Results for 'Robert Fittler'

962 found
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  1. A Theory of Metaphysical Indeterminacy.Elizabeth Barnes & J. Robert G. Williams - 2011 - In Karen Bennett & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics Volume 6. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. pp. 103-148.
    If the world itself is metaphysically indeterminate in a specified respect, what follows? In this paper, we develop a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy answering this question.
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  2. Ontic vagueness and metaphysical indeterminacy.J. Robert G. Williams - 2008 - Philosophy Compass 3 (4):763-788.
    Might it be that world itself, independently of what we know about it or how we represent it, is metaphysically indeterminate? This article tackles in turn a series of questions: In what sorts of cases might we posit metaphysical indeterminacy? What is it for a given case of indefiniteness to be 'metaphysical'? How does the phenomenon relate to 'ontic vagueness', the existence of 'vague objects', 'de re indeterminacy' and the like? How might the logic work? Are there reasons for postulating (...)
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  3. Eligibility and inscrutability.J. Robert G. Williams - 2007 - Philosophical Review 116 (3):361-399.
    Inscrutability arguments threaten to reduce interpretationist metasemantic theories to absurdity. Can we find some way to block the arguments? A highly influential proposal in this regard is David Lewis’ ‘ eligibility ’ response: some theories are better than others, not because they fit the data better, but because they are framed in terms of more natural properties. The purposes of this paper are to outline the nature of the eligibility proposal, making the case that it is not ad hoc, but (...)
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  4. Graded Qualities.Claudio Calosi & Robert Michels - forthcoming - Synthese.
    The idea that qualities can be had partly or to an intermediate degree is controversial among contemporary metaphysicians, but also has a considerable pedigree among philosophers and scientists. In this paper, we first aim to show that metaphysical sense can be made of this idea by proposing a partial taxonomy of metaphysical accounts of graded qualities, focusing on three particular approaches: one which explicates having a quality to a degree in terms of having a property with an in-built degree, another (...)
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  5. Normative Reference Magnets.J. Robert G. Williams - 2018 - Philosophical Review 127 (1):41-71.
    The concept of moral wrongness, many think, has a distinctive kind of referential stability, brought out by moral twin earth cases. This article offers a new account of the source of this stability, deriving it from a metaphysics of content: “substantive” radical interpretation, and first-order normative assumptions. This story is distinguished from extant “reference magnetic” explanations of the phenomenon, and objections and replies are considered.
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  6. Well-being, Disability, and Choosing Children.Matthew J. Barker & Robert A. Wilson - 2019 - Mind 128 (510):305-328.
    The view that it is better for life to be created free of disability is pervasive in both common sense and philosophy. We cast doubt on this view by focusing on an influential line of thinking that manifests it. That thinking begins with a widely-discussed principle, Procreative Beneficence, and draws conclusions about parental choice and disability. After reconstructing two versions of this argument, we critique the first by exploring the relationship between different understandings of well-being and disability, and the second (...)
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  7. Defending Conditional Excluded Middle.J. Robert G. Williams - 2010 - Noûs 44 (4):650-668.
    Lewis (1973) gave a short argument against conditional excluded middle, based on his treatment of ‘might’ counterfactuals. Bennett (2003), with much of the recent literature, gives an alternative take on ‘might’ counterfactuals. But Bennett claims the might-argument against CEM still goes through. This turns on a specific claim I call Bennett’s Hypothesis. I argue that independently of issues to do with the proper analysis of might-counterfactuals, Bennett’s Hypothesis is inconsistent with CEM. But Bennett’s Hypothesis is independently objectionable, so we should (...)
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  8. Nonclassical Minds and Indeterminate Survival.J. Robert G. Williams - 2014 - Philosophical Review 123 (4):379-428.
    Revisionary theories of logic or truth require revisionary theories of mind. This essay outlines nonclassically based theories of rational belief, desire, and decision making, singling out the supervaluational family for special attention. To see these nonclassical theories of mind in action, this essay examines a debate between David Lewis and Derek Parfit over what matters in survival. Lewis argued that indeterminacy in personal identity allows caring about psychological connectedness and caring about personal identity to amount to the same thing. The (...)
