"Catalogue" of the exhibition This talk is the exhibition held at Articulate Upstairs in Sydney, 12-20 March 2016. Print on paper 14 x 14 cm. Published by Spec&Editions Collection of the Artist. The exhibition reproduces the catalogue in a suite of larger prints pasted on the walls, with a few additions to it.

The subject’s perspective objection (SPO) is an objection against externalist theories of justification, warrant, and knowledge. In this article, I show that externalists can accommodate the SPO while remaining externalist. So, even if the SPO is successful, it does not motivate internalism, and the primary motivation for internalism has been lost. After this, I provide an explanation for why so many people find cases that motivate the SPO convincing.

Internalism holds that epistemic justification is determined by what is internal to the mind, not by facts about the mind-independent world. This paper introduces and defends a new kind of internalism that is rooted in rationalist ideas that have been neglected in recent epistemology, despite inspiring internalist projects in cognitive science. Ignoring rationalist insights has, I argue, damaged the prospects for internalism, by needlessly saddling internalists with empiricist burdens. Internalists can refuse these burdens by accepting a better philosophy of mind. (...) Rather than looking to 17th century rationalists, I look to Kant, and especially his idea that normativity is grounded in the constitution of agency and mind. A Kantian approach can avoid stock objections to internalism, I argue, and can also capture all the alleged benefits of externalism. The paper is structured as follows. In §2, I get back to basics and consider more ways to satisfy the core internalist template than have become standard. I draw attention to rationalist insights about how normativity could be grounded in the constitution of mind, and hypothesize that if internalism respects these insights, some problems disappear. I develop this hypothesis in §3 with a Kantian view. I further defend this view in §4. I conclude in §5 by explaining why Kantian internalism answers the latest challenges to internalism. (shrink)

Davidson’s theory of agency aims to solve the dilemma that the same action can be both intentional and not intentional. He explains primitive actions using primarily bodily movements and argues that event-causality can be described through the “accordion effect”, but not agent-causality. And Davidson uses reasons as causes to explain the actions and responds to five objections. In this paper, I critique Davidson’s argument, pointing out that he ignores certain factors in the belief-desire model, such as emotions. And his sentence (...) holism has a problem because individual words that express complete thoughts can explain actions in language games. As a result, Davidson’s criticism of Wittgenstein is not reasonable. (shrink)

Many philosophers have used premises about concepts and rationality to argue that the protagonists in the various Twin Earth thought experiments do not have the concepts that content externalists say they have. This essay argues that this popular internalist argument is flawed in many different ways, and more importantly it cannot be repaired in order to cast doubt on externalism.

In this article I defend the capability approach by focusing on its built-in gender-sensitivity and on its concern with comprehensive outcomes and informationally-rich evaluation of well-being, two elements of Sen's work that are too rarely put together. I then try to show what the capability approach would have to gain by focusing on trans-positional objectivity (as Elizabeth Anderson does) and by leaving behind the narrow confines of states in favor of a more cosmopolitan stance. These preliminary discussions are followed by (...) two more precise applications. At first, I show how a gender-sensitive capability approach that respects the criteria of trans-positional objectivity and cosmopolitanism can enhance the agency of women inhabiting third-world societies. I turn next to show how mainstream feminism can insulate itself against criticisms such as bell hooks' by switching to trans-positional objectivity in public reasoning. (shrink)

Two arguments against the compatibility of epistemic internalism and content externalism are considered. Both arguments are shown to fail, because they equivocate on the concept of justification involved in their premises. To spell out the involved equivocation, a distinction between subjective and objective justification is introduced, which can also be independently motivated on the basis of a wide range of thought experiments to be found in the mainstream literature on epistemology. The subjective/objective justification distinction is also ideally suited for providing (...) new insights with respect to central issues within epistemology, including the internalism/externalism debate and the New Evil Demon intuition. (shrink)

This article examines how specific realist and projectivist versions of manipulability theories of causation deal with the problem of objectivity. Does an agent-dependent concept of manipulability imply that conflicting causal claims made by agents with different capacities can come out as true? In defence of the projectivist stance taken by the agency view, I argue that if the agent’s perspective is shown to be uniform across different agents, then the truth-values of causal claims do not vary arbitrarily and, thus, reach (...) a satisfactory level of objectivity. My argument connects Price’s considerations on the situation of deliberation, whose structure, common to all agents, is the same with respect to both decision making and causal claims on a concept inspired by Douglas’s classification of objectivity of thought processes: the perspective of the detached agent. I further argue that, despite his agent-independent concept of intervention, Woodward’s claim of a stronger objectivity standard cannot be achieved, as the relativity of causal concepts to a variable set brings about the issue of the agent’s choice of variables. Consequently, a more permissive objectivity standard applies to both views. (shrink)

Many authors hold that collectives, as well as individuals can be the subjects of obligations. Typically these authors have focussed on the obligations of highly structured groups, and of small, informal groups. One might wonder, however, whether there could also be collective obligations which fall on everyone – what I shall call ' global collective obligations '. One reason for thinking that this is not possible has to do with considerations about agency : it seems as though an entity can (...) only be the subject of obligations if it is an agent. In this paper, I try to show that the argument from agency is not a good reason for being sceptical about the existence of global collective obligations : it derives whatever plausibility it has from the idea that claims about obligation need to be addressable to some agent. My suggestion is that we should accept this principle about the addressability of obligations, but deny that the addressee of an obligation need be the subject of that obligation. The collective obligations of unstructured collections of individuals, including global collective obligations, meet the addressability requirement insofar as they require something of the individuals who make up the collective. (shrink)

