Network Democracy uses the contemporary tools of ecology and network thinking to unearth the ancient, intellectual ruins of traditional conservative thought. Questioning the West’s veneration of freedom, equality, contractual citizenship, economic progress, cosmopolitanism, secular institutionalism, and reason, Jared Giesbrecht illuminates how these ideals fuel violence and insecurity in our high-speed lives. While the modern age witnesses the rise of a violent conservatism in the form of revolutionary movements enacting terror and vengeance for the interventions of the liberal West, (...) this study reveals a different kind of conservatism - one that has emerged in direct conversation with liberal thought. Giesbrecht highlights the need for intermediate institutions and civil enterprises that form relations and traditions independent of the state in order to develop resistance to the insecurity of the liberal age. This book offers not only a poignant critique, but a constructive and peaceable alternative to the violence of both liberalism and reactionary anti-liberalism. Attuned to the new realities of globalization, advanced technology, and social acceleration, Network Democracy is a masterful hybrid of ancient and cutting-edge political philosophy that casts a new light on the values underlying western civilization. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel, Beloved, and F. W. J. Schelling’s 1813 draft of Ages of the World (Die Weltalter). It shows that Die Weltalter, contrary to much recent scholarship, which often stresses the many ways Schelling anticipated the antimetaphysical trends of post-Hegelian thought, should be first approached as a genuine attempt tobe faithful to the event of first creation and time’s “indivisible remainders”. The paper will show that Schelling’s “indivisible remainders”, the forgotten and “disremembered” (...) of history, force his thought to the limits of Romantic and idealist reflection and toward the traumatic encounters of Beloved. Morrison’s depiction of the irrepressible longing for life and recognition amid the pain and ugliness of American slavery parallels Schelling’s efforts to understand the tremendous need for life and fellowship that first urged god toward creation, when primordial longing was overcome in a child and a god entered time. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel, Beloved, and F. W. J. Schelling’s 1813 draft of Ages of the World (Die Weltalter). It shows that Die Weltalter, contrary to much recent scholarship, which often stresses the many ways Schelling anticipated the antimetaphysical trends of post-Hegelian thought, should be first approached as a genuine attempt tobe faithful to the event of first creation and time’s “indivisible remainders”. The paper will show that Schelling’s “indivisible remainders”, the forgotten and “disremembered” (...) of history, force his thought to the limits of Romantic and idealist reflection and toward the traumatic encounters of Beloved. Morrison’s depiction of the irrepressible longing for life and recognition amid the pain and ugliness of American slavery parallels Schelling’s efforts to understand the tremendous need for life and fellowship that first urged god toward creation, when primordial longing was overcome in a child and a god entered time. (shrink)

What is the source of logical and mathematical truth? This book revitalizes conventionalism as an answer to this question. Conventionalism takes logical and mathematical truth to have their source in linguistic conventions. This was an extremely popular view in the early 20th century, but it was never worked out in detail and is now almost universally rejected in mainstream philosophical circles. Shadows of Syntax is the first book-length treatment and defense of a combined conventionalist theory of logic and mathematics. It (...) argues that our conventions, in the form of syntactic rules of language use, are perfectly suited to explain the truth, necessity, and a priority of logical and mathematical claims, as well as our logical and mathematical knowledge. (shrink)

Inferences are familiar movements of thought, but despite important recent work on the topic, we do not yet have a fully satisfying theory of inference. Here I provide a functionalist theory of inference. I argue that the functionalist framework allows us the flexibility to meet various demands on a theory of inference that have been proposed (such as that it must explain inferential Moorean phenomena and epistemological ‘taking’). While also allowing us to compare, contrast, adapt, and combine features of extant (...) theories of inference into one unified theory. In fleshing out the inference role, I also criticize the common assumption that inference requires rule-following. (shrink)

Unrestricted inferentialism holds both that any collection of inference rules can determine a meaning for an expression and meaning constituting rules are automatically valid. Prior's infamous tonk connective refuted unrestricted inferentialism, or so it is universally thought. This paper argues against this consensus. I start by formulating the metasemantic theses of inferentialism with more care than they have hitherto received; I then consider a tonk language — Tonklish — and argue that the unrestricted inferentialist's treatment of this language is only (...) problematic if it is mistakenly assumed that Tonklish can be homophonically translated into English. Next, I discuss the proper, non-homophonic, translation of Tonklish into English, rebut various objections, and consider several variants of Tonklish. The paper closes by highlighting the philosophical advantages that unrestricted inferentialism has over its competitors once the terrors of tonk have been tamed. (shrink)

