We investigated whether mathematicians typically agree about the qualities of mathematical proofs. Between-mathematician consensus in proof appraisals is an implicit assumption of many arguments made by philosophers of mathematics, but to our knowledge the issue has not previously been empirically investigated. We asked a group of mathematicians to assess a specific proof on four dimensions, using the framework identified by Inglis and Aberdein (2015). We found widespread disagreement between our participants about the aesthetics, intricacy, precision and utility of the proof, (...) suggesting that a priori assumptions about the consistency of mathematical proof appraisals are unreasonable. (shrink)

Berkeley’s ‘esse is percipi’ has been criticized for implying epistemological solipsism, the main argument being that different minds cannot harbor numerically one and the same idea. Similarly, C. J. Boström, the dominating Swedish philosopher in the nineteenth century, was early scorned because his principle of esse est percipi allegedly contradicts the simultaneous claim that two spirits can perceive the same thing under qualitatively different appearances. Whereas the criticism against Berkeley is here regarded as valid, it is argued that Boström successfully (...) defended himself by employing a dual concept of meaning, resembling Frege’s Sinn and Bedeutung some thirty years later, and by postulating an ontology that permits human minds to share in the divine ideas that constitute reality. (shrink)

The book attempts to build a bridge across three cultures: mathematical statistics, quantum theory and chemometrical methods.

Secondo Antonio Rosmini-Serbati, l’idea dell’essere è unicamente innata e forma fondamentale dell’esperienza. Provando a dimostrare l’origine dell’idea di similitudine nel rapporto tra cose reali e loro rappresentazioni mentali, Rosmini involontariamente lascia pensare che forse anche quest’idea sia innata. In modo platonico respinge “il terzo uomo” (regresso infinito), cioè la nota critica di Aristotele per quanto riguarda l’idea di similitudine. Il suo è un ragionamento circolare. Perciò in questa analisi concludiamo che l’idea di similitudine dovrebbe essere considerata innata e forma epistemologica (...) nella stessa misura dell’idea di essere. (shrink)

Background The worldwide increase in older persons demands technological solutions to combat the shortage of caregiving and to enable aging in place. Smart home health technologies (SHHTs) are promoted and implemented as a possible solution from an economic and practical perspective. However, ethical considerations are equally important and need to be investigated. Methods We conducted a systematic review according to the PRISMA guidelines to investigate if and how ethical questions are discussed in the field of SHHTs in caregiving for older (...) persons. Results 156 peer-reviewed articles published in English, German and French were retrieved and analyzed across 10 electronic databases. Using narrative analysis, 7 ethical categories were mapped: privacy, autonomy, responsibility, human vs. artificial interactions, trust, ageism and stigma, and other concerns. Conclusion The findings of our systematic review show the (lack of) ethical consideration when it comes to the development and implementation of SHHTs for older persons. Our analysis is useful to promote careful ethical consideration when carrying out technology development, research and deployment to care for older persons. Registration We registered our systematic review in the PROSPERO network under CRD42021248543. (shrink)

In 1859–1860, Johan Jacob Borelius published two diatribes against Christopher Jacob Boström, the then dominating philosopher in Sweden. Boström was accused of inconsistency, because he asserted the principle of esse est percipi while at the same time maintaining that different agents can perceive one and the same thing differently. It is suggested that Borelius misunderstood Boström’s intention. In his printed defence, in 1860, Boström clarifies his use of a dual conception of meaning, resembling Frege’s distinction between Sinn (sense) and Bedeutung (...) (reference) some thirty years later. Boström appears to equate the reference of esse with that of percipi, whereas Borelius argued as if the principle concerned the senses of the two expressions. According to Borelius, two observers cannot possibly have different perceptions of the same object, if “to be” means “to be perceived”. In Boström’s view, as reconstructed here, two different phenomenal perceptions may well refer to one and the same true object, of which the phenomena are aspects. The true object exists in virtue of its being determined by God’s perfect ideas. (shrink)

This article identifies an argument in Hobbes’s writings often overlooked but relevant to current philosophical debates. Political philosophers tend to categorize his thought as representing consent or rescue theories of political authority. Though these interpretations have textual support and are understandable, they leave out one of his most compelling arguments – what we call the lesser evil argument for political authority, expressed most explicitly in Chapter 20 of Leviathan. Hobbes frankly admits the state’s evils but appeals to the significant disparity (...) between those evils and the greater evils outside the state as a basis for political authority. More than a passing observation, aspects of the lesser evil argument appear in each of his three major political works. In addition to outlining this argument, the article examines its significance both for Hobbes scholarship and recent philosophical debates on political authority. (shrink)

