Many philosophers assume that, when making moral decisions under uncertainty, we should choose the option that has the greatest expected moral value, regardless of how risky it is. But their arguments for maximizing expected moral value do not support it over rival, risk-averse approaches. In this paper, I present a novel argument for maximizing expected value: when we think about larger series of decisions that each decision is a part of, all but the most risk-averse agents would prefer that we (...) consistently choose the option with the highest expected value. To the extent that what we choose on a given occasion should be guided by the entire series of choices we prefer, then on each occasion, we should choose the option with the highest expected moral value. (shrink)

According to the received account of guilt in the philosophical literature, one cannot feel guilt unless one takes oneself to have done something morally wrong. But ordinary people feel guilt in many cases in which they do not take themselves to have done anything morally wrong. In this paper, I focus on one kind of guilt without perceived wrongdoing, guilt about being merely causally responsible for a bad state-of-affairs. I go on to present a novel account of guilt that explains (...) guilt about mere causal responsibility, according to which guilt represents part of the self as bound up with what is bad. (shrink)

Solidarity is a widespread but under-explored phenomenon. In this paper, I give a philosophical account of solidarity, answering three salient questions: What motivates acts of solidarity? What unifies different acts into tokens of a single type of act, one of solidarity? And what values do acts of solidarity exhibit? The answer to all three, I argue, involves a certain way of relating to others: identifying with them on the basis of shared features, and identifying with the larger group that one (...) and the others both belong to. (shrink)

Drawing on a rich pragmatist tradition, this book offers an account of the different kinds of ‘oughts’, or varieties of normativity, that we are subject to contends that there is no conflict between normativity and the world as science describes it. The authors argue that normative claims aim to evaluate, to urge us to do or not do something, and to tell us how a state of affairs ought to be. These claims articulate forms of action-guidance that are different in (...) kind from descriptive claims, with a wholly distinct practical and expressive character. This account suggests that there are no normative facts, and so nothing that needs any troublesome shoehorning into a scientific account of the world. This work explains that nevertheless, normative claims are constrained by the world, and answerable to reason and argumentation, in a way that makes them truth-apt and objective. (shrink)

Many philosophers have suspected that the normative importance of morality depends on moral realism. In this paper, I defend a version of this suspicion: I argue that if teleological forms of moral realism, those that posit an objective purpose to human life, are true, then we gain a distinctive kind of reason to do what is morally required. I argue for this by showing that if these forms of realism are true, then doing what is morally required can provide a (...) life with meaning, which is a widespread human need. I also argue that rival meta-ethical views, like anti-realism or non-naturalist realism, cannot make morality meaning-conferring in this way. (shrink)

The fact of evolution raises important questions for the position of moral realism, because the origin of our moral dispositions in a contingent evolutionary process is on the face of it incompatible with the view that our moral beliefs track independent moral truths. Moreover, this meta-ethical worry seems to undermine the normative justification of our moral norms and beliefs. If we don’t have any grounds to believe that the source of our moral beliefs has any ontological authority, how can our (...) moral judgments be justified in an objective way? In this chapter, I argue that while traditional moral realism is untenable in the light of evolution, normative justification should not be handed the same fate. It is precisely in the fact that moral norms and beliefs are grounded in evolved, innate and therefore universally shared intuitions that those norms and beliefs can be objective-for-us. Such an internalist justification allows us to differentiate moral right from wrong, not because some feature of the external world forces us to acknowledge this, but because our moral nature forces us to project this moral judgment on the world. What’s more, guided by this innate moral compass we can both assess and realize moral progress. (shrink)

At Sophist 260e3-261a2, the Eleatic Stranger claims that in order to demonstrate that falsehood is, he and Theaetetus must first track down what speech (logos), opinion (doxa), and appearance (phantasia) are, and then observe the communion (koinōnia) that speech, opinion, and appearance have with non-being. The Stranger, however, never explicitly discusses the communion of speech, opinion, and appearance with non-being. Yet presumably their communion is implicit in his account of falsehood, given his claim that observing that communion is needed in (...) order to demonstrate that falsehood is (260e5-a2). This essay seeks to make the communion that speech has with non-being explicit. I argue that speech has communion with non-being in that the things and actions speech combines together by means of nouns and verbs need not be combined in a way that reveals how the being a given speech is about combines ontologically with other beings. (shrink)

As Socrates recounts his search for causes (aitiai) in the Phaedo, he identifies the following as genuine causes: intelligence (nous), seeming best, choice of the best, and the forms. I argue that these causes should be understood as norms prescribing the conditions their effects must meet if those effects are to be produced. Thus, my account both explains what Socrates’ causes are and the way in which they cause what they cause.