Conceptual engineers have recently turned to the notion of conceptual functions to do a variety of explanatory work. Functions are supposed to explain what speakers are debating about in metalinguistic negotiations, to capture when two concepts are about the same thing, and to help guide our normative inquiries into which concepts we should use. In this paper, I argue that this recent “functional turn” should be deflated. Contra most interpreters, we should not try to use a substantive notion of conceptual (...) functions to handle various problems for conceptual engineering. The primary accounts of function appealed to by conceptual engineers, namely etiological and system functions, are not suited to handle many of the problems functions are supposed to handle, and it’s dubious whether any other account of function would do better. Instead of trying to use substantive functions to solve theoretical problems, we should deflate those problems themselves by focusing only on what matters to us, as speakers or theorists, in a given inquiry. (shrink)

Lightweight rowing – the most commonly used term for the weight category in rowing’s often bifurcated categorisation system – is under credible threat of being eliminated at virtually all levels of rowing in Canada and the U.S. The health concerns associated with weight loss reflect the most problematic aspects of lightweight rowing, where the acceptable limits of harm that one must tolerated in sport is brought into question. Also, such category protection seems arguably unnecessary, especially for lightweights who are nearly (...) as competitive as their openweight counterparts. This prompts reflection on the purpose and policies behind these categories. The justification for weight categories is scant or has simply been assumed as legitimate within the status quo. In the absence of any constructive debate on the topic, I will attempt to articulate the neglected rationale for why lightweight rowing ought to exist despite its apparent problems. In doing so, suggestions for further rules and policy improvements to lightweight rowing will be identified. (shrink)

Conceptual engineers sometimes say they want to change what our words mean. If a certain kind of externalism is true, it might be nearly impossible to do that. For some of the external factors that determine meaning, like metaphysical naturalness or past usage, are not within our power to change. And if we can’t change what determines meaning, then we can’t change meaning. I argue that, if this sort of externalism is true, then conceptual engineers didn’t want to change what (...) our words mean anyway. And if they did, they could always engineer externalism out of the language, or engineer a new sense of ‘meaning’ which could be changed. So the truth of externalism does not pose a threat to the possibility of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Public trust in business is one of the most important but least understood issues for business leaders, public officials, employees, NGOs and other key stakeholders. This book provides much-needed thinking on the topic. Drawing on the expertise of an international array of experts from academic disciplines including business, sociology, political science and philosophy, it explores long-term strategies for building and maintaining public trust in business. The authors look to new ways of moving forward by carefully blending the latest academic research (...) with conclusions for future research and practice. They address core drivers of public trust, how to manage it effectively, the consequences of low public trust, and how best to trust challenges and restore trust when it has been lost. This is a must-read for business practitioners, policy makers and students taking courses in corporate social responsibility or business ethics. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche thought that philosophers were deeply mistaken about the nature and sources of philosophical activity. Where others took themselves to be motivated by a desire to know the truth, Nietzsche charged that his fellow philosophers, motivated by a pathological set of psychological and physiological characteristics, did little more than sublimate and rationalize their own prejudices. In this thesis, I sketch out in further detail and defend the plausibility and significance of this Nietzschean diagnosis of philosophers. I argue that since (...) Nietzsche’s view of philosophers both offers a compelling explanation of some phenomena in contemporary philosophical practice and, were it true, would have significant upshot for how and even whether philosophy should be practiced, we philosophers ought to begin taking it seriously. (shrink)

