A central claim of Deleuze's reading of Bergson is that Bergson's distinction between space as an extensive multiplicity and duration as an intensive multiplicity is inspired by the distinction between discrete and continuous manifolds found in Bernhard Riemann's 1854 thesis on the foundations of geometry. Yet there is no evidence from Bergson that Riemann influences his division, and the distinction between the discrete and continuous is hardly a Riemannian invention. Claiming Riemann's influence, however, allows Deleuze to argue that quantity, (...) in the form of ‘virtual number’, still pertains to continuous multiplicities. This not only supports Deleuze's attempt to redeem Bergson's argument against Einstein in Duration and Simultaneity, but also allows Deleuze to position Bergson against Hegelian dialectics. The use of Riemann is thereby an important element of the incorporation of Bergson into Deleuze's larger early project of developing an anti-Hegelian philosophy of difference. This article first reviews the role of discrete and continuous multiplicities or manifolds in Riemann's Habilitationsschrift, and how Riemann uses them to establish the foundations of an intrinsic geometry. It then outlines how Deleuze reinterprets Riemann's thesis to make it a credible resource for Deleuze's Bergsonism. Finally, it explores the limits of this move, and how Deleuze's later move away from Bergson turns on the rejection of an assumption of Riemann's thesis, that of ‘flatness in smallest parts’, which Deleuze challenges with the idea, taken from Riemann's contemporary, Richard Dedekind, of the irrational cut. (shrink)

Epistemic trespassers judge matters outside their field of expertise. Trespassing is ubiquitous in this age of interdisciplinary research and recognizing this will require us to be more intellectually modest.

A classic objection to autonomous weapon systems (AWS) is that these could create so-called responsibility gaps, where it is unclear who should be held responsible in the event that an AWS were to violate some portion of the law of armed conflict (LOAC). However, those who raise this objection generally do so presenting it as a problem for AWS as a whole class of weapons. Yet there exists a rather wide range of systems that can be counted as “autonomous weapon (...) systems”, and so the objection is too broad. In this article I present a taxonomic approach to the objection, examining a number of systems that would count as AWS under the prevalent definitions provided by the United States Department of Defense and the International Committee of the Red Cross, and I show that for virtually all such systems there is a clear locus of responsibility which presents itself as soon as one focuses on specific systems, rather than general notions of AWS. In developing these points, I also suggest a method for dealing with near-future types of AWS which may be thought to create situations where responsibility gaps can still arise. The main purpose of the arguments is, however, not to show that responsibility gaps do not exist or can be closed where they do exist. Rather, it is to highlight that any arguments surrounding AWS must be made with reference to specific weapon platforms imbued with specific abilities, subject to specific limitations, and deployed to specific times and places for specific purposes. More succinctly, the arguments show that we cannot and should not aim to treat AWS as if all of these shared all morally relevant features, but instead on a case-by-case basis. Thus, we must contend with the realities of weapons development and deployment, and tailor our arguments and conclusions to those realities, and with an eye to what facts obtain for particular systems fulfilling particular combat roles. (shrink)

Traditional approaches to human information processing tend to deal with perception and action planning in isolation, so that an adequate account of the perception-action interface is still missing. On the perceptual side, the dominant cognitive view largely underestimates, and thus fails to account for, the impact of action-related processes on both the processing of perceptual information and on perceptual learning. On the action side, most approaches conceive of action planning as a mere continuation of stimulus processing, thus failing to account (...) for the goal-directedness of even the simplest reaction in an experimental task. We propose a new framework for a more adequate theoretical treatment of perception and action planning, in which perceptual contents and action plans are coded in a common representational medium by feature codes with distal reference. Perceived events (perceptions) and to-be-produced events (actions) are equally represented by integrated, task-tuned networks of feature codes – cognitive structures we call event codes. We give an overview of evidence from a wide variety of empirical domains, such as spatial stimulus-response compatibility, sensorimotor synchronization, and ideomotor action, showing that our main assumptions are well supported by the data. Key Words: action planning; binding; common coding; event coding; feature integration; perception; perception-action interface. (shrink)

There are certain uses of and and or that cannot be explained by their normal meanings as truth-functional connectives, even with sophisticated pragmatic resources. These include examples such as The cops show up, and a fight will break out (‘If the cops show up, a fight will break out’), and I have no friends, or I would throw a party (‘I have no friends. If I did have friends, I would throw a party.’). We argue that these uses are indeed (...) distinct from the more ordinary uses of and and or, but that they are nonetheless related in a principled way. To explain them we give an analysis of what we call the dynamic effects of connectives, which arise in all their uses. The special uses at issue are then argued to be instances where the connectives exhibit their dynamic effects without their truth-conditional meaning. (shrink)

