What is intellectual humility? In this essay, we aim to answer this question by assessing several contemporary accounts of intellectual humility, developing our own account, offering two reasons for our account, and meeting two objections and solving one puzzle.

The emphasis on duly in Kant's ethics is widely held to constitute a defect. Marcia W. Baron develops and assesses the criticism, which she sees as comprising two objections: that duty plays too large a role, leaving no room for the supererogatory, and that Kant places too much value on acting from duty. Clearly written and cogently argued, Kantian Ethics Almost without Apology takes on the most philosophically intriguing objections to Kant's ethics and subjects them to a rigorous yet sympathetic (...) assessment. (shrink)

Are public officials morally justified in threatening violence, engaging in deception, or forcing citizens to act for their own good? Can individual officials be held morally accountable for the wrongs that governments commit? Dennis Thompson addresses these questions by developing a conception of political ethics that respects the demands of both morality and politics. He criticizes conventional conceptions for failing to appreciate the difference democracy makes, and for ascribing responsibility only to isolated leaders or to impersonal organizations. His book (...) seeks to recapture the sense that men and women, acting for us and together with us in a democratic process, make the moral choices that govern our public life. Thompson surveys ethical conflicts of public officials over a range of political issues, including nuclear deterrence, foreign intervention, undercover investigation, bureaucratic negligence, campaign finance, the privacy of officials, health care, welfare paternalism, drug and safety regulation, and social experimentation. He views these conflicts from the perspectives of many different kinds of public officials - elected and appointed executives at several levels of government, administrators, judges, legislators, governmental advisers, and even doctors, lawyers, social workers, and journalists whose professional roles often thrust them into public life. In clarifying the ethical problems faced by officials, Thompson combines theoretical analysis with practical prescription, and begins to define a field of inquiry for which many have said there is a need but to which few have yet contributed. Philosophers, political scientists, policy analysts, sociologists, lawyers, and other professionals interested in ethics in government will gain insight from this book. (shrink)

This paper extends several themes from recent work on norms of assertion. It does as much by applying those themes to the speech act of asking. In particular, it argues for the view that there is a species of asking which is governed by a certain norm, a norm to the effect that one should ask a question only if one doesn’t know its answer.

We develop a new version of the causal theory of spacetime. Whereas traditional versions of the theory seek to identify spatiotemporal relations with causal relations, the version we develop takes causal relations to be the grounds for spatiotemporal relations. Causation is thus distinct from, and more basic than, spacetime. We argue that this non-identity theory, suitably developed, avoids the challenges facing the traditional identity theory.

The compatibility of evolution with Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics is defended in response to Fr. Michal Chaberek’s thesis of incompatibility. The motivation and structure of Darwin’s theory are reviewed, including the roles of secondary causality, randomness and necessity. “Randomness” is an analogous term whose evolutionary use, while challenging, is fully compatible with theism. Evolution’s necessity derives from the laws of nature, which are intentional realities, the vehicle of divine providence. Methodological analysis shows that metaphysics lacks the evidentiary basis to judge biological theories. (...) Species are entia rationis whose immutability does not conflict with the evolutionary succession of biological populations. While Darwin’s theory was unknown to Aquinas, he endorses the possibility of new species immanent in the initial state of the universe, nor does his understanding of exemplar ideas offer ground for objection. Finally, five arguments given by Fr. Chaberek are answered. (shrink)

This paper argues that questions can be bullshit. First it explores some shallowly interrogative ways in which that can happen. Then it shows how questions can also be bullshit in a way that’s more deeply interrogative.

The central task of this dissertation is to develop a new interpretation of Leibniz's famous claim that there are no purely extrinsic denominations . Though Leibniz regarded NPE as one of his most important doctrines, he nowhere offers an explicit statement as to what he meant by it. One interpretation of NPE, which enjoys a modest consensus among interpreters, is that all extrinsic denominations reduce to intrinsic denominations. According to the reductionist view, things only have intrinsic denominations as properties; extrinsic (...) denominations are not genuine properties of things. Critics of reductionism have argued that the textual case for it is inconclusive at best, and I share this assessment with them. However, in my opinion, a satisfactory non-reductionist understanding of NPE has not been offered. The goal of my dissertation is to provide such a non-reductionist account. I contend that NPE, far from being a claim of the reducibility of extrinsic denominations, is actually an assertion that extrinsic denominations are genuine properties of the things they denominate. ;To establish my reading of NPE, I examine a line of textual evidence to which interpreters have paid little attention: the way Leibniz argues for NPE. In some passages Leibniz derives NPE from his predicate-in-subject principle of truth. In others, he employs his doctrine of the interconnection of all things to reach NPE. Elsewhere, he bases NPE on the principle of the identity of indiscernibles. Though, as mentioned, Leibniz never explicitly defines NPE, he does have much to say by way of explicit definition of each of these three principles. A consideration of what version of NPE could plausibly be drawn from them is thus a revealing way to proceed. In the case of each argument, I show that my interpretation of NPE is the conclusion naturally suggested by the given principle, while the reductionist version of NPE forms only an awkward, textually implausible fit with it. The result of the examination is an original and serious critique of the reductionist reading of NPE, as well as the development of a far more plausible understanding of that claim. (shrink)

