I outline and provide a solution to some paradoxes of ground.

I describe some paradoxes of ground and relate them to the semantic paradoxes.

Metaphysical grounding is standardly taken to be irreflexive: nothing grounds itself. Kit Fine has presented some puzzles that appear to contradict this principle. I construct a particularly simple variant of those puzzles that is independent of several of the assumptions required by Fine, instead employing quantification into sentence position. Various possible responses to Fine's puzzles thus turn out to apply only in a restricted range of cases.

We show that any predicational theory of partial ground that extends a standard theory of syntax and that proves some commonly accepted principles for partial ground is inconsistent. We suggest a way to obtain a consistent predicational theory of ground.

Argues for a failure of correspondence between perceptual representation and what it is like to perceive. If what it is like to perceive is grounded in perceptual representation, then, using considerations of veridical representation, we can show that inattentive peripheral perception is less representationally precise than attentive foveal perception. However, there is empirical evidence to the contrary. The conclusion is that perceptual representation cannot ground what it is like to perceive.

Monists about material constitution typically argue that when Statue is materially constituted by Clay, Statue is just Clay. Pluralists about material constitution deny that constitution is identity: Statue is not just Clay. When Clay materially constitutes Statue, Clay is not identical to Statue. I discuss three familiar puzzles involving grounding, overdetermination and conceptual issues, and develop three new puzzles stemming from the connection between mereological composition and material constitution: a mereological puzzle, an asymmetry puzzle, and a structural puzzle.

An epistemologist tells you that knowledge is more than justified true belief. You trust them and thus come to believe this on the basis of their testimony. Did you thereby come to know that this view is correct? Intuitively, there is something intellectually wrong with forming philosophical beliefs on the basis of testimony, and yet it's hard to see why philosophy should be significantly epistemically different from other areas of inquiry in a way that would fully prohibit belief by testimony. (...) This, I argue, is the puzzle of philosophical testimony. In this paper, I explore the puzzle of philosophical testimony and its ramifications. In particular, I examine the case for pessimism about philosophical testimony—the thesis that philosophical belief on the basis of testimony is impossible or is in some way illegitimate—and I argue that it lacks adequate support. I then consider whether the source of the apparent intellectual wrongness of testimonial‐based philosophical belief is grounded in non‐epistemic norms and goals of philosophical practice itself and argue that such norms are implausible, don't conflict with testimonial‐based philosophical belief, or else are mere disciplinary norms, lacking substantial normative force that would make it wrong to form testimonial‐based philosophical belief. (shrink)

The many definitions of sophistry at the beginning of Plato’s Sophist have puzzled scholars just as much as they puzzled the dialogue’s main speakers: the Visitor from Elea and Theaetetus. The aim of this paper is to give an account of that puzzlement. This puzzlement, it is argued, stems not from a logical or epistemological problem, but from the metaphysical problem that, given the multiplicity of accounts, the interlocutors do not know what the sophist essentially is. It transpires that, in (...) order to properly account for this puzzle, one must jettison the traditional view of Plato’s method of division, on which divisions must be exclusive and mark out relations of essential predication. It is then shown on independent grounds that, although Platonic division in the Sophist must express predication relations and be transitive, it need not be dichotomous, exclusive, or express relations of essential predication. Once the requirements of exclusivity and essential predication are dropped, it is possible to make sense of the reasons that the Visitor from Elea and Theaetetus are puzzled. Moreover, with this in hand, it is possible to see Plato making an important methodological point in the dialogue: division on its own without any norms does not necessarily lead to the discovery of essences. (shrink)