David Gauthier thinks agents facing a prisoner's dilemma ('pd') should find it rational to dispose themselves to co-operate with those inclined to reciprocate (i.e., to acquire a constrained maximizer--'cm'--disposition), and to co-operate with other 'cmers'. Richmond Campbell argues that since dominance reasoning shows it remains to the agent's advantage to defect, his co-operation is only rational if cm "determines" him to co-operate, forcing him not to cheat. I argue that if cm "forces" the agent to co-operate, he is not acting (...) at all, never mind rationally. Thus, neither author has shown that co-operation is rational action in a pd. (shrink)

Dry earth seems to its inhabitants (our intrinsic duplicates) just as earth seems to us, that is, it seems to them as though there are rivers and lakes and a clear, odorless liquid flowing from their faucets. But, in fact, this is an illusion; there is no such liquid anywhere on the planet. I address two objections to externalism concerning the nature of the concept that is expressed by the word 'water' in the mouths of the inhabitants of dry earth. (...) Gabriel Segal presents a dilemma for the externalist concerning the application conditions of the concept, and Paul Boghossian presents a dilemma for the externalist concerning the complexity of the concept. I show that, in both cases, the externalist may occupy the horn of his choice without departing from either the letter or spirit of externalism. (shrink)

I put forward an externalist theory of social understanding. On this view, psychological sense making takes place in environments that contain both agent and interpreter. The spatial structure of such environments is social, in the sense that its occupants locate its objects by an exercise in triangulation relative to each of their standpoints. This triangulation is achieved in intersubjective interaction and gives rise to a triadic model of the social mind. This model can then be used to make sense of (...) others’ observed actions. Its possession plays a vital role in the development of the capacity for false belief reasoning. The view offers an integrated account of the development of social cognition from primary intersubjectivity to level-2 perspective taking. It incorporates insights from interactionism and mindreading theories of social cognition and thus offers a way out of the stalemate between defenders of the two views. Because psychological sense making is perspectival, the frame problem does not arise for social reasoners: the perspective they bring to bear on the action that is to be interpreted constrains the information they can select to make sense of what others do. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend externalist accounts of justified belief from Cohen's new evil demon objection. While I think that Cohen might be right that the person is justified in believing what she does, I argue that this is because we can defend the person from criticism and that defending a person is a very different thing from defending a person's attitudes or actions. To defend a person's attitudes or actions, we need to show that they met standards or did (...) not violate norms. Intuitions about whether we can defend a person from criticism are a poor guide when it comes to determining whether norms were violated or standards were met. It turns out that even radical forms of externalism about justification are compatible with the intuitions that Cohen's example elicits. Properly understood, those intuitions show that the believer should be excused from criticism (and excused for failing to believe with adequate justification). (shrink)

The objective of this work is to explore the notion of “action” and “agency” in artificial intelligence (AI). It employs a metaphysical notion of action and agency as an epistemological tool in the critique of the notion of “action” and “agency” in artificial intelligence. Hence, both a metaphysical and cognitive analysis is employed in the investigation of the quiddity and nature of action and agency per se, and how they are, by extension employed in the language and science of artificial (...) intelligence. The advent of the science of artificial intelligence and cognitive science, and the technological applications of artificial intelligence in the production of agents such as driverless cars and expert systems, have raised the question of moral, ethical and/or legal responsibility in AI agents. This has re-emphasized the importance of the philosophical discourse on the notions of action and agency, which in contemporary intellectual discourse are now perceived to be phenomena within the epistemic competence of the natural sciences. This paper argues that AI systems do not and cannot possess free agency and autonomy, thus cannot be morally and ethically responsible, hence, it recommends a socio-political response to the question of responsibility in AI. It is then the duty of individual nations, or the global community to define and enact policies on who shoulders the responsibility of actions executed by AIs. (shrink)

In this paper I challenge recent externalist interpretations of Ockham’s theory of intuitive cognition. I begin by distinguishing two distinct theses that defenders of the externalist interpretation typically attribute to Ockham: a ‘direct reference thesis’, according to which intuitive cognitions are states that lack all internal, descriptive content; and a ‘causal thesis’, according to which intuitive states are wholly determined by causal connections they bear to singular objects. I then argue that neither can be plausibly credited to Ockham. In particular, (...) I claim that the causal thesis doesn’t square with Ockham’s account of supernaturally produced intuition and that the direct reference thesis sits uneasily with Ockham’s characterization of the intentional structure of intuitive states. (shrink)

In this article I argue for a novel theory of representational content, which I call ‘subjective externalism’. The view combines an internal, subjective constraint on the attribution of thought content which traditionally underpins internalist theories of thought, and an external, objective constraint on the attribution of thought content which traditionally underpins externalist theories of thought. While internalism and externalism are mutually inconsistent, the constraints to which each theory is committed are not. It is this realization that opens up the conceptual (...) space for subjective externalism, according to which the correct attribution of thought content to an individual is essentially constrained by her nonrepresentational relations to objective manifest properties in her wider reality. (shrink)

