The study focused on the Digital Technology (DT) Competency of Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) in Ilocos Sur. This study will be beneficial for the upskilling of CPAs in Ilocos Sur and serve as a guide to development of competency-based curriculum for accounting students and intervention programs by accounting professional organizations. Using a validated survey instrument, the researcher considered 107 CPAs that responded. Total enumeration was used. The survey investigated the CPAs’ level of digital technology along five competency domains. Descriptive method (...) of research was utilized Their level of DT Competency is interpreted as “Proficient”. The study hints that they are not so far behind in terms of digital competency, and they have an enormous potential in relation to IT utilization, management, administration, and risk management. Reassessment of the BS Accountancy curriculum, encouraging CPAs to take advance studies and future research in this line is recommended. CPAs in Ilocos Sur can optimistically adapt to the ever-changing demands of the workplace. (shrink)

Biological sex should be “acknowledged” and “accepted”—but which responses to gender dysphoria might this preclude? Trans-identified people may factually acknowledge their biological sex and regard transition as purely palliative. While generally some level of self-deception and even a high level of nonlying deception of others are sometimes justified, biological sex is important, and there is a nontrivial onus against even palliative, nonsexually motivated cross-dressing. The onus is higher against co-opting the body, even in a minor and/or reversible way, to make (...) a false communication concerning one’s sex. Hardest to defend is the destruction of sexual–reproductive functions and causally downstream functions such as lactation: due to the transcendent nature of sexual–reproductive functions, an appeal to the “principle of totality” here is misplaced. This is not to say that social, and milder medical, transition is absolutely excluded even for severe unmanageable dysphoria, nor that subsequent to any transition, detransition is necessarily required. (shrink)

The term “value of life” can refer to life’s intrinsic dignity: something nonincremental and time-unaffected in contrast to the fluctuating, incremental “value” of our lives, as they are longer or shorter and more or less flourishing. Human beings are equal in their basic moral importance: the moral indignities we condemn in the treatment of e.g. those with dementia reflect the ongoing human dignity that is being violated. Indignities licensed by the person in advance remain indignities, as when people might volunteer (...) their living, unconscious bodies for surrogacy or training in amputation techniques. Respect for someone’s dignity is significantly impacted by a failure to value that person’s very existence, whatever genuine respect and good will is shown by wanting the person’s life to go well. Valuing and respecting life is not, however, vitalism: there can be good and compelling reasons for eschewing some means of prolonging life. (shrink)

Is the “act itself” of separating a pregnant woman and her previable child neither good nor bad morally, considered in the abstract? Recently, Maureen Condic and Donna Harrison have argued that such separation is justified to protect the mother’s life and that it does not constitute an abortion as the aim is not to kill the child. In our article on maternal–fetal conflicts, we agree there need be no such aim to kill (supplementing aims such as to remove). However, we (...) argue that to understand “abortion” as performed only where the death of the child is intended is to define the term too narrowly. Respect for the mother, the fetus, and the bond between them goes well beyond avoiding any such aim. We distinguish between legitimate maternal treatments simply aimed at treating or removing a damaged part of the woman and illegitimate treatments that focus harmfully on the fetal body and its presence within the mother’s body. In obstetrics as elsewhere, not all side effects for one subject of intervention can be outweighed by intended benefits for another. Certain side effects of certain intended interventions are morally conclusive. (shrink)

The study examines the relative merits of a noncompatibility and a restructuring explanation of the recurrent empirical finding that a prominent attribute looms larger in choices than in judgments. Pairs of equally attractive options were presented to 72 undergraduates who were assigned to six conditions in which they performed (1) only preference judgments or choices, (2) preference judgments or choices preceded by judgments of attractiveness of attribute levels, or (3) preference judgments or choices accompanied by think-aloud reports. The results replicated (...) the prominence efTect for choices, but a prominence effect was also found for preference judgments. In accordance with the restructuring explanation, the think-aloud protocols indicated that options were more often restructured in choices than in preference judgments. However, restructuring could not explain the prominence effect observed for preference judgments. A modified compatibility hypothesis is offered as an alternative explanation. (shrink)

