Faultless disagreement and faultless retraction have been taken to motivate relativism for predicates of personal taste, like ‘tasty’. Less attention has been devoted to the question of what aspect of their meaning underlies this relativist behavior. This paper illustrates these same phenomena with a new category of expressions: appearance predicates, like ‘tastes vegan’ and ‘looks blue’. Appearance predicates and predicates of personal taste both fall into the broader category of experiential predicates. Approaching predicates of personal taste from this angle suggests (...) that their relativist behavior is due to their experience-sensitivity, rather than their evaluative meaning. Furthermore, appearance predicates hold interest beyond what they can teach us about predicates of personal taste. Examination of a variety of uses of appearance predicates reveals that they give rise to relativist behavior for a variety of reasons—including some that apply also to other types of expressions, such as epistemic modals and comparative terms. This paper thus serves both to probe the source of relativist behavior in discourse about personal taste, as well as to map out this kind of behavior in the rich and under-explored discourse about appearances. (shrink)

Midwest Studies In Philosophy, Volume 44, Issue 1, Page 239-259, December 2019.

Johnston presents an argument for a form of immortality that divests the notion of any supernatural elements. The book is packed with illuminating philosophical reflection on the question of what we are, and what it is for us to persist over time.

In De Anima II.6, Aristotle divides the objects of perception into three kinds: “special perceptibles" (idia aisthêta) such as colours, sounds and flavours, which can be perceived in their own right by only one sense; “common perceptibles" (koina aisthêta) such as shapes, sizes and movements, which can be perceived in their own right by multiple senses; and “incidental perceptibles,” such as the son of Diares, which can be perceived only “incidentally” (kata sumbebêkos). In this paper, I examine this division of (...) perceptibles and consider what it amounts to. First, I argue that Aristotle’s distinction between perceiving something in its own right (kath' hauto) and perceiving it incidentally marks a causal distinction: what is perceived in its own right causes perception as such, whereas what is perceived incidentally coincides with what is perceived in its own right. Second, I argue that for Aristotle special perceptibles, unlike common perceptibles, belong to homogeneous bodies on account of their chemical composition. Finally, I explain the primacy Aristotle assigns to special perceptibles and his claim that perception of them alone is free from error. I conclude with some brief remarks on Aristotle and the primary/secondary quality distinction. (shrink)

Quelles sont les principales problématiques en émergence dans l’éthique de la santé publique ces 10 prochaines années? Se hasarder à prédire l’avenir nécessite toujours une certaine dose d’autodérision, mais les fondements des enjeux sur une échéance aussi proche sont en grande partie déjà présents. Ils peuvent être décrits à différents niveaux d’observation. Le premier de ces niveaux est technique : la santé publique recouvre toute une série d’interventions, dont la mise en œuvre rencontre des obstacles qui, pour certains, ont une (...) résonance éthique. Le deuxième niveau est philosophique et politique : la dimension collective des interventions de santé publique mobilise les débats généraux concernant la liberté individuelle d’une part, et la justice distributive d’autre part. Le troisième niveau est systémique : la santé de la population peut en effet être considérée comme une ressource faisant l’objet de tensions politiques dont la visibilité est pour le moment variable. Certes, l’idée que la santé du peuple est une richesse pour la nation remonte au Siècle des lumières (1). Néanmoins, prise dans les débat centrés sur l’individu et la collectivité, l’éthique de la santé publique peine davantage à concevoir parmi ses objets les tensions à l’œuvre entre différentes collectivités, certaines seulement comptant parmi leurs tâches la protection des biens communs dont fait partie la santé publique. (shrink)

What words we use, and what meanings they have, is important. We shouldn't use slurs; we should use 'rape' to include spousal rape (for centuries we didn’t); we should have a word which picks out the sexual harassment suffered by people in the workplace and elsewhere (for centuries we didn’t). Sometimes we need to change the word-meaning pairs in circulation, either by getting rid of the pair completely (slurs), changing the meaning (as we did with 'rape'), or adding brand new (...) word-meaning pairs (as with 'sexual harassment'). A problem, though, is how to do this. One might worry that any attempt to change language in this way will lead to widespread miscommunication and confusion. I argue that this is indeed so, but that's a feature, not a bug of attempting to change word-meaning pairs. The miscommunications and confusion such changes cause can lead us, via a process I call transformative communicative disruption, to reflect on our language and its use, and this can be further, rather than hinder, our goal of improving language. (shrink)