An epistemologist tells you that knowledge is more than justified true belief. You trust them and thus come to believe this on the basis of their testimony. Did you thereby come to know that this view is correct? Intuitively, there is something intellectually wrong with forming philosophical beliefs on the basis of testimony, and yet it's hard to see why philosophy should be significantly epistemically different from other areas of inquiry in a way that would fully prohibit belief by testimony. (...) This, I argue, is the puzzle of philosophical testimony. In this paper, I explore the puzzle of philosophical testimony and its ramifications. In particular, I examine the case for pessimism about philosophical testimony—the thesis that philosophical belief on the basis of testimony is impossible or is in some way illegitimate—and I argue that it lacks adequate support. I then consider whether the source of the apparent intellectual wrongness of testimonial‐based philosophical belief is grounded in non‐epistemic norms and goals of philosophical practice itself and argue that such norms are implausible, don't conflict with testimonial‐based philosophical belief, or else are mere disciplinary norms, lacking substantial normative force that would make it wrong to form testimonial‐based philosophical belief. (shrink)

An ideography is a general-purpose code made of pictures that do not encode language, which can be used autonomously – not just as a mnemonic prop – to encode information on a broad range of topics. Why are viable ideographies so hard to find? I contend that self-sufficient graphic codes need to be narrowly specialized. Writing systems are only an apparent exception: At their core, they are notations of a spoken language. Even if they also encode nonlinguistic information, they are (...) useless to someone who lacks linguistic competence in the encoded language or a related one. The versatility of writing is thus vicarious: Writing borrows it from spoken language. Why is it so difficult to build a fully generalist graphic code? The most widespread answer points to a learnability problem. We possess specialized cognitive resources for learning spoken language, but lack them for graphic codes. I argue in favor of a different account: What is difficult about graphic codes is not so much learning or teaching them as getting every user to learn and teach the same code. This standardization problem does not affect spoken or signed languages as much. Those are based on cheap and transient signals, allowing for easy online repairing of miscommunication, and require face-to-face interactions where the advantages of common ground are maximized. Graphic codes lack these advantages, which makes them smaller in size and more specialized. (shrink)

Robin Le Poidevin (2007) claims that we do form perceptual beliefs regarding order and duration based on our perception of events, but neither order nor duration are by themselves objects of perception. Temporal properties are discernible only when one first perceives their bearers, and temporal relations are discernible only when one first perceives their relata. The epistemic issue remains as to whether or not our perceptual beliefs about order and duration are formed on the causal basis of an event’s objective (...) order and duration. Le Poidevin raises this issue in the form of an epistemological puzzle of time perception, from which he derives the claim that the order and duration of events do not causally contribute to our perceptual beliefs about them. Since his view is motivated by a causal truthmaker principle for grounding knowledge, it also holds that perceptual beliefs about temporal features must be caused by the features themselves in order to count as knowledge. Given these theoretical commitments, there is a puzzle concerning how such perceptual beliefs could constitute knowledge of temporal properties. In response to Le Poidevin, I argue for an account according to which order and duration are objects of perception, causally contribute to our perceptual beliefs about them, and such beliefs are capable of counting as knowledge. I conclude by showing that, on my alternative account, the epistemological puzzle dissolves and his own solution to it fails. (shrink)

