One way to reconstruct the miracle argument for scientific realism is to regard it as a statistical inference: since it is exceedingly unlikely that a false theory makes successful predictions, while it is rather likely that an approximately true theory is predictively successful, it is reasonable to infer that a predictively successful theory is at least approximately true. This reconstruction has led to the objection that the argument embodies a base rate fallacy: by focusing on successful theories one ignores the (...) vast number of false theories some of which will be successful by mere chance.In this paper, I shall argue that the cogency of this objection depends on the explanandum of the miracle argument. It is cogent if what is to be explained is the success of a particular theory. If, however, the explanandum of the argument is the distribution of successful predictions among competing theories, the situation is different. Since the distribution of accidentally successful predictions is independent of the base rate, it is possible to assess the base rate by comparing this distribution to the empirically found distribution of successful predictions among competing theories. (shrink)

This collection of ten essays elucidates some of the more challenging aspects of Anscombe’s work and affirms her reputation as one of our most original ...

This paper introduces and discusses three models of future: a determinist model, a stochastic model, and the model of True Prophetic Knowledge. All three models coexist in natural languages and are represented both in their grammatical systems and in the text-building discourse strategies speakers and authors apply to.

Musical flutes constructed from bird bone and mammoth ivory begin to appear in the archaeological record from around 40,000 years ago. Due to the different physical demands of acquiring and working with these source materials in order to produce a flute, researchers have speculated about the significance—aesthetic or otherwise—of the use of mammoth ivory as a raw material for flutes. I argue that biological signaling theory provides a theoretical basis for the proposition that mammoth ivory flute production is a signal (...) of increasing social differentiation in Upper Palaeolithic human life. (shrink)

_Tragic Play_ explores the deep philosophical significance of classic and modern tragedies in order to cast light on the tragic dimensions of contemporary experience. Romanticism, it has often been claimed, brought tragedy to an end, making modernity the age _after_ tragedy. Christoph Menke opposes this modernist prejudice by arguing that tragedy remains alive in the present in the distinctively new form of the playful, ironic, and self-consciously performative. Through close readings of plays by William Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, Heiner Müller, (...) and Botho Strauss, Menke shows how tragedy re-emerges in modernity as "tragedy of play." In _Hamlet_, _Endgame_, _Philoktet_, and _Ithaka_, Menke integrates philosophical theory with critical readings to investigate shifting terms of judgment, curse, reversal, misfortune, and violence. (shrink)

Sensibility: the indeterminacy of the imagination -- Praxis: the practice of the subject -- Play: the operation of force -- Aestheticization: the transformation of praxis -- Aesthetics: philosophy's contention -- Ethics: the freedom of self-creation.

Explorations in Archaeology and Philosophy grew out of an interdisciplinary conference on the Upper Palaeolithic, “Digging Deeper: Archaeological and Philosophical Perspectives”, held on Miami Beach, Florida, in December 2017. The previous decade had seen increasing numbers of publications on topics of interest to both philosophers and archaeologists, so the time was ripe for a conference which served to generate constructive dialogue between researchers from both disciplines. Themes discussed included art, music, the mind, symbols, mortuary practices, and archaeological methodology. This volume (...) draws from several contributors to that conference as well as other leading researchers at the forefront of the intersection of archaeology and philosophy. Its scope is expanded from the Upper Palaeolithic to archaeological research in general—adopting a broad conception inviting many perspectives from philosophy and interdisciplinary evolutionary studies to the table—and is organized by topics into four sections: Theory and Inference; Interdisciplinary Connections; Cognition, Language and Normativity; Ethical Issues. (shrink)

How do religions and social order interact with each other? Scholars of religions have repeatedly explored this question from numerous perspectives. However, they have yet to utilise the approach of disability studies, which focuses on disability as a social ordering process, to address this question. As such, not only have the manifold empirical relationships between religions and disability often been disregarded, but a great theoretical potential also remains untapped. In this paper, I demonstrate what the study of religions can gain (...) from analysing processes of disablement. In doing so, I introduce the concept of dis/abling religion, which integrates the study of religions and disability studies, making it possible to systematically grasp the entanglements between religions, disability, and social order. (shrink)

Nocebo effects occur when an adverse effect on the patient arises from the patient's own negative expectations. In accordance with informed consent, providers often disclose information that results in unintended adverse outcomes for the patient. While this may adhere to the principle of autonomy, it violates the doctrine of “primum non nocere,” given that side-effect disclosure may cause those side effects. In this article we build off previous work, particularly by Wells and Kaptchuk and by Cohen :3–11.[Taylor & Francis Online], (...) [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]), to suggest ethical guidelines that permit nondisclosure in the case when a nocebo effect is likely to occur on of the basis of nonmaleficence. We accept that that autonomy vis-à-vis informed consent must be forestalled, but salvage much of its role by elaborating a practical clinical approach to postencounter follow-up. In doing so, we reconcile a clinically practicable process of determining conditions of disclosure with long-standing ethical commitments to patients. (shrink)

