Thick concepts, namely those concepts that describe and evaluate simultaneously, present a challenge to science. Since science does not have a monopoly on value judgments, what is responsible research involving such concepts? Using measurement of wellbeing as an example, we first present the options open to researchers wishing to study phenomena denoted by such concepts. We argue that while it is possible to treat these concepts as technical terms, or to make the relevant value judgment in-house, the responsible thing to (...) do, especially in the context of public policy, is to make this value judgment through a legitimate political process that includes all the stakeholders of this research. We then develop a participatory model of measurement based on the ideal of co-production. To show that this model is feasible and realistic, we illustrate it with a case study of co-production of a concept of thriving conducted by the authors in collaboration with a UK anti-poverty charity Turn2us. (shrink)

Each annual Ontology Summit initiative makes a statement appropriate to each Summit’s theme as part of our general advocacy designed to bring ontology science and engineering into the mainstream. The theme this year is "Towards an Open Ontology Repository". This communiqué represents the joint position of those who were engaged in the year's summit discourse on an Open Ontology Repository (OOR) and of those who endorse below. In this discussion, we have agreed that an "ontology repository is a facility where (...) ontologies and related information artifacts can be stored, retrieved and managed." -/- We believe in the promise of semantic technologies based on logic, databases and the Semantic Web, a Web of exposed data and of interpretations of that data (i.e., of semantics), using common standards. Such technologies enable distinguishable, computable, reusable, and sharable meaning of Web and other artifacts, including data, documents, and services. We also believe that making that vision a reality requires additional supporting resources and these resources should be open, extensible, and provide common services over the ontologies. (shrink)

One central fact about hallucinations is that they may be subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions. Indeed, it has been argued that the hallucinatory experiences concerned cannot— and need not—be characterized in any more positive general terms. This epistemic conception of hallucinations has been advocated as the best choice for proponents of experiential (or “naive realist”) disjunctivism—the view that perceptions and hallucinations differ essentially in their introspectible subjective characters. In this chapter, I aim to formulate and defend an intentional alternative to experiential (...) disjunctivism called experiential intentionalism. This view not only enjoys some advantages over its rival but is also compatible with the epistemic conception of hallucinations, as well as with the disjunctivist view that perceptions and hallucinations differ essentially in their third-personal structures (e.g., their causal, informational, or reason-providing links to reality). It also maintains that there are actually two aspects to the subjective indistinguishability of mental episodes: (i) we cannot distinguish their first-personal characters in introspective awareness; and (ii) we cannot distinguish their third-personal structures in experiential awareness—that is, in how they are given to consciousness. While experiential disjunctivism makes the mistake of ignoring (ii) and reducing subjective indiscriminability to (i), experiential intentionalism correctly identifies (ii) as the primary source of the subjective indistinguishability of perception-like hallucinations. Accordingly, the intentional error involved in such hallucinations is due to the fact that we consciously experience them as possessing a relational structure. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to link empirical findings concerning environmental inequalities with different normative yard-sticks for assessing whether these inequalities should be deemed unjust, or not. We argue that such an inquiry must necessarily take into account some caveats regarding both empirical research and normative theory. We suggest that empirical results must be contextualised by establishing geographies of risk. As a normative yard-stick we propose a moderately demanding social-egalitarian account of justice and democratic citizenship, which we take to (...) be best suited to identify unjust as well as legitimate instances of socio-environmental inequality. (shrink)

In this paper, I describe and discuss two mental phenomena which are somewhat neglected in the philosophy of mind: focused daydreaming and mind-wandering. My aim is to show that their natures are rather distinct, despite the fact that we tend to classify both as instances of daydreaming. The first difference between the two, I argue, is that, while focused daydreaming is an instance of imaginative mental agency, mind-wandering is not—though this does not mean that mind-wandering cannot involve mental agency at (...) all. This personal-level difference in agency and purposiveness has, furthermore, the consequence that instances of mind-wandering do not constitute unified and self-contained segments of the stream of consciousness—in stark contrast to focused daydreams. Besides, the two kinds of mental phenomena differ in whether they possess a narrative structure, and in how we may make sense of the succession of mental episodes involved. (shrink)

I discuss a contemporary solution to the dynamic problem of old evidence (POE), as proposed by Sprenger. Sprenger’s solution combines the Garber–Jeffrey–Niiniluoto (GJN) approach with Howson’s suggestion of counterfactually removing the old evidence from scientists’ belief systems. I argue that in the dynamic POE, the challenge is to explain how an insight under beliefs in which the old evidence E is known increased the credence of a scientific hypothesis. Therefore, Sprenger’s counterfactual solution, in which E has been artificially removed, does (...) not resolve the problem. I consider several potential responses. (shrink)

Over the last two decades, Axel Honneth has written extensively on the notion of social pathology, presenting it as a distinctive critical resource of Frankfurt School Critical Theory, in which tradition he places himself, and as an alternative to the mainstream liberal approaches in political philosophy. In this paper, I review the developments of Honneth's writing on this notion and offer an immanent critique, with a particular focus on his recent major work "Freedom's Right". Tracing the use of, and problems (...) internal to, Honneth's concept of social pathology serves to demonstrate his increasing reformism. It also serves to catalogue some of the dead ends that Critical Theory should avoid in taking up the idea of social pathology. The implication is not that this idea should be dropped. Rather, the paper is undertaking the necessary step of clearing the ground for further progress to take place on the question of what role the idea of social pathology can and should play in Critical Theory. The paper is critical in nature (and relentlessly so), but ultimately serves a constructive purpose. (shrink)

