Iemand die uiteindelijk voor de PhD-positie wordt gekozen, moet in staat zijn om alle vakjes aan te kruisen. Maar één ding is vrijwel zeker: van een promovendus die de functie aanvaardt, wordt zelden verwacht dat zij het basisidee voor het onderzoek, de opzet, de methodologie of iets anders heeft bedacht. Men hoeft alleen maar trainable te zijn. Tijdens de jaren "onder contract" zal de kandidaat immers waarschijnlijk niet worden aangemoedigd om een eigen intellectueel pad te ontwikkelen, of om een nieuwe (...) en interessante richting in het onderzoeksveld uit te stippelen. In plaats daarvan zal van de kandidaat naar alle waarschijnlijkheid worden verwacht dat zij de ideeën van de promotor napraat en vaak zelfs volledig overneemt. (shrink)

Does consciousness survive bodily death? This question remains a profound, perennial mystery. Although scientific studies have focused on out-of-body experiences (OBEs) and near-death experiences (NDEs), there is scant evidence to support the claim that consciousness survives death. Many speculative theories state that consciousness moves through various afterlife realities. Tantalizing clues are found in world religion, esoteric philosophy, extrasensory perception, hypnotic regression, and scientific experimentation. At the present time, there is an abundance of theoretical scholarly discourse on the topic of “survival.” (...) After 60 years of NDE research, common ground has been established from NDEers’ anecdotal evidence and perceptual experiences. (shrink)

The reviewed book, titled “The Making of Contemporary Indian Philosophy Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya” (Raveh, D., & Coquereau-Saouma, E. (Eds.). 2023) (the/this book hereafter), edited by Daniel Raveh and Elise Coquereau-Saouma, is part of the Routledge Hindu Studies Series in collaboration with the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. This series aims to foster dialogue between Hindu traditions and modern research trends. The editors deserve commendation for adding value to the series and contributing significantly to debates in Indian philosophy, particularly regarding Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya’s (...) philosophy (KCB thereafter). This book brings together scholars who have carefully looked at KCB’s big ideas, giving us clear and deep insights into his philosophy. This review carefully examines each chapter, simplifying the book’s content and ensuring that no significant details are overlooked. Our aim is to motivate readers to delve into KCB’s broader body of work and, more specifically, this book, which greatly enriches our understanding of his worldview. In harmony with the book’s flow, we delve into the current trends in Indian philosophy, giving special attention to situating KCB’s philosophy within this context, as discussed by the contributors. Additionally, we seek to clarify any misunderstandings surrounding this field, aiding aspiring researchers in tackling the intricate intellectual challenges within modern Indian philosophy—an endeavor certainly worth pursuing. (shrink)

Over the past 2500 years, the concept of free will has been debated by some of the most brilliant minds in ancient and modern history. This paper discusses landmark theories by five well-known philosophers. There are several definitions of free-will. Sometimes, it is described as an innate characteristic possessed by human beings. In juxtaposition, causal determinism states that free will is limited or does not exist. Philosophical arguments are presented by: Plato, Hobbes, Hume, Leibniz, and Hegel. Plato offers a dual (...) theory offering limited support for free will. Leibnitz includes theological tenets to make the case for predetermined outcomes. Hobbes and Hume contend that moral beliefs and ethical standards are conditions that support causal determinism. Hegel’s treatise on “freeing of the Will” aligns with Taoist philosophy and links the evolution of the universe to human spiritual development toward self-realization. (shrink)

This articles presents the creation of the world and of man, and especially the relation between God and His creation. In the act of creation, God Shows His love for man. The man is the companion of God and the continuer of creation.This article presents the creation of man and alienation from God by sin and has the following themes: The image of God and man's relationship with God, Man's ikeness to God. Man was created as being different from the (...) angels and animals, Man's fall into sin and the consequences of sin. We can see the following aspects of the sin: origin, universality and consequences of original sin: alteration of the image of God, which means the darkening of the mind, weakening the will and hardning of feeling. The state of man as the slave of sin and of passions has a sole consequence: death. (shrink)

