A large body of research in political science claims that the way in which democratic citizens think about politics is motivationally biased by partisanship. Numerous critics argue that the evidence for this claim is better explained by theories in which party allegiances influence political cognition without motivating citizens to embrace biased beliefs. This article has three aims. First, I clarify this criticism, explain why common responses to it are unsuccessful, and argue that to make progress on this debate we need (...) a more developed theory of the connections between group attachments and motivated reasoning. Second, I develop such a theory. Drawing on research on coalitional psychology and the social functions of beliefs, I argue that partisanship unconsciously biases cognition by generating motivations to advocate for party interests, which transform individuals into partisan press secretaries. Finally, I argue that this theory offers a superior explanation of a wide range of relevant findings than purely non-motivational theories of political cognition. (shrink)

A normative reason for a person to? is a consideration which favours?ing. A motivating reason is a reason for which or on the basis of which a person?s. This paper explores a connection between normative and motivating reasons. More specifically, it explores the idea that there are second-order normative reasons to? for or on the basis of certain first-order normative reasons. In this paper, I challenge the view that there are second-order reasons so understood. I then show that prominent views (...) in contemporary epistemology are committed to the existence of second-order reasons, specifically, views about the epistemic norms governing practical reasoning and about the role of higher-order evidence. If there are no second-order reasons, those views are mistaken. (shrink)

What is a normative reason for acting? In this paper, I introduce and defend a novel answer to this question. The starting-point is the view that reasons are right-makers. By exploring difficulties facing it, I arrive at an alternative, according to which reasons are evidence of respects in which it is right to perform an act, for example, that it keeps a promise. This is similar to the proposal that reasons for a person to act are evidence that she ought (...) to do so; however, as I explain, it differs from that proposal in two significant ways. As a result, I argue, the evidence-based account of reasons I advance shares the advantages of its predecessor while avoiding many of the difficulties facing it. (shrink)

Predictive processing and its apparent commitment to explaining cognition in terms of Bayesian inference over hierarchical generative models seems to flatly contradict the pragmatist conception of mind and experience. Against this, I argue that this appearance results from philosophical overlays at odd with the science itself, and that the two frameworks are in fact well-poised for mutually beneficial theoretical exchange. Specifically, I argue: first, that predictive processing illuminates pragmatism’s commitment to both the primacy of pragmatic coping in accounts of the (...) mind and the profound organism-relativity of experience; second, that this pragmatic, “narcissistic” character of prediction error minimization undermines its ability to explain the distinctive normativity of intentionality; and third, that predictive processing therefore mandates an extra-neural account of intentional content of exactly the sort that pragmatism’s communitarian vision of human thought can provide. (shrink)

It's standard in epistemology to approach questions about knowledge and rational belief using idealized, simplified models. But while the practice of constructing idealized models in epistemology is old, metaepistemological reflection on that practice is not. Greco argues that the fact that epistemologists build idealized models isn't merely a metaepistemological observation that can leave first-order epistemological debates untouched. Rather, once we view epistemology through the lens of idealization and model-building, the landscape looks quite different. Constructing idealized models is likely the best (...) epistemologists can do. Once one starts using epistemological categories like belief, knowledge, and confidence, the realm of idealization and model-building is entered. We can object to a model of knowledge by pointing to a better model, but in the absence of a better model, the fact that a framework for epistemologizing theorizing involves simplifications, approximations, and other inaccuracies-the fact of its status as an idealized model-is not in itself objectionable. Once we accept that theorizing in epistemological terms is inescapably idealized, a number of intriguing possibilities open up. Greco defends a package of epistemological views that might otherwise have looked indefensibly dismissive of our cognitive limitations-a package according to which we know a wide variety of facts with certainty, including what our evidence is, what we know and don't know, and what follows from our knowledge. (shrink)

