Interval temporal logics provide both an insight into a nature of time and a framework for temporal reasoning in various areas of computer science. In this paper we present sound and complete relational proof systems in the style of dual tableaux for relational logics associated with modal logics of temporal intervals and we prove that the systems enable us to verify validity and entailment of these temporal logics. We show how to incorporate in the systems various relations between intervals and/or (...) various time orderings. (shrink)

In this paper, we investigate the expressiveness of the variety of propositional interval neighborhood logics , we establish their decidability on linearly ordered domains and some important subclasses, and we prove the undecidability of a number of extensions of PNL with additional modalities over interval relations. All together, we show that PNL form a quite expressive and nearly maximal decidable fragment of Halpern–Shoham’s interval logic HS.

This article argues for a redefinition of difficulty in relation to the inextricable violence of modernity and examines the consecutive challenge to notions of understanding and interpretation — of a text, of language or of the other — that this repositioning brings. To this end, the article offers a nuanced rereading of Steiner’s canonical fourfold categorization of difficulty, in dialogue with, first, Édouard Glissant’s opacity and, second, Jonathan Pugh and David Chandler’s theorizations of ‘abyssal thought’, an approach emerging from Caribbean (...) and critical Black studies, exploring the key challenge it poses to forging an unmasterful, after Julietta Singh, comparative literary practice. With an equal attention to the theoretical and pedagogical dimensions of reading difficulty, the article emphasizes the importance of the accretive and embodied nature of the reading process and offers a repositioning of textual difficulty, as a meeting site of opacities, and a reformulation of a difficult, unmasterful reading practice, after catastrophe and with others. (shrink)

What does it mean to teach, live, and imagine one’s futures amidst a global pandemic? How to respond to the reality of unequal and overlapping crises, COVID-19 being one of them? Can alternative understandings of time help us create a more just post-pandemic university? Drawing on environmental humanities, disaster and critical time studies, in conversation with qualitative data, this article theorizes a ‘pedagogy of scale’: a practical and conceptual centering on multiple temporalities and diverse interpretative frames. The analysis argues for (...) the need to attend to overlapping, non-linear, and changeable scales of time, reference, and meaning that students draw on in order to make sense of crises: every crisis, even as unprecedented as COVID-19, is embedded in environmental processes, long-term vulnerabilities and injustices. These overlooked and overlapping scales interweave personal, planetary, and theological notions of time—from ecological deep time to the divine time—meaning, and self. In its focus on asynchronicity, overlap and multiplicity, the analysis extends current theorizations of temporality and crisis in higher education, challenges paradigms of mastery, advocates for epistemic plurality, and embraces decolonial notions of human subjectivity, providing a much-needed critical model for the post-pandemic university. (shrink)

What are the philosophical views of professional philosophers, and how do these views change over time? The 2020 PhilPapers Survey surveyed around 2000 philosophers on 100 philosophical questions. The results provide a snapshot of the state of some central debates in philosophy, reveal correlations and demographic effects involving philosophers' views, and reveal some changes in philosophers' views over the last decade.

A leading political theorist’s groundbreaking defense of ideal conceptions of justice in political philosophy Throughout the history of political philosophy and politics, there has been continual debate about the roles of idealism versus realism. For contemporary political philosophy, this debate manifests in notions of ideal theory versus nonideal theory. Nonideal thinkers shift their focus from theorizing about full social justice, asking instead which feasible institutional and political changes would make a society more just. Ideal thinkers, on the other hand, question (...) whether full justice is a standard that any society is likely ever to satisfy. And, if social justice is unrealistic, are attempts to understand it without value or importance, and merely utopian? Utopophobia argues against thinking that justice must be realistic, or that understanding justice is only valuable if it can be realized. David Estlund does not offer a particular theory of justice, nor does he assert that justice is indeed unrealizable—only that it could be, and this possibility upsets common ways of proceeding in political thought. Estlund engages critically with important strands in traditional and contemporary political philosophy that assume a sound theory of justice has the overriding, defining task of contributing practical guidance toward greater social justice. Along the way, he counters several tempting perspectives, including the view that inquiry in political philosophy could have significant value only as a guide to practical political action, and that understanding true justice would necessarily have practical value, at least as an ideal arrangement to be approximated. Demonstrating that unrealistic standards of justice can be both sound and valuable to understand, Utopophobia stands as a trenchant defense of ideal theory in political philosophy. (shrink)

David Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding is the definitive statement of the greatest philosopher in the English language. His arguments in support of reasoning from experience, and against the "sophistry and illusion"of religiously inspired philosophical fantasies, caused controversy in the eighteenth century and are strikingly relevant today, when faith and science continue to clash. The Enquiry considers the origin and processes of human thought, reaching the stark conclusion that we can have no ultimate understanding of the physical world, or indeed (...) our own minds. In either sphere we must depend on instinctive learning from experience, recognizing our animal nature and the limits of reason. Hume's calm and open-minded skepticism thus aims to provide a new basis for science, liberating us from the "superstition" of false metaphysics and religion. His Enquiry remains one of the best introductions to the study of philosophy, and his edition places it in its historical and philosophical context. (shrink)

The zetetic turn in epistemology raises three questions about epistemic and zetetic norms. First, there is the relationship question: what is the relationship between epistemic and zetetic norms? Are some epistemic norms zetetic norms, or are epistemic and zetetic norms distinct? Second, there is the tension question: are traditional epistemic norms in tension with plausible zetetic norms? Third, there is the reaction question: how should theorists react to a tension between epistemic and zetetic norms? Drawing on an analogy to practical (...) philosophy, I develop a focal point view to resolve these motivating questions. On the focal point view, traditional epistemic norms and zetetic norms answer different types of normative questions. There is nevertheless a familiar type of evaluative tension between traditional epistemic norms and zetetic norms, but this tension is an unavoidable feature of the normative landscape and not a sign that traditional epistemic norms need revision. But if traditional epistemic norms are not zetetic norms, then in what sense is zetetic epistemology a project for epistemologists? I conclude by articulating a sense in which some nontraditional epistemic norms are zetetic norms, and in which zetetic epistemology is an important part of the study of theoretical rationality. (shrink)

Tout oppose les œuvres de William et Henry James, le philosophe américain fondateur du pragmatisme et le romancier, auteur de Portrait de femme et des Ailes de la colombe. L'un se présente comme le philosophe des vérités concrètes, l'inventeur d'un empirisme " radical ", résolument tourné vers une pensée pratique sans cesse reconduite vers l'expérience directe des réalités sensibles ; l'autre se présente au contraire comme le romancier de l'indirect et dresse le portrait de consciences qui ne cessent de s'interpréter (...) les unes les autres en s'éloignant toujours davantage du socle des certitudes sensibles. Mais s'agit-il d'une opposition? N'a-t-on pas en réalité affaire à une sorte d'échange ou de vol mutuel? L'un fait de la philosophie une sorte de roman d'aventures tandis que l'autre fait du roman la forme réfléchie par excellence, le récit du mental et de ses modes de raisonnement. L'un fait de l'action le nouveau centre de gravité de la philosophie ; l'autre fait de la pensée le nouveau sujet du roman, comme si chacun volait à l'autre ce qui jusqu'alors lui revenait de droit. C'est de ce vol ou cet échange dont il s'agit de faire le récit conceptuel. (shrink)

By means of an example, shows the possibility of beliefs that are separately rational whilst together inconsistent.

This book is an attempt to get to the bottom of an acute and perennial tension between our best scientific pictures of the fundamental physical structure of the world and our everyday empirical experience of it. The trouble is about the direction of time. The situation (very briefly) is that it is a consequence of almost every one of those fundamental scientific pictures--and that it is at the same time radically at odds with our common sense--that whatever can happen can (...) just as naturally happen backwards. Albert provides an unprecedentedly clear, lively, and systematic new account--in the context of a Newtonian-Mechanical picture of the world--of the ultimate origins of the statistical regularities we see around us, of the temporal irreversibility of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, of the asymmetries in our epistemic access to the past and the future, and of our conviction that by acting now we can affect the future but not the past. Then, in the final section of the book, he generalizes the Newtonian picture to the quantum-mechanical case and (most interestingly) suggests a very deep potential connection between the problem of the direction of time and the quantum-mechanical measurement problem. The book aims to be both an original contribution to the present scientific and philosophical understanding of these matters at the most advanced level, and something in the nature of an elementary textbook on the subject accessible to interested high-school students. Table of Contents: Preface 1. Time-Reversal Invariance 2. Thermodynamics 3. Statistical Mechanics 4. The Reversibility Objections and the Past-Hypothesis 5. The Scope of Thermodynamics 6. The Asymmetries of Knowledge and Intervention 7. Quantum Mechanics Appendix: Gedankenexperiments with Heat Engines Index Reviews of this book: The foundations of statistical mechanisms are often presented in physics textbooks in a rather obscure and confused way. By challenging common ways of thinking about this subject, Time and Chance can do quite a lot to improve this situation. --Jean Bricmont, Science Albert is perfecting a style of foundational analysis that is uniquely his own...It has a surgical precision...and it is ruthless with pretensions. The foundations of thermodynamics is a topic that has accumulated a good deal of dead wood; this is a fire that will burn and burn. --Simon W. Saunders, Oxford University As usual with Albert's work, the exposition is brisk and to the point, and exceptionally clear...The book will be an extremely valuable contribution to the literature on the subject of philosophical issues in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, a literature which has been thin on the ground but is now growing as it deserves to. --Lawrence Sklar, University of Michigan. (shrink)

