Reasoning about situations we take to be impossible is useful for a variety of theoretical purposes. Furthermore, using a device of impossible worlds when reasoning about the impossible is useful in the same sorts of ways that the device of possible worlds is useful when reasoning about the possible. This paper discusses some of the uses of impossible worlds and argues that commitment to them can and should be had without great metaphysical or logical cost. The paper then provides an (...) account of reasoning with impossible worlds, by treating such reasoning as reasoning employing counterpossible conditionals, and provides a semantics for the proposed treatment. (shrink)

Possible worlds have found many applications in contemporary philosophy: from theories of possibility and necessity, to accounts of conditionals, to theories of mental and linguistic content, to understanding supervenience relationships, to theories of properties and propositions, among many other applications. Almost as soon as possible worlds started to be used in formal theories in logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and elsewhere, theorists started to wonder whether impossible worlds should be postulated as well. In many applications, possible worlds (...) face limitations that can be dealt with through postulating impossible worlds as well. This chapter examines some of the uses of impossible worlds, and philosophical challenges theories of impossible worlds face. (shrink)

It is almost universally believed that some infinite regresses are vicious, and also almost universally believed that some are benign. In this paper I argue that regresses can be vicious for several different sorts of reasons. Furthermore, I claim that some intuitively vicious regresses do not suffer from any of the particular aetiologies that guarantee viciousness to regresses, but are nevertheless so on the basis of considerations of parsimony. The difference between some apparently benign and some apparently vicious regresses, then, (...) turns out to be a matter of a more general assessment of costs and benefits, making viciousness of regresses in some cases less of a local matter than is usually thought. (shrink)

Moral fictionalism is the doctrine that the moral claims we accept should be treated as convenient fictions. One standard kind of moral fictionalism maintains that many of the moral claims we ordinarily accept are in fact false, but these claims are still useful to produce and accept, despite this falsehood. -/- Moral fictionalists claim they can recover many of the benefits of the use of moral concepts and moral language, without the theoretical costs incurred by rivals such as moral realism (...) or traditional moral noncognitivism. These benefits might include social benefits, like being able to resolve conflict peacefully, or psychological benefits for individuals, like resisting temptations that would be harmful. (shrink)

