While many public health threats are now widely appreciated by the public, the risks from asbestos exposure remain poorly understood, even in high-risk groups. This article makes the case that asbestos exposure is an important, ongoing global health threat, and argues for greater policy efforts to raise awareness of this threat. It also proposes the extension of asbestos bans to developing countries and increased public subsidies for asbestos testing and abatement.

Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) are online tools designed to help citizens decide how to vote. They typically offer their users a representation of what is at stake in an election by matching user preferences on issues with those of parties or candidates. While the use of VAAs has boomed in recent years in both established and new democracies, this new phenomenon in the electoral landscape has received little attention from political theorists. The current academic debate is focused on epistemic aspects (...) of the question how a VAA can adequately represent electoral politics. We argue that conceptual and normative presuppositions at play in the background of the tool are at least as important. Even a well-developed VAA does not simply reflect what is at stake in the election by neutrally passing along information. Rather, it structures political information in a way that is informed by the developers’ presuppositions. Yet, these presuppositions remain hidden if we interpret the tool as a mirror that offers the user a reflection of him/herself situated within the political landscape. VAAs should therefore be understood as electoral dioramas, staged according to a contestable picture of politics. (shrink)

Objectives. The purpose of this study was to conduct the first randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the effectiveness of a second-generation mindfulness-based intervention (SG-MBI) for treating fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). Compared to first generation mindfulness-based interventions, SG-MBIs are more acknowledging of the spiritual aspect of mindfulness. Design. A RCT employing intent-to-treat analysis. Methods. Adults with FMS received an 8-week SG-MBI known as meditation awareness training (MAT; n = 74) or an active control intervention known as cognitive behaviour theory for groups (...) (n = 74). Assessments were performed at pre-, post-, and 6-month follow-up phases. Results. Meditation awareness training participants demonstrated significant and sustained improvements over control group participants in FMS symptomatology, pain perception, sleep quality, psychological distress, non-attachment (to self, symptoms, and environment), and civic engagement. A mediation analysis found that (1) civic engagement partially mediated treatment effects for all outcome variables, (2) non-attachment partially mediated treatment effects for psychological distress and sleep quality, and (3) non-attachment almost fully mediated treatment effects for FMS symptomatology and pain perception. Average daily time spent in meditation was found to be a significant predictor of changes in all outcome variables. Conclusions. Meditation awareness training may be a suitable treatment for adults with FMS and appears to ameliorate FMS symptomatology and pain perception by reducing attachment to self. (shrink)

The article concerns the topic of religion in Thomas Hobbes' view of man.

This document presents the Bonn PRINTEGER Consensus Statement: Working with Research Integrity—Guidance for research performing organisations. The aim of the statement is to complement existing instruments by focusing specifically on institutional responsibilities for strengthening integrity. It takes into account the daily challenges and organisational contexts of most researchers. The statement intends to make research integrity challenges recognisable from the work-floor perspective, providing concrete advice on organisational measures to strengthen integrity. The statement, which was concluded February 7th 2018, provides guidance on (...) the following key issues: § 1.Providing information about research integrity § 2.Providing education, training and mentoring § 3.Strengthening a research integrity culture § 4.Facilitating open dialogue § 5.Wise incentive management § 6.Implementing quality assurance procedures § 7.Improving the work environment and work satisfaction § 8.Increasing transparency of misconduct cases § 9.Opening up research § 10.Implementing safe and effective whistle-blowing channels § 11.Protecting the alleged perpetrators § 12.Establishing a research integrity committee and appointing an ombudsperson § 13.Making explicit the applicable standards for research integrity. (shrink)

Recent years saw the rise of an interest in the roles and significance of thought experiments in different areas of human thinking. Heisenberg's gamma ray microscope is no doubt one of the most famous examples of a thought experiment in physics. Nevertheless, this particular thought experiment has not received much detailed attention in the philosophical literature on thought experiments up to date, maybe because of its often claimed inadequacies. In this paper, I try to do two things: to provide an (...) interesting interpretation of the roles played by Heisenberg's gamma ray microscope in interpreting quantum mechanics – partly based on Thomas Kuhn’s views on the function of thought experiments – and to contribute to the ongoing discussions on the roles and significance of thought experiments in physics. (shrink)

Recently, Del Ratzsch proposed a new version of the design argument. He argues that belief in a designer is often formed non-inferentially, much like perceptual beliefs, rather than formed by explicit reasoning. Ratzsch traces his argument back to Thomas Reid (1710-1796) who argues that beliefs formed in this way are also justified. In this paper, I investigate whether design beliefs that are formed in this way can be regarded as knowledge. For this purpose, I look closer to recent scientific (...) study of how design beliefs are formed. I argue that the science strongly suggest that people easily form false beliefs. As a result, design beliefs can only constitute knowledge if subjects have additional reasons or evidence for design. (shrink)