A few purported counterexamples to the Adams thesis have cropped up in the literature in the last few decades. I propose a theory that accounts for them, in a way that makes the connections between indicative conditionals and counterfactuals clearer.

Using William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the play-within-the play, The Murder of Gonzago, as a case study, this essay argues that theatrical utterances constitute a special case of language usage not previously elucidated: the utterance of a statement with propositional content in theatre functions as an event. In short, the propositional content of a particular p (e.g. p1, p2, p3 …), whether or not it is true, is only understood—and understood to be true—if p1 is uttered in a particular time, place, (...) and situation (i.e. during a theatrical event); otherwise, the propositional content in those theatrical utterances can either be false or contingently true. (shrink)

Morality is traditionally understood as comprised of two components: justice and mercy. The first component, justice, the universal component of the form, is frequently seen as foundational for any moral system – which poses a challenge of explaining the second component, mercy, the particular component of content. Kantian ethics provides an example of this approach. After formulating his universalist theory of ethics in the Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals and further developing it in the Critique of practical reason, he (...) attempts to use it in order to establish the morality of mercy in the Metaphysics of morals. Yet can universal morality of justice necessitate particular ethics of mercy? Using the example of competitive games, the relations between the ethics of justice and that of mercy are demonstrated, and it is shown that the former does not lead to the latter. Moreover, the universality of the rules of moral behavior can serve as a form for blatant brutality. Analyzing the characteristics of particular morality, we can conclude that physical humanity of the moral object, perceived as such by the subject, is a required condition for mercy. Removal of object's humanity is a necessary step toward an ethical system that allows cruelty – a system that can still be based on universal moral rules. Bhagavad Gītā, on the other hand, can be seen as an example of combining nīṣkāmakarma, the formal, universal ethics of desireless action, with a variety of particular motivations originating in the nature and social context of the moral agent. (shrink)

Philosophers often claim that studying philosophy helps people to become better thinkers. Thanks to a grant from the American Philosophical Association, we were able to test this claim empirically, using a large sample of students (N = 122,352) graduating from 369 colleges and universities across the United States between 2010 and 2019. We investigated whether philosophy majors show more growth than non-philosophy majors in intellectual traits like open-mindedness and a tendency to think carefully and thoroughly, as well as more personal (...) forms of growth that might be fostered by philosophical study (e.g., self-understanding). Additionally, although this was not our primary question, we sought to better understand what students who major in philosophy are like. Specifically, we examined the demographics of philosophy majors, the other subjects that they tend to study when they double major, and the patterns of adding and dropping of philosophy majors between freshman and senior year. (shrink)

To what extent can Nietzsche's idea of the Overman be used in connection with transhumanist notions of highly advanced humans and even posthumans?

We introduce a fairness criterion that we call Spanning. Spanning i) is implied by Calibration, ii) retains interesting properties of Calibration that some other ways of relaxing that criterion do not, and iii) unlike Calibration and other prominent ways of weakening it, is consistent with Equalized Odds outside of trivial cases.

In this paper, we offer a brief, critical survey of contemporary work on truth. We begin by reflecting on the distinction between substantivist and deflationary truth theories. We then turn to three new kinds of truth theory—Kevin Scharp's replacement theory, John MacFarlane's relativism, and the alethic pluralism pioneered by Michael Lynch and Crispin Wright. We argue that despite their considerable differences, these theories exhibit a common "pluralizing tendency" with respect to truth. In the final section, we look at the (...) underinvestigated interface between metaphysical and formal truth theories, pointing to several promising questions that arise here. (shrink)

This book develops an evolutionary account of animal choice and human freedom, thus supplementing the conceptual account of freedom with an explanation how it developed.

Epistemic decision theory produces arguments with both normative and mathematical premises. I begin by arguing that philosophers should care about whether the mathematical premises (1) are true, (2) are strong, and (3) admit simple proofs. I then discuss a theorem that Briggs and Pettigrew (2020) use as a premise in a novel accuracy-dominance argument for conditionalization. I argue that the theorem and its proof can be improved in a number of ways. First, I present a counterexample that shows that one (...) of the theorem’s claims is false. As a result of this, Briggs and Pettigrew’s argument for conditionalization is unsound. I go on to explore how a sound accuracy-dominance argument for conditionalization might be recovered. In the course of doing this, I prove two new theorems that correct and strengthen the result reported by Briggs and Pettigrew. I show how my results can be combined with various normative premises to produce sound arguments for conditionalization. I also show that my results can be used to support normative conclusions that are stronger than the one that Briggs and Pettigrew’s argument supports. Finally, I show that Briggs and Pettigrew’s proofs can be simplified considerably. (shrink)

Comparative overall similarity lies at the basis of a lot of recent metaphysics and epistemology. It is a poor foundation. Overall similarity is supposed to be an aggregate of similarities and differences in various respects. But there is no good way of combining them all.