In the Critique of Judgment, Kant quotes the traditional view of the relation between the ethical and the aesthetical ('the beautiful is the symbol of the morally good'). However, he elaborates this view in a radically new way: as equivalence between two forms of reflection, between ethical and aesthetic reflection. The article distinguishes three different aspects of aesthetic reflection in Kant and discusses their respective ethical meaning. It shows the unresolved tension between Kant's program of an 'aesthetics of autonomy' on (...) the one hand, and his reference to sensualistic and vitalist motifs of an aesthetic 'energetism' on the other. (shrink)

Music is a deeply entrenched human phenomenon. In this article, I argue that its evolutionary origins are intrinsically intertwined with the incremental anatomical, cognitive, social, and technological evolution of the hominin lineage. I propose an account of the evolution of Plio-Pleistocene hominins, focusing on traits that would be later implicated in music making. Such traits can be conceived as comprising the musicality mosaic or the multifaceted foundations of musicality. I then articulate and defend an account of protomusical behaviour, drawing theoretical (...) licence from the social brain framework of Robin Dunbar and colleagues, as well as the evolutionary framework for human culture and cooperation developed by Kim Sterelny. The role of gene-culture co-evolution and niche construction is brought to the fore in articulating the evolutionary account. Finally, I defend the view that music subsequently developed via processes of social learning and cumulative culture. (shrink)

The article proposes to further develop the ideas of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis by including into evolutionary research an analysis of phenomena that occur above the organismal level. We demonstrate that the current Extended Synthesis is focused more on individual traits (genetically or non-genetically inherited) and less on community system traits (synergetic/organizational traits) that characterize transgenerational biological, ecological, social, and cultural systems. In this regard, we will consider various communities that are made up of interacting populations, and for which the (...) individual members can belong to the same or to different species. Examples of communities include biofilms, ant colonies, symbiotic associations resulting in holobiont formation, and human societies. The proposed model of evolution at the level of communities revises classic theorizing on the major transitions in evolution by analyzing the interplay between community/social traits and individual traits, and how this brings forth ideas of top-down regulations of bottom-up evolutionary processes (collaboration of downward and upward causation). The work demonstrates that such interplay also includes reticulate interactions and reticulate causation. In this regard, we exemplify how community systems provide various non-genetic ‘scaffoldings’, ‘constraints’, and ‘affordances’ for individual and sociocultural evolutionary development. Such research complements prevailing models that focus on the vertical transmission of heritable information, from parent to offspring, with research that instead focusses on horizontal, oblique and even reverse information transmission, going from offspring to parent. We call this reversed information transfer the ‘offspring effect’ to contrast it from the ‘parental effect’. We argue that the proposed approach to inheritance is effective for modelling cumulative and distributed developmental process and for explaining the biological origins and evolution of language. (shrink)

This paper explores the hypothesis that proper names serve as anchors identifying the individuals in the possible or real world. This hypothesis is tested on Old Icelandic narratives. A prominent feature of Old Icelandic sagas is that the narrative matter is not quite new. A Saga is reliable iff it refers to the events relevant for its audience and accepted as true by the whole community. I argue that proper names must be regarded as references to the background knowledge of (...) the medieval audience. I follow two contemporary Sagas based on the fresh events and show that proper names in a Saga mind were arranged in form of a database, each type of a personal designation having its charachteristic text-building profile. The form of the name and its frequency in the Saga are linked with the rank of the character. The high number of people mentioned in the Sagas is explained by the fact that the Sagas aimed at describing the real world, where the names of the individuals and the events they were involved cross-identified each other. Every character had its rigid identifiers. The total amount of propria is always higher than the number of active figures. I classify the Saga characters into five ranks and discuss their information-structural profiles. (shrink)

Pannekoek, Lenin, and the future of Marxist philosophy -- Note on the text -- Introduction -- Marxism -- Middle class materialism -- Dietzgen -- Mach -- Avenarius -- Lenin -- The criticism -- Natural science -- Materialism -- Plekhanov's views -- The Russian revolution -- The proletarian revolution.