The exploration of chemical periodicity over the past 250 years led to the development of the Periodic System of Elements and demonstrates the value of vague ideas that ignored early scientific anomalies and instead allowed for extended periods of normal science where new methodologies and concepts are developed. The basic chemical element provides this exploration with direction and explanation and has shown to be a central and historically adaptable concept for a theory of matter far from the reductionist frontier. This (...) is explored in the histories of Prout’s hypothesis, Döbereiner Triads, element inversions necessary when ordering chemical elements by atomic weights, and van den Broeck’s ad-hoc proposal to switch to nuclear charges instead. The development of more accurate methods to determine atomic weights, Rayleigh and Ramsey’s gas separation and analytical techniques, Moseley’s X-ray spectroscopy to identify chemical elements, and more recent accelerator-based cold fusion methods to create new elements at the end of the Periodic Table point to the importance of methodological development complementing conceptual advances. I propose to frame the crossover from physics to chemistry not as a loss of accuracy and precision but as an increased application of vague concepts such as similarity which permit classification. This approach provides epistemic flexibility to adapt to scientific anomalies and the continued growth of chemical compound space and rejects the Procrustean philosophy of reductionist physics. Furthermore, it establishes chemistry with its explanatory and operational autonomy epitomized by the periodic system of elements as a gateway to other experimental sciences. (shrink)

Can the persistence of a human being's soul at death and prior to the bodily resurrection be sufficient to guarantee that the resurrected human being is numerically identical to the human being who died? According to Thomas Aquinas, it can. Yet, given that Aquinas holds that the human being is identical to the composite of soul and body and ceases to exist at death, it's difficult to see how he can maintain this view. In this paper, I address Aquinas's (...) response to this objection . After making a crucial clarification concerning the nature of the non-repeatability principle on which the objection relies, I argue that the contemporary notion of immanent causal relations provides us with a way of understanding Aquinas's defence that renders it both highly interesting and philosophically plausible. (shrink)

In Aquinas's account of the beatific vision, human beings are joined to God in a never-ending act of contemplation of the divine essence: a state which utterly fulfills the human drive for knowledge and satisfies every desire of the human heart. In this paper, I argue that this state represents less a fulfillment of human nature, however, than a transcendence of that nature. Furthermore, what’s transcended is not incidental on a metaphysical, epistemological, or moral level.

Aquinas’s account of the human soul is the key to his theory of human nature. The soul’s nature as the substantial form of the human body appears at times to be in tension with its nature as immaterial intellect, however, and nowhere is this tension more evident than in Aquinas’s discussion of the ‘separated’ soul. In this paper I use the Biblical story of the rich man and Lazarus (which Aquinas took to involve actual separated souls) to highlight what I (...) will call the Two-Person Problem facing his account of human identity through death and the bodily resurrection. Aquinas claims that the rational soul is neither the human being nor the human person. When the rich man’s soul says “I am in agony,” then, what is the referent of “I?” It appears that there is a human person, ‘Dives,’ who is replaced at Dives’s death by the person ‘Dives’s soul,’ who is in turn replaced at the bodily resurrection by ‘Dives,’ whom Aquinas claims is numerically identical to the original person. But this seems hopeless as an identity-preserving account of human nature. I believe that Aquinas’s account of human nature does not, as it stands, possess the resources with which to overcome this difficulty; I conclude that reconstructing a(n otherwise) Thomistic account that involves immediate bodily resurrection, although a radical approach, is the one best suited to preserving the most essential features of Aquinas’s theory. (shrink)

Like Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas holds that the rational soul is the substantial form of the human body. In so doing, he takes himself to be rejecting a Platonic version of substance dualism; his criticisms, however, apply equally to a traditional understanding of Cartesian dualism. Aquinas’s own peculiar brand of dualism is receiving increased attention from contemporary philosophers—especially those attracted to positions that fall between Cartesian substance dualism and reductive materialism. What Aquinas’s own view amounts to, however, is subject to (...) debate. Philosophers (such as J. P. Moreland and Scott Rae) have claimed that ‘Thomistic substance dualism’ (TSD) centers around two beliefs: (1) the rational soul is an immaterial substance, and (2) this immaterial substance is the human person. In this paper, I argue that labeling such an account ‘Thomistic’ proves dangerously misleading—not only does Aquinas himself explicitly deny both of these claims, but he denies them for philosophically significant reasons. Furthermore, I argue that Aquinas’s own position provides an account of human nature both more coherent and philosophically attractive. (shrink)

This Insight examines the stance the EU should adopt towards the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the basis of the political thought of Immanuel Kant, Thomas Hobbes, and Niccolò Machiavelli. Taking as its starting point Josep Borrell’s comment that “we are too much Kantians and not enough Hobbesians” at the 2022 EU Ambassadors’ Conference, this Insight offers a revisionist interpretation of both Kant and Hobbes while suggesting Machiavelli as a third possible inspiration for EU external action. Although he is (...) often portrayed as a proto-“realist” intent on increasing state power, Hobbes in reality favours stability above all else and would therefore presumably not support a more “aggressive” foreign policy. Kant, on the other hand, has traditionally been seen as more of a philosophical idealist, but his political philosophy in fact supports a more assertive conduct by states in their external relations. Both of these philosophers are thus quite different from how Borrell portrays them. The Insight also introduces the perspective of a third thinker, Machiavelli, whose philosophy suggests that the EU should adopt a pragmatic diplomatic strategy, forging alliances, supplying Ukraine with weapons, and maintaining strong ties with allies. (shrink)

