In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Mapping Gendered Ecologies: Engaging with and Beyond Ecowomanism and Ecofeminism by K. Melchor Quick Hall and Gwyn KirkCecilia Herles (bio)K. Melchor Quick Hall and Gwyn Kirk, Mapping Gendered Ecologies: Engaging with and Beyond Ecowomanism and Ecofeminism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021. ISBN- 978-1-7936-3946-2K. Melchor Quick Hall and Gwyn Kirk are leading feminist authors who have beautifully woven together an inspiring and diverse collection of essays (...) in the anthology, Mapping Gendered Ecologies: Engaging with and beyond Ecowomanism and Ecofeminism. What does it take to gather together some of the most eloquent voices of activists, teachers, farmers, artists, and organizers in an anthology focused on engaging with and beyond ecowomanism and ecofeminism, and what could this cultivate? I find Hall and Kirk's reflections on the process and their approach to collaboration illustrate some of the tools needed to address complex issues of disasters, the global pandemic, climate justice, white supremacy, gender oppression, and practices of domination. Their approach is to build relationships, acknowledge vulnerability, and appreciate differences in experiences. It seems fitting that this project initially began with Margo Okazawa-Rey who connected Hall and Kirk together. Okazawa-Rey's introduction generated the openness needed to bring this collection to fruition. Mapping as the thematic image of this collection is found in destructive boundary-making, the violence of enslavement, wars, and the dumping of contaminants in the environment. Mapping is also evident in the physical, temporal, and evolving locations in which Okazawa-Rey's work of sustaining community and recognizing interconnections across locations opens up the time and spaces to envision peace.This collection marks a shift away from the elitism of academic spaces by illuminating connections between community and university, and actively resisting against patriarchal notions of what counts as expertise and scholarship. The anthology draws attention to personal experiences as fundamentally relevant to perspectives about place, location, and [End Page 97] belonging and relations with land, water, sky and nonhumans. It begins with an autobiographical account by Hall who brilliantly weaves together her life story with her analytical insight in illustrating how Black geographies show spaces as often hard to map and in flux for the marginalized. In "Darkness All around Me: Black Waters, Land, Animals, and Sky" Hall notes how she is unable to discuss her understanding and relationship with Nature outside of being a Black Woman. When she poses the question, "how would our maps be different if they were rooted in the histories and realities of people of color?" (23) Hall pivots mapping to the contingent, unstable complexities that mark Black people's relations with land and food. In doing so, Hall reveals compelling insights into trauma, anxieties, and relationships with land and water in shifting landscapes. Connecting to the mission of Soul Fire Farm, to resist the US food apartheid and mobilize towards food justice, Hall reveals the possibilities for reparative healing properties in agricultural activities at Soul Fire Farm. Hall's narrative about racialized hierarchies recognizes how human hierarchies are connected to human-nonhuman animal divisions, raising the question of "How might we imagine freeing ourselves and other animals from the systems that seek to devalue us as (human and nonhuman) beings?" (27). Hall intervenes and challenges geographical mapping centered in white frameworks rooted in claims of stolen territories and measured in segregation and displacement. Pointing to Black shoals, Black food geographies, and Afrofuturism, to name a few, Hall is marking potential paths to shared liberation. Although Hall does not identify strongly as ecofeminist nor ecowomanist, this provides a promising direction for ecowomanist and ecofeminist inquiries, speaking to the need to explore what it takes for shared liberation. This direction also has the potential to offer insight into an alternative mapping for disability justice. Hall's acknowledgement of "being out of place" connects to the disability justice work of Sunaura Taylor (2014) and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (2018) in the mapping of access in describing surroundings and focusing on interconnectedness.In Kirk's autobiographical account, "Roots, Branches, Wings" she points to how Margo Okazawa-Rey (2020) introduced her to philosopher Alan Rosenberg's (1998) distinction between knowing and understanding. In contrast to knowing facts that... (shrink)

This book presents an original discussion and analysis of epistemic peer disagreement. It reviews a wide range of cases from the literature, and extends the definition of epistemic peerhood with respect to the current one, to account for the actual variability found in real-world examples. The book offers a number of arguments supporting the variability in the nature and in the range of disagreements, and outlines the main benefits of disagreement among peers i.e. what the author calls the benefits to (...) inquiry argument. (shrink)

