Are thought experiments nothing but arguments? I argue that it is not possible to make sense of the historical trajectory of certain thought experiments if one takes them to be arguments. Einstein and Bohr disagreed about the outcome of the clock-in-the-box thought experiment, and so they reconstructed it using different arguments. This is to be expected whenever scientists disagree about a thought experiment's outcome. Since any such episode consists of two arguments but just one thought experiment, the thought experiment cannot (...) be the arguments. (shrink)

Epistemic responsibility involves at least two central ideas. (V) To be epistemically responsible is to display the virtue(s) epistemic internalists take to be central to justification (e.g., coherence, having good reasons, fitting the evidence). (C) In normal (non-skeptical)circumstances and in thelong run, epistemic responsibility is strongly positively correlated with reliability. Sections 1 and 2 review evidence showing that for a wide range of real-world problems, the most reliable, tractable reasoning strategies audaciously flout the internalist''s epistemic virtues. In Section 3, I (...) argue that these results force us to give up either (V), our current conception of what it is to be epistemically responsible, or (C) the responsibility-reliability connection. I will argue that we should relinquish (V). This is likely to reshape our epistemic practices. It will force us to alter our epistemic judgments about certain instances of reasoning, to endorse some counterintuitive epistemic prescriptions, and to rethink what it is for cognitive agents to be epistemically responsible. (shrink)

Strategic Reliabilism is a framework that yields relative epistemic evaluations of belief-producing cognitive processes. It is a theory of cognitive excellence, or more colloquially, a theory of reasoning excellence (where 'reasoning' is understood very broadly as any sort of cognitive process for coming to judgments or beliefs). First introduced in our book, Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment (henceforth EPHJ), the basic idea behind SR is that epistemically excellent reasoning is efficient reasoning that leads in a robustly reliable fashion (...) to significant, true beliefs. It differs from most contemporary epistemological theories in two ways. First, it is not a theory of justification or knowledge – a theory of epistemically worthy belief. Strategic Reliabilism is a theory of epistemically worthy ways of forming beliefs. And second, Strategic Reliabilism does not attempt to account for an epistemological property that is assumed to be faithfully reflected in the epistemic judgments and intuitions of philosophers. If SR makes recommendations that accord with our reflective epistemic judgments and intuitions, great. If not, then so much the worse for our reflective epistemic judgments and intuitions. (shrink)

The flight to reference is a widely-used strategy for resolving philosophical issues. The three steps in a flight to reference argument are: (1) offer a substantive account of the reference relation, (2) argue that a particular expression refers (or does not refer), and (3) draw a philosophical conclusion about something other than reference, like truth or ontology. It is our contention that whenever the flight to reference strategy is invoked, there is a crucial step that is left undefended, and that (...) without a defense of this step, the flight to reference is a fatally flawed strategy; it cannot succeed in resolving philosophical issues. In this paper we begin by setting out the flight to reference strategy and explaining what is wrong with arguments that invoke the strategy. We then illustrate the problem by considering arguments for and against eliminative materialism. In the final section we argue that much the same problem undermines Philip Kitcher's attempt to defend scientific realism. (shrink)

Our aim in this paper is to bring the woefully neglected literature on predictive modeling to bear on some central questions in the philosophy of science. The lesson of this literature is straightforward: For a very wide range of prediction problems, statistical prediction rules (SPRs), often rules that are very easy to implement, make predictions than are as reliable as, and typically more reliable than, human experts. We will argue that the success of SPRs forces us to reconsider our views (...) about what is involved in understanding, explanation, good reasoning, and about how we ought to do philosophy of science. (shrink)

A heuristic is a rule of thumb. In psychology, heuristics are relatively simple rules for making judgments. A fast heuristic is easy to use and allows one to make judgments quickly. A frugal heuristic relies on a small fraction of the available evidence in making judgments. Typically, fast and frugal heuristics (FFHs) have, or are claimed to have, a further property: They are very reliable, yielding judgments that are about as accurate in the long run as ideal non-fast, non-frugal rules. (...) This paper introduces some well-known examples of FFHs, raises some objections to the FFH program, and looks at the implications of those parts of the FFH program about which we can have some reasonable degree of confidence. (shrink)

