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)

Capital punishment—the legally authorized killing of a criminal offender by an agent of the state for the commission of a crime—stands in special need of moral justification. This is because execution is a particularly severe punishment. Execution is different in kind from monetary and custodial penalties in an obvious way: execution causes the death of an offender. While fines and incarceration set back some of one’s interests, death eliminates the possibility of setting and pursuing ends. While fines and incarceration narrow (...) one’s routes to happiness, death eliminates its possibility. Not surprisingly, there is much debate about the moral permissibility of capital punishment. This entry maps the terrain of this debate. The first section discusses justifications of the death penalty as they appear in major theories of punishment. The second section surveys moral objections to execution that apply to most justifications. The third addresses procedural criticisms, which do not target the morality of execution so much as the justice of its implementation. (shrink)

At least some of your beliefs are commitments. When you believe that P as a commitment, your stance on P is such that you believe it on the basis of your considered judgement. Sometimes, you also believe that you believe P. Such self‐beliefs can also be commissive in a sense, as when they are reflective endorsements of your lower‐order commissive beliefs. In this paper I argue that one's commissive self‐beliefs ontologically constitute one's lower‐order commissive beliefs because one's commissive self‐beliefs instantiate (...) the same inferential dispositions that are constitutive of one's lower‐order commissive beliefs. Constitutive relations between commissive self‐beliefs and first‐order commissive beliefs are maximally epistemically secure because they do not result from any epistemic procedure by which one must try (and possibly fail) to detect one's first‐order commissive beliefs. This maximal epistemic security suffices to warrant one's commissive self‐beliefs, such that one possesses commissive self‐knowledge of an especially privileged sort. (shrink)

The infinitary function of the truth predicate consists in its ability to express infinite conjunctions and disjunctions. A transparency principle for truth states the equivalence between a sentence and its truth predication; it requires an introduction principle—which allows the inference from “snow is white” to “the sentence ‘snow is white’ is true”—and an elimination principle—which allows the inference from “the sentence ‘snow is white’ is true” to “snow is white”. It is commonly assumed that a theory of truth needs to (...) satisfy a transparency principle to fulfil the infinitary function. Picollo and Schindler (Erkenntnis 83:899–928, 2017) argue against this idea. They prove that, given certain assumptions, an elimination principle is sufficient for the purpose. Then, they pose a challenge: to show why we should incorporate introduction principles to our theory of truth. In this essay I take on the challenge. I show that, given the authors’ assumptions, an introduction principle is also sufficient to perform the infinitary function. (shrink)

Kant famously insists that free will is a condition of morality. The difficulty of providing a demonstration of freedom has left him vulnerable to devastating criticism: critics charge that Kant's post-Groundwork justification of morality amounts to a dogmatic assertion of morality's authority. My paper rebuts this objection, showing that Kant offers a cogent demonstration of freedom. My central claim is that the demonstration must be understood in practical rather than theoretical terms. A practical demonstration of x works by bringing x (...) into existence, and what the demonstration of freedom brings into existence is a moral will, a will regulated by the moral law and capable of acting in accordance with it. Since to act morally is to act freely, bringing a moral will into existence actualizes our capacity for freedom and demonstrates that we possess it. To confirm the viability of such a demonstration, Kant must establish that agents can regulate their wills by practical principles, and that practical judgments are efficacious of themselves (i.e., that non-Humean motivational internalism is true). Kant, I argue, is successful on both counts. (shrink)

This article details the variety of critical strategies in Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, finding strong connections with her writing as a reviewer for the Analytical Review, the literary review published by the reformer and Dissenter Joseph Johnson. In Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft employed textual analyses and an evolving set of theoretical positions that had been introduced in the course of her career at the Analytical Review. By elucidating the importance of the reviews and the specificity (...) of Wollstonecraft’s procedures, this article contributes to a growing consensus that Rights of Woman initiated feminist literary criticism. (shrink)