The main thesis of this paper is that, whereas an intention simpliciter is a commitment to a plan of action, a conditional intention is a commitment to a contingency plan, a commitment about what to do upon (learning of) a certain contingency relevant to one’s interests obtaining. In unconditional intending, our commitment to acting is not contingent on finding out that some condition obtains. In conditional intending, we intend to undertake an action on some condition, impinging on our interests, which (...) is as yet unsettled for us, but about which we can find out without undue cost. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is a cutting-edge area of research that holds the promise of unprecedented health benefits. However, in tandem with these large prospective benefits, synthetic biology projects entail a risk of catastrophic consequences whose severity may exceed that of most ordinary human undertakings. This is due to the peculiar nature of synthetic biology as a ‘threshold technology’ which opens doors to opportunities and applications that are essentially unpredictable. Fears about these potentially unstoppable consequences have led to declarations from civil society (...) groups calling for the use of a precautionary principle to regulate the field. Moreover, the principle is prevalent in law and international agreements. Despite widespread political recognition of a need for caution, the precautionary principle has been extensively criticized as a guide for regulatory policy. We examine a central objection to the principle: that its application entails crippling inaction and incoherence, since whatever action one takes there is always a chance that some highly improbable cataclysm will occur. In response to this difficulty, which we call the ‘precautionary paradox,’ we outline a deliberative means for arriving at threshold of probability below which potential dangers can be disregarded. In addition, we describe a Bayesian mechanism with which to assign probabilities to harmful outcomes. We argue that these steps resolve the paradox. The rehabilitated PP can thus provide a viable policy option to confront the uncharted waters of synthetic biology research. (shrink)

The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality is the first of its kind, synthesizing research from several disciplines for all students and professionals interested in better understanding the nature and structure of social reality. The contents of the volume are divided into eight sections, each of which begins with a short introduction: Collective Action and Intention Shared and Joint Attitudes Epistemology and Rationality in the Social Context Social Ontology Collectives and Responsibility Collective Intentionality and Social Institutions The Extent, Origins, and Development (...) of Collective Intentionality Semantics of Collectivity The eight sections contain a total of 40 accessible chapters, all written exclusively for this volume by a team of internationally recognized experts. Each chapter ends with a References and a Further Reading section as well as cross-references to other germane chapters in the volume. A longer General Introduction provides an initial overview of the history as well as the current issues and problems in collective intentionality, the range of topics and their interconnections, and the organization of the _Handbook_. Systematic in its approach and thorough and detailed in its coverage_, The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality_ provides readers with a valuable reference to this rapidly growing, cross-disciplinary research area and a trailhead to its most promising future directions. (shrink)

Adults who stutter (AWS) have demonstrated atypical coordination of motor and sensory regions during speech production. Yet little is known of the speech-motor network in AWS in the brief time window preceding audible speech onset. The purpose of the current study was to characterize neural oscillations in the speech-motor network during preparation for and execution of overt speech production in AWS using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Twelve AWS and twelve age-matched controls were presented with 220 words, each word embedded in a carrier (...) phrase. Controls were presented with the same word list as their matched AWS participant. Neural oscillatory activity was localized using minimum-variance beamforming during two time periods of interest: speech preparation (prior to speech onset) and speech execution (following speech onset). Compared to controls, AWS showed stronger beta (15-25Hz) suppression in the speech preparation stage, followed by stronger beta synchronization in the bilateral mouth motor cortex. AWS also recruited the right mouth motor cortex significantly earlier in the speech preparation stage compared to controls. Exaggerated motor preparation is discussed in the context of reduced coordination in the speech-motor network of AWS. It is further proposed that exaggerated beta synchronization may reflect a more strongly inhibited motor system that requires a stronger beta suppression to disengage prior to speech initiation. These novel findings highlight critical differences in the speech-motor network of AWS that occur prior to speech onset and emphasize the need to investigate further the speech-motor assembly in the stuttering population. (shrink)

Much of the recent movement organized under the heading “Experimental Philosophy” has been concerned with the empirical study of responses to thought experiments drawn from the literature on philosophical analysis. I consider what bearing these studies have on the traditional projects in which thought experiments have been used in philosophy. This will help to answer the question what the relation is between Experimental Philosophy and philosophy, whether it is an “exciting new style of [philosophical] research”, “a new interdisciplinary field that (...) uses methods normally associated with psychology to investigate questions normally associated with philosophy” (Knobe et al. 2012), or whether its relation to philosophy consists, as some have suggested, in no more than the word ‘philosophy’ appearing in its title, or whether the truth lies somewhere in between these two views. I first distinguishes different strands in Experimental Philosophy, negative and positive x-phi, and x-phi pursuing philosophy as opposed to x-phi as cognitive science. Next I review some ways in which Experimental Philosophy has been criticized. Finally, I consider what would have to be true for Experimental Philosophy to have one or another sort of relevance to philosophy, whether the assumptions required are true, how we could know it, and the ideal limits of the usefulness Experimental Philosophy to philosophy. I conclude x-phi cannot in principle be a replacement for traditional first person approaches because it yields the wrong kind of knowledge and that it can nonetheless be a practical aid in conducting philosophical thought experiments. n. (shrink)

