From playing basketball to ordering at a food counter, we frequently and effortlessly coordinate our attention with others towards a common focus: we look at the ball, or point at a piece of cake. This non-verbal coordination of attention plays a fundamental role in our social lives: it ensures that we refer to the same object, develop a shared language, understand each other’s mental states, and coordinate our actions. Models of joint attention generally attribute this accomplishment to gaze coordination. But (...) are visual attentional mechanisms sufficient to achieve joint attention, in all cases? Besides cases where visual information is missing, we show how combining it with other senses can be helpful, and even necessary to certain uses of joint attention. We explain the two ways in which non-visual cues contribute to joint attention: either as enhancers, when they complement gaze and pointing gestures in order to coordinate joint attention on visible objects, or as modality pointers, when joint attention needs to be shifted away from the whole object to one of its properties, say weight or texture. This multisensory approach to joint attention has important implications for social robotics, clinical diagnostics, pedagogy and theoretical debates on the construction of a shared world. (shrink)

A common sense view is illustrated by Doubting Thomas, and surfaces in many philosophical and psychological writings : Touching is better than seeing. But can we make sense of this privilege? We rule out that it could mean that touch is more informative than vision, more ‘objective’ or more directly in contact with reality. Instead, we propose that touch offers not a perceptual, but a metacognitive advantage: touch is not more objective than vision but rather provides comparatively higher subjective certainty.

Theoretical arguments and empirical investigations indicate that a high proportion of published findings do not replicate and are likely false. The current position paper provides a broad perspective on scientific error, which may lead to replication failures. This broad perspective focuses on reform history and on opportunities for future reform. We organize our perspective along four main themes: institutional reform, methodological reform, statistical reform and publishing reform. For each theme, we illustrate potential errors by narrating the story of a fictional (...) researcher during the research cycle. We discuss future opportunities for reform. The resulting agenda provides a resource to usher in an era that is marked by a research culture that is less error-prone and a scientific publication landscape with fewer spurious findings. (shrink)

Subtitled "The Lazy Gambler's Guide to Choosing a Religion," this essay presents an account of Pascal's Wager that avoids most of the major traditional objections to Pascal's appeal to self-interest as an incentive to the investigation of Christian evidences. I then turn to what I call "the Lazy Objection" to the wager, which claims that there are too many religions all of which can make a similar appeal and argue that this is simply false. I conclude that, considered as a (...) rhetorical strategy, the Wager is really a Challenge, one we decline at our peril. (shrink)

Much traditional moral theory supposes that morality is primarily a matter of law or principle apprehended as something external to the moral agent and binding that agent in a manner that is contrary to inclination. If this were not so, morality would be superfluous. Nevertheless, in this essay I maintain that the appearance of an opposition between morality and inclination is simply an artifact of human sinfulness, which alienates us from our true nature as rational beings.

A number of philosophers think that grounding is, in some sense, well-founded. This thesis, however, is not always articulated precisely, nor is there a consensus in the literature as to how it should be characterized. In what follows, I consider several principles that one might have in mind when asserting that grounding is well-founded, and I argue that one of these principles, which I call ‘full foundations’, best captures the relevant claim. My argument is by the process of elimination. For (...) each of the inadequate principles, I illustrate its inadequacy by showing either that it excludes cases that should not be ruled out by a well-foundedness axiom for grounding, or that it admits cases that should be ruled out. (shrink)

Temporal passage is an irrefragable and ineliminable feature of our lived experience of time. In this essay, I argue that, regardless of whether one adopts a three-dimensional, A theory of time or a four-dimensional, B theory of time, the subject of lived experience of time has to be conceived of as something that stands outside of the physical order in order for the experience of temporal passage to actually occur. This implies the truth of Dualism as the only account of (...) mind that can accommodate the facts of the lived experience of time. (shrink)

I mostly agree with most of what Paul Moser has said in his books in the Philosophy of Religion. The views he has defended are a needed corrective to the evidentialist paradigm in the philosophy of religion. At the same time, his development of his central ideas has resulted in views that are, somewhat idiosyncratic and extreme. In this essay I hope to present a different articulation of those ideas, also defensible from within a Christian perspective, that preserves their central (...) thrust without being so extreme. (shrink)

This is an updated version of one section of my essay "Objections to Dualism" prepared for presentation at the 2019 Mountain-Pacific SCP Conference in Las Vegas, April 6-7, 2019.

