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 (...) modality cannot, at least not in the way that conditional approaches to agentive modality do. We argue that this problem was present even in the classical conditional analysis. By a pessimistic induction, we suggest that, probably, no conditional approach to agentive modality will succeed. (shrink)

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 (...) cognitive sciences that has received little attention from philosophers, though it has relatively recently been thrown into the externalist spotlight (Cochrane 2008, Kruger 2014, Kersten forthcoming). Given that individualism can be thought of as a kind of paradigm for research on cognition, we provide a brief overview of the field of music cognition and individualistic tendencies within the field (sections 2 and 3) before turning to consider externalist alternatives to individualistic paradigms (section 4-5) and then arguing for a qualified form of externalism about music cognition (section 6). (shrink)

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..

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 (...) of its preventing role and its broader connection to other ways we express concern, in particular, to hope. (shrink)

This paper generalises the classical Condorcet jury theorem from majority voting over two options to plurality voting over multiple options. The paper further discusses the debate between epistemic and procedural democracy and situates its formal results in that debate. The paper finally compares a number of different social choice procedures for many-option choices in terms of their epistemic merits. An appendix explores the implications of some of the present mathematical results for the question of how probable majority cycles (as in (...) Condorcet's paradox) are in large electorates. (shrink)

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 (...) this distinctive sort of indefiniteness? Conversely, are there reasons for denying that there is indefiniteness of this sort? (shrink)

Decisions are made under uncertainty when there are distinct outcomes of a given action, and one is uncertain to which the act will lead. Decisions are made under indeterminacy when there are distinct outcomes of a given action, and it is indeterminate to which the act will lead. This paper develops a theory of (synchronic and diachronic) decision-making under indeterminacy that portrays the rational response to such situations as inconstant. Rational agents have to capriciously and randomly choose how to resolve (...) the indeterminacy relevant to a given choice-situation, but such capricious choices once made constrain how they will choose in the future. The account is illustrated by the case of self-interested action in situations where it is indeterminate whether you yourself will survive to benefit or suffer the consequences. The conclusion emphasizes some distinctive anti-hedging predictions of the account. (shrink)

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 (...) instead flows naturally from three independently motivated elements; and to show that severe limitations afflict the proposal. In conclusion, I pick out the element of the eligibility response that is responsible for the limitations: future work in this area should therefore concentrate on amending this aspect of the overall theory. (shrink)

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 (...) resolve this tension by dropping the Hypothesis, not by dropping CEM. (shrink)

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.

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 (...) a rational agent should always be weighted averages of truth value assignments. In the special case where the truth values are classical, the weighted averages of truth value assignments are exactly the probability functions. But in the more general case, probabilistic axioms formulated in terms of classical logic are violated—but we will show that generalized versions of the axioms formulated in terms of non-classical logics are satisfied. (shrink)

If people have stringent moral rights, then the doctrine of double effect is false or unimportant, at least when it comes to making acts permissible or wrong. There are strong and weak versions of the doctrine of double effect. The strong version asserts that an act is morally right if and only if the agent does not intentionally infringe a moral norm and the act brings about a desirable result (perhaps the best state of affairs available to the agent or (...) a promotion of the common good). The weak version asserts that, other things being equal, it is deontically worse to intentionally infringe a norm than to foreseeably do so. A person’s intention or mere foresight might still be relevant to his or her blameworthiness or virtue, but this is a separate issue. (shrink)

Jeff Paris proves a generalized Dutch Book theorem. If a belief state is not a generalized probability then one faces ‘sure loss’ books of bets. In Williams I showed that Joyce’s accuracy-domination theorem applies to the same set of generalized probabilities. What is the relationship between these two results? This note shows that both results are easy corollaries of the core result that Paris appeals to in proving his dutch book theorem. We see that every point of accuracy-domination defines a (...) dutch book, but we only have a partial converse. (shrink)