An old and well-known objection to non-classical logics is that they are too weak; in particular, they cannot prove a number of important mathematical results. A promising strategy to deal with this objection consists in proving so-called recapture results. Roughly, these results show that classical logic can be used in mathematics and other unproblematic contexts. However, the strategy faces some potential problems. First, typical recapture results are formulated in a purely logical language, and do not generalize nicely to languages containing (...) the kind of vocabulary that usually motivates non-classical theories—for example, a language containing a naïve truth predicate. Second, proofs of recapture results typically employ classical principles that are not valid in the targeted non-classical system; hence, non-classical theorists do not seem entitled to those results. In this paper, we analyze these problems and provide solutions on behalf of non-classical theorists. To address the first problem, we provide a novel kind of recapture result, which generalizes nicely to a truth-theoretic language. As for the second problem, we argue that it relies on an ambiguity and that, once the ambiguity is removed, there are no reasons to think that non-classical logicians are not entitled to their recapture results. (shrink)

Nietzsche distinguished between two forces in art: Apollonian, which represents order and reason, and Dionysian, which represents chaos and energy. Economists, Ward argues, have operated for too long under the assumption that their work reflects the scientific, Apollonian principals that inform physics when they simply do not apply to economics: 'constants' in economics stand in for variables, and the core scientific principles of prediction and replication are all but ignored by economists. Ward encourages economists to reintegrate the standard rigor of (...) the scientific method into their work while embracing the fact of the shape-shifting changeability of human beings. Economists can still aspire to scientific standards, as is demonstrated by the success of biology, in which there is considerable Dionysian variability. Economists must avoid the temptation to wish away dynamic complexity and diversity and must recognize, among other things, that the desire to take risks is fundamentally human. The second half of the book takes some first steps toward creating this new Dionysian Economics. (shrink)

In an earlier paper I suggested that we can solve the Benacerraf Problem – the problem of explaining how mathematical knowledge is possible on the assumption that the objects of mathematics are abstract and immaterial – by positing efficient causal relations between those abstract objects and our brains. The burden of the paper was to remove the appearance that relations between abstracta and concreta, far from being actual, are inconceivable. This alleged inconceivability has been derived from some putative conditions on (...) efficient causation: physical contact, energy transfer, reciprocal effects on the cause, and the idea that the cause must exist in time if its effects do. I argued that none of these conditions are a priori conditions on efficient causation, and thus do not pose an obstacle to the conceivability or metaphysical possibility of efficient causal relations between platonic objects and brains. In this essay I reply to three published challenges to this proposed solution to the Benacerraf Problem. (shrink)

Recently, it has been proposed to understand a logic as containing not only a validity canon for inferences but also a validity canon for metainferences of any finite level. Then, it has been shown that it is possible to construct infinite hierarchies of "increasingly classical" logics—that is, logics that are classical at the level of inferences and of increasingly higher metainferences—all of which admit a transparent truth predicate. In this paper, we extend this line of investigation by taking a somehow (...) different route. We explore logics that are different from classical logic at the level of inferences, but recover some important aspects of classical logic at every metainferential level. We dub such systems meta-classical non-classical logics. We argue that the systems presented deserve to be regarded as logics in their own right and, moreover, are potentially useful for the non-classical logician. (shrink)

The present work looks at what we call “the multiverse of quantification”, where visible and invisible numbers permeate all aspects and venues of life. We review the contributions of different authors who focus on the roles of quantification in society, with the aim of capturing different and sometimes separate voices. Several scholars, including economists, jurists, philosophers, sociologists, communication and data scientists, express concerns or identify critical areas of our relationship with new technologies of ‘numericization’. While mindful of the important specificities (...) of the different families of quantification, we use our broad and holistic canvas to explore possible spaces for a more systematic investigation of incumbent and novel quantifications, as to increase communication among disciplinary communities, and among these and society, in the pursuit a democratic agency and self-defence. (shrink)

This book presents a contextual study of the life and work of the Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688). Focusing on the theological basis of Cudworth's ethical philosophy, this book unlocks the hitherto ignored political aspect to Cudworth's ethical philosophy. Through a detailed examination of Cudworth's published works - particularly his voluminous "True intellectual system of the Universe" -, his posthumously published writings, and his 'freewill' manuscripts Benjamin Carter argues that the ethical and political arguments in Cudworth's philosophy develop out (...) of Cudworth's Trinitarian theology. Carter traces the link between Cudworth's trinitarianism and his ethical and political ideas by placing Cudworth's work in the turbulent religious and intellectual context of seventeenth-century England, and the University of Cambridge in particular. (shrink)

