: Originally presented during Ethic Rounds at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, this commentary on the case of a patient treated for life-threatening cancer explores the responsibilities of health care providers when addressing the patient's desire to adopt a child.

It is generally accepted that sight—the capacity to see or to have visual experiences—has the power to give us knowledge about things in the environment and some of their properties in a distinctive way. Seeing the goose on the lake puts me in a position to know that it is there and that it has certain properties. And it does this by, when all goes well, presenting us with these features of the goose. One might even think that it is (...) part of what it is to be a perceptual capacity that it has this kind of epistemological power, such that a capacity that lacked this power could not be perceptual. My focus in this essay is the sense of taste—the capacity to taste things or to have taste experiences. It has sometimes been suggested that taste lacks sight-like epistemological power. I argue that taste has epistemological power of the same kind as does sight, but that as a matter of contingent fact, that power often goes unexercised in our contemporary environment. We can know about things by tasting them in the same kind of way as we can know about things by seeing them, but we often do not. I then consider the significance of this conclusion. I suggest that in one way, it matters little, because our primary interest in taste is not epistemic but aesthetic. But, I end by suggesting, it can matter ethically. (shrink)

The concept of a physical object has figured prominently in the history of philosophy, and is probably more important now than it has ever been before. Yet the question What are physical objects?, i.e., What is the correct analysis of the concept of a physical object?, has received surprisingly little attention. The purpose of this paper is to address this question. I consider several attempts at answering the question, and give my reasons for preferring one of them over its (...) rivals. The account of physical objects that I recommend---the Spatial Location Account---defines physical objects as objects with spatial locations. The intuitive idea behind the Spatial Location Account is this. Objects from all of the different ontological categories---physical objects; non-physical objects like souls, if there are any; propositions; universals; etc.---have this much in common: they all exist in time. But not all of them exist in space. The ones that exist in time and space, i.e., the ones that have spatial locations, are the ones that count as physical objects. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Russell's Naturalistic Turn 37 INTRODUCTION L RUSSELL'S NATURALISTIC TURN RUSSELI.?S NATURALISTIC TURN NED S. GARVIN Philosophy I Albion College Albion, MI 49224 I Quine, Ontological Relativity (New York: Columbia U. P., 1969), p. 83. 1 Russell advocated this hypothetical acceptance of science much earlier, e.g., in AMa, pp. 398-9. Here we have many of the hallmarks of naturalized epistemology: (I) fallibilism, (2) the "best theory" account of science, (3) (...) the view that "knowing" is a natural phenomenon not confined to humans, and (4) the embedding of epistemology in behavioural psychology. But in 1940 Russell was a foundationalist (though an increasingly moderate one) who insisted that normative, or as he called it, "critical" epistemology must be distinguished from natural epistemology, and that critical epistemology is philosophically more important: "Within its limitations, theory of knowledge of the above sort is legitimate and In the nrst form of theory of knowledge, we accept the scientific account of the world, not as certainly true, but as the best at present available. The world, as presented by science, contains a phenomenon caIled "knowing", and theory of knowledge, in its first form, has to consider what sort of phenomenon this is. Viewed from the outside, it is, to begin with, a characteristic of living organisms, which is (broadly speaking) increasingly displayed as the organism becomes more complex. (Pp. 12-13)2 Both knowledge and error, at this stage, are observable relations between the behaviour of the organism and the facts of the environment. (P. 14) Quine argued that traditional justification requires non-scientific propositions that are more secure than scientific propositions, and we see there are none: science is providing the best account of the world and our knowledge of it. Though we abandon the attempt to justify science, we still attempt to understand it for nearly the same reasons that always motivated epistemology: "in order to see how evidence relates to theory, and in what ways one's theory of nature transcends any available evidence".I Russell contemplated a naturalistic turn of his own in 1943, shortly after writing An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth and nearly twentyfive years before Quine's landmark address. In the introduction to his Inquiry Russell claims that there are "two different inquiries, both important, and each having a right to the name 'theory of knowledge '" (IM~, p. 12). The first is recognizably natural epistemology: n.s. 11 (summer 1991): 36-S1.SSN 0036-016p ru•••II: the Journal of the Bertrand Russell Archives McMaster University Library Press w. V. Quine's address to the Fourteenth International Congress of Philosophy in 1968, published a year later as "Epistemology Naturalized " in Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, is a landmark of recent epistemology, marking the turn from traditional critical epistemology to a descriptive epistemology firmly embedded within natural science. I n 1943 Bertrand Russell wrote a little-known, three-page document he titled "Project of Future Work". It outlines the descriptive project of examining non-demonstrative inference that eventually becomes the focal point of Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. More remarkably, this document anticipates many salient features of naturalized epistemology, e.g., Russell argues that (I) an answer to scepticism is futile, we cannot justify scientific method; (2) the Humean Predicament arises from a traditional insistence on an unrealistic, demonstrative canon of justification; (3) non-demonstrative, fallible inference is already firmly embedded in scientific practice as a canon of inference, and should augment the demonstrative canon; and (4) the primary epistemic· problem is descriptive: in what circumstances does scientific method allow us to infer the existence of something unobserved from what we observe. These claims, in the wake of An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, suggest that Russell was on the verge of his own naturalistic turn. I argue that, despite striking anticipations of naturalized epistemology, Russell develops his descriptive project within a more traditional, critical epistemic perspective. 38 NED S. GARVIN important. But there is another kind of theory of knowledge which goes deeper and has, I think, much greater importance" (IMT;., p. 14). Russell observes that behavioural psychologists omit that they are fallible observers, and this fallibility introduces doubt into their results. Further, naive... (shrink)