Erik Olof Burman (1845–1929) was professor of practical philosophy at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, between 1896 and 1910. In 1879 he published a long essay entitled ”Om den nyare italienska filosofien” (”On recent Italian philosophy”). About half the essay is devoted to the philosophical system of Antonio Rosmini (1797–1855), the second half to that of Vincenzo Gioberti (1801–1852). The text is mainly descriptive, apparently aiming at informing Swedish colleagues about the situation in Italy. However, there are also passages revealing (...) the rationalist-idealist subjectivism of Burman himself as well as his considering Rosmini’s ontology too objectivistic and Gioberti’s idealism insufficiently coherent. A preliminary translation of Burman’s essay into Italian is presented. -/- Erik Olof Burman (1845–1929) fu professore di Filosofia Pratica all’Università di Uppsala negli anni 1896–1910. New 1879 publicò un saggio intitolato ”Om den nyare italienska filosofien” (“Sulla filosofia italiana recente”). Quasi metà di questo lavoro si concentra sul sistema di Antonio Rosmini (1797–1855); la seconda parte verte anzitutto invece su quello di Vincenzo Gioberti (1801–1852). Il testo è principalmente descrittivo, ovviamente mirante a informare filosofi svedesi sulle posizioni attuali in Italia. Vi si trovano anche però commenti sparsi indicanti il razialismo-idealismo soggetivo di Burman stesso e considerazioni riguardo a come egli consideri l’ontologia di Rosmini troppo oggettiva e l’idealismo di Gioberti insufficientemente coerente. Riflettendo l’immagine della filosofia italiana del IX secolo in uno specchio straniero, il lavoro potrebbe essere di un certo valore informativo per moderni filosofi e storici italiani. Per questa ragione una traduzione preliminare del saggio di Burman è presentata. (shrink)

In Part I, an attempt is made to survey the original source material on which any detailed assessment of Wittgenstein's remarks on the foundations of mathematics from his middle and later periods ought to be based. This survey is presented within the context of a sketch of Wittgenstein's biography, which also mentions some of the major developments in his thinking. In addition, certain main themes are emphasized; these have to do primarily with the Kantian aspects of Wittgenstein's thought and with (...) his mysticism or the 'religious point of view'. In Part II, Kreisel's critique of Wittgenstein's remarks on the foundations of mathematics, which has been developed since 1958 in a series of published articles, receives close examination, and, in connection with this, different approaches to the philosophical investigation of mathematics are considered which represent genuine alternatives to Wittgenstein's approach. There are separate sections on Lakatos's Proofs and Refutations and Bourbaki's 'L'Architecture des Mathématiques'. Finally, besides a bibliography which surveys the reception of Wittgenstein's views on the foundations of mathematics, there are two substantial appendices, which are supplemental to Part I. The first of these gives the manuscript sources for typescripts 221 and 222-4, and the correspondences in both directions between these typescripts. The second appendix is part of a chronological version of von Wright's catalogue of Wittgenstein's papers, beginning in 1929. (shrink)

Hasan's (1984) Model of Cohesive Harmony Analysis (CHA) represents one of the first attempts within the SFL framework to devise a relatively objective index for measuring a text's coherence. As a development of the classic "cohesion analysis"(Halliday & Hasan 1976), it probes into the coherence of a text by considering discourse structure as being based in both the syntagmatic and the paradigmatic semantic relations between components of clauses. More than thirty years later, it is still widely used as an effective (...) tool for language teaching and linguistic pathology. This paper will trace its origin, introduce its basic concepts and analytical procedure, describe its applications and consider its possible future development. (shrink)

The theory of proper names proposed by J.S. Mill in A system of logic (1843), and discussed in S. Kripke’s Naming and necessity (1980), is shown to be predated by A. Rosmini’s Nuovo saggio sull’origine delle idee (1830) and T. Reid’s Essays on the intellectual powers of man (1785). For philological reasons, Rosmini probably did not obtain his view of proper names from Reid. For philosophical reasons, it is unlikely that he got it from Hobbes, Locke, Smith, or Stewart. Although (...) not explicitly indicated by Rosmini himself, he may have been influenced by St. Thomas, who in Summa theologica discusses suppositum and natura in relation to the equivocal functions of the terms ”God” and ”sun” as common and proper names. As previously observed, forerunners of the idea can be found in Antiquity, in Plato’s Theaetetus and Aristotle’s Metaphysics. From a historical point of view, the fully developed ”Millian” opinion that connotation is not a fundamental aspect of proper names, and that their referents are not fixed by description, could more accurately be termed the Reid-Rosmini-Mill theory. (shrink)

Antonio Rosmini is practically unknown in Lutheran Sweden. Apparently, only one significant Swedish text has been published about his philosophy, an essay in 1879 by Professor E.O. Burman at the University of Uppsala. After a brief introduction of Burman, some illustrative excerpts from his essay are presented in Italian translation.

There has been little overt discussion of the experimental philosophy of logic or mathematics. So it may be tempting to assume that application of the methods of experimental philosophy to these areas is impractical or unavailing. This assumption is undercut by three trends in recent research: a renewed interest in historical antecedents of experimental philosophy in philosophical logic; a “practice turn” in the philosophies of mathematics and logic; and philosophical interest in a substantial body of work in adjacent disciplines, such (...) as the psychology of reasoning and mathematics education. This introduction offers a snapshot of each trend and addresses how they intersect with some of the standard criticisms of experimental philosophy. It also briefly summarizes the specific contribution of the other chapters of this book. (shrink)

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)

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)

