This essay is dedicated to the memory of Katherine Hawley.1Bitcoin was invented to serve as a digital currency that demands no trust in financial institutions, such as commercial and central banks. This paper discusses metaphysical aspects of bitcoin, in particular the view that bitcoin is socially constructed, non-concrete, and genuinely exists. If bitcoin is socially constructed, then one may worry that this reintroduces trust in the communities responsible for the social construction. Although we may have to rely on certain communities, (...) I argue that social construction doesn’t imply a demand for trust because the relevant communities don’t take on any relevant commitments. Bitcoin is indeed trust-free. (shrink)

We make choices about our own appearance and evaluate others' choices – every day. These choices are meaningful for us as individuals and as members of communities. But many features of personal appearance are due to luck, and many cultural beauty standards make some groups and individuals worse off (this is called “lookism”). So, how are we to square these two facets of personal appearance? And how are we to evaluate agency in the context of personal beauty? I identify three (...) ways of responding to these questions: beauty advo- cacy, beauty skepticism, and beauty revisionism. Advocates connect an honorific sense of beauty with personal charac- ter. Skeptics focus on beauty standards, and primarily offer a social critique of beauty standards. Some skeptics suggest embracing other aesthetic ideals – even ugliness. Revision- ists critique beauty standards, but retain an honorific sense of beauty. Each position offers tools to evaluate personal agency as aesthetic agency, whether first-personally or through our appreciation of others' appearance. (shrink)

In a recent paper in this journal Duncan Pritchard responds to an objection to the modal account of risk pressed by Ebert, Smith and Durbach ( 2020 ). In this paper, I expand upon the objection and argue that it still stands. I go on to consider a more general question raised by this exchange – whether risk is ‘objective’, or whether it is something that varies from one perspective to another.

This book explores a question central to philosophy--namely, what does it take for a belief to be justified or rational? According to a widespread view, whether one has justification for believing a proposition is determined by how probable that proposition is, given one's evidence. In this book this view is rejected and replaced with another: in order for one to have justification for believing a proposition, one's evidence must normically support it--roughly, one's evidence must make the falsity of that proposition (...) abnormal in the sense of calling for special, independent explanation. This conception of justification bears upon a range of topics in epistemology and beyond. Ultimately, this way of looking at justification guides us to a new, unfamiliar picture of how we should respond to our evidence and manage our own fallibility. This picture is developed here. (shrink)

This contribution aims to explore the historical predecessors of the Five Percenter model of self-realization, as popularized by Hip Hop artists such as Supreme Team, Rakim Allah, Brand Nubian, Wu-Tang Clan, or Sunz of Man. As compared to frequent considerations of the phenomenon as a creative mythological background for a socio-political struggle, Five Percenter teachings shall be discussed as contemporary interpretations of historical models of self-realization in various philosophical, religious, and esoteric systems. By putting the coded system of the tenfold (...) Supreme Mathematics as one of its core teachings in context with the Pythagorean Tetractys, an arrangement of ten points in four lines, the commonalities between the sequence and concepts attributed to the respective numbers will be demonstrated. (shrink)

There is something puzzling about statistical evidence. One place this manifests is in the law, where courts are reluctant to base affirmative verdicts on evidence that is purely statistical, in spite of the fact that it is perfectly capable of meeting the standards of proof enshrined in legal doctrine. After surveying some proposed explanations for this, I shall outline a new approach – one that makes use of a notion of normalcy that is distinct from the idea of statistical frequency. (...) The puzzle is not, however, merely a legal one. Our unwillingness to base beliefs on statistical evidence is by no means limited to the courtroom, and is at odds with almost every general principle that epistemologists have proposed as to how we ought to manage our beliefs. (shrink)

According to the principle of Conjunction Closure, if one has justification for believing each of a set of propositions, one has justification for believing their conjunction. The lottery and preface paradoxes can both be seen as posing challenges for Closure, but leave open familiar strategies for preserving the principle. While this is all relatively well-trodden ground, a new Closure-challenging paradox has recently emerged, in two somewhat different forms, due to Backes :3773–3787, 2019a) and Praolini :715–726, 2019). This paradox synthesises elements (...) of the lottery and the preface and is designed to close off the familiar Closure-preserving strategies. By appealing to a normic theory of justification, I will defend Closure in the face of this new paradox. Along the way I will draw more general conclusions about justification, normalcy and defeat, which bear upon what Backes :2877–2895, 2019b) has dubbed the ‘easy defeat’ problem for the normic theory. (shrink)

