Emergency online education has been adopted worldwide due to coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Prior research regarding online learning predominantly focused on the perception of parents, teachers, and students in tertiary education, while younger children’s perspectives have rarely been examined. This study investigated how family, school, and individual factors would be associated with primary school students’ satisfaction, perceived effectiveness, and preference in online learning during COVID-19. A convenient sample of 781 Hong Kong students completed an anonymous online survey from June to (...) October 2020. Logistic regression was conducted for 13 potential factors. Results indicated that only 57% of students were satisfied with their schools’ online learning arrangement and 49.6% regarded the online learning as an effective learning mode. Only 12.8% of students preferred online learning, while 67.2% of students preferred in-person schooling. Multiple analyses suggested that teacher–student interaction during online classes was positively associated with students’ satisfaction, perceived effectiveness, and preferences in online learning. Compared to grades 1–2 students, grades 3–6 students perceived more effectiveness and would prefer online learning. Happier schools were more likely to deliver satisfying and effective online education. Students who reported less happiness at school would prefer online learning, and students who reported less happiness at home would be less satisfied with online learning and reflected lower effectiveness. Teachers are encouraged to deliver more meaningful interactions to students and offer extra support to younger children during online classes. Primary schools and parents are encouraged to create a healthy and pleasant learning environment for children. The government may consider building up happy schools in the long run. The study findings are instrumental for policymakers, institutions, educators, and researchers in designing online education mechanisms. (shrink)

,Etwa zwei Monate vor dem Tode sagte Husserl:,Man solle seine Vergangenheit nicht trivialisieren. ' "1 Die Herausforderung dieser Worte lieB sich nur schwer abschatzen, als ich dem Stifter des Husserl-Archivs, meinem Freund Pater Van Breda, im Januar I974- zwei Monate vor seinem unzeitigen Hingang- den von ihm so sehr begruBten und geforderten EntschluB, eine Husserl-Bio­ graphie zu schreiben, naher erlauterte. Mancherlei ware darin ein­ zubringen gewesen: Ubersicht uber die Geschicke des Bismarck­ Staates und das aufkommende Hitler-Reich, Vertrautheit mit Stifter und (...) Hofmannsthal, Kenntnis der Theorie mathematischer Funktionen wie der Psychologie der Wurzburger Schule, Einsicht in die Einfuhlungslehre von Lipps wie auch Heideggers Seins­ frage. Aber solche Absicht erwies sich hauptsachlich deswegen als undurchfiihrbar, weil es derzeit noch am Notigsten fehlt: an einer verlaBlichen Durcharbeitung von Husserls Denken und seiner Entwicklung, wie sie sich in den veroffentlichten Werken, vor al­ lem aber im Meer bewahrter Manuskripte niederschlug. Hier galt es, da viel bisher im Dunkeln liegt, die Materialien zu einer Bio­ graphie erst einmal bereitzustellen und, wenn auch oft nur um­ riBhaft, fur die Zukunft sicherzustellen. Ergebnis dieser Beschei­ dung ist die vorliegende Chronik. GewiB, Husserl ware selbst der befugteste interpres sui gewe­ sen. Doch was er unterm 20. Juni rg2r an den Meiner Verlag schrieb - der,Stand seiner Lebensarbeit" erlaube es ihm zur Zeit nicht, zu der in diesem Verlag erscheinenden Reihe von Selbstdarstellungen einen Beitrag zu liefern (F I r8/r + 25) -, galt, wie gerade unsere Chronik deutlich macht, fur ihn zeitlebens. (shrink)

This paper develops a version of the acquaintance theory of introspective justification. In the process, it rejects the view that acquaintance is sui generic in favor of a view that identifies acquaintance with availability for selection by attention mechanisms. Moreover, unlike many recent accounts of knowledge by acquaintance, it explains the epistemic significance of acquaintance in terms of the epistemic basing relation without any need to appeal to the structure or existence of phenomenal concepts. Lastly, while in ideal cases acquaintance (...) will provide a kind of infallible justification, the paper shows how to extend these ideas to allow that acquaintance can provide fallible introspective justification. (shrink)

