Comparativism is the view that comparative confidences (e.g., being more confident that P than that Q) are more fundamental than degrees of belief (e.g., believing that P with some strength x). In this paper, I outline the basis for a new, non-probabilistic version of comparativism inspired by a suggestion made by Frank Ramsey in `Probability and Partial Belief'. I show how, and to what extent, `Ramseyan comparativism' might be used to weaken the (unrealistically strong) probabilistic coherence conditions that comparativism traditionally (...) relies on. (shrink)

Is autonomy – governing yourself – compatible with letting yourself be governed by trust? This paper argues that autonomy is not only compatible with appropriate trust but actually requires it. Autonomy requires appropriate trust because it is undermined by inappropriate mistrust. An autonomous agent treats herself as answerable for her action-guiding commitments, where answerability requires openness to the rational influence of external, critical perspectives on those commitments. This openness to correction makes one vulnerable to manipulation and can be exploited in (...) ways that undermine autonomy instead of supporting it. We argue that autonomy is undermined by inappropriate trust, and that the inappropriateness lies in the agent’s failure to manifest appropriate responsiveness to evidence of untrustworthiness in the one trusted. The problem isn’t that autonomy requires dispensing with trust but that trust must itself be governed by appropriate responsiveness to evidence of untrustworthiness. Our view confronts two challenges. One challenge lies in explaining why you shouldn’t treat your vulnerability to manipulation as a general reason to let your trusting disposition lapse into an untrusting one. We argue that there is no such general reason to let your responsiveness to evidence of untrustworthiness be supplanted by a suspicious disposition to seek and require positive evidence of trustworthiness. A second, and deeper, challenge arises from the fact that in some especially sophisticated cases of manipulation there is no evidence of untrustworthiness to which you could respond. We argue that you cannot rationally cope with even this unresolvable risk of exploited trust by trusting only yourself. (shrink)

Donald Davidson denies that there are incommensurable scientific languages: languages which cannot be translated into our contemporary language. What about Derrida? What is his perspective on this matter? This paper presents a broadly Derridean objection to Susan Carey’s argument for incommensurability.

In this paper, I respond to an essay by Tatyana Tolstaya, which describes a contrast between the Russian and the Western perspective on words. Her contrast may generally be true, but I know of a counterexample: a tale about a Western philosopher and his followers and what happened to them.

In a book contribution responding to H.L.A. Hart and Tony Honoré, Judith Jarvis Thomson casts a certain analysis of causation in an attractive light, but says that it unfortunately faces two objections. I draw attention to another objection.

This paper contains a brief pastiche of analytic philosopher Carrie Ichikawa Jenkins, responding to the sociological theories of Pierre Bourdieu.

One way of trying to justify the thesis of the underdetermination of scientific theories is by actual examples. In this paper, I present a paradox which arises from trying to justify the thesis in this way.

I respond to the charge that one of my objections to Marilyn Strathern’s rejection of feminist anthropology is the same as an objection made by Kamala Visweswaran. They may seem very similar to begin with, but I argue that there is both a difference in focus - in which premises we are concentrating on - and in method.

In this paper, I present a pastiche of Kathleen Stock responding to Raymond Tallis’s defence of realism. It is followed by a note in which I briefly explain why I have approached this task by means of pastiche.

In his Edifying Discourses, Soren Kierkegaard published a sermon entitled ‘The Unchangeableness of God’ in which he reiterated the dogma which dominated Catholic, Protestant and even Jewish expressions of classical supernaturalist theology from the first century A.D. until the advent of process theology in the twentieth century. The dogma that as a perfect being, God must be totally unchanging in every conceivable respect was expressed by Kierkegaard in such ways as: He changes all, Himself unchanged. When everything seems stable and (...) in the overturn of all things, He remains equally unchanged; no change touches Him, not even the shadow of a change; in unaltered clearness He, the father of lights, remained eternally unchanged. 1. (shrink)

I argue that Henry Heine's assessment of the English - that they are either universal geniuses or self-interested mediocrities - is prone to an objection that draws upon his own characterization. I tried to write this in an Edwardian style but the result is a mishmash.