Scientific realism says of our best scientific theories that (1) most of their important posits exist and (2) most of their central claims are approximately true. Antirealists sometimes offer the pessimistic induction in reply: since (1) and (2) are false about past successful theories, they are probably false about our own best theories too. The contemporary debate about this argument has turned (and become stuck) on the question, Do the central terms of successful scientific theories refer? For example, Larry Laudan (...) offers a list of successful theories that employed central terms that failed to refer, and Philip Kitcher replies with a view about reference in which the central terms of such theories did sometimes refer. This article attempts to break this stalemate by proposing a direct version of the pessimistic induction, one that makes no explicit appeal to a substantive notion or theory of reference. While it is premature to say that this argument succeeds in showing that realism is probably false, the direct pessimistic induction is not subject to any kind of reference-based objection that might cripple a weaker, indirect version of the argument. Any attempt to trounce the direct pessimistic induction with a theory of reference fails. (shrink)

The generality problem is widely considered to be a devastating objection to reliabilist theories of justification. My goal in this paper is to argue that a version of the generality problem applies to all plausible theories of justification. Assume that any plausible theory must allow for the possibility of reflective justification—S's belief, B, is justified on the basis of S's knowledge that she arrived at B as a result of a highly (but not perfectly) reliable way of reasoning, R. The (...) generality problem applies to all cases of reflective justification: Given that is the product of a process-token that is an instance of indefinitely many belief-forming process-types (or BFPTs), why is the reliability of R, rather than the reliability of one of the indefinitely many other BFPTs, relevant to B's justificatory status? This form of the generality problem is restricted because it applies only to cases of reflective justification. But unless it is solved, the generality problem haunts all plausible theories of justification, not just reliabilist ones. (shrink)

What factors are involved in the resolution of scientific disputes? What factors make the resolution of such disputes rational? The traditional view confers an important role on observation statements that are shared by proponents of competing theories. Rival theories make incompatible (sometimes contradictory) observational predictions about a particular situation, and the prediction made by one theory is borne out while the prediction made by the other is not. Paul Feyerabend, Thomas Kuhn, and Paul Churchland have called into question this account (...) of theory-resolution. According to these philosophers, substantially different and competing scientific theories are semantically incommensurable: those theories do not share a common observation language. Two charges have been leveled against the semantic incommensurability theories. The first is that it ignores that some semantic features of observational terms (e.g., their reference) can be expressed by proponents of competing theories. The second is that the semantic incommensurability thesis is self-defeating. In this paper I will argue that both of these charges are true but not for the reasons usually given. (shrink)

Thirty years ago, I elaborated on a position that could be seen as a compromise between an "extreme," symbol-based AI, and a "neurochemical reductionism" in AI. The present article recalls aspects of the espoused framework of schema theory that, it suggested, could provide a better bridge from human psychology to brain theory than that offered by the symbol systems of A. Newell and H. A. Simon.

After a brief introduction and review of recent literature on microaggressions, a theoretical typology of three sources of social injustice (oppression, dehumanization, and exploitation) contributes to the theorization of the sources of microaggressions. A selected compendium of words and affective phrases generated in classroom exercises illustrates the nature of the experience of the moment of microaggression. Future research on microaggressions as well as evaluation of practice should examine the experience of microaggression, including being subjected to microaggression, initiating such acts, and (...) observing such acts. (shrink)