This encylopedia entry describes the "Canberra Plan" approach to conceptual analysis, a method closely related to the Ramsey-Carnap-Lewis approach to analysing the meaning of theoretical terms.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Christ's Human Nature and the Cry from the Cross:St. Thomas Aquinas on Psalm 22:2Philip Nolan O.P.Christ's cry from the Cross quoting Psalm 22 (Mark 15:34; Matt 27:46) has become a central focus for contemporary Christological debates.1 A number of modern thinkers have read this verse as expressing in Christ an experience of dereliction incompatible with traditional positions concerning divine impassibility Christ's beatific knowledge, and Trinitarian relations.2 Thomas Joseph (...) White has recently offered an insightful Thomistic critique of these interpretations: [End Page 1219]The final cry of Christ on the cross cannot be interpreted as a cry of either despair or of spiritual separation from God. By contrast, it must be understood theologically as a prayer of desire related to Christ's abandonment to the Father and his hope to introduce humanity into the eschatological gift of redemption.3In his work, White is concerned to engage with modern Christological themes using principles derived from the Thomistic tradition. For this reason, he articulates a rather original alternative to modern theologies of dereliction—especially those marked by divine kenoticism and Luther's theology of the Cross. In offering a view inspired by Thomistic principles, White presents his own creative retrieval of Aquinas's ideas concerning the cry from the Cross.At times, however, White's argument leaves somewhat obscure the literal meaning of the words of that cry: "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?"4 For example, in pushing back against radical interpretations [End Page 1220] of dereliction, he shifts the language of "abandonment" from God's abandonment of Christ to Christ's abandonment to the Father. My argument in this article is that the textual commentaries on Psalm 225 by Augustine and Aquinas—material that White does not consider specifically—can provide an alternate and somewhat complementary Thomistic approach to the one White proposes, and one more soundly based on Aquinas's texts themselves.6 Christ's cry is a quote from this psalm, and Aquinas's commentary on Ps 22:27 develops the Augustinian interpretation of this verse in order to give greater emphasis to Christ's human nature. This emphasis helps to explain, in a classical way, what it can mean that Christ is abandoned. Thus, Aquinas's exegesis bolsters the orthodox response to contemporary revisionist theologians by providing a clear literal understanding of this contested biblical passage without applying an experience of damnation to Christ or denying classical positions concerning divine impassibility, Christ's beatific knowledge, and the nature of Trinitarian relations.To make this argument, I will first look at the rich tradition of reflection on the Christological meaning of the Psalms, and Psalm 22 in particular, inherited by Thomas. This tradition includes a series of psalm commentaries, conciliar documents, and a variety of other theological works. In this tradition, I argue, we see two primary interpretative approaches. The first is what I will call the Augustinian approach, which insists that Christ is speaking on the Cross for sinners and in the voice of sinners. The second interpretation places more weight on Christ's own voice and insists that he is speaking in a real way for himself—Christ in some way truly is abandoned by God. These interpretations need not and should not be read as contradictory. In fact, all the authorities I examine insist on the first approach. Differences emerge, however, in how they coordinate the latter interpretation with the former. I will discuss Thomas's synthesis of these interpretations, a synthesis that he grounds in the reality of Christ's human nature. Finally, I will suggest [End Page 1221] how a close reading of Thomas's mature treatment of Ps 22:2 supplements contemporary Thomist responses to modern Christological concerns and misguided interpretations of Christ's cry on the Cross.Thomas's Sources for Reading Psalm 22:2Thomas's primary source for understanding Ps 22:2 is Scripture itself Both Mark and Matthew report that Christ spoke the words of this psalm from the Cross, a fact which necessitates for Thomas a Christological interpretation of the psalm.8 Augustine links Ps 22:2 with passages in... (shrink)

A controversy over the pudgala or “person” raged among Indian Buddhists for more than a millennium. Their polemics were at least as much a matter of canonical exegesis as of reasoning and argument, for the “mainstream” Buddhist doctors had to account for—and explain away—the numerous places in scripture where the Buddha speaks of the “person.” The Bhārahārasūtra or “sūtra on the bearer of the burden” was one of the scriptures most frequently quoted and discussed in this connection. The present paper (...) is aimed at presenting a reconstructed Sanskrit version of this sūtra and providing an overview of the doctrinal and argumentative uses that were made of it in the context of the debates about the status of the “person.”. (shrink)

As is well known, Aristotelian natural philosophy, and many other systems of natural philosophy since, have relied heavily on teleology and teleological causation. Somehow, the purpose or end of an obj ect can be used to predict and explain what that object does: once you know that the end of an acorn is to become an oak, and a few things about what sorts of circumstances are conducive to the attainment of this end, you can predict a lot about the (...) sprouting of the acorn and the subsequent behaviour of the piece of vegetation that results. Once you know that a rock seeks to move towards the centre of the Earth, you gain some insight into why it falls when released, and why it deforms the carpet or foot that it lands on. Once you know that the rabbit seeks to preserve itself, you can predict it will run from the fox. And so on. There are at least three features of Aristotle’s teleology, and more generally of an Aristotelian frame of mind about teleology, that may induce suspicion. One is that an end can serve as a "cause": as well as the sort of causation we all recognize, efficient causation, there are other forms, one of which is teleological causation. However, this can look less odd if we think of causes as things that figure in "because" answers to "why" questions. Whether or not self-preservation, or the rabbit’s continued existence, or something similar, causes the rabbit to run, the reply "because it seeks to continue in existence" certainly makes sense as an answer, or part of an answer, to a question about why it ran from the fox. (At present we are only. (shrink)