One of the enduring concerns of moral philosophy is deciding who or what is deserving of ethical consideration. Much recent attention has been devoted to the "animal question" -- consideration of the moral status of nonhuman animals. In this book, David Gunkel takes up the "machine question": whether and to what extent intelligent and autonomous machines of our own making can be considered to have legitimate moral responsibilities and any legitimate claim to moral consideration. The machine question poses a fundamental (...) challenge to moral thinking, questioning the traditional philosophical conceptualization of technology as a tool or instrument to be used by human agents. Gunkel begins by addressing the question of machine moral agency: whether a machine might be considered a legitimate moral agent that could be held responsible for decisions and actions. He then approaches the machine question from the other side, considering whether a machine might be a moral patient due legitimate moral consideration. Finally, Gunkel considers some recent innovations in moral philosophy and critical theory that complicate the machine question, deconstructing the binary agent--patient opposition itself. Technological advances may prompt us to wonder if the science fiction of computers and robots whose actions affect their human companions could become science fact. Gunkel's argument promises to influence future considerations of ethics, ourselves, and the other entities who inhabit this world. (shrink)

How should one react when one has a belief, but knows that other people—who have roughly the same evidence as one has, and seem roughly as likely to react to it correctly—disagree? This paper argues that the disagreement of other competent inquirers often requires one to be much less confident in one’s opinions than one would otherwise be.

Ao longo de sua trajetória filosófica, Kant aprofundou e esclareceu os conceitos de vontade e arbítrio. Ambos os conceitos são fundamentais para a compreensão da possibilidade da liberdade, seja ela interna ou externa. O filósofo racional usa os conceitos de Wille e Willkür desde a Kritik der reinen Vernunft, mas será apenas na obra tardia da Metaphysik der Sitten que os conceitos ganharam precisão semântica dentro do sistema da metafisica da liberdade. Em virtude disso, iremos percorrer as obras críticas kantianas (...) desde a Kritik der reinen Vernunft até a Metaphysik der Sitten para verificar as “diferentes” formulações dos conceitos vontade e arbítrio e, finalmente, considerar aquela que melhor se afigura plausível consoante uma leitura sistemática da obra de Kant. (shrink)

O presente artigo tem por objetivo demonstrar o lugar próprio do sentimento moral [das moralische Gefühl] na filosofia prática de Kant. Sentimento moral e respeito pela lei são equivalentes, sendo, esse respeito, o único e autêntico motivo moral sem, contudo, referir-se a um objeto empírico. Assim, o respeito é o efeito da lei moral produzido em nossa sensibilidade moral, sem a qual o conceito de dever seria inviável. Uma ação por respeito à lei possui valor moral porque a lei torna-se (...) o motivo do agir. Isso também pode ser chamado de interesse prático, ou seja, é a possibilidade de efetivação da lei. Sem interesse prático (ou sem sentimento moral), não teríamos ações por dever, mas, por conseguinte, mera legalidade. (shrink)

