é elucidar as principais biotecnologias que auxiliam na maior produtividade reprodutiva de bovinos. Dessa forma, o estudo foi realizado usando artigos do banco de dados do Google acadêmico e SciELO, além de livros do acervo (...)
- Collected Papers (on Neutrosophics, Plithogenics, Hypersoft Set, Hypergraphs, and other topics), Volume X.Florentin Smarandache - 2022 - Miami, FL, USA: Global Knowledge.This tenth volume of Collected Papers includes 86 papers in English and Spanish languages comprising 972 pages, written between 2014-2022 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 105 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 26 countries: Abu Sufian, Ali Hassan, Ali Safaa Sadiq, Anirudha Ghosh, Assia Bakali, Atiqe Ur Rahman, Laura Bogdan, Willem K.M. Brauers, Erick González Caballero, Fausto Cavallaro, Gavrilă Calefariu, T. Chalapathi, Victor Christianto, Mihaela Colhon, Sergiu Boris Cononovici, Mamoni Dhar, Irfan Deli, Rebeca Escobar-Jara, Alexandru Gal, N. (...)
- Un problema abierto de independencia en la teoría de conjuntos relacionado con ultrafiltros no principales sobre el conjunto de los números naturales N, y con Propiedades Ramsey.Franklin Galindo - manuscriptEn el ámbito de la lógica matemática existe un problema sobre la relación lógica entre dos versiones débiles del Axioma de elección (AE) que no se ha podido resolver desde el año 2000 (aproximadamente). Tales versiones están relacionadas con ultrafiltros no principales y con Propiedades Ramsey (Bernstein, Polarizada, Subretículo, Ramsey, Ordinales flotantes, etc). La primera versión débil del AE es la siguiente (A): “Existen ultrafiltros no principales sobre el conjunto de los números naturales (ℕ)”. Y la segunda versión débil del (...)
- Dos Problemas Filosóficos e suas Características.Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva - manuscript-/- DOS PROBLEMAS FILOSÓFICOS E SUAS CARACTERÍSTICAS -/- OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS -/- Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva -/- l. A TENDÊNCIA FILOSÓFICA - A Filosofia surgiu graças à curiosidade humana. Os primeiros filósofos buscavam encontrar as respostas para perguntas perturbadoras sobre a verdade, o ser, a existência autêntica, o absoluto, a transcendência do espírito, a ideia de bem e mal, além de compreender esse mundo binário (o dilema: bem e mal) que tanto inquieta a humanidade desde seus (...)
- Panorama Histórico dos Problemas Filosóficos.Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva - manuscriptAntes de entrar cuidadosamente no estudo de cada filósofo, em suas respectivas ordens cronológicas, é necessário dar um panorama geral sobre eles, permitindo, de relance, a localização deles em tempos históricos e a associação de seus nomes com sua teoria ou tema central. l. OS FILÓSOFOS PRÉ-SOCRÁTICOS - No sétimo século antes de Jesus Cristo, nasce o primeiro filósofo grego: Tales de Mileto2 . Ele e os seguintes filósofos jônicos (Anaximandro: Ἀναξίμανδρος: 3 610-546 a.C.) e Anaxímenes: (Άναξιμένης: 586-524 a.C.) tentaram (...)
- My Conscience May Be My Guide, but You May not Need to Honor It.Hugh Lafollette - 2017 - Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 26 (1):44-58.A number of health care professionals assert a right to be exempt from performing some actions currently designated as part of their standard professional responsibilities. Most advocates claim that they should be excused from these duties simply by averring that they are conscientiously opposed to performing them. They believe that they need not explain or justify their decisions to anyone; nor should they suffer any undesirable consequences of such refusal. Those who claim this right err by blurring or conflating three (...)
