Provides an overview of Mark Sharlow's philosophical work with summaries of his positions. Includes references and links to his writings.

An archive of Mark Sharlow's two blogs, "The Unfinishable Scroll" and "Religion: the Next Version." Covers Sharlow's views on metaphysics, epistemology, mind, science, religion, and politics. Includes topics and ideas not found in his papers.

This document is an edited transcript of an impromptu talk by Mark F. Sharlow. In this talk, Dr. Sharlow examines one of the common arguments for God’s existence. He suggests that this argument is wrong, but not for the reason that skeptics usually cite. Instead, he points out a deeper error — and shows that by understanding this mistake, we can gain new insights into evolution and design.

Poetry, it is said, can reveal truth. Yet despite the best efforts of philosophers and poets to describe this truth, very few understand what kinds of truth poetry can convey.* One fact seems clear: only a few of the truths of poetry can be captured equally well in prose. Poetry also conveys truths of a different kind — truths that seem to exist on a level entirely different level from that of ordinary, factual truth. Some poems try to teach moral (...) or practical lessons that also could be stated in prose.* But this is not the kind of truth that puzzles philosophers and critics. Poetry also can tell another kind of truth — a truth that may be mystifying to scholars, but that is well known to anyone who becomes acquainted with poetry in an intimate way. This kind of truth cannot be spoken of or contemplated on the same terms as ordinary fact. What is the nature of this strange, yet familiar kind of knowledge that poetry can bring to the human mind? (shrink)

This document consists primarily of an excerpt (chapter 14) from the author’s book From Brain to Cosmos. In that excerpt, the author uses the concept of subjective fact developed earlier in the book to address a question about consciousness: which physical systems (organisms or machines) are conscious? (This document depends heavily upon the concept of subjective fact developed in From Brain to Cosmos. Readers unfamiliar with that concept are strongly advised to read chapters 2 and 3 of From Brain to (...) Cosmos first. See the last page of this document for details on how to obtain those chapters.). (shrink)

The four talks in this collection are based on impromptu lectures by Mark Sharlow. Explores the topics of freedom, justice, punishment, capitalism, distributism, and the limits of government.

This collection serves as an introduction to the concept of subjective fact, which plays a central role in some of the author's philosophical writings. The collection contains two book chapters and a paper. The first chapter (Chapter 2 of From Brain to Cosmos) begins with an informal characterization of the concept of subjective fact. Then it fleshes out this concept with examples, gives a more precise characterization, and addresses some potential weaknesses of the concept. This chapter shows how subjective fact (...) is related to key ideas in the philosophy of mind, such as intentionality. The second chapter (Chapter 3) is a detailed study of the concept of “instance of seeming” that was introduced in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 ends with some remarks on the modal logic of subjective facts. The paper, also by the book’s author, answers some potential questions about the ideas in the two included chapters. (shrink)

This document consists primarily of excerpts (chapters 5 and 10-12) from the author’s book From Brain to Cosmos. These excerpts address several traditional problems about the histories of conscious subjects, using the concept of subjective fact that the author developed earlier in the book. Topics include the persistence of conscious subjects through time, the unity or disunity of the self, and the possibility of splitting conscious subjects. (These excerpts depend heavily upon the author’s concept of subjective fact as developed in (...) From Brain to Cosmos. Readers unfamiliar with that concept are strongly advised to read chapters 2 and 3 of that book first. See the last page of this document for details on how to obtain those chapters.). (shrink)

This document consists primarily of excerpts (chapters 5 and 7-9) from the author’s book From Brain to Cosmos. These excerpts address some traditional philosophical problems about temporal flux and identity through time, using the concept of subjective fact that the author developed earlier in the book. (Readers unfamiliar with that concept are strongly advised to read chapters 2 and 3 of From Brain to Cosmos first. See the last page of this document for details on how to obtain those chapters.).

This document consists primarily of an excerpt (chapter 6) from the author’s book From Brain to Cosmos. That excerpt presents an analysis of the problem of knowledge of other minds, using the concept of subjective fact that the author developed earlier in the book. (Readers unfamiliar with that concept are strongly advised to read chapters 2 and 3 of From Brain to Cosmos first. See the last page of this document for details on how to obtain those chapters.).

