There is a common belief that non-being and nothingness are identical, a widespread, even general delusion the wrongness of which I will try to demonstrate in this work. And which I consider even more important, that is to define nothingness for further determination of “its” place and role in the reality and especially in human life.

I develop ontological pluralism about non-being, the view that there are multiple ways, kinds, or modes of non-being. I suggest that the view is both more plausible and defensible than it first seems, and that it has many useful applications across a wide variety of metaphysical and explanatory problems. After drawing out the relationship between pluralism about being and pluralism about non-being, I discuss quantificational strategies for the pluralist about non-being. I examine historical precedent for (...) the view. Finally, I suggest that pluralism about non-being has explanatory power across a variety of domains, and that the view can account for differences between nonexistent past and future times, between omissions and absences, and between different kinds of fictional objects. (shrink)

Existence as reflected in natural language is not a univocal notion, but divides into different modes of being, such as existence (as, roughly, endurance) and occurrence. One aim of the paper is to distinguish sharply between abstract artifacts and non-existent objects (e.g., plans vs. planned events that fail to occur); another is to argue for validity as a mode of being distinct from existence, as well as for corresponding distinctions among non-being.

At Sophist 260e3-261a2, the Eleatic Stranger claims that in order to demonstrate that falsehood is, he and Theaetetus must first track down what speech (logos), opinion (doxa), and appearance (phantasia) are, and then observe the communion (koinōnia) that speech, opinion, and appearance have with non-being. The Stranger, however, never explicitly discusses the communion of speech, opinion, and appearance with non-being. Yet presumably their communion is implicit in his account of falsehood, given his claim that observing that communion is (...) needed in order to demonstrate that falsehood is (260e5-a2). This essay seeks to make the communion that speech has with non-being explicit. I argue that speech has communion with non-being in that the things and actions speech combines together by means of nouns and verbs need not be combined in a way that reveals how the being a given speech is about combines ontologically with other beings. (shrink)

In this essay, I give an analysis of the account of non-being in the Weltalter, focusing on the ways in which this account reflects Schelling’s new ontology of revelation. I begin by discussing the connection between non-being and the fundamental distinction between the principles in God. I then turn to the relationship of non-being to being in the Weltalter and show how a new meaning of being allows Schelling to distinguish non-being from nothing. The (...) new meaning of being also makes possible a distinction between essential non-being and de facto non-being; this distinction allows for the temporal sequence of revelation and the possibility of evil. I conclude by showing the implications of Schelling’s theory of non-being for his understanding of creation. (shrink)

Traditional philosophical problem arises from the distinction between being and non-being, something and nothing, what is and what is not. The objective of this paper is about proving that the distinction can be a framework for conflict resolution, by showing the problem to be a result of misunderstanding of the logical relations of the units. Two study questions are developed to guide the research: (i) what is the nature/structure of the logical relation between being and non-being, (...) and (ii) how does an understanding of that relation feed into conflict and peace discourse. The two research questions are contextualized or articulated under the following conceptual frameworks: (i) Parmenidian disjunctive ontology, and (ii) Heideggerian conjunctive ontology. In conclusion, the paper proves Hedeggerian conjunctive ontology to be adequate framework for negotiation of conflict, by showing conflict to be a result of the Parmenidian error of misunderstanding the logical relation of being and non-being as disjunctive rather than conjunctive. (shrink)

This essay in the comparative metaphysic of nothingness begins by pondering why Leibniz thought of the converse question as the preeminent one. In Eastern philosophical thought, like the numeral 'zero' (śūnya) that Indian mathematicians first discovered, nothingness as non-being looms large and serves as the first quiver on the imponderables they seem to have encountered (e.g., 'In the beginning was neither non-being nor being: what was there, bottomless deep?' RgVeda X.129). The concept of non-being and its (...) permutations of nothing, negation, nullity, etc., receive more sophisticated treatment in the works of grammarians, ritual hermeneuticians, logicians, and their dialectical adversaries variously across Jaina and Buddhist schools. The present analysis follows the function of negation/the negative copula, nãn, and dialetheia in grammar and logic, then moves onto ontologies of non-existence and extinction and further suggestive tropes that tend to arrest rather than affirm the inexorable being-there of something. After a discussion of interests in being (existence), non-being and nothingness in contemporary metaphysics, the article examines Heidegger’s extensive treatment of nothingness in his 1929 inaugural Freiburg lecture, 'Was ist Metaphysik?', published later as 'What is Metaphysics?' The essay however distances itself from any pretensions toward a doctrine of Metaphysical Nihilism. (shrink)