Social work has long been concerned with the respective roles of the social work profession and the social welfare system in addressing human needs. Social workers engage in needs assessment together with client systems. They provide and advocate for the needs of clients, as well enabling and empowering clients and communities to address their needs. They also advocate for social welfare benefits and services and overall social policies that take human needs into account. However, explicit ethical content was not present (...) in earlier Codes of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers. Furthermore, until very recently, little published literature in peer-reviewed journals has human needs theories to guide models of social work practice or inform social work research. Universalistic assumptions about human needs have long been found within social work’s literature on human development (see Jani and Reisch 2011, under General Overviews). However, these assumptions were often inexplicit. They did not fully utilize theories of human need, which have long recognized that although human needs may be universal, they are addressed in culturally and environmentally specific manners. Also, in practice, social workers have often conflated human needs with the need for the services or benefits available at any one time. This bibliography will explore the history and evolution of the interdisciplinary body of human needs theory and research on which social work has drawn historically, with special attention to the recent surge in interest in human needs theories. In doing so, the entry will discuss a number of key debates that have arisen regarding needs, including whether they are universal or specific to particular cultures; what the relationship is between human needs, human rights, and social justice; and how to reconcile theories of human needs and of human capabilities. (shrink)

Social epistemology is autonomous: When applied to the same evidential situations, the principles of social rationality and the principles of individual rationality sometimes recommend inconsistent beliefs. If we stipulate that reasoning rationally from justified beliefs to a true belief is normally sufficient for knowledge, the autonomy thesis implies that some knowledge is essentially social. When the principles of social and individual rationality are applied to justified evidence and recommend inconsistent beliefs and the belief endorsed by social rationality is true, then (...) that true belief would be an instance of social knowledge but not individual knowledge. (shrink)

Alison Gopnik and Andrew Meltzoff have argued for a view they call the ‘theory theory’: theory change in science and children are similar. While their version of the theory theory has been criticized for depending on a number of disputed claims, we argue that there is a fundamental problem which is much more basic: the theory theory is multiply ambiguous. We show that it might be claiming that a similarity holds between theory change in children and (i) individual scientists, (ii) (...) a rational reconstruction of a Superscientist, or (iii) the scientific community. We argue that (i) is false, (ii) is non-empirical (which is problematic since the theory theory is supposed to be a bold empirical hypothesis), and (iii) is either false or doesn’t make enough sense to have a truth-value. We conclude that the theory theory is an interesting failure. Its failure points the way to a full, empirical picture of scientific development, one that marries a concern with the social dynamics of science to a psychological theory of scientific cognition. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 10, October 2022.

The theory-ladenness of perception argument is not an argument at all. It is two clusters of arguments. The first cluster is empirical. These arguments typically begin with a discussion of one or more of the following psychological phenomena: (a) the conceptual penetrability of the visual system, (b) voluntary perceptual reversal of ambiguous figures, (c) adaptation to distorting lenses, or (d) expectation effects. From this evidence, proponents of theory-ladenness typically conclude that perception is in some sense "laden" with theory. The second (...) cluster attempts to extract deep epistemological lessons from this putative fact. Some philosophers conclude that science is not (in any traditional sense) a rational activity, while others conclude that we must radically reconceptualize what scientific rationality involves. Once we understand the structure of these arguments, much conventional wisdom about the significance of the psychological data turns out to be false. (shrink)

This article presents a case study of the structure and logic of the author’s dissertation, with a focus on theoretical content. Designed for use in proposal writing seminars or research methods courses, the article stresses the value of identifying the originating, specifying and subsidiary research questions; clarifying the subject and object of the research; situating research within a particular research tradition, and using a competing theories approach. The article stresses the need to identify conceptual problems and empirical problems and their (...) associated conceptual and operational definitions. The primary theoretical perspective is drawn from emerging sociology of externalities rooted in ecological theory, within the institutionalist tradition. (shrink)

From the exponential function of Euler’s equation to the geometry of a fundamental form, a calculation of the fine-structure constant and its relationship to the proton-electron mass ratio is given. Equations are found for the fundamental constants of the four forces of nature: electromagnetism, the weak force, the strong force and the force of gravitation. Symmetry principles are then associated with traditional physical measures.

