By observing the mediating role of Pomarańczowa Alternatywa [Orange Alternative], the Polish artistic-activist formation of the 80s and 90s, this paper aims to determine the properties, values and ideals that make a piece of art a public act that can engage people from different social groups in play, and can allow them to reveal their self-determining agency in light of social change. Within the system of varying degrees of social permission, art should allow for the transition from the (...) realm of the “unofficial” to the realm of the “forbidden,” and should facilitate a transformation from the realm of thought to the realm of action. Art introduces an element of play into the sphere of collective behavior, and is a bridge over dichotomous social and political forces. (shrink)

India is the leading producer of fruits worldwide. The major problem after citrus fruits consumption is their peel that are hazardous to our environment and mainly regarded as a solid waste however, they are rich sources of fibres, large amount of Vitamin C, phenolics and flavonoids which are best agents of antioxidant. In this paper, we have discussed about the orange peel waste which has many beneficial roles in our daily life. Citrus peel has the highest number of Phytochemicals (...) such as flavonoids, terpenoids, quinolines and having highest antioxidant activity as compared to the pulp and seed as well as identified from the extraction. The different Phytochemicals test analysis have been discussed in this paper (steroids testing, saponins testing) and different antioxidant test used to check the antioxidant activity of the citrus fruit peel extract are Hydrogen peroxide scavenging test, Nitric oxide scavenging test, DPPH test etc. The main objective of this paper is that the higher antioxidant activity of different mixture of Citrus fruit peel can help to reduce the generation of free radicals and can act as an anti-proliferative agent. The search for novel drugs and alternative medicine especially against cancer has led to increased research in medicinal plants. This review also indicated that Citrus peels contains antioxidant compounds which could be exploited as value added products in the food and cosmetic industry. (shrink)

Orang-utans played a communication game in two studies testing their ability to produce and comprehend requestive pointing. While the ‘communicator’ could see but not obtain hidden food, the ‘donor’ could release the food to the communicator, but could not see its location for herself. They could coordinate successfully if the communicator pointed to the food, and if the donor comprehended his communicative goal and responded pro-socially. In Study 1, one orang-utan pointed regularly and accurately for peers. However, they responded only (...) rarely. In Study 2, a human experimenter played the communicator’s role in three conditions, testing the apes’ comprehension of points of different heights and different degrees of ostension. There was no effect of condition. However, across conditions one donor performed well individually, and as a group orang-utans’ comprehension performance tended towards significance. We explain this on the grounds that comprehension required inferences that they found difficult – but not impossible. The finding has valuable implications for our thinking about the development of pointing in phylogeny. (shrink)

This paper argues that NPs with case as head noun stand for situations in their role as truthmakers within a sentential or epistemic case space. The paper develops a unified semantic analysis of case-constructions of the various sorts within a truthmaker-based version of alternative semantics.

This essay explores the philosophical significance of Anthony Burgess’s 1960s novel "A Clockwork Orange." Specific themes in this novel are developed through character and situation, in a way which takes cognisance of important problems in the history of philosophy. The essay looks at two particular themes in this context. The first relates to the epistemological question of the distinction between truth and illusion. The novel thematizes the demarcation between truth and illusion, or truth and appearance, and raises the issue (...) of whether we can have a knowledge or epistemological foundation for such a distinction. Second, the novel addresses a question at the heart of ethics, that is, the issue of whether there is a clear distinction between good and evil. Moreover, it develops this question in relation to the further issue of the explanation for the seeming attractiveness of evil, if good is an acknowledged superior value. In the novel these questions are addressed especially through the main character of Alex, whose incarceration and rehabilitation treatment by psychiatry comes centre stage. Additionally, the text itself is adapted for film by Stanley Kubrick in 1971 and the essay explores how Kubrick’s interpretation of the original novel is distinct from that of Burgess (this difference being added to by the medium of film). Kubrick’s different interpretation nonetheless builds on the original novel and thus brings new insights in terms of the reading of the primary themes, while also complexifying the hermeneutics. (shrink)

Comparisons of causal efficacy are ubiquitous in the practice of science and indeed everyday life. I focus on just one aspect of this task – one to my knowledge nowhere yet addressed satisfactorily – namely, comparing the efficacies of two causes that work in apparently incommensurable ways. Contrary to common opinion I argue that, to be comparable, it is neither necessary nor sufficient that two causes also be commensurable.

