Rudolf Carnap is well known for his attack on metaphysics, and W. V. Quine is equally well known for his attack on Carnap’s analytic/synthetic distinction. Receiving far less attention is their basic agreement that a properly scientific approach to philosophy should eliminate the metaphysical excesses of the past. This paper aims to remedy this. It focuses initially on the development of Carnap’s rejection of metaphysics from 1932 to 1950 and the role that analyticity plays. It then turns to Quine, emphasizing (...) his basic agreement with Carnap over the elimination of metaphysics and what this looks like without the analytic/synthetic distinction. (shrink)

Pest control operations andexperimentation on sentient animals such as thebrushtail possum can cause unnecessary andavoidable suffering in the animal subjects.Minimizing animal suffering is an animalwelfare goal and can be used as a guide in thedesign and execution of animal experimentationand pest control operations.The public has little sympathy for the possum,which can cause widespread environmentaldamage, but does believe that control should beas painless as possible. Trapping and poisoningprovide only short-term solutions to the possumproblem and often involve methods that causesuffering. Intrusive experiments (...) connected withthese methods of control and published in thelast 6 years are reviewed. Many of theexperiments do not attain the welfare standardsrequired by members of the public. (shrink)

Quine's set theory, New Foundations, has often been treated as an anomaly in the history and philosophy of set theory. In this book, Sean Morris shows that it is in fact well-motivated, emerging in a natural way from the early development of set theory. Morris introduces and explores the notion of set theory as explication: the view that there is no single correct axiomatization of set theory, but rather that the various axiomatizations all serve to explicate the (...) notion of set and are judged largely according to pragmatic criteria. Morris also brings out the important interplay between New Foundations, Quine's philosophy of set theory, and his philosophy more generally. We see that his early technical work in logic foreshadows his later famed naturalism, with his philosophy of set theory playing a crucial role in his primary philosophical project of clarifying our conceptual scheme and specifically its logical and mathematical components. (shrink)

Many commentators now view Quine's ‘Truth by Convention’ as a flawed criticism of Carnap. Gary Ebbs argued recently that Quine never intended Carnap as his target. Quine's criticisms were part of his attempt to work out his own scientific naturalism. I agree that Carnap was not Quine's target but object that Quine's criticisms were wholly internal to his own philosophy. Instead, I argue that C.I. Lewis held the kind of truth‐by‐convention thesis that Quine rejects. This, however, leaves Carnap out of (...) the picture. I then show how Quine came to see the earlier criticisms as also having force against Carnap. (shrink)

We present an annotated bibliography of peer reviewed scientific research highlighting the human health, animal welfare, and environmental risks associated with genetic modification. Risks associated with the expression of the transgenic material include concerns over resistance and non-target effects of crops expressing Bt toxins, consequences of herbicide use associated with genetically modified herbicide-tolerant plants, and transfer of gene expression from genetically modified crops through vertical and horizontal gene transfer. These risks are not connected to the technique of genetic modification as (...) such, but would be present for any conventionally produced crops with the same heritable traits. In contrast, other risks are a direct consequence of the method used in gene manipulation. These come about because of the unstable nature of the transgene and vectors used to insert it, and because of unpredictable interactions between the transgene and the host genome. The debate over the release of genetically modified organisms is not merely a scientific one; it encompasses economics, law, ethics, and policy. Any discussion on these levels does, however, need to be informed by sound science. We hope that the scientific references provided here will provide a useful starting point for further debate. (shrink)