I look at incompatibilist arguments aimed at showing that the conjunction of the thesis that a subject has privileged, a priori access to the contents of her own thoughts, on the one hand, and of semantic externalism, on the other, lead to a putatively absurd conclusion, namely, a priori knowledge of the external world. I focus on arguments involving a variety of externalism resulting from the singularity or object-dependence of certain terms such as the demonstrative ‘that’. McKinsey argues that (...) incompatibilist arguments employing such externalist theses are at their strongest, and conclusively show that privileged access must be rejected. While I agree on the truth of the relevant externalist theses, I show that all plausible versions of the incompatibilist reductio argument as applied to such theses are fundamentally flawed, for these versions of the argument must make assumptions that lead to putatively absurd knowledge of the external world independently of the thesis of privileged access. (shrink)

Any progress in shaping up an externalist psychiatry, so previous discussion suggested, must begin from questions about the ontology of social causation. So far, research and theory have adhered to a naturalistic approach to the social causes of illness, concentrating mostly on the ‘social determinants of mental health’ (inequality, discrimination, housing insecurity, etc.). The paper starts with an assessment of ‘social determinants’ through the lens of epidemiology and critical psychiatry. It illustrates existing practical and political approaches that fight these constraints (...) and it highlights their therapeutic value. It argues, though, that a focus on social determinants is not sufficient for fully realizing externalism because a great portion of sociogenic illness remains causally indeterminate. Alongside political action, externalism requires a social etiology that is established by virtue of the meaning that it holds for patients, rather than by virtue of its capacity to identify objective social causes of illness. This entails abandoning naturalism about social causation and embracing constructivism. The paper shows that this methodological shift is less contradictory and more effective than it is commonly imagined. Drawing from further anthropological evidence, it concludes that only by lending support to projects that balance a focus on constraints with social construction will psychiatry be truly externalist. At stake is a prospect of effective treatment for sociogenic illness for the countless in struggle. (shrink)

For non-analytic ethical naturalists, externalism about moral motivation is an attractive option: it allows naturalists to embrace a Humean theory of motivation while holding that moral properties are real, natural properties. However, Michael Smith has mounted an important objection to this view. Smith observes that virtuous agents must have non-derivative motivation to pursue specific ends that they believe to be morally right; he then argues that this externalist view ascribes to the virtuous agent only a direct de dicto desire to (...) do what is morally right, but not a direct motivation to be kind, help those in need, et. I first clarify this “fetishism objection”; I then show how the non-analytical naturalist can provide an understanding of virtuous motivation that is immune to this objection. (shrink)

This paper argues that participants in the subjectivism/objectivism/hybridism debate, a central issue in recent meaning in life research, conflate two different distinctions marked by the terms objective and subjective, one having to do with the question of whether life's meaningfulness depends on factors internal or external to the agent, the other having to do with the question of whether there is any ‘absolute’ as opposed to ‘relative’ truth about the first question. The paper then argues that a distinctive type of (...) hybridism with respect to the first sense is true. To vindicate this type of hybridism, the paper identifies, by using examples and counterexamples, internal and external necessary conditions for having meaningful lives. In this type of hybridism, internal states that are not directed at external factors, such as autonomy, serenity and contentment, are also taken account of, and, more generally, internal and external factors need not relate to each other at all. Further, although the more a combination of internal and external factors is valuable the more meaningful a life is, not any increase in the value of any relevant internal or external factor enhances meaning. (shrink)

This paper reassesses the case against Evidential Externalism, the thesis that one's evidence fails to supervene on one's non-factive mental states, focusing on two objections to Externalism due by Nicholas Silins: the armchair access argument and the supervenience argument. It also examines Silins's attempt to undermine the force of one major source of motivation for Externalism, namely that the rival Internalist picture of evidence is implicated in some central arguments for scepticism. While Silins concludes that the case against Evidential Externalism (...) is surprisingly strong, reassessing the arguments supports the opposite conclusion; the objections to Externalism are weak, and for all Silins has shown it may well have unmatched advantages when it comes to resisting scepticism. (shrink)

In this paper I propose a way of characterizing human agency in terms of the concept of a two‐way power. I outline this conception of agency, defend it against some objections, and briefly indicate how it relates to free agency and to moral praise‐ and blameworthiness.

This chapter introduces psychologism as the thesis that social facts can explained in terms of more basic facts about individuals, their psychological states, their actions, their relations, and their environments. It argues psychologism should be our default stance toward social reality. It reviews psychologistic approaches to shared intention and how shared intentions can help explain conventions, status functions, and organizations. It provides a deflationary account of corporate attitudes. It argues that neither physical nor social externalism about thought content are incompatible (...) with psychologism. It argues that social construction views of the self that conflict with psychologism are implausible. Finally, it points out that it is no objection to psychologism that social facts can change without changes in psychological facts because this is compatible with psychologism as explained here. (shrink)