The Schwarzschild solution (Schwarzschild, 1915/16) to Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (GTR) is accepted in theoretical physics as the unique solution to GTR for a central-mass system. In this paper I propose an alternative solution to GTR, and argue it is both logically consistent and empirically realistic as a theory of gravity. This solution is here called K-gravity. The introduction explains the basic concept. The central sections go through the technical detail, defining the basic solution for the geometric tensor, (...) the Christoffel symbols, Ricci tensor, Ricci scalar, Einstein tensor, stress-energy tensor and density-pressure for the system. The density is integrated, and some consistency properties are demonstrated. A notable feature is the disappearance of the event horizon singularity, i.e. there are no black holes. So far this is for a single central mass. A generalization of the solution for multiple masses is then proposed. This is required to support K-gravity as a viable general interpretation of gravity. Then the question of empirical tests is discussed. It is argued that current observational data is almost but not quite sufficient to verify or falsify K-gravity. The Pioneer spacecraft trajectory data is of particular interest, as this is capable of providing a test; but the data (which originally showed anomalies that match K-gravity) is now uncertain. A new and very practical experiment is proposed to settle the matter. This would provide a novel test of GTR, and a novel test of the cause of the Pioneer anomalies. In conclusion, K-gravity has extensive ramifications for gravitational physics and for the philosophy of GTR and space-time. (shrink)

This is a book on madness wisdom in Arabic-Islamic civilization.

Some defenders of the principle of alternative possibilities (PAP) have responded to the challenge of Frankfurt-style counterexamples (FSCs) to PAP by arguing that there remains a “flicker of freedom” -- that is, an alternative possibility for action -- left to the agent in FSCs. I argue that the flicker of freedom strategy is unsuccessful. The strategy requires the supposition that doing an act-on-one's-own is itself an action of sorts. I argue that either this supposition is confused and leads (...) to counter-intuitive results; or, if the supposition is acceptable, then it is possible to use it to construct a FSC in which there is no flicker of freedom at all. Either way, the flicker of freedom strategy is ineffective against FSCs. Since the flicker of freedom strategy is arguably the best defense of PAP, I conclude that FSCs are successful in showing that PAP is false. An agent can act with moral responsibility without having alternative possibilities available to her. (shrink)

I construe Relevant Alternatives Theory (RAT) as an abstract combination of anti-skepticism and epistemic modesty, then re-evaluate the challenge posed to it by the missed clue counterexamples of Schaffer. The import of this challenge has been underestimated, as Schaffer’s specific argument invites distracting objections. I offer a novel formalization of RAT, accommodating a suitably wide class of concrete theories of knowledge. Then, I introduce ‘abstract missed clue cases’ and prove that every RA theory, as formalized, admits such a case. This (...) yields an argument—in Schaffer’s spirit—that resists easy dismissal. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom suggests that the power to do otherwise is necessary for being morally responsible. While much of the literature on alternative possibilities has focused on Frankfurt’s argument against this claim, I instead focus on one of Dennett’s (1984) arguments against it. This argument appeals to cases of volitional necessity rather than cases featuring counterfactual interveners. van Inwagen (1989) and Kane (1996) appeal to the notion of ‘character setting’ to argue that these cases do not show that the power (...) to do otherwise is unnecessary for moral responsibility. In this paper, I argue that their character setting response is unsuccessful. (shrink)

I consider a number of questions for foundational epistemology that arise from further reflection on salience of alternatives and epistemic position. On this basis, I turn to more applied issues. First, I will consider work in social psychology to motivate the working-hypothesis that social stereotypes will make some alternatives more, and some less, salient. A related working-hypothesis is that social stereotypes may lead to both overestimation and underestimation of a subject’s epistemic position. If these working-hypotheses are true, the outcome may (...) be a distinctive route to epistemic injustice. (shrink)

Kyle Stanford claims we have historical evidence that there likely are plausible unconceived alternatives in fundamental domains of science, and thus evidence that our best theories in these domains are probably false. Accordingly, we should adopt a form of instrumentalism. Elsewhere, I have argued that in fact we do not have historical evidence for the existence of plausible unconceived alternatives in particular domains of science, and that the main challenge to scientific realism is rather to provide evidence that there are (...) likely not plausible unconceived alternatives. In the present paper, I contend that we may come to have such evidence in the long run of science. I then investigate the epistemic consequences of the claim that we presently do not have evidence for or against the existence of plausible unconceived alternatives, but that in the future we may come to have evidence against the existence of plausible unconceived alternatives. I argue there are prima facie reasons to endorse a form of voluntarism in this situation according to which scientists and others may rationally be more optimistic or more pessimistic about the truth of our best theories, on the grounds that the widespread acceptance of an obligation to be an instrumentalist threatens to disrupt the proper functioning of science, in part because the domain of application of the problem of unconceived alternatives is unclear. (shrink)