Can an ugly experiment be a good experiment? Philosophers have identified many beautiful experiments and explored ways in which their beauty might be connected to their epistemic value. In contrast, the present chapter seeks out (and celebrates) ugly experiments. Among the ugliest are those being designed by AI algorithms. Interestingly, in the contexts where such experiments tend to be deployed, low aesthetic value correlates with high epistemic value. In other words, ugly experiments can be good. Given this, we should conclude (...) that beauty is not generally necessary or sufficient for epistemic value, and increasing beauty will not generally tend to increase epistemic value. (shrink)

How to conceptualize loving relationships so as to accommodate that just love is geared toward preserving and fostering individual autonomy? To develop an answer, this paper draws on the recent debate on the rational role of experience to motivate a view dubbed Murdochian presentationalism. Murdochian presentationalism takes seriously two presentationalist ideas: 1) individuals harboring different world views who respond to identical situations differently can be equally rational; 2) our views and concepts develop under the constant pressure of experience. It combines (...) these ideas with Murdoch’s tenet that coming to know others (and thus being able to do well by them) requires unselfish love, construed as just attention that involves a continuous refinement of our evaluative concepts and makes us better attuned to what is real. Complemented with a broadly Kantian notion of autonomy, the resulting view fits the bill. The paper ends on a sketch of what is dubbed the ideal lovers’ pledge and a comment on what metaphor the view arrived at suggests for thinking about loving relationships. (shrink)

Dieser Artikel enthält eine kritische Diskussion der von Peter Stemmer in seinem Buch "Normativität. Eine ontologische Untersuchung" vorgelegten Analyse von Normativität. Zentraler Kritikpunkt ist der Umstand, dass der für Stemmers Analyse zentrale Begriff des Wollens unanalysiert bleibt, sich dieses jedoch, so das hier vorgestellte Argument, entweder in einer Weise analysieren lassen wird, die, als Tendenz gedeutet, weniger zu leisten vermag als Stemmer für seine Analyse benötigt, oder, als intentionaler Zustand gedeutet, selbst bereits Normativität voraussetzt und somit für Stemmers reduktive Analyse (...) von Normativität nicht geeignet ist. Gegen Ende des Aufsatzes wird eine pragmatistische Fundierung von Normativität angedeutet und verschiedene Ressourcen aufgezeigt, deren sich Stemmer bedienen könnte, um seine Position gegen die vorgebrachten Einwände zu verteidigen. (shrink)

Resumo: Neste texto, introduzo algumas questões importantes que fazem parte do debate sobre infiltração pragmática. Além de apresentar e problematizar as principais alegações oferecidas pelos proponentes da infiltração pragmática eu irei contrasta-la com algumas teses mais tradicionais, como a Tese Tradicional sobre o Conhecimento e o Contextualismo Epistêmico. Por fim, apresento uma crítica aos proponentes da infiltração pragmática que parece ainda não ter sido tratada. Concluo que embora controversa, tal tese está longe de ser refutada completamente. Palavras-chave: Conhecimento; Contexto; Justificação; (...) Padrões; Infiltração prática. -/- Abstract: In this paper I introduce some central aspects concerning the debate on pragmatic encroachment. After introducing and discussing the main arguments offered by the pragmatic encroachers advocates I will contrast it with more traditional theses such as the Traditional Analysis of Knowledge and Epistemic Contextualism. Finally, I present an objection to the pragmatic encroachment approach that haven't been treated yet. I conclude that despite its difficulties, the pragmatic encroachment view is far from being refuted. Keywords: Knowledge; Context; Justification; Standards; Pragmatic encroachment. (shrink)

Giving money to others feels good. It is now standard to use the label ‘warm glow feelings’ to refer to the pleasure people take from giving. But what exactly are warm glow feelings? And why do people experience them? To answer these questions, we ran two studies: a recall task in which participants were asked to remember a donation they made, and a donation task in which participants were given the opportunity to make a donation before reporting their affective states. (...) Correlational and experimental results converge towards the conclusion that, if the nature of the warm glow is straightforward, its source is multifaceted. Regarding the nature of the ‘warm glow’, the pleasure people took in giving was mainly predicted by one particular type of positive emotion and was indeed described by participants as ‘warm’. Regarding the underlying psychological mechanisms, warm glow feelings were elicited by positive appraisals regarding the donor’s moral character, positive appraisals regarding the actual impact of the donor’s donation on the welfare of others and a feeling of communion with others. We discuss the theoretical implications of our findings. (shrink)