This thesis mounts an attack against accounts of perceptual justification that attempt to analyze it in terms of evidential justifiers, and has defended the view that perceptual justification should rather be analyzed in terms of non-evidential justification. What matters most to perceptual justification is not a specific sort of evidence, be it experiential evidence or factive evidence, what matters is that the perceptual process from sensory input to belief output is reliable. I argue for this conclusion in the following way. (...) Chapter 1: The Arguments from HallucinationChapter 1 presents a skeptical argument from hallucination that starts from a premise about the alleged introspective indistinguishability of perception and hallucination, and concludes that perceptual knowledge is impossible. Underlying this argument are certain assumptions about the nature of perceptual justification, and different responses to the argument portray different views of perceptual justification. Evidentialism and dogmatism both reject the premise that appearances do not provide evidence sufficient for perceptual knowledge, although they disagree about the precise nature of the appearances. Epistemological disjunctivism rejects the premise that introspectively indistinguishable experiences provide the same evidence, while upholding the idea that some sort of evidence, namely factive evidence, is necessary for perceptual justification and knowledge. Process reliabilism rejects the premise that evidence is necessary for perceptual knowledge on the grounds that even perceptual justification can be obtained without evidence, as long as the cognitive process producing the belief is reliable.Chapter 2: EvidentialismChapter 2 starts by introducing some motivations for experientialist views of perceptual justification, such as evidentialism and dogmatism, which hold that conscious experiences evidentially justify perceptual beliefs. These motivations have to do with their ability to accommodate the New Evil Demon Intuition that demon-deceived subjects have justified perceptual beliefs and the Blindsight Intuition that blindsighters do not have justified perceptual beliefs. However, experientialist views are also faced with a Sellarsian dilemma: either experience is construed as non-propositional, but then the proposed evidential relation is unclear, or experience is construed as propositional, but then it is ad hoc to hold that they can evidentially justify without being justified themselves.Chapter 2 continues with a discussion of evidentialism, which grasps the first horn of this dilemma. I argue that evidentialism cannot adequately explain why a non-propositional experience constitutes evidence for this rather than that belief, and also does not provide any account of how to determine which belief fits an evidence-set which partly consists out of non-propositional experiences. Although a reliabilist version of evidentialism can provide a better account of these matters, it suffers from counter-intuitive predictions about justification and a conception of evidence that is so liberal that it could even include blindsighters and clairvoyants as having such evidence.Chapter 3: DogmatismChapter 3 focuses on variants of dogmatism, a theory of perceptual justification that grasps the second horn of the Sellarsian dilemma by holding that a perceptual experience with the content that p is sufficient for immediate prima facie justification of the belief that p. I first argue that dogmatism should identify perceptual experiences with high-level conscious states to accommodate the problem of novice vs. expert identification and the problem of the speckled hen. I then argue that this version of dogmatism still fails to meet a certain explanatory challenge which I dub the `Distinctiveness Problem'. Dogmatism should explain what is so distinctive about perceptual experience that enables it, in contrast with desire and imagination, to evidentially justify the belief that p without, in contrast with belief, being justified itself.Phenomenalist answers to this problem fail because they either do not provide a distinctive property of perceptual experience, or else provide a property that is reducible to or possibly caused by beliefs. In both cases, dogmatism would have the result that intuitively unjustifying experiences, such as imaginations, nevertheless become capable of justifying beliefs. Moreover, phenomenalists still need some explanation of why phenomenology is epistemically relevant at all.A new variant of the problem of the speckled hen is an intuitive illustration of this point against dogmatists. If a perceptual experience that p is not reliably connected to the fact that p or the belief that p, then beliefs based on this experience simply will not be intuitively justified. One possible response to this problem incorporates reliability into the content of experience in the sense that an experience cannot have the content that p if it is not reliably connected to both the fact that p and the belief that p. However, this will lose the motivation from the New Evil Demon Scenario, and will make large concessions towards reliabilism.Chapter 4: Epistemological DisjunctivismGiven these problems for experientialist views of perceptual justification, chapter 4 focuses on a different evidential account of justification: epistemological disjunctivism. According to the Justified True Belief version of Epistemological Disjunctivism, the fact that I see that p is the factive and reflectively accessible evidence in virtue of which I know that p. I argue that JTBED faces formidable problems: first, it cannot adequately deal with the basis problem, second, it cannot accommodate the New Evil Demon Intuition, third,it faces the problem of hyper-intellectualization, and fourth, it has no good account of reflective access.Knowledge First Epistemological Disjunctivism, in contrast, holds that