I introduce an argument for Platonism based on intra-mathematical explanation: the explanation of one mathematical fact by another. The argument is important for two reasons. First, if the argument succeeds then it provides a basis for Platonism that does not proceed via standard indispensability considerations. Second, if the argument fails it can only do so for one of three reasons: either because there are no intra-mathematical explanations, or because not all explanations are backed by dependence relations, or because some form (...) of noneism-the view according to which non-existent entities possess properties and stand in relations-is true. The argument thus forces a choice between nominalism without noneism, intra-mathematical explanation and a backing conception of explanation. You can have any two, but not all three. (shrink)

Michael Tomasello ( 2016 ) prominently defends the view that there are uniquely human capacities required for shared intentions, therefore great apes do not share intentions. I show that these uniquely human capacities for abstraction are not necessary for shared intentionality. Excluding great apes from shared intentions because they lack certain capacities for abstraction assumes a specific interpretation of shared intentionality, which I call the Roleplaying Model. I undermine the necessity of abstraction for shared intentionality by presenting an alternative model (...) of shared intentionality, which I call the Normative Model. It is a modification of Margaret Gilbert’s ( 2013 ) Plural Subject theory, which I modify such that it is, in principle, compatible with nonhuman shared intentionality. To do this, I substitute Gilbert’s account of obligation for Kristin Andrews’ ( 2020 ) account of animal social norms. In this Normative Model, uniquely human capacities for abstraction are not required for shared intentionality. By undermining the necessity of uniquely human abstraction, I make cases of prima-facie cooperation in chimpanzees plausible instances of shared intentionality. The Roleplaying Model’s denial of nonhuman shared intentionality creates a problem insofar as apparent shared intentional activity cannot be fully analyzed. The Normative Model resolves this problem. (shrink)

ABSTRACT David Hume’s attacks on causality and induction along with his celebrated is-ought dichotomy dealt a blow to the human mind from which Western civilization has never fully recovered. Centuries after his death, Hume remains immensely popular among academic philosophers, which only bolsters the myth that his skeptical arguments are unanswerable. In fact, his arguments are seriously flawed. The first part of this paper clarifies the basics of Hume’s philosophy, focusing on the epistemology in the Treatise and Enquiry. The second (...) part exposes the mistaken premises and assumptions in Hume’s arguments, demonstrating how Objectivism redeems the validity of human knowledge. (shrink)

Talk at University of Turin, 'Kant, oltre Kant, May 5th 2023. --- -/- It is useful, while keeping in mind a holistic approach, to concentrate on a common theme in Kant’s text, which it will turn out is the quintessential element of his novel ‘way of thinking’, as he himself put it in preface of the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. This common theme is the idea of synthesis, which is what holds together, and is the entryway (...) to, all the other familiar aspects of Kant’s thought: his concept of self-consciousness or how mind is involved in cognition, his ideas about the role of the imagination, his theory of knowledge and his metaphysics of experience, and not unimportantly, its relation to what is probably the most Kantian element here: the categories of the understanding as the first principles of knowledge. But the meaning of synthesis and its role in its various facets, though frequently the subject of discussion in papers and monographs alike, is hardly understood in contemporary Kant scholarship. Most readings of the text of the Deduction, the part in which Kant elucidates his concept of synthesis, exhibit a shallow, mechanical understanding of it. -/- A compounding factor is that synthesis can’t really be understood independently of the other aforementioned elements of Kant’s thought. Grasping the meaning of synthesis implies coming to grips with his concept of self-consciousness and the way both self-consciousness and the categories are intricately and intimately involved. Most interpretations consider these aspects too much as if they were indeed separable faculties or entities that serve separable functions, undercutting an important feature of Kant’s metaphysics: the possibility of a priori unified cognition, for which an indivisible self-legislating subject is responsible. Rather, they are expressions of various aspects of a singular function of the mind as the ground of possible unified knowledge. -/- One striking example of such a superficial reading of the text is the way the relation between figurative synthesis and intellectual synthesis—or in the case of the A-Deduction the threefold synthesis—is standardly interpreted, as if the two are independent or quasi-independent functions of different faculties of the mind, the imagination and the understanding. In this paper, I focus on the relation between figurative and intellectual synthesis, while arguing that failing to understand this properly, indeed the relation between the imagination and the understanding, leads to a vicious regress in the explanation of the ground of knowledge, for which a priori synthesis is specifically designed. In other words, failing to see the intimate relation between the imagination and the understanding, the very identity that lies at their root, risks losing sight of the primary aim of Kant’s thought: the possibility of a priori unified knowledge. (shrink)

