This paper seeks to elucidate the distinctive nature of the rational impression on its own terms, asking precisely what it means for the Stoics to define logikē phantasia as an impression whose content is expressible in language. I argue first that impression, generically, is direct and reflexive awareness of the world, the way animals get information about their surroundings. Then, that the rational impression, specifically, is inherently conceptual, inferential, and linguistic, i.e. thick with propositional content, the way humans receive incoming (...) information from the world. When we suspend certain contemporary assumptions about propositional content, the textual evidence can be taken at face value to reveal why, for the Stoics, rational impressions are called thoughts (noēseis) and how the Stoics’ novel semantic entities called lekta (roughly, the meanings of our words) depend on rational impressions for their subsistence. (shrink)

In his De la recherche de la vérité (The Search after Truth) of 1674-75, Nicolas Malebranche makes a number of apparently contradictory remarks about women and their capacity for pure intellectual thought. On the one hand, he seems to espouse a negative biological determinism about women’s minds, and on the other, he suggests that women have the free capacity to attain truth and happiness, regardless of their physiology. In the early eighteenth-century, four English women thinkers – Anne Docwra (c. 1624-1710), (...) Mary Astell (1666-1731), Damaris Masham (1659-1708), and Mary Chudleigh (1656-1710) – engaged with Malebranche’s ideas. Their writings reveal how we might dispel the apparent contradictions in Malebranche’s thinking about women, and reaffirm the liberating potential of Cartesian philosophy for women in the early modern period. (shrink)

Pyrrhonian sceptics claim, notoriously, to assent to the appearances without making claims about how things are. To see whether this is coherent we need to consider the philosophical history of ‘appearance’(phainesthai)-talk, and the closely related concept of an impression (phantasia). This history suggests that the sceptics resemble Plato in lacking the ‘non-epistemic’ or ‘non-doxastic’ conception of appearance developed by Aristotle and the Stoics. What is distinctive about the Pyrrhonian sceptic is simply that the degree of doxastic commitment involved in his (...) assent to an impression is asymptotally low. (shrink)

This book is a compilation of the work done by the present author and mainly focuses on understanding the relationship between meta – science and religion in relation to consciousness. The author claims that the various ideas and hypothesis presented here are just an attempt to understand the meta-impressions of consciousness that exist around us.

Here I propose an interpretation of the ancient Stoic psychological theory on which (i) the concepts that an adult human possesses affect the content of the perceptual impressions (φαντασίαι αἰσθητικαί) she forms, and (ii) the content of such impressions is exhausted by an ‘assertible’ (ἀξίωμα) of suitable complexity. What leads the Stoics to accept (i) and (ii), I argue, is their theory of assent and belief formation, which requires that the perceptual impression communicate information suitable to serve as (...) the content of belief. In arguing for (i), I reject a rival interpretation on which conceptualization occurs subsequently to the formation of a perceptual impression. In arguing for (ii), I deny that perceptual impressions have two kinds of content: one formulated in an assertible, the other sensory, featuring independently of this assertible. I explore the implications of (i) and (ii) for the Stoic theory of emotions, expertise, and rationality, and argue that they shed new light on the workings of impression, assent, and belief. (shrink)

In *Here and There*, Stanley Cavell suggests that music, like speech, implicates the listener, so that our descriptions of music "are to be thought of not as discoveries but as impressions and assignments of meaning." Such impressions express what "makes an impression upon us," "what truly matters to us." Moreover, this aspect of music "is itself more revolutionary than ... any political event of which it could be said to form a part." I offer one indication of that (...) significance by considering a recent challenge to an old claim about the relation between jazz and democracy. Stanley Crouch claims that jazz practice is an emblem of democracy, while Benjamin Givan observes the undemocratic, hierarchical way that jazz musicians work together. But both positions rest on a limited notion of "democracy." I contrast it to the tradition in political thought that requires each citizen to find their own voice if they're to acquire the ability to govern themselves. Consequently, a better emblem of jazz's democratic advance lies in the challenge it presents to the attentive listener. Jazz listening is increasingly characterized by a learned culture of hearing what isn't played, hearing allusions, hearing unspoken interplay. The nature of this "hearing between the lines" parallels the tradition of esoteric writing in the history of political thought. It suggests that jazz's democratic importance is found in the listener's willingness to give voice to what she hears, not knowing whether her experience is shared by others or whether it singles her out, possibly for skepticism or ridicule. (shrink)