In 'On the nature of truth and falsehood' Russell offers both a multiple relation theory of judgment and a correspondence theory of truth. It has been a prevailing understanding of the Tractatus that Wittgenstein rejects Russell’s multiple relation idea but endorses the correspondence theory. Ramsey took the opposite view. In his 'Facts and Propositions', Ramsey endorses Russell’s multiple relation idea, rejects the correspondence theory, and then asserts that these moves are both due to Wittgenstein. This chapter will argue that Ramsey’s (...) ascriptions are both correct. The extent of the agreement between Ramsey and Wittgenstein will be argued, moreover, to count definitively against standard understandings of Ramsey as a redundancy theorist of truth. Wittgenstein is no correspondence theorist and Ramsey is no redundancy theorist; rather, both philosophers offer identity theories of truth. (shrink)

In Talking about, Unnsteinsson defends an intentionalist theory of reference by arguing that confused referential intentions degrade reference. Central to this project is a “belief model” of both identity confusion and unconfused thought. By appealing to a well‐known argument from Campbell, I argue that this belief model falls short, because it fails to explain the inferential behavior it promises to explain. Campbell's argument has been central in the contemporary literature on Frege's puzzle, but Unnsteinsson's account of confusion provides an opportunity (...) for more clarity about how the argument is best interpreted, and what it shows. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on picture theory, which is sometimes spoken of as a theory of the proposition. By a proposition, Wittgenstein like Frege means something that determines its sense by means of a correlation between the mode of combination of its constituent symbols and the structure of its sense. It has been an orthodoxy amongst Tractatus interpreters, and continues to be such in the wider philosophical community, that Wittgenstein follows the Russell in offering a correspondence theory of truth. The expression (...) of a Tractarian fact provides that fact's mode of combination, and from here there can be no further question as to the ontological types of its constituents. Tractarian facts, it is however added, are not truth conditions but items whose existence explains the obtaining of truth conditions: a Tractarian atomic fact is not a truth condition but a truthmaker. (shrink)

This concluding chapter of _Techno-Fixers: Origins and Implications of Technological Faith_ examines the widespread overconfidence in present-day and proposed 'technological fixes', and provides guidelines - social, ethical and technical - for soberly assessing candidate technological solutions for societal problems.

A joke is amusing if and only if it’s fitting to be amused by it; an act is regrettable if and only if it’s fitting to regret it. Many philosophers accept these biconditionals and hold that analogous ones obtain between a wide range of additional evaluative properties and the fittingness of corresponding responses. Call these the _fit–value biconditionals_. The biconditionals give us a systematic way of recognizing the role of fit in our ethical practices; they also serve as the bedrock (...) of various metaethical projects, such as fitting-attitude analysis of value and the ‘fittingness first’ approach. Yet despite the importance of the biconditionals, there is very little discussion of their proper interpretation. This paper argues that any plausible interpretation of the fit_–_value biconditionals must disarm several kinds of apparent counterexample. For instance, that an achievement is pride-worthy doesn’t imply it is fitting for me to take pride in it because the achievement might not be mine or that of anyone close to me; that a joke is amusing doesn’t imply it is fitting for me to be amused by it for six straight months; and that a person is loveable doesn’t imply it is fitting for me to love him romantically because that person might be my sibling. We consider possible responses to such counterexamples and develop what we consider the most promising interpretation of the biconditionals. The upshot is that certain widespread assumptions about fit and its relation to value and reasons should be reconsidered. (shrink)

Background Implicit biases are present in the general population and among professionals in various domains, where they can lead to discrimination. Many interventions are used to reduce implicit bias. However, uncertainties remain as to their effectiveness. -/- Methods We conducted a systematic review by searching ERIC, PUBMED and PSYCHINFO for peer-reviewed studies conducted on adults between May 2005 and April 2015, testing interventions designed to reduce implicit bias, with results measured using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) or sufficiently similar methods. (...) -/- Results 30 articles were identified as eligible. Some techniques, such as engaging with others’ perspective, appear unfruitful, at least in short term implicit bias reduction, while other techniques, such as exposure to counterstereotypical exemplars, are more promising. Robust data is lacking for many of these interventions. -/- Conclusions Caution is thus advised when it comes to programs aiming at reducing biases. This does not weaken the case for implementing widespread structural and institutional changes that are multiply justified. (shrink)