This document consists primarily of an excerpt (chapter 13) from the author’s book From Brain to Cosmos. In that excerpt, the author presents a study of the notion of truth using the concept of subjective fact developed earlier in the book. The author argues that mind-body materialism is compatible with certain forms of metaphysical idealism. The chapter closes with some remarks on relativism with regard to truth. (This document depends heavily upon the concept of subjective fact developed in From Brain (...) to Cosmos. Readers unfamiliar with that concept are strongly advised to read chapters 2 and 3 of From Brain to Cosmos first. See the last page of this document for details on how to obtain those chapters.). (shrink)

This document consists primarily of an excerpt (chapter 4) from the author’s book From Brain to Cosmos. That excerpt presents a study of a specific problem about knowledge: the logical justification of one’s knowledge of the immediate past. (This document depends heavily upon the concept of subjective fact that the author developed in chapters 2 and 3 of From Brain to Cosmos. Readers unfamiliar with that concept are strongly advised to read those chapters first. See the last page of this (...) document for details on how to obtain those chapters.). (shrink)

This document consists primarily of an excerpt (chapter 5) from the author’s book From Brain to Cosmos. That excerpt presents an analysis of personal identity through time, using the concept of subjective fact that the author developed earlier in the book. (Readers unfamiliar with that concept are strongly advised to read chapters 2 and 3 of From Brain to Cosmos first. See the last page of this document for details on how to obtain those chapters.).

One of the most important ongoing debates in the philosophy of mind is the debate over the reality of the first-person character of consciousness.[1] Philosophers on one side of this debate hold that some features of experience are accessible only from a first-person standpoint. Some members of this camp, notably Frank Jackson, have maintained that epiphenomenal properties play roles in consciousness [2]; others, notably John R. Searle, have rejected dualism and regarded mental phenomena as entirely biological.[3] In the opposite camp (...) are philosophers who hold that all mental capacities are in some sense computational - or, more broadly, explainable in terms of features of information processing systems.[4] Consistent with this explanatory agenda, members of this camp normally deny that any aspect of mind is accessible solely from a first-person standpoint. This denial sometimes goes very far - even as far as Dennett's claim that the phenomenology of conscious experience does not really exist. (shrink)

The year is 1965. A child stands at the top of a hill, looking out over a vast golden meadow. In the field below is a dirt trail. Bicycles sail by on the trail, carrying other children to their playful destinations. Beyond the far edge of the field is the sea. On the sea are boats and ships — distant descendants of the caravels and barkentines that once explored the unknown waters of Earth.

This short e-book is (in the author's words) "an attempt to open up new and better ways of thinking about God." The author draws together insights from philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, and ontology to construct a conception of God that avoids both supernaturalism and simplistic forms of pantheism.

This book is a collection of some of my writings that do not fit the mold of standard philosophical articles. These writings range over several topics, including religion, free will, human dignity, the nature of persons, and a few others. The longest item in the collection is an archive of my blog, The Unfinishable Scroll, as it existed when the book was put together. That blog covers many philosophical topics, including some I haven't discussed elsewhere. Also in the collection are (...) essays (formerly web-based) on topics ranging from progress, to skepticism, to metaphysics - and back again. The book even contains an archive of another, less well-known, blog of mine. (shrink)

This is not a normal book. It is a collection of transcripts of talks that I gave between the year 2003 and now. I gave most of these talks on the spur of the moment, without making notes ahead of time. (“Impromptu” is the usual term for that dangerous way of speaking.) One of the “talks” is not a transcript, but a set of notes for a talk I never gave. Any organization or order in the talks is purely coincidental—or (...) at least it’s not all my fault. (shrink)

We sketch the mechanistic approach to levels, contrast it with other senses of “level,” and explore some of its metaphysical implications. This perspective allows us to articulate what it means for things to be at different levels, to distinguish mechanistic levels from realization relations, and to describe the structure of multilevel explanations, the evidence by which they are evaluated, and the scientific unity that results from them. This approach is not intended to solve all metaphysical problems surrounding physicalism. Yet it (...) provides a framework for thinking about how the macroscopic phenomena of our world are or might be related to its most fundamental entities and activities. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic led to social restrictions that often prevented us from hugging the ones we love. This absence helped some realize just how important these interactions are to our sense of care and connection. Many turned to digitally mediated social interactions to address these absences, but often unsatisfactorily. Some theorists might blame this on the disembodied character of our digital spaces, e.g., that interpersonal touch is excluded from our lives online. However, others continued to find care and connection in (...) their digitally mediated interactions despite not being able to touch. Inspired by such contrasting cases, we ask if ‘digital hugs’ can work? We use the Mixed Reality Interaction Matrix to examine hugging as a social practice. This leads us to several claims about the nature of our embodied social interactions and their digital mediation: (1) all social interaction is mediated; (2) all virtual experiences are embodied; (3) technology has become richer and more supportive of embodiment; and (4) expertise plays a role. These claims help make the case that quality social connections online are substantially dependent upon the dynamic skilful resourcing of multiple mediating components, what we term digital tact. By introducing and developing this concept, we hope to contribute to a better understanding of our digital embodied sociality and the possibilities for caring connections online. (shrink)