I attempt to get as clear as possible on the chain of reasoning by which irreversible macrodynamics is derivable from time-reversible microphysics, and in particular to clarify just what kinds of assumptions about the initial state of the universe, and about the nature of the microdynamics, are needed in these derivations. I conclude that while a “Past Hypothesis” about the early Universe does seem necessary to carry out such derivations, that Hypothesis is not correctly understood as a constraint on the (...) early Universe’s entropy. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é analisar a concepção de Justiça Internacional em Kant e Rawls e colocá-las em diálogo. Os eixos de análise serão o direito cosmopolita (Weltbürgerrecht) de Kant e o direito dos povos de Rawls. Nesse sentido, os setores internacionalistas dessas teorias serão discutidos e comparados em seus principais componentes, como a visão dos autores sobre a guerra, a imigração e a obrigação de acolhimento de refugiados. Buscar-se-á, ao longo do artigo, colocar essas teorias lado a lado com (...) o direito internacional moderno, e com alguns institutos de proteção do ser humano, como os direitos humanos e o direito dos refugiados. Ao final, buscar-se-á ponderar como esses autores conceberam a factibilidade de suas teorias, demonstrando que ambas podem ser consideradas “utopias realistas”. Esses temas foram escolhidos por estarem estritamente vinculados à temática da justiça internacional e aos desafios mais urgentes dessa disciplina. Nesse sentido, a análise das teorias de dois grandes expoentes da filosofia política será o pano de fundo para buscar tecer algumas considerações sobre o problema dos refugiados no mundo contemporâneo. Adicionalmente, buscar-se-á demonstrar que a teoria kantiana, por levar em conta os anseios e a autonomia do indivíduo e abranger obrigações cosmopolitas e humanitárias, é mais adequada para lidar com o desafio dos refugiados contemporaneamente. (shrink)

We start by presenting three different views that jointly imply that every person has many conscious beings in their immediate vicinity, and that the number greatly varies from person to person. We then present and assess an argument to the conclusion that how confident someone should be in these views should sensitively depend on how massive they happen to be. According to the argument, sometimes irreducibly de se observations can be powerful evidence for or against believing in metaphysical theories.

Worries about mental causation are prominent in contemporary discussions of the mind and human agency. Originally, the problem of mental causation was that of understanding how a mental substance (thought to be immaterial) could interact with a material substance, a body. Most philosophers nowadays repudiate immaterial minds, but the problem of mental causation has not gone away. Instead, focus has shifted to mental properties. How could mental properties be causally relevant to bodily behavior? How could something mental qua mental cause (...) what it does? After looking at the traditional Problem of Interaction, we survey various versions of the property-based problem and look at proposed solutions to them. (shrink)

Unprecedented advances in medicine, genetic engineering, and demographic forecasting raise new questions that strain the categories and assumptions of traditional ethical theories. Heyd's approach resolves many paradoxes in intergenerational justice, while offering a major test case for the profound problems of the limits of ethics and the nature of value. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and (...) impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1992. (shrink)

Our aim in this entry is to articulate the state of the art in the moral psychology of personal identity. We begin by discussing the major philosophical theories of personal identity, including their shortcomings. We then turn to recent psychological work on personal identity and the self, investigations that often illuminate our person-related normative concerns. We conclude by discussing the implications of this psychological work for some contemporary philosophical theories and suggesting fruitful areas for future work on personal identity.

Neste artigo, buscamos um entendimento mais aprofundado do _Comunitarismo_. Para tanto, dividimos o artigo em quatro partes. Na primeira, nos debruçamos sobre o pensamento comunitarista, traçando suas raízes históricas, seus principais argumentos, suas críticas ao liberalismo e, também, suas fragilidades. Na segunda parte, voltamos nosso olhar para a realidade próxima e, assim, analisando casos específicos das comunidades pomeranas na zona sul do Rio Grande do Sul e seus dilemas, buscamos abordá-los sob a ótica comunitarista e ver de qual modo esta (...) vertente filosófica pode nos auxiliar. No terceiro ponto, damos voz ao pensamento liberal, permitindo não só que traga soluções aos problemas das comunidades estudadas, como também rebata os argumentos comunitaristas. Por fim, no ponto quatro, traremos algumas considerações finais sobre os argumentos levantados. (shrink)

O objetivo principal deste artigo é analisar e problematizar a ideia de coerência na teoria da argumentação proposta pelo jus filósofo Klaus Günther. Para isso, será demonstrada a separação realizada por ele entre o discurso de justificação e o discurso de aplicação. O primeiro opera no nível de validade de normas, o qual preza pela consideração de todos os interesses envolvidos, enquanto que o segundo preocupa-se com a consideração das características relevantes de uma situação concreta a fim de encontrar a (...) norma mais bem adequada à situação. A tese defendida aqui é a de que a separação dos discursos consolidam a ideia de democracia e também que a coerência gera uma otimização normativa na aplicação, além de oferecer a ideia de um sistema normativo coerente na moral e no direito. (shrink)