Part of a book symposium on Graham Priest's Towards Non-Being.

The paper examines Gorgias' treatise "On non-being" in the paraphrasis of Sextus Empiricus (Adversus mathematicos, VII, 65-87).

How can we think or say what is not? If we equate what-is-not with nothing, then a thought of nothing is no thought at all; if we don’t, we are condemned to admit that what-is-not is, seemingly incurring in self-refutation. In this paper, I address this paradox through the lenses of Parmenides, Plato, Russell, and the early Wittgenstein.

Robin Dembroff (Real Talk about the Metaphysics of Gender, 2018) believes that ‘non-binary’ is a social kind. I have my doubts about this, but if it is a social kind, then it is a very special one. The membership conditions of the social kind ‘non-binary’ are only accessible to non-binary persons. They establish and police their own membership conditions (Dembroff 2018: 36f.): ‘Individuals are granted authority over their gender kind membership.’ So, if this is indeed a ‘social kind’, then it (...) is a highly unusual one. (shrink)

The boundaries of social categories are frequently altered to serve normative projects, such as social reform. Griffiths and Khalidi argue that the value-driven modification of categories diminishes the epistemic value of social categories. I argue that concerns over value-modified categories stem from problematic assumptions of the value-free ideal of science. Contrary to those concerns, non-epistemic value considerations can contribute to the epistemic improvement of a scientific category. For example, the early history of the category infantile autism shows how non-epistemic value (...) considerations can contribute to delimiting and establishing infantile autism as a distinct category in mainstream psychiatry. In the case of infantile autism, non-epistemic considerations have led to a new interpretation of existing data, the expansion of research to include biology, and the creation of diagnostic criteria that further contribute to collecting relevant data. Given this case study, it can be argued that non-epistemic values can improve our knowledge of scientific categories. (shrink)

© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] Boonin’s The Non-Identity Problem and the Ethics of Future People and Rivka Weinberg’s The Risk of a Lifetime: How, When and Why Procreation May Be Permissible are both important books for those interested in procreative ethics. Each argues for surprising and controversial conclusions: Boonin argues that we should solve the non-identity problem by accepting its apparently unacceptable conclusion (...) that actions cannot be wrong due to their effects on future people whose lives are worth living and who would not exist were the actions not performed; Weinberg argues that there is no non-identity problem, that future children have no interest in existing, but significant interest in avoiding harm and that procreation is, therefore, a much more morally risky business than we tend to think. Even if... (shrink)

Truthmaking non-maximalism usually assumes that some truths do not have truthmakers. I suggest, however, that non-maximalism can be understood more specifically, and that different types of non-maximalism can be distinguished. To do so, I refer to two positions. The first is deflationary truthmaking, some of whose proponents assume that no truths have truthmakers. The second distinguishes between truths that do not have truthmakers but depend on being, and truths that do not have truthmakers and moreover do not depend on (...) being. Given the combinations of these positions, I propose a new classification indicating the positions available to a non-maximalist. I argue that one of these positions is particularly worth adopting because of its advantages over the other options. (shrink)

This paper argues that Rawls must commit himself to non-social human beings to defend his original position procedure.