Hume introduced important innovations concerning the theory of ideas. The two most important are the distinction between impressions and ideas, and the use he made of the principles of association in explaining mental phenomena. Hume divided the perceptions of the mind into two classes. The members of one class, impressions, he held to have a greater degree of force and vivacity than the members of the other class, ideas. He also supposed that ideas are causally dependent copies of (...) impressions. And, unlike Locke and others, Hume makes positive use of the principle of association, both of the association of ideas, and, in a more limited way, of the association of impressions. Such associations are central to his explanations of causal reasoning, belief, the indirect passions (pride and humility, love and hatred), and sympathy. These views about impressions and ideas and the principles of association form the core of Hume’s science of human nature. Relying on them, he attempts a rigorously empirical investigation of human nature. The resulting system is a remarkable but complex achievement. (shrink)

In his 'Of the Standard of Taste' David Hume seems to make the paradoxical claim that even though the sentiments an agent feels in response to an artwork are subjective and unique, and it cannot be said that such sentiments are either correct or incorrect, there is a standard upon which art can be judged, which is at least partly determined by these sentiments.

This article tries to provide an insight about the psychological impression of Hindu worshipper to their gods.

A glance is enough for people to assign psychological attributes to another person. Attractiveness is associated with positive attributes contributing to the “beauty-is-good” stereotype. Here, we aimed to study the possibility of a similar but negative bias. Specifically, we asked if people with facial anomalies are associated with negative characteristics, and if so, what accounts for this association. We tested the hypothesis that biases against faces with scars and palsies arise because of negative stereotypes (less warmth and competence) and forms (...) of dehumanization (animalistic and mechanistic). Using well-controlled stimuli (i.e., photographs of real people before and after plastic surgery) and a wide range of faces to avoid race, age, and gender biases in facial perception, we found that anomalous faces were seen as less warm, competent, and were dehumanized (in both animalistic and mechanistic ways). Our study supports the “anomalous-is-bad” stereotype, and further exposes reasons for why faces with anomalies elicit more negative evaluations compared to the same faces before the surgery. (shrink)

The early Stoics diagnose vicious agents with various psychological diseases, e.g. love of money and love of wine. Such diseases are characterized as false evaluative opinions that lead the agent to form emotional impulses for certain objects, e.g. money and wine. Scholars have therefore analyzed psychological diseases simply as dispositions for assent. This interpretation is incomplete, I argue, and should be augmented with the claim that psychological disease also affects what kind of action-guiding impressions are created prior to giving (...) assent. This proposal respects the Stoic insistence that impression-formation, no less than assent, is an activity of reason. In so far as the wine-lover’s reason is corrupted in a different way from the money-lover’s, the two vicious agents will form different action-guiding impressions when faced with similar stimuli. Here I juxtapose the Stoic account of expertise, according to which experts form more precise action-guiding impressions compared to the amateur, in virtue of possessing a system of grasps (katalēpseis). So expertise enhances, whereas psychological disease degrades, the representational fidelity of the impressions that prefigure action. With these commitments, the Stoics can be seen to offer a nuanced and principled theory of cognitive penetration and to anticipate some recent proposals in epistemology and cognitive science. (shrink)

Space tourism is an emerging field where few people have direct experience. However, considering the potential in the near future, it is beneficial to better understand how related information influences people’s attitudes about this new form of tourism. Employing information-processing-based Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 361 respondents consuming content related to space tourism on Chinese social media, we found that induced happiness and impression are positively associated with willingness to try space tourism. Information authenticity positively moderates (...) these two associations. Our findings emphasize three aspects of information during the processes of reception and filtering: meaning, intensity, and trust. Since promotional materials for space tourism rely heavily on mental simulations rather than objective feedback, creative uses of digital technology are advantageous. However, precautions must be taken to prevent exploitation, such as false advertising, exaggeration, and emotional manipulation. (shrink)

In order to distribute our thoughts and feelings, we must make intelligible and distributable copies of them. From approximately 1375 to 1450, certain Europeans started fully mechanized replication of texts and images, based on predecessor “smaller” technologies. What they started became the most powerful means for the distribution, storage, and retrieval of knowledge in history, up until the invention of digital means. We have scant information about the initiation of print technologies in the period up to Gutenberg, and the picture (...) of Gutenberg that we have has become a great deal more complicated than hitherto. There has not been, however, an approach to the “pre-printing” period in terms of the history of idea or intellectual history. After a brief survey of established approaches, this essay argues that distribution by impression, or print, is bound up with ancient metaphors for understanding communication by the making of multiples. I suggest that there is a rich field of study for printing history in the sophisticated concepts of reality that medieval and late Scholastic philosophy developed. These concepts helped to express and develop a desire or need for communication that led to the technology of replicating texts and images for wide and continued distribution. (shrink)

The natural interpretation is that Dorothea’s early impressions of Edward Casaubon, in terms of John Locke, are illusory. But I draw attention to Joseph Raz’s suggestion that it is the status of Locke which is mistaken, though I favour the natural interpretation.