Theories of quantum gravity generically presuppose or predict that the reality underlying relativistic spacetimes they are describing is significantly non-spatiotemporal. On pain of empirical incoherence, approaches to quantum gravity must establish how relativistic spacetime emerges from their non-spatiotemporal structures. We argue that in order to secure this emergence, it is sufficient to establish that only those features of relativistic spacetimes functionally relevant in producing empirical evidence must be recovered. In order to complete this task, an account must be given of (...) how the more fundamental structures instantiate these functional roles. We illustrate the general idea in the context of causal set theory and loop quantum gravity, two prominent approaches to quantum gravity. (shrink)

An overview of hyperintensionality is provided. Hyperintensional languages have expressions with meanings that are more fine-grained than necessary equivalence. That is, the expressions may necessarily co-apply and yet be distinct in meaning. Adequately accounting for theories cast in hyperintensional languages is important in the philosophy of language; the philosophy of mind; metaphysics; and elsewhere. This entry presents a number of areas in which hyperintensionality is important; a range of approaches to theorising about hyperintensional matters; and a range of debates that (...) attention to hyperintensional constructions has generated. (shrink)

The point of departure of this article is the trend towards hybridisation in new technology development, which makes classical dichotomies between machines, human life and the environment obsolete and leads to the post-human world we live in today. We critically reflect on the post-human concept of the hybrid world. Although we agree with post-humanists that human life can no longer be opposed to machines but appears as a decentralized human-technology relation, alliance or network that constitutes a hybrid world, we ask (...) for a limit to hybridisation. After rejecting the concept of metabolism as such a limit, we explore the concept of the responsive conativity of material entities. The principle of conativity of material entities provides a materialist perspective on metabolism, which enables us to conceive material entities as self-assertive material entities that are differentiated from the environment. The principle of responsivity of material entities provides a materialist perspective on the post-human world in which material entities are responsive to each other and form alliances and networks. We propose to differentiate between the conativity and responsivity of material entities and propose the conativity of matter as a limit to hybridisation in the post-human world. (shrink)

The reformed tradition on moral virtue -- Barth's objections -- Objections overcome -- The shape of reformed virtue after Barth -- Living out the reformed virtues.

Liberals agree that free speech should be protected, where speech is understood broadly to include all forms of intentional communication, including actions and pictures, not merely the spoken or written word. A surprising view about free speech in some liberal and legal circles is that communications should be protected on free-speech grounds only if the communications are mentally mediated. By “mentally mediated communication” we mean speech which communicates its message in such a way that the message can be rationally evaluated (...) by hearers, and causes the hearers to believe it, when it does, through the mechanism of those hearers employing their rational capacity to judge that it is correct. The mental-mediation or persuasion principle, as it is sometimes called, has some important legal and public policy implications. It has been applied to argue that certain forms of expression, despite being forms of speech or expression, lack even a prima facie claim to protection on free speech grounds. -/- Our central aim is to show why the mental mediation principle is mistaken. Liberals should think that some speech which is not mentally mediated deserves protection for the very same reasons that speech which is mentally mediated is often thought to deserve protection. (shrink)

The cognition and information theoretic sciences have now been in existence for the better part of a century. In that time, their varied disciplines have undergone extensive maturation, honing their methods, constitutions, and evaluation techniques in the pursuit of academic rigor, while not losing sight of the practical influences that have served as their almost universal cornerstone. Meanwhile, this period has also been marked by increasing disparity and gradual distancing of the philosophical underpinnings upon which each field is founded, adding (...) strain to interdisciplinary collaborative efforts. This article presents an overview of select information-science-related cognition disciplines, and shows how the nascent Philosophy of Information can be adopted as a means of unifying these philosophical foundations in an empirically sound manner, without sacrificing general applicability. In addition, it demonstrates how PI is already rooted in the philosophies or epistemological views of several of the cognition disciplines, implicitly or otherwise. (shrink)