Introducing alternative modes of assessment is but one response to the recent call for democratic and ethical language assessment. Yet, despite the recent emphasis in the discourse community and the rise in publication on alternative assessment, these new forms of assessment still need to be explored further. This study is a two-fold attempt: first, to investigate teachers’ attitudes and beliefs about different aspects of traditional testing and alternative assessment, and second to delve into their ethical orientation and (...) to examine views on language testing apropos of their general ethical viewpoints. A questionnaire was developed and used to collect Iranian EFL teachers’ views on language testing and ethics in general (N = 153). The results indicated that despite its agreed-upon disadvantages, an obstinate stigmatization and refusal of traditional testing may still seem a practice at odds with the common sense. In fact, until a better proposal can be offered, alternative assessment and traditional testing can best be regarded as supplements rather than substitutes. (shrink)

I show that the act-type theories of Soames and Hanks entail that every sentence with alternative analyses (including every atomic sentence with a polyadic predicate) is ambiguous, many of them massively so. I assume that act types directed toward distinct objects are themselves distinct, plus some standard semantic axioms, and infer that act-type theorists are committed to saying that ‘Mary loves John’ expresses both the act type of predicating [loving John] of Mary and that of predicating [being loved by (...) Mary] of John. Since the two properties are distinct, so are the act types. Hence, the sentence expresses two propositions. I also discuss a non-standard “pluralist” act-type theory, as well as some retreat positions, which all come with considerable problems. Finally, I extrapolate to a general constraint on theories of structured propositions, and find that Jeffrey King’s theory has the same unacceptable consequence as the act-type theory. (shrink)

This essay challenges the widely accepted principle that a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise. The author considers situations in which there are sufficient conditions for a certain choice or action to be performed by someone, So that it is impossible for the person to choose or to do otherwise, But in which these conditions do not in any way bring it about that the person chooses or acts as he (...) does. In such situations the person may well be morally responsible for what he chooses or does despite his inability to choose or to do otherwise. Finally the author considers certain suggestions for revising the principle he rejects or for replacing it with a principle of an altogether different kind. (shrink)

Alternative currencies are means of payment that circulate alongside—as an alternative or complement to—official currencies. While these currencies have existed for a long time, both society and academia have shown a renewed interest in their potential to decentralize the governance of monetary affairs and to bring people and organizations together in more ethical or sustainable ways. This article is a review of the ethical and philosophical implications of these alternative monetary projects. We first discuss various classifications of (...) these currencies before analyzing the ethical challenges linked to the way they tackle social and environmental issues. We also examine the incentive-based and coercive mechanisms used by these currencies from an ethical perspective and debate the promises and perils of monetary decentralization and democracy. We conclude by identifying an agenda for future research. (shrink)

This paper presents a systematic semantic study of constructions with the noun 'case'. It argues that 'cases' are situations acting as truthmakers within a sentential or epistemic case space. It develops a truthmaker-based alternative semantics of 'case'-constructions, based on Fine's recent truthmaker semantics.

This paper contributes to the growing literature in social epistemology of diagnosing the epistemically problematic features of fake news. I identify two novel problems: the problem of relevant alternatives; and the problem of the degradation of the epistemic environment. The former arises among individual epistemic transactions. By making salient, and thereby relevant, alternatives to knowledge claims, fake news stories threaten knowledge. The problem of the degradation of the epistemic environment arises at the level of entire epistemic communities. I introduce the (...) notion of an epistemic environment, roughly the totality of resources and circumstances relevant to assessing the epistemically interesting statuses, such as knowledge. Fake news degrades our epistemic environment by undermining confidence in epistemic institutions and altering epistemic habits, thereby making the environment less conducive to achieving positive epistemic statuses. This is problematic even if the decrease in confidence and the altering of habits are rational. I end by considering solutions to these problems, stressing the importance of reproaching each other for proliferating fake news. I argue that we should reproach even faultless purveyors of fake news. This is because fake news typically arises in abnormal epistemic contexts, where there is widespread ignorance of, and noncompliance with, correct epistemic norms. (shrink)