This volume provides a detailed account of the syntax of expressive language, that is, utterances that express, rather than describe, the emotions and attitudes of the speaker... Daniel Gutzmann demonstrates that expressivity has strong syntactic reflexes that interact with the semantic and pragmatic interpretation of these utterances, and argues that expressivity is in fact a syntactic feature on a par with other established features such as tense and gender. Evidence for this claim is drawn from three detailed case studies (...) of expressive adjectives, intensifiers, and vocatives; their puzzling properties are accounted for through a minimalist approach to syntactic features and agreement, which shows that expressivity can partake in agreement operations, trigger movement, and be selected for syntactically. The analysis not only supports the hypothesis of expressive syntax, but also highlights the hidden role that grammar may play in phenomena that are traditionally considered to be solely semantic in nature" -- Publisher. (shrink)

Each year, over 200 million people are infected with the malaria parasite, nearly half a million of whom succumb to the disease. Emerging genetic technologies could, in theory, eliminate the burden of malaria throughout the world by intentionally eradicating the mosquitoes that transmit the disease. In this paper, we offer an ethical examination of the intentional eradication of Anopheles gambiae, the main malaria vector of sub-Saharan Africa. In our evaluation, we focus on two main considerations: the benefit of alleviating the (...) malaria burden, and the loss of value that would accompany the eradication of the species. We outline a typology of the different ways in which species are valued or could be valuable, then use that typology to appraise the value of the species in question. We argue that Anopheles gambiae has minor (and redundant) instrumental value, little final subjective value and no objective final value. (shrink)

Weighted voting involves weighting representatives’ votes by the populations that they represent. Such systems have been adopted in some legislative bodies as a remedy for malapportionment, and are sometimes used to elect candidates for the executive branch of government. But they receive little attention. This note observes the neglected vices of weighted voting systems: they violate intuitive conditions of monotonicity and participation. These vices count significantly against the use of weighted voting, and reflecting on why they arise improves our understanding (...) of axioms in social choice theory. (shrink)

The article addresses the pervasive global challenge of delayed justice, emphasizing its role as a catalyst for widespread judicial reforms. The study defines international and national court approaches to reasonable trial durations by employing systematic and comparative legal methods. It delves into essential technology courts and parties use to ensure timely proceedings, categorizing associated risks and problems. The authors advocate for the multi-door courthouse system, illustrating its efficacy in reducing delays. Furthermore, the article classifies technologies facilitating reasonable trial durations, acknowledging (...) and offering solutions for the challenges they present. This research contributes to the dynamic landscape of judicial reform, offering a holistic perspective on the multifaceted aspects of timely justice. (shrink)

First-order evidence is evidence which bears on whether a proposition is true. Higher-order evidence is evidence which bears on whether a person is able to assess her evidence for or against a proposition. A widespread view is that higher-order evidence makes a difference to whether it is rational for a person to believe a proposition. In this paper, I consider in what way higher-order evidence might do this. More specifically, I consider whether and how higher-order evidence plays a role in (...) determining what it is rational to believe distinct from that which first-order evidence plays. To do this, I turn to the theory of reasons, and try to situate higher-order evidence within it. The only place I find for it there, distinct from that which first-order evidence already occupies, is as a practical reason, that is, as a reason for desire or action. One might take this to show either that the theory of reasons is inadequate as it stands or that higher-order evidence makes no distinctive difference to what it is rational to believe. I tentatively endorse the second option. (shrink)

The experimental validity of research in the experimental philosophy of free will has been called into question. Several new, important studies (Murray et al. forthcoming; Nadelhoffer et al., Cognitive Science 44 (8): 1–28, 2020 ; Nadelhoffer et al., 2021; Rose et al., Cognitive Science 41 (2): 482–502, 2017 ) are interpreted as showing that the vignette-judgment model is defective because participants only exhibit a surface-level comprehension and not the deeper comprehension the model requires. Participants, it is argued, commit _bypassing_, _intrusion_, (...) and _fatalism_ errors. We respond in two ways: (1) we critique and improve existing methods for assessing deeper comprehension and (2) we develop videos to convey deterministic principles of change that succeed in significantly reducing participants’ bypassing, intrusion, and fatalism errors. Consequently, we have the best existing instrument for gauging folk intuitions about the relationship between free will and determinism. (shrink)

This is a reply by the author to the contributors to a symposium on the book, The Range of Reasons (Oxford University Press, 2021).

