The essence of number was regarded by the ancient Greeks as the root cause of the existence of the universe, but it was only towards the end of the 19th century that mathematicians initiated an in-depth study of the nature of numbers. The resulting unavoidable actuality of infinities in the number system led mathematicians to rigorously investigate the foundations of mathematics. The formalist approach to establish mathematical proof was found to be inconclusive: Gödel showed that there existed true propositions that (...) could not be proved to be true within the natural number universe. This result weighed heavily on proposals in the mid-20th century for digital models of the universe, inspired by the emergence of the programmable digital computer, giving rise to the branch of philosophy recognised as digital philosophy. In this article, the models of the universe presented by physicists, mathematicians and theoretical computer scientists are reviewed and their relation to the natural numbers is investigated. A quantum theory view that at the deepest level time and space may be discrete suggests a profound relation between natural numbers and reality of the cosmos. The conclusion is that our perception of reality may ultimately be traced to the ontology and epistemology of the natural numbers. (shrink)

The literature on thought experiments has been mainly concernedwith thought experiments that are directed at a theory, be it in aconstructive or a destructive manner. This has led somephilosophers to argue that all thought experiments can beformulated as arguments. The aim of this paper is to drawattention to a type of thought experiment that is not directed ata theory, but fulfills a specific function within a theory. Suchthought experiments are referred to as functional thoughtexperiments, and they are routinely used in (...) applied statistics. An example is given from frequentist statistics, where a thoughtexperiment is required to establish the probability space. It isconcluded that (a) not all thought experiments can be formulated asarguments, and (b) the role of thought experiments is more generaland more important to scientific reasoning than has previouslybeen recognized. (shrink)

This paper defends the idea that there might be vagueness or indeterminacy in the world itself--as opposed to merely in our representations of the world--against the charges of incoherence and unintelligibility. First we consider the idea that the world might contain vague properties and relations ; we show that this idea is already implied by certain well-understood views concerning the semantics of vague predicates (most notably the fuzzy view). Next we consider the idea that the world might contain vague objects (...) ; we argue that an object is indeterminate in a certain respect (colour, size, etc.) just in case it is a borderline case of a maximally specific colour (size, etc.) property. Finally we consider the idea that the world as a whole might be indeterminate; we argue that the world is indeterminate just in case it lacks a determinate division into determinate objects. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Ethical Issues in Social Research. Edited by Tom L. Beauchamp, Ruth R. Faden, R. Jay Wallace, Jr., and LeRoy Walters. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982. xii + 436 pp. $25.00 (hardcover); $8.95 (paper). Ethics of Human Subject Research. Edited by Allan J. Kimmel, Jr. San Francisco: Jossey‐Bass, 1981. 106 pp. $6.95 (paper). Social Research Ethics. Edited by Martin Bulmer. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1982. xiv + 284 pp. $39.50 (hardcover); $14.50 (paper). The (...) Ethics of Social Research: Field‐work, Regulation and Publication. Edited by Joan E. Sieber. New York: Springer‐Verlag, 1982. x + 187 pp. $23.50 (hardcover). The Ethics of Social Research: Surveys and Experiments. Edited by Joan E. Sieber. New York: Springer‐Verlag, 1982. xii + 249 pp. $23.50 (hardcover). (shrink)

Setting the two hypotheses of complete neglect and full use of base rates against each other is inappropriate. The proper question concerns the degree to which base rates are used (or neglected), and under what conditions. We outline alternative approaches and recommend regression analysis. Koehler's conclusion that we have been oversold on the base rate fallacy seems to be premature.