This is a defense of Pyrrhonian skepticism against the charge that the suspension of judgment based on equipollence is vitiated by the assent given to the equipollence in question. The apparent conflict has a conceptual side as well as a practical side, examined here as separate challenges with a section devoted to each. The conceptual challenge is that the skeptical transition from an equipollence of arguments to a suspension of judgment is undermined either by a logical contradiction or by an (...) epistemic inconsistency, perhaps by both, because the determination and affirmation of equipollence is itself a judgment of sorts, one that is not suspended. The practical challenge is that, independently of any conceptual confusion or contradiction, suspending judgment in reaction to equipollence evinces doxastic commitment to equipollence, if only because human beings are not capable of making assessments requiring rational determination without believing the corresponding premises and conclusions to be true. The two analytic sections addressing these challenges are preceded by two prefatory sections, one laying out the epistemic process, the other reviewing the evidentiary context. The response from the conceptual perspective is that the suspension of judgment based on equipollence is not a reasoned conclusion adopted as the truth of the matter but a natural reaction to an impression left by the apparently equal weight of opposing arguments. The response from the practical perspective is that the acknowledgment of equipollence is not just an affirmation of the equal weight of arguments but also an admission of inability to decide, suggesting that any assent, express or implied, is thrust upon the Pyrrhonist in a state of epistemic paralysis affecting the will and the intellect on the matter being investigated. This just leaves a deep disagreement, if any, regarding whether equipollence is an inference based on discursive activity or an impression coming from passive receptivity. But this, even if resolved in favor of the critic (which it need not and ought not be), is not the same as confusion or inconsistency on the part of the Pyrrhonist, the demonstration of which is the primary aim of this paper. (shrink)

In the first Enquiry, Hume takes the experience of exerting force against a solid body to be a key ingredient of the vulgar idea of power, so that the vulgar take that experience to provide us with an impression of power. Hume provides two arguments against the vulgar on this point: the first concerning our other applications of the idea of power and the second concerning whether that experience yields certainty about distinct events. I argue that, even if we accept (...) Hume’s conception of the vulgar’s approach, neither of Hume’s arguments succeeds. The first argument can be resisted either by using the very arguments Hume provides concerning other causal representations or by simply rejecting Hume’s strict empiricism. The second argument can be resisted on epistemological grounds: there is no reason to think that an experience of a maximally-strong metaphysical connection would provide a maximally-strong epistemological connection. Unlike some recent neo-Anscombean responses to the second argument, my response does not require challenging Hume’s view that causal relations are strictly necessary. Though I do not attempt to translate the resilience of the vulgar view into contemporary terms, the failure of Hume’s arguments challenges one of the long-standing motivations for Humean approaches to causation. (shrink)

This paper offers a new defense of the externalist interpretation of the kataleptic impression. My strategy is to situate the kataleptic impression within the larger context of the Stoic account of expertise. I argue that, given mastery in recognizing the limitations of her own state of mind, the subject can restrict her assent to kataleptic impressions, even if they are phenomenologically indistinguishable from those which are not kataleptic.

Does Hume want to weaken our notion of causality? For some he does. My paper is an attempt to refute this interpretation of Hume. My analysis of the texts is an attempt to show that Hume actually endorses the view that the idea of necessary connection, that is associated with the idea of causality, is important and that this idea does exist. Furthermore, this idea is produced by an interesting impression. This impression is unusual as it is a specific internal (...) impression or determination of the mind. (shrink)

I argue that the Hume of the Treatise maintains an account of knowledge according to which (i) every instance of knowledge must be an immediately present perception (i.e., an impression or an idea); (ii) an object of this perception must be a token of a knowable relation; (iii) this token knowable relation must have parts of the instance of knowledge as relata (i.e., the same perception that has it as an object); and any perception that satisfies (i)-(iii) is an instance (...) of knowledge. I then apply this account to the case of sense perception. I argue that Hume holds that relations of impressions can be intuited, are knowable, and are necessary. For Hume, these relations constitute sensory knowledge. While Hume is rightly labeled an empiricist for many reasons, a close inspection of his account of knowledge reveals yet another way in which he deserves the label. (shrink)