Orthodox semantics for natural language modals give rise to two puzzles for their interactions with disjunction: Ross’s puzzle and the puzzle of free choice permission. It is widely assumed that each puzzle can be explained in terms of the licensing of ‘Diversity’ inferences: from the truth of a possibility or necessity modal with an embedded disjunction, hearers infer that each disjunct is compatible with the relevant set of worlds. I argue that Diversity inferences are too weak to explain the full (...) range of data. Instead, I argue, modals with embedded disjunctions license ‘Independence’ inferences: from the truth of a modal with an embedded disjunction, hearers infer that each disjunct is an independent alternative among the relevant set of worlds. I then develop a bilateral inquisitive semantics for modals that predicts the validity of these Independence inferences. My account vindicates common intuitions about both Ross’s puzzle and the puzzle of free choice permission, and explains the full range of data. (shrink)

This paper is a critical comment on an article of David Widerker which also appeared in the Journal of Philosophy. In this article, Wideker held, against positions previously defended by him, that in was possible to design effective counterexamples, in the line initiated by Harry Frankfurt in 1969, to the so-called “Principle of Alternative Possibilities”. The core of my criticism of Widerker is to deny that agents, in his putative counterexamples, are morally responsible for their decisions, owing to the (...) fact they are not able to respond appropriately to moral reasons. (shrink)

In this paper I propose an interpretation of classical statistical mechanics that centers on taking seriously the idea that probability measures represent complete states of statistical mechanical systems. I show how this leads naturally to the idea that the stochasticity of statistical mechanics is associated directly with the observables of the theory rather than with the microstates (as traditional accounts would have it). The usual assumption that microstates are representationally significant in the theory is therefore dispensable, a consequence which suggests (...) interesting possibilities for developing non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and investigating inter-theoretic answers to the foundational questions of statistical mechanics. (shrink)

Alternative Learning System (ALS) has been adopted in Philippine basic education, yet there is no academic institution in the region prepares ALS teachers in teaching life skills. ALS teachers graduated from different programs of teacher education for formal education. In response, an extension project was conceptualized and implemented to enhance the teaching capacity and effectiveness of ALS teachers. Case study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the project. It explored the transfer of life skills among ALS teachers. Data (...) were collected from multiple sources. Interview and written responses, and feedbacks were analyzed using thematic narrative analysis. Other data were analyzed using document and descriptive analyses. The project had achieved its objectives and rated best by participants. These indicate that the project was implemented effectively and successfully. ALS teachers have acquired life skills and transferred them to others. Thus, the project has made a difference in the lives of these teachers. (shrink)

Some moral disagreements are so persistent that we suspect they are deep : we would disagree even when we have all relevant information and no one makes any mistakes. The possibility of deep disagreement is thought to drive cognitivists toward relativism, but most cognitivists reject relativism. There is an alternative. According to divergentism, cognitivists can reject relativism while allowing for deep disagreement. This view has rarely been defended at length, but many philosophers have implicitly endorsed its elements. I will (...) defend it. (shrink)

According to some, free will requires alternative possibilities. But not any old alternative possibility will do. Sometimes, being able to bring about an alternative does not bestow any control on an agent. In order to bestow control, and so be directly relevant qua alternative to grounding the agent's moral responsibility, alternatives need to be robust. Here, I investigate the nature of robust alternatives. I argue that Derk Pereboom's latest robustness criterion is too strong, and I suggest (...) a different criterion based on the idea that what agents need to be able to do is keep open the possibility of securing their blamelessness, rather than needing to directly ensure their own blamelessness at the time of decision. (shrink)

The teikei movement is a Japanese version of the alternative food movement, which emerged around the late 1960s and early 1970s. Similar to now well-known Community Supported Agriculture, it is a farmer-consumer partnership that involves direct exchanges of organic foods. It also aims to build a community that coexists with the natural environment through mutually supportive relationships between farmers and consumers. This article examined the history of the teikei movement. The movement began as a reaction to negative impacts of (...) mechanized and chemically intensive agriculture promoted by the Japanese government. The movement experienced a rapid expansion in the early 1980s, and then gradually declined thereafter. The organic market expansion and certification system intersected with both cultural and gender role changes, impacting the teikei movement negatively. Consequently, the membership of teikei consumer groups has shrunk. Furthermore, the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident caused unprece dented damage to organic farmers in the affected regions. Despite the scientific uncertain about the safety level of radiation exposure, the organic farmers and the teikei consumer groups managed the situation and found a way to inspect radiation contamination. They did so with the support by networking with other teikei-related actors. This response to the nuclear power plant accident suggests that although the level of embeddedness presumably varies among teikei actors, ethics guided by the teikei principles are effective in forging a resilient partnership between farmers and consumers and in keeping the teikei system alive as an agent for social change. (shrink)

