Bilingual Discourse and Cross-Cultural Fertilisation: Sanskrit and Tamil in Medieval India. Edited by Whitney Cox and Vincenzo Vergiani with an introduction by Dominic Goodall. Collection Indologie, vol. 121. Pondicherry: Institut Français de Pondichéry / École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 2013. Pp. x + 466. Rs. 900, €38.

Doxastic involuntarists have paid insufficient attention to two debates in contemporary epistemology: the permissivism debate and the debate over norms of assertion and belief. In combination, these debates highlight a conception of belief on which, if you find yourself in what I will call an ‘equipollent case’ with respect to some proposition p, there will be no reason why you can’t believe p at will. While doxastic involuntarism is virtually epistemological orthodoxy, nothing in the entire stock of objections to belief (...) at will blocks this route to doxastic voluntarism. Against the backdrop of the permissivism debate and the literature on norms of belief and assertion, doxastic involuntarism emerges as an article of faith, not the obvious truth it’s usually purported to be. (shrink)

Purists think that changes in our practical interests can’t affect what we know unless those changes are truth-relevant with respect to the propositions in question. Impurists disagree. They think changes in our practical interests can affect what we know even if those changes aren’t truth-relevant with respect to the propositions in question. I argue that impurists are right, but for the wrong reasons, since they haven’t appreciated the best argument for their own view. Together with “Minimalism and the Limits of (...) Warranted Assertability Maneuvers,” “The Pragmatic Encroachment Debate,” and “Anti-Intellectualism” (below), this paper constitutes my attempt to refute the entire pragmatic encroachment debate. As I show in this paper, there is an argument for impurism sitting in plain sight that is considerably more plausible than any extant argument for pragmatism. (shrink)

The Phenomenology of Painting examines the practice of painting - how a painter works with materials, the elements of space, form and color - and viewer response to a work of art. Nigel Wentworth seeks to answer some of the central questions of the philosophy of art, such as: To what extent can a painting and its meaning be understood to result from the artist's intentions? In what way can the painting be understood as an expressive object? What does (...) it mean for a painting to be a representation of something? And what is the nature of aesthetic quality in painting? In offering responses to these questions, Wentworth offers a new theory on aesthetic quality. (shrink)

Does knowledge depend in any interesting way on our practical interests? This is the central question in the pragmatic encroachment debate. Pragmatists defend the affirmative answer to this question while purists defend the negative answer. The literature contains two kinds of arguments for pragmatism: principle-based arguments and case-based arguments. Principle-based arguments derive pragmatism from principles that connect knowledge to practical interests. Case-based arguments rely on intuitions about cases that differ with respect to practical interests. I argue that there are insurmountable (...) problems for both kinds of arguments, and that it is therefore unclear what motivates pragmatism. (shrink)

According to what I will call ‘the disanalogy thesis,’ beliefs differ from actions in at least the following important way: while cognitively healthy people often exhibit direct control over their actions, there is no possible scenario where a cognitively healthy person exhibits direct control over her beliefs. Recent arguments against the disanalogy thesis maintain that, if you find yourself in what I will call a ‘permissive situation’ with respect to p, then you can have direct control over whether you believe (...) p, and you can do so without manifesting any cognitive defect. These arguments focus primarily on the idea that we can have direct doxastic control in permissive situations, but they provide insufficient reason for thinking that permissive situations are actually possible, since they pay inadequate attention to the following worries: permissive situations seem inconsistent with the uniqueness thesis, permissive situations seem inconsistent with natural thoughts about epistemic akrasia, and vagueness threatens even if we push these worries aside. In this paper I argue that, on the understanding of permissive situations that is most useful for evaluating the disanalogy thesis, permissive situations clearly are possible. (shrink)