In this chapter we use methods of corpus linguistics to investigate the ways in which mathematicians describe their work as explanatory in their research papers. We analyse use of the words explain/explanation (and various related words and expressions) in a large corpus of texts containing research papers in mathematics and in physical sciences, comparing this with their use in corpora of general, day-to-day English. We find that although mathematicians do use this family of words, such use is considerably less prevalent (...) in mathematics papers than in physics papers or in general English. Furthermore, we find that the proportion with which mathematicians use expressions related to ‘explaining why’ and ‘explaining how’ is significantly different to the equivalent proportion in physics and in general English. We discuss possible accounts for these differences. (shrink)

The current COVID-19 pandemic and the previous SARS/MERS outbreaks of 2003 and 2012 have resulted in a series of major global public health crises. We argue that in the interest of developing effective and safe vaccines and drugs and to better understand coronaviruses and associated disease mechenisms it is necessary to integrate the large and exponentially growing body of heterogeneous coronavirus data. Ontologies play an important role in standard-based knowledge and data representation, integration, sharing, and analysis. Accordingly, we initiated the (...) development of the community-based Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology in early 2020. -/- As an Open Biomedical Ontology (OBO) library ontology, CIDO is open source and interoperable with other existing OBO ontologies. CIDO is aligned with the Basic Formal Ontology and Viral Infectious Disease Ontology. CIDO has imported terms from over 30 OBO ontologies. For example, CIDO imports all SARS-CoV-2 protein terms from the Protein Ontology, COVID-19-related phenotype terms from the Human Phenotype Ontology, and over 100 COVID-19 terms for vaccines (both authorized and in clinical trial) from the Vaccine Ontology. CIDO systematically represents variants of SARS-CoV-2 viruses and over 300 amino acid substitutions therein, along with over 300 diagnostic kits and methods. CIDO also describes hundreds of host-coronavirus protein-protein interactions (PPIs) and the drugs that target proteins in these PPIs. CIDO has been used to model COVID-19 related phenomena in areas such as epidemiology. The scope of CIDO was evaluated by visual analysis supported by a summarization network method. CIDO has been used in various applications such as term standardization, inference, natural language processing (NLP) and clinical data integration. We have applied the amino acid variant knowledge present in CIDO to analyze differences between SARS-CoV-2 Delta and Omicron variants. CIDO's integrative host-coronavirus PPIs and drug-target knowledge has also been used to support drug repurposing for COVID-19 treatment. -/- CIDO represents entities and relations in the domain of coronavirus diseases with a special focus on COVID-19. It supports shared knowledge representation, data and metadata standardization and integration, and has been used in a range of applications. (shrink)

Aworkshop was held August 26–28, 2015, by the Earth- Life Science Institute (ELSI) Origins Network (EON, see Appendix I) at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. This meeting gathered a diverse group of around 40 scholars researching the origins of life (OoL) from various perspectives with the intent to find common ground, identify key questions and investigations for progress, and guide EON by suggesting a roadmap of activities. Specific challenges that the attendees were encouraged to address included the following: What key (...) questions, ideas, and investigations should the OoL research community address in the near and long term? How can this community better organize itself and prioritize its efforts? What roles can particular subfields play, and what can ELSI and EON do to facilitate research progress? (See also Appendix II.) The present document is a product of that workshop; a white paper that serves as a record of the discussion that took place and a guide and stimulus to the solution of the most urgent and important issues in the study of the OoL. This paper is not intended to be comprehensive or a balanced representation of the opinions of the entire OoL research community. It is intended to present a number of important position statements that contain many aspirational goals and suggestions as to how progress can be made in understanding the OoL. The key role played in the field by current societies and recurring meetings over the past many decades is fully acknowledged, including the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life (ISSOL) and its official journal Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, as well as the International Society for Artificial Life (ISAL). (shrink)

Something is good insofar as it achieves its end, so says a neo-Aristotelian view of goodness. Powers/dispositions are paradigm cases of entities that have an end, so say many metaphysicians. A question therefore arises, namely, can one account for neo-Aristotelian goodness in terms of an ontology of powers? This is what I shallbeginto explore in this paper. I will first provide a brief explication of both neo-Aristotelian goodness and the metaphysics of powers, before turning to investigate whether one can give (...) an account of neo-Aristotelian goodness in terms of powers. I will suggest that the answer to this question is yes. (shrink)

This essay critically examines Joseph Rouse's arguments against, what he dubs, the "legitimation project", which are the attempts to delimit and justify the scientific enterprise by means of global, "a priori" principles. Stipulating that a more adequate picture of science can be obtained by viewing it as a continuously transforming pattern of situated activities, Rouse believes that only by refocusing attention upon the actual practice of science can philosophers begin to detach themselves from the irresolvable epistemological problems that have remained (...) the primary byproduct of the traditional philosophical approach. On closer inspection, however, Rouse's project appears susceptible to the criticism that it is either too relativistic to do the work he envisioned for it, or that it participates in the very same legitimation venture that it was intended to replace (in addition to its own brand metaphysical/epistemological problems). This unexpected outcome, moreover, suggests that such legitimation projects may be an integral component of the very practice of science, contrary to Rouse estimate. (shrink)