According to a captivating picture, epistemic justification is essentially a matter of epistemic or evidential likelihood. While certain problems for this view are well known, it is motivated by a very natural thought—if justification can fall short of epistemic certainty, then what else could it possibly be? In this paper I shall develop an alternative way of thinking about epistemic justification. On this conception, the difference between justification and likelihood turns out to be akin to the more widely recognised difference (...) between ceteris paribus laws and brute statistical generalisations. I go on to discuss, in light of this suggestion, issues such as classical and lottery-driven scepticism as well as the lottery and preface paradoxes. (shrink)

Many philosophers accept that, as well as having a right that others not harm us, we also have a right that others not subject us to a risk of harm. And yet, when we attempt to spell out precisely what this ‘right against risk imposition’ involves, we encounter a series of notorious puzzles. Existing attempts to deal with these puzzles have tended to focus on the nature of rights – but I propose an approach that focusses instead on the nature (...) of risk. The key move is to distinguish two different ways in which to conceptualise the risk that a given action presents – one of which is linked to the notion of probability and the other to the notion of normalcy. (shrink)

The rejection of a “characterless” moral self is central to some of Bernard Williams’ most important contributions to philosophy. By the time of Truth and Truthfulness, he works instead with a model of the self constituted and stabilized out of more primitive materials through deliberation and in concert with others that takes inspiration from Diderot. Although this view of the self raises some difficult questions, it serves as a useful starting point for thinking about the process of developing an authentic (...) moral point of view in the context of contemporary living. In what follows, I begin to fill out and extend this picture of the self and its related notion of authenticity by exploring some of the “technologies of the self” at play in Rachel Cusk’s recent work (primarily, the Outline trilogy, Coventry, Second Place, and “The Stuntman”) that ask us to rethink the possibility and importance of stability; seek a way of constituting oneself and one’s values outside the confining structures of traditional narrative (focusing instead on a framework that might be provided by the visual arts); and give a different role to the sort of internalized other Williams sees as being at work in the mechanisms of shame. (shrink)

Feminists debate whether women can autonomously embrace their own subordination. Some argue that it is the process of identifying with desires and values that matters; others, that it is the content of the desires and values that matters. In this paper, I introduce a novel class of cases of ‘thwarted autonomy,’ in which women pursue autonomy but in ways that reinforce gendered subordination, and draw on these cases to develop an expressivist view of women’s autonomy. On this view, agents must (...) embody desires and values in the social world if they are to achieve self-understanding, such that the social world mediates the relation-to-self. Oppressive meanings and norms can channel this expressive activity in ways that violate women’s physical integrity and involve self-abnegation that is incompatible with autonomy. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to show that animal rights are not necessarily at odds with the use of animals for research. If animals hold basic moral rights similar to those of humans, then we should consequently extend the ethical requirements guiding research with humans to research with animals. The article spells out how this can be done in practice by applying the seven requirements for ethical research with humans proposed by Ezekiel Emanuel, David Wendler and Christine Grady to (...) animal research. These requirements are i) social value, ii) scientific validity, iii) independent review, iv) fair subject selection, v) favorable risk-benefit ratio, vi) informed consent, and vii) respect for research subjects. In practice, this means that we must reform the practice of animal research to make it more similar to research with humans, rather than completely abolish the former. Indeed, if we banned animal research altogether, then we would also deprive animals of its potential benefits – which would be ethically problematic. (shrink)

La posverdad es un fenómeno mediático referido a la tergiversación de la verdad en los medios de comunicación, especialmente por la proliferación de noticias falsas. En este artículo definiré los principales elementos de este fenómeno, los hechos que han generado su aparición, y un marco filosófico para su análisis ético profundo. Explico además por qué la simple asociación de la posverdad con la mentira es insuficiente, y planteo que la ampliación del marco conceptual para su análisis, con la introducción de (...) la idea de charlatanería desarrollada por el filósofo Harry Frankfurt, junto con la noción de emotivismo de Alasdair MacIntyre, nos pueden ayudar a entender mejor sus efectos perjudiciales. Afirmo que sin estos conceptos no es posible entender la intrínseca complejidad de la posverdad, y sus repercusiones más nocivas en la sociedad. Finalmente, muestro los principales peligros de la posverdad en la era poscovid debidos, especialmente, a la desconfianza generada por la evidente manipulación de la verdad, y la fragilidad ética y antropológica en la que se encuentra el ser humano en la actualidad. (shrink)