En général, une personne sait ce qu’elle pense, veut, ou ressent, sans avoir besoin pour cela de s’appuyer sur des observations d’elle-même. En ce sens, la connaissance de soi semble bénéficier d’un privilège par rapport à la connaissance d’autrui, celui de pouvoir apparaître comme vraie sans être fondée sur l’observation et l’inférence. Ce privilège se nomme, après Wittgenstein, l’« autorité de la première personne ». Pour expliquer ce phénomène, la métaphysique traditionnelle a postulé, à l’instar du cogito cartésien, que le (...) sujet aurait une sorte d’accès direct à son intériorité que ne peut avoir autrui. Or, la plupart des philosophes contemporains rejettent l’idée d’intériorité « privée », mais ils ne s’accordent cependant pas sur l’explication qui devrait la remplacer. Ce chapitre se concentre sur la solution que Richard Moran apporte à ce problème. Moran reprend la thèse sartrienne selon laquelle pour savoir et dire ce que je pense, veux, ou vais faire, je suis obligé de me décider, de m’engager plutôt que de m’observer. En ce sens, soutient Moran, le trait distinctif de la connaissance de soi en première personne n’est pas tant un privilège qu’une responsabilité à assumer. Mais pour s’engager de façon responsable, ne faut-il pas chercher d’abord à se connaître ? Nous considérons la force de cette objection, soulevée par Ferdinand Alquié contre Sartre, et tâchons d’y répondre. Ce faisant, notre but est de montrer en quoi l’engagement d’une personne exige un rapport à soi sans équivalent dans ses rapports à autrui. (shrink)

La logica modale è nata per studiare i ragionamenti su ciò che è possibile e ciò che è necessario. Negli ultimi decenni, a partire dal lavoro di logici e filosofi quali Rudolf Carnap, Saul Kripke e David Lewis, la sua applicazione è stata progressivamente estesa ad altri ambiti, quali il ragionamento sul tempo, sulla conoscenza e sui sistemi di norme. Queste ricerche hanno condotto a un complesso e intrigante dialogo con alcune fondamentali branche della filosofia: la metafisica, l’epistemologia, la filosofia (...) del linguaggio. Lo scopo del volume è offrire una panoramica di questo dialogo al contempo accessibile e rigorosa, pensata sia per gli studenti di un corso universitario, sia per il lettore non specialista. Se da un lato tutte le necessarie nozioni tecniche sono rese accessibili ai non addetti ai lavori, dall'altro si restituisce un'immagine fedele delle sfide concettuali che la ricerca in questi settori è oggi chiamata ad affrontare. (shrink)

We normally take it for granted that other people will live on after we ourselves have died. Even if we do not believe in a personal afterlife in which we survive our own deaths, we assume that there will be a "collective afterlife" in which humanity survives long after we are gone. Samuel Scheffler maintains that this assumption plays a surprising - indeed astonishing - role in our lives.

There is a fear of death that persistently eludes adequate explanation by contemporary philosophers of death. The reason for this is their focus on mortal harm issues, such as why death is bad for the person who dies. Claims regarding the fear of death are assumed to be contingent on the resolution of questions about the badness of death. In practice, however, consensus on some mortal harm issues has not resulted in comparable clarity on mortal fear. I contend we cannot (...) do justice to fear of death unless we detach it from theories about the badness of death, including the overwhelmingly-popular deprivation theory. The case for this involves disambiguation of certain aspects of mortal harm, a broad conception of what is involved in accounting for an emotion, and close attention to the nature of the fear in question. The source of fear of death is our departure from a context in which self-directed emotions have coherent application; our attitudes become ‘unmoored,’ in Samuel Scheffler’s phrase. While this does not result in a fear that is sui generis, it does demand that we remove the object of fear from the realm of well-being in order to make sense of it. (shrink)

Samuel Newlands presents a sweeping new interpretation of Spinoza's metaphysical system and the way in which his metaphysics shapes, and is shaped by, his moral program. Engaging with contemporary metaphysics and ethics, Newlands reveals just how exciting and vibrant Spinoza's philosophical outlook remains for philosophers today.