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  9. Illusions of gunk.J. Robert G. Williams - 2006 - Philosophical Perspectives 20 (1):493–513.
    Worlds where things divide forever ("gunk" worlds) are apparently conceivable. The conceivability of such scenarios has been used as an argument against "nihilist" or "near-nihilist" answers to the special composition question. I argue that the mereological nihilist has the resources to explain away the illusion that gunk is possible.
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  10. Gradational accuracy and nonclassical semantics.J. Robert G. Williams - 2012 - Review of Symbolic Logic 5 (4):513-537.
    Joyce (1998) gives an argument for probabilism: the doctrine that rational credences should conform to the axioms of probability. In doing so, he provides a distinctive take on how the normative force of probabilism relates to the injunction to believe what is true. But Joyce presupposes that the truth values of the propositions over which credences are defined are classical. I generalize the core of Joyce’s argument to remove this presupposition. On the same assumptions as Joyce uses, the credences of (...)
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  11. Against Cumulative Type Theory.Tim Button & Robert Trueman - 2022 - Review of Symbolic Logic 15 (4):907-49.
    Standard Type Theory, STT, tells us that b^n(a^m) is well-formed iff n=m+1. However, Linnebo and Rayo have advocated the use of Cumulative Type Theory, CTT, has more relaxed type-restrictions: according to CTT, b^β(a^α) is well-formed iff β > α. In this paper, we set ourselves against CTT. We begin our case by arguing against Linnebo and Rayo’s claim that CTT sheds new philosophical light on set theory. We then argue that, while CTT ’s type-restrictions are unjustifiable, the type-restrictions imposed by (...)
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  12. Maternal Autonomy and Prenatal Harm.Nathan Robert Howard - 2023 - Bioethics 37 (3):246-255.
    Inflicting harm is generally preferable to inflicting death. If you must choose between the two, you should generally choose to harm. But prenatal harm seems different. If a mother must choose between harming her fetus or aborting it, she may choose either, at least in many cases. So it seems that prenatal harm is particularly objectionable, sometimes on a par with death. This paper offers an explanation of why prenatal harm seems particularly objectionable by drawing an analogy to the all-or-nothing (...)
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  13. One Desire Too Many.Nathan Robert Howard - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 102 (2):302-317.
    I defend the widely-held view that morally worthy action need not be motivated by a desire to promote rightness as such. Some have recently come to reject this view, arguing that desires for rightness as such are necessary for avoiding a certain kind of luck thought incompatible with morally worthy action. I show that those who defend desires for rightness as such on the basis of this argument misunderstand the relationship between moral worth and the kind of luck that their (...)
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  14. The Cognitive Role of Fictionality.J. Robert G. Williams & Richard Woodward - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
    The question of the cognitive role of fictionality is this: what is the correct cognitive attitude to take to p, when it is fictional that p? We began by considering one answer to this question, implicit in the work of Kendall Walton, that the correct response to a fictional proposition is to imagine that proposition. However, this approach is silent in cases of fictional incompleteness, where neither p nor its negation are fictional. We argue that that Waltonians should embrace a (...)
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  15. The Goals of Moral Worth.Nathan Robert Howard - 2021 - Oxford Studies in Metaethics.
    While it is tempting to suppose that an act has moral worth just when and because it is motivated by sufficient moral reasons, philosophers have, largely, come to doubt this analysis. Doubt is rooted in two claims. The first is that some facts can motivate a given act in multiple ways, not all of which are consistent with moral worth. The second is the orthodox view that normative reasons are facts. I defend the tempting analysis by proposing and defending a (...)
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  16. Conversation and conditionals.J. Robert G. Williams - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 138 (2):211 - 223.
