An affirmative answer is given to the question quoted in the title.

Dr. Stephen Hawking was the most renowned scientist since Einstein, known both for his groundbreaking work in physics and cosmology and for his mischievous sense of humor. He educated millions of readers about the origins of the universe and the nature of black holes, and inspired millions more by defying a terrifying early prognosis of ALS, which originally gave him only two years to live. In later life he could communicate only by using a few facial muscles, but he continued (...) to advance his field and serve as a revered voice on social and humanitarian issues. Hawking not only unraveled some of the universe's greatest mysteries but also believed science plays a critical role in fixing problems here on Earth. Now he turns his attention to the most urgent issues facing us. Will humanity survive? Should we colonize space? Does God exist? These are just a few of the questions Hawking addresses in this wide-ranging, passionately argued final book from one of the greatest minds in history. Featuring a foreword by Eddie Redmayne, who won an Oscar playing Stephen Hawking, an introduction by Nobel Laureate Kip Thorne, and an afterword from Hawking's daughter, Lucy. (shrink)

This paper addresses a problem for theories of epistemic democracy. In a decision on a complex issue which can be decomposed into several parts, a collective can use different voting procedures: Either its members vote on each sub-question and the answers that gain majority support are used as premises for the conclusion on the main issue, or the vote is conducted on the main issue itself. The two procedures can lead to different results. We investigate which of these procedures is (...) better as a truth-tracker, assuming that there exists a true answer to be reached. On the basis of the Condorcet jury theorem, we show that the pbp is universally superior if the objective is to reach truth for the right reasons. If one instead is after truth for whatever reasons, right or wrong, there will be cases in which the cbp is more reliable, even though, for the most part, the pbp still is to be preferred. (shrink)

This paper identifies a distinctive kind of moral luck, deep circumstantial luck and then explores its effects on moral responsibility. A key feature of the phenomenon is that it is recurrent rather than one-off. It also affects agents across a wide range of situations making it difficult to detect. Deeply unlucky agents are subject to unfavourable moral assessments through no fault of their own both in specific cases and when they try to respond to such initial assessments. In this respect, (...) deep circumstantial luck takes the form of a normative burden that grows over time. A process-oriented conception of moral responsibility as answerability is proposed to explain this phenomenon and highlight its implications for rethinking vicarious responsibility. (shrink)

This paper addresses a problem for theories of epistemic democracy. In a decision on a complex issue which can be decomposed into several parts, a collective can use different voting procedures: Either its members vote on each sub-question and the answers that gain majority support are used as premises for the conclusion on the main issue, or the vote is conducted on the main issue itself. The two procedures can lead to different results. We investigate which of these procedures is (...) better as a truth-tracker, assuming that there exists a true answer to be reached. On the basis of the Condorcet jury theorem, we show that the pbp is universally superior if the objective is to reach truth for the right reasons. If one instead is after truth for whatever reasons, right or wrong, there will be cases in which the cbp is more reliable, even though, for the most part, the pbp still is to be preferred. (shrink)

This paper addresses a problem for theories of epistemic democracy. In a decision on a complex issue which can be decomposed into several parts, a collective can use different voting procedures: Either its members vote on each sub-question and the answers that gain majority support are used as premises for the conclusion on the main issue, or the vote is conducted on the main issue itself. The two procedures can lead to different results. We investigate which of these procedures is (...) better as a truth-tracker, assuming that there exists a true answer to be reached. On the basis of the Condorcet jury theorem, we show that the pbp is universally superior if the objective is to reach truth for the right reasons. If one instead is after truth for whatever reasons, right or wrong, there will be cases in which the cbp is more reliable, even though, for the most part, the pbp still is to be preferred. (shrink)

