Easy Ontologists, most notably Thomasson (2015), argue that ontological questions are shallow. They think that these questions can either be answered by using our ordinary conceptual competence—of course tables exist!—or are meaningless, or else should be answered through conceptual re-engineering. Ontology thus is “easy”, requiring no distinctively metaphysical investigation. This paper raises a two-stage objection to Easy Ontology. We first argue that questions concerning which entities exist are inextricably bound up with “ontological category questions”, which are questions concerning the identity (...) of and differences between kinds of entities. We then argue that ontological category questions do not have trivial answers, are meaningful, and cannot be answered through conceptual re-engineering. Easy Ontology hence does not constitute a comprehensive ontological methodology. While some of ontology might be easy, category questions form a central part of ontology and are not answered easily. (shrink)

What kind of entity is a committee, a book group or a band? I argue that committees and other such social groups are concrete, composite particulars, having ordinary human beings amongst their parts. So the committee members are literally parts of the committee. This mereological view of social groups was popular several decades ago, but fell out of favour following influential objections from David-Hillel Ruben. But recent years have seen a tidal wave of work in metaphysics, including the metaphysics of (...) parts and wholes. We now have the resources to rehabilitate the mereological view of social groups. I show how this can be done, and why we should bother. (shrink)

In our interactions with science, we are often vulnerable; we do not have complete control of the situation and there is a risk that we, or those we love, might be harmed. This is not an emotionall...

Analytic metaphysics is in resurgence; there is renewed and vigorous interest in topics such as time, causation, persistence, parthood and possible worlds. We who share this interest often pay lip-service to the idea that metaphysics should be informed by modern science; some take this duty very seriously.2 But there is also a widespread suspicion that science cannot really contribute to metaphysics, and that scientific findings grossly underdetermine metaphysical claims. For some, this prompts the thought ‘so much the worse for metaphysics’; (...) others mutter ‘so much the worse for science’. (shrink)

Much of what we learn from talking and listening does not qualify as testimonial knowledge: we can learn a great deal from other people without simply accepting what they say as being true. In this article, I examine the ways in which we acquire skills or knowledge how from our interactions with other people, and I discuss whether there is a useful notion of testimonial knowledge how.Keywords: Knowledge how; Practical knowledge; Tacit knowledge; Testimony; Skills; Assertion.

Predicate nominals (e.g., “is a female”) seem to label or categorize their subjects, while their adjectival correlates (e.g., “is female”) merely attribute a property. Predicate nominals also elicit essentializing inferential judgments about inductive potential and stable explanatory membership. Data from psychology and semantics support that this distinction is robust and productive. I argue that while the difference between predicate nominals and predicate adjectives is elided by standard semantic theories, it ought not be. I then develop and defend a psychologically motivated (...) semantic account on which predicate nominals attribute kind membership and trigger a presupposition that underpins our essentialist judgments. (shrink)

People are described as suffering from impostor syndrome when they feel that their external markers of success are unwarranted, and fear being revealed as a fraud. Impostor syndrome is commonly framed as a troubling individual pathology, to be overcome through self-help strategies or therapy. But in many situations an individual’s impostor attitudes can be epistemically justified, even if they are factually mistaken: hostile social environments can create epistemic obstacles to self-knowledge. The concept of impostor syndrome prevalent in popular culture needs (...) greater critical scrutiny, as does its source, the concept of impostor phenomenon which features in psychological research. (shrink)

Slurs have become a big topic of discussion both in philosophy and in linguistics. Slurs are usually characterised as pejorative terms, co-extensional with other, neutral, terms referring to ethnic or social groups. However, slurs are not the only ethnic/social words with pejorative senses. Our aim in this paper is to introduce a different kind of pejoratives, which we will call “ethnic/social terms used as insults”, as exemplified in Spanish, though present in many other languages and mostly absent in English. These (...) are ethnic terms like gitano, ‘Romani’, which can have an extensional and neutral use, but also a pejorative meaning building on a negative stereotypical representation of the Romani community. (shrink)

Material objects extend through space by having different spatial parts in different places. But how do they persist through time? According to some philosophers, things have temporal parts as well as spatial parts: accepting this is supposed to help us solve a whole bunch of metaphysical problems, and keep our philosophy in line with modern physics. Other philosophers disagree, arguing that neither metaphysics nor physics give us good reason to believe in temporal parts.