This essay offers an account of Kierkegaard’s view of the limits of thought and of what makes this view distinctive. With primary reference to Philosophical Fragments, and its putative representation of Christianity as unthinkable, I situate Kierkegaard’s engagement with the problem of the limits of thought, especially with respect to the views of Kant and Hegel. I argue that Kierkegaard builds in this regard on Hegel’s critique of Kant but that, against Hegel, he develops a radical distinction between two types (...) of thinking and inquiry: the ‘aesthetic-intellectual’ and the ‘ethico-religious’. I clarify this distinction and show how it guides Kierkegaard’s conception of a form of philosophical practice that involves drawing limits to the proper sphere of disinterested contemplation. With reference to two rival interpretations of Kierkegaard’s approach to the limits of thought—which I call ‘bullet-biting’ and ‘relativizing’—I further show how my ‘disambiguating’ account can better explain how, and why, his work courts a form of self-referential incoherence, in which it appears that certain limits of thought are at once affirmed and violated. (shrink)

This essay re-examines Kierkegaard's view of Socrates. I consider the problem that arises from Kierkegaard's appeal to Socrates as an exemplar for irony. The problem is that he also appears to think that, as an exemplar for irony, Socrates cannot be represented. And part of the problem is the paradox of self-reference that immediately arises from trying to represent x as unrepresentable. On the solution I propose, Kierkegaard does not hold that, as an exemplar for irony, Socrates is in no (...) way representable. Rather, he holds that, as an exemplar for irony, Socrates cannot be represented in a purely disinterested way. I show how, in The Concept of Irony, Kierkegaard makes use of 'limiting cases' of representation in order to bring Socrates into view as one who defies purely disinterested representation. I also show how this approach to Socrates connects up with Kierkegaard's more general interest in the problem of ethical exemplarity, where the problem is how ethical exemplars can be given as such, that is, in such a way that purely disinterested contemplation is not the appropriate response to them. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders certain of Kierkegaard's criticisms of Hegel's theoretical philosophy in the light of recent interpretations of the latter. The paper seeks to show how these criticisms, far from being merely parochial or rhetorical, turn on central issues concerning the nature of thought and what it is to think. I begin by introducing Hegel's conception of "pure thought" as this is distinguished by his commitment to certain general requirements on a properly philosophical form of inquiry. I then outline Hegel's (...) strategy for resolving a crucial problem he takes himself to face. For his account of the nature of thought depends upon the idea of a form of inquiry in which nothing whatsoever is presupposed; but this idea appears basically paradoxical inasmuch as the mere act of beginning to inquire in a certain way embodies an assumption about how it is appropriate to begin. Turning to Kierkegaard, I consider a key objection to the effect that Hegel's strategy for resolving this paradox depends on the incoherent idea of a purely reflexive act of thinking. Finally, I draw out some central features of the alternative account of "situated" thought and inquiry which Kierkegaard presents as distinctively Socratic. (shrink)

Several studies have shown that preference is not necessarily synonymous with choice. In particular, the most preferred object from a set of objects presented in a non—choice context is not necessarily chosen when the same objects are options in a choice situation (Lichtenstein & Slovic, 1971, 1973; Tversky, Sattah, & Slovic, 1988) . Our research on the choice—preference discrepancy replicates these findings and thus bears some resemblance to the study by Tversky, Sattah, and Slovic (1988). Two competing explanations are tested.

In the first part of this essay (Sections I and II), I argue that Kierkegaard's work helps us to articulate and defend two basic requirements on searching for knowledge of one's own judgements: first, that searching for knowledge whether one judges that P requires trying to make a judgement whether P; and second that, in an important range of cases, searching for knowledge of one's own judgements requires attending to how one's acts of judging are performed. In the second part (...) of the essay (Sections III and IV), I consider two prima facie problems regarding this conception of searching for knowledge of one's own judgements. The first problem concerns how in general one can coherently try to meet both these requirements at once; the second, how in particular one can try to attend to one's own acts of judging. I show how Kierkegaard's work is alive to both these problems, and helps us to see how they can be resolved. (shrink)