The National Center for Biomedical Ontology is now in its seventh year. The goals of this National Center for Biomedical Computing are to: create and maintain a repository of biomedical ontologies and terminologies; build tools and web services to enable the use of ontologies and terminologies in clinical and translational research; educate their trainees and the scientific community broadly about biomedical ontology and ontology-based technology and best practices; and collaborate with a variety of groups who develop and use ontologies and (...) terminologies in biomedicine. The centerpiece of the National Center for Biomedical Ontology is a web-based resource known as BioPortal. BioPortal makes available for research in computationally useful forms more than 270 of the world's biomedical ontologies and terminologies, and supports a wide range of web services that enable investigators to use the ontologies to annotate and retrieve data, to generate value sets and special-purpose lexicons, and to perform advanced analytics on a wide range of biomedical data. (shrink)

In “What Makes a Scientific Explanation Distinctively Mathematical?” (2013b), Lange uses several compelling examples to argue that certain explanations for natural phenomena appeal primarily to mathematical, rather than natural, facts. In such explanations, the core explanatory facts are modally stronger than facts about causation, regularity, and other natural relations. We show that Lange's account of distinctively mathematical explanation is flawed in that it fails to account for the implicit directionality in each of his examples. This inadequacy is remediable in each (...) case by appeal to ontic facts that account for why the explanation is acceptable in one direction and unacceptable in the other direction. The mathematics involved in these examples cannot play this crucial normative role. While Lange's examples fail to demonstrate the existence of distinctively mathematical explanations, they help to emphasize that many superficially natural scientific explanations rely for their explanatory force on relations of stronger-than-natural necessity. These are not opposing kinds of scientific explanations; they are different aspects of scientific explanation. (shrink)

Lange’s collection of expanded, mostly previously published essays, packed with numerous, beautiful examples of putatively non-causal explanations from biology, physics, and mathematics, challenges the increasingly ossified causal consensus about scientific explanation, and, in so doing, launches a new field of philosophic investigation. However, those who embraced causal monism about explanation have done so because appeal to causal factors sorts good from bad scientific explanations and because the explanatory force of good explanations seems to derive from revealing the relevant causal (or (...) ontic) structures. The taxonomic project of collecting examples and sorting their types is an essential starting place for a theory of non-causal explanation. But the title of Lange’s book requires something further: showing that the putative explanations are, in fact, explanatory and revealing the non-causal source of their explanatory power. This project is incomplete if there are examples of putative non-causal explanations that fit the form but that nobody would accept as explanatory (absent a radical revision of intuitions). Here we provide some reasons for thinking that there are such examples. (shrink)

An adequate understanding of the ubiquitous practice of mechanistic explanation requires an account of what Craver termed “constitutive relevance.” Entities or activities are constitutively relevant to a phenomenon when they are parts of the mechanism responsible for that phenomenon. Craver’s mutual manipulability account extended Woodward’s account of manipulationist counterfactuals to analyze how interlevel experiments establish constitutive relevance. Critics of MM argue that applying Woodward’s account to this philosophical problem conflates causation and constitution, thus rendering the account incoherent. These criticisms, we (...) argue, arise from failing to distinguish the semantic, epistemic, and metaphysical aspects of the problem of constitutive relevance. In distinguishing these aspects of the problem and responding to these critics accordingly, we amend MM into a refined epistemic criterion, the “matched interlevel experiments” account. Further, we explain how this epistemological thesis is grounded in the plausible metaphysical thesis that constitutive relevance is causal betweenness. (shrink)

The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI) is an ontology that provides terms with precisely defined meanings to describe all aspects of how investigations in the biological and medical domains are conducted. OBI re-uses ontologies that provide a representation of biomedical knowledge from the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) project and adds the ability to describe how this knowledge was derived. We here describe the state of OBI and several applications that are using it, such as adding semantic expressivity to (...) existing databases, building data entry forms, and enabling interoperability between knowledge resources. OBI covers all phases of the investigation process, such as planning, execution and reporting. It represents information and material entities that participate in these processes, as well as roles and functions. Prior to OBI, it was not possible to use a single internally consistent resource that could be applied to multiple types of experiments for these applications. OBI has made this possible by creating terms for entities involved in biological and medical investigations and by importing parts of other biomedical ontologies such as GO, Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) and Phenotype Attribute and Trait Ontology (PATO) without altering their meaning. OBI is being used in a wide range of projects covering genomics, multi-omics, immunology, and catalogs of services. OBI has also spawned other ontologies (Information Artifact Ontology) and methods for importing parts of ontologies (Minimum information to reference an external ontology term (MIREOT)). The OBI project is an open cross-disciplinary collaborative effort, encompassing multiple research communities from around the globe. To date, OBI has created 2366 classes and 40 relations along with textual and formal definitions. The OBI Consortium maintains a web resource providing details on the people, policies, and issues being addressed in association with OBI. (shrink)

BioPortal is a Web portal that provides access to a library of biomedical ontologies and terminologies developed in OWL, RDF(S), OBO format, Protégé frames, and Rich Release Format. BioPortal functionality, driven by a service-oriented architecture, includes the ability to browse, search and visualize ontologies (Figure 1). The Web interface also facilitates community-based participation in the evaluation and evolution of ontology content.