Relative to the abundance of literature devoted to the legal significance of UN authorisation, little has been written about whether the UN’s failure to sanction an intervention can ever make it immoral. This is the question that I take up here. I argue that UN authorisation (or lack thereof) can have some indirect bearing on the moral status of a humanitarian intervention. That is, it can affect whether an intervention satisfies other widely accepted justifying conditions, such as proportionality, “internal” (...) legitimacy, and likelihood of success. The more interesting question, however, is whether the UN’s failure to provide a mandate can make a humanitarian operation unjust independently of these other familiar considerations. Is a proportional, internally legitimate humanitarian intervention, with a just cause and strong prospect of success, still morally unacceptable if it is not approved by the United Nations Security Council? This is the question that I turn to in the second half of the paper. (shrink)

Ever since it was first published 1930, William Empson's "Seven Types of Ambiguity" has been perceived as a milestone in literary criticism - far from being an impediment to communication, ambiguity now seemed an index of poetic richness and expressive power. Little, however, has been written on the broader trajectory of Western thought about ambiguity before Empson; as a result, the nature of his innovation has been poorly understood. This book remedies this omission. Starting with classical grammar and rhetoric, (...) and moving on to moral theology, law, biblical exegesis, German philosophy, and literary criticism, the author explores the many ways in which readers and theorists posited, denied, conceptualized, and argued over the existence of multiple meanings in texts between antiquity and the twentieth century. This process took on a variety of interconnected forms, from the Renaissance delight in the "elegance" of ambiguities in Horace, through the extraordinary Catholic claim that Scripture could contain multiple literal - and not just allegorical - senses, to the theory of dramatic irony developed int he nineteenth century, a theory intertwined with discoveries of the double meanings in Greek tragedy. Such narratives are not merely of antiquarian interest: rather, they provide an insight into the foundations of modern criticism, revealing deep resonances between acts of interpretation in disparate eras and contexts. This book lays bare the long tradition of efforts to liberate language, and even a poet's intention, from the strictures of a single meaning. (shrink)

In a recent analysis of the principle of civilian immunity, Igor Primoratz asks whether the circle of legitimate targets in war might be expanded so as to include at least some civilian bystanders. However Primoratz’ formulation of the ‘responsible bystander’ argument depends for its cogency on there being natural or non-acquired positive duties, and this is controversial. Furthermore, we feel that the citizens of a government unjustly at war are primarily and specially obliged to undermine that war, and that this (...) is not simply a function of their being in the best position to do so, (which may not always be the case). Primoratz’ version of ‘responsible bystander’ cannot account for this. Here I develop an alternative formulation that does, and which is not reliant on controversial premises. I argue that to empower a government democratically is to assume a positive obligation to prevent that government from using its power to prosecute an unjust war, and that the neglect of this duty may render a significant portion of the duty-bound collective legitimate targets of necessary and proportionate violence. In closing I dispute Primoratz’ claim that this conclusion has “very little purchase on reality” or is irrelevant for practical purposes. (shrink)