Agency is a power, but what is it a power to do? The tradition presents us with three main answers: (1) that agency is a power to affect one’s own will, consequent upon which act further events ensue, beginning with the movement of a part of one's body; (2) that agency is a power to affect one’s own body, consequent upon which act further events ensue, beginning with the movement of an object that one touches; and (3) that agency (...) is a power to affect that material upon which one brings one's action to bear---e.g. the apple one is peeling (with a knife in one's hand). These three answers correspond to three increasingly expansive conceptions of the province of human agency. I refer to them, respectively, as volitionalism, corporealism and materialism. Only the first two are seriously considered in contemporary action theory. Favoring the third, and hoping to sharpen the conflict between the third and the first, I criticize the second. Corporealism has been a popular position—arguably, the default position in the philosophy of action—since Donald Davidson’s classic paper “Agency” (1971). Although it seems to occupy a sensible middle ground between volitionalism and materialism, corporealism is, I argue, indefensible: it shares the vulnerabilities of both its two rivals, without possessing the strengths of either. Nevertheless, reflection on corporealism lights the road to materialism, which, in the end, is the only possible alternative to volitionalism. (shrink)

In this paper I address the question whether self-knowledge is compatible with an externalist individuation of mental content. Against some approaches, I consider self-knowledge as a genuine cognitive achievement. Though it is neither incorrigible nor infallible, self-knowledge is direct, a priori (no based on empirical investigation), presumptively true and authoritative. The problem is whether self-knowledge, so understood, is compatible with externalism. My answer will be affirmative. I will defend this species of compatibilism against several objections, in particular those based on (...) the possibility of an individual’s being unwittingly switched between worlds. (shrink)

People inhabit a vast and intricate social network nowadays. In addition to our own decisions and actions, we confront those of various groups every day. Collective decisions and actions are more complex and bewildering compared to those made by individuals. As members of a collective, we contribute to its decisions, but our contributions may not always align with the outcome. We may also find ourselves excluded from certain groups and passively subjected to their influences without being aware of the source. (...) We are used to being in overlapping groups and may switch identities, supporting or opposing the claims of particular groups. But rarely do we pause to think: What do we talk about when we talk about groups and their decisions? At the heart of this dissertation is the question of collective agency, i.e., in what sense can we treat a group as a rational agent capable of its action. There are two perspectives we take: a philosophical and logical one. The philosophical perspective mainly discusses the ontological and epistemological issues related to collective agency, sorts out the relevant philosophical history, and argues that the combination of a relational view of collective agency and a dispositional view of collective intentionality provides a rational and realistic account. The logical perspective is associated with formal theories of groups, it disregards the psychological content involved in the philosophical perspective, establishes a logical system that is sufficiently formal and objective, and axiomatizes the nature of a collective. The first topic that is addressed is the ontology of collective agency, i.e., the question what exactly is collective agency. The philosophical discussion of collective agency centres around the reduction problem of the concept of a collective. Individualism and Cartesian internalism have long influenced orthodox theories and made them face the choice between an irreducible concept of a collective and ontological reductionism. Heterodox theories such as functionalism and interpretationism reinterpret the concept of agency and accept it as also realized on the level of a collective. To adequately explain social phenomena that are essentially relational in nature, we propose a relational, holistic account of collective agency and argue that functionalism and interpretationism can be integrated into such an account. While acknowledging the irreducibility of the concept of a collective, we find that there is a deep incompatibility between the concept of a collective and the concept of intentionality as the mark of the mental. To explain how collective intentionality nevertheless is possible and why we tend to use it analogously to how we use the concept of individual intentionality, we explore a dispositional account of intentionality which enables us to give an account of the concept of intentionality at both the individual and collective level. Specifically, we subdivide the dispositional account into three aspects: behavioral, purely mental, and cognitive. We then argue that collective intentionality is real by analyzing different forms of attributive judgments of intentionality and by introducing the perspective of indispensable collective responsibility. We also analyze how philosophical theories about collective agency relate to central features of formal theories about collective decisions, such as game theory. Although the two fields are both concerned with collectives, there are also differences that need to be addressed. For example, game theory is clearly anti-psychologistic since its aim is a formal and objective analysis. However, from the relational and dispositional perspective, intentionality at the individual level and collective intentionality as we analyze it, inevitably involve mental content. In order to explain this difference and identify where the boundary is, we analyze the relationships between the three basic concepts involved, namely intentionality, preference, and dependency, so as to provide a unified picture of collective theory across philosophical and formal theories. After paving the nexus between philosophical and formal perspectives, the logical perspective becomes the theme of our discussion. To be able to express game theoretical concepts and to connect them to our philosophical perspective, We present a logic of preference and functional dependence and its hybrid extension, and provide an axiomatization which is sound and strongly complete. The decidability of this logic is also proved. Its application to modeling non-cooperative and cooperative games in strategic form is explored. The resulting framework provides a unified view of Nash equilibrium, Pareto optimality, and the core. The philosophical relevance of these game-theoretical notions to discussions of collective agency is made explicit. Finally, we conclude and clarify the position of our theory in the broader field of research on the topics addressed in the thesis. Also, we point out many new questions and directions suggested by our analysis, including philosophical and logical open problems. (shrink)