There is this view propounded by some theorists which claims that some conceptions of the nature of time are incompatible with the Christian position on the defeat of evil. The aim of this article is twofold. First, to clarify exactly which thesis about time’s nature is taken to be problematic for the defeat of evil. And second, to show that scriptural support for understanding the defeat of evil as requiring that evil not be in the range of the existential quantifier, (...) something implicitly contended by those who put forward this problem, is weak and that these passages can be read in plausible ways which are affirmable by those who endorse the ‘problematic’ thesis. (shrink)

Remodel[l]ing Reality is an inquiry into Wittgenstein's notion of übersichtliche Darstellung and the phenomenon of installation in visual art. In a sense, both provide a perspicuous overview of a particular part of our complex world, but the nature of the overview differs. Although both generate knowledge, philosophy via the übersichtliche Darstellung gives us a view of how things stand for us, while the installation shows an unexpected, exiting point of view. The obvious we tend to forget and the ambiguity of (...) reality are related to each other in a dynamic way. It is in this reflexive dynamics that we constantly remodel our reality. Tools we use are our creative abilities and our powers of imagination. In our choices and solutions we show which aspects of reality we find important and how we communicate these values. The outcome of this investigation is a new perspective on the art of installation and a new insight in Wittgenstein's notion of übersichtliche Darstellung. Because of this combination, the book is itself an artwork: an InstallationPackage. The book is distributed by Ideabooks Amsterdam, Isbn 978 90 804240 3 6. Remodel[l]ing Reality is included in Special Collections, Allard Pierson Museum Amsterdam. (shrink)

What do we owe those with whom we inquire? Presumably, quite a bit. Anything beyond what is necessary to secure knowledge? Yes. In this paper, I argue for a class of ‘zetetic rights.’ These are rights distinctive to participants in group inquiry. Zetetic rights help protect important central interests of inquirers. These include a right to aid, a right against interference, and a right to exert influence over the course of inquiry. Building on arguments by Fricker (2015), I defend these (...) rights, and explore cases of their violation: zetetic wrongings. I argue that zetetic wrongings constitute a distinctive, ubiquitous, and significant form of injustice in our epistemic and zetetic lives. To improve our inquiries and avoid epistemic injustice, we need to contend with zetetic wronging. Making this case helps show that a complete picture of epistemic life must account for the deep influence of our cooperative ties to one another. (shrink)

From the rather original recognition that Aristotle’s categories are questions, this essay focuses on issues of the pote (ποτέ), i.e., the question of the “When”, and of chronos (χρόνος), the “concept” of time. This “concept” is born from and associated with the question of the “When”. It is a hermeneutical and (existential)-ontological dialogue, enabling us to think jointly about the so-called “objectivity” of time and its ontological, phenomenological, and hermeneutical relatedness to ourselves. The APPENDIX is an ontological and existential analysis (...) of the question: “What is man?”. It’s conclusion: that this question cannot, and indeed must not be given a definition-like answer, filled with information and facts. The “response” – and not “answer” – cor-responding to, can only be authentic and open if it claims that: Man is precisely that being who turns his own existence – in a questioning way, both for himself and “other” people, interrogating himself via his own world – into an event. The human and mode-of-being-like questions about the meaning of Being and about the possibility of “What is man?” actually overlap both in their horizons and in their amplitude and radicality. (shrink)

Many find it plausible that for a given beneficiary, Y, benefactor, R, and action, ϕ, Y’s being grateful to R for ϕ-ing implies Y’s being grateful that R ϕ-ed. According to some philosophers who hold this view, all instances of gratitude to, or “prepositional gratitude,” are also instances of gratitude that, or “propositional gratitude.” These philosophers believe there is a single unified concept of gratitude, a phenomenon that is essentially gratitude that, and whose manifestations sometimes have additional features that make (...) them instances of gratitude to as well. In this article, I show that view to be mistaken. I base my argument on two hypothetical cases, in each of which a beneficiary, Y, is grateful to a benefactor, R, for ϕ-ing, but not grateful that R ϕ-ed. Generalizing from those cases and other cases of gratitude, I argue that prepositional gratitude is the proper response to benevolence-motivated action and propositional gratitude consists in a beneficiary’s judging a state of affairs to be valuable for himself and welcoming that state of affairs. Because not every instance of a benefactor’s acting benevolently toward a beneficiary is something that beneficiary finds valuable for himself and welcomes, it is possible to be grateful to a benefactor for ϕ-ing but not grateful that she ϕ-ed. Prepositional gratitude and propositional gratitude can each occur without the other and are thus two distinct phenomena. I conclude by explaining the importance of accurately understanding the relationship between prepositional gratitude and propositional gratitude. (shrink)

The traditional Javanese tembangs created by Sunan Kalijaga, especially Lir ilir and Kidung Rumekso ing Wengi, have an extraordinary depth of philosophical meaning when associated with Javanese culture. Therefore, this research aims to explore and analyze the philosophical meanings contained in the two tembangs and find out how the spiritual messages in the tembangs are still relevant to the conditions of society in the modern era. The sources of data for this research are (1) interviews with Sunan Kalijaga's descendants, artists (...) in Demak Regency, Demak Regency officials, (2) historical records and scientific articles about Sunan Kalijaga, and (3) direct observation in Demak Regency. This research uses Ferdinand de Saussure's semiotic theory to find out the deeper meaning of the text of the two tembangs. For data validation, this research uses the triangulation method, in order to compare all available data and find a common thread of reliability to be presented as scientific data. In the interpretation stage, the researcher tried to explore the messages contained in the two tembangs, which were analyzed from the lyrics of the tembangs and the opinions of experts found in Demak Regency. The results show that both tembangs contain philosophical teachings on how to achieve wisdom and peace in every episode of human life. They also teach about the importance of establishing a good relationship with God. In addition, this study also revealed that the spiritual messages in these two tembangs are still relevant as a reflection of everyone's spiritual journey in the modern era. (shrink)

