In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:February 19, 2011 (11:48 am) E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE3002\russell 30,2 040 red.wpd Reviews 179 THE EARLY “IRON CURTAIN” Michael D. Stevenson Schulich School of Business, York U. / Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. Toronto, on m3j 1p3 / Hamilton, on l8s 4l6, Canada [email protected] Patrick Wright. Iron Curtain: from Stage to Cold War. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 2007. Pp. xvii, 488. isbn 978-0-19-923150-8. £18.99 (hb); £12.99 (pb). In his famous (...) Westminster College address on 5 March 1946 in Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill Wred one of the opening salvos of the Cold War by proclaiming that from “Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain” had been lowered across Europe. Patrick Wright’s intriguing and provocative book does not examine the phrase “iron curtain” in its popular Cold War context. Instead, he maintains that many characteristics of this metaphor, “including the pronounced sense of theatricality it would bring to international politics, were inherited from the period before the Second World War” (p. 18). Wright divides Iron Curtain into two primary chronological sections, the Wrst covering the period from 1914 to 1920. An iron curtain originally referred to the steel safety screen that descended in English theatres, beginning in the lateeighteenth century, to separate the audience from the often catastrophic Wres that broke out on the stage. The phrase entered the lexicon of international relations in January 1915 when British author and paciWst Violet Page (writing under the pseudonym Vernon Lee) published an article lamenting that “War’s cruelties and recriminations, War’s monstrous iron curtain” (p. 80) had alienated European nations such as England and Germany sharing a common cultural heritage. But the barrier quickly moved east in the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution and “took the form not just of exaggerated political rhetoric, but of an economic blockade enforced by naval power” (p. 171), as the Allies sought to contain the infection of Bolshevism. Wright devotes most attention in this section to documenting the 1920 visit to Russia by the British delegation jointly sponsored by the Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party, which sought to penetrate the dense fog of Allied anti-Bolshevik propaganda and validate the delegation members’ own preconceived views about the nascent socialist utopia in Russia. British delegates witnessed images both of progress carefully stagemanaged by their hosts and of terrible economic dislocation and poverty caused by the Allied blockade and the civil war, which allowed the majority of them to return home to lavish praise on the Soviet experiment that would, in their minds, inevitably fulWl its potential once the Bolshevik government became stable. February 19, 2011 (11:48 am) E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE3002\russell 30,2 040 red.wpd 180 Reviews 1 “The Future of Europe”, European AVairsz 1, no. 1 (April 1949): 3. The second section of Wright’s book examines Western reports of life behind the iron curtain between 1920 and 1939. Here, the author focuses heavily on the theatrical nature of Soviet attempts to create modern-day Potemkin villages that werez—zwith a limited number of exceptionsz—zaccepted as reality by an endless parade of left-wing visitors. A second British Trades Union Congress delegation in 1924, for example, received a dramatically embellished picture of Soviet economic progress that included a train journey past a long-abandoned factory belching smoke created by burning wet straw frantically provided by Russian peasants; the resulting report of the delegation “repeatedly collapsed into the most abject conformity with the Soviet view of reality” (p. 245). The most tragic examples of Western visitors’ blindness to the truth occurred during the 1930s famine deliberately induced by Stalin, and Wright exposes a wide cast of characters who adopted a blinkered view of conditions in the ussr. Among intellectuals, Wright documents the 1931 visit of George Bernard Shaw, who cavalierly dismissed reports of widespread food shortages while dining sumptuously in Moscow’s Hotel Metropole. Among journalists, Wright develops the case of Walter Duranty, the New York Timesz correspondent who knuckled under to demands of Soviet censors to produce sanitized accounts denying or ignoring the famine in order to protect his privileged place in that... (shrink)