This paper defends the idea that there might be vagueness or indeterminacy in the world itself---as opposed to merely in our representations of the world---against the charges of incoherence and unintelligibility. First we consider the idea that the world might contain vague *properties and relations*; we show that this idea is already implied by certain well-understood views concerning the semantics of vague predicates (most notably the fuzzy view). Next we consider the idea that the world might contain vague *objects*; we (...) argue that an object is indeterminate in a certain respect (colour, size, etc.) just in case it is a borderline case of a maximally specific colour (size, etc.) property. Finally we consider the idea that the *world as a whole* might be indeterminate; we argue that the world is indeterminate just in case it lacks a determinate division into determinate objects. (shrink)

This paper defends the idea that there might be vagueness or indeterminacy in the world itself---as opposed to merely in our representations of the world---against the charges of incoherence and unintelligibility. First we consider the idea that the world might contain vague *properties and relations*; we show that this idea is already implied by certain well-understood views concerning the semantics of vague predicates (most notably the fuzzy view). Next we consider the idea that the world might contain vague *objects*; we (...) argue that an object is indeterminate in a certain respect (colour, size, etc.) just in case it is a borderline case of a maximally specific colour (size, etc.) property. Finally we consider the idea that the *world as a whole* might be indeterminate; we argue that the world is indeterminate just in case it lacks a determinate division into determinate objects. (shrink)

Change blindness illustrates a remarkable limitation in visual processing by demonstrating that substantial changes in a visual scene can go undetected. Because these changes can ultimately be detected using top–down driven search processes, many theories assign a central role to spatial attention in overcoming change blindness. Surprisingly, it has been reported that change blindness can occur during blink-contingent changes even when observers fixate the changing location [O’Regan, J. K., Deubel, H., Clark, J. J., & Rensink, R. A. . Picture changes (...) during blinks: Looking without seeing and seeing without looking. Visual Cognition, 7, 191–212]. However, eye blinks produce a transient disruption of vision that is independent of any associated changes in the retinal image. We determined whether these ‘attentive blank stares’ could occur in the absence of blink-mediated visual suppression. Using a flicker change-blindness paradigm we confirm that despite direct attentive fixations, obvious scene changes often remain undetected. We conclude that change detection involves object or feature based attentional mechanisms, which can be ‘misdirected’ despite the allocation of spatial attention to the position of the change. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Ethical Issues in Social Research. Edited by Tom L. Beauchamp, Ruth R. Faden, R. Jay Wallace, Jr., and LeRoy Walters. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982. xii + 436 pp. $25.00 (hardcover); $8.95 (paper). Ethics of Human Subject Research. Edited by Allan J. Kimmel, Jr. San Francisco: Jossey‐Bass, 1981. 106 pp. $6.95 (paper). Social Research Ethics. Edited by Martin Bulmer. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1982. xiv + 284 pp. $39.50 (hardcover); $14.50 (paper). The (...) Ethics of Social Research: Field‐work, Regulation and Publication. Edited by Joan E. Sieber. New York: Springer‐Verlag, 1982. x + 187 pp. $23.50 (hardcover). The Ethics of Social Research: Surveys and Experiments. Edited by Joan E. Sieber. New York: Springer‐Verlag, 1982. xii + 249 pp. $23.50 (hardcover). (shrink)

Title: BerkeleyPublisher: Oxford University PressISBN: 0192875469Author: J.O. UrmsonTitle: KantPublisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0192801996Author: Roger Scruton.

Title: BerkeleyPublisher: Oxford University PressISBN: 0192875469Author: J.O. UrmsonTitle: KantPublisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0192801996Author: Roger Scruton.

Two theses figure centrally in work on the epistemology of disagreement: Equal Weight (‘EW’) and Uniqueness (‘U’). According to EW, you should give precisely as much weight to the attitude of a disagreeing epistemic peer as you give to your own attitude. U has it that, for any given proposition and total body of evidence, some doxastic attitude is the one the evidence makes rational (justifies) toward that proposition. Although EW has received considerable discussion, the case for U has not (...) been critically evaluated. Endorsing U, we argue, commits one to the highly controversial thesis that whatever fixes your rational attitudes can do so only by fixing what evidence you have. This commitment imposes a relatively demanding requirement on justified belief in U, one that we argue is not satisfied by what is currently the strongest available case for U, due to Roger White [2005]. Our challenge to U makes more trouble for its proponents than do the worries about U expressed by Gideon Rosen [2001] and Thomas Kelly [2010]. Moreover, if Kelly [2010] is correct in thinking that EW “carries with it a commitment to” U—a claim which we accept for reasons similar to Kelly’s but is beyond this paper’s scope (but see Ballantyne and Coffman [forthcoming])—then our challenge to U bears importantly on EW: to the extent that our challenge to U succeeds, EW also suffers. (shrink)