In recent years there has been an explosion of philosophical work on blame. Much of this work has focused on explicating the nature of blame or on examining the norms that govern it, and the primary motivation for theorizing about blame seems to derive from blame’s tight connection to responsibility. However, very little philosophical attention has been given to praise and its attendant practices. In this paper, I identify three possible explanations for this lack of attention. My goal is to (...) show that each of these lines of thought is mistaken and to argue that praise is deserving of careful, independent analysis by philosophers interested in theorizing about responsibility. (shrink)

Rachel Carson begins her revolutionary book Silent Spring with a quote from E.B. White that reads 'we would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet and viewed it appreciatively'. While White's advice can account for an instrumental relationship towards nature, I believe that the more important relationship offered in his recommendation is one of appreciation or gratitude. But how are we to understand gratitude as appreciating Nature non-instrumentally when it has traditionally always been understood (...) as a response to a benefit received? My motivation is to modify our traditional conception of gratitude alongside Simon Hailwood's account of the 'Otherness of Nature' to see how we can truly show gratitude for Nature rather than simply reflecting on how Nature serves human interests. (shrink)

Due to advances in military technology, there has been an outpouring of research on what are known as autonomous weapon systems (AWS). However, it is common in this literature for arguments to be made without first making clear exactly what definitions one is employing, with the detrimental effect that authors may speak past one another or even miss the targets of their arguments. In this article I examine the U.S. Department of Defense and International Committee of the Red Cross definitions (...) of AWS, showing that these definitions are far broader than some recognize, and that they therefore classify a much larger set of weapons as AWS. I then show that these broader views of AWS have implications for what moral and legal rules we might argue should be applied to such systems. I conclude by arguing there is a greater need for precision and clarity within AWS debates, in order to ensure that researchers are discussing the same weapon systems (autonomous or otherwise) when they argue for or against particular points. The purpose of this article is not to defend any specific view of AWS, nor to further any general endorsement or objection to such systems, but rather to show the importance of argumentative clarity in this debate. (shrink)

Suppose you’d like to believe that p, whether or not it’s true. What can you do to help? A natural initial thought is that you could engage in Intentionally Biased Inquiry : you could look into whether p, but do so in a way that you expect to predominantly yield evidence in favour of p. This paper hopes to do two things. The first is to argue that this initial thought is mistaken: intentionally biased inquiry is impossible. The second is (...) to show that reflections on intentionally biased inquiry strongly support a controversial ‘access’ principle which states that, for all p, if p is part of our evidence, then that p is part of our evidence is itself part of our evidence. (shrink)

Two theses are central to recent work on the epistemology of disagreement: Conciliationism:?In a revealed peer disagreement over P, each thinker should give at least some weight to her peer's attitude. Uniqueness:?For any given proposition and total body of evidence, the evidence fully justifies exactly one level of confidence in the proposition. 1This paper is the product of full and equal collaboration between its authors. Does Conciliationism commit one to Uniqueness? Thomas Kelly 2010 has argued that it does. After some (...) scene-setting (?1), in ?2 we explain and criticize Kelly's argument, thereby defeating his larger argument that Conciliationism deserves no dialectical special treatment. But we argue further that Conciliationists are committed to a disjunction, one of whose disjuncts is Uniqueness, that amounts to an ?extremely strong and unobvious position? (??3?4). If we are correct, theorists should not treat Conciliationism as a default position in debates about the epistemic significance of disagreement. (shrink)

Higginbotham (1986) observed that quantified conditionals have a stronger meaning than might be expected, as attested by the apparent equivalence of examples like No student will pass if he goofs off and Every student will fail if he goofs off. Higginbotham's observation follows straightforwardly given the validity of conditional excluded middle (CEM; as observed by von Fintel & Iatridou 2002), and as such could be taken as evidence thereof (e.g. Williams forthcoming). However, the empirical status of CEM has been disputed, (...) and it is invalid under many prominent theories of conditionals—notably Lewis (1973) for counterfactuals, also Kratzer (1979, 1991). More acutely, Higginbotham's observation holds even for quantified counterparts of conditionals that appear not to obey CEM (Higginbotham 2003), and the standard way of explaining (away) such apparent counterexamples to the principle, à la Stalnaker (1981), does not directly yield an account of our apparent truth-conditional intuitions about the quantified counterparts (Leslie 2009). This article provides an explanation for the latter intuitions within Stalnaker's framework, the upshot being that CEM does remain a viable explanation, in principle, for Higginbotham's observation. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider a novel challenge to John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza’s reasons-responsiveness theory of moral responsibility. According to their view, agents possess the control necessary for moral responsibility if their actions proceed from a mechanism that is moderately reasons-responsive. I argue that their account of moderate reasons-responsiveness fails to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for moral responsibility since it cannot give an adequate account of the responsibility of individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Empirical evidence suggests that (...) autistic individuals demonstrate impairments in counterfactual thinking, and these impairments, I argue, are such that they cast doubt on Fischer and Ravizza’s construal of moderate reasons-responsiveness. I then argue that modifying the view in order to accommodate individuals with ASD forces them to defend a strong reasons-responsive account despite the fact that they explicitly deny that such an account can adequately characterize what it is to be morally responsible for one’s actions. (shrink)

