Next SectionThis article argues against two dominant accounts of the nature of nostalgia. These views assume that nostalgia depends, in some way, on comparing a present situation with a past one. However, neither does justice to the full range of recognizably nostalgic experiences available to us – in particular, ‘Proustian’ nostalgia directed at involuntary autobiographical memories. Therefore, the accounts in question fail. I conclude by considering an evaluative puzzle raised by Proustian nostalgia when it is directed at memories that the (...) nostalgist herself regards as non-veridical. (shrink)

The chapter introduces and characterizes the notion of fittingness. It charts the history of the relation and its relevance to contemporary debates in normative and metanormative philosophy and proceeds to survey issues to do with fittingness covered in the volume’s chapters, including the nature and epistemology of fittingness, the relations between fittingness and reasons, the normativity of fittingness, fittingness and value theory, and the role of fittingness in theorizing about responsibility. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of issues to (...) do with fittingness that aren’t covered extensively by the volume’s chapters in order to indicate avenues for further research. (shrink)

Our approach is based on a tri-partite method of integrating psychodynamic hypotheses, cognitive subliminal processes, and psychophysiological alpha power measures. We present ten social phobic subjects with three individually selected groups of words representing unconscious conflict, conscious symptom experience, and Osgood Semantic negative valence words used as a control word group. The unconscious conflict and conscious symptom words, presented subliminally and supraliminally, act as primes preceding the conscious symptom and control words presented as supraliminal targets. With alpha power as a (...) marker of inhibitory brain activity, we show that unconscious conflict primes, only when presented subliminally, have a unique inhibitory effect on conscious symptom targets. This effect is absent when the unconscious conflict primes are presented supraliminally, or when the target is the control words. Unconscious conflict prime effects were found to correlate with a measure of repressiveness in a similar previous study (Shevrin et al., 1992, 1996). Conscious symptom primes have no inhibitory effect when presented subliminally. Inhibitory effects with conscious symptom primes are present, but only when the primes are supraliminal, and they did not correlate with repressiveness in a previous study (Shevrin et al., 1992, 1996). We conclude that while the inhibition following supraliminal conscious symptom primes is due to conscious threat bias, the inhibition following subliminal unconscious conflict primes provides a neurological blueprint for dynamic repression: it is only activated subliminally by an individual's unconscious conflict and has an inhibitory effect specific only to the conscious symptom. These novel findings constitute neuroscientific evidence for the psychoanalytic concepts of unconscious conflict and repression, while extending neuroscience theory and methods into the realm of personal, psychological meaning. (shrink)

Since 1962 Kuhn's concept of incommensurability has undergone a process of transformation. His current account of incommensurability has little in common with his original account of it. Originally, incommensurability was a relation of methodological, observational and conceptual disparity between paradigms. Later Kuhn restricted the notion to the semantical sphere and assimilated it to the indeterminacy of translation. Recently he has developed an account of it as localized translation failure between subsets of terms employed by theories.

Why should we refrain from doing things that, taken collectively, are environmentally destructive, if our individual acts seem almost certain to make no difference? According to the expected consequences approach, we should refrain from doing these things because our individual acts have small risks of causing great harm, which outweigh the expected benefits of performing them. Several authors have argued convincingly that this provides a plausible account of our moral reasons to do things like vote for policies that will reduce (...) our countries’ greenhouse gas emissions, adopt plant-based diets, and otherwise reduce our individual emissions. But this approach has recently been challenged by authors like Bernward Gesang and Julia Nefsky. Gesang contends that it may be genuinely impossible for our individual emissions to make a morally relevant difference. Nefsky argues more generally that the expected consequences approach cannot adequately explain our reasons not to do things if there is no precise fact of the matter about whether their outcomes are harmful. -/- In the following chapter, author Howard Nye defends the expected consequences approach against these objections. Nye contends that Gesang has shown at most that our emissions could have metaphysically indeterministic effects that lack precise objective chances. He argues, moreover, that the expected consequences approach can draw upon existing extensions to cases of indeterminism and imprecise probabilities to deliver the result that we have the same moral reasons to reduce our emissions in Gesang’s scenario as in deterministic scenarios. Nye also shows how the expected consequences approach can draw upon these extensions to handle Nefsky’s concern about the absence of precise facts concerning whether the outcomes of certain acts are harmful. The author concludes that the expected consequences approach provides a fully adequate account of our moral reasons to take both political and personal action to reduce our ecological footprints. (shrink)