This paper investigates the role of visual experience in Wittgenstein's work. The specific thesis is that visual experience provides not only diverse illustrative examples of what could be an explanation of meaning, but that it also provides a recurrent metaphor for the whole process of meaning and understanding. Wittgenstein uses a great number of visual examples in his texts. Their diversity may be accounted for by the great diversity of ways in which he attempts to describe the relationship between a (...) word and its meaning. The resultant variety of visual examples may be summarised by what I call the Visual Discontinuity Thesis. However, beneath this diversity there lies a thread of continuity. This is provided by the persistent use of visual experience in the description of the word-meaning relation. This use underlies the projection relationship of the Tractatus and the "seeing-as" relationship of the Investigations. This recurrent visual metaphor may be summarised by what I call the Visual Continuity Thesis. This paper presents the latter thesis in the context of a description of the former. (shrink)

After a brief review of the golden ratio in history and our previous exposition of the fine-structure constant and equations with the exponential function, the fine-structure constant is studied in the context of other research calculating the fine-structure constant from the golden ratio geometry of the hydrogen atom. This research is extended and the fine-structure constant is then calculated in powers of the golden ratio to an accuracy consistent with the most recent publications. The mathematical constants associated with the golden (...) ratio are also involved in both the calculation of the fine-structure constant and the proton-electron mass ratio. These constants are included in symbolic geometry of historical relevance in the science of the ancients. (shrink)

Arnold Sommerfeld introduced the fine-structure constant that determines the strength of the electromagnetic interaction. Following Sommerfeld, Wolfgang Pauli left several clues to calculating the fine-structure constant with his research on Johannes Kepler's view of nature and Pythagorean geometry. The Laplace limit of Kepler's equation in classical mechanics, the Bohr-Sommerfeld model of the hydrogen atom and Julian Schwinger's research enable a calculation of the electron magnetic moment anomaly. Considerations of fundamental lengths such as the charge radius of the proton and mass (...) ratios suggest some further foundational interpretations of quantum electrodynamics. (shrink)

Wolfgang Pauli was influenced by Carl Jung and the Platonism of Arnold Sommerfeld, who introduced the fine-structure constant. Pauli’s vision of a World Clock is related to the symbolic form of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes and Plato’s geometric allegory otherwise known as the Cosmological Circle attributed to ancient tradition. With this vision Pauli revealed geometric clues to the mystery of the fine-structure constant that determines the strength of the electromagnetic interaction. A Platonic interpretation of the World Clock and the (...) Cosmological Circle provides an explanation that includes the geometric structure of the pineal gland described by the golden ratio. In his experience of archetypal images Pauli encounters the synchronicity of events that contribute to his quest for physical symmetry relevant to the development of quantum electrodynamics. (shrink)

The fine-structure constant, which determines the strength of the electromagnetic interaction, is briefly reviewed beginning with its introduction by Arnold Sommerfeld and also includes the interest of Wolfgang Pauli, Paul Dirac, Richard Feynman and others. Sommerfeld was very much a Pythagorean and sometimes compared to Johannes Kepler. The archetypal Pythagorean triangle has long been known as a hiding place for the golden ratio. More recently, the quartic polynomial has also been found as a hiding place for the golden ratio. The (...) Kepler triangle, with its golden ratio proportions, is also a Pythagorean triangle. Combining classical harmonic proportions derived from Kepler’s triangle with quartic equations determine an approximate value for the fine-structure constant that is the same as that found in our previous work with the golden ratio geometry of the hydrogen atom. These results make further progress toward an understanding of the golden ratio as the basis for the fine-structure constant. (shrink)

Research into ancient physical structures, some having been known as the seven wonders of the ancient world, inspired new developments in the early history of mathematics. At the other end of this spectrum of inquiry the research is concerned with the minimum of observations from physical data as exemplified by Eddington's Principle. Current discussions of the interplay between physics and mathematics revive some of this early history of mathematics and offer insight into the fine-structure constant. Arthur Eddington's work leads to (...) a new calculation of the inverse fine-structure constant giving the same approximate value as ancient geometry combined with the golden ratio structure of the hydrogen atom. The hyperbolic function suggested by Alfred Landé leads to another result, involving the Laplace limit of Kepler's equation, with the same approximate value and related to the aforementioned results. The accuracy of these results are consistent with the standard reference. Relationships between the four fundamental coupling constants are also found. (shrink)

The golden ratio is found to be related to the fine-structure constant, which determines the strength of the electromagnetic interaction. The golden ratio and classical harmonic proportions with quartic equations give an approximate value for the inverse fine-structure constant the same as that discovered previously in the geometry of the hydrogen atom. With the former golden ratio results, relationships are also shown between the four fundamental forces of nature: electromagnetism, the weak force, the strong force, and the force of gravitation.

