Reid said little in his published writings about his contemporary Joseph Priestley, but his unpublished work is largely devoted to the latter. Much of Priestley's philosophical thought- his materialism, his determinism, his Lockean scientific realism- was as antithetical to Reid's as was Hume's philosophy in a very different way. Neither Reid nor Priestley formulated a full response to the other. Priestley's response to Reid came very early in his career, and is marked by haste and immaturity. (...) In his last decade Reid worried much about Priestley's materialism, but that concern never reached publication. I document Reid's unpublished response to Priestley, and also view Reid's response from Priestley's perspective, as deduced from his published works. Both thinkers attempted to base their arguments on Newtonian method. Reid's position is the more puzzling of the two, since he nowhere makes clear how Newtonian method favours mind-body dualism over materialism, which is the central debate between them. (shrink)

Hybrid expressivists claim to solve the Frege-Geach problem by offloading the explanation of the logico-semantic properties of moral sentences onto beliefs that are components of hybrid states they express. We argue that this strategy is undermined by one of hybrid expressivism’s own commitments: that the truth of the belief-component is neither necessary nor sufficient for the truth of the hybrid state it composes. We articulate a new approach. Instead of explaining head-on what it is for, say, a pair of moral (...) sentences to be inconsistent, expressivists should “sidestep” and explain what it is _to think that_ a pair of moral sentences is inconsistent. To think so is to think they cannot both be true – a modal notion. Since expressivists have given accounts of such modals, we illustrate how sentences like ‘“lying is wrong” and “lying is not wrong” are inconsistent’ express sensible – and rationally compelling – states of mind. (shrink)

This article considers two important problems for the idea that what we ought to do is determined by the balance of competing reasons. The problems are distinct, but the object of the article is to explore how they admit of a single solution. It is a consequence of this solution that objective reasons—facts that count in favor—are in an important sense less objective than they have consistently been assumed to be. This raises but does not answer the question as to (...) what evidence we ever had that reasons are as objective as has been assumed. (shrink)

In a recent paper published in this journal, Giubilini, Douglas and Savulescu argue that we have given insufficient weight to the moral importance of fairness in our account of the best policies for non-medical exemptions to childhood immunization requirements. They advocate for a type of policy they call Contribution, according to which parents must contribute to important public health goods before their children can receive NMEs to immunization requirements. In this response, we argue that Giubilini, Douglas and Savulescu give insufficient (...) weight to the moral importance parental liberty in ways that count against their preferred type of NMEs policy and threaten public support for mandatory vaccination laws and public health initiatives generally. (shrink)

The best writing of Mark Pettinelli, about cognitive psychology, cognitive science, etc.

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

Most philosophers find it puzzling how beliefs could wrong, and this leads them to conclude that they do not. So there is much philosophical work to be done in sorting out whether I am right to say that they do, as well as how this could be so. But in this paper I will take for granted that beliefs can wrong, and ask instead when beliefs wrong. My answer will be that beliefs wrong when they falsely diminish. This answer has (...) three parts: that beliefs wrong only when they are false, that beliefs wrong only when they diminish, and that false diminishment is sufficient for wronging. I will seek to elaborate on and defend all three of these claims, but it is the first to which I will give the most attention. (shrink)

Virtues are dispositions that make their bearers admirable. Dispositions can be studied scientifically by systematically varying whether their alleged bearers are in (or take themselves to be in) the dispositions' eliciting conditions. In recent decades, empirically-minded philosophers looked to social and personality psychology to study the extent to which ordinary humans embody dispositions traditionally considered admirable in the Aristotelian tradition. This led some to conclude that virtues are not attainable ideals, and that we should focus our ethical reflection and efforts (...) more on jerry-rigging our environments than on improving our characters. Most virtue ethicists resisted this reorientation. However, much of the scientific evidence on which the controversy was based has failed to replicate, raising the question of how much faith we should place in methodologically suspect studies. In this paper, I assess the state of the debate and recommend best practices for a renewed interdisciplinary investigation of virtues and vices in which philosophical expertise related to conceptualization and theorizing is essentially intertwined with scientific expertise related to operationalization, measurement, and statistics. (shrink)