Are counterfactuals with true antecedents and consequents automatically true? That is, is Conjunction Conditionalization: if (X & Y), then (X > Y) valid? Stalnaker and Lewis think so, but many others disagree. We note here that the extant arguments for Conjunction Conditionalization are unpersuasive, before presenting a family of more compelling arguments. These arguments rely on some standard theorems of the logic of counterfactuals as well as a plausible and popular semantic claim about certain semifactuals. Denying Conjunction Conditionalization, then, requires (...) rejecting other aspects of the standard logic of counterfactuals, or else our intuitive picture of semifactuals. (shrink)

Responsibility is impossible because there is no responsibility-maker and there needs to be one if people are morally responsible. The two most plausible candidates, psychology and decision, fail. A person is not responsible for an unchosen psychology or a psychology that was chosen when the person is not responsible for the choice. This can be seen in intuitions about instantly-created and manipulated people. This result is further supported by the notion that, in general, the right, the good, and virtue rest (...) on the exercise of a capacity rather than the capacity itself. It is also supported by the notion that negligence is not a responsibility-maker. ​ A person is not responsible for a choice that does not reflect his psychology or that does reflect it when he is not responsible for the psychology. This can be seen by considering intuitions regarding acts that are unconnected or arbitrarily connected to a person’s psychology. It can also be seen intuitions about acts that result from a manipulated psychology. The problem with choice as a foundation can be further seen in that an infinite or self-created person would not be responsible despite these superhuman choice-related features. (shrink)

It is widely thought that functionalism and the qualia theory are better positioned to accommodate the ‘affective’ aspect of pain phenomenology than representationalism. In this paper, we attempt to overturn this opinion by raising problems for both functionalism and the qualia theory on this score. With regard to functionalism, we argue that it gets the order of explanation wrong: pain experience gives rise to the effects it does because it hurts, and not the other way around. With regard to the (...) qualia theory, we argue that it fails to capture the sense in which pain 's affective phenomenology rationalises various bodily-directed beliefs, desires, and behaviours. Representationalism, in contrast, escapes both of these problems: it gets the order of explanation right and it explains how pain 's affective phenomenology can rationalise bodily-directed beliefs, desires, and behaviours. For this reason, we argue that representationalism has a significant advantage in the debates about pain 's affective phenomenology. We end the paper by examining objections, including the question of what representationalists should say about so-called ‘disassociation cases’, such as pain asymbolia. (shrink)

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 (...) essay argues that Lewis's treatment of two of Parfit's puzzle cases—degreed survival and fission—presuppose different nonclassical treatments of belief and desire. (shrink)

Majority cycling and related social choice paradoxes are often thought to threaten the meaningfulness of democracy. But deliberation can prevent majority cycles – not by inducing unanimity, which is unrealistic, but by bringing preferences closer to single-peakedness. We present the first empirical test of this hypothesis, using data from Deliberative Polls. Comparing preferences before and after deliberation, we find increases in proximity to single-peakedness. The increases are greater for lower versus higher salience issues and for individuals who seem to have (...) deliberated more versus less effectively. They are not merely a byproduct of increased substantive agreement. Our results both refine and support the idea that deliberation, by increasing proximity to single-peakedness, provides an escape from the problem of majority cycling. (shrink)

A popular “Reductionist” account of personal identity unifies person stages into persons in virtue of their psychological continuity with one another. One objection to psychological continuity accounts is that there is more to our personal identity than just mere psychological continuity: there is also an active process of self-interpretation and self-creation. This criticism can be used to motivate a rival account of personal identity that appeals to the notion of a narrative. To the extent that they comment upon the issue, (...) proponents of narrative accounts typically reject Reductionist metaphysics that (ontologically) reduce persons to aggregates of person stages. In contrast to this trend, we seek to develop a narrative account of personal identity from within Reductionist metaphysics: we think person stages are unified into persons in virtue of their narrative continuity with one another. We argue that this Reductionist version of the narrative account avoids some serious problems facing non-Reductionist versions of the narrative account. (shrink)