There is a long-standing gap in the literature as to whether Gödelian incompleteness constitutes a challenge for Neo-Logicism, and if so how serious it is. In this paper, I articulate and address the challenge in detail. The Neo-Logicist project is to demonstrate the analyticity of arithmetic by deriving all its truths from logical principles and suitable definitions. The specific concern raised by Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem is that no single sound system of logic syntactically implies all arithmetical truths. I set (...) out some responses that initially seem appealing and explain why they are not compelling. The upshot is that Neo-Logicism either offers an epistemic route only to some truths of arithmetic; or that it has to move from a syntactic to a semantic notion of logical consequence, which risks undermining its epistemic goals. I conclude by considering Crispin Wright’s recent attempt to address Gödelian incompleteness, which I argue is not satisfactory. (shrink)

The goal of the 2010 Ontology Summit was to address the current shortage of persons with ontology expertise by developing a strategy for the education of ontologists. To achieve this goal we studied how ontologists are currently trained, the requirements identified by organizations that hire ontologists, and developments that might impact the training of ontologists in the future. We developed recommendations for the body of knowledge that should be taught and the skills that should be developed by future ontologists; these (...) recommendations are intended as guidelines for institutions and organizations that may consider establishing a program for training ontologists. Further, we recommend a number of specific actions for the community to pursue. (shrink)

In this article, I defend the view that we can acquire factual knowledge – that is, contingent propositional knowledge about certain (perceivable) aspects of reality – on the basis of imaginative experience. More specifically, I argue that, under suitable circumstances, imaginative experiences can rationally determine the propositional content of knowledge-constituting beliefs – though not their attitude of belief – in roughly the same way as perceptual experiences do in the case of perceptual knowledge. I also highlight some philosophical consequences of (...) this conclusion, especially for the issue of whether imagination can help us to learn something from fictions. (shrink)

One of the tasks of ontology in information science is to support the classification of entities according to their kinds and qualities. We hold that to realize this task as far as entities such as material objects are concerned we need to distinguish four kinds of entities: substance particulars, quality particulars, substance universals, and quality universals. These form, so to speak, an ontological square. We present a formal theory of classification based on this idea, including both a semantics for the (...) theory and a provably sound axiomatization. (shrink)

Gaining information can be modelled as a narrowing of epistemic space . Intuitively, becoming informed that such-and-such is the case rules out certain scenarios or would-be possibilities. Chalmers’s account of epistemic space treats it as a space of a priori possibility and so has trouble in dealing with the information which we intuitively feel can be gained from logical inference. I propose a more inclusive notion of epistemic space, based on Priest’s notion of open worlds yet which contains only those (...) epistemic scenarios which are not obviously impossible. Whether something is obvious is not always a determinate matter and so the resulting picture is of an epistemic space with fuzzy boundaries. (shrink)

Theodor W. Adorno inspired much of Germany’s 1960s student movement, but he came increasingly into conflict with this movement about the practical implications of his critical theory. Others – including his friend and colleague Herbert Marcuse – also accused Adorno of a quietism that is politically objectionable and in contradiction with his own theory. In this article, I recon- struct, and partially defend, Adorno’s views on theory and (political) praxis in Germany’s 1960s in 11 theses. His often attacked and maligned (...) stance during the 1960s is based on his analysis of these historical circumstances. Put provocatively, his stance consists in the view that people in the 1960s have tried to change the world, in various ways; the point – at that time – was to interpret it. (shrink)

We argue that the interaction of biased media coverage and widespread employment of the recognition heuristic can produce epistemic injustices. First, we explain the recognition heuristic as studied by Gerd Gigerenzer and colleagues, highlighting how some of its components are largely external to, and outside the control of, the cognitive agent. We then connect the recognition heuristic with recent work on the hypotheses of embedded, extended, and scaffolded cognition, arguing that the recognition heuristic is best understood as an instance of (...) scaffolded cognition. In section three, we consider the double-edged sword of cognitive scaffolding. On the one hand, scaffolds can reduce the internal processing demands on cognitive agents while increasing their access to information. On the other hand, the use of scaffolding leaves cognitive agents increasingly vulnerable to forming false beliefs or failing to form beliefs at all about particular topics. With respect to the recognition heuristic, agents rely on third parties (such as the media) to report not just what’s true but also what’s important or valuable. This makes cognitive agents relying on these third parties vulnerable to two erroneous influences: 1) because they don’t recognize something, it isn’t important or valuable, and 2) because they do recognize something, it is important or valuable. Call the latter the Kardashian Inference and the former the Darfur Inference. In section four, we use Fricker’s (2007) concept of epistemic injustice to characterize the nature and harm of these false inferences, with special emphasis on the Darfur Inference. In section five, we use data-mining and an empirical study to show how Gigerenzer’s population estimation task is liable to produce Darfur Inferences. We conclude with some speculative remarks on more important Darfur Inferences, and how to avoid them by scaffolding better. One primary way to accomplish this it to shift the burden of embodying the virtue of epistemic justice from the hearer or consumer of media to the media themselves. (shrink)

