The notion of mind‐independence plays a central role in the contemporary realism/anti‐realism debate, but the notion is severely ambiguous and consequently the source of considerable misunderstanding. In this paper, four kinds of mind‐independence are distinguished: ontological, causal, structural, and individuative independence. Appreciating these distinctions entails that one can reject the individuative independence of the natural world, and still maintain that the natural world is causally and structurally independent of us. This paper argues that so‐called anti‐realists, especially Rorty, Putnam, and Goodman, (...) are not opposed to the causal and structural independence of the natural world, as is frequently alleged, but rather its individuative independence. An acceptance of these points will hopefully put an end to the prevalence of strawmen in the debate, and focus attention on meatier issues. (shrink)

Individuative Realism is the thesis that reality is individuated intrinsically-that is, that reality is divided up into objects that are circumscribed by boundaries that are totally independent of our gerrymandering. One strategy for substantiating the thesis would involve discovering some of reality’s inherent joints by direct observation. This paper critically considers the observational strategy by examining a number of proposals for how reality might be individuated intrinsically, and demonstrating case-by-case that the individuation in question is likely imposed by us, rather (...) than inherent in nature. It is additionally suggested that even if objects with crisply unambiguous boundaries were discovered, it would still not be enough to vindicate Individuative Realism. (shrink)

Individuative Realism is the thesis that reality is individuated intrinsically-that is, that reality is divided up into objects that are circumscribed by boundaries that are totally independent of our gerrymandering. One strategy for substantiating the thesis would involve discovering some of reality’s inherent joints by direct observation. This paper critically considers the observational strategy by examining a number of proposals for how reality might be individuated intrinsically, and demonstrating case-by-case that the individuation in question is likely imposed by us, rather (...) than inherent in nature. It is additionally suggested that even if objects with crisply unambiguous boundaries were discovered, it would still not be enough to vindicate Individuative Realism. (shrink)

Even if unconditional truth is unattainable in principle, the ideal of unconditional truth has an important role to play in practice, according to Habermas. Habermas' position can be construed as descriptive or prescriptive. Either way, it faces considerable challenges. As a description, it raises classic philosophical problems. As a prescription, it raises many of the practical problems of religious fundamentalism, as Rorty argues. Trying to avoid the theoretical problems inherent to the concept of unconditional truth by non-epistemic means is not (...) promising. (shrink)

Zimbabwe's communal farmers are now less food secure than they were two generations ago. The roots of this decline lie not only in the confinement of Africans to marginal land but also in the historic forced replacement of their sustainable, indigenous farming system with one whose productivity now relies on the use of large amounts of expensive chemical inputs. Environmentally-friendly, traditional farming practices such as pyro-culture, minimum tillage, mixed cropping, and bush fallowing were completely wiped out and replaced with a (...) highly technical western or ganic farming system based on plough cultivation and continuous monocultures of commodity crops, that were supposed to be sustained by liberal amounts of green and animal manures. This gave rise to an effective agricultural hegemony that was due, mainly, to the zealous dedication of an American Mormon missionary whose motives were evangelical rather than scientific. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 104, Issue 1, Page 19-49, January 2022.

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 44-45.

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 51, Issue 4, Page 413-449, Fall 2023.

Philosophical Explorations, Volume 17, Issue 2, Page 172-187, June 2014.

World Futures, Volume 68, Issue 2, Page 77-81, February-March 2012.

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 7, Page 51-53, July 2011.