Many similarities and correspondences are found in Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah) and Hindu mysticism (Vedanta-Advaita). In both traditions, the ultimate goal is to experience communion with a Divine Source. To reach this level of transcendence, each system speaks of an individualized soul with three characteristics that merge with a Godhead. Through deep meditative practices, the soul experiences a divine influx of the Infinite. The Hindu Upanishads and the Jewish Zohar speak of similar methodologies for achieving a mystical experience. Vedantin Adi Shankara (...) and Kabbalist Abraham Abulafia created esoteric systems for advancing mystical practices. Additionally, metaphysical beliefs on Being and Non-Being are comparable in both traditions. The cyclical nature of universes and transmigration of souls offer a unified theory of microcosm and macrocosm. Throughout the centuries, spiritual leaders contributed new knowledge to cosmology, esoteric interpretations, and daily practices for attaining higher consciousness. The contextual evolution of Vedanta and Kabbalah has been corroborated and finds support in modern scholarly discourse. Conclusions are offered on the benefits of mystical experiences including assimilation of wisdom, achieving transcendence, and living in a continual state of illumination. (shrink)

In "New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis", Freud discusses his views on mysticism and psychoanalysis. The concept of mysticism has changed throughout the ages. In ancient times, a mystic was one who communed with God. In Freud's world, the word mysticism became an all-inclusive word describing paranormal phenomenon occurring outside the laws of nature and science. Accordingly, science tended to dismiss or ignore mystical ideas because they were viewed as superstitious, irrational and nonsensical. -/- .

Many individuals have experienced a transformation of their spirituality after a near-death experience (NDE). Some of these near-death experiencers (NDErs) have reported an incongruous spiritual experience (ISE) during their NDEs. An incongruous spiritual experience occurs when NDErs perceive certain communications and/or visions that are incompatible or inconsistent with their previous religious/spiritual beliefs. In the present study the researcher examined NDE and ISE-related phenomena utilizing the qualitative techniques of heuristic analysis. An initial pool of 84 survey participants completed Greyson's NDE Scale (...) and a questionnaire developed by the researcher to measure various elements of an incongruous spiritual experience. Subsequently, eight participants were interviewed utilizing Moustakas's heuristic analysis to investigate their NDE/ISE-related experiences. The results indicated that each participant altered or changed their religious/spiritual beliefs after coping with varying intensities of cognitive dissonance. Therefore, it was concluded that the participants' reports of incongruous elements during their NDEs were spiritually transformative. (shrink)

Santiago Ramón y Cajal practice what became neuroscience in the remote town of Ayerbe, Aragón Spain. He struggled to travel to conferences in northern Europe to share his remarkable discovery.

The foucus of this paper is on the unfolding of luminousity within the field of awareness.

This paper focuses on the relationship of language within the awareness field.

Abstract: Plato finds that the necessity for society and the state resides in human nature itself. No one is sufficient in himself; everyone needs the aid of others in order to live life worthy of man. Hence man must live with others in society in order to make use of them both materially and morally. So from the moment society arises out of necessity of meeting the needs of man, the members which make up society must be organised into different (...) classes according to the diversity of works to be performed. This paper examines the Plato’s ideal state and criticisms of democracy and tries to prove that it is relevant in Nigeria’s present democratic scenario. The paper will show how significant they are to abate Nigerian democratic corruption and some of his suggestions for good governance could be utilized to address the problem of present day democracy in Nigeria. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the understanding that Dzogchen experience is a Theophanic Manifestation.

As the inner light of awareness increases and permeates our body, we experience our embodiment as spaceousness and light and energy.

How the universe came to be what it is now is a key philosophical question. The hypothesis that it came from nothing or śūnya (as proposed by Stephen Hawking, among others) proves to be dissembling, since the quantum vacuum can hardly be considered a void (śūnya). In modern science, it is generally assumed that matter existed before the universe came to be. Modern science hypothesizes that the manifestation of life on earth is nothing but a mere increment in the complexity (...) of matter – and hence is an outcome of evolution of matter (chemical evolution) following the Big Bang. After the manifestation of life, modern science believed that chemical evolution transformed itself into biological evolution, which then had caused the entire biodiversity on our planet. In the framework of materialism, the major attention is to find general organizational laws stimulated by physical sciences, ignoring the uniqueness of life. The main goal of materialism is to reduce consciousness to natural processes, which in turn can be translated into the language of math, physics, and chemistry. Following this approach, scientists have made several attempts to deny the living organism of its veracity as an immortal soul, in favor of genes, molecules, atoms, and so on. However, advancement in various fields of biology has repeatedly given rise to questions against such a denial and has supplied more and more evidence against the completely misleading ideological imposition that living entities are particular states of matter. In the recent past, however, the realization has arisen that cognitive nature of life at all levels has begun presenting significant challenges to the views of materialism in biology and has created a more receptive environment for the soul hypothesis (Shanta BN. Commun Integr Biol 8(5):e1085138, 2015). Therefore, instead of adjudicating different aprioristic claims, the development of an authentic theory of origin of life and universe needs both proper scientific knowledge and the appropriate tools of philosophical analysis of life. This talk will highlight the uniqueness of biological systems that offers a considerable challenge to the mainstream materialism and proposes the Vedāntic philosophical view as a viable alternative for development of a theory worthy of origin of life and universe. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the natural unfolding of the kundalini energy which is the expansion of the energy of awareness within the body.