This is a defense of Kant against the allegedly neglected alternative in his formulation of transcendental idealism. What sets it apart from the contributions of others who have spoken for Kant in this regard is the construction of a general interpretive framework — a reconstruction of the one Kant provides for transcendental idealism — as opposed to the development of an ad hoc defensive strategy for refuting the charges. Hence, comprehensive clarification instead of pointed rebuttal. The difference is between (...) focusing on the text and focusing on the problem. No doubt, doing both is not only possible but also required, as the problem is supposed to be in the text, but the point is that it is not there, and further, that we need not go anywhere else to show that it is not there. Thus, the approach is constructive rather than defensive, or more accurately, constructive as well as defensive. And the construction rests on what Kant actually said rather than on what he might have meant or on what he should have said instead. (shrink)

In this paper it is argued that Frankfurt's and Strawson's defenses of compatibilism are insufficient due to neglected features of the role of alternate possibilities in assigning moral responsibility. An attempt is made to locate more adequately the genuine source of tension between free will and determinism, in a crowding phenomenon in the view of an action which our concept of responsibility has not grown up coping with. Finally, an argument is made that due to the nature of belief we (...) can believe the thesis of determinism only if it is false, lending support to incompatibilism. (shrink)

I characterize Bishop's constructive mathematics as an alternative to classical mathematics, which makes use of the actual infinity. From the history an accurate investigation of past physical theories I obtianed some ones - mainly Lazare Carnot's mechanics and Sadi Carnot's thermodynamics - which are alternative to the dominant theories - e.g. Newtopn's mechanics. The way to link together mathematics to theoretical physics is generalized and some general considerations, in particualr on the geoemtry in theoretical physics, are obtained.that.

Alternative Food Networks (AFNs), which include local food and Fair Trade, work to mitigate some of the many shortcomings of mainstream food systems. If AFNs have the potential to make the world’s food systems more just and sustainable (and otherwise virtuous) then we may have good reasons to scale them up. Unfortunately, it may not be possible to increase the market share of AFNs while preserving their current forms. Among other reasons, this is because there are limits to both (...) the productive capacities of small owner-operated farms and to the distribution capacities of Farmers Markets and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). These limits tell in favor of AFN partnerships with larger producers and distributors. But some advocates of AFNs have worried that these partnerships would sacrifice too much. (shrink)

In this paper, I outline a reductio against Stanford’s “New Induction” on the History of Science, which is an inductive argument against scientific realism that is based on what Stanford (2006) calls “the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives” (PUA). From the supposition that Stanford’s New Induction on the History of Science is cogent, and the parallel New Induction on the History of Philosophy (Mizrahi 2014), it follows that scientific antirealism is not worthy of belief. I also show that denying a key (...) premise in the reductio only forces antirealists who endorse Stanford’s New Induction on the History of Science into a dilemma: either antirealism falls under the axe of Stanford’s New Induction on the History of Science or it falls under the axe of the New Induction on the History of Philosophy. (shrink)

While we often assume that we can only know what is so, it's clear that we often speak as if we know things that aren't strictly speaking true. What should we make of this? Some would argue that we should take this talk as evidence that it's possible to know things that are strictly speaking false when, say, false representations are adequate for our purposes. I shall argue that it would be better on the whole to say (a) that knowledge (...) ascriptions might be false but felicitous when the ascription relates a thinker to a falsehood than to say (b) that the ascriptions are strictly true. First, it seems that the arguments for thinking that we can know falsehoods overgeneralise (e.g., they don't just threaten the factivity of knowledge-ascriptions but also of claims about what's true or what's a fact). Thus, the motivation for abandoning the traditional view is problematic. Second, it seems that the alternative picture inherits the problems that contextualists face in understanding how knowledge might be normative for assertion and belief. (shrink)