The conventional wisdom declares that evolution is not goal directed, that teleological considerations play no part in our understanding of evolutionary trends. Here I argue that, to the contrary, under a current view of teleology, field theory, most evolutionary trends would have to be considered goal directed to some degree. Further, this view is consistent with a modern scientific outlook, and more particularly with evolutionary theory today. Field theory argues that goal directedness is produced by higher-level fields that direct entities (...) contained within them to behave persistently and plastically, that is, returning them to a goal-directed trajectory following perturbations (persistence) and directing them to a goal-directed trajectory from a large range of alternative starting points (plasticity). The behavior of a bacterium climbing a chemical food gradient is persistent and plastic, with guidance provided by the external “food field,” the chemical gradient. Likewise, an evolutionary trend that is produced by natural selection is a lineage behaving persistently and plastically under the direction of its local ecology, an “ecological field.” Trends directed by selection-generated boundaries, thermodynamic gradients, and certain internal constraints, would also count as goal directed. In other words, most of the causes of evolutionary trends that have been proposed imply goal directedness. However, under field theory, not all trends are goal directed. Examples are discussed. Importantly, nothing in this view suggests that evolution is guided by intentionality, at least none at the level of animal intentionality. Finally, possible implications for our thinking about evolutionary directionality in the history of life are discussed. (shrink)

In this introduction, I explain the notion of higher-order evidence and explore its bearing on aesthetic judgement. I start by illustrating how reflection on cases involving higher-order evidence engages with well-established concerns in aesthetics—specifically, how it might reveal tensions within and between widely recognized aesthetic ideals governing aesthetic judgement. Next, I show how attention to higher-order evidence in relation to aesthetic judgement might expose limitations or assumptions of theories in epistemology, where the nature and significance of higher-order evidence with respect (...) to belief is the focus of much recent attention. The aim is not to resolve the issues but to demonstrate the significance of higher-order evidence in aesthetics and, in doing so, encourage work on the topic in and across aesthetics and epistemology. (shrink)

We assess John Bishop’s theory of the nature of Christian faith in God, as most recently expressed in ‘Reasonable Faith and Reasonable Fideism’, although we dip into other writings as well. We explain several concerns we have about it. However, in the end, our reflections lead us to propose a modified theory, one that avoids our concerns while remaining consonant with some of his guiding thoughts about the nature of Christian faith in God. We also briefly examine three normative issues (...) Bishop’s views present. (shrink)

Recently, William Hasker and Cheryl Chen have argued that James Sterba’s argument for the non-existence of God based on the existence of horrendous evil consequences fails. Hasker, among other things, contends that eliminating horrendous evil consequences will result in a moral kindergarten. It is unclear, however, whether the elimination of horrendous evil consequences will result in a moral kindergarten. Moreover, if Hasker is right, then it may be that most people in the actual world live in a moral kindergarten. Chen (...) argues that eliminating horrendous evil consequences may lead to a morally worse world. While Chen is ultimately right about this, it is not fatal to the basic intuition at the heart of Sterba’s argument. (shrink)

Inner speech is known as the “little voice in the head” or “thinking in words.” It attracts philosophical attention in part because it is a phenomenon where several topics of perennial interest intersect: language, consciousness, thought, imagery, communication, imagination, and self-knowledge all appear to connect in some way or other to the little voice in the head. Specific questions about inner speech that have exercised philosophers include its similarities to, and differences from, outer speech; its relationship to reasoning and conceptual (...) thought; its broader cognitive roles—especially within metacognition and self-knowledge; and the role it can play in explanations of auditory verbal hallucinations and “thought insertion”. (shrink)

One takes advantage of some basic properties of every homotopic \(\lambda\)-model (e.g. extensional Kan complex) to explore the higher \(\beta\eta\)-conversions, which would correspond to proofs of equality between terms of a theory of equality of any extensional Kan complex. Besides, Identity types based on computational paths are adapted to a type-free theory with higher \(\lambda\)-terms, whose equality rules would be contained in the theory of any \(\lambda\)-homotopic model.

