This paper studies the metric structure of the space Hr of absolutely summable sequences of real numbers with at most r nonzero terms. Hr is complete, and is located and nowhere dense in the space of all absolutely summable sequences. Totally bounded and compact subspaces of Hr are characterized, and large classes of located, totally bounded, compact, and locally compact subspaces are constructed. The methods used are constructive in the strict sense. MSC: 03F65, 54E50.

Although classically every open subspace of a locally compact space is also locally compact, constructively this is not generally true. This paper provides a locally compact remetrization for an open set in a compact metric space and constructs a one-point compactification. MSC: 54D45, 03F60, 03F65.

I propose a new theory of semantic presupposition, which I call dissatisfaction theory. I first briefly review a cluster of problems − known collectively as the proviso problem − for most extant theories of presupposition, arguing that the main pragmatic response to them faces a serious challenge. I avoid these problems by adopting two changes in perspective on presupposition. First, I propose a theory of projection according to which presuppositions project unless they are locally entailed. Second, I reject the standard (...) assumption that presuppositions are contents which must be entailed by the input context; instead, I propose that presuppositions are contents which are marked as backgrounded. I show that, together, these commitments allow us to avoid the proviso problem altogether, and generally make plausible predictions about presupposition projection out of connectives and attitude predicates. I close by sketching a two-dimensional implementation of my theory which allows us to make further welcome predictions about attitude predicates and quantifiers. (shrink)

This study investigates Félix RavaissonRavaisson-Mollien, Félix’s ambiguous relation to F. W. J. Schelling by homing in on the specific relation that holds between habit as a means of demonstrating an underlying identity of mind and world in RavaissonRavaisson-Mollien, Félix’s De l’habitude and Schelling’s use of aesthetic intuitionIntuition as a philosophical method in his 1800 System of Transcendental IdealismIdealism (also German Idealism). I argue that what Schelling found in fine art—the work of genius—RavaissonRavaisson-Mollien, Félix finds in habit, and from this conclude (...) that RavaissonRavaisson-Mollien, Félix offers what we might describe as a romantic conception of habit that brings it into the domain of the pre-rational, pre-reflective spontaneity that Schelling describes in artistic production. (shrink)

Hume's Reception in Early America: Expanded Edition brings together the original American responses to one of Britain's greatest men of letters, David Hume. Now available as a single volume paperback, this new edition includes updated further readings suggestions and dozens of additional primary sources gathered together in a completely new concluding section. From complete pamphlets and booklets, to poems, reviews, and letters, to extracts from newspapers, religious magazines and literary and political journals, this book's contents come from a wide variety (...) of sources published in colonial America and the early United States between 1758 and 1850. As well as classics by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, it contains scores of unknown and hard-to-locate items, many of which have not been reprinted since their original publication. These responses are divided into four parts covering Hume's Essays; his Philosophical Writings; his History of England; and his Character and Death. Each of those parts has a separate introductory essay, and every selection is introduced by a short headnote that sets the piece in its historical context and provides bibliographical references. Packed with new insights into Hume and American thought and culture, Hume's Reception in Early America reveals the relevance and impact of Hume on American political, philosophical, historical, religious, and aesthetic debates. (shrink)

In this book Mark Wynn argues that the landscape of philosophical theology looks rather different from the perspective of a re-conceived theory of emotion. In matters of religion, we do not need to opt for objective content over emotional form or vice versa. On the contrary, these strategies are mistaken at root, since form and content are not properly separable here - because 'inwardness' may contribute to 'thought-content', or because emotional feelings can themselves constitute thoughts; or because, to put (...) the point a further way, in religious contexts, perception and conception are often infused by feeling. Wynn uses this perspective to forge a distinctive approach to a range of established topics in philosophy of religion, notably: religious experience; the problem of evil; the relationship of religion and ethics, and religion and art; and in general, the connection of 'feeling' to doctrine and tradition. (shrink)