Many scholars agree that the Internet plays a pivotal role in self-radicalization, which can lead to behaviours ranging from lone-wolf terrorism to participation in white nationalist rallies to mundane bigotry and voting for extremist candidates. However, the mechanisms by which the Internet facilitates self-radicalization are disputed; some fault the individuals who end up self-radicalized, while others lay the blame on the technology itself. In this paper, we explore the role played by technological design decisions in online self-radicalization in its myriad (...) guises, encompassing extreme as well as more mundane forms. We begin by characterizing the phenomenon of technological seduction. Next, we distinguish between top-down seduction and bottom-up seduction. We then situate both forms of technological seduction within the theoretical model of dynamical systems theory. We conclude by articulating strategies for combatting online self-radicalization. (shrink)

We begin with a puzzle about how to intelligibly combine the active and passive elements of perception. For counsel, we turn to Augustine’s account of perception in De Trinitate. Augustine’s trinitarian account of perception offers an attractive resolution of our puzzle. Augustine’s resolution of our puzzle, however, cannot be straightforwardly adopted. It must be adapted. We end with speculation about how this might be done.

Using path-breaking discoveries of cognitive science, Mark Johnson argues that humans are fundamentally imaginative moral animals, challenging the view that morality is simply a system of universal laws dictated by reason. According to the Western moral tradition, we make ethical decisions by applying universal laws to concrete situations. But Johnson shows how research in cognitive science undermines this view and reveals that imagination has an essential role in ethical deliberation. Expanding his innovative studies of human reason in Metaphors We (...) Live By and The Body in the Mind, Johnson provides the tools for more practical, realistic, and constructive moral reflection. (shrink)

Nietzsche promises to “translate man back into nature,” but it remains unclear what he meant by this and to what extent he succeeded at it. To help come to grips with Nietzsche’s conceptions of drive (Trieb), instinct (Instinkt) and virtue (Tugend and/or Keuschheit), I develop novel digital humanities methods to systematically track his use of these terms, constructing a near-comprehensive catalogue of what he takes these dispositions to be and how he thinks they are related. Nietzsche individuate drives and instincts (...) by the type of actions they motivate. One way in which the “translation” of man back into nature might succeed is through naturalistic explanation and reduction of moral notions such as virtue in terms of amoral, naturalistic notions, such as drives and instincts. I go on to show that this is indeed Nietzsche’s project: for him, a virtue is a well-calibrated drive. Such calibration relates both to the rest of the agent’s psychic economy (her other drives) and to her social context (what’s considered praiseworthy and blameworthy in her community). (shrink)

This chapter argues for an interpretation of Kant's psychology of moral evil that accommodates the so-called excluded middle cases and allows for variations in the magnitude of evil. The strategy involves distinguishing Kant's transcendental psychology from his empirical psychology and arguing that Kant's character rigorism is restricted to the transcendental level. The chapter also explains how Kant's theory of moral evil accommodates 'the badass'; someone who does evil for evil's sake.

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.

Mark David Webster ABSTRACT: Using qualitative methods, the author sought to better understand how philosophical assumptions about technology affect the thinking, and influence the decision making, of educational technology leaders in their professional practice. One of the research questions focused on examining whether assumptions of technological determinism were present in thinking and influenced the decisions that leaders make. The core category that emerged from data analysis, Keep up with technology (or be left behind), was interpreted to be a manifestation (...) of the technological imperative, an assumption associated with the philosophical perspective of technological determinism. The article presents a literature review and critique of philosophical issues surrounding technological determinism. Data analysis led to the conclusion that technology leaders working in K-12 education place weighted priority on the technological imperative, and there is philosophical tension between Keep up with technology (or be left behind), and a concurrently held perspective based on the logic of the instrumental view of technology. The findings suggest that different accounts of technological determinism, including Bimber’s three accounts of normative, nomological, and unintended consequences, are significant in the thinking of participants. School technology leaders placed priority on embracing technological change, sometimes adopting technology for its own sake. (shrink)

Explaining genuine moral disagreement is a challenge for metaethical theories. For expressivists, this challenge comes from the plausibility of agents making seemingly univocal claims while expressing incongruent conative attitudes. I argue that metaethical inferentialism – a deflationary cousin to expressivism, which locates meaning in the inferential import of our moral assertions rather than the attitudes they express – offers a unique solution to this problem. Because inferentialism doesn’t locate the source of moral disagreements in a clash between attitudes, but instead (...) in conflicts between the inferential import of ethical assertions, the traditional problem for expressivism can be avoided. After considering two forms of inferentialism that lead to revenge versions of the problem, I conclude by recommending that we understand the semantics of moral disagreements pragmatically: the source of univocity does not come from moral or semantic facts waiting to be described, but instead from the needs that ethical and semantic discourses answer – a solution to the problems of what we are to do and how we are to talk about it. (shrink)

Research notes of Mark Pettinelli about cognitive science, cognitive psychology.

