Scientific Essentialism defends the view that the fundamental laws of nature depend on the essential properties of the things on which they are said to operate, and are therefore not independent of them. These laws are not imposed upon the world by God, the forces of nature, or anything else, but rather are immanent in the world. Ellis argues that ours is a dynamic world consisting of more or less transient objects that are constantly interacting with each other, and whose (...) identities depend on their roles in these processes. The laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, and consequently, there are necessary connections between events. (shrink)

This paper motivates and describes a non-alethic approach to faultless disagreement involving predicates of personal taste. In section 1 I describe problems faced by Sundell's indexicalist approach, and MacFarlane's relativist approach. In section 2 I develop an alternative, non-alethic, approach. The non-alethic approach is broadly expressivist in that it endorses both the negative semantic thesis that simple sentences containing PPTs do not semantically encode complete propositions and the positive pragmatic thesis that such sentences are used to express evaluative mental states. (...) Finally, in section 3 I explain how the non-alethic approach explains faultless disagreement. (shrink)

Fodor (Mind Lang 16:1–15, 2001 ) endorses the mixed view that thought, yet not language, is compositional. That is, Fodor accepts the arguments of radical pragmatics that language is not compositional, but he claims these arguments do not apply to thought. My purpose here is to evaluate this mixed position: Assuming that the radical pragmaticists are right that language is not compositional, what arguments can be provided in support of the claim that thought is compositional? Before such arguments can be (...) evaluated, the relevant notion of compositionality must be clarified. So I first clarify this notion of compositionality, and then consider three arguments in support of the mixed position. All three of these arguments are found to be inadequate, and thus I conclude that the mixed position is unstable: If one endorses the arguments of radical pragmatics against the compositionality of language, then one should also reject the compositionality of thought. (shrink)

Journal of Applied Philosophy, EarlyView.

We provide an account of necessary a posteriori identity statements that relies upon Perry’s multipropositionalism. On our account an utterance of, e.g., ‘Hesperus is Phosphorus’, semantically makes available several propositions, one of which is necessary (and a priori) and another of which is a posteriori (and contingent). Since our view resembles two-dimensionalism, one might assume that it is undermined by the sorts of nesting arguments that Soames and others have raised against two-dimensionalism. We demonstrate, however, that our account is immune (...) to such nesting arguments. (shrink)

Hunger continues to be one of humanity's greatest challenges despite the existence of a more-than-adequate global food supply equal to 2,800 kilocalories for every person every day. In measuring progress, policy-makers and concerned citizens across the globe rely on information supplied by the Food and Agriculture Organization , an agency of the United Nations. In 2010 the FAO reported that in the wake of the 2007–2008 food-price spikes and global economic crisis, the number of people experiencing hunger worldwide since 2005–2007 (...) had increased by 150 million, rising above 1 billion in 2009. However, in its State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012 the FAO presented new estimates, having revamped its methods and reinterpreted its hunger data back to 1990. The revised numbers for the period 1990–1992 to 2010–2012 reverse the trend to a steadily falling one. Based on the FAO's new calculations, extreme undernourishment peaked in 1990 at a record-breaking one billion, followed by a significant decline through 2006, when progress stalled but did not reverse. (shrink)

Over the course of human life, health care decision‐making is often interdependent. In this article, we use “interdependence” to refer to patients’ engagement of nonclinicians—for example, family members or trusted friends—to reach health care decisions. Interdependence, we suggest, is common for patients in all stages of life, from early childhood to late adulthood. This view contrasts with the common bioethical assumption that medical decisions are either wholly independent or dependent and that independence or dependence is tightly coupled with a person's (...) decision‐making capacity. In this article, we array various approaches to decision‐making along a continuum of interdependence. An appreciation of this continuum can empower patients and elucidate ethical challenges that arise when people transition between different kinds of interdependence across the life span. (shrink)

To solve the referential sub-problem of negative existentials one must explain why we interpret uses of, e.g., ‘Sherlock Holmes doesn’t exist’ as saying something coherent and intuitively true, even though the speaker purports to refer to something. Pragmatic Meinongism solves this problem by allowing ‘does not exist’ to be pragmatically modulated to express an inclusive sense under which it can be satisfied by something. I establish three points in defense of pragmatic Meinongism: it is superior to Russell-inspired solutions; it is (...) supported by independent evidence of pragmatic modulation; and it requires no dubious ontological commitments. (shrink)