This paper argues in favor of two related theses. First, due to a fundamental, biologically grounded world-openness, human culture is a biological imperative. As both biology and culture evolve historically, cultures rise and fall and the diversity of the human species develops. Second, in this historical process of rise and fall, abnormality plays a crucial role. From the perspective of a broader context traditionally addressed by speculative philosophies of history, the so-called mental disorders may be seen as entailing particular functional (...) advantages, and thus have a great impact on the course of human history. Nowadays, however, we live under a threat of cultural uniformity. While the diversity of the human species is cherished at the political level, it is being slowly eradicated through medical means. This paradox is a dangerous feature of contemporary globalized society that can lead to highly problematic consequences. (shrink)

This paper explores relationships between environment and education after the Covid-19 pandemic through the lens of philosophy of education in a new key developed by Michael Peters and the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia. The paper is collectively written by 15 authors who responded to the question: Who remembers Greta Thunberg? Their answers are classified into four main themes and corresponding sections. The first section, ‘As we bake the earth, let's try and bake it from scratch’, gathers wider (...) philosophical considerations about the intersection between environment, education, and the pandemic. The second section, ‘Bump in the road or a catalyst for structural change?’, looks more closely into issues pertaining to education. The third section, ‘If you choose to fail us, we will never forgive you’, focuses to Greta Thunberg’s messages and their responses. The last section, ‘Towards a new normal’, explores future scenarios and develops recommendations for critical emancipatory action. The concluding part brings these insights together, showing that resulting synergy between the answers offers much more then the sum of articles’ parts. With its ethos of collectivity, interconnectedness, and solidarity, philosophy of education in a new key is a crucial tool for development of post-pandemic education. (shrink)

We describe an evaluation undertaken on contract for the New Zealand State Services Commission of a major project (the Administrative Decision-Making Skills Project) designed to produce a model of administrative decision making and an associated teaching/learning packagefor use by government officers. It describes the evaluation of a philosophical model of decision making and the associated teaching/learning package in the setting of the New Zealand Public Service, where a deliberate attempt has been initiated to improve the quality of decision making, especially (...) in relation to moral factors. (shrink)

The article sets out a primitive ontology of the natural world in terms of primitive stuff—that is, stuff that has as such no physical properties at all—but that is not a bare substratum either, being individuated by metrical relations. We focus on quantum physics and employ identity-based Bohmian mechanics to illustrate this view, but point out that it applies all over physics. Properties then enter into the picture exclusively through the role that they play for the dynamics of the primitive (...) stuff. We show that such properties can be local, as well as holistic, and discuss two metaphysical options to conceive them, namely, Humeanism and modal realism in the guise of dispositionalism. 1 Introduction2 Primitive Ontology: Primitive Stuff3 The Physics of Matter as Primitive Stuff4 The Humean Best System Analysis of the Dynamical Variables5 Modal Realism about the Dynamical Variables6 Conclusion. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that solutions to normative challenges associated with autonomous driving, such as real-world trolley cases or distributions of risk in mundane driving situations, face the problem of reasonable pluralism: Reasonable pluralism refers to the fact that there exists a plurality of reasonable yet incompatible comprehensive moral doctrines within liberal democracies. The corresponding problem is that a politically acceptable solution cannot refer to only one of these comprehensive doctrines. Yet a politically adequate solution to the normative challenges (...) of autonomous driving need not come at the expense of an ethical solution, if it is based on moral beliefs that are (1) shared in an overlapping consensus and (2) systematized through public reason. Therefore, we argue that a Rawlsian justificatory framework is able to adequately address the normative challenges of autonomous driving and elaborate on how such a framework might be employed for this purpose. (shrink)