Hume warns his readers that his view on necessity will not be understood by his critics. As he sees it, his view is paradoxical: Necessity is "nothing but an internal impression of the mind, or a determination to carry our thought from one object to another". Recent critics find it difficult to accept Hume's view and have done their best to interpret it in their way. My paper is a critical investigation of the attempts by Pears, Baier and Stoud to (...) "rescue" Hume from his own folly. (shrink)

An impressive case has been built for the hypothesis that knowledge is the norm of assertion, otherwise known as the knowledge account of assertion. According to the knowledge account, you should assert something only if you know that it’s true. A wealth of observational data supports the knowledge account, and some recent empirical results lend further, indirect support. But the knowledge account has not yet been tested directly. This paper fills that gap by reporting the results of such a test. (...) The knowledge account passes with flying colors. (shrink)

This is the original, longer draft for my entry on Hume in the 'The Routledge Hand- book of Philosophy of Imagination', edited by Amy Kind and published by Routledge in 2016 (see the separate entry). — Please always cite the Routledge version, unless there are passages concerned that did not make it into the Handbook for reasons of length. — -/- This chapter overviews Hume’s thoughts on the nature and the role of imagining, with an almost exclusive focus on the (...) first book of his Treatise of Human Nature. Over the course of this text, Hume draws and discusses three important distinctions among our conscious mental episodes (or what he calls ‘perceptions’): (i) between impressions (including perceptual experiences) and ideas (including recollections, imaginings and occurrent beliefs); (ii) between ideas of the memory and ideas of the imagination; and (iii), among the ideas of the imagination, between ideas of the judgement (i.e. occurrent beliefs) and ideas of the fancy (i.e. imaginings). I discuss each distinction in turn, also in connection to contemporary views on imagining. In addition, I briefly consider Hume’s views on the imagination as a faculty aimed at the production of ideas, as well as on the role that imagining plays in the wider context of our mental lives, notably in the acquisition of modal knowledge and in the comprehension of, and resistance to, stories and opinions that we take to be false or fictional. (shrink)

The impressive variation amongst biological individuals generates many complexities in addressing the simple-sounding question what is a biological individual? A distinction between evolutionary and physiological individuals is useful in thinking about biological individuals, as is attention to the kinds of groups, such as superorganisms and species, that have sometimes been thought of as biological individuals. More fully understanding the conceptual space that biological individuals occupy also involves considering a range of other concepts, such as life, reproduction, and agency. There has (...) been a focus in some recent discussions by both philosophers and biologists on how evolutionary individuals are created and regulated, as well as continuing work on the evolution of individuality. (shrink)

First described by Galton in 1880 and then remaining unnoticed for a century, recent investigations in neuroscience have shown that a condition called aphantasia appears in certain individuals, which causes them to be unable to experience visual mental imagery. Comparing aphantasia to hyperphantasia – i.e., photo-like memory – and considering the neurological basis of perceptual phenomena, we are revisiting Hume's division of perceptions into impressions and ideas. By showing different vivacities of mental phenomena and comparing them to neurological research, (...) we are stating that not only impressions and ideas differ "in the degrees of force and liveliness", but ideas and impressions amongst themselves as well. Such a gradual range of perceptions and mental images bears significant consequences for not only representational theory and historical interpretations, but linguistics and semiotics as well. (shrink)

A very common view of Hume’s distinction between impressions and ideas is that it is based on their intrinsic properties; specifically, their force and vivacity. Some interpreters have challenged this,one being David Landy (Landy 2006). He argues that for Hume the difference lies instead in the fact that impressions are not copies of anything, while ideas are copies of impressions. I regard this view as unsatisfactory, not because it is fundamentally mistaken but because (to put it in (...) Humean terms) it “…it discovers not all the truth” (Treatise 1.3.7.4). I will argue that Hume was a functionalist about (some)mental kinds, individuating impressions, ideas, and beliefs (and possibly other mental phenomena) in terms of their causal role in our mental economy. The distinction between impressions and ideas involves the fact that ideas are copies and impressions are not, but also more than that. I will also argue that interpreting Hume as a functionalist enables one to make sense of a passage that is impossible to explain on the force-and-vivacity view, and that it does so more readily than Landy’s view.Furthermore, I think this interpretation makes better sense of Hume’s “missing shade of blue” than Landy’s does. (shrink)

First impressions suggest the following contrast between perception and memory: perception generates new beliefs and reasons, justification, or evidence for those beliefs; memory preserves old beliefs and reasons, justification, or evidence for those beliefs. In this paper, I argue that reflection on perceptual learning gives us reason to adopt an alternative picture on which perception plays both generative and preservative epistemic roles.