What is the nature of truth? Blake Hestir offers an investigation into Plato's developing metaphysical views, and examines Plato's conception of being, meaning, and truth in the Sophist, as well as passages from several other later dialogues including the Cratylus, Parmenides, and Theaetetus, where Plato begins to focus more directly on semantics rather than only on metaphysical and epistemological puzzles. Hestir's interpretation challenges both classical and contemporary interpretations of Plato's metaphysics and conception of truth, and highlights new parallels between (...) Plato and Aristotle, as well as clarifying issues surrounding Plato's approach to semantics and thought. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of ancient Greek philosophy, metaphysics, contemporary truth theory, linguistics, and philosophy of language. (shrink)

BackgroundAdvances in healthcare artificial intelligence (AI) are occurring rapidly and there is a growing discussion about managing its development. Many AI technologies end up owned and controlled by private entities. The nature of the implementation of AI could mean such corporations, clinics and public bodies will have a greater than typical role in obtaining, utilizing and protecting patient health information. This raises privacy issues relating to implementation and data security. Main bodyThe first set of concerns includes access, use and control (...) of patient data in private hands. Some recent public–private partnerships for implementing AI have resulted in poor protection of privacy. As such, there have been calls for greater systemic oversight of big data health research. Appropriate safeguards must be in place to maintain privacy and patient agency. Private custodians of data can be impacted by competing goals and should be structurally encouraged to ensure data protection and to deter alternative use thereof. Another set of concerns relates to the external risk of privacy breaches through AI-driven methods. The ability to deidentify or anonymize patient health data may be compromised or even nullified in light of new algorithms that have successfully reidentified such data. This could increase the risk to patient data under private custodianship.ConclusionsWe are currently in a familiar situation in which regulation and oversight risk falling behind the technologies they govern. Regulation should emphasize patient agency and consent, and should encourage increasingly sophisticated methods of data anonymization and protection. (shrink)

This paper examines the resilience of farmers markets in Michigan to the system shock of the global COVID-19 pandemic, questioning how the response fits into market goals of food sovereignty. Adapting to shifting public health recommendations and uncertainty, managers implemented new policies to create a safe shopping experience and expand food access. As consumers directed their shopping to farmers markets looking for safer outdoor shopping, local products, and foods in short supply at grocery stores, market sales skyrocketed with vendors reporting (...) selling more than ever before, but the longevity of this change remains unclear. Our data collected via semi-structured interviews with market managers and vendors, and survey data from customers from 2020 to 21, suggest that despite the widespread impact of COVID-19, there is not sufficient evidence consumers will continue to shop at farmers markets at the rates they did in 2020-21. Furthermore, reasons consumers flocked to farmers markets do not align with market priorities for increased food sovereignty, as increased sales alone are not a sufficient driver for this goal. We question how markets can contribute to broader sustainability goals or serve as alternatives to capitalist and industrial modes of agricultural production, problematizing the role of markets in the food sovereignty movement. (shrink)

Is knowledge consistent with literally any credence in the relevant proposition, including credence 0? Of course not. But is credence 0 the only credence in p that entails that you don’t know that p? Knowledge entails belief (most epistemologists think), and it’s impossible to believe that p while having credence 0 in p. Is it true that, for every value of ‘x,’ if it’s impossible to know that p while having credence x in p, this is simply because it’s impossible (...) to believe that p while having credence x in p? If so, is it possible to believe that p while having (say) credence 0.4 in p? These questions aren’t standard epistemological fare, at least in part because many epistemologists think their answers are obvious, but they have unanticipated consequences for epistemology. Let ‘improbabilism’ name the thesis that it’s possible to know that p while having a credence in p below 0.5. Improbabilism will strike many epistemologists as absurd, but careful reflection on these questions reveals that, if improbabilism is false, then all of the most plausible theories of knowledge are also false. Or so I argue in this paper. Since improbabilism is widely rejected by epistemologists (at least implicitly), this paper reveals a tension between all of the most plausible theories of knowledge and a widespread assumption in epistemology. (shrink)