This paper addresses a problem for theories of epistemic democracy. In a decision on a complex issue which can be decomposed into several parts, a collective can use different voting procedures: Either its members vote on each sub-question and the answers that gain majority support are used as premises for the conclusion on the main issue, or the vote is conducted on the main issue itself. The two procedures can lead to different results. We investigate which of these procedures is (...) better as a truth-tracker, assuming that there exists a true answer to be reached. On the basis of the Condorcet jury theorem, we show that the pbp is universally superior if the objective is to reach truth for the right reasons. If one instead is after truth for whatever reasons, right or wrong, there will be cases in which the cbp is more reliable, even though, for the most part, the pbp still is to be preferred. (shrink)

Russellian physicalism is a promising answer to the mind–body problem which attempts to satisfy the motivating epistemic and metaphysical concerns of non-physicalists with regards to consciousness, while also maintaining a physicalist commitment to the non-existence of fundamental mentality. Chan (_Philosophical Studies, 178_:2043–62, 2021) has recently described a challenge to Russellian physicalism he deems the ‘difference-maker problem’, which is a Russellian-physicalism-specific version of the more well-known ‘combination problem’ for Russellian monism generally. The problem is to determine how a relatively small set (...) of fundamental categorical property types can ground the large variety of phenomenal properties that exist. To answer this problem, a Russellian physicalist can say that there is strong emergence from fundamental categorical properties to phenomenal properties, or she can say that there is only weak emergence from fundamental categorical properties to phenomenal properties. Chan argues that neither of these routes are viable for Russellian physicalism. This paper constitutes a response to Chan, arguing that Russellian physicalists can embrace either weak or strong emergence to explain phenomenal variety. (shrink)

Recently T. M. Scanlon and others have advanced an ostensibly comprehensive theory of moral responsibility—a theory of both being responsible and being held responsible—that best accounts for our moral practices. I argue that both aspects of the Scanlonian theory fail this test. A truly comprehensive theory must incorporate and explain three distinct conceptions of responsibility—attributability, answerability, and accountability—and the Scanlonian view conflates the first two and ignores the importance of the third. To illustrate what a truly comprehensive theory might (...) look like, I investigate what it would say about the difficult case of the psychopath. (shrink)

According to an intuitive semantics for 'I,' 'here' and 'now,' 'I am not here now' should always be false when uttered. But occurrences of 'I am not here now' on an answering machine seem to be true (when the speaker is not home). A number of possible solutions are considered and rejected, and a novel solution offered introducing the notion of a 'deferred utterance,' which allows for non-mysterious sort of action at a distance.

In this short paper I survey recent contextualist answers to the challenge from disagreement raised by contemporary relativists. After making the challenge vivid by means of a working example, I specify the notion of disagreement lying at the heart of the challenge. The answers are grouped in three categories, the first characterized by rejecting the intuition of disagreement in certain cases, the second by conceiving disagreement as a clash of non-cognitive attitudes and the third by relegating disagreement at the pragmatic (...) level. For each category I present several important variants and raise some (general) criticisms. The paper is meant to offer a quick introduction to the current contextualist literature on disagreement and thus a useful tool for further research. (shrink)

According to colocationism, two different material objects can be colocated during their entire careers. The typical example is that of a statue and the lump of clay out of which it is made, both of which start to exist and cease to exist at exactly the same time. One of the main problems for colocationism is the grounding problem. Recently, several attractive colocationist answers to the problem have been formulated. In this paper I analyse the proposals by Kit Fine, Kathrin (...) Koslicki, Noël Saenz and Catherine Sutton and conclude that all of them have problematic, unsatisfactory consequences, and this constitutes a strong reason against them. That, in turn, shows, I think, the difficulty of finding a satisfactory colocationist answer to the grounding problem, which continues to be a fundamental difficulty for the position. (shrink)

Ascribing autonomous status to agents is a valuable practice. As such, we ought to care about how we engage in practices of autonomy ascription. However, disagreement between first-personal experiences of an agent's autonomy and third-personal determinations of their autonomy presents challenges of ethical and epistemic concern. My view is that insights from a dialogical rather than nondialogical account of autonomy give us the resources to combat the challenges associated with autonomy ascription. I draw on Andrea Westlund's account of dialogical autonomy—on (...) which autonomy requires a dialogical disposition to hold oneself answerable to external critical perspectives—to make my case. (shrink)