Scientists from Einstein to Sagan have linked emotions like awe with the motivation for scientific inquiry, but no research has tested this possibility. Theoretical and empirical work from affective science, however, suggests that awe might be unique in motivating explanation and exploration of the physical world. We synthesize theories of awe with theories of the cognitive mechanisms related to learning, and offer a generative theoretical framework that can be used to test the effect of this emotion on early science learning.

Philosophical naturalists claim macroevolution shows order emerging by pure chance. This claim is incompatible with accepted physical and biological principles. The present state of the universe is implicit in its initial state and the laws ofnature. Logical principles essential to science require these laws to be maintained by a self-conserving reality identifiable as God. Further, the laws share a common dynamic with human committed intentions. Both are logical propagators seen to the intentional by theists and naturalists alike. Mechanism and teleology (...) project a single reality into different conceptual spaces. Statistically, evolution is only possible given predefined goals. For fitness to be explanatory, it must be prior to survival events, entailing immanent goals verified by convergent evolution, toolkit genes, and evolutionary stasis. Aristotle's falsifiable claims for teleology are confirmed by evolution. Evolution is not random, but fully intentional, evidencing mind in nature. (shrink)

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Is it possible to measure psychological attributes like intelligence, personality and attitudes and if so, how does that work? What does the term 'measurement' mean in a psychological context? This fascinating and timely book discusses these questions and investigates the possible answers that can be given response. Denny Borsboom provides an in-depth treatment of the philosophical foundations of widely used measurement models in psychology. The theoretical status of classical test theory, latent variable theory and positioned in terms of the underlying (...) philosophy of science. Special attention is devoted to the central concept of test validity and future directions to improve the theory and practice of psychological measurement are outlined. (shrink)

In the past decades, reductionism has dominated both research directions and funding policies in clinical psychology and psychiatry. The intense search for the biological basis of mental disorders, however, has not resulted in conclusive reductionist explanations of psychopathology. Recently, network models have been proposed as an alternative framework for the analysis of mental disorders, in which mental disorders arise from the causal interplay between symptoms. In this target article, we show that this conceptualization can help explain why reductionist approaches in (...) psychiatry and clinical psychology are on the wrong track. First, symptom networks preclude the identification of a common cause of symptomatology with a neurobiological condition; in symptom networks, there is no such common cause. Second, symptom network relations depend on the content of mental states and, as such, feature intentionality. Third, the strength of network relations is highly likely to depend partially on cultural and historical contexts as well as external mechanisms in the environment. Taken together, these properties suggest that, if mental disorders are indeed networks of causally related symptoms, reductionist accounts cannot achieve the level of success associated with reductionist disease models in modern medicine. As an alternative strategy, we propose to interpret network structures in terms of D. C. Dennett's (1987) notion ofreal patterns, and suggest that, instead of being reducible to a biological basis, mental disorders feature biological and psychological factors that are deeply intertwined in feedback loops. This suggests that neither psychological nor biological levels can claim causal or explanatory priority, and that a holistic research strategy is necessary for progress in the study of mental disorders. (shrink)

Il volume comprende i saggi dei seguenti autori: Corrado Mangione, Enrico Bellone, Giulio Giorello, Marco Mondadori, Gabriele Lolli, Silvano Tagliagambe, Francesco Barone, Umberto Bottazzini, Vincenzo Cappelletti, Domenico Costantini, Piero Mangani, Carlos Minguez, Alberto Pasquinelli, Rossano Pancaldi, Mario Servi.