    I outline and motivate a way of implementing a closest world theory of indicatives, appealing to Stalnaker's framework of open conversational possibilities. Stalnakerian conversational dynamics helps us resolve two outstanding puzzles for a such a theory of indicative conditionals. The first puzzle -- concerning so-called 'reverse Sobel sequences' -- can be resolved by conversation dynamics in a theoryneutral way: the explanation works as much for Lewisian counterfactuals as for the account of indicatives developed here. Resolving the second puzzle, by contrast, (...)
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  17. Degree supervaluational logic.J. Robert G. Williams - 2011 - Review of Symbolic Logic 4 (1):130-149.
    Supervaluationism is often described as the most popular semantic treatment of indeterminacy. There’s little consensus, however, about how to fill out the bare-bones idea to include a characterization of logical consequence. The paper explores one methodology for choosing between the logics: pick a logic thatnorms beliefas classical consequence is standardly thought to do. The main focus of the paper considers a variant of standard supervaluational, on which we can characterizedegrees of determinacy. It applies the methodology above to focus ondegree logic. (...)
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  18. Indoctrination Anxiety and the Etiology of Belief.Joshua DiPaolo & Robert Mark Simpson - 2016 - Synthese 193 (10):3079-3098.
    People sometimes try to call others’ beliefs into question by pointing out the contingent causal origins of those beliefs. The significance of such ‘Etiological Challenges’ is a topic that has started attracting attention in epistemology. Current work on this topic aims to show that Etiological Challenges are, at most, only indirectly epistemically significant, insofar as they bring other generic epistemic considerations to the agent’s attention. Against this approach, we argue that Etiological Challenges are epistemically significant in a more direct and (...)
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  19. Explanation and Cognition.Frank C. Keil & Robert Andrew Wilson - 2000 - MIT Press. Edited by Frank C. Keil & Robert A. Wilson.
    These essays draw on work in the history and philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind and language, the development of concepts in children, conceptual..
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  20. Requirements on reality.J. Robert G. Williams - 2012 - In Fabrice Correia & Benjamin Schnieder (eds.), Metaphysical grounding: understanding the structure of reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 165-185.
    There are advantages to thrift over honest toil. If we can make do without numbers we avoid challenging questions over the metaphysics and epistemology of such entities; and we have a good idea, I think, of what a nominalistic metaphysics should look like. But minimizing ontology brings its own problems; for it seems to lead to error theory— saying that large swathes of common-sense and best science are false. Should recherche philosophical arguments really convince us to give all this up? (...)
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  21. The possibility of onion worlds: Rebutting an argument for structural universals.J. Robert G. Williams - 2007 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (2):193 – 203.
    Some argue that theories of universals should incorporate structural universals, in order to allow for the metaphysical possibility of worlds of 'infinite descending complexity' ('onion worlds'). I argue that the possibility of such worlds does not establish the need for structural universals. So long as we admit the metaphysical possibility of emergent universals, there is an attractive alternative description of such cases.
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  22. Gender Unrealism.Nathan Robert Howard & N. G. Laskowski - forthcoming - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy.
    While intimately familiar, gender eludes theorizing. We argue that well-known challenges to gender’s analysis originate in a subtle ambiguity: questions about gender sometimes express questions about gender categories themselves (e.g., womanhood, manhood, and so on), while at other times expressing questions about what makes someone a member of these categories. Distinguishing these questions accentuates gender’s connections to morality, making a novel “antirealist” view of gender, or as we call it, “unrealist” view, especially natural. Gender’s relations to identity, sex, and social (...)
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  23. Representational Scepticism: The Bubble Puzzle.J. Robert G. Williams - 2016 - Philosophical Perspectives 30 (1):419-442.
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  24. The World is Not Enough.Nathan Robert Howard & N. G. Laskowski - 2019 - Noûs 55 (1):86-101.
    Throughout his career, Derek Parfit made the bold suggestion, at various times under the heading of the "Normativity Objection," that anyone in possession of normative concepts is in a position to know, on the basis of their competence with such concepts alone, that reductive realism in ethics is not even possible. Despite the prominent role that the Normativity Objection plays in Parfit's non-reductive account of the nature of normativity, when the objection hasn't been ignored, it's been criticized and even derided. (...)