This collection of articles is almost all of the psychological writings of Mark Pettinelli.

YouTube has been implicated in the transformation of users into extremists and conspiracy theorists. The alleged mechanism for this radicalizing process is YouTube’s recommender system, which is optimized to amplify and promote clips that users are likely to watch through to the end. YouTube optimizes for watch-through for economic reasons: people who watch a video through to the end are likely to then watch the next recommended video as well, which means that more advertisements can be served to them. This (...) is a seemingly innocuous design choice, but it has a troubling side-effect. Critics of YouTube have alleged that the recommender system tends to recommend extremist content and conspiracy theories, as such videos are especially likely to capture and keep users’ attention. To date, the problem of radicalization via the YouTube recommender system has been a matter of speculation. The current study represents the first systematic, pre-registered attempt to establish whether and to what extent the recommender system tends to promote such content. We begin by contextualizing our study in the framework of technological seduction. Next, we explain our methodology. After that, we present our results, which are consistent with the radicalization hypothesis. Finally, we discuss our findings, as well as directions for future research and recommendations for users, industry, and policy-makers. (shrink)

Cognitive categories in the geographic realm appear to manifest certain special features as contrasted with categories for objects at surveyable scales. We have argued that these features reflect specific ontological characteristics of geographic objects. This paper presents hypotheses as to the nature of the features mentioned, reviews previous empirical work on geographic categories, and presents the results of pilot experiments that used English-speaking subjects to test our hypotheses. Our experiments show geographic categories to be similar to their non-geographic counterparts in (...) the ways in which they generate instances of different relative frequencies at different levels. Other tests, however, provide preliminary evidence for the existence of important differences in subjects’ categorizations of geographic and non-geographic objects, and suggest further experimental work especially with regard to the role in cognitive categorization of different types of object-boundaries at different scales. (shrink)

Doxastic voluntarism is the thesis that our beliefs are subject to voluntary control. While there’s some controversy as to what “voluntary control” amounts to (see 1.2), it’s often understood as direct control: the ability to bring about a state of affairs “just like that,” without having to do anything else. Most of us have direct control over, for instance, bringing to mind an image of a pine tree. Can one, in like fashion, voluntarily bring it about that one believes a (...) specific proposition? Doxastic voluntarists hold that, at least in some circumstances—such as when the evidence is ambiguous—we can. Doxastic involuntarists, in contrast, maintain that we cannot. Some involuntarists hold that the concept of belief itself precludes the possibility of believing voluntarily. Others hold that the impossibility of voluntary belief is a contingent psychological fact. Historically, the issue of doxastic voluntarism has been connected to how many think about religious commitment: a prominent view of faith is that it is a voluntary decision to believe. Furthermore, the issue of voluntarism has also been viewed as having bearing on fundamental questions in epistemology. For example, are epistemic norms duties to believe in certain ways? Are there practical or moral reasons to believe? If the answer to either question is “yes,” it seems some measure of voluntary doxastic control is required. -/- In section 1, we expand on the definition of doxastic voluntarism, and survey various kinds of control (e.g. direct, indirect, long-range) and the doxastic attitudes we might control (e.g. outright belief, withholding, credences). In section 2, we discuss a number of historical views on doxastic voluntarism. In section 3, we survey motivations for rejecting doxastic voluntarism. There are two general strategies: arguments that appeal to psychological considerations, and conceptual arguments regarding the nature of belief. In section 4, we survey five approaches to defending voluntarism: those that appeal to epistemic permissivism, doxastic compatibilism, skepticism, one-off considerations, and non-standard views of belief. In section 5, we cover empirical work on doxastic voluntarism. The last two sections discuss two implications of voluntarism. In section 6, we discuss voluntarism’s implications for the ethics of belief, and in section 7, we discuss issues at the intersection of voluntarism and religious faith. (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)