Well-being measurements are frequently used to support conclusions about a range of philosophically important issues. This is a problem, because we know too little about the intervals of the relevant scales. I argue that it is plausible that well-being measurements are non-linear, and that common beliefs that they are linear are not truth-tracking, so we are not justified in believing that well-being scales are linear. I then argue that this undermines common appeals to both hypothetical and actual (...) well-being measurements; I first focus on the philosophical literature on prioritarianism and then discuss Kahneman’s Peak-End Rule as a systematic bias. Finally, I discuss general implications for research on well-being, and suggest a better way of representing scales. (shrink)

Can physicalism (or materialism) be non-reductive? I provide an opinionated survey of the debate on this question. I suggest that attempts to formulate non-reductive physicalism by appeal to claims of event identity, supervenience, or realization have produced doctrines that fail either to be physicalist or to be non-reductive. Then I treat in more detail a recent attempt to formulate non-reductive physicalism by Derk Pereboom, but argue that it fares no better.

Person-affecting views in population ethics state that (in cases where all else is equal) we’re permitted but not required to create people who would enjoy good lives. In this paper, I present an argument against every possible variety of person-affecting view. The argument takes the form of a dilemma. Narrow person-affecting views must embrace at least one of three implausible verdicts in a case that I call ‘Expanded Non-Identity.’ Wide person-affecting views run into trouble in a case that I call (...) ‘Two-Shot Non-Identity.’ One plausible practical upshot of my argument is as follows: we individuals and our governments should be doing more to reduce the risk of human extinction this century. (shrink)

This paper develops a probabilistic analysis of conditionals which hinges on a quantitative measure of evidential support. In order to spell out the interpreta- tion of ‘if’ suggested, we will compare it with two more familiar interpretations, the suppositional interpretation and the strict interpretation, within a formal framework which rests on fairly uncontroversial assumptions. As it will emerge, each of the three interpretations considered exhibits specific logical features that deserve separate consideration.

There are many putative counterexamples to the view that all scientific explanations are causal explanations. Using a new theory of what it is to be a causal explanation, Bradford Skow has recently argued that several of the putative counterexamples fail to be non-causal. This paper defends some of the counterexamples by showing how Skow’s argument relies on an overly permissive theory of causal explanations.

There is, I shall assume, such a thing as moral evil (more on which below). My question is whether is also such a thing as non-moral evil, and in particular whether there are such things as aesthetic evil and epistemic evil. More exactly, my question is whether there is such a thing as moral evil but not such a thing as non-moral evil, in some sense that reveals something special about the moral, as opposed to such would-be non-moral domains as (...) the aesthetic and the epistemic. The philosophical issue at stake here is that of the nature of these different normative domains, and the nature and extent of their difference. (shrink)

During the 1960s and 1970s, institutionalists and behavioralists in the discipline of political science argued over the legitimacy of the institutional approach to political inquiry. In the discipline of philosophy, a similar debate concerning institutions has never taken place. Yet, a growing number of philosophers are now working out the institutional implications of political ideas in what has become known as “non-ideal theory.” My thesis is two-fold: (1) pragmatism and institutionalism are compatible and (2) non-ideal theorists, following the example of (...) pragmatists, can avoid a similar debate as took place between institutionalists and behavioralists by divulging their assumptions about institutions. (shrink)

Despite the growing attention to oppression and resistance in social and political philosophy as well as ethics, philosophers continue to struggle to describe and appropriately attribute agency under non-ideal circumstances of oppression and structural injustice. This chapter identifies some features of new accounts of non-ideal agency and then examines a particular problem for such theories, what Serene Khader has called the agency dilemma. Under the agency dilemma, attempts to articulate the agency of subjects living under oppression must on the one (...) hand avoid overemphasizing constraints on agency, and thereby producing paternalistic theories that “deny agency” for oppressed subjects, and on the other hand avoid failing to fully appreciate the effects of oppression on agency, thereby missing crucial features of how oppression unjustly shapes a person’s lived possibilities. This chapter traces this dilemma to a preoccupation with ascribing agency, which produces problematic descriptive and political effects for theorizing agency under oppression: what the author calls an asymmetry problem and a disenfranchisement problem. Finally, the chapter proposes that the agency dilemma might be ameliorated if theorists scrutinize more closely how moral, epistemic, and political agency interact and overlap in life under oppression. (shrink)