Aristotle is history’s most famous and influential proponent of the view that there are exactly five senses. But was he entitled to hold this view, given his other commitments? In particular, was he entitled to treat touch as a single sense, given the diversity of its correlated objects? In this paper I argue that Aristotle wished to individuate touch on the basis of its correlated objects, just as he had the other four senses. I also argue, contrary to what is (...) often supposed, that he was well-placed to do so, given his other commitments and views. (shrink)

It is envisioned that one day xenotransplantation will bring about a future where transplantable organs can be safely and efficiently grown in transgenic pigs to help meet the global organ shortage. While recent advances have brought this future closer, worries remain about whether it will be beneficial overall. The unique challenges and risks posed to humans that arise from transplanting across the species barrier, in addition to the costs borne by non-human animals, has led some to question the value of (...) xenotransplantation altogether. In response, we defend the value of xenotransplantation research, because it can satisfy stringent welfare conditions on the permissibility of animal research and use. Along the way, we respond to the alleged concerns, and conclude that they do not currently warrant a cessation or a curtailing of xenotransplantation research. (shrink)

1. Animal Cruelty Industrial farming is appallingly abusive to animals. Pigs. In America, nine-tenths of pregnant sows live in “gestation crates. ” These pens are so small that the animals can barely move. When the sows are first crated, they may flail around, in an attempt to get out. But soon they give up. Crated pigs often show signs of depression: they engage meaningless, repetitive behavior, like chewing the air or biting the bars of the stall. The sows live like (...) this for four months. Gestation crates will be phased out in Europe by the end of 2012, but they will still be used in America.1 In nature, pigs nurse their young for about thirteen weeks. But in industrial farms, piglets are taken from their mothers after about ten days. Because the piglets are weaned prematurely, they develop a lifelong craving to suck and chew. But the farmers don’t want them sucking and chewing on other pigs’ tails. So the growers routinely snip off the tails of all their pigs. They do this with a pair of pliers and no anesthetic. However, the whole tail is not removed; a tender stump remains. The point is to render the area sensitive, so the pigs being chewed on will fight back. Which they do.2 Over 113 million pigs are slaughtered each year in America.3 Typically, these pigs are castrated, their needle teeth are clipped, and one of their ears is notched for identification —all without pain relief.4 In nature, pigs spend up to three quarters of their waking hours foraging and exploring their environment.5 But in the factory farms, “tens of thousands of hogs spend their entire lives ignorant of earth or straw or sunshine, crowded together beneath a metal roof standing on metal slats suspended over a septic tank. ”6 Bored, and in constant pain, the pigs must perpetually inhale the fumes of their own waste. These pigs often get sick, and their ill health is exacerbated by the overcrowding. In 2000, the U.S. Department of Agriculture compared hog farms containing over 10,000 pigs—which is the norm—with farms containing under 2,000 pigs. (shrink)

In Republic 8–9, Socrates describes four main kinds of vicious people, all of whose souls are “ruled” by an element other than reason, and in some of whom reason is said to be “enslaved.” What role does reason play in such souls? In this paper, I argue, based on Republic 8–9 and related passages, and in contrast to some common alternative views, that for Plato the “enslavement” of reason consists in this: instead of determining for itself what is good, reason (...) is forced to desire and pursue as good a goal determined by the soul’s ruler. (shrink)