Being imitated has a wide range of pro-social effects, but it is not clear how these effects are mediated. Naturalistic studies of the effects of being imitated have not established whether pro-social outcomes are due to the similarity and/or the contingency between the movements performed by the actor and those of the imitator. Similarity is often assumed to be the active ingredient, but we hypothesized that contingency might also be important, as it produces positive affect in infants and can be (...) detected by phylogenetically ancient mechanisms of associative learning. We manipulated similarity and contingency between performed and observed actions in a computerized task. Similarity had no positive effects; however, contingency resulted in greater enjoyment of the task, reported closeness to others, and helping behavior. These results suggest that the pro-social effects of being imitated may rely on associative mechanisms. (shrink)

El artículo defiende la pertinencia y el valor del término “persona” por la riqueza significativa adquirida a través de la historia de la Filosofía, que le permite, como a ningún otro concepto, definir el ser del hombre. Cuatro momentos de la historia se pueden destacar por la manera en que recrean su sentido: en la filosofía griega “persona” está ligado al papel del ser humano en la sociedad y a la función que desempeña; en ella el sentido de individualidad no (...) se destaca. En La filosofía Medieval se inicia la asunción de la connotación de individualidad, especialmente mediante el desarrollo de los conceptos de individuación y personalidad; estos dos términos atienden a la característica del individuo de “pertenecer a” una especie, diferenciándose de todos los demás. En la filosofía moderna se desarrolla el concepto de individuo, usándose de manera abstracta como principio de leyes; adquiere un tono universal, en cuanto característica de todo hombre de ser igual ante la ley y sujeto de derechos. El concepto de “persona” es retomado por Locke para referirse a la identidad personal, que es la característica de los humanos de ser individuos pensantes, reflexivos, con conciencia de sí y con voluntad. Finalmente, Wittgenstein, a partir de la reflexión sobre la interpretación del rostro (de todo símbolo y de una obra de arte) reconoce, sin tematizarlos explícitamente, los rasgos de individualidad, sociabilidad y universalidad del ser humano, los cuales se suponen o se dan por sentados en la manera de relacionamos con el rostro de una persona.El estudio histórico del concepto y su síntesis en la Filosofía Contemporánea se presentan como dos argumentos que autorizan a defender la pertinencia del término para la Filosofía y para ámbitos importantes de la vida práctica. La investigación que lleva a cabo Ricoeur de la persona, a partir del análisis y la interpretación de un acto de habla, le permite estudiar al hombre como sujeto de la enunciación en una acción comunicativa; en el sujeto de la enunciación se cumplen las tres esferas de la vida humana: es una persona(individuo, consciente de su individualidad) que hace uso de competencias lingüísticas, las cuales le permiten comunicarse mediante un código aprendido socioculturalmente. Los tres subactos del acto de habla son universales, pues lo que varía en ellos es la forma como cada lengua hace uso de su código. El hablante hace la enunciación a un oyente que reconoce como a una persona; la presencialidad del cara a cara y la percepción de su rostro es parte de la información con que cuenta en la enunciación. Hablante y oyente se saben individuos sociales, con responsabilidades. Y los dos viven una experiencia universal humana: la comunicación enmarcada en un determinado acto de habla. (shrink)

Olle Blomberg challenges three claims in my book From Individual to Plural Agency (Ludwig, Kirk (2016): From Individual to Plural Agency: Collective Action 1. Vols. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press.). The first is that there are no collective actions in the sense in which there are individual actions. The second is that singular action sentences entail that there is no more than one agent of the event expressed by the action verb in the way required by that verb (the (...) sole agency requirement). The third, is that an individual intention, e.g. to build a boat, is not satisfied if you don’t do it yourself. On the first point, I grant that Blomberg identifies an important distinction between simple and composite actions the book did not take into account, but argue it doesn’t show that there are collective actions in the same sense there are individual actions. On the second point, I argue from examples that the collective reading of plural action sentences doesn’t entail the distributive reading, which requires the sole agency requirement on singular action sentences. This settles the third point, since it entails that if you intend to build a boat, you are successful only if you are the only agent of it in the sense required by the verb. (shrink)

In proxy assertion an individual or group asserts something through a spokesperson. The chapter explains proxy assertion as resting on the assignment of a status role to a person (that of spokesperson) whose utterances acts in virtue of that role have the status function of signaling that the principal is committed in a way analogous to an individual asserting that in his own voice. The chapter briefly explains how status functions and status roles are grounded and then treats, in turn, (...) the case of a spokesperson for an individual and a group and the differences in the significance of what the spokesperson does in each case. Finally, it reviews complications introduced by spokesperson autonomy, where the spokesperson is given leave to represent her principal’s views or positions in her own words and to respond to questions on his behalf. (shrink)