Professor Gideon Yaffe’s recent, intricately argued book, The Age of Culpability: Children and the Nature of Criminal Responsibility, argues against the nearly uniform position in both law and scholarship that the criminal justice system should give juveniles a break because on average they have different capacities relevant to responsibility than adults. Professor Yaffe instead argues that kid should be given a break because juveniles have little say about the criminal law, primarily because they do not have a vote. For (...) Professor Yaffe, age has political rather than behavioral significance. The book has many excellent general analyses about responsibility, but all are in aid of the central thesis about juveniles, which is the central focus of this essay review. After addressing a few preliminary issues, the essay discusses Professor Yaffe’s negative argument against the validity of the behavioral difference rationale for giving juveniles a break. If the negative case fails, which the essay argues it does, then the only issue is whether the book’s alternative is desirable. Again, the essay argues that it is not, and concludes by offering three positive arguments for the traditional rationale: coherence and simplicity; a benignly definitional argument that survives the negative argument and supports giving juveniles a break in the exceedingly unlikely event that the empirical assumptions of the traditional rationale are proven incorrect; and a proposal for individualization of the culpability assessments of juveniles so that the criminal justice system blames and punishes them proportionately to their culpability. (shrink)

Manifest Activity presents and critically examines the model of human power, the will, our capacities for purposeful conduct, and the place of our agency in the natural world of one of the most important and traditionally under-appreciated philosophers of the 18th century: Thomas Reid. For Reid, contrary to the view of many of his predecessors, it is simply manifest that we are active with respect to our behaviours; it is manifest, he thinks, that our actions are not merely remote products (...) of forces that lie outside of our control. Reid holds, instead, that actions are all and only those events that spring from active power and he produces insightful and imaginative arguments for the claim that only a creature with a mind is capable of having active power. He believes that only human beings, and creatures 'above us', are capable of directing events towards ends, of endowing them with purpose or direction, the distinctive feature of action. However, he also holds that all events, and not merely human actions, are products of active power, power possessed either by human beings or by God. This collection of theses leads Reid to the view that human behaviour and the progress of nature are both essentially teleological. Patterns in nature are the products of laws of which God is the author; patterns in human conduct are the products of character and the laws that individuals set for themselves. Manifest Activity examines Reid's arguments for this view and the view's implications for the nature of character, motivation and the special kind of causation involved in the production of human behavior. (shrink)

Criminal defendants cannot be punished unless found guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt”. Under probabilistic accounts, this means that the probability of guilt given the evidence is above a certain numerical threshold, such as 0.9. Under psychological accounts, by contrast, what is essential is that a factfinder reaches a certain psychological attitude toward guilt, such as certainty or unwavering belief, when contemplating the evidence. An adequate account should provide a normative explanation for why guilt BARD warrants punishment. Psychological accounts are more (...) likely to meet this challenge than probabilistic, it is argued. The permissibility of punishment is likely to be relative to the cognitive attitudes of the punisher, but not to the conditional probability of guilt in light of the evidence. (shrink)