This paper reexamines Kierkegaard's work with respect to the question whether truth is one or many. I argue that his famous distinction between objective and subjective truth is grounded in a unitary conception of truth as such: truth as self-coincidence. By explaining his use in this context of the term ‘redoubling’ [Fordoblelse], I show how Kierkegaard can intelligibly maintain that truth is neither one nor many, neither a simple unity nor a complex multiplicity. I further show how these points shed (...) much-needed light on the relationship between objective and subjective truth, conceived not as different kinds or species of truth but as different ways in which truth manifests itself as a standard of success across different contexts of inquiry. (shrink)

Abstract This paper offers an appraisal of Phillip Pettit's approach to the problem how a merely finite set of examples can serve to represent a determinate rule, given that indefinitely many rules can be extrapolated from any such set. I argue that Pettit's so-called ethnocentric theory of rule-following fails to deliver the solution to this problem he sets out to provide. More constructively, I consider what further provisions are needed in order to advance Pettit's general approach to the problem. I (...) conclude that what is needed is an account that, whilst it affirms the view that agents' responses are constitutively involved in the exemplification of rules, does not allow such responses the pride of place they have in Pettit's theory. (shrink)

Fetuses and their mothers (and other adults) share many objective interests. These include interests in disjunctive ways of achieving human well-being, including the formation and success of good projects such as particular friendships. Pursuing such good projects is in the individual’s interests and is what growing up is all about. Some interests are time-sensitive, and determining which interests apply at what stages in life requires asking which benefits are in some sense appropriate to the individual and still in his/her actual (...) or possible or even hypothetical future. Human individuals not only have interests in unconditional benefits to them, including the welfare of existing family members, but in conditional benefits to them, including the welfare of possible future family members. Even if not all interests apply to the individual at every stage, if an adult-type benefit is still in the (long-term) future, the young individual including the fetus has a stake in that benefit, conditional as the benefit may sometimes be. Fulfilment is enhanced by pursuit and conscious enjoyment of ‘human goods’, but as with adults, the stake in these remains strong even if psychological links with the long-term future in which this happens are tenuous or non-existent. (shrink)

The use of writing or journaling as a tool toward healing is becoming increasingly accepted in the vernacular of healing litanies. Reference books, personal narratives, and research on the effects of writing on healing psychological discomfort are abundant. Heal Yourself with Writing, written by screenwriter Catherine Ann Jones, and published in 2013, won a Nautilus Book Award for 2014. The following review reflects a book that is a well-thought journey through the steps of intentional or focused writing for the express (...) purpose of moving from living from beliefs and thoughts that do not serve healthy wholeness or fullness of life, into living more freely and more authentically. (shrink)

This essay considers the critical response to Hegel's view of Socrates we find in Kierkegaard's dissertation, The Concept of Irony. I argue that this dispute turns on the question whether or not the examination of particular thinkers enters into Socrates’ most basic aims and interests. I go on to show how Kierkegaard's account, which relies on an affirmative answer to this question, enables him to provide a cogent defence of Socrates' philosophical practice against Hegel's criticisms.

My central claim in this paper is that Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling is governed by the basic aim to articulate a real dilemma, and to elicit its proper recognition as such. I begin by indicating how Kierkegaard’s works are shaped in general by this aim, and what the aim involves. I then show how the dilemmaticstructure of Fear and Trembling is obscured in a recent dispute between Michelle Kosch and John Lippitt regarding the basic aims and upshot of the book. (...) Finally, I consider two critical questions: Why does Kierkegaard present his dilemmatic reasoning in the form of a “dialectical lyric”? And why does he write a book that aims only to articulate a dilemma, and not also to resolve it? (shrink)

The “principle of double effect” is a vital tool for moral decision making and is applicable to all areas of medical practice, including (for example) end-of-life care, transplant medicine, and cases of conscientious objection. Both our ultimate and our more immediate intentions are relevant in making and evaluating choices— though side effects must be kept proportionate and can be morally conclusive when linked with some intentions. Intentions help to form the character of doctors, and of human beings generally. While hypocrisy (...) is certainly possible in regard to this form (and other forms) of moral reasoning, double effect reasoning, sincerely practised, remains indispensable in identifying moral problems and solutions. (shrink)