State violence against disabled people and Indigenous people as well as disabled Indigenous people has long been endemic in the US. Recent scholarship in philosophy of disability and disability studies rarely addresses the underlying issue that causes such state violence: settler-colonial conceptions of land. The aim of this article is to begin filling this gap in the literature. We detail settler colonial epistemologies and argue that the property relation underwrites operative concepts of accessibility dominant across disability theory. We show how (...) such concepts of accessibility are Lockean and thereby defined terms of the project of settler colonialism. We instead offer an Indigenized account of access, which we term deep access, that does not rely on the notion of Lockean property and that provides a coalitional path for Indigenous futures and disability justice. On our account, decolonization is and must be a deep access measure. (shrink)

We can contrast rationalising explanations of the form S φs because p with those of the form S φs because S believes that p. According the Common Kind View, the two sorts of explanation are the same. The Disjunctive View denies this. This paper sets out to elucidate the sense in which the Common Kind Theorist asserts, but the Disjunctivist denies, that the two explanations are the same. I suggest that, in the light of the distinction between kinds of explanation (...) and particular explanations, the relevant sameness thesis is ambiguous, thus giving us two distinct versions of the Common Kind View. I then argue that the only direct arguments for Disjunctivism available in the literature fail because they only succeed in undermining one version of the Common Kind View. I finish, however, by providing a fresh argument for the Disjunctive View which aims to undermine both versions of its competitor. (shrink)

Responsible research and innovation imposes normative requirements on research and innovation processes resembling three successive steps, each more ambitious than its predecessor, with distinct features. For the research dimension the distinct features reflect the normative requirements of, first, credible research ; second, responsive research ; and third, responsible research. Equally distinct features reflect the requirements of credible innovation, responsive innovation, and responsible innovation.

This article investigates a central yet perplexing term yiming in the ‘Qiwulun’ chapter of the Zhuangzi. Yiming describes a crucial way to detach from epistemic distinctions and debates. This term is often explained as ‘using ming’ or contradictorily as ‘stopping ming’. Yet neither of the two explanations can provide a full understanding of how yiming is adopted. I take three steps to explain yiming. First, taking an etymological approach, I argue that ming can be formulated as ‘X shining on Y’. (...) Second, I use the formula of ‘X shining on Y’ to account for yiming and argue that this term refers specifically to ‘using tian to shine on everything’. Third, I unpack a cluster of tian-associated metaphors, which provides a deep understanding of yiming as an ideal way to mental tranquility. (shrink)

You are creditworthy for φ-ing only if φ-ing is the right thing to do. Famously though, further conditions are needed too – Kant’s shopkeeper did the right thing, but is not creditworthy for doing so. This case shows that creditworthiness requires that there be a certain kind of explanation of why you did the right thing. The reasons for which you act – your motivating reasons – must meet some further conditions. In this paper, I defend a new account of (...) these conditions. On this account, creditworthiness requires that your motivating reasons be normative reasons, and that the principles from which you act match normative principles. (shrink)

Many philosophers have been attracted to the view that reasons are premises of good reasoning – that reasons to φ are premises of good reasoning towards φ-ing. However, while this reasoning view is indeed attractive, it faces a problem accommodating outweighed reasons. In this article, I argue that the standard solution to this problem is unsuccessful and propose an alternative, which draws on the idea that good patterns of reasoning can be defeasible. I conclude by drawing out implications for the (...) debate over pragmatic reasons for belief and other attitudes and for one influential form of reductionism about the normative. (shrink)

We argue that any strong version of a knowledge condition on intentional action, the practical knowledge principle, on which knowledge of what I am doing (under some description: call it A-ing) is necessary for that A-ing to qualify as an intentional action, is false. Our argument involves a new kind of case, one that centers the agent’s control appropriately and thus improves upon Davidson’s well-known carbon copier case. After discussing this case, offering an initial argument against the knowledge condition, and (...) discussing recent treatments that cover nearby ground, we consider several objections. One we consider at some length maintains that although contemplative knowledge may be disconnected from intentional action, specifically practical knowledge of the sort Anscombe elucidated escapes our argument. We demonstrate that this is not so. Our argument illuminates an important truth, often overlooked in discussions of the knowledge-intentional action relationship: intentional action and knowledge have different levels of permissiveness regarding failure in similar circumstances. (shrink)