In this article, I suggest that combining resources from philosophy and psychology can yield useful tools for philosophical counselling. More specifically, I argue for three theses: a) Iris Murdoch’s notion of just attention and Marshall Rosenberg’s method of non-violent communication are interestingly compatible; b) engaging in non-violent communication serves to support one’s endeavors to acquire the kind of clear vision Murdoch thinks doing well by others requires; and c) non-violent just communication would be beneficial to both counsellors and counselees and (...) thus a useful resource for philosophical counsellors. (shrink)

Dieser Artikel enthält eine kritische Diskussion der von Peter Stemmer in seinem Buch "Normativität. Eine ontologische Untersuchung" vorgelegten Analyse von Normativität. Zentraler Kritikpunkt ist der Umstand, dass der für Stemmers Analyse zentrale Begriff des Wollens unanalysiert bleibt, sich dieses jedoch, so das hier vorgestellte Argument, entweder in einer Weise analysieren lassen wird, die, als Tendenz gedeutet, weniger zu leisten vermag als Stemmer für seine Analyse benötigt, oder, als intentionaler Zustand gedeutet, selbst bereits Normativität voraussetzt und somit für Stemmers reduktive Analyse (...) von Normativität nicht geeignet ist. Gegen Ende des Aufsatzes wird eine pragmatistische Fundierung von Normativität angedeutet und verschiedene Ressourcen aufgezeigt, deren sich Stemmer bedienen könnte, um seine Position gegen die vorgebrachten Einwände zu verteidigen. (shrink)

Experience, it is widely agreed, constrains our thinking and is also thoroughly theory-laden. But how can it constrain our thinking while depending on what it purports to constrain? To address this issue, I revisit and carefully analyze the account of observation provided by Norwood Russell Hanson, who introduced the term ‘theory-ladenness of observation’ in the first place. I show that Hanson’s account provides an original and coherent response to the initial question and argue that, if suitably developed, his account provides (...) a distinctive, powerful, and attractive alternative to relationalist and standard representationalist conceptions of experience. (shrink)

How are love and justice related? Iris Murdoch characterizes the former by drawing on the latter. Love, she maintains, is just attention, which in turn triggers acts of compassion. Arguably, for Murdoch, love is the most important moral activity. By engaging in love, she maintains, moral agents progress on their journey from appearances to reality. Through love, they overcome selfish leanings, acquire a clearer vision of the world and, importantly, other individuals, which in turn enables them to act increasingly well. (...) In this paper, I lay Murdoch’s account of love alongside of Aristotle’s notion of philia. Ultimately, I argue that both Murdochian love and Aristotelian philia are crucial for enabling moral progress. I proceed as follows: First, I introduce Murdoch’s view. I then propose a novel reading of an argument from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics in order to explain what I shall call his necessity claim (NC): philia is necessary to a flourishing life. Along the way, I point out ways in which Murdoch’s and Aristotle’s accounts are mutually illuminating. (shrink)

Summary: Throughout the history of science, indeed throughout the history of knowledge, unification has been touted as a central aim of intellectual inquiry. We’ve always wanted to discover not only numerous bare facts about the universe, but to show how such facts are linked and interrelated. Large amounts of time and effort have been spent trying to show diverse arrays of things can be seen as different manifestations of some common underlying entities or properties. Thales is said to have originated (...) philosophy and science with his declaration that everything was, at base, a form of water. Plato’s theory of the forms was thought to be a magnificent accomplishment because it gave a unified solution to the separate problems of the relation between knowledge and belief, the grounding of objective values, and how continuity is possible amid change. Pasteur made numerous medical advancements possible by demonstrating the interconnection between microorganisms and human disease symptoms. Many technological advances were aided by Maxwell’s showing that light is a kind of electromagnetic radiation. The attempt to unify the various known forces is often referred to as “The Holy Grail” of physics. Some philosophers have even suggested that providing explanations is itself just a sort of unifying of our knowledge. But while unification (like simplicity) has often been hailed as a tremendous virtue in science, the meaning of the term is not altogether clear. Scientists often don’t specify what, precisely, they mean by unification. And in cases where what they mean is clear, different thinkers plainly mean different things by the term. What are the various senses of unification, and why has unification been such an important aim in the history of inquiry? (shrink)