The starting point of this paper is the thought that the phenomenal appearances that accompany mental states are somehow only there, or only real, from the standpoint of the subject of those mental states. The world differs across subjects in terms of which appearances obtain. Not only are subjects standpoints across which the world varies, subjects are standpoints that we can ‘adopt’ in our own theorizing about the world (or stand back from). The picture that is suggested by these claims (...) has an appeal but is at the same time obscure and stands in need of regimentation. This paper explores and motivates a metaphysical account of what it is for subjects to be standpoints, what it is to adopt standpoints in our representations and, most importantly, how these notions might help us better understand the subjective character of conscious mental states. Some well-known observations by Thomas Nagel serve as starting points and the paper concludes by revisiting Nagel’s argument for the inevitable incompleteness of objective accounts of mental states, which will be reframed in terms of the central commitments of the proposed framework. (shrink)

There is a type of metaphysical picture that surfaces in a range of philosophical discussions, is of intrinsic interest, and yet remains ill-understood. According to this picture, the world contains a range of standpoints relative to which different facts obtain. Any true representation of the world cannot but adopt a particular standpoint. The aim of this paper is to propose a regimentation of a metaphysics that underwrites this picture. Key components are a factive notion of metaphysical relativity, a deflationary notion (...) of adopting standpoints, and two kinds of valid inference, one that allows one to abandon standpoints and one that does not. To better understand how theories formulated in terms of this framework are situated in dialectical space, I sketch a theory in the philosophy of time that admits both temporal and atemporal standpoints. (shrink)

In this paper I explore some ideas inspired by Federico Picinali’s Justice In-Between: A Study of Intermediate Criminal Verdicts. Picinali makes a case for the introduction of intermediate options in criminal trials – verdicts with consequences that are harsher than an acquittal, but not so harsh as a conviction. From a certain perspective, the absence of intermediate options in criminal trials is puzzling – out of kilter with much of our everyday decision-making and, perhaps, with the recommendations of expected utility (...) theory. I will argue, however, that the lack of intermediate options is much less puzzling when put in the context of our ordinary practices of blame and non-legal punishment. (shrink)

Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in metaphysical explanation, and philosophers have fixed on the notion of ground as the conceptual tool with which such explanation should be investigated. I will argue that this focus on ground is myopic and that some metaphysical explanations that involve the essences of things cannot be understood in terms of ground. Such ‘essentialist’ explanation is of interest, not only for its ubiquity in philosophy, but for its being in a sense an ultimate (...) form of explanation. I give an account of the sense in which such explanation is ultimate and support it by defending what I call the inessentiality of essence. I close by suggesting that this principle is the key to understanding why essentialist explanations can seem so satisfying. (shrink)

Is it right to convict a person of a crime on the basis of purely statistical evidence? Many who have considered this question agree that it is not, posing a direct challenge to legal probabilism – the claim that the criminal standard of proof should be understood in terms of a high probability threshold. Some defenders of legal probabilism have, however, held their ground: Schoeman (1987) argues that there are no clear epistemic or moral problems with convictions based on purely (...) statistical evidence, and speculates that our aversion to such convictions may be nothing more than an irrational bias. More recently, Hedden and Colyvan (2019, section VI) describe our reluctance to convict on the basis of purely statistical evidence as an ‘intuition’, but suggest that there may be no ‘in principle’ problem with such convictions (see also Papineau, forthcoming, section 6). In this paper, I argue that there is, in some cases, an in principle problem with a conviction based upon statistical evidence alone – namely, it commits us to a precedent which, if consistently followed through, could lead to the deliberate conviction of an innocent person. I conclude with some reflections on the idea that the criminal justice system should strive to maximise the accuracy of its verdicts – and the related idea that we should each strive to maximise the accuracy of our beliefs. (shrink)

In this paper I respond to Marcello Di Bello’s criticisms of the ‘normic account’ of the criminal standard of proof. In so doing, I further elaborate on what the normic account predicts about certain significant legal categories of evidence, including DNA and fingerprint evidence and eyewitness identifications.