Within the Anglo-American world, economic liberalism is generally viewed as having only one progenitor—Adam Smith—and one offspring—neoliberalism. But it actually has two. The work of G. W. F. Hegel was also very influential on the development of economic liberalism, at least in the German-speaking world, and the most powerful contemporary instantiation of economic liberalism within that world is not neoliberlaism, but ordoliberalism, although this is generally unknown and certainly unacknowledged outside of Continental Europe. Accordingly, what I am going to be (...) doing in this piece is trying to bring ordoliberalism more directly into the light—I will argue that by comparing and contrasting the views of Smith and Hegel or at least between how Smith and Hegel tend to be currently (mis)understood, we can better understand both the roots and the nature of these two contemporary incarnations of economic liberalism, and the light this sheds, in turn, brings some interesting and important features of these two contemporary theories into view. From Smith, for example, neoliberals took the idea of the invisible hand, although I am going to argue that contemporary advocates of invisible hand theory have largely misconstrued or at the very least overstated the significance of this metaphor. From Hegel, in contrast, ordoliberals took the idea of the civil society, and I will argue that the civil society is a much better metaphor not only for Hegel's but also for Smith's views. Indeed, I will argue that ordoliberalism, not neoliberalism, is a better and more coherent instantiation of economic liberalism than neoliberalism could ever be. (shrink)

In his 1904 letter to G.F. Stout, Cook Wilson distinguishes objective and sub- jective conceptions of appearance, and provides a diagnosis for the modern acceptance of the subjective conception in terms of a confused misdescrip- tion of the objective appearances that perceptual experience affords. More- over, Cook Wilson links subjective appearances with idealism, the suggestion being that perceptual appearances must be objective if they are to afford us with something akin to proof of a world without the mind.

Standard linguistic analysis of syntax uses the T-model. This model requires the ordering: D-structure > S-structure > LF, where D-structure is the sentences deep structure, S-structure is its surface structure, and LF is its logical form. Between each of these representations there is movement which alters the order of the constituent words; movement is achieved using the principles and parameters of syntactic theory. Psychological analysis of sentence production is usually either serial or connectionist. Psychological serial models do not accommodate the (...) T-model immediately so that here a new model called the P-model is introduced. The P-model is different from previous linguistic and psychological models. Here it is argued that the LF representation should be replaced by a variant of Frege'sA three qualities (sense, reference, and force), called the FregeA representation or F-representation. In the F-representation the order of elements is not necessarily the same as that in LF and it is suggested that the correct ordering is: F-representation > D-structure > S-structure. This ordering appears to lead to a more natural view of sentence production and processing. Within this framework movement originates as the outcome of emphasis applied to the sentence. The requirement that the F-representation precedes the D-structure needs a picture of the particular principles and parameters which pertain to movement of words between representations. In general this would imply that there is a preferred or optimal ordering of the symbolic string in the F-representation. The standard ordering is retained because the general way of producing such an optimal ordering is unclear. In this case it is possible to produce an analysis of movement between LF and D-structure similar to the usual analysis of movement between S-structure and LF. The necessity of analyzing corrupted data suggests that a maximal amount of information about a language's grammar and lexicon is stored. (shrink)

In this essay, I give an analysis of the account of non-being in the Weltalter, focusing on the ways in which this account reflects Schelling’s new ontology of revelation. I begin by discussing the connection between non-being and the fundamental distinction between the principles in God. I then turn to the relationship of non-being to being in the Weltalter and show how a new meaning of being allows Schelling to distinguish non-being from nothing. The new meaning of being also makes (...) possible a distinction between essential non-being and de facto non-being; this distinction allows for the temporal sequence of revelation and the possibility of evil. I conclude by showing the implications of Schelling’s theory of non-being for his understanding of creation. (shrink)

Since the 1990s the effects of globalization on law and legal developments has been a central topic of scholarly debate. To date, the debate is however marked by three substantial deficiencies which this chapter seeks to remedy through a reconceptualization of global law as a law of inter-contextuality expressed through inter-legality and materialized through a particular body of legal norms which can be characterized as connectivity norms. The first deficiency is a historical and empirical one. Both critics as well as (...) advocates of ‘non-state law’ share the assumption that ‘law beyond the state’ and related legal norms have gained in centrality when compared with previous historical times. While global law, including both public and private global governance law as well as regional occurrences such as EU law, has undergone profound transformations since the structural transformations which followed the de-colonialization processes of the mid-twentieth century, we do not have more global law relatively to other types of law today than in previous historical times. The second deficiency is a methodological one. The vast majority of scholarship on global law is either of an analytical nature, drawing on insights from philosophy, or empirically observing the existence of global law and the degree of compliance with global legal norms at a given moment in time. While both approaches bring something to the table they remain static approaches incapable of explaining and evaluating the transformation of global law over time. The third deficiency is a conceptual-theoretical one. In most instances, global law is understood as a unitary law producing singular legal norms with a planetary reach, or, alternatively, a radical pluralist perspective is adopted dismissing the existence of singular global norms. Both of these approaches however misapprehend the structural characteristics, function and societal effects of global law. Instead a third positon between unitary and radical pluralist perspectives can be adopted through an understanding of global law and its related legal norms as a de-centred kind of inter-contextual law characterised by inter-legality. (shrink)