The practice of humanitarian intervention, which involves one state intervening militarily into another state in order to prevent abuses of human rights, raises a plethora of ethical and political issues. How is foreign intervention to be reconciled with state sovereignty? Is intervention a threat to international peace and stability? Are alien values being imposed on the target society? Each of these questions has been thoroughly explored by both philosophers and jurists. But the notion that a state infringes the rights of (...) its own citizens by waging war to defend the human rights of foreigners has received relatively little attention. The only thorough philosophical exploration of this problem to date - Allen Buchanan's “The Internal Legitimacy of Humanitarian Intervention” - is the focus of this paper. My aim here is not to offer a resolution to the “internal” problem, but simply to show that Buchanan misrepresents it in several important respects. First, Buchanan understates the strength of this objection: it is much more resilient than he gives it credit for. Secondly, he overstates its scope, or the range of humanitarian interventions to which it applies. And finally, Buchanan is mistaken to think that whether or not an intervening state fulfils the rights of its own citizens can be determined prior to, and therefore independently of, the question of whether its actions are consistent with the rights of the society targeted by the intervention. (shrink)

Physical objects are the most familiar of all objects, and yet the concept of a physical object remains elusive. Any six-year-old can give you a dozen examples of physical objects, and most people with at least one undergraduate course in philosophy can also give examples of non-physical objects. But if asked to produce a definition of ‘physical object’ that adequately captures the distinction between the physical and the nonphysical, the average person can offer little more than hand-waving.

This is a charming and engaging book that combines careful attention to the phenomenology of experience with an appreciation of the psychology and neuroscience of perception. In some of its aimsfor example, to show problems with a rigid version of a view of visual perception as an inverse optics process of constructing a static 3-D representation from static 2-D information on the retina--it succeeds admirably. As No points out, vision is a process that depends on interactions between the perceiver and (...) the environment and involves contributions from sensory systems other than the eye. He is at pains to note that vision is not passive. His analogy with touch is to the point: touch involves skillful probing and movement, and so does vision, although less obviously and in my view less centrally so. This much is certainly widely accepted among vision scientistsalthough mainstream vision scientists (represented, for example, by Stephen Palmers excellent textbook²) view these points as best seen within a version of the inverse optics view that takes inputs as non-static and as including motor instructions (for example, involving eye movements and head movements).³ The kind of point that No raises is viewed as important at the margins, but as not disturbing the main lines of the picture of vision that descendswith many changesfrom the pioneering work of David Marr in the 1980s (and before him, from Helmholtz). But No shows little interest in mainstream vision science, focusing on non-mainstream ideas in the science of perception, specifically ideas from the anti-representational psychologist J.J. Gibson, and also drawing on Wittgenstein and the phenomenology tradition. There is a sense throughout the book of revolution, of upsetting the applecart. This is a review from the point of view of the applecart. (shrink)

Many biologists assume, as Darwin did, that natural selection acts mainly on late embryonic or postnatal development. This view is consistent with von Baer's observations of morphological divergence at late stages. It is also suggested by the conserved morphology and common molecular genetic mechanisms of pattern formation seen in embryos. I argue here, however, that differences in adult morphology may be generated at a variety of stages. Natural selection may have a major action on developmental mechanisms during the organogenetic period, (...) because this is when many adult traits are specified. Evolutionary changes in these early developmental mechanisms probably include subtle shifts in the timing of gene expression. Changes of this kind have little or no gross effect on the anatomy of the embryo; they are only phenotypically expressed, or readily detected, when amplified at later stages. The phylotypic stage, the developmental hourglass, modularity, and von Baerian divergence are reassessed in terms of these arguments. BioEssays 21:604–613, 1999. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Machine Learning has become a popular tool in a variety of applications in criminal justice, including sentencing and policing. Media has brought attention to the possibility of predictive policing systems causing disparate impacts and exacerbating social injustices. However, there is little academic research on the importance of fairness in machine learning applications in policing. Although prior research has shown that machine learning models can handle some tasks efficiently, they are susceptible to replicating systemic bias of previous human decision-makers. While (...) there is much research on fair machine learning in general, there is a need to investigate fair machine learning techniques as they pertain to the predictive policing. Therefore, we evaluate the existing publications in the field of fairness in machine learning and predictive policing to arrive at a set of standards for fair predictive policing. We also review the evaluations of ML applications in the area of criminal justice and potential techniques to improve these technologies going forward. We urge that the growing literature on fairness in ML be brought into conversation with the legal and social science concerns being raised about predictive policing. Lastly, in any area, including predictive policing, the pros and cons of the technology need to be evaluated holistically to determine whether and how the technology should be used in policing. (shrink)