seeing that p just is a way of knowing that p. The fact that I see that p constitutes my justification for believing that p, even though it is not necessary for my knowledge that p. Although this view solves most of the above problems, I argue that KFED still faces a challenge of its own: its notion of justification is so strong that justification entails knowledge but is not itself entailed by it. This means that it too faces a hyper-intellectualization objection because it cannot accommodate animal justification, and that it too will struggle to accommodate the New Evil Demon Intuition.Nevertheless, there is something to the epistemological disjunctivist idea that higher-order capabilities are important to perceptual justification. Specifically, higher-order capabilities provide one with a way of accommodating the Blindsight Intuition without appealing to the notion of experiential evidence: blindsighters are epistemically worse off than normal human perceivers because they lack higher-order beliefs about how they are gaining their information. If one holds that these higher-order beliefs provide a special sort of justification for perceptual beliefs, then blindsighters lack this type of justification. Chapter 5: Process ReliabilismAfter displaying the problems of several evidential accounts of perceptual justification, chapter 5 introduces a non-evidential account: process reliabilism. The classic version of this view holds that the reliability of a belief-forming process is necessary and sufficient for the prima facie justification of a specific set of beliefs, namely, those that arise out of belief-independent processes. Two classic major problems for this view consist of counterexamples to both the necessity and sufficiency of reliability for justification. Although the Generality Problem raises some difficulties for reliabilism, they do not appear to be insurmountable.The second part of chapter 5 focuses on a variety of process reliabilism, inferentialist reliabilism, that is explicitly aimed at responding to clairvoyance cases. According to inferentialist reliabilism, one should distinguish between basic and non-basic beliefs, where basic beliefs are those that result out of the non-inferential operation of an inferentially opaque cognitive system that developed in a natural way. Reliability is only sufficient for the justification of basic beliefs, while non-basic beliefs also require conditional reliability and justification of the beliefs on which they are based.This distinction between basic and non-basic beliefs is meant to answer the challenge arising out of clairvoyance cases because these are all supposedly cases in which the resulting beliefs arenon-basic. However, I argue that the beliefs in these cases come out as non-basic primarily because of the etiological constraint on cognitive systems, a constraint that is unfortunately undermotivated. It seems that beliefs can be justified even if they are produced by a cognitive system that developed by accident, or by a system that was artificially designed to produce those beliefs. So even though the inferentialist reliabilist might have a point in distinguishing between basic and non-basic beliefs, it is still in need of a different response to clairvoyance cases. Chapter 6: Rejoinders for ReliabilismChapter 6 improves on the inferentialist reliabilist account of justification by presenting a different way of dealing with the clairvoyance cases and New Evil Demon Scenario. I start from the empirically plausible idea that we know that we are perceiving when we are perceiving, not because of the use of experiential evidence, but rather, because of an unconscious source-monitoring mechanism. I then argue that the existence of such a source-monitoring mechanism could be used to explain why clairvoyance cases actually have to do with defeat rather than absence of prima facie justification: beliefs that pop up in our head should be recognized as stemming from untrustworthy sources, and so we acquire defeating higher-order beliefs about the first-order beliefs. I also argue that this defeat should be able to occur even if the higher-order beliefs are themselves unjustified. This defeater-account of clairvoyance is preferable to several externalist alternatives. Making reliability relative to a specific world seems rather ad hoc, and further requirements on justification, such as evidence-based belief, cognitively integrated belief, or properly produced belief, all appear unnecessary and are susceptible to adapted versions of the clairvoyance case.I further argue for an alternative inferentialist reliablist response to the New Evil Demon Intuition which treats it as mistaken rather than correct. The New Evil Demon Intuition might arise because of a mistaken view of actual perceptual justification as having to do with experiential evidence. This mistaken view could be explained by the fact that experience is actually reliably connected to belief and is often cited in response to a knowledge-challenge. If this is a correct analysis of the New Evil Demon Intuition, then there is an element of question-begging involved when this scenario is still pressed against inferentialist reliabilists who do not adhere to the experientialist assumption it presupposes.With the inferentialist reliabilist account in hand,we are able to see that many of the premises of the epistemological argument from hallucination are problematic. Evidence does not appear to be required for perceptual knowledge, as perceptual justification does not even require such evidence. Moreover, if we accept a reliabilist model of introspection, then we are often able to know on the basis of introspection that we are perceiving rather than hallucinating. Once one gets clear about the alternatives, it becomes apparent that the argument thrives on internalist assumptions about justification and knowledge that one need not accept. (shrink)