In “Reasons to Believe and Reasons to Act,” Stewart Cohen argues that balance of reasons accounts of rational action get the wrong results when applied to doxastic attitudes, and that there are therefore important differences between reasons to believe and reasons to act. In this paper, I argue that balance of reasons accounts of rational action get the right results when applied to the cases that Cohen considers, and that these results highlight interesting similarities between reasons to believe and reasons (...) to act. I also consider an argument for Cohen's conclusion based on the principle that Adler, Moran, Shah, Velleman and others call “transparency.” I resist this argument by explaining why transparency is itself doubtful. (shrink)

Intellectualists disagree with anti-intellectualists about the relationship between knowledge and truth. According to intellectualists, this relationship is intimate. Knowledge entails true belief, and in fact everything required for knowledge is somehow relevant to the probability that the belief in question is true. According to anti-intellectualists, this relationship isn’t intimate. Or, at least, it’s not as intimate as intellectualists think. Factors that aren’t in any way relevant to the probability that a belief is true can make a difference to whether it (...) counts as knowledge. In this paper, I give a new argument for anti-intellectualism and draw out consequences of this argument for the pragmatic encroachment debate. The standard purist objection to pragmatism is that pragmatism entails anti-intellectualism. As I show, anti-intellectualism follows from premises that are plausible even if purism is true, so the standard purist objection to pragmatism fails. (shrink)

The epistemic value of seemings is increasingly debated. Such debates are hindered, however, by a lack of consensus about the nature of seemings. There are four prominent conceptions in the literature, and the plausibility of principles such as phenomenal conservatism, which assign a prominent epistemic role to seemings, varies greatly from one conception to another. It is therefore crucial that we identify the correct conception of seemings. I argue that seemings are best understood as sui generis mental states with propositional (...) content and a distinct phenomenal character. Rival conceptions are shown to succumb to numerous difficulties. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga theorizes the existence of a sensus divinitatis – a special cognitive faulty or mechanism dedicated to the production and non-inferential justification of theistic belief. Following Chris Tucker, we offer an evidentialist-friendly model of the sensus divinitatis whereon it produces theistic seemings that non-inferentially justify theistic belief. We suggest that the sensus divinitatis produces these seemings by tacitly grasping support relations between the content of ordinary experiences (in conjunction with our background evidence) and propositions about God. Our model offers (...) advantages such as eliminating the need for a sui generis religious faculty, harmonizing the sensus divinitatis with prominent theories in the cognitive science of religion, and providing a superior account of natural revelation. (shrink)

I defend two collapsing or reductionist arguments against Weak Pro-Natalism (WPN), the view that procreation is generally merely permissible. In particular, I argue that WPN collapses into Strong Pro-Natalism (SPN), the view that procreation is generally obligatory. Because SPN conflicts with the dominant view that procreation is never obligatory, demonstrating that WPN collapses into or entails SPN establishes epistemic parity (at least as concerns reproductive liberty) between WPN and Anti-Natalism (AN), the view that procreation is always impermissible. First, I distinguish (...) between two moral goods: the good of procreation itself and the good of procreative potential. Second, I contend that the average moral agent is obligated to assist needy children via adoption, fostering, or other financial or interpersonal support. Third, I present the first collapsing argument: If an agent’s justification for not assisting needy children is preservation of their resources (financial or interpersonal) for their actual future offspring, that justification is preserved only if they eventually and actually procreate. Thus, their eventual procreation is morally obligatory, and SPN follows. Fourth, I present the second collapsing argument, which assumes procreative potential as the relevant good: If an agent’s justification for not assisting needy children is preservation of their resources for their potential future offspring, that justification holds only if (a) the objective or subjective valuation of the opportunity is of the relevant type and valence to justify not assisting needy children and (b) the agent sincerely values the opportunity. Fifth, I argue that (a) is unsatisfied and that while (b) is satisfied in most cases, it entails that most agents are obligated to desire or be behaviorally disposed to pursue procreation for themselves (i.e., SPN). Thus, I conclude that both actual procreation and procreative potential are either insufficient justifications for not assisting needy children or that they entail obligatory pro-reproductive attitudes or behaviors. (shrink)

In An. Post. I, 2, 72 a 8ff., Aristotle gives a description of the kinds of premisses that can occur in a demonstration. It is the purpose of this paper to explore some difficulties that arise in the interpretation of this passage and of the related passage at An. Post. I, 10, 76b 33 ff.