A qualitative study using grounded theory methods was conducted to (a) examine what philosophy of technology assumptions are present in the thinking of K-12 technology leaders, (b) investigate how the assumptions may influence technology decision making, and (c) explore whether technological determinist assumptions are present. Subjects involved technology directors and instructional technology specialists from school districts, and data collection involved interviews and a written questionnaire. Three broad philosophy of technology views were widely held by participants, including an instrumental view of (...) technology, technological optimism, and a technological determinist perspective that sees technological change as inevitable. Technology leaders were guided by two main approaches to technology decision making in cognitive dissonance with each other, represented by the categories Educational goals and curriculum should drive technology, and Keep up with Technology (or be left behind). The researcher concluded that as leaders deal with their perceived experience of the inevitability of technological change, and their concern for preparing students for a technological future, the core category Keep up with technology (or be left behind) is given the greater weight in technology decision making. A risk is that this can on occasion mean a quickness to adopt technology for the sake of technology, without aligning the technology implementation with educational goals. (shrink)

An account of distinctively mathematical explanation (DME) should satisfy three desiderata: it should account for the modal import of some DMEs; it should distinguish uses of mathematics in explanation that are distinctively mathematical from those that are not (Baron [2016]); and it should also account for the directionality of DMEs (Craver and Povich [2017]). Baron’s (forthcoming) deductive-mathematical account, because it is modelled on the deductive-nomological account, is unlikely to satisfy these desiderata. I provide a counterfactual account of DME, the Narrow (...) Ontic Counterfactual Account (NOCA), that can satisfy all three desiderata. NOCA appeals to ontic considerations to account for explanatory asymmetry and ground the relevant counterfactuals. NOCA provides a unification of the causal and the non-causal, the ontic and the modal, by identifying a common core that all explanations share and in virtue of which they are explanatory. (shrink)

In “Stakes, Withholding, and Pragmatic Encroachment on Knowledge,” I used a variety of cases, including cases of forced choice, to illustrate my explanation of how and why some pragmatic factors, but not others, can affect whether an agent knows. In his recent contribution, Andy Mueller argues that cases of forced choice actually pose a dilemma for my account. In this paper I reply.

The Razor says: do not multiply entities without necessity! The Laser says: do not multiply fundamental entities without necessity! Behind the Laser lies a deep insight. This is a distinction between the costs and the commitments of a theory. According to the Razor, every commitment is a cost. Not so according to the Laser. According to the Laser, derivative entities are an ontological free lunch: that is, they are a commitment without a cost. Jonathan Schaffer (2015) has argued that the (...) Laser should replace the Razor. In Sections 2-4 we shall discuss and argue against Schaffer’s arguments for replacing the Razor with the Laser. Schaffer considers several objections to his views, and in Sections 5-7 we shall argue that Schaffer does not deal successfully with two of them. In Section 8 we shall present a probabilistic argument for the Laser. However, the argument has a limitation and does not support the replacement of the Razor with the Laser. Indeed, it supports only the claim that, given certain assumptions, the multiplication of explanatorily relevant derivative entities does not matter; but, as we argue in the same section, there is an argument that multiplying explanatorily superfluous derivative entities does makes a theory less rationally acceptable. Our conclusion is that the Laser cannot replace the Razor and that derivative entities are not an ontological free lunch. (shrink)

I develop and defend a truthmaker semantics for the relevant logic R. The approach begins with a simple philosophical idea and develops it in various directions, so as to build a technically adequate relevant semantics. The central philosophical idea is that truths are true in virtue of specific states. Developing the idea formally results in a semantics on which truthmakers are relevant to what they make true. A very natural notion of conditionality is added, giving us relevant implication. I then (...) investigate ways to add conjunction, disjunction, and negation; and I discuss how to justify contraposition and excluded middle within a truthmaker semantics. (shrink)

The reading abilities of Filipino students have been a challenge for educators and policymakers alike. Despite government efforts to improve literacy rates in the Philippines, recent studies have shown that many students need help with reading comprehension, vocabulary development, and critical thinking skills. This research note examines the current state of reading abilities among Filipino students and potential areas for improvement. The poor reading abilities can be attributed to several factors, including a lack of resources and socioeconomic factors. However, there (...) are identified potential areas for improvement, such as promoting early literacy programs, investing in teacher training, and developing reading materials that are culturally relevant and engaging for Filipino students. These findings have important implications for education policies and practices in the Philippines and for educators and researchers seeking to improve reading abilities among Filipino students. (shrink)