Science is a force for good in the world--at least usually. But sometimes, when obsession gets the better of scientists, they twist a noble pursuit into something sinister. Under this spell, knowledge isn't everything, it's the only thing--no matter the cost. Bestselling author Sam Kean tells the true story of what happens when unfettered ambition pushes otherwise rational men and women to cross the line in the name of science, trampling ethical boundaries and often committing crimes in the process. The (...) Icepick Surgeon masterfully guides the reader across two thousand years of history, beginning with Cleopatra's dark deeds in ancient Egypt. The book reveals the origins of much of modern science in the transatlantic slave trade of the 1700s, as well as Thomas Edison's mercenary support of the electric chair and the warped logic of the spies who infiltrated the Manhattan Project. But the sins of science aren't all safely buried in the past. Many of them, Kean reminds us, still affect us today. We can draw direct lines from the medical abuses of Tuskegee and Nazi Germany to current vaccine hesitancy, and connect icepick lobotomies from the 1950s to the contemporary failings of mental-health care. Kean even takes us into the future, when advanced computers and genetic engineering could unleash whole new sways to do one another wrong. Unflinching, and exhilarating to the last page, The Icepick Surgeon fuses the drama of scientific discovery with the illicit thrill of a true-crime tale. With his trademark wit and precision, Kean shows that, while science has done more good than harm in the world, rogue scientists do exist, and when we sacrifice morals for progress, we often end up with neither. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Beyond Ratzinger's Republic:Communio's Postliberal TurnSam Zeno Conedera S.J. and Vincent L. Strand S.J.Is the political future of the West a postliberal one? For the past decade, numerous prominent thinkers in America and Europe have been debating this question. Matters that not long ago were merely of historical interest, such as Pope Gelasius I's understanding of the relation between sacral authority and royal power, Thomas Aquinas's thought on monarchy and (...) Robert Bellarmine's theory of the pope's indirect authority in temporal matters are now increasingly studied for their potential answers to contemporary political questions. This development, which would have been nearly unimaginable just a decade earlier, unsurprisingly has been led by Catholics. We say "unsurprisingly" in view of the long pre-modern tradition of Catholic political thought, as well as the Church's long struggle against liberalism during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some of the current postliberal writers explicitly connect themselves to both of these aspects by using the term "integralist" to describe their position.1 [End Page 889]This "new integralism" represents a radical departure from the mainstream of Catholic political discourse of the last half century, which has largely sought rapprochement with Western liberalism. A group of writers, led by John Courtney Murray, George Weigel, Michael Novak, and Robert George, have held that the American constitutional order is rooted in the natural law tradition, and therefore is basically friendly to Catholic political thought. The Church's role in American life, they say, is upholding the natural law as a public moral philosophy, while embracing the non-establishment clause of the First Amendment as a matter of principle, in accordance with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. This "Whig Thomism," which for decades represented the predominant outlook of conservative American Catholics, must now face the challenge of a different sort of Thomism represented by the integralists.2While the engagement between Whig Thomists and integralists has received most of the attention from scholars and journalists alike, another postliberal option has emerged in recent years. Its source is a group of Catholic thinkers associated with the Communio theological movement. Their political vision, which has no single name or label, has a complex and subtle relationship with the thought of earlier Communio writers, most of whom shared the Whig Thomist desire for reconciliation with Western liberalism. [End Page 890] The appearance of a Communio postliberalism therefore represents a significant development within this intellectual tradition. The most important representative of the earlier Communio perspective on political questions is Joseph Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI, who has recently been lauded as the "most important Catholic thinker of the twentieth century" on matters at the intersection of theology and politics.3In an article titled "Ratzinger's Republic" that appeared in these pages in 2020, we identified a significant tension in his thought about the Church's contribution to political life.4 Exploring Ratzinger's writings on natural law, we demonstrated that two currents are present. In accord with his fundamental theological commitments about nature and grace and about faith and reason, Ratzinger often questioned the effectiveness of arguments from natural law. He claimed that, since reason is historically conditioned, and therefore in the current order marked by sin, reason needs grace and faith to function properly. Yet, on other occasions, Ratzinger strongly endorsed arguments from natural law, highlighting its role as the foundation of a just democratic political order. We traced this ambivalence about natural law back to a dilemma at the heart of Ratzinger's political thought. On the one hand, in accord with his thinking about the relations of nature and grace and faith and reason, Ratzinger argued that the state needs the Church to supply moral values that the state cannot furnish on its own. On the other hand, he believed it belongs to the very nature of the Church to be separate from the state, and he endorsed nonconfessional, religiously pluralistic states.5 In light of these two commitments, Ratzinger argued that the contribution Christians are to make to the state is to supply moral values that were discerned under the influence of grace and divine revelation but... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Vagaries and Vicissitudes of WarRichard W Sams III remember standing in the kitchen of our home on Camp Pendleton—a United States Marine Corps base in Southern California—listening to National Public Radio (NPR) and doing dishes in the fall of 2002. President Bush announced to the world that he was considering a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq on the pretext of Saddam Hussein harboring weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Three (...) months later, as a Navy Family Physician, I deployed with a surgical company in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Reflecting on the situation with a like-minded close friend, I was not sure— would this be a just war? A necessary war? In my mind, it did not rise to the level of conscientious objection, yet the rightness of invading another country with all the anticipated death and destruction was not clear.En route to Kuwait, we laid over in Spain. While fixed to a TV in a holding area, I watched the Secretary of State make a case to the United Nations (UN) and the world that removing Hussein from power would protect us from mobile anthrax labs that could kill tens of thousands. I thought to myself, Either he is absolutely right, and we are protecting our country and the rest of the free world, or he is terribly mistaken and we are embarking on a disaster.As we trained, prepared, and waited in our tents to invade, we listened to the news on “Voice of America” with a hand crank radio. Thousands of citizens from nations around the world protested. Pope John Paul II, a man well acquainted with the tragedy of war, even spoke out about the planned invasion. “War is not inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity.” He admonished our leaders that war needed to be the very last option. As a man of faith, I was troubled by his resolute, thoughtful opposition to the crusade I was embarking on. As the day of the invasion approached, scud missiles flew over our camp and we scurried into bunkers, day and night, with our gas masks donned to protect us from possible WMD attacks. In March, with the announcement of a “shock and awe” missile attack on Hussein’s palace, the invasion commenced.Within a day of flying by helicopter into enemy territory to set up a surgical company, the fog of war set in. A series of mass casualties streamed in from nearby Nasiriya. We received dozens of injured enemy combatants and American soldiers. Most troubling were the civilians. An entire extended family fleeing for their lives stumbled into an Iraqi minefield meant for us: a mother dead, the men with shrapnel wounds, and an aunt lost both of her legs. Then there was the little boy. By doctrine, our leaders reassured us we would not care for children. Yet, out of instinct, the field corpsmen scooped up all injured, including children, and [End Page 170] brought them to us. The five-year-old’s legs were blown to bits. We had no pediatric supplies. The anesthesiologist heroically intubated the child’s tiny airway with a urinary catheter and placed an adult IV. The surgeons corrected the wounds the best they could. Hours later, in futility, we performed chest compressions on his tiny mangled body.A day later, the worst sandstorm in a decade struck the area. We struggled to keep the patient-filled tents erect. A Marine appeared on the scene out of the darkness (you could not see beyond your nose in the storm) exclaiming we were going to condition one—lock and load our weapons due to an imminent threat. As healthcare professionals, Geneva Conventions dictated we were to use weapons only in self-defense. We chambered our 9-millimeter pistols to defend our patients and ourselves while Marines formed a defensive perimeter. I thought to myself, Great I’m gonna be shot up and die during a freaking sandstorm in Iraq. Hours later, we were told to stand down. The threat was not from approaching enemy combatants but from shepherds running from the crossfire. I had a small nervous breakdown, sleep deprived and under duress... (shrink)

