This article motivates and develops a reductive account of the structure of certain physical quantities in terms of their mereology. That is, I argue that quantitative relations like "longer than" or "3.6-times the volume of" can be analyzed in terms of necessary constraints those quantities put on the mereological structure of their instances. The resulting account, I argue, is able to capture the intuition that these quantitative relations are intrinsic to the physical systems they’re called upon to describe and explain.

This article introduces and motivates the notion of a “properly extensive” quantity by means of a puzzle about the reliability of certain canonical length measurements. An account of these measurements’ success, I argue, requires a modally robust connection between quantitative structure and mereology that is not mediated by the dynamics and is stronger than the constraints imposed by “mere additivity.” I outline what it means to say that length is not just extensive but properly so and then briefly sketch an (...) application of proper extensiveness to the project of providing a reductive ground for metric quantitative structure. (shrink)

Tim Maudlin has influentially argued that Humeanism about laws of nature stands in conflict with quantum mechanics. Specifically Humeanism implies the principle Separability: the complete physical state of a world is determined by the intrinsic physical state of each space-time point. Maudlin argues Separability is violated by the entangled states posited by QM. We argue that Maudlin only establishes that a stronger principle, which we call Strong Separability, is in tension with QM. Separability is not in tension with QM. Moreover, (...) while the Humean requires Separability to capture the core tenets of her view, there's no Humean-specific motivation for accepting Strong Separability. We go on to give a Humean account of entangled states which satisfies Separability. The core idea is that certain quantum states depend upon the Humean mosaic in much the same way as the laws do. In fact, we offer a variant of the Best System account on which the systemization procedure that generates the laws also serves to ground these states. We show how this account works by applying it to the example of Bohmian Mechanics. The 3N-dimensional configuration space, the world particle in it and the wave function on it are part of the best system of the Humean mosaic, which consists of N particles moving in 3-dimensional space. We argue that this account is superior to the Humean account of Bohmian Mechanics defended by Loewer and Albert, which takes the 3N-dimensional space, and its inhabitants, as fundamental. (shrink)

According to substantivalism, spacetime points and regions are real entities whose existence is not dependent on matter. In this paper, I motivate and defend a version of substantivalism which takes the totality of spacetime as fundamental, and show how this position avoids certain problem cases, in particular the objection from static Leibniz shifts, and better conforms to how we think about space in physics. I argue that, even though the static Leibniz shifts do not show ordinary substantivalism is committed to (...) in-principle undetectable physical structure ), they do indicate something problematic about the modal profile of space-time and its constituents. While the problem is modal, the solution cannot be solely a matter of revising the substantivalist's modal claims. Rather, I argue, the substantivalist must revise her background ontology of space-time. I show how this can be done by developing substantivalist theory that rejects this picture in favor of an alternative ontology of space-time in the spirit of priority monism. (shrink)

Quantities are properties and relations which exhibit "quantitative structure". For physical quantities, this structure can impact the non-quantitative world in different ways. In this paper I introduce and motivate a novel distinction between quantities based on the way their quantitative structure constrains the possible mereological structure of their instances. Specifically, I identify a category of “properly extensive” quantities, which are a proper sub-class of the additive or extensive quantities. I present and motivate this distinction using two case studies of successful (...) physical measurements.. I argue that the best explanation for the success of the length measurement requires us to adopt a notion of proper extensiveness, which is distinct from mere additivity, which is exhibited by inertial mass. I further discuss the consequences of this distinction, sketching an application of proper extensiveness for the project of producing a non-mathematical and non-metrical reductive metaphysics of quantity. (shrink)

I present an argument against the view that the additivity of mass (i.e., the property according to which a composite object’s mass is the “sum” of its parts’) is metaphysically independent of dynamical laws governing massive bodies. In particular, taking additivity to be independent of dynamics commits you to widespread unexplained correlations between the mass properties of composites and the dynamic behavior of massive bodies. The second half of the paper extends this explanatory worry, showing that the very same considerations (...) apply to aspects of mass’s quantitative structure. This gives rise to a new and powerful objection to certain influential theories about the fundamental structure of physical quantities —most notably the magnitude realism of Peacocke (2019) and the second-order absolutist accounts defended by Mundy (1987) and Eddon (2013b). (shrink)