Though widely derided by popular psychologists and self-help writers as an emotionally toxic and destructive response, blame has many defenders among contemporary moral philosophers. Blaming wrongdoers has been thought to express deep commitment to moral values and norms, to be intimately bound up with practices of holding others responsible, and to be an important exercise of moral agency. In this paper I push against the grain of such defenses of blame just enough to articulate what seems right in the more (...) popular lines of critique. I distinguish between blame as a reactive attitude and blaming as a speech act, and argue that some disagreement over the value of blame can be explained by the fact that blaming, as a speech act, takes several distinct forms. Critiques of blame, I suggest, properly target what we might call judgmental or strongly verdictive blaming, the sort of blaming that passes judgment on the wrongdoer him- or herself, and treats him or her as deserving of the blamer’s hostile or “punishing” reactions. This kind of blaming, I argue, tends to foreclose engagement in further moral dialogue with wrongdoers, an effect that is particularly destructive in therapeutic contexts. In such contexts, it is often more appropriate—and more constructive—to hold others answerable without blaming them in the strongly verdictive sense. I argue, moreover, that strongly verdictive blame may be similarly destructive outside of straightforwardly therapeutic contexts, and I challenge the idea that there is in any case a sharp or clear dividing line between therapeutic and non-therapeutic responses to wrongdoers. Holding answerable in a non-judgmental mode is a response that may have a therapeutic dimension, but it nonetheless engages a wrongdoer as a moral peer and partner in moral dialogue. This account of non-judgmental answerability, I suggest, captures much of what moral philosophers have taken to be valuable about blame, while accommodating the insights of those who criticize its more toxic forms. (shrink)

In this long-awaited book, Antony Duff offers a new perspective on the structures of criminal law and criminal liability. His starting point is a distinction between responsibility (understood as answerability) and liability, and a conception of responsibility as relational and practice-based. This focus on responsibility, as a matter of being answerable to those who have the standing to call one to account, throws new light on a range of questions in criminal law theory: on the question of criminalisation, which (...) can now be cast as the question of what we should have to answer for, and to whom, under the threat of criminal conviction and punishment; on questions about the criminal trial, as a process through which defendants are called to answer, and about the conditions (bars to trial) given which a trial would be illegitimate; on questions about the structure of offences, the distinction between offences and defences, and the phenomena of strict liability and strict responsibility; and on questions about the structures of criminal defences. The net result is not a theory of criminal law; but it is an account of the structure of criminal law as an institution through which a liberal polity defines a realm of public wrongdoing, and calls those who perpetrate (or are accused of perpetrating) such wrongs to account. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉOn pense souvent qu'un changement significatif de notre caractère évaluatif pourrait saper notre responsabilité par rapport à nos méfaits passés. Dans cet article, j'explore cette intuition en analysant les concepts de responsabilité et de l'obligation de rendre des comptes, tels que présentés par Angela Smith. J'introduis une distinction entre « modification » et « remplacement » pour définir les limites de la responsabilité au fil du temps. Ces limites sont ensuite précisées en s'inspirant des travaux de Delia Graff sur les (...) arguments Sorites pour soutenir qu'une personne est responsable d'actes répréhensibles passés si elle demeure « manifestement similaire » à certains égards. (shrink)