I argue for a type of relativism that allows different people to have conflicting accurate representations of the world. This is contrary to the view of most Anglo-American philosophers, who would, with Paul Boghossian in Fear of Knowledge, deny that “there are many radically different, yet ‘equally valid’ ways of knowing the world.” My argument is not a metaphysical argument about the ultimate nature of the outside world, but a psychological argument about the mental processes of representation. The argument starts (...) from a few principles of naïve (or folk) psychology, but is later extended to apply to mechanisms that do not have a “psychology.” Finally, I briefly discuss the anti-relativist impulse in philosophy, with particular reference to Boghossian’s example of non-scientific beliefs regarding Lakota origins. I argue that both we and the Lakotas have good reason to reject such beliefs while still remaining relativists. Being a relativist does not mean that you get to believe whatever you like. (shrink)

Relativism is a theory about how people organize their beliefs. We construct mental representations of the world—particular configurations of our internal brain stuff—to guide our actions. But our brains contain only a minuscule part of the world’s stuff. Given the limited brain stuff available, we can have detailed representations of some features of the world only if we simplify our representations of other parts. Our internal representational means are thus too meager to accurately represent reality in full. Which representations we (...) adopt will therefore depend upon our purposes: different purposes, different representations, different beliefs. Such a relativism does not deny the reality of the outside world, is not self-contradictory, and allows for progress, moral persuasion, and cross-cultural criticism. (shrink)

The paper presents a realist account of the epistemic objectivity of science. Epistemic objectivity is distinguished from ontological objectivity and the objectivity of truth. As background, T.S. Kuhn’s idea that scientific theory-choice is based on shared scientific values with a role for both objective and subjective factors is discussed. Kuhn’s values are epistemologically ungrounded, hence provide a minimal sense of objectivity. A robust account of epistemic objectivity on which methodological norms are reliable means of arriving at the truth is presented. (...) The problem remains that deliberative judgement is required to determine the relevance and relative significance of a range of methodological norms. A role is sketched for cognitive virtues which may be exercised in the course of the deliberative judgement. (shrink)

I present and defend (1) an account of ethical judgments as judgments about our reasons to feel specific motivationally laden attitudes, (2) an account of what an agent should do in terms of what would achieve ends that she has reason to be motivated to pursue, and (3) an account of an agent’s reasons for motivation (and thus action) in terms of the prescriptions of the most fundamental principles that guide her deliberations. Using these accounts, I explain the connection between (...) ethics and reasons for action, how ethical judgments are both descriptive and intrinsically motivating, and how ethical facts arise from facts about agents’ deliberations. (shrink)

In a shift of position that has gone largely unnoticed by the great majority of commentators, Thomas Kuhn's version of the incommensurability thesis underwent a major transformation over the last decade and a half of his life. In his later work, Kuhn argued that incommensurability is a relation of translation failure between local subsets of interdefined theoretical terms, which encapsulate the taxonomic structure of a theory. Incommensurability arises because it is impossible to transfer the natural categories employed within one taxonomic (...) structure into the categorial system of another such structure. Apparently on the basis of such taxonomic incommensurability, Kuhn asserted a number of antirealist theses about truth, reference and reality. In this paper, it will be argued, however, that, far from leading to antirealist consequences about the relationship between theory and reality, the taxonomic incommensurability thesis may be incorporated unproblematically within a reasonably robust scientific realist framework. (shrink)

Success semantics holds, roughly, that what it is for a state of an agent to be a belief that P is for it to be disposed to combine with her desires to cause behaviour that would fulfill those desires if P. J. T. Whyte supplements this with an account of the contents of an agent's “basic desires” to provide an attractive naturalistic theory of mental content. We argue that Whyte's strategy can avoid the objections raised against it by restricting “basic (...) desires” to sensory inclinations that cause us to do things independently of our beliefs about their contents. -/- La sémantique du succès soutient, en gros, que ce qu'il faut pour qu'un état d'un agent soit une croyance en P, c'est que cet état soit disposé à se combiner avec ses désirs pour provoquer un comportement qui répondrait à ces désirs si P. J. T. Whyte complète cela par un compte-rendu du contenu des « désirs de base » d'un agent pour fournir une théorie naturaliste attrayante du contenu mental. Nous soutenons que la stratégie de Whyte peut éviter les objections qui lui sont faites en restreignant les « désirs de base » aux inclinations sensorielles qui nous font agir indépendamment de nos croyances sur leur contenu. (shrink)