For Francisco Suárez, beings of reason are non-existent objects that we can think about, objects like goat-stags and round squares. The first section of the fifty-fourth of Suárez’s Metaphysical Disputations is about the ontological status of beings of reason. Suárez’s view has been the subject of disagreement in the literature because he sometimes says that there are beings of reason, and he sometimes says there are not. In this paper, I argue for and explain an ontological pluralist reading of Suárez. (...) Ontological pluralism is the claim that there is more than one way of being. I distinguish between two varieties of ontological pluralism, strict and non-strict, and argue that Suárez endorsed the latter. In the contemporary literature, it is sometimes alleged that ontological pluralism is an idle hypothesis, unintelligible or philosophically vacuous. I argue that Suárez has a response to this objection in his argument against ontological monism. (shrink)

Unconscious logical inference seems to rely on the syntactic structures of mental representations (Quilty-Dunn & Mandelbaum 2018). Other transitions, such as transitions using iconic representations and associative transitions, are harder to assimilate to syntax-based theories. Here we tackle these difficulties head on in the interest of a fuller taxonomy of mental transitions. Along the way we discuss how icons can be compositional without having constituent structure, and expand and defend the “symmetry condition” on Associationism (the idea that associative links and (...) transitions are perfectly symmetric). In the end, we show how a BIT (“bare inferential transition”) theory can cohabitate with these other non-inferential mental transitions. (shrink)

This paper contains a critical examination of the prospects for analyses of knowledge that weaken the factivity condition such that knowledge implies approximate truth.

Some early phase clinical studies of candidate HIV cure and remission interventions appear to have adverse medical risk–benefit ratios for participants. Why, then, do people participate? And is it ethically permissible to allow them to participate? Recent work in decision theory sheds light on both of these questions, by casting doubt on the idea that rational individuals prefer choices that maximise expected utility, and therefore by casting doubt on the idea that researchers have an ethical obligation not to enrol participants (...) in studies with high risk–benefit ratios. This work supports the view that researchers should instead defer to the considered preferences of the participants themselves. This essay briefly explains this recent work, and then explores its application to these two questions in more detail. (shrink)

In recent work, J. Adam Carter argues that truth-relativism should be compatible with the so-called conformist response to peer disagreement about taste to the effect that subjects should revise their opinions. However, Carter claims that truth-relativism cannot make sense of this response since it cannot make sense of the idea that when two subjects are recognised as epistemic peers, they should acknowledge that they are equally likely to be right about the targeted issue. The main aim of this paper is (...) a modest one: to argue that truth-relativists should not be worried about their alleged incompatibility with conformism for they should be non-conformists. (shrink)

Defining the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties has turned out to be one of the most difficult and controversial tasks in contemporary metaphysics. It is generally assumed that a definition of intrinsicness should aim to avoid as many counterexamples as possible and reduce the notion to less controversial philosophical notions. In this paper, the author argues for a new methodological approach to defining intrinsicness. Rather than trying to cover as many intuitive examples as possible, a definition of intrinsicness should (...) reflect the crucial features of our intuitive understanding of the notion, and one of these features is that the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction has to be characterized in a non-reductive way. (shrink)