- How to design AI for social good: seven essential factors.Luciano Floridi, Josh Cowls, Thomas C. King & Mariarosaria Taddeo - 2020 - Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (3):1771–1796.The idea of artificial intelligence for social good is gaining traction within information societies in general and the AI community in particular. It has the potential to tackle social problems through the development of AI-based solutions. Yet, to date, there is only limited understanding of what makes AI socially good in theory, what counts as AI4SG in practice, and how to reproduce its initial successes in terms of policies. This article addresses this gap by identifying seven ethical factors that are (...)
- Does encouraging a belief in determinism increase cheating? Reconsidering the value of believing in free will.Thomas Nadelhoffer, Jason Shepard, Damien L. Crone, Jim A. C. Everett, Brian D. Earp & Neil Levy - 2020 - Cognition 203 (C):104342.A key source of support for the view that challenging people’s beliefs about free will may undermine moral behavior is two classic studies by Vohs and Schooler (2008). These authors reported that exposure to certain prompts suggesting that free will is an illusion increased cheating behavior. In the present paper, we report several attempts to replicate this influential and widely cited work. Over a series of five studies (sample sizes of N = 162, N = 283, N = 268, N (...)
- The rationale of rationalization.Walter Veit, Joe Dewhurst, Krzysztof Dołęga, Max Jones, Shaun Stanley, Keith Frankish & Daniel C. Dennett - 2019 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 43:e53.While we agree in broad strokes with the characterisation of rationalization as a “useful fiction,” we think that Fiery Cushman's claim remains ambiguous in two crucial respects: the reality of beliefs and desires, that is, the fictional status of folk-psychological entities and the degree to which they should be understood as useful. Our aim is to clarify both points and explicate the rationale of rationalization.
- "Self-Made Person: The Reality and the Myth".Hugh LaFollette - manuscriptTo varying degrees, many of us think we are “self-made.” Some explicitly state—while others imply—that our accomplishments resulted (almost) entirely from our intelligence, ingenuity, and hard work There is qualified truth in this supposition, even although it is commonly overstated. Others think they are pawns in the chess game of life. However, although some have less control than those more privileged, few are devoid of control. This tandem of judgments is akin to our propensity to make asymmetrical judgments about our (...)
- Marcel Chelba - On Kant's Modernity - Streams of philosophy (2nd edition).Marcel Chelba - 2023 - Kantinomus.A show on Radio Romania Cultural, ”Springs of Philosophy” 22 May 2010. Moderator: Constantin Aslam. Guest: Marcel Chelba. The subject of the discussion was the topicality and modernity of Kant, on Marcel Chelba's book: Critical Introduction (On the Possibility of Metaphysics, as Science, in the Perspective of Kantian Critical Philosophy), Crates, 2004. The central idea is that Kant's transcendental aesthetics is the epistemological paradigm of modern science and that modern science has confirmed Kant, not refuted him, as is (...)
- The Structure of Defeat: Pollock's Evidentialism, Lackey's Framework, and Prospects for Reliabilism.Peter J. Graham & Jack C. Lyons - 2021 - In Jessica Brown & Mona Simion (eds.), Reasons, Justification, and Defeat. Oxford Oxford: Oxford University Press.Epistemic defeat is standardly understood in either evidentialist or responsibilist terms. The seminal treatment of defeat is an evidentialist one, due to John Pollock, who famously distinguishes between undercutting and rebutting defeaters. More recently, an orthogonal distinction due to Jennifer Lackey has become widely endorsed, between so-called doxastic (or psychological) and normative defeaters. We think that neither doxastic nor normative defeaters, as Lackey understands them, exist. Both of Lackey’s categories of defeat derive from implausible assumptions about epistemic responsibility. Although Pollock’s (...)
- Temporal binding, causation and agency: Developing a new theoretical framework.Christoph Hoerl, Sara Lorimer, Teresa McCormack, David A. Lagnado, Emma Blakey, Emma C. Tecwyn & Marc J. Buehner - 2020 - Cognitive Science 44 (5):e12843.In temporal binding, the temporal interval between one event and another, occurring some time later, is subjectively compressed. We discuss two ways in which temporal binding has been conceptualized. In studies showing temporal binding between a voluntary action and its causal consequences, such binding is typically interpreted as providing a measure of an implicit or pre-reflective “sense of agency”. However, temporal binding has also been observed in contexts not involving voluntary action, but only the passive observation of a cause-effect sequence. (...)