RULE or restricted utilitarianism is frequently propounded and just as frequently criticized in the literature. Its various refinements initially involve conceptual adjustments such as clarifying the logical relations between some stateable rule of utility and other moral rules or the specification of a criterion for ranking rules in case of conflict and so forth. It soon becomes clear, comparatively speaking, that a cluster of problems involving justice, personal rights and the denotation of ‘intrinsic good’ cannot be resolved without extending rule (...) utilitarianism as a theory of right conduct and justification; thus the origin of the appellation ‘extended’ rule utilitarianism. In this paper I shall: render an interpreted model of rule utilitarianism that possesses all the logical features of alternative interpretations. Describe a style of argument for extending rule utilitarianism to incorporate a rule of distribution. Such an extension preserves the consistency of rule utilitarianism. Describe a second style of argument for extending rule utilitarianism to incorporate a rule of distribution. Such an extension does not preserve the consistency of rule utilitarianism. (shrink)

Most Plato scholarship characterizes Socrates's dialectic as cooperative, reciprocal, and open ended. This orthodoxy echoes Socrates's characterizations of it, but the dialectic's dramatizations rarely confirm it. Commentators recognizing this seek to protect the dialectic's image by maligning Socrates's interlocutors. Francisco Gonzalez's description of the Protagoras's “central crisis” exemplifies this approach. When a dispute over how to conduct the discussion threatens its dissolution, Gonzalez blames Protagoras, claiming that relativism forecloses conversation and community. I argue that Gonzalez elides alternative forms of community (...) supported by other discursive practices and that Socrates's refusal to answer legitimate concerns about his methodological demands turns the dialectic into the “external, nondialogical, absolute standard” Gonzalez says it lacks. (shrink)

A lot of good philosophy is done in the armchair, but is nevertheless a posteriori. This paper clarifies and then defends that claim. Among the a posteriori activities done in the armchair are assembling and evaluating commonplaces; formulating theoretical alternatives; and integrating well-known past a posteriori discoveries. The activity that receives the most discussion, however, is the application of theoretical virtues to choose philosophical theories: the paper argues that much of this is properly seen as a posteriori.

Despite its growing use over past decades, there has been relatively little public or scholarly discussion of life sentences that deny the possibility of parole. This essay outlines the labyrinthine legal and political developments that have rendered life imprisonment difficult to address—including the intertwined histories of the death penalty and civil death—and draws upon the life writing of those serving life to theorize a more distinct understanding of this punishment. Witnesses reveal how the possibility of life despite the impossibility of (...) parole punishes by subverting the goals of human growth and development. The potentiality of what can be done in the present grinds up against the futility of what could have been done and what could be done were release an option. Considered alongside the laws and court opinions and claims that characterize its convoluted development, these testimonies reveal this punishment’s role in the American imagination. Life without the possibility of parole reinforces and relies upon a vision that not simply some people are unable to change, but that anyone in a democracy—no matter their position—is some steps away from irretrievable exclusion. Permanent confinement denies a restorative vision of democracy: any effort to abolish or amend it must include the voices of those imprisoned. (shrink)

In prior work, we have argued that spacetime functionalism provides tools for clarifying the conceptual difficulties specifically linked to the emergence of spacetime in certain approaches to quantum gravity. We argue in this article that spacetime functionalism in quantum gravity is radically different from other functionalist approaches that have been suggested in quantum mechanics and general relativity: in contrast to these latter cases, it does not compete with purely interpretative alternatives, but is rather intertwined with the physical theorizing itself at (...) the level of quantum gravity. Spacetime functionalism allows one to articulate a coherent realist perspective in the context of quantum gravity, and to relate it to a straightforward realist understanding of general relativity. (shrink)