If we are sympathetic to the project of naturalising metaphysics, how should we approach the metaphysics of the social world? What role can the social sciences play in metaphysical investigation? In the light of these questions, this paper examines three possible approaches to social metaphysics: inference to the best explanation from current social science, conceptual analysis, and Haslanger-inspired ameliorative projects.

In this chapter I explore how epistemic injustice (as discussed by Miranda Fricker) can arise in connection with knowledge how. I attempt to bypass the question of whether knowledge how is a type of propositional knowledge, and instead focus on some distinctive ways in which knowledge how is sometimes sought, identified or ignored.

In the context of Ireland’s new legislation governing abortion, I outline and examine the spatial consequences of political decision-making. I argue that Ireland’s new abortion law and its clinical guidance permit travel for some pregnant people but impose fixity on others. I analyse the spatial consequences of legal limitations, including non-medically necessary delays in care and medical control of medication abortions, that necessitate travel for abortion. I demonstrate how current laws fix some pregnant people in place, including diverse migrant populations (...) within Ireland, with no possibilities for abortion-related travel. This critique of the ‘new’ law demonstrates the Irish state’s continued political and medical control of abortion. (shrink)

Conspiracy theorists believe that powerful agents are conspiring to achieve their nefarious aims and also to orchestrate a cover-up. People who suffer from impostor syndrome believe that they are not talented enough for the professional positions they find themselves in, and that they risk being revealed as inadequate. These are quite different outlooks on reality, and there is no reason to think that they are mutually reinforcing. Nevertheless, there are intriguing parallels between the patterns of trust and distrust which underpin (...) both conspiracy theorising and impostor thinking. In both cases subjects distrust standard sources of information, instead regarding themselves as especially insightful into the underlying facts of the matter. In both cases, seemingly-anomalous data takes on special significance. And in both cases, the content of belief dictates the epistemic behaviour of the believer. This paper explores these parallels, to suggest new avenues of research into both conspiracy theorising and impostor syndrome, including questions about whether impostor syndrome inevitably involves a personal failure of rationality, and issues about how, if at all, it is possible to convince others to abandon either conspiracy theories or impostor attitudes. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 29, Issue 4, Page 712-730, December 2021.

This chapter explores the connections between David Lewis's perdurance theory and his Humean supervenience, arguing that his influential argument about temporary intrinsics is best seen in this light. It presents domestic dispute within the anti‐endurantist camp and analyzes the following questions: why does Lewis identify ordinary objects with world‐bound parts of transworld objects, but not with time‐bound parts of transtemporal objects? Given that Lewis is a counterpart theorist about modality, why isn't he a stage theorist about persistence? Humean supervenience in (...) isolation does not entail perdurance theory, even for the actual world. Lewis's treatment of temporary intrinsics in On the Plurality of Worlds forms part of a discussion of both persistence and its modal analogue, for which there is no neutral term. Perdurance theory is challenged by the stage theory of persistence, which identifies ordinary objects with brief stages instead of transtemporal sums of those stages. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe Ant Trap is a terrific book, which opens up new opportunities to use philosophical methods in the social realm, by drawing on the tools and techniques of contemporary metaphysics. Epstein uses concepts of dependence, constitution, and grounding, of parts and whole, of membership and kindhood, both to clarify existing accounts of social reality and to develop an account of his own. Whilst I admire the general strategy, I take issue with some aspects of Epstein’s implementation, notably his distinction between (...) grounding and anchoring. I recommend that he give up this distinction, which is not crucial to his project. (shrink)

In his paper in the same volume, Sider argues that, of maximalism and quantifier variance, the latter promises to let us make better sense of neo-Fregeanism. I argue that neo-Fregeans should, and seemingly do, reject quantifier variance. If they must choose between these two options, they should choose maximalism.