This paper consists of a conversation between a philosopher specialising in ethics and religion and an educational researcher with an interest in cultural studies and contemporary social theory. Dialogic in form, this paper employs an interdisciplinary response to an interdisciplinary project and offers the following components: a dialogic theorizing of the implications for education of a research project on spiritual capital; a continuation of the project of analyzing moral thinking in various cultural and societal settings; a continuation of the project (...) of analyzing political rhetoric (towards an understanding of the polemics of political rhetoric); a reaffirmation of the value of recognizing difference and ambiguity in the global moment. (shrink)

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, (...) relies on the interplay between the particular theory of indicative conditionals developed here and Stalnakerian dynamics. The upshot is an attractive resolution of the so-called "Gibbard phenomenon" for indicative conditionals. (shrink)

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? (...) Such Moorean considerations are explicitly part of the motivation for the recent resurgence of structured metaphysics, which allow a minimal (perhaps nominalistic) fundamental ontology, while avoiding error-theory by adopting a permissive stance towards ontology that can be argued to be grounded in the fundamental. This paper evaluates the Moorean arguments, identifying key epistemological assumptions. On the assumption that Moorean arguments can be used to rule out error-theory, I examine deflationary ‘representationalist’ rivals to the structured metaphysics reaction. Quinean paraphrase, fictionalist claims about syntax and semantics are considered and criticized. In the final section, a ‘direct’ deflationary strategy is outlined and the theoretical obligations that it faces are articulated. The position advocated may have us talking a lot like a friend of structured metaphysics—but with a very different conception of what we’re up to. (shrink)

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.

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. (...) But it’s well known that standard notions of “intrinsicality” won’t do to articulate the sense in which survival is intrinsic, since ‘personhood’ appears to be a maximal property. We formulate a sense in which survival and personhood (and perhaps other maximal properties) may be almost intrinsic—a sense that would suffice, for example, to ground fission arguments. It turns out that this notion of almost-intrinsicality allows us to formulate a new version of the problem of the many. (shrink)

This essay takes a critical look at aesthetics as the basis for nature preservation, presenting three reasons why we should not rely on aesthetic foundations to justify the environmentalist program. First, a comparison to other kinds of aesthetic value shows that the aesthetic value of nature can provide weak reasons foraction atbest. Second, not everything environmentalists want to protect has positive aesthetic qualities. Attempts have been made to get around this problem by developing a reformist attitude towards natural aesthetics. I (...) argue that these approaches fail. Third, development can be as aesthetically positive as nature. If it is simply beauty we are looking for, why can't the beauty of a wellconstructed dam or a magnificent skyscraper suffice? (shrink)

We distinguish between two different strategies in methodology of economics. The big picture strategy, dominant in the twentieth century, ascribed to economics a unified method and evaluated this m...

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 (...) F . The essay examines how the account applies to normatively defective or contested terms. The final section raises a puzzle about the mechanics of MacFarlane’s detailed implementation for the case of gradable adjectives. (shrink)

: The current difference in attitude toward germ-line enhancement in humans and nonhumans is unjustified. Society should be more cautious in modifying the genes of nonhumans and more bold in thinking about modifying our own genome. I identify four classes of arguments pertaining to germ-line enhancement: safety arguments, justice arguments, trust arguments, and naturalness arguments. The first three types are compelling, but do not distinguish between human and nonhuman cases. The final class of argument would justify a distinction between human (...) and nonhuman germ-line enhancement; however, this type of argument fails and, therefore, the discrepancy in attitude toward human and nonhuman germ-line enhancement is unjustified. (shrink)

For the greater part of the last 50 years, it has been common for philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists to invoke the notion of realization in discussing the relationship between the mind and the brain. In traditional philosophy of mind, mental states are said to be realized, instantiated, or implemented in brain states. Artificial intelligence is sometimes described as the attempt either to model or to actually construct systems that realize some of the same psychological abilities that we and (...) other living creatures possess. The claim that specific psychological. (shrink)