A system of logic usually comprises a language for which a model-theory and a proof-theory are defined. The model-theory defines the semantic notion of model-theoretic logical consequence (⊨), while the proof-theory defines the proof- theoretic notion of logical consequence (or logical derivability, ⊢). If the system in question is sound and complete, then the two notions of logical consequence are extensionally equivalent. The concept of full formalization is a more restrictive one and requires in addition the preservation of the standard (...) meanings of the logical terms in all the admissible interpretations of the logical calculus, as it is proof-theoretically defined. Although classical first-order logic is sound and complete, its standard formalizations fall short to be full formalizations since they allow non-intended interpretations. This fact poses a challenge for the logical inferentialism program, whose main tenet is that the meanings of the logical terms are uniquely determined by the formal axioms or rules of inference that govern their use in a logical calculus, i.e., logical inferentialism requires a categorical calculus. This paper is the first part of a more elaborated study which will analyze the categoricity problem from its beginning until the most recent approaches. I will first start by describing the problem of a full formalization in the general framework in which Carnap (1934/1937, 1943) formulated it for classical logic. Then, in sections IV and V, I shall discuss the way in which the mathematicians B.A. Bernstein (1932) and E.V. Huntington (1933) have previously formulated and analyzed it in algebraic terms for propositional logic and, finally, I shall discuss some critical reactions Nagel (1943), Hempel (1943), Fitch (1944), and Church (1944) formulated to these approaches. (shrink)

It can often seem like the attitude we hold towards a conditional should be our attitude in the consequent on the supposition of the antecedent. Following by Williamson (Suppose and Tell: The Semantics and Heuristics of Conditionals. Oxford University Press, 2020), we call this The suppositional rule (SR). The Adams-style non-propositional theories of indicatives upholds some key implications of SR, allowing, for instance, our credence in a conditional to be the probability of the consequent given the antecedent. Williamson (Suppose and (...) Tell: The Semantics and Heuristics of Conditionals. Oxford University Press, 2020) has recently provided a series of inconsistency arguments against SR. He thereby intends to undermine non-propositional views as well as other rivals to his favoured material conditional account. I outline a strategy which theorists of all stripes can employ to avoid Williamson’s arguments. I then show how non-propositionalists can implement this strategy. I show how they can uphold SR when it is intuitively compelling, whilst allowing it to fail when it is not. (shrink)

This paper is on the metaphysics and normativity of Jewish identity. It starts with a metaphysical question: “Can a Jewish person become non-Jewish?” This question and the related question “What is Jewishness?” are both ambiguous, because the word “Jewish” is ambiguous. The paper outlines five concepts of Jewishness: halachic, religious, ethnic, and cultural Jewishness, as well as being Jewish in the sense of belonging to the Jewish community. In some of these senses of “Jewish” a Jewish person is always (...) Jewish. In other senses a Jewish person can become non-Jewish. The paper closes with a normative question: Should a person who is Jewish, in the sense of belonging to the Jewish community, become non-Jewish? The paper explains reasons for and against staying in the Jewish community and in doing so highlights a tension, rather than telling anyone how they should identify. (shrink)

While there is considerable disagreement on the precise nature of material objecthood, it is standardly assumed that material objects must be spatial. In this paper, I provide two arguments against this assumption. The first argument is made from largely a priori considerations about modal plenitude. The possibility of non-spatial material objects follows from commitment to certain plausible principles governing material objecthood and plausible principles regarding modal plenitude. The second argument draws from current philosophical discussions regarding theories of quantum gravity and (...) the emergence of spacetime. When it is appreciated what possible worlds these current theories commit us to, the possibility of non-spatial material objects will follow. Thus, either route will lead us to the possibility of non-spatial material objects. The significance of this result is that we need to revise our accounts of material objecthood to both accommodate these possibilities and the theories that lead to them. (shrink)