A de minimis risk is defined as a risk that is so small that it may be legitimately ignored when making a decision. While ignoring small risks is common in our day-to-day decision making, attempts to introduce the notion of a de minimis risk into the framework of decision theory have run up against a series of well-known difficulties. In this paper, I will develop an enriched decision theoretic framework that is capable of overcoming two major obstacles to the modelling (...) of de minimis risk. The key move is to introduce, into decision theory, a non-probabilistic conception of risk known as normic risk. (shrink)

Determinism which denies freedom of action is a common philosophical view. Is the action of such determinists incompatible with Kant’s claim that a rationally willed being “cannot act otherwise than under the idea of freedom” [G 4, 448]? In my paper, I examine Kant’s argument for this claim at the beginning of the Third Section of the Groundwork and argue that it amounts to the assertion that one cannot act while being aware of being guided by invalid principles. Belief in (...) determinism does not necessarily amount to such awareness. A structurally similar argument based on the contrast between deliberation and prediction is examined and similarly found wanting. (shrink)

In this paper, I identify a theoretical and political role for ‘white ignorance’, present three alternative accounts of white ignorance, and assess how well each fulfils this role. On the Willful Ignorance View, white ignorance refers to white individuals’ willful ignorance about racial injustice. On the Cognitivist View, white ignorance refers to ignorance resulting from social practices that distribute faulty cognitive resources. On the Structuralist View, white ignorance refers to ignorance that (1) results as part of a social process that (...) systematically gives rise to racial injustice, and (2) is an active player in the process. I argue that, because of its greater power and flexibility, the Structuralist View better explains the patterns of ignorance that we observe, better illuminates the connection to white racial domination, and is overall better suited to the project of ameliorating racial injustice. As such, the Structuralist View should be preferred. (shrink)

In 1990 Edward Craig published a book called Knowledge and the State of Nature in which he introduced and defended a genealogical approach to epistemology. In recent years Craig’s book has attracted a lot of attention, and his distinctive approach has been put to a wide range of uses including anti-realist metaepistemology, contextualism, relativism, anti-luck virtue epistemology, epistemic injustice, value of knowledge, pragmatism and virtue epistemology. While the number of objections to Craig’s approach has accumulated, there has been no sustained (...) attempt to develop answers to these objections. In this paper we provide answers to seven important objections in the literature. (shrink)

In this paper, I respond to criticisms of my book Being and Reason recently made by Yitzhak Melamed.

I survey the philosophical literature on grounding explanation and its connection to metaphysical ground.

One of the most intriguing claims in Sven Rosenkranz’s Justification as Ignorance is that Timothy Williamson’s celebrated anti-luminosity argument can be resisted when it comes to the condition ~K~KP—the condition that one is in no position to know that one is in no position to know P. In this paper, I critically assess this claim.

Bayesian models of legal arguments generally aim to produce a single integrated model, combining each of the legal arguments under consideration. This combined approach implicitly assumes that variables and their relationships can be represented without any contradiction or misalignment, and in a way that makes sense with respect to the competing argument narratives. This paper describes a novel approach to compare and ‘average’ Bayesian models of legal arguments that have been built independently and with no attempt to make them consistent (...) in terms of variables, causal assumptions or parameterization. The approach involves assessing whether competing models of legal arguments are explained or predict facts uncovered before or during the trial process. Those models that are more heavily disconfirmed by the facts are given lower weight, as model plausibility measures, in the Bayesian model comparison and averaging framework adopted. In this way a plurality of arguments is allowed yet a single judgement based on all arguments is possible and rational. (shrink)

Philosophers of logic are particularly interested in understanding the aims, epistemology, and methodology of logic. This raises the question of how the philosophy of logic should go about these enquires. According to the practice-based approach, the most reliable method we have to investigate the methodology and epistemology of a research field is by considering in detail the activities of its practitioners. This holds just as true for logic as it does for the recognised empirical and abstract sciences. If we wish (...) to systematically understand the aims and epistemology of logic, we are best placed achieving this by looking at what logicians do, rather than reflecting upon the nature of logic itself. In this entry, we outline the motivations for a practice-based approach towards the philosophy of logic and highlight its advantages over more “top-down” approaches, which attempt to infer conclusions about the nature of logic and its methodology on the basis of traditional assumptions about knowledge, metaphysics, or logic itself. We end by addressing several prominent concerns raised against the practice-based approach. (shrink)