Cooperation admits of degrees. When factory workers stage a slowdown, they do not cease to cooperate with management in the production of goods altogether, but they are not fully cooperative either. Full cooperation implies that participants in a joint action are committed to rendering appropriate contributions as needed toward their joint end so as to bring it about, consistently with the type of action and the generally agreed upon constraints within which they work, as efficiently as they can, where their (...) contributions are sensitive to information (where available) about how others are contributing in the sense that they adjust as needed their contributions in light of information about how others are contributing to ensure effective pursuit of their joint end, where this includes rendering aid to other participants if needed, insofar as they are able. Full cooperation entails those cooperating are engaged in a joint intentional action. Some prominent studies of joint intentional action focus exclusively on cases of full cooperation (notably that of Michael Bratman (2014)). But not all joint intentional action is fully cooperative. One example is the work slowdown. Another example is provided by competitive games like chess and football, or sports like boxing and wrestling, where participants are clearly not intending to contribute to the pursuit of all of the goals of the others engaged in the activity, even when those goals are internal to the type of activity in question, but instead intend actively to frustrate some of them. In this paper, I provide a taxonomy of forms of non-cooperative behavior within the context of behavior that is still to some degree cooperative, and I argue that the minimal conditions of joint intentional action define minimal cooperative behavior, that is, that minimally joint intentional action is per se minimally cooperative behavior. I define in precise terms what that comes to, and how it is possible in cases in which it seems that one or more participants are in one or more ways acting so as to frustrate the contributions of other participants to their joint action. (shrink)

Legal norms are an invention. This paper advances a proposal about what kind of invention they are. The proposal is that legal norms derive from rules which specify role functions in a legal system. Legal rules attach to agents in virtue of their status within the system in which the rules operate. The point of legal rules or a legal system is to solve to large scale coordination problems, specifically the problem of organizing social and economic life among a group (...) of people and their successors, though not every legal rule pertains to a coordination problem. The framework for thinking about legal norms that I describe is a framework for thinking about institutions and policies more generally. The idea is to show that legal norms are a species of institutional norm. There are two central ideas. The first is the idea of a role in an institution. The second is the idea of proxy agency. Proxy agency involves one agent or group acting under the authorization of another agent or group (perhaps subsuming it) in a way that makes the actions of the proxy count as actions (under a description) of the individual or group for which it is a proxy. We get the characteristic structure of a legal system by conceiving of an institutional group, itself conceived of as a set of interlocking roles realized in individuals, as having one or more roles for proxy agents who are authorized by the group to make policy for the group. The set of rules governing the basic constitution of the group and spelling out the powers of the policy proxies determine fundamental norms for the group with specific role responsibilities attaching to particular positions in institutional arrangements. The policies determine further norms whose force derives from the fundamental norms. We must then say some further things to distinguish institutions and policies which we wish to designate as legal. (shrink)

This chapter argues that while quotation marks are polysemous, the thread that runs through all uses of quotation marks that involve reference to expressions is pure quotation, in which an expression formed by enclosing another expression in quotation marks refers to that enclosed expression. We defend a version of the so-called disquotational theory of pure quotation and show how this device is used in direct discourse and attitude attributions, in exposition in scholarly contexts, and in so-called mixed quotation in indirect (...) discourse and attitude attributions. We argue that uses of quotation marks that extend beyond pure quotation have two features in common. First, the expressions appearing in quotation marks are intended to be understood, and that they are intended to be understood is essential to the function that such quotations play in communication, though this does not always involve the expressions contributing their extensional properties to fixing truth conditions for the sentences in which they appear. Second, they appeal to a relation to the expression appearing in quotation marks that plays a role in determining the truth conditions of the sentences in which they appear. (shrink)

Robert Kirk; III*—Goodbye to Transposed Qualia, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 82, Issue 1, 1 June 1982, Pages 33–44, https://doi.org/10.1093/a.