Psychoanalysis and Deconstruction: Freud's Psychic Apparatusdemonstrates the relevance of deconstructive thinking for the clinical practice of psychoanalysis. Arguing that deconstruction has been misrepresented as a form of literary theory or a philosophy of language, the book puts Derrida, Heidegger and others working in the tradition of deconstruction into dialogue with debates in the contemporary psychoanalytic field. Attempting to retrieve what was radical in Freud's portrayal of the mind as a machine, Jared Russell stresses the importance of psychoanalysis for an (...) understanding of the relationship between the human and its current hyper-technological environment. Interventions into contemporary debates address psychoanalytic concepts such as the nature of the clinical frame, the intersubjective dialogue, unconscious communication and the experience of time. Russell argues that deconstruction, and in particular Derrida's work, can anticipate and help clarify ongoing developments at the cutting edge of psychoanalysis today. Psychoanalysis and Deconstruction: Freud's Psychic Apparatuswill appeal not only to a philosophically informed audience but also to clinicians attempting to secure a place for psychoanalytic practice at the beginning of the twenty-first century. ticipate and help clarify ongoing developments at the cutting edge of psychoanalysis today. Psychoanalysis and Deconstruction: Freud's Psychic Apparatuswill appeal not only to a philosophically informed audience but also to clinicians attempting to secure a place for psychoanalytic practice at the beginning of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Putting feelings into words, or “affect labeling,” can attenuate our emotional experiences. However, unlike explicit emotion regulation techniques, affect labeling may not even feel like a regulatory process as it occurs. Nevertheless, research investigating affect labeling has found it produces a pattern of effects like those seen during explicit emotion regulation, suggesting affect labeling is a form of implicit emotion regulation. In this review, we will outline research on affect labeling, comparing it to reappraisal, a form of explicit emotion regulation, (...) along four major domains of effects—experiential, autonomic, neural, and behavioral—that establish it as a form of implicit emotion regulation. This review will then speculate on possible mechanisms driving affect labeling effects and other remaining unanswered questions. (shrink)

Here I defend dispositionalism about meaning and rule-following from Kripkenstein's infamous anti-dispositionalist arguments. The problems of finitude, error, and normativity are all addressed. The general lesson I draw is that Kripkenstein's arguments trade on an overly simplistic version of dispositionalism.

This paper formulates a general epistemological argument against what I call non-causal realism, generalizing domain specific arguments by Benacerraf, Field, and others. First I lay out the background to the argument, making a number of distinctions that are sometimes missed in discussions of epistemological arguments against realism. Then I define the target of the argument—non-causal realism—and argue that any non-causal realist theory, no matter the subject matter, cannot be given a reasonable epistemology and so should be rejected. Finally I discuss (...) and respond to several possible responses to the argument. In addition to clearing up and avoiding numerous misunderstandings of arguments of this kind that are quite common in the literature, this paper aims to present and endorse a rigorous and fully general epistemological argument against realism. (shrink)

Robert Brandom’s normative-pragmatic theory is intended to represent the minimal set of practical abilities whose exhibition qualifies creatures as speaking a language. His model of a minimally discursive practice (MDP) is one in which participants, devoid of logical vocabulary, are only capable of making assertions and drawing inferences. This paper argues that Brandom’s purely assertional practices are not MDPs and that speech acts of asking questions (queries) must be included in any practice that counts as an MDP. The upshot of (...) the argument is support for the claim that the normative pragmatic analysis of assertions requires a corresponding analysis of queries and vice versa. (shrink)

This paper investigates the determinacy of mathematics. We begin by clarifying how we are understanding the notion of determinacy before turning to the questions of whether and how famous independence results bear on issues of determinacy in mathematics. From there, we pose a metasemantic challenge for those who believe that mathematical language is determinate, motivate two important constraints on attempts to meet our challenge, and then use these constraints to develop an argument against determinacy and discuss a particularly popular approach (...) to resolving indeterminacy, before offering some brief closing reflections. We believe our discussion poses a serious challenge for most philosophical theories of mathematics, since it puts considerable pressure on all views that accept a non-trivial amount of determinacy for even basic arithmetic. (shrink)

In recent years, direct brain interventions have shown increased success in manipulating neurobiological processes often associated with moral reasoning and decision-making. As current DBIs are refined, and new technologies are developed, the state will have an interest in administering DBIs to criminal offenders for rehabilitative purposes. However, it is generally assumed that the state is not justified in directly intruding in an offender’s brain without valid consent. Thomas Douglas challenges this view. The state already forces criminal offenders to go to (...) jail without their consent. This represents a serious interference with an offender’s rights. If criminal offenders are already morally liable to incarceration, why is the state not also entitled to administer DBIs without consent for the purposes of rehabilitation? Douglas argument focuses on the right to ‘bodily integrity’. He argues that there is no compelling reason to believe that bodily rights that protect an offender from non-consensual DBIs are stronger than rights that protect an offender from incarceration. This paper will extend Douglas’ analysis. It will consider the more fundamental right to ‘mental integrity’. The right to mental integrity defends an inner sphere of liberty. It protects critical capacities necessary for the exercise of autonomous human agency—without which a vast majority of moral rights could not exist. Thus, the right to mental integrity is ultimately more important for a moral assessment of DBIs. The right strongly suggests that both presently, and in the future, there may be many cases in which the state is not entitled to administer DBIs to criminal offenders without valid consent. (shrink)