Table of Contents -/- Introduction: Epistemic Situationism by Abrol Fairweather -/- 1. Is Every Epistemology A Virtue Epistemology? by Lauren Olin -/- 2. Epistemic Situationism: An extended prolepsis by Mark Alfano -/- 3. Virtue Epistemology in the Zombie Apocalypse: Hungry Judges, Heavy Clipboards and Grou Polarization by Berit Brogaard -/- 4. Situationism and Responsibilist Virtue Epistemology by James Montmarquet -/- 5. Virtue Theory Against Situationism by Ernest Sosa -/- 6. Intellectual Virtue Now and Again by Chris Lepock -/- 7.Responsibilism (...) Out of Character by Kurt Sylvan -/- 8. Epistemic Situationism and Cognitive Ability by John Turri -/- 9. Epistemic Situationism, Epistemic Dependence and the Epistemology of Education by J. Adam Carter and Duncan Pritchard -/- 10. The Situationist Challenge to Educating For Intellectual Virtues by Jason Baehr -/- 11. Feminist Responsibilism, Situationism and the Complexities of the Virtue ofTrustworthiness by Heidi Grasswick -/- 12. Moods and Their Unexpected Virtues by Nicole Smith . (shrink)

This book provides a rich, systematic, and accessible introduction to moral psychology, aimed at undergraduate philosophy and psychology majors. There are eight chapters, in addition to a short introduction, prospective conclusion, and extensive bibliography. The recipe for each chapter will be: a) to introduce a philosophical topic (e.g., altruism, virtue, preferences, rules) and some prominent positions on it, without assuming prior acquaintance on the part of the reader b) to canvass and explain the relevance of a particular domain of empirical (...) inquiry (e.g., evolutionary psychology, behavioral economics, neuroscience) to the topic c) to argue for some tentative conclusions about the topic d) to suggest further avenues for conceptual and empirical research The guiding theme of the book is that moral philosophy without psychological content is empty, whereas psychological investigation without philosophical insight is blind. Thus, I advocate a holistic approach that pictures moral psychology as a project of collaborative inquiry into the descriptive and normative aspects of the human condition. Ideally, students will come away from (a course built around) the book with the sense that, though philosophy may not be the queen of the sciences, its role is not merely to interpret scientific results. (shrink)

YouTube has been implicated in the transformation of users into extremists and conspiracy theorists. The alleged mechanism for this radicalizing process is YouTube’s recommender system, which is optimized to amplify and promote clips that users are likely to watch through to the end. YouTube optimizes for watch-through for economic reasons: people who watch a video through to the end are likely to then watch the next recommended video as well, which means that more advertisements can be served to them. This (...) is a seemingly innocuous design choice, but it has a troubling side-effect. Critics of YouTube have alleged that the recommender system tends to recommend extremist content and conspiracy theories, as such videos are especially likely to capture and keep users’ attention. To date, the problem of radicalization via the YouTube recommender system has been a matter of speculation. The current study represents the first systematic, pre-registered attempt to establish whether and to what extent the recommender system tends to promote such content. We begin by contextualizing our study in the framework of technological seduction. Next, we explain our methodology. After that, we present our results, which are consistent with the radicalization hypothesis. Finally, we discuss our findings, as well as directions for future research and recommendations for users, industry, and policy-makers. (shrink)

In the age of the Internet, people have increased access to information along multiple dimensions. It might seem that we are on our way to an epistemic utopia in which we spend less time and effort on basic cognitive tasks while devoting more time and effort to complex deliberation. However, though there are many accurate sources on the Internet, they must be sifted from the spammers, concern trolls, practical jokers, conspiracy theorists, counterintelligence sock-puppets, and outright liars who also proliferate online. (...) We can approach this problem via the individual or via the network, asking two questions. First, holding the topology of the network constant, which moral and epistemic dispositions are conducive to successful inquiry by nodes at different positions within it? Second, holding the distribution of people’s epistemic dispositions constant, which network topologies are more likely to produce epistemic goods and avoid epistemic ills? To answer these questions, we need to combine virtue-theoretic reflection on individual dispositions with a nuanced understanding of the dynamics of networks. In this paper, I highlight and explore some important properties of such networks and connect those properties with dispositions that make someone an excellent member of an epistemic network. (shrink)