Theories of epistemic justification are commonly assessed by exploring their predictions about particular hypothetical cases – predictions as to whether justification is present or absent in this or that case. With a few exceptions, it is much less common for theories of epistemic justification to be assessed by exploring their predictions about logical principles. The exceptions are a handful of ‘closure’ principles, which have received a lot of attention, and which certain theories of justification are well known to invalidate. But (...) these closure principles are only a small sample of the logical principles that we might consider. In this paper, I will outline four further logical principles that plausibly hold for justification and two which plausibly do not. While my primary aim is just to put these principles forward, I will use them to evaluate some different approaches to justification and (tentatively) conclude that a ‘normic’ theory of justification best captures its logic. (shrink)

There are a number of debates that are relevant to questions concerning objectivity in science. One of the eldest, and still one of the most intensely fought, is the debate over epistemic relativism. —All forms of epistemic relativism commit themselves to the view that it is impossible to show in a neutral, non-question-begging, way that one “epistemic system”, that is, one interconnected set of epistemic standards, is epistemically superior to others. I shall call this view “No-metajustification”. No-metajustification is commonly taken (...) to deny the objectivity of standards. In this paper I shall discuss two currently popular attempts to attack “No-metajustification”. The first attempt attacks no-metajustification by challenging a particular strategy of arguing in its defence: this strategy involves the ancient Pyrrhonian “Problem of the Criterion”. The second attempt to refute No-metajustification targets its metaphysical underpinning: to wit, the claim that there are, or could be, several fundamentally different and irreconcilable epistemic systems. I shall call this assumption “Pluralism”. I shall address three questions with respect to these attempts to refute epistemic relativism by attacking no-metajustification: Can the epistemic relativist rely on the Problem of the Criterion in support of No-metajustification? Is a combination of Chisholmian “particularism” and epistemic naturalism an effective weapon against No-metajustification? And is Pluralism a defensible assumption? (shrink)

Fragmentalism was first introduced by Kit Fine in his ‘Tense and Reality’. According to fragmentalism, reality is an inherently perspectival place that exhibits a fragmented structure. The current paper defends the fragmentalist interpretation of the special theory of relativity, which Fine briefly considers in his paper. The fragmentalist interpretation makes room for genuine facts regarding absolute simultaneity, duration and length. One might worry that positing such variant properties is a turn for the worse in terms of theoretical virtues because such (...) properties are not involved in physical explanations and hence theoretically redundant. It will be argued that this is not right: if variant properties are indeed instantiated, they will also be involved in straightforward physical explanations and hence not explanatorily redundant. Hofweber and Lange, in their ‘Fine’s Fragmentalist Interpretation of Special Relativity’, object that the fragmentalist interpretation is in tension with the right explanation of the Lorentz transformations. It will be argued that their objection targets an inessential aspect of the fragmentalist framework and fails to raise any serious problem for the fragmentalist interpretation of special relativity. (shrink)

Any explanation of one fact in terms of another will appeal to some sort of connection between the two. In a causal explanation, the connection might be a causal mechanism or law. But not all explanations are causal, and neither are all explanatory connections. For example, in explaining the fact that a given barn is red in terms of the fact that it is crimson, we might appeal to a non-causal connection between things’ being crimson and their being red. Many (...) such connections, like this one, are general rather than particular. I call these general non-causal explanatory connections 'laws of metaphysics'. In this paper I argue that some of these laws are to be found in the world at its most fundamental level, forming a bridge between fundamental reality and everything else. It is only by admitting fundamental laws, I suggest, that we can do justice to the explanatory relationship between what is fundamental and what is not. And once these laws are admitted, we are able to provide a nice resolution of the puzzle of why there are any non-fundamental facts in the first place. (shrink)