The contemporary process of financialization has been a major driver of the remarkable changes witnessed in global food and agricultural markets over the past decade, contributing to the rise and subsequent volatility of food and agricultural commodity prices since 2006. In the wake of these developments it has become clear that the turmoil has intensified the relationship between agriculture and finance in ways that have profound and enduring implications for the sector, and the people whose lives and livelihoods depend upon (...) it. This symposium brings together four original research articles that contemplate the contemporary relationship between the agrifood and financial sectors. They examine a variety of overlapping themes, including the creation of financial assets from farmland and agricultural commodities, the activities of different types of investors in these assets in specific geographic contexts, and the challenges of governing this activity at the global scale. These articles show that the period of market volatility that began a decade ago re-invigorated investor interest in financial products linked to agriculture and farming, and inspired the packaging of new forms of financial assets in ways that have affected politics and practice on the ground, and are likely to leave a lasting legacy. (shrink)

Truth conditional semantics is the project of ‘determining a way of assigning truth conditions to sentences based on A) the extension of their constituents and B) their syntactic mode of combination’. This research program has been subject to objections that take the form of underdetermination arguments, an influential instance of which is presented by Travis: … consider the words ‘The leaf is green,’ speaking of a given leaf, and its condition at a given time, used so as to mean what (...) they do mean in English. How many distinct things might be said in words with all that true of them? Many.… Suppose a Japanese maple leaf, turned brown, was painted green for a decoration. In sorting leaves by colour, one might truly call this one green. In describing leaves to help identify their species, it might, for all the paint, be false to call it that. (shrink)

Paradigmatic uses of negative existentials such as ‘Vulcan does not exist’ are problematic because they present the interpreter with a pragmatic paradox: a speaker who uses such a sentence seems to be asserting something that is incompatible with what she presupposes. An adequate solution must therefore explain why we interpret paradigmatic uses of negative existentials as saying something true, even though such uses present us with a pragmatic paradox. I provide such an explanation by analyzing paradigmatic uses of negative existentials (...) as corrections of previous assertions that are judged to suffer from referential presupposition failure. I present the explanation within the framework of a simple version of segmented discourse representation theory. (shrink)

Indexicalism is a strategy for defending truth-conditional semantics from under-determination arguments. According to indexicalism the class of indexical expressions includes not only the obvious indexicals, e.g. demonstratives and personal pronouns, but also unobvious indexical expressions, expressions which allegedly have been discovered to be indexicals. This paper argues that indexicalism faces significant obstacles that have yet to be overcome. The issue that divides indexicalism and truth-conditional pragmatics is first clarified. And then three general problems for indexicalism are presented, and some potential (...) solutions that have been proposed in its defense are criticized. (shrink)

Strawson :96–118, 1964) argued that definite NPs trigger presuppositions as an aspect of their conventional meanings, and this semantic conception of presupposition triggers is incorporated into the binding theory of presuppositions. The phenomenon of presupposition denials, however, presents a problem for the semantic conception of presupposition triggers, for in such denials the alleged semantic presuppositions seem to be “cancelled” by a negation operator. Geurts :274–307, 1998; Presupposition and pronouns, 1999) attempts to solve this problem by utilizing the binding theory’s allowance (...) for local accommodation. Geurts’ proposal, however, is inadequate, primarily because Geurts formulates the binding theory within discourse representation theory, which makes no allowance for the illocutionary force of denial. Asher and Lascarides’ segmented discourse representation theory, however, has the resources to account for the illocutionary force of denial. Utilizing a version of SDRT I demonstrate that the “cancelling” of a presupposition by echoic negation in presupposition denials crucially depends upon the denial of information that is pragmatically communicated by accommodation. (shrink)

Recent advancements in large language models (LLMs) have ushered in a transformative phase in artificial intelligence (AI). Unlike conventional AI, LLMs excel in facilitating fluid human–computer d...

Le Verrier’s attempts to use ‘Vulcan’ to refer to an inter-Mercurial planet failed: Vulcan is a mere mythical entity. But, as the previous sentence demonstrates, we now use ‘Vulcan’ not in failed attempts to refer to a planet, but in seemingly successful attempts to refer to a mythical entity. These different uses of ‘Vulcan’ present critical pragmatics with a dilemma. On one horn, my use of ‘Vulcan’ cannot be conditionally co-referential with Le Verrier’s uses, because he failed to refer (to (...) a planet), whereas I (seemingly successfully) refer to a mythical entity. But, on the other horn, such uses of ‘Vulcan’ are not a simple case of nambiguity, because what I say in uttering ‘Vulcan is a mythical entity’ is incompatible with Le Verrier’s assertion of, e.g., ‘Vulcan is hot’. I propose to escape this dilemma by appeal to a different relation between uses of names which I call converse conditional co-reference. (shrink)