One critique of experimental philosophy is that the intuitions of the philosophically untutored should be accorded little to no weight; instead, only the intuitions of professional philosophers should matter. In response to this critique, “experimentalists” often claim that the intuitions of professional philosophers are biased. In this paper, we explore this question of whose intuitions should be disqualified and why. Much of the literature on this issue focuses on the question of whether the intuitions of professional philosophers are reliable. In (...) contrast, we instead focus on the idea of “muddled” intuitions—i.e. intuitions that are misdirected and about notions other than the ones under discussion. We argue that the philosophically untutored are likely to have muddled intuitions and that professional philosophers are likely to have unmuddled intuitions. Although being umuddled does not, by itself, establish the reliability of the intuitions of professional philosophers, being muddled is enough to disqualify the intuitions of the philosophically untutored. We then turn to the charge that, despite being unmuddled, professional philosophers still have biased intuitions. To evaluate this charge, we switch focus from the general notion of biased intuition to the more specific notion of theory-laden intuition. We argue that there is prima facie evidence—in the form of the presence of conflicts of intuition—for thinking that at least some of the intuitions of professional philosophers are theory-laden. In summary, we conclude that that there is no clean and easy answer to the question of whose intuitions should matter. (shrink)

Critical discussion of Jerry Fodor's Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong (1998).

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, (...) and in particular, to the idea that many of our everyday perceptual beliefs are unsafe through the nearness of the dream possibility. The latter dreaming response to the safety objection to Sosa’s virtue epistemology has largely flown under the radar in contemporary discussions of safety and knowledge. We think that, suitably articulated in view of research in the philosophy and science of dreaming, it has much more going for it than has been appreciated. This paper further develops, beyond what Sosa does himself, the dreaming argument in response to those who think safety (as traditionally understood) is a condition on knowledge and who object to Sosa’s account on the grounds that it fails this condition. The payoffs of further developing this argument will be not only a better understanding of the importance of insights about dreaming against safety as a condition on knowledge, but also some reason to think a weaker safety condition, one that is relativised to SSS (i.e., skill/shape/situation) conditions for competence exercise, gets better results all things considered as an anti-luck codicil on knowledge. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to point out the modelling choices that lead to different systems of deontic action logic. A kind of a roadmap is presented. On the one hand it can help the reader to find the deontic logic appropriate for an intended application relying on the information considering the way in which a deontic logic represents actions and how it characterises deontic properties in relation to (the representation of) actions. On the other hand it is a (...) guideline how to build a deontic action logic which satisfies the desired properties. (shrink)

Emotion processing is known to be impaired in psychopathy, but less is known about the cognitive mechanisms that drive this. Our study examined experiencing and suppression of emotion processing in psychopathy. Participants, violent offenders with varying levels of psychopathy, viewed positive and negative images under conditions of passive viewing, experiencing and suppressing. Higher scoring psychopathics were more cardiovascularly responsive when processing negative information than positive, possibly reflecting an anomalously rewarding aspect of processing normally unpleasant material. When required to experience emotional (...) response, by ‘getting into the feeling’ of the emotion conveyed by a negative image, higher factor 1 psychopathic individuals showed reduced responsiveness, suggesting that they were less able to do this. These data, together with the absence of corresponding differences in subjective self-report might be used to inform clinical strategies for normalising emotion processing in psychopathic offenders to improve treatment outcome, and reduce risk amongst this client group. (shrink)

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 (...) range of material evidence, from garbage dumps to monuments, from finely crafted artifacts rich with cultural significance to the inadvertent transformation of landscapes over the long term. Each contributor to Material Evidence identifies a particular type of evidence with which they grapple and considers, with reference to concrete examples, how archaeologists construct evidential claims, critically assess them, and bring them to bear on pivotal questions about the cultural past. -/- Historians, cultural anthropologists, philosophers, and science studies scholars are increasingly interested in working with material "things" as objects of inquiry and as evidence – and they acknowledge on all sides just how challenging this is. One of the central messages of the book is that close analysis of archaeological best practice can yield constructive guidelines for practice that have much to offer practitioners within archaeology and well beyond. (shrink)

In the same spirit with the theme of last issue of this SGJ journal (“Ongoing creation”), this paper shortly reviews a plausible mechanism from Aether to become ordinary matter from the perspective of Neutrosophic Logic. We also discuss two other possible applications of Neutrosophic Logic, including a resolution of conflicting paradigms in medicine. We hope that some ideas as outlined herein will be proved useful in the near future.