This chapter surveys the fate of Carl Schmitt’s concept of the political in twentieth-century European thought. It starts with the main outlines of his founding text The Concept of the Political, with emphasis on conceptual ambiguities in Schmitt’s argumentation that others would identify and exploit. It then turns to a recent debate about which young German Jew—Hans Morgenthau or Leo Strauss—most influenced the revisions Schmitt made to his text between editions, concluding that the role of both has been overstated. The (...) balance of the chapter reconstructs an alternative—and in some ways opposed—French tradition of conceptualizing the political with roots in the thought of Raymond Aron. Culminating in Claude Lefort, this tradition decentered the role of enmity that Schmitt wanted to define the political, a point dramatized in conclusion with discussion of international relations theory and how the French tradition conceived of warfare and strife. (shrink)

What are the features of a good scientific theory? Samuel Schindler's book revisits this classical question in the philosophy of science and develops new answers to it. Theoretical virtues matter not only for choosing theories 'to work with', but also for what we are justified in believing: only if the theories we possess are good ones can we be confident that our theories' claims about nature are actually correct. Recent debates have focussed rather narrowly on a theory's capacity to (...) predict new phenomena successfully, but Schindler argues that the justification for this focus is thin. He discusses several other theory properties such as testability, accuracy, and consistency, and highlights the importance of simplicity and coherence. Using detailed historical case studies and careful philosophical analysis, Schindler challenges the received view of theoretical virtues and advances arguments for the view that science uncovers reality through theory. (shrink)

In contemporary philosophy, substantive moral theories are typically classified as either consequentialist or deontological. Standard consequentialist theories insist, roughly, that agents must always act so as to produce the best available outcomes overall. Standard deontological theories, by contrast, maintain that there are some circumstances where one is permitted but not required to produce the best overall results, and still other circumstances in which one is positively forbidden to to do. Classical utilitarianism is the most familiar consequentialist view, but it is (...) widely regarded as an inadequate account of morality. Although Professor Scheffler agrees with this assessment, he also believes that consequentialism seems initially plausible, and that there is a persistent air of paradox surrounding typical deontological views. In this book, therefore, he undertakes to reconsider the rejection of consequentialism. He argues that it is possible to provide a rationale for the view that agents need not always produce the best possible overall outcomes, and this motivates one departure from consequentialism; but he shows that it is surprisingly difficult to provide a satisfactory rationale for the view that there are times when agents must not produce the best possible overall outcomes. He goes on to argue for a hitherto neglected type of moral conception, according to which agents are always permitted, but not always required, to produce the best outcomes. (shrink)

Samuel Pufendorf is one of the most important moral and political philosophers of the seventeenth century. His theory, which builds on Grotius and Hobbes, was immediately recognized as a classic and taken up by writers as diverse as Locke, Hume, Rousseau, and Smith. Over the past twenty years there has been a renaissance of Pufendorf scholarship. On the Duty of Man and Citizen is Pufendorf's own epitome of his monumental On the Law of Nature and of Nations, and it (...) served as a basic text in European universities throughout the Enlightenment. This edition has a lucid and historically sensitive translation by Michael Silverthorne, the first since the early twentieth century. James Tully's introduction sets the text in its context, summarizes the main arguments, surveys recent literature on Pufendorf, and shows how Pufendorf transformed natural law theory into an independent discipline of juristic political philosophy that dominated reflection on politics until Kant. (shrink)

According to Aristotle, the medical art aims at health, which is a virtue of the body, and does so in an unlimited way. Consequently, medicine does not determine the extent to which health should be pursued, and “mental health” falls under medicine only via pros hen predication. Because medicine is inherently oriented to its end, it produces health in accordance with its nature and disease contrary to its nature—even when disease is good for the patient. Aristotle’s politician understands that this (...) inherent orientation can be systematically distorted, and so would see the need for something like the Hippocratic Oath. (shrink)

