Statistical mechanics is a strange theory. Its aims are debated, its methods are contested, its main claims have never been fully proven, and their very truth is challenged, yet at the same time, it enjoys huge empirical success and gives us the feeling that we understand important phenomena. What is this weird theory, exactly? Statistical mechanics is the name of the ongoing attempt to apply mechanics, together with some auxiliary hypotheses, to explain and predict certain phenomena, above all those described (...) by thermodynamics. This paper shows what parts of this objective can be achieved with mechanics by itself. It thus clarifies what roles remain for the auxiliary assumptions that are needed to achieve the rest of the desiderata. Those auxiliary hypotheses are described in another paper in this journal, Foundations of statistical mechanics: The auxiliary hypotheses. (shrink)

Flat Physicalism is a theory of through and through type reductive physicalism, understood in light of recent results in the conceptual foundations of physics. In Flat Physicalism, as in physics, so-called "high level" concepts and laws are nothing but partial descriptions of the complete states of affairs of the universe. "Flat physicalism" generalizes this idea, to form a reductive picture in which there is no room for levels, neither explanatory nor ontological. The paper explains how phenomena that seem to be (...) cases of multiple realization of special sciences kinds by physical kinds are fully explains in a reductive physicalist way. Finally, the paper exemplifies the fruitfulness of this reductive approach by showing how it can account even for a case of high-level anomaly in a deterministic universe (for example anomaly of the mental, should this turn our to be a fact about the world) - a result that may be called Anomalous Physicalism. (shrink)

This paper will attempt to determine multifaceted relationship between philosophy and technology. It explores the philosophical questions raised by technology's dominance in modern society, it examining ethical aspects and existential inquiries. The paper begins with historical relation of philosophy and technology and end with examining the ethical implications of technology. It also addresses on technology's impact on moral responsibility. Moreover, the article navigates with questioning how technology alters our perception of reality and the self. In conclusion of this paper underscores (...) importance of philosophical inquiry in technological advancements. (shrink)

This paper describes a version of type identity physicalism, which we call Flat Physicalism, and shows how it meets several objections often raised against identity theories. This identity theory is informed by recent results in the conceptual foundations of physics, and in particular clar- ifies the notion of ‘physical kinds’ in light of a conceptual analysis of the paradigmatic case of reducing thermody- namics to statistical mechanics. We show how Flat Physi- calism is compatible with the appearance of multiple realisation (...) in the special sciences, and how and in what sense the special sciences laws are autonomous from the laws of physics, despite the full reductive picture of Flat Physicalism. We compare our view with a recent proposal by William Bechtel that accounts for the appearance of levels in mechanistic explanations. (shrink)

Philosophers of physics have long debated whether the Past State of low entropy of our universe calls for explanation. What is meant by “calls for explanation”? In this article we analyze this notion, distinguishing between several possible meanings that may be attached to it. Taking the debate around the Past State as a case study, we show how our analysis of what “calling for explanation” might mean can contribute to clarifying the debate and perhaps to settling it, thus demonstrating the (...) fruitfulness of this analysis. Applying our analysis, we show that two main opponents in this debate, Huw Price and Craig Callender, are, for the most part, talking past each other rather than disagreeing, as they employ different notions of “calling for explanation”. We then proceed to show how answering the different questions that arise out of the different meanings of “calling for explanation” can result in clarifying the problems at hand and thus, hopefully, to solving them. (shrink)

Computer simulations constitute a significant scientific tool for promoting scientific understanding of natural phenomena and dynamic processes. Substantial leaps in computational force and software engineering methodologies now allow the design and development of large-scale biological models, which – when combined with advanced graphics tools – may produce realistic biological scenarios, that reveal new scientific explanations and knowledge about real life phenomena. A state-of-the-art simulation system termed Reactive Animation (RA) will serve as a study case to examine the contemporary philosophical debate (...) on the scientific value of simulations, as we demonstrate its ability to form a scientific explanation of natural phenomena and to generate new emergent behaviors, making possible a prediction or hypothesis about the equivalent real-life phenomena. (shrink)

The problem of multiple-computations discovered by Hilary Putnam presents a deep difficulty for functionalism (of all sorts, computational and causal). We describe in out- line why Putnam’s result, and likewise the more restricted result we call the Multiple- Computations Theorem, are in fact theorems of statistical mechanics. We show why the mere interaction of a computing system with its environment cannot single out a computation as the preferred one amongst the many computations implemented by the system. We explain why nonreductive (...) approaches to solving the multiple- computations problem, and in particular why computational externalism, are dualistic in the sense that they imply that nonphysical facts in the environment of a computing system single out the computation. We discuss certain attempts to dissolve Putnam’s unrestricted result by appealing to systems with certain kinds of input and output states as a special case of computational externalism, and show why this approach is not workable without collapsing to behaviorism. We conclude with some remarks about the nonphysical nature of mainstream approaches to both statistical mechanics and the quantum theory of measurement with respect to the singling out of partitions and observables. (shrink)