Since the last century, determining the content of the law has been one of the main discussions of Jurisprudence. The Hart-Dworkin debate has dominated the discussion: to Hart, only social facts determine the content of the law; to Dworkin, it is necessary also to consider moral facts. There has been substantial progress in the debate in the last decades; nonetheless, it is far from settled. Mark Greenberg's idea about the epistemology of nonbasic domains and the tracking of their metaphysics (...) sheds light on the debate. The thesis of the present essay is that the Hart-Dworkin debate is held at different levels of discussion. Hart aims to answer what are the metaphysical foundations of the law. Dworkin seems to engage in academic activism about what ought to be the metaphysical foundations of the law. I argue that the idea of tracking the epistemic foundations of the law is only consistent with social facts being the determinants of the content of the law. Moral facts could be relevant but only mediated by social facts. (shrink)

When Neil MacCormick, in the wake of the launch of the Maastricht Treaty on European Union, went “beyond the Sovereign State” in 1993, he fundamentally challenged the heretofore dominant paradigm of legal ordering in the European context which considered law to be singular, unified and confined within sovereign nation states. The original insight of MacCormick might, however, be pushed even further, as a historical re-construction reveals that legal pluralism is not only a trademark of recent historical times, marked by the (...) European integration process, but has also been at the very core of legal evolution in Europe throughout its modern history. The introduction of modern law in Europe can be traced back to the eleventh and twelfth century Investiture Conflict between the Church and the Emperor, a conflict which solidified the existence of two parallel universes of law, one Church-based and one empire-based, both of which rested, in principle, upon mutually exclusive claims to superiority, but which nonetheless became institutionally stabilized in a manner which allowed for mutual co-existence between them. The existence of such parallel universes of law has throughout, also in the “Westphalian world”, been a central characteristic of European law. It is suggested that the current constellation between the EU and its Member States should be viewed in this light. (shrink)

When Neil MacCormick, in the wake of the launch of the Maastricht Treaty on European Union, went “beyond the Sovereign State” in 1993, he fundamentally challenged the heretofore dominant paradigm of legal ordering in the European context which considered law to be singular, unified and confined within sovereign nation states. The original insight of MacCormick might, however, be pushed even further, as a historical re-construction reveals that legal pluralism is not only a trademark of recent historical times, marked by the (...) European integration process, but has also been at the very core of legal evolution in Europe throughout its modern history. The introduction of modern law in Europe can be traced back to the eleventh and twelfth century Investiture Conflict between the Church and the Emperor, a conflict which solidified the existence of two parallel universes of law, one Church-based and one empire-based, both of which rested, in principle, upon mutually exclusive claims to superiority, but which nonetheless became institutionally stabilized in a manner which allowed for mutual co-existence between them. The existence of such parallel universes of law has throughout, also in the “Westphalian world”, been a central characteristic of European law. It is suggested that the current constellation between the EU and its Member States should be viewed in this light. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical examination of Fischer and Ravizza's attempt in Responsibility and Control to give a comprehensive account of the kind of control that grounds moral responsibility (RC, 14). The kind of control required for moral responsibility, they argue, is not some form of regulative control that involves alternate possibilities. What is required is guidance control, which is compatible with causal determinism (RC, 34). Guidance control has 'two separate dimensions' that Fischer and Ravizza aim to articulate and defend. (...) The first of these is that the mechanism that actually issues in the relevant conduct must be moderately reasons-responsive. The second is that the mechanism concerned must be the agent's own. The arguments that Fischer and Ravizza provide in defence of this overall position are carefully articu- lated and imaginatively defended. It is impossible not to admire this book. It will receive and deserves to receive a considerable amount of attention and discussion from all those who have an interest in the free will problem. I am confident that this work will prove to be of lasting influence and importance. My own discussion shows that I am not persuaded by the particular arguments that Fischer and Ravizza have given to support the two basic components of guidance control. How- ever, if my own experience is anything to judge by, readers will find this book challenging, stimulating, and highly rewarding. It sets a high standard by which to evaluate and assess other work and theories in the field. (shrink)