Virtue is among the most venerable concepts in philosophy, and has recently seen a major revival. However, new challenges to conceptions of virtue have also arisen. In _Current Controversies in Virtue Theory_, five pairs of cutting-edge philosophers square off over central topics in virtue theory: the nature of virtue, the connection between virtue and flourishing, the connection between moral and epistemic virtues, the way in which virtues are acquired, and the possibility of attaining virtue. Mark Alfano guides his readers (...) through these essays, with a synthetic introduction, succinct abstracts of each debate, suggested further readings and study questions for each controversy, and a list of further controversies to be explored. (shrink)

Moral philosophers, legal theorists, and psychologists who study moral judgment are remarkably agreed in prescribing how to blame people. A blameworthy act occurs when an actor intentionally, negligently or recklessly causes foreseen, or foreseeable, harmful consequences without any compelling mitigating or extenuating circumstances. This simple formulation conveniently forestalls intricacies about how to construe concepts such as will, causation, foresight, and mitigation, but putting that aside for the moment, it seems fair to say that blame “professionals” share compatible conceptions of how (...) to make fair and rational blame ascriptions. Blame “amateurs,” on the other hand, sometimes stretch these rational prescriptions for blame beyond the breaking point. Numerous psychological studies on blame and responsibility, as well as the perplexing outcomes of high-profile criminal and civil trials, demonstrate that everyday blamers are capable of violating virtually every rational prescription that moral philosophers, legal scholars, and rational decision theorists hold dear. (shrink)

The essays in this collection all treat in some way the conservative’s vision of society as it is variously manifested in literary art, its scholarship, and its transmission through classical modes of liberal learning. Responding in part to the postmodernist turn in literary study, Literature and the Conservative Ideal examines the ways in which conservatism has been depicted in literature, as well as how its tendencies might restore literature’s potential as an artistic reflection of the universal human condition.

Critics of reliability theories of epistemic justificationoften claim that the `generality problem' is an insurmountabledifficulty for such theories. The generality problem is theproblem of specifying the level of generality at which abelief-forming process is to be described for the purposeof assessing its reliability. This problem is not asintractable as it seems. There are illuminating solutionsto analogous problems in the ethics literature. Reliabilistsought to attend to utilitarian approaches to choices betweeninfinite utility streams; they also ought to attend towelfarist approaches to social (...) choice situations that donot demand full aggregation of individual welfares.These analogies suggest that the traditional `single number'approach to reliability is misguided. I argue that a newapproach – the `vector reliability' approach – is preferable.Vector reliability theories associate target beliefs withreliability vectors – that is, structured collections ofreliability numbers – and construct criteria of epistemicjustification that appeal to these vectors. The bulk of thetheoretical labor involved in a reliability account of epistemicjustification is thus transferred from picking a uniquereliability number to constructing a plausible criterionof epistemic justification. (shrink)

Critics of reliability theories of epistemic justificationoften claim that the `generality problem' is an insurmountabledifficulty for such theories. The generality problem is theproblem of specifying the level of generality at which abelief-forming process is to be described for the purposeof assessing its reliability. This problem is not asintractable as it seems. There are illuminating solutionsto analogous problems in the ethics literature. Reliabilistsought to attend to utilitarian approaches to choices betweeninfinite utility streams; they also ought to attend towelfarist approaches to social (...) choice situations that donot demand full aggregation of individual welfares.These analogies suggest that the traditional `single number'approach to reliability is misguided. I argue that a newapproach – the `vector reliability' approach – is preferable.Vector reliability theories associate target beliefs withreliability vectors – that is, structured collections ofreliability numbers – and construct criteria of epistemicjustification that appeal to these vectors. The bulk of thetheoretical labor involved in a reliability account of epistemicjustification is thus transferred from picking a uniquereliability number to constructing a plausible criterionof epistemic justification. (shrink)