Statistical mechanics is often taken to be the paradigm of a successful inter-theoretic reduction, which explains the high-level phenomena (primarily those described by thermodynamics) by using the fundamental theories of physics together with some auxiliary hypotheses. In my view, the scope of statistical mechanics is wider since it is the type-identity physicalist account of all the special sciences. But in this chapter, I focus on the more traditional and less controversial domain of this theory, namely, that of explaining the thermodynamic (...) phenomena.What are the fundamental theories that are taken to explain the thermodynamic phenomena? The lively research into the foundations of classical statistical mechanics suggests that using classical mechanics to explain the thermodynamic phenomena is fruitful. Strictly speaking, in contemporary physics, classical mechanics is considered to be false. Since classical mechanics preserves certain explanatory and predictive aspects of the true fundamental theories, it can be successfully applied in certain cases. In other circumstances, classical mechanics has to be replaced by quantum mechanics. In this chapter I ask the following two questions: I) How does quantum statistical mechanics differ from classical statistical mechanics? How are the well-known differences between the two fundamental theories reflected in the statistical mechanical account of high-level phenomena? II) How does quantum statistical mechanics differ from quantum mechanics simpliciter? To make our main points I need to only consider non-relativistic quantum mechanics. Most of the ideas described and addressed in this chapter hold irrespective of the choice of a (so-called) interpretation of quantum mechanics, and so I will mention interpretations only when the differences between them are important to the matter discussed. (shrink)

Some philosophers consider that some of their colleagues deny that consciousness exists. We shall call the latter ‘deniers’, adopting a term that was initially meant pejoratively. What do the deniers deny? In order to answer this question, we shall examine arguments, both of some deniers and of their critics, and present denialism as a systematic highly non-trivial position that has had some interesting achievements. We will show that the denialist project concerns the epistemology of the mind and specifically of consciousness: (...) what can be known about it, and how it can be known. The main argument of denialism is that first-person reports about the mental realm are not always the best source of information about that realm, and are certainly not reliable. This leads the deniers to realize that the reference and meaning of mental terms as used in standard philosophical literature are vague and call for clarification, and that what many take to be empirical data in the study of the mind are actually heavily laden with theory. Denialism thus makes scientific and philosophical research clearer and more fruitful. (shrink)

Maxwell’s Demon is a thought experiment devised by J. C. Maxwell in 1867 in order to show that the Second Law of thermodynamics is not universal, since it has a counter-example. Since the Second Law is taken by many to provide an arrow of time, the threat to its universality threatens the account of temporal directionality as well. Various attempts to “exorcise” the Demon, by proving that it is impossible for one reason or another, have been made throughout the years, (...) but none of them were successful. We have shown (in a number of publications) by a general state-space argument that Maxwell’s Demon is compatible with classical mechanics, and that the most recent solutions, based on Landauer’s thesis, are not general. In this paper we demonstrate that Maxwell’s Demon is also compatible with quantum mechanics. We do so by analyzing a particular (but highly idealized) experimental setup and proving that it violates the Second Law. Our discussion is in the framework of standard quantum mechanics; we give two separate arguments in the framework of quantum mechanics with and without the projection postulate. We address in our analysis the connection between measurement and erasure interactions and we show how these notions are applicable in the microscopic quantum mechanical structure. We discuss what might be the quantum mechanical counterpart of the classical notion of “macrostates”, thus explaining why our Quantum Demon setup works not only at the micro level but also at the macro level, properly understood. One implication of our analysis is that the Second Law cannot provide a universal lawlike basis for an account of the arrow of time; this account has to be sought elsewhere. (shrink)

This paper makes a novel linkage between the multiple-computations theorem in philosophy of mind and Landauer’s principle in physics. The multiple-computations theorem implies that certain physical systems implement simultaneously more than one computation. Landauer’s principle implies that the physical implementation of “logically irreversible” functions is accompanied by minimal entropy increase. We show that the multiple-computations theorem is incompatible with, or at least challenges, the universal validity of Landauer’s principle. To this end we provide accounts of both ideas in terms of (...) low-level fundamental concepts in statistical mechanics, thus providing a deeper understanding of these ideas than their standard formulations given in the high-level terms of thermodynamics and cognitive science. Since Landauer’s principle is pivotal in the attempts to derive the universal validity of the second law of thermodynamics in statistical mechanics, our result entails that the multiple-computations theorem has crucial implications with respect to the second law. Finally, our analysis contributes to the understanding of notions, such as “logical irreversibility,” “entropy increase,” “implementing a computation,” in terms of fundamental physics, and to resolving open questions in the literature of both fields, such as: what could it possibly mean that a certain physical process implements a certain computation. (shrink)

The Pneumatist school of medicine has the distinction of being the only medical school in antiquity named for a belief in a part of a human being. Unlike the Herophileans or the Asclepiadeans, their name does not pick out the founder of the school. Unlike the Dogmatists, Empiricists, or Methodists, their name does not pick out a specific approach to medicine. Instead, the name picks out a belief: the fact that pneuma is of paramount importance, both for explaining health and (...) disease, and for determining treatments for the healthy and sick. In this paper, we re-examine what our sources say about the pneuma of the Pneumatists in order to understand what these physicians thought it was and how it shaped their views on physiology, diagnosis and treatment. (shrink)