Shared intentions supporting cooperation and other social practices are often used to describe human social life but not the social lives of nonhuman animals. This difference in description is supported by a lack of evidence for rebuke or stakeholding during collaboration in nonhuman animals. We suggest that rebuke and stakeholding are just two examples of the many and varied forms of social maintenance that can support shared intentions. Drawing on insights about mindshaping in social cognition, we show how apes can (...) be stakeholders of a different sort in joint action. Drawing on pluralistic social maintenance methods of behavior enforcement, we show ape joint action can be supported by different forms of positive and negative social pressures, and not just protest. We explain how diverse relationships, contexts, social structures, and forms of communication may play a role in forming and successfully fulfilling joint commitments for humans, great apes, and other animals. (shrink)

Justifications and excuses are defenses that exculpate. They are therefore much more like each other than like such defenses as diplomatic immunity, which does not exculpate. But they exculpate in different ways, and it has proven difficult to agree on just what that difference consists in. In this paper I take a step back from justification and excuse as concepts in criminal law, and look at the concepts as they arise in everyday life. To keep the task manageable, I focus (...) primarily on excuses and excusing activities, distinguishing them from justifications as well as from other close relatives, in particular, forgiving and pardoning. I draw upon J.L. Austin’s classic A Plea for Excuses, but expand on his account, suggesting that we offer excuses for reasons besides those he mentions. My hope is that my examination of excuses and excusing activities will help us rethink our views on just how justifications and excuses differ, views which often are worked out without much attention to how these concepts function in everyday life and to the connection between offers of excuses and justifications and the rules of civility. (shrink)

The current research investigates how religiosity can influence unethicality in a consumption context. In particular, considering the link between extrinsic religious orientations and unethicality, this research clarifies why and when extrinsic religiosity leads to unethical decisions. Across two studies, findings show that ethnocentrism is both a mediator and a moderator of the effects of extrinsic religiosity on consumers’ ethical judgments. This is because extrinsic religiosity leads to ethnocentrism, and in-group loyalty manifested through ethnocentrism increases support for unethical consumer actions, thus (...) establishing ethnocentrism as a mediator. At the same time, different levels of ethnocentrism can also influence how extrinsic religiosity leads to supporting unethical consumption via self-righteousness, thus establishing ethnocentrism as a moderator. The findings from this research have significant implications for diverse stakeholders who have an interest in religiosity and consumer behavior. (shrink)

Various studies on the impact of religiousness on consumer ethics have produced mixed results and suggested further clarification on the issue. Therefore, this article examines the effect of religiousness, materialism, and long-term orientation on consumer ethics in Indonesia. The results from 356 respondents in Indonesia, the largest Muslim population in the world, showed that intrinsic religiousness positively affected consumer ethics, while extrinsic social religiousness negatively affected consumer ethics. However, extrinsic personal religiousness did not affect consumer ethical beliefs dimensions. Unlike other (...) studies in developed countries, materialism and long-term orientation influenced only a few of the consumer ethical beliefs dimensions in this study. To date, the study is one of the first empirical studies to explore the impact of religiousness on consumer ethics in Indonesia. The study contributes to the debate on the impact of religiousness on consumer ethics and can assist managers and public policymakers in their effort to mitigate unethical consumer activities in Indonesia. (shrink)

In this articleIconsider what it would take to combine a certain kind of mathematicalPlatonism with serious presentism.Iargue that a Platonist moved to accept the existence of mathematical objects on the basis of an indispensability argument faces a significant challenge if she wishes to accept presentism. This is because, on the one hand, the indispensability argument can be reformulated as a new argument for the existence of past entities and, on the other hand, if one accepts the indispensability argument for mathematical (...) objects then it is hard to resist the analogous argument for the existence of the past. (shrink)

La société contemporaine est constamment confrontée aux problèmes religieux. Cependant, la tradition républicaine française abandonne la religion à la sphère privée, comme si elle n'avait pas, par essence, une existence dans la Cité. Il ne s'agit pas pour autant de réduire la religion à sa dimension politique, voire au militantisme fanatique. La critique des réductions illégitimes de la religion est donc la première tâche. Il est aussi impossible de privatiser la religion que de la politiser. La réduire au lien social (...) n'est pas plus satisfaisant, même si c'est une tentation des sociologues. La religion ne se réduit pas davantage à la religiosité du sublime ou de l'idéal démocratique. Contre la notion scabreuse de " religions sans Dieu ", il vaut mieux admettre qu'il existe du religieux diffus sans religion, et garder le terme pour désigner une relation à la transcendance divine (une ou multiple) à la fois et indissolublement singulière et collective. Ainsi, il n'y a pas de religion sans prière individuelle, contrairement à ce que Kant souhaitait. Mais cette prière n'a aucun sens si elle ne s'adosse pas à un message intersubjectif, celui d'une communauté inspirée qui s'inscrit dans la Cité par sa dimension sociale et son histoire. La dimension personnelle de la religion (foi et méditation) s'appuie donc sur le symbolique, le témoignage et la communauté. Pour le philosophe d'aujourd'hui, les religions se présentent comme l'attestation multiple de la présence d'une transcendance divine et d'une vie spirituelle dans la société et dans l'histoire. Mettre la religion entre parenthèses, c'est s'exposer à ne rien comprendre de l'histoire du monde. (shrink)