Our thoughts about the world are clearly influenced by such things as point of view, temperament, past experience and culture. However, some thinkers go much further and argue that everything that exists depends on us, arguing that 'even reality is relative'. Can we accept such a claim in the face of events such as floods and other natural disasters or events seemingly beyond our control? 'Realists' argue that reality is independent of out thinking. 'Relativists' disagree, arguing that what there is (...) depends on our point of view. Which is right? Robert Kirk provides a crystal clear account of this debate from the Greek philosophers to Wittgenstein and Rorty. Along the way, he unpacks some of the more complicated issues surrounding ideas of objectivity, subjectivity, pragmatism and realism essential for those beginning any study of philosphy. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with a recent, clever, and novel argument for the need for genuine collectives in our ontology of agents to accommodate the kinds of normative judgments we make about them. The argument appears in a new paper by David Copp, "On the Agency of Certain Collective Entities: An Argument from 'Normative Autonomy'" (Midwest Studies in Philosophy: Shared Intentions and Collective Responsibility, XXX, 2006, pp. 194-221; henceforth ‘ACE’), and is developed in Copp’s paper for this special journal issue, (...) “The Collective Moral Autonomy Thesis” (henceforth ‘CAT’). The argument goes as follows. -/- (1) We correctly assign blame (or obligations) to collectives in circumstances in which it would be a mistake to assign any (relevantly related) blame (or obligations) to their members. (2) If (1), then collectives are genuine agents over and above their members. (3) Therefore, collectives are genuine agents over and above their members. -/- Following Copp, I call (1) the Collective Moral Autonomy Thesis (CMA). Copp argues for CMA primarily by appeal to cases, but also offers two general arguments for it. In the cases that Copp describes, we are to judge that a collective act is blameworthy, though each member of the group that acts is blameless because he is merely following procedures appropriate for his participation, or because there are excusing factors, or because of overriding personal duties. -/- I argue that the case for CMA has not been made. In particular, I argue that, in each case in which we feel inclined to hold a group responsible for something but not its members, it is because -/- 1. we have accepted a false dilemma, that when no one agent is fully responsible for the action of a group of which he is a member, the only entity that could be responsible is the group as such, or 2. we have directed our attention to the wrong individual or individuals, or 3. we have become confused about the commitments of the individuals, or 4. we have mistaken ameliorating for excusing factors, or 5. we have mistaken moral blameworthiness and all-in rational blameworthiness, or 6. a combination of these things. (shrink)

After more than a century in which social learning was blackboxed by evolutionary biologists, psychologists and economists, there is now a thriving industry in cognitive neuroscience producing computational models of learning from and about other agents. This is a hugely positive development. The tools of computational cognitive neuroscience are rigorous and precise. They have the potential to prise open the black box. However, we argue that, from the perspective of a scientific realist, these tools are not yet being applied in (...) an optimal way. To fulfil their potential, the shiny new methods of cognitive neuroscience need to be better coordinated with old-fashioned, contrastive experimental designs. Inferences from model complexity to cognitive complexity, of the kind made by those who favour lean interpretations of behaviour (‘associationists’), require social learning to be tested in challenging task environments. Inferences from cognitive complexity to social specificity, made by those who favour rich interpretations (‘mentalists’), call for non-social control experiments. A parsimonious model that fits current data is a good start, but carefully designed experiments are needed to distinguish models that tell us how social learning _could_ be done from those that tell us how it is _really_ done. (shrink)

The paper provides a taxonomy of group speech acts whose main division is that between collective speech acts (singing Happy Birthday, agreeing to meet) and group proxy speech acts in which a group, such as a corporation, employs a proxy, such as a spokesperson, to convey its official position. The paper provides an analysis of group proxy speech acts using tools developed more generally for analyzing institutional agency, particularly the concepts of shared intention, proxy agent, status role, status function, convention (...) and constitutive rule. (shrink)

Conciliationism is the view that says when an agent who believes P becomes aware of an epistemic peer who believes not-P, that she encounters a defeater for her belief that P. Strong versions of conciliationism pose a sceptical threat to many, if not most, religious beliefs since religion is rife with peer disagreement. Elsewhere I argue that one way for a religious believer to avoid sceptical challenges posed by strong conciliationism is by appealing to the evidential import of religious experience. (...) Not only can religious experience be used to establish a relevant evidential asymmetry between disagreeing parties, but reliable reports of such experiences also start to put pressure on the religious sceptic to conciliate toward her religious opponent. Recently, however, Asha Lancaster-Thomas poses a highly innovative challenge to the evidential import of religious experience. Namely, she argues that an evil God is just as likely to explain negative religious experiences as a good God is able to explain positive religious experiences. In light of this, religious believers need to explain why a good God exists instead of an evil God. I respond to Lancaster-Thomas by suggesting that, at least within the context of religious experience, that the evil God hypothesis is only a challenge to certain versions of theism; and that the existence of an evil God and good God are compossible. (shrink)

There have been recent calls to expand contemporary analytic philosophy of religion beyond the oft implicitly assumed Christian tradition. Instead of exploring moral reasons to expand the discipline, I argue that there are strong epistemic reasons to favour diversifying the philosophy of religion. Increasing diversity is likely to increase disagreement, and there are epistemic benefits to be gained from the existence of disagreement. I argue that such considerations quite clearly apply to the philosophy of religion, and as such that there (...) are epistemic reasons to diversify the field. I conclude by offering a number of practical steps we can take towards achieving this end which are relatively easy to implement. (shrink)

This is contribution to a symposium on Michael Bratman's book Shared Agency : A Planning Theory of Acting Together.