In his 1998 postscript to ‘The Possibility of Resurrection’ Peter van Inwagen argues that the scenario he describes by which God might resurrect a human organism, even though probably not true, is still conceivable and, consequently, ‘serves to establish a possibility’, namely, the metaphysical possibility of the resurrection of material beings. Van Inwagen, however, has also argued in favour of ‘modal scepticism’ [van Inwagen in, God, knowledge and mystery: essays in philosophical theology, Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1995b, pp. 11–12; van (...) Inwagen in, Philos Stud 92:67–84, 1998a]. That is, he thinks that we should limit all our claims about what is possible to ‘ordinary propositions about everyday matters’, 1998a). In this paper I argue that van Inwagen’s modal argument as found in ‘The Possibility of Resurrection’ is inconsistent with his modal scepticism as found in ‘Modal Epistemology’. In consequence, I argue that, given his modal scepticism, the task van Inwagen set himself in ‘The Possibility of Resurrection’ has not been achieved. (shrink)

På mange måter er dette en bok som blir utgitt alt for sent. Det er den første antologien av sitt slag, og retter fokus på kvinnelige metafysikere som virket i den tidlige moderne perioden (16. og tidlig 17. århundre). Redaktør Emily Thomas skriver i introduksjonen at til tross for at flere antologier om moderne metafysikk allerede finnes, er kvinnelige filosofer fortsatt underrepresentert og den filosofiske kanon mannsdominert. De ni filosofene som blir omtalt i totalt 13 kapitler var alle originale (...) og velkjente tenkere i sin samtid, men har blitt glemt i filosofihistoriens løp. (shrink)

In recent years, a large amount of scholarship has been written about St Thomas Aquinas's views on free will and determinism. This paper is an attempt to bring some Thomist views of libertarian free will into dialogue with analytic philosopher Peter van Inwagen and his ‘mysterianism’ about free will. The thesis of this paper is that Thomist libertarians about free will are committed to Peter van Inwagen's mysterianism about free will. The paper intends to accomplish this aim by showing (...) how recent accounts of Thomist libertarianism cannot defeat the intuitive strength of van Inwagen's ‘Replay argument’. The significance of this conclusion is that some Thomists are committed to mysterianism and that mysterianism is a legitimate position a Thomist can hold. This also provides evidence that the Thomist tradition can grow and be nourished by engagement with contemporary analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Sometimes philosophers have been misunderstood. It could be because the philosopher's communication was vague. It could also be because the philosopher didn't use Ockham's razor and multiplied terms unnecessarily forcing reviewers to impose the razor, with the result that what needs to be cut is not cut and what was essential is taken out of the equation. This article cites two cases, one of the Indian thinker M.M. Thomas and other of Peter Van Inwagen, who claimed that their thoughts (...) were misrepresented by some other well known thinker. (shrink)

In a recent article on Reid’s theory of single and double vision, James Van Cleve considers an argument against direct realism presented by Hume. Hume argues for the mind-dependent nature of the objects of our perception from the phenomenon of double vision. Reid does not address this particular argument, but Van Cleve considers possible answers Reid might have given to Hume. He finds fault with all these answers. Against Van Cleve, I argue that both appearances in double vision could be (...) considered visible figures of the object, and show how this solution might preserve Reid’s direct realism. However, this solution is not compatible with the single appearance of an object predicted by Reid’s theory of single and double vision. This consequence will appear evident once we consider the critique of Reid’s theory of single and double vision formulated by William Charles Wells (1757-1817). Wells argues that Reid’s theory is either incomplete or incompatible with other claims made by Reid. It is incomplete since it fails to specify the unique direction in which we the object in single vision; if it not incomplete and is compatible with the law of monocular direction given by Reid, then it is incompatible with Reid’s claim that we do not perceive immediately distance by sight. (shrink)