Developmental biology has resurfaced in recent years, often without a clearly central role for the organism. The organism is pulled in divergent directions: on the one hand, there is an important body of work that emphasizes the role of the gene in development, as executing and controlling embryological change; on the other hand, there are more theoretical approaches under which the organism disappears as little more than an instance for testing biological generalizations. I press here for the ineliminability of (...) the organism in developmental biology on explanatory grounds. I examine classical work concerned with growth and development, particularly in Drosophila and C. elegans. Some of this work is suggestive of modular development, and accordingly suggests a level below that of the organism as being explanatory. These are not the only type of case. There are other equally well-established results, which indicate greater integration in the developing organism. Though with a modular organization the organism can be thought of as made up of its constituent traits, and though the explanations of these traits may lie in terms of cells or genes, even with modular development the explanations of "genetic" differences require an appeal to the organism. With non-modular organization the organism has an even more central role. This does not mean that these genetic or cellular contributions are unreal in any way, or that development requires some sort of vitalistic contribution; but the genetic contributions make sense only as constituents of the organism, embedded in a larger organic context. (shrink)

“Pragmatism” is a term to conjure with in recent history of philosophy—for a little over one hundred years various philosophers have used the term to advocate certain projects, to abjure others, to bind themselves with groups of like-minded philosophers, to distance themselves from other groups, to draw narrative arcs through recent history, to obscure other possible arcs, and so on. No one does quite so much with words as philosophers do. But what have they done with the word “pragmatism”?I (...) have begun with the word because the word’s existence cannot be doubted. Whether there is anything in particular meant by or even referred to by the word is a harder question. If pragmatism exists, it exists as a.. (shrink)

Psychology may have to get seriously political as human aims in living and selfhood itself are increasingly influenced in a deleterious manner by the vicissitudes of living in a neoliberal political economy and one-sided “enterprise culture” (Martin & McLellan, 2013; Sugarman, 2015). This article reviews recent writings of several social critics, including Jackson Lears (2015), Sebastion Junger (2015), Philip Blond (2010), and Christopher Lasch (1995), who richly flesh out the picture of this detrimental state of affairs. We note that many (...) of these critics have little to say about credible alternatives to neoliberalism. The article then seeks to identify resources within theoretical and philosophical psychology, including hermeneutic philosophy and interpretive social science, for helping to overcome neoliberalism. They might help clarify and nurture a renewed democratic populism or engaged democratic politics and contribute to gaining what Lasch termed a much-needed “wisdom of limits” in today’s society. (shrink)

The impact of contextual influences on human resource management and management more generally has been the focus of much scholarly interest. However, we still know very little about how context impacts on the practice of ethical HRM specifically. Therefore, drawing on 59 in-depth interviews with HR practitioners in Brazil, Colombia and the UK, this paper theorizes how they perceive the ethical dimensions of their roles within their respective national contexts and how the way they act in relation to them (...) is informed, shaped and directed by the institutional context. In doing so it provides an important insight into three key themes: first, the views of HRM practitioners and managers about ethical HRM and how they articulate what it means to be ethical; second, how they respond to perceived ethical dilemmas; and third, how their responses are influenced by institutional forces and associated beliefs, values and scripts. In addition to providing an ‘emic’ perspective of this increasingly important topic and theorizing the experience and practice of ethical HRM, the paper answers calls for more international comparisons of ethical HRM practice in contemporary organizations. (shrink)

Life-history-derived models of female sexual development propose menarche timing as a key regulatory mechanism driving subsequent sexual behavior. The current research utilized a twin subsample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health; _n_ = 514) to evaluate environmental effects on timings of menarche and sexual debut, as well as address potential confounding of these effects within a genetically informative design. Results show mixed support for each life history model and provide little evidence rearing environment (...) is important in the etiology of individual differences in age at menarche. This research calls into question the underlying assumptions of life-history-derived models of sexual development and highlights the need for more behavior genetic research in this area. (shrink)