Alternative splicing allows for the production of many gene products from a single coding sequence. I introduce the concept of alternative splicing via some examples. I then discuss some current hypotheses about the explanatory role of alternative splicing, including the claim that splicing is a significant contributor to the difference in complexity between the human genome and proteosome. Hypotheses such as these bring into question our working concepts of the gene. I examine several gene concepts introduced to (...) cope with processes such as alternative splicing. Next I introduce some hypotheses about the evolution of mechanisms alternative splicing in higher organisms. I conclude that attention to alternative splicing reveals that we adopt an attitude that developmental theorizing must inform evolutionary theorizing and vice versa. (shrink)

Theistic and analytic philosophers of religion typically privilege classical theism by ignoring or underestimating the great threat of alternative monotheisms. [1] In this article we discuss numerous god-models, such as those involving weak, stupid, evil, morally indifferent, and non-revelatory gods. We find that theistic philosophers have not successfully eliminated these and other possibilities, or argued for their relative improbability. In fact, based on current evidence – especially concerning the hiddenness of God and the gratuitous evils in the world – (...) many of these hypotheses appear to be more probable than theism. Also considering the – arguably infinite – number of alternative monotheisms, the inescapable conclusion is that theism is a very improbable god-concept, even when it is assumed that one and only one transcendent god exists. [1] I take ‘theism’ to mean ‘classical theism’, which is but one of many possible monotheisms. Avoiding much of the discussion around classical theism, I wish to focus on the challenges in arguing for theism over monotheistic alternatives. I consider theism and alternative monotheisms as entailing the notion of divine transcendence. (shrink)

Greg Janzen has recently criticised my defence of Frankfurt’s counterexample to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities by arguing that Jones avoids killing Smith in the counterfactual scenario. Janzen’s argument consists in introducing a new thought-experiment which is supposed to be analogous to Frankfurt’s and where the agent is supposed to avoid A-ing. Here I argue that Janzen’s argument fails on two counts, because his new scenario is not analogous to Frankfurt’s and because the agent in his new scenario does not (...) avoid A-ing. (shrink)

This article argues that the Phaedo is written as a new sort of story of how a hero faces death; this story provides an alternative to existing tragedy, as understood by Plato. The opening of the Phaedo makes clear that two features that Plato closely associates with tragedy, pity and lamentation, are inappropriate responses to Socrates’ impending death, and that tuchē (chance) did not affect his happiness. This is the first step in the dialogue’s sustained engagement with tragedy. Tragedy (...) for Plato falls under the category of stories about heroes and gods. Plato wrote the Phaedo so that we would see Socrates as a philosophical hero, a replacement for traditional heroes such as Theseus or Heracles. I argue that in fact the Phaedo meets every requirement in Republic Books 2–3 for how to tell stories about heroes and gods and so belongs to the same broad category as tragedy. Within this framework, it tells its new story of how the true hero faces death. (shrink)

Local Currencies, Local Exchange Trading Systems, and Time Banks are all part of a new social movement that aims to restrict money's purchasing power within a certain geographic area, or within a certain community. According to their proponents, these restrictions may contribute to building sustainable local economies, supporting local businesses and creating “warmer” social relations. This article inquires whether the overall enthusiasm that surrounds alternative currencies is justified. It argues that the potential benefits of these currencies are not sufficient (...) to justify the restrictions they impose on money's purchasing power. Turning these currencies into effective channels of change, by increasing their scope and their strength, could severely hinder the pursuit of social justice, in a way that is probably not even necessary for achieving their objectives. The paper concludes that large-scale limitations of money's purchasing power are, therefore, undesirable. (shrink)

Our concept of choice is integral to the way we understand others and ourselves, especially when considering ourselves as free and responsible agents. Despite the importance of this concept, there has been little empirical work on it. In this paper we report four experiments that provide evidence for two concepts of choice—namely, a concept of choice that is operative in the phrase having a choice and another that is operative in the phrase making a choice. The experiments indicate that the (...) two concepts of choice can be differentiated from each other on the basis of the kind of alternatives to which each is sensitive. The results indicate that the folk concept of choice is more nuanced than has been assumed. This new, empirically informed understanding of the folk concept of choice has important implications for debates concerning free will, responsibility, and other debates spanning psychology and philosophy. -/- Specifically, 'having a choice' appears to require genuinely open alternatives, or alternative possibilities that are actually realizable, while 'making a choice' appears to only require psychological open alternatives, or the ability to consider alternatives independent of whether these alternatives are actually realizable. We argue that these findings are relevant to the free will debate because choice is central to the folk concept of free will and many philosophical analysis of free will. The kinds of alternatives required for having a choice appear to be incompatibilist in nature, while the kinds of alternatives required for making a choice appear to be compatibilist in nature. If free will requires having choices, then this is perhaps evidence against compatibilism. If free will requires making choices, then this is perhaps evidence in favor of--or at least consistent with--compatibilism. (shrink)