Variabilism is the view that proper names (like pronouns) are semantically represented as variables. Referential names, like referential pronouns, are assigned their referents by a contextual variable assignment (Kaplan 1989). The reference parameter (like the world of evaluation) may also be shifted by operators in the representation language. Indeed verbs that create hyperintensional contexts, like ‘think’, are treated as operators that simultaneously shift the world and assignment parameters. By contrast, metaphysical modal operators shift the world of assessment only. Names, being (...) variables, refer rigidly in the latter merely intensional contexts, but may vary their reference in hyperintensional contexts. This conforms to the intuition that the content of attitude ascriptions encapsulates referential uncertainty. Furthermore, names in hyperintensional contexts are ambiguous between de re* and de dicto* interpretations. This fact is used to account for asymmetric mistaken identity attributions (for example, Biron thinks Katherine is Rosaline, but he doesn’t think Rosaline is Katherine). -/- The variable theory compares favourably with its alternatives, including Millianism and descriptivism. Millians cannot account for the behaviour of names in hyperintensional contexts, while descriptivists cannot generate a necessary contrast between intensional and hyperintensional contexts. No other theory can capture the facts pertaining to the existentially bound use of names. (shrink)

Valuing -- Morality and reasonable partiality -- Doing and allowing -- The division of moral labour : egalitarian liberalism as moral pluralism -- Is the basic structure basic? -- Cosmopolitanism, justice, and institutions -- What is egalitarianism? -- Choice, circumstance, and the value of equality -- Is terrorism morally distinctive? -- Immigration and the significance of culture -- The normativity of tradition -- The good of toleration.

Mind wandering is typically operationalized as task-unrelated thought. Some argue for the need to distinguish between unintentional and intentional mind wandering, where an agent voluntarily shifts attention from task-related to task-unrelated thoughts. We reveal an inconsistency between the standard, task-unrelated thought definition of mind wandering and the occurrence of intentional mind wandering (together with plausible assumptions about tasks and intentions). This suggests that either the standard definition of mind wandering should be rejected or that intentional mind wandering is an incoherent (...) category. Solving this puzzle is critical for advancing theoretical frameworks of mind wandering. (shrink)

This volume contains articles covering a broad spectrum of proof theory, with an emphasis on its mathematical aspects. The articles should not only be interesting to specialists of proof theory, but should also be accessible to a diverse audience, including logicians, mathematicians, computer scientists and philosophers. Many of the central topics of proof theory have been included in a self-contained expository of articles, covered in great detail and depth. The chapters are arranged so that the two introductory articles come first; (...) these are then followed by articles from core classical areas of proof theory; the handbook concludes with articles that deal with topics closely related to computer science. (shrink)

It is plausible that the models of our scientific theories correspond to possibilities. But exactly which models of which scientific theories stand in this correspondence? The answers to this question hinted at so far in the literature are too restrictive: they don't support the idea that the models of many of our best scientific theories correspond to physical possibilities. The paper thus provides a novel proposal for guiding belief about physical possibilities based on physics. The proposal draws on the notion (...) of an effective theory: a theory that applies very well to a particular, restricted domain. We argue that it is the models of effective theories that we should believe correspond, at least in part, to physical possibilities. It is thus effective theories that should guide modal reasoning in science. (shrink)

[ Samuel Scheffler] Some egalitarian liberals have proposed a division of moral labour between social institutions and individual agents, but the division-of-labour metaphor has been understood in different ways. This paper aims to disentangle some of these different understandings, with an eye to clarifying the appeal of the egalitarian-liberal project and the challenges that it faces. The idea of a division of moral labour is best understood as the expression of a strategy for accommodating diverse values. It is not (...) an apology for economic self-interest or a device for justifying personal acquisitiveness. /// [Véronique Munoz-Dardé] Are there distinctively political values? Certain egalitarians seem to think that equality is one such value. Scheffler's contribution to the symposium seeks to articulate a division of moral labour between norms of personal morality and the principles of justice that regulate social institutions, and using this suggests that the egalitarian critique of Rawls can be deflected. In this paper, instead, I question the status of equality as an intrinsic value. I argue that an egalitarianism which focuses on the status of equality as valuable in itself embraces a theory of value with the worst elements of utilitarianism while leaving behind any of the intuitive appeal that utilitarianism has. In its place I press that we need a political conception of egalitarianism which stresses the role we engage beyond those found in the norms of personal morality. (shrink)