In his “Wissenschaftslogik: The Role of Logic in the Philosophy of Science,” Michael Friedman argues that Carnap’s philosophy of science “is fundamentally anti-metaphysical—he aims to use the tools of mathematical logic to dissolve rather [than] solve traditional philosophical problems—and it is precisely this point that is missed by his logically-minded contemporaries such as Hempel and Quine”. In this paper, I take issue with this claim, arguing that Quine, too, is a part of this anti-metaphysical tradition. I begin in section I (...) with Russell’s account of scientific philosophy, focusing on its critique of metaphysics and its reliance on logical constructions. I then argue that each of Carnap and Quine take up this call to scientific philosophizing but that they both find Russell’s account of logic wanting. In section II, I first provide an account of Carnap’s critique of metaphysics and its reliance on developments in logic. This is followed by a discussion of his appeal to the analytic/synthetic distinction so as to improve upon Russell’s account of logic. Section III follows this same structure but focuses on Quine. In the end, though, Quine turns not to the analytic/synthetic distinction but to holism to provide an account of logic suitable to scientific philosophy. Carnap had claimed to be “more Russellian than Russell,” and in this final move by Quine I argue that he is “being more Carnapian than Carnap.” I conclude by showing how, contrary to Friedman’s view, Quine’s rejection of the analytic/synthetic distinction does not yield a return to the kind metaphysics that he, Carnap, and Russell all objected to. (shrink)

Most commentators have overlooked the impact of Russell on Quine, focusing instead on the influence of Carnap. In what follows, I will argue that the early Quine’s engagement with Russell’s logicism was a crucial stage in the development of his philosophy. More specifically, we can see Quine’s naturalism as developing out of a certain strand of Russell’s thought concerning scientific philosophy. In addition to giving us a better sense of the origins of Quine’s philosophy, this reading also shows how his (...) early work, focusing mostly on technical areas of logic, is deeply related to his later and more famous philosophical views. In particular, his reworking of Principia Mathematica can be understood as the technical working-out of his view that the purpose of philosophy is the clarification our conceptual scheme. (shrink)

Food labels legislated by the U.S. government have been designed to provide information to consumers. It has been asserted that the simple disclosures “produced using genetic engineering” on newly legislated U.S. food labels will send a signal that influences individual preferences rather than providing information. Vermont is the only US state to have experienced mandatory labeling of foods produced using genetic engineering via simple disclosures. Using a representative sample of adults who experienced Vermont’s mandatory GE labeling policy, we examined whether (...) GE labels were seen by consumers and whether the labels provided information or influenced preferences. Nearly one-third of respondents reported seeing a label. Higher income, younger consumers who search for information about GE were more likely to report seeing a label. We also estimated whether labels served as information cues that helped reveal consumer preferences through purchases, or whether labels served as a signal that influenced preferences and purchases. For 50.5% of consumers who saw a label, the label served as an information cue that revealed their preferences. For 13% of those who saw the label, the label influenced preferences and behavior. Overall, for 4% of the total sample, simple GE disclosures influenced preferences. For a slight majority of consumers who used a GE label, simple disclosures were an information signal and not a preference signal. Searching for GE information, classifying as female, older age and opposing GE in food production significantly increased the probability that GE labels served as an information source. Providing such disclosures to consumers may be the least complex and most transparent option for mandatory GE labeling. (shrink)

Verhaegh’s excellent book provides the first complete account of Quine’s naturalism. Guiding Quine’s view is the idea that we cannot stand outside our theory of the world. We are always working from within. Only by understanding this idea do we see what Quine’s naturalism comes to.While many philosophers casually treat Quine’s naturalism as something already well-understood, Verhaegh does not, and he dedicates part 1 to its systematic exposition. According to him, this consists of two components: “the principled rejection of transcendental (...) perspectives and the adoption of a perspective immanent to our scientific conceptual scheme,” both based on Quine’s view that we must always be working from within. Verhaegh... (shrink)

In his “Epistemology Naturalized,” Quine embraces a form of Humeanism. In this paper, I try to work out the significance of this Humeanism. In particular, I argue that it represents an anti-metaphysical position that Quine shares with Carnap. Crucial to my account is that contrary to much contemporary thinking on metaphysics, Carnap, and Quine following him, recognize both an ontological and an epistemological sense of metaphysics. As commentators have frequently acknowledged, Carnap and Quine disagree over rejecting metaphysics in the ontological (...) sense. I will argue, though, that they agree in rejecting metaphysics in their shared epistemological sense of the term. (shrink)