"Understanding Scientific Progress constitutes a potentially enormous and revolutionary advancement in philosophy of science. It deserves to be read and studied by everyone with any interest in or connection with physics or the theory of science. Maxwell cites the work of Hume, Kant, J.S. Mill, Ludwig Bolzmann, Pierre Duhem, Einstein, Henri Poincaré, C.S. Peirce, Whitehead, Russell, Carnap, A.J. Ayer, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend, Nelson Goodman, Bas van Fraassen, and numerous others. He lauds Popper for advancing (...) beyond verificationism and Hume’s problem of induction, but faults both Kuhn and Popper for being unable to show that and how their work could lead nearer to the truth." —Dr. LLOYD EBY teaches philosophy at The George Washington University and The Catholic University of America, in Washington, DC "Maxwell's aim-oriented empiricism is in my opinion a very significant contribution to the philosophy of science. I hope that it will be widely discussed and debated." – ALAN SOKAL, Professor of Physics, New York University "Maxwell takes up the philosophical challenge of how natural science makes progress and provides a superb treatment of the problem in terms of the contrast between traditional conceptions and his own scientifically-informed theory—aim-oriented empiricism. This clear and rigorously-argued work deserves the attention of scientists and philosophers alike, especially those who believe that it is the accumulation of knowledge and technology that answers the question."—LEEMON McHENRY, California State University, Northridge "Maxwell has distilled the finest essence of the scientific enterprise. Science is about making the world a better place. Sometimes science loses its way. The future depends on scientists doing the right things for the right reasons. Maxwell's Aim-Oriented Empiricism is a map to put science back on the right track."—TIMOTHY McGETTIGAN, Professor of Sociology, Colorado State University - Pueblo "Maxwell has a great deal to offer with these important ideas, and deserves to be much more widely recognised than he is. Readers with a background in philosophy of science will appreciate the rigour and thoroughness of his argument, while more general readers will find his aim-oriented rationality a promising way forward in terms of a future sustainable and wise social order."—David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer, 2017/2 "This is a book about the very core problems of the philosophy of science. The idea of replacing Standard Empiricism with Aim-Oriented Empiricism is understood by Maxwell as the key to the solution of these central problems. Maxwell handles his main tool masterfully, producing a fascinating and important reading to his colleagues in the field. However, Nicholas Maxwell is much more than just a philosopher of science. In the closing part of the book he lets the reader know about his deep concern and possible solutions of the biggest problems humanity is facing."—Professor PEETER MŰŰREPP, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia “For many years, Maxwell has been arguing that fundamental philosophical problems about scientific progress, especially the problem of induction, cannot be solved granted standard empiricism (SE), a doctrine which, he thinks, most scientists and philosophers of science take for granted. A key tenet of SE is that no permanent thesis about the world can be accepted as a part of scientific knowledge independent of evidence. For a number of reasons, Maxwell argues, we need to adopt a rather different conception of science which he calls aim-oriented empiricism (AOE). This holds that we need to construe physics as accepting, as a part of theoretical scientific knowledge, a hierarchy of metaphysical theses about the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, which become increasingly insubstantial as we go up the hierarchy. In his book “Understanding Scientific Progress: Aim-Oriented Empiricism”, Maxwell gives a concise and excellent illustration of this view and the arguments supporting it… Maxwell’s book is a potentially important contribution to our understanding of scientific progress and philosophy of science more generally. Maybe it is the time for scientists and philosophers to acknowledge that science has to make metaphysical assumptions concerning the knowability and comprehensibility of the universe. Fundamental philosophical problems about scientific progress, which cannot be solved granted SE, may be solved granted AOE.” Professor SHAN GAO, Shanxi University, China . (shrink)

Existing research suggests that people's judgments of actual causation can be influenced by the degree to which they regard certain events as normal. We develop an explanation for this phenomenon that draws on standard tools from the literature on graphical causal models and, in particular, on the idea of probabilistic sampling. Using these tools, we propose a new measure of actual causal strength. This measure accurately captures three effects of normality on causal judgment that have been observed in existing studies. (...) More importantly, the measure predicts a new effect ("abnormal deflation"). Two studies show that people's judgments do, in fact, show this new effect. Taken together, the patterns of people's causal judgments thereby provide support for the proposed explanation. (shrink)

Recent political developments cast doubt on the wisdom of democratic decision-making. Brexit, the Colombian people's (initial) rejection of peace with the FARC, and the election of Donald Trump suggest that the time is right to explore alternatives to democracy. In this essay, I describe and defend the epistocratic system of government which is, given current theoretical and empirical knowledge, most likely to produce optimal political outcomes—or at least better outcomes than democracy produces. To wit, we should expand the suffrage as (...) wide as possible and weight citizens’ votes in accordance with their competence. As it turns out, the optimal system is closely related to J. S. Mill's plural voting proposal. I also explain how voters’ competences can be precisely determined, without reference to an objective standard of correctness and without generating invidious comparisons between voters. (shrink)

This paper looks at Gregory of Nyssa's so-called "bundle theory" sensible individuals and matter (as recently argued by Gerd Van Riel and Thomas Wauters in a 2020 article) amidst the broader context of Gregory's view of created beings and his reception of Neoplatonist, Stoic, and Aristotelian conceptions of particulars and matter. I argue that Gregory's position is closer to an Aristotelian position, despite the parallels to Plotinus and other contemporaneous bundle theory positions: in arguing against prime matter, and insofar (...) as he emphasizes the identity of each kind of created being with its material substrate—understood as a "bundle" of properties—Gregory inadvertently upholds a reading of Aristotle that refutes an ontological notion of prime matter. (shrink)

In this paper I will offer a comprehensive defense of the safety account of knowledge against counterexamples that have been recently put forward. In Sect. 2, I will discuss different versions of safety, arguing that a specific variant of method-relativized safety is the most plausible. I will then use this specific version of safety to respond to counterexamples in the recent literature. In Sect. 3, I will address alleged examples of safe beliefs that still constitute Gettier cases. In Sect. 4, (...) I will discuss alleged examples of unsafe knowledge. In Sect. 5, I will address alleged cases of safe belief that do not constitute knowledge for non-Gettier reasons. My overall goal is to show that there are no successful counterexamples to robust anti-luck epistemology and to highlight some major presuppositions of my reply. (shrink)

Mathematicians, physicists, and philosophers of physics often look to the symmetries of an object for insight into the structure and constitution of the object. My aim in this paper is to explain why this practice is successful. In order to do so, I present a collection of results that are closely related to (and in a sense, generalizations of) Beth’s and Svenonius’ theorems.

