Badcock, and Nesse and Lloyd, have argued that there are important points of agreement between Freud's theory of the mind and a theory of mind suggested by adaptive reasoning. Buller, on the other hand, draws attention to the need to avoid confusing an adaptive rationale with an unconscious motivation. The present paper attempts to indicate what role adaptive reasoning might have to play in justifying psychoanalytic claims. First, it is argued that psychoanalytic claims cannot be justified by the clinical experience (...) of psychoanalysts alone. It is urged that, to avoid interpretative proliferation, it is necessary to base interpretation on some theory which is external to psychoanalysis. Next, Buller's reservations about using adaptive reasoning to justify claims about a personal unconscious, are summarized. Then an argument for the existence of a personal unconscious, is offered, based on experimental evidence from Gur and Sackeim. Then it is argued that adaptive reasoning, though it cannot itself provide evidence for the existence of any psychological mechanism, can valuably guide the search for such evidence. It is argued that such an approach has borne fruit, both in biology generally and specifically in psychology. Finally, it is argued that psychoanalysis is important enough to justify such a research project. (shrink)

A healthy, growing field such as the philosophy of biology deserves to have a variety of different points of entry for students, instructors, and non-specialist academics who want to learn about the field. Among the many new books that introduce this dynamic area of research, Garvey's Philosophy of Biology may provide the most compact and accessible survey of the field. After explaining Darwin's theory of evolution, he offers four chapters about contemporary issues in evolutionary theory. The middle chapters concern (...) key concepts in biology: innateness, function, and species. The final four chapters examine how evolutionary biology might influence our perspectives on epistemology, ethics, religion, and human nature.Acquaintances occasionally ask me to recommend a book that introduces the field in layman's terms. Until recently, I didn't have a good answer. The standard textbooks by Sober and Sterelny & Griffiths are good for classroom use but are too demanding for casual reading. Thus, I was intrigued when the jacket blurb described Garvey's book as ‘suitable …. (shrink)

This major new series in the philosophy of science aims to provide a new generation of textbooks for the subject. The series will not only offer fresh treatments of core topics in the theory and methodology of scientific knowledge, but also introductions to newer areas of the discipline. Furthermore, the series will cover topics in current science that raise significant foundational issues both for scientific theory and for philosophy more generally. Biology raises distinct questions of its own not only for (...) philosophy of science, but for metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. This comprehensive new textbook for a rapidly growing field of study provides students new to the subject with an up-to-date presentation of the key philosophical issues. Care is taken throughout to keep the technicalities accessible to the non-biologist but without sacrificing the philosophical subtleties. The first part of the book covers the philosophical challenges posed by evolution and evolutionary biology, beginning with Darwin's central argument in the Origin of the Species. Individual chapters cover natural selection, the selfish gene, alternative units of selection, developmental systems theory, adaptionism and issues in macroevolution. The second part of the book examines philosophical questions arising in connection with biological traits, function, nature and nurture, and biological kinds. The third part of the book examines metaphysical questions, biology's relation with the traditional concerns of philosophy of science, and how evolution has been introduced into epistemological debates. The final part considers the relevance of biology to questions about ethics, religion and human nature. (shrink)

This major new series in the philosophy of science aims to provide a new generation of textbooks for the subject. The series will not only offer fresh treatments of core topics in the theory and methodology of scientific knowledge, but also introductions to newer areas of the discipline. Furthermore, the series will cover topics in current science that raise significant foundational issues both for scientific theory and for philosophy more generally. Biology raises distinct questions of its own not only for (...) philosophy of science, but for metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. This comprehensive new textbook for a rapidly growing field of study provides students new to the subject with an up-to-date presentation of the key philosophical issues. Care is taken throughout to keep the technicalities accessible to the non-biologist but without sacrificing the philosophical subtleties. The first part of the book covers the philosophical challenges posed by evolution and evolutionary biology, beginning with Darwin's central argument in the Origin of the Species. Individual chapters cover natural selection, the selfish gene, alternative units of selection, developmental systems theory, adaptionism and issues in macroevolution. The second part of the book examines philosophical questions arising in connection with biological traits, function, nature and nurture, and biological kinds. The third part of the book examines metaphysical questions, biology's relation with the traditional concerns of philosophy of science, and how evolution has been introduced into epistemological debates. The final part considers the relevance of biology to questions about ethics, religion and human nature. (shrink)