Der Gedanke, der sich in der modernen Idee der Autonomie verdichtet, ist ein doppelter: Die Figur der Autonomie enthält zugleich eine neue Auffassung von Normativität und eine eigene Konzeption von Freiheit. Dem Gedanken der Autonomie zufolge ist ein Gesetz, das wahrhaft normativ ist, eines, als dessen Urheber wir uns selbst betrachten können; und eine Freiheit, die im vollen Sinne wirklich ist, drückt sich in Gestalt eben solcher selbstgegebener Gesetze aus. Die Idee der Autonomie artikuliert so die Einsicht, dass man Freiheit (...) und Gesetz nicht durch ihre Entgegensetzung bestimmen kann, sondern durcheinander erläutern muss. Wirkliche Freiheit ist nicht Freiheit von Gesetzen, sondern Freiheit in Gesetzen; verbindliche Normen sind nicht das, was Freiheit äußerlich beschränkt, sondern das, was Freiheit innerlich verwirklicht. Die Idee der Autonomie, die für die moderne praktische Philosophie seit Rousseau und Kant grundlegend ist, zielt so darauf, Freiheit und Verbindlichkeit in einem Zuge zu artikulieren: durch die Form selbstgegebener Gesetze. Mit Beiträgen von Robert Brandom, Judith Butler, Thomas Khurana, Christoph Menke, Terry Pinkard und Sebastian Rödl. (shrink)

In contrast to the theories of relativity, quantum mechanics is not yet based on a generally accepted conceptual foundation. It is proposed here that the missing principle may be identified through the observation that all knowledge in physics has to be expressed in propositions and that therefore the most elementary system represents the truth value of one proposition, i.e., it carries just one bit of information. Therefore an elementary system can only give a definite result in one specific measurement. The (...) irreducible randomness in other measurements is then a necessary consequence. For composite systems entanglement results if all possible information is exhausted in specifying joint properties of the constituents. (shrink)

This collection takes stock of J.M. Coetzee's impact from a number of interesting angles, Including animals, sexuality, race, and reason. The time is truly ripe for such a volume.

In this chapter the debate between Habermas and Rorty on the issue of relativism is discussed critically. The developments in Rorty's position are pointed out, for example, his current acceptance of the epithet “relativist” against his earlier rejection of this self‐description in view of his denial that a pragmatist like himself has any, including a relativist, epistemology. Attention is also paid to Rorty's current denial of the relevance of the idea of “metaphors of making rather than finding” for this debate, (...) against his earlier espousal of this distinction. His main effort is to create a vocabulary that might transcend the obsolete distinctions of “Platonism” such as truth–falsity, rational–irrational and subjective–objective. In contrast to this effort lurks Habermas's unmasking of the undeniable and unavoidable performative contradiction in Rorty's work, as well as his argument that Rorty indeed fails to develop a “new vocabulary”: but rather succumbs to the well‐known social Darwinism of the nineteenth century. The author shows why Habermas comes out of this debate much better than Rorty. (shrink)

Agency is a power, but what is it a power to do? The tradition presents us with three main answers: (1) that agency is a power to affect one’s own will, consequent upon which act further events ensue, beginning with the movement of a part of one's body; (2) that agency is a power to affect one’s own body, consequent upon which act further events ensue, beginning with the movement of an object that one touches; and (3) that agency is (...) a power to affect that material upon which one brings one's action to bear---e.g. the apple one is peeling (with a knife in one's hand). These three answers correspond to three increasingly expansive conceptions of the province of human agency. I refer to them, respectively, as volitionalism, corporealism and materialism. Only the first two are seriously considered in contemporary action theory. Favoring the third, and hoping to sharpen the conflict between the third and the first, I criticize the second. Corporealism has been a popular position—arguably, the default position in the philosophy of action—since Donald Davidson’s classic paper “Agency” (1971). Although it seems to occupy a sensible middle ground between volitionalism and materialism, corporealism is, I argue, indefensible: it shares the vulnerabilities of both its two rivals, without possessing the strengths of either. Nevertheless, reflection on corporealism lights the road to materialism, which, in the end, is the only possible alternative to volitionalism. (shrink)

A interlocution containing a stimulating lead essay on the relationship between law and violence by one of the key third-generation Frankfurt School philosophers, Christoph Menke, and engaged responses by a variety of influential critics.

Anscombe holds that a proper account of intentional action must exhibit “a ‘form’ of description of events.” But what does that mean? To answer this question, I compare the method of Anscombe’s Intention with that of Frege’s Foundations of Arithmetic—another classic work of analytic philosophy that consciously opposes itself to psychological explanations. On the one hand, positively, I aim to identify and elucidate the kind of account of intentional action that Anscombe attempts to provide. On the other hand, negatively, I (...) hope to dispel the canard that Anscombe’s opposition to the causal theory of action is a product of “behaviorism.”. (shrink)

The conclusion of practical reasoning is commonly said to rest upon a diverse pair of representations—a “major” and a “minor” premise—the first of which concerns the end and the second, the means. Modern and contemporary philosophers writing on action and practical reasoning tend to portray the minor premise as a “means-end belief”—a belief about, as Michael Smith puts it, “the ways in which one thing leads to another,” or, as John McDowell puts it, “what can be relied on to bring (...) about what.” On this point there is little difference between followers of Davidson and followers of Anscombe, or between those who invoke Hume’s legacy and those who invoke Aristotle’s. But Aristotle himself held a very different position. According to him, the minor premise concerns particulars, a sphere controlled by perception. The perception of particulars—that is, of the really-existing people and things confronted in the field of action—plays no essential role in the modern account of rational agency. Because it does not, the modern account fails to explain how one could act for a reason, or how practical reasoning could deliver any conclusion. (shrink)