'Epistemic' theories of vagueness notoriously claim that (despite the appearances to the contrary) all of our vague terms have sharp boundaries, it's just that we can't know what they are. Epistemic theories are typically criticized for failing to explain (1) the source of the ignorance postulated, and (2) how our terms could come to have such precise boundaries. Both of these objections will, however, be shown to rest on certain 'presentist' assumptions about the relation between use and meaning, and if (...) allows that the meaning constitutive elements of our linguistic practices can extend into the future, the possibility of a new sort of 'normative epistemicism' emerges. (shrink)

The values-based approach to welfare holds that it is good for one to realize goals, activities, and relationships with which one strongly (and stably) identifies. This approach preserves the subjectivity of welfare while affirming that a life well lived must be active, engaged, and subjectively meaningful. As opposed to more objective theories, it is unified, naturalistic, and ontologically parsimonious. However, it faces objections concerning the possibility of self-sacrifice, disinterested and paradoxical values, and values that are out of sync with physical (...) and emotional needs. This paper revises the values-based approach, emphasizing the important—but limited—role consciously held values play in human agency. The additional components of human agency in turn explain why it is important for one’s values to cohere with one’s fixed drives, hard-wired emotional responses, and nonvolitionally guided cognitive pro- cesses. This affords promising responses to the objections above. (shrink)

When we look around us, some things look “alive,” others do not. What is it to “look alive”—to perceive animacy? Empirical work supports the view that animacy is genuinely perceptual. We should construe perception of animacy as perception of agents and behavior. This proposal explains how static and dynamic animacy cues relate, and explains how animacy perception relates to social cognition more broadly. Animacy perception draws attention to objects that are apt to be well‐understood folk psychologically, enabling us to marshal (...) our folk psychological resources efficiently. (shrink)

How does one know one's own beliefs, intentions, and other attitudes? Many responses to this question are broadly empiricist, in that they take self-knowledge to be epistemically based in empirical justification or warrant. Empiricism about self-knowledge faces an influential objection: that it portrays us as mere observers of a passing cognitive show, and neglects the fact that believing and intending are things we do, for reasons. According to the competing, agentialist conception of self-knowledge, our capacity for self-knowledge derives from our (...) rational agency—our ability to conform our attitudes to our reasons, and to commit ourselves to those attitudes through avowals. This paper has two goals. The first is exegetical: to identify agentialism's defining thesis and precisely formulate the agentialist challenge to empiricism. The second goal is to defend empiricism from the agentialist challenge. I propose a way to understand the role of agency in reasoning and avowals, one that does justice to what is distinctive about these phenomena yet is compatible with empiricism about self-knowledge. (shrink)

Both autonomy and agency play central roles in the emerging enactive vocabulary. Although some treat these concepts as practically synonymous, others have sought to be more explicit about the conditions required for agency over and above autonomy. I attempt to be self-conscious about the role of the observer (or scientist) in such discussions, and emphasise that the concept of agency, in particular, is deeply entwined with the nature of the observer and the framing of the observation. This is probably well (...) known to enactivists, but runs the risk of being badly misunderstood if it is not made explicit. A heightened awareness of the role of the observer in the attribution of agency may allow us to make advances in questions in which progress is hindered by assuming a single split between subject and object. I argue that human experience is characterized by our embedding in webs of meaning arising from our participation in systems of many sorts, and that this richness demands a corresponding lightness of touch with respect to the identification of agentive subjects. (shrink)

According to Christine Korsgaard, Kantian hypothetical and categorical imperative principles are constitutive principles of agency. By acting in a way that is guided by these imperatives, an individual makes herself into an agent. There is hence, on her theory, an inextricable link between the nature of agency and the practical issue of why we should be rational and moral. The benefits of such an account would be great: in Korsgaard’s view, an account that bases morality on the nature of agency (...) is the basis for a refutation of any kind of moral skepticism, providing an indubitable and objective foundation for morality. This may seem too good to be true, and it is. Korsgaard could only succeed at offering a foundation for morality at a great cost. The cost is that Korsgaard gives too restrictive an account of agency. Korsgaard does not present a coherent account of irrational or immoral agency, and the inability to offer an account of such agency implies an inability to offer a proper account of responsibility. Korsgaard’s view shares a fundamental flaw with Immanuel Kant’s account of morality in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: Korsgaard cannot give a full, adequate account of individual responsibility. In light of the failure of Kant’s and Korsgaard’s accounts, Kantians need to provide a better, more comprehensive characterization of agency. Presenting a proper account of agency will require a rejection of a central tenet of traditional Kantian metaethics, but the rejection of this central tenet does not require a full rejection of Kantianism. (shrink)

Alvin I. Goldman has argued that since one must count epistemic rules among the factors that help to fix the justificational status of agents (generally called J-factors), not all J-factors are internalist, that is, intrinsic to the agent whose justificational status they help to fix. After all, for an epistemic rule to count as a genuine J-factor, it must be objectively correct and, therefore, “independent of any and all minds.” Consequently, it cannot be intrinsic to any particular epistemic agent. In (...) this brief commentary, I will argue that Goldman’s argument misunderstands what it takes for epistemic justification to be internalist and, therefore, fails to guarantee his externalist conclusion. In particular, I want to demonstrate that Goldman’s argument trivializes the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic properties that lays at the basis of the internalist/externalist debate. I will show that, if sound, simple variations on Goldman’s argument could be used to prove the absurd conclusion that all properties are extrinsic. Now, since the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction is fundamental to debates in several areas of philosophy, not only the internalist/externalist debate in epistemology, I conclude that Goldman’s argument cannot be sound. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to examine two important issues concerning the agency theory of causality: the charge of anthropomorphism and the relation of simultaneous causation. After a brief outline of the agency theory, sections 2–4 contain the refutation of the three main forms in which the charge of anthropomorphism is to be found in the literature. It will appear that it is necessary to distinguish between the subjective and the objective aspect of the concept of causation. This will (...) lead, in section 5, to contrast two kinds of anthropomorphism, one which has been rightly rejected by modern science and one which is fully compatible with the objective reality of the causal processes. Finally, section 6 will apply the preceding considerations to simultaneous causation. On the one hand, in a basic sense, there can be no simultaneous causal relations. On the other hand, simultaneous causation arises when we consider the natural change by abstracting from the agent and from her/his projects of interven.. (shrink)