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.

Communicative practices in online and social media sometimes seem to amplify political conflict, and result in significant harms to people who become the targets of collective outrage. Many complaints that have been made about political correctness in the past, we argue, amount to little more than a veiled expression of resentment over the increasing influence enjoyed by progressive activists. But some complaints about political correctness take on a different complexion, in light of the technologically-driven changes to our communicative practices and (...) political discourse. Given the ways in which they are entangled in these new forms of online communication, well-meaning attempts to police the norms of political correctness may end up contributing to individual wrongs, or to destructive social patterns. In this paper we examine these worries, situate them in a broader sociological context, and offer some tentative proposals about how they might be addressed. (shrink)

Smarandache Hypothesis states that there is no speed limit of anything, including light and particles. While the idea is quite simple and based on known hypothesis of quantum mechanics, called Einstein-Podolski-Rosen paradox, in reality such a superluminal physics seems still hard to accept by majority of physicists. Here we review some experiments to support superluminal physics and also findings to explain Smarandache Quantum Paradoxes and Quantum Sorites Paradox. We also touch briefly on new experiment on magneton, supporting SubQuantum Kinetic Model (...) of Electron. (shrink)

*This is a project I hope to come back to one day. It stalled, a bit, on the absence of a positive theory of update I could be satisfied with* When should we believe a indicative conditional, and how much confidence in it should we have? Here’s one proposal: one supposes actual the antecedent; and sees under that supposition what credence attaches to the consequent. Thus we suppose that Oswald did not shot Kennedy; and note that under this assumption, Kennedy (...) was assassinated by someone other than Oswald. Thus we are highly confident in the indicative: if Oswald did not kill Kennedy, someone else did. (shrink)

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 (...) problem of disposition within the context of the foundation of modern science, and analyze this dispute up to the 20th century. Furthermore, articles explore the contemporary theories of dispositions. (shrink)

In his absorbing book Art as Performance, David Davies argues that artworks should be identified, not with artistic products such as paintings or novels, but instead with the artistic actions or processes that produced such items. Such a view had an earlier incarnation in Currie’s widely criticized “action type hypothesis”, but Davies argues that it is instead action tokens rather than types with which artworks should be identified. This rich and complex work repays the closest study in spite of some (...) basic objections to be raised concerning Davies’s central concept of an action token. (shrink)

The goal of the article is to show that a complete answer to the title question can be given only in the context of the natural sciences. We believe that the group of cognitive sciences are the most reliable source of information about cognitive mental processes is. Making use of their achievements, we present a series of criteria for possessing a mind. We distinguish between many kinds of minds. We attempt to outline the conditions that must be fulfilled by an (...) adequate model of the mind. In our opinion, such a model must make use of all available empirical data and of scientific theories constructed on the basis of such data. From the point of view of philosophy, the requirements placed upon such theories by ontology are especially important. Their reconstruction can be a prolegomenon to a future integrated ontology of the mind. We emphasize that the mind is not an independent thing. In speaking about the mind we have in mind states, events, processes, functions, and dispositions that are derivative with respect to processes of a lower order. We assume that an adequate model of the mind is multi-dimensional, taking into account several mutually interacting levels of organization. We interpret the psychophysical problem as one of the relation between levels of organization, a relation that is constitutive for the actualization of mental states. Psychophysical relations turn out to be a particular case of the broader issue of relations between levels. In carrying out a preliminary conceptualization we make use of the notion of emergence; this is why our position, which is mainly in opposition to substantial dualism, may be termed emergent monism or naturalism. (shrink)