The paper explores an egalitarian norm widely accepted today, which I call the Marital Non‐Hierarchy Standard. According to this standard, marital relationships should be non‐hierarchical; neither partner may be more dominant than the other. The Marital Non‐Hierarchy Standard is exceptional: in almost all associations, including many financial, professional, educational and recreational ones, in almost all spheres of life, some hierarchies, within certain limits, are widely believed to be morally legitimate. I argue that in marital relations, too, some hierarchies should be (...) accepted as morally legitimate. It might be argued that marital relations should be loving, and love requires that lovers will have the same degree of power. However, contemporary analyses of love show that love is consistent with (some) hierarchies. It might also be argued that justice requires that lovers will have equal power. However, theories of distributive justice such as Rawls's, Sen's, Dworkin's, and almost all others allow some marital hierarchies. Thus, both the love requirement and the justice requirement allow some hierarchical marital relationships and conflict with the Marital Non‐Hierarchy Standard. Until other justifications for this standard are presented, it is unclear why it should be endorsed. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that the ethical supervenes on the natural, where this is roughly the claim that it is impossible for two circumstances to be identical in all natural respects, but different in their ethical respects. This chapter refines and defends the traditional thought that this fact poses a significant challenge to ethical non-naturalism, a view on which ethical properties are fundamentally different in kind from natural properties. The challenge can be encapsulated in three core claims which the chapter (...) defends: that a defensible non-naturalism is committed to the supervenience of the ethical, that this commits the non-naturalist to a brute necessary connection between properties of distinct kinds, and that commitment to such brute connections counts against the non-naturalist’s view. Each of these claims has recently been challenged. Against Nicholas Sturgeon’s recent doubts about the dialectical force of supervenience, this chapter defends a supervenience thesis as deserving to be common ground among ethical realists. It is then argued that attempts to explain supervenience on behalf of the non-naturalist either fail as explanations, generate near-identical explanatory burdens elsewhere, or appeal to commitments that are inconsistent with core motivations for non-naturalism. The chapter concludes that, suitably refined, the traditional argument against nonnaturalism from supervenience is alive and well. (shrink)

In situations where we ignore everything but the space of possibilities, we ought to suspend judgment—that is, remain agnostic—about which of these possibilities is the case. This means that we cannot sum our degrees of belief in different possibilities, something that has been formalized as an axiom of non-additivity. Consistent with this way of representing our ignorance, I defend a doxastic norm that recommends that we should nevertheless follow a certain additivity of possibilities: even if we cannot sum degrees of (...) belief in different possibilities, we should be more confident in larger groups of possibilities. It is thus shown that, in the type of situation considered (in so-called ‘classical ignorance’, i.e. “behind a thin veil of ignorance”), it is epistemically rational for advocates of suspending judgment to endorse this comparative confidence; while on the other hand it is shown that, even in classical ignorance, no stronger belief—such as a precise uniform probability distribution—is warranted. (shrink)

Non-moral blame seems to be widespread and widely accepted in everyday life—tolerated at least, but often embraced. We blame athletes for poor performance, artists for bad or boring art, scientists for faulty research, and voters for flawed reasoning. This paper argues that non-moral blame is never justified—i.e. it’s never a morally permissible response to a non-moral failure. Having explained what blame is and how non-moral blame differs from moral blame, the paper presents the argument in four steps. First, it argues (...) that many (perhaps most) apparent cases of non-moral blame are actually cases of moral blame. Second, it argues that even if non-moral blame is pro tanto permissible—because its target is blameworthy for their substandard performance—it often (perhaps usually) fails to meet other permissibility conditions, such as fairness or standing. Third, it goes further and challenges the claim that non-moral blame is ever even pro tanto permissible. Finally, it considers a number of arguments in support of non-moral obligations and argues that none of them succeed. (shrink)

Classical acquaintance theory is any version of classical foundationalism that appeals to acquaintance in order to account for non-inferential justification. Such theories are well suited to account for a kind of infallible non-inferential justification. Why am I justified in believing that I’m in pain? An initially attractive (partial) answer is that I’m acquainted with my pain. But since I can’t be acquainted with what isn’t there, acquaintance with my pain guarantees that I’m in pain. What’s less clear is whether, given (...) classical acquaintance theory, it’s possible to have non-inferential justification to believe something false. Classical acquaintance theorists try to make room for such a possibility, but I argue that the attempts of Richard Fumerton, Ali Hasan, and Evan Fales are inadequate. I’ll focus on introspective justification, but similar issues arise for a priori justification as well. (shrink)