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  25. Agentive Modals and Agentive Modality: A Cautionary Tale.Timothy Kearl & Robert H. Wallace - 2024 - American Philosophical Quarterly 61 (2):139–155.
    In this paper, we consider recent attempts to metaphysically explain agentive modality in terms of conditionals. We suggest that the best recent accounts face counterexamples, and more worryingly, they take some agentive modality for granted. In particular, the ability to perform basic actions features as a primitive in these theories. While it is perfectly acceptable for a semantics of agentive modal claims to take some modality for granted in getting the extension of action claims correct, a metaphysical explanation of agentive (...)
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  26. Consequentialism and the Agent’s Point of View.Nathan Robert Howard - 2022 - Ethics 132 (4):787-816.
    I propose and defend a novel view called “de se consequentialism,” which is noteworthy for two reasons. First, it demonstrates—contra Doug Portmore, Mark Schroeder, Campbell Brown, and Michael Smith, among others—that agent-neutral consequentialism is consistent with agent-centered constraints. Second, it clarifies the nature of agent-centered constraints, thereby meriting attention from even dedicated nonconsequentialists. Scrutiny reveals that moral theories in general, whether consequentialist or not, incorporate constraints by assessing states in a first-personal guise. Consequently, de se consequentialism enacts constraints through the (...)
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  27. A fictionalist theory of universals.Tim Button & Robert Trueman - 2024 - In Peter Fritz & Nicholas K. Jones (eds.), Higher-Order Metaphysics. Oxford University Press.
    Universals are putative objects like wisdom, morality, redness, etc. Although we believe in properties (which, we argue, are not a kind of object), we do not believe in universals. However, a number of ordinary, natural language constructions seem to commit us to their existence. In this paper, we provide a fictionalist theory of universals, which allows us to speak as if universals existed, whilst denying that any really do.
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  28. Epistemic value in the subpersonal vale.J. Adam Carter & Robert D. Rupert - 2020 - Synthese 198 (10):9243-9272.
    A vexing problem in contemporary epistemology—one with origins in Plato’s Meno—concerns the value of knowledge, and in particular, whether and how the value of knowledge exceeds the value of mere true opinion. The recent literature is deeply divided on the matter of how best to address the problem. One point, however, remains unquestioned: that if a solution is to be found, it will be at the personal level, the level at which states of subjects or agents, as such, appear. We (...)
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  29. Part‐Intrinsicality.J. Robert G. Williams - 2011 - Noûs 47 (3):431-452.
    In some sense, survival seems to be an intrinsic matter. Whether or not you survive some event seems to depend on what goes on with you yourself —what happens in the environment shouldn’t make a difference. Likewise, being a person at a time seems intrinsic. The principle that survival seems intrinsic is one factor which makes personal fission puzzles so awkward. Fission scenarios present cases where if survival is an intrinsic matter, it appears that an individual could survive twice over. (...)
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  30. Moral Diversity and Moral Responsibility.Brian Kogelmann & Robert H. Wallace - 2018 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 4 (3):371-389.
    In large, impersonal moral orders many of us wish to maintain good will toward our fellow citizens only if we are reasonably sure they will maintain good will toward us. The mutual maintaining of good will, then, requires that we somehow communicate our intentions to one another. But how do we actually do this? The current paper argues that when we engage in moral responsibility practices—that is, when we express our reactive attitudes by blaming, praising, and resenting—we communicate a desire (...)
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  31. The Sound of Music: Externalist Style.Luke Kersten & Robert A. Wilson - 2016 - American Philosophical Quarterly 53 (2):139-154.
    Philosophical exploration of individualism and externalism in the cognitive sciences most recently has been focused on general evaluations of these two views (Adams & Aizawa 2008, Rupert 2008, Wilson 2004, Clark 2008). Here we return to broaden an earlier phase of the debate between individualists and externalists about cognition, one that considered in detail particular theories, such as those in developmental psychology (Patterson 1991) and the computational theory of vision (Burge 1986, Segal 1989). Music cognition is an area in the (...)
