In this paper, I defend Rudolf Carnap's Principle of Tolerance from an accusation, due to Michael Friedman, that it is self-defeating by prejudicing any debate towards the logically stronger theory. In particular, Friedman attempts to show that Carnap's reconstruction of the debate between classicists and intuitionists over the foundations of mathematics in his book The Logical Syntax of Language, is biased towards the classical standpoint since the metalanguage he constructs to adjudicate between the rival positions is fully classical. (...) I argue that this criticism is mistaken on two counts: (1) it fails to fully appreciate the freedom with regard to the construction of linguistic frameworks that Carnap intended his Principle to embody, and (2) Friedman's objection underestimates the extent to which the evaluation of a framework is task-relative. I conclude that Tolerance is not self-undermining in the way that Friedman claims it is. While this is a restricted conclusion -- and is not a vindication of Carnap's views on logic and mathematics tout court -- it nonetheless suggests that his tolerant perspective has been dismissed too quickly, even by his supporters. (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)

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)

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)

Scientific disagreements are an important catalyst for scientific progress. But what happens when scientists disagree amidst times of crisis, when we need quick yet reliable policy guidance? In this paper we provide a normative account for how scientists facing disagreement in the context of ‘fast science’ should respond, and how policy makers should evaluate such disagreement. Starting from an argumentative, pragma-dialectic account of scientific controversies, we argue for the importance of ‘higher-order evidence’ (HOE) and we specify desiderata for scientifically relevant (...) HOE. We use our account to analyze the controversy about the aerosol transmission of COVID-19. (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)

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)

Socrates' aim in the Republic is to show that being just is crucial for happiness. In Republic IV, Socrates argues that the just individual is one in whom each part of the soul or psyche performs its proper function, with the result that the individual attains psychic harmony. Commentators have worried, however, that this account of what it is to be just has little to do with being just in the ordinary sense of the term, which involves acting with regard (...) for the good of others. In this essay, I describe three attempts to show that there is a connection between Socrates' account of justice and justice in the ordinary sense of the term and I raise criticisms of each. I then outline my own approach, which emphasizes the importance of good relations with others for happiness. (shrink)

The appearance of consciousness in the universe remains one of the major mysteries unsolved by science or philosophy. Absent an agreed-upon definition of consciousness or even a convenient system to test theories of consciousness, a confusing heterogeneity of theories proliferate. In pursuit of clarifying this complicated discourse, we here interpret various frameworks for the scientific and philosophical study of consciousness through the lens of social insect evolutionary biology. To do so, we first discuss the notion of a forward test versus (...) a reverse test, analogous to the normal and revolutionary phases of the scientific process. Contemporary theories of consciousness are forward tests for consciousness, in that they strive to become a means to classify the level of consciousness of arbitrary states and systems. Yet no such theory of consciousness has earned sufficient confidence such that it might be actually used as a forward test in ambiguous settings. What is needed now is thus a legitimate reverse test for theories of consciousness, to provide internal and external calibration of different frameworks. A reverse test for consciousness would ideally look like a method for referencing theories of consciousness to a tractable model system. We introduce the Ant Colony Test as a rigorous reverse test for consciousness. We show that social insect colonies, though disaggregated collectives, fulfill many of the prerequisites for conscious awareness met by humans and honey bee workers. A long lineage of philosophically-neutral neurobehavioral, evolutionary, and ecological studies on social insect colonies can thus be redeployed for the study of consciousness in general. We suggest that the ACT can provide insight into the nature of consciousness, and highlight the ant colony as a model system for ethically performing clarifying experiments about consciousness. (shrink)

This paper defends the Intention Account of Inquiry. On this account, inquiry is best understood by appeal to a ‘question-directed intention’ (QDI), an intention to answer a question broadly construed. This account’s core commitments help meet recent challenges plaguing extant approaches to characterizing inquiry. First, QDIs are the type of mental state central to inquiry, not attitudes like curiosity or wonder. Second, holding a QDI towards a question and acting in service of it constitutes the start of inquiry. Third, controversial (...) norms which mandate a rational inquirer's ignorance towards the answer to her question can be reformulated and defended by appeal to rational constraints on intention. Fourth, instrumental pressures inquirers face are the standard pressures of plan-rationality. In defending these theses, I show that the Intention Account provides compelling explanations to standing challenges, in ways competitors cannot. It does so by advancing understanding of how our epistemic and practical agency are intertwined. (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)