The contemporary debate between scientific realism and anti-realism is conditioned by a polarity between two opposing arguments: the realist’s success argument and the anti-realist’s pessimistic induction. This polarity has skewed the debate away from the problem that lies at the source of the debate. From a realist point of view, the historical approach to the philosophy of science which came to the fore in the 1960s gave rise to an unsatisfactory conception of scientific progress. One of the main motivations for (...) the scientific realist appeal to the success of science was the need to provide a substantive account of the progress of science as an increase of knowledge about the same entities as those referred to by earlier theories in the history of science. But the idea that a substantive conception of progress requires continuity of reference has faded from the contemporary debate. In this paper, I revisit the historical movement in the philosophy of science in an attempt to resuscitate the original agenda of the debate about scientific realism. I also briefly outline the way in which the realist should employ the theory of reference as the basis for a robust account of scientific progress which will satisfy realist requirements. (shrink)

The incommensurability thesis is the thesis that the content of some alternative scientific theories is incomparable due to translation failure between the vocabulary the theories employ. This paper presents an overview of the main issues which have arisen in the debate about incommensurability. It also briefly outlines a response to the thesis based on a modified causal theory of reference which allows change of reference subsequent to initial baptism, as well as a role to description in the determination of reference. (...) On such a view. the content of theories may be compared on the basis of shared reference, despite failure of translation. Two recent developments involving the incomnensurability thesis are also examined: (i) the taxonomic version of the incomensurability thesis found in Kuhn’s later writings. (ii) Hoyningen-Huenc’s neo-Kantian interpretation of Kuhn’s metaphysics. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between epistemic relativism and Pyrrhonian scepticism. It is argued that a fundamental argument for contemporary epistemic relativism derives from the Pyrrhonian problem of the criterion. Pyrrhonian scepticism is compared and contrasted with Cartesian scepticism about the external world and Humean scepticism about induction. Epistemic relativism is characterized as relativism due to the variation of epistemic norms, and is contrasted with other forms of cognitive relativism, such as truth relativism, conceptual relativism and ontological relativism. An argument (...) from the Pyrrhonian problem of the criterion to epistemic relativism is presented, and is contrasted with three other arguments for epistemic relativism. It is argued that the argument from the criterion is the most fundamental argument for epistemic relativism. Finally, it is noted how the argument of the present paper fits with the author’s previous suggestion that a particularist response to the Pyrrhonian sceptic may be combined with a naturalistic view of epistemic warrant to meet the challenge of epistemic relativism. (shrink)

This paper presents a particularist and naturalist response to epistemic relativism. The response is based on an analysis of the source of epistemic relativism, according to which epistemic relativism is closely related to Pyrrhonian scepticism. The paper starts with a characterization of epistemic relativism. Such relativism is explicitly distinguished from epistemological contextualism. Next the paper presents an argument for epistemic relativism that is based on the Pyrrhonian problem of the criterion. It then considers a response to the problem of the (...) criterion proposed by Roderick Chisholm, which is based on epistemological particularism. After sketching Chisholm’s approach, a response to epistemic relativism is presented which combines Chisholm’s particularism with epistemic naturalism and reliabilism. A number of objections to the position are then considered. The paper ends with remarks about the relationship between particularism and the naturalistic response proposed to epistemic relativism. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to explore the relationship between Kuhn’s views about science and scientific realism. I present an overview of key features of Kuhn’s model of scientific change. The model suggests a relativistic approach to the methods of science. I bring out a conflict between this relativistic approach and a realist approach to the norms of method. I next consider the question of progress and truth. Kuhn’s model is a problem-solving model that proceeds by way of puzzles (...) and anomalies rather than progress toward truth. I explore Kuhn’s views about scientific progress in connection with scientific realist views about truth and progress. This leads to consideration of Kuhn’s views about the incommensurability of paradigms, as well as brief consideration of an anti-realist interpretation of his talk of world-change. I conclude by indicating that the scientific realist may endorse some aspects of Kuhn’s view. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders the challenge presented to scientific realism by the semantic incommensurability thesis. A twofold distinction is drawn between methodological and semantic incommensurability, and between semantic incommensurability due to variation of sense and due to discontinuity of reference. Only the latter presents a challenge to scientific realism. The realist may dispose of this challenge on the basis of a modified causal theory of reference, as argued in the author’s 1994 book, The incommensurability thesis. This referential response has been the (...) subject of a charge of meta-incommensurability by Hoyningen-Huene et al., who argue that the realist’s referential response begs the question against anti-realist advocates of incommensurability. In reply, it is noted that a tu quoque rejoinder is available to the realist. It is also argued that the dialectical situation favours the scientific realist, since the anti-realist defence of incommensurability depends on an incoherent distinction between phenomenal world and world-in-itself. In light of such incoherence, and a strong commonsense presumption in favour of realism, the referential response to semantic incommensurability may be justifiably based on realism. (shrink)