John D. Norton is responsible for a number of influential views in contemporary philosophy of science. This paper will discuss two of them. The material theory of induction claims that inductive arguments are ultimately justified by their material features, not their formal features. Thus, while a deductive argument can be valid irrespective of the content of the propositions that make up the argument, an inductive argument about, say, apples, will be justified (or not) depending on facts about apples. The argument (...) view of thought experiments claims that thought experiments are arguments, and that they function epistemically however arguments do. These two views have generated a great deal of discussion, although there hasn’t been much written about their combination. I argue that despite some interesting harmonies, there is a serious tension between them. I consider several options for easing this tension, before suggesting a set of changes to the argument view that I take to be consistent with Norton’s fundamental philosophical commitments, and which retain what seems intuitively correct about the argument view. These changes require that we move away from a unitary epistemology of thought experiments and towards a more pluralist position. (shrink)

Sometimes we learn through the use of imagination. The epistemology of imagination asks how this is possible. One barrier to progress on this question has been a lack of agreement on how to characterize imagination; for example, is imagination a mental state, ability, character trait, or cognitive process? This paper argues that we should characterize imagination as a cognitive ability, exercises of which are cognitive processes. Following dual process theories of cognition developed in cognitive science, the set of imaginative processes (...) is then divided into two kinds: one that is unconscious, uncontrolled, and effortless, and another that is conscious, controlled, and effortful. This paper outlines the different epistemological strengths and weaknesses of the two kinds of imaginative process, and argues that a dual process model of imagination helpfully resolves or clarifies issues in the epistemology of imagination and the closely related epistemology of thought experiments. (shrink)

In this journal Steve Maitzen has recently advanced an argument for atheism premised on theodical individualism, the thesis that God would not permit people to suffer evils that were underserved, involuntary, and gratuitous for them. In this paper I advance reasons to think this premise mistaken.

We might think that thought experiments are at their most powerful or most interesting when they produce new knowledge. This would be a mistake; thought experiments that seek understanding are just as powerful and interesting, and perhaps even more so. A growing number of epistemologists are emphasizing the importance of understanding for epistemology, arguing that it should supplant knowledge as the central notion. In this chapter, I bring the literature on understanding in epistemology to bear on explicating the different ways (...) that thought experiments increase three important kinds of understanding: explanatory, objectual and practical. (shrink)

When the benefits of surgery do not outweigh the harms or where they do not clearly do so, surgical interventions become morally contested. Cutting to the Core examines a number of such surgeries, including infant male circumcision and cutting the genitals of female children, the separation of conjoined twins, surgical sex assignment of intersex children and the surgical re-assignment of transsexuals, limb and face transplantation, cosmetic surgery, and placebo surgery.

This essay is about the relationship between the notions of practical reason, the will, and choice in Kant’s practical philosophy. Although Kant explicitly identifies practical reason and the will, many interpreters argue that he cannot really mean it on the grounds that unless they are distinct, irrational and, especially, immoral action is impossible. Other readers affirm his identification but distinguish the will from choice on the same basis. We argue that proper attention to Kant’s conception of practical reason as a (...) capacity reveals that these distinctions are neither textually grounded nor philosophically necessary. His moral psychology concerns a single capacity, practical reason, which is the will, and whose actualities in this or that individual fall under the title of choice. Practical reason is the will and choice because it is the rational faculty of desire: a rational being’s capacity to be, by means of her representations, the cause of the actuality of their objects. This, we argue, is entailed by his conception of rational action: action not just in accordance with, but in and through the representation of, principles. The possibility of irrational action is explained not by a distinction between capacities but by the finitude, and thereby the fallibility, of human reason. (shrink)

What role does the imagination play in scientific progress? After examining several studies in cognitive science, I argue that one thing the imagination does is help to increase scientific understanding, which is itself indispensable for scientific progress. Then, I sketch a transcendental justification of the role of imagination in this process.