Dogmatism holds that an experience or seeming that p can provide prima facie immediate justification for believing p in virtue of its phenomenology. Dogmatism about perceptual justification has appealed primarily to proponents of representational theories of perceptual experience. Call dogmatism that takes perceptual experience to be representational "representational phenomenal dogmatism." As we show, phenomenal seemings play a crucial role in dogmatism of this kind. Despite its conventional appeal to representational theorists, dogmatism is not by definition committed to any particular view (...) of perceptual experience. Naive realists and disjunctivists who hold that perceptual experience is a perceptual relation of direct acquaintance can also endorse dogmatism. Indeed, we argue that they ought to do so. Otherwise, they cannot maintain that relationalism about perceptual experience has an epistemic advantage compared to the representational view. We then show that even if we grant that relationalism has this advantage, only dogmatism that takes perceptual experience to be representational can be extended to account for non-deductive inferential justification. As an account of the latter is required to avoid succumbing to skepticism, relationalism, we argue, does not have the epistemic advantage its defenders claim it has. (shrink)

My dissertation is about Bayesian rationality for non-ideal agents. I show how to derive subjective probabilities from preferences using much weaker rationality assumptions than other standard representation theorems. I argue that non-ideal agents might be uncertain about how they will update on new information and consider two consequences of this uncertainty: such agents should sometimes reject free information and make choices which, taken together, yield sure loss. The upshot is that Bayesian rationality for non-ideal agents makes very different normative demands (...) than ideal Bayesian rationality. (shrink)

Multialgebras have been much studied in mathematics and in computer science. In 2016 Carnielli and Coniglio introduced a class of multialgebras called swap structures, as a semantic framework for dealing with several Logics of Formal Inconsistency that cannot be semantically characterized by a single finite matrix. In particular, these LFIs are not algebraizable by the standard tools of abstract algebraic logic. In this paper, the first steps towards a theory of non-deterministic algebraization of logics by swap structures are given. Specifically, (...) a formal study of swap structures for LFIs is developed, by adapting concepts of universal algebra to multialgebras in a suitable way. A decomposition theorem similar to Birkhoff’s representation theorem is obtained for each class of swap structures. Moreover, when applied to the 3-valued algebraizable logics J3 and Ciore, their classes of algebraic models are retrieved, and the swap structures semantics become twist structures semantics. This fact, together with the existence of a functor from the category of Boolean algebras to the category of swap structures for each LFI, suggests that swap structures can be seen as non-deterministic twist structures. This opens new avenues for dealing with non-algebraizable logics by the more general methodology of multialgebraic semantics. (shrink)

A number of authors have objected to the application of non-classical logic to problems in philosophy on the basis that these non-classical logics are usually characterised by a classical metatheory. In many cases the problem amounts to more than just a discrepancy; the very phenomena responsible for non-classicality occur in the field of semantics as much as they do elsewhere. The phenomena of higher order vagueness and the revenge liar are just two such examples. The aim of this paper is (...) to show that a large class of non-classical logics are strong enough to formulate their own model theory in a corresponding non-classical set theory. Specifically I show that adequate definitions of validity can be given for the propositional calculus in such a way that the metatheory proves, in the specified logic, that every theorem of the propositional fragment of that logic is validated. It is shown that in some cases it may fail to be a classical matter whether a given sentence is valid or not. One surprising conclusion for non-classical accounts of vagueness is drawn: there can be no axiomatic, and therefore precise, system which is determinately sound and complete. (shrink)

Humankind is currently confronted with a critical challenge that determines its very existence, not only on an individual, racial, or national level but as a whole species: the fight against climate change and environmental degradation. To win this battle, humanity needs innovations and non-linear thinking. Nature has long been a substantial information source for unthinkable discoveries that save human lives. The paper suggests that by understanding the nature, emergence, and mechanism of serendipity, the survival skill of humans, humanity can capitalize (...) on it to learn from nature and generate nature-based innovations that can address the climate and environmental degradation crises. In the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) proliferation, AI will be a vital tool providing navigational and useful information to leverage the power of serendipity in climate and sustainability science. However, an eco-surplus culture that incorporates core values pertaining to nature and sees environmental sustainability as the conscience of the times needs to be built to direct and control the immense power of AI-leveraged serendipity. Insights applied in this paper are drawn from the book titled “A New Theory of Serendipity: Nature, Emergence and Mechanism”. (shrink)