We offer an original argument for the existence of universal fictions—that is, fictions within which every possible proposition is true. Specifically, we detail a trio of such fictions, along with an easy-to-follow recipe for generating more. After exploring several consequences and dismissing some objections, we conclude that fiction, unlike reality, is unlimited when it comes to truth.

In this paper, I present a challenge for Michael McKenna’s conversational theory of moral responsibility. On his view, to be a responsible agent is to be able to engage in a type of moral conversation. I argue that individuals with autism spectrum disorder present a considerable problem for the conversational theory because empirical evidence on the disorder seems to suggest that there are individuals in the world who meet all of the conditions for responsible agency that the theory lays out (...) but who are nevertheless not responsible agents. Attending to the moral psychology of such individuals will, I think, help shed light on an important gap in the conversational theory. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Most of what we believe comes to us from the word of others, but we do not always believe what we are told. We often reject thinkers' reports by attributing biases to them. We may call this debunking. In this essay, I consider how debunking might work and then examine whether, and how often, it can help to preserve rational belief in the face of disagreement.

Rather infamously, Kit Fine provided a series of counter-examples which purport to show that the modalist program of analysing essence in terms of metaphysical necessity is fundamentally misguided. Several would-be modalists have since responded, attempting to save the position from this Finean Challenge. This paper evaluates and rejects a trio of such responses, from Della Rocca, Zalta, and Gorman. But I’m not here arguing for Fine’s conclusion – ultimately, this is a fight amongst friends, with Della Rocca, Zalta, Gorman, and (...) I all wanting to be modalists, but disagreeing on the details. As such, while my primary aim is to show what’s wrong with this trio, the secondary aim is demonstrating how what’s right about them in fact pushes one towards my own sparse modalist account. So while the primary conclusion of this paper is negative, the secondary, positive, conclusion is that modalists shouldn’t give up hope – plausible responses to Fine are still out there. (shrink)

I argue that reflection on philosophers who could have been working among us but aren’t can lead us to give up our philosophical beliefs.

Recent work on the nature of luck widely endorses the thesis that an event is good or bad luck for an individual only if it is significant for that individual. In this paper, I explore this thesis, showing that it raises questions about interests, well-being, and the philosophical uses of luck. In Sect. 1, I examine several accounts of significance, due to Pritchard (2005), Coffman (2007), and Rescher (1995). Then in Sect. 2 I consider what some theorists want to ‘do’ (...) with luck, taking important examples from epistemology (explaining Gettier-style examples) and political philosophy (offering a rationale for the just distribution of resources in society), while suggesting implications for significance. Drawing together lessons from Sects. 1 and 2, I develop a new account of significance in Sect. 3 before concluding with reflections on the debate in Sect. 4. (shrink)

The past decade and a half has seen an absolute explosion of literature discussing the structure of reality. One particular focus here has been on the fundamental. However, while there has been extensive discussion, numerous fundamental questions about fundamentality have not been touched upon. In this chapter, I focus on one such lacuna about the modal strength of fundamentality. More specifically, I am interested in exploring the contingent fundamentality thesis - that is, the idea that the fundamentalia are only contingently (...) fundamental (or, in property-terms, that the property of being fundamental is not a (weakly) necessary property). And while I think this thesis is plausible – indeed, I show here that it lurks in the unexamined shadows/assumptions of some fairly prominent positions – as far as I can tell, nothing has been said either for or against it. Here, I hope to fix this by giving the thesis a proper airing. In this way, this chapter represents a first-pass at exploring not only the modal status of fundamentality, but also offers a starting point for examining broader issues about the relationship between fundamentality and modality. (shrink)