Closest‐continuer or best‐candidate accounts of persistence seem deeply unsatisfactory, but it is hard to say why. the standard criticism is that such accounts violate the ‘only a and b’ rule, but this criticism merely highlights a feature of the accounts without explaining why the feature is unacceptable. Another concern is that such accounts violate some principle about the supervenience of persistence facts upon local or intrinsic facts. But, again, we do not seem to have an independent justification for this supervenience (...) claim. Instead, I argue that closest continuer accounts are committed to unexplained correlations between distinct existences, and that this is their fundamental flaw. We can have independent justification for rejecting such correlations, but what the justification is depends upon much broader issues in ontology. There is no one‐size‐fits all objection to closest‐continuer accounts of persistence. (shrink)

This article uses the US debate over elective Cesarean section to re-consider some of the more contentious issues raised in feminist debates about childbirth. Three waves of feminist commentary and critique in the United States are analysed in light of the ongoing debate over whether women should be able to choose Cesarean for non-medical reasons. I argue that the alternative birth movement's essentialist and occasionally moralistic rhetoric is problematic, and the idea that some women's preference for high-tech obstetrics is the (...) result of a passive 'socialization' into 'dominant values' is theoretically inadequate. On the other hand, the invocation of women's choice and appreciation of high-tech childbirth serves as a weak foundation for a feminist perspective on childbirth. By limiting their analysis to the rhetorical and discursive nature and functions of 'the medical' and 'the natural', poststructuralist critics of the alternative birth movement obscure the connection of these discourses to practices that have very different consequences for maternal and infant health and, most importantly, for the consumption of health care resources. (shrink)

Vague existence can seem like the worst kind of vagueness in the world, or seem to be an entirely unintelligible notion. This bad reputation is based upon the rumour that if there is vague existence then there are non-existent objects. But the rumour is false: the modest brand of vague existence entailed by certain metaphysical theories of composition does not deserve its bad reputation.

In this chapter I outline some metaphysical views about time, and about persistence, and discuss how they can help us clarify our thinking about life and death.

This article illustrates the shortcomings of an objectivist epistemology in publicly accounting for technological accidents. Public inquiries convened in the aftermath of accidents tend to operate with such an objectivist approach and, as a result, usually assign blame to either or both of two causal culprits: technical malfunction and socio-organizational failure. Following Downer, I argue that a constructivist understanding of technological failure opens the possibility of a third type of cause—one that is epistemological in nature. Public inquiries frequently fail to (...) recognize these “epistemic accidents” and are thereby limited in their capacity to effect positive change. Using the case of a 2003 railway accident near Sydney, Australia, and the public inquiry that was convened in its wake, this article argues that recognizing the epistemological origins of failure holds promise for a more constructive way of accounting for and learning from technological accidents. (shrink)

Working women in the Caribbean and Latin America are more active in the labor market than their counterparts in most other regions of the world. Yet, they remain much less economically mobile than working men. Using research from a long-term study in Martinique, this article offers a new view of the cross-class construction of women's economic immobility. Research results suggest that irrespective of a woman's socioeconomic status, household structure, education, skills, or freedom from domestic chores, the organization of her work (...) is patterned in ways that preclude economic growth. When women try to “get ahead,” they invest more of their own time; men, by contrast, put others to work. I argue that these and other gender-based patterns of work organization and network management express a hidden but enduring legacy of a patriarchal value system. (shrink)