Appeal to triangulation occurs in two different contexts in Davidson’s work. In the first, triangulation—in the trigonometric sense—is used as an analogy to help explain the central idea of a transcendental argument designed to show that we can have the concept of objective truth only in the context of communication with another speaker. In the second, the triangulation of two speakers responding to each other and to a common cause of similar responses is invoked as a solution to the problem (...) of underdetermination of thought and meaning by the patterns of causal relations we stand in to the environment. I examine both of these uses of the idea of triangulation. In section 2, I take up the use of triangulation as an analogy in connection with Davidson transcendental argument to establish that communication is essential for the concept of objectivity. I argue that it is unsuccessful because the case has not been made that scope for deploying the idea of contrasting perspectives, which is needed for the concept of objectivity, is available only in the context of communication. In section 3, I take up the idea that triangulation on a common cause of common responses of two creatures interacting with each other provides the additional constraint needed to assign objective content to our thoughts and words. I show that appeal to this sort of triangulation provides minimal help in responding to the problem it is intended to solve. Section 4 provides a brief summary and conclusion. (shrink)

We can perceive shapes visually and tactilely, and the information we gain about shapes through both sensory modalities is integrated smoothly into and functions in the same way in our behavior independently of whether we gain it by sight or touch. There seems to be no reason in principle we couldn't perceive shapes through other sensory modalities as well, although as a matter of fact we do not. While we can identify shapes through other sensory modalities—e.g., I may know by (...) smell (the scent of mango) that the object causing my sensory experience is round—this is not perceiving an object as shaped, but rather inferring from the character of one's sensory experience and collateral information that an object of a certain shape caused it. That it is possible to perceive shape by other modalities, however, is suggested by the case of bats and aquatic mammals like dolphins which navigate through their environment by a form of sonar. It is plausible that they have some form of auditory representation of space, and so of shape. These facts about shape perception raise important questions about the relation between those features of perceptual experience which are intrinsic to different sensory modalities and the nature of our perceptual representation of shapes, and, more generally, of the space within which we perceive shaped objects to be located. John Campbell's paper, "Molyneux's Problem" (see above), raises a number of interesting and important questions about the nature of our perception of shape properties, particularly the cross-modal nature of shape perception, and ties them to more general questions about the nature both of perceptual.. (shrink)

Conciliationism is the view that an agent must revise her belief in a proposition when she becomes aware that there is an epistemic peer who disagrees with her about that proposition. If epistemic peers are anything less than strict cognitive and evidential equals, then even slight differences could explain away why the two parties disagree in the first place. But this strict notion of peerhood never obtains in many, if not most, of real-life cases disagreements between inquirers. One recent account (...) of peerhood which might obtain more frequently in cases of real-life disagreements comes from Elgin Voicing dissent: the ethics and epistemology of making disagreement public, Routledge, New York, pp 10–21, 2018). She argues that two scientists who are epistemic peers can disagree because while they might have the same reasoning abilities, they can have different reasoning styles. While there are merits to Elgin’s account, I argue that two people with different reasoning styles are unlikely to be epistemic peers since such differences could serve to explain away why they disagree. I argue that there is a conception of peerhood which can retain the sceptical force of conciliationism without trivializing or dismissing the problem of disagreement. I then conclude that a particularly attractive argument against conciliationism is gestured at by Elgin in one of her earlier pieces on disagreement. This argument is based on the idea that there are epistemic benefits to be gained from remaining steadfast in the face of disagreement Disagreement, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 53–68, 2010). The success of this argument, however, might force an inquirer faced with disagreement to choose between synchronic reasons and diachronic reasons. If Hughes’ recent defense of epistemic dilemmism is correct this may be a feature of the argument, rather than a bug. (shrink)