Communication and cultivation accounts of responsibility argue that blaming has an important communicative and agency-cultivating function when addressed at someone we consider to be deserving of blame. On these accounts, responsible agents are agents who can understand negative reactive attitudes and are sensitive to their moral-agency cultivating function. In this paper I examine our reproachful engagements with agents whose moral agency is underdeveloped or compromised. I discuss how these engagements compare to blaming on CC accounts and argue reproachful engagements can (...) have an important communicative and agency-cultivating pointe. I then go on to propose an addition to CC-accounts that explains how underdeveloped and compromised agents can be held responsible. I will show how this addition resolves ambiguities in accounts from McKenna, Vargas and McGeer. I conclude the paper by anticipating an objection CC accounts could raise: that reproach and blame are co-extensive. (shrink)

Gerald Gaus argued in his 1996 book Justificatory Liberalism that proponents of public reason liberalism should attempt to ground their position in a specific epistemology. Critics of public reason liberalism such as David Enoch have also argued that public reason liberals need to elucidate their epistemic claims. Surprisingly, few public reason liberals have taken up Gaus and Enoch on their challenge. This paper will interact with the epistemological position undergirding the public justification principle, access internalism, arguing that it fails. In (...) its place, I put forward and defend proper functionalism as the better grounding epistemology, and then defend the new theory from possible objections. The result will be a synthesis of Nicholas Wolterstorff’s version of liberalism and an externalist version of convergence public reason liberalism. (shrink)

Many believe that a suitably programmed computer could act for its own goals and experience feelings. I challenge this view and argue that agency, mental causation and qualia are all founded in the unique, homeostatic nature of living matter. The theory was formulated for coherence with the concept of an agent, neuroscientific data and laws of physics. By this method, I infer that a successful action is homeostatic for its agent and can be caused by a feeling - which does (...) not motivate as a force, but as a control signal. From brain research and the locality principle of physics, I surmise that qualia are a fundamental, biological form of energy generated in specialized neurons. Subjectivity is explained as thermodynamically necessary on the supposition that, by converting action potentials to feelings, the neural cells avert damage from the electrochemical pulses. In exchange for this entropic benefit, phenomenal energy is spent as and where it is produced - which precludes the objective observation of qualia. (shrink)

Vehicle externalists hold that the physical substrate of mental states can sometimes extend beyond the brain into the body and environment. In a particular variation on vehicle externalism, Susan Hurley (1998) and Alva Noë (2004) have argued that perceptual states, states with phenomenal qualities, are among the mental states that can sometimes spread beyond the brain. Their vehicle externalism about perceptual states will be the main topic of this article. In particular, I will address three strong objections to their vehicle (...) externalism, objections by Ned Block (2005), Jesse Prinz (2006), and Fred Adams & Ken Aizawa (2008). Though in some ways these objections appear disparate, I will argue that all of them depend on a crucial presupposition, one which Hurley, Noë, and their sympathizers should reject. This presupposition is that perceptual character is fixed by an instantaneous snapshot of neural states, a view that Hurley dubbed ‘temporal atomism.’ To put the presupposition in more familiar terms, all three objections are implicitly committed to something like Dennett’s Cartesian Theater (1991). -/- In the first part of the article, I will discuss Hurley and Noë’s views, and include reasons why their views entail the rejection of the Cartesian Theater. In the next part of the article I will introduce the three objections and show how they presuppose something like a Cartesian Theater. I will also show that, if the Cartesian Theater is rejected, the objections all vanish. In the final part of the article I address the charge that Noë and Hurley confuse causation with constitution. This charge reveals a lack of appreciation for the way in which dynamical explanation motivates Hurley’s externalism. (shrink)

This paper addresses a fundamental question in folk metaphysics: how do we ordinarily view human agency? According to the transcendence account, we view human agency as standing outside of the causal order and imbued with exceptional powers. According to a naturalistic account, we view human agency as subject to the same physical laws as other objects and completely open to scientific investigation. According to exceptionalist naturalism, the truth lies somewhere in between: we view human agency as fitting broadly within the (...) causal order while still being exceptional in important respects. In this paper, I report seven experiments designed to decide between these three competing theories. Across a variety of contexts and types of action, participants agreed that human agents can resist outcomes described as inevitable, guaranteed, and causally determined. Participants viewed non-human animal agents similarly, whereas they viewed computers, robots, and simple inanimate objects differently. At the same time, participants judged that human actions are caused by many things, including psychological, neurological, and social events. Overall, in folk metaphysics, human and non-human animals are viewed as exceptional parts of the natural world. (shrink)