Přehledová studie sleduje a analyzuje proměny pojmu sociální inovace. Na základě silné společenské poptávky se z původně dílčí, teoreticky nediskutované a nefixované kategorie stává kategorie obecná. Pokrývá širokou oblast nemateriálních inovací a zároveň se profiluje jako aktivita normativní a intencionální, zaměřená na obecně uznávané sociální cíle. Co do ideově-hodnotových orientací současných koncepcí sociálních inovací studie identifikuje kromě mainstreamu, který zůstává u otevřených hodnotových charakteristik, ještě směr emancipačně-mobilizační a sociálně-tržně odpovědný. V epistemologické rovině se teoretici sociálních inovací hlásí především k praktickému (...) experimentování, pragmatismu, teorii komplexnosti a principům transdisciplinarity. (shrink)

In this paper, we present and defend a natural yet novel analysis of normative reasons. According to what we call support-explanationism, for a fact to be a normative reason to φ is for it to explain why there's normative support for φ-ing. We critically consider the two main rival forms of explanationism—ought-explanationism, on which reasons explain facts about ought, and good-explanationism, on which reasons explain facts about goodness—as well as the popular Reasons-First view, which takes the notion of a normative (...) reason to be normatively fundamental. Support-explanationism, we argue, enjoys many of the virtues of these views while avoiding their drawbacks. We conclude by exploring several further important implications: among other things, we argue that the influential metaphor of ‘weighing’ reasons is inapt, and propose a better one; that, contrary to what Berker (2019) suggests, there's no reason for non-naturalists about normativity to accept the Reasons-First view; and that, contrary to what Wodak (2020b) suggests, explanationist views can successfully accommodate what he calls ‘redundant reasons’. (shrink)

It is often observed in metaethics that moral language displays a certain duality in as much as it seems to concern both objective facts in the world and subjective attitudes that move to action. In this paper, I defend The Dual Aspect Account which is intended to capture this duality: A person’s utterance of a sentence according to which φing has a moral characteristic, such as “φing is wrong,” conveys two things: The sentence expresses, in virtue of its conventional meaning, (...) the belief that φing has a moral property, and the utterance of the sentence carries a generalized conversational implicature to the effect that the person in question has an action-guiding attitude in relation to φing. This account has significant advantages over competing views: (i) As it is purely cognitivist, it does not have the difficulties of expressivism and various ecumenical positions. (ii) Yet, in spite of this, it can explain the close, “meaning-like,” connection between moral language and attitudes. (iii) In contrast to other pragmatic accounts, it is compatible with any relevant cognitivist view. (iv) It does not rest on a contentious pragmatic notion, such as conventional implicature. (v) It does not imply that utterances of complex moral sentences, such as conditionals, convey attitudes. In addition, the generalized implicature in question is fully calculable and cancellable. (shrink)

Grounding is claimed to offer a promising characterization of the fundamental as thatwhich is ungrounded. Detractors of this view argue that there can be fundamental and yet mutuallygrounded entities. Such a possibility undermines the denition of the fundamental as theungrounded. I aim to show, however, that the possibility of fundamental mutually grounded entitiesdoes not force us to renounce the prospects of characterizing fundamentality in terms of ground-ing. To accomplish this aim, I defend a grounding-based view that accommodates fundamentalmutually grounded entities (...) straightforwardly. My denition of fundamentality is similar to, butimportantly different from, one that Karen Bennett discusses. I conclude by resisting two objec-tions raised by Jessica Wilson against the Bennettian framework that also target theproposed view. (shrink)

Philosophers have often noted a contrast between practical and theoretical reasons when it comes to cases involving equally balanced reasons. When there are strong practical reasons for A-ing, and equally strong practical reasons for some incompatible option, B-ing, the agent is permitted to make an arbitrary choice between them, having sufficient reason to A and sufficient reason to B. But when there is strong evidence for P and equally strong evidence for ~ P, one isn’t permitted to simply believe one (...) or the other. Instead, one must withhold belief, neither believing that P nor believing that ~ P. This paper examines what explains this contrast, focusing in particular on a proposal recently developed by Mark Schroeder across several papers. Schroeder aims to explain the contrast by an appeal to non-evidential, epistemic reasons against belief. But, I argue, it’s not clear exactly what those reasons are, nor how those reasons are to be weighed against evidential reasons. Despite these challenges, I argue that there are grounds for optimism that the contrast can be explained within the broad framework Schroeder provides, and I aim to provide resources to meet the aforementioned challenges. (shrink)

This paper presents the main topics, arguments, and positions in the philosophy of AI at present (excluding ethics). Apart from the basic concepts of intelligence and computation, the main topics of ar-tificial cognition are perception, action, meaning, rational choice, free will, consciousness, and normativity. Through a better understanding of these topics, the philosophy of AI contributes to our understand-ing of the nature, prospects, and value of AI. Furthermore, these topics can be understood more deeply through the discussion of AI; so (...) we suggest that “AI Philosophy” provides a new method for philosophy. (shrink)

Proponents of the reasoning view analyze normative reasons as premises of good reasoning and explain the normativity of reasons by appeal to their role as premises of good reasoning. The aim of this paper is to cast doubt on the reasoning view by providing counterexamples to the proposed analysis of reasons, counterexamples in which premises of good reasoning towards φ‐ing are not reasons to φ.