Much else was done by Rose and Sullivan in their possibly conclusive attempt to restore sense to the rebus passage, but the reading super scorpionem locustam was Gaselee's, as Rose and Sullivan clearly acknowledge. This seems unluckily to have escaped B. Baldwin, otherwise he would have noticed that Gaselee also fancied in his correction an allusion to the poisoner Locusta. For those who may have difficulty in obtaining Gaselee's collotype reproduction, I quote the relevant part: ‘But what have lobsters to (...) do with poisoners? Is it permissible to see a more or less open reference to Locusta, the queen of all poisoners? If so, we have here another little piece of evidence which will help us to date the Satyricon.’. (shrink)

Much else was done by Rose and Sullivan in their possibly conclusive attempt to restore sense to the rebus passage, but the reading super scorpionem locustam was Gaselee's, as Rose and Sullivan clearly acknowledge. This seems unluckily to have escaped B. Baldwin, otherwise he would have noticed that Gaselee also fancied in his correction an allusion to the poisoner Locusta. For those who may have difficulty in obtaining Gaselee's collotype reproduction, I quote the relevant part: ‘But what have lobsters to (...) do with poisoners? Is it permissible to see a more or less open reference to Locusta, the queen of all poisoners? If so, we have here another little piece of evidence which will help us to date the Satyricon.’. (shrink)

B Corporations are for-profit companies meeting specific social and environmental standards. This exploratory study into B Corporations aims to enhance the understanding of the certification on organizational performance. As previous research indicates that third party labels impact financial performance and that positive corporate social performance can lead to positive financial performance, this paper first seeks to determine whether B Corporation Certification positively impacts companies’ financial performance. Second, following previous B Corporation literature, this research tests whether certification leads to positive non-financial (...) results in the form of strategic advantages. Finally, it asks whether Certification negatively impacts organizations’ plans to develop internationally and/or by going public. While this study’s results provide little support that B Corporation Certification impacts organizations’ financial performance or growth, they do indicate that B Corporations experience positive non-financial strategic results post certification. The results of this study may be used to infer or test conclusions about socially responsible labels more broadly in the future. (shrink)

Genetic modification of trees has the potential to change our forests forever, yet there has been little publicly available information or debate on this important topic. Ethical analysis of genetic modification of plants to date has been focussed mainly on food and feed crops and pharmaceutical production. The purpose of this paper is to examine one major ethical issue arising in connection with the genetic modification of trees, the necessity to examine the practice in its full scientific, social, economic, (...) political and environmental context. It is argued that if this is not done, important factors that play a role in a through ethical critique will be overlooked. The analysis focuses mainly on the Canadian situation, but there are implications for other timber-producing nations as well. The paper concludes that a thorough ethical critique must take into account the ends for which biotechnology is being pursued. (shrink)

Genetic modification of trees has the potential to change our forests forever, yet there has been little publicly available information or debate on this important topic. Ethical analysis of genetic modification of plants to date has been focussed mainly on food and feed crops and pharmaceutical production. The purpose of this paper is to examine one major ethical issue arising in connection with the genetic modification of trees, the necessity to examine the practice in its full scientific, social, economic, (...) political and environmental context. It is argued that if this is not done, important factors that play a role in a through ethical critique will be overlooked. The analysis focuses mainly on the Canadian situation, but there are implications for other timber-producing nations as well. The paper concludes that a thorough ethical critique must take into account the ends for which biotechnology is being pursued. (shrink)

What is the direction of South African theological ethics as that country moves out of the apartheid era into a new democratic future? Following its struggle against apartheid, how will theology respond to the new challenge of making clear its distinctive stance in a democratic, multi-faith society with a secular constitution? A danger, similar to that previously discussed in the United States, exists in South Africa as theology evolves from a mode of resistance to that of compliance and accommodation, especially (...) under the guise of "nation-building." The essay plots a trajectory by means of a consideration of four works representing nonracial liberationist theology which emerged at key points in the past fifteen years—the Kairos Document, and works by Albert Nolan, Charles Villla-Vicencio, and James Cochrane. For all their contextual sensitivity and strength, these works appear to offer little of a distinctively theological nature, and little of Christian substance to church and society. The way lies open for the development of an African Christian ethics. (shrink)