Can the second law of thermodynamics explain our mental experience of the direction of time? According to an influential approach, the past hypothesis of universal low entropy also explains how the psychological arrow comes about. We argue that although this approach has many attractive features, it cannot explain the psychological arrow after all. In particular, we show that the past hypothesis is neither necessary nor sufficient to explain the psychological arrow on the basis of current physics. We propose two necessary (...) conditions on the workings of the brain that any account of the psychological arrow of time must satisfy. And we propose a new reductive physical account of the psychological arrow of time compatible with time-symmetric physics, according to which these two conditions are also sufficient. Our proposal has some radical implications, for example, that the psychological arrow of time is fundamental, whereas the temporal direction of entropy increase in the second law of thermodynamics and the past hypothesis is derived from it, rather than the other way around. 1Introduction2A Physical Account of the Psychological Arrow of Time3Necessary Conditions for the Psychological Arrow of Time4The Psychological Arrow of Time via the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Past Hypothesis5Why the Past Hypothesis Is Insufficient for the Psychological Arrow of Time5.1Stage 1, Version 1: From the past hypothesis to the psychological arrow via typicality5.2Stage 1, Version 2: From the past hypothesis to the psychological arrow via dynamical or causal considerations5.3Stage 2: From entropy gradient in the brain to the psychological arrow of time6Why the Past Hypothesis Is Unnecessary for the Psychological Arrow of Time7A New Reductive Account of the Psychological Arrow of Time. (shrink)

A partir de la constatación de la inflación lingüística del vocablo "experiencia" y de la imposibilidad-necesidad de una experiencia extrasensigle, estas páginas se aproximan a la realidad de la experiencia desde el tipo de conocimiento que procura -la intuición- y desde la metamorfosis del ego que suscita -construcción de una biografía-. Se muestra, de igual modo, cómo libertad y destino coinciden en la experiencia de sí mismo, y cómo las nupcias entre experiencia y lenguaje son indisolubles. Por último, teniendo en (...) cuenta lo que ha supuesto la introducción de la categoría "experiencia" en las ciencias teológicas, se apuntan los pilares de la experiencia cristiana y la experiencia de la gracia, haciendo ver cómo las actitudes del distanciamiento y de la inmersión son imprescindibles para poder hablar, en rigor, de una experiencia espiritual. (shrink)

McQueen and Vaidman argue that the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics provides local causal explanations of the outcomes of experiments in our experience that is due to the total effect of all the worlds together. We show that although the explanation is local in one world, it requires a causal influence that travels across different worlds. We further argue that in the MWI the local nature of our experience is not derivable from the Hilbert space structure, but has (...) to be added to it as an independent postulate. This is due to what we call the factorisation-symmetry and basis-symmetry of Hilbert space. (shrink)

Mara Beller's book Quantum Dialogue: The Making of a Revolution is a book in history and historiography, which invites a philosophical reading. The book offers a new and quite radical approach in the philosophy of science, which Beller calls dialogism, and it demonstrates the application of this approach by studying cases in the history of physics. This paper reconstructs of some of the book's theses, in a way which emphasises its philosophical insights, and goes on to shows how philosophically far (...) dialogism can take us. The example on which the paper focuses is the demarcation between science and non-science. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes between 3 meanings of reversal, all of which are mathematically equivalent in classical mechanics: velocity reversal, retrodiction, and time reversal. It then concludes that in order to have well defined velocities a primitive arrow of time must be included in every time slice. The paper briefly mentions that this arrow cannot come from the Second Law of thermodynamics, but this point is developed in more details elsewhere.

According to the so-called Hempel’s Dilemma, the thesis of physicalism is either false or empty. Our intention in this paper is not to propose a solution to the Dilemma, but rather to argue as follows: to the extent that Hempel’s Dilemma applies to physicalism it equally applies to any theory that gives a deep-structure and changeable account of our experience or of high-level theories. In particular, we will show that it also applies to mind-body dualistic theories. The scope of Hempel’s (...) Dilemma turns out to be very wide: it is a special case of a general sceptical argument against changeable deep-structure theories in and outside science. (shrink)

This volume explores the versatility of the concept of pneuma in philosophical and medical theories in the wake of Aristotle’s physics. It offers fourteen separate studies of how the concept of pneuma was used in a range of physical, physiological, psychological, cosmological and ethical inquiries. The focus is on individual thinkers or traditions and the specific questions they sought to address, including early Peripatetic sources, the Stoics, the major Hellenistic medical traditions, Galen, as well as Proclus in Late Antiquity and (...) John Zacharias Aktouarios in the early 14th century. Building on new scholarly approaches and on recent advancements in our understanding of Graeco-Roman philosophy and medicine, the volume prompts a profound re-evaluation of this fluid and adaptable, but crucially important, substance, in antiquity and beyond. (shrink)