The epistemic value of seemings is increasingly debated. Such debates are hindered, however, by a lack of consensus about the nature of seemings. There are four prominent conceptions in the literature, and the plausibility of principles such as phenomenal conservatism, which assign a prominent epistemic role to seemings, varies greatly from one conception to another. It is therefore crucial that we identify the correct conception of seemings. I argue that seemings are best understood as sui generis mental states with propositional (...) content and a distinct phenomenal character. Rival conceptions are shown to succumb to numerous difficulties. (shrink)

The federal government is funding a sea change in health care by investing in interventions targeting social determinants of health, which are significant contributors to illness and health inequity. This funding power has encouraged states, professional and accreditation organizations, health care entities, and providers to focus heavily on social determinants. We examine how this shift in focus affects clinical practice in the fields of oncology and emergency medicine, and highlight potential areas of reform.

Early moderns such as Locke and Descartes thought we could guarantee the justification of our beliefs, even in worlds most hostile to their truth, if only we form those beliefs with sufficient care. That is, they thought it possible for us to be impeccable with respect to justification. This principle has traditionally been used to argue for internalism. By placing all of the normatively relevant conditions in our minds, we ensure reflective access to what those norms require of us and (...) so sustain the possibility of impeccability (unlike externalism). However, recent challenges to transparency leave this reasoning vulnerable. In response, I show how impeccability can be sustained without requiring transparency. The account only works if we define internal states as those directly accessible to our rational belief forming systems. I argue that this sort of causal internalism, while somewhat revisionary, preserves traditional motivations for internalism while avoiding problems faced by other varieties. The result is a renewed argument for internalism that simultaneously moves us away from access internalism and towards a species of mentalism. (shrink)

Deep moral disagreements exist between Christians and non-Christians. I argue that Christians should resist the temptation to pin all such disagreements on the irrationality of their disputants. To this end, I develop an epistemological framework on which both parties can be rational—the key being that their beliefs are formed from different perspectives and, hence, on the basis of different sets of evidence. I then alleviate concerns that such moral perspectivalism leads to relativism or skepticism, or that it prohibits rational discourse. (...) I end by exploring new avenues for resolving deep moral disagreements opened up by the perspectivalist approach. (shrink)

Central to Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s philosophical revival of rhetoric and dialectic is the importance given to the temporal character of argumentation. Unlike demonstration, situated within the “empty time” of a single instant, the authors of The New Rhetoric understand argumentation as an action that unfolds within the “full time” of meaningful human life. By taking a broader view of his work beyond The New Rhetoric, I first outline Perelman’s understanding of time and temporality and the challenge that it poses for (...) the study of argumentation. Next, I emphasize the distinction between argumentation’s internal and external temporal structures, and then show how Perelman problematizes a static view of a number of basic argumentative concepts by bringing out their essentially temporal character. Finally, in clarifying what is at stake in Perelman’s account, I conclude by drawing attention to a number of issues in contemporary argumentation studies that may benefit from a reconsideration of Perelman’s analysis of time. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn 1799 Dirk van Hogendorp published a Report on the Current Conditions of Dutch Possessions in the East Indies, a document that has garned comparisons to Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations for its condemnation of the Dutch East India Company and for its insistence on the importance of property rights to economic growth. The text is also an anti-Chinese diatribe, castigating the supposedly inveterate avarice of Java’s Chinese minority. Hogendorp’s advocacy of colonial reform and sinophobia intertwine in his use of (...) the term ijver, then the standard Dutch translation of ‘emulation’, a keyword of eighteenth-century political economy. Read against the status of emulation in European thinking, Hogendorp’s employment of the ijver offers an opportunity to re-examine emulation’s fraught, ambivalent quality, which has been noted by scholars like Istvan Hont and Sophus Reinert concerned primarily with a division between benevolent domestic emulation and dangerous international emulation. The colonial sphere, neither wholly domestic nor wholly foreign, was a discursive site wherein the tensions of emulation were worked out in new ways. (shrink)