In this paper, I draw attention to an obstacle to determining to what extent the portrait of normal science as a problem-solving activity applies outside the natural sciences. I give two examples from social anthropology, one from the heyday of British structural-functionalism and one from recent British anthropology, “responding” to Marilyn Strathern’s problem of the feminist fieldworker. (NOTE: there is a duplicate of this but neither may be showing on my profile. A proverb: the guest hates the other guest; the (...) host hates them both.). (shrink)

I respond to Wes Sharrock and Rupert Read’s argument that we should not count very long supposed translations of very short sentences as translations. I cannot see that a length mismatch alone should disqualify a sentence from counting as a translation.

In this paper, I object to Michael Rush’s definitions of targeted and propositional gratitude.

Perceptual experience is often said to be transparent; that is, when we have a perceptual experience we seem to be aware of properties of the objects around us, and never seem to be aware of properties of the experience itself. This is a introspective fact. It is also often said that we can infer a metaphysical fact from this introspective fact, e.g. a fact about the nature of perceptual experience. A transparency theory fills in the details for these two facts, (...) and bridges the gap between them. We have three aims: to scrutinize Michael Tye’s transparency theory :137–151, 2002; Consciousness revisited: materialism without phenomenal concepts, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2009; Philos Stud 170:39–57, 2014a), introduce a new transparency theory, and advance a meta-theoretical hypothesis about the interest, and import, of transparency theories. (shrink)

I respond further to an undergraduate philosophy essay writing guide which tells readers that they are studying philosophy not creative writing. I note an obvious disadvantage of the claim.

This paper proposes a solution to a puzzle regarding when people switch from one skilled area of specialization to another, in which they have had little training. Certain analogies between the previous area and the area switched to enable this. I use Susan Carey as an example.

As an answer to the title question, some stories you can operate on and then get something good. I explain why I find a story about a tiger attack good, because of this reason, “courageously” presenting what I take to be something good. In the appendix, I present an attempt to clarify a distinction.

This paper gives further feedback in response to the evening of presentations about the value of different disciplines to the social sciences, at the University of Manchester. I respond to Peter Lawler’s presentation for the politics department, or discipline area. The appendix responds to a remark which I found online about Laura Valentini, related to the main content.

Jacques Derrida’s “Signature Event Context” is one of the most famous papers in literary theory, but there are aspects of it which, in my experience, are not commented on. Why are there no commas in the title? I present a puzzle, but there is a solution which I presume many will quickly go for.

This paper considers two explanations for why the main character of Flora Nwapa’s novel One is Enough does not answer the question of how many times her mother-in-law has visited. One of these is a variation on the surprise exam paradox.

This paper interprets Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough as presenting an objection to diffusionism: the diffusionist theory cannot account for the isolation of the rite Frazer focuses on, in the societies studied by classicists.

This is a one page handout, which specifies four uses of the social organism analogy in British structural-functionalist anthropology and contrasts these uses with uses in analytic political philosophy.

This paper quotes a story about Bronislaw Malinowski trying to find out a myth and extracts a dilemma from it. The story content seems related to self-referential puzzles.

Influenced by Martha Kuhlman, I am disposed to read Milan Kundera as personally disliking crowds. But I speculate that there is a practical reason for his writing against crowds, if we see him as part of a system of novelists.

This paper reflects on an article that appeared after the death of A.J. Ayer, which complains about what British philosophers focus on. I propose that the content of the philosophy curriculum can be predicted from a rational actor model.

Are the leading members of different fields comparable in their achievements? Is the A-grade painter (or A* if that is your top grade) somehow equivalent to the A-grade boxer, say? I would like to think so, but there is a problematic piece of data for me, though there is a philosophical question of why it is problematic: I find some brief remarks from a certain painter as funny as the jokes of leading comedians. In the appendix, I cast doubt on (...) my characterization of Salvador Dali’s humour as not trading on English language ambiguity. (shrink)

This paper raises a worry that it is difficult to reconcile Adam Smith’s claims about the relationship of specialization to talent and character with his account of the origins of money. Specialization makes one stupid outside of one’s specialism yet money arises by specialists also providing what everyone wants.

I consider a puzzle that greatly preoccupies some people and mildly preoccupies others, while being of no interest to some at all: “How did those people get into an elite university?” Problems with writing faux Japanese fiction provide one explanation. Once skilled literary craftspeople have failed, one turns to others.