This article considers distinct ways of understanding the world, referred to in psychology as Functions of Consciousness or as Cognitive Modes, having as the scope of interest epistemology and natural sciences. Inspired by C.G. Jung's Simile of the Spectrum, we consider three basic cognitive modes associated to: (R) embodied instinct, experience, and action; (G) reality perception and learning; and (B) concept abstraction, rational thinking, and language. RGB stand for the primary colors: red, green, and blue. Accordingly, a conceptual map between (...) cognitive modes and primary and secondary colors is built based on the physics and physiology of color perception and epistemological characteristics of the aforementioned cognitive modes, leading to logical relations structured as an Hexagon of Opposition. Finally, this model of cognitive modes is applied to the analysis and interpretation of some important episodes in the historical development of physics and technology. (shrink)

We discuss two leading theories of distributive justice: egalitarianism and prioritarianism. We argue that while each has particular merits and shortcomings, egalitarian views more fully satisfy a key requirement of distributive justice: respect for both the unity of the individual and the separateness of persons.

We provide a cognitive analysis of how children represent belief using mental files. We explain why children who pass the false belief test are not aware of the intensionality of belief. Fifty-one 3½- to 7-year old children were familiarized with a dual object, e.g., a ball that rattles and is described as a rattle. They observed how a puppet agent witnessed the ball being put into box 1. In the agent’s absence the ball was taken from box 1, the child (...) was reminded of it being a rattle, and emphasising its being a rattle it was put back into box 1. Then the agent returned, the object was hidden in the experimenter’s hands and removed from box 1, described as a ‘‘rattle,” and transferred to box 2. Children who passed false belief had no problem saying where the puppet would look for the ball. However, in a different condition in which the agent was also shown that the ball was a rattle they erroneously said that the agent would look for the ball in box 1, ignoring the agent’s knowledge of the identity of rattle and ball. Their problems cease with their mastery of second-order beliefs. Problems also vanish when the ball is described not as a rattle but as a thing that rattles. We describe how our theory can account for these data as well as all other relevant data in the literature. (shrink)

In recent years, philosophers have proposed a variety of accounts of the nature of harm. In this paper, I consider several of these accounts and argue that they are unsuccessful. I then make a modest case for a different view.

I argue that prioritarianism cannot be assessed in abstraction from an account of the measure of utility. Rather, the soundness of this view crucially depends on what counts as a greater, lesser, or equal increase in a person’s utility. In particular, prioritarianism cannot accommodate a normatively compelling measure of utility that is captured by the axioms of John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern’s expected utility theory. Nor can it accommodate a plausible and elegant generalization of this theory that has been (...) offered in response to challenges to von Neumann and Morgenstern. This is, I think, a theoretically interesting and unexpected source of difficulty for prioritarianism, which I explore in this article. (shrink)

Defends Kantian paternalism: Interference with an individual’s liberty for her own sake is justified absent her actual consent only to the extent that such interference stands a reasonable chance of preventing her from exercising her liberty irrationally in light of the rationally chosen ends that constitute her conception of the good. More specifically, interference with an individual’s liberty is permissible only if, by interfering, we stand a reasonable chance of preventing that agent from performing actions she chose due to distorted (...) reasoning and which would result in that agent’s rationally chosen ends not being as fully realized as they would have been had she so acted. -/- Applied to suicide intervention Kantian paternalism implies that such intervention is justified to the extent that it prevents a person from ending her life when, due to distorted reasoning, she engages in suicidal behavior that is at odds with her rationally chosen ends. (shrink)

This article explores some open questions related to the problem of verification of theories in the context of empirical sciences by contrasting three epistemological frameworks. Each of these epistemological frameworks is based on a corresponding central metaphor, namely: (a) Neo-empiricism and the gambling metaphor; (b) Popperian falsificationism and the scientific tribunal metaphor; (c) Cognitive constructivism and the object as eigen-solution metaphor. Each of one of these epistemological frameworks has also historically co-evolved with a certain statistical theory and method for testing (...) scientific hypotheses, respectively: (a) Decision theoretic Bayesian statistics and Bayes factors; (b) Frequentist statistics and p-values; (c) Constructive Bayesian statistics and e-values. This article examines with special care the Zero Probability Paradox (ZPP), related to the verification of sharp or precise hypotheses. Finally, this article makes some remarks on Lakatos’ view of mathematics as a quasi-empirical science. (shrink)