Connexive logics are based on two ideas: that no statement entails or is entailed by its own negation (this is Aristotle’s thesis) and that no statement entails both something and the negation of this very thing (this is Boethius' thesis). Usually, connexive logics are contra-classical. In this note, I introduce a reading of the connexive theses that makes them compatible with classical logic. According to this reading, the theses in question do not talk about validity alone; rather, they talk in (...) part about (a property related to) the soundness of arguments. (shrink)

The volume will implement the research efforts of both Machiavelli scholars and those in related general and specific fields.

En este capítulo ofrecemos una introducción sistemática e histórica a la lógica, disciplina que contribuyó en gran medida a la producción del conocimiento en general y a la formación del pensamiento científico en particular. La primera sección contiene la introducción sistemática: primero, presentamos las distintas disciplinas que forman parte de la lógica en el sentido amplio del término; luego, identificamos a la lógica en sentido canónico o estricto como el estudio la validez; por último, explicamos en qué sentido la validez (...) es una propiedad formal. La segunda sección contiene la introducción histórica; nos detenemos, en particular, a estudiar dos hitos: el nacimiento de la lógica como disciplina con Aristóteles, y la intervención de Gottlob Frege, a quien se debe, en gran parte, el surgimiento de la lógica tal como la conocemos. Finalmente, damos un breve comentario del estado actual de la disciplina. (shrink)

Hardly anyone disputes that discrimination can be a grave moral wrong. Yet this consensus masks fundamental disagreements about what makes something discrimination, as well as precisely why acts of discrimination are wrong. Benjamin Eidelson develops systematic answers to those two questions. He claims that discrimination is a form of differential treatment distinguished by its special connection to the differential ascription of some property to different people, and goes on to argue that what makes some cases of discrimination intrinsically wrongful (...) is that they manifest an attitude of disrespect for the personhood of those who are disfavored. He endeavors to specify what this attitude consists in, and to demonstrate how attending to its character can help us to better understand the moral dimensions of different forms of wrongful discrimination. The book concludes with an extended discussion of racial profiling in law enforcement. (shrink)

By stating that "only one died for all," "so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died and was raised for them" Paul precedes the following expression: " the love of Christ compels us ". As Christ left his example, Christians should love and assign themselves tasks on community service, be dedicated and taking responsibility for others. This article aims to reflect on the pastoral implications concerning the concept of "new creatures" with a (...) focus on self-giving and responsibility for others. Therefore, at first, it reflects on the concept of "new creatures", emphasizing the love of Christ as motivation for the practice on Christian life. Then presents discipleship in self-giving, a result of the new life in Christ, elements that allow us to present the concept of responsibility for others from the community service. It concludes that "living for Christ" implies a pastoral practice in which: a) the redeeming love of Christ compels a person to a new life and requires attitudes according to this love; b) Serving the community in self-giving is consequence of this new life; c) Community dimension leads to participation in building the Kingdom of God and takes to the responsibility for others. (shrink)

The Jesuit theologian, Francisco Suarez, is know as the «father of modern scientific Mariology» because of the innovations he brought to the Scholastic treatment of the Virgin Mary. Commenting on the third part of the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas, at the Roman College in 1584-85, he developed 24 questions under the title De Deipara et Christo ut eius Filio, material which to this day has remained unpublished. In the present essay, the author discusses the role of Mary in the (...) life and works of Suarez, revealing his faith in the Immaculate Conception and at the same time the need to establish in the Virgin the human debt or necessary participation in Original Sin. Then he deals with Suarez's 24 questions, material conserved in the archives of the Pontifical Gregorian University. In these questions, he insists, we find the first systematic treatise on Mary, a work which demonstrates a logical and unitary division, clearly different from the chronological order of Thomas's Summa. Suárez divides his work into three parts: the dignity of the Mother of God, her perfection in body and soul, and the veneration due to her. (shrink)

O presente artigo vem refletir sobre a crise do sacramento da penitência. Nesse contexto, apresenta-a como originária no relativismo e na distorção da noção de pecado presentes na sociedade atual. Por fim, apresenta os desafios atuais provenientes dessa reflexão, abrindo possibilidades para futuras reflexões e maior aprofundamento sobre o tema.