"The Pivot of the World looks at an exceptional effort to work out that geopolitical tension by cultural means as developed in three hugely ambitious photographic projects: The Family of Man exhibition that opened in 1955 and traveled the world for the next decade; Robert Frank's influential book The Americans, photographed in 1955-1956 and first published in 1958; and Bernd and Hilla Becher's typological record of industrial architecture, begun in 1957 and continuing today."--BOOK JACKET.

A number of philosophers, going back at least to Kierkegaard, argue that to have faith in something is, in part, to have a passion for that thing—to possess a lasting, formative disposition to feel certain positive patterns of emotion towards the object of faith. I propose that (at least some of) the intellectual dimensions of faith can be modeled in much the same way. Having faith in a person involves taking a certain perspective towards the object of faith—in possessing a (...) lasting, formative disposition for things to seem as though the object of faith is worthy of one’s trust. After developing the view, I briefly discuss its epistemic implications. I suggest that, by systematically reorienting how one experiences the world, faith can actually change one’s total body of evidence (or perhaps even how one weighs that evidence), thereby altering what one is justified in believing about the object of faith. (shrink)

Contextualists and pragmatists agree that knowledge-denying sentences are contextually variable, in the sense that a knowledge-denying sentence might semantically express a false proposition in one context and a true proposition in another context, without any change in the properties traditionally viewed as necessary for knowledge. Minimalists deny both pragmatism and contextualism, and maintain that knowledge-denying sentences are not contextually variable. To defend their view from cases like DeRose and Stanley's high stakes bank case, minimalists like Patrick Rysiew, Jessica Brown, and (...) Wayne Davis forward ‘warranted assertability maneuvers.’ The basic idea is that some knowledge-denying sentence seems contextually variable because we mistake what a speaker pragmatically conveys by uttering that sentence for what she literally says by uttering that sentence. In this paper, I raise problems for the warranted assertability maneuvers of Rysiew, Brown, and Davis, and then present a warranted assertability maneuver that should succeed if any warranted assertability maneuver will succeed. I then show how my warranted assertability maneuver fails, and how the problem with my warranted assertability maneuver generalizes to pragmatic responses in general. The upshot of my argument is that, in order to defend their view from cases like DeRose and Stanley's high stakes bank case, minimalists must prioritize the epistemological question whether the subjects in those cases know over linguistic questions about the pragmatics of various knowledge-denying sentences. (shrink)

Most theists accept an anthropomorphic view of the divine: a God whose cognition and incarnate embodiment closely resembles human cognition and human embodiment. Most theists also accept an Anselmian view of God on which God has the maximal set of ontological (including moral) perfections. This chapter defends the view that Anselmianism entails that the anthropomorphic view of God is false and that some nonhuman animal is divine. Two arguments are given for this position, which we can call zootheism. The first (...) argument, the Power Argument, claims that because nonhuman animals have moral interests, maximal fairness entails a share in power over those interests. This, in turn, entails a direct share of power within the Godhead, which entails that some nonhuman animal is divine. The second argument, the Incarnation Argument, hues closely to Christian arguments for an incarnation: because God loves us, God will share in our suffering and will pursue non-privileged kinds of incarnate embodiments. This naturally motivates incarnating as a nonhuman animal, particularly given the historically privileged status of humans. Moreover, maximal fairness and maximal love entail that God also pre-existed as a nonhuman animal. Thus, God is, and always was, a nonhuman animal. (shrink)