Assertions about appearances license inferences about the speaker's perceptual experience. For instance, if I assert, 'Tom looks like he's cooking', you will infer both that I am visually acquainted with Tom (what I call the "individual acquaintance inference"), and that I am visually acquainted with evidence that Tom is cooking (what I call the "evidential acquaintance inference"). By contrast, if I assert, 'It looks like Tom is cooking', only the latter inference is licensed. I develop an account of the acquaintance (...) inferences of appearance assertions building on two main previous lines of research: first, the copy raising literature, which has aimed to account for individual acquaintance inferences through the "perceptual source" semantic role; second, the subjectivity literature, which has focused on the status of acquaintance inferences with predicates of personal taste, but hasn't given much attention to the added complexities introduced by appearance language. I begin by developing what I take to be the most empirically-sound version of a perceptual source analysis. I then show how its insights can be maintained, while however taking anything about perception out of the truth conditions of appearance sentences. This, together with the assumption that appearance assertions express experiential attitudes, allows us to capture the acquaintance inferences of bare appearance assertions without making incorrect predictions about the behavior of appearance verbs in embedded environments. (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)

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)

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)

On the traditional relationalist conception of singular thought, a thought has singular content when it is based on an ‘information relation’ to its object. Recent work rejects relationalism and suggests singular thoughts are distinguished from descriptive thoughts by their inferential role: only thoughts with singular content can be employed in ‘direct’ inferences, or inferences that ‘trade on identity’. Firstly this view is insufficiently clear, because it conflates two distinct ideas—one about a kind of inference, the other a kind of process (...) that grounds inferences—under the title, ‘trading on identity’. Secondly, this leaves us without a notion that can be used as an alternative to relationalism about singular thought. The first notion is no more applicable to singular than to descriptive thought. The second may help us better understand singular thought, but does so, not by replacing the view that singular thoughts are information-based, but by helping us understand the nature of information-based thought. (shrink)

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)

We report a series of experiments examining whether people ascribe knowledge for true beliefs based on probabilistic evidence. Participants were less likely to ascribe knowledge for beliefs based on probabilistic evidence than for beliefs based on perceptual evidence or testimony providing causal information. Denial of knowledge for beliefs based on probabilistic evidence did not arise because participants viewed such beliefs as unjustified, nor because such beliefs leave open the possibility of error. These findings rule out traditional philosophical accounts for why (...) probabilistic evidence does not produce knowledge. The experiments instead suggest that people deny knowledge because they distrust drawing conclusions about an individual based on reasoning about the population to which it belongs, a tendency previously identified by “judgment and decision making” researchers. Consistent with this, participants were more willing to ascribe knowledge for beliefs based on probabilistic evidence that is specific to a particular case. 2016 APA, all rights reserved). (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)

We should give courage a more significant place in our understanding of how familiar virtues can and should be reshaped to capture what it is to be virtuous relative to the environment. Matthew Pianalto’s account of moral courage helps explain what a specifically environmental form of moral courage would look like. There are three benefits to be gained by recognizing courage as an environmental virtue: it helps us to recognize the high stakes nature of much environmental activism and to act (...) accordingly; it can make environmental activism more appealing to a broader audience by helping us dismantle stereotypes associated with environmentalism, including sexist and homophobic ones; and it aides in the de-militarization of the concept of courage. (shrink)

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)

Conceptual engineering involves revising our concepts. It can be pursued as a specific philosophical methodology, but is also common in ordinary, non-philosophical, contexts. How does our capacity for conceptual engineering fit into human cognitive life more broadly? I hold that conceptual engineering is best understood alongside practices of conceptual exploration, examples of which include conceptual supposition (i.e., suppositional reasoning about alternative concepts), and conceptual comparison (i.e., comparisons between possible concept choices). Whereas in conceptual engineering we aim to change the concepts (...) we use, in conceptual exploration, we reason about conceptual possibilities. I approach conceptual exploration via the linguistic tools we use to communicate about concepts, using metalinguistic negotiation, convention-shifting conditionals, and metalinguistic comparatives as my key examples. I present a linguistic framework incorporating conventions that can account for this communication in a unified way. Furthermore, I argue that conceptual exploration helps undermine skepticism about conceptual engineering itself. (shrink)

In the Republic, Plato argues that the soul has three distinct parts or elements, each an independent source of motivation: reason, spirit, and appetite. In this paper, I argue against a prevalent interpretation of the motivations of the spirited part and offer a new account. Numerous commentators argue that the spirited part motivates the individual to live up to the ideal of being fine and honorable, but they stress that the agent's conception of what is fine and honorable is determined (...) by social norms. I argue that while it is correct to hold that spirit aims to be fine and honorable, it is not the case that the agent’s conception of what it is to be fine and honorable is determined by social norms. Instead, there is a fact of the matter about what it is to be fine and honorable, and it is this fact that shapes the individual’s conception of the fine and honorable. I argue that being fine and honorable involves living up to your rational views about how you should behave, despite appetitive temptations to the contrary. I claim that this condition of the soul is the basis of a variety of interrelated admirable traits, some with moral and others with aesthetic connotations. (shrink)