ExtractIn this dialogue, two college students, Katie and Dennis, discuss some of the positions taken by Sam Harris in his recent work The Moral Landscape. They discover that, first, theories of ethics based on human well-being are nothing new; they also question whether Harris has truly closed the door on moral subjectivism. Next, while remaining sympathetic to Harris, they question how much he has really accomplished by equating human well-being with specific brain states, and wonder if blissful brain states based (...) on delusion can really be associated with a life well lived.Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.SAM HARRIS, THE MORAL LANDSCAPE, AND SOME UNANSWERED QUESTIONSVolume 12, Issue 33Brian VromanDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000267Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. SAM HARRIS, THE MORAL LANDSCAPE, AND SOME UNANSWERED QUESTIONSVolume 12, Issue 33Brian VromanDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000267Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. SAM HARRIS, THE MORAL LANDSCAPE, AND SOME UNANSWERED QUESTIONSVolume 12, Issue 33Brian VromanDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000267Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation. (shrink)

Sam Kean: The disappearing spoon: and other true tales of madness, love, and the history of the world from the periodic table of the elements Content Type Journal Article Pages 77-77 DOI 10.1007/s10698-010-9101-x Authors Michael Laing, School of Pure and Applied Chemistry, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 4041 South Africa Journal Foundations of Chemistry Online ISSN 1572-8463 Print ISSN 1386-4238 Journal Volume Volume 13 Journal Issue Volume 13, Number 1.