Hylomorphists hold that substances are, in some sense, composites of matter and form. The form of a substance is typically taken to play a fundamental role in determining the unity or identity of the whole. Staunch hylomorphists think that this role is of a kind that precludes the ontological reduction of form to the physical and thus take their position to be inconsistent with physicalism. Forms, according to staunch hylomorphism, play a fundamental role in grounding their bearers’ proper parts and (...) that, it seems, rules out the physical grounding of form itself. I shall develop a physicalist version of hylomorphism that treats form as geometric structure and which, I shall argue, entails many of the central theses endorsed by staunch hylomorphists. Based on Shoemaker’s notion of conditional powers, I shall argue that the geometric structures of complex wholes are the conditions on at least some of the conditional powers of their bearers’ proper parts, transforming those powers into powers simpliciter. Thus, forms play a fundamental role in the dynamical evolution of the physical world, but without bestowing causal powers themselves and hence without violating the causal closure of the physical domain. If a substance’s proper parts are taken to be individuated by their powers simpliciter, then they derive their identities from their places in the substantial whole, which thus determines the identities of its proper parts without changing their intrinsic natures. (shrink)

Deepfakes pose a multi-faceted threat to the acquisition of knowledge. It is widely hoped that technological solutions—in the form of artificially intelligent systems for detecting deepfakes—will help to address this threat. I argue that the prospects for purely technological solutions to the problem of deepfakes are dim. Especially given the evolving nature of the threat, technological solutions cannot be expected to prevent deception at the hands of deepfakes, or to preserve the authority of video footage. Moreover, the success of such (...) technologies depends on institutional trust that is in short supply. Finally, outsourcing the discrimination between the real and the fake to automated, largely opaque systems runs the risk of undermining epistemic autonomy. (shrink)

Siegel and Byrne debate whether perceptual experiences present rich properties or exclusively thin properties.

This article identifies and examines a tension in mental health researchers’ growing enthusiasm for the use of computational tools powered by advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML). Although there is increasing recognition of the value of participatory methods in science generally and in mental health research specifically, many AI/ML approaches, fueled by an ever-growing number of sensors collecting multimodal data, risk further distancing participants from research processes and rendering them as mere vectors or collections of data points. The (...) imperatives of the “participatory turn” in mental health research may be at odds with the (often unquestioned) assumptions and data collection methods of AI/ML approaches. This article aims to show why this is a problem and how it might be addressed. (shrink)

Why do public philosophy in prisons? When we think about the value and aims of public philosophy there is a well-entrenched tendency to think in transactional terms. The academy has something of value that it aims to pass on or transmit to its clients. Usually, this transaction takes place within the confines of the university, in the form of transmission of valuable skills or knowledge passed from faculty to students. Public philosophy, construed within this transactional mindset, then consists in passing (...) on something valuable from inside the academy to the outside. In this paper, we reflect on our experiences of taking philosophy into prisons and argue that making the case for public philosophy in general, and philosophy in prisons in particular in these transactional terms risks obscuring what we take to be a distinctive and valuable outcome of public philosophy. Importantly, it risks obscuring what those who participate in a particular kind of public philosophy – including the professional philosophers – experience as valuable about the activity: its transformational potential. (shrink)

Supererogatory acts are, in some sense, morally better their non-supererogatory alternatives. In this sense, what is it for one option A to be better than an alternative B? I argue for three main conclusions. First, relative rankings are a type of all-in action guidance. If A is better than B, then morality recommends that you A rather than B. Such all-in guidance is useful when acts have the same deontic status. Second, I argue that Right > Wrong: permissible acts are (...) always better than their impermissible alternatives. If Right > Wrong were false, then morality’s deontic verdicts would sometimes conflict with its relative rankings. Such conflict would undermine the thought that morality is a coherent, authoritative guide to action. Third, the All or Nothing Problem is not a counterexample to Right > Wrong as is commonly thought. Instead, it involves an interesting ranking reversal: whether A > B can depend on whether a certain alternative is added as a third option. (shrink)

There has been a surge of interest over cases where a subject sincerely endorses P while displaying discordant strains of not-P in her behaviour and emotion. Cases like this are telling because they bear directly upon conditions under which belief should be ascribed. Are beliefs to be aligned with what we sincerely endorse or with what we do and feel? If belief doesn’t explain the discordant strains, what does? T.S. Gendler has recently attempted to explain all the discordances by introducing (...) a controversial new cognitive category—associative clusters called ‘alief’. Others think that belief explains all the discordancy cases, while others argue that in-between belief does the trick, and so on. Most advocates of the different positions, indeed, assume that their favoured analysis will explain the whole range of discordancy cases. This paper defends what I call the ‘contextual view’, where I argue that overturning this assumption of uniformity leads to more nuanced account of belief-ascription. On the contextual view, which analysis applies to which case depends on the discordancy case at hand. Perhaps a height-phobic stepping on a glass platform deserves different treatment to a hesitant stepper. I ground the contextual view in a biologically functional account of the alief/belief distinction, which construes alief as a real cognitive category but without the explanatory reach Gendler gives it. This functional distinction yields a principled strategy for determining the correct application of analysis to discordancy case. (shrink)

Sceptical theists undermine the argument from evil by claiming that our ability to distinguish between justified and unjustified evil is weak enough that we must take seriously the possibility that all evil is justified. However, I argue that this claim leads to a dilemma: either our judgements regarding unjustified evil are reliable enough that the problem of evil remains a problem, or our judgements regarding unjustified evil are so unreliable that it would be misguided to use them in our decision-making. (...) The first horn undermines theism, while the second undermines our moral decision-making. Thus, sceptical theism is problematic. (shrink)