Der Gedanke, der sich in der modernen Idee der Autonomie verdichtet, ist ein doppelter: Die Figur der Autonomie enthält zugleich eine neue Auffassung von Normativität und eine eigene Konzeption von Freiheit. Dem Gedanken der Autonomie zufolge ist ein Gesetz, das wahrhaft normativ ist, eines, als dessen Urheber wir uns selbst betrachten können; und eine Freiheit, die im vollen Sinne wirklich ist, drückt sich in Gestalt eben solcher selbstgegebener Gesetze aus. Die Idee der Autonomie artikuliert so die Einsicht, dass man Freiheit (...) und Gesetz nicht durch ihre Entgegensetzung bestimmen kann, sondern durcheinander erläutern muss. Wirkliche Freiheit ist nicht Freiheit von Gesetzen, sondern Freiheit in Gesetzen; verbindliche Normen sind nicht das, was Freiheit äußerlich beschränkt, sondern das, was Freiheit innerlich verwirklicht. Die Idee der Autonomie, die für die moderne praktische Philosophie seit Rousseau und Kant grundlegend ist, zielt so darauf, Freiheit und Verbindlichkeit in einem Zuge zu artikulieren: durch die Form selbstgegebener Gesetze. -/- Mit Beiträgen von Robert Brandom, Judith Butler, Thomas Khurana, Christoph Menke, Terry Pinkard und Sebastian Rödl. (shrink)

When an agent intentionally changes something separate from herself—when, say, she opens a bottle—what is the relation between what the agent does and what the patient suffers? This paper defends the Aristotelian thesis that action is to passion as the road from Thebes to Athens is to the road from Athens to Thebes: they are two aspects of a single material reality. Philosophers of action tend to think otherwise. It is generally taken for granted that intentional transactions must be analyzed (...) in terms of a causal relation. Controversy surrounds the question what the causal relata are: event-causalists claim that both of the relata are events; agent-causalists claim that the first relatum is an agent, and they dispute among themselves whether the second is an event or a terminal state of the patient. But the entire controversy assumes the necessity of some causal analysis of transactions. This paper argues that, far from being necessary, no such analysis is even possible. (shrink)

For as long as there has been anything called “the philosophy of action,” its practitioners have accounted for action in terms of an associated kind of explanation. The alternative to this approach was noticed, but not adopted, by G. E. M. Anscombe. Anscombe observed that a series of answers to the reason-requesting question “Why?” may be read in reverse order as a series of answers to the question “How?” Unlike answers to the question “Why?”, answers to the question “How?” are (...) not explanatory of what they are about: they reveal, not reasons for doing something, but ways of doing something, and they have the form of what Aristotle called a practical syllogism. The alternative to theorizing action in terms of explanation, is, thus, to theorize it in terms calculation. In exploring this alternative, I argue for three main theses: first, that (pace Anscombe) it is not a matter of indifference whether we theorize action in terms of the question “Why?” or in terms of the question “How?”; second, that the question “Why?” is a question for an observer of action (the agent already knows the answer and can learn nothing from the inquiry), whereas the question “How?” is a question for the agent—and moreover, one that the agent must answer in order to achieve any end whatsoever—so that part of what is at stake is the standpoint from which action is to be theorized; and finally, that the standpoint of the agent, revealed by the question “How?”, is prior to that of an observer. (shrink)

Although Pierre-Daniel Huet was of the most important and prolific intellectuals of his time, he continues to be relegated to the background of discussions about early modern philosophy. In this er...

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 2, Page 778-792, June 2022.

In this article, I discuss the specific ways in which Hegel's account of life and organisms advances upon Kant's account of natural purposes in the third Critique. First of all, I argue that it is essential for Hegel's account that it contains two levels. The first level is that of logical life, the discussion of which does not depend on any empirical knowledge of natural organisms. I provide my reconstruction of this logical account of life that answers to the objection (...) made by a number of Hegel scholars to the effect that Hegel does in fact rely on empirical knowledge at this place in the logic. The second level is that of natural organisms themselves. I argue that it is with the help of this separation of the logical and natural levels, as well as his doctrine of the impotence of nature, that Hegel, unlike Kant, (a) is able to claim that not everything in natural organisms is purposive, and (b) provide a philosophical, and not merely empirical, account of the distinction between plants and animals. In both of these respects, Hegel's position can be seen as a welcome advance over Kant. (shrink)