Humeanism – the idea that there are no necessary connections between distinct existences – and Nomic Essentialism – the idea that properties essentially play the nomic roles that they do – are two of the most important and influential positions in the metaphysics of science. Traditionally, it has been thought that these positions were incompatible competitors. We disagree. We argue that there is an attractive version of Humeanism that captures the idea that, for example, mass essentially plays the role that (...) it actually does in the laws of nature. In this paper we consider the arguments that have lead many to conclude that Humeanism cannot be combined with Nomic Essentialism; we identify the weaknesses in these arguments; and we argue in detail that a version of Humeanism based on a variant of the Best System account of laws captures the key intuitions behind nomic essentialism. (shrink)

In this essay I first review Kaplan’s theory of linguistic character, and then explain and motivate a concept of doxastic character. I then develop some concepts for dealing with the topic of belief retention and then, finally, discuss Rip Van Winkle. I come down on Kaplan’s side with respect to the Frege-inspired strategy, narrowly construed. But I advocate something like the Frege-inspired strategy, if it is construed more broadly. On my view it is remarkably easy to retain a belief, and (...) I think Evans is quite wrong about Rip and Kaplan. The central concept I develop, however, that of an information game, is in the spirit of much of Evans’ work. I also borrow some of his terminology. (shrink)

A DIALOGUE on PERSONAL IDENTITY and IMMORTALITY This is a record of conversations of Gretchen We/rob, a teacher of philosophy at a small mid- western ...

It has been persuasively argued by David Kaplan and others that the proposition expressed by statements like (1) is a singular proposition, true in just those worlds in which a certain person, David Israel, is a computer scientist. Call this proposition P . The truth of this proposition does not require that the utterance (1) occur, or even that Israel has ever said anything at all. Marcus, Donnellan, Kripke and others have persuasively argued for a view of proper names that, (...) put in Kaplan’s terms and applied to this example, implies that the proposition expressed by (2) is also simply P .1 The thesis that expressions of a certain category (names, indexicals, demonstratives, pronouns, descriptions, etc.) are referential 2holds that these expressions contribute the object to which they refer, rather than a mode of presentation of that object, to the propositions expressed by statements containing them. The thesis that indexicals and names are referential creates the challenge of explaining the difference in cognitive significance between statements like (1) and (2), that express the same proposition[Wettstein, 1986]. The problem has two parts, which.. (shrink)

'I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception.' These famous words of David Hume, on his inability to perceive the self, set the stage for JeeLoo Liu and John Perry's collection of essays on self-awareness and self-knowledge. This volume connects recent scientific studies on consciousness with the traditional issues about the self explored by Descartes, Locke and Hume. Experts in the field offer contrasting perspectives on matters such (...) as the relation between consciousness and self-awareness, the notion of personhood and the epistemic access to one's own thoughts, desires or attitudes. The volume will be of interest to philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, cognitive scientists and others working on the central topics of consciousness and the self. (shrink)

”Self-beliefs” are beliefs of the sort one ordinarily has about oneself, and expresses with the first person. These contrast with the beliefs one has in ”Casta˜neda cases,” in which one has a belief about oneself without knowing it. This paper advances an account of the nature of self-belief. According to this account, self-belief is a special case of interacting with things via notions that serve as repositories for information about objects with certain important relations to the knower, and as motivators (...) for actions the success of which is dependent on the object in that relation to the agent. Identity is such a relation, and ”self-notions” play this special role: they are the repositories for information gained in normally self-informative ways, and the motivators of types of action whose success normally depends on facts about the agent. Self-beliefs involve such self-notions, while the beliefs that one has about oneself in Casta˜neda cases do not. (shrink)

Distributed cognition provides a theoretical framework for the analysis of data from socio-technical systems within a problem-solving framework. While the approach has been applied in tightly constrained activity domains, composed of well-structured problems and highly organised infrastructures, little is known about its use in other forms of activity systems. In this paper, we explore how distributed cognition could be applied in less well-constrained settings, with ill-structured problems and loosely organised resource sets, critically reflecting on this using data from a field (...) study. The findings suggest that the use of distributed cognition in an augmented form can be useful in the analysis of a wide range of activity systems in loosely coupled settings. (shrink)

I argue for the consistency of frege's treatments of identity and number. Specifically, I argue that geach is wrong in suggesting that frege's insights about number should have led him to the doctrine of relative identity.