Health services internationally struggle to ensure health care is “person-centered” (or similar). In part, this is because there are many interpretations of “person-centered care” (and near synonyms), some of which seem unrealistic for some patients or situations and obscure the intrinsic value of patients’ experiences of health care delivery. The general concern behind calls for person-centered care is an ethical one: Patients should be “treated as persons.” We made novel use of insights from the capabilities approach to characterize person-centered care (...) as care that recognizes and cultivates the capabilities associated with the concept of persons. This characterization unifies key features from previous characterisations and can render person-centered care applicable to diverse patients and situations. By tying person-centered care to intrinsically valuable capability outcomes, it incorporates a requirement for responsiveness to individuals and explains why person-centered care is required independently of any contribution it may make to health gain. (shrink)

This précis summarizes the main topics, arguments and conclusions of the book. Many interesting arguments and critiques have, of course, been omitted in order to make this summary appropriately brief.

I propose to treat the books under review here as exemplifying three types of approach to Kierkegaard, three heuristic prisms. At the level of abstraction at which I shall distinguish them, each ty...

The sense of form that provides the modern poet with a unique experience of the literary object has been crucial to various attempts to compare poetry to other cultural activities. In maintaining similar conceptions of the relationship between poetry and painting, Arthur Rimbaud and W. C. Williams establish a common basis for interpreting their creative work. And yet their poetry is more crucially concerned with the sudden emergence of visible "worlds" containing verbal objects that integrate a new kind of literary (...) text. This paper discusses the emergence of "aesthetic worlds" in the work of both poets and then examines how a common concern with Baroque form unites them in the phenomenological task of overcoming Cartesian dualism. (shrink)

A violation of procedure invariance in preference measurement is that the predominant or prominent attribute looms larger in choice than in a matching task. In Experiment 1, this so-called prominence effect was demonstrated for choices between pairs of options, choices to accept single options, and preference ratings of single options. That is, in all these response modes the prominent attribute loomed larger than in matching. The results were replicated in Experiment 2, in which subjects chose between or rated their preference (...) for pairs of options which were matched to be equally attractive either in the same session or 1 week earlier. On the basis of these and previous results, it is argued that the prominence effect is a reliable phenomenon. However, none of several cognitive explanations which have been offered appears to be completely viable. (shrink)

When a prominent attribute looms larger in one response procedure than in another, a violation of procedure invariance occurs. A hypothesis based on compatibility between the structure of the input information and the required output was tested as an explanation of this phenomenon. It was also compared with other existing hypotheses in the field. The study had two aims: (1) to illustrate the prominence effect in a selection of preference tasks (choice, acceptance decisions, and preference ratings); (2) to demonstrate the (...) processing differences in a matching procedure versus the selected preference tasks. Hence, verbal protocols were collected in both a matching task and in subsequent preference tasks. Silent control conditions were also employed. The structure compatibility hypothesis was confirmed in that a prominence effect obtained in the preference tasks was accompanied by a lower degree of attention to the attribute levels in these tasks. Furthermore, as predicted from the structure compatibility hypothesis, it was found that fewer comparisons between attribute levels were performed in the preference tasks than in the matching task. It was therefore concluded that both these processing differences may explain the occurrence of the prominence effects. (shrink)

How do we determine whether individuals accept the actual consistency of a political argument instead of just its rhetorical good looks? This article answers this question by proposing an interpretation of political argument within the constraints of political liberalism. It utilises modern developments in the philosophy of logic and language to reclaim ‘meaningless nonsense’ from use as a partisan war cry and to build up political argument as something more than a power struggle between competing conceptions of the good. Standard (...) solutions for ‘clarifying’ meaning through descriptive definition encounter difficulties with the biases of status quo idioms (long noted by theorists like William Connolly and Quentin Skinner), as well as partisan translations and circularity. Collectively called linguistic gerrymandering, these difficulties threaten political liberalism’s underlying coherency. The proposed interpretation of political argument overcomes this with a new brand of conceptual analysis that can falsifiably determine whether rhetoric has hijacked political argument. (shrink)