The leading reductive approaches to shared agency model that phenomenon in terms of complexes of individual intentions, understood as plan-laden commitments. Yet not all agents have such intentions, and non-planning agents such as small children and some non-human animals are clearly capable of sophisticated social interactions. But just how robust are their social capacities? Are non-planning agents capable of shared agency? Existing theories of shared agency have little to say about these important questions. I address this lacuna by developing a (...) reductive account of the social capacities of non-planning agents, which I argue supports the conclusion that they can enjoy shared agency. The resulting discussion offers a fine-grained account of the psychological capacities that can underlie shared agency, and produces a recipe for generating novel hypotheses concerning why some agents do not engage in shared agency. (shrink)

I provide an analysis of sentences of the form ‘To be F is to be G’ in terms of exact truth-maker semantics—an approach that identifies the meanings of sentences with the states of the world directly responsible for their truth-values. Roughly, I argue that these sentences hold just in case that which makes something F also makes it G. This approach is hyperintensional and possesses desirable logical and modal features. In particular, these sentences are reflexive, transitive, and symmetric, and if (...) they are true, then they are necessarily true, and it is necessary that all and only Fs are Gs. I motivate my account over Correia and Skiles’ [11] prominent alternative and close by defining an irreflexive and asymmetric notion of analysis in terms of the symmetric and reflexive notion. (shrink)

We offer a framework for organizing the literature regarding the debates revolving around infinite idealizations in science, and a short summary of the contributions to this special issue.

The controversy over the equivalence of continuous sedation until death (CSD) and physician-assisted suicide/euthanasia (PAS/E) provides an opportunity to focus on a significant extended use of CSD. This extension, suggested by the equivalence of PAS/E and CSD, is designed to promote additional patient autonomy at the end-of-life. Samuel LiPuma, in his article, “Continuous Sedation Until Death as Physician-Assisted Suicide/Euthanasia: A Conceptual Analysis” claims equivalence between CSD and death; his paper is seminal in the equivalency debate. Critics contend that sedation (...) follows proportionality protocols for which LiPuma’s thesis does not adequately account. Furthermore, sedation may not eliminate consciousness, and as such LiPuma’s contention that CSD is equivalent to neocortical death is suspect. We not only defend the equivalence thesis, but also expand it to include additional moral considerations. First, we explain the equivalence thesis. This is followed by a defense of the thesis against five criticisms. The third section critiques the current use of CSD. Finally, we offer two proposals that, if adopted, would broaden the use of PAS/E and CSD and thereby expand options at the end-of-life. (shrink)

Kraut and other neo-Aristotelians have argued that there is no such thing as absolute goodness. They admit only good in a kind, e.g. a good sculptor, and good for something, e.g. good for fish. What is the view of Aristotle? Mostly limiting myself to the Nicomachean Ethics, I argue that Aristotle is committed to things being absolutely good and also to a metaphysics of absolute goodness where there is a maximally best good that is the cause of the goodness of (...) all other things in virtue of being their end. I begin by suggesting that the notion of good as an end, which is present in the first lines of the NE, is not obviously accounted for by good in a kind or good for something. I then give evidence that good in a kind and good for something can explain neither certain distinctions drawn between virtues nor the determinacy ascribed to what is good “in itself.” I argue contra Gotthelf that because several important arguments in the Nicomachean Ethics rely on comparative judgments of absolute value—e.g. “Man is the best of all animals”—Aristotle is committed to the existence of both absolute goodness and an absolutely best being. I focus on one passage, Aristotle’s division of goods in NE I 12, which presupposes this metaphysical picture. (shrink)