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  32. Consciousness and Complexity: Neurobiological Naturalism and Integrated Information Theory.Francesco Ellia & Robert Chis-Ciure - 2022 - Consciousness and Cognition 100 (C):103281.
    In this paper, we take a meta-theoretical stance and aim to compare and assess two conceptual frameworks that endeavor to explain phenomenal experience. In particular, we compare Feinberg & Mallatt’s Neurobiological Naturalism (NN) and Tononi’s and colleagues' Integrated Information Theory (IIT), given that the former pointed out some similarities between the two theories (Feinberg & Mallatt 2016c-d). To probe their similarity, we first give a general introduction to both frameworks. Next, we expound a ground plan for carrying out our analysis. (...)
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  33. Vagueness as Indecision.J. Robert G. Williams - 2016 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 90 (1):285-309.
    This essay explores the thesis that for vague predicates, uncertainty over whether a borderline instance x of red/large/tall/good is to be understood as practical uncertainty over whether to treat x as red/large/tall/good. Expressivist and quasi-realist treatments of vague predicates due to John MacFarlane and Daniel Elstein provide the stalking-horse. It examines the notion of treating/counting a thing as F , and links a central question about our attitudes to vague predications to normative evaluation of plans to treat a thing as (...)
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  34. Beyond Bad Beliefs.Nathan Robert Howard - 2021 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 18 (5):500-521.
    Philosophers have recently come to focus on explaining the phenomenon of ​bad beliefs,​ beliefs that are apparently true and well-evidenced but nevertheless objectionable. Despite this recent focus, a consensus is already forming around a particular explanation of these beliefs’ badness called ​moral encroachment​, according to which, roughly, the moral stakes engendered by bad beliefs make them particularly difficult to justify. This paper advances an alternative account not just of bad beliefs but of bad attitudes more generally according to which bad (...)
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  35. Linguistic Corpora and Ordinary Language: On the Dispute Between Ryle and Austin About the Use of ‘Voluntary’, ‘Involuntary’, ‘Voluntarily’, and ‘Involuntarily’.Michael Zahorec, Robert Bishop, Nat Hansen, John Schwenkler & Justin Sytsma - 2023 - In David Bordonaba-Plou (ed.), Experimental Philosophy of Language: Perspectives, Methods, and Prospects. Springer Verlag. pp. 121-149.
    The fact that Gilbert Ryle and J.L. Austin seem to disagree about the ordinary use of words such as ‘voluntary’, ‘involuntary’, ‘voluntarily’, and ‘involuntarily’ has been taken to cast doubt on the methods of ordinary language philosophy. As Benson Mates puts the worry, ‘if agreement about usage cannot be reached within so restricted a sample as the class of Oxford Professors of Philosophy, what are the prospects when the sample is enlarged?’ (Mates, Inquiry 1:161–171, 1958, p. 165). In this chapter, (...)
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  36. (1 other version)Facing up to the Hard Problem of Consciousness as an Integrated Information Theorist.Robert Chis-Ciure & Francesco Ellia - 2021 - Foundations of Science 1 (1):255-271.
    In this paper we provide a philosophical analysis of the Hard Problem of consciousness and the implications of conceivability scenarios for current neuroscientific research. In particular, we focus on one of the most prominent neuroscientific theories of consciousness, integrated information theory (IIT). After a brief introduction on IIT, we present Chalmers’ original formulation and propose our own layered view of the hard problem, showing how 2 separate issues can be distinguished. More specifically, we argue that it’s possible to disentangle a (...)
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  37. Aptness and means-end coherence: a dominance argument for causal decision theory.J. Robert G. Williams - 2023 - Synthese 201 (2):1-19.
    Why should we be means-end rational? Why care whether someone’s mental states exhibit certain formal patterns, like the ones formalized in causal decision theory? This paper establishes a dominance argument for these constraints in a finite setting. If you violate the norms of causal decision theory, then your desires will be aptness dominated. That is, there will be some alternative set of desires that you could have had, which would be more apt (closer to the actual values fixed by your (...)