This article examines where Kant stands on the question of the redistribution of wealth and income both nationally and globally. Kant is rightly seen as a radical reformer of the world order from a political standpoint seeking a republican, federative worldwide system; can he also be seen as wanting to bring about an equally dramatic shift from an economic perspective? To answer this question we have first of all to address the question of whether he is an egalitarian or an (...) inegalitarian at the national level. Certainly there are certain social and material inequalities within a civil society Kant is prepared to accept and there are some he is not. This would imply that he would affirm certain inequalities at an international level and that there are others upon which he would recommend action. Thus the question arises as to whether or not it is appropriate for Kantians to regard the current enormous inequalities in wealth and income between individuals living in different parts of the globe as scandalous and in need of change. The paper throughout relates the problem of distributive justice within the state to the problem of distributive justice amongst states, arguing that this approach is warranted by Kant's own method. Particular attention is paid to how Kant's own approach to political philosophy may be deployed to underpin a change to a distinctive type of international distributive justice. (shrink)

Meaning without Analyticity draws upon the author’s essays and articles, over a period of 20 years, focused on language, logic and meaning. The book explores the prospect of a non-behavioristic theory of cognitive meaning which rejects the analytic-synthetic distinction, Quinean behaviorism, and the logical and social-intellectual excesses of extreme holism. Cast in clear, perspicuous language and oriented to scientific discussions, this book takes up the challenges of philosophical communication and evaluation implicit in the recent revival of the pragmatist tradition—especially those (...) arising from its relation to prior American analytic thought. This volume continues the work of Callaway’s 1993 book, Context for Meaning and Analysis, building on the “turn toward pragmatism.” . (shrink)

This is a reply to Alex Grzankowski’s comment on my paper, ‘To Believe is to Believe True’. I argue that one may believe a proposition to be true without possessing the concept of truth. I note that to believe the proposition P to be true is not the same as to believe the proposition ‘P is true’. This avoids the regress highlighted by Grzankowski in which the concept of truth is employed an infinite number of times in a single belief.

It is often assumed that the best explanation of why we should be moral must involve a substantive account of what there is reason to do and how this is related to what morality requires and recommends. In this paper I argue to the contrary that the best explanation of why we should be moral is neutral about the content of morality, and does not invoke an independent substantive account of what there is practical reason to do. I contend that (...) an act’s deontic status as recommended or required by morality is best understood as its being fitting for us to feel obligated to perform it, which essentially involves motivation to perform it. I argue, moreover, that our having reason to do something is a matter of its being fitting for us to be motivated to do it. Since an act’s being favored by morality conceptually entails the fittingness of our being motivated to perform it, and the fittingness of this motivation conceptually entails that there is reason to perform it, it is actually a conceptual truth that there are reasons to do what morality requires and recommends, whatever that turns out to be. I contend, finally, that this kind of account best explains why, although moral considerations are not always overriding, we necessarily have conclusive reasons to do what morality requires. I argue that an act counts as morally required only if the reasons to feel obligated to perform it are conclusive, which entails that it is unfitting to fail to be most strongly motivated to perform it. This, together with my account of the connection between fitting motives and practical reasons, entails that whatever considerations are weighty enough to make the act morally required are conclusive reasons to perform it. I believe that this conceptual account of reasons to be moral is important, because it removes the explanation of why we should be moral as a desideratum on normative ethical theories, which may significantly decrease the attractions of some and increase the attractions of others. (shrink)