Region R Question: How many objects — entities, things — are contained in R? Ignore the empty space. Our question might better be put, 'How many material objects does R contain?' Let's stipulate that A, B and C are metaphysical atoms: absolutely simple entities with no parts whatsoever besides themselves. So you don't have to worry about counting a particle's top half and bottom half as different objects. Perhaps they are 'point-particles', with no length, width or breadth. Perhaps they are (...) extended in space without possessing spatial parts (if that is possible). Never mind. We stipulate that A, B and C are perfectly simple. We also stipulate that they are connected as follows. A and B are stuck together in such a way that when a force is applied to one of them, they move together 'as a unit'. Moreover, the two of them together exhibit behavior that neither would exhibit on its own — Perhaps they emit a certain sound, or glow in the dark — whereas C is.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume and Tetens Manfred Kuehn Kant was neither the only nor even the first German philosopher who publicly responded to Hume. Indeed, there were many. But there were none who came as close to appreciatingHume as didJohann Nicolaus Tetens, who, in his two main works, the Über die allgemeine speculativische Philosophie or On General Speculative Philosophy (1775), and the Philosophische Versuche über die menschliche Natur und ihre Entwicklung or (...) Philosophical Essays on Human Nature and itsDevelopment (1?7), not only argued that Hume was a philosophical force to be reckoned with, but also seemed to think that philosophical progress wasimpossiblewithoutan extensionandfurtherdevelopment ofHumean views. This alone would make him an interesting figure in the history of the reception of Hume's philosophy, but, since Tetens is one ofthe most important representatives ofempiricism in eighteenthcentury Germany, and since he put forward ideas that demonstrably influenced Kant, he is perhaps still more interesting. In any case, it is most regrettable that he still is so little studied in Germany today, and that he is almost completely unknown in English-speaking countries. Though Lewis White Beck has offered an interesting discussion of Tetens' critique ofHume in his book on Early German Philosophy, and though some Anglo-American Kant scholars are somewhat aware of Tetens' influence upon Kant, his name is almost never mentioned by philosophical scholars concerned with Hume. If this paper were to remind them of Tetens and his possible importance for the discussion ofissues raised by Hume, I would be very happy. Nevertheless, I must admit to an ulterior motive, for I am not interested in the relationship ofTetens and Hume per se, but rather in how Tetens' discussion ofHume might have influenced Kant's conception of "Hume's problem." My question is: "What could Kant have learned from Tetens about Hume in 1777, that is, about four years before the publication of his Critique ofPure Reason?" To this end, I shall first briefly review the evidence for Kant's study of Tetens; secondly say something about Tetens' discussion of the self; thirdly sketch his theory ofthe causal principle as a special case ofhis laws of association; fourthly represent an important part of his theory of objectiveornecessarytruth; andfinallytryto showhowall ofthismight be significant for our understanding of the development of Kant's position vis a vis Hume. Volume XV Number 2 365 MANFRED KUEHN IL Johann Georg Hamann, always interestedinliterarygossip and always ready to spread it, wrote to Johann Gottfried Herder on May 12, 1779 that Kant was writing on his Critique, and that he had "always open on his desk" Tetens' work. Two years earlier, on October 12, 1777, he had already told him that Kant was "said to be very full of... Tetens." Hamann, mischievous as he could be, not only wanted to bring Kant's former student up to date on the work of his teacher, but clearly also made a comment on Kant's originality. But there are other indications that Kant carefully studied Tetens between 1777 and 1781. Thus, Kant's correspondence with Herz in 1778 contains references to Tetens as having said things of importance, and his reflections of the period also mention him. One ofthe most telling indications ofhis rather close reading ofTetens is to be found in one ofhis letters to the publisher of his first Critique: On October 15, 1780 he writes to him that he would prefer not to have the book set in the type of Tetens' Essays because the latter is "really tiring" to his eyes. That Tetens' work did not only tire his eyes, but also stimulated his thoughts can be seen from one of his preparatory manuscripts to his Prolegomena of 1783, for there Kant suggested that Tetens could have given people occasion to think about the very problem of the Critique. Though he considered Tetens' attempt concerning the possibility of a priori knowledge as failed, he also viewed it as one of the most important attempts in that direction.??. It is well known that Kant himselfclaimed that "Hume's problem" was what first woke him from his dogmatic slumber. Though there is no similar pronouncement by Tetens, it is clear that he not only knew Hume well, but... (shrink)

Underlying Giorgio Agamben’s and Alain Badiou’s disagreement over the apostle Paul we find common cause: following Paul’s deactivation of law, both Agamben and Badiou see the fixed identities necessary to the naturalised nomos of State politics as transfigured by a politics of grace. This transfiguration is differently rendered as either the emergence of a universal subject or the opening up of existing subjectivities, but both the messianic vocation in Agamben and the universal subject in Badiou allow subjective possibility to that (...) which is not in the present objectified order. Developing this theme of a basic emancipatory affinity, two moments of the political which exist in a difficult but necessary tension are identified: revolution and dissent. While revolution signals subjective possibility itself by determining that the truth of the event is for all, dissidence keeps that possibility alive by pointing to the human subject’s fundamental indeterminacy. (shrink)

1. At its core, education is characterized by a preoccupation with the future. Despite the notable lack of agreement concerning the aims of education (e.g., social mobility, personal development, w...