This paper proposes that the philosophy of Bernard Lonergan can provide insight into the challenge of integrating nursing theory, research and practice. The author discusses Lonergan's work in regard to reflective understanding, authenticity and the human person as a subject of consciously developing unity. This is followed by a discussion of two key elements in Lonergan's work that relate to nursing: the subject–object challenge of nursing inquiry and common sense vs. scientific knowledge. The author suggests that integration of nursing theory, (...) science and practice may be achieved through self-transcendence. (shrink)

This chapter explores the notion of some philosophers that the self is a mysterious thing. It has been associated with a number of concepts, such as the souls of Christian theology, the essential natures that are passed along in reincarnation, or as noumenal objects that exist beyond normal space and time, outside of the causal realm, and join, in some Kantian way, with the primordial structure of reality to create the world as we know it. Hume, on the other hand, (...) believes that a bundle of perceptions serves as the self. This leads to two thoughts regarding the self: Hume’s bundle theory and the self as a person, thought of under the relation of identity. This chapter will delve into these two thoughts. (shrink)

Autism is a chronic neurodevelopmental disorder that presents unique challenges to bioethicists. In particular, bioethicists ought to reconsider pediatric consent in light of disparity between beliefs that are held about the disorder by parents and adults with autism. The neurodiverse community ought to be given some consideration in this debate, and, as such, there may be a role for autistic narratives in clarifying this problem.

The sources and methods of espionage, the goals and tactics of covert action, and the professional conduct of intelligence officers are matters typically hidden from public scrutiny, yet clearly worthy of public debate and philosophical attention. Recent academic studies of intelligence that have had any intentional bearing on ethics or political philosophy have largely focused on procedural questions surrounding the proper degree of oversight of intelligence agencies. But what is often missed in such examinations is substantive ethical analysis of intelligence (...) operations themselves. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre, novelist, playwright, biographer, was undoubtedly one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. Above all, however, he was an embodiment of the engagé intellectual, active in a variety of political causes, as well as an individual who attempted to live his life in accordance with the philosophy he professed. These interviews take Sartre on a wide-ranging tour of his philosophy and politics. Here we have Simone de Beauvoir challenging Sartre on his own attitude towards machismo and feminism; (...) and Sartre responding thoughtfully to questions which range from Freud, Marx, and the drama of Bertolt Brecht to the Cultural Revolution, Stalinism, the May 'Events' and of course, the US war on Vietnam. Their breadth remains a testimony to one man's attempt to make philosophical sense of the tumultuous world around him. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The public controversy over sex‐based differentials in insurance pricing makes heavy use of terms like ‘fairness’ and ‘discrimination’; in particular, both sides argue that their position is the one dictated by considerations of fairness. Appeal to a basic principle of distributive justice shows that these differentials are not fair. Nevertheless, there is a substantial ethical argument to be made for the industry's status quo, based on the liberty of the low‐risk insurees. The paper considers an alternative reform proposal, with (...) a qualitatively different freedom cost; seven factors are then identified as useful in evaluating the trade‐off between the freedom and justice at stake in any questionable insurance classification variable. A brief concluding section attempts to generalise this analysis to provide a broad framework for the analysis of other discrimination issues. (shrink)

A caveat: The topic of abortion is both highly controversial and extremely complex, and I certainly cannot hope to address all of its important ethical aspects in the brief notes that follow. Readers are urged to consult a good annotated bibliography such as the one compiled by James DeHullu for references to more extensive scholarly treatments of abortion.