We advance an account that grounds cognition, specifically decision-making, in an activity all organisms as autonomous systems must perform to keep themselves viable—controlling their production mechanisms. Production mechanisms, as we characterize them, perform activities such as procuring resources from their environment, putting these resources to use to construct and repair the organism's body and moving through the environment. Given the variable nature of the environment and the continual degradation of the organism, these production mechanisms must be regulated by control mechanisms (...) that select when a production is required and how it should be carried out. To operate on production mechanisms, control mechanisms need to procure information through measurement processes and evaluate possible actions. They are making decisions. In all organisms, these decisions are made by multiple different control mechanisms that are organized not hierarchically but heterarchically. In many cases, they employ internal models of features of the environment with which the organism must deal. Cognition, in the form of decision-making, is thus fundamental to living systems which must control their production mechanisms. (shrink)

What endogenous factors contribute to minority (Red Queen) or majority (Red King) domination under conditions of coercive bargaining? We build on previous work demonstrating minority disadvantage in non-coercive bargaining games to show that under neutral initial conditions, majorities are advantaged in high conflict situations, and minorities are advantaged in low conflict games. These effects are a function of the relationship between (1) relative proportions of the majority and minority groups and (2) costs of conflict. Although both Red King and Red (...) Queen effects can occur, we further show that agents’ increased initial propensity toward conflict advantages majorities. (shrink)

[This download contains the Table of Contents and Chapter 1.] This first book-length study of confabulation breaks ground in both philosophy and cognitive science.

A standard line in the contemporary philosophical literature has it that physical theories are equivalent only when they agree on their empirical content, where this empirical content is often understood as being encoded in the equations of motion of those theories. In this article, we question whether it is indeed the case that the empirical content of a theory is exhausted by its equations of motion, showing that (for example) considerations of boundary conditions play a key role in the empirical (...) equivalence (or otherwise) of theories. Having argued for this, we show that philosophical claims made by Weatherall (2016) that electromagnetism in the Faraday tensor formalism is equivalent to electromagnetism in the vector potential formalism, and by Knox (2011) that general relativity is equivalent to teleparallel gravity, can both be called into question. We then show that properly considering the role of boundary conditions in theory structure can potentially restore these claims of equivalence and close with some remarks on the pragmatics of adjudications on theory identity. (shrink)

Husserl’s early picture of explanation in the sciences has never been completely provided. This lack represents an oversight, which we here redress. In contrast to currently accepted interpretations, we demonstrate that Husserl does not adhere to the much maligned deductive-nomological (DN) model of scientific explanation. Instead, via a close reading of early Husserlian texts, we reveal that he presents a unificationist account of scientific explanation. By doing so, we disclose that Husserl’s philosophy of scientific explanation is no mere anachronism. It (...) is, instead, tenable and relevant. We discuss how Husserl and other contemporary thinkers draw theoretical inspiration from the same source—namely, Bernard Bolzano. Husserl’s theory of scientific explanation shares a common language and discusses the same themes as, for example, Phillip Kitcher and Kit Fine. To advance our novel reading, we discuss Husserl’s investigations of grounding, inter-lawful explanation, intra-mathematical explanation, and scientific unification. (shrink)

Catalan translation, introductory study and notes on W. K. Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief”. Published in Clifford, W.K. “L’ètica de la creença”. Quaderns de Filosofia, vol. III, n. 2 (2016), pp. 129–150. // Catalan translation, introductory study and notes on William James’s “The Will to Believe”. Published in James, William. “La voluntat de creure”. Quaderns de Filosofia, vol. III, n. 2 (2016), pp. 151–172. [Introductory study published in Oya, Alberto. “Introducció. El debat entre W. K. Clifford i (...) class='Hi'>William James”. Quaderns de Filosofia, vol. III, n. 2 (2016), pp. 123–127]. (shrink)