Supporters of eliminative connectionism have argued for a pattern association-based explanation of language learning and language processing. They deny that explicit rules and symbolic representations play any role in language processing and cognition in general. Their argument is based to a large extent on two artificial neural network (ANN) models that are claimed to be able to learn the past tenses of English verbs (Rumelhart & McClelland, 1986, Parallel distributed processing, Vol. 2, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; MacWhinney & Leinbach, 1991, (...) Cognition, 40, 121-157). In this article we critically review Rumelhart and McClelland's as well as MacWhinney and Leinbach's ANN models and conclude that they do not succeed in the assigned task of learning the past tenses of English verbs. In order to answer their challenge to the symbolic processing approach, we present our symbolic pattern associator (SPA)-a general-purpose pattern associator that can learn to associate arbitrary discrete patterns. We carried out several experiments with the SPA using the same set of verbs that was used in MacWhinney and Leinbach's simulation with more realistic training and testing procedures. The SPA outperformed the connectionist models by a wide margin in the accuracy of learning, and successful inductive generalizations to unseen verbs. Our SPA has very natural and psychologically realistic explanations to many psychological effects such as U-shaped learning curve, and is much closer to human subjects in predicting past tense of the pseudo-verbs. In contrast to ANNs, whose internal representations are entirely opaque, the SPA can represent the acquired knowledge in the form of production rules that allow for further higher-level processing and integration, resulting in linguistically realistic associative templates for irregular verbs and production rules for regular verbs. In the light of these findings, we conclude that eliminative connectionists' vision of cognition as simple pattern association and pattern recognition without symbolic representation is inadequate. Pattern association as such does not imply rule-less or cue-based models of language acquisition or of human learning in general. (shrink)

The classical ethical questions of whether and to what extent moral criticism is a sort of rational criticism have received renewed interest in recent years. According to the approach that I refer to as rationalist, accounts of moral responsibility are grounded by explanations of the conditions under which an agent is rationally answerable for her actions and attitudes. In the sense that is relevant here, to answer for an attitude or action is to give reasons that at least purport to (...) justify it. To hold someone answerable for an attitude or action is thus to hold her rationally liable for it. T. M. Scanlon’s view is perhaps the most well-known example of this approach. The rationalist approach has recently been attacked by David Shoemaker for being too narrow: the charge is that attitudes exist for which an agent is responsible even though she cannot, in the relevant sense, answer for them. If there are morally significant attitudes that are attributable to an agent even though she cannot answer for them, then it would seem incomplete, misguided, or worse to treat morality as fundamentally a matter of demanding and giving reasons. By developing some remarks based on G. E. M. Anscombe’s _Intention_, I defend the rationalist approach against this critique. I show how an agent may be answerable for an attitude even though she cannot answer for it. The objective of this paper is thus twofold: to contribute to the discussion of the connection between rational liability and ethical responsibility, and to provide an example of the broad relevance of Anscombe’s thought to contemporary practical philosophy. (shrink)

Answer-set programming (ASP) has emerged as a declarative programming paradigm where problems are encoded as logic programs, such that the so-called answer sets of theses programs represent the solutions of the encoded problem. The efficiency of the latest ASP solvers reached a state that makes them applicable for problems of practical importance. Consequently, problems from many different areas, including diagnosis, data integration, and graph theory, have been successfully tackled via ASP. In this work, we present such ASP-encodings for problems associated (...) to abstract argumentation frameworks (AFs) and generalisations thereof. Our encodings are formulated as fixed queries, such that the input is the only part depending on the actual AF to process. We illustrate the functioning of this approach, which is underlying a new argumentation system called ASPARTIX in detail and show its adequacy in terms of computational complexity. (shrink)

Temkin asks how we should distribute resources between the social determinants of health and health care; Sreenivasan argues that if our goal is fair opportunity, funding universal health coverage is the wrong policy. He argues that social equality in health has not improved under UHC and concludes that fair opportunity would be better served by using the resources to address the SDOH instead. His criticism applies more broadly than he claims: it applies to any argument for UHC based on health (...) equity. However, neither his strong causal conclusion nor his stark policy proposal is justified. I review methodological challenges for establishing the relative causal contributions of health care and social policy, concluding that we may never have a robust causal account to support a consequentialist choice. Fortunately, we may not need to answer the allocation question as a dichotomy. Given what Sen calls the multidimensional nature of health equity and the role of UHC in cost containment, UHC may not be a threat to health equity. I also argue against Sreenivasan's claim that the data he discusses should not trouble sufficientists and prioritarians. The worst-off are not simply lagging in improvement; rather, their health status is stagnating or worsening. (shrink)

These are all the answers to the exercises in Dr. Robert Zaslavsky’s An Introductory Latin Course: A First Latin Grammar for Middle Schoolers, High Schoolers, College Students, Homeschoolers, and Self-Learners. These answers are formulated to make the grammar that is being taught as transparent as possible to the learner. The goal of these answers is to encourage the learner to think as the Romans did, not to make the Romans think as we do.