- Philosophy of Science for Sustainability Science.Michiru Nagatsu, Taylor Thiel Davis, C. Tyler DesRoches, Inkeri Koskinen, Miles MacLeod, Milutin Stojanovic & Henrik Thorén - 2020 - Sustainability Science 1 (N/A):1-11.Sustainability science seeks to extend scientific investigation into domains characterized by a distinct problem-solving agenda, physical and social complexity, and complex moral and ethical landscapes. In this endeavor it arguably pushes scientific investigation beyond its usual comfort zones, raising fundamental issues about how best to structure such investigation. Philosophers of science have long scrutinized the structure of science and scientific practices, and the conditions under which they operate effectively. We propose a critical engagement between sustainability scientists and philosophers of science (...)
- The Greatest Vice?Hugh LaFollette - 2016 - Journal of Practical Ethics 4 (2):1-24.History teems with instances of “man’s inhumanity to man.” Some wrongs are perpetrated by individuals; most ghastly evils were committed by groups or nations. Other horrific evils were established and sustained by legal systems and supported by cultural mores. This demands explanation. I describe and evaluate four common explanations of evil before discussing more mundane and psychologically informed explanations of wrong-doing. Examining these latter forms helps isolate an additional factor which, if acknowledged, empowers us to diagnose, cope with, and prevent (...)
- Messy Chemical Kinds.Joyce C. Havstad - 2018 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 69 (3):719-743.Following Kripke and Putnam, the received view of chemical kinds has been a microstructuralist one. To be a microstructuralist about chemical kinds is to think that membership in said kinds is conferred by microstructural properties. Recently, the received microstructuralist view has been elaborated and defended, but it has also been attacked on the basis of complexities, both chemical and ontological. Here, I look at which complexities really challenge the microstructuralist view; at how the view itself might be made more complicated (...)
- The extensionality of parthood and composition.Achille C. Varzi - 2008 - Philosophical Quarterly 58 (230):108-133.I focus on three mereological principles: the Extensionality of Parthood (EP), the Uniqueness of Composition (UC), and the Extensionality of Composition (EC). These principles are not equivalent. Nonetheless, they are closely related (and often equated) as they all reflect the basic nominalistic dictum, No difference without a difference maker. And each one of them—individually or collectively—has been challenged on philosophical grounds. In the first part I argue that such challenges do not quite threaten EP insofar as they are either self-defeating (...)
- Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights.Carol C. Gould - 2004 - Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.In her 2004 book Carol Gould addresses the fundamental issue of democratizing globalization, that is to say of finding ways to open transnational institutions and communities to democratic participation by those widely affected by their decisions. The book develops a framework for expanding participation in crossborder decisions, arguing for a broader understanding of human rights and introducing a new role for the ideas of care and solidarity at a distance. Reinterpreting the idea of universality to accommodate a multiplicity of cultural (...)
- Mechanisms and Laws: Clarifying the Debate.Marie I. Kaiser & C. F. Craver - 2013 - In Hsiang-Ke Chao, Szu-Ting Chen & Roberta L. Millstein (eds.), Mechanism and Causality in Biology and Economics. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 125-145.Leuridan (2011) questions whether mechanisms can really replace laws at the heart of our thinking about science. In doing so, he enters a long-standing discussion about the relationship between the mech-anistic structures evident in the theories of contemporary biology and the laws of nature privileged especially in traditional empiricist traditions of the philosophy of science (see e.g. Wimsatt 1974; Bechtel and Abrahamsen 2005; Bogen 2005; Darden 2006; Glennan 1996; MDC 2000; Schaffner 1993; Tabery 2003; Weber 2005). In our view, Leuridan (...)