This chapter overviews Hume’s thoughts on the nature and role of imagining and focusses primarily on three important distinctions that Hume draws among our conscious mental episodes: (i) between impressions and ideas; (ii) between ideas of the memory and ideas of the imagination; and (iii), among the ideas of the imagination, between ideas of the judgement and ideas of the fancy. In addition, the chapter considers Hume’s views on the imagination as a faculty of producing ideas, as well as on (...) the part that imagining plays in the acquisition of modal knowledge and in the comprehension of, and resistance to, false or fictional opinions. (shrink)

In this article, I present two objections against the view that aesthetic judgements – that is, judgemental ascriptions of aesthetic qualities like elegance or harmony – are justified non‐inferentially. The first is that this view cannot make sense of our practice to support our aesthetic judgements by reference to lower‐level features of the objects concerned. The second objection maintains that non‐inferentialism about the justification of aesthetic judgements cannot explain why our aesthetic interest in artworks and other objects is limited to (...) only some of their lower‐level features that realise their higher‐level aesthetic qualities. Although my concern with the view that aesthetic judgements are subject to non‐inferential justification is very general, my discussion is primarily structured around Sibley's well‐developed and influential version of this view. (shrink)

In this paper, I describe some of what I take to be the more interesting features of friendship, then explore the extent to which other virtues can be reconstructed as sharing those features. I use trustworthiness as my example throughout, but I think that other virtues such as generosity & gratitude, pride & respect, and the producer’s & consumer’s sense of humor can also be analyzed with this model. The aim of the paper is not to demonstrate that all moral (...) virtues are exactly like friendship in all important respects, but rather to articulate a fruitful model in which to explore the virtues. Section 2 explores the relational nature of friendship, drawing on Aristotle’s discussion of friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics. Section 3 catalogues four motivations for taking seriously the friendship model of virtue. Section 4 applies the friendship model in depth to the virtue of trustworthiness. (shrink)

Doxasticism about our awareness of normative (i.e. justifying) reasons – the view that we can recognise reasons for forming attitudes or performing actions only by means of normative judgements or beliefs – is incompatible with the following triad of claims: -/- (1) Being motivated (i.e. forming attitudes or performing actions for a motive) requires responding to and, hence, recognising a relevant reason. -/- (2) Infants are capable of being motivated. -/- (3) Infants are incapable of normative judgement or belief. -/- (...) It should be clear that (3) is true, given that infants lack the required reflective and conceptual capacities. So doxasticists have to reject either (1) or (2) (or both). But this forced choice may be understood as a dilemma for doxasticism. On the hand, doxasticists may adopt a Kantian approach and reject (2), precisely because they think that motivation presupposes the doxastic recognition of reasons, and because infants lack the capacity to doxastically recognise reasons. But this choice seems to wrongly reduce the responses of infants to mere reflexes or instinctive reactions. On the other hand, doxasticists may choose a Humean route and deny (1) by espousing a purely causal or teleological account of motivation. But this would mean detrimentally ignoring the normative nature of (some instances of) motivation. -/- One elegant way of avoiding this dilemma is to give up doxasticism and instead endorse experientialism – the view that we enjoy some experiential access to reasons, which is independent of, and perhaps more fundamental than, our capacity to form normative judgements and beliefs. In this talk, I would like to provide an argument for the existence of such a non-doxastic form of access to reasons. More specifically, I aim to defend the claim that our basic awareness of reasons is phenomenal in nature. What this means is that it forms part of our access from the inside to those of our mental episodes that provide us with access to reasons. In other words, when we introspectively attend to reason-giving mental episodes and what they are about, we have the impression of the presence of a reason for us. My defence of this experientialist alternative to doxasticism will primarily focus on perceptual reasons for first-order beliefs about the external world. (shrink)

It is now increasingly accepted that many existing biological and medical ontologies can be improved by adopting tools and methods that bring a greater degree of logical and ontological rigor. In this chapter we will focus on the merits of a logically sound approach to ontologies from a methodological point of view. As we shall see, one crucial feature of a logically sound approach is that we have clear and functional definitions of the relational expressions such as ‘is a’ and (...) ‘part of ’. (shrink)

During multiple testing, researchers often adjust their alpha level to control the familywise error rate for a statistical inference about a joint union alternative hypothesis (e.g., “H1,1 or H1,2”). However, in some cases, they do not make this inference. Instead, they make separate inferences about each of the individual hypotheses that comprise the joint hypothesis (e.g., H1,1 and H1,2). For example, a researcher might use a Bonferroni correction to adjust their alpha level from the conventional level of 0.050 to 0.025 (...) when testing H1,1 and H1,2, find a significant result for H1,1 (p < 0.025) and not for H1,2 (p > .0.025), and so claim support for H1,1 and not for H1,2. However, these separate individual inferences do not require an alpha adjustment. Only a statistical inference about the union alternative hypothesis “H1,1 or H1,2” requires an alpha adjustment because it is based on “at least one” significant result among the two tests, and so it refers to the familywise error rate. Hence, an inconsistent correction occurs when a researcher corrects their alpha level during multiple testing but does not make an inference about a union alternative hypothesis. In the present article, I discuss this inconsistent correction problem, including its reduction in statistical power for tests of individual hypotheses and its potential causes vis-à-vis error rate confusions and the alpha adjustment ritual. I also provide three illustrations of inconsistent corrections from recent psychology studies. I conclude that inconsistent corrections represent a symptom of statisticism, and I call for a more nuanced inference-based approach to multiple testing corrections. (shrink)