Vagueness is given a philosophically neutral definition in terms of an epistemic notion of tolerance. Such a notion is intended to capture the thesis that vague terms draw no known boundary across their range of signification and contrasts sharply with the semantic notion of tolerance given by Wright (1975, 1976). This allows us to distinguish vagueness from superficially similar but distinct phenomena such as semantic incompleteness. Two proofs are given which show that vagueness qua epistemic tolerance and vagueness qua (...) borderline cases (when properly construed to exclude terms which are stipulated to give rise to borderline cases) are in fact conceptually equivalent dimensions of vagueness, contrary to what might initially be expected. It is also argued that the common confusion of tolerance and epistemic tolerance has skewed the vagueness debate in favour of indeterminist over epistemic conceptions of vagueness. Clearing up that confusion provides an indirect argument in favour of epistemicism. Finally, given the equation of vagueness with epistemic tolerance, it is shown that there must be radical higher-order vagueness, contrary to what many authors have argued. (shrink)

A number of serious problems are raised against Crispin Wright’s quandary conception of vagueness. Two alternative conceptions of the quandary view are proposed instead. The first conception retains Wright’s thesis that, for all one knows, a verdict concerning a borderline case constitutes knowledge. However a further problem is seen to beset this conception. The second conception, in response to this further problem, does not enjoin the thesis that, for all one knows, a verdict concerning a borderline case constitutes (...) knowledge. The result is a much simpler and more plausible version of the quandary view. (shrink)

This paper presents a new modal logic for ceteris paribus preferences understood in the sense of "all other things being equal". This reading goes back to the seminal work of Von Wright in the early 1960's and has returned in computer science in the 1990' s and in more abstract "dependency logics" today. We show how it differs from ceteris paribus as "all other things being normal", which is used in contexts with preference defeaters. We provide a semantic analysis (...) and several completeness theorems. We show how our system links up with Von Wright's work, and how it applies to game-theoretic solution concepts, to agenda setting in investigation, and to preference change. We finally consider its relation with infinitary modal logics. (shrink)

This paper presents a new modal logic for ceteris paribus preferences understood in the sense of “all other things being equal”. This reading goes back to the seminal work of Von Wright in the early 1960’s and has returned in computer science in the 1990’s and in more abstract “dependency logics” today. We show how it differs from ceteris paribus as “all other things being normal”, which is used in contexts with preference defeaters. We provide a semantic analysis and (...) several completeness theorems. We show how our system links up with Von Wright’s work, and how it applies to game-theoretic solution concepts, to agenda setting in investigation, and to preference change. We finally consider its relation with infinitary modal logics. (shrink)

This latest volume of _The Philosopher's Annual_ presents the ten best articles published in the field during 2001. No limitations are placed on the articles' sources, subject matter or mode of treatment, providing for a diverse collection of engaging, high-caliber work that stands as a valuable sample of contemporary philosophy. This year's volume includes papers by Robert Bernasconi, Hans Halvorson, Christopher Hitchcock, Ignacio Jane, Brian Leiter, Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel, Joel Pust, Alison Simmons, Jason Stanley and Timothy Williamson, and (...) Crispin Wright. (shrink)

Recent theoretical developments in economic theory have attempted to relax the assumption that human behavior is guided by “tight calculation” of profit-maximization. Harvey Liebenstein's notion of X-efficiency is a particularly important development in this regard. This article argues, however, that X-efficiency theory does not go far enough in relaxing the assumptions of economic theory. The understanding of human behavior requires a recognition of variability in the ends or goals of action as well as variability in the means which are utilized (...) in the pursuit of these diverse ends. Max Weber's concepts of formal rationality and substantive rationality recognize this variability in the ends toward which action is oriented as well as the intrusion of habit or routine in the “calculatedness” of social and economic action. C. Wright Mills' ideal of craftship is used to represent a type of substantive rationality which contrasts with the formal rationality of calculation toward profit-maximization. The case is made that craftship is a particularly significant substantive rationality in American agriculture. It is argued that, among family farmers, other values, such as autonomy in one's work, often constitute alternative ends toward which action may be directed. Such ends may, in fact, conflict with the goal of profit-maximization. It is concluded that agricultural policy analysis and prescription which fails to consider the significant role of substantive rationalities, such as craftship, are likely to reproduce and enhance the conditions from which the present crisis in agriculture has developed. (shrink)