The aim of this thesis is to examine the debate between Quine and Boolos over the logical status of higher-order logic-with Quine taking the position that higher-logic is more properly understood as set theory and Boolos arguing in opposition that higher-order logic is of a genuinely logical character. My purpose here then will be to stay as neutral as possible over the question of whether or not higher-order logic counts as logic and to instead focus on the exposition of the (...) debate itself as exemplified in the work of Quine and Boolos. Chapter I will be a detailed consideration of Quine's conception of logic and its place within the wider context of his philosophy. Only once this backdrop is in place will I then examine his views on higher-order logic. In Chapter II, I turn to Boolos's response to Quine-his attempt to examine the extent to which we may want to count higher-order logic as logic and the extent to which we may want to count it as set theory. With each point Boolos raises, I attempt to give what I think would have been Quine's reply. Finally, in Chapter III, I consider Boolos's attempt to show that monadic second-order logic should be understood as pure logic as it does not commit us to the existence of classes, as we may take the standard interpretation of MSOL to do. I discuss here some of the major reactions to Boolos's plural interpretation, and conclude with more speculative remarks on what Quine's own response might have been. Throughout this thesis, my primary method has been one of close textual analysis. (shrink)

Rudolf Carnap and W. V. O Quine have long been seen as key figures of analytic philosophy who are opposed to each other, due in no small part to their famed debate over the analytic/synthetic distinction. This volume of new essays assembles for the first time a number of scholars of the history of analytic philosophy who see Carnap and Quine as figures largely sympathetic to each other in their philosophical views. The essays acknowledge the differences which exist, but through (...) their emphasis on Carnap and Quine's shared assumption about how philosophy should be done-that philosophy should be complementary to and continuous with the natural and mathematical sciences-our understanding of how they diverge is also deepened. This volume reshapes our understanding not only of Carnap and Quine, but of the history of analytic philosophy generally. (shrink)

In her essay, “After de Brosses” (2017), Rosalind C. Morris briefly considers the historical importance of the concept of the fetish on the relatively recent movements of new materialism, but she does not engage with Speculative Realism and Object-Oriented Ontology. This essay addresses this gap and focuses on the influence of the fetish on Speculative Realism and Object-Oriented Ontology by focusing on Graham Harman’s conception of objects and Quentin Meillassoux’s theory of arche-fossils. In short, I am offering a posthumanist (...) theorization of the fetish in order to argue that Object-Oriented Ontology can be considered, at points, to be a fetish-oriented ontology and that this notion of the fetish allows us to think about philosophical considerations of objects in a new light. (shrink)

This book has two main goals: first, to show that Quine's New Foundations set theory is better motivated than often assumed; and second, to defend Quine's philosophy of set theory. It is divided into three parts. The first concerns the history of set theory and argues against readings that see the iterative conception of set being the dominant notion of set from the very beginning. The second part concerns Quine's philosophy of set theory. Part 3 is a contemporary assessment of (...) the philosophical status of NF. Here one of the central targets is Boolos's defense of the iterative conception of set and his dismissal of NF as completely unnatural.As this is a very short review, I will avoid specific points and... (shrink)

This paper offers an unorthodox appraisal of empirical research bearing on the question of the low representation of women in philosophy. It contends that fashionable views in the profession concerning implicit bias and stereotype threat are weakly supported, that philosophers often fail to report the empirical work responsibly, and that the standards for evidence are set very low—so long as you take a certain viewpoint.

A common finding in the study of emotion and decision making is the tendency for fear and anxiety to decrease risk taking. The current meta-analysis summarises the strength and variability of this...