O presente artigo trabalha com algumas das principais teses desenvolvidas por Robert Nozick na obra Anarchy, State and Utopia. Inicia-se com a construção da tese basilar dos direitos individuais invioláveis fundamentados sobre a segunda formulação do imperativo categórico kantiano. Em seguida, visa-se demonstrar a tese da Self-Ownership e sua extensão para a legitimação da propriedade. Além de formular críticas as teses nozickeanas durante a exposição delas, far-se-á, como terceiro tópico, algumas críticas sobre a tese da Self-Ownership e a ideia da (...) legitimidade da propriedade fundamentada nela. (shrink)

Não apenas distantes no tempo, Kant e Levinas são distantes em suas respectivas propostas de ética. Este trabalho visa analisar reflexivamente os princípios morais dos dois autores com o intuito de introduzir o acadêmico aos conceitos fundamentais em dois grandes expoentes da ética. Desta forma, Kant propõe uma moral baseada na razão (pura prática), livre de toda inclinação sensível. Nada alheio a razão pode fundar uma lei. Por conseguinte, o único princípio da determinação da vontade é a lei moral, de (...) forma que ser moral é ser racional. Logo, na medida em que as máximas do agir concordarem com a lei moral expressa no imperativo categórico tem-se uma ação com valor moral. Levinas, por sua vez, faz uma crítica a toda à tradição ética pelo fato de ter subjugado o outro ao Eu. Na tradição o outro foi reduzido a “objeto”, a conceito. Por isso, para Levinas, a ética é filosofia primeira, na qual afirma que o outro interpela e causa irrecusavelmente responsabilidade por ele. Tal responsabilidade é fundada antes mesmo do sujeito se constituir como Eu consciente. Logo, o rosto do outro é um mandamento que exige minha responsabilidade. (shrink)

O presente artigo propõe uma abordagem à didática particularista, fundamentando-se em uma interpretação mitigada do particularismo aristotélico. O particularismo advoga que os julgamentos morais devem ser fundamentados em circunstâncias específicas, sem recorrer a princípios universais. Segundo esta visão, a moralidade transcende regras codificadas, demandando uma aguçada sensibilidade e discernimento diante de cada situação. Em contrapartida, o generalismo argumenta a favor da essencialidade de tais princípios para avaliações morais. O particularismo mitigado aristotélico fornece os alicerces para concebermos uma didática focada nas (...) singularidades dos estudantes e em seus contextos individuais. Dentro dessa perspectiva, o docente particularista se distancia da concepção de um docente _a priori_, que, de maneira generalista, opera sob o pressuposto de um perfil médio de estudante ao definir suas estratégias pedagógicas. A _phronesis_, uma virtude intelectual aristotélica, torna-se essencial, orientando deliberações atentas às nuances de cada situação educacional. Com isso em mente, propomos uma enumeração não exaustiva das competências que um docente particularista necessita possuir para identificar as particularidades inerentes às situações educacionais e, assim, deliberar de maneira adequada. Em essência, a docência particularista valoriza uma educação adaptada à individualidade, ao ambiente e às emoções dos estudantes, contrapondo-se à uniformidade convencional. (shrink)

O presente trabalho visa desenvolver a hipótese de que o conceito de esclarecimento kantiano é um processo individual e intransferível. O processo é conceituado como a saída da menoridade. Tal processo é fundamental para que o próprio humano possa conduzir racionalmente a si mesmo, as estruturas que constrói e administra sob a égide da razão. Correlacionada com a primeira hipótese, o trabalho também desenvolve a interpretação de que a Aufklärung é uma ideia, ou seja, embora não poderemos visualizá-la completamente na (...) experiência, ela ainda preserva seu valor normativo. Da mesma forma, o indivíduo, o qual realizou completamente o processo da Aufklärung, nomeado aqui de aufgeklärter Kritiker, é o ideal o qual todos os indivíduos devem objetivar. (shrink)

O presente artigo tem por objetivo demonstrar o lugar próprio do sentimento moral [das moralische Gefühl] na filosofia prática de Kant. Sentimento moral e respeito pela lei são equivalentes, sendo, esse respeito, o único e autêntico motivo moral sem, contudo, referir-se a um objeto empírico. Assim, o respeito é o efeito da lei moral produzido em nossa sensibilidade moral, sem a qual o conceito de dever seria inviável. Uma ação por respeito à lei possui valor moral porque a lei torna-se (...) o motivo do agir. Isso também pode ser chamado de interesse prático, ou seja, é a possibilidade de efetivação da lei. Sem interesse prático (ou sem sentimento moral), não teríamos ações por dever, mas, por conseguinte, mera legalidade. (shrink)

