In this essay I defend a kind of nonnaturalist normative supervenience, grounded in the essences of things. Essentialist theories, in fact, give us the tools to treat the nexus of normative supervenience as a nexus of metaphysical necessity, holding between the normative and the natural. In this context, essentialist grounding provides an explanation of normative supervenience that allows us to keep together both supervenience and nonnaturalism. Moreover, to achieve this significant result, I do not make use of hybrid properties, which (...) are both normative and natural. Rather, I endeavour to show that the notion of hybrid property is based on an erroneous notion of grounding. (shrink)

A substantial guide providing an overview of both physicalism and metaphysical naturalism, reviewing both questions of formulation and justification for both doctrines. Includes a diagnostic strategy for understanding talk of naturalism as a metaphysical thesis.

Inside What Would Plato Do?, you'll find the basics of philosophy, written in an easy, digestible way we can all understand, along with questions to help you apply these important theories to your own life. So, after you've learned about a philosophical concept, you'll then be challenged to test yourself and see how the results can impact your daily life. For instance, after learning about Kant's theory of morality and the importance of intention you're challenged with questions like: Can good (...) people do bad things? Was there a time when you intended to do something helpful that ended up being hurtful? Does that make you a good person (because you intended to do good) or a bad person (because the results were bad)? What Would Plato Do? will not only help you better understand some of the greatest thinkers ever but will also help you think of the world around you in a whole new way! (shrink)

In recent years numerous attempts have been made by analytic philosophers to naturalize various different domains of philosophical inquiry. All of these attempts have had the common goal of rendering these areas of philosophy amenable to empirical methods, with the intention of securing for them the supposedly objective status and broad intellectual appeal currently associated with such approaches. This volume brings together internationally recognised analytic philosophers, including Alvin Plantinga, Peter van Inwagen and Robert Audi, to question the project of naturalism. (...) The articles investigate what it means to naturalize a domain of philosophical inquiry and look at how this applies to the various sub-disciplines of philosophy including epistemology, metaphysics and the philosophy of the mind. The issue of whether naturalism is desirable is raised and the contributors take seriously the possibility that excellent analytic philosophy can be undertaken without naturalization. Controversial and thought-provoking, Analytic Philosophy Without Naturalism examines interesting and contentious methodological issues in analytic philosophy and explores the connections between philosophy and science. (shrink)

Ne vers 1180 a Aurillac, mort le 30 mars 1249, Guillaume d'Auvergne est nomme eveque de Paris des 1228. Son oeuvre est contemporaine de la querelle de l'aristotelisme qui gagne la faculte de theologie, et du bouleversement de l'histoire theorique qui l'accompagne. Quelle est la cause efficiente de la pensee? D'ou vient l'intelligible necessairement present dans l'ame qui pense? C'est a cela que repondent les neuf premieres parties du chapitre sept du De anima, ecrit vers 1240. La noetique de Guillaume (...) d'Auvergne, complexe, s'y deploie et sensiblement se demarque de l' augustinisme avicennisant qui traditionnellement la caracterise. L'ame, dans son rapport au sensible, est principium agens, lectrice, en tant qu'elle pense, d'un livre dont elle-meme est l'auteur, et dont la verite se passe en partie de l'illumination divine. (shrink)

This paper examines the role played by the concept of human nature in ethical theory. The focus is on the epistemological problems that arise from application of this notion to the foundation of ethics. From this viewpoint, two theories, the neoscholastic and the neoclassical ones, are expounded, analyzed and compared. The aim is to highlight their opposite ways of relating the "ought-to-be" (of norms) to the "is" (of human nature). The conclusion is drawn that an adequate solution of the dispute (...) depends on a correct interpretation of Hume's law. Reflection is conducted in the last section on the implications of metaethical discourse on human nature for applied ethics. (shrink)

In this essay, we will try to provide a formal analysis of practical inference, attentive to the various phases in which it is articulated, and being so capable of explaining both the logical conclusiveness of the inference and the probabilistic nature of its conclusion. An innovative purpose of this article is to show how the final deliberation leading to action—the ultimate practical judgment—takes place according to a logic consistent with the use of Bayes’ theorem. This is why we refer to (...) Bayesian practical inference in the title of this essay. (shrink)

According to experimental philosophers, experiments conducted within the psychological sciences and the neurosciences can show that moral intuitions are incapable of thorough justification. Thus, as a substitute for reliable philosophical justifications, psychological or neuropsychological explanations should be taken into consideration to provide guidance about our conduct. - In my essay I shall argue against both claims. First, I will defend the justificatory capacity of moral philosophy and maintain that empirical evidence cannot undermine moral judgements. Secondly,I will point to some methodological (...) difficulties in psychological and neuroscientific explanations of moral judgements. Finally, I will show that Greene's (2008) argument from morally irrelevant factors fails to prove that moral implications can be drawn from scientific theories about moral psychology. (shrink)

Quantum physics, unlike classical physics, suggests a non-physicalistic metaphysics. Whereas physicalism implies a reductive position in the philosophy of mind, quantum physics is compatible with non-reductionism, and actually seems to support it. The essays in this book explore, from various points of view, the possibilities of basing a non-reductive philosophy of mind on quantum physics."--Back cover.