1. The primary evidence and motivation for externalism in the philosophy of mind is provided by the semantic facts that support direct reference theories of names, indexi- cal pronouns, and natural kind terms. But many externalists have forgotten their sem- antic roots, or so I shall contend here. I have become convinced of this by a common reaction among externalists to the main argument of my 1991 paper AAnti-Individual- ism and Privileged Access.@ In that argument, I concluded that externalism is (...) incompat- ible with the principle that we can have privileged, non-empirical knowledge of the contents of our own thoughts. The reaction in question amounts to a dismissive denial of one of my argument=s main premises. This premise, which I defended at length in the paper, is that an externalist thesis regarding a cognitive property should hold that possession of the property by a person _logically_, or _conceptually_, implies the existence of objects external to that person. (shrink)

This paper discusses the philosophical issues pertaining to Kantian moral agency and artificial intelligence. Here, our objective is to offer a comprehensive analysis of Kantian ethics to elucidate the non-feasibility of Kantian machines. Meanwhile, the possibility of Kantian machines seems to contend with the genuine human Kantian agency. We argue that in machine morality, ‘duty’ should be performed with ‘freedom of will’ and ‘happiness’ because Kant narrated the human tendency of evaluating our ‘natural necessity’ through ‘happiness’ as the end. Lastly, (...) we argue that the Kantian ‘freedom of will’ and ‘faculty of choice’ do not belong to any deterministic model of ‘agency’ as these are sacrosanct systems. The conclusion narrates the non-feasibility of Kantian AI agents from the genuine Kantian ethical outset, offering a utility-based Kantian ethical performer instead. (shrink)

The main objection to pragmatism about knowledge is that it entails that truth-irrelevant factors can make a difference to knowledge. Blake Roeber [2018. “Anti-Intellectualism.” Mind: A Quarterly Review of Philosophy 127: 437–466] has recently argued that this objection fails. I agree with Roeber. But in this paper, I present another way of thinking about the dispute between purists and pragmatists about knowledge. I do so by formulating a new objection to pragmatism about knowledge. This is that pragmatism about knowledge entails (...) that factors irrelevant to both truth and ‘cognitive agency’ can make a difference to knowledge. An interesting additional upshot of my argument is the connection revealed between the debate between pragmatists and purists about knowledge, and the debate between ‘alethists’ and pragmatists about reasons for belief. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is to be explained by appeal to the externalist distinction between concepts and conceptions. If concepts are determined by non-conceptual relations to objective properties rather than by associated conceptions (whether individual or communal), then topic preservation through semantic change will be possible. The requisite level of objectivity is guaranteed by the possibility of collective error and does not depend on a stronger level of objectivity, such as mind-independence or independence from linguistic or social practice more generally. This means (...) that the requisite level of objectivity is exhibited not only by natural kinds, but also by a wide range of philosophical kinds, social kinds and artefactual kinds. The alternative externalist accounts of conceptual engineering offered by Herman Cappelen and Derek Ball fall back into a kind of descriptivism which is antithetical to externalism and fails to recognise this basic level of objectivity. (shrink)

The theory of object-dependent singular thought is outlined and the central motivation for it, turning on the connection between thought content and truth conditions, is discussed. Some of its consequences for the epistemology of thought are noted and connections are drawn to the general doctrine of externalism about thought content. Some of the main criticisms of the object-dependent view of singular thought are outlined. Rival conceptions of singular thought are also sketched and their problems noted.

We have a mentalistic view of objects. This is due to the interdependence of folk psychology and folk physics, where these are interconnected by what I call Teleological Commingling. When considering events that don’t involve agents, we naturally default to tracking intentions, goal-directed processes, despite the fact that agents aren’t involved. We have a deep-seated intentionality bias which is the result of the pervasive detection of agency cues, such as order or non-randomness. And this gives rise to the Agentive Worldview: (...) we view nature as a whole as being infused with agency and purpose. Teleological Commingling and the Agentive Worldview it gives rise to are at the core of our conception of objects. I maintain that the ordinary view of material objects is rooted in an implicit, false theory. It should be given no weight in metaphysical debates about the nature of material objects. And this problematizes the central methodological assumption that metaphysical theories of material objects should be beholden to common sense. (shrink)