- What is morphological computation? On how the body contributes to cognition and control.Vincent C. Müller & Matej Hoffmann - 2017 - Artificial Life 23 (1):1-24.The contribution of the body to cognition and control in natural and artificial agents is increasingly described as “off-loading computation from the brain to the body”, where the body is said to perform “morphological computation”. Our investigation of four characteristic cases of morphological computation in animals and robots shows that the ‘off-loading’ perspective is misleading. Actually, the contribution of body morphology to cognition and control is rarely computational, in any useful sense of the word. We thus distinguish (1) morphology that (...)
- The Birth of Semantics.Richard Kimberly Heck & Robert C. May - 2020 - Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy 8 (6):1-31.We attempt here to trace the evolution of Frege’s thought about truth. What most frames the way we approach the problem is a recognition that hardly any of Frege’s most familiar claims about truth appear in his earliest work. We argue that Frege’s mature views about truth emerge from a fundamental re-thinking of the nature of logic instigated, in large part, by a sustained engagement with the work of George Boole and his followers, after the publication of Begriffsschrift and the (...)
- Knowing and Not‐knowing For Your Own Good: The Limits of Epistemic Paternalism.Emma C. Bullock - 2016 - Journal of Applied Philosophy:433-447.Epistemic paternalism is the thesis that a paternalistic interference with an individual's inquiry is justified when it is likely to bring about an epistemic improvement in her. In this article I claim that in order to motivate epistemic paternalism we must first account for the value of epistemic improvements. I propose that the epistemic paternalist has two options: either epistemic improvements are valuable because they contribute to wellbeing, or they are epistemically valuable. I will argue that these options constitute the (...)
- On Logical Relativity.Achille C. Varzi - 2002 - Philosophical Issues 12 (1):197-219.One logic or many? I say—many. Or rather, I say there is one logic for each way of specifying the class of all possible circumstances, or models, i.e., all ways of interpreting a given language. But because there is no unique way of doing this, I say there is no unique logic except in a relative sense. Indeed, given any two competing logical theories T1 and T2 (in the same language) one could always consider their common core, T, and settle (...)
- Statistical mechanics and thermodynamics: A Maxwellian view.Wayne C. Myrvold - 2011 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 42 (4):237-243.One finds, in Maxwell's writings on thermodynamics and statistical physics, a conception of the nature of these subjects that differs in interesting ways from the way that they are usually conceived. In particular, though—in agreement with the currently accepted view—Maxwell maintains that the second law of thermodynamics, as originally conceived, cannot be strictly true, the replacement he proposes is different from the version accepted by most physicists today. The modification of the second law accepted by most physicists is a probabilistic (...)
- Desires, Whims and Values.Donald C. Hubin - 2003 - The Journal of Ethics 7 (3):315-335.Neo-Humean instrumentalists hold that anagent's reasons for acting are grounded in theagent's desires. Numerous objections have beenleveled against this view, but the mostcompelling concerns the problem of ``aliendesires'' – desires with which the agent doesnot identify. The standard version ofneo-Humeanism holds that these desires, likeany others, generate reasons for acting. Avariant of neo-Humeanism that grounds anagent's reasons on her values, rather than allof her desires, avoids this implication, but atthe cost of denying that we have reasons to acton innocent whims. (...)
- Deliberation, single-peakedness, and the possibility of meaningful democracy: evidence from deliberative polls.Christian List, Robert C. Luskin, James S. Fishkin & Iain McLean - 2013 - Journal of Politics 75 (1):80–95.Majority cycling and related social choice paradoxes are often thought to threaten the meaningfulness of democracy. But deliberation can prevent majority cycles – not by inducing unanimity, which is unrealistic, but by bringing preferences closer to single-peakedness. We present the first empirical test of this hypothesis, using data from Deliberative Polls. Comparing preferences before and after deliberation, we find increases in proximity to single-peakedness. The increases are greater for lower versus higher salience issues and for individuals who seem to have (...)