Accepting a promise is normatively significant in that it helps to secure promissory obligation. But what is it for B to accept A’s promise to φ? It is in part for B to intend A’s φ-ing. Thinking of acceptance in this way allows us to appeal to the distinctive role of intentions in practical reasoning and action to better understand the agency exercised by the promisee. The proposal also accounts for rational constraints on acceptance, and the so-called directedness of promissory (...) obligation. Finally, the proposal, conjoined with Cognitivism about intentions, addresses recent criticism of Scanlon’s expectation-based view of promissory obligation. (shrink)

I here defend an account of the will as practical reason —or, using Kant's phrase, as " reason in its practical employment"—as against a view of the will as a capacity for choice, in addition to reason, by which we execute practical judgments in action. Certain commonplaces show distance between judgment and action and thus seem to reveal the need for a capacity, in addition to reason, by which we execute judgment in action. However, another ordinary fact pushes in the (...) other direction: the activities of the will are activities for which the person is answerable in a very particular sort of way. This answerability is most easily understood if willing involves settling a question. Settling a question seems to be a capacity of reason. Thus it can seem that activities of will are activities of our capacity for reasoning. I will suggest that we can accommodate the commonplaces while still understanding the will as reason in its practical employment, by abandoning the assumption that practical reasoning concludes in a judgment. Rather, reasoning which concludes in a judgment—reasoning directed at the question of whether p—is theoretical reasoning. In its practical employment, reason is directed at the question of whether to x; it concludes, not in a judgment about x-ing, but rather in an intention to x. (shrink)

Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472 – 1529) is famously associated with the view that knowledge and action are unified (zhī xíng hé yī 知行合一). Call this the Unity Thesis. Given standard assumptions about what it means for a person to know, it may seem that the Unity Thesis is clearly false: I can know that p without currently acting in p-related ways, and I can know how to φ without currently φ-ing. My aims in this paper are, first, to draw on (...) recent work in epistemology to explain and defend the Unity Thesis and, second, to argue that it offers us an attractive conceptual alternative to a standard way of thinking about the nature of intentional action. The first step of my argument draws on the idea that what distinguishes intentional actions from bodily events is the presence of knowing-to – that is, an agent is φ-ing intentionally if and only if she is currently doing something because she knows to do it as a way for her to φ. Such a notion of knowing-to allows us to explain otherwise puzzling features of the Unity Thesis, including the claim that knowing and acting occur simultaneously. In the second step, I argue that the Unity Thesis can help us avoid various long-standing issues in the philosophy of action, including the problem of deviant (formal) causation. (shrink)

Wars are large-scale conflicts between organized groups of belligerents, which involve suffering, devastation, and brutality unlike almost anything else in human experience. Whatever one’s other beliefs about morality, all should agree that the horrors of war are all but unconscionable, and that warfare can be justified only if we have some compel- ling account of what is worth fighting for, which can justify contributing, as individu- als and as groups, to this calamitous endeavour. Although this question should obviously be central (...) to both philosophical and politi- cal discussion about war, it is at the forefront of neither. In recent years, philosophical discussion of warfare has bloomed, but the debate has focused on whom we may kill, on the assumption that our aims are justified.1 Political debate, meanwhile, is more concerned with matters of prudence, international law, and public justification, than with reassessing what is worth fighting for. For wars of intervention to halt or prevent massive humanitarian crises, this gap is not so troubling. When warfare is the only means to prevent the mass killing or enslavement of the innocent, the purposes of military force are clear enough (though undoubtedly many other problems remain). The problem is more pressing, how- ever, for the justification of national defence.3 Although common-sense morality and international law view national defence as the paradigm case of justified warfare, grounding this consensus is surprisingly difficult.4 We typically believe that any state is justified in using lethal force to protect its territory against any form of uninvited military incursion by any other state. And yet we lack a good argument to explain why this should be so. In this chapter, I explain why one familiar and otherwise plausible approach to the justification of killing in war cannot adequately ground common-sense views of permissible national defence.5 Reductionists believe that justified warfare reduces to an aggregation of acts that are justified under ordinary principles of interpersonal morality.6 The standard form of reductionism focuses on the principles governing killing in ordinary life, specifically those that justify intentional killing in self- and other-defence, and unintended but foreseen (for short, collateral) killing as a lesser evil. Justified warfare, on this view, is no more than the coextension of multiple acts justified under these two principles. Reductionism is the default philosophical approach to thinking through the ethics of killing in war. It makes perfect sense to ask what principles govern permissible kill- ing in general, before applying them to the particular context of war. If it cannot deliver a plausible set of conclusions about when national defence is permitted, then we must either revise our beliefs about which conclusions count as plausible, or else face the significant challenge of developing a different theoretical model for justifying war- fare—an exceptionalist model, which views war as an exception to the regular moral landscape, to which principles apply which apply to nothing else but war.7 We must show, in other words, that there is something worth fighting for in wars of national defence, which is not engaged when we use force in any other context. The chapter proceeds as follows. Section 2.2 sets out the argument against reduc- tionism.8 Section 2.3 considers and rebuts one common response to the argument, which has often been thought sufficient grounds to disregard its conclusion. Section 2.4 then asks whether a modified reductionism would survive unscathed by the argu- ment. Finally, section 2.5 sets out some desiderata on a plausible exceptionalist alterna- tive. Section 2.6 concludes. (shrink)