In a recent paper, Pettigrew reports a generalization of the celebrated accuracy-dominance theorem due to Predd et al., but Pettigrew’s proof is incorrect. I will explain the mistakes and provide a correct proof.

We argue that the most ambitious version of the mental files theory of singular thought, according to which mental files are a wide-ranging psychological natural kind underlying all and only singular thinking, is unsupported by the available psychological data. Nevertheless, critical examination of the theory from a psychological perspective opens up promising avenues for research, especially concerning the relationship between our perceptual capacity to individuate and track basic individuals, and our higher level capacities for singular thought.

Since Case and Deaton (2015) coined the term ‘deaths of despair,’ there has been significant empirical work and public interest in the topic. Yet social scientists studying this topic lament the absence of a clear theory of despair. Philosophical inquiry into the nature and value of hope has begun to fill this gap, with despair often cited as the opposite of hope. The assumption that hope and despair are opposites has helped to motivate two central tasks in the literature: how (...) a theory of hope can make sense of the difference between hope and despair, and how hope might prevent people from falling into despair. Yet the focus of inquiry has been principally on hope. This paper builds on the existing literature to offer a theory of despair. We argue that despair is a mode of sadness whereby one experiences the loss of reasons to take seriously that which one desires. Our account of despair captures a set of desiderata that any theory of despair should explain, and it offers useful conceptual resources to social scientists studying deaths of despair. (shrink)

Perceptualism is a prominent theory analyzing emotions as perceptual experiences of value. A longstanding challenge to perceptualism says that emotions cannot be perceptual because they are subject to normative assessments in terms of reasons and rationality while perceptual experiences are not. I defend perceptualism from this charge. My argument begins by distinguishing two forms of normative assessment: fundamental and non-fundamental. Perceptualism is compatible with the latter (i.e., non-fundamental reasons and rationality); even sensory experiences are so assessable. I next argue that (...) emotions are only non-fundamentally assessable. Following this argument, I outline a perceptualist-friendly theory of emotions as non-fundamentally normatively assessable. (shrink)

In the first section, I characterize skeptical theism more fully. This is necessary in order to address some important misconceptions and mischaracterizations that appear in the essays by Maitzen, Wilks, and O’Connor. In the second section, I describe the most important objections they raise and group them into four “families” so as to facilitate an orderly series of responses. In the four sections that follow, I respond to the objections.

A modern and influential Aristotelian conception of universals combines two ideas: that a universal is immanent in its instantiations, and that its instantiations are partly constructed by this universal. I argue that these two ideas are inconsistent on weaker assumptions than previously recognized.

Estados Unidos y el mundo están en el proceso de colapso de un crecimiento excesivo de la población, la mayoría de ella para el siglo pasado, y ahora todo ello, debido a la 3ª gente del mundo. El consumo de recursos y la adición de 4 mil millones más CA. 2100 colapsarán la civilización industrial y traerán hambre, enfermedad, violencia y guerra a una escala asombrosa. La tierra pierde al menos el 1% de su suelo vegetal cada año, por lo (...) que se acerca a 2100, la mayor parte de su capacidad de cultivo de alimentos se habrá ido. Miles de millones morirán y la guerra nuclear es segura. En Estados Unidos, esto está siendo enormemente acelerado por la inmigración masiva y la reproducción de inmigrantes, combinada con los abusos hechos posible por la democracia. La naturaleza humana depravada convierte inexorablemente el sueño de la democracia y la diversidad en una pesadilla de delincuencia y pobreza. China seguirá abrumar a América y al mundo, siempre y cuando mantenga la dictadura que limita el egoísmo. La causa raíz del colapso es la incapacidad de nuestra psicología innata para adaptarse al mundo moderno, lo que lleva a las personas a tratar a las personas no relacionadas como si tuvieran intereses comunes. La idea de los derechos humanos es una fantasía malvada promovida por los izquierdistas para atraer la atención de la destrucción despiadada de la tierra por una maternidad sin restricciones del tercer mundo. Esto, además de la ignorancia de la biología básica y la psicología, conduce a los delirios de ingeniería social de los parcialmente educados que controlan las sociedades democráticas. Pocos entienden que si usted ayuda a una persona a lastimar a alguien más, no hay almuerzo gratis y cada artículo que alguien consume destruye la tierra más allá de la reparación. En consecuencia, las políticas sociales en todas partes son insostenibles y, una por una, todas las sociedades sin estrictos controles sobre el egoísmo se derrumbarán en la anarquía o la dictadura. Los hechos más básicos, casi nunca mencionados, son que no hay suficientes recursos en Estados Unidos o en el mundo para levantar un porcentaje significativo de los pobres de la pobreza y mantenerlos allí. El intento de hacer esto es la quiebra de Estados Unidos y la destrucción del mundo. La capacidad de la tierra para producir alimentos disminuye diariamente, al igual que nuestra calidad genética. Y ahora, como siempre, de lejos el mayor enemigo de los pobres es el de otros pobres y no los ricos. Sin cambios dramáticos e inmediatos, no hay esperanzas de evitar el colapso de América, o cualquier país que siga un sistema democrático. (shrink)