Price is a central analytic concept in both neoclassical and old institutional economics. Combining the social network perspective with old and new institutionalist approaches to price formation, this article examines technological, economic, institutional, and political factors that shaped the earliest pricing systems for electricity used in the United States, between 1882 and 1910. We show that certain characteristics of electricity supply led to ambiguities in how the product should be priced, which created a politics of pricing among electricity producers. In (...) particular, we investigate why the “Wright system,” arguably inferior in productive efficiency to other alternatives, was widely adopted by 1900. We argue that this outcome resulted in part from the political and organizational clout of its supporters, as well as from their particular conceptions of the boundaries and future of the industry itself. The Wright system best suited the “growth dynamic” strategy promoted by the managers of large central stations in their fierce competition with smaller and more decentralized installations. Thus, even in this apparently highly technical and mainly economic issue of how to price the product, there was ample room for social construction and political manipulation. The outcome reached was by no means inevitable and had a highly significant impact on the shape of the American industrial infrastructure. (shrink)

Ceteris Paribus clauses in reasoning are used to allow for defeaters of norms, rules or laws, such as in von Wright’s example “I prefer my raincoat over my umbrella, everything else being equal”. In earlier work, a logical analysis is offered in which sets of formulas Γ, embedded in modal operators, provide necessary and sufficient conditions for things to be equal in ceteris paribus clauses. For most laws, the set of things allowed to vary is small, often finite, and (...) so Γ is typically infinite. Yet the axiomatisation they provide is restricted to the special and atypical case in which Γ is finite. We address this problem by being more flexible about ceteris paribus conditions, in two ways. The first is to offer an alternative, slightly more general semantics, in which the set of formulas only give necessary but not sufficient conditions. This permits a simple axiomatisation. (shrink)

Agroecological farming is widely considered to reconcile improved working and living conditions of farmers while promoting social, economic, and ecological sustainability. However, most existing research primarily focuses on relatively narrow trade-offs between workload, economic and ecological outcomes at farm level and overlooks the critical role of contextual factors. This article conducts a critical literature review on the complex nature of agroecological farm work and proposes the holistic concept of sustainable farm work (SFW) in agroecology together with a heuristic evaluation framework. (...) The latter was applied to ten case studies to test its relevance, affirming positive outcomes of agroecology on SFW, such as improved food sovereignty, biodiversity conservation, and social inclusiveness, but also showing trade-offs, including increased workload and potential yield reductions. Further, results show that contextual factors, such as policy support, market regulation, and access to resources, heavily influence the impact of agroecological practices on SFW. This article strongly argues for the importance of a holistic understanding of SFW and its contextualization within multiple socio-ecological system levels. The proposed framework establishes clear relationships between agroecology and SFW. An explicit recognition of these multidimensional relationships is essential for maximizing positive outcomes of agroecology in different contexts and fostering SFW. On a theoretical level, this research concludes that, from a holistic perspective, work is an entry point to studying the potential of agroecology to drive a sustainable agroecological transition in economic, social, and ecological terms. (shrink)

There is a familiar debate between Russell and Strawson concerning bivalence and ‘the present King of France’. According to the Strawsonian view, ‘The present King of France is bald’ is neither true nor false, whereas, on the Russellian view, that proposition is simply false. In this paper, I develop what I take to be a crucial connection between this debate and a different domain where bivalence has been at stake: future contingents. On the familiar ‘Aristotelian’ view, future contingent propositions are (...) neither true nor false. However, I argue that, just as there is a Russellian alternative to the Strawsonian view concerning ‘the present King of France’, according to which the relevant class of propositions all turn out false, so there is a Russellian alternative to the Aristotelian view, according to which future contingents all turn out false, not neither true nor false. The result: contrary to millennia of philosophical tradition, we can be open futurists without denying bivalence. (shrink)