The problem of negative existentials arises because utterances of such sentences have the paradoxical feature of denying what they presuppose, thus undermining their own truth. There are only two general strategies for solving the problem within the constraints traditional static semantics, and both strategies attempt to explain away this paradoxical feature. I argue that both strategies are fundamentally flawed, and that an adequate account of negative existentials must countenance, and not explain away, this paradoxical feature. Moreover, I argue that a (...) framework of dynamic semantics can achieve this result. Thus negative existentials provide a case in support of dynamic semantics. (shrink)

Several of the better essays in On Quine are critical of Quine’s views. In “Against Naturalized Epistemology,” Bas Van Fraassen challenges empiricists to provide a self-consistent statement of their view; if empiricism is the view that “experience is our one and only source of information,” then that piece of information must itself have experience only as its source. Van Fraassen argues that Quine’s naturalized epistemology cannot meet this challenge and thus “is itself a metaphysics of the sort which empiricists disdain”. (...) Barry Stroud argues in “Quine on Exile and Acquiescence” that there is a tension between Quine’s thesis of “immanence”—that we can work only from within our language and/or conceptual scheme—and Quine’s doctrine of the indeterminacy of translation. And in “Quine’s Experiment with Intensional Objects and His Existentialist Quantified Modal Logic,” Hector-Neri Castañeda explores how “pseudo-Quine,” the Quine who experimented with modal logic in his 1947, might respond to the attack on quantified modal logic presented in his 1961. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Parenting Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders Through the Transition to AdulthoodAnonymous One, Anonymous Two, Lorri Centineo, Anonymous Three, Virginia Clapp, Catherine Cornell, Nancy Coughlin, David McDonald, Mark Osteen, Laura Shumaker, Julie Van der Poel, Anonymous FourMy Son's Life with Autistic Spectrum DisorderAnonymous OneThis is the story of how my son, David, has tried to become independent. David is now 25–years–old. His immediate family is his dad, a brother (age (...) 22) and myself (his mother). He was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) when he was 13. We looked up all the information and decided not to make a big deal of it. Looking back, he displayed all the classic signs of a high functioning autistic disorder. Would he have been diagnosed with the new DSM 5 guidelines? He probably would have. His life would be much, much different if he had been diagnosed at an early age.I'll start with David at age 13 when he was able to harness his big interest in computer science into a career for himself. He was expelled from middle school for threatening some kid that had been picking on him all year. He had a meltdown and wasn't able to communicate his side of the story and that was it.During the summer of that year he took classes in computer engineering (Microsoft) and became an engineer when he was 13. At that time it was quite an accomplishment because he was the youngest person in the United States to do so at such a young age. (By the way, the administration of the school that expelled him sent him a congratulatory card when he was written up in the paper).His father and uncle are in business running a computer company so David had a ready–made job waiting for him when he graduated from high school and was able to keep it during difficult times. David finished high school (mainstreamed special education as emotionally disturbed) and he also received another engineering certification (Cisco).I have to mention here that I truly did not understand what it was like for my son until one day when he was in high school, as I was lecturing him again for some stupid reason, he said, "You don't know how hard it is for me to not sit in a corner and rock every day." Think about that. ASD individuals get up and keep going every day when they know they are going to be misunderstood and picked on. They all deserve a medal for bravery.David became really upset that he had never had a date and that girls were not even interested in talking to him. He started cutting himself and shaving his head. That got him some attention from the stoner group. He had someone to sit with at lunch anyhow. Parents, I think it's better to have no friends than the wrong friends. They introduced him to drugs.We did not mention any trouble David was having to any relatives. We had lived 800 miles from our families in a very unspoiled part of northern America. In hindsight this was not good either. [End Page 151]Another thing, and I think every parent will agree with this—teachers, school staff, health care industry staff, doctors and every one that comes into contact with an ASD individual—take the time to get to know them. It may be difficult and some may appear non–caring and rude. You must overlook this and look to the person underneath. They are great people. They have been through stuff and it means so much to them. Like I said—parents, you know this. Please remember it when times get tough.During David's senior year he started work release so he could start earning money to buy a car and move out as soon as he turned 18. Things were made easy for David since the company was owned by his father and his uncle and I worked there also. David enjoyed the work but had the occasional meltdown and had difficulties fitting in with other employees. He wasn't able to communicate... (shrink)

