Are words like ‘woman’ or ‘man’ sex terms that we use to talk about biological features of individuals? Are they gender terms that we use to talk about non-biological features e.g. social roles? Contextualists answer both questions affirmatively, arguing that these terms concern biological or non-biological features depending on context. I argue that a recent version of contextualism from Jennifer Saul that Esa Diaz-Leon develops doesn't exhibit the right kind of flexibility to capture our theoretical intuitions or moral and political (...) practices concerning our uses of these words. I then float the view that terms like 'woman' or 'man' are polysemous, arguing that it makes better sense of the significance of some forms of criticisms of mainstream gender ideology. (shrink)

Upon doing something generous for someone with whom you are close, some kind of reciprocity may be appropriate. But it often seems wrong to actually request reciprocity. This chapter explores the wrongness in making these requests, and why they can nevertheless appear appropriate. After considering several explanations for the wrongness at issue (involving, e.g. distinguishing oughts from obligation, the suberogatory, imperfect duties, and gift-giving norms), a novel proposal is advanced. The requests are disrespectful; they express that their agent insufficiently trusts (...) the hearer to recognize their own reasons to reciprocate, and the close relationship between them morally requires this kind of trust. This proposal is articulated and situated in the recent discussion of the normativity of requests. The chapter concludes by explaining how these requests may appear appropriate. Agents in these relationships often have standing to make requests, though the standing is lacking in these particular cases. (shrink)

A critical survey of various positions on the nature, use, possession, and analysis of normative concepts. We frame our treatment around G.E. Moore’s Open Question Argument, and the ways metaethicists have responded by departing from a Classical Theory of concepts. In addition to the Classical Theory, we discuss synthetic naturalism, noncognitivism (expressivist and inferentialist), prototype theory, network theory, and empirical linguistic approaches. Although written for a general philosophical audience, we attempt to provide a new perspective and highlight some underappreciated problems (...) about normative concepts. (shrink)

Ethicists struggle to take reductive views seriously. They also have trouble conceiving of some supervenience failures. Understanding why provides further evidence for a kind of hybrid view of normative concept use.

On one way of talking about a traditional metaethical topic, realists accept that some items appear on the list of what exists in the moral or more broadly normative domain of inquiry. They then divide over whether those items are like what science and experience suggest that all other items on the list of what exists across all domains are like – naturalistic and secular. Reductive naturalists answer this further question affirmatively. Why don’t nonnaturalists? I explore the answer that it’s (...) because normative entities are “just too different” in the sense that they are countably different things. However, I argue that this answer rests on the subtle presupposition that the normative domain doesn’t also contain uncountable entities of the sort that analytic metaphysicians call “stuff”. Taking intuitions of difference seriously points the way to a novel form of metaethical reductive naturalism. The key is to identify the stuff that matters. (shrink)

Analytic Philosophy, Volume 63, Issue 1, Page 16-27, March 2022.

In Unbelievable Errors, Bart Streumer argues via elimination for a global error theory, according to which all normative judgments ascribe properties that do not exist. Streumer also argues that it is not possible to believe his view, which is a claim he uses in defending his view against several objections. I argue that reductivists and nonreductivists have compelling responses to Streumer's elimination argument – responses constituting strong reason to reject Streumer’s diagnosis of any alleged incredulity about his error theory.

Throughout his career, Derek Parfit made the bold suggestion, at various times under the heading of the "Normativity Objection," that anyone in possession of normative concepts is in a position to know, on the basis of their competence with such concepts alone, that reductive realism in ethics is not even possible. Despite the prominent role that the Normativity Objection plays in Parfit's non-reductive account of the nature of normativity, when the objection hasn't been ignored, it's been criticized and even derided. (...) We argue that the exclusively negative attention that the objection has received has been a mistake. On our reading, Parfit's Normativity Objection poses a serious threat to reductivism, as it exposes the uneasy relationship between our a priori knowledge of a range of distinctly normative truths and the typical package of semantic commitments that reductivists have embraced since the Kripkean revolution. (shrink)

What is sexual orientation? The contemporary consensus among philosophers is that it is a disposition. Unsurprisingly, recent debates about the metaphysics of sexual orientation are almost entirely intramural. Behavioral dispositionalists argue that sexual orientation is a disposition to behave sexually. Desire dispositionalists argue that it is a disposition to desire sexually. We argue that sexual orientation is not best understood in terms of dispositions to behave or dispositions to desire before arguing that dispositions tout court fail to illuminate sexual orientation. (...) We then introduce and defend the idea that sexual orientation is best understood in terms of categorical phenomenal properties of sexual arousal. (shrink)