Purpose ‐ The purpose of this paper is to explore the "resource curse" problem as a counter-example of creative performance and innovation by examining reliance on capital and physical resources, showing the gap between expectations and ex-post actual performance that became clearer under conditions of economic turmoil. Design/methodology/approach ‐ The analysis uses logistic regressions with dichotomous response and predictor variables on structured tables of count data, representing firm performance as an outcome of capital resources, physical resources and innovation where appropriate. (...) Findings ‐ Key findings relevant to economic and business practice follow. First, a typical characteristic of successful Vietnamese firms in the transition period is their reliance on either capital resources or physical asset endowments. Second, poor performers exhibit evidence of over-reliance on both capital and physical assets. Third, firms that relied on both types of resources tended to downplay creative performance. Some evidence suggests that firms face more acute problem caused by the law of diminishing returns in troubled times. Fourth, the "innovation factor" has not been tapped as a source of economic growth. Research limitations/implications ‐ This study has some limitations. The size of the survey sample is approximately 150 firms, while the potential sample of > 300 should be possible in the future. When the size increases, the research could be expanded to include further variables that will help investigate more deeply into the related issues and business implications. With regard to the implications of the study, the absence of innovations has made the notion of "resource curse" identical to "destructive creation" implemented by ex-ante resource-rich firms, and worsened the problem of resource misallocation in transition turmoil. The Vietnamese corporate sector's addiction to resources may contribute to economic deterioration, through a downward spiral of lower efficiency leading to consumption of more resources. Practical implications ‐ Insights obtained from this study could save transition economies' resources which have almost always been considered sine qua non before any critical major policymaking, while this is not necessarily true, and in many cases, even counterproductive. Originality/value ‐ Original data set on Vietnam stock market are collected, processed, prepared and used by the authors. Original design by the authors for regression equations with dichotomous predictor variables: dependence on endowed physical assets, reliance on capital resources and significant signs of creative performance/innovations. Original idea of viewing "resource curse" as absence of innovation and due to uncreative "destructive creation" of poor-performing commercial operations by resource-rich firms is used in the paper. We have searched the literature in business research and found that the empirical results have not been previously reported. (shrink)

In this paper I wish to connect the recent debate in the philosophy of quantum mechanics concerning the nature of the wave function to the historical debate in the philosophy of science regarding the tenability of scientific realism. Being realist about quantum mechanics is particularly challenging when focusing on the wave function. According to the wave function ontology approach, the wave function is a concrete physical entity. In contrast, according to an alternative viewpoint, namely the primitive ontology approach, the wave (...) function does not represent physical entities. In this paper, I argue that the primitive ontology approach can naturally be interpreted as an instance of the so-called ‘explanationism’ realism, which has been proposed as a response to the pessimistic-meta induction argument against scientific realism. If my arguments are sound, then one could conclude that: (1) contrarily to what is commonly though, if explanationism realism is a good response to the pessimistic-meta induction argument, it can be straightforwardly extended also to the quantum domain; (2) the primitive ontology approach is in better shape than the wave function ontology approach in resisting the pessimistic-meta induction argument against scientific realism. (shrink)

This paper aims to offer a critical review of the recent nonconceptualist reading of the Kantian notion of sensible intuition. I raise two main objections. First, nonconceptualist readers fail to distinguish connected but different anti-intellectualist claims in the contemporary philosophy of mind and language. Second, I will argue that nonconceptual readings fail because Kan- tian intuitions do not possess a representational content of their own that can be veridical or falsidical in a similar way to how the content of propositional (...) attitudes is true or false. In this paper, I will support my own reading that sensible intuition is better seen as what Evans and McDowell have called a de re sense, whose main characteristic is object dependence. In this sense, Kantian sensible intuitions can be seen as a sensible mode of donation of objects. In my reading, the Kantian opposition between intuitions and concepts is best seen as the opposition between the objectual de re perception of something and the propositional de dicto apperception that something is the case rather than the opposition between nonconceptual and conceptual contents. However, if Kantian sensible intuition is not a mental state with nonconceptual content, it is certainly in the general anti-intellectualist neighborhood. (shrink)

Derek Parfit influentially defends reductionism about persons, the view that a person’s existence just consists in the existence of a brain and body and the occurrence of a series of physical and mental events. Yet some critics, particularly Mark Johnston, have raised powerful objections to Parfit’s reductionism. In this paper, I defend reductionism against Johnston. In particular, I defend a radical form of reductionism that Buddhist philosophers developed. Buddhist reductionism can justify key features of Parfit’s position, such as the claims (...) that personal identity is not what matters and can also be indeterminate. Furthermore, Buddhist reductionism can avoid Johnston’s objections to Parfit’s reductionism. I conclude that reductionists have good reasons to favor Buddhist reductionism over Parfit’s version. (shrink)