Intorno alla problematica del vuoto e alla sua dialettica col "pieno" si è giocata anche l'incerta, secolare partita tra libertà e senso. La questione riguarda non solo l'ambito filosofico, interessando la fisica innanzitutto, la psicoanalisi, le arte e l'estetica. Nel ricapitolare la storia culturale della questione, il volume vuol dar conto sinteticamente del tema del vuoto quindi nella tradizione kenotica cristiana, nell'attuale antropologia filosofica e in architettura, senza tralasciare la dimensione intrapsichica, sia nelle tradizioni della meditazione taoista e zen, sia (...) nella psicologia del profondo. (shrink)

A pandemia da Covid-19 transformou realidades e exigiu comportamentos sociais jamais experienciados que, na dimensão eclesial, vêm revelando compreensões e posturas inadequadas à mistagogia evangélica, mas que também podem provocar um discipulado missionário ad extra, na concepção de Igreja Povo de Deus. Portanto, o presente artigo objetivou, a partir de uma hermenêutica de Mc 4,35-41, refletir sobre o protagonismo laical em tempos de pandemia, sua autocompreensão eclesial e seu posicionamento diante da crise sanitária. Para tanto, estruturou-se em três pontos: teceu (...) uma compreensão da perícope marcana à luz da pandemia; refletiu sobre a postura do laicato em meio a crise sanitária e, por fim, teceu pistas para um agir missionário coerente ao discipulado, concluindo que mesmo em meio a posturas inadequadas o laicato é fortemente chamado ao protagonismo eclesial contribuindo para a superação da crise sanitária provocada pelo novo coronavírus. (shrink)

While psychopathy research has been growing for decades, a relatively new area of research is corporate psychopathy. Corporate psychopaths are simply psychopaths working in organizational settings. They may be attracted to the financial, power, and status gains available in senior positions and can cause considerable damage within these roles from a manipulative interpersonal style to large-scale fraud. Based upon prior studies, we analyze psychopathy research pertaining to 23 moral emotions classified according to functional quality and target. Based upon our review, (...) we suggest that psychopaths are high in moral emotions associated with other-directed negative signals, low in self-directed negative signals, and low in other-directed positive signals. We found no empirical articles related to self-directed positive signals. This understanding of the specific moral emotion deficits of corporate psychopaths provides greater theoretical understanding and practical implications of knowing which individuals not to promote, though more research is needed on moral emotions that are faked for manipulative reasons. (shrink)

In contemporary discourse, different conceptions of the conscience abound. Aquinas and Calvin had similar yet distinct accounts of the conscience and its role in Christian ethical formation. Upon close inspection, both struggle to account fully and consistently for the effects of the fall and its impact on human reason. In response to some of the weaknesses observed in these accounts, Bonhoeffer’s reflections on the conscience offer a more helpful way forward that accounts for the Fall’s effects on human rationality. In (...) addition, his work also offers guidelines for navigating the internal voices and concerns of fallen humanity, ultimately pointing the Christian to the Word of Christ as the final judge and justifier. Finally, his formulations can provide a fuller set of instructions for people doing the spiritual disciplines and navigating their internal world in prayer. (shrink)

When logicians work with multiple-conclusion systems, they use a metalinguistic comma ‘,’ to aggregate premises and/or conclusions. In this note, I present an analogy between this comma and Prior’s infamous connective tonk. The analogy reveals that these expressions have much in common. I argue that, indeed, the comma can be seen as a structural incarnation of tonk. The upshot is that, whatever story one has to tell about tonk, there are good reasons to tell a similar story about the comma (...) in typical multiple-conclusion systems, and vice versa. (shrink)

This introduction argues for the importance of Suárez’s philosophy for historians of medieval philosophy as well as historians of early modern philosophy. It also provides synopses of each of the essays in the volume and a brief biography of Suárez, placing his life and works into some historical context.