Maps and mapping raise questions about models and modeling and in science. This chapter archives map discourse in the founding generation of philosophers of science (e.g., Rudolf Carnap, Nelson Goodman, Thomas Kuhn, and Stephen Toulmin) and in the subsequent generation (e.g., Philip Kitcher, Helen Longino, and Bas van Fraassen). In focusing on these two original framing generations of philosophy of science, I intend to remove us from the heat of contemporary discussions of abstraction, representation, and practice of science and (...) thereby see in a more distant and neutral light the many productive ways in which maps can stand in analytically for scientific theories and models. The chapter concludes by complementing the map analogy – i.e., a scientific theory is a map of the world – with a model analogy, viz., a scientific model is a vehicle for understanding. (shrink)

Crime-preventing neurointerventions (CPNs) are increasingly being used or advocated for crime prevention. There is increasing use of testosterone-lowering agents to prevent recidivism in sexual offenders, and strong political and scientific interest in developing pharmaceutical treatments for psychopathy and anti-social behaviour. Recent developments suggest that we may ultimately have at our disposal a range of drugs capable of suppressing violent aggression, and it is not difficult to imagine possible applications of such drugs in crime prevention. But should neurointerventions be used in (...) crime prevention, and may the state ever permissibly impose CPNs as part of the criminal justice process? It is widely thought that preventing recidivism is one of the aims of criminal justice, yet existing means of pursuing this aim are often poorly effective, restrictive of basic freedoms, and harmful. Incarceration, for example, tends to be disruptive of personal relationships and careers, detrimental to physical and mental health, highly restrictive of freedom of movement and association, and rarely more than modestly effective at preventing recidivism. Neurointerventions hold the promise of preventing recidivism in ways that are more effective and more humane, but the use of CPNs in criminal justice raises several ethical concerns. CPNs could be highly intrusive and may threaten fundamental human values, such as bodily integrity and freedom of thought, and humanity has a track record of misguided, harmful, and unwarrantedly coercive use of neurotechnological ‘solutions’ to criminality. This collection brings together original contributions from emerging scholars and internationally renowned moral and political philosophers to address these issues. (shrink)

This paper intends to further the understanding of the formal properties of (higher-order) vagueness by connecting theories of (higher-order) vagueness with more recent work in topology. First, we provide a “translation” of Bobzien's account of columnar higher-order vagueness into the logic of topological spaces. Since columnar vagueness is an essential ingredient of her solution to the Sorites paradox, a central problem of any theory of vagueness comes into contact with the modern mathematical theory of topology. Second, Rumfitt’s recent topological reconstruction (...) of Sainsbury’s theory of prototypically defined concepts is shown to lead to the same class of spaces that characterize Bobzien’s account of columnar vagueness, namely, weakly scattered spaces. Rumfitt calls these spaces polar spaces. They turn out to be closely related to Gärdenfors’ conceptual spaces, which have come to play an ever more important role in cognitive science and related disciplines. Finally, Williamson’s “logic of clarity” is explicated in terms of a generalized topology (“locology”) that can be considered an alternative to standard topology. Arguably, locology has some conceptual advantages over topology with respect to the conceptualization of a boundary and a borderline. Moreover, in Williamson’s logic of clarity, vague concepts with respect to a notion of a locologically inspired notion of a “slim boundary” are (stably) columnar. Thus, Williamson’s logic of clarity also exhibits a certain affinity for columnar vagueness. In sum, a topological perspective is useful for a conceptual elucidation and unification of central aspects of a variety of contemporary accounts of vagueness. (shrink)

Much attention has recently been paid to the idea, which I label ‘External World Acquaintance’ (EWA), that the phenomenal character of perceptual experience is partially constituted by external features. One motivation for EWA which has received relatively little discussion is its alleged ability to help deal with the ‘Explanatory Gap’ (e.g. Fish 2008, 2009, Langsam 2011, Allen 2016). I provide a reformulation of this general line of thought, which makes clearer how and when EWA could help to explain the specific (...) phenomenal nature of visual experience. In particular, I argue that by focusing on the different kinds of perceptual actions that are available in the case of visual spatial vs. colour perception, we get a natural explanation for why we should expect the specific nature of colour phenomenology to remain less readily intelligible than the specific nature of visual spatial phenomenology. (shrink)

In May 2010, philosophers, family and friends gathered at the University of Notre Dame to celebrate the career and retirement of Alvin Plantinga, widely recognized as one of the world's leading figures in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of religion. Plantinga has earned particular respect within the community of Christian philosophers for the pivotal role that he played in the recent renewal and development of philosophy of religion and philosophical theology. Each of the essays in this volume engages with some (...) particular aspect of Plantinga's views on metaphysics, epistemology, or philosophy of religion. Contributors include Michael Bergman, Ernest Sosa, Trenton Merricks, Richard Otte, Peter VanInwagen, Thomas P. Flint, Eleonore Stump, Dean Zimmerman and Nicholas Wolterstorff. The volume also includes responses to each essay by Bas van Fraassen, Stephen Wykstra, David VanderLaan, Robin Collins, Raymond VanArragon, E. J. Coffman, Thomas Crisp, and Donald Smith. (shrink)