The special composition question is the question, ‘When do some things compose something?’ The answers to this question in the literature have largely been at odds with common sense, either by allowing that any two things compose something, or by denying the existence of most ordinary composite objects. I propose a new ‘series-style’ answer to the special composition question that accords much more closely with common sense, and I defend this answer from van Inwagen's objections. Specifically, I will argue that (...) the proposed answer entails the transitivity of parthood, that it is non-circular, and that it casts some light on the ancient puzzle about the Ship of Theseus. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Answer to Catherine König-Pralong, Eun-Jeung Lee, and Jyoti MohanSelusi Ambrogio (bio)I want to start my reply by expressing my deep gratitude to the three reviewers who devoted their energy and time to reading and commenting on my book. Their wise comments and criticisms helped in shaping my upcoming research plans, as well as in refining my understanding of this historiographical topic. The eventual readers of this research will certainly (...) benefit from their arguments. I will reply to each review separately, one after the other. Also I could never thank the editors of Philosophy East and West enough for the honor they bestowed on me in hosting this debate.Mapping the ExclusionCatherine König-Pralong provides an extremely knowledgeable and refined review of the book in three sections. The first section is a theoretical evaluation and discussion of the outputs of the monograph through the lens of Reinhard Koselleck's theory of the "temporalization of history" (Verzeitlichung [End Page 230] der Geschichte)1 and her unequalled expertise on the imaginary maps of civilizations. I completely agree with her statement that "from the doxography of the seventeenth century to Brucker's eclecticism, philosophical historiography seemed to be much less attached to historical accuracy than to delimiting regions and identifying peoples and their minds—in a word, to territorializing." The territorialization of philosophy into maps that presented first the lost seeds of divine wisdom (perennialism) and afterwards the exclusive regions of rationality (eclecticism) shows more the Western necessity for a self-definition rather than an effective understanding of the thought of other civilizations. As Metha perfectly expresses it, "Long ago 'Asia' and the 'Orient' became almost existential categories in the European mind."2 It is in this context of 'spatialization of identities' that philosophy became one of the leading characteristics—when not the leading one—of European identity. As the reviewer lucidly remarks, this happened at the expense of philosophy itself. Practical philosophy was put under the superior control of theoretical and logical faculties. It is true that this process was achieved in German pragmatism and Kantian historiography, but this was already evident in Heumann and Brucker's historiographical productions.In her dense analysis, König-Pralong provides bibliographical suggestions that could be integrated within the monograph. I have to admit that, unluckily, I've never come across the two outstanding essays by Wimmer and Rüdiger on Chinese philosophy as a problem of historiography in the eighteenth century, both published in 2017.3 On the contrary, I eagerly read the reviewer's book La colonie philosophique, which was published in March 2019. However, at that time, my monograph was already in the hands of the editor, undergoing the process of double-blind peer review and editing, and hence my argumentation could not benefit from her discussion on temporalization versus historicization and the mapping of civilizations. To quote a sentence from her brilliant book: "L'histoire de la philosophie des Lumières programme en effet une rationalisation de l'histoire et une temporalisation de la philosophie."4 This sentence is a perfect explanation of the "de-territorialization" of India and China from the land of historicity and rationality, namely philosophy. For Brucker, India and China did not possess reliable historical sources, showed childish theoretical capacities, and presented oppressive norms that were not based on moral principles and reasoning.The reviewer agrees with the fact that, at the time of Brucker, we can already find reasons for the exclusion of Asian philosophies, but she contests the thesis that the character of this exclusion was already completely displayed. She suggests that Brucker's Historia critica is mostly a destructive history, showing human mistakes, and that the real targets were Neoplatonism and mystical syncretism, not Asian thought. She writes that "Brucker excluded non-European thoughts from philosophy, but not from the history of philosophy." In my view, Brucker did not insert "barbarian" [End Page 231] and "exotic" civilizations in the history of philosophy, but rather in a critical history—that is, historia critica—of human mistakes. He clearly states that nothing philosophical could be detected in these lands and that his own use of the term "philosophy" about them is... (shrink)