Protests and counter-protests seek to draw and direct attention and concern with confronting images and slogans. In recent years, as protests and counter-protests have partially migrated to the digital space, such images and slogans have also gone online. Two main ways in which these images and slogans are translated to the online space is through the use of emoji and hashtags. Despite sustained academic interest in online protests, hashtag activism and the use of emoji across social media platforms, little is (...) known about the specific functional role that emoji and hashtags play in online social movements. In an effort to fill this gap, the current paper studies both hashtags and emoji in the context of the Twitter discourse around the Black Lives Matter movement. (shrink)

In November 2018 the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) administered the first Healthcare Ethics Consultant Certification examination to 138 candidates, 136 of whom (98.5 percent) passed and were “certified” as “healthcare ethics consultants.” I believe this certification process is both premature and inadequate.Certification for ethics consultants is premature because, as Kornfeld and Prager state repeatedly in their article in this issue of The Journal of Clinical Ethics, “The Clinician as Clinical Ethics Consultant: An Empirical Method of Study,” there (...) is a lack of “empirical data on the nature of the problems that prompt ethics consultation requests and on the functions required to address them.” These authors proceed to provide a model for the kind of empirical data collection that is needed.Even more relevant, the ASBH model that certifies clinical ethics consultants is inadequate. First, it is inappropriate for a nonclinical organization such as the ASBH to claim the right to certify a clinical process, ethics consultation, involving patients and health professionals. Second, the current certification process requires only a written examination in contrast to the two-step quality attestation process proposed in 2013 by Eric Kodish, MD, and 11 other senior members of the ASBH, including its then president.Third and most importantly, the eligibility criteria for being certified to work on hospital units and to make clinical recommendations for patients and families are minimal and insufficient. The only stated requirements are a bachelor’s degree and 400 hours of healthcare ethics consulting experience. By contrast, practicing physicians and nurses train for many years to gain clinical experience that enables them to apply clinical ethical standards in the care and management of all inpatients and outpatients, not just the small percent for whom an ethics consultation is requested. (shrink)

Is Bayesian decision theory a panacea for many of the problems in epistemology and the philosophy of science, or is it philosophical snake-oil? For years a debate had been waged amongst specialists regarding the import and legitimacy of this body of theory. Mark Kaplan had written the first accessible and non-technical book to address this controversy. Introducing a new variant on Bayesian decision theory the author offers a compelling case that, while no panacea, decision theory does in fact have (...) the most profound consequences for the way in which philosophers think about inquiry, criticism and rational belief. The new variant on Bayesian theory is presented in such a way that a non-specialist will be able to understand it. The book also offers new solutions to some classic paradoxes. It focuses on the intuitive motivations of the Bayesian approach to epistemology and addresses the philosophical worries to which it has given rise. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time (1927) challenged earlier thinking about the basic structures of human being, our involvement in practical affairs, and our understanding of history, time, and being. Blitz clarifies Heidegger’s discussions, offers alternative analyses of phenomena central to Heidegger’s argument, and examines the connection between Heidegger’s position in Being and Time and his support of Nazism. As Blitz explains in his new afterword, “When I began to study Martin Heidegger nearly fifty years ago, my goal was to explore (...) the meaning of Being and Time for political philosophy. I wished to discover what it might offer for clarifying the grounds on which the basic concepts and alternatives of political philosophy rest. Would a close reading of it help us understand the questions of justice, freedom, the common good, natural rights, virtue, human happiness, and the philosophic life? These questions are as important today as they were then.” Although Blitz often questions and criticizes Heidegger’s views, he presents them with scrupulous care and clarity. Specialists and students in the areas of political theory, phenomenology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy will find Heidegger’s Being and Time & the Possibility of Political Philosophy an invaluable resource. (shrink)