Abstract. The aim of this paper is to present a topological method for constructing discretizations (tessellations) of conceptual spaces. The method works for a class of topological spaces that the Russian mathematician Pavel Alexandroff defined more than 80 years ago. Alexandroff spaces, as they are called today, have many interesting properties that distinguish them from other topological spaces. In particular, they exhibit a 1-1 correspondence between their specialization orders and their topological structures. Recently, a special type of Alexandroff spaces was (...) used by Ian Rumfitt to elucidate the logic of vague concepts in a new way. According to his approach, conceptual spaces such as the color spectrum give rise to classical systems of concepts that have the structure of atomic Boolean algebras. More precisely, concepts are represented as regular open regions of an underlying conceptual space endowed with a topological structure. Something is subsumed under a concept iff it is represented by an element of the conceptual space that is maximally close to the prototypical element p that defines that concept. This topological representation of concepts comes along with a representation of the familiar logical connectives of Aristotelian syllogistics in terms of natural settheoretical operations that characterize regular open interpretations of classical Boolean propositional logic. In the last 20 years, conceptual spaces have become a popular tool of dealing with a variety of problems in the fields of cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, linguistics and philosophy, mainly due to the work of Peter Gärdenfors and his collaborators. By using prototypes and metrics of similarity spaces, one obtains geometrical discretizations of conceptual spaces by so-called Voronoi tessellations. These tessellations are extensionally equivalent to topological tessellations that can be constructed for Alexandroff spaces. Thereby, Rumfitt’s and Gärdenfors’s constructions turn out to be special cases of an approach that works for a more general class of spaces, namely, for weakly scattered Alexandroff spaces. This class of spaces provides a convenient framework for conceptual spaces as used in epistemology and related disciplines in general. Alexandroff spaces are useful for elucidating problems related to the logic of vague concepts, in particular they offer a solution of the Sorites paradox (Rumfitt). Further, they provide a semantics for the logic of clearness (Bobzien) that overcomes certain problems of the concept of higher2 order vagueness. Moreover, these spaces help find a natural place for classical syllogistics in the framework of conceptual spaces. The crucial role of order theory for Alexandroff spaces can be used to refine the all-or-nothing distinction between prototypical and nonprototypical stimuli in favor of a more fine-grained gradual distinction between more-orless prototypical elements of conceptual spaces. The greater conceptual flexibility of the topological approach helps avoid some inherent inadequacies of the geometrical approach, for instance, the so-called “thickness problem” (Douven et al.) and problems of selecting a unique metric for similarity spaces. Finally, it is shown that only the Alexandroff account can deal with an issue that is gaining more and more importance for the theory of conceptual spaces, namely, the role that digital conceptual spaces play in the area of artificial intelligence, computer science and related disciplines. Keywords: Conceptual Spaces, Polar Spaces, Alexandroff Spaces, Prototypes, Topological Tessellations, Voronoi Tessellations, Digital Topology. (shrink)

The paper addresses an exegetical puzzle that is raised by Kant's distinction between opining (Meinen), believing (Glauben), and knowing (Wissen). In presenting his moral arguments, Kant often points out that belief, as he conceives of it, has a unique feature: it requires non-epistemic justification. Yet Kant's official formulation of the tripartite distinction runs counter to this claim. It describes Belief in terms of a set of two features, each of which also pertains to either opinion or knowledge. My aim in (...) this paper is to propose a novel interpretation of Kant’s distinction which dissolves this exegetical puzzle. (shrink)

Discussions of the relation between pragmatism and logical empiricism tend to focus on the period when the logical empiricists found themselves in exile, mostly in the United States, and then attempt to gauge the actual extent of their convergence. My concern lies with the period before that and the question whether pragmatism had an earlier influence on the development of logical empiricism, especially on the thought of the former members of the “first” Vienna Circle. I argue for a substantially qualified (...) affirmative answer. (shrink)

This paper responds to the generous comments by Alexander Klein and Cheryl Misak on my “American Pragmatism and the Vienna Circle: The Early Years”. First, besides offering some clarification of my original thesis, I argue that Jerusalem was not liable to the anti-Spencerian criticisms by James that Klein adduces in the course of defending James against the charge of psychologism. Then I investigate the impact of Wittgenstein’s Ramsey-derived pragmatism, importantly foregrounded by Misak, on the Vienna Circle and argue that it (...) was mainly limited to Schlick but not recognized as pragmatist, also leaving unaffected the impact of James’s pragmatism on Frank, Hahn and Neurath specified in my original paper. That said, Klein’s and Misak’s comments add significantly to our understanding of long-neglected transatlantic philosophical connections in the early twentieth century. (shrink)

I defend the thesis that beliefs are constitutively normative from two kinds of objection. After clarifying what a “blindspot” proposition is and the different types of blindspots there can be, I show that the existence of such propositions does not undermine the thesis that beliefs are essentially governed by a negative truth norm. I argue that the “normative variance” exhibited by this norm is not a defect. I also argue that if we accept a distinction between subjective and objective norms (...) there need be no worrying tension between doxastic norms of truth and doxastic norms of evidence. I show how a similar approach applies to the attitude of guessing. I then suggest that if we distinguish between practical and theoretical rationality, we will prefer a negative form of norm that does not positively oblige us to form beliefs. I finish by considering an alternative possible subjunctive form of norm that would also avoid problems with blindspots but suggest this has a non-intuitive consequence. (shrink)