It has become popular of late to identify the phenomenon of thinking a singular thought with that of thinking with a mental file. Proponents of the mental files conception of singular thought claim that one thinks a singular thought about an object o iff one employs a mental file to think about o. I argue that this is false by arguing that there are what I call descriptive mental files, so some file-based thought is not singular thought. Descriptive mental files (...) are mental files for which descriptive information plays four roles: determines which object the file is about, if any, it sets limits on possible mistakes that fall within the scope of successful reference for the file, it acts as a ‘gatekeeper’ for the file, and it determines persistence conditions for the file. Contrary to popular assumption, a description playing these roles is consistent with the file-theoretic framework. Recognising this allows us to distinguish the notion of singular thought from that of file-thinking and better understand the nature and role of both. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider how each of the four main kinds of corrupt person described in Plato's Republic, Books 8-9, first comes to be. Certain passages in these books can give the impression that each person is able to determine, by a kind of rational choice, the overall government of his/her soul. However, I argue, this impression is mistaken. Upon careful examination, the text of books 8 and 9 overwhelmingly supports an alternative interpretation. According to this view, the eventual (...) government of each person’s soul is decided by a struggle for power occurring within the person, among the soul’s parts, the outcome of which is determined by the relative strength and alignment of the competing parties. If this interpretation is correct, Plato adheres more closely to the city-soul analogy in these passages than has sometimes been thought. The ultimate origins of vice in the soul are also seen to lie squarely in upbringing and education, not in a mistaken choice of life. (shrink)

Aristotle claims, in his Nicomachean Ethics, that in addition to being, for example, just and courageous, and temperate, the virtuous person will also be witty. Very little sustained attention, however, has been devoted to explicating what Aristotle means when he claims that virtuous persons are witty or to justifying the plausibility of the claim that wittiness is a virtue. It becomes especially difficult to see why Aristotle thinks that being witty is a virtue once it becomes clear that Aristotle’s witty (...) person engages in what he calls ‘educated insolence’. Insolence, for Aristotle, is a form of slighting which, as he explains in the Rhetoric, generally causes the person slighted to experience shame and anger. In this paper, I attempt to bring some clarity to Aristotle’s claim that being witty is a virtue by examining why Aristotle thinks that the object of a witty person’s raillery will find this joking pleasant. (shrink)

This paper has a narrow and a broader target. The narrow target is a particular version of what I call the mental-files conception of singular thought, proposed by Robin Jeshion, and known as cognitivism. The broader target is the MFC in general. I give an argument against Jeshion's view, which gives us preliminary reason to reject the MFC more broadly. I argue Jeshion's theory of singular thought should be rejected because the central connection she makes between significance and singularity does (...) not hold. However, my argument grants Jeshion's claim that there is a connection between significance and file-thinking. The upshot is not only that we have reason to reject Jeshion's significance constraint on singular thought, but that we have reason to question the connection made by MFC proponents between file-thinking and singularity. (shrink)

We offer an interpretation of the mental files framework that eliminates the metaphor of files, information being contained in files, etc. The guiding question is whether, once we move beyond the metaphors, there is any theoretical role for files. We claim not. We replace the file-metaphor with two theses: the semantic thesis that there are irreducibly relational representational facts (viz. facts about the coordination of representations); and the metasemantic thesis that processes tied to information-relations ground those facts. In its canonical (...) statement, the ‘file’-theory makes reference to a certain kind of relational representational feature, and a certain kind of mental activity. Mental files need not come into it. In short, we posit mental filing without mental files. Our interpretation avoids awkward problems that arise on the standard interpretation and clarifies the explanatory commitments of the theory. (shrink)

This discussion emphasises the diversity, philosophical seriousness and methodological distinctiveness of sophistic thought. Particular attention is given to their views on language, ethics, and the social construction of various norms, as well as to their varied, often undogmatic dialectical methods. The assumption that the sophists must have shared common doctrines (not merely overlapping interests and professional practices) is called into question.

This paper is about the relevance of attitude-ascriptions to debates about singular thought. It examines a methodology (common to early acquaintance theorists [Kaplan 1968] and recent critics of acquaintance [Hawthorne and Manley 2012], which assumes that the behaviour of ascriptions can be used to draw conclusions about singular thought. Although many theorists (e.g. [Recanati 2012]) reject this methodology, the literature lacks a detailed examination of its implications and the challenges faced by proponents and critics. I isolate an assumption of the (...) methodology, which I call the tracking assumption: that an attitude-ascription which states that s Φ's that P is true iff s has an attitude, of Φ-ing, which is an entertaining of the content P (with entertain used in a stipulated sense). I argue that the tracking assumption must be rejected, not because it has deflationary consequences, but because it leads to unstable commitments. I also show that there are independent reasons to reject it, because ordinary attitude ascriptions underdetermine even the truth-conditions of the mental-states they ascribe. However, I argue, this does not involve rejecting the claim that attitude-ascriptions express relations between agents and contents. Instead, they state different relations depending on contextual factors other than the nature of the mental-states ascribed. (shrink)