The replication or reproducibility crisis in psychological science has renewed attention to philosophical aspects of its methodology. I provide herein a new, functional account of the role of replication in a scientific discipline: to undercut the underdetermination of scientific hypotheses from data, typically by hypotheses that connect data with phenomena. These include hypotheses that concern sampling error, experimental control, and operationalization. How a scientific hypothesis could be underdetermined in one of these ways depends on a scientific discipline’s epistemic goals, theoretical (...) development, material constraints, institutional context, and their interconnections. I illustrate how these apply to the case of psychological science. I then contrast this “bottom-up” account with “top-down” accounts, which assume that the role of replication in a particular science, such as psychology, must follow from a uniform role that it plays in science generally. Aside from avoiding unaddressed problems with top-down accounts, my bottom-up account also better explains the variability of importance of replication of various types across different scientific disciplines. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell and the Nature of Propositions offers the first book-length defence of the Multiple Relation Theory of Judgement (MRTJ). Although the theory was much maligned by Wittgenstein and ultimately rejected by Russell himself, Lebens shows that it provides a rich and insightful way to understand the nature of propositional content. In Part I, Lebens charts the trajectory of Russell’s thought before he adopted the MRTJ. Part II reviews the historical story of the theory: What led Russell to deny the (...) existence of propositions altogether? Why did the theory keep evolving throughout its short life? What role did G. F. Stout play in the evolution of the theory? What was Wittgenstein’s concern with the theory, and, if we can’t know what his concern was exactly, then what are the best contending hypotheses? And why did Russell give the theory up? In Part III, Lebens makes the case that Russell’s concerns with the theory weren’t worth its rejection. Moreover, he argues that the MRTJ does most of what we could want from an account of propositions at little philosophical cost. This book bridges the history of early analytic philosophy with work in contemporary philosophy of language. It advances a bold reading of the theory of descriptions and offers a new understanding of the role of Stout and the representation concern in the evolution of the MRTJ. It also makes a decisive contribution to philosophy of language by demonstrating the viability of a no-proposition theory of propositions. (shrink)

Frege's picture of attitude states and attitude reports requires a notion of content that is shareable between agents, yet more fine-grained than reference. Kripke challenged this picture by giving a case on which the expressions that resist substitution in an attitude report share a candidate notion of fine-grained content. A consensus view developed which accepted Kripke's general moral and replaced the Fregean picture with an account of attitude reporting on which states are distinguished in conversation by their (private) representational properties. (...) I begin in support of the consensus by showing how a sort of de facto coordination on mental symbols is possible, even for unsophisticated agents. But I go on to argue that whenever conditions are ripe for de facto coordination on symbols, there is an inter-subjective relation that supports a fine-grained notion of content resistant to Kripke's challenge. The consensus view corresponds to a Kripke-resistant strain of the Fregean picture. (shrink)

According to the attentional resources account, mind wandering (or “task-unrelated thought”) is thought to compete with a focal task for attentional resources. Here, we tested two key predictions of this account: First, that mind wandering should not interfere with performance on a task that does not require attentional resources; second, that as task requirements become automatized, performance should improve and depth of mind wandering should increase. Here, we used a serial reaction time task with implicit- and explicit-learning groups to test (...) these predictions. Providing novel evidence for the attentional resource account’s first prediction, results indicated that depth of mind wandering was negatively associated with learning in the explicit, but not the implicit, group, indicating that mind wandering is associated with impaired explicit, but not implicit, learning. Corroborating the attention resource account’s second prediction, we also found that, overall, performance improved while at the same time depth of mind wandering increased. From an implicit learning perspective, these results are consistent with the claim that explicit learning is impaired under attentional load, but implicit learning is not. (shrink)

I am concerned with epistemic closure—the phenomenon in which some knowledge requires other knowledge. In particular, I defend a version of the closure principle in terms of analyticity; if an agent S knows that p is true and that q is an analytic part of p, then S knows that q. After targeting the relevant notion of analyticity, I argue that this principle accommodates intuitive cases and possesses the theoretical resources to avoid the preface paradox.

Should the idea of economic man-the amoral and self-interested Homo economicus-determine how we expect people to respond to monetary rewards, punishments, and other incentives? Samuel Bowles answers with a resounding "no." Policies that follow from this paradigm, he shows, may "crowd out" ethical and generous motives and thus backfire. But incentives per se are not really the culprit. Bowles shows that crowding out occurs when the message conveyed by fines and rewards is that self-interest is expected, that the employer (...) thinks the workforce is lazy, or that the citizen cannot otherwise be trusted to contribute to the public good. Using historical and recent case studies as well as behavioral experiments, Bowles shows how well-designed incentives can crowd in the civic motives on which good governance depends. (shrink)