The goal of the current paper is to provide an introduction to and survey of the diverse landscape of relevant alternatives theories of knowledge. Emphasis is placed throughout both on the abstractness of the relevant alternatives approach and its amenability to formalization through logical techniques. We present some of the important motivations for adopting the relevant alternatives approach; briefly explore the connections and contrasts between the relevant alternatives approach and related developments in logic, epistemology and philosophy of science; provide a (...) schema for classifying and studying relevant alternatives theories at different levels of abstraction; and present a sample of relevant alternatives theories (contrasting what we call question-first and topic-first theories) that tie our discussion to on-going debates in the philosophical literature, as well as showcasing techniques for formalizing some of the important positions in these debates. (shrink)

Imediat după elaborarea și succesul relativității generale, au început să apară teorii alternative pentru gravitație. În dezvoltarea acestor teorii s-au încercat multe strategii (euristici pozitive) diferite, prin adăugarea de noi ipoteze la TGR, utilizarea unui spațiu-timp pentru care universul este static, ipoteze care elimină singularitățile gravitaționale, etc. Pentru evaluarea modelelor de gravitație, au fost propuse mai multe seturi de teste. Formalismul post-newtonian ia în considerare aproximări ale ecuațiilor de gravitație ale lui Einstein prin abaterile de ordinul cel mai scăzut (...) de la legea lui Newton pentru câmpuri slabe. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.22881.25440. (shrink)

P. Kyle Stanford defends the problem of unconceived alternatives, which maintains that scientists are unlikely to conceive of all the scientifically plausible alternatives to the theories they accept. Stanford’s argument has been criticized on the grounds that the failure of individual scientists to conceive of relevant alternatives does not entail the failure of science as a corporate body to do so. I consider two replies to this criticism and find both lacking. In the process, I argue that Stanford does not (...) provide evidence that there are likely scientifically plausible unconceived alternatives to scientific theories accepted now and in the future. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on alternative logics. It discusses a hierarchy of logical reform. It presents case studies that illustrate particular aspects of the logical revisionism discussed in the chapter. The first case study is of intuitionistic logic. The second case study turns to quantum logic, a system proposed on empirical grounds as a resolution of the antinomies of quantum mechanics. The third case study is concerned with systems of relevance logic, which have been the subject of an especially detailed (...) reform program. Finally, the fourth case study is paraconsistent logic, perhaps the most controversial of serious proposals. (shrink)

I aim to develop an alternative theoretical model for the direct cognition of the elementary states of others called the theory of interaction (henceforth TI), also known as the “second person” approach. The model I propose emerges from a critical reformulation of the displaced perception model proposed by FRED DRETSKE (1995) for the introspective knowledge of our own mental states. Moreover, against Dretske, I argue that no meta-representation (second-order representation of a first-order representation as a representation) is involved in (...) the process, but only concepts, rudimentary enough, of others’ emotions: contentment and discontentment. Strictly speaking, all the empirical data and findings in developmental psychology only support the hypothesis that children in the pre-linguistic phase understand perceptual facial expressions of contentment and discontentment. My proposal consists of the following thesis: The direct perception of others' elementary mental states is not a perception in the usual sense of the word according to which we just perceive things, but rather a “perception of facts.” But how to understand that? It is nothing more than an epistemological process that is automatic and reliable at the same time. It is reliable in the epistemological-externalist sense of not involving any inference, reflection, theorizing or epistemic justification: a baby’s perception of her mom’s facial expression of discontentment (in the usual sense of “per- ception”) does not constitute a reason supporting the belief that mommy is discontent. The very word “belief” should not be understood in the usual sense but rather in the sense of a natural inclination for truth. But at the same time, it is automatic because the belief is a result or output of a process entirely subliminal and computational in nature. Thus, for instance, a child perceives that her mom is discontent (fact-awareness) by perceiving consciously (“perception” in the usual sense) a facial expression of discontentment (sensorial input) but recognizes that her mother is discontent as a result (output) of an entirely subliminal process. (shrink)