It is now well-known that Newton–Cartan theory is the correct geometrical setting for modelling the quantum Hall effect. In addition, in recent years edge modes for the Newton–Cartan quantum Hall effect have been derived. However, the existence of these edge modes has, as of yet, been derived using only orthodox methodologies involving the breaking of gauge-invariance; it would be preferable to derive the existence of such edge modes in a gauge-invariant manner. In this article, we employ recent work by Donnelly (...) and Freidel in order to accomplish exactly this task. Our results agree with known physics, but afford greater conceptual insight into the existence of these edge modes: in particular, they connect them to subtle aspects of Newton–Cartan geometry and pave the way for further applications of Newton–Cartan theory in condensed matter physics. (shrink)

In their Why Machines Will Never Rule the World, Landgrebe and Smith (2023) argue that it is impossible for artificial general intelligence (AGI) to succeed, on the grounds that it is impossible to perfectly model or emulate the “complex” “human neurocognitive system”. However, they do not show that it is logically impossible; they only show that it is practically impossible using current mathematical techniques. Nor do they prove that there could not be any other kinds of theories than those in (...) current use. Even if perfect theories were impossible or unlikely, perfection may not be needed and may even be unhelpful. (shrink)

There are two distinct approaches to Bayesian modelling in cognitive science. Black-box approaches use Bayesian theory to model the relationship between the inputs and outputs of a cognitive system without reference to the mediating causal processes; while mechanistic approaches make claims about the neural mechanisms which generate the outputs from the inputs. This paper concerns the relationship between these two approaches. We argue that the dominant trend in the philosophical literature, which characterizes the relationship between black-box and mechanistic approaches to (...) Bayesian cognitive science in terms of the dichotomy between instrumentalism and realism, is misguided. We propose that the two distinctions are orthogonal: black-box and mechanistic approaches to Bayesian modelling can each be given either an instrumentalist or a realist interpretation. We argue that the current tendency to conflate black-box approaches with instrumentalism and mechanistic approaches with realism stems from unwarranted assumptions about the nature of scientific explanation, the ontological commitments of scientific theories, and the role of abstraction and idealization in scientific models. We challenge each of these assumptions to reframe the debates over Bayesian modelling in cognitive science. (shrink)

Eating is a fundamental behavior in which all organisms must engage in order to procure the material and energy from their environment that they need to maintain themselves. Since controlling eating requires procuring, processing, and assessing information, it constitutes a cognitive activity that provides a productive domain for pursuing cognitive biology as proposed by Ladislav Kováč. In agreement with Kováč, we argue that cognition is fundamentally grounded in chemical signaling and processing. To support this thesis, we adopt Cisek’s strategy of (...) phylogenetic refinement, focusing on two animal phyla, Porifera and Placozoa, organisms that do not have neurons, muscles, or an alimentary canal, but nonetheless need to coordinate the activity of cells of multiple types in order to eat. We review what research has revealed so far about how these animals gather and process information to control their eating behavior. (shrink)

Suppose that an altruistic agent who is uncertain between evidential and causal decision theory finds herself in a situation where these theories give conflicting verdicts. We argue that even if she has significantly higher credence in CDT, she should nevertheless act in accordance with EDT. First, we claim that the appropriate response to normative uncertainty is to hedge one's bets. That is, if the stakes are much higher on one theory than another, and the credences you assign to each of (...) these theories are not very different, then it is appropriate to choose the option that performs best on the high-stakes theory. Second, we show that, given the assumption of altruism, the existence of correlated decision makers will increase the stakes for EDT but leave the stakes for CDT unaffected. Together these two claims imply that whenever there are sufficiently many correlated agents, the appropriate response is to act in accordance with EDT. (shrink)

The harmonious free play of the imagination and understanding is at the heart of Kant’s account of beauty in the Critique of the Power of Judgement, but interpreters have long struggled to determine what Kant means when he claims the faculties are in a state of free play. In this article, I develop an interpretation of the free play of the faculties in terms of the freedom of attention. By appealing to the different way that we attend to objects in (...) aesthetic experience, we can explain how the faculties are free, even when the subject already possesses a concept of the object and is bound to the determinate form of the object in perception. (shrink)