An impressive variety of new forms of money has aroused in recent decades from various groups of people and various kinds of institutions. These currencies are at the heart of intense debates, which raise important, but often neglected, normative issues. The diversity of their goals, uses and charac-teristics is so large that it makes some preliminary distinctions necessary. This paper aims at provid-ing a proper background for the discussion of the possible merits and drawbacks of different kinds of currencies. It (...) proposes a classification that demarcates currencies according to how they relate to several crucial normative issues. Its aim is to show, for every type of currency, and as unambiguously as possible, to which side of these controversies it lies. (shrink)

Many philosophers are impressed by the progress achieved by physical sciences. This has had an especially deep effect on their ontological views: it has made many of them physicalists. Physicalists believe that everything is physical: more precisely, that all entities, properties, relations and facts are those which are studied by physics or other physical sciences...

One Stoic response to the skeptical indistinguishability argument is that it fails to account for expertise: the Stoics allow that while two similar objects create indistinguishable appearances in the amateur, this is not true of the expert, whose appearances succeed in discriminating the pair. This paper re-examines the motivations for this Stoic response, and argues that it reveals the Stoic claim that, in generating a kataleptic appearance, the perceiver’s mind is active, insofar as it applies concepts matching the perceptual stimulus. (...) I argue that this claim is reflected in the Stoic definition of the kataleptic appearance, and that it respects their more general account of mental representation. I further suggest that, in attributing some activity to the mind in creating each kataleptic appearance, and in claiming that the expert’s mind allows her to form more kataleptic appearances than the amateur, the Stoics draw inspiration from the wax tablet model in Plato’s Theaetetus (190e–196d), where Socrates distinguishes the wise from the ignorant on the basis of how well they match sensory input with its appropriate mental ‘seal’ (σφραγίς). (shrink)

Many philosophers are impressed by the progress achieved by physical sciences. This has had an especially deep effect on their ontological views: it has made many of them physicalists. Physicalists believe that everything is physical: more precisely, that all entities, properties, relations, and facts are those which are studied by physics or other physical sciences. They may not all agree with the spirit of Rutherford's quoted remark that 'there is physics; and there is stamp-collecting',' but they all grant physical science (...) a unique ontological authority: the authority to tell us what there is. Physicalism is now almost orthodox in much philosophy, notably in much recent philosophy of mind. But although often invoked, it is rarely explicitly defined. It should be. The claim that everything is physical is not as clear as it seems. In this paper, we examine a number of proposed definitions of physicalism and reasons for being a physicalist. We will argue both that physicalism lacks a clear and credible definition, and that in no non-vacuous interpretation is it true. We are concerned here only with physicalism as a doctrine about the empirical world. In particular, it should not be confused with nominalism, the doctrine that there are no universals.2 Nominalism and physicalism are quite independent doctrines. Believers in universals may as consistently assert as deny that the only properties and relations are those studied by physical science. And nominalists may with equal consistency assert or deny that physical science could provide enough predicates to describe the world. That is the question which concerns physicalists, not whether physical predicates name real universals. (We will for brevity write as if they do, but we do not need that assumption.). (shrink)

The impression we are often given by historians of philosophy is that the readiness of medieval philosophers to appeal to authorities, such as The Bible, the Church, and Aristotle, was not shared by many early modern philosophers, for whom there was a marked preference to look for illumination via experience, the exercise of reason, or a combination of the two. Although this may be accurate, broadly speaking, it is notable that, in spite of the waning enthusiasm for deferring to traditional (...) authorities, appeals to scripture remained commonplace in the work of early modern philosophers. In order to understand the philosophers of the early modern period, the philosophies they developed, and the debates they fought, we need to understand how they used scripture. This paper is intended to contribute to this desideratum by examining how scripture was used by those who engaged in a particular debate within natural philosophy, the so-called beast-machine controversy of the 17th and 18th centuries. (shrink)