Aristotle sometimes claims that the perception of special perceptibles by their proper sense is unerring. This claim is striking, since it might seem that we quite often misperceive things like colours, sounds and smells. Aristotle also claims that the perception of common perceptibles is more prone to error than the perception of special perceptibles. This is puzzling in its own right, and also places constraints on the interpretation of. I argue that reading Alexander of Aphrodisias on perceptual error can help (...) to make good sense of both of Aristotle’s claims. (shrink)

Formal clinical trials of pig-to-human organ transplant—known as xenotransplantation—may begin this decade, with the first trials likely to consist of either adult renal transplants or pediatric cardiac transplant patients. Xenotransplantation as a systematic scientific study only reaches back to the latter half of the 20th century, with episodic xenotransplantation events occurring prior to that. As the science of xenotransplantation has progressed in the 20th and 21st centuries, the public's knowledge of the potential therapy has also increased. With this, there have (...) been shifting ethical stances toward xenotransplantation in key areas, such as religious and public viewpoints towards xenotransplantation, animal rights, and public health concerns. This review provides a historical–ethical account of xenotransplantation and details if or how viewpoints have shifted over time. (shrink)

Kant is often considered a key figure in a modern transition from social and political systems based on honour to those based on dignity, where “honour” is understood as a hierarchical measure of social value, and “dignity” is understood as the inherent and equal worth of every individual. The essay provides a richer account of Kant’s contribution to the “politics of equal dignity” by examining his understanding of dignity and honour, and the interaction between these concepts. The essay argues that (...) Kant appeals to multiple varieties of dignity and honour, that he does not reject honour in favour of dignity, and that he sees some versions of honour as conducive to respect for dignity. Furthermore, the complexity of Kant’s views on dignity and honour has implications for the theory and practice of human rights in the current day. (shrink)

The so-called ‘mental files theory’ in the philosophy of mind stems from an analogy comparing object-concepts to ‘files’, and the mind to a ‘filing system’. Though this analogy appears in philosophy of mind and language from the 1970s onward, it remains unclear to many how it should be interpreted. The central commitments of the mental files theory therefore also remain unclear. Based on influential uses of the file analogy within philosophy, I elaborate three central explanatory roles for mental files. Next, (...) I outline several common criticisms of the file picture, which have been a source of resistance to the view. Finally, I outline several interpretations of the theory, thus highlighting that the best interpretation of the file-theory's central analogy remains a live issue. (shrink)

I argue that we are sometimes morally responsible for having and using (or not using) our concepts, despite the fact that we generally do not choose to have them or have full or direct voluntary control over how we use them. I do so by extending an argument of Angela Smith's; the same features that she says make us morally responsible for some of our attitudes also make us morally responsible for some of our concepts. Specifically, like attitudes, concepts can (...) be (a) conceptually and rationally connected to our evaluative judgments, (b) in principle subject to rational revision (reasons‐responsive), and (c) the basis for actual and potential moral assessments of people that we have good reasons to endorse. Thus, we are open to moral appraisal on the basis of having and using (or not using) our concepts when they reflect our evaluative judgments, though even then it is not always appropriate to praise or blame us on that basis. (shrink)