The article focuses on the nature of the modern knowledge society, which is characterized, first of all, by a sharp increase in intellectual capital (education, experience, skills, competencies, know-how, the price of personnel in the labor market, patents, etc.) in the amount of capitalization of large business. The knowledge society is a society of high social dynamics, the embodiment of the migration archetype, of rational discourse and intellectual work, which realizes the well-known thesis “Knowledge is power” in a new way. (...) The last three decades, Nico Stehr, a well-known German sociologist and philosopher has been rethinking, reformulating, and substantiating the theories of the knowledge society, which appeared in the 1960s. The article investigates Stehr’s concept, expresses arguments in its support, and highlights some blank spots that remain inexplicable for him in the light of the social realities of recent years. The conclusion runs that the knowledge society represents a significant social trend in the formation of science and technology as a leading productive force. It also manifests a form of the urban discourse of freedom — the cognitive self-realization of the individual in the spectrum of wide possibilities of the public good as a subject-matter of epistemological urban studies. However, this trend is countered by modern knowledge capitalism (privatization, fencing off of knowledge, including that with the help of patents), as well as by the high degree of risk and uncertainty that dominates the modern world. (shrink)

Review of Scott Jordan , ‘Modeling Consciousness Across The Disciplines'.

One of the main contentions of the framework for Responsible Innovation (RI) is that social and ethical aspects have to be addressed by deliberative engagement with stakeholders and the wider public throughout the innovation process. The aim of this article is to reflect on the question to what extent is deliberative engagement suitable for conducting RI in business. We discuss several tensions that arise when this framework is applied in the business context. Further, we analyse the place of deliberative engagement (...) in several theories of business ethics. We conclude that there remains a tension between the ideal of RI and the way in which the competitive market operates. Hence, RI scholars should reflect more critically on changes that are required in the market in order to make RI possible, modify the ideal of deliberative engagement for RI in business, or attempt to strike a balance between these two responses. (shrink)

Trước những khó khăn và thách thức của các nhà khoa học trẻ và các nhà khoa học ở những nước đang phát triển do thiếu tài nguyên và cơ hội được tiếp cận với các kiến thức và phương pháp nghiên cứu bài bản…, các nhà khoa học Việt Nam đã phát triển nền tảng Cổng thông tin SM3D hỗ trợ đào tạo phương pháp nghiên cứu khoa học xã hội cho các nhà khoa học. Sau gần 2 năm (...) được triển khai, Cổng thông tin SM3D được đánh giá là một trong những sáng kiến đóng góp tiêu biểu của khoa học Việt Nam cho cộng đồng khoa học quốc tế, đặc biệt là đối với các nước đang phát triển. (shrink)

Why should we decolonise knowledge? One popular rationale is that colonialism has set up a single perspective as epistemically authoritative over many equally legitimate ones, and this is a form of...

This is the introduction to the Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments.

In this work, we attempt to define a notion of compositeness compatible with Quantum Field Theory. Considering the analytic properties of the S-matrix, we conclude that there is no satisfactory definition of compositeness compatible with Quantum Field Theory. Without this notion, one must claim that all bound states are equally fundamental, that is, one cannot rigorously claim that everyday objects are made of atoms or that atoms are made of protons and neutrons. I then show how an approximate notion of (...) compositeness may be recovered in the regime where the mass of a bound state is close to a multi-particle threshold. -/- Finally, we see that rejecting compositeness solves several of the "problems of everyday objects" encountered in an undergraduate metaphysics course. (shrink)

Replacing the value-free ideal (VFI) for science requires attention to the broader understanding of how science in society should function. In public spaces, science needed to project the VFI in norms for science advising, science education, and science communication. This resulted in the independent science advisor model and a focus on science literacy for science education and communication. Attending to these broader implications of the VFI which structure science and society relationships is crucial if we are to properly replace the (...) VFI with a better ideal. (shrink)