A qualitative study was conducted to examine the philosophy of technology of K-12 technology leaders, and explore the influence of their thinking on technology decision making. The research design aligned with CORBIN and STRAUSS grounded theory methods, and I proceeded from a research paradigm of critical realism. The subjects were school technology directors and instructional technology specialists, and data collection consisted of interviews and a written questionnaire. Data analysis involved the use of grounded theory methods including memo writing, open and (...) axial coding, constant comparison, the use of purposive and theoretical sampling, and theoretical saturation of categories. Three broad philosophy of technology views were widely held by participants: an instrumental view of technology, technological optimism, and a technological determinist perspective that saw technological change as inevitable. Technology leaders were guided by two main approaches to technology decision making, represented by the categories Educational goals and curriculum should drive technology, and Keep up with Technology (or be left behind). The core category and central phenomenon that emerged was that technology leaders approached technology leadership by placing greater emphasis on keeping up with technology, being influenced by an ideological orientation to technological change, and being concerned about preparing students for a technological future. (shrink)

The inflation of Type I error rates is thought to be one of the causes of the replication crisis. Questionable research practices such as p-hacking are thought to inflate Type I error rates above their nominal level, leading to unexpectedly high levels of false positives in the literature and, consequently, unexpectedly low replication rates. In this article, I offer an alternative view. I argue that questionable and other research practices do not usually inflate relevant Type I error rates. I begin (...) by introducing the concept of Type I error rates and distinguishing between statistical errors and theoretical errors. I then illustrate my argument with respect to model misspecification, multiple testing, selective inference, forking paths, exploratory analyses, p-hacking, optional stopping, double dipping, and HARKing. In each case, I demonstrate that relevant Type I error rates are not usually inflated above their nominal level, and in the rare cases that they are, the inflation is easily identified and resolved. I conclude that the replication crisis may be explained, at least in part, by researchers’ misinterpretation of statistical errors and their underestimation of theoretical errors. (shrink)

Fitting Attitudes accounts of value analogize or equate being good with being desirable, on the premise that ‘desirable’ means not, ‘able to be desired’, as Mill has been accused of mistakenly assuming, but ‘ought to be desired’, or something similar. The appeal of this idea is visible in the critical reaction to Mill, which generally goes along with his equation of ‘good’ with ‘desirable’ and only balks at the second step, and it crosses broad boundaries in terms of philosophers’ other (...) commitments. For example, Fitting Attitudes accounts play a central role both in T.M. Scanlon’s [1998] case against teleology, and in Michael Smith [2003], [unpublished] and Doug Portmore’s [2007] cases for it. And of course they have a long and distinguished history. (shrink)

This chapter lays out a case that with the proper perspective on the place of epistemology within normative inquiry more generally, it is possible to appreciate what was on the right track about some of the early approaches to the analysis of knowledge, and to improve on the obvious failures which led them to be rejected. Drawing on more general principles about reasons, their weight, and their relationship to justification, it offers answers to problems about defeat and the conditional fallacy (...) that plagued early defeasibility analyses of knowledge and offers a sketch of a contemporary alternative that is motivated by the idea that knowledge requires the right kind of “match” between objective and subjective factors. (shrink)

I know that I could have been where you are right now and that you could have been where I am right now, but that neither of us could have been turnips or natural numbers. This knowledge of metaphysical modality stands in need of explanation. I will offer an account based on our knowledge of the natures, or essencess, of things. I will argue that essences need not be viewed as metaphysically bizarre entities; that we can conceptualise and refer to (...) essences; and that we can gain knowledge of them. We can know about which properties are, and which properties are not, essential to a given entity. This knowledge of essence offers a route to knowledge of the ways those entities must be or could be. (shrink)

Progress in philosophy is difficult to achieve because our methods are evidentially and rhetorically weak. In the last two decades, experimental philosophers have begun to employ the methods of the social sciences to address philosophical questions. However, the adequacy of these methods has been called into question by repeated failures of replication. Experimental philosophers need to incorporate more robust methods to achieve a multi-modal perspective. In this chapter, we describe and showcase cutting-edge methods for data-mining and visualization. Big data is (...) a useful investigatory tool for moral psychology, and it fits well with the Ramsification method the first author advances in a series of recent papers. The guiding insight of these papers is that we can infer the meaning and structure of concepts from patterns of assertions and inferential associations in natural language. (shrink)