Based on three recently published books on climate justice, this article reviews the field of climate ethics in light of developments of international climate politics. The central problem addressed is how idealised normative theories can be relevant to the political process of negotiating a just distribution of the costs and benefits of mitigating climate change. I distinguish three possible responses, that is, three kinds of non-ideal theories of climate justice: focused on (1) the injustice of some agents not doing their (...) part; (2) the policy process and aiming to be realistic; and (3) grievances related to the transition to a clean-energy economy. The methodological discussion underpinning each response is innovative and should be of interest more generally, even though it is still underdeveloped. The practical upshot, however, is unclear: even non-ideal climate justice may be too disconnected from the fast-moving and messy climate circus. (shrink)

This paper has grown out of concerns that I have about the way in which some pro-life arguments have been developing recently, and it is written in a spirit of frank dialogue with those whom I consider allies. I present three basic problems within some prominent contemporary pro-life argumentation, all three of which are rooted in a general tendency towards relying on empirical science in an increasingly exclusive way as the foundation of those arguments. The three problems that I touch (...) on are: a neglect of the role of God in human procreation, a neglect of the dignity of women, and a neglect of understanding personal being. (shrink)

Humankind is currently confronted with a critical challenge that determines its very existence, not only on an individual, racial, or national level but as a whole species: the fight against climate change and environmental degradation. To win this battle, humanity needs innovations and non-linear thinking. Nature has long been a substantial information source for unthinkable discoveries that save human lives. The paper suggests that by understanding the nature, emergence, and mechanism of serendipity, the survival skill of humans, humanity can capitalize (...) on it to learn from nature and generate nature-based innovations that can address the climate and environmental degradation crises. In the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) proliferation, AI will be a vital tool providing navigational and useful information to leverage the power of serendipity in climate and sustainability science. However, an eco-surplus culture that incorporates core values pertaining to nature and sees environmental sustainability as the conscience of the times needs to be built to direct and control the immense power of AI-leveraged serendipity. Insights applied in this paper are drawn from the book titled “A New Theory of Serendipity: Nature, Emergence and Mechanism”. (shrink)

To understand what non-propositional content is and whether there are any such contents, we first need to know what propositional content is. That issue will be the focus of the first section of this essay. In the second section, with an understanding of propositional content in hand, we will consider representations that fail to have propositional content. In contrast to recent literature, it will be argued that metaphysical considerations concerning what's represented, rather than linguistic considerations, are a more promising way (...) of establishing non-propositional contents. To keep the discussion containable, focus will be on representational mental states, though many of the considerations can be extended to other forms of representation. (shrink)

Bioart is a form of hybrid artistico-scientific practices in contemporary art that involve the use of bio-materials (such as living cells, tissues, organisms) and scientific techniques, protocols, and tools. Bioart-works embody vulnerability (intrinsic to all beings) and depend on (bio)technologies that allow these creations to come into being, endure and flourish but also discipline them. This article focuses on ‘semi-living’ sculptures by The Tissue Culture and Art Project (TC&A). TC&A’s artworks consist of bioengineered mammal tissues grown over biopolymer scaffoldings (...) of different shapes and require sterile conditions of a bioreactor and constant care in order to survive. The article explores how bioart-works are always already intertwined with multiple (bio)technologies and techniques of care and labour, forming specific feminist technoecologies that challenge conventional bioscientific and cultural imaginaries of embodiment and the relation between physis and techné. TC&A’s sculptures expose life as the non/living: the processual enmeshment of the organic and inorganic, living and non-living, and growth and decay. The article argues that thinking with and through the feminist technoecologies of bioart mobilises philosophical inventiveness: not only does it problematise the entwinement of technology and biomatter and of culture and nature, but it also prompts us to rethink the ontology of life. (shrink)