My primary aim in this article is to provide a philosophical account of the unity of hallucinations, which can capture both perceptual hallucinations (which are subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions) and non-perceptual hallucinations (all others). Besides, I also mean to clarify further the division of labour and the nature of the collaboration between philosophy and the cognitive sciences. Assuming that the epistemic conception of hallucinations put forward by M. G. F. Martin and others is largely on the right track, I will (...) focus on two main tasks: (a) to provide a satisfactory phenomenology of the subjective character of perceptions and perceptual hallucinations and (b) to redress the philosophers’ neglect of non-perceptual hallucinations. More specifically, I intend to apply one of the central tenets of the epistemic conception—that hallucinations can and should be positively characterised in terms of their phenomenological connections to perceptions—to non-perceptual hallucinations as well. That is, I will try to show that we can positively specify the class of non-perceptual hallucinations by reference to the distinctive ways in which we first-personally experience them and perceptions in consciousness. The task of saying more about their underlying third-personal nature may then be left to the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

What is the scope of our conscious mental agency, and how do we acquire self-knowledge of it? Both questions are addressed through an investigation of what best explains our inability to form judgemental thoughts in direct response to practical reasons. Contrary to what Williams and others have argued, it cannot be their subjection to a truth norm, given that our failure to adhere to such a norm need not undermine their status as judgemental. Instead, it is argued that we cannot (...) form judgements at will because we subjectively experience them as responses to epistemic reasons, and because this is incompatible with our experiential awareness of direct mental actions, such as instances of imagining. However, this latter awareness does not extend to indirect agency, which relies on epistemic or causal processes as means. Judging may therefore still count as an indirect action - just like, say, breaking a window by throwing a stone. (shrink)

Der These des erweiterten Geistes zufolge befinden sich manche mentalen Repräsentationen außerhalb der körperlichen Grenzen der Wesen, zu denen sie gehören. Einer der stärksten Einwände gegen diese These stellt das Argument der Nichtabgeleitetheit von Frederick Adams, Ken Aizawa und Jerry Fodor dar. Dieses Argument setzt voraus, dass genuine mentale Repräsentationen nichtabgeleitete Gehalte haben – ihre semantischen Eigenschaften sind also nicht durch Absichten, Wünsche oder Konventionen konstituiert. Repräsentationen mit nichtabgeleitetem Gehalt finden sich jedoch, so das Argument weiter, nur innerhalb der körperlichen (...) Grenzen mentaler Wesen. Ich werde dafür argumentieren, dass das Argument der Nichtabgeleitetheit scheitert, da es insbesondere bei Tieren externe Repräsentationen gibt, deren Gehalt nichtabgeleitet ist. Dies folgt jedenfalls aus der aussichtsreichsten Theorie nichtabgeleiteter Repräsentationen, der Teleosemantik, und es gibt gute Gründe anzunehmen, dass auch andere naturalistische Gehaltstheorien dieselbe Implikation haben. (shrink)

In this chapter, I argue against empiricist positions which claim that empirical evidence can be sufficient to defeasibly justify aesthetic judgements, or judgements about the adequacy of aesthetic judgements, or sceptical judgements about someone's capacity to form adequate aesthetic judgements. First, empirical evidence provides neither inferential, nor non-inferential justification for aesthetic opinions. Second, while empirical evidence may tell us how we do respond aesthetically to artworks, it cannot tell us how we should respond to them. And, third, empirical insights into (...) the irrationality of many of our aesthetic judgements do not warrant the sceptical conclusion that we ought to refrain from forming aesthetic opinions. As a consequence of these limitations to aesthetic empiricism, we should endorse the rationalist position that aesthetic criticism is largely a matter of reasoning and, moreover, a collective undertaking. (shrink)

In his paper, The Transparency of Experience, M.G.F. Martin has put forward a well- known – though not always equally well understood – argument for the disjunctivist, and against the intentional, approach to perceptual experiences. In this article, I intend to do four things: (i) to present the details of Martin’s complex argument; (ii) to defend its soundness against orthodox intentionalism; (iii) to show how Martin’s argument speaks as much in favour of experiential intentionalism as it speaks in favour of (...) disjunctivism; and (iv) to argue that there is a related reason to prefer experiential intentionalism over Martin’s version of disjunctivism. (shrink)