Here I call attention to a class of desires that I call exclusionary desires. To have an exclusionary desire is to desire something under a description such that, were the desire satisfied, it would be logically impossible for people other than the desiring subject to possess the desired object. Assuming that we are morally responsible for our desires insofar as and because they reflect our evaluative judgments and are in principle subject to rational revision, I argue that we should, morally (...) speaking, alter both social structures and our individual psychologies to minimize, or at least substantially reduce, exclusionary desires. (shrink)

This paper considers ethical concerns with regard to replacing human relations with humanoid robots. Many have written about the impact that certain types of relations with robots may have on us, and why we should be concerned about robots replacing human relations. There has, however, been no consideration of this issue from an African philosophical perspective. Ubuntu philosophy provides a novel perspective on how relations with robots may impact our own moral character and moral development. This paper first discusses what (...) humanoid robots are, why and how humans tend to anthropomorphise them, and what the literature says about robots crowding out human relations. It then explains the ideal of becoming “fully human”, which pertains to being particularly moral in character. In ubuntu philosophy, we are not only biologically human, but must strive to become better, more moral versions of ourselves, to become fully human. We can become fully human by having other regarding traits or characteristics within the context of interdependent, or humane, relationships (such as by exhibiting human equality, reciprocity, or solidarity). This concept of becoming fully human is important in ubuntu philosophy. Having explained that idea, the main argument of the paper is then put forward: that treating humanoid robots as if they are human is morally concerning if they crowd out human relations, because such relations prevent us from becoming fully human. This is because we cannot experience human equality, solidarity, and reciprocity with robots, which can be seen to characterise interdependent, or humane, relations with human beings. (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)

In theoretical work about the language of personal taste, the canonical example is the simple predicate of personal taste, 'tasty'. We can also express the same positive gustatory evaluation with the complex expression, 'taste good'. But there is a challenge for an analysis of 'taste good': While it can be used equivalently with 'tasty', it need not be (for instance, imagine it used by someone who can identify good wines by taste but doesn't enjoy them). This kind of two-faced behavior (...) systematically arises with complex sensory-evaluative predicates, including those with other appearance verbs, such as 'look splendid' and 'sound nice'. I examine two strategies for capturing these different uses: one that posits an ambiguity in appearance verbs, and one that does not. The former is in line with an approach to 'look'-statements prominent in work in philosophy of perception, and I consider how the motivation given in that tradition carries over to the present context. I then show how the data used to support the verbal ambiguity approach can equally be captured on the second strategy, which appeals only to independently-motivated flexibility in adjective meaning. I close by discussing some considerations that are relevant for choosing between the two options. (shrink)

This paper attributes to Nietzsche a theory of cultural development according to which pyramid societies—steeply hierarchical societies following a unified morality—systematically alternate with motley societies, which emerge when pyramid societies encounter other cultures or allow their strict mores to relax. Motley societies contain multiple value systems due to individual innovation or intercultural contact, and are less stringent in dictating individuals' roles. Consequently, many people are torn between incompatible values and lack direction, so they are drawn to a morality of mediocrity, (...) which offers the modest goals of comfort and conformity. However, the need to mediate between conflicting values also tends to yield exceptional individuals who create new values, and can reshape the society into a new pyramid society governed by those values. I argue that Nietzsche favors neither type of society at the expense of the other, but believes the alternation itself is valuable: a pyramid society develops a value system to its full potential; then, when it encounters alternative values, the extraordinary individuals in the resulting motley society synthesize the competing systems into a fuller vision of human flourishing. (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)

This essay interprets the epoché of ancient scepticism as the perpetual conversion of the love of one into the love of two. The process of one becoming two is represented in Plato’s Symposium by Diotima’s description of the second rung of ‘the ladder,’ by which one ascends to the highest form of philosophical devotion (Pl. Sym. 209e-210e). Diotima’s ladder offers a vision of philosophy as a total conversion of both the lover and the object of love (or philosopher and object (...) of knowledge). I suggest that scepticism, however, is found in the frustration of Platonic ascension, which results in a partial conversion. Because the process of conversion (from the love of one to the love of One) remains suspended midway, the sceptic’s transformation is erotic—this is to say, driven by a desire that is characterised by a split (which may be identified between subject and object, between incompatible objects of desire or knowledge, or within the subject herself). (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)

This chapter offers phenomenological ethics of intimacy for experiences of isolation, reduced haptic relations, and periods when we must hold each other at a distance. How can we practice an ethics of intimacy from a space of separation and suspended activities involving bodily proximity and touch? By drawing on Luce Irigaray’s identification of a “caress before the caress,” I locate a queer, feminist ethics of intimacy born from the experience of undetermined desire or “erotic suspension.” The reduction and disruption of (...) touching, brought about by a crisis such as a pandemic, magnifies the experience of ethical or epistemological uncertainty surrounding haptic relations. But I argue that the experience of erotic suspension before the caress underlies all forms of being-together. One’s relationship to this moment before the caress is critical because it informs and transforms the way we are together. The disruption of our usual forms of being-together may be an opportunity for transformed ethical relations, the expansion of intimacy, and heightened sensation and pleasure. (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.