The language of phenomenology includes terms such as intentionality, phenom- enon, insight, analysis, sense, not to mention the key term of Edmund Husserl’s manifesto, “the things themselves” to return to . But what does the “things them- selves” properly mean? How come the term is replaced by the “findings” over time? And what are the findings for? The investigation begins by looking at the tricky legacy of the modern turn, trying to clarify ties to past masters, including Francis- co Suárez (...) and Augustine of Hippo . The former, because his influence goes beyond René Descartes reaching undoubtedly Franz Brentano and his students, as well as Martin Heidegger . The latter, because Augustine gives a personal component to the Greek inheritance, marked by the “inward turn .” However, it would not be possible to review the history of thought without the help offered by Jan Patočka's analyses . Patočka discloses the “care” of the Greek philosophers, Plato and Dem- ocritus among others, “for the soul”, we would say with Patočka for “being,” whose sense “does not leave us indifferent” as the leitmotiv of Ancient Philosophy . Nev- ertheless, in his lectures on Plato and Europe, Patočka points out that you must be careful not to confuse the phenomena of things, of existens, with the phenomena of being . Finally, Patočka’s legacy is found in the efforts to reconcile the life-feeling with the modern construction of reality, which means “a radical reconstruction of the naive and natural world of common sense .” In some ways, intentionality is to be revised . (shrink)

Brentano claims to have taken his idea of intentionality from scholastic thought. However, in St. Thomas Aquinas, intentionality is not just the mark of knowledge, although some scholastics have interpreted it this way, even during Brentano’s lifetime. Moreover, to elaborate his idea of intentional presence, the German philosopher was not only inspired by him, but also by Francisco Suárez. In an unpublished manuscript from his legacy, Brentano understands Suarez’s objective concept as a representation of the thing in the psyche. (...) Thus, even before writing his definitive doctoral thesis, Brentano maintained that the object of thought is not the external thing but its mental copy. In short, modern philosophy seems to have been more decisive than scholasticism in shaping the substance of his theory of intentionality. (shrink)

This paper addresses the issue of how to best account for the diversity of our (synchronic) mental activities. The discussion starts with Mark Textor’s mental monism. According to mental monism, our mental life is constituted by just one simple mental act, in which different sub-acts can be conceptually distinguished. Textor grounds this view in the work of the early Brentano and contrasts it with the theory of the later Brentano, who introduces a mental substance into his philosophy. According to (...) Textor, Brentano needs a substance because he is unable to explain how mental monism can account for the separability of our mental activities, e.g. the fact that I can stop hearing F while still seeing blue. Textor argues, however, that mental monism can solve this problem. I address two issues regarding Textor’s view. First, I challenge his interpretation of Brentano by arguing that the early Brentano imports ontological complexity into our mental life; I defend Brentano’s view against possible criticisms, and I address some objections to mental monism. Second, I oppose Textor’s narrative about the mental substance. I argue that Brentano needs a substance not to explain separability, but rather to individuate our mental acts. I still argue, however, that Brentano’s earlier view (understood in my sense) is better than the substance account for dividing the mind. (shrink)

A standard strategy for defending a claim of non-identity is one which invokes Leibniz’s Law. (1) Fa (2) ~Fb (3) (∀x)(∀y)(x=y ⊃ (∀P)(Px ⊃ Py)) (4) a=b ⊃ (Fa ⊃ Fb) (5) a≠b In Kalderon’s view, this basic strategy underlies both Moore’s Open Question Argument (OQA) as well as (a variant formulation of) Frege’s puzzle (FP). In the former case, the argument runs from the fact that some natural property—call it “F-ness”—has, but goodness lacks, the (2nd order) property of its (...) being an open question whether everything that instantiates it is good to the conclusion that goodness and F-ness are distinct. And in the latter case, the argument runs from the fact that that Hesperus has, but Phosphorus lacks, the property of being believed by the ancient astronomers to be visible in the evening sky to the conclusion that Hesperus and Phosphorus are distinct. Kalderon argues that both the OQA and FP fail because in neither case is there good reason to believe that both (1) and (2) are true. The reason we are tempted to believe that they are true is because we mistake de dicto claims for de re claims. In order for FP to go through, the truth of the following de re claims needs to be established: FP1) Hesperus was believed by the ancient astronomers to be visible in the evening sky. (shrink)