In his paper, The Transparency of Experience, M.G.F. Martin has put forward a well- known – though not always equally well understood – argument for the disjunctivist, and against the intentional, approach to perceptual experiences. In this article, I intend to do four things: (i) to present the details of Martin’s complex argument; (ii) to defend its soundness against orthodox intentionalism; (iii) to show how Martin’s argument speaks as much in favour of experiential intentionalism as it speaks in favour of (...) disjunctivism; and (iv) to argue that there is a related reason to prefer experiential intentionalism over Martin’s version of disjunctivism. (shrink)

Relationalism about perception minimally claims that instances of perception -- in contrast to instances of hallucination -- are constituted by the external objects perceived. Most variants of relationalism furthermore maintain that this difference in constitution is due to a difference in mental kind. One prominent example is acquaintance relationalism, which argues that perceptions are relational in virtue of acquainting us with external objects. I distinguish three variants of acquaintance relationalism -- which differ in their answers to the question of which (...) kind of awareness hallucinations involve -- and object to all of them on two main grounds. First, none of the variants can explain how hallucinations can be introspectively indistinguishable from perceptions, despite their essential difference in awareness. Second, all three variants are unable to identify the feature of hallucinations that ensure that these experiences possess the same motivational power as corresponding perceptions. Since aquaintance relationalism can satisfy neither of these two desiderata on relationalist views, it should be rejected. Hence, if we want to be relationalists about perception, we should endorse a form of relationalism that treats perceptions -- as well as hallucinations -- as representational. (shrink)

Quietist Moral Realists accept that there are moral facts and properties, while aiming to avoid many of the explanatory burdens thought to fall on traditional moral realists. This chapter examines the forms that Quietist Moral Realism has taken and the challenges it has faced, in order to better assess its prospects. The best hope, this chapter argues, lies in a pragmatist approach that distinguishes the different functions of diverse areas of discourse. This paves the way for a form of Quietism (...) that does not simply remain quiet about the explanatory demands of metaethics, but rather is able to diagnose where they go wrong. By combining a neopragmatic analysis of the discourse with an easy approach to ontology, , we can develop a form of Quietist Moral Realism that is far stronger than critics of quietism have appreciated. (shrink)

Farben sind für uns sowohl objektive, als auch phänomenale Eigenschaften. In seinem Buch argumentiert Fabian Dorsch, daß keine ontologische Theorie der Farben diesen beiden Seiten unseres Farbbegriffes gerecht werden k ann. Statt dessen sollten wir akzeptieren, daß letzterer sich auf zwei verschiedene Arten von Eigenschaften bezieht: die repräsentierten Reflektanzeigenschaften von Gegenständen und die qualitativen Eigenschaften unserer Farbwahrnehmungen, die als sinnliche Gegebenheitsweisen ersterer fungieren. Die Natur der Farben gibt einen detaillierten Überblick über die zeitgenössischen philosophischen und naturwissenschaftlichen Theorien der Farben (...) und bietet sich aufgrund seines systematischen und umfassenden Charakters auch als ein seminar- oder vorlesungsbegleitendes Textbuch an. (shrink)

One prominent ambition of theories of colour is to pay full justice to how colours are subjectively given to us; and another to reconcile this first-personal perspective on colours with the third-personal one of the natural sciences. The goal of this article is to question whether we can satisfy the second ambition on the assumption that the first should and can be met. I aim to defend a negative answer to this question by arguing that the various kinds of experienced (...) colour resemblances – notably similarities in hue distance, sameness in superdeterminables, and colour resemblances between surfaces, volumes and illuminants – cannot be accounted for in terms of the mental representation of the scientifically studied properties, which colours are best identified with in response to the second ambition. (shrink)

The recent debate on cognitive phenomenology has largely focused on phenomenal aspects connected to the content of thoughts. By contrasts, aspects pertaining to their attitude have often been neglected, despite the fact that they are distinctive of the mental kind of thought concerned and, moreover, also present in experiences and thus less contentious than purely cognitive aspects. My main goal is to identify two central and closely related aspects of attitude that are phenomenologically salient and shared by thoughts with experiences, (...) namely the rational role that they play in our mental lives and their determination by factors external to them, such as external objects or reasons. In particular, I aim to defend Phenomenal Rationalism about judgemental thoughts and perceptual experiences: the view that their phenomenal character reflects their rational role, that is, their capacity to provide and/or respond to reasons. I conclude with some remarks about how this view may be extended to other kinds of th... (shrink)

Nietzsche talks about trust [vertraue*] and mistrust [misstrau*] in all of his published and authorized works, from The Birth of Tragedy to Ecce Homo. He refers to trust in 90 passages and mistrust in 101 – approximately ten times as often as he refers to resentment/ressentiment. Yet the scholarly literature on Nietzsche and trust includes just a handful of publications. Worse still, I have been unable to find a single publication devoted to Nietzsche and mistrust. This chapter aims to fill (...) the gap in the secondary literature by using digital humanities methods to systematically investigate the functions of trust and mistrust in Nietzsche’s writings. I argue that Nietzsche offers three main insights into trust and an additional two into mistrust. When it comes to trust, in his free spirit works, he reflects on the development of interpersonal trust, with an eye to situations in which trust is or is not reciprocated. He also criticizes some of the heuristics people use to identify trustworthy partners, especially the notion that all and only people with stable character are trustworthy. And perhaps Nietzsche’s most interesting thoughts about trust relate to self-trust, which he thinks is often unjustifiably undermined. When it comes to mistrust, although he regards generalized mistrust as a sign of bad character, he also thinks that harnessing mistrust can be valuable in at least two domains. One is morality, where we are disposed to accept traditional pieties and would benefit from turning a suspicious eye towards these pieties. The other is science, which systematizes both trust and mistrust in pursuit of the truth. (shrink)