The speech act of bragging has never been subjected to conceptual analysis until now. We argue that a speaker brags just in case she makes an utterance that is an assertion and is intended to impress the addressee with something about the speaker via the belief produced by the speaker's assertion. We conclude by discussing why it is especially difficult to cancel a brag by prefacing it with, ‘I'm not trying to impress you, but…’ and connect this discussion with Moore's (...) paradox and the recent neologism ‘humblebrag’. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to clarify Hegel's objection to the use of ideals in ethical thinking by examining his opposition to Kant's ideal of perpetual peace. I explain why Hegel believes that the ideal of peace amounts to nothing more than a moral condemnation that ignores the significance for international relations of appreciating the modern nation-state as an ethical achievement. I argue, however, that Kant's proposed federation can be grounded in the concrete ethical realities Hegel accepts as compelling and (...) uses this basis to sketch a defensible understanding of the obligating force of ethical ideals against Hegel's objections. (shrink)

TWO FACETS OF HEGEL’S ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY become clear on close inspection. On the one hand, Hegel attempts to take advantage of the Kantian focus on autonomy as the ground for ethical obligation and build an account of Right in terms of free self-determining agency. On the other hand, once the account is in, it looks and feels quite different from Kant’s, emphasizing social institutions and history in ways that are distinctive to Hegel. How far do these Hegelian emphases pull us (...) from Kant? Are they simply an essential corrective of the Kantian project, as some Hegelians would like to claim? Or does Hegel end up with a view that is significantly antithetical to a Kantian position? In this paper I do not intend to address such questions comprehensively. Rather, I would like to touch on such questions by exploring a particular issue that seems to me of central importance to answering them. (shrink)

In this book, Mark Rowlands challenges the Cartesian view of the mind as a self-contained monadic entity, and offers in its place a radical externalist or environmentalist model of cognitive processes. Cognition is not something done exclusively in the head, but fundamentally something done in the world. Drawing on both evolutionary theory and a detailed examination of the processes involved in perception, memory, thought and language use, Rowlands argues that cognition is, in part, a process whereby creatures manipulate and (...) exploit relevant objects in their environment. It is not simply an internal process of information processing; equally significantly, it is an external process of information processing. This innovative book provides a foundation for an unorthodox but increasingly popular view of the nature of cognition. (shrink)

Trust makes cooperation possible. It enables us to learn from others and at a distance. It makes democratic deliberation possible. But it also makes us vulnerable: when we place our trust in another’s word, we are liable to be deceived—sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. Our evolved mechanisms for deciding whom to trust and whom to distrust mostly rely on face-to-face interactions with people whose reputation we can both access and influence. Online, these mechanisms are largely useless, and the institutions that might (...) supplant them need to have their own trustworthiness verified. Currently, those institutions are mostly corporations such as Facebook and Twitter, which have checkered track records at best. To make matters worse, the social media sector is a natural monopoly, and companies like Facebook have shown that they are willing to use their market power unscrupulously. For these reasons, we argue that social media should be treated like other natural monopolies: it should either be nationalized, highly regulated, or broken up through antitrust legal actions. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that only a subset of the reason statementsWilliams defines as external must be rejected as false. `A has areason to '' is necessarily false when the ends and aimsconstitutive of A''s good close off the deliberative route from her S to the conclusion she has reason to . But when less important ends are at stake, it seems that a person''s needs generally provide reasons for action, contrary to Williams''s internalist account. I suspect, however, that (...) there may remain inexorable disagreementover these claims because people value things in two distinct ways. Tosupport my suspicion, I explain how people''s valuation can take either an agency-prioritizing or an end-prioritizing form. I then argue thatresolving the disagreement over Williams''s internalist account ofreasons depends on whether it can be established that the agency-prioritizingform is the rationally superior form of valuation. (shrink)

Plutarch’s epistolary essay, That a Philosopher ought to Converse especially swith Men in Power, has been neglected because not recognized for what it is: an attempt to persuade an addressee attached to Epicurean principles that his attraction to political friendship should be honoured rather than eradicated. Rather than attack Epicureanism, Plutarch attempts to expand the horizons of a hedonic and utilitarian ethics so as to include noble benefaction on a political scale. This requires him to undermine the Epicurean insistence on (...) restricting friendship to private like-minded circles, and to expand its hedonism into a political utilitarianism. Unlike Cicero’s De Finibus, Plutarch’s letter offers an indirect critique, and preserves elements of Epicurean ethics suitable to the moderating influence a friend and advisor can exert on the statesman’s eros. (shrink)