Assertion is fundamental to our lives as social and cognitive beings. Philosophers have recently built an impressive case that the norm of assertion is factive. That is, you should make an assertion only if it is true. Thus far the case for a factive norm of assertion been based on observational data. This paper adds experimental evidence in favor of a factive norm from six studies. In these studies, an assertion’s truth value dramatically affects whether people think it should be (...) made. Whereas nearly everyone agreed that a true assertion supported by good evidence should be made, most people judged that a false assertion supported by good evidence should not be made. The studies also suggest that people are consciously aware of criteria that guide their evaluation of assertions. Evidence is also presented that some intuitive support for a non-factive norm of assertion comes from a surprising tendency people have to misdescribe cases of blameless rule-breaking as cases where no rule is broken. (shrink)

Experimental philosophers have gathered impressive evidence for the surprising conclusion that philosophers' intuitions are out of step with those of the folk. As a result, many argue that philosophers' intuitions are unreliable. Focusing on the Knobe Effect, a leading finding of experimental philosophy, we defend traditional philosophy against this conclusion. Our key premise relies on experiments we conducted which indicate that judgments of the folk elicited under higher quality cognitive or epistemic conditions are more likely to resemble those of the (...) philosopher. We end by showing how our experimental findings can help us better understand the Knobe Effect. (shrink)

In apparent motion experiments, participants are presented with what is in fact a succession of two brief stationary stimuli at two different locations, but they report an impression of movement. Philosophers have recently debated whether apparent motion provides evidence in favour of a particular account of the nature of temporal experience. I argue that the existing discussion in this area is premised on a mistaken view of the phenomenology of apparent motion and, as a result, the space of possible philosophical (...) positions has not yet been fully explored. In particular, I argue that the existence of apparent motion is compatible with an account of the nature of temporal experience that involves a version of direct realism. In doing so, I also argue against two other claims often made about apparent motion, viz. that apparent motion is the psychological phenomenon that underlies motion experience in the cinema, and that apparent motion is subjectively indistinguishable from real motion. (shrink)

Despite the impressive amount of financial resources recently invested in carrying out large-scale brain simulations, it is controversial what the pay-offs are of pursuing this project. One idea is that from designing, building, and running a large-scale neural simulation, scientists acquire knowledge about the computational performance of the simulating system, rather than about the neurobiological system represented in the simulation. It has been claimed that this knowledge may usher in a new era of neuromorphic, cognitive computing systems. This study elucidates (...) this claim and argues that the main challenge this era is facing is not the lack of biological realism. The challenge lies in identifying general neurocomputational principles for the design of artificial systems, which could display the robust flexibility characteristic of biological intelligence. (shrink)

It is received wisdom that the skeptic has a devastating line of argument in the following. You probably think, he says, that you know that you have hands. But if you knew that you had hands, then you would also know that you were not a brain in a vat, a brain suspended in fluid with electrodes feeding you perfectly coordinated impressions that are generated by a supercomputer, of a world that looks and moves just like this one. You (...) would know you weren’t in this state if you knew you had hands, since having hands implies you are no brain in a vat. You obviously don’t know you’re not a brain in a vat, though—you have no evidence that would distinguish that state from the normal one you think you’re in. Therefore, by modus tollens, you don’t know you have hands. At least, the skeptic has a devastating argument, it is thought, if we grant him closure of knowledge under known implication, which many of us are inclined to do: roughly, if you know p, and you know that p implies q, then you know q. (shrink)

Despite the impressive progress that has been made on both the empirical and conceptual fronts of boredom research, there is one facet of boredom that has received remarkably little attention. This is boredom's relationship to morality. The aim of this article is to explore the moral dimensions of boredom and to argue that boredom is a morally relevant personality trait. The presence of trait boredom hinders our capacity to flourish and in doing so hurts our prospects for a moral life. (...) -/- . (shrink)

What I call the Doxastic Puzzle, is the impression that while each of these claims seems true, at least one of them must be false: (a) Claims of the form ‘S ought to have doxastic attitude D towards p at t’ are sometimes true at t, (b) If Φ-ing at t is not within S’s effective control at t, then it is false, at t, that ‘S ought to Φ at t’, (c) For all S, p, and t, having doxastic (...) attitude D towards p at t is not within S’s effective control at t. All three natural replies to the puzzle have been pursued. Some have claimed that doxastic attitudes like believing that p are, in fact, within our effective control, or sufficiently so. Others have claimed that doxastic ought-claims, strictly speaking, are always false. And some have denied that effective control is required for the adequacy of doxastic ought-claims in general. I here pursue and examine a different strategy. In the first part of this paper, I argue that these claims are not only each true but actually not in tension with each other in the first place. Instead of attempting to dispel the puzzle, this solution proposes to evade it instead: to solve it by properly understanding, and by thereby accepting without contradiction, all of its constitutive claims. In the second part of the paper, I argue that the evasive strategy forces us to re-think our understanding of the place of normative reasons in epistemology. More exactly, it seems to come at the cost of one central way of thinking about our reasons for having doxastic attitudes, one where such reasons are good-standing exemplars of normative reasons in general. The evasive strategy, that is, threatens to lead us very quickly to a deflationary picture of epistemic normativity: it rescues normative talk, but sacrifices normative substance. I conclude by explaining why I think this is more consequential than some have made it out to be, and by suggesting that these consequences are welcome nonetheless. (shrink)