Predictive processing accounts of neural function view the brain as a kind of prediction machine that forms models of its environment in order to anticipate the upcoming stream of sensory stimulation. These models are then continuously updated in light of incoming error signals. Predictive processing has offered a powerful new perspective on cognition, action, and perception. In this chapter we apply the insights from predictive processing to the study of emotions. The upshot is a picture of emotion as inseparable from (...) perception and cognition, and a key feature of the embodied mind. (shrink)

Many prominent critiques of philosophical methods proceed by suggesting that some method is unreliable, especially in comparison to some alternative method. In light of this, it may seem natural to conclude that these (comparatively) unreliable methods should be abandoned. Drawing upon work on the division of cognitive labour in science, we argue things are not so straightforward. Rather, whether an unreliable method should be abandoned depends heavily on the crucial question of how we should divide philosophers’ time and effort between (...) different methods, in order to maximise our prospects of achieving epistemic success. We show that, in a range of cases, even a (comparatively) unreliable method deserves to be allocated some of these resources. (shrink)

Bestselling author Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith-that a moral system cannot be based on science.

In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that free will is an illusion but that this truth should not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom; indeed, this truth can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Formal models of appearance and reality have proved fruitful for investigating structural properties of perceptual knowledge. This paper applies the same approach to epistemic justification. Our central goal is to give a simple account of The Preface, in which justified belief fails to agglomerate. Following recent work by a number of authors, we understand knowledge in terms of normality. An agent knows p iff p is true throughout all relevant normal worlds. To model The Preface, we appeal to the normality (...) of error. Sometimes, it is more normal for reality and appearance to diverge than to match. We show that this simple idea has dramatic consequences for the theory of knowledge and justification. Among other things, we argue that a proper treatment of The Preface requires a departure from the internalist idea that epistemic justification supervenes on the appearances and the widespread idea that one knows most when free from error. (shrink)

Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith--that a moral system cannot be based on science.

We develop a new version of the causal theory of spacetime. Whereas traditional versions of the theory seek to identify spatiotemporal relations with causal relations, the version we develop takes causal relations to be the grounds for spatiotemporal relations. Causation is thus distinct from, and more basic than, spacetime. We argue that this non-identity theory, suitably developed, avoids the challenges facing the traditional identity theory.

The visual system adapts to a wide range of visual features, from lower-level features like color and motion to higher-level features like causality and, perhaps, number. According to some, adaptation is a strictly perceptual phenomenon, such that the presence of adaptation licenses the claim that a feature is truly perceptual in nature. Given the theoretical importance of claims about adaptation, then, it is important to understand exactly when the visual system does and does not exhibit adaptation. Here, we take as (...) a case study one specific kind of adaptation: visual adaptation to size. Supported by evidence from four experiments, we argue that, despite robust effects of size adaptation in the lab, (1) size adaptation effects are phenomenologically underwhelming (in some cases, hardly appreciable at all), (2) some effects of size adaptation appear contradictory, and difficult to explain given current theories of size adaptation, and (3) prior studies on size adaptation may have failed to isolate size as the adapted dimension. Ultimately, we argue that while there is evidence to license the claim that size adaptation is genuine, size adaptation is a puzzling and poorly understood phenomenon. (shrink)