In the middle of the Twentieth century J.L. Austin subjected language to a close and intense analysis. This book deals with his examination of the various things we do with words, comparing his work with that of more recent philosophers and social scientists. It shows that his work can still play a vital role in enhancing our understanding of language. It also deals with the philosophical insights that Austin believed could be gained by closely examining the uses of words by (...) non-philosophers. The school of thought that Austin's name is usually linked with – 'ordinary language philosophy' – is often overlooked today. This book contains both criticisms of Austin's philosophical work where he used this approach, and defences of it that aim to show that it can still be a source of valuable insights. (shrink)

According to most Evolutionary Psychologists, human moral attitudes are rooted in cognitive modules that evolved in the Stone Age to solve problems of social interaction. A crucial component of their view is that such cognitive modules remain unchanged since the Stone Age, and I question that here. I appeal to evolutionary rollback, the phenomenon where an organ becomes non-functional and eventually atrophies or disappears—e.g. cave-dwelling fish losing their eyes. I argue that even if cognitive modules evolved in the Stone Age (...) to solve problems of social interaction, conditions since then have favoured rollback of those modules. This is because there are institutions that solve those problems—e.g. legal systems. Moreover, evidence suggests that where external resources are available to perform cognitive tasks, humans often use them instead of internal ones. In arguing that Stone Age cognitive modules are unchanged, Evolutionary Psychologists say that evolutionary change is necessarily slow, and that there is high genetic similarity between human populations worldwide. I counter-argue that what is necessarily slow is the building-up of complex mechanisms. Undoing this can be much quicker. Moreover, rollback of cognitive mechanisms need not require any genetic change. Finally, I argue that cross-cultural similarity in some trait need not be rooted in genetic similarity. This is not intended as decisive evidence that rollback has occurred. To finish, I suggest ways we might decide whether moral attitudes are likely to be rooted in unchanged Stone Age modules, given that I have argued that cross-cultural similarity is not enough. (shrink)

Evolutionary Psychology has a bigger problem with free will than it acknowledges, argues Brian Garvey.

Looking at the work of J.L. Austin, who subjected language to a close and intense analysis, this book deals with his examination of the various things we do with words, and with the philosophical insights he believed could be gained by closely examining the uses of words by non-philosophers.

It is often taken to be intuitively obvious that if one is in a given conscious state, then one knows that one is in that state. This alleged obvious truth lies at the heart of two very different philosophical doctrines fithe Cartesian doctrine that one has incorrigible knowledge about one?s own conscious states (which still has its defenders today), and the view that one can explain all conscious states in terms of higher-order awareness of mental states. The present paper begins (...) with a description of the real-life case of Simon Browne, a man who believed he had no conscious states whatsoever, although all external evidence overwhelmingly suggests that he had. This case as well as other cases of what can be called ?being in denial? figives reason to reject both the alleged intuitively obvious truth and the two philosophical doctrines which attempt to exploit it. Having abandoned these doctrines, it remains to give an account of Browne?s condition, which picks out both why it is possible and why it is so unusual. This is done by arguing that Browne?s belief is contrary to evidence which he absolutely ought to accept, and that this is necessarily, not just contingently, unusual. In addition, it is shown how Browne?s philosophical beliefs about the mind?body relation contributed to his odd belief. (shrink)