This paper focuses on the psychoanalytic phenomenology of male female elements in relationship with the person.

This paper focuses on the unfolding of personal awareness as primordial awareness.

Wars are large-scale conflicts between organized groups of belligerents, which involve suffering, devastation, and brutality unlike almost anything else in human experience. Whatever one’s other beliefs about morality, all should agree that the horrors of war are all but unconscionable, and that warfare can be justified only if we have some compel- ling account of what is worth fighting for, which can justify contributing, as individu- als and as groups, to this calamitous endeavour. Although this question should obviously be central (...) to both philosophical and politi- cal discussion about war, it is at the forefront of neither. In recent years, philosophical discussion of warfare has bloomed, but the debate has focused on whom we may kill, on the assumption that our aims are justified.1 Political debate, meanwhile, is more concerned with matters of prudence, international law, and public justification, than with reassessing what is worth fighting for. For wars of intervention to halt or prevent massive humanitarian crises, this gap is not so troubling. When warfare is the only means to prevent the mass killing or enslavement of the innocent, the purposes of military force are clear enough (though undoubtedly many other problems remain). The problem is more pressing, how- ever, for the justification of national defence.3 Although common-sense morality and international law view national defence as the paradigm case of justified warfare, grounding this consensus is surprisingly difficult.4 We typically believe that any state is justified in using lethal force to protect its territory against any form of uninvited military incursion by any other state. And yet we lack a good argument to explain why this should be so. In this chapter, I explain why one familiar and otherwise plausible approach to the justification of killing in war cannot adequately ground common-sense views of permissible national defence.5 Reductionists believe that justified warfare reduces to an aggregation of acts that are justified under ordinary principles of interpersonal morality.6 The standard form of reductionism focuses on the principles governing killing in ordinary life, specifically those that justify intentional killing in self- and other-defence, and unintended but foreseen (for short, collateral) killing as a lesser evil. Justified warfare, on this view, is no more than the coextension of multiple acts justified under these two principles. Reductionism is the default philosophical approach to thinking through the ethics of killing in war. It makes perfect sense to ask what principles govern permissible kill- ing in general, before applying them to the particular context of war. If it cannot deliver a plausible set of conclusions about when national defence is permitted, then we must either revise our beliefs about which conclusions count as plausible, or else face the significant challenge of developing a different theoretical model for justifying war- fare—an exceptionalist model, which views war as an exception to the regular moral landscape, to which principles apply which apply to nothing else but war.7 We must show, in other words, that there is something worth fighting for in wars of national defence, which is not engaged when we use force in any other context. The chapter proceeds as follows. Section 2.2 sets out the argument against reduc- tionism.8 Section 2.3 considers and rebuts one common response to the argument, which has often been thought sufficient grounds to disregard its conclusion. Section 2.4 then asks whether a modified reductionism would survive unscathed by the argu- ment. Finally, section 2.5 sets out some desiderata on a plausible exceptionalist alterna- tive. Section 2.6 concludes. (shrink)

As a painfully outdated institution the school is accused of: being alienating, closing itself off to society and to the needs of young people; reproducing social inequality and consolidating existing power relations; demotivating youth; showing a lack of effectiveness and having great difficulty with employability. And last but not least, the school is considered redundant: the school, where learning is bound to time and place, is no longer needed in the digital era of virtual learning environments. The ultimate charge: the (...) school is a product of outdated ways of distributing knowledge and expertise, determined by primitive technologies of the past. Adieu school. This book advocates the acquittal of the school. It argues that many of the allegations against the school are motivated by an age-old fear and even hatred toward one of its radical but essential characteristics: that the school provides ‘free time' and transforms knowledge and skills into 'common goods', and therefore has the potential to give everyone, regardless of background, natural talent or aptitude, the time and space to leave their known environment, rise above themselves and renew (and thus change in unpredictable ways) the world. This defence of the school starts from an investigation of what makes a school a school and pinpoints why the school has value in and of itself. It reveals the various attempts to rob the school of its scholastic character, that is, to tame the school. The ultimate aim is to elaborate a touchstone that helps to defend as well as to re-invent school. -/- Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons are members of the Laboratory for Education and Society, KU Leuven. They share an interest in research on the public dimensions of education and are currently elaborating a philosophy of schooling. (shrink)