In this paper we present an overview, with historical and critical remarks, of two articles by S. Jaśkowski ([20, 21] 1948 and [22, 23] 1949), which contain the oldest known formulation of a paraconsistent logic. Jaśkowski has built the logic – he termed discussive (D2) – by defining two new connectives and by introducing a modal translation map from D2 systems into Lewis’ modal logic S5. Discussive systems, for their formal details and their original philosophical justification, have attracted discrete attention (...) among experts. Indeed, in what follows, after having introduced Jaśkowski methodology of building D2 and his main philosophical motivations for providing such a system, we will explore some of the main contributions to the development of D2. (shrink)

Metaphysical rationalism, the doctrine which affirms the Principle of Sufficient Reason (the PSR), is out of favor today. The best argument against it is that it appears to lead to necessitarianism, the claim that all truths are necessarily true. Whatever the intuitive appeal of the PSR, the intuitive appeal of the claim that things could have been otherwise is greater. This problem did not go unnoticed by the great metaphysical rationalists Spinoza and Leibniz. Spinoza’s response was to embrace necessitarianism. Leibniz’s (...) response was to argue that, despite appearances, rationalism does not lead to necessitarianism. This paper examines the debate between these two rationalists and concludes that Leibniz has persuasive grounds for his opinion. This has significant implications both for the plausibility of the PSR and for our understanding of modality. (shrink)

In Groenendijk & Stokhof [1989] a system of dynamic predicate logic (DPL) was developed, as a compositional alternative for classical discourse representation theory (DRT ). DPL shares with DRT the restriction of being a first-order system. In the present paper, we are mainly concerned with overcoming this limitation. We shall define a dynamic semantics for a typed language with λ-abstraction which is compatible with the semantics DPL specifies for the language of first-order predicate logic. We shall propose to use this (...) new logical system as the semantic component of a Montague-style grammar (referred to as dynamic Montague grammar, DMG), which will enable us to extend the compositionality of DPL to the subsentential level. Furthermore, we shall extend this analysis also in this sense that we shall add new, dynamic interpretations for logical constants which in DPL were treated in a static fashion. This will substantially increase the descriptive coverage of DMG. (shrink)

I develop a puzzle, the resolution of which, I argue, requires an unfamiliar distinction between two forms or senses of metaphysical modality, each bearing a different relationship to time. In one sense of ‘metaphysically possible’, it is metaphysically possible for it to be a time other than the time it is now; in another sense, this is not metaphysically possible.

In this paper I propose a new solution to the problem of change: situationalism. According to this view, parts of reality fundamentally disagree about what is the case and reality as a whole is unsettled (i.e. metaphysically indeterminate). When something changes, parts of the world irreconcilably disagree about what properties it has. From this irreconcilable disagreement, indeterminacy arises. I develop this picture using situations, which are parts of possible worlds; this gives it the name situationalism. It allows a B-theory endurance (...) view on which there is genuine incompatibility when things change. There are costs to the view, which are explored, but it is a novel approach which offers a distinct explanation of what happens when things exist through change. (shrink)

The standard of proof applied in civil trials is the preponderance of evidence, often said to be met when a proposition is shown to be more than 50% likely to be true. A number of theorists have argued that this 50%+ standard is too weak – there are circumstances in which a court should find that the defendant is not liable, even though the evidence presented makes it more than 50% likely that the plaintiff’s claim is true. In this paper, (...) I will recapitulate the familiar arguments for this thesis, before defending a more radical one: The 50%+ standard is also too strong – there are circumstances in which a court should find that a defendant is liable, even though the evidence presented makes it less than 50% likely that the plaintiff’s claim is true. I will argue that the latter thesis follows naturally from the former once we accept that the parties in a civil trial are to be treated equally. I will conclude by sketching an alternative interpretation of the civil standard of proof. (shrink)

In this paper I draw attention to a peculiar epistemic feature exhibited by certain deductively valid inferences. Certain deductively valid inferences are unable to enhance the reliability of one's belief that the conclusion is true—in a sense that will be fully explained. As I shall show, this feature is demonstrably present in certain philosophically significant inferences—such as GE Moore's notorious 'proof' of the existence of the external world. I suggest that this peculiar epistemic feature might be correlated with the much (...) discussed phenomenon that Crispin Wright and Martin Davies have called 'transmission failure'—the apparent failure, on the part of some deductively valid inferences to transmit one's justification for believing the premises. (shrink)

Cover Date: July 2006.Source Info: 115(3), 317-354. Language: English. Journal Announcement: 41-2. Subject: ACTION; CAUSATION; METAPHYSICS; REPRESENTATION; TELEOLOGY. Subject Person: SPINOZA, BENEDICT DE (BARUCH). Update Code: 20130315.