David Lewis and Peter van Inwagen have claimed that there are no “knockdown” arguments in philosophy. Their claim appears to be at odds with common philosophical practice: philosophers often write as though their conclusions are established or proven and that the considerations offered for these conclusions are decisive. In this paper, I examine some questions raised by Lewis’s and van Inwagen’s contention. What are knockdown arguments? Are there any in philosophy? If not, why not? These questions concern the nature of (...) the philosophical enterprise and our answers have implications for the limits on the attitudes of informed, rational thinkers. (shrink)

Bare particularism is a constituent ontology according to which substances—concrete, particular objects like people, tables, and tomatoes—are complex entities constituted by their properties and their bare particulars. Yet, aside from this description, much about bare particularism is fundamentally unclear. In this paper, I attempt to clarify this muddle by elucidating the key metaphysical commitments underpinning any plausible formulation of the position. So the aim here is primarily catechismal rather than evangelical—I don’t intend to convert anyone to bare particularism, but, by (...) looking at a series of questions, to instead specify what, if one is a bare particularist, one is committed to. Along the way, I address three major objections: a classic objection about whether bare particulars have properties, a new objection raised by Bailey, and an understanding objection that questions some of the position’s resources. (shrink)

Some epistemologists hold that exploration and elaboration of the nature of luck will allow us to better understand knowledge. I argue this is a mistake.

General consensus has it that contingencies lack the requisite modal umph to serve as explanations for the modal status of necessities. The central aim of this paper is to show that this received opinion is incorrect: contingent necessity-makers are in fact possible. To do so, I identify certain conditions the satisfaction of which entail the possibility of contingent necessity-makers. I then argue for two broad instances where these conditions are satisfied. Consequently, the associated necessities in fact have contingent necessity-makers.

A brain model based on glial-neuronal interactions is proposed. Glial-neuronal synaptic units are interpreted as elementary reflection mechanisms, called proemial synapses. In glial networks (syncytia), cyclic intentional programs are generated, interpreted as auto-reflective intentional programming. Both types of reflection mechanisms are formally described and may be implementable in a robot brain. Based on the logic of acceptance and rejection, the robot is capable of rejecting irrelevant environmental information, showing at least a "touch" of subjective behavior. Since reflective intentional programming generates (...) both relevant and irrelevant structures already within the brain, ontological gaps arise which must be integrated. In the human brain, the act of self-reference may exert a holistic function enabling self-consciousness. However, since the act of self-reference is a mysterious function not experimentally testable in brain research, it cannot be implemented in a robot brain. Therefore, the creation of self-conscious robots may never be possible. Finally, some philosophical implications are discussed. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the conditions under which a person can be said to have told someone or predicted (the answer to a question like) ‘who came’.

This paper concerns the semantics of coordinated if-clauses, as in (1)-(2). It is argued that the meanings of such sentences are explained straightforwardly on theories of conditionals that tie their non- monotonic behaviour to the if-clause itself (e.g. Schlenker 2004, but not theories that tie it to a (covert) modal operator (e.g. Kratzer 1981; 1991). Coordinated if-clauses are revealing of the fine-grained compositional semantics of conditionals.

In this article, we discuss the continued circulation and use of retracted science as a complex problem: Multiple stakeholders throughout the publishing ecosystem hold competing perceptions of this problem and its possible solutions. We describe how we used a participatory design process model to co-develop recommendations for addressing this problem with stakeholders in the Alfred P. Sloan-funded project, Reducing the Inadvertent Spread of Retracted Science (RISRS). After introducing the four core RISRS recommendations, we discuss how the issue of retraction-related stigma (...) gives rise to recommendation #4, Educate stakeholders about retraction and pre- and post-publication stewardship of the scholarly record. This recommendation is important for training publishing professionals and realizing this recommendation will require further collaborative design work across scholarly communications. We highlight ongoing stakeholder work which is now re-starting the design cycle. We conclude with a discussion of ongoing activities facilitating uptake and refinement of RISRS research and the implementation agenda. (shrink)

The status of the knowledge iteration principles in the account provided by Lewis in “Elusive Knowledge” is disputed. By distinguishing carefully between what in the account describes the contribution of the attributor’s context and what describes the contribution of the subject’s situation, we can resolve this dispute in favour of Holliday’s claim that the iteration principles are rendered invalid. However, that is not the end of the story. For Lewis’s account still predicts that counterexamples to the negative iteration principle ) (...) come out as elusive: such counterexamples can occur only in possibilities which the attributors of knowledge are ignoring. This consequence is more defensible than it might look at first sight. (shrink)