This article examines the controversy that has arisen concerning the interpretation of Immanuel Kant's account of European colonialism. One the one hand there are those interpreters such as Robert Bernasconi who see Kant's account as all of a piece with his earlier views on race which demonstrate a certain narrow mindedness in relation to black and coloured people and, on the other hand, there are those such as Pauline Kleingeld and Allen Wood who argue that the earlier writings on race (...) are not wholly typical of Kant's approach and suggest that Kant's later discussions of colonialism in Perpetual Peace and the Metaphysics of Morals provide a better indication of Kant's progressive views on the treatment of non-European societies. The article draws attention to the very strong evidence of Kant's dislike for the pattern of European expansion to other parts of the globe and indicates that within Kant's writings there are the seeds of a wholly unconventional critical understanding of western colonialism that have yet to be developed fully. The article suggests that this critical understanding surpasses the unsystematic objections made to colonialism in post - modernist thought and also the critique proffered by the determinist Marxist account. (shrink)

The Doctrine of Double Effect [DDE] states roughly that it is harder to justify causing or allowing harm as a means to an end than it is to justify conduct that results in harm as a side effect. This chapter argues that a theory of deontological constraints on harming needs something like the DDE in order to avoid the charge that it reflects a narcissistic obsession with the cleanliness of our own hands. Unfortunately, the DDE is often interpreted as maintaining (...) that we must avoid acting with certain intentions, which, this chapter contends, embodies an equally narcissistic obsession with the purity of our own hearts. The chapter argues that the DDE is better interpreted as a denial of the Machiavellian idea that beneficial ends justify harmful means. On this view, the objective fact that our conduct will secure benefits for some individuals at the expense of other individuals weakens the extent to which those benefits count as reasons to engage in that conduct. The chapter argues that this version of the DDE provides a plausible, non-narcissistic foundation for deontological constraints. (shrink)

I consider a familiar argument for two-boxing in Newcomb's Problem and find it defective because it involves a type of divergence from standard Baysian reasoning, which, though sometimes justified, conflicts with the stipulations of the Newcomb scenario. In an appendix, I also find fault with a different argument for two-boxing that has been presented by Graham Priest.

Many economists have argued convincingly that automated systems employing present-day artificial intelligence have already caused massive technological displacement, which has led to stagnant real wages, fewer middle- income jobs, and increased economic inequality in developed countries like Canada and the United States. To address this problem various individuals have proposed measures to increase workers’ living standards, including the adoption of a universal basic income, increased public investment in education, increased minimum wages, increased worker control of firms, and investment in a (...) Green New Deal that will provide substantial employment in transitioning to green energy, buildings, and agriculture. In this paper I argue that both left-wing and right-wing positions in political philosophy, such as John Rawls’s Justice as Fairness and Robert Nozick’s Entitlement Theory, are committed to the conclusion that we should take political action to counteract the effects of technological displacement by undertaking such measures to increase workers’ living standards. (shrink)

This is a comment on Moti Mizrahi's paper ' You Can't Handle the Truth: Knowledge = Epistemic Certainty'. Mizrahi claims that the factivity of knowledge entails that knowledge requires epistemic certainty. But the argument that Mizrahi presents does not proceed from factivity to certainty. Instead, it proceeds from a premise about the relationship between grounds and knowledge to the conclusion about certainty.

As is well known, Putnam changed his philosophical position on a number of occasions throughout his career. In this paper, I reconsider the position of internal realism which Putnam defended from the mid-1970’s until around 1990. The paper opens with a discussion of the position that Putnam called “metaphysical realism”, since his internal realism emerged out of a critique of that position. The paper then briefly presents the internal realist view as one which involves an epistemic conception of truth, as (...) well as an anti-realist metaphysical outlook on which objects depend on conceptual scheme. The paper then provides a survey of the key objections to internal realism which emerged in the ensuing debate with defenders of realism. The paper concludes with a brief consideration of the relevance of Putnam’s later adoption of a direct realist theory of perception with respect to the issue of realism. (shrink)