Philosophers have come to distinguish between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ kinds of reasons for belief, intention, and other attitudes. Several theories about the nature of this distinction have been offered, by far the most prevalent of which is the idea that it is, at bottom, the distinction between what are known as ‘object-given’ and ‘state-given’ reasons. This paper argues that the object-given/state-given theory vastly overgeneralizes on a small set of data points, and in particular that any adequate account of the distinction (...) between the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ kinds of reason must allow state-given reasons to be of the right kind. The paper has three main goals, corresponding to its three main parts. In part 1 I set up the problem by introducing the right-kind/wrong-kind distinction, the object-given/state-given distinction, and the object-given/state-given theory, according to which the former distinction simply amounts to the latter. Part 2 presents the main argument of the paper: I argue against the object-given/state-given theory by showing that all of the earmarks of the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ kinds of reason apply to reasons not to intend and not to believe, but that these cases can’t be captured by the object-given/state-given theory. Finally, in part 3 I use these arguments to motivate and explore a more general hypothesis about the rightkind/wrong-kind distinction, and explore some of the consequences of rejecting the object-given/stategiven theory. (shrink)

There are many different kinds of libertarianism. The first is right libertarianism, which received its most powerful expression in Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974), a book that still sets the baseline for discussions of libertarianism today. The second, I will call faux libertarianism. For reasons I will explain in this paper, most ‘man-on-the-street’ libertarians and most politicians who claim to be libertarians are actually this kind of libertarian. And third, there is left libertarianism, which is what I shall (...) spend most of this paper explicating. But I will not simply be surveying the views of those who identify as left libertarians and put this forth as if I were engaged in an exegetical exercise. Instead, what I shall set forth is a kind of manifesto, a statement of why I consider myself a left libertarian, one that takes this approach to political morality well beyond where it was left around the end of the last century by the previous generation of left libertarians. My hope is to provide those who find certain left libertarian ideas attractive a guide by which they can explain and harmonise their own views, recognise left libertarianism as a distinct comprehensive political doctrine, and feel more open to identify themselves as left libertarian too. (shrink)

What is it to have a reason? According to one common idea, the "Factoring Account", you have a reason to do A when there is a reason for you to do A which you have--which is somehow in your possession or grasp. In this paper, I argue that this common idea is false. But though my arguments are based on the practical case, the implications of this are likely to be greatest in epistemology: for the pitfalls we fall into when (...) trying to defend the Factoring Account reflect very well the major developments in empiricist epistemology during the 20th century. I conjecture that this is because epistemologists have been--wrongly--wedded to the Factoring Account about evidence, which I conjecture is a certain kind of reason to believe. (shrink)

In his groundbreaking book, Thin Objects, Linnebo (2018) argues for an account of neo-Fregean abstraction principles and thin existence that does not rely on analyticity or conceptual rules. It instead relies on a metaphysical notion he calls “sufficiency”. In this short discussion, I defend the analytic or conceptual rule account of thin existence.

Reasons, it is often said, are king in contemporary normative theory. Some philosophers say not only that the vocabulary of reasons is useful, but that reasons play a fundamental explanatory role in normative theory—that many, most, or even all, other normative facts are grounded in facts about reasons. Even if reasons fundamentalism, the strongest version of this view, has only been wholeheartedly endorsed by a few philosophers, it has a kind of prominence in contemporary normative theory that suits it to (...) be described as orthodoxy by its critics. It is the purpose of this paper to make progress toward understanding what appeal Reasons Fundamentalism should have, and whether that appeal is deserved. I will do so by exploring and comparing two central motivations for Reasons Fundamentalism. (shrink)

Can one fully succeed in performing illocutionary acts addressed to others if they do not understand what one is purportedly saying? Can one, for example, tell others something if they do not understand what one supposedly said? It is not uncommon for speech act theorist to claim that one cannot. I, in contrast, will be arguing that it is possible for a speaker to fully succeed in performing interpersonal illocutionary acts even if addressee understanding of what is said is not (...) produced, is not intended to be produced and is even intended not to be produced. (shrink)