Drawing on work done in the area of health services research, this article outlines a view of discourse analysis that approaches discourse as a co-accomplished process involving researcher and research-participant. Without losing sight of the analytical-critical-reflexive moments that have typified discourse analytical endeavours, this article explores a form of DA that moves from discourse as object to be collected and processed away from where it is practised, towards discourse as dynamically emerging reality shared by practitioner-participants and researchers, and as flexible (...) means to intervene in the quality and safety of care practices. The article begins with highlighting the productive potential of discourse research in health. The ethics informing this mode of DA, the article goes on to explain, is interested and trustful ‘entanglement’ with those who populate this field of practice and structure it with discourse. Elsewhere referred to as ‘experience-based enquiry’, the initiative to reframe discourse research as a mode of intervention involves keeping practitioners’ interpretations and analysts’ questions, critiques and conclusions in tension. The article argues that this approach capitalizes on the intrinsically reflexive, dialogic and emergent nature of discourse. To illustrate these issues, the article presents two case studies drawn from recent projects that have manifested these researcher and practitioner-participant dynamics. The article concludes that, as emergent practice, the analysis of discourse benefits from entanglement with the people and the contexts where discourse is produced. Here, analysis vacillates between a feedback device that enables both research participants and researchers to re-appraise their and each other’s practices, and a knowledge production device that generalizes about these practices and the changes to these practices that result from the research. (shrink)

This article investigates the relationship between feminism and conscientious objection in Israel, evaluating the efficacy of feminist resistance in the organised refusal movement. While recent feminist scholarship on peace, anti-occupation and anti-militarism activism in Israel largely highlights women's collective action, it does so at the risk of eliding the relations of power within these groups. Expanding the scope of consideration, I look to the experiences of individual feminist conscientious objectors who make visible significant tensions through their accounts of military refusal (...) and participation in the organised conscientious objection movement. Drawing on original ethnographic research, this article problematises feminist activism in the organised Israeli refusal movement through three primary issues: political voice; privilege; and the realisation of gender agendas. Using Michel Foucault's conceptualisation of power as it has been critiqued and qualified by feminist scholars, I consider the ways in which resistance may be both multiple and a diagnostic of power, allowing activists and academics not only to envision new avenues for social change, but also to recognise their constraints. Critically, feminist theories of intersectionality enrich and complicate this Foucauldian approach to power, providing further modes of critique and strategy in the context of feminist activism in Israel. Ultimately, I argue not only for engagement with the limits of power, but also attention to their function, as in theory and praxis these boundaries critically inform our theorising on gender and resistance. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis of commonly held views about critical thinking and how they relate to learning and teaching at the college level. It focuses on assumptions often held by researchers, such as those expressed in the three studies included in this issue, and considers as well the conclusions raised by these studies when addressing needs of those with disabilities. The theory of mediated learning experience offers a uniquely effective way to further critical thinking skills. The paper compares learner-centered (...) vs. content-centered instructional design. (shrink)

There is very little literature on the actual decision-making frameworks used by general practitioners with respect to ethical issues and virtually none on the impact of personal experiences of illness on this. This study aimed to investigate what these frameworks might be and if and how they were altered by doctors’ own illness experience. Twenty general practitioners were recruited, 10 having had a previous serious medical illness and 10 having no such history. They participated in a semi-structured interview, including case (...) vignettes, recorded and analysed using qualitative thematic analysis. Being a patient themselves altered general practitioners’ decision-making by enhancing physician empathy, increasing ease at discussing difficult topics, having a greater willingness to support patient choice and a wider ability to provide a greater diversity of therapeutic strategies, with the role of empathy being the most noticeable difference between the groups. Doctors who had not had a severe personal illnes... (shrink)

In his 1991 book, Parts of Classes, David Lewis discusses the idea that composition is identity, alongside the idea that mereological overlap is a form of partial identity. But this notion of partial identity does nothing to help Lewis achieve his goals in that book. So why does he mention it? I explore and resolve this puzzle, by comparing Parts of Classes with Lewis's invocation of partial identity in his 1993 paper ‘Many But Almost One’, where he uses it to (...) address Unger's problem of the many. I raise some concerns about this way of thinking of partial identity, but conclude that, for Lewis, it is an important defence against accusations of ontological profligacy. (shrink)