Distributive egalitarians believe that distributive justice is to be explained by the idea of distributive equality (DE) and that DE is of intrinsic value. The socio-relational critique argues that distributive egalitarianism does not account for the “true” value of equality, which rather lies in the idea of “equality as a substantive social value” (ESV). This paper examines the socio-relational critique and argues that it fails because – contrary to what the critique presupposes –, first, ESV is not conceptually distinct from (...) DE, and second, the idea of ESV cannot serve as a “foundation” or “root” of distributive egalitarianism. (shrink)

This is a work in analytic metaphysics, which addresses a cluster of interrelated issues at the interface of mereology and persistence over time. In particular, it outlines a defence of a version of Endurance Theory according to which every enduring object is either a mereological simple or a mere sum of mereological simples. It includes, among other things, a proposal of a new way of framing the debate between Endurance Theory and Four-Dimensionalism, a defence of Endurance Theory over Four-Dimensionalism, arguments (...) against the existence of compound substances, and a defence of a traditional metaphysical atomism according to which all objects are ultimately made up of microscopic simples. (shrink)

Purpose – Neuroscientists act as proxies for implied anthropomorphic signal- processing beings within the brain, Homunculi. The latter examine the arriving neuronal spike-trains to infer internal and external states. But a Homunculus needs a brain of its own, to coordinate its capabilities – a brain that necessarily contains a Homunculus and so on indefinitely. Such infinity is impossible – and in well-cited papers, Attneave and later Dennett claim to eliminate it. How do their approaches differ and do they (in fact) (...) obviate the Homunculi? Design/methodology/approach – The Attneave and Dennett approaches are carefully scrutinized. To Attneave, Homunculi are effectively “decision-making” neurons that control behaviors. Attneave presumes that Homunculi, when successively nested, become successively “stupider”, limiting their numbers by diminishing their responsibilities. Dennett likewise postulates neuronal Homunculi that become “stupider” – but brain-wards, where greater sophistication might have been expected. Findings – Attneave’s argument is Reductionist and it simply assumes-away the Homuncular infinity. Dennett’s scheme, which evidently derives from Attneave’s, ultimately involves the same mistakes. Attneave and Dennett fail, because they attempt to reduce intentionality to non-intentionality. Research limitations/implications – Homunculus has been successively recognized over the centuries by philosophers, psychologists and (some) neuroscientists as a crucial conundrum of cognitive science. It still is. Practical implications – Cognitive-science researchers need to recognize that Reductionist explanations of cognition may actually devolve to Homunculi, rather than eliminating them. Originality/value – Two notable Reductionist arguments against the infinity of Homunculi are proven wrong. In their place, a non-Reductionist treatment of the mind, “Emergence”, is discussed as a means of rendering Homunculi irrelevant. (shrink)

It is a commonplace in philosophy of action that there is and must be teleologically basic action: something done on an occasion without doing it by means of doing anything else. It is widely believed that basic actions are exercises of skill. As the source of the need for basic action is the structure of practical reasoning, this yields a conception of skill and practical reasoning as complementary but mutually exclusive. On this view, practical reasoning and complex intentional action depend (...) on skill and basic action, but the latter pair are not themselves rationally structured: the movements a basic action comprises are not intentional actions, and they are not structured as means to an end. However, Michael Thompson and Douglas Lavin have argued that action that bears no inner rational structure is not intentional action at all, and that therefore there can be no such thing as basic action. In this paper, I argue that their critique shows that standard conceptions of basic action are indeed untenable, but not that we can do without an alternative. I develop an alternative conception of skill and basic action on which their basicness is not to be equated with simplicity: like deliberation and non-basic action, they are teleologically complex, but their complexity takes a different form. On this view, skill contrasts with deliberation—not because it is not a manifestation of practical reason, but because the two are specifically different manifestations of practical reason. (shrink)

Dispositional essentialists claim that dispositional properties are essentially dispositional: a property would not be the property it is unless it carried with it certain dispositional powers. Categoricalists about dispositional properties deny this, asserting that the same properties might have had different dispositional powers, had the contingent laws of nature been otherwise.

Meu objetivo neste artigo é defender que podem ser atribuídos sentidos distintos para os termos “vontade” e “volição” na filosofia de Hume. Ao contrário das interpretações tradicionais, sustento que Hume não identifica vontade e volição. Inicialmente, apresento argumentos de Hobbes e Locke contra a concepção escolástica sobre a produção de ações voluntárias e defendo que Hume associa-se a esses dois filósofos. A seguir, apresento os argumentos da interpretação tradicional que identifica vontade e volição na filosofia humeana e também algumas objeções (...) feitas a tais argumentos. Por fim, em oposição à interpretação tradicional, defendo que Hume acredita que a vontade pode ser compreendida como a faculdade pela qual produzimos ações voluntárias e que volições são paixões motivacionais em exercício. As paixões motivacionais que produzem ações são volições, que é a percepção pela qual produzimos ações voluntárias. (shrink)