Are there illusions of duration? Certainly, many experiences of an event’s duration differ from its measure in clock duration, the measure of that event in seconds, minutes, hours, and so forth. However, I argue that an illusory duration requires more than difference from a real duration; it requires difference from a duration that is relevant to experience. It is plausible to hold that there are many kinds of real duration and reason to question the relevance of all of them. In (...) particular, the interpretation of experienced duration as illusory is typical because it is compared to clock time; the experience of duration goes wrong by being different from a clock measurement of duration. However, I argue that clock duration is not obviously relevant to evaluating the experience of duration.In response, one might hold that it is plausible to evaluate experience by clock duration because clocks more closely match reality than experiences do; on the scale of experience, clock time is no different to real duration. It is not that experienced duration is an illusion because it is merely different from clock duration; it is an illusion because it is different from real duration and we know this because of its difference from clock duration. It is like illusions of size: some object seems to be a size it is not and we know this by comparing it to an object we can otherwise accurately measure by meters.However, unlike size illusions, it is not clear what the ‘real duration’ is against which we should evaluate apparent duration. What is meant by ‘real duration’ involves either an appeal to the duration of substantial absolute time or some kind of duration in things, for example, duration which is the measure of change in some kind of process. is an irrelevant duration; few positions hold that we experience absolute time. As for, if real duration is a measure of change, then, for experienced duration to match clock duration, they must both agree on the relevant change. If there is a difference in what is treated as the real duration, then neither experience nor clocks can be treated as evaluable in terms of the other.Finally, we may have an illusory duration because there are cases of variation between experiences of the same duration. Yet, even here, we may be misled; we may not be directly comparing experiences. We compare the experienced durations through first measuring each in terms of clock duration. If there is a variability in the relationship between clock standard and some relevant standard for experience, then one expects anything accurately meeting one standard to differ from anything accurately meeting the other. The error is holding there is a stable relationship between the standards. This error is not a matter of our experience of duration, and so is not an illusion of duration. (shrink)

What makes something a part of my body, for moral purposes? Is the body defined naturalistically: by biological relations, or psychological relations, or some combination of the two? This paper approaches this question by considering a borderline case: the status of prostheses. I argue that extant accounts of the body fail to capture prostheses as genuine body parts. Nor, however, do they provide plausible grounds for excluding prostheses, without excluding some paradigm organic parts in the process. I conclude by suggesting (...) that embodiment is moralized all the way down: to be a body part is to be the sort of thing that ought to be protected, in a certain way, by social practices. (shrink)

Companies offer ethics codes and training to increase employees' ethical conduct. These programs can also enhance individual work attitudes because ethical organizations are typically valued. Socially responsible companies are likely viewed as ethical organizations and should therefore prompt similar employee job responses. Using survey information collected from 313 business professionals, this exploratory study proposed that perceived corporate social responsibility would mediate the positive relationships between ethics codes/training and job satisfaction. Results indicated that corporate social responsibility fully or partially mediated the (...) positive associations between four ethics program variables and individual job satisfaction, suggesting that companies might better manage employees' ethical perceptions and work attitudes with multiple policies, an approach endorsed in the ethics literature. (shrink)

I argue here that our rights in our bodies are not well explained by self-ownership – and thus, also, that we cannot infer any further distributive implications of self-ownership from intuitions about body rights via inference to the best explanation. And I sketch an alternative view, on which we do indeed own our bodies, but not because we own ourselves. Self-ownership, I argue, provides a satisfying explanation only if we take it seriously: not as a mere metaphor, but as an (...) expression of a literal, reflexive ownership relation between me and myself, whatever I myself am. I go on to canvas the most prominent theories of what human beings like me literally are, arguing that each of these theories makes it hard to see how our self-ownership can ground our rights in our bodies. In the second half I consider and refine alternative, interest-based, explanations of our rights in our bodies, drawing on suggestions in this direction from Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen and Alan Wertheimer. I show how it is possible in principle to affirm that body ownership rights remain (in a sense) natural rights, even on the sort of interest-based view of ownership that many (including myself) take to preclude all or most fully natural property rights. I argue that many body rights can be grounded prefiguratively, in facts about the possible emergence of sufficiently just authority-assigning practices, rather than (as with most property rights) in their actual existence. Finally, I return to the distributive issues that motivated much interest in self-ownership in the first place – particularly, the question of whether and in what way our rights in our bodies generate rights in other things, by labor or otherwise. Without actually answering this question, I show how the account developed here would proceed in doing so: not by positing body rights as a methodologically prior constraint on rights of other kinds, but rather by considering the implications entire systems of rights and duties have for the interests of those who possess and are bound by them. (shrink)