P.F. Strawson’s (1962) “Freedom and Resentment” has provoked a wide range of responses, both positive and negative, and an equally wide range of interpretations. In particular, beginning with Gary Watson, some have seen Strawson as suggesting a point about the “order of explanation” concerning moral responsibility: it is not that it is appropriate to hold agents responsible because they are morally responsible, rather, it is ... well, something else. Such claims are often developed in different ways, but one thing remains (...) constant: they meant to be incompatible with libertarian theories of moral responsibility. The overarching theme of this paper is that extant developments of “the reversal” face a dilemma: in order to make the proposals plausibly anti-libertarian, they must be made to be implausible on other grounds. I canvas different attempts to articulate a “Strawsonian reversal”, and argue that none is fit for the purposes for which it is intended. I conclude by suggesting a way of clarifying the intended thesis: an analogy with the concept of funniness. The result: proponents of the “reversal” need to accept the difficult result that if we blamed small children, they would be blameworthy, or instead explain how their view escapes this result, while still being a view on which our blaming practices “fix the facts” of moral responsibility. (shrink)

In the literature on free will, fatalism, and determinism, a distinction is commonly made between temporally intrinsic (‘hard’) and temporally relational (‘soft’) facts at times; determinism, for instance, is the thesis that the temporally intrinsic state of the world at some given past time, together with the laws, entails a unique future (relative to that time). Further, it is commonly supposed by incompatibilists that only the ‘hard facts’ about the past are fixed and beyond our control, whereas the ‘soft facts’ (...) about the past needn’t be. A substantial literature arose in connection with this distinction, though no consensus emerged as to the proper way to analyze it. It is time, I believe, to revisit these issues. The central claim of this paper is that the attempts to analyze the hard/soft fact distinction got off on fundamentally the wrong track. The crucial feature of soft facts is that they (in some sense) depend on the future. Following recent work on the notion of dependence, however, I argue that the literature on the soft/hard distinction has failed to capture the sense of dependence at stake. This is because such attempts have tried to capture softness in terms of purely modal notions like entailment and necessitation. As I hope to show, however, such notions cannot capture the sort of asymmetrical dependence relevant to soft facthood. Arguing for this claim is the first goal of this paper. My second goal is to gesture towards what an adequate account of soft facthood will really look like. (shrink)

This is a response to Paul Boghossian’s paper: What is inference?. The paper and the abstract originate from a symposium at the Pacific Division Meeting of the APA in San Diego in April 2011. John Broome was a co-commentator.

Think of the last thing someone did to you to seriously harm or offend you. And now imagine, so far as you can, becoming fully aware of the fact that his or her action was the causally inevitable result of a plan set into motion before he or she was ever even born, a plan that had no chance of failing. Should you continue to regard him or her as being morally responsible—blameworthy, in this case—for what he or she did? (...) Many have thought that, intuitively, you should not. Recently, Alfred Mele has employed this line of thought to mount what many have taken to be a powerful argument for incompatibilism: the “Zygote Argument”. However, in interesting new papers, John Martin Fischer and Stephen Kearns have each independently argued that the Zygote Argument fails. As I see it, the criticisms of Fischer and Kearns reveal some important questions about how the argument is meant to be—or how it would best be—understood. Once we make a slight (but important) modification to the argument, however, I think we will be able to see that the criticisms of Fischer and Kearns do not detract from its substantial force. (shrink)