Anti-natalism is the view that persons ought morally to refrain from procreation. We offer a new argument for a principled version of anti-natalism according to which it is always impermissible to procreate in the actual world since doing so will violate the right to physical security of future, created persons once those persons exist and have the right. First, we argue that procreators can be responsible for non-trivial harms that befall future persons even if they do not cause them and (...) if the harms are temporally delayed, provided the harms are reasonably foreseeable by procreators. For example, consider a case in which we can create a person in a room that is dangerously aflame. It would be wrong to do so since, once the person exists, they have a right that we avoid being morally responsible for unjust harms to them, and the fire in which we created them is one such unjust harm. Second, we argue that procreators are responsible for unjust harms that befall their children, since many non-trivial physical harms (e.g. broken bones, lower respiratory illnesses) are reasonably foreseeable by procreators. Thus, parents wrong their children by creating them. Third, we argue that procreators are also responsible for the unjust harms their children commit against others, since it is reasonably foreseeable that every person will inflict unjust, non-trivial physical harms on someone else. But this is worse since parents thereby share in their child’s future culpable intent. Finally, we consider a number of objections to anti-natalism and argue that none of them succeed against anti-natalism generally or against our argument grounded in the right to physical security. (shrink)

In this paper I present two reasons why generalized skill-selection--a policy whereby skill, education, and economic independence are indefinitely prioritized in immigration decisions--is pro tanto unjust. First, such policies feed into existing biases, exacerbating status harms for low-SES citizens. The claim that we prefer the skilled to the unskilled, the educated to the uneducated, and the financially secure to the insecure is also heard by citizens. And there is considerable overlap between this message and the stereotypes and biases that set (...) their social status. Skill-selection can reinforce these biases, offering state support for the claim that they are less desirable as members of the society. -/- Second, the need for skilled immigrants ordinarily depends upon and reinforces failures of fair equality of opportunity (FEO). According to the dependency thesis, the need for skilled migrants stems from a failure to ensure domestic FEO. Many low-SES residents would desire to work, for example, as doctors or nurses. However, unequal education, as well as poverty and debt, have made such opportunities largely inaccessible. According to the reinforcement thesis, skill-selection disincentivizes the pursuit of FEO. A state that can meet domestic labor needs through less costly immigration policies will be disinclined to pursue programs designed to equalize opportunities for low-SES residents. -/- Generalized skill-selection in high-income countries like the US is, therefore, pro tanto unjust. However, this is not an argument for excluding the skilled. Skilled immigrants can be admitted through other policies—open borders, family-reunification, or a lottery—without the state signaling that the skilled are more desirable or perpetuating failures of FEO. And states can, responding to local emergencies, temporarily select for particular professions without contributing to these injustices. These concerns only arise when skill is generally and indefinitely prioritized. (shrink)

Many climate change ethicists argue wealthy nations have duties of justice to combat climate change. However, Posner and Weisbach disagree because there is a poor fit between the principles of justice and the problem of climate change. I argue in this paper that Posner and Weisbach’s argument relies on what Judith Shklar calls “the normal model of justice,” the view that injustice results when principles are violated. Applying Shklar’s critique of normal justice, I argue that Posner and Weisbach’s argument limits (...) injustice to include complaints that match rules and principles, shielding the unjust from responsibility and assuming falsely that judgments about injustice can be made from a singular perspective. Drawing on Shklar, this paper develops an account of climate change as a complement to mainstream climate ethicists. On this account, injustice results from indifference and the voices of those impacted by climate change and climate change policy have priority. (shrink)

External World Skepticism: The Deception of the Senses.

I argue that some of the most prominent interpretations of Reid's response to skepticism marginalize a crucial aspect of his thought: namely, that our common sense beliefs meet whatever normative standards of rationality the skeptic might fairly demand of them. This should be seen as supplementary to reliabilist or proper functionalist interpretations of Reid, which often ignore this half of the story. I also show how Reid defends the rationality of believing first principles by appealing to their naturalness and irresistibility. (...) The resulting interpretation supplies Reid with a more satisfying and formidable response to the skeptic than interpretations currently offer. (shrink)

The Posterior Analytics has long been considered to raise and to go part of the way toward answering important philosophical questions concerning existence and essence. In the recent literature, however, scholars have been taking the view that the existence-essence distinction is not captured.