A number of authors have argued recently that the content of perceptual experience can, and even must, be characterized in conceptual terms. Their claim, more precisely, is that every perceptual experience is such that, of necessity, its content is constituted entirely by concepts possessed by the subject having the experience. This is a surprising result. For it seems reasonable to think that a subject’s experiences could be richer and more fine-grained than his conceptual repertoire; that a subject might be able, (...) for example, to discriminate in experience more shades of colors than he has color concepts. The key move in their argument, therefore, is to articulate the conceptual content of experience using demonstrative, instead of general, concepts. For instance, these authors argue that the content of my perceptual experience of a particular shade of green is properly characterized in terms of the concept expressed by the linguistic utterance “that shade”. Even if I don’t possess a general concept for the shade I’m seeing—a concept of the kind typically expressed using color names like ‘chartreuse’ or ‘lime’—nevertheless, these authors argue, the content of the experience can still be characterized conceptually using a demonstrative concept that I do possess. (shrink)

In this paper I develop an account of member obligation: the obligations that fall on the members of an obligated collective in virtue of that collective obligation. I use this account to argue that unorganized collections of individuals can constitute obligated agents. I argue first that, to know when a collective obligation entails obligations on that collective’s members, we have to know not just what it would take for each member to do their part in satisfying the collective obligation, but (...) also what they should do if they cannot do their part because others will not do theirs. I go on to argue (contra recent proposals) that it is not good enough for members in this situation to reasonably believe that others will not do their part. Rather, for a member of an obligated collective to permissibly escape doing her part in a collective obligation, she must both reasonably doubt that others will do their part and stand ready to act in case others do as well. -/- This necessary condition for collective obligation points the way to plausible sufficient conditions – conditions that, I argue, allow unstructured collectives to bear obligations. For (a) if a collective’s members are individually obligated to be ready to do their part, in a given collective action, and (b) if that individual readiness makes it sufficiently likely that the collective will in fact act, then it is hard to see what could block an attribution of collective obligation. In particular, in that case there ought to be no additional objection that there is no existing, organized “agent” on which the obligation might fall. For agents are, simply, things that can act. To be able to act is just to be able to succeed by trying. Unstructured collectives try to do something, I argue, when each member acts on their willingness to do their part in that thing if others do theirs; sometimes they succeed, producing a collective action. Some unstructured collectives, therefore, can succeed by trying; therefore, they can act; therefore they are agents. (shrink)

A number of authors have argued recently that the content of perceptual experience can, and even must, be characterized in conceptual terms. Their claim, more precisely, is that every perceptual experience is such that, of necessity, its content is constituted entirely by concepts possessed by the subject having the experience. This is a surprising result. For it seems reasonable to think that a subject’s experiences could be richer and more fine-grained than his conceptual repertoire; that a subject might be able, (...) for example, to discriminate in experience more shades of colors than he has color concepts. The key move in their argument, therefore, is to articulate the conceptual content of experience using demonstrative, instead of general, concepts. For instance, these authors argue that the content of my perceptual experience of a particular shade of green is properly characterized in terms of the concept expressed by the linguistic utterance “that shade”. Even if I don’t possess a general concept for the shade I’m seeing—a concept of the kind typically expressed using color names like ‘chartreuse’ or ‘lime’—nevertheless, these authors argue, the content of the experience can still be characterized conceptually using a demonstrative concept that I do possess. (shrink)

Some modern cosmological models predict the appearance of Boltzmann Brains: observers who randomly fluctuate out of a thermal bath rather than naturally evolving from a low-entropy Big Bang. A theory in which most observers are of the Boltzmann Brain type is generally thought to be unacceptable, although opinions differ. I argue that such theories are indeed unacceptable: the real problem is with fluctuations into observers who are locally identical to ordinary observers, and their existence cannot be swept under the rug (...) by a choice of probability distributions over observers. The issue is not that the existence of such observers is ruled out by data, but that the theories that predict them are cognitively unstable: they cannot simultaneously be true and justifiably believed. (shrink)

Ethics training is commonly cited as a primary method for increasing employees' ethical decision making and conduct. However, little is known about how the presence of ethics training can enhance other components of an organization's ethical environment such as employees' perception of company ethical values. Using a national sample of 313 business professionals employed in the United States, the relationship between ethics training and perceived organizational ethics was explored. The results of the analysis provide significant statistical support for the notion (...) that businesspersons employed in organizations that have formalized ethics training programs have more positive perceptions of their companies' ethical context than do individuals employed in organizations that do not. The analysis also indicated that job satisfaction was related to employees' attitudes about their ethical context. The managerial implications of the results are outlined, along with the limitations of the study and recommendations for future research. (shrink)

A non-technical introduction to quantum mechanics, the Everett interpretation, and the emergence of spacetime.