There are several argumentative strategies for advancing the thesis that moral responsibility is incompatible with causal determinism. One prominent such strategy is to argue that agents who meet compatibilist conditions for moral responsibility can nevertheless be subject to responsibility-undermining manipulation. In this paper, I argue that incompatibilists advancing manipulation arguments against compatibilism have been shouldering an unnecessarily heavy dialectical burden. Traditional manipulation arguments present cases in which manipulated agents meet all compatibilist conditions for moral responsibility, but are (allegedly) not responsible (...) for their behavior. I argue, however, that incompatibilists can make do with the more modest (and harder to resist) claim that the manipulation in question is mitigating with respect to moral responsibility. The focus solely on whether a manipulated agent is or is not morally responsible has, I believe, masked the full force of manipulation-style arguments against compatibilism. Here, I aim to unveil their real power. (shrink)

This Introduction has three sections, on "logical fatalism," "theological fatalism," and the problem of future contingents, respectively. In the first two sections, we focus on the crucial idea of "dependence" and the role it plays it fatalistic arguments. Arguably, the primary response to the problems of logical and theological fatalism invokes the claim that the relevant past truths or divine beliefs depend on what we do, and therefore needn't be held fixed when evaluating what we can do. We call the (...) sort of dependence needed for this response to be successful "dependence with a capital 'd'": Dependence. We consider different accounts of Dependence, especially the account implicit in the so-called "Ockhamist" response to the fatalistic arguments. Finally, we present the problem of future contingents: what could "ground" truths about the undetermined future? On the other hand, how could all such propositions fail to be true? (shrink)

A prominent recent strategy for advancing the thesis that moral responsibility is incompatible with causal determinism has been to argue that agents who meet compatibilist conditions for responsibility could nevertheless be subject to certain sorts of deterministic manipulation, so that an agent could meet the compatibilist’s conditions for responsibility, but also be living a life the precise details of which someone else determined that she should live. According to the incompatibilist, however, once we became aware that agents had been manipulated (...) or ‘set up’ in the relevant way, we should no longer judge that they are responsible for their behavior, nor should we hold them responsible for it by blaming them, in case what they did was wrong. In this paper, I aim to shift the debate to different terrain. The focus so far has been simply on what we may or may not permissibly say or do concerning manipulated agents. But I believe a powerful new incompatibilist argument can be mounted from considering whether the manipulators themselves can justifiably blame the agents they manipulate in compatibilist-friendly ways. It seems strikingly counterintuitive to suppose that they may do so. The argument of this paper, however, is that, given the right story, incompatibilism provides the best explanation for why this is so. In short, the compatibilist must say that, while such manipulated agents are still responsible, the manipulators lack the moral standing to blame them. But I argue that, on compatibilist assumptions, this explanation ultimately fails. (shrink)

The most promising way of responding to arguments for the incompatibility of divine foreknowledge and human freedom (in one way or another) invokes a claim about the order of explanation: God knew (or believed) that you would perform a given action because you would, in fact, perform it, and not the other way around. Once we see this result, many suppose, we'll see that divine foreknowledge ultimately poses no threat to human freedom. This essay argues that matters are not so (...) simple, for such reasoning threatens also to reconcile divine prepunishment with human freedom. The question here is this: if you have already been ( justly) punished by God for doing something, how then could you avoid doing that thing? As we'll see, there is a strong argument that seems to show that you couldn't. However, this essay argues that if divine prepunishment rules out human freedom, then so does divine foreknowledge. The arguments are exactly parallel in certain crucial respects. At any rate, investigating the issues surrounding prepunishment can help to throw into relief the various different strategies of response to the foreknowledge argument and can bring out what their costs and commitments really are. In particular, investigating prepunishment can help to bring out the inadequacy of the “Ockhamist” reply to the argument, as well as the sense in which God's past beliefs need to depend on what we do, if we are plausibly to have a choice about those beliefs. (shrink)

The plane was going to crash, but it didn't. Johnny was going to bleed to death, but he didn't. Geach sees here a changing future. In this paper, I develop Geach's primary argument for the (almost universally rejected) thesis that the future is mutable (an argument from the nature of prevention), respond to the most serious objections such a view faces, and consider how Geach's view bears on traditional debates concerning divine foreknowledge and human freedom. As I hope to show, (...) Geach's view constitutes a radically new view on the logic of future contingents, and deserves the status of a theoretical contender in these debates. (shrink)

Roughly, animalism is the doctrine that each of us is identical with an organism. This paper explains and defends a hylemorphic version of animalism. I show how hylemorphic animalism handles standard objections to animalism in compelling ways. I also show what the costs of endorsing hylemorphic animalism are. The paper's contention is that despite the costs, the view is worth taking seriously.