The main objective of this project is to provide acoustic assistance to the blind people and also deal with the problems faced by them to walk like the normal human beings. Thus the project aims to develop a device that would serve as a guiding assistance to them. The paper focuses on designing a device for visual impaired (or blind) people that would help them to travel independently and also with more ease. One of the biggest problem that the visual (...) impaired ones face is while travelling because when they walk in the indoors and outdoors they are not well aware of information about their location and orientation with respect to traffic and obstacles on their way unlike the normal beings. The technology proposed in the paper serves as a solution for visual impaired people. The project consists of smart shoe and smart cane (stick) that alerts visually impaired people over obstacles coming between their ways and could help them in walking with less collision. The main objective of this paper is to address a reliable encompassing of a call and a shoe that could communicate with the user through voice alert and pre-coded messages. (shrink)

Recent years have seen growing interest in modifying interventionist accounts of causal explanation in order to characterise noncausal explanation. However, one surprising element of such accounts is that they have typically jettisoned the core feature of interventionism: interventions. Indeed, the prevailing opinion within the philosophy of science literature suggests that interventions exclusively demarcate causal relationships. This position is so prevalent that, until now, no one has even thought to name it. We call it “intervention puritanism” (I-puritanism, for short). In this (...) paper, we mount the first sustained defence of the idea that there are distinctively noncausal explanations which can be characterized in terms of possible interventions; a position we call “intervention liberalism” (I-liberalism, for short). While many have followed James Woodward (2003) in committing to I-puritanism, we trace support for I-liberalism back to the work of Jaegwon Kim (1974). Furthermore, we analyse two recent sources of scepticism regarding I-liberalism: debate surrounding mechanistic constitution; and attempts to provide a monistic account of explanation. We show that neither literature provides compelling reasons for adopting I-puritanism. Finally, we present a novel taxonomy of available positions upon the role of possible interventions in explanation: weak causal imperialism; strong causal imperialism; monist intervention puritanism; pluralist intervention puritanism; monist intervention liberalism; and finally, the specific position defended in this paper, pluralist intervention liberalism. (shrink)

This article offers an account and defence of constructionism, both as a metaphilosophical approach and as a philosophical methodology, with references to the so-called maker's knowledge tradition. Its main thesis is that Plato's “user's knowledge” tradition should be complemented, if not replaced, by a constructionist approach to philosophical problems in general and to knowledge in particular. Epistemic agents know something when they are able to build (reproduce, simulate, model, construct, etc.) that something and plug the obtained information into the correct (...) network of relations that account for it. Their epistemic expertise increases with the scope and depth of the questions that they are able to ask and answer. Thus, constructionism deprioritises mimetic, passive, and declarative knowledge that something is the case, in favour of poietic, interactive, and practical knowledge of something being the case. Metaphilosophically, constructionism suggests adding conceptual engineering to conceptual analysis as a fundamental method. (shrink)

When I say that my conception of metaphysics is Aristotelian, or neo-Aristotelian, this may have more to do with Aristotle’s philosophical methodology than his metaphysics, but, as I see it, the core of this Aristotelian conception of metaphysics is the idea that metaphysics is the first philosophy . In what follows I will attempt to clarify what this conception of metaphysics amounts to in the context of some recent discussion on the methodology of metaphysics (e.g. Chalmers et al . (2009), (...) Ladyman and Ross (2007)). There is a lot of hostility towards the Aristotelian conception of metaphysics in this literature: for instance, the majority of the contributors to the Metametaphysics volume assume a rather more deflationary, Quinean approach towards metaphysics. In the process of replying to the criticisms towards Aristotelian metaphysics put forward in recent literature I will also identify some methodological points which deserve more attention and ought to be addressed in future research. (shrink)