Los teóricos que defienden las técnicas de modificación genética sin algún conservadurismo argumentan que éstas aumentarán nuestras capacidades y, también, evitarán el dolor innecesario junto con algunos tipos de sufrimiento humano. Autores transhumanistas como Nick Bostrom, Natasha Vita-More y Max More, no sólo minusvaloran los riesgos del uso de biotecnología –así como la técnica CRISPR-CAS9–, sino que asumen que vivir una vida humana plena se relaciona en proporción directa con el pleno gozo de nuestras habilidades físicas e intelectuales y con (...) la ausencia de dolor o sufrimiento. No obstante, la visión de algunos teóricos sobre la discapacidad como Fiona Campbell, Elizabeth Barnes y Bárbara Arneil, insisten en que las limitaciones humanas no deberían ser vistas de manera trágica o como una desgracia; al contrario, argumentan que es posible vivir plenamente desde la diversidad funcional (o discapacidad). Por tanto, en este artículo ponemos a prueba ambos supuestos, a partir de la idea de discapacidad y, así, mostraremos si es que la felicidad depende fuertemente de la funcionalidad del cuerpo humano. (shrink)

Iniciativas de agricultura urbana, como hortas comunitárias primam por mobilizar a comunidade para transformar espaços muitas vezes degradados e ociosos em espaços saudáveis que fornecem as mais diversas hortaliças. As hortas oferecem espaço de convivência e reconexão com a natureza, ao mesmo tempo que dão aos participantes autonomia para atender suas próprias necessidades e melhorar a qualidade de vida. A incorporação das ações de produção e plantio de hortas urbanas comunitárias e de uma culinária saudável, contribui para a promoção da (...) Política Nacional de Agroecologia e Produção Orgânica, instituída pelo Decreto nº 7.794, de 20 de agosto de 2012, e da Política Nacional de Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional, instituída pelo Decreto nº 7.272, de 25 de agosto de 2010 que fomenta a soberania e segurança alimentar e nutricional, direito à alimentação adequada e saudável, estruturação e fortalecimento dos sistemas sustentáveis e uso sustentável dos recursos naturais. Esses atos também podem servir como exemplo para a implementação da Política Nacional de Agricultura Urbana. Nessa direção, o objetivo da pesquisa é analisar os processos históricos, econômicos e socioculturais que engendram a dimensão de gênero que permeia a questão do desenvolvimento sustentável e a emancipação de mulheres em situação de vulnerabilidade. Para desenvolver esta questão, é necessário a incorporação da mulher no contexto dos debates de desenvolvimento sustentável. Existe a demanda da mulher em alcançar a igualdade legal, política e social, através de sua inclusão no esboço de políticas públicas, que reflita em uma melhoria de posição frente a desigualdade na relação entre os gêneros, permitindo assim seu empoderamento, reduzindo a vulnerabilidade em que está inserida. (shrink)

This is a review essay on Carol Rovane's book The Metaphysics and Ethics of Relativism. I outline the main line of argument, clarify the central claim, raise some questions about some of the arguments, and suggest some limits on the extent to which one could see another's views as right but not accept them.

Donald Davidson was one of the most influential philosophers of the last half of the 20th century, especially in the theory of meaning and in the philosophy of mind and action. In this paper, I concentrate on a field-shaping proposal of Davidson’s in the theory of meaning, arguably his most influential, namely, that insight into meaning may be best pursued by a bit of indirection, by showing how appropriate knowledge of a finitely axiomatized truth theory for a language can put (...) one in a position both to interpret the utterance of any sentence of the language and to see how its semantically primitive constituents together with their mode of combination determines its meaning (Davidson 1965, 1967, 1970, 1973a). This project has come to be known as truth-theoretic semantics. My aim in this paper is to render the best account I can of the goals and methods of truth-theoretic semantics, to defend it against some objections, and to identify its limitations. Although I believe that the project I describe conforms to the main idea that Davidson had, my aim is not primarily Davidson exegesis. I want to get on the table an approach to compositional semantics for natural languages, inspired by Davidson, but extended and developed, which I think does about as much along those lines as any theory could. I believe it is Davidson’s project, and I defend this in detail elsewhere (Ludwig 2015; Lepore and Ludwig 2005, 2007a, 2007b, 2011). But I want to develop and defend the project while also exploring its limitations, without getting entangled in exegetical questions. (shrink)

This paper replies to Himmelreich's ‘The Paraphrase Argument Against Collective Actions’ [2017], which presents three putative counterexamples to the multiple agents analysis of plural action sentences. The paper shows that the argument from the first example, the discursive dilemma, fails because it relies crucially on a simplification of the target analysis, and that the others don't bear on the question because they turn out on examination to be about individual rather than group action sentences.