The philosophical foundations of human rights are as complex as they are controversial. For some years, the debate has been dominated by the rather gridlocked opposition between moral and political conceptions of human rights. Moreover, a profound examination of the social and relational dimension of human rights has been lacking. Against this background, this volume brings together contributions which scrutinise the multi-faceted foundations of human rights. It is a valuable collection for philosophers, political scientists and legal scholars interested in fresh (...) insights into the idea and practice of human rights. With contributions by Markus Abraham | Andreas Busen | Johannes Haaf | Christoph Herrler | Justine Lacroix | Franziska Martinsen | Luise Müller | Esther Neuhann | Niklas Plätzer | Ned Richardson-Little | Regina Schidel | Tatjana Noemi Tömmel | Alexander Weiß | Markus Wolf. (shrink)

NED HETTINGER | : This essay explores the tension between concern for the suffering of wild animals and concern about massive human influence on nature. It examines Clare Palmer’s animal ethics and its attempt to balance a commitment to the laissez-faire policy of nonintervention in nature with our obligations to animals. The paper contrasts her approach with an alternative defence of this laissez-faire intuition based on a significant and increasingly important environmental value: Respect for an Independent Nature. The paper articulates (...) and defends naturalness value and explores its implications for the laissez-faire intuition and for concern about wild-animal suffering. | : Le présent essai examine la tension entre la préoccupation pour la souffrance des animaux sauvages et celle concernant l’influence massive des humains sur la nature. Il examine l’éthique animale de Clare Palmer, notamment sa tentative d’atteindre un équilibre entre la politique de non-intervention dans la nature dite du « laissez-faire » et nos engagements envers les animaux. L’article propose une approche alternative à celle de Palmer qui, tout en défendant cette intuition du « laissez-faire », se fonde cette fois sur une valeur environnementale significative de plus en plus importante : le Respect pour une Nature Indépendante. Le texte articule et défend la valeur de naturalité et examine les implications de celle-ci pour l’intuition du « laissez-faire » ainsi que pour le souci envers la souffrance des animaux sauvages. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article addresses the question of whether certain experiences that originate in causes other than bereavement are properly termed ‘grief’. To do so, we focus on widespread experiences of grief that have been reported during the Covid-19 pandemic. We consider two potential objections to a more permissive use of the term: grief is, by definition, a response to a death; grief is subject to certain norms that apply only to the case of bereavement. Having shown that these objections are unconvincing, (...) we sketch a positive case for a conception of grief that is not specific to bereavement, by noting some features that grief following bereavement shares with other experiences of loss. (shrink)

According to standard, pre-philosophical intuitions, there are many composite objects in the physical universe. There is, for example, my bicycle, which is composed of various parts - wheels, handlebars, molecules, atoms, etc. Recently, a growing body of philosophical literature has concerned itself with questions about the nature of composition.1 The main question that has been raised about composition is, roughly, this: Under what circumstances do some things compose, or add up to, or form, a single object? It turns out that (...) it is surprisingly difficult to give a satisfactory answer to this question that accords with standard, pre-philosophical intuitions about the universe's composite objects. In fact, the three rival views in response to this question that have received the most support in the literature are (i) that there are no objects composed of two or more parts (which means that there are no stars, chairs, humans, or bicycles);2 (ii) that the only objects composed of two or more parts are living organisms (which still means no stars. (shrink)

Consciousness is a mongrel concept: there are a number of very different "consciousnesses." Phenomenal consciousness is experience; the phenomenally conscious aspect of a state is what it is like to be in that state. The mark of access-consciousness, by contrast, is availability for use in reasoning and rationally guiding speech and action. These concepts are often partly or totally conflated, with bad results. This target article uses as an example a form of reasoning about a function of "consciousness" based on (...) the phenomenon of blindsight. Some information about stimuli in the blind field is represented in the brains of blindsight patients, as shown by their correct "guesses," but they cannot harness this information in the service of action, and this is said to show that a function of phenomenal consciousness is somehow to enable information represented in the brain to guide action. But stimuli in the blind field are BOTH access-unconscious and phenomenally unconscious. The fallacy is: an obvious function of the machinery of access-consciousness is illicitly transferred to phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

According to Conceptual Role Semantics, the meaning of a representation is the role of that representation in the cognitive life of the agent, e.g. in perception, thought and decision-making. It is an extension of the well known "use" theory of meaning, according to which the meaning of a word is its use in communication and more generally, in social interaction. CRS supplements external use by including the role of a symbol inside a computer or a brain. The uses appealed to (...) are not just actual, but also counterfactual: not only what effects a thought does have, but what effects it would have had if stimuli or other states had differed. The view has arisen separately in philosophy and in cognitive science. The source of the view is Wittgenstein and Sellars, but the source in contemporary philosophy is a series of papers by Harman and Field. Other proponents in philosophy have included Block, Horwich, Loar, McGinn and Peacocke. In cognitive science, they include Woods and Miller and Johnson-Laird. (shrink)