Hybrid contingentism combines first-order contingentism, the view that it is contingent what individuals there are, with higher-order necessitism, the view that it is non-contingent what properties and propositions there are (where these are conceived as entities in the range of appropriate higher-order quantifiers). This combination of views avoids the most delicate problems afflicting alternative contingentist positions while preserving the central contingentist claim that ordinary, concrete entities exist contingently. Despite these attractive features, hybrid contingentism is usually faced with rejection. The main (...) reason for this is an objection that crucially involves haecceitistic properties, properties such as being identical to Plato or being identical to Aristotle. The objection alleges that by accepting the necessary existence of such haecceities, hybrid contingentists incur an explanatory commitment that they are unable to discharge, namely that of explaining how it is that certain haecceities ‘lock onto’ their target individuals even when those individuals are absent. To defend hybrid contingentism against this charge, I first clarify the haecceities objection in several respects and consider, in particular, what notion of explanation the objection is operating with. After arguing that it can be fruitfully understood as a challenge to provide metaphysical grounds for certain haecceity facts, I develop a contingentist response to the objection that draws on recent work on the connection between ground and essence. (shrink)

In this paper I propose a novel defence of political cosmopolitanism grounded in a familiar principle: universal moral equality. Critics of cosmopolitanism generally agree to universal moral equality, but disagree about what moral equality means politically. According to my argument, if we accept that all people are morally equal, then we ought to accept their equal moral standing. We should therefore prefer socio-political arrangements that reflect the equal moral standing of all people over those that reflect differentiated moral standing. A (...) reasonable cosmopolitanism need not preclude partialist attachment to co-nationals, or undermine the significance of self-determination, so long as political arrangements do not produce differentiated moral standing. As the political application of an uncontroversial moral principle, I defend reasonable cosmopolitanism against nationalism and statism. Neither of these, I argue, are suitable foundations for global justice in migration because they each conceive of justice as a local concern for insiders. (shrink)

The distinction between dimensions and units in physics is commonplace. But are dimensions a feature of reality? The most widely-held view is that they are no more than a tool for keeping track of the values of quantities under a change of units. This anti-realist position is supported by an argument from underdetermination: one can assign dimensions to quantities in many different ways, all of which are empirically equivalent. In contrast, I defend a form of dimensional realism, on which some (...) assignments of dimensions to quantities better describe reality than others. The argument I provide is a form of inference to the best explanation. In particular, the technique of dimensional analysis is explanatory, but it is only successful for certain systems of dimensions. Since these dimensional systems support scientific explanations, we have reason to believe that they are real. (shrink)

Here I reply to the main points raised by the commentators on the arguments put forward in my Delusions and Other Irrational Beliefs (OUP, 2009). My response is aimed at defending a modest doxastic account of clinical delusions, and is articulated in three sections. First, I consider the view that delusions are inbetween perceptual and doxastic states, defended by Jacob Hohwy and Vivek Rajan, and the view that delusions are failed attempts at believing or not-quitebeliefs, proposed by Eric Schwitzgebel and (...) Maura Tumulty. Then, I address the relationship between the doxastic account of delusions and the role, nature, and prospects of folk psychology, which is discussed by Dominic Murphy, Keith Frankish, and Maura Tumulty in their contributions. In the final remarks, I turn to the continuity thesis and suggest that, although there are important differences between clinical delusions and non-pathological beliefs, these differences cannot be characterised satisfactorily in epistemic terms. (shrink)

The austere view of nonsense says that the source of nonsense is not a violation of the rules of logical syntax, but nonsense is always due to a lack of meaning in one of the components of a sentence. In other words, the necessary and sufficient condition for nonsensicality is that no meaning has been assigned to a constituent in a sentence. The austere conception is the key ingredient of the resolute reading of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus that presents a therapeutical interpretation (...) of the work, and rejects a possibility of conveying some ineffable truths by means of nonsensical sentences. In this paper, I defend the austere view against the most important objections. Firstly, I discuss textual sources for ascribing to Wittgenstein the austere view that have not been sufficiently thoroughly discussed yet. Next, I indicate that the apparent occurrence of words out of the context of a sentence on lists of verbs and in definitions is not in conflict with the version of the context principle recommended by austere theorists, since this argument does not sufficiently take into account the distinction between sign and symbol. Furthermore, I argue that the austere conception and the principle of compositionality are jointly tenable, for the former view does not exclude the existence of syntactic and semantic rules, but only shows that they are recognizable conditionally. Finally, I indicate that the austere view of nonsense should be seen as a viable option by a contemporary theorist of nonsense, for it helps us to avoid making controversial assumptions about the nature of meaning and content. (shrink)