Everyone agrees that we can’t change the past. But what about the future? Though the thought that we can change the future is familiar from popular discourse, it enjoys virtually no support from philosophers, contemporary or otherwise. In this paper, I argue that the thesis that the future is mutable has far more going for it than anyone has yet realized. The view, I hope to show, gains support from the nature of prevention, can provide a new way of responding (...) to arguments for fatalism, can account for the utility of total knowledge of the future, and can help in providing an account of the semantics of the English progressive. On the view developed, the future is mutable in the following sense: perhaps, once, it was true that you would never come to read a paper defending the mutability of the future. And then the future changed. And now you will. (shrink)

Neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalists argue that moral norms are natural norms that apply to human beings. A central issue for neo-Aristotelians is to determine what belongs to the good human life; the question is complicated, since we take up a diversity of different lives, many of which seem good, and it seems unclear what the human species-characteristic life really is. The Aristotelian tradition gives some guidance on this question, however, because it describes us as rational animals with intellectual and appetitive powers; (...) the perfection of those powers is what makes us good qua human. This is especially well spelled out in Thomas Aquinas; he takes moral virtues of courage and temperance to be perfections of our sense appetites, a power of going for things presented as good through our senses. These virtues thereby shape our passions, specifically the passions of fear, daring and concupiscent love, which are a result of the sense appetites pursuing what appears as good. This view provides a framework for virtue, which can then be taken as the perfections of distinct powers shared by all human beings, though actualized in a variety of ways. In this article, I will focus on the passion of fear, which I here describe, following Aquinas, as a movement of sense appetite away from evils that are difficult or impossible to avoid. My focus will be on showing that this passion is necessary, irreplaceable by our cognitive powers, and that the underlying sensitive appetites that produce fear must be perfected for any human being to count as good. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop an ontological position according to which substances such as you and I have no substantial parts. The claim is not that we are immaterial souls. Nor is the claim that we are “human atoms” co-located with human organisms. It is, rather, that we are macrophysical objects that are, in the relevant sense, simple. I contend that despite initial appearances, this claim is not obviously false, and I defend it by showing how much work it can (...) do. (shrink)

As much as assumptions about mechanisms and mechanistic explanation have deeply affected psychology, they have received disproportionately little analysis in philosophy. After a historical survey of the influences of mechanistic approaches to explanation of psychological phenomena, we specify the nature of mechanisms and mechanistic explanation. Contrary to some treatments of mechanistic explanation, we maintain that explanation is an epistemic activity that involves representing and reasoning about mechanisms. We discuss the manner in which mechanistic approaches serve to bridge levels rather than (...) reduce them, as well as the different ways in which mechanisms are discovered. Finally, we offer a more detailed example of an important psychological phenomenon for which mechanistic explanation has provided the main source of scientific understanding. (shrink)

These are my materials (a short precis, and replies to John MacFarlane, Mitchell Green, Ryan Wasserman, and Anthony Bigg and Kristie Miller) for a symposium on my book, _The Open Future: Why Future Contingents are All False_ (OUP, 2021) in *Analytic Philosophy*. [The contribution from MacFarlane is available on his website, those from Wasserman and Green are on their Academia profiles, and the contribution from Bigg and Miller is on Miller's PhilPapers profile.].