Since the 1970s Gary Watson has published a series of brilliant and highly influential essays on human action, examining such questions as: in what ways are we free and not free, rational and irrational, responsible or not for what we do? Moral philosophers and philosophers of action will welcome this collection, representing one of the most important bodies of work in the field.

From Kant’s first published work to recent articles in the physics literature, philosophers and physicists have long sought an answer to the question, why does space have three dimensions. In this paper, I will flesh out Kant’s claim with a brief detour through Gauss’ law. I then describe Büchel’s version of the common argument that stable orbits are possible only if space is three-dimensional. After examining objections by Russell and van Fraassen, I develop three original criticisms of my own. These (...) criticisms are relevant to both historical and contemporary proofs of the dimensionality of space (in particular, a recent one by Burgbacher, F. Lämmerzahl, C., and Macias). In general I argue that modern “proofs” of the dimensionality of space have gone off track. (shrink)

Logic programs under answer set semantics have become popular as a knowledge representation formalism in Artificial Intelligence. In this paper we investigate the possibility of using answer sets for qualitative decision making. Our approach is based on an extension of the formalism, called logic programs with ordered disjunction (LPODs). These programs contain a new connective called ordered disjunction. The new connective allows us to represent alternative, ranked options for problem solutions in the heads of rules: A × B intuitively means: (...) if possible A, but if A is not possible then at least B. The semantics of logic programs with ordered disjunction is based on a preference relation on answer sets. We show that LPODs can serve as a basis for qualitative decision making. (shrink)

Jung has never pursued the "psychology of religion" apart from general psychology. The unique importance of his work lies rather in his discovery and treatment of religious, or potentially religious, factors in his investigation into the unconscious as a whole and in his general therapeutic practice. In Answer to Job , first published in Zurich in 1952, Jung employs the familiar language of theological discourse. Such terms as "God," "wisdom," and "evil" are the touchstones of his argument. And yet, Answer (...) to Job , perhaps Jung's most controversial work, is not an essay in theology as much as it is an examination of the symbolic role that theological concepts play in a person's psychic life. (shrink)

While fights about ontology rage on in the ring, there’s long been a suspicion whispered in certain corners of the stadium that some of the fights aren’t real. Granted the disputants all think they are really disagreeing—it’s not the sincerity of the serious ontologists that’s in question, but rather their judgment that they are engaged in a real debate about genuine issues of substance.

In the Qur’an, human distinctiveness was first questioned by angels. These established denizens of the cosmos could not understand why God would create a seemingly pernicious human when immaculate devotees of God such as themselves existed. In other words, the angels asked the age-old question: what makes humans so special and different? Fast forward to our present age and this question is made relevant again in light of the encroaching arrival of an artificial superintelligence (ASI). Up to this point in (...) history, humans have exceeded other creatures in various respects; now a possibility has arisen that another entity, namely ASI, will exceed humans at least on the level of intelligence and power. In relation to the age of angels, pre-modern Sunni exegesis construed human distinctiveness along the axes of reproductive knowledge and stewardship. Both brittle, distinguishing markers will disappear in the age of the ASI. Conversely, a more resilient and creative Islamic response can be derived from Ibn al-ʿArabī’s (d. 1240) views on God and the imago Dei. Inspired by the Akbarian perspective, this paper construes human distinctiveness in relation to a capacity to expansively respond to God’s love to be recognized, a response that relies on (a) imitating divine virtues that operate in counterintuitive and illogical ways, and (b) exhibiting fragility and lack rather than exceptionalism. ASI, while responding already in part to God’s love, needs to make strides towards these traits before it can answer divine love as commensurately as humans can. (shrink)