I defend the 'Repugnant' Conclusion that for any possible population of happy people, a population containing a sufficient number of people with lives barely worth living would be better. Four lines of argument converge on this conclusion, and the conclusion has a simple, natural theoretical explanation. The opposition to the Repugnant Conclusion rests on a bare appeal to intuition. This intuition is open to charges of being influenced by multiple distorting factors. Several theories of population ethics have been devised to (...) avoid the Repugnant Conclusion, but each generates even more counterintuitive consequences. The intuition opposing the Repugnant Conclusion is thus among the best candidates for an intuition that should be revised. (shrink)

Transhumanism is a challenging movement that invites us to rethink what defines humanity, including what we value and regret the most about our existence. Vulnerability is a key concept that require thorough philosophical scrutiny concerning transhumanist proposals. Vulnerability can refer to a universal condition of human life or, rather, to the specific exposure to certain harms due to particular situations. Even if we are all vulnerable in the first sense, there are also different sources and levels of vulnerability depending on (...) concrete social circumstances. Recently, Michael Hauskeller argued about a fundamental incompatibility between transhumanism and vulnerability. He understands vulnerability as an existential category, linked to woundability and mortality. This idea is akin to ontological vulnerability, but it does not notice some important features of social vulnerability. On the other side, transhumanism is a complex and non-homogeneous movement. Here we distinguish between a strong and a weak version of transhumanism. We will propose that the salience of vulnerability is only diminished in the radical one, while a moderate version can reconcile vulnerability with human enhancement. Thus, vulnerability, a concept that has recently gained much importance as an anthropological category in contemporary ethics, is not necessarily at odds with any transhumanist project. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Björn Lundgren and H. Orri Stefánsson (forthcoming) present three objections to normic de minimis expected utility theory (NDEUT) – a decision theoretic framework defended in Smith (2024). In this paper, I respond to these objections and outline some possible ways in which NDEUT might be modified or further developed. Like any de minimis framework, NDEUT employs a risk threshold to sort possibilities into those that must be considered when making a decision, and those that can be (...) legitimately ignored – the so-called ‘de minimis risks’. While this threshold would usually take the form of a probability value, in NDEUT the de minimis risks are identified instead on the basis of their abnormality. In the first section I will set up some of the formalism used in NDEUT and consider Lundgren and Stefánsson’s first objection – which is essentially formal in nature. In the second section I will delve further into the interpretation of NDEUT and consider the second and third objections, which turn on particular examples. (shrink)

In domains like stock brokerage, clinical psychiatry, and long‐term political forecasting, experts generally fail to outperform novices. Empirical researchers agree on why this is: experts must receive direct or environmental learning feedback during training to develop reliable expertise, and these domains are deficient in this type of feedback. A growing number of philosophers resource this consensus view to argue that, given the absence of direct or environmental philosophical feedback, we should not give the philosophical intuitions or theories of expert philosophers (...) greater credence than those of novice philosophers. This article has three objectives. The first is to explore several overlooked issues concerning the strategy of generalizing from empirical studies of non‐philosophical expertise to the epistemic status of philosophical expertise. The second is to explain why empirical research into a causal relationship between direct learning feedback and enhanced expert performance does not provide good grounds for abandoning a default optimism about the epistemic superiority of expert philosophical theories. The third is to sketch a positive characterization of learning feedback that addresses developmental concerns made salient by the empirical literature on expert performance for specifically theory‐driven or “armchair” domains like philosophy. (shrink)

This paper addresses criticisms of the concept of untranslatability which Davidson and Putnam have raised against the incommensurability thesis.

Cartesians and Lichtenbergians have diverging views of the deliverances of introspection. According to the Cartesians, a rational subject, competent with the relevant concepts, can come to know that he or she thinks – hence, that he or she exists – on the sole basis of his or her introspective awareness of his or her conscious thinking. According to the Lichtenbergians, this is not possible. This paper offers a defence of the Lichtenbergian position using Peacocke and Campbell's recent exchange on Descartes'scogitoas (...) a framework for discussion. A thought-experiment will be presented involving two communities with radically different conceptions of the metaphysics of the self. The purpose of the thought-experiment is to suggest that a substantive metaphysical thesis, whose truth cannot be a priori known, is presupposed by any justified transition from one's introspective awareness of a certain mental activity to the self-ascription of that activity. (shrink)