O presente artigo visa apresentar, dialogar e também levantar algumas críticas à teoria da argumentação de Klaus Günther. O jusfilósofo demonstra que há dois tipos de discurso, a saber, o discurso de justificação e o discurso de aplicação. O discurso de justificação parte do princípio universal “U” – já conhecido da ética do discurso. Sua função é a justificação por meio da consideração de todos os interesses envolvidos. Segundo Günther, o engano do discurso de justificação foi entender a validade de (...) uma norma como contendo cada um das suas situações de aplicação. Por sua vez, o discurso de aplicação tem por objetivo considerar as particularidades da situação a fim de verificar qual norma é a mais adequada para o contexto em questão. Palavras-chave : Justificação. Aplicação. Validade. Adequabilidade. Imparcialidade. (shrink)

O presente artigo visa analisar a proposta construtivista rawlsiana na qual se pode visualizar a influencia da teoria da escolha racional da filosofia prática kantiana. Rawls, apesar de declarar-se herdeiro de Kant, assume sua própria concepção construtivista, a saber, um construtivismo político, enquanto que o filósofo alemão, segundo ele, apresenta um construtivismo moral fundamentado no idealismo transcendental. A posição original, por sua vez, situa as partes de maneira equitativa considerando-as iguais e livres. Assim, a construção dos princípios da justiça nesta (...) posição é autônoma, ou seja, a escolha é realizada sem influências heterônomas, tais como classe social, talentos pessoais, etc. A proposta da justiça como equidade é a construção de princípios básicos endossados publicamente os quais regem de maneira justa a estrutura básica da sociedade democrática. (shrink)

Perceptualists say that having a pain in a body part consists in perceiving the part as instantiating some property. I argue that perceptualism makes better sense of the connections between pain location and the experiences undergone by people in pain than three alternative accounts that dispense with perception. Turning to fellow perceptualists, I also reject ways in which David Armstrong and Michael Tye understand and motivate perceptualism, and I propose an alternative interpretation, one that vitiates a pair of objections—due to (...) John Hyman—concerning the meaning of ‘Amy has a pain in her foot’ and the idea of bodily sensitivity. Perceptualism, I conclude, remains our best account of the location of pains. (shrink)

Dark matter is a fundamental component of the standard cosmological model, but in spite of four decades of increasingly sensitive searches, no-one has yet detected a single dark-matter particle in the laboratory. An alternative cosmological paradigm exists: MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics). Observations explained in the standard model by postulating dark matter are explained in MOND by proposing a modification of Newton's laws of motion. Both MOND and the standard model have had successes and failures – but only MOND has repeatedly (...) predicted observational facts in advance of their discovery. In this volume, David Merritt outlines why such predictions are considered by many philosophers of science to be the 'gold standard' when it comes to judging a theory's validity. In a world where the standard model receives most attention, the author applies criteria from the philosophy of science to assess, in a systematic way, the viability of this alternative cosmological paradigm. (shrink)

1. The Shmagency Challenge to Constitutivism In metaethics – and indeed, meta-normativity – constitutivism is a family of views that hope to ground normativity in norms, or standards, or motives, or aims that are constitutive of action and agency. And mostly because of the influential work of Christine Korsgaard and David Velleman, constitutivism seems to be gaining grounds in the current literature. The promises of constitutivism are significant. Perhaps chief among them are the hope to provide with some kind of (...) answer to the skeptic about morality or perhaps practical reason, and the hope to secure for practical reason a kind of objectivity that is consistent with its practical, motivationally engaged nature. The former philosophical motivation for constitutivism – most clearly present in much of Korsgaard’s relevant work[1] – relies on the fact that constitutive norms seem to be less mysterious than not-clearly-constitutive norms. There arguably is nothing mysterious about, say, the norms of certain reasonably-well-defined activities, like building a house, or playing chess. And challenges by the relevant skeptic – the one asking "Why should I make sure the house I’m building can shelter people from the weather?" or "Why should I not castle when my king is checked?" – seem very rare, barely intelligible, and anyway remarkably easy to cope with. We should explain to the misguided skeptic that if he doesn’t even try to build something that can protect people from the weather, he’s not in the business of building a house at all; that if she doesn’t even try to play by the rules of chess, she’s not in the business of playing chess at all; and so on. It would be nice, the constitutivist hope seems to go, if we had something equally powerful by way of a response to the skeptic asking "Why be moral?". The other main motivation for constitutivism – most clearly present in David Velleman’s relevant work[2] – starts from a commitment to some rather strong kind of existence-internalism about reasons: An agent has a reason to?, according to such views ), only if she can come to?, or at least to be motivated to?, by sound deliberation starting from her actual motivational set. (shrink)