We propose strategic games wherein the strategies consist of players asking each other questions and answering those questions. We study simplifications of such games wherein two players simultaneously ask each other a question that the opponent is then obliged to answer. The motivation for our research is to model conversation including the dynamics of questions and answers, to provide new links between game theory and dynamic logics of information, and to exploit the dynamic/strategic structure that, we think, lies implicitly inside (...) epistemic models for epistemic languages, and to make that structure an explicit subject of logical study. Our main contributions are: the notion of a two-person question-answer game with information goals, the existence and computation of equilibria for these games, the correspondence with Bayesian games and their equilibria, and a connection between logic and game theory namely the existence of equilibria for positive goal formulae. (shrink)

Contains hundreds of answers to questions regarding reincarnation, karma, relationships, death and dying, meditation, enlightenment and more.

We commonly evaluate search engines and the results they return, but what grounds those evaluations? One straightforward way of evaluating search engines appeals to their ability to satisfy the goals of the user. Are there, in addition, user-independent norms, that allow us to evaluate search engines in ways that may come apart from their ability to satisfy the individuals who use them? One way of grounding such norms appeals to moral or political considerations. I argue that in addition to those (...) norms, there are also distinct user-independent epistemic norms that apply to search engines. Evaluating search engines relative to them, however, requires us to appreciate the impact search engines have on our practices and norms of inquiry more broadly: by systematically altering the accessibility of information, search engines don’t just give us information but shape our collective imagination, and the categories it operates over. (shrink)

Moral error theorists face the now what question. How, if at all, ought they to adjust their moral practice after having discovered the error? Various answers have emerged in the literature, including, but not limited to, revisionary fictionalism, revisionary expressivism, and revisionary naturalism. Recently, François Jaquet has argued that there are only two available answers to the now what question, since every extant answer except revisionary fictionalism collapses into abolitionism. This paper provides a response. First, it argues that revisionary naturalism (...) does not collapse into abolitionism. The argument is that abolitionists can neither utter schmoralist naturalist replacement judgments that contain moral terms nor eliminativist naturalist replacement judgments that do not contain moral terms. This means that abolitionists cannot utter replacement judgments at all. Since revisionary naturalists can utter replacement judgments, their view does not collapse into abolitionism. Second, the paper gives reason to believe that this result extends beyond revisionary naturalism to the other revisionary metaethical theories, and that this is good news for moral error theory. (shrink)

Jonathan Livengood and Justin Sytsma have published a series of studies on “Actual Causation and Compositionality,” in which they investigate causal attributions of laypeople. We use one of their vignettes to follow up on their research. Our findings cast doubt on their conclusion that ordinary causal attributions tend to violate the compositionality constraint if one looks at cases in which someone is responsible for an effect by way of an intermediary that does not share in the responsibility.

Bioethicists criticize Jürgen Habermas’s argument against “liberal eugenics” for many reasons. This essay examines one particular critique, according to which Habermas misunderstands the implications of human evolution. In adopting Hannah Arendt’s concept of “natality,” Habermas seems to fear that genetically modified children will lose the contingency of their births, which would impair their capacity for political action; but according to evolutionary theory, bioethicists argue, this fear is unfounded. I explore this objection by entertaining the hypothesis that Habermas’s argument assumes Arendt’s (...) interpretation of Darwinian evolution in addition to her conception of natality, and then I answer it by contrasting the conceptions of evolution held by Habermas, by Arendt, and by Habermas’s critics. Les bioéthiciens critiquent l’argument de Jürgen Habermas contre « l’eugénisme libéral » pour de nombreuses raisons. Cet essai examine une critique en particulier, selon laquelle Habermas comprend mal les implications de l’évolution humaine : en adoptant le concept de la « natalité » de Hannah Arendt, Habermas semble craindre que les enfants soumis à une modification génétique ne perdent la contingence propre à leur naissance, une perte qui diminuerait leur capacité pour l’action politique, mais selon la théorie de l’évolution, les bioéthiciens soutiennent que cette peur est sans fondement. J’explore cette objection à Habermas en considérant l’hypothèse que, en plus du concept de la natalité, Habermas suppose aussi l’interprétation arendtienne de l’évolution biologique de Darwin, et j’y répond en confrontant cette conception de l’évolution avec la conception propre à Habermas et avec celle des bioéthiciens qui lui ont répondu. (shrink)