We argue that a semantics for counterfactual conditionals in terms of comparative overall similarity faces a formal limitation due to Arrow’s impossibility theorem from social choice theory. According to Lewis’s account, the truth-conditions for counterfactual conditionals are given in terms of the comparative overall similarity between possible worlds, which is in turn determined by various aspects of similarity between possible worlds. We argue that a function from aspects of similarity to overall similarity should satisfy certain plausible constraints while Arrow’s impossibility (...) theorem rules out that such a function satisfies all the constraints simultaneously. We argue that a way out of this impasse is to represent aspectual similarity in terms of ranking functions instead of representing it in a purely ordinal fashion. Further, we argue against the claim that the determination of overall similarity by aspects of similarity faces a difficulty in addition to the Arrovian limitation, namely the incommensurability of different aspects of similarity. The phenomena that have been cited as evidence for such incommensurability are best explained by ordinary vagueness. (shrink)

Albert Camus is most famous for his engagement with the absurd. Both in his philosophical and literary works his main focus was on the nature and normative consequences of this idea. However, Camus was also concerned with what he referred to as the “feeling of the absurd”. Philosophers have so far paid little attention to Camus’ thoughts about the feeling of the absurd. In this paper I provide a detailed analysis of this feeling. It turns out that the feeling of (...) the absurd is not, strictly speaking, a feeling. It is rather a conjunction of a mood (feeling of the absurd in the narrow sense) and of emotions that this mood tends to give rise to (appearances of the feeling of the absurd). Moreover, both moods and emotions qualify as absurd in virtue of their promoting the discovery of the absurd; that is, the discovery that humans search for meaning, but the world does not answer this search. (shrink)

The paper challenges the view that public justification sits well with emancipatory and egalitarian intuitions. I distinguish between the depth, scope and the purchase of the discursive standing that such justification allocates, and situate within this matrix Rawls’s view of public justification. A standard objection to this view is that public justification should be more inclusive in scope. This is both plausible and problematic in emancipatory and egalitarian terms. If inclusive public justification allocates discursive standing that is rich in purchase, (...) as seems desirable in emancipatory terms, it may be unable to allocate equal standing to all relevant people. And if it is to allocate equal standing, then the equality of that standing should be construed in terms that allow for unequal discursive purchase. (shrink)

Advancing our understanding of one of the most influential 20th-century philosophers, Robert Vinten brings together an international line up of scholars to consider the relevance of Ludwig Wittgenstein's ideas to the cognitive science of religion. Wittgenstein's claims ranged from the rejection of the idea that psychology is a 'young science' in comparison to physics to challenges to scientistic and intellectualist accounts of religion in the work of past anthropologists. Chapters explore whether these remarks about psychology and religion undermine the frameworks (...) and practices of cognitive scientists of religion. Employing philosophical tools as well as drawing on case studies, contributions not only illuminate psychological experiments, anthropological observations and neurophysical research relevant to understanding religious phenomena, they allow cognitive scientists to either heed or clarify their position in relation to Wittgenstein's objections. By developing and responding to his criticisms, Wittgenstein and the Cognitive Science of Religion offers novel perspectives on his philosophy in relation to religion, human nature, and the mind. Contents: Introduction (Robert Vinten); Ch.1: 'Wittgenstein, Concepts, and Human Nature' (Roger Trigg); Ch.2: 'On Truth, Language, and Objectivity' (Florian Franken Figueiredo); Ch.3 'Pascal Boyer's Miscellany of Homunculi: A Wittgensteinian Critique of Religion Explained' (Robert Vinten); Ch.4 'The Brain Perceives/Infers' (Hans van Eyghen); Ch.5 'The Imaginary Inner Inside Cognitive Science of Religion' (Christopher Hoyt); Ch.6 'Cognitive Theories and Wittgenstein: Looking for Convergence not for Divergence' (Olympia Panagiotidou); Ch. 7 'Wittgenstein, Naturalism, and Interpreting Religious Phenomena' (Thomas Carroll); Ch.8 'Natural Thoughts and Unnatural Oughts: Lessing, Wittgenstein, and Contemporary CSR' (Guy Axtell); Ch.9 'Normative Cognition in Cognitive Science of Religion' (Mark Addis); Ch.10 'Brains as the Source of Being: Mind/Brain Focus and the Western Model of Mind in Dominant Cognitive Science Discourse' (Rita McNamara); Ch.11 'On Religious Practices as Multiscale Active Inference: Certainties Emerging From Recurrent Interactions Within and Across Individuals and Groups' (Inês Hipólito and Casper Hesp). (shrink)

Interventions that modify a person’s motivations through chemically or physically influencing the brain seem morally objectionable, at least when they are performed nonconsensually. This chapter raises a puzzle for attempts to explain their objectionability. It first seeks to show that the objectionability of such interventions must be explained at least in part by reference to the sort of mental interference that they involve. It then argues that it is difficult to furnish an explanation of this sort. The difficulty is that (...) these interventions seem no more objectionable, in terms of the kind of mental interference that they involve, than certain forms of environmental influence that many would regard as morally innocuous. The argument proceeds by comparing a particular neurointervention with a comparable environmental intervention. The author argues, first, that the two dominant explanations for the objectionability of the neurointervention apply equally to the environmental intervention, and second, that the descriptive difference between the environmental intervention and the neurointervention that most plausibly grounds the putative moral difference in fact fails to do so. The author concludes by presenting a trilemma that falls out of the argument. (shrink)