According to the Principle of Alternative Possibilities, an agent is morally responsible for an action of hers only if she could have done otherwise. The notion of a robust alternative plays a prominent role in recent attacks on PAP based on so-called Frankfurt cases. In this paper I defend the truth of PAP for blameworthy actions against Frankfurt cases recently proposed by Derk Pereboom and David Widerker. My defence rests on some intuitively plausible principles that yield a new (...) understanding of the concept of a robust alternative. I will leave aside whether PAP also holds for praiseworthy actions -/- Según el Principio de Posibilidades Alternativas, un agente es moralmente responsable de una acción sólo si hubiera podido actuar de otro modo. La noción de alternativa robusta desempeña un papel prominente en ataques recientes al PPA basados en los llamados casos Frankfurt. En este artículo defiendo el PPA para la culpabilidad moral frente a casos Frankfurt propuestos recientemente por Derk Pereboom y David Widerker. Mi defensa descansa en algunos principios intuitivamente plausibles que dan lugar a una comprensión nueva del concepto de alternativa robusta. No trataré la cuestión de la verdad del PPA para acciones moralmente laudables. (shrink)

Context: The design of academic conferences, in which settings ideas are shared and created, is, we suggest, of more than passing interest in constructivism, where epistemology is considered in terms of knowing rather than knowledge. Problem: The passivity and predominantly one-way structure of the typical paper presentation format of academic conferences has a number of serious limitations from a constructivist perspective. These limits are both practical and epistemological. While alternative formats abound, there is nevertheless increasing pressure reinforcing this format (...) due to delegates’ funding typically being linked to reading a paper. Method: In this special issue, authors reflect on conferences that they have organised and participated in that have used alternative formats, such as conversational structures or other constructivist inspired approaches, in whole or in part. We review and contextualize their contributions, understanding them in terms of their connections to constructivism and to each other. Results: While this issue is of relevance across disciplinary boundaries, contributions focus on two fields: that of cybernetics/systems, and that of design. We identify the way that conference organization is of particular importance to these fields, being in self-reflexive relationship to them: the environment of a design conference is something that we design; while a conference regarding systems or cybernetics is itself an instance of the sorts of process with which these fields are concerned. Implications: Building on this self-reflexivity and, also, the close connection of design and cybernetics/systems to constructivism, we suggest that conference organization is an area in which constructivism may itself be understood in terms of practice rather than theory (and so knowledge. This in turn helps connect ideas in constructivism with pragmatic fields, such as knowledge management, and recent discussions in this journal regarding second-order science. Constructivist content: As a setting for the creation of new ideas, the design of conferences is of importance where we understand epistemology in constructivist terms as a process of knowing. Moreover, the particular fields drawn on - design and cybernetics/systems - have close connections to constructivism, as can be seen, for instance, in the work of Ranulph Glanville, on which we draw here. (shrink)

In Harry Frankfurt’s seminal “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility,” he advances an argument against the Principle of Alternate Possibilities: if an agent is responsible for performing some action, then she is able to do otherwise. However, almost all of the Frankfurt cases in this literature involve impermissible actions. In this article, I argue that the failure to consider other deontic categories exposes a deep problem, one that threatens either to upend much current moral theorizing or to upend the relevance of (...) Frankfurt cases. (shrink)

D. Davidson argues that the existence of alternative conceptual schemes presupposes the Kantian scheme-content dualism, which requires a scheme-neutral empirical content and a fixed, sharp schemecontent distinction. The dismantlement of such a Kantian scheme-content dualism, which Davidson calls “the third dogma of empiricism”, would render the notion of alternative conceptual schemes groundless. To counter Davidson’s attack on the notion of alternative conceptual schemes, I argue that alternative conceptual schemes neither entail nor presuppose the Kantian scheme-content dualism. (...) On the contrary, it is exactly the abandonment of the concept-neutral content and the denial of a fixed, absolute scheme-content distinction that turns the Kantian conceptualabsolutism upside down and thus makes alternative conceptual schemes possible. Proposing common-sense experience as the empirical content of alternative schemes, I construct and defend a non-Kantian scheme-content dualism based on a non-fixed, relative scheme-content distinction. The proposed non-Kantian scheme-content dualism is not only “innocent” enough to be immune from Davidson’s charge of the third dogma of empiricism, but also “solid” enough to be able to sustain alternative conceptual schemes. I conclude that in terms of our conceptual schemes, we are connected to the world as closely as possible; only through conceptual schemes can we be connected to the world. (shrink)