This paper explores, analyzes, and investigates how the political ideologies of American citizens and their elected representatives interact with views put forth by corporate media to help shape various ideologies about environmental issues in contemporary America. I specifically enter into this area of exploration by focusing on one variable, the variable of religion. Therefore, in this paper I seek to help elucidate broad patterns and understandings of environmental issues in America as they have developed since the beginning of the modern (...) environmental movement, focusing especially on the role religion has and is playing in this process. The paper is driven by identifying two major groups in American society, Liberal/nurturant parent, and Conservative/strict father, and how the core values of each group influence their ideological approaches to religion, environmentalism, and politics. The investigation is undertaken in the larger context of worsening climate change, suggesting that the interplay of religious, political, and environmentalist ideology of the past few decades presages further ideological shifts in the coming decades about our changing biosphere. (shrink)

Several recent epistemologists have used understanding-assent links in theories of a priori knowledge and justification, but Williamson influentially argued against the existence of such links. Here I (1) clarify the nature of understanding-assent links and their role in epistemology; (2) clarify and clearly formulate Williamson’s arguments against their existence; (3) argue that Williamson has failed to successfully establish his conclusion; and (4) rebut Williamson’s claim that accepting understanding-assent links amounts to a form of dogmatism.

Søren Kierkegaard is well-known as an original philosophical thinker, but less known is his reliance upon and development of the Christian tradition of the Seven Deadly Sins, in particular the vice of acedia, or sloth. As acedia has enjoyed renewed interest in the past century or so, commentators have attempted to pin down one or another Kierkegaardian concept (e.g., despair, heavy-mindedness, boredom, etc.) as the embodiment of the vice, but these attempts have yet to achieve any consensus. In our estimation, (...) the complicated reality is that, in using slightly different but related concepts, Kierkegaard is providing a unique look at acedia as it manifests differently at different stages on life’s way. Thus, on this “perspectival account”, acedia will manifest differently according to whether an individual inhabits the aesthetic, ethical, or religious sphere. We propose two axes for this perspectival account. Such descriptions of how acedia manifests make up the first, phenomenal axis, while the second, evaluative axis, accounts for the various bits of advice and wisdom we read in the diagnoses of acedia from one Kierkegaardian pseudonym to another. Our aim is to show that Kierkegaard was not only familiar with the concept of acedia, but his contributions helped to develop and extend the tradition. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas inherits two distinct conceptions of the virtuous human being. From Aristotle, he receives a vision of harmony and human achievement: through the process of habituation, the distinct parts of the virtuous soul are operating as one under the guidance of reason. From Augustine, Aquinas receives a vision of moral struggle and victory through divine assistance: the virtuous person is able to resist the inclinations of the flesh through virtues that are given by God and only fully actualized in (...) the next life. This dissertation explores an underappreciated area of Aquinas’s thought—on the topic of growth in the infused virtues—where he brings these teachings of Aristotle and Augustine into a brilliant harmony. In order to fully understand and appreciate Aquinas’s teaching on growth in infused virtue, one must first understand the essence of the infused virtues and their increase. This is the goal of Chapters Two and Three. In Chapter Two, I explore Aquinas’s discussion of habits in the Summa Theologiae by tracing three important topics: the essence of habits, the cause of habits, and the increase of habits. In Chapter Three, I elucidate Aquinas’s teaching on the essence of the infused virtues and situate these important virtues within his picture of the flourishing human life. The fourth chapter lays out Aquinas’s teaching on growth in infused virtue. I develop a metaphysical account of increase in infused virtue and pay careful attention to the associated stages. The chapter concludes with a close examination of the important imperfections that Aquinas associates with the infused virtues. I demonstrate that growth in infused virtue—rather than the development of the acquired virtues —is an effective remedy for these imperfections. In the concluding chapter, I emphasize the ways in which Aquinas’s understanding of growth in infused virtue represents the deepest point of his harmony of Aristotle and Augustine. I also situate my project among two prominent interpretive trends in Thomistic literature and highlight two important implications of the project. (shrink)

Queen and Philosophy: Guaranteed to Blow Your Mind is a collection of cutting-edge philosophical essays on the rock group Queen, founded in 1970 and originally featuring lead vocalist Freddie Mercury, who died of AIDS in 1991. Queen's reputation and fan following continue to grow in the twenty-first century.