This essay surveys a number of prominent, recurring, and new directions in the growing scholarly discourse on the theme “Heidegger and Judaism” arranged under three headings. The first, the contrastive framing, encompasses cases in which the relationship between Heidegger and Judaism is perceived as antithetical. The second, the conjunctive framing, encompasses views claiming the existence of affinities and parallels between Heidegger and Judaism, grouped under three subheadings: “Heidegger and biblical thinking,” “Heidegger and Kabbalah,” and “Heidegger and the Jewish nation.” The (...) third, historical perspectives, uses the approach of intellectual history to explore visions of Judaism that are developed as part of engagements with Heidegger’s philosophy. (shrink)

Nietzsche values intellectual honesty, but is dubious about what he calls the will to truth. This is puzzling since intellectual honesty is a component of the will to truth. In this paper, I show that this puzzle tells us something important about how Nietzsche conceives of our pursuit of truth. For Nietzsche, those who pursue truth occupy unstable ground, since being honest about the ultimate reasons for that pursuit would mean that truth could no longer satisfy the important human needs (...) it satisfies at present. We can pursue truth, or be honest about what in us is served by such a pursuit, but not both. Nietzsche aims to show that understanding and owning up to this instability is the sort of affirmation of human life to which we ought to aspire, and is the price we pay for being free from otherworldly morality. (shrink)

The problem of dream skepticism – i.e., the problem of what can justify one’s belief that they are not dreaming – is one of the most famous problems in philosophy. I propose a way of responding to the problem which is available if one subscribes to the theory that the sensory experiences that we have in dreams consist of images (as opposed to false percepts). The response exploits a particular feature of imagination, viz., that it is not possible to simultaneously (...) have two separate imagistic experiences in the same modality. (shrink)

Tony Milligan argues that some forms of covert non-human animal rescue, wherein activists anonymously and illegally free non-human animals from confinement, should be understood as acts of civil disobedience. However, most traditional understandings of civil disobedience require that the civil disobedient act publicly rather than covertly. Thus Milligan’s proposal is that we revise our understanding of civil disobedience to allow for covert in addition to public disobedience. I argue we should not. Milligan cannot justify using paradigm cases to expand the (...) scope of civil disobedience without justifying similar reasons to limit the scope, and he does nto give convincing reasons for discarding the communication requirement, according to which an action cannot count as civil disobedience unless it is communicative. The immediate conclusion is that animal rescue is not civil disobedience, while the broader conclusion is one about civil disobedience more broadly: an act must be public to count as civil disobedience. (shrink)

Truth in Wittgenstein′s Later Philosophy. In this paper I attempt to examine Wittgenstein′s understanding of truth in his later period. In doing so, I orient myself primarily on the remarks published as Philosophical Investigations and On Certainty. My primary aim in the destructive part is to show that his later philosophy neither espouses a redundancy and deflationary, nor an epistemic and anti-realist conception of truth. Both strands of interpretation are strongly represented in the debate. An examination of Wittgenstein’s remarks on (...) the correspondence theory of truth will also shed some light on his thoughts about truth. Furthermore, in the preceding constructive part of this paper, I will try to demonstrate that (1) for Wittgenstein there is a strong link between truths that we accept based on our certainties and our use of the term “truth” and (2) that skepticism about truth, which claims that all accepted truths in our Weltbild (“world-view”) could be actually false, fails to give any meaning to its use of “truth”. This culminates in Wittgenstein′s insight, that the question of what truth is can only be answered relative to the Weltbild. Therefore, talking about truths that transcend our Weltbild becomes nonsense. (shrink)