The story of the greatest of all philosophical friendships—and how it influenced modern thought David Hume is widely regarded as the most important philosopher ever to write in English, but during his lifetime he was attacked as “the Great Infidel” for his skeptical religious views and deemed unfit to teach the young. In contrast, Adam Smith was a revered professor of moral philosophy, and is now often hailed as the founding father of capitalism. Remarkably, the two were best friends for (...) most of their adult lives, sharing what Dennis Rasmussen calls the greatest of all philosophical friendships. The Infidel and the Professor is the first book to tell the fascinating story of the friendship of these towering Enlightenment thinkers—and how it influenced their world-changing ideas. The book follows Hume and Smith’s relationship from their first meeting in 1749 until Hume’s death in 1776. It describes how they commented on each other’s writings, supported each other’s careers and literary ambitions, and advised each other on personal matters, most notably after Hume’s quarrel with Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Members of a vibrant intellectual scene in Enlightenment Scotland, Hume and Smith made many of the same friends, joined the same clubs, and were interested in many of the same subjects well beyond philosophy and economics—from psychology and history to politics and Britain’s conflict with the American colonies. The book reveals that Smith’s private religious views were considerably closer to Hume’s public ones than is usually believed. It also shows that Hume contributed more to economics—and Smith contributed more to philosophy—than is generally recognized. Vividly written, The Infidel and the Professor is a compelling account of a great friendship that had great consequences for modern thought. (shrink)

Richard M. Hare (1919 - 2002) is usually acknowledged to be one of the major moral thinkers of the 20th century. After being a Japanese prisoner of war for most of World War II, he completed his education at Oxford, later joining the faculty and becoming a professor. In 1983 he moved to the University of Florida but still kept his ties with Oxford. He had many students, including Peter Singer. At a memorial service for Hare in 2002, Singer ascribed (...) to him three major achievements in moral philosophy, namely “restoring reason to moral argument, distinguishing intuitive and critical levels of moral thinking, and pioneering the development of practical or applied ethics”. (shrink)

In this paper we confront a challenge to truthmaker theory that is analogous to the objections raised by deflationists against substantive theories of truth. Several critics of truthmaker theory espouse a ‘deflationary’ attitude about truthmaking, though it has not been clearly presented as such. Our goal is to articulate and then object to the underlying rationale behind deflationary truthmaking. We begin by developing the analogy between deflationary truth and deflationary truthmaking, and then show how the latter can be found in (...) the work of Dodd, Hornsby, Schnieder, Williamson, and others. These philosophers believe that the ambitions of truthmaker theory are easily satisfied, without recourse to ambitious ontological investigation—hence the analogy with deflationary truth. We argue that the deflationists’ agenda fails: there is no coherent deflationary theory of truthmaking. Truthmaking, once deflated, fails to address the questions at the heart of truthmaking investigation. Truthmaking cannot be had on the cheap. (shrink)

On a voulu montrer dans ce livre que, reflete a travers les miroirs differents que sont les genies philosophiques et politiques de l'epoque, l'idealisme allemand forme une incontestable unite de langage philosophique. A l'interieur de cette grande unite, ou la philosophie ne cesse de se confronter aux plus hauts problemes de l'homme, le clivage entre un idealisme transcendantal et l'idealisme speculatif apparait comme une faille profonde, en ce que la description de la finitude humaine, et par consequent la comprehension des (...) limites de l'homme, est l'objet du premier alors que le rapport d'expression du fini a l'infini est au coeur du second. L'attitude idealiste symbolisee par Hegel a eu de nombreuses consequences. Mais les critiques qui ont ete faites aux successeurs de Hegel ne doivent pas nous faire oublier la presence de l'idealisme allemand. C'est cette presence philosophique que ce livre espere restituer. (shrink)

Recent decades have seen a revived interest in super-substantivalism, the idea that spacetime is the only fundamental substance and matter some kind of aspect, property or consequence of spacetime structure. However, the metaphysical debate so far has misidentified a particular variant of super-substantivalism with the position per se. I distinguish between a super-substantival core commitment and different ways of fleshing it out. I then investigate how general relativity and alternative spacetime theories square with the different variants of super-substantivalism.