If what we believe can directly modify our (visual) experience, our experience is doxastically variable. If so, the following seems possible: our false and irrational background beliefs can modify our experience such that in it, things look distorted, or that it conforms with and appears to confirm the false and irrational beliefs that helped bring it about in the first place. If experience is doxastically variable, it seems, its epistemic function can be undermined. However, in this dissertation, I argue that (...) we can devise accounts of (visual) experience that meet two requirements: they are fully compatible with all kinds of doxastic variation and on them, even doxastically variable experience serves to rationally constrain our beliefs. I begin with a novel interpretation of Hanson’s account of theory-laden observation—a valiant, yet ultimately unsuccessful attempt to meet both these requirements. Next, I analyze and reject various contemporary relationalist accounts of experience and the most sophisticated recent representationalist attempt to accommodate phenomena of doxastic variation: Siegel’s (Rich) Content View. Then, based on the lessons learned and drawing on Hanson’s and Gupta’s work, I show what shape a successful account may take. Ultimately, I argue for the following theses: 1) Neither of the two dominant accounts of experience—relationalism and standard representationalism—currently succeeds in satisfactorily meeting both requirements. 2) To arrive at accounts that do meet them, we should drop both the restrictive relationalist conception of experience as a relation to mind-independent items and the standard representationalist conception of experience as justifying beliefs. 3) We make progress by adopting both the general conception of experience as making rational transitions to beliefs, judgments, and actions and a (slightly) modified version of Gupta’s presentationalist account of experiential phenomenology. Finally, 4) the possibility of devising successful accounts is independent of a major issue dividing relationalists and representationalists: whether experience has content. In the final chapters, I address various follow-up questions concerning the nature of views, conceptual capacities, conceptual content, and linkages between a subject’s experience and her responses. In concluding, I show that the account of experience I recommend is widely applicable in philosophy and beyond. (shrink)

Our aim here is to present a result that connects some approaches to justifying countable additivity. This result allows us to better understand the force of a recent argument for countable additivity due to Easwaran. We have two main points. First, Easwaran’s argument in favour of countable additivity should have little persuasive force on those permissive probabilists who have already made their peace with violations of conglomerability. As our result shows, Easwaran’s main premiss – the comparative principle – is strictly (...) stronger than conglomerability. Second, with the connections between the comparative principle and other probabilistic concepts clearly in view, we point out that opponents of countable additivity can still make a case that countable additivity is an arbitrary stopping point between finite and full additivity. (shrink)

Computational systems biologists create and manipulate computational models of biological systems, but they do not always have straightforward epistemic access to the content and behavioural profile of such models because of their length, coding idiosyncrasies, and formal complexity. This creates difficulties both for modellers in their research groups and for their bioscience collaborators who rely on these models. In this paper we introduce a new kind of visualization that was developed to address just this sort of epistemic opacity. The visualization (...) is unusual in that it depicts the dynamics and structure of a computer model instead of that model’s target system, and because it is generated algorithmically. Using considerations from epistemology and aesthetics, we explore how this new kind of visualization increases scientific understanding of the content and function of computer models in systems biology to reduce epistemic opacity. (shrink)

There are at least three vaguely atomistic principles that have come up in the literature, two explicitly and one implicitly. First, standard atomism is the claim that everything is composed of atoms, and is very often how atomism is characterized in the literature. Second, superatomism is the claim that parthood is well-founded, which implies that every proper parthood chain terminates, and has been discussed as a stronger alternative to standard atomism. Third, there is a principle that lies between these two (...) theses in terms of its relative strength: strong atomism, the claim that every maximal proper parthood chain terminates. Although strong atomism is equivalent to superatomism in classical extensional mereology, it is strictly weaker than it in strictly weaker systems in which parthood is a partial order. And it is strictly stronger than standard atomism in classical extensional mereology and, given the axiom of choice, in such strictly weaker systems as well. Though strong atomism has not, to my knowledge, been explicitly identified, Shiver appears to have it in mind, though it is unclear whether he recognizes that it is not equivalent to standard atomism in each of the mereologies he considers. I prove these logical relationships which hold amongst these three atomistic principles, and argue that, whether one adopts classical extensional mereology or a system strictly weaker than it in which parthood is a partial order, standard atomism is a more defensible addition to one’s mereology than either of the other two principles, and it should be regarded as the best formulation of the atomistic thesis. (shrink)

Kit Fine (2000) breaks with tradition, arguing that, pace Russell (e.g., 1903: 228), relations have neither directions nor converses. He considers two ways to conceive of these new "neutral" relations, positionalism and anti-positionalism, and argues that the latter should be preferred to the former. Cody Gilmore (2013) argues for a generalization of positionalism, slot theory, the view that a property or relation is n-adic if and only if there are exactly n slots in it, and (very roughly) that each slot (...) may be occupied by at most one entity. Slot theory (and with it, positionalism) bears the full brunt of Fine's (2000) symmetric completions and conflicting adicities problems. I fully develop an alternative, plural slot theory (or pocket theory), which avoids these problems, key elements of which are first considered by Yi (1999: 168 ff.). Like the slot theorist, the pocket theorist posits entities (pockets) in properties and relations that can be occupied. But unlike the slot theorist, the pocket theorist denies that at most one entity can occupy any one of them. As a result, she must also deny that the adicity of a property or relation is equal to the number of occupiable entities in it. By abandoning these theses, however, the pocket theorist is able to avoid Fine's problems, resulting in a stronger theory about the internal structure of properties and relations. Pocket theory also avoids a serious drawback of anti-positionalism. (shrink)