Substance dualism is the view that there are two fundamentally different kinds of substances: physical and mental. By contrast, according to property dualism there is only one kind of substance (physical) but two fundamentally different kinds of properties: physical and mental. Property nominalism is the view that there are neither repeatable nor non-repeatable fundamentally predicable entities (i.e. neither universals nor tropes) and that things being a certain way or being related in a certain way must ultimately be accounted for in (...) terms of concrete particulars. In this paper, we consider a number of different kinds of property nominalism and argue that none of them sits well with property dualism. We pay special attention to the question of what it could mean for a property to count as mental given different nominalistic accounts of properties. Our conclusion is that property nominalism and property dualism are not a stable match. This is surprising, since property dualism has usually been understood as a thesis that is neutral about the nature of fundamental ontological categories and the relation between them. (shrink)

_Abstract_: We argue that theoretical debates in biology and cognitive science often are based around differences in the posited _locus of control _for biological and cognitive phenomena. Internalists about locus of control posit that specific causal control over the phenomenon is exerted by factors internal (to the relevant subsystem) of an organism. Externalists posit that causally specific influence is due to external factors. In theoretical biology, we suggest, a minimal agreement has developed that the locus of control for heritable variation (...) is _distributed _– that is, both internal and external factors exert specific, non-redundant causal influence on evolved traits. We suggest that debates in cognitive science, particularly surrounding “enactivism”, should also embrace a distributed locus of control. We show how both internal and external factors contribute non-redundantly to psychological capacities and behavior. We further suggest that embracing a distributed locus of control provides a basis for a revisionary, but substantive account of “mental representation”. _Keywords_: Locus of control; Internalism/Externalism; Evolutionary Biology; Cognitive Science; Mental Representation _ Loci di controllo distribuiti: superare le vecchie dicotomie nella biologia e nella scienza cognitiva _ _Riassunto_: Numerose discussioni in biologia e nella scienza cognitiva vertono spesso su differenze nella individuazione del _locus di controllo_ dei fenomeni biologici e cognitivi. Posizioni internaliste rispetto al _locus di controllo_ ritengono che il controllo causale specifico su un fenomeno biologico o cognitivo venga esercitato da fattori interni a (un sottosistema rilevante) di un organismo. Al contrario, posizioni esternaliste assumono che specifiche influenze causali siano dovute a fattori esterni. In questo articolo mostriamo che nell’ambito della biologia teorica si è giunti a un minimo accordo rispetto al fatto che il _locus di controllo_ per l’emergere di variazioni ereditarie è _distribuito _– ossia dovuto sia a fattori interni che esterni all’organismo che esercitano influenze specifiche e non-ridondanti sui tratti che si sono evoluti. Riteniamo che tale accordo debba essere raggiunto anche nell’ambito della scienza cognitiva, in particolare per quel che concerne l’_enattivismo_. In questo articolo mostriamo che sia i fattori interni che quelli esterni contribuiscono in maniera non-ridondante alle capacità psicologiche e al comportamento di un individuo. Inoltre sosterremo che l’adozione di un _locus di controllo _distribuito possa costituire un buon punto di partenza per una revisione sostanziale della nozione di “rappresentazione mentale”. _Parole chiave_: Locus di controllo causale; Internalismo/Esternalismo; Biologia evolutiva; Scienze cognitive; Rappresentazione mentale _ _. (shrink)

Intuitively, the totality of physical reality—the Cosmos—has a beginning only if (i) all parts of the Cosmos agree on the direction of time (the Direction Condition) and (ii) there is a boundary to the past of all non-initial spacetime points such that there are no spacetime points to the past of the boundary (the Boundary Condition). Following a distinction previously introduced by J. Brian Pitts, the Boundary Condition can be conceived of in two distinct ways: either topologically, i.e., in terms (...) of a closed boundary, or metrically, i.e., in terms of the Cosmos having a finite past. This article proposes that the Boundary Condition should be posed disjunctively, modifies and improves upon the metrical conception of the Cosmos’s beginning in light of a series of surprising yet simple thought experiments, and suggests that the Direction and Boundary Conditions should be thought of as more fundamental to the concept of the Cosmos’s beginning than classical Big Bang cosmology. (shrink)