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)

Plato’s attitude towards women in his major political works, the Republic and Laws, is complex. On the one hand, Plato argues that in well-run cities, women should hold positions of rule; but on the other, he suggests that women are inferior to men with respect to virtue. To reconcile these conflicting attitudes, some scholars argue that Plato’s progressive proposals are about women as they could be given the right education and environment, while his derogatory comments are about women as they (...) are. Surprisingly, however, commentators who defend this line of thought fail to identify which aspect or aspects of women’s current social position is the problem. I argue that a central problem is women’s role in the private family. More specifically, I argue that Plato thinks the institution of the private family and household is an impediment to virtue; since the private family and household is the primary domain of women, they will be particularly susceptible to its ill effects. In short, individuals’ characters are shaped by the institutions they inhabit; the private family and household is a character-shaping institution that is the primary domain for women, and as a result their characters will be shaped for the worse. (shrink)

In this panel, we explore the future of value sensitive design (VSD). The stakes are high. Many in public and private sectors and in civil society are gradually realizing that taking our values seriously implies that we have to ensure that values effectively inform the design of technology which, in turn, shapes people’s lives. Value sensitive design offers a highly developed set of theory, tools, and methods to systematically do so.

Socrates’ refutations of Thrasymachus in Republic I are unsatisfactory on a number of levels which need to be carefully distinguished. At the same time several of his arguments are more powerful than they initially appear. Of particular interest are those which turn on the idea of a craft, which represents a shared norm of practical rationality here contested by Socrates and Thrasymachus.

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.

Many philosophers today approach important psychological phenomena, such as weakness of the will and moral motivation, using a broadly Humean distinction between beliefs, which aim to represent the world, and desires, which aim to change the world. On this picture, desires provide the ends or goals of action, while beliefs simply tell us how to achieve those ends. In the Republic, Socrates attempts to explain the phenomena using a different distinction: he argues that the human soul or psyche consists in (...) reason, spirit, and appetite. It is initially tempting to assimilate Socrates’ picture to the standard belief ⁄ desire model, and to think that reason’s role in motivating action is restricted to calculating the best means for satisfying spirited and appetitive desires. But this would be a mistake, since Socrates thinks that each element in the soul is capable of setting the ends of action. But then how exactly should we understand these elements? My aim in this essay is to introduce the reader to Plato’s theory of the tripartite psychology. In part 2, I present Socrates’ argument for the claim that the soul has three elements. In part 3, I provide a general characterization of reason, spirit, and appetite, respectively. I then turn to discuss two central interpretive issues. In part 4, I discuss the sense in which Socrates considers the appetitive and spirited elements to be non-rational. And in the final part of the essay, I discuss the issue of how we ought to conceive of the parts of the soul, and more specifically, whether we should think of them as agent-like parts, or in some other way. (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)

It is widely held by commentators that in the Protagoras, Socrates attempts to explain the experience of mental conflict and weakness of the will without positing the existence of irrational desires, or desires that arise independently of, and so can conflict with, our reasoned conception of the good. In this essay, I challenge this commonly held line of thought. I argue that Socrates has a unique conception of an irrational desire, one which allows him to explain the experience of mental (...) conflict and weakness of the will, while still holding the Socratic thesis that we always do what we think is good. The resulting picture is both psychologically plausible and philosophically distinctive. (shrink)

According to traditional versions of the mental file theory, we should posit _mental files_—that is, mental representations with containment structure—to explain both rational relations between the attitudes, and the persistence of the attitudes across time. However, Goodman and Gray ( 2022 ) offer a revisionary interpretation of the file framework, according to which its explanatory commitments are better presented by positing _mental filing_, as a process, but not _mental files_, as mental representations with file structure. Goodman and Gray focus on (...) a certain class of synchronic explanations, but files have also been thought to play an essential diachronic role in the maintenance and update of object-directed thought. This paper has two aims. First, we clarify the aims and commitments of Goodman and Gray ( 2022 ). Second, we extend their mental filing view to show how it can account for continued belief, change of mind and persistence of the attitudes in general. (shrink)

A generally ignored feature of Aristotle’s famous function argument is its reliance on the claim that practitioners of the crafts (technai) have functions: but this claim does important work. Aristotle is pointing to the fact that we judge everyday rational agency and agents by norms which are independent of their contingent desires: a good doctor is not just one who happens to achieve his personal goals through his work. But, Aristotle argues, such norms can only be binding on individuals if (...) human rational agency as such is governed by objective teleological norms.
. (shrink)