(1) In the first part of this paper, I review Chomsky's meandering journey from the formalism/mentalism of Syntactic Structures, through several methodological positions, to the minimalist theory of his latest work. Infected with mentalism from first to last, each and every position vitiates Chomsky's repeated claims that his theories will provide useful guidance to later theories in such fields as cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. With the guidance of his insights, he claims, psychologists and neuroscientists will be able to avoid (...) costly dead-end lines of research. -/- (2) This never happened. As I have shown, this never could have happened. (See Johnston, 2018). What has happened, instead, is that current neurolinguistic research (with the arguable exception of the now-dated Lemma Model of Willem Levelt) proceeds without reference to Chomsky. It also wholeheartedly rejects the mentalism of the associated Language of Thought theory of Jerry Fodor. (See Johnston, 2018). -/- (3) I make this argument in the first part of this paper. I would also like to point out that most of my argument was developed in 1972, when I was a graduate student. I know of no other sustained criticisms of Chomsky at that time, and certainly none along the lines I had developed back then. -/- (4) In the second part of this paper, I present my own account of the methodology of science. When I was a graduate student, philosophy of science was dominated by an attempt to describe a methodology common to all the specific sciences, i.e. Hempel’s deductive-nomological model. These days, Hempel’s emphasis on the methodological unity of science has been rejected by such “dis-unity” philosophers of science as Ian Hacking, Patrick Suppes and Nancy Cartwright (see Cat, 2021). -/- (5) I view this change as the swing of a pendulum or, to change the metaphor, a journey from one end point of a continuum to another. As the level of abstraction at which one tries to describe scientific method is raised, the descriptions become increasingly general. Whether or not unity-of-science theories become so general as to be vacuous, is ultimately a subjective judgment. And so I expect that philosophers will eventually become tired of increasingly specific “close to the workbench” descriptions of how scientists work, and begin to turn back to methodological “big pictures”, finding in them powerful abstractions rather than empty irrelevancies. -/- (6) In the second part of this paper, I present my own account of the methodology of science, which I would situate somewhere between the “unity” and “dis-unity” accounts. However, I am not a scientist. My own views about scientific method have three origins: -/- (6a) my work as a graduate student from 1966 until I passed my comprehensive exams in 1973 (at a different university); -/- (6b) reading every issue of Scientific American from 1972 until nearly 2000, (at which point I continued to read it only sporadically, since I concluded that, around that time, it had evolved from a serious science magazine to a popular science magazine); and -/- (6c) my three-year immersion in the cognitive neuroscience of language after I retired, based on repeated study of and note-taking for (Banesh & Compton, 2018), (Kemmerer, 2015), several other books and, finally, numerous articles not hidden behind a paywall. -/- So, as always with my writings: caveat emptor. (shrink)

A thesis I call the name-based singular thought thesis is part of orthodoxy in contemporary philosophy of mind and language: it holds that taking part in communication involving a proper name puts one in a position to entertain singular thoughts about the name’s referent. I argue, first, that proponents of the NBT thesis have failed to explain the phenomenon of name-based singular thoughts, leaving it mysterious how name-use enables singular thoughts. Second, by outlining the reasoning that makes the NBT thesis (...) seem compelling and showing how it can be resisted, I argue that giving up the NBT thesis is not a cost, but rather a benefit. I do this by providing an expanded conception of understanding for communication involving names, which sheds light on the nature of communication involving names and the structure of name-using practices. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a new solution to the old problem of how best to understand the meaning of the word ‘logos’ in the extant writings of Heraclitus, especially in fragments DK B1, B2 and B50. On the view I defend, Heraclitus was neither using the word in a perfectly ordinary way in these fragments, as some have maintained, nor denoting by it some kind of general principle or law governing change in the cosmos, as many have claimed. Rather, (...) I argue, Heraclitus deliberately traded on the ordinary use of the word in his time (to refer to a written or spoken presentation of things as ‘thus and so’) to denote the world’s constant presentation of itself as ‘thus and so’ to all of us in our experience – a kind of cosmic self-revelation. I show how this captures the sense in which ‘the logos’ is said to be ‘common’ (xunos) and to be the kind of thing most people fail to comprehend even before hearing Heraclitus’ own account, all without detaching Heraclitus’ use of the word from its ordinary contemporary meaning. This interpretation suggests Heraclitus was a thinker more centrally concerned with human (mis)understanding than with speculative cosmology. (shrink)

Following Freud’s analysis of the fragile line between the uncanny double and its comic redoubling, I identify the doubling of the double found in critical moments of Hegelian dialectic as producing a kind of comic effect. It almost goes without saying that two provides greater pleasure than one, the loneliest number. Many also find two to be preferable to three, the tired trope of dialectic as a teleological waltz. Two seems to offer lightness, relieving one from her loneliness and lacking (...) the complications of a third who comes in between. And yet, we learn through Marx and Freud that the double (even the double of tragedy and farce) borders on something closer to horror than comedy. -/- In the following, I would like to explore why four is funnier than two in my staging of dialectic as the doubling of the double or, to borrow a movie title from Laurel and Hardy, “Twice Two” (Roach et al. 1933a). I will begin by exploring the formulations of the double in the form of a pair of opposites and in the form of a pair of twins. The literary tropes of the double as the odd couple, on one side, and the twins, on the other, appear to serve very different narrative functions, which incite different kinds of affective responses from the audience. However, the form of the opposed double sometimes conceals the realization that the empty or fragmented content of the first is only reduplicated in the second. The “straight man” of the odd couple cannot see himself in his counterpart “the comic.” The redoubling of the double, however, forces not only the audience, but the original double on stage to confront what was already present, but unrealized, from the beginning. To illustrate this redoubling of the double within the opening of Hegel’s Science of Logic, I consider two short films by Laurel and Hardy in which the comic duo redoubles itself. The formula (2 x 2) produces a comic excess through the dialectical redoubling of there uncanny double. (shrink)