In previous work, I have sought to show that the basic argument for epistemic relativism derives from the problem of the criterion that stems from ancient Pyrrhonian scepticism. Because epistemic relativism depends upon a sceptical strategy, it is possible to respond to relativism on the basis of an anti-sceptical strategy. I argue that the particularist response to scepticism proposed by Roderick Chisholm may be combined with a naturalistic and reliabilist conception of epistemic warrant as the basis for a satisfactory response (...) to epistemic relativism. In this paper, I outline this particularist response to relativism, and provide further commentary on the relationship between naturalism and particularism. In addition, I set the approach in contrast with reflective equilibrium approaches in epistemology. I also briefly explore the connection between the particularist response to relativism and G. E. Moore’s defense of an external world. (shrink)

This paper considers the relationship between science and common sense. It takes as its point of departure, Eddington’s distinction between the table of physics and the table of common sense, as well as Eddington’s suggestion that science shows common sense to be false. Against the suggestion that science shows common sense to be false, it is argued that there is a form of common sense, basic common sense, which is not typically overthrown by scientific research. Such basic common sense is (...) strongly confirmed by our everyday experience and may itself serve as the basic for scientific realism. (shrink)

Relativism in the philosophy of science is widely associated with the work of Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend. Kuhn and Feyerabend espoused views about conceptual change and variation of scientific method that have apparent relativistic implications. Both held that scientific theories or paradigms may be incommensurable due to semantic variation. Two ways that truth may be relative because of semantic incommensurability will be distinguished. Davidson’s criticism of the idea of an untranslatable language will be discussed, as well as a response (...) to incommensurability based on the causal theory of reference of Kripke and Putnam. A form of relativism with respect to epistemic rationality may also be derived from the claims of Kuhn and Feyerabend about methodological variation. Kuhn’s initial suggestions about paradigm-dependent standards and absence of extra-paradigmatic standards give rise to a view on which rationality is relative to paradigm. Kuhn’s later view that there is a stable set of shared scientific values is less prone to relativistic interpretation. Feyerabend’s claim that “anything goes” suggests an extreme form of relativism, but should be understood instead as the view that all rules of method may be violated in some circumstances. The latter brings Feyerabend’s view into line with Kuhn’s later view. (shrink)

This paper considers the responsibilities of the FDA with regard to disseminating information about the benefits and harms of e-cigarettes. Tobacco harm reduction advocates claim that the FDA has been overcautious and has violated ethical obligations by failing to clearly communicate to the public that e-cigarettes are far less harmful than cigarettes. We argue, by contrast, that the FDA’s obligations in this arena are more complex than they may appear at first blush. Though the FDA is accountable for informing the (...) public about the health risks and benefits of products it regulates, it also has other roles that inform when and how it should disseminate information. In addition to being a knowledge purveyor, it is also a knowledge producer, an advisor to the public, and a practical agent shaping the material conditions in which people make health-related choices. In our view, those other roles call for caution in the way the FDA interprets and communicates the available evidence. (shrink)

Keith Lehrer described the case of Mr Truetemp, who has reliably formed true beliefs about the temperature. The beliefs are produced by the action of a device (a "tempucomp" ) which has been surgically implanted in Truetemp's skull without his knowledge. The case is designed as a counterexample to process reliabilism. This short paper explores the question whether virtue epistemology is able to deal with the Truetemp case. It is argued that virtue-theoretic considerations lead to the rejection of the Truetemp (...) case as a case of warranted belief or knowledge, which suggests that virtue epistemology has the resources to handle the case. -/- . (shrink)

Background: Current practice frequently fails to provide care consistent with the preferences of decisionally-incapacitated patients. It also imposes significant emotional burden on their surrogates. Algorithmic-based patient preference predictors (PPPs) have been proposed as a possible way to address these two concerns. While previous research found that patients strongly support the use of PPPs, the views of surrogates are unknown. The present study thus assessed the views of experienced surrogates regarding the possible use of PPPs as a means to help make (...) treatment decisions for decisionally-incapacitated patients. -/- Methods: This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews to determine the views of experienced surrogates [n=26] who were identified from two academic medical centers and two community hospitals. The primary outcomes were respondents’ overall level of support for the idea of using PPPs and the themes related to their views on how a PPP should be used, if at all, in practice. -/- Results: Overall, 21 participants supported the idea of using PPPs. The remaining five indicated that they would not use a PPP because they made decisions based on the patient’s best interests, not based on substituted judgment. Major themes which emerged were that surrogates, not the patient’s preferences, should determine how treatment decisions are made, and concern that PPPs might be used to deny expensive care or be biased against minority groups. -/- Conclusions: Surrogates, like patients, strongly support the idea of using PPPs to help make treatment decisions for decisionally-incapacitated patients. These findings provide support for developing a PPP and assessing it in practice. At the same time, patients and surrogates disagree over whose preferences should determine how treatment decisions are made, including whether to use a PPP. These findings reveal a fundamental disagreement regarding the guiding principles for surrogate decision-making. Future research is needed to assess this disagreement and consider ways to address it. (shrink)