Aristotelian substance theory tells us that substances have structures (read: forms) as proper parts. This claim has recently been defended by Kathrin Koslicki who dubbed it the ‘Neo-Aristotelian Thesis.’ Strangely, Aristotelianism has not yet been universally embraced by philosophers – partly because some of its claims, such as the Neo-Aristotelian Thesis – are viewed by some as counterintuitive at best. In this paper, I argue for Aristotelianism by showing its philosophical usefulness: specifically, I put it to use in saving the (...) metaphysical doctrine of endurantism and some central mereological doctrines (such as Transitivity) from recent attacks. This utility gives us reason to endorse Aristotelianism. Along the way, I defend Koslicki's argument for the Neo-Aristotelian Thesis from a recent criticism, thus helping provide still more reason to endorse Aristotelianism: namely, Koslicki's vindicated argument. (shrink)

Abstract: There is no such thing as ‘the’ hylemorphic account of personal identity. There are several views that count as hylemorphic, and these views can be grouped into two main families—the corruptionist view, and the survivalist view. The differentiating factor is that the corruptionist view holds that the persistence of the soul is not sufficient for the persistence of the person, while the survivalist view holds that the persistence of the soul is sufficient for the persistence of the person. In (...) this paper, I argue that hylemorphists should prefer the corruptionist view. This project ought to be of interest to anyone working on issues of personal identity, not only because hylemorphic views are historically important, but also because they are currently receiving significant attention in the personal identity literature. (shrink)

Theological fatalists contend that if God knows everything, then no human action is free, and that since God does know everything, no human action is free. One reply to such arguments that has become popular recently— a way favored by William Hasker and Peter van Inwagen—agrees that if God knows everything, no human action is free. The distinctive response of these philosophers is simply to say that therefore God does not know everything. On this view, what the fatalist arguments in (...) fact bring out is that it was logically impossible for God to have known the truths about what we would freely do in the future. And this is no defect in God’s knowledge, for infallible foreknowledge of such truths is a logical impossibility. It has commonly been assumed that this position constitutes an explanation of where the fatalist argument goes wrong. My first goal is to argue that any such assumption has in fact been a mistake; Hasker and van Inwagen have in effect said only that something does go wrong with the argument, but they have not explained what goes wrong with it. Once we see this result, we’ll see, I think, that they need such an account—and that no such account has in fact been provided. The second goal of this paper is therefore to develop— and to criticize— what seems to be the most promising such account they might offer. As I see it, this account will in fact highlight in an intuitively compelling new way what many regard to be the view’s chief liability, namely, that the truths about the future which God is said not to know will now appear even more clearly (and problematically)‘ungrounded’. (shrink)

Central to Fischer and Ravizza's theory of moral responsibility is the concept of guidance control, which involves two conditions: (1) moderate reasons-responsiveness, and (2) mechanism ownership. We raise a worry for Fischer and Ravizza's account of (1). If an agent acts contrary to reasons which he could not recognize, this should lead us to conclude that he is not morally responsible for his behaviour; but according to Fischer and Ravizza's account, he satisfies the conditions for guidance control and is therefore (...) morally responsible. We consider ways in which the account of guidance control might be mended. (shrink)

This is a short, and therefore necessarily very incomplete discussion of one of the great questions of modern philosophy. I return to a station at which an interpretative train of thought of mine came to a halt in a paper written almost 20 years ago, about Wittgenstein and Chomsky,[1] hoping to advance a little bit further down the track. The rule-following passages in the Investigations and Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics in fact raise a number of distinct issues about (...) rules, meaning, objectivity, and reasons, whose conflation is encouraged by the standard caption, "the Rule-following Considerations".[2] So, let me begin by explaining my focus here. (shrink)

In this paper we critically evaluate Trenton Merricks’s recent attempt to provide a “new” way of defending compatibilism about divine foreknowledge and human freedom. We take issue with Merricks’s claim that his approach is fundamentally different from Ockhamism. We also seek to highlight the implausibility of Merricks’s rejection of the assumption of the fixity of the past, and we also develop a critique of the Merricks’s crucial notion of “dependence.”.