According to a rights forfeiture theory of punishment, liability to punishment hinges upon the notion that criminals forfeit their rights against hard treatment. In this paper, I assume the success of rights forfeiture theory in establishing the permissibility of punishment but aim to develop the view by considering how forfeited rights might be reclaimed. Built into the very notion of proportionate punishment is the idea that forfeited rights can be recovered. The interesting question is whether punishment is the sole means (...) for reclaiming forfeited rights. I argue for a pluralistic theory of rights reclamation, according to which, there are multiple ways by which a wrongdoer can recapture her forfeited rights. In particular, I argue that offering remorseful compensation is a valid means by which a wrongdoer might partially, or fully, reclaim her right against punishment. (shrink)

A representationalist-friendly introduction to representationalism which covers a number of central problems and objections.

The question of the cognitive role of fictionality is this: what is the correct cognitive attitude to take to p, when it is fictional that p? We began by considering one answer to this question, implicit in the work of Kendall Walton, that the correct response to a fictional proposition is to imagine that proposition. However, this approach is silent in cases of fictional incompleteness, where neither p nor its negation are fictional. We argue that that Waltonians should embrace a (...) pluralistic account of the cognitive role of fictional incompleteness: in some cases of fictional incompleteness, we are permitted to resolve the incompleteness during our engagement with the target fiction, and in other cases, we are obliged not to resolve the incompleteness. But though pluralism is accommodated by Walton’s wider account of fictionality, it puts tension on his motivating idea that fictionality stands to the imagination as truth stands to belief. And so we develop a rival conception of the cognitive role of fictionality that is built around a different analogy: on this evidentialist approach, (known) fictionality stands to the imagination as evidence stands to credence. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the role of attention in Kant’s aesthetic theory in the Critique of the Power of Judgment. While broadly Kantian aestheticians have defended the claim that there is a distinct way that we attend to objects in aesthetic experience, Kant himself is not usually acknowledged as offering an account of aesthetic attention. On the basis of Kant’s more general account of attention in other texts and his remarks on attention in the Critique of the Power of (...) Judgment, I reconstruct Kant’s account of aesthetic attention. On this account, aesthetic attention is simultaneously directed at the form of an object and at the judging subject’s own mental states as she attends to the object. In the experience of beauty, we specifically attend to the harmonious relation between the faculties of imagination and understanding. (shrink)

The what next question for moral error theorists asks: if moral discourse is systematically error-ridden, then how, if at all, should moral error theorists continue to employ moral discourse? Recent years have seen growing numbers of moral error theorists come to endorse a wider normative error theory according to which all normative judgements are untrue. But despite this shift, the what next question for normative error theorists has received far less attention. This paper presents a novel solution to this question: (...) revolutionary normative subjectivism. Along the way, two primary contributions are advanced. First, a non-normative methodology for answering the normative error theoretic what next question is developed. Second, revolutionary normative subjectivism is presented and defended in accordance with the proposed methodology. (shrink)

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

An overview of the ancient philosophers and their philosophical system (divided into the fields of logic, physics, and ethics) comprising the living, organic, enduring, and evolving body of interrelated ideas identifiable as the Stoic perspective.

This essay considers what it means to understand natural language and whether a computer running an artificial-intelligence program designed to understand natural language does in fact do so. It is argued that a certain kind of semantics is needed to understand natural language, that this kind of semantics is mere symbol manipulation (i.e., syntax), and that, hence, it is available to AI systems. Recent arguments by Searle and Dretske to the effect that computers cannot understand natural language are discussed, and (...) a prototype natural-language-understanding system is presented as an illustration. (shrink)