This chapter argues that the only tenable unconscious inferences theories of cognitive achievement are ones that employ a theory internal technical notion of representation, but that once we give cash-value definitions of the relevant notions of representation and inference, there is little left of the ordinary notion of representation. We suggest that the real value of talk of unconscious inferences lies in (a) their heuristic utility in helping us to make fruitful predictions, such as about illusions, and (b) their providing (...) a high-level description of the functional organization of subpersonal faculties that makes clear how they equip an agent to navigate its environment and pursue its goals. (shrink)

This article raises two questions about Robert Myers and Claudine Verheggen's terrific book, Donald Davidson's Triangulation Argument: A Philosophical Inquiry. The first question, concerning the first part of the book, is whether, starting from the assumption that a solitary individual cannot have thought contents, we can show that adding another individual to the picture cannot resolve the problem. The second question, concerning the second part, is whether a more sophisticated, decision-theoretic, Humean about the pro-attitudes can respond to the objections to (...) the simple Humean view, and whether Davidson was not in fact just such a sophisticated decision-theoretic Humean. RÉSUMÉ: Cet article pose deux questions sur le formidable livre de Robert Myers et Claudine Verheggen, Donald Davidson's Triangulation Argument: A Philosophical Inquiry. La première question, qui concerne la première partie du livre, consiste à déterminer si, étant donné la supposition qu'un individu solitaire ne peut pas avoir de contenus mentaux, nous pouvons démontrer qu'ajouter un autre individu ne permet pas de résoudre le problème. La seconde question, qui concerne la deuxième partie du livre, est de savoir si un tenant d'une conception humienne des pro-attitudes plus sophistiquée, adhérant à la théorie de la décision, peut répondre aux objections formulées contre la simple conception humienne, et si Davidson n’était pas en fait un tenant de ce second type de conception humienne. (shrink)

The present work provides a detailed account of the available data on ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baġdādī’s biography, an outline of his philosophical thought, and a detailed analysis of his reworking of pre-Avicennian Greek and Arabic metaphysics.

The axiological question in the philosophy of religion is the question of what impact, if any, God’s existence does make to the axiological value of our world. It has recently been argued that we should prefer a theistic world where God is hidden to an atheistic world or a theistic world where God isn’t hidden. This is because in a hidden theistic world all of the theistic goods obtain in addition to the experience of atheistic goods. I complete this line (...) of argument by showing that theistic goods do indeed obtain in a world where God hides. In doing so I indirectly argue against proponents of divine hiddenness arguments such as J.L. Schellenberg. The correct answer to the axiological question turns out to be a solution to the problem of divine hiddenness. (shrink)

A principios de 2018, fueron presentados varios proyectos de ley con el objeto de regular el acceso gratuito a los servicios públicos de salud y de educación superior de aquellos migrantes internacionales que no revistieran la condición de “residentes permanentes” sobre la base de criterios de “reciprocidad”. Durante casi dos semanas, los proyectos concentraron gran parte de la atención mediática, instalándose como tema prioritario de la agenda pública. A través del análisis de dichos proyectos y de su tratamiento en la (...) prensa digital hegemónica, este trabajo propone una exploración de las narrativas que circularon en relación al acceso gratuito de la población migrante a la salud, para posteriormente indagar sobre los efectos simbólicos que produce la hipervisibilización de una determinada posición política sobre el tema. Se aplicó una metodología cualitativa centrada en los análisis de discurso y de contenido con el objetivo de analizar la articulación entre el discurso jurídico y el discurso mediático e indagar el modo en que las narrativas que circulan a través de los medios hegemónicos instituyen y son instituidas por el imaginario social sobre la gratuidad del acceso a la salud para la población migrante. Como resultado, fue posible identificar tres operaciones discursivas: (a) el desplazamiento de la idea de salud como derecho a la salud a un objeto de negociación diplomática basada en la reciprocidad; (b) la asociación del desborde de los servicios de salud con la demanda de atención por parte de los migrantes, lo que oculta el carácter estructural de las deficiencias del sistema de salud, vinculadas a la regresividad de las políticas neoliberales en lo que respecta al reconocimiento de derechos sociales básicos, como la salud; (c) la negación de estos otros bajo el mecanismo del chivo expiatorio, representándolos como una “amenaza social” y como los “no merecedores” de la gratuidad. (shrink)

This chapter identifies the central issue between Michael Dummett and Donald Davidson on the role of convention in language and argues they are not as far apart in the end as they take themselves to be.

The purpose of this article is to articulate the possibility of semantic non-doxastic agnostic religious faith. Robin Le Poidevin, who introduced the idea of semantic religious agnosticism, defines it as being agnostic about which parts of religion to treat in realist terms and which parts to treat in fictionalist terms. I take Le Poidevin’s view and argue that it is consistent with a non-doxastic attitude toward the object of faith such as acceptance. I then explore the similarities and differences between (...) my account and a prominent version of non-doxastic faith found in the work of Daniel Howard-Snyder. One advantage of my theory of faith is that it allows a person to be even more sceptical about religion than other versions of agnosticism while simultaneously avoiding some of the problems frequently associated with religious fictionalism. (shrink)