The aim of this project to expose the reasons behind the pandemic of misinformation (henceforth, PofM) by examining the enabling conditions of epistemic agency and the emerging technologies that threaten it. I plan to research the emotional origin of epistemic agency, i.e. on the origin of our capacity to acquire justification for belief, as well as on the significance this emotional origin has for our lives as epistemic agents in our so-called Misinformation Age. This project has three objectives. First, I (...) plan to expose the degree to which epistemic agency is made possible by an under-researched species of emotion called epistemic feelings. Perhaps, the most epistemically significant is the feeling of confidence. In particular, epistemic feelings make epistemic agency possible by making errors in reasoning salient or the potential lack thereof. -/- Second, in order to diagnose the reasons for PofM, I will analyze the emotional basis of epistemic agency in the context of emerging technologies. Epistemic feelings ought to be construed as motivators of epistemic acts, specifically acts following exposure to misinformation spread by social media. For example, a recent study found that subjects on YouTube have a 6.3% probability in five clicks to go from watching innocuous videos to misogynistic videos. Accordingly, one prominent view holds that social media algorithms lead subjects down the proverbial rabbit hole, producing content that elicits strong emotional reactions. -/- But under-researched is the degree to which these emotions are intertwined with epistemic feelings, so that subjects are likely to misjudge the information as correct due to being primed to do so by processing the AI's suggested media. Thus, when this technology is used in epistemic practices, the result is invariably epistemically bad behavior because of how this manner of producing content motivates epistemic acts through the production of erroneous feelings of confidence, which result from the perceived ease of cognitive processing: the content is easy to process and so, the subject confidently misjudges, it is true. As of yet, an account of this cognitive and emotional decision-making process has not been used to analyze how emerging technologies are threatening epistemic agency, and thus our wellbeing as knowers. -/- Finally, I plan to develop therapeutics for PofM by outlining how to reform our collective epistemic practices. Thus, this project complements existing research in virtue epistemology, specifically by articulating the challenges to cultivating epistemic virtues and warding off the vices of the mind. In summation, the project aims to account for how emerging technologies are committing a form of epistemic injustice through the exploitation of cognitive biases and the production of erroneous epistemic feelings, with the overarching goal being a framework for convalescing from the pandemic of misinformation plaguing our age. (shrink)

It has been claimed that we need singular self-knowledge to function properly as rational agents. I argue that this is not strictly true: agents in certain relations could dispense with singular self-knowledge and instead rely on plural self-knowledge. In defending the possibility of this kind of ‘selfless agent’, I thereby defend the possibility of a certain kind of ‘seamless’ collective agency; agency in a group of agents who have no singular self-knowledge, who do not know which member of the group (...) they are. I discuss four specific functions for which singular self-knowledge has been thought indispensable: distinguishing intentional from unintentional actions, connecting non-indexical knowledge with action, reflecting on our own reasoning, and identifying which ultimate practical reasons we have. I argue in each case that by establishing certain relations between agents – relations I label ‘motor vulnerability’, ‘cognitive vulnerability’, ‘evidential unity’ and ‘moral unity’ – we would allow those agents to do everything a rational agent needs to do while relying only on plural, rather than singular, self-knowledge. Finally, I consider the objection that any agents who met the conditions I lay out for selfless agency would thereby cease to qualify as distinct agents, merging into a single agent without agential parts. Against this objection, I argue that we should recognise the possibility of simultaneous agency in whole and parts, and not regard either as disqualifying the other. (shrink)

A challenging question regarding compensation for historic injustices like slavery or colonialism is whether there is anyone to whom it would be just to ascribe duties of compensation given that allegedly all the perpetrators--the guilty parties--are dead. Some answer this question negatively, arguing it is wrong to ascribe to anyone compensatory duties for injustices committed by others who died multiple generations ago. This objection to compensation for historic injustice, which I call the Historical Responsibility Objection (HRO), takes as its core (...) premises (1) that one must be guilty of wrongdoing with respect to a given historic injustice in order to bear a duty to compensate for the injustice, and (2) that no one alive today can be considered so guilty because no one alive today was alive when the historic injustice occurred. The result is that we cannot ascribe compensatory duties to anyone for any historic injustic. While all arguments I am aware of that refute HRO reject premise (1), this paper sketches a novel refutation of HRO by exploring the implications of rejecting premise (2). Doing so would invoke the state as a collective agent, distinct from its constitutive individual agents, liable to acquire compensatory duties for wrongs it commits that none of its constitutive individuals bear. To the extent that states that are collective agents committed historic injustices, such states have duties to compensate for historic injustice. (shrink)

Individuals are owed equal respect. But on the basis of what property of individuals are they owed such respect? A popular Kantian answer —rational agency — appears less plausible in light of the growing psychological evidence that human choice is subject to a wide array of biases (framing, laziness, etc.); human beings are neither equal in rational agency nor especially robust rational agents. Defenders of this Kantian answer thus need a non-ideal theory of equal respect for rational agency, one that (...) takes seriously our characteristic deficiencies of practical rationality without junking the notion that rational agency entitles us to equal respect. This article defends an understanding of respect for rational agency wherein the object of such respect is individuals’ aspiration to rationally govern their lives. This understanding of respect for rational agency retains the core notion of respect as a kind of deference, directs respect at persons, has suitably egalitarian implications, and does not require us to deny the aforementioned psychological evidence regarding the infirmities of human rationality. (shrink)

In this paper, I am going to explore an alternative explanation of causation in Graham Priest’s modal meinongianism. Priest proposes an understanding of causation, which is either too confusing, or against the metaphysical core of modal meinongianism. In his proposals, causation is discussed in the context of defining purely fictional and abstract objects, by using a counterfactual approach. In this case, causation is understood as an existence-entailing relation. I will argue that such an account of causation proves ineffective. Instead, I (...) will give another interpretation for causation, which is based on Peter Menzies and Huw Price’s version of agency theory of causation. The end result of my work will be the fact that causation as agency can, at best, be useful in understanding intentional acts, but not suitable for explaining what it means for a particular object to causally interact with us. (shrink)