This perspective asserts the existence of only two sexes/genders, male and female, based on not only biological and reproductive processes but also from claims of non-binary or transgender identities as defined through negation which rely on the binary concept of sex/gender. Thus, individuals claiming identities on the "gender/sex spectrum" are again defining themselves through negation (definiens per negationem). This perspective suggests that the diversity of gender experiences, (the sex or gender spectrum) is defined by what individuals are not rather than (...) what they are. While the validity of non-binary and transgender identities definiens per negationem is noted, it is important to accept the reality of the binary nature of sex or gender as a scientific fact, and that all human beings are on a developmental pathway leading to either male or female. Without the reality of binary sex or gender, the gender identity spectrum does not exist as there is nothing to negate from. (shrink)

Two decades ago, in 1994, in the context of the 4th EU Framework Programme, ELSA was introduced as a label for developing and funding research into the ethical, legal and social aspects of emerging sciences and technologies. Currently, particularly in the context of EU funding initiatives such as Horizon2020, a new label has been forged, namely Responsible Research and Innovation. What is implied in this metonymy, this semantic shift? What is so new about RRI in comparison to ELSA? First of (...) all, for both labels, the signifier was introduced in a top-down manner, well before the concept that was signified by it had acquired a clear and stable profile. In other words, the signifier preceded the research strategies actually covered by these labels. Moreover, the newness of RRI does not reside in its interactive and anticipatory orientation, as is suggested by authors who introduced the term, but rather in its emphases on social-economic impacts. (shrink)

Culture or Biology? The question can seem deep and important. Yet, I argue in this chapter, if you are enthralled by questions about our biological differences, then you are probably confused. My goal is to diagnose the confusion. In debates about the role of biology in the social world it is easy to ask the wrong questions, and it is easy to misinterpret the scientific research. We are intuitively attracted to what is called psychological essentialism, and therefore interpret what is (...) biological as what can be traced to “essences”. On this interpretation, it would be deep and important to know what about, say, the differences between the genders is biological: it would correspond to what is essential to being a man or being a woman, and be opposed to what is a mere accidental feature that some women or some men have. Yet, the psychological essentialist understanding of ‘biological differences’ is deeply mistaken about biology. It has the wrong conception of biological kinds, of biological heritability, and of how genes and hormones work. Those who argue for an important role of ‘biology’ in the explanation of human differences often see ‘the science’ on their side. But this is false – on the interpretation of ‘biological differences’ that is most intuitive and that makes the question appear to be most interesting. Defenders of ‘biology’ often have the science against them. What is often called ‘biology’ is a myth: a myth created by an intuitive tendency that grotesquely distorts real biological research. (shrink)

If scientists embrace scientific realism, they can use a scientific theory to explain and predict observables and unobservables. If, however, they embrace scientific antirealism, they cannot use a scientific theory to explain observables and unobservables, and cannot use a scientific theory to predict unobservables. Given that explanation and prediction are means to make scientific progress, scientists can make more scientific progress, if they embrace scientific realism than if they embrace scientific antirealism.

In Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason Kant famously argues that the moral quality of an an agent’s actions depends on the moral quality of their moral character and since their moral character can be either absolutely good or absolutely bad, all of an agent’s actions share the same moral quality: good or evil (R 6: 22). This claim, which implies that any agent who is not wholly good must therefore be wholly evil, has vexed Kant’s readers. Ordinary moral (...) intuitions suggest that differences in moral character come in degrees, and leaving some room for moral variance seems necessary to any account of moral corruption and improvement. What is not often remarked upon is that Kant’s rigorism about moral character stands in apparent tension with his own account, given that in the same work, of the Stufen, levels or grades, of evil: frailty, impurity, and wickedness. I argue that rigorism is grounded in a philosophical insight which we should not give up and show that we can preserve it while making room for the complexity of moral failure if we understand the first two grades of evil, frailty and impurity, as states of moral immaturity, a condition that precedes the acquisition of a stable moral character. To substantiate the claim, I argue that the idea of the acquisition of character must play a wholly different role in Kant’s practical philosophy than that accorded to it on standard readings. Not merely an “empirical” concern, the acquisition of character must be understood as a genuinely rational accomplishment: the development and determination of our uniquely rational capacities for feeling, necessary for the development of stable moral character. (shrink)

In this article, I assess the prospects for the limitarian thesis that someone has too much wealth if they exceed a specific wealth threshold. Limitarianism claims that there are good political and/or ethical reasons to prevent people from having such ‘surplus wealth’, for example, because it has no moral value for the holder or because allowing people to have surplus wealth has less moral value than redistributing it. Drawing on recent literature on distributive justice, I defend two types of limitarian (...) principles of justice. First, limitarian midlevel principles draw on the limitarian thesis to specify normative commitments for guiding institutional design and individual actions. Second, the limitarian presumption draws on that thesis to specify what a just allocation of wealth requires under epistemic constraints. Such a presumption says that without substantive reasons to the contrary, we should regard a distribution as unjust if some people’s wealth exceeds the limitarian threshold. Furthermore, I will argue that we must reject a possible but implausible interpretation of limitarianism as an ideal distributive pattern. Yet both as a midlevel principle and as a presumption, limitarianism can play an important role in theorizing about justice in the real world. (shrink)

This paper argues that the notion of a single object or 'being one' does not require worldly or perceived conditions of integrity and even less so concept-relative atomicity. It generally is based on conditions of integrity of some sort, but not strictly so. It rather is imposed by the use of count categories in natural language and thus makes a case for linguistic idealism.