Both within the climate movement and in academic circles, it has become common advice to avoid despair. Despair about the climate crisis is the opposite of hope and should be avoided on grounds of both rational aptness and pragmatic considerations. Despair about climate breakdown is only rationally apt if it is impossible for our actions to make a difference. As our actions do make a difference, despair is not a fitting response to climate change). Further, we have pragmatic reasons to (...) avoid despair as it leads to apathy and inaction about climate change. This chapter argues that despair is a rationally apt response to the climate crisis. Despair is a fitting response to the structural features of the climate crisis in terms of fragmentation of agency, making despair an accurate representation of a situation lacking agency. Despair is an important source of moral knowledge about the structure of the climate crisis, which is not automatically outweighed by pragmatic reasons and demanding to avoid despair can lead to affective injustice. The chapter closes with considerations of whether despair really does hinder moral imagination. (shrink)

The idea that humans should abandon their individuality and use technology to bind themselves together into hivemind societies seems both farfetched and frightening – something that is redolent of the worst dystopias from science fiction. In this article, we argue that these common reactions to the ideal of a hivemind society are mistaken. The idea that humans could form hiveminds is sufficiently plausible for its axiological consequences to be taken seriously. Furthermore, far from being a dystopian nightmare, the hivemind society (...) could be desirable and could enable a form of sentient flourishing. Consequently, we should not be so quick to deny it. We provide two arguments in support of this claim – the axiological openness argument and the desirability argument – and then defend it against three major objections. (shrink)

This article argues that access to meaningful sexual experience should be included within the set of the goods that are subject to principles of distributive justice. It argues that some people are currently unjustly excluded from meaningful sexual experience and it is not implausible to suggest that they might thereby have certain claim rights to sexual inclusion. This does not entail that anyone has a right to sex with another person, but it does entail that duties may be imposed on (...) society to foster greater sexual inclusion. This is a controversial thesis and this article addresses this controversy by engaging with four major objections to it: the misogyny objection; the impossibility objection; the stigmatisation objection; and the unjust social engineering objection. (shrink)

This is the revised version of an invited keynote lecture delivered at the "1st Australian Computing and Philosophy Conference". The paper is divided into two parts. The first part defends an informational approach to structural realism. It does so in three steps. First, it is shown that, within the debate about structural realism, epistemic and ontic structural realism are reconcilable. It follows that a version of OSR is defensible from a structuralist-friendly position. Second, it is argued that a version of (...) OSR is also plausible, because not all relata are logically prior to relations. Third, it is shown that a version of OSR is also applicable to both sub-observable and observable entities, by developing its ontology of structural objects in terms of informational objects. The outcome is informational structural realism, a version of OSR supporting the ontological commitment to a view of the world as the totality of informational objects dynamically interacting with each other. The paper has been discussed by several colleagues and, in the second half, ten objections that have been moved to the proposal are answered in order to clarify it further. (shrink)

This paper offers a defence of metaphysical naturalism, in the context of the Fine Tuning argument. Theistic objections to the Multiverse (MV) hypothesis are considered, specifically the claim that the MV hypothesis commits the Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy (IGF) and, as per the This Universe Objection (TUO), that it violates the Requirement of Total Evidence. It is argued that the IGF claim moved the goalposts when it comes to assessing the validity of the MV hypothesis. The Cosmic Slot Machine analogy will (...) be used to demonstrate how the This Universe Objection (TUO), fails to adequately account for the anthropic principle (or selection effect) and how the MV hyptothesis does satisfy the Requirement for Total Evidence. -/- With respect to the Naturalistic Single Universe (NSU), the implications of the ex-nihilonihil- fit principle, for evaluating the epistemic probability of a Life Permitting Universe (LPU)under the NSU hypothesis, are considered. It is argued that the ex nihilo nihil fit principle entails that an LPU is not improbable under the NSU hypothesis. (shrink)

The availability of the defence of belief in consent under section 265(4) is a question of law, subject to review on appeal. The statutory provision is based on the common law rule that applies to all defences. Consideration of the defence when it is unavailable in law and failure to consider it when it is available are both incorrect. A judge is most likely to avoid error when ruling on availability of the defence if the ruling: (1) is grounded on (...) sound analysis of the substantive basis for the defence and its relationship to the principles of criminal responsibility; and (2) uses precise legal criteria to govern practical application of section 265(4) to the evidence in specific cases. The guidelines proposed in Part I are based on analyses of the substantive defence and culpable awareness and were developed to ensure that appropriate criteria are properly used when section 265(4) is applied. When a trial judge rules that the defence is available in law, the trier of fact must determine whether the defence is available on the facts as found, based on the evidence in the case. The model jury instructions proposed in Part II are designed to ensure that deliberations by the trier of fact are also guided and shaped by appropriate legal criteria. At both stages, the objective is to ground the deliberation process on fact, not fiction, and to regulate the exculpatory effect of the defence by using legal norms to exclude excuses based on extra-legal considerations such as sexual/racial fantasy, stereotype and myth, or community attitudes and custom. (shrink)