Let F be a fact in virtue of which an agent, S, is blameworthy for performing an act of A-ing. We advance a slightly qualified version of the following thesis: -/- (Reason) F is (at some time) a reason for S to feel guilty (to some extent) for A-ing. -/- Leaving implicit the qualification concerning extent, we claim as well: -/- (Desert) S's having this reason suffices for S’s deserving to feel guilty for A-ing. -/- We also advance a third (...) thesis connecting desert of feeling guilty with the fittingness of this response. -/- In light of our three theses, we address several claims that have been made regarding responsibility and desert. We take issue with the divorce of desert from responsibility. We find acceptable a claim regarding blameworthiness and reason to induce guilt, and we defend the idea that it is noninstrumentally good that one who is blameworthy be subject to a fitting feeling of guilt. We argue against a view on which desert of blame has a teleological dimension. (shrink)

According to Anscombe, acting intentionally entails knowledge in ac- tion. This thesis has been near-universally rejected due to a well-known counter- example by Davidson: a man intending to make ten legible carbon copies might not believe with confidence, and hence not know, that he will succeed. If he does, however, his action surely counts as intentional. Damaging as it seems, an even more powerful objection can be levelled against Anscombe: while act- ing, there is as yet no fact of the (...) matter as to whether the agent will succeed. Since his belief that he will is not yet true while his action is in progress, he can- not possibly know that he is indeed bringing about the intended goal. Knowl- edge in action is not only unnecessary for intentional action, it seems, but–at least as regards success-bound types of action–impossible to attain in the first place. -/- In this paper I argue that traditional strategies to counter these objections are unsatisfactory and propose a new account of knowledge in action which has two core features: (i) It invokes an externalist conception of justification which not only meets Davidson’s challenge, but also casts doubts on the tacit internalist premise on which his example relies. (ii) Drawing on recent work about by John MacFarlane, the proposed account conceives of claims to in action as assessment-sensitive so as to overcome the factivity objection. From a retrospective point of evaluation, previous claims about future events and actions can not only be deemed as having been true, but also as having been known. (shrink)

This paper presents pretending as an enacted and fundamentally social activity. First, it demonstrates why we should think of pretense as inherently social. Then, it shows how that fact affects our theory in terms of what is needed in order to pretend. Standardly, pretense is seen as requiring a mechanism that allows one to bypass the “obvious” re- sponse to the environment in order to opt for a symbolic response; that mechanism is im- aginative and representational. This paper shows that (...) the Enactive Account of Pretense reconsiders the idea that one needs to respond to an absent environment when pretending, proposing instead that socially con- stituted perceptual affordances for play allow for non-obvious ways of responding to the present environment. The enactive account of pretense suggests that one need not posit special cognitive pretense mechanisms and mental scripts in order to account for pretend- ing, as available capacities for active perception and re-enactment of routines suffice. This paper concludes with suggestions for the kinds of cognitive skills that should be sought out to explain pretense. (shrink)

Humean promotionalists about reasons think that whether there is a reason for an agent to ϕ depends on whether her ϕ-ing promotes the satisfaction of at least one of her desires. Several authors have recently defended probabilistic accounts of promotion, according to which an agent’s ϕ-ing promotes the satisfaction of one of her desires just in case her ϕ-ing makes the satisfaction of that desire more probable relative to some baseline. In this paper I do three things. First, I formalize (...) an argument, due to Jeff Behrends and Joshua DiPaolo, to the effect that Mark Schroeder’s and Stephen Finlay’s probabilistic accounts of promotion cannot be correct. Next, I extend this argument to a recent alternative offered by D. Justin Coates and show how Coates’ attempt to avoid the argument by introducing a distinction between ‘intrinsic’ and ‘extrinsic’ probability doesn’t help. Finally, I suggest an alternative way of understanding promotion in terms of increase in degree of fit between the causal upshot of an action and the content of a desire. I show how this view, disjunctively paired with probabilism about promotion, solves the problems with previous accounts. (shrink)

Most theories of promising are insufficiently broad, for they ground promissory obligation in some external or contingent feature of the promise. In this paper, I introduce a new kind of theory. The Mental States First (MSF) theory grounds promissory obligation in something internal and essential: the mental state expressed by promising, or the state that promisors purport to be in. My defense of MSF relies on three claims. First, promising to Φ expresses that you have resolved to Φ. Second, resolving (...) to Φ commits you to Φing, all else being equal. Third, the norms on speech acts are determined by the norms on the mental states they express, such that publicly expressing that you are in a state subjects you to whatever commitments are normally incurred by being in that state, regardless of whether you really are in it. I suggest that this general approach might also explain how the norms on other sorts of speech acts work. (shrink)

According to the so-called ‘Taking Condition’ (a label due to Boghossian 2014) on inference, for a response R in circumstances C to count as an instance of reasoning or inferring, it must be the case that the agent’s taking it that R is warranted or justified in C plays (the right sort of) explanatory role in her R-ing. The Taking Condition has come under much criticism in the theory of reasoning. While I believe that these criticisms can be answered, my (...) aim in this paper is to build a positive case for the Taking Condition. More specifically, I argue that views based on the Taking Condition do a much better job accounting for crucial features of reasoning—especially once we recognize the pervasiveness and significance of defeasibility in our reasoning. (shrink)