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  38. Perfectoid Diamonds and n-Awareness. A Meta-Model of Subjective Experience.Shanna Dobson & Robert Prentner - manuscript
    In this paper, we propose a mathematical model of subjective experience in terms of classes of hierarchical geometries of representations (“n-awareness”). We first outline a general framework by recalling concepts from higher category theory, homotopy theory, and the theory of (infinity,1)-topoi. We then state three conjectures that enrich this framework. We first propose that the (infinity,1)-category of a geometric structure known as perfectoid diamond is an (infinity,1)-topos. In order to construct a topology on the (infinity,1)-category of diamonds we then propose (...)
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  39. Permutations and Foster problems: Two puzzles or one?J. Robert G. Williams - 2008 - Ratio 21 (1):91–105.
    How are permutation arguments for the inscrutability of reference to be formulated in the context of a Davidsonian truth-theoretic semantics? Davidson takes these arguments to establish that there are no grounds for favouring a reference scheme that assigns London to “Londres”, rather than one that assigns Sydney to that name. We shall see, however, that it is far from clear whether permutation arguments work when set out in the context of the kind of truth-theoretic semantics which Davidson favours. The principle (...)
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  40. Material Evidence.Alison Wylie & Robert Chapman (eds.) - 2014 - New York / London: Routledge.
    How do archaeologists make effective use of physical traces and material culture as repositories of evidence? Material Evidence is a collection of 19 essays that take a resolutely case-based approach to this question, exploring key instances of exemplary practice, instructive failures, and innovative developments in the use of archaeological data as evidence. The goal is to bring to the surface the wisdom of practice, teasing out norms of archaeological reasoning from evidence. -/- Archaeologists make compelling use of an enormously diverse (...)
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  41. Linguistic Corpora and Ordinary Language: On the Dispute between Ryle and Austin about the Use of 'Voluntary', 'Involuntary', 'Voluntarily', and 'Involuntarily'.Michael Zahorec, Robert Bishop, Nat Hansen, John Schwenkler & Justin Sytsma - 2023 - In David Bordonaba-Plou (ed.), Experimental Philosophy of Language: Perspectives, Methods, and Prospects. Springer Verlag.
    The fact that Gilbert Ryle and J.L. Austin seem to disagree about the ordinary use of words such as ‘voluntary’, ‘involuntary’, ‘voluntarily’, and ‘involuntarily’ has been taken to cast doubt on the methods of ordinary language philosophy. As Benson Mates puts the worry, ‘if agreement about usage cannot be reached within so restricted a sample as the class of Oxford Professors of Philosophy, what are the prospects when the sample is enlarged?’ (Mates 1958, p. 165). In this chapter, we evaluate (...)
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  42. Aristotle’s Infallible Perception.Benjamin Robert Koons - 2019 - Apeiron 52 (4):415-443.
    In the De Anima, Aristotle claims that the five senses are infallible about their proper objects. I contend that this claim means that sight is infallible about its proper object in its most specific form, i. e. sight is infallible about red or green and not merely about color in general. This robust claim is justified by Aristotle’s teleological principle that nature does nothing in vain. Additionally, drawing on Aristotle’s comparison of perception and one’s understanding of the essences, I defend (...)
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  43. Safety and Dream Scepticism in Sosa’s Epistemology.J. Adam Carter & Robert Cowan - 2024 - Synthese (6).
    A common objection to Sosa’s epistemology is that it countenances, in an objectionable way, unsafe knowledge. This objection, under closer inspection, turns out to be in far worse shape than Sosa’s critics have realised. Sosa and his defenders have offered two central response types to the idea that allowing unsafe knowledge is problematic: one response type adverts to the animal/reflective knowledge distinction that is characteristic of bi-level virtue epistemology. The other less-discussed response type appeals to the threat of dream scepticism, (...)
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  44. Without foundation or neutral standpoint: using immanent critique to guide a literature review.K. Robert Isaksen - 2018 - Journal of Critical Realism 17 (2):97-117.