In this paper, I try to show that democratic consensus – one of the more prominent ideals in recent political thought – is an essential byproduct of epistemically warranted beliefs about political action and organization, at least in those cases where the issues under dispute are epistemic in nature. An essential byproduct (to borrow Jon Elster’s term) is a goal that can only be intentionally achieved by aiming at some other objective. In my usage, a political issue is epistemic when (...) there is some right (or at least best) answer concerning how it ought to be resolved that is independent of people’s beliefs or desires about how it ought to be resolved. An important secondary claim, then, is that it is difficult to explain the presumptive value of political deliberation unless we understand a very large share of political issues as epistemic in nature. This view implies a considerably more contentious model of political deliberation but is not incompatible with familiar forms of conciliatory behavior in our public disputes. (shrink)

Standard Analytic Epistemology (SAE) names a contingently clustered class of methods and theses that have dominated English-speaking epistemology for about the past half-century. The major contemporary theories of SAE include versions of foundationalism, coherentism, reliabilism, and contextualism. While proponents of SAE don’t agree about how to define naturalized epistemology, most agree that a thoroughgoing naturalism in epistemology can’t work. For the purposes of this paper, we will suppose that a naturalistic theory of epistemology takes as its core, as its starting-point, (...) an empirical theory. The standard argument against naturalistic approaches to epistemology is that empirical theories are essentially descriptive, while epistemology is essentially prescriptive, and a descriptive theory cannot yield normative, evaluative prescriptions. In short, naturalistic theories cannot overcome the is-ought divide. Our main goal in this paper is to show that the standard argument against naturalized epistemology has it almost exactly backwards. (shrink)

For many, it is far from clear where the prerogatives of parents to educate as they deem appropriate end and the interests of their children, immediate or future, begin. In this article I consider the educational interests of children and argue that children have an interest in their own well-being. Following this, I will examine the interests of parents and consider where the limits of paternalism lie. Finally, I will consider the state's interest in the education of children and discuss (...) a familiar view that argues that we have a central obligation to cultivate good citizens. The article will focus on the tensions which inevitably arise from the sometimes conflicting interests between them. (shrink)

The main question addressed in this paper is whether some false sentences can constitute evidence for the truth of other propositions. In this paper it is argued that there are good reasons to suspect that at least some false propositions can constitute evidence for the truth of certain other contingent propositions. The paper also introduces a novel condition concerning propositions that constitute evidence that explains a ubiquitous evidential practice and it contains a defense of a particular condition concerning the possession (...) of evidence. The core position adopted here then is that false propositions that are approximately true reports of measurements can constitute evidence for the truth of other propositions. So, it will be argued that evidence is only quasi-factive in this very specific sense. (shrink)

Passion is a hidden issue behind or at the heart of, contemporary theoretical debates about nationalism, identity politics and religious fundamentalism. It is not that reason and passion cannot be conceptually distinguished. They are, however, always entangled in practice - and this entanglement itself requires a conceptual account. So it is my ambition to blur the line between reason and passion: to rationalize (some of) the passions and to impassion reason. Passionate intensity has a legitimate place in the social world. (...) This extension of rational legitimacy to the political passions seems to me a useful revision of liberal theory which has been too pre-occupied in recent years with the construction of dispassionate deliberative procedures. It opens the way for better accounts of social connection and conflict and for more explicit and self-conscious answers to the unavoidable political questions: which side are you on? Key Words: conviction • interest • liberalism • passion • politics • Yeats. (shrink)