Recently a number of works in meta-ontology have used a variant of J.H. Harris's collapse argument in the philosophy of logic as an argument against Eli Hirsch's quantifier variance. There have been several responses to the argument in the literature, but none of them have identified the central failing of the argument, viz., the argument has two readings: one on which it is sound but doesn't refute quantifier variance and another on which it is unsound. The central lesson I draw (...) is that arguments against quantifier variance must pay strict attention to issues of translation and interpretation. The paper also has a substantial appendix in which I prove the equivalence of plural mereological nihilism and standard first-order atomistic mereology; results of this kind are often appealed to in the literature on quantifier variance but without many details on the nature or proof of the result. (shrink)

This paper develops a novel puzzle about desire consisting of three independently plausible but jointly inconsistent propositions: all desires are dispositional states, we have privileged access to some of our desires, and we do not have privileged access to any dispositional state. Proponents of the view that all desires are dispositional states might think the most promising way out of this puzzle is to deny. I argue, however, that such attempts fail because the most plausible accounts of self-knowledge of desires (...) do not explain how we possess privileged access to dispositional desires. I conclude by offering what I take to be a more promising solution to the puzzle, one that involves the rejection of on the grounds that some desires possess phenomenology. (shrink)

Theodore Sider’s recent book, “Writing the Book of the World”, employs a primitive notion of metaphysical structure in order to make sense of substantive metaphysics. But Sider and others who employ metaphysical primitives face serious epistemological challenges. In the first section I develop a specific form of this challenge for Sider’s own proposed epistemology for structure; the second section develops a general reliability challenge for Sider’s theory; and the third and final section argues for the rejection of Siderean structure in (...) the course of answering a transcendental argument against such rejection. (shrink)

Conventionalism about mathematics claims that mathematical truths are true by linguistic convention. This is often spelled out by appealing to facts concerning rules of inference and formal systems, but this leads to a problem: since the incompleteness theorems we’ve known that syntactic notions can be expressed using arithmetical sentences. There is serious prima facie tension here: how can mathematics be a matter of convention and syntax a matter of fact given the arithmetization of syntax? This challenge has been pressed in (...) the literature by Hilary Putnam and Peter Koellner. In this paper I sketch a conventionalist theory of mathematics, show that this conventionalist theory can meet the challenge just raised , and clarify the type of mathematical pluralism endorsed by the conventionalist by introducing the notion of a semantic counterpart. The paper’s aim is an improved understanding of conventionalism, pluralism, and the relationship between them. (shrink)

Achieving food system sustainability is one of the more pressing challenges of this century. Over the last decades, experts from diverse disciplines and intellectual traditions have worked to document the critical threats to food system sustainability and to define an appropriate agenda for action. Nevertheless, these efforts have tended to focus selectively on only a few components of the food system or have tended to be framed in particular discourses. Depending on the point of departure, what aspects of the food (...) system are considered threatened, and what must be sustained, can differ greatly between perspectives. In this article, we draw from systems-thinking and social-ecological systems concepts to focus on the underlying process-related attributes that could support a more sustainable food system. We then examine the support for specific system attributes in six different knowledge domains addressing sustainable agriculture and food. From this review, we identify five system attributes—diversity, modularity, transparency, innovation and congruence—that are repeatedly featured in the different knowledge domains as critical aspects of food system sustainability. We argue that in the face of considerable complexity and high uncertainty, these attributes can serve as a guide to conceptualizing food system choices adaptively and iteratively. (shrink)