The paper aims to establish that Terence Hutchison’s argument in The Politics and Philosophy of Economics (1981) to the effect that the young F.A. Hayek maintained a methodological position markedly similar to that of Ludwig von Mises fails to establish the relevant conclusion. The first problem with Hutchison’s argument is that it is not clear exactly what conclusion he meant to establish with regard to the methodological views of the two paragons of 20th century Austrian economics. Mises (in)famously maintained a (...) rather extreme methodological apriorism. However, Hutchison’s argument does not support the claim that Hayek was ever an apriorist of the Misesian variety. The concept of a priori knowledge that emerges from Hayek’s epistemology – specifically the epistemology implied by Hayek’s work in theoretical psychology – is the direct opposite of Mises’ treatment of a priori knowledge. Simply stated, Hayek conceived of a priori knowledge as fallible and relative, while Mises considered a priori knowledge to be infallible and absolute. Thus, it cannot be maintained – if, indeed, Hutchison meant to establish – that Hayek was a Misesian apriorist during the years in question. What’s more, the paper shows that Hutchison’s argument does not support a weaker interpretation of the relevant conclusion. There are alternative interpretations of the evidence adduced by Hutchison that are both more charitable and more in line with Hayek’s epistemology that undermine Hutchison’s conclusion. (shrink)

Mark Johnston (2016, 2017) has raised concerns that a worm-theoretic account of persistence through time is incompatible with ethical singularity: that within the life of any actual person, there is only one morally considerable being, namely that person. To deny ethical singularity is to deny a core feature of our ordinary ethical and prudential thinking. The worm theory, Johnston concludes, proves to be “disastrous … for our ordinary moral outlook”. This paper defends the worm theory from Johnston’s argument. Though (...) I agree that the worm theory must deny ethical singularity, it can nevertheless be squared with our ordinary ethical thinking by adopting a temporal counterpart analysis of temporal predication (‘x will be F’, ‘x was previously F’, etc.) for those morally considerable beings involved in a person’s life that are not the person. (shrink)

P. F. Strawson's influential article "Freedom and Resentment" has been much commented on, and one of the most trenchant commentaries is Rajendra Prasad's, "Reactive Attitudes, Rationality, and Determinism." In his article, Prasad contests the significance of the reactive attitude over a precise theory of determinism, concluding that Strawson's argument is ultimately unconvincing. In this article, I evaluate Prasad's challenges to Strawson by summarizing and categorizing all of the relevant arguments in both Strawson's and Prasad's pieces. -/- Strawson offers four types (...) of arguments to demonstrate that determinism and free agency cannot be incompatible, showing that the reactive attitude is natural and desirable and the objective attitude is not natural, not desirable, not sustainable, and not compatible with the reactive attitude. Prasad targets Strawson's incompatibilist arguments, showing that determinism and free agency are incompatible. Of Prasad's seven types of arguments, four target Strawson's four above. Three of these succeed and one fails. The remaining three target Strawson's support of the reactive attitude, and of these, one succeeds, and the others fail. Although Prasad's arguments miss the mark at times, he does succeed in putting forth a legitimate challenge to Strawson's notion that determinism is no inhibitor of the reactive attitude. (shrink)

Creativity pervades human life. It is the mark of individuality, the vehicle of self-expression, and the engine of progress in every human endeavor. It also raises a wealth of neglected and yet evocative philosophical questions: What is the role of consciousness in the creative process? How does the audience for a work for art influence its creation? How can creativity emerge through childhood pretending? Do great works of literature give us insight into human nature? Can a computer program really (...) be creative? How do we define creativity in the first place? Is it a virtue? What is the difference between creativity in science and art? Can creativity be taught? The new essays that comprise The Philosophy of Creativity take up these and other key questions and, in doing so, illustrate the value of interdisciplinary exchange. Written by leading philosophers and psychologists involved in studying creativity, the essays integrate philosophical insights with empirical research. CONTENTS I. Introduction Introducing The Philosophy of Creativity Elliot Samuel Paul and Scott Barry Kaufman II. The Concept of Creativity 1. An Experiential Account of Creativity Bence Nanay III. Aesthetics & Philosophy of Art 2. Creativity and Insight Gregory Currie 3. The Creative Audience: Some Ways in which Readers, Viewers and/or Listeners Use their Imaginations to Engage Fictional Artworks Noël Carroll 4. The Products of Musical Creativity Christopher Peacocke IV. Ethics & Value Theory 5. Performing Oneself Owen Flanagan 6. Creativity as a Virtue of Character Matthew Kieran V. Philosophy of Mind & Cognitive Science 7. Creativity and Not So Dumb Luck Simon Blackburn 8. The Role of Imagination in Creativity Dustin Stokes 9. Creativity, Consciousness, and Free Will: Evidence from Psychology Experiments Roy F. Baumeister, Brandon J. Schmeichel, and C. Nathan DeWall 10. The Origins of Creativity Elizabeth Picciuto and Peter Carruthers 11. Creativity and Artificial Intelligence: a Contradiction in Terms? Margaret Boden VI. Philosophy of Science 12. Hierarchies of Creative Domains: Disciplinary Constraints on Blind-Variation and Selective-Retention Dean Keith Simonton VII. Philosophy of Education (& Education of Philosophy) 13. Educating for Creativity Berys Gaut 14. Philosophical Heuristics Alan Hájek. (shrink)