Two common theses in contemporary epistemology are that ‘knowledge excludes luck’ and that knowledge depends on ‘purely epistemic’ factors. In this essay, I shall argue as follows: given some plausible assumptions, ‘anti-luck epistemology,’ which is committed to the fi rst thesis, implies the falsity of the second thesis. That is, I will argue that anti-luck epistemology leads to what has been called ‘pragmatic encroachment’ on knowledge. Anti-luck epistemologists hoping to resist encroachment must accept a controversial thesis about true belief or (...) a dubious claim about luck and value and interests. (shrink)

In many tragic plays, the protagonist is brought down by a disaster that is a consequence of the protagonist's own error, his or her hamartia, the tragic flaw. Tragic flaws are disconcerting to the audience because they are not known or fully recognized by the protagonist—at least not until it is too late. In this essay, I take tragic flaws to be unreliable belief-forming dispositions that are unrecognized by us in some sense. I describe some different types of flaws and (...) consider what we might do about them. Then I examine three types of policies for managing our tragic flaws: doxastic, dispositional, and methodological. (shrink)

This book argues that Hume is a radical epistemic skeptic who gives only practical reasons for retaining belief in sensory beliefs and the deliverances of reason. He advises us to take a moderate approach to the demands of philosophy, since they sometimes diverge from the demands of life.

"Explores the nature of time and its implications for questions of politics, ethics, and the self.

Recently, Xhignesse has argued that the principle of poetic licence, which roughly states that any class of propositions is true in some possible fiction, ought to be rejected. Here, we defend PPL from Xhignesse’s objection by demonstrating that, properly understood, his purported counter-example case is either irrelevant or unproblematic. The upshot is that Xhignesse has given us no reason to reject PPL.

The aim of this chapter is broadly exploratory: we want to better understand online affective manipulation and what, if anything, is morally problematic about it. To do so, we begin by pulling apart various forms of online affective manipulation. We then proceed to discuss why online affective manipulation is properly categorized as manipulative, as well as what is wrong with (online) manipulation more generally. Building on this, we next argue that, at its most extreme, online affective manipulation constitutes a novel (...) form of affective injustice that we call affective powerlessness. To demonstrate this, we introduce the notions of affective injustice and affective powerlessness and show how several forms of online affective manipulation leave users in this state. The upshot is that this chapter gives us a better grip on the nature of online affective manipulation, as well some tools to help us understand when and why it is morally problematic. (shrink)

Boyer's formulation neglects that humans are embodied agents. It is a biological imperative to distinguish self from other. Ownership of ideas, bodies, objects, and locations is an inevitable extension of this. We argue that (1) the body's capability influences the inputs that guide future actions, and (2) bodies in action influence all of cognition, from perception to decision making.

The expression "Thy heavens" included for him that universe whose existence was demonstrated by the "Moon and the stars." Evidently it was a song composed..

Virtue Rediscovered: Deontology, Consequentialism, and Virtue Ethics in the Contemporary Moral Landscape explores the nature and position of virtue ethics within the contemporary moral landscape and in so doing develops a more complicated framework for ethical theorizing.

While recent history has seen significant debate concerning the nature and extension of essence, comparatively little attention has been paid to the epistemology of essence. This is strange, as, plausibly, what answers we give to the metaphysical questions about essence will (or should) be partially constrained by our essence epistemology. Here, I aim to go some way towards filling this lacuna. In particular, I here argue that there is no plausible epistemic story available for non-modal accounts of essence. In particular, (...) existing accounts of essence epistemology cannot explain how we are able to know that something is genuinely essential, rather than merely necessary. One consequence is that modal accounts of essence – which only needs to supply an epistemology for a non-hyperintensional notion – look that much more plausible. (shrink)

I criticize Richard Fumerton’s fallibilist acquaintance theory of noninferential justification.

In recent debates over permissivism and uniqueness—two theses concerning the relationship between evidence and epistemic rationality—some philosophers have claimed that permissivism has an intuitive advantage over uniqueness. I examine the cases alleged to intuitively motivate permissivism and suggest they do not provide prima facie support for permissivism. I conclude by explaining how my discussion bears on whether permissivism can defeat skeptical arguments based on recognized peer disagreement and the historical contingency of our beliefs.

Jonathan Schaffer (2010) has summoned a new sort of demon – which he calls the debasing demon – that apparently threatens all of our purported knowledge. We show that any debasing skeptical argument must attack the justification condition and can do so only if a plausible thesis about justification is false.

Lange has argued that contingencies lack the modal strength to be necessity-makers. Here, I argue that Lange’s case turns upon a faulty premise, and that there is no obvious fixes he might pursue. The general upshot is that his argument gives us no reason to think that contingencies could not be necessity-makers after all.