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

Ned Block argues that the higher-order (HO) approach to explaining consciousness is ‘defunct’ because a prominent objection (the ‘misrepresentation objection’) exposes the view as ‘incoherent’. What’s more, a response to this objection that I’ve offered elsewhere (Weisberg 2010) fails because it ‘amounts to abusing the notion of what-it’s-like-ness’ (xxx).1 In this response, I wish to plead guilty as charged. Indeed, I will continue herein to abuse Block’s notion of what-it’s-like-ness. After doing so, I will argue that the HO approach accounts (...) for the sense of what-it’s-like-ness that matters in a theory of consciousness. I will also argue that the only incoherence present in the HO theory is that generated by embracing Block’s controversial notion of what-it’s-like-ness, something no theorist of any stripe ought to do. Block is famous for (among other things) having introduced the notion of ‘phenomenal consciousness’ into contemporary philosophy of mind (Block 1995). This term is widely employed in the philosophical literature and it even appears in the empirical literature. But wide-speared usage has brought about divergent interpretations of the term. We can distinguish a ‘moderate’ and a ‘zealous’ reading of ‘phenomenal consciousness’. On the moderate reading, ‘phenomenal consciousness’ just means ‘experience’. Many people have embraced this sense of the term and use it to roughly pick out conscious experience involving sensory quality (states like conscious visual experiences or conscious pains, for example).2 On the zealous reading, however, phenomenal consciousness is held to be ‘distinct from any cognitive, intentional, or functional property’ (Block 1995: 234). That is, any explanation of phenomenal consciousness in exclusively cognitive, intentional, or functional terms will fail to capture, without remainder, what is really distinctive about phenomenal consciousness. Block, of course, is fully clear about embracing the zealous reading; indeed, his initial introduction of the notion is in those terms. The same ambiguity occurs with the much-used (and abused) idea of ‘what-it’s-like-ness’.. (shrink)

Metaphysicians of Meaning is the first book to challenge the accepted understanding of Russell's On Denoting and Frege's On Sense and Reference . Makin compares the work Russell did shortly before his famous essay "On Denoting" with the essay itself and argues that this comparison shows that the traditional view of the problem Russell was trying to solve is untenable. He then examines Frege's classic essay and argues that some of the less well-known views that Frege held have radical implications (...) for our understanding of this essay. (shrink)

In what follows I try to show that Spinoza modelled his project of rational psychology, in some of its major respects, upon Descartes's metaphysics of matter. I argue further that, like Descartes, who paid for the rationalization of the science of matter the price of having to leave out of his description non-quantifiable qualities, so Spinoza left out of his psychology the non-rationalizable aspects of emotions, i.e. whatever in them could not be subsumed under common notions. He therefore was left (...) with the cognitive aspects of emotions, keeping outside of his report the inner feeling which accompanies them. Spinoza's psychology, I claim, disregards any non-cognitive aspect of emotions. (shrink)

On October 27, 1991, a Jewish woman named Rachel Drouk, a settler in the West Bank, was killed by Palestinian Intifada fighters. Twenty-five women spontaneously gathered at the site of the murder and held a vigil—a vigil that eventually developed into a protest settlement. The women, all of whom were married mothers, presented their initiative in maternal narratives: grounds, motives, and justifications for the act, and targets and anticipations were all related to the practice of care. This article conducts an (...) artificial dialogue between the women's discourse and Ruddick's theory of maternal thinking, enabling deconstruction of the former and a critique of the theory of care. (shrink)