The aim for this thesis is to motivate, critically evaluate and defend the claim that subjects are able to consciously perceive the affordances of objects. I will present my protagonist, the ‘Conscious Affordance Theorist’, with what are two main obstacles to this claim. The first of these is that affordance perception correctly understood refers only to a kind of subpersonal visual processing, and not to a kind of conscious visual experience. I claim that this results in an explanatory gap at (...) the level of intentional action, which in order to correct we need to redefine the notion of affordance perception to include conscious as well as subpersonal affordance perception. Precisely, I claim that ‘affordance awareness’ has a crucial epistemological role to play, and that subjects must be able to consciously experience affordances in order to gain this awareness. In answer to this claim, I supplement the objection that affordance perception is defined as subpersonal perception to include the claim that any awareness subjects have of the affordances of objects they visually experience is due to them having thoughts about those affordances, and not visual experience of them. I then consider the Conscious Affordance Theorist’s response to this supplemented account. The second obstacle is the claim that conscious visual affordance perception is an impossible notion given that affordances are dispositional properties, and the dispositional properties of objects cannot be ‘seen’. In facing this objection I look to the supporting claims and motivations that lie behind it, in order to find a way for the Conscious Affordance Theorist to challenge its central claim that affordances cannot be seen. I end this thesis with an account of the Conscious Affordance Theorist’s own positive position, and a consideration of how his account has the ability to provide for conscious affordance perception in the case of non-human animals. (shrink)

Contemporary emotion research typically takes the phenomenon of emotion to be exhausted by a class of mental events that are intentional, conscious, and related to certain sorts of behaviour. Moreover, other affective phenomena, such as moods, are also considered to be relatively short-term, episodic, or occurrent states of the subject undergoing them. Emotions, and other putative emotional phenomena that common-sense takes as long-lasting, non-episodic, or dispositional are things that both philosophers and scientists sometimes recognise, but that are relatively neglected in (...) comparison to emotional episodes. This thesis aims at showing that this neglect is unjustified. I will argue that there is a class of entities, 'sentiments'—broadly characterised as dispositions to undergo emotional episodes—that are irreducible to emotional episodes or collections thereof and have properties that make them a suitable target of study by the emotion researcher.In the first chapter, I argue that an analysis of caring as a pattern of emotional episodes, while more plausible than alternative, non-emotional accounts, faces a number of counterexamples that motivate the search for an account of caring as related in a certain way to emotions but as irreducible to them. I argue that a dispositional account, according to which dispositions are conceived as distinct from their manifestations, is an account for which a strong case can be made.The second chapter is dedicated to defending a modest form of realism about dispositions in general and psychological dispositions in particular. According to realism, dispositions are genuine properties that, although perhaps reducible to non-dispositional properties, cannot be re-described in terms of events only. In the third chapter, I show in what ways emotional dispositions can positively contribute to the explanation of the occurrence of emotional episodes. In the fourth chapter, I argue that caring, understood as a species of sentiment, is not to be construed as a mere disposition to produce certain events; rather, we should allow that certain dispositions are genuinely mental or psychological. Assuming realism about the mental, I argue that some dispositions are mental in a way that others are not. I suggest that being intentional is the property that makes psychological dispositions genuinely mental. I end the chapter by drawing a connection between caring and the notion of character. On my view, caring is at least a necessary ingredient of certain character traits, in particular the virtues. In chapter five, I tackle a recent form of empirically informed scepticism about character and argue, on the basis of general considerations about psychological dispositions, that the sceptic’s case is not as strong as she makes out. Finally, in chapter six, I argue that at least certain forms of sentiment, for example romantic love, can be genuinely supported by reasons, thereby suggesting a way they can contribute to the value of our lives. Overall, the aim of this thesis is to establish the respectability of sentiments in a sophisticated account of the mind. (shrink)

The causal theory of properties is standardly combined with a realist's ontology of universals or tropes. In this paper, I consider an uncharted alternative – a nominalist causal theory of properties. I discuss advantages and disadvantages of the resulting theory of properties, and explore the Rylean understanding of causal powers that emerges.

In order to tackle the question posed by the title – notoriously answered in the positive, among others, by Heisenberg, Margenau, Popper and Redhead – I first discuss some attempts at distinguishing dispositional from non-dispositional properties, and then relate the distinction to the formalism of quantum mechanics. Since any answer to the question titling the paper must be interpretation-dependent, I review some of the main interpretations of quantum mechanics in order to argue that the ontology of theories regarding “wave collapse” (...) as a genuine physical process could be interpreted as being irreducibly dispositional. In non-collapse interpretations, on the contrary, the appeal to dispositions is simply a way to reformulate the predictive content of the algorithm of the theory in a fancier metaphysical language. (shrink)

Metaphysicians who hold that there is an ontological distinction between two kinds of fundamental natural properties assume that properties are dispositional or non-dispositional necessarily. In contrast to this, I suggest that one can admit the existence of fundamental contingently dispositional properties. After some clarifications concerning the content of the suggested view, I respond to several objections regarding its intelligibility and viability and outline two of its important consequences.

A theory of causation with ‘tendencies’ as causal con- nections is proposed. Not, however, as ‘necessary connec- tions’: causes are not sufficient, they do not necessitate their effects. The theory is not an analysis of the concept of causation, but a description of what is the case in typical cases of causation. Therefore it does not strictly contradict any analysis of the concept of causation, not even reduct- ive ones. It would even be supported by a counterfactual or a probabilistic (...) analysis. (shrink)

In accounting for the objects and properties of the manifest world, issues include the fundamentality, causal efficacy and ontological robustness of the dispositional versus the non-dispositional. Concerning fundamentality, the available options seem to be that: dispositional and categorical properties are different kinds, both fundamental; dispositional and categorical properties are one and the same, and fundamental; only categorical properties are fundamental while dispositional properties, if they exist, are higher-order; and only dispositional properties are fundamental while categorical properties, if they exist, are (...) higher-order. The viability of option, a pure-power ontology, has met detracting arguments from several quarters. This paper outlines why the fourth option appears nonetheless attractive and provides a defence for its credibility by suggesting how the manifestly qualitative world can be explained without recourse to fundamental categorical properties. (shrink)