Some rules seem more important than others. The moral rule to keep promises seems more important than the aesthetic rule not to wear brown with black or the pool rule not to scratch on the eight ball. A worrying number of metaethicists are increasingly tempted to explain this difference by appealing to something they call “authoritative normativity” – it’s because moral rules are “authoritatively normatively” that they are especially important. The authors of this chapter argue for three claims concerning “authoritative (...) normativity”: (1) that motivation for it originates in a parochial conception of “normative flavours”; (2) that arguments against alternative ways of explaining e.g., morality’s importance are overblown; and (3) that there are strong reasons against theorizing in terms of “authoritative normativity”. The overarching aim is not to show that “authoritative normativity” is incoherent or entirely unmotivated. Rather, it is to discuss some of “authoritative normativity’s” deeper commitments to correct the impression that is it largely benign or that it is entailed by familiar and popular “metanormative” positions. Authoritative normativity, it seems to us, is a solution in search of a problem. (shrink)

When asked which of our concepts are normative concepts, metaethicists would be quick to list such concepts as GOOD, OUGHT, and REASON. When asked why such concepts belong on the list, metaethicists would be much slower to respond. Matti Eklund is a notable exception. In his recent book, Choosing Normative Concepts, Eklund argues by elimination for “the Normative Role view” that normative concepts are normative in virtue of having a “normative role” or being “used normatively”. One view that Eklund aims (...) to eliminate is “the Metaphysical view” that normative concepts are normative in virtue of referring to normative properties. In addition to arguing that Eklund’s objection looks doubtful by its own lights, we argue that there are several plausible versions of the Metaphysical view that Eklund doesn’t eliminate, defending various claims about normative concepts and their relationships to deliberation, competence, reference, and possession along the way. (shrink)

There’s a long but relatively neglected tradition of attempting to explain why many researchers working on the nature of phenomenal consciousness think that it’s hard to explain.1 David Chalmers argues that this “meta-problem of consciousness” merits more attention than it has received. He also argues against several existing explanations of why we find consciousness hard to explain. Like Chalmers, we agree that the meta-problem is worthy of more attention. Contra Chalmers, however, we argue that there’s an existing explanation that is (...) more promising than his objections suggest. We argue that researchers find phenomenal consciousness hard to explain because phenomenal concepts are complex demonstratives that encode the impossibility of explaining consciousness as one of their application conditions. (shrink)

In a recent letter, Dillion et. al (2023) make various suggestions regarding the idea of artificially intelligent systems, such as large language models, replacing human subjects in empirical moral psychology. We argue that human subjects are in various ways indispensable.

Given a sequence {a n } in (0,1) converging to a rational, we examine the model theoretic properties of structures obtained as limits of Shelah-Spencer graphs G(m, m -αn ). We show that in most cases the model theory is either extremely well-behaved or extremely wild, and characterize when each occurs.

The question to be discussed in this paper can be put in simple terms: at what date were the collections of scholia on classical Greek authors compiled? Scholars have given two conflicting answers. The first was put forward by J. W. White in his edition of the scholia to Aristophanes' Birds. Developing an opinion of Dindorf, he suggested that the archetype of the scholia was a large parchment codex of the fourth or fifth century, which contained in the margins a (...) commentary drawn from several sources. A very similar view has been expressed about the scholia to Apollonius Rhodius and Pindar. (shrink)

In 1023ff. the poet explains that he has not been spoiled by success. The verb ༐κτελσαι in 1024 has been suspected, and though recent editors accept it, taking it as absolute, I am far from convinced that it is what the author wrote. Blaydes, in his usual fashion, records conjectures and makes some of his own, but though he hits the mark quite often in Aristophanes as he does in Sophocles, in this passage his efforts, e.g. ༐κγελσαι, fail to satisfy. (...) I propose instead ༐κχαλσαι, ‘relax’. It might be transitive, but I slightly prefer to take it as intransitive. It is a rare word and all the more likely to be corrupted. The best parallel I can find is Hippocrates, De Octimestri Partu 1.2 : ουες ༐υ oσι τυ ρχυ ༐τρøη, ὣσπερ τυ σταχωυ, ζεχλασαυ πρσθευ υαγκαζμευου 祴 τελεως ζαδρυυθυαι τυ καρπυ. The verb is correctly transmitted in the best MS, Marc.gr. 269, while the other main source of the treatise, Vat.gr. 276, offers ζεκλεσαυ9, which is clearly due to an error by a scribe who did not recognize the unusual word required by the context. As to the date of this treatise, it is believed by one of the best modern authorities to be no later than the end of the fifth century and is therefore nearly contemporary with Aristophanes. (shrink)

The Priestley duality for Wajsberg algebras is developed. The Wajsberg space is a De Morgan space endowed with a family of functions that are obtained in rather natural way.As a first application of this duality, a theorem about unicity of the structure is given.

Elementos de juicio: reflejos psicosociales, tendencias de los elementos.--El compromiso en el arte: dinámica de las relaciones estructurales en la mímesis artística.

Among the Greek manuscripts in the Earl of Leicester's library at Holkham, which were recently acquired by the Bodleian Library throuth the generosity of the Dulverton Trust, is a volume containing eight of Aristophanes' plays. This manuscript is not included in the list of Aristophanes' manuscripts compilied by J. W. White, and it seems that no editor has ever consulted it. The object of this paper is to describe the manuscript, which will be called L, to prove that it is (...) an almost complete copy of the Triclinian edition of Aristophanes. (shrink)

In this article I try to give a precise meaning to the political terms which are used in the sources, and to use those terms for an understanding of political developments. I take these developments in their historical order, and at the end of each period I assess the value of the evidence. I finish with reflection on the contributory system and the hegemony of the Thebans.