It is almost universally presumed that knowledge is factive: in order to know that p it must be the case that p is true. This idea is often justified by appealing to knowledge ascriptions and related linguistic phenomena; i.e., an utterance of the form ‘S knows that p, but not-p’ sounds contradictory. In a recent article, Allan Hazlett argues that our ordinary concept of knowledge is not factive. From this it seems to follow that epistemologists cannot appeal to ordinary language (...) to justify the truth condition of knowledge. More significantly, Hazlett claims that epistemologists theorizing about knowledge should not concern themselves with the ordinary concept of knowledge as revealed by knowledge ascriptions and related linguistic phenomena. My paper has two goals: first, to defend the orthodox view that the ordinary concept of knowledge is factive; second, to undermine Hazlett’s claim that epistemologists should not theorize about knowledge on the basis of how ‘knows’ is used in everyday speech. (shrink)

Why should a thought experiment, an experiment that only exists in people's minds, alter our fundamental beliefs about reality? After all, isn't reasoning from the imaginary to the real a sign of psychosis? A historical survey of how thought experiments have shaped our physical laws might lead one to believe that it's not the case that the laws of physics lie - it's that they don't even pretend to tell the truth. My aim in this paper is to defend an (...) account of thought experiments that fits smoothly into our understanding of the historical trajectory of actual thought experiments and that explains how any rational person could allow an imagined, unrealized (or unrealizable) situation to change their conception of the universe. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that agents are self-ruled only when ruled by their (authentic) selves. Though this view is rarely argued for explicitly, one tempting line of thought suggests that self-rule is just obviously equivalent to rule by the self . However, the plausibility of this thought evaporates upon close examination of the logic of ‘self-rule’ and similar reflexives. Moreover, attempts to rescue the account by recasting it in negative terms are unpromising. In light of these problems, this paper instead proposes (...) that agents are self-ruled only when not ruled by others. One reason for favouring this negative social view is its ability to yield plausible conclusions concerning various manipulation cases that are notoriously problematic for nonsocial accounts of self-rule. A second reason is that the account conforms with ordinary usage. It is concluded that self-rule may be best thought of as an essentially social concept. (shrink)

Deliberate contextual vocabulary acquisition (CVA) is a reader’s ability to figure out a (not the) meaning for an unknown word from its “context”, without external sources of help such as dictionaries or people. The appropriate context for such CVA is the “belief-revised integration” of the reader’s prior knowledge with the reader’s “internalization” of the text. We discuss unwarranted assumptions behind some classic objections to CVA, and present and defend a computational theory of CVA that we have adapted to a new (...) classroom curriculum designed to help students use CVA to improve their reading comprehension. (shrink)

There is a fairly general consensus that names are Millian (or Russellian) genuine terms, that is, are singular terms whose sole semantic function is to introduce a referent into the propositions expressed by sentences containing the term. This answers the question as to what sort of proposition is expressed by use of sentences containing names. But there is a second serious semantic problem about proper names, that of how the referents of proper names are determined. This is the question that (...) I will discuss in this paper. Various views consistent with Millianism have been proposed as to how the semantic referents of proper names are determined. These views can be classified into (1) description theories and (2) causal theories, but they can also be classified into (3) social practice theories, on which a name’s referent is determined by a social practice involving the referent, and (4) individualistic theories, on which the referent of the use of a name is determined by the speaker’s state of mind. Here I argue against social practice theories of the sorts proposed by Kripke and Evans and in favor of an individualistic approach to name reference. I argue that social practice is irrelevant to determining name reference and that, as a consequence, names have no meanings in natural languages. In the second part of the paper I motivate and propose a new form of individualistic theory which incorporates features of both description theories and Evans’s social practice theory. (shrink)

In A Metaphysics for Freedom, Helen Steward proposes and defends a novel version of the libertarian account of free action. Amongst several objections that she considers to her view, one that looms particularly large is the Challenge from Chance: ‘the most powerful, widely-promulgated and important line of anti-libertarian reasoning’. This paper begins by arguing that Steward’s response to the Challenge is not fully convincing. It then goes on to explore a further possible libertarian line of defence against the Challenge, arguing (...) that it, too, ultimately fails. The conclusion is that the Challenge remains an important source of dialectical advantage for the compatibilist. (shrink)