Religion and intelligence.--The philosophic theory of knowledge.--The absolute object of intelligence.--The Biblical theory of knowledge.--Biblical ontology: the absolute.--Biblical ontology: the world.--Biblical ontology: man.--Comparative philosophic content of Christianity.

A crucial part of the contemporary interest in logicism in the philosophy of mathematics resides in its idea that arithmetical knowledge may be based on logical knowledge. Here an implementation of this idea is considered that holds that knowledge of arithmetical principles may be based on two things: (i) knowledge of logical principles and (ii) knowledge that the arithmetical principles are representable in the logical principles. The notions of representation considered here are related to theory-based and structure-based notions of representation (...) from contemporary mathematical logic. It is argued that the theory-based versions of such logicism are either too liberal (the plethora problem) or are committed to intuitively incorrect closure conditions (the consistency problem). Structure-based versions must on the other hand respond to a charge of begging the question (the circularity problem) or explain how one may have a knowledge of structure in advance of a knowledge of axioms (the signature problem). This discussion is significant because it gives us a better idea of what a notion of representation must look like if it is to aid in realizing some of the traditional epistemic aims of logicism in the philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

Focusing on the rise of the mechanistic idea that we can know the natural world only by distancing ourselves from it, Berman shows how science acquired its ...

This paper investigates the hypothesis that Heraclitus was a formative influence on the Hippias Major. Specifically, it establishes connections between the dialogue's presentation of "the fine" (τὸ καλόν) and Heraclitus's "unity of opposites" idea. It argues that the fine is characterized by specifically Heraclitean oppositions, and it concludes that this makes a difference for the reading of certain passages in the dialogue and for philosophical conclusions regarding the fine.

Frege's Grundgesetze was one of the 19th century forerunners to contemporary set theory which was plagued by the Russell paradox. In recent years, it has been shown that subsystems of the Grundgesetze formed by restricting the comprehension schema are consistent. One aim of this paper is to ascertain how much set theory can be developed within these consistent fragments of the Grundgesetze, and our main theorem shows that there is a model of a fragment of the Grundgesetze which defines a (...) model of all the axioms of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with the exception of the power set axiom. The proof of this result appeals to G\"odel's constructible universe of sets, which G\"odel famously used to show the relative consistency of the continuum hypothesis. More specifically, our proofs appeal to Kripke and Platek's idea of the projectum within the constructible universe as well as to a weak version of uniformization (which does not involve knowledge of Jensen's fine structure theory). The axioms of the Grundgesetze are examples of abstraction principles, and the other primary aim of this paper is to articulate a sufficient condition for the consistency of abstraction principles with limited amounts of comprehension. As an application, we resolve an analogue of the joint consistency problem in the predicative setting. (shrink)

In this book, Sean Noah Walsh applies Herbert Marcuse’s observations on counterrevolution to recent developments in education politics. Seemingly disparate issues such as the exercise of state power to reorganize curricula, the derision of intellectuals, the permeation of consumerism into the collegiate experience, and the expansion of online teaching belong to the same strategy in which the faculties of dissent are neutralized before they can develop and dissent is established as the paramount political obscenity.