Many people in the animal welfare communityhave argued that the use of nonhuman animals inmedical research is necessarily based onspeciesism, an unjustified prejudice based onspecies membership. As such it is morally akinto racism and sexism. This is misguided. Thecombined capacities for autonomy and sentiencewith the obligations derived from relationssupport a morally justifiable rationale forusing some nonhuman animals in order to limitthe risk of harm to humans. There may be a fewcases where it is morally better to use a neversentient human (...) than a sentient animal, butthese cases are few and would not fulfill thecurrent need for research subjects. The use ofnonautonomous animals instead of humans inrisky research can be based on solid moralground. It is not necessarily speciesism. (shrink)

The case of post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) provides an interesting lens through which to reflect on the interconnected and often conflicting challenges of implementation of internationally brokered peace agreements, external support to democratic transition and consolidation, and contemporary notions of sovereignty and state building. This chapter suggests that in the case of BiH, certain contradictions and tradeoffs have been and may still be necessary to ensure a foundation for future stability and democratic consolidation. The situation in post-Dayton BiH can (...) be described as a frozen conflict that has remained frozen in large part due to an international presence that ensures that an imperfect peace prevails while also providing a basis for incremental reform. The peace implementation process in BiH is briefly reviewed by looking at two reform strategies: the “soft” protectorate strategy used in BiH as a whole and the “hard” protectorate option exercised in the District of Brčko. The aim is to demonstrate that while a democratic end-state remains the goal in such transitions, the means toward getting there can include a number of contradictory policy options. (shrink)

The question whether in a liberal democracy religion may serve as a basis of law-making should be desaggregated into two distinct questions. First, is religion a morally legitimate basis of law-making in a liberal democracy? Second, is religion a constitutionally legitimate basis of law-making in the United States? My focus in this article is on the second question, which, as a question about constitutional legitimacy, should not be confused with the first question, which is about moral legitimacy. Like other liberal (...) democracies, the United States is committed to the right to freedom of religious practice. Unlike most other liberal democracies, however, the United States is also committed to the non-etablishment of religion. According to the constitutional law of the United States, law-makers and other government officials may neither prohibit the `free exercise' of religion nor `establish' religion. Does the non-establishment norm ban religion as a basis of law-making? More precisely, should the non-establishment norm be understood to ban laws for which the only discernible rationale — or, at least, the only discernible rationale other than an implausible secular rationale — is religious? (shrink)

The following article is both a reminder to those interested in the development of the doctrine of universal salvation that it has a long history, and an exercise in historiography of Karl Rahner’s relationship to a seventeenth century Spanish Jesuit theologian, Juan Martînez de Ripalda. Rahner’s thesis known as the “supernatural existential” has Jesuit antecedents in the thought of Ripalda and his magnum opus entitled De ente supernaturali. After some historical contextualization of Ripalda we will focus on Rahner and offer (...) possible reasons why the “Molinist” thought of Ripalda with respect to the possibility of salvation for non-Christian persons was so important for his own work. The article will then provide a critical study of Rahner’s reading of Ripalda and point out some key areas of difference in theological approach between the two Jesuits who, almost four hundred years ago, asked similar questions and came to the same answers using very different methodologies. (shrink)

It was once common to regard ASL as less than a full-fledged language, as a mere combination of miming, pointing and a few primitive gestures. That conception of ASL was laid to rest by William Stokoe’s landmark work [22] and much careful research that has come in its wake. This work..

A cut or crush injury to a peripheral nerve results in the degeneration of that portion of the axon isolated from the cell body. The rapid degeneration of this distal segment was for many years believed to be a process intrinsic to the nerve. It was believed that Schwann cells both phagocytosed degenerating axons and myelin sheaths and also provided growth factors to promote regeneration of the damaged axons. In recent years, it has become apparent that the degenerating distal segment (...) is invaded by monocytes from the blood. We will review the evidence that these recruited macrophages play a role in both degeneration and regeneration of peripheral nerve axons after injury and consider whether the slow degeneration and poor monocyte recruitment in the central nervous system may contribute to the poor regeneration there. (shrink)

There are many good introductions to philosophy, and many important philosophy books, but only a handful that are both; the book you have in your hands, The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, is one of these, and one of the best.