In both popular and technical discussion we often find the pairs of opposed terms ‘innate/acquired,’ ‘due to genes/due to environment,’ ‘nature/nurture,’ and so forth. They appear to be used as if they all captured a genuine distinction, and the same distinction at that. A related family of opposed pairs is held to describe the difference between those who attribute a certain trait to ‘nature’ and those who attribute it to ‘nurture’: ‘nativists’ versus ‘constructivists’ is one such pair. Chomsky and his (...) followers are often described as ‘nativists’ regarding certain features of language. On a cursory examination, many of the claims of Evolutionary Psychology bear the appearance of ‘nativism.’ That is, it looks as though Evolutionary Psychologists are making claims to the effect that many features of the mind which are often thought to be due to ‘nurture’ are in fact due to ‘nature.’ However, two of the genre's leading practitioners, John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, vigorously deny that this is their position. (shrink)

Grünbaum claims it is possible that all belief in God is a delusion, meaning a false belief which is engendered by irrational psychological motives. I dispute this on the grounds that in many cases belief in God is engendered by purely cultural factors, and this is incompatible with its being engendered by psychological ones. Grünbaum also claims that saying a culturally engendered belief cannot be a delusion makes social consensus the sole arbiter of reality. I dispute this on the grounds (...) that we can say that socially engendered beliefs fail to be delusions because they fail to meet the psychological criterion, rather than because they are true. (shrink)

Atheists often admit that there is no positive evidence for atheism. Many argue that there is nonetheless a prima facie argument, which I will refer to as the ‘teapot argument’. They liken agnosticism to remaining neutral on the existence of a teapot in outer space. The present paper argues that this analogy fails, for the person who denies such a teapot can agree with the person who affirms it regarding every other feature of the world, which is not the case (...) with the atheist vis-a-vis the theist. The atheist is committed to there being an alternative explanation of why the universe exists and is the way it is. Moreover, the analogy relies on assumptions about the prior plausibility of atheism. Hence, the teapot argument fails. (shrink)

A number of authors have combined a commitment to Darwinian evolution as a major source of insight into human nature with a strong commitment to environmentalist concerns. The most notable of these is perhaps Edward O. Wilson, in a series of books. Yet it may appear that there is a tension between Darwinism as a world-view – or least some major aspects of it – and a concern for non-human entities as worthy of concern in their own right. In the (...) present paper, I want to address some of the reasons for thinking there is such a tension. (shrink)

There has been much controversy over whether the claims of evolutionary psychologists, if true, imply that we humans are significantly less free than has traditionally been thought. This in turn gives rise to the concern that excuses are being given to philanderers and other ne’er-do-wells for their behaviour. Evolutionary psychologists themselves often respond to this concern by claiming that it presupposes that they believe in genetic determinism, which they do not. Philosophers, such as Janet Radcliffe Richards in Human Nature after (...) Darwin, respond by appealing to compatibilist accounts of free will. The thought is that whether or not our behaviour is caused by evolved mental mechanisms, has no bearing on whether or not it is free. The present paper takes issue with this use of compatibilist arguments. Compatibilist accounts of free will do not just say that an action can be determined and still free; they also distinguish between situations where we are free and ones where we are not. The latter includes not just situations of external coercion, but also situations where there are internal obstacles such as compulsion, addiction or self-deception. While not attempting to outline a full account of what it is to be free, this paper will outline one set of conditions which are sufficient for our freedom to be said to be restricted – conditions which are shared by situations of addiction, self-deception, etc. But a central pillar of evolutionary psychology is that the mind consists wholly or largely of modules whose operation is mandatory. The outputs of these modules are often characterised as desires or goals. It will be argued that this implies internal obstacles to free will that are relevantly similar to the obstacles of addiction, self-deception, etc. It is ultimately a scientific question, and hence outside the scope of this paper, whether the relevant evolutionary-psychological claims are true or not. However, they are central to the discipline, and this paper will argue that if they are true that has negative consequences for how free we are. Hence, the view that evolutionary psychology implies that we are less free than has traditionally been thought is not without foundation. (shrink)