Cases of grounding failure present a puzzle for fundamental metaphysics. Typically, solutions are thought to lie either in adding ontology such as haecceities or in re‐describing the cases by means of the ideology of metaphysical indeterminacy. The controversial status of haecceities has led some to favour metaphysical indeterminacy as the way to solve the puzzle. We consider two further treatments of grounding failure each of which, we argue, is a more plausible alternative. As such, the initial dichotomy is a false (...) one, and these alternative options deserve consideration before resorting to the heavyweight machinery of metaphysical indeterminacy. -/- . (shrink)

This paper revisits a puzzle that arises for theories of knowledge according to which one can know on the basis of merely inductive grounds. No matter how strong such theories require inductive grounds to be if a belief based on them is to qualify as knowledge, there are certain beliefs that are based on even stronger inductive grounds, while, intuitively, they do not qualify as knowledge. This paper discusses what is often regardedas the most promising classical invariantist solution to the (...) puzzle, namely, that beliefs about the outcomes of fair lotteries do not qualify as knowledge because they are too lucky to do so, while other beliefs based on potentially weaker inductive grounds are not too lucky. A case is presented that shows that this solution to the puzzle is actually not viable. It is argued that there is no obvious alternative solution in sight and that therefore the puzzle still awaits a classical invariantist solution. (shrink)

This paper revisits a puzzle that arises for theories of knowledge according to which one can know on the basis of merely inductive grounds. No matter how strong such theories require inductive grounds to be if a belief based on them is to qualify as knowledge, there are certain beliefs (namely, about the outcome of fair lotteries) that are based on even stronger inductive grounds, while, intuitively, they do not qualify as knowledge. This paper discusses what is often regarded as (...) the most promising classical invariantist solution to the puzzle, namely, that beliefs about the outcomes of fair lotteries do not qualify as knowledge because they are too lucky to do so (or, relatedly, because they do not satisfy a safety condition on knowledge), while other beliefs based on potentially weaker inductive grounds are not too lucky (or, relatedly, because they are safe). A case is presented that shows that this solution to the puzzle is actually not viable. It is argued that there is no obvious alternative solution in sight and that therefore the puzzle still awaits a classical invariantist solution. (shrink)

This paper presents an empirical solution to the puzzle of weakness of will. Specifically, it presents a theory of action, grounded in contemporary cognitive neuroscientific accounts of decision making, that explains the phenomenon of weakness of will without resulting in a puzzle.

Though most children can easily answer the question, "Who's your daddy?", the concept of paternity is complex and multifaceted. Courts have stumbled in answering it. In order to ground paternal rights and obligations in a satisfactory way, we need to disaggregate the various elements of stereotypical paternity. It is not sufficient merely to separate social from biological paternity. The latter concept, itself, is complex. We need to separate the procreative element of paternity from the genetic relationship.

I argue that plausible claims in the logic of partial grounding, when combined with a plausible analysis of that concept, entail the falsity of plausible grounding claims. As our account of the concept of partial grounding and its logic should be consistent with plausible grounding claims, this is problematic. The argument hinges on the idea that some facts about what grounds what are grounded in others, which is an idea the paper aims to motivate.

In virtue of what are we responsible for our beliefs? I argue that doxastic responsibility has a crucial social component: part of being responsible for our beliefs is being responsible to others. I suggest that this responsibility is a form of answerability with two distinct dimensions: an individual and an interpersonal dimension. While most views hold that the individual dimension is grounded in some form of control that we can exercise over our beliefs, I contend that we are answerable for (...) our beliefs as long as they reflect our evaluative commitments and dispositions, or are products of our reasoning, where this does not amount to a form of control. I next argue that answerability has a second, largely neglected dimension: the interpersonal dimension, which is grounded in what I call our relations of doxastic dependence. As social creatures, we depend on one another in our capacity as believers. We depend on one another as believers not only in epistemic ways, but also in practical ways, because our beliefs inform and motivate our actions, and allow us to participate in shared practical goals. Depending on one another in these ways is an unavoidable part of cooperating in the shared project of pursuing epistemic and practical success, and it makes us vulnerable to both epistemic and moral harm. It is because of this, I argue, that answerability has interpersonal normative force upon us: we are subject to legitimate expectations associated with participating in relations of doxastic dependence. (shrink)