In a recent exchange, John Worrall and Larry Laudan have debated the merits of the model of rational scientific change proposed by Laudan in his book Science and Values. On the model advocated by Laudan, rational change may take place at the level of scientific theory and methodology, as well as at the level of the epistemic aims of science. Moreover, the rationality of a change which occurs at any one of these three levels may be dependent on considerations at (...) the remaining levels. Yet, in spite of the avowedly anti-relativistic motivation of Laudan's model, Worrall criticizes Laudan for irrevocably relativizing scientific rationality to historically variant methodological standards. (shrink)

The paper presents some thoughts about how an account of rationality might be recovered from what might have first appeared as anti-rationalistic ideas in the work of Kuhn and Feyerabend. The paper draws inspiration from some suggestions of Bernstein and Rorty, as well well as Brown's theory of rationality.

What is faith? Lara Buchak has done as much as anyone recently to answer our question in a sensible and instructive fashion. As it turns out, her writings reveal two theories of faith, an early one and a later one (or, if you like, two versions of the same theory). In what follows, we aim to do three things. First, we will state and assess Buchak’s early theory, highlighting both its good-making and bad-making features. Second, we will do the same (...) for her later theory, noting improvements on the early one. Third, we will mark various choice points in theorizing about faith, and we will argue for specific choices at those points, culminating in what we regard as a better, alternative theory of faith. Our critical aims, therefore, are ultimately constructive. By theorizing about faith with Lara Buchak, we aim to contribute to our common understanding of what faith is. (shrink)

In this paper it is argued that the concept of translation failure involved in Kuhn's thesis of incommensurability is distinct from that of translational indeterminacy in Quine's sense. At most, Kuhnian incommensurability constitutes a weak form of indeterminacy, quite distinct from Quine's. There remains, however, a convergence between the two views of translation, namely, that there is no single adequate translation between languages.

Some philosophers (e.g. Descartes) argue that there is an evidential relationship between language and thought, such that presence of language is indicative of mind. Recent language acquisition research with apes such as chimpanzees and bonobos attempts to demonstrate the capacity of these primates to acquire at least rudimentary linguistic capacity. This paper presents a case study of the ape language research and explores the consequences of the research with respect to the argument that animals lack mind because they fail to (...) display linguistic capacity. (shrink)

This is a response to Dragan Jakowljewitsch's 'The Successes of Science and Scientific-Theoretical Realism: A Less Than Direct Connection'.

This essay is a detailed study of William P. Alston’s view on the nature of Christian faith, which I assess in the context of three problems: the problem of the skeptical Christian, the problem of faith and reason, and the problem of the trajectory. Although Alston intended a view that would solve these problems, it does so only superficially. Fortunately, we can distinguish Alston’s view, on the one hand, from Alston’s illustrations of it, on the other hand. I argue that, (...) although Alston’s view only superficially solves these problems, Alston’s illustrations of it suggest a substantive way to solve them, a way that I sketch briefly. (shrink)

A major point of debate about morally good motives concerns an ambiguity in the truism that good and strong-willed people desire to do what is right. This debate is shaped by the assumption that “what’s right” combines in only two ways with “desire,” leading to distinct de dicto and de re readings of the truism. However, a third reading of such expressions is possible, first identified by Janet Fodor, which has gone wholly unappreciated by philosophers in this debate. I identify (...) Fodor’s nonspecific reading of “desire to do what’s right” and briefly discuss its merits. (shrink)

I argue that the idea that mental states possess a primitive intentionality in virtue of which they are able to represent or ‘intend’ putative particulars derives largely from Brentano‘s misinterpretation of Aristotle and the scholastics, and that without this howler the application of intentionality to phenomenal content would never have gained currency.