We have a much better understanding of physics than we do of consciousness. I consider ways in which intrinsically mental aspects of fundamental ontology might induce modifications of the known laws of physics, or whether they could be relevant to accounting for consciousness if no such modifications exist. I suggest that our current knowledge of physics should make us skeptical of hypothetical modifications of the known rules, and that without such modifications it’s hard to imagine how intrinsically mental aspects could (...) play a useful explanatory role. Draft version of a paper submitted to Journal of Consciousness Studies, special issue responding to Philip Goff’s Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness. (shrink)

While a number of studies have examined the impact of gender/sex on ethical decision-making, the findings of this body of research do not provide consistent answers. Furthermore, very few of these studies have incorporated cross-cultural samples. Consequently, this study of 222 American and Spanish business executives explored sex differences in ethical judgments and intentions to act ethically. While no significant differences between males and females were found with respect to ethical judgments, females exhibited higher intentions to act more ethically than (...) males. This difference was true of both U.S. and Spanish executives. Further research is warranted to develop a clearer understanding of the linkage between ethical judgment and intention to act in an ethical manner. These findings have implications for global firms, particularly regarding codes of conduct and ethics training. (shrink)

This book provides an account of the nature of time, especially time's arrow and the role of entropy, at a semi-popular level. Special attention is given to statistical mechanics, the past hypothesis, and possible cosmological explanations thereof.

I discuss "Poetic Naturalism" -- there is only one world, the natural world, but there are many ways of talking about it -- both as a general concept, and how it accounts for our actual world. I talk about emergence, fundamental physics, entropy and complexity, the origins of life and consciousness, and moral constructivism.

This work stresses the illogical manner in which mathematics has developed, the question of applied mathematics as against 'pure' mathematics, and the challenges to the consistency of mathematics' logical structure that have occurred in the twentieth century.

The French philosopher Maurice Merleau–Ponty claims that there are two distinct ways in which we can understand the place of an object when we are visually apprehending it. The first involves an intentional relation to the object that is essentially cognitive or can serve as the input to cognitive processes; the second irreducibly involves a bodily set or preparation to deal with the object. Because of its essential bodily component, Merleau–Ponty calls this second kind of understanding ‘motor intentional’. In this (...) paper I consider some phenomenological, conceptual, and cognitive neuro–scientific results that help to elucidate and defend the distinction between intentional and motor intentional activity. I go on to argue that motor intentional activity has a logical structure that is essentially distinct from that of the more canonical kinds of intentional states. In particular, the characteristic logical distinction between the content and the attitude of an intentional state does not carry over to the motor intentional case. (shrink)

I defend the extremist position that the fundamental ontology of the world consists of a vector in Hilbert space evolving according to the Schrödinger equation. The laws of physics are determined solely by the energy eigenspectrum of the Hamiltonian. The structure of our observed world, including space and fields living within it, should arise as a higher-level emergent description. I sketch how this might come about, although much work remains to be done.

According to the Public Justification Principle, legitimate laws must be justifiable to all reasonable citizens. Proponents of this principle assume that its satisfaction requires speakers to offer justifications that are representable as arguments that feature premises which reasonable listeners would accept. I develop the concept of dark knowledge to show that this assumption is false. Laws are often justified on the basis of premises that many reasonable listeners know, even though they would reject these premises on the basis of the (...) further considerations that speakers implicitly rely on for their support. Accommodating the fact of dark knowledge requires us to consider the civic virtue of speakers to be more important for public justification than the acceptability of their arguments to reasonable citizens. I sketch an alternative conception of public justification that incorporates these results and argue that it provides a rationale for ignoring the otherwise sound contributions of some participants in political deliberation. (shrink)

Population health has recently grown from a series of loosely connected critiques of twentieth-century public health and medicine into a theoretical framework with a corresponding field of research—population health science. Its approach is to promote the public’s health through improving everyday human life: affordable nutritious food, clean air, safe places where children can play, living wages, etc. It recognizes that addressing contemporary health challenges such as the prevalence of type 2 diabetes will take much more than good hospitals and public (...) health departments. -/- Blending philosophy of science/medicine, public health ethics and history, this book offers a framework that explains, analyses and largely endorses the features that define this relatively new field. Presenting a philosophical perspective, Valles helps to clarify what these features are and why they matter, including: searching for health’s “upstream” causes in social life, embracing a professional commitment to studying and ameliorating the staggering health inequities in and between populations; and reforming scientific practices to foster humility and respect among the many scientists and non- scientists who must work collaboratively to promote health. -/- Featuring illustrative case studies from around the globe at the end of all main chapters, this radical monograph is written to be accessible to all scholars and advanced students who have an interest in health—from public health students to professional philosophers. (shrink)