    Literature reviews have traditionally been a simple exercise in reporting the current relevant research, both to provide an overview of the current status of the field, and perhaps to draw attention to controversies. From the perspective of positivist research traditions, it was important to neutrally report all the relevant research, which was assumed to be foundational. In this article, written for the Applied Critical Realism special issue of Journal of Critical Realism, I use my own research to illustrate how a (...)
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  45.  69
    Fear as Preventer.Tim Kearl & Robert H. Wallace - forthcoming - In Ami Harbin (ed.), The Philosophy of Fear: Historical and Interdisciplinary Approaches. Bloomsbury.
    Fear is a preventer, sometimes robustly so. When fear robustly prevents, it changes or diminishes what an agent is able to do. Various popular conceptions of fear focus on its negative role: fear sometimes prevents us from acting as we should, as in certain cases of akrasia. But by the same token, fear sometimes prevents us from acting as we shouldn’t, as in certain other cases of inverse akrasia. We end with a plea on behalf of fear, both in light (...)
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  46. Ambidextrous Reasons (or Why Reasons First's Reasons Aren't Facts).Nathan Robert Howard - 2021 - Philosophers' Imprint 21 (30):1-16.
    The wrong kind of reason (WKR) problem is a problem for attempts to analyze normative properties using only facts about the balance of normative reasons, a style of analysis on which the ‘Reasons First’ programme depends. I argue that this problem cannot be solved if the orthodox view of reasons is true --- that is, if each normative reason is numerically identical with some fact, proposition, or state-of-affairs. That’s because solving the WKR problem requires completely distinguishing between the right- and (...)
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  47. Pluralist-Monism. Derived Category Theory as the Grammar of n-Awareness.Shanna Dobson & Robert Prentner - manuscript
    In this paper, we develop a mathematical model of awareness based on the idea of plurality. Instead of positing a singular principle, telos, or essence as noumenon, we model it as plurality accessible through multiple forms of awareness (“n-awareness”). In contrast to many other approaches, our model is committed to pluralist thinking. The noumenon is plural, and reality is neither reducible nor irreducible. Nothing dies out in meaning making. We begin by mathematizing the concept of awareness by appealing to the (...)
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  48. A Remark on how a Consciousness Model and Entanglement can lead us to Quantum Communication.Victor Christianto, Robert N. Boyd & Florentin Smarandache - manuscript
    In a recent paper, we describe how a model of quantum communication based on combining consciousness experiment and entanglement can serve as impetus to stop 5G-caused diseases. Therefore, in this paper we will discuss how entanglement can be explained in terms of quantum theory. This short review may be considered as an effort to bring QM into real problem solving, i.e. telecommunication.
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  49. Debating Dispositions: Issues in Metaphysics, Epistemology and Philosophy of Mind.Gregor Damschen, Robert Schnepf & Karsten Stüber (eds.) - 2009 - Berlin/New York: de Gruyter.
    Ordinary language and scientific discourse are filled with linguistic expressions for dispositional properties such as “soluble,” “elastic,” “reliable,” and “humorous.” We characterize objects in all domains – physical objects as well as human persons – with the help of dispositional expressions. Hence, the concept of a disposition has historically and systematically played a central role in different areas of philosophy ranging from metaphysics to ethics. The contributions of this volume analyze the ancient foundations of the discussion about disposition, examine the (...)
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  50. Chancy Counterfactuals, Redux.J. Robert G. Williams - 2012 - Analytic Philosophy 53 (4):352-361.
    Chancy counterfactuals are a headache. Dylan Dodd (2009) presents an interesting argument against a certain general strategy for accounting for them, instances of which are found in the appendices to Lewis (1979) and in Williams (2008). I will argue (i) that Dodd’s understates the counterintuitiveness of the conclusions he can reach; (ii) that the counterintuitiveness can be thought of as an instance of more general oddities arising when we treat vagueness and indeterminacy in a classical setting; and (iii) the underlying (...)
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