Resentment is a negative reaction to expressions of bad will. Gratitude is a positive reaction to expressions of good will. To give up resentment, when someone has wronged you, is to forgive them. We might expect an analog for giving up gratitude. The practice features in some ordinary and extraordinary moments in our lives. But it is unnamed and unstudied. I clarify what giving up gratitude is. I identify three types of ordinary and important cases. I then attend to implications; (...) in particular, my account sheds light on restorations of gratitude analogous to un-forgiving. Restoring gratitude may help to repair relationships, and restoring your once-lost gratitude may be morally required in some contexts. More generally, by taking account of gratitude as a dynamic attitude that may be given up and restored as fits the situation and one’s judgment, we may better understand the power and flexibility of gratitude’s everyday function. (shrink)

Workers in distant nations who produce the products we buy frequently suffer from accidents, managerial malfeasance, and injustice. Are consumers who bought the products made by these workers in any way morally responsible for those injustices? And what about the far more frequent, less severe injustices, such as the withholding of wages, the denial of bathroom breaks, forced overtime, and harassment of various sorts? Could buying a shirt at the local department store create for you some responsibility for the horrendous (...) death in a factory fire of the women who sewed it half a planet away? (shrink)

Este artículo estudia los manuscritos inéditos de las clases sobre Oscar Wilde que dictó Jorge Luis Borges en el Colegio Libre de Estudios Superiores entre julio y agosto de 1950. La primera sección muestra un esbozo de la labor docente de Borges en este período y muestra cómo una clase centrada en el discurso de Wilde dio lugar al ensayo “Del culto de los libros” (1951). Las secciones segunda y tercera argumentan que la defensa que hace Borges de la obra (...) de Wilde involucra dos líneas de abordaje, la relación del discurso de Wilde con su obra y un estudio de las justificaciones estéticas del mal. Estas dos líneas convergen en la lectura que Borges hace de Schopenhauer y Wilde. La cuarta sección estudia los apuntes de Borges sobre “The critic as artist”, donde Wilde reclama un “retorno a la voz”. Lo que esto podría implicar se discute a la luz del trabajo de Walter Ong (2012) y la lectura del pragmatismo elaborada por Bruno Bosteels (2007). La última sección rastrea los ecos de estas notas en “La muralla y los libros”. (shrink)

This essay critically examines the concept of the Anthropocene, a term referring to a proposed new geological epoch—the age of the human. I begin by foregrounding how the project of Western extractive colonialism has exercised significant influence in structuring the political ecology of the planet within this new era. Considering this influence, I maintain that the era is better understood as the age of “Man”—the fictive idealized human form that stands at the ideological heart of the (neo)colonial project. In order (...) to locate the figure of Man within the Christian imagination, I construct an analogy between the figures of Man and Cain, so that, through this analogy, the Anthropocene can be identified as the age of Cain. The essay concludes by considering the implications of this interpretation of the Anthropocene for contemporary Christian faith. (shrink)

I argue that an act can be wrong _because_ it wrongs a particular person. I then show how this thesis serves as a constraint on moral theories, using Kantian ethics as a case study.

Unlike Yiddish (fargin) and Sanskrit (muditā), English has no single word to describe the practice of sharing someone else’s joy at their success. Sympathetic joy has also escaped attention in philosophy. We are familiar with schadenfreude, begrudging, envy, jealousy, and other terms describing either (a) pleasure at someone else’s misfortune or (b) displeasure at someone else’s good fortune. But what, exactly, is sympathetic joy? I argue that it is a short-term or long-term feeling of great delight at another’s good fortune, (...) requiring no more than minimal understanding of the relevant person and event. It is intensified relative to understanding, sharing, and positive disposal. It is importantly different from empathetic emotions and also from vicarious pride. It may be group-directed. Empirical research suggests it occurs fairly often, activates the brain in the same way as does sympathetic sadness, and may increase our well-being. It is primarily not a reactive attitude (an emotional reaction to good or bad will), but, rather, a sign of good will toward another. (shrink)