- Why We Still Need Knowledge of Language.Barry C. Smith - 2006 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 6 (3):431-456.In his latest book, Michael Devitt rejects Chomsky’s mentalist conception of linguistics. The case against Chomsky is based on two principal claims. First, that we can separate the study of linguistic competence from the study of its outputs: only the latter belongs to linguistic inquiry. Second, Chomsky’s account of a speaker’s competence as consisiting in the mental representation of rules of a grammar for his language is mistaken. I shall argue, first, that Devitt fails to make a case for separating (...)
- A Note on the Transitivity of Parthood.Achille C. Varzi - 2006 - Applied ontology 1 (2):141-146.That parthood is a transitive relation is among the most basic principles of classical mereology. Alas, it is also very controversial. In a recent paper, Ingvar Johansson has put forward a novel diagnosis of the problem, along with a corresponding solution. The diagnosis is on the right track, I argue, but the solution is misleading. And once the pieces are properly put together, we end up with a reinforcement of the standard defense of transitivity on behalf of classical mereology.
- Internalism and Externalism.B. J. C. Madison - 2017 - In Sven Bernecker & Kourken Michaelian (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory. New York: Routledge. pp. 283-295.This chapter first surveys general issues in the epistemic internalism / externalism debate: what is the distinction, what motivates it, and what arguments can be given on both sides. -/- The second part of the chapter will examine the internalism / externalism debate as regards to the specific case of the epistemology of memory belief.
- What we talk about when we talk about epistemic justification.Jack C. Lyons - 2016 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 59 (7-8):867-888.Stewart Cohen argues that much contemporary epistemological theorizing is hampered by the fact that ‘epistemic justification’ is a term of art and one that is never given any serious explication in a non-tendentious, theory-neutral way. He suggests that epistemologists are therefore better off theorizing in terms of rationality, rather than in terms of ‘epistemic justification’. Against this, I argue that even if the term ‘epistemic justification’ is not broadly known, the concept it picks out is quite familiar, and partly because (...)
- Problems for Natural Selection as a Mechanism.Joyce C. Havstad - 2011 - Philosophy of Science 78 (3):512-523.Skipper and Millstein analyze natural selection and mechanism, concluding that natural selection is not a mechanism in the sense of the new mechanistic philosophy. Barros disagrees and provides his own account of natural selection as a mechanism. This discussion identifies a missing piece of Barros's account, attempts to fill in that piece, and reconsiders the revised account. Two principal objections are developed: one, the account does not characterize natural selection; two, the account is not mechanistic. Extensive and persistent variability causes (...)
- Presentism and Ockham's Way Out.Alicia Finch & Michael C. Rea - 2008 - Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion 1:1-17.We lay out the fatalist’s argument, making sure to clarify which dialectical moves are available to the libertarian. We then offer a more robust presentation of Ockhamism, responding to obvious objections and teasing out the implications of the view. At this point, we discuss presentism and eternalism in more detail. We then present our argument for the claim that the libertarian cannot take Ockham’s way out of the fatalism argument unless she rejects presentism. Finally, we consider and dispense with objections (...)
- The Relatively Infinite Value of the Environment.Paul Bartha & C. Tyler DesRoches - 2017 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (2):328-353.Some environmental ethicists and economists argue that attributing infinite value to the environment is a good way to represent an absolute obligation to protect it. Others argue against modelling the value of the environment in this way: the assignment of infinite value leads to immense technical and philosophical difficulties that undermine the environmentalist project. First, there is a problem of discrimination: saving a large region of habitat is better than saving a small region; yet if both outcomes have infinite value, (...)
- Individual and Collective Responsibility.Andrew C. Khoury - 2017 - In Zachary J. Goldberg (ed.), Reflections on Ethics and Responsibility: Essays in Honor of Peter A. French. Cham: Springer. pp. 1-20.Building on Peter French’s important work, this chapter draws three distinctions that arise in the context of attributions of moral responsibility, understood as the extent to which an agent is blameworthy or praiseworthy. First, the subject of an attribution of responsibility may be an individual agent or a collective agent. Second, the object of the responsibility attribution may be an individual action (or consequence) or a collective action (or consequence). The third distinction concerns the temporal dimension of the responsibility attribution. (...)