Within the debate on the epistemology of aesthetic appreciation, it has a long tradition, and is still very common, to endorse the sentimentalist view that our aesthetic evaluations are rationally grounded on, or even constituted by, certain of our emotional responses to the objects concerned. Such a view faces, however, the serious challenge to satisfactorily deal with the seeming possibility of faultless disagreement among emotionally based and epistemically appropriate verdicts. I will argue that the sentimentalist approach to aesthetic epistemology cannot (...) accept and accommodate this possibility without thereby undermining the assumed capacity of emotions to justify corresponding aesthetic evaluations – that is, without undermining the very sentimentalist idea at the core of its account. And I will also try to show that sentimentalists can hope to deny the possibility of faultless disagreement only by giving up the further view that aesthetic assessments are intersubjective – a view which is almost as traditional and widely held in aesthetics as sentimentalism, and which is indeed often enough combined with the latter. My ultimate conclusion is therefore that this popular combination of views should better be avoided: either sentimentalism or intersubjectivism has to make way. (shrink)

This dissertation provides a theory of the nature of aesthetic experiences on the basis of a theory of aesthetic values. It results in the formulation of the following necessary conditions for an experience to be aesthetic: it must consist of a representation of an object and an accompanying feeling; the representation must instantiate an intrinsic value; and the feeling must be the recognition of that value and bestow it on the object. Since representations are of intrinsic value for different reasons, (...) there are different kinds of aesthetic experiences . By means of certain conceptual links, it is possible to extend this account to other aesthetic entities thus enabling the formulation of a general theory of the aesthetic in non-aesthetic terms. In particular, aesthetic values are identical with subjective dispositions to elicit aesthetic experiences under normal conditions. Accordingly, I endorse anti-realism about aesthetic values: their existence, nature and exemplification are mind-dependent, while their ascriptions to objects have genuine truth-values. I back up this account by arguing against the alternative positions that either take aesthetic values to be objective or deny the truth-aptness of their attributions. Furthermore, I put forward a relativist variant of anti-realism according to which ascriptions of different aesthetic values to a particular object are all correct, given that the aesthetic experiences involved are made under normal conditions and concern the same aesthetically nonevaluative features of that object. For there is no specifically aesthetic norm by means of which one of the faultless aesthetic experiences can be picked out as the only appropriate one. That aesthetic values nevertheless show a normative dimension is ensured by their conformity to a general account of values as capacities to satisfy, or dissatisfy, rational desires. (shrink)

Aristotle argues that time depends on soul to count it, but adds that motion, which makes time what it is, may be independent of soul. The claim that time depends on soul or mind implies that there is at least one measurable property of natural beings that exists because of the mind’s activity. This paper argues that for Aristotle time depends partly on soul, but more importantly on motion, which defines a continuum. This argument offers a robust metaphysics of time. (...) In contrast to modern philosophy of physics, for Aristotle the continuum of motion is prior in being to time, while time is a hybrid of the real continuum of motion and the activity of mind. (shrink)

Strawson argues that we should understand moral responsibility in terms of our practices of holding responsible and taking responsibility. The former covers what is commonly referred to as backward-looking responsibility , while the latter covers what is commonly referred to as forward-looking responsibility . We consider new technologies and interventions that facilitate assignment of responsibility. Assigning responsibility is best understood as the second- or third-personal analogue of taking responsibility. It establishes forward-looking responsibility. But unlike taking responsibility, it establishes forward-looking responsibility (...) in someone else. When such assignments are accepted, they function in such a way that those to whom responsibility has been assigned face the same obligations and are susceptible to the same reactive attitudes as someone who takes responsibility. One family of interventions interests us in particular: nudges. We contend that many instances of nudging tacitly assign responsibility to nudgees for actions, values, and relationships that they might not otherwise have taken responsibility for. To the extent that nudgees tacitly accept such assignments, they become responsible for upholding norms that would otherwise have fallen under the purview of other actors. While this may be empowering in some cases, it can also function in such a way that it burdens people with more responsibility that they can (reasonably be expected to) manage. (shrink)

The question of how we should engage with a philosopher’s racial thought is of particular importance when considering Kant, who can be viewed as particularly representative of Enlightenment philosophy. In this article I argue that we should take a stance of deep acknowledgment when considering Kant’s work both inside and outside the classroom. Taking a stance of deep acknowledgment should be understood as 1) taking Kant’s racial thought to be reflective of his moral character, 2) Kant being accountable for his (...) racial thought and 3) being willing to consider the possibility that Kant’s racial thought is consistent with and inextricable from his moral philosophy. Alternative forms of engaging with Kant’s racial work have either moral or pedagogical failings, which range from simply teaching the history of philosophy uncritically to outright deception. A stance of deep acknowledgement will allow philosophers to understand how Kant’s racial thought interacts with his moral philosophy and allow instructors to teach philosophy in a historically contextualized approach so as to not alienate students whose demographic was disparaged by Kant. (shrink)