‘Alexander, it is said, starting from Amphipolis and keeping on his left the city Philippi and the mountain Orbelus, invaded Thrace, that part occupied by the so-called self-governing Thracians. He crossed the river Nestus, and in ten days, they say, he reached the mountain Haemus.’.

On the subject of the Branchidae there are a few facts and some outstanding questions. The facts may be stated first. They are provided by literary evidence and one piece of archaeological evidence, which are generally accepted.

‘As regards the exegetai three let the four tribes nominate four each from their own personnel, and let them scrutinize whichever three gain most votes and send nine to Delphi to appoint one from each group of three; the scrutiny and the age-qualification shall be the same for them as for the priests. Let these be exegetai for life; as regards a vacancy let the preliminary election be made by the four tribes in which the vacancy may occur.’.

NG van Kampen is a well-known theoretical physicist who has had a long and distinguished career. His research covers scattering theory, plasma physics, statistical mechanics, and various mathematical aspects of physics. In addition to his scientific work, he has written a number of papers about more general aspects of science. An indefatigable fighter for intellectual honesty and clarity, he has pointed out repeatedly that the fundamental ideas of physics have been needlessly obscured. As those papers appeared in various journals, partly (...) in Dutch, it was felt that it would be worthwhile to collect them (translating the Dutch material into English) and make them available to a larger audience. This is a book of major importance to scientists and university teachers. (shrink)

As part of an ethics course, health professions students were asked to identify ethical issues and to propose resolutions before and after a class discussion of a case involving confidentiality and substance abuse. Students listed an average of 2.4 issues before and 3.6 issues after the discussion. After discussion 50 per cent of students made explicit changes in their proposed resolution. Opinions varied widely on breaching confidentiality and the responsibility for protecting the patient's health. After the discussion almost 20 per (...) cent of the class felt it was acceptable to breach confidentiality as long as the patient was unaware. Many students identified more with the health care provider than with the patient. The presence of substance abuse altered many students' views on confidentiality. In this experience students were less rigorous in their application of principles, creating an excellent opportunity for teaching through exploration of the complexity of ethical decision-making in a specific case. (shrink)

In 1023ff. the poet explains that he has not been spoiled by success. The verb ༐κτελσαι in 1024 has been suspected, and though recent editors accept it, taking it as absolute, I am far from convinced that it is what the author wrote. Blaydes, in his usual fashion, records conjectures and makes some of his own, but though he hits the mark quite often in Aristophanes as he does in Sophocles, in this passage his efforts, e.g. ༐κγελσαι, fail to satisfy. (...) I propose instead ༐κχαλσαι, ‘relax’. It might be transitive, but I slightly prefer to take it as intransitive. It is a rare word and all the more likely to be corrupted. The best parallel I can find is Hippocrates, De Octimestri Partu 1.2 : ουες ༐υ oσι τυ ρχυ ༐τρøη, ὣσπερ τυ σταχωυ, ζεχλασαυ πρσθευ υαγκαζμευου 祴 τελεως ζαδρυυθυαι τυ καρπυ. The verb is correctly transmitted in the best MS, Marc.gr. 269, while the other main source of the treatise, Vat.gr. 276, offers ζεκλεσαυ9, which is clearly due to an error by a scribe who did not recognize the unusual word required by the context. As to the date of this treatise, it is believed by one of the best modern authorities to be no later than the end of the fifth century and is therefore nearly contemporary with Aristophanes. (shrink)

The revolution in science and technology is significantly changing the character of production and work. One of the important aspects of this change is that labor becomes a scientifically organized process that makes increased demands on development of the human factor in production. The most productive scientific ideas, the most perfect technologies, when combined with production, may fail to produce the desired "yield" unless a sufficient number of well-trained personnel, or of the required organizational structures corresponding to the level of (...) societal relationships, the habits of collective work, and human psychology, are available. Implementation of a truly scientific organization of work presumes as a condition that a considerable level of development will already have been achieved in socialist labor discipline, as well as habits of collectivism and ethical motivations for work, and not merely occupational skills and qualities. More precisely, the list of qualities that, while they may not be occupational in the strict sense are nonetheless necessary features of the person employed in socialist society, includes general cultural and moral development, social activity, and political consciousness. The transformation of work into a scientifically organized process presumes an increasing demand for a highly skilled labor force with comprehensive development. Moreover, the development of the labor force and the rise in its skills should run ahead of the development of the means of production. It is precisely this that determines the need for conscious management of the development of the human being. For comprehensive development of the labor force to run ahead of the means of production requires considerable outlays for occupational and general cultural training of the direct participants in production. A worker of a new type, with a higher level of general and occupational education, will emerge in the course of implementation of a complex of economic, social, and scientific-technological measures. (shrink)

Analytical study of the social theories of Muslim philosophers belonged to 9th to 18th centuries.