- Disjunctivism and Perceptual Knowledge in Merleau-Ponty and McDowell.J. C. Berendzen - 2014 - Res Philosophica 91 (3):261-286.On the face of it, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s views bear a strong resemblance to contemporary disjunctivist theories of perception, especially John McDowell’s epistemological disjunctivism. Like McDowell (and other disjunctivists), Merleau-Ponty seems to be a direct realist about perception and holds that veridical and illusory perceptions are distinct. This paper furthers this comparison. Furthermore, it is argued that elements of Merleau-Ponty’s thought provide a stronger case for McDowell’s kind of epistemological view than McDowell himself provides. Merleau-Ponty’s early thought can be used to (...)
- Goldman on Evidence and Reliability.Jack C. Lyons - 2016 - In Hilary Kornblith & Brian McLaughlin (eds.), Goldman and his Critics. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Goldman, though still a reliabilist, has made some recent concessions to evidentialist epistemologies. I agree that reliabilism is most plausible when it incorporates certain evidentialist elements, but I try to minimize the evidentialist component. I argue that fewer beliefs require evidence than Goldman thinks, that Goldman should construe evidential fit in process reliabilist terms, rather than the way he does, and that this process reliabilist understanding of evidence illuminates such important epistemological concepts as propositional justification, ex ante justification, and defeat.
- Neo-Logicism and Russell's Logicism.Kevin C. Klement - 2012 - Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies 32 (2):127-159.Certain advocates of the so-called “neo-logicist” movement in the philosophy of mathematics identify themselves as “neo-Fregeans” (e.g., Hale and Wright), presenting an updated and revised version of Frege’s form of logicism. Russell’s form of logicism is scarcely discussed in this literature and, when it is, often dismissed as not really logicism at all (in light of its assumption of axioms of infinity, reducibility and so on). In this paper I have three aims: firstly, to identify more clearly the primary meta-ontological (...)
- Divine Hiddenness, Divine Silence.Michael C. Rea - 1987 - In Louis P. Pojman (ed.), Philosophy of religion. Mountain View, Calif.: Mayfield. pp. 266-275.In the present article, he explains why divine silence poses a serious intellectual obstacle to belief in God, and then goes on to consider ways of overcoming that obstacle. After considering several ways in which divine silence might actually be beneficial to human beings, he argues that perhaps silence is nothing more or less than God’s preferred mode of interaction with creatures like us. Perhaps God simply desires communion rather than overt communication with human beings, and perhaps God has provided (...)
- Against the new Cartesian Circle.Everett Fulmer & C. P. Ragland - 2017 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 47 (1):66-74.In two recent papers, Michael Della Rocca accuses Descartes of reasoning circularly in the Fourth Meditation. This alleged new circle is distinct from, and more vicious than, the traditional Cartesian Circle arising in the Third Meditation. We explain Della Rocca’s reasons for this accusation, showing that his argument is invalid.
- Self-Interest and Public Interest: The Motivations of Political Actors.Michael C. Munger - 2011 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 23 (3):339-357.Self-Interest and Public Interest in Western Politics showed that the public, politicians, and bureaucrats are often public spirited. But this does not invalidate public-choice theory. Public-choice theory is an ideal type, not a claim that self-interest explains all political behavior. Instead, public-choice theory is useful in creating rules and institutions that guard against the worst case, which would be universal self-interestedness in politics. In contrast, the public-interest hypothesis is neither a comprehensive explanation of political behavior nor a sound basis for (...)
- Infinitism and epistemic normativity.Adam C. Podlaskowski & Joshua A. Smith - 2011 - Synthese 178 (3):515-527.Klein’s account of epistemic justification, infinitism, supplies a novel solution to the regress problem. We argue that concentrating on the normative aspect of justification exposes a number of unpalatable consequences for infinitism, all of which warrant rejecting the position. As an intermediary step, we develop a stronger version of the ‘finite minds’ objection.