This chapter explores a case study in contemporary fanaticism. We adopt Katsafanas’s conceptualization of fanaticism to make possible an in-depth discussion of and evaluation of a diffuse but important social movement — the anglophone manosphere. According to Katsafanas, fanatics are fruitfully understood as members of a group that adopts sacred values which they hold unconditionally to preserve their own psychic unity, and who feel that those values are threatened by those who do not accept them. The manosphere includes several social (...) movements, including incels, men’s rights activists, and men-going-their-own-way. We show that many members of these groups are well-characterized by Katsafanas’s theory of fanaticism, and that they have forged their fanatical group identity using tools that philosophers have tended to associate with more benign social movements and the task of “conceptual engineering.” Indeed, we think that manosphere groups have in many cases been more successful than more palatable liberationist movements, and that this case study in the dark side of conceptual engineering may be both sobering and informative. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present the disagreement between Moran and Walton on the nature of our affective responses to fiction and to defend a view on the issue which is opposed to Moran’s account and improves on Walton’s. Moran takes imagination-based affective responses to be instances of genuine emotion and treats them as episodes with an emotional attitude towards their contents. I argue against the existence of such attitudes, and that the affective element of such responses should (...) rather be taken to be part of what is imagined. In this respect, I follow Walton; and I also agree with the latter that our affective responses to fiction are, as a consequence, not instances of real emotion. However, this gives rise to the challenge to be more specific about the nature of our responses and explain how they can still involve a phenomenologically salient affective element, given that propositionally imagining that one feels a certain emotion is ruled out because it may be done in a dispassionate way. The answer —already suggested, but not properly spelled out by Walton— is that affectively responding to some fictional element consists in imaginatively re-presenting an experience of emotional feeling towards it. The central thought is that the conscious and imaginative representation of the affective character of an instance of genuine emotion itself involves the respective phenomenologically salient affective element, despite not instantiating it. (shrink)

This paper explores the physical and metaphysical implications of time travel, focusing on the possibility of changing the past, through a comparative analysis of David Lewis' modal realism and Everett's many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. The existence of closed timelike curves (CTCs) in certain solutions to Einstein's field equations provides a theoretical basis for the possibility of backwards time travel, but this leads to a range of paradoxes, most notably the grandfather paradox. David Lewis argues that time travel must maintain (...) consistency and that the past cannot be changed, even if time travel were possible. His view is supported by his modal realism, which posits the existence of a plurality of possible worlds. In contrast, Everett's many-worlds interpretation, which holds that quantum mechanics describes a multiverse of branching realities, might seem to allow for the possibility of multiple, inconsistent histories. By examining these two ontological frameworks, this paper aims to shed light on the paradoxes of time travel and to explore whether the many-worlds interpretation provides a more satisfactory resolution to these paradoxes than Lewis' modal realism. It is argued that while Lewis' view provides a coherent model for maintaining consistency in time travel, Everett's interpretation may offer a more physically grounded and philosophically compelling account of the metaphysics of time travel. The paper concludes by suggesting that the many-worlds interpretation, by locating the branching of timelines within the structure of quantum mechanics itself, may provide a more promising framework for understanding the possibility and implications of time travel than Lewis' modal realism. However, significant questions remain about the nature of personal identity and free will in a branching multiverse. This comparative analysis aims to contribute to the ongoing debate about the metaphysical possibility of time travel and to highlight the value of engaging with interpretations of quantum mechanics in this context. Keywords: time travel, closed timelike curves, modal realism, many-worlds interpretation, grandfather paradox, metaphysics of time. (shrink)

This is the original, longer draft for my entry on Hume in the 'The Routledge Hand- book of Philosophy of Imagination', edited by Amy Kind and published by Routledge in 2016 (see the separate entry). — Please always cite the Routledge version, unless there are passages concerned that did not make it into the Handbook for reasons of length. — -/- This chapter overviews Hume’s thoughts on the nature and the role of imagining, with an almost exclusive focus on the (...) first book of his Treatise of Human Nature. Over the course of this text, Hume draws and discusses three important distinctions among our conscious mental episodes (or what he calls ‘perceptions’): (i) between impressions (including perceptual experiences) and ideas (including recollections, imaginings and occurrent beliefs); (ii) between ideas of the memory and ideas of the imagination; and (iii), among the ideas of the imagination, between ideas of the judgement (i.e. occurrent beliefs) and ideas of the fancy (i.e. imaginings). I discuss each distinction in turn, also in connection to contemporary views on imagining. In addition, I briefly consider Hume’s views on the imagination as a faculty aimed at the production of ideas, as well as on the role that imagining plays in the wider context of our mental lives, notably in the acquisition of modal knowledge and in the comprehension of, and resistance to, stories and opinions that we take to be false or fictional. (shrink)

El diseño gráfico basa su esencia en la creación de símbolos que definen identidades (mal que les pese y que no quieran hacerlo tanto los diseñadores como los destinatarios del diseño, porque es un proceso ideológico, es decir no voluntario ni consciente). Este podríamos definirlo como el primer intercambio simbólico que se da entre el diseño a través de los diseñadores y la sociedad.