Margaret MacDonald (1907–56) was a central figure in the history of early analytic philosophy in Britain due to both her editorial work as well as her own writings. While her later work on aesthetics and political philosophy has recently received attention, her early writings in the 1930s present a coherent and, for its time, strikingly original blend of common-sense and scientific philosophy. In these papers, MacDonald tackles the central problems of philosophy of her day: verification, the problem of induction, and (...) the relationship between philosophical and scientific method. MacDonald’s philosophy of science starts from the principle that we should carefully analyse the elements of scientific practice (particularly its temporal features) and the ways that scientists describe that practice. That is, she applies the techniques of ordinary language philosophy to actual scientific language. MacDonald shows how ‘scientific common-sense’ is inconsistent with both of the dominant schools of philosophy of her day. Bringing MacDonald back into the story of analytic philosophy corrects the impression that in early analytic philosophy, there are fundamental dichotomies between the style of Moore and Wittgenstein, on the one hand, and the Vienna Circle on the other. (shrink)

In her impressive book, looking at the philosophy and science of well-being, Anna Alexandrova argues for the strong claim that we possess no stable, unified concept of well-being. Instead, she thinks the word “well-being” only comes to have a specific meaning in particular contexts, and has a quite different meaning in different contexts. I take issue with (1) her claim that we do not possess a unified, all-things-considered concept of well-being as well as with (2) her failure to consider why (...) we might want a unified concept. I grant that Alexandrova is probably correct that the word “well-being” is used differently in different contexts. But this only shows that one word can come to be used to express different concepts. Moreover, noting that several concepts exist that are picked out by “well-being” doesn’t establish that we lack altogether a notion of all-things-considered well-being. I believe we have such a concept, even though it is not always the concept in play. Moreover, I think we need such a concept. The conceptual muddles Alexandrova highlights—muddles that result from a single word being used to express multiple ideas—remind us how important it is to be able to distinguish different concepts from one another, as well as how important it is to periodically remind ourselves of how various forms of specialist dialogue relate back to the broader, more general notion of “well-being.”. (shrink)

Despite his impressive influence on nineteenth-century philosophy, F. A. Trendelenburg's own philosophy has been largely ignored. However, among Kant scholars, Trendelenburg has always been remembered for his feud with Kuno Fischer over the subjectivity of space and time in Kant's philosophy. The topic of the dispute, now frequently referred to as the ?Neglected Alternative? objection, has become a prominent issue in contemporary discussions and interpretations of Kant's view of space and time. The Neglected Alternative contends that Kant unjustifiably moves from (...) the claim that we have a priori intuitions of space and time to the sceptical conclusion that space and time are exclusively subjective. Most current discussions trace the objection back to Trendelenburg and often use him to motivate the objection. However, to date Trendelenburg's actual arguments and reasons for rejecting the Kantian view of space and time have not been sufficiently uncovered; my goal here is to fill this lacuna. By better understanding what Trendelenburg actually argued, we will be in a better position to assess whether the Neglected Alternative objection against Kant is successful. But in addition, Trendelenburg's own system is of independent philosophical interest, and my work here will shed light on one part of it. (shrink)