The sense of smell occupies a peculiar intermediate position within Aristotle's theory of sense perception: odours, like colours and sounds, are perceived at a distance through an external medium of air or water; yet in their nature they are intimately related to flavours, the proper objects of taste, which for Aristotle is a form of touch. In this paper, I examine Aristotle's claims about odour and smell, especially in De Anima II.9 and De Sensu 5, to see what light they (...) shed on his theory of sense perception more generally. In the first half, I argue that neither of the two most influential recent ways of understanding Aristotle's theory of perception can adequately account for what he says about the sense of smell. In the second half, I offer my own positive account, considering and resolving various puzzles raised by Aristotle's claims about the nature of odour and its relation to flavour. Finally, I conclude that Aristotle's discussions of odour and smell suggest a plausible and interesting way of understanding the relationship, on his view, between ordinary, material changes in the sense organs and the activation of the capacity to perceive, considered merely as such. (shrink)

In this paper I consider two related issues raised by Aristotle 's treatment of hearing and sounds. The first concerns the kinds of changes Aristotle takes to occur, in both perceptual medium and sense organs, when a perceiver hears a sounding object. The second issue concerns Aristotle 's views on the nature and location of the proper objects of auditory perception. I argue that Aristotle 's views on these topics are not what they have sometimes been taken to be, and (...) that when rightly understood they compare favourably in many respects with leading contemporary accounts. (shrink)

The Knowledge Account of Assertion (KAA) says that knowledge is the norm of assertion: you may assert a proposition only if you know that it’s true. The primary support for KAA is an explanatory inference from a broad range of linguistic data. The more data that KAA well explains, the stronger the case for it, and the more difficult it is for the competition to keep pace. In this paper we critically assess a purported new linguistic datum, which, it has (...) been argued, KAA well explains. We argue that KAA does not well explain it. (shrink)

In book 9 of Plato's Republic, Socrates describes the nature and origins of the ‘tyrannical man’, whose soul is said to be ‘like’ a tyrannical city. In this paper, I examine the nature of the ‘government’ that exists within the tyrannical man's soul. I begin by demonstrating the inadequacy of three potentially attractive views sometimes found in the literature on Plato: the view that the tyrannical man's soul is ruled by his ‘lawless’ unnecessary appetites, the view that it is ruled (...) by sexual desire, and the view that it is ruled by a lust for power. I then present my own account. On the view I defend, the tyrannical man's soul is to be understood as ruled by a single, persistent, powerful desire for bodily pleasure: as much as he can get, and however he can get it. Finally, I show how understanding the tyrannical man's soul in the way I recommend helps resolve some commonly expressed concerns about this part of the Republic. I suggest, on this basis, that Plato's procedure in constructing his catalogue o.. (shrink)

On technical and social origins of telephone usage in Scotland.

This paper discusses the implications for public participation in science opened by the sharing of information via electronic media. The ethical dimensions of information flow and control are linked to questions of autonomy, authority and appropriate exploitation of knowledge. It argues that, by lowering the boundaries that limit access and participation by wider active audiences, both scientific identity and practice are challenged in favor of extra-disciplinary and avocational communities such as scientific enthusiasts and lay experts. Reconfigurations of hierarchy, mediated by (...) new channels of information flow, are increasingly visible at the interface between professional and non-professional practice. Setting the scene by surveying the role of the media in defining twentieth-century contexts of lay science, the paper illustrates the appropriation and recuperation of scientific authority being played out in two contemporary models of active public engagement: so-called “citizen science” and varieties of “crowd-sourced science”. Both participatory models are increasingly reliant on information exchange via social media, but may be implemented to support distinctly different societal goals and beneficiaries. (shrink)