This paper explores the evolution of consciousness and subjectivity through a biological framework for understanding the universe. It posits that functional patterns in biological systems mirror cosmic mathematical principles, defining our objective reality. Similar to wave and Fibonacci patterns in different physical phenomena, biological patterns are intrinsic to all things and can be quantified using Dedre Gentner’s approach to analogy. For example, Earth’s ocean currents and the melting and freezing of Antarctica resemble the circulatory system and heart, while the production (...) of music from instruments is analogous to ribosomal protein synthesis. Shelves, tables, and chairs function like cytosol by holding objects in space, and a coffee cup mirrors red blood cell distribution. These analogies reveal a universal order rooted in biology’s functional patterns, essential for shaping the emergence and evolution of life. The paper traces the development of consciousness from its rudimentary cellular states to complex human cognition, highlighting the role of biologically-patterned environments in driving evolutionary changes. Organisms that recognized and organized according to these patterns evolved as “pattern recognition engines” crucial for survival—thus, Life (survival) being the primary measure of consciousness. Humans advanced this capacity, gaining cognitive freedom by insulating themselves from environmental constraints, but faced increased subjectivity complexity. Consciousness, while inherently subjective and necessary for cognitive development, evolves in humans to understand objective reality and its biological nature, so to understand and navigate complexities of subjectivity. Ultimately, the paper asserts consciousness is the ability to recognize and adhere to life-sustaining patterns and principles. Successful adherence deems them worthy of continued existence, while failure leads to demise. Parallels with historical concepts like Atman and Brahman in Hinduism suggest ancient recognition of the correspondence between human and universal patterns. This ancient understanding, coupled with modern scientific evidence, reveals the interconnectedness and intrinsic biological nature of reality. (shrink)

Unless one embraces activities as foundational, understanding activities in mechanisms requires an account of the means by which entities in biological mechanisms engage in their activities—an account that does not merely explain activities in terms of more basic entities and activities. Recent biological research on molecular motors exemplifies such an account, one that explains activities in terms of free energy and constraints. After describing the characteristic “stepping” activities of these molecules and mapping the stages of those steps onto the stages (...) of the motors’ hydrolytic cycles, researchers pieced together from images of the molecules in different hydrolyzation states accounts of how the chemical energy in ATP is transformed in the constrained environments of the motors into the characteristic activities of the motors. We argue that New Mechanism’s standard set of analytic categories—entities, activities, and organization—should be expanded to include constraints and energetics. Not only is such an expansion required descriptively to capture research on molecular motors but, more importantly from a philosophical point of view, it enables a non-regressive account of activities in mechanisms. In other words, this expansion enables a philosophical account of mechanistic explanation that avoids a regress of entities and activities “all the way down.” Rather, mechanistic explanation bottoms out in constraints and energetics. (shrink)

All extant purely probabilistic measures of explanatory power satisfy the following technical condition: if Pr(E | H1) > Pr(E | H2) and Pr(E | ∼H1) < Pr(E | ∼H2), then H1’s explanatory power with respect to E is greater than H2’s explanatory power with respect to E. We argue that any measure satisfying this condition faces three serious problems—the Problem of Temporal Shallowness, the Problem of Negative Causal Interactions, and the Problem of Nonexplanations. We further argue that many such measures (...) face a fourth problem—the Problem of Explanatory Irrelevance. (shrink)

Neutral Theory is controversial in ecology. Ecologists and philosophers have diagnosed the source of the controversy as: its false assumption that individuals in different species within the same trophic level are ecologically equivalent, its conflict with Competition Theory and the adaptation of species, its role as a null hypothesis, and as a Lakatosian research programme. In this paper, I show why we should instead understand the conflict at the level of research programs which involve more than theory. The Neutralist and (...) Competitionist research programs borrow and construct theories, models, and experiments for various aims and given their home ecological systems. I present a holistic and pragmatic view of the controversy that foregrounds the interrelation between many kinds of practices and decisions in ecological research. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Kant has a far more communitarian theory of aesthetic life than is usually acknowledged. I focus on two aspects of Kant’s theory that might otherwise be taken to support an individualist reading, namely, Kant’s emphasis on aesthetic autonomy and his characterization of judgments of taste as involving demands for agreement. I argue that the full expression of autonomy in fact requires being a member of an aesthetic community and that within such a community, judgments (...) of taste are issued as invitations to others to engage their faculties towards the goal of shared aesthetic appreciation. (shrink)