Though assumptions about language underlie all bioethical work, the field has rarely partaken of theories of language. This article encourages a more linguistically engaged bioethics. We describe the tacit conception of language that is frequently upheld in bioethics—what we call the representational view, which sees language essentially as a means of description. We examine how this view has routed the field’s theories and interventions down certain paths. We present an alternative model of language—the pragmatic view—and explore how it expands and (...) clarifies traditional bioethical concerns. To lend concreteness, we apply the pragmatic view to a pervasive concept in bioethics and adjacent fields: decision making. We suggest that problems of the decision-making approach to bioethical issues are grounded in adherence to the representational view. Drawing on empirical work in surgery and critical care, we show how the pragmatic view productively reframes bioethical questions about how medical treatments are pursued. (shrink)

En "Existenciales negativos como denegaciones metalingüísticas" (García 2012), Eduardo García presenta una propuesta metalingüística sobre los existenciales negativos y argumenta en contra de la propuesta de la corrección dinámica (Clapp 2008). Aquí argumento que aunque la posición de García es atractiva porque satisface un criterio importante que muchas interpretaciones de los existenciales negativos no logran hacer justicia, no presenta una posición convincente en contra de la propuesta de la corrección dinámica ni a favor de su propuesta metalingüística. In his "Existenciales (...) negativos como denagaciones metalinguísticas" (García 2012) Eduardo García presents a metalinguistic approach to negative existentials, and he argues against the dynamic correction proposal (Clapp 2008). Here I argue that García's proposal is attractive because it satisfies an important criterion that many approaches to negative existentials do not satisfy. However, I also argue that García has made neither a persuasive case against the dynamic correction proposal, nor a persuasive case in favor of his metalinguistic proposal. (shrink)

Plato: Symposium, translated by B. Jowett. Phaedo, translated by B. Jowett. Sophist, translated by B. Jowett.--Aristotle: De anima, translated by R. D. Hicks. Metaphysics (selections) translated by H. Tredennick. Nichomachean ethics (selections) translated by H. Rackham.--R. Descartes: Meditations, translated by E. S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross.--G. Berkeley: Three dialogues between Hylas and Philonus.--D. Hume: Dialogues concerning natural religion.--I. Kant: Prolegomena to every future, translated by C. J. Friedrich. Metaphysical foundations of morals, translated by C. J. Friedrich.

The Fragments of Pindar have not, so far as I know, been adequately discussed since the great editions of Boeckh and Dissen, and as many of them are extremely important, the following remarks are offered in the hope of turning the attention of scholars in their direction.

In a bustling repurposed factory space situated alongside the tracks of a busy commuter rail in a residential neighborhood in Somerville, Massachusetts, a group of nineteen roboticists, engineers, designers, and fabricators work together to build a two-ton, six-legged, rideable robot. The project, called “Stompy,” is part of a multidisciplinary class designed to teach adult students how to build giant robots on the cheap.1 Sparks fly and tools buzz, grind, and hiss as the team welds, machines, wires, and plumbs the behemoth. (...) The result is a massive network of raw steel stitched together with nuts and bolts, welded seams, and exposed hydraulics, poised—like the exoskeleton of some giant metal insect—for action.... (shrink)

Philosophy for Us is a collection of accessible and engaging philosophical papers on topics that matter to all of us. The text features select papers written by contemporary, professional philosophers specifically for beginning students. These papers are organized into five sections, each dealing with a philosophical issue or problem: Is there a God?; Do we have free will?; Are there objective moral truths?; What sort of thing is a person?; Is it moral to eat animals? Each section includes a brief (...) introduction to the topic. Key terms and concepts are defined as they occur naturally within the text. Philosophy for Us bridges the gap between philosophers and introductory philosophy students, making it ideal for introductory philosophy courses. Leonard Clapp has been teaching introductory philosophy classes for over twenty-five years. He earned his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Clapp specializes in the philosophy of language at Northern Illinois University. In addition to teaching courses on this aspect of the discipline he also teaches classes on the history of analytic philosophy and the philosophy of mind. His writing has been featured in journals such as The Journal of Philosophy, Mind and Language, Philosophical Studies, the Journal of Pragmatics, and Linguistics and Philosophy. (shrink)

This paper examines the recent rise of initiatives for responsible agricultural investment and provides a preliminary assessment of their likely success in curbing the ecological and social costs associated with the growth in private financial investment in the sector over the past decade. I argue that voluntary responsible investment initiatives for agriculture are likely to face similar weaknesses to those experienced in responsible investment initiatives more generally. These include vague and difficult to enforce guidelines, low participation rates, an uneven business (...) case, and confusion arising from multiple and competing initiatives. In addition, the large diversity of investors and high degree of complexity of financial investments further complicate efforts to discern who bears the burden of responsibility in practice. As a result, there is a strong likelihood that voluntary governance initiatives for responsible agricultural investment will shift discourse more than they will change practice. (shrink)