Epistemic Evaluation aims to explore and apply a particular methodology in epistemology. The methodology is to consider the point or purpose of our epistemic evaluations, and to pursue epistemological theory in light of such matters. Call this purposeful epistemology. The idea is that considerations about the point and purpose of epistemic evaluation might fruitfully constrain epistemological theory and yield insights for epistemological reflection. Several contributions to this volume explicitly address this general methodology, or some version of it. Others focus on (...) advancing some application of the methodology rather than on theorizing about it. The papers go on to explore the idea that purposes allow one to understand the conceptual demands on knowing, examine how purposeful epistemology might shed light on the debate between internalist and externalist epistemologies, and further develop the idea of purposeful epistemology. (shrink)

We become ill in ways our parents and grandparents did not, with diseases unheard of and treatments undreamed of generations ago. This text tells the story of the modern experience of illness, linking ideas of illness, health, and postmodernism.

Part of the appeal of the biological approach to personal identity is that it does not have to countenance spatially coincident entities. But if the termination thesis is correct and the organism ceases to exist at death, then it appears that the corpse is a dead body that earlier was a living body and distinct from but spatially coincident with the organism. If the organism is identified with the body, then the unwelcome spatial coincidence could perhaps be avoided. It is (...) argued that such an identification would be a mistake. A living organism has a different part/whole relationship and persistence conditions than the alleged body. A case will be made that the concept ‘human body’ is a conceptual mess, vague in an unprincipled manner, and that an eliminativist stance towards dead bodies is the appropriate response. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Since the 1990s the so-called transparency of experience has played a crucial role in core debates in philosophy of mind. However, recent developments in the literature have made transparency itself quite opaque. The very idea of transparent experience has become quite fuzzy, due to the articulation of many different notions of transparency and transparency theses. Absent a unified logical space where these notions and theses can be mapped and confronted, we are left with an overall impression of conceptual chaos. This (...) is a problem, given the constant and ubiquitous references to transparency in the literature and its prominent position in the contemporary philosophy of mind. My goal in this paper is to restore clarity through proper analysis of the mutual relations between the different transparency theses. This allows me to uncover a unitary multidimensional logical space where existing (as well as possible) views can be properly singled out and located. (shrink)

A familiar interpretation of quantum mechanics (one of a number of views sometimes labeled the "Copenhagen interpretation'"), takes its empirical apparatus at face value, holding that the quantum wave function evolves by the Schrödinger equation except on certain occasions of measurement, when it collapses into a new state according to the Born rule. This interpretation is widely rejected, primarily because it faces the measurement problem: "measurement" is too imprecise for use in a fundamental physical theory. We argue that this is (...) a weak objection, as there may be many ways of making "measurement" precise. However, measurement-collapse interpretations face a more serious objection: a dilemma tied to the quantum Zeno effect. Is measurement itself an observable that can enter superpositions? If yes, then the standard measurement-collapse dynamics is ill-defined. If no, then (at least if measurement is an observable), measurements can never start or finish. The best way out is to deny that measurement is an observable, but this leads to strong and revisionary consequences. This reinforces the view that there is no nonrevisionary interpretation of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Two models of assertion are described and their epistemological implications considered. The assurance model draws a parallel between the ethical norms surrounding promising and the epistemic norms which facilitate the transmission of testimonial knowledge. This model is rejected in favour of the view that assertion transmits knowledge by expressing belief. I go on to compare the epistemology of testimony with the epistemology of memory.

This paper explores an initially attractive principle connecting beliefs in general with beliefs about what beliefs are rational. The principle turns out to be violated by intuitively rational beliefs in some situations. The paper lays out some options for reacting to this fact.

Emptiness means that all entities are empty of, or lack, inherent existence - entities have a merely conceptual, constructed existence. Though Nagarjuna advocates the Middle Way, his philosophy of emptiness nevertheless entails nihilism, and his critiques of the Nyaya theory of knowledge are shown to be unconvincing.