In the Formula of Humanity, Kant embraces the principle that it is wrong for us to treat others merely as means. For contemporary Kantian ethicists, this Mere Means Principle plays the role of a moral constraint: it limits what we may do, even in the service of promoting the overall good. But substantive interpretations of the principle generate implausible results in relatively ordinary cases. On one interpretation, for example, you treat your opponent in a tennis tournament merely as a means (...) and thus wrongly when you try, through defeating him, to win first place. The article aims to develop a reconstruction of the Mere Means Principle that has more plausible implications than do rival reconstructions. It sets out a sufficient condition for an agent's treating another merely as a means. This condition is intended to be Kantian, but not necessarily one that Kant endorses. (shrink)

Objects of Metaphor puts forward a philosophical account of metaphor radically different from those currently on offer. Powerful and flexible enough to cope with the syntactic complexity typical of genuine metaphor, it offers novel conceptions of the relationship between simile and metaphor, the notion of dead metaphor, and the idea of metaphor as a robust theoretic kind. Without denying that metaphor can sometimes be merely ornamental, Guttenplan justifies the view of metaphor as fundamental to language and the study of language. (...) His book will be of great interest not only to philosophers in this field, but also to those working across psychology and linguistics. (shrink)

This paper addresses the extent to which both Julian Barbour‘s Machian formulation of general relativity and his interpretation of canonical quantum gravity can be called timeless. We differentiate two types of timelessness in Barbour‘s (1994a, 1994b and 1999c). We argue that Barbour‘s metaphysical contention that ours is a timeless world is crucially lacking an account of the essential features of time—an account of what features our world would need to have if it were to count as being one in which (...) there is time. We attempt to provide such an account through considerations of both the representation of time in physical theory and in orthodox metaphysical analyses. We subsequently argue that Barbour‘s claim of timelessness is dubious with respect to his Machian formulation of general relativity but warranted with respect to his interpretation of canonical quantum gravity. We conclude by discussing the extent to which we should be concerned by the implications of Barbour‘s view. (shrink)

Cook and Reckhow defined a propositional formulation of the pigeonhole principle. This paper shows that there are Frege proofs of this propositional pigeonhole principle of polynomial size. This together with a result of Haken gives another proof of Urquhart's theorem that Frege systems have an exponential speedup over resolution. We also discuss connections to provability in theories of bounded arithmetic.

Taking a thematic approach to Butler as a political thinker, this text develops Butler's theory of the political through an exploration of her politics of troubling.

According to a common caricature of Kant’s ethics, it is synonymous with the Categorical Imperative (CI) and with the sublime and clarion call of duty. But in this paper, I argue that the conjunction of Kant’s concept of duty and his idea of morality as a system of imperatives is unsustainable on the grounds that it commits him to the following two theses: (I) If an agent has a duty to D, then she must be constrained to D, and (II) (...) the Supreme Law of Morality always manifests in the form of duty for humans. I begin by examining (and rejecting) various attempts to defend these two theses. I then explore how this bears on various central aspects of Kant's thought including “ought implies can” (OIC), “ought implies able not to” (OIAN), his system of duties, and the nature of respect. (shrink)

According to Phenomenal Conservatism (PC), if it seems to a subject S that P, S thereby has some degree of (defeasible) justification for believing P. But what is it for P to seem true? Answering this question is vital for assessing what role (if any) such states can play. Many have appeared to adopt a kind of non-reductionism that construes seemings as intentional states which cannot be reduced to more familiar mental states like beliefs or sensations. In this paper I (...) aim to show that reductive accounts need to be taken more seriously by illustrating the plausibility of identifying seemings and conscious inclinations to form a belief. I briefly close the paper by considering the implications such an analysis might have for views such as PC. (shrink)

Can an AGI create a more intelligent AGI? Under idealized assumptions, for a certain theoretical type of intelligence, our answer is: “Not without outside help”. This is a paper on the mathematical structure of AGI populations when parent AGIs create child AGIs. We argue that such populations satisfy a certain biological law. Motivated by observations of sexual reproduction in seemingly-asexual species, the Knight-Darwin Law states that it is impossible for one organism to asexually produce another, which asexually produces another, and (...) so on forever: that any sequence of organisms (each one a child of the previous) must contain occasional multi-parent organisms, or must terminate. By proving that a certain measure (arguably an intelligence measure) decreases when an idealized parent AGI single-handedly creates a child AGI, we argue that a similar Law holds for AGIs. (shrink)