I consider what I hope are increasingly sophisticated versions of ontological argument, beginning from simple definitional forms, through three versions to be found in Anselm, with their recent interpretations by Malcolm, Plantinga, Klima and Lowe. I try to show why none of these work by investigating both the different senses of necessary existence and the conditions under which logically necessary existence can be brought to bear. Although none of these arguments work, I think that they lead to interesting reflections on (...) the nature of definition, on the conditions for possessing the property of necessary existence and point towards a different, neo-Platonic ground for God’s meeting the criteria for being logically necessary. (shrink)

Reprinted in Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology, Wadsworth 2015, 6th edition, eds Michael Rea and Louis Pojman. What is propositional faith? At a first approximation, we might answer that it is the psychological attitude picked out by standard uses of the English locution “S has faith that p,” where p takes declarative sentences as instances, as in “He has faith that they’ll win”. Although correct, this answer is not nearly as informative as we might like. Many people say that there (...) is a more informative answer. They say that, at the very least, propositional faith requires propositional belief. More precisely, they say that faith that p requires belief that p or that it must be partly constituted by belief that p. This view is common enough; call it the Common View. I have two main aims in this paper: (i) to exhibit the falsity of the Common View and the paucity of reasons for it, and (ii) to sketch a more accurate and comprehensive account of what propositional faith is. (shrink)

The paper takes off from the suggestion of Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen that Kuhn’s account of science may be understood in coherentist terms. There are coherentist themes in Kuhn’s philosophy of science. But one crucial element is lacking. Kuhn does not deny the existence of basic beliefs which have a non-doxastic source of justification. Nor does he assert that epistemic justification only derives from inferential relationships between non-basic beliefs. Despite this, the coherentist interpretation is promising and I develop it further in this (...) paper. I raise the question of whether Kuhn’s account of science can deal with the input objection to coherentism. I argue that the role played by problems in Kuhn’s theory of science ensures that there is input from the external world into scientists’ belief-systems. I follow Hoyningen-Huene in pointing to the causal role played by the external world in determining perceptual states. I next turn to the question of whether Kuhn’s rejection of foundationalism implies coherentism. I argue that Kuhn’s rejection of the one-to-one relation between object and experience is compatible with a foundationalist account of justification. Nor does Kuhn’s rejection of the given entail the same coherentist implications as Sellars’ critique of the myth of the given. (shrink)

The paper discusses the version of entity realism presented by Ian Hacking in his book, Representing and Intervening. Hacking holds that an ontological form of scientific realism, entity realism, may be defended on the basis of experimental practices which involve the manipulation of unobservable entities. There is much to be said in favour of the entity realist position that Hacking defends, especially the pragmatist orientation of his approach to realism. But there are problems with the position. The paper explores two (...) issues that reflect negatively on Hacking’s version of the entity realist position. The first issue relates to the role of description in fixing the reference of theoretical terms. The second issue relates to Hacking’s claim that the argument for entity realism based on experiment is a different kind of argument from the standard argument for scientific realism based on the success of science. (shrink)

This paper explores a particularist element in the theory of method of Imre Lakatos, who appealed to the value-judgements of élite scientists in the appraisal of competing theories of method. The role played by such value-judgements is strongly reminiscent of the epistemological particularism of Roderick Chisholm. Despite the existence of a clear parallel between the particularist approaches of both authors, it is argued that Lakatos’s approach is subject to a weakness that does not affect the approach of Chisholm.

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 (...) heterodox account of both normative and motivating reasons that is inspired by Donald Davidson’s primary reasons. We should adopt the heterodox view, I argue, because it addresses an overlooked but fatal defect in the orthodox conception of reasons, of which challenges to the tempting analysis are a special case. (shrink)

A critique of Plantinga's free will defense. For an updated version of this critique, with a reply to objections from William Rowe and Alvin Plantinga, see my "The logical problem of evil: Plantinga and Mackie," in Justin P. McBrayer & Daniel Howard‐Snyder (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil, Wiley-Blackwell, 2013, pp. 19-33.

This is a comment on Professor Holm Tetens' paper, 'Scientific Objectivity with a Human Face'.