I claim that differences in the importance attached to economic liberty are more important in debates over the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture than disagreements about the precautionary principle. I will argue this point by considering a case study: the decision by the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to grant nonregulated status to Roundup Ready soy. I will show that the unregulated release of this herbicide-resistant crop would not be acceptable morally unless one places (...) a very high premium on economic liberty. This is true even if one takes a sound science attitude to unknown risks, rather than a precautionary attitude. I concede that it may not have been within APHIS’s legislative mandate to regulate Roundup Ready soy further, but for those of us who do not put a high premium on economic liberty, this only calls for extending regulatory oversight of GMOs. (shrink)

Bryne & Hajek (1997) argue that Lewis’s (1988; 1996) objections to identifying desire with belief do not go through if our notion of desire is ‘causalized’ (characterized by causal, rather than evidential, decision theory). I argue that versions of the argument go through on certain assumptions about the formulation of decision theory. There is one version of causal decision theory where the original arguments cannot be formulated—the ‘imaging’ formulation that Joyce (1999) advocates. But I argue this formulation is independently objectionable. (...) If we want to maintain the desire as belief thesis, there’s no shortcut through causalization. (shrink)

So-called “ugly laws” were mostly municipal statutes in the United States that outlawed the appearance in public of people who were, in the words of one of these laws, “diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object” (Chicago City Code 1881). Although the moniker “ugly laws” was coined to refer collectively to such ordinances only in 1975 (Burgdorf and Burgdorf 1975), it has become the primary way to refer to such laws, (...) which targeted the overlapping categories of the poor, the homeless, vagrants, and those with visible disabilities. Enacted and actively enforced between the American Civil War (1867) and World War I (1918), such laws and their enforcement can tell us much about the very sorts of people who were also, a generation later, subject to explicitly eugenic laws, such as sterilization legislation. And like eugenic laws and policies, such laws continue to affect the lives of people with disabilities to this day (Schweik 2011). (shrink)

Trivalence is quite natural for deontic action logic, where actions are treated as good, neutral or bad.We present the ideas of trivalent deontic logic after J. Kalinowski and its realisation in a 3-valued logic of M. Fisher and two systems designed by the authors of the paper: a 4-valued logic inspired by N. Belnap’s logic of truth and information and a 3-valued logic based on nondeterministic matrices. Moreover, we combine Kalinowski’s idea of trivalence with deontic action logic based on boolean (...) algebra. (shrink)

Ontologies describe reality in specific domains in ways that can bridge various disciplines and languages. They allow easier access and integration of information that is collected by different groups. Ontologies are currently used in the biomedical sciences, geography, and law. A Biomedical Ethics Ontology would benefit members of ethics committees who deal with protocols and consent forms spanning numerous fields of inquiry. There already exists the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI); the proposed BMEO would interoperate with OBI, creating a powerful (...) information tool. We define a domain ontology and begin to construct a BMEO, focused on the process of evaluating human research protocols. Finally, we show how our BMEO can have practical applications for ethics committees. This paper describes ongoing research and a strategy for its broader continuation and cooperation. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to introduce, interpret, and develop two incompatible process -ontological theories of personal identity that have received little attention in analytic metaphysics. The first theory derives from the notion of personal identity proposed in Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy, but I interpret this notion differently from previous commentators. The Whiteheadian theory may appeal to those who believe that personal identity involves an entity or entities that are essentially dynamic, but has nothing to do with diachronic objectual (...) identity : the binary equivalence relation that every entity bears to itself, and only to itself, even after undergoing intrinsic change. The Whiteheadian theory may also find favor with those who, like Whitehead, reject the possibility of pure processes and hold that in every becoming, something—which need not be an object, thing, or individual substance—becomes. The second theory derives from the notion of recurrent dynamics presented in Johanna Seibt’s General Process Theory. The Seibtian theory may appeal to those who believe that personal identity involves not only an entity or entities that are essentially dynamic, but also the relation of diachronic objectual identity. The Seibtian theory may also find favor with those who, like Broad and Sellars, find reason to postulate pure processes. (shrink)