Abstract:I examine the often-denigrated concept of the novel of ideas from its inception and critical decline to its relatively recent revival. Using a variant of the exploitation-exploration dilemma in psychology, I suggest that early usage referred to works that exploit philosophical principles—or better, enact them—by setting philosophical positions in conflict. By contrast, use of the concept for more recent works sees characters and plots exploring philosophical stances. The shift corresponds with the greater attention paid to complexity and ambiguity that are (...) hallmarks of continental philosophy and neopragmatism, and with it greater need to explore philosophical stances through fiction. (shrink)

Smith argues that, unlike other forms of evidence, naked statistical evidence fails to satisfy normic support. This is his solution to the puzzles of statistical evidence in legal proof. This paper focuses on Smith’s claim that DNA evidence in cold-hit cases does not satisfy normic support. I argue that if this claim is correct, virtually no other form of evidence used at trial can satisfy normic support. This is troublesome. I discuss a few ways in which Smith can respond.

I formulate a resilient paradox about epistemic rationality, discuss and reject various solutions, and sketch a way out. The paradox exemplifies a tension between a wide range of views of epistemic justification, on the one hand, and enkratic requirements on rationality, on the other. According to the enkratic requirements, certain mismatched doxastic states are irrational, such as believing p, while believing that it is irrational for one to believe p. I focus on an evidentialist view of justification on which a (...) doxastic state regarding a proposition p is epistemically rational or justified just in case it tracks the degree to which one’s evidence supports p. If it is possible to have certain kinds of misleading evidence, then evidentialism and the enkratic requirements come into conflict. Yet, both have been defended as platitudinous. After discussing and rejecting three solutions, I sketch an account that rejects the enkratic requirements, while nevertheless explaining our sense that epistemic akrasia is a distinct kind of epistemic failure. Central to the account is distinguishing between two evaluative perspectives, one having to do with the relevant kind of success, the other having to do with manifesting good dispositions. The problem with akratic subjects, I argue, is that they manifest dispositions to fail to correctly respond to a special class of conclusive and conspicuous reasons. (shrink)

John Rawls raises three challenges – to which one can add a fourth challenge – to an impartial spectator account: (a) the impartial spectator is a utility-maximizing device that does not take seriously the distinction between persons; (b) the account does not guarantee that the principles of justice will be derived from it; (c) the notion of impartiality in the account is the wrong one, since it does not define impartiality from the standpoint of the litigants themselves; (d) the account (...) would offer a comprehensive, rather than a political, form of liberalism. The narrow aim of the article is to demonstrate that Adam Smith's impartial spectator account can rise to Rawls's challenges. The broader aim is to demonstrate that the impartial spectator account offers the basis for a novel and alternative framework for developing principles of justice, and does so in the context of a political form of liberalism. (shrink)

I argue that gendered stereotypes, gendered emotions and attitudes, and display rules can influence extrinsic regulation stages, making failure points likely to occur in gendered-context and for reasons that the emotion regulation literature has not given adequate attention to. As a result, I argue for ‘feminist emotional intelligence’ as a way to help escape these failures. Feminist emotional intelligence, on my view, is a nonideal ability-based approach that equips a person to effectively reason about emotions through an intersectional lens and (...) use emotions to inform how we think and react to the world. This includes being attuned to the ways in which the world and our emotional lives are structured by and favors men. It stresses the need to be attuned to, as well as resist and challenge gender-based stereotypes and attitudes around emotions, paying close attention to the ways those stereotypes, norms, and attitudes differ across race, class, ethnicity, et cetera. (shrink)

Are there virtues that constitutively involve using certain concepts? Does it make sense to speak of rights or duties to use certain concepts? And do consequentialist approaches to concepts necessarily have to reproduce the difficulties that plague utilitarianism? These are fundamental orientating questions for the emerging field of conceptual ethics, which invites us to reflect critically about which concepts to use. In this article, I map out and explore the ways in which conceptual ethics might take its cue from virtue-ethical, (...) deontological, and consequentialist traditions of ethical thought, flagging the main difficulties facing each approach. I end by sketching how the various dimensions of evaluation singled out by these three traditions might be combined in a single approach. (shrink)

An effective method to increase the number of potential cadaveric organ donors is to make people donors by default with the option to opt out. This non-coercive public policy tool to influence people’s choices is often justified on the basis of the as-judged-by-themselves principle: people are nudged into choosing what they themselves truly want. We review three often hypothesized reasons for why defaults work and argue that the as-judged-by-themselves principle may hold only in two of these cases. We specify further (...) conditions for when the principle can hold in these cases and show that whether those conditions are met is often unclear. We recommend ways to expand nationwide surveys to identify the actual reasons for why defaults work and discuss mandated choice policy as a viable solution to many arising conundrums. (shrink)