It is often taken to be intuitively obvious that if one is in a given conscious state, then one knows that one is in that state. This alleged obvious truth lies at the heart of two very different philosophical doctrines fithe Cartesian doctrine that one has incorrigible knowledge about one?s own conscious states, and the view that one can explain all conscious states in terms of higher-order awareness of mental states. The present paper begins with a description of the real-life (...) case of Simon Browne, a man who believed he had no conscious states whatsoever, although all external evidence overwhelmingly suggests that he had. This case as well as other cases of what can be called?being in denial? figives reason to reject both the alleged intuitively obvious truth and the two philosophical doctrines which attempt to exploit it. Having abandoned these doctrines, it remains to give an account of Browne?s condition, which picks out both why it is possible and why it is so unusual. This is done by arguing that Browne?s belief is contrary to evidence which he absolutely ought to accept, and that this is necessarily, not just contingently, unusual. In addition, it is shown how Browne?s philosophical beliefs about the mind?body relation contributed to his odd belief. (shrink)

A healthy, growing field such as the philosophy of biology deserves to have a variety of different points of entry for students, instructors, and non-specialist academics who want to learn about the field. Among the many new books that introduce this dynamic area of research , Garvey's Philosophy of Biology may provide the most compact and accessible survey of the field. After explaining Darwin's theory of evolution, he offers four chapters about contemporary issues in evolutionary theory . The middle (...) chapters concern key concepts in biology: innateness, function, and species. The final four chapters examine how evolutionary biology might influence our perspectives on epistemology, ethics, religion, and human nature.Acquaintances occasionally ask me to recommend a book that introduces the field in layman's terms. Until recently, I didn't have a good answer. The standard textbooks by Sober and Sterelny & Griffiths are good for classroom use but are too demanding for casual reading. Thus, I was intrigued when the jacket blurb described Garvey's book as ‘suitable …. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

You can't be convicted of a crime without a guilty act and a guilty mind." A lawyer might dress the same idea up in Latin: "You can't be convicted of a crime without actus reus and mens rea." Things like that are often said, but what do people mean when they say them? Guilty Acts, Guilty Minds proposes an understanding of mens rea and actus reus as limits on the authority of a state, and in particular the authority of a (...) democratic state, to ascribe guilt through positive law to those accused of crime. Actus reus and mens rea are necessary conditions, among others, for the legitimacy, as distinct from the justice, of state punishment. The actus reus requirement disables a democratic state from using its authority, on the one hand, to ascribe guilt to those who didn't realize they were committing a crime, provided they lacked the capacity to realize they were committing a crime; and on the other, to ascribe guilt to those who realized they were committing a crime, but who lacked the capacity to conform their conduct to the requirements of law. The mens rea requirement disables a democratic state from using its authority, on the one hand, to ascribe guilt to those who didn't realize they were committing a crime, provided their ignorance manifested no lack of law-abiding concern for the law and its ends, and on the other, to ascribe guilt to those who realized they were committing a crime, but whose failure to conform to the law nonetheless manifested no lack of law-abiding concern for the law and its ends. (shrink)

The Story of Philosophy is a brand new and highly ambitious survey of the thinkers and ideas that have perplexed humanity from time immemorial. Accessible writing, brilliant scholarship and over 150 colour illustrations combine to form a richly informative and highly entertaining work of narrative history. Starting with the most important figures in the Greek era, including Thales of Miletus - often referred to as the first philosopher - Pythagoras and Plato, the story continues with the great religious thinkers of (...) medieval Europe such as Augustine, Aquinas and Maimonides, key players of the Enlightenment such as Descartes, Hobbes and Voltaire, their successors in the Romantic era such as Marx and Nietzsche, and concluding with a survey of 20th and 21st century philosophy. (shrink)

Brian Leftow offers a theist theory of necessity and possibility, and a new sort of argument for God's existence. He argues that necessities of logic and mathematics are determined by God's nature, but that it is events in God's mind - his imagination and choice - that account for necessary truths about concrete creatures.