Some recent scientific discoveries regarding the signs of language, which impact my own ongoing project as a visual/conceptual artist, also dramatically impact the Saussurian foundation of the prevalent cultural theories which underlie the curatorial priorities of many major art institutions.

This essay has two aims. The first is to correct an increasingly popular way of misunderstanding Belot's Orgulity Argument. The Orgulity Argument charges Bayesianism with defect as a normative epistemology. For concreteness, our argument focuses on Cisewski et al.'s recent rejoinder to Belot. The conditions that underwrite their version of the argument are too strong and Belot does not endorse them on our reading. A more compelling version of the Orgulity Argument than Cisewski et al. present is available, however---a point (...) that we make by drawing an analogy with de Finetti's argument against mandating countable additivity. Having presented the best version of the Orgulity Argument, our second aim is to develop a reply to it. We extend Elga's idea of appealing to finitely additive probability to show that the challenge posed by the Orgulity Argument can be met. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine the use of the concept of privilege within the critical theoretical discourse on oppression and liberation (with a particular focus on white privilege and antiracism in the USA). In order to fulfill the rhetorical aims of liberation, concepts for privilege must meet what I term the ‘boundary condition’, which demarcates the boundary between a privileged elite and the rest of society, and the ‘ignorance condition’, which establishes that the elite status and the advantages it confers (...) are not publicly recognised or affirmed. I argue that the dominant use of the concept of privilege cannot fulfill these conditions. As a result, while I do not advocate for the complete abandonment of the rhetoric of privilege, I conclude that it obscures as much as it illuminates, and that the critical theoretical discourse on liberation and oppression should be suspicious of its use. (shrink)

This excerpted chapter of the book THE IMAGE OF LANGUAGE discusses the philosophical implications of geometric visualizations of the alphabetic patterning encoded in the orthography of words (a project showing examples of the visualizations is included). Reference pages are also included.

This paper explores two related questions in late Athenian and Alexandrian Neoplatonism. First, how can a philosopher contemplate the eternal Forms while engaging in practical agency in the world? Second, do Neoplatonists provide a consistent account of the philosopher’s progress through the ‘stages of virtue’ (βαθμοί τῶν ἀρετῶν), the conceptual structure that underpins late antique philosophical curricula and hagiography? These questions interact, I suggest, because later Platonists appeal to the stages of virtue and divine maniai (βαθμοί τῶν μανίων) to explain (...) the philosopher’s ability to alternate gracefully between contemplation and embodied agency, and even to engage in both activities at the same moment. I argue that apparently contradictory evidence for the highest stages of virtue can be reconciled satisfactorily, shedding light on two models of ethical and perceptual transformation that are consistent throughout later Neoplatonism. In the first, 'painterly' model, we alternate between a vision of the paradigmatic model and its expression in the media of place and time; in the second, 'dancerly' model, we contemplate in action all at once, like a dancer moving to the music. (shrink)

Many Perdurantists have been drawn to the “Conventionalist” idea that our person-directed attitudes can determine whether or not we survive events such as teletransportation. In this paper, I suggest a novel “Contextualist Conventionalism” according to which Conventionalism is true with respect to some, but not all, contexts in which we ask “will I survive?”—instead in “reflexive” contexts, “I” reflexively refers to a thinker whose persistence conditions are mind-independent. Unlike one form of Conventionalism which implies that the reference of “I” is (...) never constrained to reflexively referring to the thinker, Contextualist Conventionalism instead implies that there are some important contexts where the “I” is so constrained. And unlike another form of Conventionalism that secures such reflexive reference by holding that the survival of the thinker is a mind-dependent matter, Contextualist Conventionalism secures reflexive reference while avoiding such a radical metaphysical commitment. (shrink)