Why is there a norm of reciprocity in certain societies – the recipient of a gift should give a gift in return? Or what is its function? Sir James Frazer provides an unobvious answer to the function of such a norm in one society: it serves to establish who is alive.

This brief paper raises a puzzle, or half-puzzle, about Flora Nwapa’s ethnic identity in light of sentences in her novel Women are Different and presents two solutions.

Milan Kundera is now perhaps the greatest living philosopher, but he suffers from logical problems. One might propose that since he is a person who works primarily in the medium of fiction, one should not be too harsh on him, rather find ways to make him more logical. The result may be rather chaste.

This paper presents a relativistic interpretation of Elizabeth Colson's paradox of empathy and a solution.

I consider the question of whether Annie Saumont is simply a disciple of Descartes in her fiction “You Should Have Changed at Dol.” Other interpretations are available according to which her commitments are more qualified.

I propose that some cases of underrepresentation reflect different conceptions of what is an appropriate time frame for assessment, using the publication history of R.K. Narayan to illustrate my hypothesis.

This paper begins with Adam Smith’s advice to specialize and draws attention to an advantage from a misleading appearance of fixed specialization, identified in Flora Nwapa’s novel Efuru.

This is a one page handout summarizing some information on how people in the village of Elmdon use the concept of being real Elmdon.

This paper responds to a paradox Marilyn Strathern raises concerning who endorses a community first model of the village of Elmdon, according to which it is a community and the good of the community should take priority over individual interests. It is middle-class newcomers, whose peripheral position requires greatest sacrifice from them, if the model is to be implemented. I propose two solutions to the puzzle.

Do we learn anything from social anthropology done in more familiar settings, such as England? In this paper, I draw attention to something I learnt from Frances Oxford’s commentary on Elmdon: a surprising combination. I also propose a solution based on a conception of labour and inheritance rights.

In her book on the English village of Elmdon, the anthropologist Marilyn Strathern identifies an assumption made by villagers: that much as Elmdon has a set of real Elmdon families, long associated with the place, so other villages also have their real families. I present an argument in favour of the assumption; the argument is an informal model.

This paper identifies three positions on the relationship between language and experience, the third of which I was not acquainted with before from my reading. It seems absurd.

Jeanette Edwards observes a pattern of questions of the form “Why do anthropology fieldwork in location X?” - she only hears the question posed of some places - and she explains this pattern by saying that some places are taken to be obviously legitimate for anthropology fieldwork whereas others are not. I draw distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate, obviously legitimate and not obviously legitimate, and better and worse. The distinctions lead to a different explanation.

Imprecise probabilities are often modelled with representors, or sets of probability functions. In the recent literature, two ways of interpreting representors have emerged as especially prominent: vagueness interpretations, according to which each probability function in the set represents how the agent's beliefs would be if any vagueness were precisified away; and comparativist interpretations, according to which the set represents those comparative confidence relations that are common to all probability functions therein. I argue that these interpretations have some important limitations. I (...) also propose an alternative—the functional interpretation—according to which representors are best interpreted by reference to the roles they play in the theories that make use of them. (shrink)

The theses of this paper are that: 1. the attempt to found absolute norms on rationality presupposes the availability of a single universal absolute conception of rationality, but no such conception is available; and 2. any conception of rationality which might be available for justifying one's ultimate normative commitments is itself evaluative. “Rationality” itself is a value-laden concept, as are all its philosophical sub-divisions—logic, ethics, aesthetics, axiology, etc. Choosing ultimate value principles under conditions of freedom, enlightenment, and impartiality presupposes that (...) one positively values such things. Rationality is an inescapably evaluative concept, not a value neutral concept. (shrink)