For decades, intelligence and achievement tests have registered significant differences between people of different races, ethnicities, classes, and genders. We argue that most of these differences are explained not as reflections of differences in the distribution of intellectual virtues but as evidence for the metacognitive mediation of the intellectual virtues. For example, in the United States, blacks typically score worse than whites on tests of mathematics. This might lead one to think that fewer blacks possess the relevant intellectual virtues, or (...) that they possess them less fully. However, research on stereotype threat shows that when blacks are not reminded of their race, they do much better on these tests than when they are. Simply raising to salience the race of the student triggers the activation of the stereotype, which in turn leads to poorer performance. However, learning about stereotype threat to a large extent immunizes people against it. This suggests that the psycho-social dimension of intelligence that recognizes the possibility of effects like stereotype threat is a crucial mediating variable in the development and expression of the intellectual virtues. The Socratic, “Know thyself” needs to be expanded to, “Know thyself and thy society.” Self-knowledge and knowledge of relevant stereotypes are a necessary condition for optimal development and expression of the other intellectual virtues. (shrink)

This article critically examines Porter and Kramer’s shared value concept to identify its boundaries and limits as a framework for understanding the role of philanthropy and CSR relative to the role of business in society. Cases of implementation and alternative perspectives on innovation reveal that, despite its appeal and uptake in corporate and philanthropic circles, shared value merely advances the conventional rhetoric that what is good for business is good for society. The shared value approach narrows what counts as social (...) value and avoids the friction between business and society. The consequence is that the approach is problematic as a framework for addressing sustainability and development, and an insufficient basis for decision-making about philanthropy and CSR. (shrink)

In his book The Existence of God , Professor Swinburne develops a cumulative case for theism. As part of this case, he presents two forms of the argument from design, one form taking as its premise the fact of spatial order, the other proceeding from the fact of temporal order. In this paper, I shall concern myself with the second of these arguments; that is, in Swinburne's terms, I shall concern myself with the argument from regularities of succession.

Several authors have recently attempted to provide a physicalist analysis of causation by appealing to terms from physics that characterise causal processes. Accounts based on forces, energy/momentum transfer and fundamental interactions have been suggested in the literature. In this paper, I wish to show that the former two are untenable when the effect of enclosed electromagnetic fluxes in quantum theory is considered. Furthermore, I suggest that even in the classical and non-relativistic limits, a theory of fundamental interactions should not be (...) reduced to either a theory of forces or of energy/momentum transfer, but should be understood as a classical account of mutual interactions. Causal links are therefore correctly characterised by generalised potentials. This leads to some speculation regarding the fundamental ontology of interactions and, in particular, the role of the quantum mechanical phase. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly being used not only to classify and analyze but also to generate images and text. As recent work on the content produced by text and image Generative AIs has shown (e.g., Cheong et al., 2024, Acerbi & Stubbersfield, 2023), there is a risk that harms of representation and bias, already documented in prior AI and natural language processing (NLP) algorithms may also be present in generative models. These harms relate to protected categories such as (...) gender, race, age, and religion. There are several kinds of harms of representation to consider in this context, including stereotyping, lack of recognition, denigration, under-representation, and many others (Crawford in Soundings 41:45–55, 2009; in: Barocas et al., SIGCIS Conference, 2017). Whereas the bulk of researchers’ attention thus far has been given to stereotyping and denigration, in this study we examine ‘exnomination’, as conceived by Roland Barthes (1972), of religious groups. Our case study is DALL-E, a tool that generates images from natural language prompts. Using DALL-E mini, we generate images from generic prompts such as “religious person.” We then examine whether the generated images are recognizably members of a nominated group. Thus, we assess whether the generated images normalize some religions while neglecting others. We hypothesize that Christianity will be recognizably represented more frequently than other religious groups. Our results partially support this hypothesis but introduce further complexities, which we then explore. (shrink)