Mental (or semantic) holism is the doctrine that the identity of a belief content (or the meaning of a sentence that expresses it) is determined by its place in the web of beliefs or sentences comprising a whole theory or group of theories. It can be contrasted with two other views: atomism and molecularism. Molecularism characterizes meaning and content in terms of relatively small parts of the web in a way that allows many different theories to share those parts. For (...) example, the meaning of 'chase' might be said by a molecularist to be try to catch. Atomism characterizes meaning and content in terms of none of the web; it says that sentences and beliefs have meaning or content independently of their relations to other sentences or beliefs. One major motivation for holism has come from reflections on the natures of confirmation and learning. As Quine (1953) observed, claims about the world are confirmed not individually, but only in conjunction with theories of which they are a part. And typically, one cannot come to understand scientific claims without understanding a significant chunk of the theory of which they are a part. For example, in learning the Newtonian concepts of 'force', 'mass', kinetic energy' and 'momentum', one doesn't learn any definitions of these terms in terms that are understood beforehand, for there are no such definitions. Rather, these theoretical terms were all learned together in conjunction with procedures for solving problems. The major problem with holism is that it threatens to make generalization in psychology virtually impossible. If the content of any state depends on all others, it would be extremely unlikely that any two believers would ever share a state with the same content. Moreover, holism would appear to conflict with our ordinary conception of reasoning. What sentences one accepts influence what one infers. if i accept a sentence and then later reject it, i thereby change the inferential role of that sentence, so the meaning of what i accept wouldn't be the same as what i later reject. but then it would be difficult to understand on this view how one could rationally --or even irrationally!-- change one's mind. and agreement and translation are also problematic for much the same reason. holists have responded (1) by proposing that we should think not in terms of "same/different" meaning but in terms of a gradient of similarity of meaning, (2) by proposing "two factor" theories or (3) by simply accepting the consequence that there is no real difference between changing meanings and changing beliefs. (shrink)

The latest volume in the Oxford Readings in Philosophy series, this work brings together some of the best and most influential recent philosophical scholarship on Nietzsche. Opening with a substantial introduction by John Richardson, it covers: Nietzsche's views on truth and knowledge, his 'doctrines' of the eternal recurrence and will to power, his distinction between Apollinian and Dionysian art, his critique of morality, his conceptions of agency and self-creation, and his genealogical method. For each of these issues, the papers (...) show Nietzsche's continuing philosophical importance. Giving a clear and accessible overview, while retaining an analytical philosophical approach throughout, this volume is essential reading for all students of Nietzsche. (shrink)

Henry S. Richardson is Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. From 2008-18, he was the editor of Ethics. His previous books include Practical Reasoning about Final Ends, Democratic Autonomy, and Moral Entanglements. He has held fellowships sponsored by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University.

In a recent Analysis article, Quentin Smith argues that classical theism is inconsistent with certain consequences of Stephen Hawking's quantum cosmology.1 Although I am not a theist, it seems to me that Smith's argument fails to establish its conclusion. The purpose of this paper is to show what is wrong with Smith's argument. According to Smith, Hawking's cosmological theory includes what Smith calls "Hawking's wave function law." Hawking's wave function law (hereafter, "HL") apparently has, among its consequences, the following claim. (...) (1) The unconditional probability that a universe like this one - i.e., a universe with the metric hij and matter field Φ - should begin to exist is 95%.2 Smith then argues that the theist who accepts HL must also accept that the following sentence was once true.3.. (shrink)

David Lewis's influential work on the epistemology and metaphysics of objective chance has convinced many philosophers of the central importance of the following two claims: First, it is a serious cost of reductionist positions about chance (such as that occupied by Lewis) that they are, apparently, forced to modify the Principal Principle--the central principle relating objective chance to rational subjective probability--in order to avoid contradiction. Second, it is a perhaps more serious cost of the rival non-reductionist position that, unlike reductionism, (...) it can give no coherent explanation for why the Principal Principle should hold. I argue that both of these claims are fundamentally mistaken. (shrink)