In virtue of what are we responsible for our beliefs? I argue that doxastic responsibility has a crucial social component: part of being responsible for our beliefs is being responsible to others. I suggest that this responsibility is a form of answerability with two distinct dimensions: an individual and an interpersonal dimension. While most views hold that the individual dimension is grounded in some form of control that we can exercise over our beliefs, I contend that we are answerable for (...) our beliefs as long as they reflect our evaluative commitments and dispositions, or are products of our reasoning, where this does not amount to a form of control. I next argue that answerability has a second, largely neglected dimension: the interpersonal dimension, which is grounded in what I call our relations of doxastic dependence. As social creatures, we depend on one another in our capacity as believers. We depend on one another as believers not only in epistemic ways, but also in practical ways, because our beliefs inform and motivate our actions, and allow us to participate in shared practical goals. Depending on one another in these ways is an unavoidable part of cooperating in the shared project of pursuing epistemic and practical success, and it makes us vulnerable to both epistemic and moral harm. It is because of this, I argue, that answerability has interpersonal normative force upon us: we are subject to legitimate expectations associated with participating in relations of doxastic dependence. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a contribution to the debate on testimony that rests on three elements: the definition of semantic information, the analysis of trust as a second?order property of first?order relations, and Floridi?s Network Theory of Account (NTA). I argue that testimony transmits semantic information and it is neither grounded on trust nor justified by it. Instead, I show that testimony is an occurrence of a first?order relation of communication affected by the second?order property of trust. I then (...) defend the view that an epistemic agent can acquire some knowledge, on the basis of the information communicated through testimony, if and only if the agent is able to connect the transmitted information to the conceptual network of interrelation to which it belongs. I refer to Floridi?s NTA to show how such a network allows the epistemic agent to achieve knowledge on the basis of semantic information. (shrink)

Dignity is often invoked as the basis of human rights. The precise relation between dignity and human rights remains objectionably obscure, however, and many appeals to dignity seem little more than hand-waving, as critics have pointed out. This vagueness is potentially damning for contemporary human rights accounts, as it calls into question whether dignity can truly serve as the foundation of human rights. In order to defend the view that human rights are grounded in human dignity, this paper presents a (...) novel analysis of dignity that elucidates how human rights can be derived from dignity. Arguing that neither contingent nor inherent conceptions of dignity can, on their own, account for human rights, it develops a conceptualisation of dignity that combines inherent and contingent features in a coherent fashion. This, in turn, is shown to provide us with the means to explain how human rights are both grounded in and protective of dignity. Showing that the inherent features of dignity always generate a claim to the contingent features of dignity, the paper demonstrates that human rights derive directly from the inherent features of dignity, whilst what they protect are the contingent features of dignity. The paper closes with a discussion of the advantages of conceptualising dignity in the manner proposed, explicating the connection between dignity and nobility. (shrink)

Dignity is often invoked as the basis of human rights. The precise relation between dignity and human rights remains objectionably obscure, however, and many appeals to dignity seem little more than hand-waving, as critics have pointed out. This vagueness is potentially damning for contemporary human rights accounts, as it calls into question whether dignity can truly serve as the foundation of human rights. In order to defend the view that human rights are grounded in human dignity, this paper presents a (...) novel analysis of dignity that elucidates how human rights can be derived from dignity. Arguing that neither contingent nor inherent conceptions of dignity can, on their own, account for human rights, it develops a conceptualisation of dignity that combines inherent and contingent features in a coherent fashion. This, in turn, is shown to provide us with the means to explain how human rights are both grounded in and protective of dignity. Showing that the inherent features of dignity always generate a claim to the contingent features of dignity, the paper demonstrates that human rights derive directly from the inherent features of dignity, whilst what they protect are the contingent features of dignity. The paper closes with a discussion of the advantages of conceptualising dignity in the manner proposed, explicating the connection between dignity and nobility. (shrink)