Freedom can be seen as individual’s capacity to choose between alternatives. As such, it stands in a dialectical relationship to its environment that both imposes constraints on freedom and allows carrying it out. Yet if we see liberty as freedom’s social accommodation, how would freedom shape liberty, and how would liberty accommodate freedom? As a capacity for choice, freedom is formal. Negative liberty, or freedom from, protects this capacity yet does not give it content. To make freedom meaningful, its societal (...) accommodation has ensure that the choice can be carried out – in terms of accessing alternatives, understand them, and making informed choices. The paper, using the tools provided by the Hegelian philosophy and by information theory, explores the concept of liberty as an enabler of freedom and the role of knowledge in its enablement. This exploration leads us to specific positive rights that are necessary to make freedom meaningful. (shrink)

Juries, committees and experts panels commonly appraise things of one kind or another on the basis of grades awarded by several people. When everybody's grading thresholds are known to be the same, the results sometimes can be counted on to reflect the graders’ opinion. Otherwise, they often cannot. Under certain conditions, Arrow's ‘impossibility’ theorem entails that judgements reached by aggregating grades do not reliably track any collective sense of better and worse at all. These claims are made by adapting the (...) Arrow–Sen framework for social choice to study grading in groups. (shrink)

I offer new arguments for an unorthodox reading of J. L. Mackie’s Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, one on which Mackie does not think all substantive moral claims are false, but allows that a proper subset of them are true. Further, those that are true should be understood in terms of a “hybrid theory”. The proposed reading is one on which Mackie is a conceptual pruner, arguing that we should prune away error-ridden moral claims but hold onto those already free (...) of error. This reading is very different from the standard ones found in the literature. I build on recent work by Moberger and argue that this reading is better corroborated by close attention to the way in which Mackie argues at length that terms like “good” and “ought” are systematically context-sensitive, as well as by considerable additional textual evidence. This reading, however, faces an important challenge—to explain in what sense, if any, morality retains its “normativity” on the proposed reading. I argue that this challenge can be met, at least given some of Mackie’s further assumptions about the nature of rationality. (shrink)

Jaegwon Kim’s influential exclusion argument attempts to demonstrate the inconsistency of nonreductive materialism in the philosophy of mind. Kim’s argument begins by showing that the three main theses of nonreductive materialism, plus two additional considerations, lead to a specific and familiar picture of mental causation. The exclusion argument can succeed only if, as Kim claims, this picture is not one of genuine causal overdetermination. Accordingly, one can resist Kim’s conclusion by denying this claim, maintaining instead that the effects of the (...) mental are always causally overdetermined. I call this strategy the ‘ overdetermination challenge’. One of the main aims of this paper is to show that the overdetermination challenge is the most appropriate response to Kim’s exclusion argument, at least in its latest form. I argue that Kim fails to adequately respond to the overdetermination challenge, thus failing to prevent his opponents from reasonably maintaining that the effects of the mental are always causally overdetermined. Interestingly, this discussion reveals a curious dialectical feature of Kim’s latest response to the overdetermination challenge: if it succeeds, then a new, simpler and more compact version of the exclusion argument is available. While I argue against the consequent of this conditional, thereby also rejecting the antecedent, this dialectical feature should be of interest to philosophers on either side of this debate. (shrink)

This essay develops a theory of identities, selves, and ‘the self’ that both explains the sense in which selves are narratively constituted and also explains how the self relates to a person's individual autobiographical identity and to their various social identities. I argue that identities are the contents of narratively structured representations, some of which are hosted individually and are autobiographical in form, and others of which are hosted collectively and are biographical in form. These identities, in turn, give rise (...) to selves of various sorts—true selves, autobiographical selves, public and private selves, merely possible selves, and so on—which are the characters (or presupposed subjects) that appear in our various identities. Although the theory I develop bears some obvious affinities with the view that selves are fictional characters, the two views are in fact distinct, for reasons explained at the end. (shrink)

This article is basically an artist's statement published in connection with a major interdisciplinary art project currently in development (completion date estimated to be 2020).