Achieving food system sustainability is one of the more pressing challenges of this century. Over the last decades, experts from diverse disciplines and intellectual traditions have worked to document the critical threats to food system sustainability and to define an appropriate agenda for action. Nevertheless, these efforts have tended to focus selectively on only a few components of the food system or have tended to be framed in particular discourses. Depending on the point of departure, what aspects of the food (...) system are considered threatened, and what must be sustained, can differ greatly between perspectives. In this article, we draw from systems-thinking and social-ecological systems concepts to focus on the underlying process-related attributes that could support a more sustainable food system. We then examine the support for specific system attributes in six different knowledge domains addressing sustainable agriculture and food. From this review, we identify five system attributes—diversity, modularity, transparency, innovation and congruence—that are repeatedly featured in the different knowledge domains as critical aspects of food system sustainability. We argue that in the face of considerable complexity and high uncertainty, these attributes can serve as a guide to conceptualizing food system choices adaptively and iteratively. (shrink)

Our relationship to the infinite is controversial. But it is widely agreed that our powers of reasoning are finite. I disagree with this consensus; I think that we can, and perhaps do, engage in infinite reasoning. Many think it is just obvious that we can't reason infinitely. This is mistaken. Infinite reasoning does not require constructing infinitely long proofs, nor would it gift us with non-recursive mental powers. To reason infinitely we only need an ability to perform infinite inferences. I (...) argue that we have this ability. My argument looks to our best current theories of inference and considers examples of apparent infinite reasoning. My position is controversial, but if I'm right, our theories of truth, mathematics, and beyond could be transformed. And even if I'm wrong, a more careful consideration of infinite reasoning can only deepen our understanding of thinking and reasoning. -/- (Note for readers: the paper's brief discussion of uniform reflection and omega inconsistency is misleading. The imagined interlocutor's argument makes an assumption about the PA-provability of provability generalizations that, while true for the Godel sentence's instances, is unjustified, in general. This means my position is stronger against this objection than the paper suggests, since omega inconsistent theories are not automatically inconsistent with their uniform reflection principles, you also need to assume the arithmetically true Pi-2 sentences.). (shrink)

In “Truth by Convention” W.V. Quine gave an influential argument against logical conventionalism. Even today his argument is often taken to decisively refute logical conventionalism. Here I break Quine’s arguments into two— the super-task argument and the regress argument—and argue that while these arguments together refute implausible explicit versions of conventionalism, they cannot be successfully mounted against a more plausible implicit version of conventionalism. Unlike some of his modern followers, Quine himself recognized this, but argued that implicit conventionalism was explanatorily (...) idle. Against this I show that pace Quine’s claim that implicit conventionalism has no content beyond the claim that logic is firmly accepted, implicit rules of inference can be used to distinguish the firmly accepted from the conventional. As part of my case, I argue that positing syntactic rules of inference as part of our linguistic competence follows from the same methodology that leads contemporary linguists and cognitive scientists to posit rules of phonology, morphology, and grammar. The upshot of my discussion is a diagnosis of the fallacy in Quine’s master critique of logical conventionalism and a re-opening of possibilities for an attractive conventionalist theory of logic. (shrink)

This essay clarifies quantifier variance and uses it to provide a theory of indefinite extensibility that I call the variance theory of indefinite extensibility. The indefinite extensibility response to the set-theoretic paradoxes sees each argument for paradox as a demonstration that we have come to a different and more expansive understanding of ‘all sets’. But indefinite extensibility is philosophically puzzling: extant accounts are either metasemantically suspect in requiring mysterious mechanisms of domain expansion, or metaphysically suspect in requiring nonstandard assumptions about (...) mathematical objects. Happily, the view of quantifier meanings that underwrites quantifier variance can be used to provide an account of indefinite extensibility that is both metasemantically and metaphysically satisfying. Section 1 introduces the puzzle of indefinite extensibility; section 2 develops and clarifies the metasemantics of quantifier variance; section 3 solves section 1's puzzle of indefinite extensibility by applying section 2's account of quantifier meanings; and section 4 compares the theory developed in section 3 to several other theories in the literature. (shrink)

Some philosophers have argued that putative logical disagreements aren't really disagreements at all since when you change your logic you thereby change the meanings of your logical constants. According to this picture classical logicians and intuitionists don't really disagree, they just mean different things by terms like “not” and “or”. Quine gave an infamous “translation argument” for this view. Here I clarify the change of logic, change of meaning (CLCM) thesis, examine and find fault with Quine's translation argument for the (...) thesis, offer a modified translation argument in its stead, defend my modified argument from a crucial objection, discuss where the CLCM thesis leaves logical disputes, and discuss if and how the thesis coheres with Quine's influential view of logic. (shrink)