Most descriptions of higher-order vagueness in terms of traditional modal logic generate so-called higher-order vagueness paradoxes. The one that doesn't is problematic otherwise. Consequently, the present trend is toward more complex, non-standard theories. However, there is no need for this.In this paper I introduce a theory of higher-order vagueness that is paradox-free and can be expressed in the first-order extension of a normal modal system that is complete with respect to single-domain Kripke-frame semantics. This is the system QS4M+BF+FIN. It corresponds (...) to the class of transitive, reflexive and final frames. With borderlineness defined logically as usual, it then follows that something is borderline precisely when it is higher-order borderline, and that a predicate is vague precisely when it is higher-order vague.Like Williamson's, the theory proposed here has no clear borderline cases in Sorites sequences. I argue that objections that there must be clear borderline cases ensue from the confusion of two notions of borderlineness—one associated with genuine higher-order vagueness, the other employed to sort objects into categories—and that the higher-order vagueness paradoxes result from superimposing the second notion onto the first. Lastly, I address some further potential objections. (shrink)

One of the many debates in the philosophy of race is whether we should eliminate or conserve discourse, thought, and practices reliant on racial terms and categories (i.e., race-talk). In this paper, I consider this debate in the context of medicine. The recent resurgence in anti-racist activism and the COVID-19 pandemic have prompted philosophers, medical professionals, and the public to (re)consider race, its role in long-standing health disparities, and the utility of race-based medicine. In what follows, I argue that while (...) utility is insufficient for adjudicating permissible uses of race in medicine, eliminativism is neither necessary nor sufficient for dealing with the sort of ills associated with race-based medicine. I, then, use a virtue-based framework to adjudicate morally permissible uses of race in medicine. In doing so, I demonstrate the limitations of eliminativism, offer a decision procedure for determining morally permissible uses of race, and demonstrate that the debate regarding eliminating or preserving race-talk need not depend on conclusive answers to metaphysical questions regarding race. (shrink)

Comment on Brogaard's Seeing and Saying (OUP 2018).

Several philosophers who argue that forgiveness is an important virtue also wish to maintain the moral value of retributive emotions that forgiveness is meant to overcome. As such, these accounts explicate forgiveness as an Aristotelian mean between too much resentment and too little resentment. I argue that such an account ends up making forgiveness superfluous: it turns out that the forgiving person is not praised for a greater willingness to let go of her resentment, but rather for her fairness or (...) good judgment. I conclude by arguing that the virtue of fair-mindedness is more compatible with maintaining the value of the retributive emotions than the virtue of forgiveness. (shrink)

The paper is the final, fifth part of a series of studies introducing the new conceptions of “Hilbert mathematics” and “ontomathematics”. The specific subject of the present investigation is the proper philosophical sense of both, including philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of physics not less than the traditional “first philosophy” (as far as ontomathematics is a conservative generalization of ontology as well as of Heidegger’s “fundamental ontology” though in a sense) and history of philosophy (deepening Heidegger’s destruction of it from (...) the pre-Socratics to the Pythagoreans). Husserl’s phenomenology and Heidegger’s derivative “fundamental ontology” as well as his later doctrine after the “turn” are the starting point of the research as established and well known approaches relative to the newly introduced conception of ontomathematics, even more so that Husserl himself started criticizing his “Philosophy of arithmetic” as too naturalistic and psychological turning to “Logical investigations” and the foundations of phenomenology. Heidegger’s “Aletheia” is also interpreted ontomathematically: as a relation of locality and nonlocality, respectively as a motion from nonlocality to locality if both are physically considered. Aristotle’s ontological revision of Plato’s doctrine is “destructed” further from the pre-Socratics' “Logos” or Heideger’s “Language” (after the “turn”) to the Pythagoreans “Numbers” or “Arithmetics” as an inherent and fundamental philosophical doctrine. Then, a leap to contemporary physics elucidates the essence of ontomathematics overcoming the Cartesian abyss inherited from Plato’s opposition of “ideas” versus “things”, and now unifying physics and mathematics, particularly allowing for the “creation from nothing” instead of the quasi-scientific myth of the “Big Bang”. Furthermore, ontomathematics needs another interpretation of arithmetic, propositional logic and set theory in the foundations of mathematics, where the latter two ones are both identified with Boolean algebra, and the former is considered to be a “half of Boolean algebra” in the exact meaning to be equated to it after doubling by a dual anti-isometric counterpart of Peano arithmetic. That unified algebraic realization of the foundations of mathematics is related to Hilbert mathematics in both “narrow and wide senses” where the latter is isomorphic to the qubit Hilbert space, thus underlying all the physical world by the newly introduced substance of quantum information being physically dimensionless and generalizing classical information measured in bits. The substance of information, whether classical or quantum, visualizes the way of the unification of physics and mathematics by merging their foundations in Hilbert arithmetic and Hilbert mathematics: thus how ontomathetics is a “first philosophy”. The relation of ontomathematics to the Socratic “human problematics”, furthermore being fundamental for Western philosophy in Modernity, is discussed. Ontomathematics implies its “substitution” by abstract information (or by “subjectless choice” relevant to it), thus “obliterating the human outline on the ocean beach sand” (by Michel Foucault’s metaphor). A reflection back from the viewpoint of mathematic to Western philosophy as the philosophy of locality ends the study. (shrink)