I defend a weak version of the Pigou-Dalton principle for chances. The principle says that it is better to increase the survival chance of a person who is more likely to die rather than a person who is less likely to die, assuming that the two people do not differ in any other morally relevant respect. The principle justifies plausible moral judgements that standard ex post views, such as prioritarianism and rank-dependent egalitarianism, cannot accommodate. However, the principle can be justified (...) by the same reasoning that has recently been used to defend the core axiom of ex post prioritarianism and egalitarianism, namely, Pigou-Dalton for well-being. The arguably biggest challenge for proponents of Pigou-Dalton for chances is that it violates State Dominance for social prospects. However, I argue that we have independent reason for rejecting State Dominance for social prospects, since it prevents a social planner from properly respecting people's preferences. (shrink)

I suggest that the theories of remembering one finds in the philosophy of memory literature are best characterised as theories principally operating at three different levels of inquiry. Simulationist views are theories of the psychofunctional process type remembering. Causalist views are theories of referential remembering. Epistemic views are theories of successful remembering. Insofar as there is conflict between these theories, it is a conflict of integration rather than—as widely presented—head‐on disagreement. Viewed in this way, we can see the previous awareness (...) condition and preservationism as principles applying at only some of the corresponding levels of inquiry. Where either principle has been rejected, it is, I claim, due to arguments which slip between these different levels. While the view of the landscape I offer does not dissolve ongoing disputes about the nature of remembering, it clarifies the dialectical rules of engagement, helping to clear the path for future, collaborative progress to be made. The view enables us to see less conflict in the recent philosophy of memory literature than there seems at face value to be. (shrink)

Recent work in the philosophy of religion has resurrected Leibniz’s idea that there is a best possible world, perhaps ours. In particular, Klaas Kraay’s [2010] construction of a theistic multiverse and Nevin Climenhaga’s [2018] argument from infinite value theory are novel defenses of a best possible world. I do not think that there is a best world, and show how both Kraay and Climenhaga may be resisted. First, I argue that Kraay’s construction of a theistic multiverse can be resisted from (...) plausible assumptions about set theory. Next, I argue against the value-theoretic assumptions that underlie Climenhaga’s argument and show how to give an infinite value theory where there is no best world. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Co-parents who differ in their ideal child rearing policies should compromise, argues Marcus William Hunt. Josh Milburn and Carlo Alvaro dispute this when it comes to veganism. Milburn argues that veganism is a matter of justice and that to compromise over justice is (typically) impermissible. I suggest that compromise over justice is often permissible, and that compromise over justice may be required by justice itself. Alvaro offers aesthetic, gustatory, and virtue-based arguments for ethical veganism, showing that veganism involves sensibilities (...) and virtues, and argues that veganism involves a belief. Alvaro takes this to show that parental compromise is impermissible. I suggest that Alvaro’s arguments are implausible and that the shaping of a child’s sensibilities and virtues is an apt matter for parental compromise. (shrink)

Many contemporary philosophers rate error theories poorly. We identify the arguments these philosophers invoke, and expose their deficiencies. We thereby show that the prospects for error theory have been systematically underestimated. By undermining general arguments against all error theories, we leave it open whether any more particular arguments against particular error theories are more successful. The merits of error theories need to be settled on a case-by-case basis: there is no good general argument against error theories.

Intentionalism about demonstratives is the view that the referent of a demonstrative is determined solely by the speaker's intentions. Intentionalists can disagree about the nature of these intentions, but are united in rejecting the relevance of other factors, such as the speaker's gestures, her gaze, and any facts about the addressee or the audience. In this paper, I formulate a particular version of this view, and I defend it against six objections, old and new.

Many including Judith Jarvis Thomson, Philippa Foot, Peter Geach, Richard Kraut, and Paul Ziff have argued for good simpliciter skepticism. According to good simpliciter skepticism, we should hold that there is no concept of being good simpliciter or that there is no property of being good simpliciter. I first show that prima facie we should not accept either form of good simpliciter skepticism. I then show that all of the arguments that good simpliciter skeptics have proposed for their view fail (...) to show that we have good reason to accept good simpliciter skepticism. So, I show that we do not have good reason to accept good simpliciter skepticism. (shrink)