We argue that, in the case of research biobanks, there is a need to replace the currently used informed consent with trusted consent. Accordingly, we introduce a proposal for the structure of the latter. Further, we discuss some of the issues that can be addressed effectively through our proposal. In particular, we illustrate: i) which research should be authorized by donors; ii) how to regulate access to information; iii) the fundamental role played by a Third Party Authority in assuring compliance (...) with the reciprocal expectations and obligations of donors and scientists. Finally, we briefly analyse two issues that might represent important elements of a ‘new alliance’ between researchers and donors to which the trusted consent could pave the way: i) the correlations between needs and rights of the two parties, and ii) possible economic transactions. (shrink)

The problem of deviant causation has been a serious obstacle for causal theories of action. We suggest that attending to the problem of deviant causation reveals two related problems for causal theories. First, it threatens the reductive ambitions of causal theories of intentional action. Second, it suggests that such a theory fails to account for how the agent herself is guided by her reasons. Focusing on the second of these, we argue that the problem of guidance turns out to be (...) related to a number of other issues in the literature on action explanation, and that it is much more general: it threatens not only causal theories but any theory of action. Finally, we suggest that a certain version of the view that acting has a constitutive or formal aim can overcome this problem. (shrink)

Examines the development of the philosophy, culture, and civilization of ancient China and discusses the history of Taoism and Confucianism.

In spite of its significance for everyday and philosophical discourse, the explanatory connective has not received much treatment in the philosophy of logic. The present paper develops a logic for based on systematic connections between and the truth-functional connectives.

Following Gilbert Ryle’s arguments, many philosophers took it for granted that someone knows how to do something just in case they have the ability to do it. Within the last couple decades, new intellectualists have challenged this longstanding anti-intellectualist assumption. Their central contention is that mere abilities aren’t on the same rational, epistemic level as know how. My goal is to intellectualize know how without over-intellectualizing it. Intelligent behavior is characteristically flexible or responsive to novelty, and the distinctive feature of (...) creatures who exhibit flexible behavior is their capacity to learn. As it turns out, Ryle already identified a core characteristic of learning shared widely across the animal kingdom from the lowly rat to the top athlete. Taking my cues from Ryle, I argue that know how is successful performance resulting from self-regulated abilities. To regulate an ability is to be disposed to adjust to error and respond to feedback. While regulating sophisticated human abilities often requires propositional knowledge, in many simpler cases it does not. I focus on the navigational know how of rats and honeybees. Although they possess know how, whether they possess propositional knowledge is at best an open question. (shrink)

We discuss the meaning of “being alive” and “being dead.” Our primary aim is to pave the way for a sound and accurate ethical debate concerning these two concepts. In particular, we analyze a metabolic approach and a genetic one and discuss the reasons for their failure to constitute a good starting point for successive debates. We argue that any ethical or social discussion of topics involving life and death must introduce cultural constructs such as, on the one hand, the (...) concept of clinical death and, on the other hand, the concept of existence. We argue that these two cultural constructs, although consistent with biomedical knowledge, cannot be ontologically grounded in it. To conclude, we apply our findings to the case of human embryos. (shrink)

La Conscience malheureuse est un ouvrage majeur de la philosophie existentielle des années trente. Jeune poète et critique roumain expatrié en France en 1923, Benjamin Fondane (1898-1944) fait partie de ces auteurs hantés par l'absence de Dieu dans la culture rationaliste moderne marquée par le positivisme. D'abord proche de l'esprit subversif du dadaïsme, il identifie rapidement sa révolte par l'absurde à la démarche ironique et irrationaliste du philosophe russe émigré en France Léon Chestov. C'est l'adhésion sans conditions à sa (...) philosophie existentielle à partir de 1929 qui lui permet de déconstruire la tradition du logos issue d'Athènes. Il ne cessera dès lors de dénoncer un conflit profond entre le " réel " construit par la culture rationaliste et l'existant singulier, entre le savoir et le " non-voir " des poètes et de certains mystiques, entre Athènes et Jérusalem: ce divorce intime, c'est celui de la " conscience malheureuse ". (shrink)

An English language translation accompanies the original Greek text of Aristotle's book about the nature of the state, constitutions, revolutions, democracy, and oligarchy.