Predictivism is the view that successful predictions of “novel” evidence carry more confirmational weight than accommodations of already known evidence. Novelty, in this context, has traditionally been conceived of as temporal novelty. However temporal predictivism has been criticized for lacking a rationale: why should the time order of theory and evidence matter? Instead, it has been proposed, novelty should be construed in terms of use-novelty, according to which evidence is novel if it was not used in the construction of a (...) theory. Only if evidence is use-novel can it fully support the theory entailing it. As I point out in this paper, the writings of the most influential proponent of use-novelty contain a weaker and a stronger version of use-novelty. However both versions, I argue, are problematic. With regard to the appraisal of Mendeleev’ periodic table, the most contentious historical case in the predictivism debate, I argue that temporal predictivism is indeed supported, although in ways not previously appreciated. On the basis of this case, I argue for a form of so-called symptomatic predictivism according to which temporally novel predictions carry more confirmational weight only insofar as they reveal the theory’s presumed coherence of facts as real. (shrink)

End-of-life decision making is fraught with ethical challenges. Withholding or withdrawing life support therapy is widely considered ethical in patients with high treatment burden, poor premorbid status, or significant projected disability even when such treatment is not ?futile.? Whether such withdrawal of therapy in the aftermath of attempted suicide is ethical is not well established in the literature. We provide a clinical vignette and propose criteria under which such withdrawal would be ethical. We suggest that it is appropriate to withdraw (...) life support, regardless of the cause of the critical illness or disability, when the following criteria are met: (1) Surrogates request withdrawal of care and the adequacy of surrogates is confirmed, (2) an external reasonability standard is met, (3) passage of time, perhaps 72 hours, to allow certainty regarding the patient's wishes, and (4) psychiatric morbidity should be considered as grounds for withdrawal only in truly treatment-refractory cases. Fundamentally, we believe the question to ask is, ?If this were not an attempted suicide, would a request to withdraw care be reasonable?? We believe that under these circumstances, such withdrawal of life support, even in an individual who has attempted suicide, does not constitute physician assistance with suicide and is distinct from physician aid-in-dying in several important respects. (shrink)

As concern over the use of questionable research practices in academic science has increased over the last couple of decades, some reforms have been implemented and many others have been debated and recommended. While many of these proposals have merit, efforts to improve scientific practices are more likely to succeed when they are responsive to the prevailing views and concerns of scientists themselves. To date, there have been few efforts to solicit wide-ranging input from researchers on the topic of needed (...) reforms. This article is a qualitative report of responses from federally funded scientists to the question of what should be done to address the problem of QRPs in their disciplines. Overall, participants were concerned about how institutional and career-oriented incentives encourage the use of QRPs. Compared to previous recommendations, participants had surprisingly little confidence in the ability of ethics training to improve research integrity. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to lay out a meta‐ethical position that is inspired by the framework of Wittgenstein's later philosophy. To achieve this goal, this paper is divided into two parts. First, I explore recent attempts to tie Wittgenstein's epistemology in On Certainty to moral epistemology. I argue that there can be a meaningful parallel drawn between the epistemic certainties discussed in On Certainty and what I consider to be moral certainties. These moral certainties are unjustified fundamental moral attitudes (...) that underlie our moral practices. Then, I show how the debate over moral certainty has branched into two directions. One direction presents the concept of moral certainty as a naturalistic concept. On this reading, moral certainties transcend time and place since they are rooted in our natural tendencies to act or not act in certain ways. The other direction presents moral certainty as a distinctly relativistic concept. On this reading, we have our moral certainties because we belong to communities that agree on these certainties. In the second section, I argue that we have both natural, universal certainties and localized, relative certainties. I also argue that our localized certainties are constrained by non‐moral facts about ourselves and about the world. To make this argument, I rely on Wittgenstein's concept of “general facts of nature.” The result of the paper is a meta‐ethical position that can be located in between moral relativism and moral realism. (shrink)