In this paper we are dealing with Kant's view on the phenomenon of incongruous counterparts, in particular with the argument from his article 'On the First Ground of the Distinction of Regions in Space', where the phenomenon of incongruous counterparts is used as an argument for the existence of the absolute and objective space, and with the argument from Kant's Inaugural Dissertation in which he uses the phenomenon of incongruous counterparts again, but this time for a different purpose - (...) as an argument in favor of the idea of space as a pure intuition. Our aim is to show that Kant's argument from 'On the First Ground of the Distinction of Regions in Space', although it shows the inadequacy of Leibniz's definition of congruence, does not in fact represent the reductio ad absurdum of the relationist view, for his argument in favor of the existence of the absolute space represents merely the inference to the best explanation. We also propound an alternative account of the phenomenon of incongruous counterparts, which is in line with the relationist theory. Furthermore, we call in question Kant's argument from the Inaugural Dissertation, according to which incongruence could not be explained discursively, and we put forward a conceptual determination of incongruence in terms of the notions of similarity, equality and congruence, taken as the possibility of objects to be included within the same spatial boundaries. U ovom radu bavimo se Kantovim shvatanjem fenomena inkongruentnih pandana pre svega njegovim argumentom iz spisa 'O osnovnim principima razlikovanja smerova u prostoru', gde Kant fenomen inkongruentnih pandana koristi kao argument u prilog tvrdnje o postojanju apsolutnog i objektivnog prostora, kao i argumentom iz Kantove Inauguralne disertacije, u kojoj se on ponovo poziva na fenomen inkongruentnih pandana, ali ovoga puta sa drugacijim ciljem - kao argument u prilog shvatanja prostora kao cistog opazaja. Cilj nam je da pokazemo kako Kantov argument iz spisa 'O osnovnim principima razlikovanja smerova u prostoru', iako pokazuje neadekvatnost Lajbnicove definicije kongruencije, ipak ne predstavlja reductio ad absurdum relacionisticke pozicije, buduci da njegov argument u prilog postojanja apsolutnog prostora predstavlja samo zakljucak na najbolje moguce objasnjenje, kao i da ponudimo alternativno objasnjenje fenomena inkongruentnih pandana, koje je u skladu sa relacionistickom teorijom. Takodje, dovodimo u pitanje Kantov argument iz Inauguralne disertacije, prema kojem se inkongruencija ne moze izraziti diskurzivno, nudeci pri tome pojmovno odredjenje inkongruencije preko pojmova slicnosti, jednakosti i kongruencije, shvacene kao sposobnost objekata da zauzmu istovetne prostorne granice. (shrink)

Most of our best scientific descriptions of the world employ rates of change of some continuous quantity with respect to some other continuous quantity. For instance, in classical physics we arrive at a particle’s velocity by taking the time-derivative of its position, and we arrive at a particle’s acceleration by taking the time-derivative of its velocity. Because rates of change are defined in terms of other continuous quantities, most think that facts about some rate of change obtain in virtue of (...) facts about those other continuous quantities. For example, on this view facts about a particle’s velocity at a time obtain in virtue of facts about how that particle’s position is changing at that time. In this paper we raise a puzzle for this orthodox reductionist account of rate of change quantities and evaluate some possible replies. We don’t decisively come down in favour of one reply over the others, though we say some things to support taking our puzzle to cast doubt on the standard view that spacetime is continuous. (shrink)

Cora Diamond’s discussions of the ethics of our treatment of animals offer a critique of conceptions of morality which regard our ethical responses as founded on reasons which ought to be reasons for anyone. Diamond takes issue with accounts of our treatment of animals based on their possession of capacities which are shared with us. She offers instead a concept of the moral life, as a form of life—inherited, shared and negotiated—only within which can moral reasons count as reasons at (...) all. Our fellow creatures have some share in this life, but one that must be recognized as partial and problematic.In this discussion, we offer an account which is consistent with Diamond’s general perspective. But one which also offers a more generous account of ways in which the discoveries of the ethological sciences dynamically reshape the place of animals in our shared moral life. (shrink)

ED455370 - Lifelong Learning, Equity and Inclusion. Proceedings [of the] UACE Conference (Cambridge, England, March 29-31, 1999).