Justin Mooney (2018) advances what he calls The Problem of Triunity: each divine person is God, God is triune, and yet, each of the divine persons is apparently not triune. In response, I suggest that we ought to accept that each of the divine persons is in fact triune. First, I offer a plausible analysis of the claim that God is triune; second, I show that, given that analysis, there is nothing untoward about embracing the conclusion that each divine person (...) is triune. I suggest that, once we take care to clarify what affirming the triunity of each divine person does and does not commit us to, we will see that we are not thereby committed to anything that contravenes orthodoxy – contrary, perhaps, to initial expectations. Third, I argue that this view sits particularly well with the claim that triunity is essential to divinity, whereas other views falter on this score. After considering and responding to an alternative analysis of triunity, I consider an objection to my analysis based on the salutary nature of communities. Finally, I conclude by noting an important lesson we can glean from the problem of triunity vis-à-vis trinitarian theorizing. (shrink)

We reply to Eva's comment on our "New Possibilities for Fair Algorithms," comparing and contrasting our Spanning criterion with his suggested Spacing criterion.

The classical theory of probability has long been abandoned and is seen by most philosophers as a non-contender—a mere precursor to newer and better theories. In this paper I argue that this is a mistake. The main reasons for its rejection—all related to the notorious principle of indifference—are that it is circular, of limited applicability, inconsistent, and dependent upon unjustified empirical assumptions. I argue that none of these claims is true and that the classical theory remains to be refuted.

This paper focuses on the distinction between methods which are mathematically "clever", and those which are simply crude, typically repetitive and computer intensive, approaches for "crunching" out answers to problems. Examples of the latter include simulated probability distributions and resampling methods in statistics, and iterative methods for solving equations or optimisation problems. Most of these methods require software support, but this is easily provided by a PC. The paper argues that the crunchier methods often have substantial advantages from the perspectives (...) of user-friendliness, reliability (in the sense that misuse is less likely), educational efficiency and realism. This means that they offer very considerable potential for simplifying the mathematical syllabus underlying many areas of applied mathematics such as management science and statistics: crunchier methods can provide the same, or greater, technical power, flexibility and insight, while requiring only a fraction of the mathematical conceptual background needed by their cleverer brethren. (shrink)

My goal in this paper is to show that naturalists cannot reasonably endorse moral realism. My argument will come in two parts. The first part aims to show that any plausible and naturalistically acceptable argument in favor of belief in objective moral properties will appeal in part to simplicity considerations (broadly construed)—and this regardless of whether moral properties are reducible to non-moral properties. The second part argues for the conclusion that appeals to simplicity justify belief in moral properties only if (...) either those properties are not objective or something like theism is true. Thus, if my argument is sound, naturalists can reasonably accept moral realism only if they are prepared to accept something like theism. But, as will become clear, naturalists can reasonably accept theism or something like it only if belief in some such doctrine is justified by the methods of science. For present purposes, I’ll assume (what I think virtually every naturalist will grant) that belief in theism and relevantly similar doctrines is not justified by the methods of science. Thus, I will conclude that naturalists cannot reasonably accept moral realism. (shrink)

Kant refers to analytic cognition in several prominent places. The prevailing wisdom, however, denies the possibility of analytic cognition within his theory of cognition. I shall argue that this is mistaken. I show that we can account for analytic cognition’s possibility by appealing to variants of the more familiar conditions on the cognition of objects. I also highlight analytic cognition’s connection to insight and analytic knowledge. In the process, I provide a fuller account of Kant’s view of our mental lives (...) than has been typically acknowledged. (shrink)

A standard way to challenge convergence-based accounts of inductive success is to claim that they are too weak to constrain inductive inferences in the short run. We respond to such a challenge by answering some questions raised by Juhl (1994). When it comes to predicting limiting relative frequencies in the framework of Reichenbach, we show that speed-optimal convergence—a long-run success condition—induces dynamic coherence in the short run.

I attempt to present an argument to suggest how the empirical framework and effective philosophies of science and metaphysics in particular can be practiced to bring out the best in both enterprises. I propose that there exists a natural marriage between these disciplines that can be complimentary. A particular focus is upon the role of metaphysical speculation in providing frameworks that may guide scientific studies, suggest areas of scientific research, search for connections between the realms of logic, mathematics, and empirical (...) discoveries within numerous disciplines of science. Some attention is upon how metaphysical speculation remains indispensable to the foundations of many empirical endeavors, but if not carefully examined it may inadvertently block scientific discovery and advancements that it should facilitate. (shrink)