In this paper, I contest increasingly common "realist" interpretations of Hegel's theory of "the concept" (der Begriff), offering instead a "isomorphic" conception of the relation of concepts and the world. The isomorphism recommended, however, is metaphysically deflationary, for I show how Hegel's conception of conceptual form creates a conceptually internal standard for the adequacy of concepts. No "sideways-on" theory of the concept-world relationship is envisioned. This standard of conceptual adequacy is also "graduated" in that it allows for a lack of (...) fit between concept and world. The possibility for a "maximally isomorphic" fit between concept and world obtains through the teleological realization of concepts, which marks especially the "artificial" world of human culture (law, art, religion, etc.). Some of the most seemingly exaggerated claims Hegel makes about the concept, I contend, can be understood when we consider the significance Hegel ascribes to human making, which is provided for in his conceptual theory. But my framework provides an interpretive key for the way Hegel sees concepts imperfectly realized in the natural world as well. (shrink)

To reconcile true claims of de re necessity with the supposedly contingent existence of the concrete objects those claims are typically about, Kripkean essentialists invoke weak necessity. The claim that a is necessarily F is held to be equivalent to the claim that necessarily, if a exists then a is F. This strategy faces a barrage of serious objections a proper subset of which shows that the strategy fails to achieve its intended purpose. Relief can be provided via recourse to (...) a markedly non-Kripkean version of essentialism.1. (shrink)

This essay expands on Barry Smith’s paper “Against Fantology” of 2005, which defends the view that analytic philosophy has throughout its history been marked by a tendency to conceive the syntax of first-order predicate logic as a key to ontology. I present fantology (or "F(a)ntology") in the light of a more general and in itself ontologically neutral operation that I call a default ontologization of a language. I then discuss Quine’s views, since he is the most outspoken fantologist in the (...) second half of the twentieth century. As Smith points out, “fantology sometimes takes the form of a thesis according to which the language of standard predicate logic can serve the formulation of the truths of natural science in a uniquely illuminating way”. Hence Quine’s doctrine according to which the ontological commitments of a theory become evident only when the theory has been regimented in fantological clothing. (shrink)

This paper compares two alternative explanations of pragmatic encroachment on knowledge (i.e., the claim that whether an agent knows that p can depend on pragmatic factors). After reviewing the evidence for such pragmatic encroachment, we ask how it is best explained, assuming it obtains. Several authors have recently argued that the best explanation is provided by a particular account of belief, which we call pragmatic credal reductivism. On this view, what it is for an agent to believe a proposition is (...) for her credence in this proposition to be above a certain threshold, a threshold that varies depending on pragmatic factors. We show that while this account of belief can provide an elegant explanation of pragmatic encroachment on knowledge, it is not alone in doing so, for an alternative account of belief, which we call the reasoning disposition account, can do so as well. And the latter account, we argue, is far more plausible than pragmatic credal reductivism, since it accords far better with a number of claims about belief that are very hard to deny. (shrink)

This is the introduction to a special issue of 'Science in Context' on vitalism that I edited. The contents are: 1. Guido Giglioni — “What Ever Happened to Francis Glisson? Albrecht Haller and the Fate of Eighteenth-Century Irritability” 2. Dominique Boury— “Irritability and Sensibility: Two Key Concepts in Assessing the Medical Doctrines of Haller and Bordeu” 3. Tobias Cheung — “Regulating Agents, Functional Interactions, and Stimulus-Reaction-Schemes: The Concept of “Organism” in the Organic System Theories of Stahl, Bordeu and Barthez” 4. (...) Charles T. Wolfe & Motoichi Terada — “The Animal Economy as Object and Program in Montpellier Vitalism” 5. Timo Kaitaro — “Can Matter Mark the Hours? – Eighteenth-Century Vitalist Materialism and Functional Properties” 6. Elizabeth Williams —“Of Two Lives One? Jean-Charles-Marguerite-Guillaume Grimaud and the Question of Holism in Vitalist Medicine” 7. Philippe Huneman — “Montpellier Vitalism and the Emergence of Alienism in France (1750-1800): The Case of the Passions” 8. Elke Witt —“Form – A Matter of Generation. The Relation of Generation, Form and Function in the Epigenetic Theory of C.F. Wolff” . (shrink)

This essay appeared as a contribution to a special issue of European Journal of Philosophy to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of P. F. Strawson’s The Bounds of Sense. In that book Strawson asks whether we should agree with Kant's claim, in his Critique of Pure Reason, that there can be only one world. What Kant means by this claim is that the four-dimensional realm that we inhabit must constitute the whole of empirical reality. Strawson gives reasons (...) for challenging this claim. This essay raises the question whether, even if Strawson is right, we may nevertheless have reason to believe that there can be only one world on a broader understanding of ‘world’. The aim is as much to clarify the issue as to settle it, although an attempt is made to motivate the view that there can indeed be only one world on this broader understanding. (shrink)