- How objective are biological functions?Marcel Weber - 2017 - Synthese 194 (12):4741-4755.John Searle has argued that functions owe their existence to the value that we put into life and survival. In this paper, I will provide a critique of Searle’s argument concerning the ontology of functions. I rely on a standard analysis of functional predicates as relating not only a biological entity, an activity that constitutes the function of this entity and a type of system but also a goal state. A functional attribution without specification of such a goal state has (...)
- Naturalism and Moral Realism.Michael C. Rea - 2006 - In Thomas M. Crisp, Matthew Davidson & David Vander Laan (eds.), Knowledge and Reality: Essays in Honor of Alvin Plantinga. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 215-242.My goal in this paper is to show that naturalists cannot reasonably endorse moral realism. My argument will come in two parts. The first part aims to show that any plausible and naturalistically acceptable argument in favor of belief in objective moral properties will appeal in part to simplicity considerations (broadly construed)—and this regardless of whether moral properties are reducible to non-moral properties. The second part argues for the conclusion that appeals to simplicity justify belief in moral properties only if (...)
- A Libertarian Response to Macleod 2012: “If You’re a Libertarian, How Come You’re So Rich?”.J. C. Lester - 2014 - In Jan Lester (ed.), _Explaining Libertarianism: Some Philosophical Arguments_. Buckingham: The University of Buckingham Press. pp. 95-105.This is a response to Macleod 2012's argument that the history of unjust property acquisitions requires rich libertarians to give away everything in excess of equality. At first, problematic questions are raised. How much property is usually inherited or illegitimate? Why should legitimate inheritance be affected? What of the burden of proof and court cases? A counterfactual problem is addressed. Three important cases are considered: great earned wealth; American slavery; land usurpation. All are argued to be problematic for Macleod 2012's (...)
- Spinoza, Bennett, and Teleology.Lee C. Rice - 1985 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 23 (2):241-253.
- On the Incompatibility of Dynamical Biological Mechanisms and Causal Graphs.Marcel Weber - 2016 - Philosophy of Science 83 (5):959-971.I examine to what extent accounts of mechanisms based on formal interventionist theories of causality can adequately represent biological mechanisms with complex dynamics. Using a differential equation model for a circadian clock mechanism as an example, I first show that there exists an iterative solution that can be interpreted as a structural causal model. Thus, in principle, it is possible to integrate causal difference-making information with dynamical information. However, the differential equation model itself lacks the right modularity properties for a (...)
- How Successful is Naturalism?Michael C. Rea - 2007 - In Georg Gasser (ed.), How Successful is Naturalism? Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag. pp. 105-116.The question raised by this volume is “How successful is naturalism?” The question presupposes that we already know what naturalism is and what counts as success. But, as anyone familiar with the literature on naturalism knows, both suppositions are suspect. To answer the question, then, we must first say what we mean in this context by both ‘naturalism’ and ‘success’. I’ll start with ‘success’. I will then argue that, by the standard of measurement that I shall identify here, naturalism is (...)
- Which Kind of Causal Specificity Matters Biologically?Marcel Weber - 2017 - Philosophy of Science 84 (3):574-585.Griffiths et al. (2015) have proposed a quantitative measure of causal specificity and used it to assess various attempts to single out genetic causes as being causally more specific than other cellular mechanisms, for example, alternative splicing. Focusing in particular on developmental processes, they have identified a number of important challenges for this project. In this discussion note, I would like to show how these challenges can be met.
- Strict Identity with No Overlap.Achille C. Varzi - 2006 - Studia Logica 82 (3):371-378.It is common lore that standard, Kripke-style semantics for quantified modal logic is incompatible with the view that no individual may belong to more than one possible world, a view that seems to require a counterpart-theoretic semantics instead. Strictly speaking, however, this thought is wrong-headed. This note explains why.
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