Philosophical debate about the meaning of normative terms has long been pulled in two directions by the apparently competing ideas: (i) ‘ought’s do not describe what is actually the case but rather prescribe possible action, thought, or feeling, (ii) all declarative sentences deserve the same general semantic treatment, e.g. in terms of compositionally specified truth conditions. In this paper, I pursue resolution of this tension by rehearsing the case for a relatively standard truth-conditionalist semantics for ‘ought’ conceived as a necessity (...) modal and proposing a revision to it motivated by the distinctively prescriptive character of some deontic modals. In my view, this puts pressure on a popular conception of one of the core debates of metanormative theory between realists and antirealists. To make good on this claim, I go on to explore two very general ways we might interpret the results of compositional semantics—“representationalism” and “inferentialism”—in order to argue that, contrary to what is generally assumed, both can capture the special prescriptivity of ‘ought’ and both can countenance compositionally specified and informative truth-conditions for ought-sentences. Hence, my main thesis is that the deciding factor between them should not be which of ideas (i) and (ii) we are more impressed by but rather what we think of the relative merits of how representationalism and inferentialism respect these ideas. I’m inclined to favor an antirealist form of inferentialism, but the task I’ve set myself here is mainly to articulate the view in the context of metanormative theory and the semantics of deontic modals rather than try to defend it fully. To this purpose, towards the end I also briefly compare and contrast inferentialism with a third “ideationalist” metasemantic view, which may be an attractive home for some sophisticated versions of metanormative expressivism. Depending on how expressivism is worked out, it may be completely compatible with and so perhaps usefully combined with inferentialism or it may offer a competing way to respect ideas (i) and (ii). (shrink)

The inoffensive title of Section 1.4.7 of Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature, ‘Conclusion of this Book’, belies the convoluted treatment of scepticism contained within. It is notoriously difficult to decipher Hume’s considered response to scepticism in this section, or whether he even has one. In recent years, however, one line of interpretation has gained popularity in the literature. The ‘usefulness and agreeableness reading’ (henceforth U&A) interprets Hume as arguing in THN 1.4.7 that our beliefs and/or epistemic policies are justified via (...) their usefulness and agreeableness to the self and others; proponents include Ardal (in Livingston & King (eds.) Hume: a re-evaluation, 1976), Kail (in: Frasca-Spada & Kail (eds.) Impressions of Hume, 2005), McCormick (Hume Stud 31:1, 2005), Owen (Hume’s reason, 1999), and Ridge (Hume Stud 29:2, 2003), while Schafer (Philosophers, forthcoming) also defends an interpretation along these lines. In this paper, I will argue that although U&A has textual merit, it struggles to maintain a substantive distinction between epistemic and moral justification—a distinction that Hume insists on. I then attempt to carve out the logical space for there being a distinctly epistemic notion of justification founded on usefulness and agreeableness. However, I find that such an account is problematic for two reasons: first, it cannot take advantage of the textual support for U&A; secondly, it is incompatible with other features of the text. (shrink)

Some rules seem more important than others. The moral rule to keep promises seems more important than the aesthetic rule not to wear brown with black or the pool rule not to scratch on the eight ball. A worrying number of metaethicists are increasingly tempted to explain this difference by appealing to something they call “authoritative normativity” – it’s because moral rules are “authoritatively normatively” that they are especially important. The authors of this chapter argue for three claims concerning “authoritative (...) normativity”: (1) that motivation for it originates in a parochial conception of “normative flavours”; (2) that arguments against alternative ways of explaining e.g., morality’s importance are overblown; and (3) that there are strong reasons against theorizing in terms of “authoritative normativity”. The overarching aim is not to show that “authoritative normativity” is incoherent or entirely unmotivated. Rather, it is to discuss some of “authoritative normativity’s” deeper commitments to correct the impression that is it largely benign or that it is entailed by familiar and popular “metanormative” positions. Authoritative normativity, it seems to us, is a solution in search of a problem. (shrink)

Since the 1990s the so-called transparency of experience has played a crucial role in core debates in philosophy of mind. However, recent developments in the literature have made transparency itself quite opaque. The very idea of transparent experience has become quite fuzzy, due to the articulation of many different notions of transparency and transparency theses. Absent a unified logical space where these notions and theses can be mapped and confronted, we are left with an overall impression of conceptual chaos. This (...) is a problem, given the constant and ubiquitous references to transparency in the literature and its prominent position in the contemporary philosophy of mind. My goal in this paper is to restore clarity through proper analysis of the mutual relations between the different transparency theses. This allows me to uncover a unitary multidimensional logical space where existing (as well as possible) views can be properly singled out and located. (shrink)

We spend our lives protecting an elusive self - but does the self actually exist? Drawing on literature from Western philosophy, neuroscience and Buddhism (interpreted), the author argues that there is no self. The self - as unified owner and thinker of thoughts - is an illusion created by two tiers. A tier of naturally unified consciousness (notably absent in standard bundle-theory accounts) merges with a tier of desire-driven thoughts and emotions to yield the impression of a self. So while (...) the self, if real, would think up the thoughts, the thoughts, in reality, think up the self. (shrink)