This paper attempts to provide the basis for a broader naturalized account of agency. Naturalization is considered as the need for an ongoing and open-ended process of scientific inquiry driven by the continuous formulation of questions regarding a phenomenon. The naturalization of agency is focused around the interrelation of the fundamental notions of autonomy, functionality, intentionality and meaning. Certain naturalized frameworks of agency are critically considered in an attempt to bring together all the characteristic properties that constitute an autonomous agent, (...) as well as to indicate the shaping of these notions/properties during the development and the evolution of its agential capacity. Autonomy and interaction are proved to be key concepts in this endeavor. (shrink)

Common-sense morality divides acts into those that are right and those that are wrong, but it thinks some wrong acts are more seriously wrong than others, for example murder than breaking a promise. If an act is more seriously wrong, you should feel more guilt about it and, other things equal, are more blameworthy for it and can deserve more punishment; more serious wrongs are also more to be avoided given empirical or moral uncertainty. This paper examines a number of (...) different views about what makes for more serious wrongness and considers the possibility that this may be different for acts that violate deontological vs. consequentialist duties. It also asks whether there’s a parallel concept that admits of degrees on the side of rightness, one of being, as we can say, more importantly right. (shrink)

Sport is one of the first areas in which enhancement has become commonplace. It is also one of the first areas in which the use of enhancement technologies has been heavily regulated. Some have thus seen sport as a testing ground for arguments about whether to permit enhancement. However, I argue that there are fairness-based objections to enhancement in sport that do not apply as strongly in some other areas of human activity. Thus, I claim that there will often be (...) a stronger case for permitting enhancement outside of sport than for permitting enhancement in sport. I end by considering some methodological implications of this conclusion. (shrink)

This paper examines a variety of approaches in order to make sense of the doctrine of divine simplicity. Discussing the implications of traditional and contemporary philosophical concepts of divine simplicity, the author argues for taking the divine nature as a stupendous substance to serve as the one and only truthmaker of statements regarding God, while we can resolve the predication problem which is caused by the idea that, as implied by divine simplicity, God is identical to his attributes if we (...) conceive of the divine nature as an equivalent to Platonic forms. (shrink)

Biomedical technologies can increasingly be used not only to combat disease, but also to augment the capacities or traits of normal, healthy people – a practice commonly referred to as biomedical enhancement. Perhaps the best‐established examples of biomedical enhancement are cosmetic surgery and doping in sports. But most recent scientific attention and ethical debate focuses on extending lifespan, lifting mood, and augmenting cognitive capacities.

Since antiquity well into the beginnings of the 20th century geometry was a central topic for philosophy. Since then, however, most philosophers of science, if they took notice of topology at all, considered it as an abstruse subdiscipline of mathematics lacking philosophical interest. Here it is argued that this neglect of topology by philosophy may be conceived of as the sign of a conceptual sea-change in philosophy of science that expelled geometry, and, more generally, mathematics, from the central position it (...) used to have in philosophy of science and placed logic at center stage in the 20th century philosophy of science. Only in recent decades logic has begun to loose its monopoly and geometry and topology received a new chance to find a place in philosophy of science. (shrink)

Responding to the provocative phrase ‘The Age of Grammatology’, I propose to question the notion of ‘age’, and to interrogate the powers or forces, the dynameis or dynasties attached to the interpretative model of historical periodisation. How may we think the undeniable actuality of the event beyond the sempiternal history of ages, and beyond the traditional, onto-teleological chain of power, possibility, force or dynamis that undergirds such history?

Some people may think that libertarianism and meritocracy have much in common; that the libertarian's ideal world looks like the meritocrat's ideal world; and that the public policies guiding us to each are one and the same. This is wrong in all respects. In this essay I explain why. -/- After providing an overview of meritocratic justice, I argue that meritocracy is a more compelling theory of distributive justice than libertarianism. Meritocracy better protects the core value of personal responsibility; incorporates (...) efficiency-enhancing regulation which libertarianism cannot; provides more positive liberty; and solves salient, real-world debates about distributive justice. (shrink)

A recent challenge to statist arguments defending the right of states to exclude prospective immigrants maintains that such statist arguments prove too much. Specifically, the challenge argues that statist arguments, insofar as they are correct, entail that states may permissibily exclude current members' newcomers by birth, which seems to violate a widely held intuition that members' newcomers by birth ought automatically to be granted membership rights. The basic claim is that statist arguments cannot account for the differntial treatment between prospective (...) immigrants and newcomers by birth. Call this the newcomer-by-birth objection. This article rejects the newcomer-by-birth rejection. It begins by sketching the precise extent to which the objection applies to statist arguments. It then examines the case of newcomers by birth and argues for a principled basis for treating them differentially from prospective immigrants such that a right to exclude prospective immigrants need not entail a right to exclude newcomers by birth. But this distinction holds only in most cases, not all, and therefore the newcomer-by-birth objection is not entirely defeated. With respect to the cases in which the objection does hold, it is argued that such cases are morally akin to international adoption, and thus morally benign. All considered, statist arguments easily survive the newcomer-by-birth objection. (shrink)