How can we disentangle the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness from the neural machinery of the cognitive access that underlies reports of phenomenal consciousness? We can see the problem in stark form if we ask how we could tell whether representations inside a Fodorian module are phenomenally conscious. The methodology would seem straightforward: find the neural natural kinds that are the basis of phenomenal consciousness in clear cases when subjects are completely confident and we have no reason to doubt their (...) authority, and look to see whether those neural natural kinds exist within Fodorian modules. But a puzzle arises: do we include the machinery underlying reportability within the neural natural kinds of the clear cases? If the answer is ‘Yes’, then there can be no phenomenally conscious representations in Fodorian modules. But how can we know if the answer is ‘Yes’? The suggested methodology requires an answer to the question it was supposed to answer! The paper argues for an abstract solution to the problem and exhibits a source of empirical data that is relevant, data that show that in a certain sense phenomenal consciousness overflows cognitive accessibility. The paper argues that we can find a neural realizer of this overflow if assume that the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness does not include the neural basis of cognitive accessibility and that this assumption is justified by the explanations it allows. (shrink)

Causation is a deeply intuitive and familiar relation, gripped powerfully by common sense. Or so it seems. As is typical in philosophy, however, that deep intuitive familiarity has not led to any philosophical account of causation that is at once clean, precise, and widely agreed upon. Not for lack of trying: the last thirty years or so have seen dozens of attempts to provide such an account, and the pace of development is, if anything, accelerating. (See Collins et al. [2003a] (...) for a comprehensive sampling of the latest work.). (shrink)

"This book, one of the most frequently cited works on Martin Heidegger in any language, belongs on any short list of classic studies of Continental philosophy. William J. Richardson explores the famous turn in Heidegger's thought after Being in Time and demonstrates how this transformation was radical without amounting to a simple contradiction of his earlier views." "In a full account of the evolution of Heidegger's work as a whole, Richardson provides a detailed, systematic, and illuminating account of (...) both divergences and fundamental continuities in Heidegger's philosophy, especially in light of recently published works. He demonstrates that the "thinking" of Being for the later Heidegger has exactly the same configuration as the radical phenomenology of the early Heidegger, once he has passed through the "turning" of his way." Including as a preface the letter that Heidegger wrote to Richardson and a new writer's preface and epilogue, the new edition of this valuable guide will be an essential resource for students and scholars for many years to come. (shrink)

An analysis of two heuristic strategies for the development of mechanistic models, illustrated with historical examples from the life sciences. In Discovering Complexity, William Bechtel and Robert Richardson examine two heuristics that guided the development of mechanistic models in the life sciences: decomposition and localization. Drawing on historical cases from disciplines including cell biology, cognitive neuroscience, and genetics, they identify a number of "choice points" that life scientists confront in developing mechanistic explanations and show how different choices result in (...) divergent explanatory models. Describing decomposition as the attempt to differentiate functional and structural components of a system and localization as the assignment of responsibility for specific functions to specific structures, Bechtel and Richardson examine the usefulness of these heuristics as well as their fallibility—the sometimes false assumption underlying them that nature is significantly decomposable and hierarchically organized. When Discovering Complexity was originally published in 1993, few philosophers of science perceived the centrality of seeking mechanisms to explain phenomena in biology, relying instead on the model of nomological explanation advanced by the logical positivists (a model Bechtel and Richardson found to be utterly inapplicable to the examples from the life sciences in their study). Since then, mechanism and mechanistic explanation have become widely discussed. In a substantive new introduction to this MIT Press edition of their book, Bechtel and Richardson examine both philosophical and scientific developments in research on mechanistic models since 1993. (shrink)

The explanatory gap . Consciousness is a mystery. No one has ever given an account, even a highly speculative, hypothetical, and incomplete account of how a physical thing could have phenomenal states. Suppose that consciousness is identical to a property of the brain, say activity in the pyramidal cells of layer 5 of the cortex involving reverberatory circuits from cortical layer 6 to the thalamus and back to layers 4 and 6,as Crick and Koch have suggested for visual consciousness. .) (...) Still, that identity itself calls out for explanation! Proponents of an explanatory gap disagree about whether the gap is permanent. Some say that we are like the scientifically naive person who is told that matter = energy, but does not have the concepts required to make sense of the idea. If we can acquire these concepts, the gap is closable. Others say the gap is uncloseable because of our cognitive limitations. Still others say that the gap is a consequence of the fundamental nature of consciousness. (shrink)