إن أمريكا والعالم في طور الانهيار من النمو السكاني المفرط، ومعظمها في القرن الماضي، والآن كل ذلك، بسبب شعوب العالم الثالث. إن استهلاك الموارد وإضافة 3 بلايين أخرى من عام 2100 سينهار الحضارة الصناعية ويجلب المجاعة والمرض والعنف والحرب على نطاق مذهل. الأرض تفقد ما لا يقل عن 1٪ من التربة السطحية كل عام، لذلك مع اقترابها من عام 2100، فإن معظم قدرتها على زراعة الأغذية سوف تختفي. المليارات سوف تموت والحرب النووية كلها مؤكدة وفي أمريكا، يتسارع هذا بشكل كبير (...) من خلال الهجرة الجماعية واستنساخ المهاجرين، إلى جانب الانتهاكات التي أتاحتها الديمقراطية. إن الطبيعة البشرية الفاسدة تحول بلا هوادة حلم الديمقراطية والتنوع إلى كابوس الجريمة والفقر. وستواصل الصين التغلب على أمريكا والعالم، ما دامت تحافظ على الدكتاتورية التي تحد من الأنانية. السبب الجذري للانهيار هو عدم قدرة علم النفس الفطري لدينا على التكيف مع العالم الحديث، مما يؤدي الناس إلى معاملة الأشخاص غير ذوي الصلة كما لو كان لديهم مصالح مشتركة. إن فكرة حقوق الإنسان هي خيال شرير يروج له اليساريون للفت الانتباه بعيدا ً عن الدمار الذي لا يرحم للأرض من خلال الأمومة العالمية الثالثة غير المقيدة. وهذا، بالإضافة إلى الجهل بالبيولوجيا الأساسية وعلم النفس، يؤدي إلى أوهام الهندسة الاجتماعية للمتعلمين جزئيا الذين يسيطرون على المجتمعات الديمقراطية. قليلون يفهمون أنه إذا ساعدت شخصاً واحداً، فإنك تؤذي شخصاً آخر - لا يوجد غداء مجاني وكل عنصر يستهلكه أي شخص يدمر الأرض التي لا يمكن إصلاحها. وبالتالي، فإن السياسات الاجتماعية في كل مكان غير مستدامة، وكل مجتمع على حدة كل المجتمعات التي لا تخضع لضوابط صارمة على الأنانية سينهار إلى فوضى أو دكتاتورية. والحقائق الأساسية، التي لم تذكر قط تقريبا، هي أنه لا توجد موارد كافية في أمريكا أو العالم لانتشال نسبة كبيرة من الفقراء من الفقر وإبقائهم هناك. إن محاولة القيام بذلك هي إفلاس أمريكا وتدمير العالم. وتنخفض قدرة الأرض على إنتاج الأغذية يوميا، كما تنخفض نوعيتنا الوراثية. والآن، كما هو الحال دائما، فإن أكبر عدو للفقراء هو الفقراء الآخرين وليس الأغنياء. وبدون تغييرات جذرية وفورية، لا يوجد أمل في منع انهيار أمريكا، أو أي بلد يتبع نظاما ديمقراطيا. (shrink)

अमेरिका और दुनिया अत्यधिक जनसंख्या वृद्धि से पतन की प्रक्रिया में हैं, पिछली सदी के लिए यह सबसे अधिक है, और अब यह सब, 3 दुनिया के लोगों के कारण. संसाधनों की खपत और 3 अरब से अधिक ca. 2100 के अलावा औद्योगिक सभ्यता पतन और भुखमरी, रोग, हिंसा और एक चौंका देने वाले पैमाने पर युद्ध के बारे में लाना होगा. पृथ्वी हर साल अपने topsoil के कम से कम 1% खो देता है, तो के रूप में यह 2100 (...) के पास, अपने भोजन की बढ़ती क्षमता के सबसे चला जाएगा. अरबों मर जाएगा और परमाणु युद्ध सब कुछ है, लेकिन कुछ है। अमेरिका में, यह बेहद बड़े पैमाने पर आव्रजन और आप्रवासी प्रजनन द्वारा त्वरित किया जा रहा है, लोकतंत्र द्वारा संभव बनाया दुर्व्यवहार के साथ संयुक्त. भ्रष्ट मानव प्रकृति inexorably अपराध और गरीबी का एक दुःस्वप्न में लोकतंत्र और विविधता के सपने बदल जाता है. चीन अमेरिका और दुनिया को पराजित करना जारी रखेगा, जब तक कि वह स्वार्थ को सीमित करने वाली तानाशाही को बनाए रखता है। पतन का मूल कारण हमारे सहज मनोविज्ञान की अक्षमता को आधुनिक दुनिया के अनुकूल है, जो लोगों को असंबंधित व्यक्तियों के इलाज के लिए की ओर जाता है जैसे कि वे आम हितों था. मानव अधिकारों का विचार एक बुरी कल्पना वामपंथियों द्वारा प्रोत्साहित करने के लिए अनियंत्रित 3 दुनिया मातृत्व द्वारा पृथ्वी की बेरहम विनाश से दूर ध्यान आकर्षित है. यह, बुनियादी जीव विज्ञान और मनोविज्ञान की अज्ञानता के अलावा, आंशिक रूप से शिक्षित जो लोकतांत्रिक समाज को नियंत्रित करने के सामाजिक इंजीनियरिंग भ्रम की ओर जाता है. बहुत कम लोग समझते हैं कि अगर आप किसी और को नुकसान पहुँचाने में आपकी मदद करते हैं, तो मुफ्त दोपहर का भोजन नहीं होता और हर एक वस्तु का उपभोग करने से धरती की मरम्मत से परे नष्ट हो जाती है। नतीजतन, हर जगह सामाजिक नीतियां unsustainable हैं और स्वार्थ पर कड़े नियंत्रण के बिना एक के बाद एक सभी समाज अराजकता या तानाशाही में गिर जाएगी. सबसे बुनियादी तथ्यों, लगभग कभी नहीं उल्लेख किया है, कि अमेरिका या दुनिया में पर्याप्त संसाधनों के लिए गरीबी से बाहर गरीबों का एक महत्वपूर्ण प्रतिशत उठा और उन्हें वहाँ रखने के लिए नहीं कर रहे हैं. ऐसा करने का प्रयास अमेरिका को दिवालिया कर रहा है और दुनिया को नष्ट कर रहा है। भोजन का उत्पादन करने के लिए पृथ्वी की क्षमता दैनिक कम हो जाती है, के रूप में हमारी आनुवंशिक गुणवत्ता करता है. और अब, हमेशा की तरह, अब तक गरीबों का सबसे बड़ा दुश्मन अन्य गरीब है और अमीर नहीं है. नाटकीय और तत्काल परिवर्तन के बिना, वहाँ अमेरिका, या किसी भी देश है कि एक लोकतांत्रिक प्रणाली के बाद के पतन को रोकने के लिए कोई उम्मीद नहीं है. (shrink)