Philosophers and scientists have recently been showing renewed interest in dualistic conceptions of the human mind, owing to growing acknowledgment of the failings of materialism and reductionism in contemporary philosophical and scientific thought. This book presents a state-of-the-art overview of current developments in this exciting new area of interdisciplinary collaboration, and will be indispensable reading for all researchers and students in this field.

We perceive smells as perduring complex entities within a distal array that might be conceived of as smellscapes. However, the philosophical orthodoxy of Odor Theories has been to deny that smells are perceived as having a distal location. Recent challenges have been mounted to Odor Theories’ veracity in handling the timescale of olfactory perception, how it individuates odors as a distal entities, and their claim that olfactory perception is not spatial. The paper does not aim to dispute these criticisms. Rather, (...) what will be shown is that Molecular Structure Theory, a refinement of Odor Theory, can be further developed to handle these challenges. The theory is further refined by focusing on distal perception that requires considering the perceptual object as mereologically complex persisting odor against a background scene conceived of as a smellscape. What will be offered is an expansion of Molecular Structure Theory to account for distal smell perception within natural environments. (shrink)

We are immersed within an odorous sea of chemical currents that we parse into individual odors with complex structures. Odors have been posited as determined by the structural relation between the molecules that compose the chemical compounds and their interactions with the receptor site. But, naturally occurring smells are parsed from gaseous odor plumes. To give a comprehensive account of the nature of odors the chemosciences must account for these large distributed entities as well. We offer a focused review of (...) what is known about the perception of odor plumes for olfactory navigation and tracking, which we then connect to what is known about the role odorants play as properties of the plume in determining odor identity with respect to odor quality. We end by motivating our central claim that more research needs to be conducted on the role that odorants play within the odor plume in determining odor identity. (shrink)

The concept of emergence has seen a significant resurgence in philosophy and the sciences, yet debates regarding emergentist and reductionist visions of the natural world continue to be hampered by imprecision or ambiguity. Emergent phenomena are said to arise out of and be sustained by more basic phenomena, while at the same time exerting a "top-down" control upon those very sustaining processes. To some critics, this has the air of magic, as it seems to suggest a kind of circular causality. (...) Other critics deem the concept of emergence to be objectionably anti-naturalistic. Objections such as these have led many thinkers to construe emergent phenomena instead as coarse-grained patterns in the world that, while calling for distinctive concepts, do not "disrupt" the ordinary dynamics of the finer-grained (more fundamental) levels. Yet, reconciling emergence with a (presumed) pervasive causal continuity at the fundamental level can seem to deflate emergence of its initially profound significance. This basic problematic is mirrored by similar controversy over how best to characterize the opposite systematizing impulse, most commonly given an equally evocative but vague term, "reductionism." The original essays in this volume help to clarify the alternatives: inadequacies in some older formulations and arguments are exposed and new lines of argument on behalf the two visions are advanced. (shrink)

Reflection Principles are commonly thought to produce only strong axioms of infinity consistent with V = L. It would be desirable to have some notion of strong reflection to remedy this, and we have proposed Global Reflection Principles based on a somewhat Cantorian view of the universe. Such principles justify the kind of cardinals needed for, inter alia , Woodin’s Ω-Logic.

When it originated in the late 19th century, psychometrics was a field with both a scientific and a social mission: psychometrics provided new methods for research into individual differences, and at the same time, these psychometric instruments were considered a means to create a new social order. In contrast, contemporary psychometrics - due to its highly technical nature and its limited involvement in substantive psychological research - has created the impression of being a value-free discipline. In this article, we develop (...) a contrasting characterization of contemporary psychometrics as a value-laden discipline. We expose four such values: that individual differences are quantitative (rather than qualitative), that measurement should be objective in a specific sense, that test items should be fair, and that utility of a model is more important than its truth. Our goal is not to criticize psychometrics for employing these values, but rather to bring them into the open and to show that these values are not inevitable and are in need of systematic evaluation. (shrink)

In recent years numerous attempts have been made by analytic philosophers to _naturalize _various different domains of philosophical inquiry. All of these attempts have had the common goal of rendering these areas of philosophy amenable to empirical methods, with the intention of securing for them the supposedly objective status and broad intellectual appeal currently associated with such approaches. This volume brings together internationally recognised analytic philosophers, including Alvin Plantinga, Peter van Inwagen and Robert Audi, to question the project of naturalism. (...) The articles investigate what it means to _naturalize_ a domain of philosophical inquiry and look at how this applies to the various sub-disciplines of philosophy including epistemology, metaphysics and the philosophy of the mind. The issue of whether naturalism is desirable is raised and the contributors take seriously the possibility that excellent analytic philosophy can be undertaken without naturalization. Controversial and thought-provoking, _Analytic Philosophy Without Naturalism_ examines interesting and contentious methodological issues in analytic philosophy and explores the connections between philosophy and science. (shrink)