According to the KK-principle, knowledge iterates freely. It has been argued, notably in Greco, that accounts of knowledge which involve essential appeal to normality are particularly conducive to defence of the KK-principle. The present article evaluates the prospects for employing normality in this role. First, it is argued that the defence of the KK-principle depends upon an implausible assumption about the logical principles governing iterated normality claims. Once this assumption is dropped, counter-instances to the principle can be expected to arise. (...) Second, it is argued that even if the assumption is maintained, there are other logical properties of normality which can be expected to lead to failures of KK. Such failures are noteworthy, since they do not depend on either a margins-for-error principle or safety condition of the kinds Williamson appeals to in motivating rejection KK. “Introduction: KK and Being in a Position to Know” Section formulates two versions of the KK-Principle; “Inexact Knowledge and Margins for Error” Section presents a version of Williamson’s margins-for-error argument against it; “Knowledge and Normality” and “Iterated Normality” Sections discuss the defence of the KK-Principle due to Greco and show that it is dependent upon the implausible assumption that the logic of normality ascriptions is at least as strong as K4; finally, “Knowledge in Abnormal Conditions” and “Higher-Order Ignorance Inside the Margins” Sections argue that a weakened version of Greco’s constraint on knowledge is plausible and demonstrate that this weakened constraint will, given uncontentious assumptions, systematically generate counter-instances to the KK-principle of a novel kind. (shrink)

In non‐literal uses of language, the content an utterance communicates differs from its literal truth conditions. Loose talk is one example of non‐literal language use (amongst many others). For example, what a loose utterance of (1) communicates differs from what it literally expresses: (1) Lena arrived at 9 o'clock. Loose talk is interesting (or so I will argue). It has certain distinctive features which raise important questions about the connection between literal and non‐literal language use. This paper aims to (i.) (...) introduce a range of novel data demonstrating certain overlooked features of loose talk, and (ii.) develop a new theory of the phenomenon which accounts for these data. In particular, this theory is motivated by the need to explain minimal pairs such as (2)-(3): (2) Lena arrived at 9 o'clock, but she did not arrive at 9 o'clock exactly. (3) ?? Lena did not arrive at 9 o'clock exactly, but she arrived at 9 o'clock. (2) and (3) agree in their truth conditions. Yet they differ in felicity. As such, they constitute a problem for any account which hopes to predict the acceptability of the loose use of a sentence from its truth conditions and the context of utterance alone. Instead, it will be argued, to explain loose talk phenomena we must posit an additional layer of meaning outstripping truth conditions. This layer of meaning is shown to exhibit a range of properties, all of which point to its being semantically encoded. Thus, if correct, the theory provides a new example of how semantic meaning must extend beyond literal, truth‐conditional content. (shrink)

Inquiry aims at knowledge. Your inquiry into a question succeeds just in case you come to know the answer. However, combined with a common picture on which misleading evidence can lead knowledge to be lost, this view threatens to recommend a novel form of dogmatism. At least in some cases, individuals who know the answer to a question appear required to avoid evidence bearing on it. In this paper, we’ll aim to do two things. First, we’ll present an argument for (...) this novel form of dogmatism and show that it presents a substantive challenge. Second, we’ll consider a way those who take knowledge to be the aim of inquiry can mount a response. In the course of doing so, we’ll try to get clearer on the normative connections between inquiry, knowledge and evidence gathering. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of pluralities based on the following simple claim: some things are nothing over and above the individual things they comprise. For some, this may seem like a mysterious statement, perhaps even meaningless; for others, like a truism, trivial and inferentially inert. I show that neither reaction is correct: the claim is both tractable and has important consequences for a number of debates in philosophy.

The popularity of ‘food sovereignty’ to cover a range of positions, interventions, and struggles within the food system is testament, above all, to the term’s adaptability. Food sovereignty is centrally, though not exclusively, about groups of people making their own decisions about the food system—it is a way of talking about a theoretically-informed food systems practice. Since people are different, we should expect decisions about food sovereignty to be different in different contexts, albeit consonant with a core set of principles. (...) In this paper we look at the analytical points of friction in applying ideas of food sovereignty within the context of Indigenous struggles in North America. This, we argue, helps to clarify one of the central themes in food sovereignty: that it is a continuation of anti-colonial struggles, even in post-colonial contexts. Such an examination has dividends both for scholars of food sovereignty and for those of Indigenous politics: by helping to problematize notions of food sovereignty and postcoloniality, but also by posing pointed questions around gender for Indigenous struggles. (shrink)

In an interesting experimental study, Bonini et al. (1999) present partial support for truth-gap theories of vagueness. We say this despite their claim to find theoretical and empirical reasons to dismiss gap theories and despite the fact that they favor an alternative, epistemic account, which they call ‘vagueness as ignorance’. We present yet more experimental evidence that supports gap theories, and argue for a semantic/pragmatic alternative that unifies the gappy supervaluationary approach together with its glutty relative, the subvaluationary approach.