This paper discusses an extension of Answer Set Programming called Hybrid Answer Set Programming which allows the user to reason about dynamical systems that exhibit both discrete and continuous aspects. The unique feature of Hybrid ASP is that it allows the use of ASP type rules as controls for when to apply algorithms to advance the system to the next position. That is, if the prerequisites of a rule are satisfied and the constraints of the rule are not violated, then (...) the algorithm associated with the rule is invoked. (shrink)

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Artificial intelligence and robotic technologies have become nearly ubiquitous. In some ways, the developments have likely helped us, but in other ways sophisticated technologies set back our interests. Among the latter sort is what has been dubbed the ‘severance problem’—the idea that technologies sever our connection to the world, a connection which is necessary for us to flourish and live meaningful lives. I grant that the severance problem is a threat we should mitigate and I ask: how can we stave (...) it off? In particular, the fact that some technologies exhibit behavior that is unclear to us seems to constitute a kind of severance. Building upon contemporary work on moral responsibility, I argue for a mechanism I refer to as ‘technological answerability’, namely the capacity to recognize human demands for answers and to respond accordingly. By designing select devices—such as robotic assistants and personal AI programs—for increased answerability, we see at least one way of satisfying our demands for answers and thereby retaining our connection to a world increasingly occupied by technology. (shrink)

Priscian of Lydia was one of the Athenian philosophers who took refuge in 531 AD with King Khosroes I of Persia, after the Christian Emperor Justinian stopped the teaching of the pagan Neoplatonist school in Athens. This was one of the earliest examples of the sixth-century diffusion of the philosophy of the commentators to other cultures. Tantalisingly, Priscian fully recorded in Greek the answers provided by the Athenian philosophers to the king's questions on philosophy and science. But these answers survive (...) only in a later Latin translation which understood both the Greek and the subject matter very poorly. Our translators have often had to reconstruct from the Latin what the Greek would have been, in order to recover the original sense. The answers start with subjects close to the Athenians' hearts: the human soul, on which Priscian was an expert, and sleep and visions. But their interest may have diminished when the king sought their expertise on matters of physical science: the seasons, celestial zones, medical effects of heat and cold, the tides, displacement of the four elements, the effect of regions on living things, why only reptiles are poisonous, and winds. At any rate, in 532 AD, they moved on from the palace, but still under Khosroes' protection. This is the first translation of the record they left into English or any modern language. This English translation is accompanied by an introduction and comprehensive commentary notes, which clarify and discuss the meaning and implications of the original philosophy. Part of the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series, the edition makes this philosophical work accessible to a modern readership and includes additional scholarly apparatus such as a bibliography, glossary of translated terms and a subject index. (shrink)

Margaret S. Archer is responsible for important conceptual developments in critical realism and the structure-agent problem but her explanatory framework often opposes those of other influential theorists. In this book she provides a response to critics of her work in the form of a set of discussions of published articles.

This book offers an intellectual and cultural context for C. G. Jung's 1952 work. Initially greeted with controversy, Answer to Job has been neglected by many serious commentators on Jung. Jung's Answer to Job: A Commentary places the Answer to Job in the context of biblical commentary, and then examines the circumstances surrounding its composition and immediate reception. Jung's Answer to Job unravels Jung's narrative, offering a comprehensive re-reading of Jung's text, as well as a re-positioning in its cultural context. (...) Whilst remaining true to the tenets of analytical psychology, this commentary underlines Answer to Job 's greater significance in terms of cultural history. It will be invaluable to students and scholars of analytical psychology, religion and those who subscribe to Jung's ideas. (shrink)