This paper presents five studies on the development and validation of a scale of intellectual humility. This scale captures cognitive, affective, behavioral, and motivational components of the construct that have been identified by various philosophers in their conceptual analyses of intellectual humility. We find that intellectual humility has four core dimensions: Open-mindedness (versus Arrogance), Intellectual Modesty (versus Vanity), Corrigibility (versus Fragility), and Engagement (versus Boredom). These dimensions display adequate self-informant agreement, and adequate convergent, divergent, and discriminant validity. In particular, Open-mindedness (...) adds predictive power beyond the Big Six for an objective behavioral measure of intellectual humility, and Intellectual Modesty is uniquely related to Narcissism. We find that a similar factor structure emerges in Germanophone participants, giving initial evidence for the model’s cross-cultural generalizability. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs the relationship between the now, motion, and number in Aristotle to clarify the nature of the now, and, thereby, the relationship between motion and time. Although it is clear that for Aristotle motion, and, more generally, change, are prior to time, the nature of this priority is not clear. But if time is the number of motion, then the priority of motion can be grasped by examining his theory of number. This paper aims to show that, just (...) as numbers are generated by the soul, time is not presupposed by motion, but emerges through the soul’s articulation of motion. Time is co-constituted by the soul and motion. The now is the key to understanding both the contribution of motion and soul to the being of time. The now is part of the soul’s articulation of motion, and sets the stage for an act that distinguishes a unit from its underlying motion. The now, then, sets up an abstraction by which the soul generates the temporal number from motion. Reconstructing this account of abstraction allows us to formulate more strongly Aristotle’s claim to the ontological dependence of time on motion. The paper then gives a systematic overview of the relationships between the now and number in order to address the question of whether the now might be extended. It closes with an examination of the possibility that motion depends on time, and how universal time is possible. (shrink)

In response to Stefano Predelli's article finding in David Kaplan's “Demonstratives” a distinction between “context shifting” monsters and “operators on character,” I argue that context shifters are operators on character. That conclusion conflicts with the claim that operators on character must be covertly quotational. But that claim is itself unmotivated.

Bird’s Essays in Collective Epistemology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014) account of social knowledge denies that scientific social knowledge supervenes solely on the mental states of individuals. Lackey objects that SK cannot accommodate a knowledge-action principle and the role of group defeaters. I argue that Lackey’s knowledge-action principle is ambiguous. On one disambiguation, it is false; on the other, it is true but poses no threat to SK. Regarding group defeaters, I argue that there are at least two options available (...) to the defender of SK, both taken from literature on individual defeaters and applied to group defeaters. Finally, I argue that Lackey’s description of the case of Dr. N.—as a case in which the scientific community does not know but is merely in a position to know—is mistaken. It assumes that Dr. N.’s publication is not scientific knowledge. An analogy to the individual case shows that it is plausible that the scientific community is not merely in a position to know, although its members are. This leaves intact a conception of social knowledge on which it does not supervene on the mental states of individuals. (shrink)

Several authors have recently endorsed the thesis that there is what has been called pragmatic encroachment on knowledge—in other words, that two people who are in the same situation with respect to truth-related factors may differ in whether they know something, due to a difference in their practical circumstances. This paper aims not to defend this thesis, but to explore how it could be true. What I aim to do, is to show how practical factors could play a role in (...) defeating knowledge by defeating epistemic rationality—the very kind of rationality that is entailed by knowledge, and in which Pascalian considerations do not play any role—even though epistemic rationality consists in having adequate evidence. (shrink)

Unfortunately, many people today see the regulation of lies, disinformation, hate speech, and fake news as an infringement of free speech, at least when such speech is ‘political,’ despite the damage that such speech can do. But this very protective attitude toward speech rests on a mistaken understanding of the role of free speech in a liberal society. The right to free speech is based on the liberal value of freedom, and as such can be no broader than freedom itself. (...) And freedom has always been subject to reasonable limits in a liberal society. Indeed, while the principles of toleration and neutrality are often cited as supporting a broad interpretation of the right to free speech, they also tell us that certain limits apply to that right. We need not tolerate speech that encourages intolerance, and while government should be neutral between reasonable conceptions of the good, it need not be neutral between reasonable and unreasonable conceptions. These ideas form the framework of liberal society, and as I shall show, also provide a guide for understanding what kind of speech is protected in a liberal society and what it is not. (shrink)

Touch is the first sense to develop in the womb, yet often it is overlooked. The Senses of Touch examines the role of touching and feeling as part of the fabric of everyday, embodied experience. -/- How can we think about touch? Problems of touch and tactility run as a continuous thread in philosophy, psychology, medical writing and representations in art, from Ancient Greece to the present day. Picking through some of these threads, the book ‘feels’ its way towards writing (...) and thinking about touch as both sensory and affective experience. -/- Taking a broadly phenomenological framework that traces the tactility from Aristotle through the Enlightenment to the present day, it examines the role of touch across a range of experiences including aesthetics, digital design, visual impairment and touch therapies. The Senses of Touch thereby demonstrates the varieties of sensory experience, and explores the diverse range of our ‘senses’ of touch. (shrink)