Some critics argue that the types of psychiatric diagnosis found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and International Classification of Disease are superfluous and should be abandoned. These are known as categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses. To receive a categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnosis an individual need only exhibit some, rather than all, of the symptoms on the diagnostic criteria. Consequently, categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses only associate an individual with a range of symptoms rather than specify which symptoms they (...) have. Drawing on Giere’s account of scientific models, I portray categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses as abstract models that guide the building of less abstract models. These models can specify which symptoms a particular individual has. Additionally, categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses can guide investigation of symptoms towards difficult to spot symptoms, guide investigation towards changing symptoms, and guide investigation towards how symptoms manifest. These important roles mean categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses should not be abandoned. (shrink)

Suppositional theories of conditionals take apparent similarities between supposition and conditionals as a starting point, appealing to features of the former to provide an account of the latter. This paper develops a novel form of suppositional theory, one which characterizes the relationship at the level of semantics rather than at the level of speech acts. In the course of doing so, it considers a range of novel data which shed additional light on how conditionals and supposition interact.

On a now orthodox view, humans and many other animals possess a “number sense,” or approximate number system, that represents number. Recently, this orthodox view has been subject to numerous critiques that question whether the ANS genuinely represents number. We distinguish three lines of critique – the arguments from congruency, confounds, and imprecision – and show that none succeed. We then provide positive reasons to think that the ANS genuinely represents numbers, and not just non-numerical confounds or exotic substitutes for (...) number, such as “numerosities” or “quanticals,” as critics propose. In so doing, we raise a neglected question: numbers of what kind? Proponents of the orthodox view have been remarkably coy on this issue. But this is unsatisfactory since the predictions of the orthodox view, including the situations in which the ANS is expected to succeed or fail, turn on the kind of number being represented. In response, we propose that the ANS represents not only natural numbers, but also non-natural rational numbers. It does not represent irrational numbers, however, and thereby fails to represent the real numbers more generally. This distances our proposal from existing conjectures, refines our understanding of the ANS, and paves the way for future research. (shrink)

Kant proclaimed that all theodicies must fail in ?On the Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy?, but it is mysterious why he did so since he had developed a theodicy of his own during the critical period. In this paper, I offer an explanation of why Kant thought theodicies necessarily fail. In his theodicy, as well as in some of his works in ethics, Kant explained moral evil as resulting from unavoidable limitations in human beings. God could not create (...) finite beings without such limitations and so could not have created humans that were not prone to committing immoral acts. However, the work of Carl Christian Eberhard Schmid showed Kant that given his own beliefs about freedom and the nature of responsibility one could not account for moral evil in this way without tacitly denying that human beings were responsible for their actions. This result is significant not only because it explains an otherwise puzzling shift in Kant's philosophy of religion, but also because it shows that the theodicy essay provides powerful evidence that Kant's thinking about moral evil and freedom underwent fundamental shifts between early works such as the Groundwork and later works like the Religion within the Limits of Mere Reason. (shrink)

This paper refines a controversial proposal: that core systems belong to a perceptual kind, marked out by the format of its representational outputs. Following Susan Carey, this proposal has been understood in terms of core representations having an iconic format, like certain paradigmatically perceptual outputs. I argue that they don’t, but suggest that the proposal may be better formulated in terms of a broader analogue format type. Formulated in this way, the proposal accommodates the existence of genuine icons in perception, (...) and avoids otherwise troubling objections. (shrink)

Argues that the normative relation of commitment is routinely overlooked by philosophers, and that investigating it reveals some interesting similarities between the moral and rational domains.