Pyrrhonian sceptics claim, notoriously, to assent to the appearances without making claims about how things are. To see whether this is coherent we need to consider the philosophical history of ‘appearance’(phainesthai)-talk, and the closely related concept of an impression (phantasia). This history suggests that the sceptics resemble Plato in lacking the ‘non-epistemic’ or ‘non-doxastic’ conception of appearance developed by Aristotle and the Stoics. What is distinctive about the Pyrrhonian sceptic is simply that the degree of doxastic commitment involved in his (...) assent to an impression is asymptotally low. (shrink)

A new reading of Plato's account of conventionalism about names in the Cratylus. It argues that Hermogenes' position, according to which a name is whatever anybody 'sets down' as one, does not have the counterintuitive consequences usually claimed. At the same time, Plato's treatment of conventionalism needs to be related to his treatment of formally similar positions in ethics and politics. Plato is committed to standards of objective natural correctness in all such areas, despite the problematic consequences which, as he (...) himself shows, arise in the case of language. (shrink)

Simple claims with the verb ‘seem’, as well as the specific sensory verbs, ‘look’, ‘sound’, etc., require the speaker to have some relevant kind of perceptual acquaintance (Pearson, 2013; Ninan, 2014). But different forms of these reports differ in their perceptual requirements. For example, the copy raising (CR) report, ‘Tom seems like he’s cooking’ requires the speaker to have seen Tom, while its expletive subject (ES) variant, ‘It seems like Tom is cooking’, does not (Rogers, 1972; Asudeh and Toivonen, 2012). (...) This contrast has led some theorists to hold that the matrix subject in CR constructions is uniformly interpreted as the perceptual source (p-source) (Asudeh and Toivonen, 2012; Rett and Hyams, 2014). Others, based on examples of CR reports that seem not to require perception of the referent of the matrix subject, have taken the p-source interpretation instead to be non-uniform across CR reports (Landau, 2011; Doran, 2015). We reconsider these theoretical approaches to copy raising in light of new experimental work probing the sensitivity of these requirements to the matrix verb, the embedded ‘like’-clause, and the context. While we find some motivation for a non-uniform p-source analysis, it comes from importantly different cases than those others have relied on. Furthermore, our findings cast doubt on the prevalent assumption that the perceptual requirements of CR reports are to be captured solely by the presence or absence of the p-source interpretation. We suggest that the data motivating a non-uniform p-source view are better captured by an alternative approach, which makes use of a more minimal evidential source role, in place of the perceptual source role. We close by considering the relationship between English copy raising and evidential constructions cross-linguistically. (shrink)

Can we feel emotions about abstract objects, assuming that abstract objects exist? I argue that at least some emotions can have abstract objects as their intentional objects and discuss why this conclusion is not just trivially true. Through critical engagement with the work of Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt, I devote special attention to awe, an emotion that is particularly well suited to show that some emotions can be about either concrete or abstract objects. In responding to a possible objection, (...) according to which we can only feel emotions about things that we take to matter to our flourishing, and thus cannot feel emotions about causally inefficacious abstract objects, I explore how abstract objects can be relevant to human flourishing and discuss someemotions other than awe that can be about abstract objects. I finish by explaining somereasons why my conclusion matters, including the fact that it presents a challenge to perceptual theories of emotion and causal theories of intentionality. (shrink)

A turn from the “whither” to the “whence” of anarchism is at stake in Catherine Malabou’s interpretation of Latin American decolonial theory. This is a turn from a materialist philosophy that seeks to open the space of anarchism within the modern state toward one that discerns anarchism as already operative in the modern state given the social implications of colonial legacies. In tracing this turn, I propose a development of Malabou’s work insofar as I put her in dialogue with María (...) Lugones, who is much closer to Malabou than the more canonical decolonial figures she actively engages, especially in view of anarchism as a form of social–political plasticity. Understanding Lugones’ critique of earlier iterations of decolonial theory helps make explicit an immanent anarchic resistance to domination as an explosive inhabitation of everyday loci of tension. (shrink)

A generally ignored feature of Plato’s celebrated image of the cave in Republic VII is that the ascent from the cave is, in its initial stages, said to be brought about by force. What kind of ‘force’ is this, and why is it necessary? This paper considers three possible interpretations, and argues that each may have a role to play.