The exercise of synchronic self-control is the way in which an actor can attempt to bring a desire into alignment with his better judgement at the moment and during the interval of time over which, but for the exercise of such self-control, the desire would become the actor’s preponderant desire, which the actor would then translate into an act contrary to his better judgment. The moral psychology of an actor who fails to achieve such self-control can be analyzed in two (...) ways. One way is meant to be consistent with compatibilist metaphysics; the other with libertarian metaphysics. The implications of these analyses for the criminal law are complicated, but perhaps the most important is this: the criminal law should in principle recognize a partial excuse for an actor who exercises synchronic self-control but who gives up his effort because he believes that he can no longer continue to resist. His effort to achieve self-control thus fails, and he ends up translating into action the very desire he set out to control. (shrink)

In this article I argue that justice often requires that candidates who are sufficiently qualified for jobs be hired via lottery on the basis that this is the best way to recognise each candidate's equal moral claim to access meaningful work. In reaching this conclusion I consider a variety of potential objections from the perspectives of the employer, of the most qualified candidate, and of third parties, but ultimately reject the idea that a person's status as the most qualified candidate (...) can explain why they ought to be appointed over other sufficiently qualified candidates. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas was one of the greatest Western philosphers and one of the greatest theologians of the Christian church. In this book we at last have a modern, comprehensive presentation of the total thought of Aquinas. Books on Aquinas invariably deal with either his philosophy or his theology. But Aquinas himself made no arbitrary division between his philosophical and his theological thought, and this book allows readers to see him as a whole. It introduces the full range of Aquinas' thinking; (...) and it relates his thinking to writers both earlier and later than Aquinas himself. (shrink)

In this article I argue that we should understand some forms of hypocritical behaviour in terms of epistemic injustice; a type of injustice in which a person is wronged in their capacity as a knower. If each of us has an interest in knowing what morality requires of us, this can be undermined when hypocritical behaviour distorts our perception of the moral landscape by misrepresenting the demandingness of putative moral obligations. This suggests that a complete theory of the wrongness of (...) hypocrisy must account for hypocrisy as epistemic injustice. (shrink)

The view that phenomenally conscious robots are on the horizon often rests on a certain philosophical view about consciousness, one we call “nomological behaviorism.” The view entails that, as a matter of nomological necessity, if a robot had exactly the same patterns of dispositions to peripheral behavior as a phenomenally conscious being, then the robot would be phenomenally conscious; indeed it would have all and only the states of phenomenal consciousness that the phenomenally conscious being in question has. We experimentally (...) investigate whether the folk think that certain (hypothetical) robots made of silicon and steel would have the same conscious states as certain familiar biological beings with the same patterns of dispositions to peripheral behavior as the robots. Our findings provide evidence that the folk largely reject the view that silicon-based robots would have the sensations that they, the folk, attribute to the biological beings in question. (shrink)

Our aim here is to lay the groundwork for formal tree-ring analysis combining data from dendrochronology with formal techniques from semantics. We will present the basic syntax of, and basic compositional semantics of tree-ring structures.

This book uses computer modeling to investigate trends in what is published in leading philosophy journals over the last century and a half. The notable trends include the rise of realism from a fringe view to the mainstream metaphysical outlook, the increase in specialization, and the increasing depth of integration between philosophy and physical sciences. It also contains a guide to how to do similar investigations, and discussions of the strengths and weaknesses of the approach.

This chapter explores a way in which visual processing may involve innate constraints and attempts to show how such processing overcomes one enduring challenge to nativism. In particular, many challenges to nativist theories in other areas of cognitive psychology have focused on the later development of such abilities, and have argued that such development is in conflict with innate origins. Innateness, in these contexts, is seen as antidevelopmental, associated instead with static processes and principles. In contrast, certain perceptual models demonstrate (...) how the very same mental processes can both be innately specified and yet develop richly in response to experience with the environment. This process is entirely unmysterious, as shown in certain formal theories of visual perception, including those that appeal to spontaneous endogenous stimulation and those based on Bayesian inference. (shrink)