The theoretical virtue of parsimony values the minimizing of theoretical commitments, but theoretical commitments come in two kinds : ontological and ideological. While the ontological commitments of a theory are the entities it posits, a theory’s ideological commitments are the primitive concepts it employs. Here, I show how we can extend the distinction between quantitative and qualitative parsimony, commonly drawn regarding ontological commitments, to the domain of ideological commitments. I then argue that qualitative ideological parsimony is a theoretical virtue. My (...) defense proceeds by demonstrating the merits of qualitative ideological parsimony and by showing how the qualitative conception of ideological parsimony undermines two notable arguments from ideological parsimony: David Lewis’ defense of modal realism and Ted Sider’s defense of mereological nihilism. (shrink)

Think of a number, any number, or properties like fragility and humanity. These and other abstract entities are radically different from concrete entities like electrons and elbows. While concrete entities are located in space and time, have causes and effects, and are known through empirical means, abstract entities like meanings and possibilities are remarkably different. They seem to be immutable and imperceptible and to exist "outside" of space and time. This book provides a comprehensive critical assessment of the problems raised (...) by abstract entities and the debates about existence, truth, and knowledge that surround them. It sets out the key issues that inform the metaphysical disagreement between platonists who accept abstract entities and nominalists who deny abstract entities exist. Beginning with the essentials of the platonist–nominalist debate, it explores the key arguments and issues informing the contemporary debate over abstract reality: arguments for platonism and their connections to semantics, science, and metaphysical explanation the abstract–concrete distinction and views about the nature of abstract reality epistemological puzzles surrounding our knowledge of mathematical entities and other abstract entities. arguments for nominalism premised upon concerns about paradox, parsimony, infinite regresses, underdetermination, and causal isolation nominalist options that seek to dispense with abstract entities. Including chapter summaries, annotated further reading, and a glossary, _Entities_ is essential reading for anyone seeking a clear and authoritative introduction to the problems raised by abstract entities. (shrink)

Since Aristotle, many writers have treated metaphors and similes as equals: any metaphor can be paraphrased as a simile, and vice-versa. This property of metaphors is the basis for psycholinguistic comparison theories of metaphor comprehension. However, if metaphors cannot always be paraphrased as similes, then comparison theories must be abandoned. The different forms of a metaphor—the comparison and categorical forms—have different referents. In comparison form, the metaphor vehicle refers to the literal concept, e.g. 'in my lawyer is like a shark', (...) the term 'shark' refers to the literal fish. In categorical form, 'my lawyer is a shark', 'shark' refers to an abstract (metaphorical) category of predatory creatures. This difference in reference makes it possible for a metaphor and its corresponding simile to differ (a) in interpretability and (b) in meaning. Because a metaphor cannot always be understood in terms of its corresponding simile, we conclude that comparison theories of metaphor are fundamentally flawed. (shrink)

Jerry Fodor deemed informational encapsulation ‘the essence’ of a system’s modularity and argued that human perceptual processing comprises modular systems, thus construed. Nowadays, his conclusion is widely challenged. Often, this is because experimental work is seen to somehow demonstrate the cognitive penetrability of perceptual processing, where this is assumed to conflict with the informational encapsulation of perceptual systems. Here, I deny the conflict, proposing that cognitive penetration need not have any straightforward bearing on the conjecture that perceptual processing is composed (...) of nothing but informationally encapsulated modules, the conjecture that each and every perceptual computation is performed by an informationally encapsulated module, and the consequences perceptual encapsulation was traditionally expected to have for a perception-cognition border, the epistemology of perception and cognitive science. With these points in view, I propose that particularly plausible cases of cognitive penetration would actually seem to evince the encapsulation of perceptual systems rather than refute/problematize this conjecture. (shrink)

There is a large literature exploring how accuracy constrains rational degrees of belief. This paper turns to the unexplored question of how accuracy constrains knowledge. We begin by introducing a simple hypothesis: increases in the accuracy of an agent’s evidence never lead to decreases in what the agent knows. We explore various precise formulations of this principle, consider arguments in its favour, and explain how it interacts with different conceptions of evidence and accuracy. As we show, the principle has some (...) noteworthy consequences for the wider theory of knowledge. First, it implies that an agent cannot be justified in believing a set of mutually inconsistent claims. Second, it implies the existence of a kind of epistemic blindspot: it is not possible to know that one’s evidence is misleading. (shrink)