In this essay, we extend earlier inferentialist-expressivist treatments of traditional logical, semantic, modal, and representational vocabulary (Brandom 1994, 2008, 2015; Peregrin 2014) to explanatory vocabulary. From this perspective, Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) appears to be an obvious starting point. In its simplest formulation, IBE has the form: A best explains why B, B; so A. It thereby captures one of the central inferential features of explanation. An inferentialist-expressivist treatment of “best explains” would treat it as a logical operator. (...) Analogous to the inferentialist-expressivist treatment of other logical operators, this essay aims to provide introduction and elimination rules for “best explains.” Indeed, by exhibiting a form of detachment, IBE superficially looks like an elimination rule. The sequent calculus LEA+, described in Section 5 below, makes good on this intuition. By showing how “A best explains why B” is related to the underlying, scientific inference “A, so B,” we can purchase the inference ticket of IBE for no more than the cost of science’s material inferences. (shrink)

An influential argument against the possibility of truth by linguistic convention holds that while conventions can determine which proposition a given sentence expresses, they (conventions) are powerless to make propositions true or false. This argument has been offered in the literature by Lewy, Yablo, Boghossian, Sider and others. But despite its influence and prima facie plausibility, the argument: (i) equivocates between different senses of “making true”; (ii) mistakenly assumes hyperintensional contexts are intensional; and (iii) relies upon an implausible vision of (...) the way that language works. (shrink)

This book presents an engaged learning curriculum for higher education that helps emerging adults and professionals-in-training develop psychological resilience and community-building interpersonal skills. The curriculum mentors a person-centered process of psychospiritual maturation through growth in five dimensions of self: bio-behavioral, cognitive-sociocultural, social-emotional, existential-spiritual, and resilient worldview formation. This growth promotes student well-being and a positive campus culture, while preparing them to build cultures of health, social justice, and peace in the social systems where they will work and live.

In the mid twentieth century, logical positivists and many other philosophers endorsed a simple equation: something was necessary just in case it was analytic just in case it was a priori. Kripke’s examples of a posteriori necessary truths showed that the simple equation is false. But while positivist-style inferentialist approaches to logic and mathematics remain popular, there is no inferentialist account of necessity a posteriori. I give such an account. This sounds like an anti-Kripkean project, but it is not. Some (...) of Kripke’s remarks even suggest this kind of approach. This inferentialist approach reinstates neither the simple equation nor pure conventionalism about necessity a posteriori. But it does lead to something near enough, a type of impure conventionalism. In recent years, metaphysically heavyweight approaches to modality have been popular, while other approaches have lagged behind. The inferentialist, impure conventionalist theory of necessity I describe aims to provide a metaphysically lightweight option in modal metaphysics. (shrink)

In 21 CE, a series of localized movements broke out in Gallia Comata due to heavy debts among provincials according to Tacitus. Modern scholars have long argued that the indebtedness occurred because of rising interest rates, resulting from dwindling currency in circulation after decades of free-spending following Augustus’ victory at Actium, and that Gallic communities were subjected to an additional tribute to support the wars of Germanicus (14–16 CE), which continued unabated after the wars and pushed Gauls beyond their means. (...) These claims are misguided, however, in that there is no certain evidence of a special tax to support Germanicus’ wars and that the argument for a dwindling circulation of currency in Gaul falters under closer inspection. Rather, the pressing statal and military needs imposed on communities in Gallia Comata after 9 CE on top of routine exactions could significantly increase burden levels levied on provincial populations, thus contributing to rising debts. Through examining how Roman logistics and conscription operated in this period, it is possible to trace how populations were impacted by such demands and which communities were most heavily affected by them, too. Individually, the impact of each factor is unlikely to have been burdensome enough to have caused large-scale resistance, it is only the cumulative effect that these explanations had on top of routine Roman extraction schemes that could create the conditions for this revolt. This paper argues that in extraordinary circumstances, such as the period after the Varian Disaster for Gallia Comata, the costs of supporting military campaigns places real short-term strains on local economies, which creates the conditions for revolt. The benefit of this approach is that it may explain other episodes of anti-fiscal resistance that broke out during or within a decade of wars in neighboring regions. (shrink)