Una de las características principales del desarrollo de la modernidad ha sido el encubrimiento de los fines naturales de la técnica. En este artículo profundizamos en esa desnaturalización, que ha hecho de la tecnología un elemento susceptible de estar al servicio de un poder deshumanizante. Sostenemos que este proceso ha llevado al oscurecimiento de una visión natural del ser humano que evita fundamentar la integración de su vida con el bien de la sociedad. Por tanto, se percibe en la actualidad (...) un desgajamiento entre los fines naturales de la humanidad y los elementos técnicos que solo puede ser corregido por el potenciamiento de los vínculos dentro de una comunidad. Con este marco, analizamos los problemas que derivan del planteamiento moderno desde las perspectivas antropológica, ética y sociológica. (shrink)

A ‘lottery belief’ is a belief that a particular ticket has lost a large, fair lottery, based on nothing more than the odds against it winning. The lottery paradox brings out a tension between the idea that lottery beliefs are justified and the idea that that one can always justifiably believe the deductive consequences of things that one justifiably believes – what is sometimes called the principle of closure. Many philosophers have treated the lottery paradox as an argument against the (...) second idea – but I make a case here that it is the first idea that should be given up. As I shall show, there are a number of independent arguments for denying that lottery beliefs are justified. (shrink)

The aim of the first part of the article is to elucidate the nature of (modern) philosophical scepticism. The author defends the view that scepticism is not a homogenous doctrine, but a general label for heterogenous ways of sceptical argumentation. Sceptical argumentation is, in turn, understood to include any kind of philosophically relevant argument which aims at calling into doubt epistemically-valued qualities, especially knowledge. In the second part of the article the author focuses on the question of what constitutes the (...) intrinsic value of philosophical scepticism. The author defends the thesis that philosophical scepticism has instrumental value as a tool for understanding knowledge. This thesis is the result of the application of a particularist approach to the problem of knowledge. Scepticism provides the material for thought experiments in the context of which findings about epistemic intuitions connected with knowledge can be revealed. In spite of this, scepticism is of value only in the form of a means and its value cannot be reduced to the value of other elements. (shrink)

In this paper I will compare two competing accounts of assertion: the knowledge account and the justified belief account. When it comes to the evidence that is typically used to assess accounts of assertion – including the evidence from lottery propositions, the evidence from Moore’s paradoxical propositions and the evidence from conversational patterns – I will argue that the justified belief account has at least as much explanatory power as its rival. I will argue, finally, that a close look at (...) the ways in which assertions can be challenged and retracted reveals a certain advantage for the justified belief account. The paper will touch upon a number of further topics along the way, including the logical interaction between knowledge and justified belief, the nature of defeat, and the hypothesis that knowledge and justified belief are normatively coincident goals. (shrink)

In this paper I defend the claim that justification is closed under conjunction, and confront its most alarming consequence — that one can have justification for believing propositions that are unlikely to be true, given one's evidence.

This paper seeks to widen the dialogue between the “epistemology of peer disagreement” and the epistemology informed by Wittgenstein’s last notebooks, later edited as On Certainty. The paper defends the following theses: not all certainties are groundless; many of them are beliefs; and they do not have a common essence. An epistemic peer need not share all of my certainties. Which response to a disagreement over a certainty is called for, depends on the type of certainty in question. Sometimes a (...) form of relativism is the right response. Reasonable, mutually recognized peer disagreement over a certainty is possible.—The paper thus addresses both interpretative and systematic issues. It uses Wittgenstein as a resource for thinking about peer disagreement over certainties. (shrink)

Several theistic arguments are formulated as arguments for the best explanation. This article discusses how one can determine that some phenomenon actually needs an explanation. One way to demonstrate that an explanation is needed is by providing one. The proposed explanation ought to either make the occurrence of the phenomenon in question more probable than it occurring by chance, or it has to sufficiently increase our understanding of the phenomenon. A second way to demonstrate that an explanation is needed is (...) to show that the phenomenon in question both violates our expectations and is particularly noticeable. (shrink)