Infallibilism leads to skepticism, and fallibilism is plagued by the threshold problem. Within this narrative, the pragmatic turn in epistemology has been marketed as a way for fallibilists to address the threshold problem. In contrast, pragmatic versions of infallibilism have been left unexplored. However, I propose that going pragmatic offers the infallibilist a way to address its main problem, the skeptical problem. Pragmatic infallibilism, however, is committed to a shifty view of epistemic certainty, where the strength of a subject’s epistemic (...) state can vary depending upon the practical context. Pragmatic views of epistemic strength are quite radical so the argumentative goal of my discussion is to argue for its plausibility, thereby arguing for the plausibility of pragmatic infallibilism. To do so, I discuss the role that the framing of decision problems and the construction of our deliberative attitudes have in our theories of rational choice. And I explore a way in which these necessary components of a normative theory of rationality can be used to motivate pragmatic views of evidential support. Finally, since the plausibility of our pragmatic account will depend upon the plausibility of a constructive account of rational choice, I conclude by comparing the adequacy of the constructive account with orthodox Bayesian and knowledge-based accounts. (shrink)

The popularity of direct-to-consumer genetic ancestry services has exploded over the past five years, with as many as 250 direct-to-consumer genetic ancestry testing companies currently operating and estimates that 1 in 5 Americans are customers of one or more of those companies. Marketing of genetic ancestry testing has consistently linked the results of DNA testing to a consumer’s racial and ethnic identity, and, because of that, can help consumers find out “who they really are.” We argue that the “biologization” of (...) race and ethnicity promoted in such marketing violates norms of marketing ethics. In particular, we show that this marketing technique violates a number of the core commitments and values of the American Marketing Association Statement of Ethics. (shrink)

This book examines John Locke as a theorist of migration, immigration, and the movement of peoples. It outlines the contours of the public discourse surrounding migration in the seventeenth century and situates Locke's in-depth involvement in these debates. The volume presents a variety of undercurrents in Locke's writing - his ideas on populationism, naturalization, colonization and the right to withdrawal, the plight of refugees, and territorial rights - which have great import in present-day debates about migration. Departing from the popular (...) extant literature that sees Locke advocating for a strong right to exclude foreigners, the author proposes a Lockean theory of immigration that recognizes the fundamental right to emigrate, thus, catering to an age wrought with terrorism, xenophobia and economic inequality. A unique and compelling contribution, the volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of political theory, political philosophy, history of international politics, international relations, international political economy, public policy, seventeenth century English history, migration and citizenship studies, and moral philosophy. (shrink)

Criminal Law Conversations provides an authoritative overview of contemporary criminal law debates in the United States. This collection of high caliber scholarly papers was assembled using an innovative and interactive method of nominations and commentary by the nation's top legal scholars. Virtually every leading scholar in the field has participated, resulting in a volume of interest to those both in and outside of the community. Criminal Law Conversations showcases the most captivating of these essays, and provides insight into the most (...) fundamental and provocative questions of modern criminal law. (shrink)

Pt. I. Zeno and the metaphysics of quantity. Zeno's paradox of measure -- Tractarian nominalism -- Logical atoms and combinatorial possibility -- Strict coherence, sigma coherence, and the metaphysics of quantity -- pt. II. Coherent degrees of belief. Higher-order degrees of belief -- A mistake in dynamic coherence arguments? -- Dynamic coherence and probability kinematics -- Updating, supposing, and MAXENT -- The structure of radical probabilism -- Diachronic coherence and radical probabilism -- pt. III. Induction. Carnapian inductive logic for Markov (...) chains -- Carnapian inductive logic and Bayesian statistics -- Bayesian projectability. (shrink)

If it’s correct to think that the West does wrong by doing nothing despite having the room to reduce emissions and the capacity to do so, then it’s correct to think that we’re doing wrong too, in our everyday lives. Your emissions might be as much as 20 times more than others in the world; you might be doing as much as 20 times the damage to the planet compared to other people. The bulbs are not enough.