Speaks defends the view that propositions are properties: for example, the proposition that grass is green is the property being such that grass is green. We argue that there is no reason to prefer Speaks's theory to analogous but competing theories that identify propositions with, say, 2-adic relations. This style of argument has recently been deployed by many, including Moore and King, against the view that propositions are n-tuples, and by Caplan and Tillman against King's view that propositions are facts (...) of a special sort. We offer our argument as an objection to the view that propositions are unsaturated relations. (shrink)

I provide a characterization of weakly pseudo-rationalizable choice functions---that is, choice functions rationalizable by a set of acyclic relations---in terms of hyper-relations satisfying certain properties. For those hyper-relations Nehring calls extended preference relations, the central characterizing condition is weaker than (hyper-relation) transitivity but stronger than (hyper-relation) acyclicity. Furthermore, the relevant type of hyper-relation can be represented as the intersection of a certain class of its extensions. These results generalize known, analogous results for path independent choice functions.

Can the issue of how important it is whether or not there is a God be decided prior to deciding whether or not there is a God? In this paper, I explore some difficulties that stand in the way of answering this question in the affirmative and some of the implications of these difficulties for that part of the Philosophy of Religion which concerns itself with assessing arguments for and against the existence of God, the implications for how its importance (...) may best be defended within secular academe. (shrink)

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the considerable challenge of sourcing expertise and determining which experts to trust. Dissonant information fostered controversy in public discourse and encouraged an appeal to a wide range of social indicators of trustworthiness in order to decide whom to trust. We analyze public discourse on expertise by examining how social indicators inform the reputation of Dr. Didier Raoult, the French microbiologist who rose to international prominence as an early advocate for using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. To (...) comprehend how these indicators came to inform his reputation, we outline Dr. Raoult's rise to fame based on discourse about hydroxychloroquine. We then discuss why we trust in experts like scientist-practitioners. This is followed by an examination of how social indicators of trust like status, epistemic authority, influence and values have informed Dr. Raoult's reputation. We conclude with recommendations for how to improve the selection and evaluation social indicators of trust and reputations. Our aim here, instead of making a claim about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine or Dr. Raoult's reputation per se, is to outline through this case study how social indicators of trust inform reputation and the challenge they present to evaluating expertise. (shrink)

This paper examines 18th-century Annamese Neo-Confucian discourse on conceptual issues related to zhongguo and the hua-yi dichotomy as expressed across a diversity of 18th-century writings. I engage with Huang Chun-chieh’s theory of “contextual turn” and localized subjectivity in 18th-century East Asian Confucianisms by arguing that 18th-century Annamese Neo-Confucianism operated along a dissimilar ideological trajectory which affirmed “geographic China, political China, and cultural China” as a transdynastic and singular zhongguo from which Annam received its politico-cultural legitimation and prestige. This discourse of (...) dependence on institutional recognition and geographical connection to the Chinese zhongguo distinguished 18th-century Annamese literati not only from contemporaneous modes of Confucian intellectuality in Japan and Joseon, but also from foundational conceptions of Vietic statehood characteristic of the early Le dynasty. My analysis of metaphysical theories invoked by 18th-century Annamese literati in their discussions of zhongguo and the rise of human civilization engages with both Huang Chun-chieh’s theory of a philological turn away from the metaphysical commitments in 18th-century East Asian Confucianisms and Alexander Woodside’s theory of pre-modern Vietnamese Confucianism being characterized by a non-metaphysical “classical primordialism.”. (shrink)

Synthetic biologists aim to generate biological organisms according to rational design principles. Their work may have many beneficial applications, but it also raises potentially serious ethical concerns. In this article, we consider what attention the discipline demands from bioethicists. We argue that the most important issue for ethicists to examine is the risk that knowledge from synthetic biology will be misused, for example, in biological terrorism or warfare. To adequately address this concern, bioethics will need to broaden its scope, contemplating (...) not just the means by which scientific knowledge is produced, but also what kinds of knowledge should be sought and disseminated. (shrink)