[The version of this paper published by Oxford online in 2019 was not copy-edited and has some sense-obscuring typos. I have posted a corrected (but not the final published) version on this site. The version published in print in 2020 has these corrections.] Which is more fundamental, assertion or testimony? Should we understand assertion as basic, treating testimony as what you get when you add an interpersonal addressee? Or should we understand testimony as basic, treating mere assertion -- assertion without (...) testimony -- as what you get when you subtract that interpersonal relation? In this chapter, I’ll argue for the subtractive approach and for the more general thesis that its treatment of the interpersonal element in assertion makes understanding that interpersonal element the key to understanding how assertion expresses belief. My theory of belief-expression in assertion treats it as internalizing the transmission of belief in testimony. How we understand that internalizing move depends on how we conceptualize the interpersonal element in testimony. Since what I’ll call the Command Model does not give us the conceptual resources to make this move, we should adopt an alternative that I’ll call the Custodial Model, on which a testifier aims not to convince her addressee but to reason with him – to give him reasons to believe what she tells him grounded in her trustworthiness in thus attempting to influence him. The subtractive approach to assertion thus rests on a key distinction between the aims of reasoning and persuasion. (shrink)

This document gathers together, in summary form, objections scattered across many papers and multiple online databases. Nevertheless, it omits some objections, notably complicated ones.

Fragments is a verse and narrative work of phenomenological and existential ontology focusing on mind-world unity and mind-world dislocation in the experience of self through time. Pivotal experiential and historical moments -- moments when normative guardrails and unreflective models of the world may be compromised -- are approached as fundamental markers of how we transact with evolving versions of ourselves and world.

The standard representation theorem for expected utility theory tells us that if a subject’s preferences conform to certain axioms, then she can be represented as maximising her expected utility given a particular set of credences and utilities—and, moreover, that having those credences and utilities is the only way that she could be maximising her expected utility. However, the kinds of agents these theorems seem apt to tell us anything about are highly idealised, being always probabilistically coherent with infinitely precise degrees (...) of belief and full knowledge of all a priori truths. Ordinary subjects do not look very rational when compared to the kinds of agents usually talked about in decision theory. In this paper, I will develop an expected utility representation theorem aimed at the representation of those who are neither probabilistically coherent, logically omniscient, nor expected utility maximisers across the board—that is, agents who are frequently irrational. The agents in question may be deductively fallible, have incoherent credences, limited representational capacities, and fail to maximise expected utility for all but a limited class of gambles. (shrink)

An assurance theory of trust begins from the act of assurance – whether testimonial, advisorial or promissory – and explains trust as a cognate stance of resting assured. My version emphasizes the risks and rewards of trust. On trust’s rewards, I show how an assurance can give a reason to the addressee through a twofold exercise of ‘normative powers’: (i) the speaker thereby incurs an obligation to be sincere; (ii) if the speaker is trustworthy, she thereby gives her addressee the (...) reason. Each claim is controversial; my contribution lies in how I defend them together, linking the sincerity obligation to the provision of reasons. On trust’s risks, I defend a popular thesis about the nature of trust – that trust differs from mere reliance in how it risks betrayal – against the objection that the thesis ‘moralizes’ trust. Such betrayal need not be moral, I argue, because it may derive entirely from how the assurance purports to provide a reason. (shrink)

How far, if at all, do our intrapersonal and our interpersonal epistemic obligations run in parallel? This paper treats the question as addressing the stability of doxastic commitment in the two dimensions. In the background lies an analogy between doxastic and practical commitment. We’ll pursue the question of doxastic stability by coining a doxastic analogue of Gregory Kavka’s much-discussed toxin case. In this new case, you foresee that you will rationally abandon a doxastic commitment by undergoing a shift in the (...) context in which you doxastically deliberate. The case reveals an important stability condition on doxastic commitment that plays no role in cases modeled on Ulysses and the Sirens, the scenario that has shaped previous attempts to draw an analogy between doxastic and practical commitment. The stability condition thereby revealed is not diachronic -- it does not involve a shift in belief -- but we can construct specifically diachronic cases that reveal an important intrapersonal epistemic obligation. This obligation arises when you expect the shift in belief by ‘projecting’ yourself into a future doxastic context -- thus vindicating a restricted, but only this restricted, application of Bas van Fraassen’s Reflection Principle. Despite some important differences, we can use these diachronic cases as a model for interpersonal cases that reveal an important role for doxastic context in the epistemology of disagreement. But the roles played by projection and context in disagreement ensure that there is no general obligation to be responsive to the opinion of an epistemic peer who disagrees with you. (shrink)