미국과 세계는 지난 세기 동안 과도 한 인구 증가에서 붕괴의 과정에, 그리고 지금 그것의 모든, 3 세계 사람들 로 인해. 자원 의 소비와 30 억 더 ca. 2100의 추가는 산업 문명을 붕괴하고 엄청난 규모의 기아, 질병, 폭력과 전쟁을 초래할 것입니다. 지구는 매년 표토의 적어도 1 %를 잃고, 그래서 그것은 2100 에 가까워지면, 그것의 음식 성장 능력의 대부분은 사라질 것입니다. 수십억 달러가 죽을 것이고 핵전쟁은 확실합니다. 미국에서, 이것은 거 대 한 이민 및 이민자 재생산에 의해 크게 가속화 되 고, 민주주의에 의해 (...) 가능 하 게 학대와 함께. 타락한 인간의 본성은 민주주의와 다양성의 꿈을 범죄와 빈곤의 악몽으로 바꾸어 놓습니다. 중국은 이기심을 제한하는 독재를 유지하는 한 미국과 세계를 계속 압도할 것입니다. 붕괴의 근본 원인은 우리의 타고난 심리학이 현대 세계에 적응할 수 없다는 것입니다. 인권의 개념은 제3세계 모성에 의한 무자비한 파괴로부터 주의를 끌기 위해 좌파들이 추진하는 사악한 환상이다. 이것은 기본적인 생물학과 심리학에 대한 무지와 더불어 민주사회를 통제하는 부분적으로 교육받은 사람들의 사회 공학적 망상으로 이어집니다. 당신이 한 사람을 도와주면 다른 사람에게 해를 끼칠 수 있다는 것을 이해하는 사람은 거의 없습니다- 무료 점심식사가 없고, 사람이 소비하는 모든 물건은 수리를 넘어 지구를 파괴합니다. 따라서 모든 곳의 사회 정책은 지속 가능하지 않으며 이기심에 대한 엄격한 통제없이 모든 사회가 무정부 상태 또는 독재로 붕괴될 것입니다. 거의 언급되지 않은 가장 기본적인 사실은 미국이나 세계에 빈곤층의 상당 부분을 들어 올리고 거기에 보관할 자원이 충분하지 않다는 것입니다. 이 것을 시도하는 것은 미국을 파산시키고 세계를 파괴하는 것입니다. 우리의 유전적 품질과 마찬가지로 지구의 식량 생산 능력은 매일 감소합니다. 그리고 지금, 언제나처럼, 지금까지 가난한 자의 가장 큰 적은 다른 가난한 부자가 아닙니다. 극적이고 즉각적인 변화가 없다면 미국이나 민주주의 체제를 따르는 어떤 나라도 막을 희망이 없다. (shrink)