Morally worthy actions are morally exemplary actions. They are the result of an agent manifesting his virtue. However, the details are controversial. What should the morally exemplary agent care about and what does it mean to be morally aware? In this paper, I examine these questions and present a novel account of morally worthy action.

The sense of smell occupies a peculiar intermediate position within Aristotle's theory of sense perception: odours, like colours and sounds, are perceived at a distance through an external medium of air or water; yet in their nature they are intimately related to flavours, the proper objects of taste, which for Aristotle is a form of touch. In this paper, I examine Aristotle's claims about odour and smell, especially in De Anima II.9 and De Sensu 5, to see what light they (...) shed on his theory of sense perception more generally. In the first half, I argue that neither of the two most influential recent ways of understanding Aristotle's theory of perception can adequately account for what he says about the sense of smell. In the second half, I offer my own positive account, considering and resolving various puzzles raised by Aristotle's claims about the nature of odour and its relation to flavour. Finally, I conclude that Aristotle's discussions of odour and smell suggest a plausible and interesting way of understanding the relationship, on his view, between ordinary, material changes in the sense organs and the activation of the capacity to perceive, considered merely as such. (shrink)

The claim that consciousness is propositional has be widely debated in the past. For instance, it has been discussed whether consciousness is always propositional, whether all propositional consciousness is linguistic, whether propositional consciousness is always articulated, or whether there can be non-articulated propositions. In contrast, the question of whether propositions are conscious has not very often been the focus of attention.

In De Anima II.6, Aristotle divides the objects of perception into three kinds: “special perceptibles" (idia aisthêta) such as colours, sounds and flavours, which can be perceived in their own right by only one sense; “common perceptibles" (koina aisthêta) such as shapes, sizes and movements, which can be perceived in their own right by multiple senses; and “incidental perceptibles,” such as the son of Diares, which can be perceived only “incidentally” (kata sumbebêkos). In this paper, I examine this division of (...) perceptibles and consider what it amounts to. First, I argue that Aristotle’s distinction between perceiving something in its own right (kath' hauto) and perceiving it incidentally marks a causal distinction: what is perceived in its own right causes perception as such, whereas what is perceived incidentally coincides with what is perceived in its own right. Second, I argue that for Aristotle special perceptibles, unlike common perceptibles, belong to homogeneous bodies on account of their chemical composition. Finally, I explain the primacy Aristotle assigns to special perceptibles and his claim that perception of them alone is free from error. I conclude with some brief remarks on Aristotle and the primary/secondary quality distinction. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that autonomy has to be conceived substantively in order to serve as the qualifying condition for receiving the full set of individual liberal rights. I show that the common distinction between content‐neutral and substantive accounts of autonomy is riddled with confusion and ambiguities, and provide a clear alternative taxonomy. At least insofar as we are concerned with liberal settings, the real question is whether or not the value and norm implied by an account of autonomy (...) are acceptable to reasonable people, not whether these accounts are content‐neutral, procedural or input‐focused. Finally, I demonstrate how substantive constraints are compatible with, or even implied in, the notion of autonomy at play in political liberalism. Overall, I present a normative reconstruction, clarification, and internal critique of liberalism, drawing on case law and statutes from England and Wales. (shrink)

This chapter aims to expand the body of empirical literature considered relevant to virtue theory beyond the burned-over districts that are the situationist challenges to virtue ethics and epistemology. We thus raise a rather simple-sounding question: why doesn’t virtue epistemology have an account of intelligence? In the first section, we sketch the history and present state of the person-situation debate to argue for the importance of an interactionist framework in bringing psychological research in general, and intelligence research in particular, to (...) bear on questions of virtue. In Section 2, we discuss the history and present state of intelligence research to argue for its relevance to virtue epistemology. In Section 3, we argue that intelligence sits uneasily in both responsibilist and reliabilist virtue frameworks, which suggests that a new approach to virtue epistemology is needed. We conclude by placing intelligence within a new interactionist framework. (shrink)

Two particular approaches to the imagination as a recreative capacity have recently gained prominence: neo-Humeanism and simulationatism. According to neo-Humeanism, imaginings have cognitions as a constitutive part of their representational contents; while simulationalists maintain that, in imagining, we essentially simulate the occurrence of certain cognitive states. Two other kinds of constitutive dependence, that figure regularly in the debate, concern the necessity of cogni­tions for, respectively, the causation and the semantic power of imaginings. In what follows, I dis­cuss each of these (...) kinds of dependence and assess how useful they are for spelling out the concep­tion of imaginings as recreations of cognitions. A particular focus will thereby be on the details of Hume's original conception of imaginings as causal reproductions (or ‘copies’) of cog­nitions, as well as on the influence of his view on contemporary approaches to the topic which replace Hume's causal understanding of the representational link between imaginings and cognitions with either an intentional or a relational understanding. My conclusion will be that, if imaginings should be taken to be recreations at all, then they should be taken to be representational recreations. That is, neo-Humeanism turns out to be the most plausible way of understanding imaginings as re­creations of cognitions. (shrink)