In prior work, we have argued that spacetime functionalism provides tools for clarifying the conceptual difficulties specifically linked to the emergence of spacetime in certain approaches to quantum gravity. We argue in this article that spacetime functionalism in quantum gravity is radically different from other functionalist approaches that have been suggested in quantum mechanics and general relativity: in contrast to these latter cases, it does not compete with purely interpretative alternatives, but is rather intertwined with the physical theorizing itself at (...) the level of quantum gravity. Spacetime functionalism allows one to articulate a coherent realist perspective in the context of quantum gravity, and to relate it to a straightforward realist understanding of general relativity. (shrink)

Abstract There are at least eight good reasons practicing historians should concern themselves with counterfactual claims. Furthermore, four of these reasons do not even require that we are able to tell which historical counterfactuals are true and which are false. This paper defends the claim that these reasons to be concerned with counterfactuals are good ones, and discusses how each can contribute to the practice of history. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-19 DOI 10.1007/s11098-011-9817-z Authors Daniel Nolan, School of (...) Philosophy, Australian National University, 0200 Canberra, Australia Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116. (shrink)

A lot of philosophers engage in debates about what claims are “metaphysically necessary”, and a lot more assume with little argument that some classes of claims have the status of “metaphysical necessity”. I think we can usefully replace questions about metaphysical necessity with five other questions which each capture some of what people may have had in mind when talking about metaphysical necessity. This paper explains these five other questions, and then discusses the question “how much of metaphysics is metaphysically (...) necessary?”, and each of its five replacements. (shrink)

Radical ontic structural realism (ROSR) asserts an ontological commitment to ‘free-standing’ physical structures understood solely in terms of fundamental relations, without any recourse to relata that stand in these relations. Bain ([2013], pp.1621–35) has recently defended ROSR against the common charge of incoherence by arguing that a reformulation of fundamental physical theories in category-theoretic terms (rather than the usual set-theoretic ones) offers a coherent and precise articulation of the commitments accepted by ROSR. In this essay, we argue that category theory (...) does not offer a more hospitable environment to ROSR than set theory. We also show that the application of category-theoretic tools to topological quantum field theory and to algebraic generalizations of general relativity do not warrant the claim that these theories describe ‘object-free’ structures. We conclude that category theory offers little if any comfort to ROSR. 1 Introduction: Ridding Structures of Objects2 The Set-theoretic Peril for Radical Ontic Structural Realism3 Bain’s Categorial Strategy to Save Radical Ontic Structural Realism4 Throwing out the Relations with the Relata5 Categorial and Set-theoretical Structures6 Radical Suggestions from Topological Quantum Field Theory?7 Sheaves of Einstein Algebras as Radical Structures?8 Conclusions. (shrink)

What political problem can autobiography solve? This article examines the politics of Frederick Douglass’s antebellum personal narratives: his 1845 slave narrative, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, and his 1855 autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom, written at the opposite ends of Douglass’s transition from the abolitionist politics of William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips to Douglass’s defense of political action and the Constitution as anti-slavery. Placing the two texts alongside Douglass’s distinction “to narrate wrongs” (...) and “denouncing them,” I argue that Douglass writes My Bondage and My Freedom as a mode of denunciation: an autobiographical critique of injustice that balances analysis of collective oppression with advocacy for communal emancipation. Whereas to narrate wrongs encouraged readers to judge Douglass’s story alongside popular criteria of justice, to denounce wrongs is to implicate readers within the structures that create antebellum subjects on and off the plantation, by revealing the coercions and conditionings of society that make not simply slaves but slaveowners, sympathizers, and abolitionists. This article claims that autobiography is a distinct genre of political theory, one that challenges present relations between the individual and the collective by representing not simply its author but an expanded view of “the people.”. (shrink)

Are there dispositions which not only do not manifest, but which could not manifest? We argue that there are dispositions to Ф in circumstances C where C is impossible, and some where Ф is impossible. Furthermore, postulating these dispositions does useful theoretical work. This paper describes a number of cases of dispositions had by objects even though those dispositions are not possibly manifest, and argues for the importance of these dispositions.