We hypothesise that the sarcolemma of an actively growing myofibre has different properties to the sarcolemma of a mature adult myofibre. Such fundamentally different properties have clinical consequences for the onset, and potential therapeutic targets, of various skeletal muscle diseases that first manifest either during childhood (e.g. Duchenne muscular dystrophy, DMD) or after cessation of the main growth phase (e.g. dysferlinopathies). These characteristics are also relevant to the selection of both tissue culture and in vivo models employed to study such (...) myopathies and the molecular regulation of adult myofibres. During growth, multinucleated myofibres increase enormously in size and volume with dramatic increases in length (up to ∼600 mm). This is in striking contrast with most mononucleated cells such as fibroblasts, that remain at a relatively small size (∼10–20 µm diameter). The consequences of a dynamic, expanding sarcolemma during growth, compared with that of an adult myofibre of a fixed length, are discussed with respect to various aspects of muscle biology. (shrink)

Must We Mean What We Play? INTRODUCTION It was Sir Thomas Beecham who said,'The English do not care for music-but they love the noise it makes.'Sir Thomas was, of course, given to making acerbic swipes but this one has always seemed to me to have.

– The conjunction of three plausible theses about the nature of causal powers—that they are intrinsic, that their effects are produced mutually, and that the manifestations they are for are essential to them—leads to a problem concerning the ability of causal powers to work together to produce manifestations. I call this problem the problem of fit. Fortunately for proponents of a power-based metaphysic, the problem of fit is not insurmountable. Fit can be engineered if powers are properties whose natures are (...) determined holistically. However, this power holism does not come without a cost, as a power-based metaphysic must be supplemented by a certain amount of additional machinery in order to avoid the problem. (shrink)

Natural language meaning has properties of both (embodied) cognitive representations and formal/mathematical structures. But it is not clear how they actually relate to one another. This article argues that how properties of cognitive representations and formal/mathematical structures of natural language meaning can be united remains one of the puzzles in cognitive science. That is primarily because formal/mathematical structures of natural language meaning are abstract, logical, and truth‐conditional properties, whereas cognitive/conceptual representations are embodied and grounded in sensory‐motor systems. After reviewing (...) the current progress, this work offers, in outline, the general formulations that show how these two different kinds of representations for semantic structures can (potentially) be unified and also proposes three desiderata for testing, in brain dynamics, the mathematical equivalence between formal symbolic representations (and their transitions), and neuronal population codes (and their transitions). (shrink)

Although clinicians and researchers working in the field of autism are generally not concerned with philosophical categories of kinds, a model for understanding the nature of autism is important for guiding research and clinical practice. Contemporary research in the field of autism is guided by the depiction of autism as a scientific object that can be identified with systematic neuroscientific investigation. This image of autism is compatible with a permissive account of natural kinds: the mechanistic property cluster (MPC) account of (...) natural kinds, recently proposed as the model for understanding psychiatric disorders. Despite the heterogeneity, multicausality and fuzzy boundaries that complicate autism research, a permissive account of natural kinds (MPC kinds) provides prescriptive guidance for the investigation of objective causal mechanisms that should inform nosologists in their attempt to carve autism’s boundaries at its natural joints. However, this essay will argue that a mechanistic model of autism is limited since it disregards the way in which autism relates to ideas about what kind of behavior is abnormal. As historical studies and definitions of autism show, normative issues concerning disability, impairment and societal needs have been and still are inextricably linked to how we recognize and understand autism. The current search for autism’s unity in neurobiological mechanisms ignores the values, social norms and various perspectives on mental pathology that play a significant role in 'the thing called autism’. Autism research needs to engage with these issues in order to achieve more success in the effort to become clinically valuable. (shrink)

This book brings together disparate strands of ToM research, lays out historical roots of the idea, and indicates better alternatives.

This rich, subtle and hugely ambitious book might also have been called “why (and how) metaphysics matters”. Cooper's themes are the tensions implicit in the relation of contingent human beings to the world and the implications of those tensions, and of putative means of their.