Unlike Yiddish (fargin) and Sanskrit (muditā), English has no single word to describe the practice of sharing someone else’s joy at their success. Sympathetic joy has also escaped attention in philosophy. We are familiar with schadenfreude, begrudging, envy, jealousy, and other terms describing either (a) pleasure at someone else’s misfortune or (b) displeasure at someone else’s good fortune. But what, exactly, is sympathetic joy? I argue that it is a short-term or long-term feeling of great delight at another’s good fortune, (...) requiring no more than minimal understanding of the relevant person and event. It is intensified relative to understanding, sharing, and positive disposal. It is importantly different from empathetic emotions and also from vicarious pride. It may be groupdirected. Empirical research suggests it occurs fairly often, activates the brain in the same way as does sympathetic sadness, and may increase our well-being. It is primarily not a reactive attitude (an emotional reaction to good or bad will), but, rather, a sign of good will toward another. (shrink)

Svirsky, Howard, and Berman’s paper “E-Cigarettes and the Multiple Responsibilities of the FDA” offers a significant contribution to a knowledge domain that might be called “harm reduction e...

I contend that scientific realism and realism about natural kinds should be given separate treatment because a person could be a scientific realist in general without having key realist commitments about natural kinds. I utilize Chakravartty’s three dimensions of commitment for scientific realism to create three key conditions for realism regarding natural kinds in particular. I find that Dupré’s promiscuous realism fails at least one these conditions, and therefore, for the sake of terminological consistency and clarity, we should classify promiscuous (...) realism as an antirealist view of natural kinds. (shrink)

In a brief and deeply interesting 2017 Acta Analytica paper, Peter Baumann argues that there are cases of necessarily incompatible but mutually consistent desires, that this is a common problem, and that there is no solution in sight. I’ll argue that Baumann fails to note certain non-trivial assumptions that must be made for the possibility of consistent incompatible desires; if consistent incompatible desires do exist then they’re sometimes beneficial; and if they are sometimes involved with problematic outcomes then the mere (...) presence of incompatibility and consistency does not cause the subject to frustrate the (more) beneficial desire. In short, if there is a problem of consistent incompatible desires then it is not the problem that Baumann identifies. (shrink)

Realists about possible worlds typically identify possible worlds with abstract objects, such as propositions or properties. However, they face a significant objection due to Lewis (1986), to the effect that there is no way to explain how possible worlds-as-abstract objects represent possibilities. In this paper, I describe a response to this objection on behalf of realists. The response is to identify possible worlds with propositions, but to deny that propositions are abstract objects, or indeed objects at all. Instead, I argue (...) that realists should follow Prior (1971) and others in treating higher-order quantification (e.g. quantification into predicate or sentence position) as a genuine form of quantification in its own right, and so in particular, not to be analysed in terms of first-order quantification over abstract objects. I argue that from this ‘higher-orderist’ perspective, there is a relatively straightforward answer to the question of how possible worlds-as-propositions succeed in representing possibilities. (shrink)

This article looks at the contribution of secularisation debates to a critical theory of society. As the relations between the ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ aspects of modern life grow more vexing, it argues critical theory must eschew its previous secularisation-as-progress metanarrative. Instead, processes of secularisation are better understood as those relationships between public and private beliefs and practices that take place at the boundaries between modern society’s commitment to procedural institutions and substantive value commitments. The article then revisits four different understandings (...) of secularisation that, coming from a variety of intellectual traditions, help us redefine it beyond an exclusive focus on institutional religions: normative questions on the rise and decline of autonomous values; temporal questions on the self-positing of modernity as an historical epoch; political questions on the desacralisation of modern sovereignty and practical questions on the non-technological dimensions of technology. This framework is put to the test in relation to the procedural challenge of democratic fallibility and the substantive challenge of planetary survival. (shrink)